The Good Samaritan

We were driving into town for an early dinner. It was a little after 6pm and the sky was starting to darken. Although it doesn't usualy get dark till around 7pm,  the rainy season has brought regular cloud cover, and last night the clouds were heavy and angry-looking, and every now and then flashed ominously, though the threatened thunder storm had not yet been delivered.

As we passed the old man, I commented on his bicycle. He didn't ride it, but was pushing it slowly up the hill, and we wondered if he walked because the ancient bicycle was broken, or if it was just too difficult to pedal up the incline into town with no gears and an unsteady load of cardboard for recycling balanced on the back. The bicycle was brown, the nondescript colour of the many bicycles in Kampar that possibly once wore paint but now wear the patina of age with pride. The skinny, twisted old body leaned on the frame, and his head rested on the handlebars as each foot in turn shuffled a little further forward than the one before it.

We were waiting to turn at the lights when the Inventor changed his mnd.

"I have to go back and see if he needs help- he looked tired."

He executed the U-turn where we should have turned for our comfortable air-conditioned restaurant, the anticipated dinner and an early night. We passed the ancient Chinese man again, but this time he was in the saddle, slowly making his way over the crest of the hill. Heading back in the direction of home, we paused briefly at the break in the concrete divider, before the Inventor pulled the D-Max into another U-turn and we returned along the road we had been driving when we saw the man a few minutes earlier. This time, as we neared the old man, he was stationary and was fiddling with the rubber straps that held the pile of folded boxes to the bike's rack. We pulled over and the old man looked up inquiringly. His wizened face was lined with wrinkles within wrinkles, and he didn't stand straight. I was simultaeously astounded that he could still ride a bicycle and saddened that he still had to collect recycling cardboard to sustain himself.

The Inventor got out of the car and walked around it to address the old man.

"Do you need some help?"

The man looked quizzically at him. We gestured at the bike, at the tray of the ute, at him, and the back seat. He didn't nod or imply understanding, but he helped the Inventor load his things into the ute tray, and hopped into the back seat. He hadn't even finished pulling his ancient body up into the seat before I cursed out aloud at my stupidity for not ginving him the front seat. The startled old man sat huddled in the back seat, unable to understand anything we said, and we unabe to comprehend his few uttered Chinese words. I twisted to look at him.

The Inventor tried some Malay, the little he knows, and badly pronounced.

"Tingle." The little old man looked confused.

"Tinggal," I repeated. "Rumah. Di rumah awak."

This time I think he understood, for he rattled a reply too fast for me to comprehend. This time it was my turn to look confused. I gestured, pointing left, right, straight ahead. He seemed unaware that if we were to take him home, we needed to know which way to go.

"Rumah?"

"Train station," he stumbled. So we drove to the train station. We figured he must live somewhere near here, though it was quite a drive from where we had picked him up. By now the man looked a little less shell-shocked and had worked out from our gestures that we needed him to indicate which way we should drive. He indicated back out onto the main road and out of town, so the inventor turned the D-Max and we continued to drive, then there was no mistaking the right-hand-turn he indicated next.

Now I was getting worried. We were some kilometres from town, and I doubted the old man was taking us to his house. Perhaps he doesn't understand, I suggested. I wondered if he had confused our intentions. As we turned right and continued to drive, I became even more worried. We had no option but to continue, however, as leaving him here was not an option. Some minutes up the road, he indicated a right turn. Now there was no mistaking his directions, and we turned, first right, through a small town, then left. We followed the tiny strip of bitumen around a corner, then the ancient Chinese man indicated we stop, and pointed to a house on the right. He climbed down from the back seat, and I noticed with pleasure the neat yards on each side of the narrow lane. In stark contrast to our own neighbourhood, the modest little houses sat low and alone, each surrounded by a small plot of land.  Also in stark contrast to our own neighbourhood, the laneway was tidy and clean, the yards neatly tended, and in a few cases, were being tidied as I watched.

The little man carried a pile of his folded boxes up the short driveway, and the Inventor helped with the boxes as I watched. As he lifted the bicycle down from the tray, I thought of our own sparkling white Raleigh bikes that are so easy to lift up into the back.

"Is it heavy?" I inquired.

"Uh-huh," he grunted, and I noticed the steel frame and solid wood platform on which the old man carried his papers. We agreed briefly that it would slow and difficult to ride and both felt guilty that our own bikes sit idle most of the week.

The old man called a woman to the door, and she thanked the Inventor. Her English was better than the man's, and at last we could see we had indeed brought him to the right place. It had been around 10km from the place we had picked him up, and we had still been concerned that we weren't actually taking him home, but now we had delivered him home, safe and sound, and, it seemed, grateful.

"God bless you," she called to the Inventor as he turned to leave. The Good Samaritan hopped back in the driver's seat and we left for our airconditioned restaurant.