The Brunei Boy

I wake up from my usual afternoon nap, which I usually call 'take five', to suddenly feel the urge to contact and phone a very close friend whom I have not heard from for a long time. In fact it must be four to five years ago or even more since we last see each other. Each time we meet it will be a long chat over another close friend of ours, Hussein Brunei , who we are both fond of due to long associasionship of the past. Hussein Brunei has made a name for himself as the most successful old boy of MCKK in that part of the world. Indeed he is the first and the last Brunei student ever sponsored by Brunei to the College. Hussein completed his Form Five and attained Grade Three in the Cambridge School Certificate of the time and decides to join the Brunei First Malay Regiment, which is under the command of my late uncle Major General Tunku Ahmad Tunku Besar Burhanuddin.

I recall the occasion when my uncle tells me that he has Hussein amongst his first group of Second Lieutenants and that Hussein seems to be doing well. I ask my uncle of his prospects in the Regiment and he says but for the fact that Hussein is at times caught napping at morning roll calls, if he pulls his socks he will have no problem to reach the rank of Major fast, since it is a new Regiment and they need to upgrade the ranks so as to bring it at par as to what is expected of a full army. Indeed Hussein does make it to the rank of Major to which he remains holding until he retires from the Regiment later on at the optional retiring age of fourty years old. However my uncle has since left the Regiment when he makes Hussein a Major. If my uncle were to continue to be with the Regiment then, it is almost a certainty that Hussein will have attained higher rank. Like everything else in life, it is who you know that matters and Hussein is already considered as our family member by virtue of his ' adoption' by my late father when he is in MCKK. As you will recall in my earliest articles I use to have him home at our house during the College holidays since he cannot go back to Brunei at the end of each term because Brunei only pays one annual flight home. Hussein being what he is throughout his College life a spendthrift , it is impossible to expect that he will have saved anything at all to meet his flight fares to Brunei.

Hussein has always been very close to me as a good and faithful friend. We have never quarreled and get involved in anything that could affect our friendship. If at all, he feels being sidelined when at one time he finds out that I am interested in Ainul and likewise Ainul's feeling the same towards me. It all starts when Hussein as a Lieutenant comes to visit the University of Malaya where I am studying and asks me if we can go out together with any girl that I know. Without a thought I suggest to him a girl that is no stranger to us Collegians by virtue of her brother being a fellow Collegian. So I say to him I know of Fatah's sister , Ainul, who is studying at the Language Institute complex which is two kilometers away from my University Residential College. So I contact Ainul and we all go out for movie and followed by dinner, both of which are all on Hussein who insists on paying for everything .This is typical of Hussein and his generosity but with this outing it is his way of showing how well-off he is compared to us students. It is all right with me. Indeed I never even thought anything of it or the outing either. It so turns out that Hussein falls in love with Ainul .Apparently later Ainul tells me that Hussein follows up with visits to her place and bringing gifts for her. She asks me if she should accept these gifts and I tell her it is all right because Hussein must feel grateful that he has someone he can associate with ease. At no time do I realize that Hussein is actually in love with Ainul. It is months later when I tell Hussein that Ainul is my steady girlfriend and that I intend to marry her. There and then I see an immediate change in Hussein's reaction which shows clearly to me that I have upset him with my statement. After that Hussein stops visiting our place and we lose contact of him altogether.

Hussein makes a sudden appearance almost a year later after Ainul and I get married. He comes to visit our house and to introduce the girl he will marry. She is a petite looking girl and somewhat Eurasian in looks. Her name is Rose It is a few months later we are informed by Hussein that he gets married to her and are settling in Brunei. We do not try to get any details on his wife's family background but we are happy to note that Rose's younger sister gets married to the Sultan of Brunei, a marriage that will later on bring about a lot of influence and advantages to both Rose and Hussein to set up their business ventures in Brunei. Indeed Hussein becomes very wealthy and so is his wife.

One day, we receive a call from Hussein to invite us to dinner at the Equatorial Hotel Kuala Lumpur, to which we delightfully accept. It is at this meeting that Hussein gives both of us Ebel watches, a gift that is still in our possession today and the watch I still use till today. Typical of Hussein . He is showy and proud of it. We have a very lavish dinner that night and after that Hussein disappears again. It is years down the road when Hussein makes his appearance in KL but this time with a group of his friends who are total strangers to me. When I visit him at his favourite hotel The Equatorial, he is all lavish with his generosity when I notice he gives tips of ten ringgit to the hotel lift attendant and more ringgit when he enters his car which is no less than a Mercedes. I cannot fathom whether it is a rented car or his own but I do not care less. After all it is Hussein's way of showing off that he is wealthy. I feel very happy for him. Thus I join him and his friends for the merry making at a night club that night and I go home late. Later I hear Hussein goes on this merrymaking spree for days on end until he leaves home for Brunei. It is at this last episode that I happen to meet and is introduced to a certain Major Zainal, the person that I am trying to phone, as mentioned at the beginning of this article.

I quite like Major Zainal when I first meet him. He is very unassuming, unlike most military officers that we come across those days. He cuts me as being someone who is honest and candid. We start to talk and to know each other and at the end of the day when I say farewell to him , he tells me that I must not believe what I see of Hussein. The truth will be seen soon enough because he says all these other friends are just parasites who clings to Hussein by flattering him, to which Hussein is very fond of. Hussein has major plans to run business ventures in Kuala Lumpur through these friends. As it turns out later, nothing comes of them but instead Hussein incurs losses in money and kind.

I discover this when later on Ainul and I make a trip to Brunei on Hussein's invitation. He puts us up at the Hyatt Hotel although later on we do visit him at his house to be with his family .It all seems to be a happy family but underneath it all something else is brewing up. On another occasion when I make a business trip with my English partner, the truth about Hussein is revealed to me by Major Zainal. Hussein has been spending a lot of money trying his hands at getting a petroleum concession in Indonesia. Through a so-called broker in Singapore, a certain Major Singh, Hussein has been pumping money by the thousands on the phantom petroleum concession. This Major Singh is so adapt at convincing Hussein that his goal is about to accomplish if he is willing to go a step further each time he meets this Major for the good news on his venture. It is on that particular visit that Ainul and I make that we are asked to be the courier for Hussein to hand over a sum of twenty five thousand Singapore Dollars to this Major Singh at the Singapore airport. The whole thing looks a cloak and dagger affair for the two of us since we have never met this Major before. We are only told that he will be wearing striped jacket and waiting at a certain counter at the airport and that he will introduce himself to us by mentioning Hussein's name. We meet at last this Major Singh and from the outset Ainul feels that this guy is not genuine. He is a confidence trickster who harbors at major airports looking for easy victims - people like Hussein - who is all out to look for instant venture and fame. Anyway, we hand over the envelope of money and without even a show of thanks to us, the guy simply disappears. It is Major Zainal who later tells me that Hussein spends almost two hundred and fifty thousand Brunei dollars through this Major Singh for the elusive petroleum venture in Indonesia. My visit with my English partner to Brunei to meet up with Hussein to seek his guidance and influence for a project management work on Brunei turns out to be a futile trip. We never even get to meet Hussein and instead he delegates Major Zainal to look after us. We got to meet certain people of in significance to our objective and just calls it a day after that. After that visit we never again see Hussein until today.

News of him and his ventures filter through to both of us through his wife Rose who makes contacts with us each time she happens to be in KL for personal business trip or when she is in the entourage of the Sultan of Brunei to KL. However, the news that comes from Rose on him are not at all good. She has sought to divorce him and he is planning to get married to a Malay girl in KL. The truth of this cannot be verified even by Major Zainal who loses sight of Hussein too. This it is that Major Zainal and I are always in touch to talk about our favorite topic - Hussein.

Today I feel sad that my call to Major Zainal fails. His phone is no longer in service says the computerized response. It strikes me as a strange message that perhaps Major Zainal has passed away. Hopefully he is all right. My previous past attempts at calling him puts me through his son saying that he is either asleep or out in the city and that I am to call him again later. But never at any time do I tell his son who calls him or that I will wish him to call me back. The whole intention is for me to suprise him with my call.. But now today, I am in for a suprise myself. Major Zainal is no longer contactable or traceable for that matter. This is indeed a lesson to me. Always keep in touch with friends at all times because you will never know when you will lose them altogether ! For that matter, I have lost trace of Hussein Brunei too. I hear news from friends a long time ago that he has settled down in KL with his new Malaysian wife but definitely he is not in Brunei any more. Anyway, if any of you readers happen to hear of the whereabouts of both Hussein and Major Zainal, please let us know. They are precious friends of ours !

written by Tunku Farid