The Disallowed

2 The Lee Family’s Quandary

in bed at night, but he was so worn out that he was fast asleep before his tea, soup and seeds were brought in to him.Outside, on the big table in the half-light, the rest of the smal family discussed Mr. Lee’s predicament in hushed voices, despite the fact that no-one would have been able to hear them if they had spoken out loud.

“Is Paw going to die, Mum?” asked Din almost in tears.

“No, dear, of course not,” she replied, “at least… I don’t think so.”

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2 THE LEE FAMILY’S QUANDARY

In typical country style, everyone slept together in the only room inside the house: Mum and Dad had a double mattress, the children had a single one each and the three beds were protected by their own mosquito nets, so when they got up at daybreak, everyone tip-toed about so as not to wake Heng.

They knew that something was wrong, because he was usually the first one up and out even on the coldest morning. They peered through the mosquito net at his deathly pale face and looked worried, until Mum shooed them outside.

“Din, do us a favour, dear. I don’t like the look of your father, so quickly, have a shower and go see if aunty has anything to tell us, wil you?

There’s a good girl. If she’s not ready yet, and we are rather early, I know that, ask her if she could make a special effort for her favourite nephew, would you, before it’s too late?”

Din started crying and ran for the shower. “Sorry, love, I didn’t mean to upset you!” she shouted to her daughter’s back.

When she arrived at her great-aunt’s house fifteen minutes later, the old Shaman was up and dressed, sitting on the big table in front of the house, eating rice soup.

“Good morning to you, Din, it’s lovely to see you, do you want a bowl of soup? It’s delicious.” Da doted on her grand-nieces and on Din in particular, but when she heard what she had to ask, she could not resist saying that her mother was asking a lot for a proper diagnosis of this kind within twenty-four hours.

“That mother of yours! OK, we’l see what we can do… Your Paw looks bad, does he?”

“Yes, Aunty Da, he’s as white as a corpse, but we don’t think he’s dead

yet… Mum was going to stick a pin in him when I left to see if he reacted, but I didn’t wait to find out. I don’t want Paw to die, Aunty Da, please save him.”

“I’ll do al I can, child, but when Buddha calls, there’s no-one in the world who can say 'No', but we’l see what we can do. Come with me.”

Da led the way into her sanctuary, lit a candle and closed the door behind them. She was hoping that Din would show an interest in the ‘old ways’ while she was still young enough to teach her, because she knew that she would need a successor some day, if the job were to stay in the Lee family.

She pointed to the Inquirer’s mat on the floor and Din sat down, then she walked around the hut mumbling prayers and incantations and lighting a few more candles, before sitting opposite Din, who was staring down at her cupped hands in her lap.

Da looked at her niece, felt a slight tremor run through her body, gazed into her own cupped hands for a few seconds and then she looked up at Din again.

“You have come to seek advice concerning another? Please ask your question?” said Da, but in a deep, dark, rumbling voice that no-one had ever heard outside that hut.

The transformation startled Din, as it always did when her aunty went into a trance and al owed another entity to take control of her body. It wasn’t so much that her face changed, although it did, her whole body changed subtly, in a similar way that an actor or an impersonator can change his outlook to suit the character he is playing, but it was more than that. It was as if Da’s insides had been replaced with someone elses, which made her not only look different but sound different as well.

Din looked at the old Shaman who was no longer her aunty.

“Shaman, my father is very sick. I need to know what the problem is and what we can do about it.”

“Yes, your father, the one you call ‘Paw’.”

The person, her aunty sounded like a man at the moment, put a hand on each of the bundles that Heng had left the previous day and closed her aunty’s eyes. There was what seemed to Din a long pause and a silence that was so deep, that she would have said she could hear the ants walking on the hard mud floor.

Din had been to a dozen such sessions before, although never for something as serious as this. She had asked about a stomach complaint once, and about her periods a few years ago and most recently she had asked whether she would get married soon. She was not afraid of the setting, only the outcome, but she knew that she could only sit and wait

and observe, for she did find it fascinating.

The Shaman slowly unwrapped the first parcel containing the stone, examined it careful y, sniffed it and put it back on its banana leaf, then picked up the leaf containing the moss and sniffed that, before replacing that on the mat before her.

The Shaman looked at Din solemnly and, after a few minutes, spoke.

“The one you are concerned about is very il . In fact he was very near to death when he produced these samples, but he is not dead yet… Some of his internal organs, particularly those concerning the cleaning of the blood are in a very poor state… The ones you call, I think, the kidelies in Thai, have stopped working altogether and the liver is failing rapidly.

“This means that death is imminent. There is no known medical cure.”

The Shaman shuddered again and shape-shifted back to old Aunty Da, who blinked a few times and wriggled a bit as if putting on an old tight dress and rubbed her eyes.

“It wasn’t good news, was it child? You know that when I am under possession, I can’t always hear everything, but I caught bits of it and I can see by your face that it is going bad for your father.”

“The Spirit said that Paw wil surely die soon, as there is no medical cure for failed kidneys and liver…”

“I am sorry, Din, you know that I am very fond of your father…

Look, I’ll tell you what, I’ve picked up a few tricks myself over the years apart from possession. Let’s have a look now… Yes, the stone… see where your father spat on it? No marks! That means no salts in his spittle, no salts, no minerals, no vitamins, no nothing, only water.

“Now, the moss,” she sniffed it from a distance and then brought it closer to her nose. “The same! Smell this!” She held it out for Din to sniff, but Din was reluctant to smell her father’s urine. “Go on, it won’t bite you!” Da said. Din did as she was bid.

“No, smell, just a mossy smell”.

“Exactly! Men’s urine smells like cat’s piss if you keep it wrapped up, but your Dad’s doesn’t. Therefore, there is no meat in it to go rotten.

Therefore, your Dad’s blood is water too.

“You can’t live long with water for blood can you? Stands to reason, doesn’t it? Your blood takes al the goodness around the body, but your dad ain’t got any, and that is why he’s so weak al the time!

“You get off home now, find out if we’re too late, and if he’s stil with us come back and get me on that scooter of yours. Go on now and hurry!”

Din fairly flew out of the door and ran back home.

While Din was away checking on her father, Da prepared herself to leave, for she knew in her heart that her Heng was not yet dead, not completely, anyway. She selected some herbs and put them in a bag, splashed water over her face and tied her hair down with a headscarf because of the slipstream of the forthcoming motorcycle ride. Then she went outside to wait for her niece.

Din arrived a few minutes later in a cloud of dust.

“Quickly Aunty, Mum says to come quickly, because he is about to pass on.”

Da mounted the scooter side-saddle, as befitted a lady and they took off with Din’s long hair whipping her wrinkled old face painful y and her trying to dodge it. As soon as they arrived, Da hopped off, for she was nimble for one so old, and was ushered into the house.

“Thank you for coming so promptly, Aunty Da, he’s up in the bedroom.”

“Yes, I guessed he would be in bed and not in with his beloved goats!” She lifted the mosquito net and sat on the wooden floor next to his head. First she looked at his skin, then his hair and lips and final y she opened his eyes and peered into them.

“Mmm, I see… show me his feet!” Wan hurried to uncover her husband’s feet, then Da leaned over to squeeze them and get a closer look.

“Mmm, I have never seen such a serious case of lack of meat in the blood as this before. Do you give me permission to tell your children what to do for a while? Good I wil return soon, prop your husband’s head up on a few pil ows, I wil send Din in to help you while Den helps me outside.”

“Yes, Aunty, of course. Anything to help my dear Heng.”

“Al right, let’s see what we can do, shal we?” and with that she got up and descended to ground level.

“Din go and help your mother, Den come with me, we must all act swiftly and precisely.”

Din was quick off the mark and Den asked what he could do to help.

“Go and get me the strongest cockerel you have! Quickly, lad!”

When he returned with the bird under his arm, Da took it from him.

“Now tether your strongest bil y goat to a stake so tightly that it can’t move an inch – sitting or standing is al the same to me.”

While Den rushed off, Da perched on the edge of the table, slit the cockerel’s throat, drained it’s blood into a bowl, tossed it’s lifeless body into the vegetable basket on the table and then hurried upstairs.

“Din,” she said on arrival, do you have any goat’s milk, or any sort of

milk in the fridge? If not, take a jug and get some fresh, please, girl.”

She did not need to be told to hurry, she was gone.

“OK, Wan, is he awake?”

“Not really, Aunty, half-and-half.”

“Al right, you pinch his nose closed and I’ll pour this blood down his throat.” She squeezed his closed jaw with her thumb and middle finger to open it, pushed his head back and poured a few mouthfuls of chicken blood down his throat. Da guessed from the way that Heng spluttered like a petrol car on diesel that about half of it was going down the right way.

Heng opened his eyes slightly.

“What are you two old witches doing to me?” he whispered, “That was horrible!”

“Ah, I thought so,” said Da, pouring more in, “too rich, he needs to be weaned on to it.”

When Din arrived she said, “Fresh milk, stil warm from Flower, our best goat.”

Da took it, mixed it 50-50 with the remaining blood and poured it down Heng’s throat as before with the same result, but a little more resistance.

“See that!” she exclaimed, “he’s getting stronger already! Heng is trying to fight us, he’s resisting. Maybe he’s not completely lost yet!

“Al right! Wan, you carry on with the milk, but keep half of what is left. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

She went down and called to Den.

“Is that goat ready yet?”

“Yes, Aunty, he’s over there.”

“Good, come with me.”

Da put a nick in the goat’s jugular with her razor-sharp penknife and siphoned off a few hundred mil ilitres

“See how I did that, boy? Try to remember, because I think that you’ll have to do it every day from now on.”

They both went upstairs where they were surprised to see Heng talking with his wife and daughter as a hospital patient might after a general anaesthetic – groggy, weak and hesitant, but coherent.

Da mixed the goat’s blood half-and-half with the remaining milk, but gave him the neat stuff to try first.

“Oh, Aunty, that is disgusting! Oh, dear…”

“Try this then,” she said, handing him a glass of pink liquid.

“Yes… that’s quite nice… What is it? I can feel it doing me good already.”

Heng drank it eagerly.

“It is, er, a milkshake with herbs… Good is it?”

“Yes, Aunty, very good… very refreshing. Is there any more?”

Wan looked at the old Shaman who nodded. Wan poured another glass and helped her husband drink it.

“Oh, I am glad, Heng,” said Da, “I think that in this milkshake we have found the solution to your predicament, although I am sure that we can refine it a little more yet. Perhaps we can find other ingredients to alter the taste from time to time, so that it doesn’t become boring, you know.”

“Yes, Aunty, I knew that you would come through for me.”

“Anything for my family, it was my pleasure to be able to help,” she replied and gave him a genuine, if rare, warm smile.

She mixed the rest of the blood and milk with some herbs into about a pint of milkshake and then said:

“Heng, I think that you ought to rest now. Look, here is more milkshake for later and I wil show your family how to make it for you downstairs now, OK? You take it easy. Cal me if you need me. Bye for now and get well soon.”

Once everyone was seated comfortably on the big garden table, and Wan had handed out refreshments of fresh fruit and cold water, Da took control of the family meeting.

“As I said before, I have never seen such an extreme case as this, but it seems that my experience and the Spirit Guides have led me to prescribe the correct solution.

“However, so far, we have only used what you might call ‘emergency resources’. Let’s face it, we have given Heng the blood of animals that do not eat the same things as we humans do, so he wil stil be missing certain vital ingredients.

“What we really need to do is get him a regular and constant supply of blood from animals that eat what humans eat. The better the match, the better it is for Heng.

“Now, we al know that not everybody eats exactly what it’s body requires every day, so we might assume that Heng wil not require that either, but if we only give him chicken blood, he wil miss out on a lot and only that part of him that is ‘chicken’ wil thrive and survive well.

“The same if he only drinks goats’ blood, because grass cannot be sufficient for humans in the long term.”

“So, what are you saying, Aunty Da?” asked Den, “That we need to find him monkey blood?”

“Well, that is in the direction of what I am saying, yes, Den, but monkeys don’t eat exactly what we eat either, do they?”

She let the import of what she was saying sink in. Din got it first.

“You mean, Aunty, that Dad wil need a regular supply of human blood?”

“Yes, Din, that would be the easiest way to go and maybe the only one in the long term. If you cannot find a regular supply of human blood, you will need to give him large quantities of blood from many different kinds of animals to make up the human diet. For example, pigs eat a lot of what we eat, but they don’t eat much fruit and they don’t eat pork.

“I suppose you could keep a few ‘donor pigs’ just for Heng and feed them food especial y to make the right blood and supplement that with the blood from other animals, but again, it would be a lot of effort. You could make a cocktail of chicken, goat, pig, dog and cat blood and keep it in the fridge, but no-one has done that before to my knowledge… the results would be unpredictable at best.

“The solution is really as plain as the noses on your faces and it is human blood.

“We checked your father’s samples at least seven hours early and yet the evidence was clear.

“Your father has no blood!

“None at al !

“Not even a drop!

“I’ll show you.” Da reached into her shoulder bag and took out the moss wrapped in a banana leaf. “This is your father’s urine sample.

Watch.” She set fire to it. “The fire is spluttering a bit due to its dampness, but see, no colours in the flames, so no vitamins, no salts, so nothing in the blood. He only has water in his veins, even if it is stil reddish.

“We could bleed him a bit later and check on that, if you like. If he had real blood, the moss would have dried out by now and would show colours as it burned.

“Same with the stone, look! Heng spat here, but no ring of salts, nothing, so again, just water. Your father has no blood in him.

“Not a drop!”

“Is that bad, Aunty Shaman?” asked Den.

“Bad? Bad? Boy, a person cannot live without blood!

“I love you very much, Den, but you can be so stupid at times! s*x on the brain, I suppose, like al boys of your age!

“And it is just ‘aunty’ outside the sanctuary.

“Your father has turned into a vampire… has he been biting any of you lately?”

“No, Aunty, but maybe he’s been biting the goats, we wouldn’t know about that,” replied Den.

“Oh, this is very serious, very serious indeed. I have heard of cases like this, but never seen one in al my … my… er, vast experience.”

“Wow,” said Den, “Dad has turned into a Pee Pob, a vampire? Wait till I tell my friends! Heng - Pee Pob! That’s fantastic!”

“Wil he die soon?” asked Din.

“We are trying to save him, Din, we’l do al we can, but that means that you cannot tell anyone. Den! Do you understand? No-one, no-one at al , you stupid boy!

“Are you sure that boy is a Lee, Wan?” She flicked an accusatory glance at Wan, who was scowling back at her with as much disrespect as she could muster towards an old woman who had just saved her dying husband’s life.

“So, there it is. Those are your options. Ultimately, it is your decision –

al four of you - since you are going to have to procure the ‘remedy’ and Heng is going to have to take it al his remaining life for there is no cure for this condition.”

Da al owed herself to slump back against one of the roof supports and closed her eyes as if she were closing a book and had ended the session. The family looked at her and then at each other wondering how they were going to get out of this one.

While Aunty Da appeared to be in a trance or even asleep, the other three debated what they should do next.

“Well,” said Wan, “we can’t really get much blood from the locals, can we? Most of them wouldn’t give you the skin off a cold rice pudding, leave alone a pint of their blood and we can’t afford to buy it from them.”

“We could capture tourists and drain their blood into bottles and then store it in the fridge…” said Den.

“We don’t actual y get many tourists up here, do we, Den?” said his mother with a click of her tongue.

“We could try the cocktail of different animals’ blood and we could al donate a pint of blood each per month,” chipped in Din.

“Mmm, I don’t know how much blood a person can give in a year, but twelve pints sounds a lot to me – nice thought though, dear.”

“Perhaps some members of the extended family would be prepared to donate some blood from time to time, your father is pretty well-liked around here…”

“We could offer to buy al the blood from people who die,” offered Den.

“You have to get the blood out of a body before it dies, I think, love, otherwise the heart has stopped and there is nothing to pump it out.”

“We could hang them up by their feet and put a tap in their throat …

or their heart … or both?”

“I see, so when someone’s dear old mama dies and everyone is crying about that, you propose to rush around there before she’s cold and ask if we can tie her up by the feet and drain her blood into a bucket for your father to drink later, eh?

“How well do you think that would go down?”

“We could offer to take some before…”

“Don’t even suggest such a vile, stupid thing!”

“How about babies… Maybe not, eh?” said Den and then fell silent, al his suggestions having been rejected so far.

“In summary, then, so far we have first, col ect blood from members of the family and second, make a cocktail of animal blood, neither of which we are sure wil work.

“Anything else?”

“We could … no, maybe not…” said Den.

“Come on, out with it, stupid or not,” said his mother, “we are desperate and have to consider every option.”

“Well, I could become a Moslem… then I could take four wives and that would provide four more blood donors… and if they have, say, four kids each, then that’s another sixteen donors and…”

“Yes, OK, Den, thanks for that! I wish I hadn’t asked now… Next thing, you’ll be suggesting that your sister goes on the game and charges two pints a go!”

Din blushed deeply at the very thought and was shocked that her mother had even said it, but Den was nodding in thought until Wan kicked him.

“As far as I see it, we have two more problems that we haven’t even considered yet,” said Din. “Aunty Da said that really, Dad has to approve our plan because he has to drink the stuff and we need something for tomorrow.”

“Perhaps we can use goats’ blood milkshake for tomorrow, since your Dad seemed to prefer it to chicken flavour, but yes, you’re right, we do have to do something more permanent soon. We can ask Aunty about that later. As for your Dad, he’l just have to eat what we give him and be thankful for it, until he is strong enough to sort out his own dietary requirements, but I’m sure he would be grateful that you thought of him.”

When the three of them had retreated into their private thoughts for a few minutes, Da ‘woke up’.

“Did you manage to come up with any new ideas, or should I say solutions?”

“No, Aunty,” admitted Wan, “Den had a few imaginative ideas, but