And there it was. This was the man I would fight with, for a country that we both loved. For justice. For freedom. For Malaysia.

Jessica had called him again. He had finally managed to recover from the jetlag, but her habit of calling in the early hours before dawn to hurl expletives at him was becoming too predictable and intrusive. Getting involved with Jess was a mistake, one he hoped he was not making with Del.

He had vowed to not get involved for a while but he found women a necessary distraction. He wanted to come back to Malaysia to feel the fervor of Reformasi. Reading about the street protests ignited latent fires in his heart. He had been away for too long, transplanted in a land that he had no desire to grow up in. England was home, but Malaysia was where he belonged.

The young woman he met had a passion, the kind that he himself lacked. He never had to fight for anything. Privilege and wealth had made him soft; he was ambivalent about the world. But now, the country was at a crossroads, and he wanted to be part of the new wave of change. He felt that he had become too English, his Malay rusty, sad. His grandmother had taught him songs, graceful Malay pantuns that he had so loved as a child.

“More, Tok, the one about the cempedak and the banana!”

His grandmother would laugh, pinch his cheeks and sit him on her thigh and together they would sing the Rasa Sayang, the folk song all Malaysian children grew up singing:

Buah cempedak di luar pagar,
Ambil galah tolong jolokkan,
Saya budak baru belajar,
Kalau salah tolong tunjukkan.

Rasa sayang, hey!
Rasa sayang sayang hey,
Hey lihat nona jauh,
Rasa sayang sayang hey!

Pisang emas dibawa berlayar,
Masak sebiji di atas peti,
Hutang emas boleh dibayar,
Hutang budi dibawa mati.

Omar had not felt inspired about anything for years. He had put up little resistance in his life. His father had dictated everything by remote, somehow. From him being sent to boarding school, to the subjects he took for his O- and A-Levels, getting into Cambridge, to a quick succession of spritely, blonde English girlfriends whom he bedded in university and then in London.

It was all rather predictable. Even Jessica was somehow scripted into his life. Everything just happened to him, especially when he didn’t want anything to happen in particular. When he met her out on the town with his mates one night in a pub in Farringdon, she had seemed shy about the fact that he was, to all appearances, from the east.

“Malaysia, that’s where you’ve got those lovely white beaches yeah.”

“Yes, we do have quite…a few of them.”

“Have you been? Must be oh…so gorgeous.”

“Yes, well…”