Schizophonia

By Julia Jamaldin

Schizophonia tells a story of a Malaysian Malay woman named Juni, who is accepted as a Monbukagakusho scholar to do her post-graduate studies in the western Japan city of Osaka. In the beginning, life is a blast as Juni and her friends go about their daily lives in a completely different cultural setting, but a couple of life-altering events take Juni down a spiraling descent into madness. Yet, there is still hope …

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing Singapore
• Release date: Jun 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781543751529

Julia Jamaldin

Julia Jamaldin leads the clichéd struggling writer life. It was unclear to her what her life’s direction is until she completed Schizophonia at the age of 42, at which point she realizes that writing has and always be her utmost passion. Schizophonia is her first novel. Ms Jamaldin lives in Kuala Lumpur.

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Copyright © 2019 by Julia Jamaldin.

ISBN:                  Softcover                      978-1-5437-5151-2

                            eBook                            978-1-5437-5152-9

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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CONTENTS

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26

1

I t was night. Outside, mosquitoes and other nocturnal creatures were flying, and the air heaved with humidity as the sky darkened even more to form nebulous low-lying clouds. It was rather cold in the airport. I had stepped out to kill more time, but found that the walk from the exit at one end to the exit at the other end was all one could do outside. Cars lined up on the kerb, people unloading luggage from the trunks, others saying goodbye to families and friends. There would be more of that last scene inside, so rather reluctantly, I went back inside, since there was nothing much outside anyway.

And as I was passing through the automatic glass door, the memory of my sister dropping me off and her haste kisses flitted through my mind before my eyes focused on the interior of the airport, all the way down to the shops.

I pulled my cardigan to myself as I figured what to do to kill time. One more round of the shops, I guess. From the entrances to the shops in the middle of the airport, one had to walk past all the check-in counters. Some counters had long queues, some completely empty. People of all nationalities, kids scampering around, couples in tight embraces. The last vision left me a little wanting and I remembered Nizam’s look when I told him I wanted to break up.

There was no emotion on that face that usually lit up at every word I said. But this time the words cut.

We’ve been through this a million times, Juni. Why now? Especially now, he said.

I think I told you quite a number of times that I want to break up.

Why, he said in anguish.

I sighed. Niz, we just don’t work anymore.

Why do you keep saying that?

I shook my head a little at that rather unpleasant memory and went on walking to the shops. The first one I looked at was the bookstore, as if by looking again I would find something interesting to read, but no, nothing there that would interest me. There was this hot ‘Mat Salleh’ though. Not the typical tall, blonde and handsome. Dark-haired, hair a little tousled. Deep-set eyes, engaging. Nice mouth. And right there I sighed deep, shook my head and moved on. What is it with me and ‘Mat Salleh’ guys? I swear to God I must be a deep-seated racist of some sort, only attracted to men of this ethnic persuasion.

A little pissed with myself, I went to the next shop, which was a candy store. A gaggle of girls were giggling at one corner, looking at some funny-looking candy I guess. The stuff there were pricey. If not, I would have gotten that giant Toblerone and munched away the time. Stepping out as quickly as I did at the book shop, I decided to go to the toilet and waste more time there relieving myself of waste.

No, the toilet was not a reprieve. Why was I getting so upset suddenly? Sure, the break-up jarred a bit of my self-composure, but I initiated it, it was me, not him, so I did not understand this feeling. Like something heavy in the pit of my stomach. In fact, that leaden feeling had been there the past couple of weeks. It did not come all of a sudden, but I started to notice it while I was out shopping with Nizam’s family for stuff to bring to Japan a couple of weeks ago. At times I thought it was just anxiety taking over my body, like perhaps I was too tired to move, so another force exerted itself and bucked my knees and feet to move, but leaving a leaden residue of itself in the pit of my stomach. I wondered whether it was a slow-reacting agent to that huge emotionally draining row with mother? Okay, stop right there. Will not whine about overly-critical mother.

There were clouds in my head – dark bulbous clouds that matched those outside. My thoughts wandered to the screaming match I had with my mother weeks ago. The clouds bulged even more with dark strands of negative thoughts, such as me burning at the stake of a pyre erected by my mother, she holding the torch that ignited the fire, the look of satisfaction on her face made more pronounced as the fire that engulfed me grew brighter and higher. The dark clouds filled my head to the point that I felt my head could burst. If it burst it would not matter to me anyway. I imagined a scene straight out of Carrie, brain matter splattering all over the marbled floor of the airport and even landing on some of the people around me. Blood spattering all the way to the high ceiling of the airport. It would be a spectacular show of frightful mess, I thought.

Why did we have the fight? What started it anyway? I came home one evening, only to be greeted by my mother’s accusatory tone.

Ngaper lambat sangat balik? Buat aper kat luar tu?

Her implication that I was late and that she questioned what I did outside threw me into a corner of stubborn defensiveness.

Suka hati Ju lah nak buat aper! None of your bloody business!

Ewah, dah pandai nak bloody bloody pulak ngan mak yer! Speaking konon! Okay, kalau camtu, you are a stupid stupid kid!

Fine, I’m stupid! Just stop bugging me! Mak nie ngaper tiba-tiba cam nie?

I asked her why she was like that all of a sudden. Her face reminded me of this ogre in a fairy tale I read a long time ago. What was fascinating about the ogre was that its brows were as bushy as a hedge, its eyes bulging like headlamps and were as yellow as the light of such lamps, its nose equally bulbous, and its mouth as thick as a baby’s arms. With the exception of the mouth, my mother looked exactly like the ogre and as ashen as the ogre’s complexion. My mother’s mouth was a straight line of meanness. She had never looked as ugly as she did that day. My mother did not answer my question and instead shouted at me to get out of the house after the screaming match we had.

Jangan fikir lah nak balik sini. Kamu boleh berambus saja!

Her last words really cut. My mother had, in fact, severed all ties with me when she screamed for me to leave the house.

Lost in thought, I stopped to look where I was heading; the book and candy stores were just a few feet behind me. So I scanned around for other places to dawdle. The gift shops looked a little more promising, so I headed there, on the opposite side of the wide sitting are. I was walking rather slowly, my eyes awash with the tinkle of the thingamabobs at the souvenir shops, when I was unceremoniously sideswiped by this human cannonball. Almost thrown to the floor, I caught my breath, put one foot out and turned around, only to find the human cannonball already sprinting towards the general area of the toilets.

Sorry! the human cannonball shrieked, with her gray satchel flying at the side and white trainers making sharp squeaks on the floor.

I just stood there, had not even gathered my thoughts for a suitable reaction. Supposed I was miffed, but human cannonball made me look at my watch. The flight was supposed to leave in one and a half hours, but to be on the safe side, I might as well check again.

I pulled my cardie tighter as I watched the board switching flights. Further down the list, I looked out for Kuala Lumpur-Osaka. JAL 0871 was leaving in 57 minutes.

What the fuck!

Pulling myself together, I ran a considerable distance to the entry point, which was beyond the shops, but there was already a line at the escalator going down to the immigration checkpoint. Steeling myself, I just pushed past those people.

Oii, nak ke mana tu?, the security officer said, stopping me at the head of the stairs.

Dang it! Quickly showed him my passport and boarding pass, amid the disgruntled voices at my back, and the moment he passed back my documents, I shot down the moving stairs and hotfooted across the wide length of the floor to the immigration checkpoint. The electronic scanning took a while; I supposed my fingers had become moist with sweat. As soon as they cleared me, I dashed toward the monorail taking passengers to duty-free.

The train took a couple of minutes to arrive at its destination. I kept looking at my watch. 48 minutes to go before they closed the doors. I berated myself under breath. Why I did not make sure of the time?! If my mother was here, she would have given me a lengthy lecture. Oh, for goodness sake, Juni, stop thinking about your mother!

Duty-free looked much more interesting. I had wanted to look at the perfumes, but given the fact that I could miss my flight, and have to fork out 4,999 ringgit that they paid for the ticket to buy another one, branded perfumes at bargain prices were not much of a scintillating idea anymore.

They’re still too damn pricey! I shouted in the air as I ran past the shops, with one or two people looking at me.

The people leaving the gate were down to the last one or two, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Could always count on Malaysian timing if caught in a jam like that.

Wait!

I turned around to find human cannonball girl heading right at me. I may have said Damn, hopefully she had not been close enough to hear that. We made eye contact and smiled at each other. She catching her breath, me uttering latecomer under my breath, and we both put our stuff on the rollers for the X-ray machine to work its wonder.

Picking up my bag quickly, I walked with a slight feeling of trepidation toward the plane. The JAL insignia looked a little unreal to me. I mean, am I really going to Japan? It was raining as I passed through the glass walkway. Hope it was not going to be a bumpy ride. This was not my first time on an airplane though. The last time was a long time ago, embarked on a journey to England. Back then, I remembered being so excited. Now, as I crossed the threshold, I could not really be sure. My feelings were kind of meshed together that I could not tell where excitement began and ended up in fear. The leaden mass heaved a little, and I knew that it contained fear, that debilitating shadow.

The flight attendants at the door flashed their ready-made smiles and pointed us to our respective aisles. Mine was the second from the door. I did not know what it was but for the first time in my life, I could not care less whether I would get an aisle or a window seat. Normally, these sort of things mattered to me, like how I would very much prefer to get the aisle seat so I could get in and get out fast. But not today, not now. The leaden mass in the pit of my stomach rolled in something else I could not put a finger to. What was it? Then human cannonball girl came right up at me.

Hey, we’re sitting next to each other, she said.

I gave her a ready-made smile, and let her through. She went right in and sat in the window seat. Most people were already adjusted on theirs. After all we were the last ones to come in.

I was still standing.

I heard a voice coming from somewhere. Then, I looked around and found that it came from human cannonball girl.

Aren’t you going to sit down?

I did not know what made me say it, but said it I did.

What is it to you anyway?

Human cannonball girl blinked a few times and said, Huh?

I settled in my seat, said Nothing and fastened my seat belt. Rain was spattering hard on the window, and in the distance I could hear thunder rumbling. I turned to cannonball girl and smiled a little too brightly, in my quite obvious way to let her know that I was not some nutter. She smiled, but her eyes darted from my left ear to the invisible lint on my left shoulder. At least, that was what I thought she was doing. But, rather unexpectedly, she introduced herself.

My name’s Caren. Actually it’s Yee Mei; my full name is Cheng Yee Mei, but I like to be called Caren lah. That’s Caren with a C. A lot of people always get that wrong, but what to do? she said with an irrepressible squeaky giggle.

Cannonball Girl is making contact; quick, get yourself out of here, I thought. But now that I could look at her closely, there was nothing uncomfortable about her features. Her eyes may have that vacant look about them, but a tug at the gut was telling me her mind was not vacuous. Other than that, the wide buck-teeth befitted a human cannonball girl.

Juni, I said, offering a handshake. She looked at my proferred hand for a second and then took it in a slightly clammy grip.

You’re one of the Monbukagakusho scholars, right? Caren said.

I am. I didn’t see you at the awards presentation though.

I was. I saw you with a guy. Your boyfriend ah?

I ignored her question and pressed on.

How come I never saw you at the interviews? There are only, like, thirty of us.

I didn’t see you at the interviews. They had them on different days, lor.

I nodded, slightly embarrassed, and said, Yeah, they were on different days.

Immediately after that, I bent down to my bag and made a show of rummaging through it, picking out things and looking at them, while thinking how was I supposed to avoid talking to her. But I soon realized there was no need to do so. Caren was busy herself, texting on her phone, which made me poke through my own. There was no text message on my phone. I looked at the phone’s rubbery keypad, at the lack of grooves at the edges of the plastic casing, at the shine still on the LCD. It was hardly used, and now it would not be used at all. I switched it off, and was about to take the SIM out when the thought popped in my head of whether they would have the same service provider in Japan. I remembered vaguely Nizam talking about this, but I guess I did not pay attention at the time. My mind at the time was furiously working out logical, firm but gentle remarks on his response to my announcement of a break-up.

The captain announced himself and tried to occupy our attention in a short introduction to the flight’s itinerary, how the current weather was going to affect the flight, etcetera etcetera, but my mind was not focused. It wandered to the heavy rain outside, to the attendants shuttling back and forth, their heavy perfumes wafted in the air as they passed by me, to the video screen at the back of the seat in front of me. They would not be showing the entertainment until we were up in the air.

The leaden mass in the pit of my stomach seemed to lurch upwards. For a moment I thought it might be indigestion, but I was not burping. Fear and excitement formed the coagulated mass, other feelings came in for the attack. There was this heightened awareness that something was about to happen; then I realized it was anticipation, gathering momentum. Without thinking, I rubbed my belly. The motion not really soothing, but it at least distracted me from thinking through all the emotive mess, the coagulating mass. Nevertheless, one thought, which I had pushed to somewhere in the recesses of my mind, came rushing forward. I had put the unreality of the situation at the back of my mind, but now it was all flooding in, and I smiled, despite of myself.

The airplane slowly backed out of its lot at the gate, and turned to the other side, and picked up pace as it taxied on the runway. I looked at the moving vista outside, merely lamp posts, and the occasional shack, and thought to myself, I was getting away at last, away from writing jobs that paid little money, the mindless routines, away from humdrum sights, away from the old me, away from my mother. Before we left my sister’s place, I looked in the mirror one last time and decided, just like that, that I would not wear the ‘hijab’ anymore. It came as a resolve on its own, without any forethought – no going back and forth through the pros and cons. Not that I consciously had packed all my headscarves; I never even told my sister I was not going to wear the ‘hijab’. When I came down the stairs, she naturally asked why I was not wearing a headscarf. I simply told her I was not going to wear any. Her brow slightly arched, she looked briefly at my brother-in-law, and walked in silence toward the door. On the way to the airport, my sister called up my mother and said that I was not wearing the ‘hijab’ anymore. She then passed the phone to me and all I could hear at the end of the line was this lengthy lecture about how I was going to hell for not wearing the ‘hijab’ and that I was too old for taking it off. What surprised me at the time was the general tone of her voice. It was condescending as usual, but it contained none of the ire that was spat at me weeks ago when we had that huge row. Had my mother just forgotten what had transpired between us? I simply hung up on her and passed the phone back to my sister.

Then my sister asked whether I was going to keep in touch with mother. I said maybe. Then all was quiet for a while; I contemplated all the things I would do once I was in Japan, not all of which one would consider a practising Muslim would do. I was not sure where all these ideas had come from. I think I simply made a decision to be a different person in keeping with a different country. Then my sister broke the silence and intruded my thoughts by saying that I should keep in touch with her, at the very least. I said okay, and that was that.

The plane stopped, but the engines started their revolutions, loud whirring noise that filled the cabin. I looked to the people on my left, a few seemed ensconced in the narrow seats. They could be seasoned travellers, I thought. Or maybe I’m just getting a bit overwhelmed by nervousness, like the kind you feel before a roller-coaster ride. All of a sudden the plane hurtled forward, the engines whirring louder, the tyres bumping hard on the tarmac. I held tight to the armrests, and waited for the moment when the tyres would leave ground. And when I thought the mechanical noise would not stop crashing in together with the gnashing of rubber on asphalt, the plane tilted a few degrees higher and gravity relented. The pressure was building in my ear canals, and I swallowed several times. The video screen showed the gradual ascent – 5,000ft, 6,000,ft, 7,000ft.

We passed through pockets of turbulence. They were not major, but the turbulences would not make it easy for me to sleep. I passed by a number of people who were already in varying states of slumber as I walked back to my seat after going to the toilet. What? Already? They have not served dinner yet, I thought. Caren was looking out the window. I was not sure what she was looking at, seeing as there was nothing to look at in the first place, but then her eyes did not seem to be focused. Nothing like a good day dream, I guess.

Your first time ker? I asked after plumping up the pillow and making myself comfortable.

Huh?

Your first time going overseas?

She smiled and said, Yes.

"You must be really