CHAPTER 5 In the evenings, Dahlan worked in the narrow

cubicle that was his office with an intensity that he recognised was doing him no good.

Outside his window, the sky loomed dark above and behind the haze thrown up by the lights of the city.

He suddenly remembered his wife, Anisah the one who has been chosen by his parents to be his spouse.

During his study in England, he has to send his wife together with their son to stay wit his parents.

After three years, he came back with the barrister’s qualification, but his marriage was futile.

When he was in his car driving home in the dark that the fate of Neelambigai alias Fatimah binti Abdullah, the young woman whose body neither her relatives nor the religious Department would claim, exercised him.

Her mother would not speak directly with Dahlan when he went to the house to offer help.

The problem arose when it comes to bury her body because she has converted into Muslim.

He found it was not a simple case of him walking up to the mortuary and saying to those who denied her recognition.

When he was unseeing after he got back to his house on the road to Kepong, Gita fed him and let him sit staring at the television for a while.

They met for the first time in years during rehearsals for Bahasa Malaysia production of Rashomon in the old Town Hall.

When they was at the Campbell Road having their meal together, Gita was starring wide-eyed at a group of men who had stood up suddenly and giving some of expressionless faces towards them.

People at other tables looked at them rose hurriedly and began to run.

There were shouts in Malay and Cantonese. Gita and Dahlan ran towards the road, then

turned back when they heard a voice shouting contemptously, “Melayu!”

Then they groped their way up to the steps of his house which stood on raised ground and was elevated on tall wooden floor.

Dahlan told Gita that he had received a few threatening letters, just expressing outrage at his views and demanding that he cease or he could be “in trouble”.

She felt sorry for him and was curious to see how he was going to fare.

So she stayed with him often, and listened while he spoke critically on the Govermenent’s tardiness in acting against religious bigots and advocates of forced cultural transmission.

Dahlan meets with his defender Ti Shuang alias Ang Ju Piau who has been arrested when he and his followers were praying in the open place.

Not long after that, Dahlan was not so sure what he had hoped to achieve by addressing no one in particular on the topic of religious intolerance from the steps of St. Peter’s Church in Malacca.

Gita who pressed him to tell her what had happened at the interviewed said bitterly that she was too kafir and asked him to leave her.

They argued some more but she was hostile where he wanted reassurance in the path he had chosen.

When he held her, she realised that it was not passion alone that moved him, but curiously, a remorse in her tenderness that made her burst out weeping.

PLOT Exposition In the evenings, Dahlan worked in the narrow

cubicle that was his office with an intensity that he recognised was doing him no good.

He suddenly remembered his arranged marriage with Anisah, the woman that has chosen by his parents to become his wife.

But the marriage was futile when he has to leave his wife and his son with his parents because he has to further his study in England for three years.

Raising Action

When he was in his car driving home in the dark that the fate of Neelambigai or Fatimah binti Abdullah, the young woman whose body neither her relatives nor the religious Department would claim, exercised him.

The problem occurred when it comes on how and where to bury the body because Neelambigai once a Hindu but convert into Muslim.

Her family do not want to claim her body because she is no longer their family member.

Climax

When Dahlan and Gita were at the Campbell Road having their meal together, Gita was starring wide-eyed at a group of men who had stood up suddenly and giving some of expressionless faces towards them.

People at other tables looked at them rose hurriedly and began to run.

Gita and Dahlan ran towards the road, then turned back when they heard a voice shouting contemptously, “Melayu!”

Failing Action

Dahlan informed Gita that he had received a few threatening letters, just expressing outrage at his views and demanding that he cease or he could be “in trouble”.

Gita felt sorry for him and was curious to see how Dahlan was going to fare.

So she stayed with him often, and listened while he spoke critically on the Govermenent’s tardiness in acting against religious bigots and advocates of forced cultural transmission.

Resolution

Gita who pressed him to tell her what had happened at the interviewed and suddenly said that she was too kafir and asked Dahlan to leave her.

She told him that she was so tired with what had happened between them.

They argued some more but she was hostile where he wanted reassurance in the path he had chosen.

When he held her, she realised that it was not passion alone that moved him, but curiously, a remorse in her tenderness that made her burst out weeping.

CHARACTERS Dahlan• A lawyer and married with Anisah and have one son.• Having affair with Gita, his colleagues. Anisah• A daughter of a neighbour who was one of the state

assemblymen for Batu Pahat.• Dahlan’s wife, she has been chosen by his parents

to become the daughter in-law.

Neelambigai alias Fatimah binti Abdullah• 22 years old woman• Suicide herself by set herself on fire

Gita• Used to be in same university with

Dahlan• She was in atheletics, a champion

sprinter.• She became a lecturer in her

university.

Ti Shuang alias Ang Ju Piau• The leader of the spiritual movement

who had been arrested by the police.• He was about forty years old with a

round, florid face that was nonetheless good-looking.