The Messenger of Light
by Lia Tjokro
You need to come home.
That was it. That was all the message that Mama had left in my voicemail this morning. No how are you, no I miss you, let alone I love you. Nothing of that sort. Mama’s voicemail was always so short, so succinct, with that unmistakable sense of urgency in it.
The message seemed important enough though. Mama never called me. I usually called her first. So if Mama did call and leave a voicemail, it meant it was important—important to the point of catastrophic consequences if I did not respond right away.
I went and checked my work schedule for the next few days. I had just been accepted to work as a research assistant in a psychology lab in this university, my alma mater. My task was to manage the research participants’ data and contact, and this kind of job, though did not pay much, was a good bridge between my undergrad psychology degree and my plan to apply for a postgraduate education sometime next year. So I hated it that so soon after I began working, I had to ask for a few days leave. That would leave a bad impression to my supervisors.
But Mama, and by extension Ah Gong[1], had always had that hold over me. Like all that they wanted me to do had to be done or they would make sure I remembered my disobedience for days or even years to come. I knew, because my going to the university was an act of disobedience in their eyes, their pride was wounded because I did not follow the path that they had prescribed for me: Joining the family business.
However, they gritted their teeth, forced a smile, clenched their fists, and allowed me to go to the university. I used to wonder why they relented and let me go, until I realized: They gained an upperhand on me because of that. Upperhand, because for years after, they never ceased to remind me that it was because of their generosity to allow me to go that I got to taste higher education. Though it was Papa (who had been the one fighting to get me to the university), a full scholarship offered by the university, and a chance to get away from Mama and Ah Gong that convinced me to go to the university.
Papa passed away two years ago, so Mama and Ah Gong had been hinting about me finally joining the family business.
I disliked the term family business, because what Ah Gong and Mama did was not really a business, for me it was more like a family obsession, albeit an outdated, borderline unhinged, obsession. They called themselves and the family business as “the messenger of light,” but I failed to see what kind of light they meant.
I loathed my childhood home, a home where Ah Gong and Mama still lived in now. It was not just the two of them who made me feel like it was never a home for me.
It was those people. I loathed them too. Very much. They did not do anything to me, but still, they scared me. They were not even supposed to be there. Over the years, I had learned to just ignore them, pretended they were not there.
It was all Ah Gong’s, and to some extent, Mama’s fault. They should stop doing their dealings with those people. I knew the presence of those people was the main reason why Papa divorced Mama when I was on the cusp of pubescence—he had held on for so long and they broke him at last. He moved so far away from us, never came back to visit the family home anymore until he passed away.
I used to go to Papa’s tiny apartment for a much-needed vacation, though Papa —with his love-and-hate relationship with alcohol and shaky employment history—would never be able to take me in and raise me. So that was how I got stuck with Mama in that wretched house.
Being away at the university was a reprieve for me, but now I was called to go back home.
So I had to go home.
The next morning I got my bus ticket and sat for hours in the bus to go home. My heartbeat got wilder the closer I got home, and I toyed a few times with the possibility of just calling Mama from the bus terminal and told her I could not go home because I felt sick, or better yet, just completely went off the radar and ran away from her and Ah Gong.
But that house. Mama. Ah Gong. There was this strange pull that made sure I always came home—like a gravitational force that pulled me straight into a black hole.
I arrived home when it was almost dinner time.
My childhood home was located far from the neighbours, behind black welded steel gates. The old colonial-style house had stood there since the beginning of the last century. Ah Gong’s grandparents were the ones building it.
The house was dilapidated—peeled-off paint, cracks on the glass windows, busted lightbulbs, dead plants. The only plants that were still alive were the frangipani trees in the four corner of the front yard. Those people liked the frangipani, I did not know why, maybe they were attracted to the sharp and sweet smell of the flowers.
There used to be a rock pond where koi fish swam and a small water fountain gave a calming vibe to the front yard. The koi were long dead, and the pond had dried out and was overrun by some tall grass and the rotten branches of fallen trees. There was nothing left of it to see. Too bad, because that pond was my only beautiful memory of this place. I used to sit there barefooted, dipping my feet into the koi pond with Papa doing the same next to me. We would sit for hours, watching the koi fish swim around our submerged feet, chilling, and chatting about important and unimportant matter. I missed that moment a lot and it made me want to cry to think that that moment would never return. The koi fish, the pond, and Papa were all gone.
Mama opened the door after I rang the doorbell. She wore her usual ensemble—cheongsam[2]-style silk top and knee-length silk skirt, both in worn-out pink. Her thinning dark brownish hair was meticulously swept in a small bun on top of her head.
“You have arrived,” she nodded with such formality that I wondered if she had forgotten that it was her daughter who was standing at the door.
I nodded back.
“Ah Gong is resting. He has been very busy these days. Would you like to have dinner?”
I nodded.
Mama’s expression softened as she led me through the house that smelled more and more like dust and mothballs. Rattan furniture, ceramic floor, dull green walls, all were old and looked like they came straight from the 1970s. I remembered even as I was growing up here, I rarely invited any friend over to visit this home. I was not sure why, maybe because the vibe of this house was nevercozy or homey. I did not want my friends (not that many to begin with) to meet those people. That would be calamitous.
Mama was quiet as she prepared a bowl of rice with some braised pork and steamed broccoli on the side and handed it to me. She let out a loud sigh before settling herself on the chair next to me.
I ate my bowl of rice with chopsticks, staring in full focus at the sticky grains of rice, the oily braised pork, and the overcooked bland broccoli. Mama was never a talented cook—she cooked because she had to, because that was what expected of her, because we could not afford a domestic helper, so she did what she could. I learned to appreciate whatever she cooked, and once in a blue moon, when I got the chance to eat at my friend’s house or someone else’s, they always praised me because I was such an easy eater.
Your mama has raised you well, that was what they said. If Mama had heard that, she would have disagreed. She raised me to be obedient, and I was not obedient. I was difficult and stubborn (she had said it herself to me on many occasions).
Mama kept her eyes on me the whole time during dinner, and that made me nervous—it was like she was examining me, my demeanor, my chewing, my using of the chopsticks, my whole being was being prodded, investigated, and analyzed.
“You look thinner,” she concluded. I found it rather amusing that that statement had come from Mama. She was much thinner than me. Her collarbones protruded, her cheek shriveled like dried plums, her jaws bony, and her skin had less and less tautness and lustre on it. It was like living in this house had sucked the vigor of life out of her.
“I’ve been busy.”
“I called you to come home because we need to talk about your future. Ah Gong gets older and more easily tired now. He almost fainted a couple days ago because of fatigue.”
“Is he alright now?” I looked up to Mama.
Mama sighed. “He is alright now, but still weak. That is why we need to talk about you and your future—” Mama paused, looked at me straight, and continued,”Your future here, with us, in this home.”
“My future is doing a postgrad study at the university, Mama. I know what I want.”
“Come back here, live with us again. Ah Gong gets weaker and there are more people out there that need our help,” Mama stared unblinked at me as she spoke, it was as if she did not hear any word of what I had just said about my future plan.
“No.”
“Do not be stubborn, Eva.”
I remained quiet and struggled to swallow a chunk of rubbery pork in my mouth.
“You can start your training soon.”
I lifted my face to Mama and shook my head hard. “No! I do not want to-to do whatever you guys do!”
“What do you mean you do not want to?!” a thunderous roar startled me. My heart sank.
“Ah Gong!” I turned around, saw Ah Gong, a man in his 80s, with short and slightly obese stature, sparse white moustache and balding head. The off-white sleeveless cotton shirt he wore did not hide layers of fat dangling from his armpits. The wrinkles formed lines crisscrossing his face, and his expression was grim. His greyish eyes fixated upon me.
Mama stood up like a robot and rushed to him, helping him to his seat at the head of the dining table, then she sat on the chair next to him, across from me.
“You have to do it,” he bellowed the moment his buttock touched the seat.
“No, I won’t, Ah Gong,” I wanted to be brave, but my voice trembled nevertheless. Ah Gong was, and had always been, scary to me.
“Your mother here has no talent whatsoever! But you, since the day you were born, I could sense a great talent in you!” he pointed his meaty index finger at me.
I instinctively glanced at Mama, she avoided my glance. Mama looked so frail next to her father. Her back was bent and curled almost like a ball, and her head bowed down like she was in a deep shame.
“No, Ah Gong. I want to study psychology at the university. I want to continue studying it next year—“
“No! We gave you a chance to pursue that-that psyc-pycholo-whatever that is. That is it!”
“No. I will not live here and do whatever you do, Ah Gong! I do not want to!” I was stubborn and angry and loud, but what the heck, they would not listen when I was being polite (which was in a lot of occasions in the past), so might as well be loud and angry. I grew cold when I saw Ah Gong eyes grow wider, his wrinkles seemed to pulsate, while Mama shrunk even deeper in her ball-like shape.
I was determined that I would not back down. I abhorred this house, I abhorred the cloying smell of incense and jossticks that had filled the air I breathed since childhood, and above all, I abhorred those people.
Ah Gong glared at me, his fingers tapped the table, and Mama looked at me with widened eyes, like she was fearing for my life and hers. I did not care, Mama never stood up for me anyway. She was always on Ah Gong’s side, and I could never understand that. Ah Gong never thought much of her. Your mother here has no talent whatsoever, callous as it sounded, but it had become so normal for me to hear it that I wished Mama could just say something back, retaliated, shouted, be pissed off, whatever it was to show Ah Gong her displeasure. But no, never.
“Go to your room and think about what you have just said!” Ah Gong pointed at me with his right index finger, his voice hoarse and thick with rage.
“Eva, please just say yes—“ Mama’s voice was so meek, a plea that annoyed me so much I threw my chopsticks on the table and rushed to my bedroom.
“You think you are so smart, don’t you? You got university degree and now suddenly your own family is not good?!” Ah Gong was not done yet. He was banging on the table and screaming as I dashed even faster to my bedroom.
My bedroom was the one closest to the living room, just across from Ah Gong’s work room. Work room. I never wanted to go inside Ah Gong’s room. I could not breathe in there with the thick incense smell and God-knows-what else that was burned there. Ah Gong would accept his clients in there, and I could hear them talking, crying, screaming. Then those people came, those I did not know who they were, those I ignored.
I saw some even now. Years and years of practice had turned me into an expert at ignoring them, but still I saw them from the corner of my eyes.
Those people. They did nothing. They just stood, stared at me with their emotionless, pitch-black iris of the eyes, sometimes they faded away after I blinked, sometimes they persisted. I did not recognize them, I had no idea who they were, their clothes showed they came from different decades of the century. I thought of them as statues that decorated the interior of this house, they were part of this house, but not part of me.
Ah Gong and Mama did not know that I could see them. That would remain so.
So now I just sat on my bed.
One of those people was in my room too. She stood next to the window. A young woman about the same age as me, her exquisite makeup, her ankle-length red silk cheongsam with thigh-high slit, wavy shiny black hair clipped with a gold butterfly hairclip, made her look like she came straight out of the peak of the roaring 1920s in Shanghai. She was beautiful—pale and lifeless, but beautiful nonetheless.
“Who are you?” I whispered.
She did not reply. She did not move. She just stood and stared at me.
I knew those people would never answer when I asked them anything.
I chuckled to myself. How could they answer you, silly?
Those people were dead people, some of them had been dead for a long, long time judging from the clothes they wore. The dead did not just carry on conversation like the living now, did they?
This month was the hungry ghost month[3], those people loved this month. I saw them everywhere I went, not just in this blasted house. Getai[4] was their favourite hangout and I avoided those as much as I could. I had enough of those people at home, I did not need to see them out there too.
From outside my bedroom, from Ah Gong’s work room to be precise, I heard another of Ah Gong’s clients wailing and screaming—she was wailing in Mandarin about something, but I could not catch what it was she was saying.
I got curious, so I stood up and went to the door. I pressed my ear against the door, and I saw the ghost girl by the window tilted her pretty head slightly, as if she was curious too. I closed my eyes and listened to the woman’s wailing—
I want to meet you, dear husband.
I am so sorry for all the wrongs I did you.
I want to apologize. Please come, come visit your heartbroken wife.
Your children miss you so much too.
We promised each other love of a lifetime, how come you leave me now by myself?
I want to see you one more time. Just one more time.
Please come.
Please come.
The woman’s wailing made me sad too. Such heartbreak. I remembered what Ah Gong always told me,”We are the messengers of light, Eva. We help people in the darkness of grief. Nothing is darker than grieving an unfinished matter, an unspoken love, an untold secret. We help bring light, bring consolation to people! We are the messengers of light!”
I did not want to be a messenger of light like him.
I would never understand why I had to be born into a family of mediums.
My Ah Gong, my Mama (who was not so talented), and their predecessors were all mediums.
The living (the client) came to Ah Gong with some urgent messages and unfinished business with the dead. Then Ah Gong called the dead people to come talk to the living. The living wanted closure, and the dead had to provide it.
But those people, those dead ones, they did not always go back to where they had been before they were summoned back to the world of the living by Ah Gong and his mantras.
They lingered in this house—trapped and lost in a limbo between the world of the dead and the living.
I could never tell Ah Gong and Mama that I could see those people, I could see ghosts. That would confirm to them even more that I had to be a medium too.
I began to see them when I was a little girl, about four or five years old maybe. I remembered the very first ghost I saw was this young boy about the same age as me at that time. I thought he was a kid who lived nearby who happened to wander into our yard to play. He just stood underneath the frangipani tree, so I started talking to him, he did not answer. I thought he was sick because he was so pale. I went into the house to get some toys to play with him, and when I got back to the yard again, he was gone. I did not think much about it, until I saw more. Young, old, females, males. Cold, pale, ephemeral, silent. In the shadow of the frangipani trees was their favourite spot in addition to being inside the house.
At first I thought they were my parents’ or Ah Gong’s guests, until they began to appear in my bedroom too, and when I blinked, oftentimes they were gone, just like that.
It was Papa who made me promise not to tell Mama or Ah Gong that I could see them.
If you want a life outside this house, if you want a future for yourself, you have to stay quiet, ignore them, and do not ever tell Ah Gong and Mama that you can see them. Understand? That was what Papa had told me when I blurted out to him that I could see those people. It was when we were sitting by the koi pond one clammy evening, dipping our toes into the pond water.
Eva, promise me you will not let Mama and Ah Gong know you can see those people. Do you hear me? Papa held my hands, repeated his request, his voice shivered, like he almost cried. I knew he was dead serious.
So I nodded. I promise, Papa. A promise I had kept all these years and I was thankful for Papa and his keen warning.
I refused to spend the rest of my life among those people, to be a living person trapped in this house with the dead, ghosts, spirits, whatever they were called. Sometimes I wondered though: Do those dead people feel trapped too with us, the living, here? Don’t they have some beautiful, peaceful place they can go to after they are done with the world of the living?
If my family business was to be the messenger of light for the living, what were we then to the dead if they ended up being unable to move on with their journey to the beautiful, peaceful place, to their afterlife? My family had trapped them here in this house.
From the corner of my eyes, I saw the ghost girl stand right next to me.
I turned to look at her, and a faint smile broke on that lifeless face.
It dawned upon me: The ghost girl was so much like me.
BIO
Lia Tjokro is a Chinese-Indonesian writer with a background in cognitive psychology & cognitive neuroscience. She was born and spent her childhood and part of teenage years in Palembang in Sumatra Island, Indonesia. She writes in English and Indonesian. Her works have appeared in Porch Litmag, Kitaab, The Citron Review, Mekong Review, Harrow House Journal, Ricepaper Magazine, and ScribesMICRO. She has published one novel in Indonesian. She has lived and worked in Singapore and the US before, and currently she lives in the Netherlands with her husband, son, and their family dog. You can find her on IG februalia1 (https://www.instagram.com/februalia1/).
[1] Grandfather from the maternal side.
[2] Traditional Chinese-style dress with standing collar, knee/ankle-length, close-fitting shape, it is also called “mandarin gown.”
[3] Seventh month of the lunar calendar, around August-September in international calendar. The month when it is believed that spirits of the dead roam the world of the living because the gates of the underworld are open.
[4] Boisterous live music stage performance set up to entertain the spirits of dead, usually done in some countries like Malaysia, Singapore, and some parts of Indonesia during the Hungry Ghost Month. The first row of seats in getai performance are typically left empty, they are reserved for the spirits.
