Shadow Play by Barbara Ismail Page A

really changes the whole game, doesn’t it? And another guy. This is a breakthrough.” He rose from behind his desk and clapped Rahman on the back. “I’m impressed!”
    Rahman beamed. At last, he was being noticed. It would be, no doubt, the beginning of a storied career.
    Osman walked straight to the market, but Maryam wasn’t there. “She may be at home,” Ashikin told him, sitting on her mother’s pile of batik. “She’s working on your case. Try her there.” She was polite, but Osman felt she wanted him to leave: he wasn’t good for business. He looked at her for a moment, without speaking. “Go to my mother’s house,” she urged him, a bit less patiently. “Go on!”
    â€œI’m going, thanks,” he said sulkily. Why were Kelantanesewomen always telling him what to do? He didn’t think his mother had much to worry about as far as the women here were concerned: all any of them had done so far was boss him around like a little boy. Even Maryam’s beautiful daughter treated him like a raw recruit in a backward platoon. He’d positively welcome seduction and a brush with black magic, but no one seemed interested enough to be bothered.. He left the market looking downcast and commandeered a car to take him to Kampong Penambang.
    Maryam and Rubiah had planned to go to Dollah Baju Hijau’s house in Kubang Kerian on the other side of Kota Bharu, but instead, Dollah came to her.
    He smiled at her from the bottom of the steps. “ Kak !” he cried, “I’m here to help you.”
    Mamat greeted him immediately on the porch. “Come on up! Have some coffee! So early for you to get over here!”
    Dollah came up and sat down next to Mamat, while Maryam disappeared into the kitchen. “I just wanted to help,” he explained, accepting one of Mamat’s cigarettes, listening for the welcome clink of china which meant coffee was on its way. “I know how hard you’re working to find who did this, and I want to make sure I give as much help as I can.”
    Mamat approved this praiseworthy hope and welcomed the opportunity to chat with Dollah before Maryam and Rubiah took over. He was fascinated by him: this small, unassuming, ever so soft-spoken man held audiences in the palm of his hand. Mamat didn’t see it when speaking to him. A nice man, polite, but not magnetic. What happened when he started performing?
    â€œHow did you begin as a dalang?” he asked. He was looking forsome of the spark here in the house that he saw onstage.
    â€œAs a child,” Dollah began, not at all reluctant to talk about himself, “I just loved watching the plays. My father wasn’t a dalang: he was just a farmer. But I’d go every night to watch, and make my own puppets out of banana leaves. You know, carved them into characters, put handles on them.” He laughed. “I played for my friends where older dalang were performing. One of them saw me: he was angry at me for trying to steal his audience. He told me ‘I’ll train you. If you’re going to play, you might as well do it right.’ That was a great thing for me. I stayed with him for a few years and followed him back to Patani. I studied there.
    â€œI play more Thai style, more modern. Sometimes I even add characters from TV. Like Lindsay Wagner. I have one of her as the bionic woman.” They both laughed. The Bionic Woman was wildly popular on Malaysian TV. “In colour,” Dollah added slyly. “When I came back to Kelantan, my troupe wore uniforms, green shirts, so we were a team, you know. That’s why I’m called ‘Dollah Baju Hijau,’ Dollah Green Shirt.
    â€œThere’s a lot of competition between dalang , but whenever we have a performing contest, I always win. Why?” he asked rhetorically, “because people like my style. I try to be funny and entertaining and bring things in that are