CHAPTER 5 — BOOK I
How We Sounded Together
(First Semester, 1999)
Indonesian class was meant to be practical.
That was how the teacher described it—useful, functional, something you could take with you.
Indonesian class was meant to be practical.
That was how the teacher described it—useful, functional, something you could take with you.
On the board, in careful blue marker:
Tolong jawab dalam Bahasa Indonesia.
“If you want someone to turn on the lights,” the teacher asked, “what do you say?”
Embong kept his hand down.
He knew the answer.
He also knew the answer would not be the one she wanted.
“Geoffrey?”
“Nyalakan lampu,” Geoffrey said easily.
“Ya. Bagus.”
“And to turn them off?”
“Matikan lampu.”
Embong stared at his page.
Nyalakan.
Matikan.
Not buka.
Not tutup.
He leaned slightly sideways.
“We say buka lampu,” he murmured.
Geoffrey glanced at him, curious. “Seriously?”
“Kita cakap buka. And tutup.”
From behind them, Lachlan frowned lightly.
“Aren’t they the same thing?”
It wasn’t mocking.
It was practical. Flattened. Efficient.
Embong felt the familiar tightening—the expectation that similarity meant sameness.
“Not exactly,” he said.
Geoffrey considered that for a moment.
Then, without correction, without emphasis, he tried it.
“Buka lampu.”
Close enough.
Lachlan shrugged and returned to copying the board.
The teacher had already moved on.
But something had shifted.
Geoffrey hadn’t chosen the “proper” version.
He had chosen both.
The desks were arranged to face one another, the whiteboard already filled with vocabulary for ordering food, asking prices, and thanking people politely.
Di restoran.
Pairs were assigned without ceremony.
Geoffrey ended up with Embong, as everyone had expected.
“You’ll be the waiter,” the teacher said, pointing at Geoffrey. “Embong, you’re the customer. Keep it simple.”
Embong nodded, already preparing to do exactly what was asked. Geoffrey smiled in a way that suggested simplicity might not survive the next five minutes.
They stood at the front of the room while chairs scraped and the class settled into anticipation. Something about the pairing had sharpened the air.
Embong began carefully, textbook open in his mind.
“Selamat siang,” he said. “Saya mau pesan makanan.”
Geoffrey straightened, adopting an exaggerated politeness. “Silakan.”
“I would like,” Embong continued, “nasi goreng.”
“So noted,” Geoffrey said solemnly. “Anything else, sir?”
Embong glanced briefly at the imaginary menu. “Ayam bakar.”
Geoffrey paused. “Sorry?”
“Chicken,” Embong clarified.
Geoffrey nodded gravely. “Very good choice.”
A few boys snickered.
“And… teh manis,” Embong added.
Geoffrey pretended to write in the air. “One sweet tea.”
He looked up. “Hot or cold?”
“Cold,” Embong said.
Geoffrey frowned. “We don’t have cold.”
Laughter rippled through the room.
“You don’t?” Embong asked, genuinely confused.
“We only have very cold,” Geoffrey said, “or extremely hot.”
The teacher cleared her throat. “Geoffrey—”
“Extremely hot,” Embong said quickly, suppressing a smile.
“Excellent choice,” Geoffrey replied, approving.
He leaned in conspiratorially. “Would you like sambal?”
“Yes,” Embong said. “A little.”
Geoffrey turned to the class. “He says ‘a little.’”
Then, solemnly, “We do not have ‘a little.’”
The room erupted.
“Geoffrey,” the teacher warned, laughter creeping into her voice despite herself. “Stick to the script.”
“Of course, Miss,” Geoffrey said at once. “Apologies.”
He turned back to Embong. “So. One nasi goreng, one ayam bakar, one extremely hot tea, and—extra sambal.”
“I didn’t say extra,” Embong protested.
Geoffrey smiled sweetly. “You will.”
By now, even the boys who rarely laughed were wiping their eyes. Someone knocked a chair over. The teacher turned away briefly, pressing her lips together.
“All right,” she said finally. “That’s enough. Sit down. Both of you.”
As they returned to their seats, Geoffrey leaned closer. “You were perfect.”
Embong shook his head, still smiling. “You’re impossible.”
“But accurate,” Geoffrey said.
“Yes,” Embong admitted. “Unfortunately.”
Indonesian was not the only language that exposed them.
French arrived later in the afternoon, when patience was thinner and mistakes louder.
The room smelled faintly of whiteboard cleaner and old textbooks. Verb charts lined the walls. The teacher—earnest, precise, and deeply committed to correct pronunciation—believed immersion worked best when students were forced into it before they felt ready.
“Today,” she said, clapping once, “we practice conversation.”
A collective groan moved through the room.
“You will order food,” she continued, unperturbed. “In French. No English.”
Pairs were assigned quickly.
Geoffrey turned to Embong. “We’ll survive,” he murmured.
Embong nodded, already anxious. French grammar felt like a maze with rules that contradicted each other on principle.
They were given a simple prompt: Un café à Paris.
Geoffrey went first.
“Bonjour,” he said confidently. “Je voudrais—”
He paused, scanning the page.
“—un… baguette.”
The teacher’s eyebrow twitched. “Une baguette.”
“Une baguette,” Geoffrey corrected smoothly. “Et un café.”
Embong followed.
“Je voudrais,” he began carefully, “un jus d’orange… et… et…”
He hesitated, frowning at the menu sheet.
Geoffrey whispered, “Croissant.”
“Et un croissant,” Embong said, relieved.z
The teacher nodded. “Très bien. Continue.”
Geoffrey glanced down again, then brightened.
“Et aussi,” he added, “un… poisson.”
The class went quiet.
“Poisson?” the teacher repeated.
“Yes,” Geoffrey said. “Fish.”
“In a café.”
“Yes,” Geoffrey replied, unbothered. “Maybe I am hungry.”
Embong blinked. “You order fish… with coffee?”
“Paris is modern,” Geoffrey said. “Very flexible.”
The teacher pressed her lips together. “Why do you want fish?”
Geoffrey shrugged. “I don’t know the French word for chicken.”
That did it.
A few boys laughed. Someone snorted.
The teacher raised a hand. “Enough. Continue—but sensibly.”
Embong tried again.
“Je voudrais,” he said slowly, “un steak.”
Geoffrey stared. “Now you want steak?”
“It’s safe,” Embong replied. “It exists everywhere.”
The teacher sighed. “You are in a café, not a restaurant.”
Embong nodded earnestly. “Then I change.”
He scanned the page again.
“Je voudrais… deux croissants.”
“Better,” the teacher said.
“And,” Embong added, proud of himself, “une eau.”
The teacher corrected him automatically. “De l’eau.”
Embong winced. “French is difficult.”
Geoffrey leaned back. “You know what this café needs?”
“No,” the teacher said immediately.
“Rice,” Geoffrey said.
Embong laughed before he could stop himself.
The teacher closed her eyes briefly, then opened them again.
“Next pair.”
For the rest of the term, teachers paired them together more often than coincidence alone could explain.
It wasn’t only in classrooms that they found their timing.
Lunch periods at Bellevue Hill were their own theatre—tables claimed early, hierarchies rehearsed daily, volume mistaken for authority more often than not.
The novelty of new students had not yet worn off.
Geoffrey was still being assessed—accent noted, posture evaluated, silence interpreted. Bellevue Hill did not operate on hostility; it operated on calibration.
Embong, by contrast, moved through the courtyard with familiarity. He knew which tables were loudest, which boys mistook volume for control, which teachers pretended not to see minor infractions.
It was a warm afternoon.
Embong placed a can of Coke on the table.
Beside it, a plastic bottle of Sprite.
A folded tissue.
Nothing about the arrangement seemed intentional until he said, lightly:
“Want to see something Malaysian science?”
A few boys smirked.
Geoffrey, seated opposite him, recognised the tone immediately. He didn’t ask questions. He leaned back.
Embong shook the can once under the table — controlled, subtle.
He twisted the tissue into a tight plug and slid it partially into the bottle mouth, shielding the motion with his body.
He handed the bottle to a boy who had been narrating his own stories too loudly for weeks.
“Open slowly.”
The boy grinned.
“Yeah, alright.”
He twisted.
Not slowly.
The explosion was instant.
Sprite shot upward, catching sunlight before collapsing over blazers, ties, hair. The table erupted in shouts. Someone knocked over a lunchbox. Another swore reflexively.
Geoffrey bent forward laughing, startled into it.
Embong stepped back just enough to remain dry.
“I said slowly,” he said calmly.
The soaked boy stared at his sleeve.
There was a beat.
Then he laughed too.
That was the difference.
Embong wasn’t targeting him.
He wasn’t humiliating him.
He had engineered spectacle—and let everyone share it.
Within minutes, boys at other tables were asking what happened.
“Malaysian science,” someone said.
Embong didn’t confirm or deny.
He just smiled — controlled, measured.
Geoffrey watched him carefully then.
This wasn’t chaos.
It was management.
Sometimes Geoffrey reined himself in. Sometimes he didn’t. Embong learned when to let him run and when to anchor him quietly—a hand on the desk, a look that said enough.
The class learnt something too.
Not about Indonesian or French, necessarily—though that improved—but about how two people could share a space without competing for it. Geoffrey filled silences easily. Embong shaped them. Together, they sounded like something complete.
At home, Embong
sometimes noticed the difference only by contrast.
Ganang filled rooms the way children do—by sound rather than intention. He narrated his games aloud, argued with imaginary opponents, burst into laughter without preamble. Silence did not trouble him; it simply meant he had not yet decided what to say.
Embong listened more than he responded. The house held both rhythms without conflict. It did not require them to match.
After class one day, as they packed their bags, a boy behind them said, “You two should do drama.”
Geoffrey considered it. “Only if he keeps me out of trouble.”
Embong zipped his bag. “I don’t promise that.”
Geoffrey laughed, unguarded.
It struck Embong then how different Geoffrey sounded when he laughed here—lighter, less careful. The sharpness softened. The pauses lengthened. The jokes landed without needing to defend themselves.
In Los Angeles, laughter had made Geoffrey visible.
Here, shared laughter made him safe.
They walked out together, the corridor filling with noise and movement, the school carrying on as schools always did—unaware of how small moments could steady a person.
If the letters had taught them how to speak across distance, this was teaching them something else entirely.
How they sounded together, in the same room, when neither of them had to disappear to be heard.
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