Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9 — BOOK I

 

Where We Ate

 

(Sydney, December 1999)

 

The drive back from Glengarry did not feel like a return at first.

 

The highway carried them north through towns that looked half-asleep in the afternoon light. Trees slipped past in long, repetitive lines. The boys in the back seats spoke in fragments—small jokes, unfinished stories—then fell quiet again, as if conversation required more energy than anyone had left.

 

Geoffrey watched the road through the windscreen and let his body loosen in ways it had not been able to at camp. He had not realised how tightly he’d been holding himself until the business of leaving was over.

 

Uncle Rusaldi drove as if nothing surprised him. Both hands stayed on the wheel. His gaze held steady, attentive without strain. He did not fill the silence, and because he didn’t, it stopped feeling like something that needed fixing.

 

Somewhere past the southern suburbs, he glanced in the rear-view mirror.

 

“You must be hungry,” he said.

 

It wasn’t a question.

 

They were.

 

Rusaldi signalled without hurry and turned off toward Caringbah, into streets that grew narrower and more familiar, the light softer as afternoon slipped toward evening. Embong sat forward slightly when the sign appeared, as if the place mattered even before they reached it.

 

Langkawi Malaysian Restaurant sat in a modest row of shops, unassuming from the outside. The windows were fogged lightly from cooking heat; behind the glass, warm light made the interior look smaller than it was. When they stepped inside, the air changed immediately—fried shallots, chilli, curry leaf, and something sweet underneath it all that Geoffrey couldn’t name.

 

A bell chimed as the door closed.

 

The woman behind the counter looked up, smiled, and said something to Rusaldi in Malay that sounded half-greeting, half-teasing. He answered quietly. Embong followed with ease. Geoffrey caught only a few words, enough to understand that this wasn’t their first time here.

 

They slid into a booth near the wall. The vinyl seat was warm from the kitchen’s proximity. A ceiling fan turned lazily overhead.

 

Menus arrived, but Embong barely glanced at his.

 

“Nasi lemak,” he said, as if there had never been another option.

 

Rusaldi nodded once. “Two.”

 

He looked at Geoffrey. Not expectant. Simply waiting.

 

Geoffrey hesitated. Glengarry food had been functional—fuel, measured, eaten quickly. This felt different. It demanded attention in a way he wasn’t used to.

 

“What do you recommend?” he asked.

 

Embong’s mouth twitched, pleased. “Char kuey teow. And teh tarik.”

 

Rusaldi added, calmly, “And satay. You are young. You can eat.”

 

Geoffrey smiled. “Yes, sir.”

 

When the food came, it arrived in waves. Plates set down gently. Steam rising. A squeeze of lime over noodles. A small bowl of sambal placed like a warning and a promise.

 

Geoffrey took his first bite and paused without meaning to.

 

The flavours hit fast—smoky, sweet, sharp, then heat that spread slowly rather than burning all at once. It tasted nothing like cafeteria food and nothing like what he’d assumed “Malaysian” meant back in Los Angeles.

 

Embong watched his face with quiet satisfaction.

 

“Good?” Embong asked.

 

Geoffrey nodded. “Yeah. Really good.”

 

“Don’t eat too fast,” Embong said, as if that was a real concern.

 

Geoffrey laughed, then kept eating anyway.

 

Rusaldi ate with the calm of someone who never worried about whether there would be enough. He tore pieces of satay from skewers, dipped them in sauce, listened more than he spoke. When he did speak, it was usually practical.

 

“School finished?” he asked Embong.

 

“Finished,” Embong replied. “Glengarry finished. Speech Day finished.”

 

“And your parents?” Geoffrey asked, because he still wasn’t used to adults who felt like part of the story rather than background.

 

Rusaldi looked at him briefly, then answered without fuss. “Working. Travelling. They call.”

 

It was said plainly, with no apology, no defensiveness, as if adults being away was sometimes simply the shape of life.

 

Embong wiped his mouth carefully with a napkin.

 

“Geoffrey’s parents are away too,” he said. “Los Angeles. They’ll be back the day after tomorrow.”

 

Rusaldi nodded, absorbing this. “So you will stay together tonight and tomorrow night.”

 

It was not phrased as an offer.

 

It was the plan.

 

Geoffrey felt something shift in his chest—small, steady. At Glengarry, everything had rules. Here, the rule seemed simpler: if someone needed somewhere to be, they were included.

 

He looked down at his plate again and realised he was hungry in a way that had nothing to do with food.

 

Geoffrey reached for his drink, paused, then tried again more carefully; across from him, Embong tasted his own, nodded once, and said nothing.

 

By the time they left, the sky outside had darkened. The restaurant’s windows reflected streetlights in soft circles. Geoffrey stepped into the cooler air and felt the warmth of the meal settle in his body like relief.

 

Rusaldi drove them north again. Embong leaned his head back against the seat and shut his eyes. Geoffrey watched him for a moment, then looked away.

 

He did not want to name how grateful he felt. Naming it would make it heavier, and everything tonight had been light.

 

Vaucluse rose quietly around them—steeper roads, larger houses tucked behind walls and hedges, the harbour’s presence implied even when it couldn’t be seen.

 

The Douglas house sat the way it always did: composed, immaculate, lights low. Geoffrey noticed immediately what was missing. Not sound—there was always a kind of quiet here—but warmth. The ordinary evidence of people being home.

Jenny was already there.

 

She sat at the dining table with her legs tucked under her, a textbook open but clearly ignored, one hand wrapped around a mug that had long since stopped steaming. She looked up when they came in—not startled, not relieved—just attentive, as if she had been keeping the house company rather than waiting for it to change.

 

“You’re back,” she said.

 

It was not a question. It was a placement.

 

Inside, the air was cool and still. A bowl of fruit on the counter. A magazine left open on the coffee table as if someone had intended to return to it and simply hadn’t.

 

Geoffrey set his bag down and took his keys out of habit, then hesitated. It felt strange to unlock a house that wasn’t quite his tonight.

 

Embong moved through the space with polite ease. He did not treat it like his own house, but he did not treat it like a museum either. He took his shoes off at the door without being told. He placed his bag neatly beside Geoffrey’s.

 

Geoffrey went to the kitchen and opened the fridge. It was stocked, but not in a way that suggested recent decisions—more like someone had planned ahead and left instructions for the week.

 

Embong wandered into the living room and stopped in front of a framed photograph on the sideboard.

A family portrait. George smiling with his arm around Elaine. Geoffrey in between them, younger, squinting into sunlight.
Embong studied it quietly.

 

“You miss them?” Embong asked without turning.

 

Geoffrey kept his hand on the fridge door for a second longer than necessary. “They’re coming back the day after tomorrow.”

 

“That’s not the same question,” Embong said, soft but precise.

 

Geoffrey exhaled. “Yeah,” he admitted. “I do.”

 

Embong nodded once, as if this confirmed something he already knew.

 

They ate again later—not a real dinner, not after Caringbah. Just toast and fruit, and the last of the satay that Rusaldi had insisted they take home. Geoffrey stood at the counter and realised he was less restless than usual.

 

When it grew late, they carried blankets up to Geoffrey’s room.
They would sleep there for two nights, the arrangement decided without discussion, as if it had always been understood.

 

Embong sat on the edge of the bed and looked around with mild curiosity, taking in the shelves, the neatness that felt imposed rather than natural. Geoffrey moved to the window and looked out at the darkness beyond the glass.

 

“Thanks for coming,” he said, the words arriving before he could second-guess them.

 

Embong blinked, as if he hadn’t expected gratitude to be voiced.

 

“Of course,” Embong said. Then, after a beat, “You would’ve done it.”

 

Geoffrey didn’t answer, because he wasn’t sure if he would have known to.

 

He fell asleep faster than he expected.

 

In the morning, the house still felt quiet, but it no longer felt empty.

 

Downstairs, the phone rang once. Geoffrey let it ring, then answered.

It was his mother. Her voice came through slightly distorted by distance and lines.

 

“Hi, darling,” Elaine said. “We’re boarding soon. Your father’s with me. We’ll be home the day after tomorrow.”

 

Geoffrey leaned against the wall and listened to her, nodding as if she could see it.

 

After he hung up, he found Embong in the kitchen pouring water into two glasses.

 

“They’re okay?” Embong asked.

 

“Yeah,” Geoffrey said. “They’re fine.”

 

Embong handed him a glass. Their fingers didn’t touch, but the gesture still felt like care.

 

Later that afternoon, another car arrived.

 

By the next day, Embong’s uncle, Rusaldi, stepped in first, the same measured presence as before. Beside him was Aunty Nuryani—Delima’s younger sister—brisk in her movements, sharp-eyed, and quietly amused by most things. She had a good sense of humour and a sharper mind, the sort that listened carefully before delivering a remark that landed exactly where it was meant to.

 

Between them hovered Galang, five years old and newly confident, old enough to watch closely, young enough to drift away mid-conversation when something more interesting appeared.

 

“This is Geoffrey,” Embong said.

 

Galang studied him for a moment. “You’re tall.”

 

Geoffrey smiled. “I get that a lot.”

 

That seemed sufficient.

 

They did not stay long at the doorway. No one did. Shoes came off. Bags were set down. The house adjusted to more bodies in it as if it had been waiting to.

 

Meals stretched easily when Rusaldi and Nuryani were present. Conversation moved between work, study, and the ordinary logistics of family life—who was travelling, who was studying, who needed reminding to eat more. Nuryani spoke occasionally about her MBA, her final year approaching, her days divided carefully between coursework and motherhood.

 

“She’s very organised,” Delima said, with the tone of someone stating a long-established fact.

 

“It’s self-defence,” Nuryani replied lightly. “Otherwise people expect miracles.”

 

Not all meals were eaten out.

 

On quieter evenings, Nuryani cooked at home. She moved through the kitchen with the same efficiency she applied to everything else—ingredients prepared in advance, flavours balanced instinctively rather than measured. The food arrived hot, generous, and unmistakably good.

 

“You should open a restaurant,” Geoffrey said once, halfway through a second helping.

 

“That would ruin it,” Nuryani replied at once.

 

Delima smiled. “If you can cook well, people stay longer.”

 

“That,” Nuryani added, “is not always a disadvantage.”

 

Laughter followed—brief, easy, unforced.

 

Later, when the suitcases were lined up near the door and passports checked for the second time, Geoffrey watched the adults move through preparation with practised calm. No one panicked. No one dramatized the leaving. It was treated like what it was: a journey, not an emergency.

 

He found Embong by the window, staring out at the harbour as if he could already see past it.

 

“You excited?” Geoffrey asked.

 

Embong’s expression shifted, almost imperceptibly. “Yes,” he said. “And… I don’t know.”

 

Geoffrey waited.

 

Embong looked at him then, direct. “I want you to like it.”

 

Geoffrey felt the weight of that—how much it meant, how much was being offered without ceremony.

 

“I will,” he said.

 

Embong’s shoulders eased slightly, as if a fraction of worry had been put down.

 

That night, Geoffrey lay awake for a while, listening to the house settle. He could hear voices downstairs, low and steady, the sound of people who belonged to one another and did not need to prove it.

 

He realised that the difference between being alone and being cared for was often just this: someone making space without making a speech.

 

That evening, after the house had quietened and the last of the dishes were put away, the living room held a different kind of stillness.

 

The windows were open just enough to let the air move through. Outside, traffic murmured along the distant road; inside, the lamps were low, their light softened by familiar furniture and the absence of urgency.

 

The ustaz sat cross-legged on the rug, his back straight but unforced, hands resting loosely on his knees. He was Acehnese, his Bahasa carrying a gentle lilt that rounded the edges of words. When he spoke, it was without instruction, as if assuming understanding rather than demanding it.

 

Embong sat opposite him. A Qur’an lay open between them, its pages worn smooth at the corners.

 

Geoffrey lingered near the doorway at first, uncertain whether to stay. No one told him what to do. No one looked up. After a moment, he lowered himself onto the edge of the sofa, quiet by instinct rather than request.

 

The ustaz nodded once.

 

He began to recite.

 

Waḍ-ḍuḥā.

 

The sound was soft, almost conversational. Embong followed, his voice careful, precise—not loud, not tentative. The verses moved slowly through the room, the pauses as deliberate as the words themselves.

 

Wal-layli idhā sajā.

 

When they reached the line about the night growing still, the space between the walls seemed to listen with them.

 

The ustaz did not interrupt. When Embong finished a verse, he repeated it once more, slightly slower, shaping the sound with care. Embong nodded and recited again, adjusting without comment.

 

Geoffrey did not understand the words.

 

But he understood the tone.

 

It did not sound like warning.
It did not sound like instruction.
It sounded like reassurance.

 

When the final verse was complete, the ustaz closed his eyes briefly, then smiled.

 

“Bagus,” he said quietly.

 

The Qur’an was closed. The moment ended without ceremony.

 

For a while, no one moved.

 

Then the ustaz rose and spoke softly with Delima in the kitchen about tea and the weather, the house easing back into itself.

 

Embong remained seated for a moment longer, gaze lowered, as if letting something settle before standing.

 

Geoffrey waited.

 

After a while, he said, softly, “That sounded… peaceful.”

 

Embong glanced up, surprised not by the comment, but by the care with which it was offered.

 

“It is,” he said.

 

Geoffrey nodded. He did not ask what it meant. He did not ask what the words said.

 

He had heard enough.

 

By morning, the bags were ready.

 

The day was bright.

 

And the year, he suspected, was about to become something else entirely.

 

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