First wrong turn took one into YSL territory, where along the aisle ice-cream rose up in thirty fluro colours. At a vacant eatery a dancing troupe in service livery delivered a hand-clapping, good-time swing number. The aircon had drawn shirts, ties, heels and disproportionate numbers of Westerners.
It could not be too difficult, 150-200m from the elevated line; downhill from the station. That much was clearly recalled.
One-way traffic was promising. Touts for massage places getting warm.
Garish dress-up of cheap labour, opportunism, noise and clamour made the passage a minefield.
Three years later, the last of the past, of customary rule, had more than likely been rooted out of the area.
Ah! Yes. The Royale Bintang, KL. The Four Sisters had sat directly adjacent on the facing corner looking onto those walls.
Could the old girls possibly have held out against all the encroachment and the hellish construction? If investment in Malaysia had dried up and the economy was constricting, it did not look like it in the YSL quarter.
Four Cantonese sisters still in life three years later? The eldest would be mid-eighties. Against the odds.
Yet…What was this, then? One old face, that of the son-in-law, was it? The apron suggested.
Another too. And in behind the tea-stand a third.
Gee. You could get lucky sometimes.
Slowly crossing the stage-set from one side of the room to the other, with what must have been an odd and puzzling smile.
— What you wan? from a customer roughly volunteering aid.
Told it was four sisters that were wanted, the chap was not daunted.
— And what you wan, take them?
Well, that depended on your price, my man.
The Fourth had not yet arrived, reported Elder, the one who perhaps most reminded of Bab.
All three of the older reminded in some way: sureness of manner; the lines of jowls; the prints they wore. In their day too they might have been pretty and caused their father some consternation.
Three present and Youngest evidently in life too, delayed at some home duty, they said.
Bab likewise had three sisters. Thirty odd years after the immigration, only three could be brought together. On the single occasion that was witnessed, the event was negligently observed, casually discounted; received as simple entertainment. There was enough presence of mind only for a photograph, and very little attention.
The fourth, the youngest sister, an unlikely blonde like their father, and more beautiful than Doris Day (doubly unlikely), had stood unrecognised, uncomprehended and positively disbelieved in Bab’s kitchen vitrine along with some other ghostly mysteries. Embarrassing artefacts from some dubious unknown that was best ignored.
Changes were minimal at the Four Sisters on Bukit Bintang—Starry Hill, down to the simple, basic fare on the menu.
A young lad now dished up the mee, without the meat a thin meal of pickled mushrooms and a couple of leaves of green.
The recalcitrant gypsy Fifth of the extended family, with the red bird-cage ear-rings, was missing in action. Replaced now by others. There had been some friction last time.
A series of tables pushed together catered for banquet parties—larger office groups at least, perhaps. The four sisters still had their local fans. A group of 7-Eleven from HQ nearby had come down.
The chilli container surprised. Surely it would have been remembered had it dated back to the first acquaintance. Small plastic screw-top, yet holding a spoon within?
Ah. Glass jar was Part A. For which a cut-off plastic bottle (Part B) formed close-fitting lid.
The corner of one of the Petronas towers, split down the middle, stood as another of the orientations.
It was Bukit Bintang Station under construction opposite—the sky-line here would not be radically altered. The Four Sisters could troop some way further onward yet.
What was keeping No. 4 so long?
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