People of the Pear Tree

Rex Shelley

Description

In People of the Pear Tree, Rex Shelley weaves two love stories of Eurasians in the torrid, tropical heat again the background of Japanese-occupied Singapore and Malaya during World War II, spicing his narrative with humour, intrigue and the ring of guerrilla gunshots on the fringes of the Malayan jungle. People of the Pear Tree is about people reacting to the disruptions and the brutality of war, clinging to traditions, family ties, finding outlets of love and passionate sex as starvation, malaria, dysentery, torture and death stalk them; of courage in battle and of gentle tenderness, sentimentality, and racial prejudices.

Informations

• Publié par: Marshall Cavendish International
• Date de parution: 16 avril 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9789814677691
• Langue: English

Extrait

2011 Marshall Cavendish International (Asia) Private Limited
1998 Rex Shelley, published under Times Books International, an imprint of Times Edition Pte Ltd.
Cover by Opalworks Co. Ltd
Published by Marshall Cavendish Editions
An imprint of Marshall Cavendish International
1 New Industrial Road, Singapore 536196
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National Library Board Singapore Cataloguing in Publication Data
Shelley, Rex, 1930-2009.
People of the pear tree / Rex Shelley. - Singapore : Marshall Cavendish Editions, c2011.
p. cm.
ISBN : 978-981-4346-24-5 (pbk.) eISBN : 978 981 4677 69 1
1. Eurasians - Singapore - Fiction. 2. Singapore - History - Japanese occupation, 1942-1945 - Fiction. I. Title.
PR9570.S53
S823 - dc22 OCN698313678
Printed in Singapore by Fabulous Printers Pte Ltd
A Note from the Author
THIS BOOK is fiction woven into a web of facts, like the pre-World War II communist activities, the unruly demonstration on the old St. Joseph s Institution playing field, the exhibition of phofographs of Belsen and all the little details of living in Malaya and Singapore. The U.P. Junior College, however, is a fictitious institution set up five years before the first junior college in Singapore was opened.
I have combined Eurasian surnames, popular Eurasian Christian names and nicknames at random. Given the limited number of names, it is probable that a few of these random combinations are the names of real persons, dead or alive. There is no attempt to refer to any real person. I have deliberately misspelt some surnames whose pronunciation is not obvious from the English spelling.
Fiction, Fact and Foreign Words
LIKE THE Shrimp People, People of the Pear Tree is woven around a small minority in Southeast Asia: mixtures of the East and West known as Eurasians, mesticos, Serani or geragoks , the last term being the Malay name of a tiny shrimp which their ancestors used to catch for a living nearly four hundred years ago.
It is all fiction. But the settings are in real worlds of the past. I have tried to keep the facts generally correct.
Foreign words and phrases are used fairly liberally, and their meanings are translated only where it is essential for the reader to follow the story.
I have used the variety of English known as Singlish . Sometimes it is a variety that is or was peculiar to the Eurasians. Some of it is peculiar to Malaysians. Others are no longer in use.
I have combined Eurasian surnames, popular Eurasian Christian names and nicknames at random. Given the limited number of names, it is probable that a few of these random combinations are the names of real persons, dead or alive. There is no attempt to refer to any real person except for a few well-known public figures. I have deliberately misspelt some surnames whose pronunciation is not obvious from the English spelling.
Contents
Prologue in the Shape of a Pear
1 To Singapore
2 The Pereras
3 The Visitor
4 The Meeting
5 Bahau
6 The Chinese and the Japs
7 Takanashi Junichiro
8 Ah Lan
9 Mrs. Foo
10 The Attack
11 Caught
12 The Camp
13 Camp Life
14 Planning
15 Ayer Itam
16 Junichiro Plans
17 Fujigo
18 A House Guest
19 Moles
20 Christmas 1944
21 Red Stars
22 Tessie
23 A Kiss
24 To Kampong Pudu
25 Flight
26 One Gunshot
27 Four Gunshots
Epilogue
Prologue in the Shape of a Pear

The pear tree drops its fruit - yellow stones ripe as olives - not a fall out of love, but a ripened fruit, over over over into the world .
-Marilyn Bowering, St. Augustine s Pear Tree
IT WAS dark and cold. Cold for Augustine, barebodied from the waist up, as he walked slowly and carefully, winding his way between the coconut trees to the beach. The sun had not yet thrown its first feeble glimmer of bluish light over the hills behind him. The air was damp with dew. A mist hung thick between the coconut trees, enveloping him like the thoughts that fogged his mind.
He unfolded his sarong and drew it up so that it was wrapped around his thick, muscular shoulders. But the cloying, cold dampness had already got to him. A shiver went through his brown body. He shook himself to throw off the chill seeping into his bones and to toss away the thoughts that had clawed with insistent, tearing talons at him as he tossed on the mat, unable to sleep any longer.
The fullness of her brown breasts, the tight skin, wet and glistening, her nipples crisp with the cold of well water. Her smile.
His body had been on tire as he lay on the mat listening to the kampong cocks calling out to the sun in the darkness. The shape of her breasts kept thrusting into him with the frenzied force of an amok s stabbing kris. He knew he had to get away from the darkness of the house. To the beach. To the wide, open beach where the wind and the saltspray would cleanse him of the poison that was raging through his bloodstreams.
There was only a gentle breeze blowing landward when he reached the fringe of coarse grass and beach. The tide was out. The waves seemed far away this morning and broke on the beach with soft, hissing sounds. He could only see flashes of white foam now and then. He had subconsciously expected to see the sky a bright blue, the water churning and tumbling onto the sand and rushing up the slope of the beach towards him. The dark and the cold, the hushed sea, and the only intermittent glimpses of the crests of waves were like another world today. Another place. Not his beach.
He sat on the sand, rubbing the stubble on his chin. He would have to have his second shave soon. Perhaps on Sunday morning. Before Mass.
Woi! Pelela! Up so early, ah!
He sat up straight with a start. It was Ah Foo, the old woman at the shop, with her usual mispronunciation of his surname. She was right beside him. He had not heard or seen her approach. She moved in front of him, grinning with her gold-incisors grin, in the black samfoo which seemed to be the only thing she wore, and continued in her bad Portuguese.
Can t sleep, eh?
Yah.
I pass this way every day at this time, but this is the first time I ve seen you up so early.
Yah ... The fog in Augustine s mind cleared slowly.
Ten years ... I ve passed this beach every morning ...
Whoa ... so long, Auntie, he commented, using the Malay-style address of respect so he wouldn t appear rude.
Sim , Ah Foo replied with the Portuguese yes, Thirty years since he sent for me.
Augustine knew what she meant. Her husband had come out from China to work and had saved for years to be able to ask his family to send out a young woman from his village to be his wife.
She put the sack she was carrying on the sand and sat down beside him. Augustine turned to her and looked into her grey-rimmed eyes. There was a faraway look in them.
Sim ... Ten years in this hot country ...
Augustine was silent. The way her voice had trailed off suggested she was going to continue.
It is warm in China in the summer, but cold in the winter.
Like Portugal ... Is China near Portugal?
I don t know ... but they tell me it takes longer to come here from Portugal than from China ...
Augustine picked up a twig and started breaking it into little pieces.
I wish I could go back home. I am old now, and the children have grown up. They can look after him. He s too old to take the journey.
Augustine turned to the old woman again. Why was she telling him this?
She went on, China is a wonderful place. But we are poor. Here, if you work hard, you can make good money. Still, now that I ve seen Malacca, I want to go home.
Augustine threw away the last bit of the twig. He couldn t see where it went in the dark. One of those cocks crowing in the kampong really had a strong voice. He s probably the biggest cock in the kampong , he thought. With a beautiful tail of green feathers.
This is not my country. China is my place. Hainan. Do you know where that is?
Er ... No, Auntie.
It is an island. Far away from the Emperor in Peking. Far, far away. Maybe as far away as here. I don t know ... But that is my home.
She sat in silence with her own thoughts. Then, with a sigh, she stood up, picked up her sack, and said she had to go now and get the shop ready.
I thought you lived above the shop, Auntie.
Yes, I do. But we have a little farm down that way-just a small one-and I ve slept there every night these last ten years so that I can bring the vegetables in early.
Ah ...
Adeus , Pelela!
Adeus! Augustine returned her Portuguese farewell.
Augustine watched her walk away. It was getting brighter now. H