published in Silverfish New Writing No 5 (short story teaser)

the Orchid Wife

The day's heat, soaring to previously unheard of heights for a Malaysian October, had increasingly given way to humid storm clouds. Incandescent streaks of forked lightning were swiftly followed by deafening cracks of thunder, as if mischievous stagehands battled behind a Chinese Opera. Outside the caged kitten mewed in chorus with a puppy's terrified yelps, appending vibrant theatrical effects to the fluctuations of Devi's anxious heart.

Now married twenty-eight years, she had resided in her house, in Butterworth, since the wedding reception. The growing clutter, gathered by an increasingly obsessive husband, threatened to consume the entire house. The walls badly needed painting. The toilet pipe needed fixing - water gushed onto the floor every time the handle was flushed, and piles of ancient newspapers were obstacles that constantly impeded visitors' progress. Some years ago she had planned to divide the single storey house into an upper and lower level, but her husband, for reasons unknown, forbade her to execute the already drawn up plans.

Devi had forsaken a law career in favour of her arranged marriage to Chandran. One day her ageing father had presented her with a fait accompli, marry Chandran - a man fourteen years her senior, with good prospects, or wait and maybe never find such a good match again. She had little choice but to comply with her father's wishes. Her father was not a man to nay-say. As eldest daughter Devi was compelled to marry first, for custom demanded that her sisters would be unable to wed if she did not. Or, at the very least, society would view Devi as suspect, were one of her sisters to be betrothed before she. Devi may be considered unmarriageable in that eventuality. From the time of her father’s request, it would appear her fate was sealed.

Lightning accented an enlargement of Devi's deceased father's photograph, hanging opposite her on the greying wall. The ceremonial ash, faint but still visible, on the dusty glass over the figure's forehead, indicated that she still remembered, and revered him. As the thunder cracked again Devi recalled the early years of her marriage to Chandran, the beatings and his overbearing dominance of her. She remembered running home to her father and the urge she had to see Chandran again. Deep within her a segment of her soul recalled the almost addictive nature of her relationship to him, and her inability to break free from his almost Rasputin like, mesmerising, effect upon her. Several times her brothers extracted her from Chandran's house, only for her to long for him and return within days. It was an anxious attachment she couldn't explain, but it was the force that kept her with him through the years, despite his treatment of her.

Rain exploded into the now muddy letrite path outside the house, shooting particles of wet red earth onto the front patio and beating a tattoo on the asbestos corrugations of the orchid lean-too. Even the electric ceiling fan was briefly hushed by the cacophony, brought about by the torrential downpour. During the storm's infrequent silences, nude house-lizards tut, tut, tut, tuted their growing disapproval, trying to fill the vacuum. Scents of the lush, green, garden vegetation permeated into the house, along with the heavy scent of Devi’s orchids – her one joy in life, and sometimes the only safe haven during a domestic storm. These natural odours mixed with the fragrances of freshly cooked fish curry, rice and fried vegetables. Chandran insisted that his dinner be ready when he arrived from his office, on Penang Island. He had left instructions on what to cook, how to cook it, and when it was to be prepared. Devi dare not disappoint him. She knew what repercussions there would be. On one occasion Chandran had even locked Devi in the bathroom all night, when she had displeased him. On another, after arriving home late from work, he had hurled the Luke warm food across the room – the now dry stains of mingled spices and food debris were still to be seen on the living room wall. "Hot has to be hot, cold has to be cold!" he had yelled at her.