Read Online Spirit Tiger by Barbara Ismail - Free Book Online Page B

would always revert to the ill-mannered lout he now appeared to be. She sighed with resignation and thanked heaven she was not related to him.
    Maryam began asking questions, determined to get out of this house, and across that infernal mud, as quickly as possible. ‘Did you owe Yusuf money?’ she asked, dispensing with any gracious preliminaries she judged would go unnoticed by their host. Why waste time? ‘I heard you had rather large debts.’
    Din continued to look unconcerned, but Maryam thought she detected a flash in his eye indicating some brain activity. He shrugged. ‘Not too bad.’
    â€˜Didn’t Yusuf come to talk to you? You were one of his largest debtors.’
    â€˜Me?’ he asked innocently. ‘I don’t think so.’
    â€˜Zainuddin,’ Maryam began in her sternest tones, ‘We know it happened, and we’ve seen the records. If you want to pretend no one knows anything, we’ll see you at the police station and you can talk there.’ She narrowed her eyes so he’d know she meant business. ‘Now pay attention.’
    Din looked surprised that his obfuscation didn’t work. Khatijah was right: stupid.
    â€˜Now,’ Rubiah chimed in, ‘How much did you owe Yusuf this time?’ Din looked at her and she nodded. ‘Oh yes, we know it wasn’t the first time you’ve gotten into trouble. How much?’
    He looked back and forth between them with his jaw slack. Rubiah wanted nothing more than to send him to his room with a hard smack across the ear and tell him to get dressed, comb his hair, and come back with a change of attitude. Apparently, this had not been done often enough when he was a boy and still might have learned something from it.
    He mumbled something they could not catch. Rahman demanded clarification and, reluctantly and sulkily, he said, ‘Around 3,000 Ringgit.’
    Maryam was once more amazed at the debts run up gambling. ‘How will you pay it?’ she blurted out before thinking.
    Din began to bluster. ‘I have ways, you know. I have plans. I have some rice land near Pantai Sabak, and I’m thinking maybe I can rent it out to someone –’
    Maryam cut him off. ‘You mean Yusuf would have taken your rice land for himself? And then you’ll lose it completely! What will you leave your children?’
    â€˜Why do you care?’
    â€˜I don’t,’ Maryam answered honestly. ‘But you should, as their father.’
    â€˜It’s none of your business,’ Din told her with perfect accuracy. ‘I’ll do –’
    Rubiah interrupted, anxious to return to the matter at hand. ‘What did you talk to Yusuf about then? How did he want to collect the debt?’
    â€˜Well, you know, this and that.’
    â€˜Din!’ Rubiah admonished him. ‘Stop it.’ She could no longer control herself. ‘Comb your hair, sit down and start talking like an adult. I never saw anything like this, greeting visitors, police visitors, by scratching yourself and acting like you’re in the middle of taking a bath. Have you no manners! Kurang ajar! Insufficiently taught. It’s a disgrace.’
    She looked around at Maryam and Rahman to back her up. Rahman seemed amused, Maryam delighted. ‘You heard her,’ she ordered Din. ‘Act like an adult.’
    Din seemed stupefied by the dressing-down he’d received. He smoothened his hair with both hands and pulled his undershirt down, patting the front. He then stared at Rubiah with empty, though not hostile, eyes.
    It was a perfunctory, badly done job, which Rubiah would never have accepted from her own children, or those of her friends and relatives, but it was probably the best she’d get from Zainuddin. She snorted in derision and launched back into her interrogation.
    â€˜Yusuf was going to take your land, wasn’t he?’ Din nodded as though hypnotized, like a mouse watching a