When my husband, Abdullah Badawi, was chosen by our great and gracious leader, Datuk Seri Mahathir Mohammed to be deputy prime minister a year ago, we were ecstatic. We collected a great number of Dr. M’s speeches and sayings so that my husband could study them. As he had very little time left after the press conferences, the public functions and the demands of his new position, he would take them to bed. He would memorise and then practise repeating all the things that Dr. M had said in the past, and I would check his accuracy. (All that time, we didn’t bother about the birds and the bees you know.) The intensive study often went on up to 2 or 3 am in the morning but, after a few months, he became really good at it. So, whenever Dr. M made a speech in public, my husband was able to repeat it word for word at his public functions and press conferences so as to reinforce the message. I was very proud of him.

I though we could start worrying about the birds and the bees once again in bed, but my husband was not satisfied. This is because he is very ambitious. He said that he had to practise not just the things that Dr. M said, but the way he said them as well. So, we got a lot of recordings of the PM’s past speeches from the local media. My husband would play them in bed and he would try to repeat after them using the same stresses and intonations. Dr. M has got a really strong voice and, initially, my husband was not able to follow. But I encouraged him to shout at me and the servants more often in the house and he was able to develop a more powerful voice. After a lot of hard work, he could parrot a speech after our PM very convincingly. I was even more proud of him.

I went out and bought some new, fancy-looking pyjamas because I thought we could worry once more about the birds and the bees. But, surprisingly, my husband was still not satisfied. He is so ambitious and he said his position was not strong enough until he learns to gesture and move about in exactly the same way as Dr. M. So we installed a giant video screen across one wall of the bed room and we contacted RTM and TV3 for video clips of the PM. So, at bedtime, we played the videos and my husband would practise his facial expressions and his hand movements so that they imitated Dr. M. It was not easy but my husband was very determined and he succeeded after much hard work. I was so proud of him that my heart was fit to burst.

By then, however, I decided not to worry about the birds and the bees any more. My husband reminded me so much of Dr.M – the things he said, the way he said them, his facial expressions and the way he gestured – that it would have been like sleeping with Dr. M himself. Although I admire and love our great leader, I wouldn’t dream of, you know. Anyway, I got no more appetite in bed.

All my husband’s hard work finally paid off when Dr. M announced his support for my husband for the post of UMNO deputy president and even forced the UMNO Supreme Council to pass a resolution that there will be no contest for the post in the next General Assembly. This means that when Dr. M finally steps down, my husband will most likely be able to step up to be PM of Malaysia. That night, in our bedroom, my husband did a half-hour impersonation of Dr. M at a press conference announcing the sacking and misdeeds of his deputy while I watched from the bed. He talked about foreign agents, sexual immorality, adultery and sodomy as Dr. M had once done. He described disgusting homosexual acts as Dr. M had once done. It was very impressive, but as I watched, I began to realise that something was missing. ‘It’s very good, bang,’ I told him, ‘but there is some ingredient that is just not there.’

He stopped short and became very anxious: ‘What? What? Are you saying that I’m not a good enough marionette to fill Dr. M’s shoes? What can possibly be missing?’

‘You speak and you act exactly like him, but, unfortunately, the cruelty is not there. It doesn’t come from the heart like in Dr. M, it doesn’t show in your eyes. Anyone can see that you are just pretending to be cruel.’

He saw my point and his face fell. He sat on the bed in despair. ‘What am I going to do? What if Najib or Tengku Razaleigh gets the job because they have got more natural cruelty than I?’

‘Don’t worry,’ I told him. ‘Cruelty takes a long time to develop but fortunately we have time. Although Dr. M says that this will be his last term we all know that he will be in power until his last breath. So there could be many more years yet, bang.’

His face brightened up. ‘You are right. I think I should start developing it right away. There’s no time to lose.’

Then, to my surprise, he slapped me hard a few times across the cheek. It was the first time in our marriage that he had ever hit me.

Tsu Nam
9/01/00