She was waiting under that tall assam jawa tree just outside the surau, just as he had told her to.
Hassan smiled to himself as he caught sight of her in her characteristic torn jeans and collared T-shirt, sitting on the discarded old sofa they had dragged there together just a week ago. It didn’t matter that the springs were poking out from the seats and the whole wretched sofa showed signs that the previous owner kept many cats as pets. Under that assam jawa tree, it became a throne of sorts for them, a sacred place where they shared their deepest secrets and embraced their forbidden love.
He could never figure out what attracted her to him in the first place.
Aisyah was the infamous tomboy of Kampung Bakar Batu and no self-respecting elder would allow their young sons to go near her, for fear that she would extend her ill-influence to them. An orphran since her parents died in a road accident when she was a baby, she was brought up by her aging grandparents, with occassional help from her aunties.
Deprived of parental guidance and pampered by her doting half-blind grandparents, Aisyah grew up to be an aggressive, defiant young lady who learnt from a young age that she had to fight her way through in order not to be taken advantage of by others. She shortened her name to ‘Shah’, the male equivalent of ‘Aisyah’,and wore only pants and T-shirts, never donning a skirt or baju kurung no matter what the occassion.
When she was only fifteen, she persuaded her grandparents to buy her a motorcycle to make it easier for her to travel to school daily. What they didn’t know was that she was hardly in school and that she spent all her time with a group of dropouts, to the point that she even formed her own girl gang.
With her new motorcyle, she zoomed around the village, taking part in races and teaching her gang members how to smoke and look cool. Shah led a life frowned upon by the rest of the villagers and didn’t care what others thought of her. Her grandparents were too old to control her and her relatives disassociated themselves with her, not wanting to taint their family name with the girl gangster.
Hassan couldn’t be more different. He came from a respectable family of teachers and his father was the headmaster of the largest secondary school in the district of Batu. Being the eldest child among a family of five children, Hassan was a born leader and grew up caring for his younger siblings the way a big brother should.
He excelled in his studies and was awarded a scholarship to continue his studies in UiTM in Shah Alam. Despite the two-hour journey, he still made it a point to come home during the weekends to be with his parents, particularly to help his father prepare reports and screen term papers before the examination period.
Good-looking and always cheerful, Hassan had known Aisyah all his life from the terrible stories he had been hearing from the villagers and his parents. He had caught sight of her a few times when he was still in secondary school, when she sped past him with her group of friends, and he had found himself to be strangely attracted to her wild, unsuppressed nature. With his studies taking first priority, he had not taken any further action to get to know her better.
When he moved to Shah Alam and only came home for weekends, he saw her again several times and felt that he had to make a move. Now that he also had a motorcycle, he felt that the time was right for him to approach her.
He rode right up to her when she was laughing away at some crude jokes her girlfriends had made. Extending his hand to her, he introduced himself and announced to everyone present that he would be so honoured if she would ride on his motorcycle with him.
Ignoring the loud guffaws around him as she blew cigarette smoke into his face, he grabbed her hand and scribbled his phone number on her palm, telling her that she could call him anytime she changed her mind.
She called alright- to invite him to a race. Afterall, she was known as ‘Aisyah Angin’, reputedly the fastest, albeit the most daredevil, rider in the village. How could she ride with him if he couldn’t ride at the speed she was accustomed to?
He agreed- and the date was fixed. He turned up, bringing a bunch of flowers and tickets to the midnight show at the town cinema. The race was forgotten, they got to talking and there was no looking back ever since.
Opposites attract, they say, and Hassan and Aisyah were soon madly in love. Perhaps they both found that they fulfilled each others inner needs. Aisyah needed the love and security she lacked from birth, Hassan sought some excitement and freedom in his regimented life.
Naturally their love met with many obstacles, particularly from Hassan’s family who were aghast that their beloved son is dating the wild gal of the village. So they resorted to meeting secretly, which only served to enhance the magic and thrill of their relationship.
After they have been together for a year, Aisyah suggested one day that they do something which represented their ever-lasting love for each other. Holding out a business card, she excitedly told Hassan about the new tattoo shop in the neighbouring town. She wanted a tattoo with his name on it, and she wanted Hassan to have her name on him.
Although apprehensive about it, Hassan went with her anyway, and had her name embossed on his left arm while she had his embossed on her right arm, so that the two names would meet when they were sitting together. They both knew the consequences, that it was against Islam to perforate the body with unnatural designs, but they were too thrilled at the aspect of being united in name to care.
“What’s the worse that could happen?” Aisyah argued. “It’s just for fun. It isn’t as if we were drawing Nazi signs or Christian crosses on our limbs”, she added.
From that point on, they were unseparable during the weekends when he came home. He no longer spent time with his parents or siblings; he only wanted to spend every precious moment with her.
That was how she came to be waiting for him that dusky evening when the muezzin at the surau was just preparing to call believers to the mahgrib prayers. The purple and pink shades in the sky cast a deep shadow upon the assam jawa tree and she looked almost ghostly in the reclining twilight.
‘What’s up? You don’t look too well, Shah...’ Hassan was, as usual, full of concern for his beloved Aisyah.
She was quiet for awhile and Hassan could sense that she was not her normal self that day. They chatted for awhile before Aisyah finally decided to speak her mind.
‘Hass, you know our tattoos? We should never have done them....’
Hassan remained quiet, waiting for her to resume, wanting to know what had made her change her mind and what had subdued this normally gay, chatty girl. What happened next took him by surprise as she whipped out a rusty old blade from her jeans pocket.
‘Hass, take it off for me right now. I don’t want it anymore. Take it off, take it off!!!’ Aisyah became more agitated as she waved the blade madly in front of him.
“Why, what has happened?? !! Calm down, Shah, you’ll hurt yourself with that blade...”
“No one would help me...no one!! I went to the hospital but they all ran away when they saw me coming! I went to Makcik Rozmah’s house but she fainted when she opened the door. I must get this thing off, I must, I must!!”
She was inconsolable and the next thing he knew, she had put one cold, quivering hand on his and cut off her skin at her arm where the tattoo was. Blood started to drip from the wound and Hassan was so shocked he couldn’t say or do anything.
She stood up suddenly, with the blood still flowing down her fingers and started walking away, disappearing into the dim shadows of the coconut and fruit trees nearby. Still shaking, he mounted his motorcycle and went home to find a small crowd waiting for him at his home.
“What happened? Has something happened to my father or mother? Why are you all here?”
“ It’s about Shah, Hass. Her bike skidded last night during the race and she got banged up badly...We’re here to talk to you about her, Hass....”
Hassan felt his knees go weak as he sat down numbly on the stairs of his home.
“She was pronounced dead upon arrival at the hospital. But two hours later, her body was missing when we went to the hospital with her grandparents to perform final rites. Her auntie said she fainted when she saw Shah at her house this afternoon. She has been seen, walking around like a zombie.”
“Something seems to be stopping her from getting her final rest and we’re here to ask you if you know anything...”
Their voices trailed off into silence as they began to notice his blood-splattered shirt and hands.
