The year of pleasures

I have another of Elizabeth Berg's books. This one is called The Year of Pleasures. Its about a middle aged woman who tries to cope with life after her husband's death. She had no children and no family so in the beginning had to grapple with the loneliness and a kind of fear. She sells her home and leaves all that is familiar to her and courageously buys a house right in the country. Here she catches up with old friends and makes new ones, learning all the while that life is what we make of it. Its not that she suddenly becomes strong, no, I love it because it's so real and so down to earth. The struggles that she goes through are the ones anyone might go through in her place. Reading it I wondered how I would cope when Repin passes on. Or would I be the one to go first, leaving him behind? I don't know but however it is I feel we all need to face that ultimate event. Sometimes I think of a friend whose husband passed away suddenly. She broke down completely and was very depressed and needy for a long time. It took her almost two years to just be able to cope. At first she couldn't even talk about her husband without crying and breaking down. I hope that I never become like that, but deep inside I know I'm stronger and hopefully will not go through that kind of suffering. Not just for my sake, but also for my children's sake. I know that in our religion we are not allowed to love a person that much but I guess its impossible not to, especially in her position where she depended totally on her husband for everything.

In this story Elizabeth Berg delves into a woman's psyche and takes us right into her character's life, the neighbours, the friends who help her, even the children in the neighbourhood. She befriends a young man, a twenty year old who helps her with the chores in her house, her relationship with her former best friend Lorraine, and another single woman, Carol, her neighbour, the one with the young son. Her memeories of her husband play an important part in the novel and even though he is not a main characterin the story, we get a picture of him from Bette - a gentleman, wise, patient and very loving. Her account of his thoughtful deeds are so romantic and yet shows us what a gem of a husband he must have been - the way he leaves her little notes to jog her memory of things they did together. This is a book to be read slowly, not to be rushed through. May be a bit slow for some but a treasure for me. A book that makes you think.

reminiscing the past

When I was growing up in Melaka, the town was so safe that we kids were given the freedom to go most places, as long as we told someone., meaning an adult. My favourite haunt was St Paul's Hill and the then Malacca Library, which was at the foot of St Paul. In the 60s the Malacca Library was situated at the government offices which is actually the Stadt house or Stadthuys. It was made up of three rooms - one children's section, one adult's section and one reference section. The children's section had six wooden shelves - all taller than the average man. Even as a child I was a voracious reader and by the time I was in Standard 6, I had read practically every book there was in the children's section. The Librarian, one Mr Lim, was a grumpy and dour looking man with a pronounced limp in one foot. I had become a member of the library when I was in Standard 2. By the time I was ten years old Mr Lim no longer shouted at me to be careful with the books, nor did he scold me if I returned them late. I not only was a member of the library, I was its most faithful visitor, turning up every other day to borrow books.
On Saturdays, a friend , Visalachi and I would walk towards the library, spend a lovely hour browsing through the books, then after choosing the ones we'd like to borrow, we would climb up the hill and sit under one of the huge rain trees overlooking the sea. Sometimes we'd just sit and talk and imagine all kinds of things. We would imagine that we were princesses waiting to be rescued by a handsome prince. The ruins of the church on top of the hill was our prison, and a wicked witch had put a spell on us. Of the two of us I was the story teller, so I'd tell Visalachi tall tales of adventure and romance, and she'd listen round eyed to me, almost believing every word. Sometimes we'd sit quietly reading our books until the sun became too hot to sit outside and our stomaches growled in hunger. Then we'd trudge back towards my house where we'd take a huge drink of cool water from my mum's gigantic earthenware water jar. Then, Visalachi would collect her books and walk on home to Lorong Panjang. Those were carefree days, where my only thoughts were finishing homework, reading as many books from the library as possible and lying in the tall grass on top of St Paul's Hill. In 1964 the library was moved to a new building across the river and I was not allowed to go there on my own because it was considered too far from our kampung. Thus ended my library days for a while. But when I went to Form 1, I found a far greater treasure than the ancient Malacca Library with its mouldy and outdated books. The library at the secondary school was even bigger, with more books and fascinating titles. I became a librarian and joined the brigade of bibliophiles. Thus began my love affair with books, a love that never died nor faded.

Sarah - attachment in melaka

Can you imagine, its already the end of second week since Sara came home? Time really flies. She has finished her practical and we're back in KL. I think this year she didn't enjoy her attachment as well as she did last year. She was with Zakiah and maybe this made a difference. At least she learnt something since she went to Ward C4. The previous ward - C3 was not very interesting according to her. It seems the houseman in charge, a Chinese guy, didn't try to help them at all and only talked in Chinese the whole time. That's very common here in Malaysia - I hear of teachers teaching Maths in Chinese, especially if there are more Chinese than Malays in a class. Or even giving special tips to a group of Chinese students in the class. The racial discrimination doesn't run one way - it goes both ways.

Things have been even worse in the past decade or so. Instead of becoming more integrated, I think students in Malaysia, and in KL in particular are becoming even more racial in most things. I remember when I was in primary school, we never felt that way. Of course we knew that we were Malay or Chinese or Indian but we never felt that one race is better or worse than the other. Things were never done along racial lines. I had more Chinese than Malay friends and even used to sleep at Ranjeet's house sometimes. I remember sitting in her room for hours talking, and then taking lunch with her and her family. I never even thought that the food is halal or not then. Things then were so straightforward. I remember coming home from school on Eddie or Chong's bicycle if its raining. I was in Standard 4 and in the afternoon session. Whenever it rained, and it rained often in the evenings, my mum would ask Chong our neighbour's son to go to my school to fetch me on his bike. He must have been about 16 or 17 years old but he did it willingly. He'd put my bag in front of him and I'd sit on the carrier at the back and we'd cycle home in the rain. Sometimes it would be Eddie, the Eurasian boy. Once it was Singh - but I didn't really like him somehow. Life was simple then. You never hear of rape cases or kidnappings. Burglaries too was a rare event if any. Actually there was nothing much to steal too back then. I think its a sad thing that we cannot even let our children play outside without worrying that they'd disappear like poor little Sharlinie.