by Alfian Sa'at
“Really?”
“Here. See you around.” The boy pressed the cap into Robert’s hands, the corner of his lips lifting slightly as if caught by hooks.
When Robert walked out of the club, he believed that he still had his dignity intact. He reasoned that dignity was nothing but simply the fear of looking ridiculous. That was all. And a lot of people wore caps, young boys, old men, women even. As Robert passed two boys near the exit, he noticed that they were holding hands. Feathers of light were falling on their faces like blurred snowflakes. Robert tried to transpose himself on the boys, tried to imagine an adolescence bound to the simple gesture of clasping palms. What was I doing when I was your age?, he wanted to ask. What was I doing then?
In the car, Robert sat in the dark, sinking into his seat and closed his eyes. Had he done the right thing just now? He opened his eyes and looked at the club as if he were watching a television screen with the volume turned off. He had bashfully accepted the cap and put it on his head. It was tight, so he adjusted the strap till it fit. All the while, the boy, his hair just a little downy, had stared at him, almost hungrily, like a child watching a magic show for the first time. When Robert finally got it on, the boy flashed a smile that showed the icy panes of his teeth. Robert suddenly realised that the boy’s other friends had also been looking at him all along, and that what he thought was a private act of comparing head sizes had become a fancy dress spectacle for the rest. As if somehow condemned to the fact that he had been commanding an amused audience, Robert had given a slight, foolish bow, too reserved to be theatrical, and thus horribly wrong. With a “thank you, this fits me”, Robert turned his back to the four boys and headed straight for the exit. During the entire walk to the doors, he had felt eyes on his back like a sunspot from a magnifying glass. His hands were in his pockets, clenching at his thumbs.
Robert replayed the conversation he had with the boy. How many Jasons did Robert know? And why, if he could call it that, the ‘gift’? Did the boy treat the whole affair as an experiment? Testing for reactions, getting a cheap kick out of people’s surprise because he himself, like his friends, were jaded to the point of having lost all the capacity to be surprised any more? Or did he take pity on Robert, ill-dressed, dispossessed, hands in pockets as if nursing sparrow eggs like a child who had found them on a field trip? The easiest way to look at it was as a form of barter trade, the cap for the sofa, a peace offering so to speak, but why a cap? It was as if they knew that without that sofa spot, the way for Robert to go was outside, and hence he would need something to protect him from the caprice of a night drizzle or maybe falling leaves. Suddenly Robert felt that the landscape had turned to autumn, despite having experienced the season only once, with his ex-wife (the word ‘ex’ had such a biting sound to Robert, he could imagine telling people that “That woman was my axe.”) in Wisconsin. They had gone there to visit her aunt. The trees had held up their thinning crowns like fires in suspended motion. At the door to her aunt’s apartment, the woman had remarked, “So this is your dashing husband?” It was something he usually thought about when he adjusted his hair in the mirror. But then again, he also believed that the aunt was simply being nice in her American way, that hospitality that just fell short of hypocrisy.
He had used the word ‘disco’ with the boy. “Do you go to the disco often?” How long ago did he last hear that word? He thought suddenly of his mother who used to nag at him and say things like, “Children nowadays, boy and girl hold hands, touch here touch there, everyone also see. You, like that or not Robert? Ha? Go out, come home late, drink beer, gamble, go disco.” It wasn’t a disco that he had walked out from,
Robert reminded himself, it was a club. He had just gone clubbing. Disco was John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, disco was flared pants and glitter make-up and sadness. You did not wear caps to discos. In discos, your hands were free. Why did he use that word? Robert felt as if his tongue was a fossil that he could not spit out of his mouth. In the deathly silence of his car, deathly only because the radio was off and this destroyed the illusion of being connected not only to a deejay but thousands of others listening to the same wavelength, Robert called home. Robert reminded himself that if it was going to be the husband who picked up the phone, he would have to put it down immediately. Not from jealousy, he knew he was not capable of that, but shame. His wife’s (ex-wife, he kept reminding himself ) new man would be one of the people who would certainly know. Robert could imagine the man putting down the phone if they were to have a short exchange to ask his wife (‘his’ here not referring to Robert), “His voice was so soft! Almost like a woman! How could you have married someone like that? Wow, did he have some operation down there or something, that’s a really high voice.” Robert wondered if his ex-wife (finally getting used to the term) would actually defend him in such a situation, or whether she would give her new husband a smile, that tired and defeated smile of a victim to her saviour, the grateful light of love in the dark-ringed eyes.
The telephone rang about 15 times before Robert realised that the time was two a.m. What was he doing, calling people up at that hour? Just as he was about to cut the call he heard a click and a woman’s voice on the other line.
“Hello?” the voice went.
“Wendy?” Robert asked.
“Sorry.”
“Wendy, is that you?”
“Sorry, ma’am sleeping.”
It was the maid. But Robert still held on to the phone and changed the tone in his voice, softer.
“Are you the maid?”
“Yes.”
“Are they all sleeping?”
“Yes, all sleep.”
“I’m not sleeping,” Robert told the woman. “I’m still awake, I can’t sleep. Can I talk to you?”
“This is who?”
“My name is Robert.”
Robert realised that it was the second time he told someone his name in one night. He felt exhausted.
“Robert.”
“Yes. I used to live in the house. Has anyone ever said my name in the house?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why are you still up?”
“Iron clothes.”
“So late at night?”
“Yes.”
“You like working there?”
“Yes.”
“They treat you well? Good?”
“Yes.”
“She’s fussy with cooking right? Did she teach you to cook?”
“Spaghetti.”
“Oh, yes, she liked to make that. She made her own sauce. Right? She didn’t use the ones from bottles. Hey, do you want to come down to my place one day and cook for me? Some spaghetti? How about that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then what do you know? Why am I talking to you?” Robert started to shout into the phone. “Why are you still doing work? Are they treating you well? I wouldn’t let you do work at this time if I was still in the house! What kind of people are they? You could ask me to come back! Is she sleeping with him?”
Before Robert could go on he heard the phone on the other side being replaced, followed by the dull engaged tone. Robert carefully placed the car phone back in its holder. He looked at the rear-view mirror again. He took off the cap, an indistinguishable colour in the pale light, but with the numbers ‘23’ on it. He felt like dialling home again and speaking to the maid. He wanted to tell her that he was sorry for shouting.
Robert put the cap back on and decided to drive home and never come back again. He looked at the side of his hand where they had stamped him. He started rubbing the spot and then spat at it. He rubbed it harder. Then he licked the spot as if curious what his own skin would taste like. It was salty, and he could feel the small wet hairs on it. Then he started the engine and slid out of the car park. He was never coming back, no matter how good or dashing he looked. He thought of calling his wife’s aunt in Wisconsin, and interrupting her from whatever she was doing to ask, “Did you mean that? Did you m
ean it when you said I was a dashing man?” And then he dismissed the thought because he knew he did not have her number anymore.
It was three a.m. when Robert got back to the apartment. When he opened the door, he sighed into the stale darkness that greeted him. Robert went straight to the bedroom and lay on the bed. He turned on the radio. They were playing Love Line on Class 95 FM. The female deejay was asking a woman about her most romantic experiences. The woman was telling her about the time that she had chickenpox, and how her husband had cooked for her, even though he had never been in the kitchen before. He had not been afraid to touch her. He had in fact carried her in his arms back into the bedroom when she fell asleep in the living room. The night went on like that, with callers, giggling, the deejay going “awwww” and furnishing pauses with that synthetic laughter, from behind her sponged microphone that absorbed all insincerity and filtered out only that silvery voice.
Robert thought that at one point of time that a boy had called the station talking about a cap that he had lost. And then he imagined a Filipino woman talking about the loneliness of ironing other people’s clothes. And then more voices came in, people whom he would never meet, people who just filled in the spaces between love songs, lovestruck songs, lovelorn songs. And then he found himself asking what station he was listening to, what they were saying… Robert felt his eyes growing heavy as the voices from the radio faded away, like the sound of waves sweeping back into the horizon. He was brought back to a beach, some time in the late evening. The sky was a deep indigo and he had to shield his eyes from the glare of the setting sun. A woman was walking up to him, trudging barefoot on the sand and whisking away grains from her elbows. She smiled at Robert.
“I saw a crab just now,” she said.
“Then why didn’t you catch it?” he asked her.
“I wanted to, but the waves caught it and washed it away.” The woman looked sadly at the sea, pouting her lower lip.
“Do you want to go back now? It’s getting dark.”
“Can’t we just stay here a little while?”
“If you want to.” Robert peered into the distance and saw an Indian woman towelling her shivering son.
“I want to see the sun disappear into the sea,” said the woman.
“Well, it’s not such a nice sunset. The best ones are in other places, like Hawaii.”
“You’ve been to Hawaii?”
“Once, when I was small.”
“This sunset’s all right,” said the woman. “Robert, do you think we could go to Hawaii some day?”
“For a holiday?”
“For a honeymoon maybe.”
Robert gasped disbelievingly. “You’re kidding, right? Honeymoon?” He started laughing.
“What’s so funny?” the woman asked. “We’ve known each other for what? Five years?”
“So we should get married,” Robert smirked.
“Does it sound like a bad idea to you?”
“I’ve never really thought about it.”
The woman suddenly looked into Robert’s eyes.
“Robert, I know I’ve never really told you this.”
Robert stole a quick look behind her, and then, feeling obliged, looked back at the woman’s face. “Yes?”
“But you should stop wearing your cap.”
“Why?”
“I like you better without your cap.”
“You know why I wear it. It runs in my family. You’ve seen my dad. He’s only 53 but his hair’s all gone.”
“Take it off.”
“Come on, don’t force me.”
The woman reached her hand out and touched the rim of Robert’s cap. She slowly lifted it off his head and then, in one lightning motion, threw it across the beach.
“Hey!” Robert cried.
The cap had landed in the sea. Robert lurched forward but the woman held his shoulder firmly.
“Robert,” she said.
“Why did you do that for?”
“Robert, I like you this way.”
“I don’t. I look old.”
“We’re all going to grow old some day. Isn’t it better to grow old with someone?”
“You don’t understand. You don’t know me. Look, I’m at a stage where I’m going through a lot of things.”
“Robert, don’t say anything. Just hold my hand. Don’t think.”
Robert did as he was told. He held the woman’s hand in his and squeezed it gently. The woman turned her face towards Robert and kissed him. Her lips were soft. Robert closed his eyes, but he knew her eyes were open, trying to read his face. He would not know that he would wake up with a start with Wan Tung asking him why he had slept with the radio on and gripping a boy’s cap to his chest. Robert would then look blinkingly at Wan Tung as if seeing him for the first time, and unwilling to move the cap that lay on him so heavily as if afraid of what might lie underneath.
Abbreviations and Glossary Terms
arb.
Arabic
b.m
Bahasa Melayu (Malay)
d.hokk.
Hokkien
sl.
slang
l.abbr.
local abbreviation
man.
Mandarin
Project
air-con [sl.]
Air conditioning
high tide [sl.]
Refers to an urgent need to use the washroom.
lah [sl.]
A term, borrowed from Malay, typically used at the ends of words or phrases for emphasis.
Wahlau [sl.]
A term of emphasis that can be translated as ‘Oh my goodness!’, ‘Damn!’ etc.
PAP [l.abbr.]
People’s Action Party, the ruling party in Singapore.
shee-shee [sl.]
Pass urine
seow [sl.]
Behaving abnormally, crazy
lor / ah [sl.]
A term used in colloquial Singaporean English, typically used at the ends of words or phrases for emphasis.
Aiyah [sl.]
An exclamation to express dismay, desperation, exasperation etc.
Video
Ka’abah
A cube-shaped structure in Mecca that is considered the holiest site in Islam.
holy zam-zam water
Water from a sacred well near the Ka’abah.
Assalaamualaikum [b.m.]
Greeting used among Muslims which means ‘peace be upon you’.
MRT [l.abbr]
Mass Rapid Transit, Singapore’s train system.
Ayah [b.m.]
Father
Mak [b.m.]
Mother, also used as a term of address for senior Malay women
Makcik [b.m.]
A term for aunt
IC [l.abbr]
Or NRIC, National Registration Identity Card. This is the document of identification used in Singapore and possessed by every citizen or permanent resident who is fifteen or older.
Orphan
BBC
British Broadcasting Corporation
Corridor
kampung [b.m.]
Village
Cubicle
JC [l.abbr]
Junior College
Umbrella
Normal
An academic stream in secondary school, besides the express and special streams.
PSLE [l.abbr]
Primary School Leaving Examinations, a compulsory nationwide examination for all Primary 6 pupils to progress to secondary school.
Ten-year-series
Compilation of ten years’ worth of ‘O’ level examination papers.
Steady [sl.]
In a relationship
Bugis
tudung [b.m.]
A headscarf worn by Muslim women.
kutu [b.m.]
Head lice
manja [b.m.]
Derived from the Malay word meaning “to pamper”; in this case it describes coquettish behaviour.
kaypoh [d.hokk./m
an]
Nosy or prying
Mats [sl./b.m.]
A generic term for a working-class Malay male.
baju kurung [b.m.]
Traditional Malay attire for women consisting of a knee-length blouse worn over a long skirt
Birthday
ECA [l.abbr]
Extra-curricular activity, one of many hobby-based organisations that a school offers over and above its standard study curriculum.
sotong [b.m.]
Squid
Lontong [b.m.]
Sliced rice roll served with a coconut-based vegetable stew.
Mee Rebus [b.m.]
An egg noodle dish with sweet gravy sauce.
adik [b.m.]
Younger sibling
VCR
Video cassette recorder, a now-outdated gadget that uses removable cassettes to record and play back television programmes.
Kadi [b.m.]
An official appointed to solemnise Muslim marriages
Sah [b.m.]
Valid or in order
kaya
A jam made from coconuts and eggs.
sayang [b.m.]
Love, used as a term of endearment.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alfian Sa’at is a Resident Playwright with W!LD RICE. His published works include three collections of poetry, One Fierce Hour, A History of Amnesia and The Invisible Manuscript, a collection of short stories, Corridor, a collection of flash fiction, Malay Sketches, two collections of plays as well as the published play Cooling-Off Day.
Alfian has been nominated eight times for Best Script at the Life! Theatre Awards, eventually winning in 2005 for ‘Landmarks’, in 2010 for ‘Nadirah’, and in 2013 for ‘Kakak Kau Punya Laki’ (‘Your Sister’s Husband’). In 2011, Alfian was awarded the Boh-Cameronian Award in Malaysia for Best Book and Lyrics for the musical ‘The Secret Life of Nora’. In 2013, he won the Boh-Cameronian Award for Best Original Script for the play ‘Parah’.
In 2001, Alfian won the Golden Point Award for Poetry as well as the National Arts Council Young Artist Award for Literature. He has also been nominated for the Kiriyama Asia-Pacific Book Prize and the Singapore Literature Prize for A History of Amnesia. His short fiction collection Malay Sketches was longlisted for the Frank O’Connor Prize in 2013. His plays and short stories have been translated into German, Swedish, Danish and Japanese and have been read and performed in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Brisbane, Melbourne, London, Zürich, Hamburg, Munich, Berlin, Copenhagen and Stockholm.