Tash Aw - Map of the Invisible World

I’m still alive and kicking, aren’t I? Johan laughed. And with his free hand he reached out and squeezed hers.

Johan, she said. She paused. Did something happen to you when you were small? At the orphanage, I mean. It’s just, there’s something I remember when I was very young, maybe eight. You must have been ten, a couple of years after you came to us. I had a nightmare one night and I went to Mummy and Daddy’s room. I don’t know why. I wanted a hug, I guess. They were arguing; not loudly, you know, just softly, keeping their voices down, and Mummy was talking in a really fierce voice, attacking Daddy the way she doesn’t anymore. You remember how she used to be when she was younger. I couldn’t hear the exact words, I just remember the tone. And then there was a silence, and Daddy said, So what if I know where the other one is, what do you want me to do, go back and get him? You made the decision, so don’t feel guilty now.

Above the harsh clatter of the rain on the roof Johan could hear a gentler note, a hushing sound made by the rain falling on the soft earth, on the shallow pools of water that covered the land in front of them. It was a sound of trees disturbed by the wind, their leaves and branches flailing in the night storm. If Johan closed his eyes he could pretend he was by the sea, and the noise was that of rain falling on sand. He tried to concentrate on this noise, but it was difficult because of the rattling of the tin sheets overhead.

For a long time I thought I must have dreamed it, that it was late at night and I didn’t know what was going on, Farah continued. She was talking very softly and it was not easy to hear her voice. You know what kind of imagination a kid has. Sometimes they dream things up and those things are so much more convincing than real life. That thing I heard Mummy and Daddy say, well, it was so real I thought I must have dreamed it. And anyway, even if it was true, so what? It doesn’t mean anything, because we all know you had a brother, right?

You’re right, it doesn’t mean anything.

But … but if that’s the case, why do I feel so guilty every time I think about it? Why do I feel so bad? Why did they sound so full of anguish? Especially Mummy. And even Daddy. It made me feel, I don’t know, as though there was something I should have known about you but didn’t. I felt as if you were all alone, you were all alone and suffering and I wasn’t doing anything to help you.

Johan did not speak. The wind was blowing the rain into curious shapes, broad swirls or straight shafts that arrowed toward the ground. He remembered a picture he had seen a few years back, a kind of drawing or watercolor, he wasn’t sure which. It was in an old book that had become wet sometime in its history and all its pages were brittle and stained. The picture was of a person so pitiful that Johan could not really even tell if it was a man or woman or boy or girl. And in the picture this person was doing nothing except gazing into the landscape with an expression so forlorn and lonely that it made Johan feel sick, for this pathetic person was all alone in the world, in a desolate place that looked like everywhere Johan had ever lived. He copied down the title of this picture, Un Fou Dans Un Morne Paysage , and when he looked up the meaning of this in a dictionary at school, he learned that the person was a madman. Johan had not thought of the poor creature as a madman. He was just someone who was alone in a barren place. But maybe that was what it meant to be a madman. Perhaps being really, truly alone in a desolate world meant that you were mad because you could not understand this world that belonged to others. Johan thought that maybe he himself was mad. And it was a relief of sorts to think that.

You’re not crazy, Farah. Sometimes, he said, sometimes I have the same feeling. I think I must have imagined it all.

Imagined what?

Everything. The orphanage, my brother, coming to live with you. I wish I had imagined it all, but I know I didn’t. You know how people say that things fade with time, that your memory becomes weaker? It doesn’t. Everything becomes clearer. And you see it all the time. All the time. You try and run away from it, but it just follows you every second of the day and night and you can’t escape it.

What can you remember? Her fingers closed around his hand, pressing gently.

I can remember Mummy and Daddy coming to the orphanage. Mummy was wearing a dress made from batik, not really a kebaya but almost. She had a scarf over her head, not a tudung but something that hid her hair and neck. I remember thinking, What a beautiful woman. They were both wearing sunglasses, and they spoke in an accent that I couldn’t really understand. We were brought into the Room. We called it the Room because it was the only proper room in the orphanage, you know, not a dorm or a partitioned space. A room. That was where, where …

Where what?

Where you were punished. If you were naughty, they took you there and closed the door, and they punished you. The Brothers, that is. They beat you with a rotan . On your bare skin where it hurt.

Johan.

This was where they brought us when Mummy and Daddy came. Both of us. Me and my brother. We stood up and the Brothers told Mummy and Daddy about us, and said all nice things, that we were good boys, always well behaved and quiet, never made noise, and Mummy said, They’re not mute, are they? And the nurse said, No, no, of course not, and Mummy laughed. She made everyone laugh. Daddy kept looking at his watch, tracing its outline with his fingers. The same watch he has now, the Rolex. It must have been new. And the Brothers said, Don’t worry, even though we are a Christian charity these are good Muslim boys, their mother was Muslim, from Sumatra, we think, we’re not sure. I was so happy. I was happy because I knew Mummy wanted us. I knew we were leaving. I was holding my brother’s hand and suddenly I could feel him trembling. He was looking out the window and not saying anything but I knew something was wrong. One of the Brothers came and put his hand on my brother’s shoulder and his eyes went cloudy and he started to make a noise. Not sobbing, but a weird sighing, and he fell down on the floor as if his legs had no strength in them, and I tried to pick him up but his eyes had gone blank, black and blank, and it frightened me. And I called his name over and over again, but he wouldn’t stop, and the more the other people tried to touch him, the worse he became. I put my arms around him and then he began to calm down. I thought he was dying. His breaths were quick, so quick, and hot. The Brothers were saying, So sorry, he’s like this sometimes, it’s not serious. Please, it’s not serious. Later, we were in the dormitory, sitting on his bed, and he was okay, completely normal, playing with this thing, a globe with fake snow in it. He just sat there turning it upside down and then back again. Mummy and Daddy stood at the windows watching us, and I heard Daddy say, We can’t stay long, we have a long drive, and then there’s the ferry. You have to decide by tomorrow morning, but I have to say I don’t like the small, sick one — oh, never mind. And Mummy said, But the poor thing, he is so weak. It was your stupid idea in the first place, Daddy said. I didn’t know what this meant but I didn’t care, it didn’t seem important. After a long long while Mummy came to me and I could smell her perfume, like roses, so sweet, and she took off her sunglasses and said, Tomorrow we are taking you to our home, all right? And you can’t imagine how happy I was. I felt as if my chest would burst because I knew we were escaping. They left us alone for a few minutes and I said to my brother, You don’t have to worry anymore, we’re leaving . There’s nothing to fear, we’re going away from this place, that lovely woman is going to take us away and we are going to live with her. He looked at me and smiled. He was happy, truly happy. I could not ever remember him looking happy. When the lights went out that night my brother came to my bed and said, Johan, are we really going away? And I said, Yes we are, but as I said it something changed in my head, and I felt scared, felt scared because suddenly I thought maybe only one of us would go. Please god please god let them take my brother, I said over and over in my head, and after a while I thought, yes, they were going to take my brother because he was smaller than me and often he was sick and they could see that he needed help. He would be lonely without me at first but he would have a nice house to live in and nice parents to look after him and soon he would forget me, and that would be nice. But then I thought, What if they take me instead? He would not survive without me. He slept so soundly that night and hardly moved at all, and his breaths were long and deep and when I looked at him he seemed so peaceful I could have sworn he was smiling. I didn’t want him to be on his own. We had talked so much about doing things together, climbing a mountain, swimming in the sea. You know, the sea was very close to where we were but we had never seen it, never. And suddenly I knew we would never do those things, I knew that Mummy and Daddy would take me and not Adam, so I thought maybe if I, if I …