her in charge of the children while John and I went back to West Malaysia for a week—to which she readily agreed—I also mentioned that our month’s trial was approaching its end. I said I hoped that she was as happy to stay on in Kuching as we were to have her.
There was a longish pause that set me back on my heels before she said, “Madam, would it be all right if I gave you my answer when you return?” Feeling a bit like a lover afraid of being jilted, I could hardly say anything but yes.
An hour or so later, Ah Fong reappeared with a box wrapped in brown paper and string—the Mary Poppins touch. She looked up into my face very earnestly and asked (in pidgin English), “Madam, would you take this package to a house in downtown Kuala Lumpur? I mean would YOU bring it yourself?”
Once again, there was no way I felt I could say no. I wondered fleetingly if this box could contain drugs or other contraband. But then I said to myself that she came highly recommended and John’s and my instinct told us to trust her with our children, so it was highly unlikely that there would be anything wrong with the contents of the package.
John and I flew back to Kuala Lumpur, where it seemed as if the entire city were involved in what seemed to be an imperial visit by President Johnson. John was assigned to develop a “rainy day alternative” at the prestigious Rubber Research Institute. His program came to involve hundreds of Malaysian schoolchildren with little American and Malaysian flags lining the route to a building Johnson never entered—because it did not rain on the preferred site. (I shudder to think of how many families Johnson offended by not turning up after all these children had stood for hours under the hot sun waiting for him.) My job was to help set up and run a souvenir stand at the ambassador’s residence, on the off chance that our president or members of his party might want to buy examples of Malaysian art or crafts. (To the best of my knowledge, there were no sales.)
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