The Great Planter of Hye Keat / Part 1 of 13 Chapters

The man who rented the dingy apartment in Ayer Itam Penang may have been 40 or maybe 50. His landlady mentioned in passing it was hard to tell. It depended on whether he smiled or nodded his head sullenly. He arrived at the end of May when winds usually picked up in Penang island presaging the arrival of the first monsoon of the year. The pandemic had just begun and in the weeks that followed its earnesty had all but emptied out the streets into the desolation that coursed thru the entire island of Penang. The man had few possessions, two changes of shirts and a pair of trousers that he wore everyday. He kept mostly to himself preferring his own company. In the evenings. He installed himself in a rattan rocking chair in the balcony and nursed a cerut sipping neat whisky till late into the night. The land lady’s children knew his strong legs, the sting of his mustache against their cheeks and the faint aroma of Egyptian cigarettes. They didn’t know who he was, they had learnt from their mother not to ask too many questions. Or where he came from or how he made his living, or why he so often look towards Penang hill in the evenings when the last rays of the dying sun slipped over the hills with an expression of aching sadness. The landlady was blessed with a cheery disposition and generous hips and carrot fingers whose husband had passed on three years ago had learnt never to ask the man too many questions….as nothing ever yielded except maybe a vague expression of smiling knowingness. Besides the last thing she ever wanted was for him to take off suddenly and expectedly. She had grown fond of the man. He knew she liked him. He didn’t mind the way she would bring up pork belly soup whenever he returned from his long hikes in Penang hill in the evenings. She for her part didnt mind the way he put his arms around her from time to time. She found the man gentle and comforting in his silence. She didnt even mind him lifting her skirt and pulling it over her head one hot afternoon when she was at the kitchen sink. She didnt mind giving all of herself and much more to the beautiful silent man. She felt he needed it in the way the wounded would flee to the forest to heal. She neither rebuked him or held it against him. This she imagined was his way. A silent way in which she secretly revelled in. He started his hikes early before five in the dead of the morning. He went everywhere in Penang hill as if he cared none or little for the movement restrictions. During his solitary hikes he lunched mostly with the small plot farmers, he presented himself as a wanderer, someone who was just passing by, but they all believed he must have been a man of wealth who much preferred not to talk too much about himself and much preferred to live a leisured existence blessed with a common touch. They mentioned it was the unusual manner the shabbily dressed man stood for hours scanning the entire island on a rock promontory with his hands clapsed behind his back that lent him a commanding air only landowners of the past who once owned palatial houses in Penang hill often did in a period long crushed by the weight of time. They took off their hats reverentially when the man appeared before them. They said it seemed proper to do so. His landlady knew he had three bullet wounds two to his chest and another on his thigh. He had terrible scars on his left hand. They were fresh frequently staining the sheets….but the man never complained. He just smiled knowingly. She never asked and he never spoke about it and was careful to hide them by putting his hand in his pocket, lest that mutilation be seen by others. He wore dark amber colored glasses most the time as if he found creation slightly more than he could bear. Rooms seemed hotter when he was in them when they were together. Rains fell straighter after he had his way with her. Clocks stopped. Sounds were narrowed. He considered himself a man with no past, present or future. Living each day as if he counted the passing hours with just the number of steps he took. He neither showed regret about what had swept into his past life nor what the future may hold….he was simply the man who one fine day appeared just around the time when the winds picked up and asked to rent the apartment, paid one years rental in advance with crisp one hundred bills with two more months extra on condition that she should not ask too many questions, not even when she discovered a pistol secreted in a false panel in a drawer while cleaning the man’s room one day. She had placed it back the way it was carefully and slowly with the lingering thought this might be the reason the May winds had brought the silent man to these parts……

(To read the complete version log in with your Electronic Pass 203944000293 EP2025)