Origen bowed. “Thank the Lord.”
By nightfall Origen had left them and returned to the town. Under the cover of darkness and in a freshly-dug pit no less than six feet deep, Great Bear laid down a chest of lead no larger than a jewellery box. In the light of his torch he looked at it for one last time and compacted the earth over it.
Behind him their dwelling glowed in candlelight, and on a straw mat the young boy drowsed, his colour having returned after a meal of roast and warmed milk. The woman, her hair now unbound and flowing in a foreign, scented breeze, came outside and sat down beside Great Bear. “What would you name him?” she asked.
“Aldred,” he answered without delay, looking at the sky.
“After him?”
“After him.”
She nuzzled closer. “Have you ever loved life, Great Bear?”
“Only when I started living it for someone else.” He reached over and took her hand. “And I’m loving it very much right now, Sayuri.”
On their wicker seats they reclined, exhaling, and watched the stars together.
Acknowledgements
IN 1852 CAPTAIN Henry Keppel recorded in his journal an incident of a young Malayan boy who was attacked by a man-eating tiger and subsequently rescued by the two buffaloes which he was herding. One of the buffaloes pursued the tiger into the jungle while the other kept watch over the wounded boy, though the journal entry did not mention if the boy lived.
In this story, I made sure he did.
Many of the insights that composed the historical scenes were inspired by various exemplary sources, without which the vagaries of an intriguing past would have slipped away unnoticed. I thank Iain Manley and Michael Wise for their rare and invaluable compilations. Tan Kok Yang for his work on Queenstown. Loh Kah Seng for his vivid chronicle of the Bukit Ho Swee fire. Edwin A. Brown and Mary Brown for their meticulous documentation of the Sepoy Mutiny. The National Library Board and Singapore Press Holdings for their archives and resources.
An English folk song appears in Chapter 40, titled The Poor Murdered Woman by Leslie Nelson-Burns. As you might have guessed, the recurring lyrics that appear throughout this novel belonged to Tea for Two by Vincent Youmans and Irving Caesar.
Heartfelt thanks to my only brother, who bore the agony of reading my formative works which I still keep hidden. His little murmurs of encouragement held such strength. Edmund Wee and his team at Epigram Books for believing enough in the work to put it into print. Jason Erik Lundberg and JY Yang, my editors, who have been instrumental in polishing the work to a high gloss. Above all, my utmost gratitude to my wife and first-reader, Sandra, who saw through with me every step in the production of this novel.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tham Cheng-E is an architect who also writes about the special needs community for the online magazine Special Seeds, and maintains a family blog on parenting and Down syndrome. Surrogate Protocol is his first novel.
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