The White Amah by Ann Massey Page B

alternative. His children were dispersed and had forsaken their roots.
    According to his nephew Dedan, Rubiah was still in Miri and living in luxury as the concubine of a rich Chinese timber merchant. Dedan told Entri that his rich cousin thought she was too important to acknowledge him nowadays. She seemed to have forgotten how he’d helped her when she first arrived in Miri, a green girl from the jungle.
    ‘Uncle, she wouldn’t loan me the deposit to buy a taxi,’ Dedan had complained, ‘even though she’s loaded and I’d promised to pay her back with interest. So here I am, still working for peanuts in the drycleaners.’
    Even so, unlike Rubiah, Dedan still came home to the longhouse for Gawai and gave his parents the traditional gift of money while Entri hung his head in shame. Entri’s brother had boasted that his son had presented him with one thousand ringgit this harvest. Unhappily, Entri wondered what he’d done to disserve such a disobedient, disrespectful daughter.
    That night after supper Langkup arrived. All the families came out to greet their guest and gathered in front of the longhouse, their communal home. The longhouse was like a medieval castle providing sanctuary to the entire village, but instead of a protective moat and drawbridge, the longhouse stood on tall ironwood stilts. Entry was by a ladder that could be easily drawn up if another tribe attacked. Mei Li had learned her numbers by counting the doors. With sixty doors, their longhouse wasof average size. Grandma had told her that some houses had as many as two hundred doors.
    As a young warrior Entri had led raids against their enemy before his marriage to Lada had ended hostilities. He still hankered after the good old days when young females captured during the raids lived with the family as sex slaves.
    Chief Dangu welcomed the wedding party into his family’s room proudly. His room was in the middle of the longhouse and was distinguished by the number of ancient human skulls tied with rattan hanging in bunches from the roof to ward off evil spirits. In days gone by a prospective bridegroom would present his bride with at least three human heads, but headhunting had been banned long ago.
    Only monkey skulls hung from the ceiling of Entri’s dwelling. Looking up at the chief’s roof gloomily, he wondered if this was why he’d been dogged with misfortune.
    As always, a visitor was an opportunity for rejoicing and a party was soon underway in the communal gallery that ran the length of the longhouse. Lada served their guest a spicy red wine made from fermented rice, but the highlight of the evening was when Mei Li danced for her suitor to the music of the sapeh, a traditional stringed instrument often called the ‘boat lute’ because its carved, elongated body resembled a sampan. Lada had tied hornbill feathers to the end of her granddaughter’s fingers, which accentuated her slow, fluid movements. Followed by a retinue of young women, she swayed up and down the communal room while a group of her friends sang the time-honoured songs.
    Since she had been a small child Mei Li had danced for visitors and she performed the traditional hornbill dance gracefully.Like her mother, she was born to dance. If her maternal grandfather had seen her, he would have sworn she was his daughter. She was so like her mother at seventeen, before Crystal had bleached her hair, joined the disgraced dance troupe and never been seen again.
    Lada assiduously filled Langkup’s jar, and after downing four huge pots filled with the spicy rice wine he burst into raucous song. This was the signal for Mei Li and the other single women to leave. Although she wanted nothing more than to run from the room, Mei Li knelt respectfully before her chief, grandfather and suitor, and waited for her elders’ assent before leaving the festivities.
    With the maidens’ departure, the tempo of the music changed as the young men enthusiastically performed the warrior dance of