Chapter 39

CHAPTER 12 — BOOK III

 

The Year Before

 

(Late 2008 — Early 2009)

 

In hindsight, the year before always seemed quieter than it truly was.

 

At the time, it did not announce itself as a threshold. There were no alarms, no urgent conversations, no moments anyone would later isolate and say that was when it began. Life continued in motion, carrying the weight of recent ceremonies without yet demanding interpretation.

 

They left Toronto a few days after Christmas.

 

The city receded quickly, buildings thinning into stretches of road bordered by trees stripped bare for winter. Snow lay packed and dull at the edges, no longer fresh, no longer decorative—just present.

 

The car was quiet in the way long drives encouraged. Children drifted in and out of sleep. Conversation surfaced briefly, then sank again. No one rushed it.

 

They stopped once, midway, at a roadside rest area.

 

It was functional. Fluorescent-lit. Smelling faintly of coffee that had been sitting too long and damp wool drying unevenly. People moved through it with the efficiency of those who did not intend to stay.

 

Near the vending machines, a white man stood with his hands in his pockets and watched them arrive.

 

Not openly.
Not covertly.

 

Just long enough.

 

What made the look linger was not confusion, but recalculation. Two white men—Lachlan and Geoffrey—among the group, their presence briefly interrupting whatever conclusion the man had already reached.

 

Embong noticed first, then Geoffrey.

 

The look wasn’t aggressive. There was no confrontation in it. But it stayed past curiosity, past accident. Lachlan slowed without meaning to. Geoffrey adjusted his pace instinctively, not stepping forward, not falling back.

 

At the counter, the server hesitated before smiling. Only a fraction of a second. Enough to register. Enough to be corrected.

 

“Hi,” she said then, briskly. “What can I get you?”

 

Nothing was refused.
Nothing was said.

 

Another customer glanced over and away again, uninterested. Near the windows, an East Asian woman stood with a white man, their heads bent together over a phone, sealed off from the room entirely.

 

Embong paid. Geoffrey thanked the server. They moved back toward the car without comment.

 

On the road again, the tension thinned on its own.

 

No one asked if anyone else had noticed.
No one needed to.

 

Collingwood felt different almost immediately.

 

The town announced itself through warmth rather than scale. Snowbanks were higher here, shoveled into deliberate shapes along driveways and sidewalks. Houses sat close together, smoke lifting lazily from chimneys as if winter were something to be participated in rather than endured.

 

On the street near Auntie Jenny’s house, a group of young men passed them, laughing loudly. One of them glanced over and nodded.

 

“Hey,” he said, easy, unthinking.

 

“Hey,” Geoffrey replied, surprised by how automatically it came.

 

Jenny’s house held heat generously. Boots lined the entryway in no particular order. Coats were draped over the backs of chairs and the banister. Someone pressed a mug into Embong’s hands before he could refuse it.

 

They stayed two nights.

 

Long enough for the children to learn the slope of the backyard. Long enough for conversation to loosen and then settle into something unremarkable. No one explained themselves. No one asked where anyone was really from.

 

When they left, it felt unforced.

 

On the way back, they detoured south.

 

Niagara Falls did not require commentary.

 

The sound reached them first—a constant, heavy presence that made smaller noises irrelevant. They stood bundled against the cold, breath visible, the water indifferent to season or audience.

 

Sudirman leaned forward, gripping the railing with both hands.
“It doesn’t stop,” he said.

 

“No,” Jati replied. “It doesn’t.”

 

Mist dampened their coats. Faces reddened in the wind. Salwani complained about her fingers. Krisdayanti tucked her hands into Aryati’s pockets.

 

Geoffrey watched the water longer than he meant to.

 

Scale, he realised, did something useful. It absorbed attention without asking for response. It made private thoughts feel unnecessary.

 

They drove back to Toronto as the light faded, the falls already receding into memory.

 

Nothing had been resolved.
Nothing had escalated.

 

But something had been measured.

 

They left Canada soon after.

 

The airport was bright and controlled, its glass walls holding the cold at a distance. Travel, after the weddings, felt procedural—an extension rather than a departure. Deraman moved with steady ease, familiar with airports without being impressed by them. Jati stayed close to Aryati, Sudirman walking carefully between them, fingers switching from one parent’s hand to the other. Salwani and Krisdayanti followed just behind, obedient in unfamiliar space.

 

Once they crossed into U.S. border control, the rhythm tightened.

 

Shoes off.
Belts in trays.
Voices lowered.

 

The officer barely looked up.

 

“Purpose of visit?”

 

“Tourism,” Embong said.

 

The stamp came down cleanly. No comment.

 

Outside, Miami corrected the atmosphere almost immediately.

 

Light softened everything. People laughed again. The ocean did its work. Warmth returned—but only once the door had been opened properly.

 

From there, Orlando. Then New York. Then Europe. Airports that asked questions differently. Cities that offered warmth only after context. Order that wore more than one face.

 

They returned to Sydney without speaking much about the journey.

 

Bags were unpacked. Formal clothes were put away. The last of the wedding flowers—too many, too fragrant—were divided or discarded. What remained was the ordinary: open doors, voices overlapping, the television left on longer than intended.

 

Fayrani stood in front of the screen with absolute concentration.

 

“Baby, baby, baby, oh,” she sang, a fraction too loud.

 

She waited for the right moment and flipped her head forward, hair flying in what was meant to look effortless.

 

It wasn’t.

 

Laughter broke out.

 

Hijau laughed first, loud and unguarded.

“Eh—what kind of Justin Bieber is this?”

 

Someone dragged out the line badly from the dining table.  Lachlan groaned from the sofa.

 

“That song again?  It’s everywhere.”

 

“That’s because it’s not for you,” Hijau said, grinning. “You’re already old.”

 

Fayrani flushed but stayed where she was.  She tried again, smaller this time. More controlled.

 

Rusladi demonstrated with exaggerated seriousness.

“You must believe in the flip.”

 

More laughter.

 

Geoffrey laughed once—short, surprised by how easily it came.

 

“Fayrani,” Nuryani called, amused. “Hair flip not compulsory, ya.”

 

The noise settled as quickly as it had risen. No edge remained. Correction had been enough. The moment passed.

 

In other houses he had known, this kind of noise always came with something attached—an escalation, a reckoning waiting just out of sight.

 

Here, nothing followed.

 

Time moved on.

 

Not all of the year unfolded inside houses.

 

University resumed without ceremony. Lecture halls filled and emptied with mechanical efficiency. Assessments accumulated. Applications were submitted.

 

Nuryani needed additional reception staff that semester.

 

The lobby was already half-claimed by familiarity—two Malaysian students behind the desk, moving between calls and keycards with quiet competence. The air carried the faint mix of printer ink and perfume that most front desks acquired over time.

 

Embong arrived early for his interview.

 

He sat near the wall, résumé folded once and unfolded again without reason.

 

A young man took the chair beside him.

 

White. Slim. Dark hair that fell forward and was pushed back absently rather than styled.

 

He nodded once in greeting.

 

“You are also applying?” he asked.

 

His English was fluent, but shaped differently. French vowels tucked neatly into certain syllables.

 

“Yes,” Embong said.

 

They compared ages almost immediately.

 

The same.

 

The Frenchman had already finished university in Paris.

 

“Grégoire,” he said, offering his hand.

 

Embong shook it.

 

There was nothing performative about him. He did not fill the silence. He did not rehearse answers aloud. He simply waited.

 

When his name was called, he stood without adjustment and crossed the room.

 

Nuryani listened. Asked three questions. Marked something down.

 

When he returned, he passed a copy of his résumé across to Embong without comment.

 

“In case you know somewhere else,” he said politely.

 

It was not ambition.

 

It was courtesy.

 

Embong folded it once and slipped it into his bag.

 

They exchanged numbers without elaboration.

 

Later, when the shift schedule was posted, their names appeared only two lines apart.

 

It did not feel like an event.

 

At the time, it was simply proximity.

 

By the time the year turned, the quiet had taken on a different texture. Work continued. Study progressed. Bodies did what bodies did when they were still assumed to be reliable.

 

Looking back, Geoffrey would understand that the year before was not quiet.

 

It was preparatory.

 

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