FUNNYACCENT: Peeling off the Skins

I was about five years old when I discovered the joy of peeling off the skin of guava trees. It was the year my father went to Congo. And again, all us took a long train ride from Kelantan to Butterworth. Took a ferry to Penang Island.

I think one third of my childhood was spent on the train. I kid you not.

Grandmother lived in a four bedroom two storey house in Batu Uban, Penang then. I don't remember ever being in that house. I liked her big house in Batu Maung where I used to roamed around the big compound.

I didn't have any friends. For the whole year we lived at grandmother's house I hadn't met any little girls around my age. Where were they? Where did they go to play?

Sometimes, from a distance, I saw them walked along a narrow path between tamarind trees and bushes all the way on the back of grandmother's property.

I never failed to wave at them when I saw them. They never returned my wave. They stared at me and talked to each other and they stared at me some more as I had two heads or something. But they didn't wave back. Ever. Not even once. After a continuously failed attempts, I gave up.

"Those girls are mean. They don't wave back at me."I sat down on a wooden stool near the kitchen stairs throwing my marbles aimlessly on the ground.

"They thought you're a boy. You wear short and pants all the time.'' My oldest sister, Kak C said between splitting roasted pumpkin seed between her perfect teeth. I never saw Kak C did anything else except munching pumpkin seeds and checking herself out in front of the mirror since we moved into grandmother's house. I thought one of the screws in her head was loose or went missing because she liked to blink her eyes when she looked herself in the mirror. You know the way you blink your eyes when you got something in one of your eyes? I didn't understand why did she keep checking herself out in the mirror every two or three minutes because she looked the same to me an hour ago or a week ago.

Kak N and Kak C were and still are like earth and sky as we Malay like to make comparison of two opposite characters.

"How could they think I am a boy. I have a long hair." I stood up and turned my head left and right. My long braided hair swung up and down , left and right. Everytime I turned to the left, my right braided hair smacked my face and when I turned my head to the right, my left braided hair smacked my face again. It stung my face but not as much Kak C's words.

"They are not mean. I don't think they think you are a boy." I looked up at Tok Uda. She sat, bersimpuh next to Kak C. Tok Uda was the kindest person in the world. I never saw Tok Uda got upset, angry or annoyed at anybody or at anything. Back then I thought she could even tame a wild beast.

"They.........." Her word trailed off as she turned to look at the door that connecting kitchen and a dining hall. "They are afraid of your grandmother. She doesn't care much for children." The moment the words came out from her mouth, I knew it Tok Uda was in trouble. She had her hand covered her mouth and I dissected her expression like this, "Oh....shit, I'm fucked." She looked at Kak C in horror. We knew it and everybody in the house knew it, even Lizard the cat knew it Kak C was Grandmother's favorite person in the whole world.

Kak C kept splitting the pumpkin seeds as she didn't hear it, but the smirk on her face revealed her intentions. The minutes she finished the pumpkin seeds and checked herself out in front of the mirror, she would spilled every single word Tok Uda had said about grandmother not to mention some salt and pepper she loved to sprinkle on every tale she told grandmother.

So, what's peeling off the guava tree's barks got to do with all of this, you might ask. Well, this was the part the guava trees came in handy to me.

I flew the kites with my brothers under the hot sun, learned to throw gasing on the ground, picked it up and let it spun on my open palm (which took hours and hours of practice), developed my skill to flick a marble straight to my opponent's and scattered the marbles apart and learned a correct way to hold a slingshot. I wanted to do something I didn't need to run, chased, climbed, scrambled or kicked. I wanted to do something where I could think of Abah, because I started to miss him, terribly.

One morning, after I had my breakfast of roti chanai I went outside and wandered on the right side of grandmother's house. There was row of papaya trees, guava trees and ciku. All in one row. I counted the them all. Three papaya trees, five guava trees and two ciku trees. When I got the guava trees I noticed something was different in bark structure.

Out of curiosity I started to peel a small piece of the thin bark. It came off easily. I pulled another one and another. Two hours later when my mother came out looking for me, I was on the fourth tree.

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing."

Then she saw piles of thin layers of barks on the ground.

"Why are you peeling their skins off?"

"I miss Abah."

There was a long pause before Mak responded to my statement.

"But why are you hurting them if you miss Abah?"

"Mak, they are not alive. They are trees. They don't feel anything."

"If they are not alive, how do they grow?"

"Huh?"

"Come here. Lets go inside and help me peel the onions instead." Mak's voice was so gentle I could feel the warm seeped through my skin straight to my core.

I brushed the guava tree skins off my arms, t-shirt and short and legs. I followed Mak into the house. Mak's comforting voice was all I needed. Cool as morning breeze.