Ministry of Moral Panic

by Amanda Lee Koe

  • • •

  I open my eyes and Marl is lying on his side, back in his sequined, low-cut dress, watching me. He lays a hand on my hip. He has drawn the curtains and it is dark outside, but faintly distended with impending dawn.

  Marl says: Take me somewhere?

  Following his directions, we reach a jetty. I’ve never been this far out, surely this must be the southernmost tip of the island. Marl takes two fifty-dollar bills from the ten I’ve given him, tucked into his purse. I wait for him in the car. The grey sheen of his skin is apparent by the coming daylight, losing the pale iridescence it maintained by night, subtly refracting artificial white light.

  A man is waiting at the end of the jetty, silhouetted fuzzily against the sea at dawn, at his feet a small cooler. Marl opens it and peers in, then hands over the money. He comes back with the cooler in hand and says, One more place?

  We end up outside a compound painted a sickly green, with a sign that reads: Brightcare Old Folks’ Home for the Mentally Infirm. Marl unlatches the gate and lets us both in, the cooler in his other hand.

  Nurses nod grimly at him, taking in the skin-tight dress, the high heels, the heavy make-up. An old man on a wheelchair hoots at him merrily, and Marl gives him a big wink. There is the smell of piss, and pine-flavoured floor cleaner.

  Marl makes a left, and we enter a room of six elderly persons. One woman sits rigidly upright, drool oozing down her chin, muttering, three other men are asleep, one snoring loudly. One man has playing cards laid out on his bed, arranged in a cryptic manner. He is cautious of my gaze as he flips the cards open. The last bed holds an old man who is tied down by both wrists. He is painfully thin.

  Papa, I’m here, Marl says. I brought you your favourite.

  He makes a lunge for Marl, but because both his wrists are bound, it is an awkward motion, and it is his bird-thin chest that bobs forward abruptly. He still has a shock of matted white hair, Lionhead.

  Marl takes out black leather gloves from his handbag, and puts them on smoothly. For a moment I imagine him strangling this emaciated man in his bed. Then he slides back the lid of the cooler.

  In it, oysters, at least two dozen. Marl picks out a shucking knife from his handbag, sits in a dark blue plastic chair, crosses his legs. He unhinges the valves of the oyster, twisting the knife around till it makes a little pop. It is an optimistic, celebratory sound, like corkage, the sound heralding the death of an oyster.

  His father is salivating, like Pavlov’s dogs. Also, he has a hard-on—you can see it through the thin, pale green nursing home pants. Marl brings the first oyster towards his father’s waiting, gaping mouth, and the old man laps at it. Marl cups his gloved hand under the shell so his father won’t cut his lower lip on the ridges.

  It’s the only thing he’ll eat, Marl says softly, the softest he has spoken all this while. The only thing that makes him happy.

  After a while, the old man begins to croon. Absurd, happy sounds, a lack of self-consciousness most complete. The muttering and snoring fall into a strange soundscape, unified by his croons. The man in the bed next to him opens up the last card, the Jack of Spades, and declares emotionlessly, with certainty, I’ve lost an ocean.

  As if that is his cue, Marl stands up in his three-inch heels and stacks up the empty oyster shells that are on the veneered bedside table. He fiddles around inside the cooler and takes out one last oyster. He dislodges it and extends the oyster before my face. I pause, then bend forward to eat out of his hand. As my teeth graze the shell lightly, I remember that it is a living, breathing organism on my tongue. The oyster tastes just like him, and I swallow.

  The Ballad of Arlene & Nelly

  Why didn’t Arlene go to the doctor when the lump first appeared?

  It wasn’t always this good, and Arlene never lets herself forget that. This is why she hasn’t gone to the doctor’s yet, despite the burgeoning lump in between the end of her armpit and the beginning of her breast, on her left side. Arlene was deeply fatalistic. Leftwards, for her, was a jinx, where unpropitious things happened.

  Nelly is back, Arlene hears her key through the door, imagines her slipping off her leather shoes, and those low, thin nude socks. It never ceases to amaze Arlene when Nelly comes home.

  What is the history of Arlene & Nelly?

  Three periods, over the course of thirty years.

  The first:

  When Arlene was ten, she fell into a canal outside the school gate. Nelly was right behind her. It is still strange to them both, how she fell in. Arlene would describe being lifted off her feet, then scrabbling across the gravel and mud only to find herself in the canal, the left of her frame scraping the sharpness of its maw. Nelly said it looked like she decided to jump in. Arlene would roll her eyes at this. Arlene remembers Nelly’s skirt billowing overhead as she scaled the sides of the canal to help her out, her white cotton underwear, Nelly’s fringe plastered to her forehead as she stretched out an arm, the afternoon sun behind her.

  The scabs along Arlene’s left arm and calf were epic. Nelly walked up to her one recess-time: Can I peel them? The bell rang. Yes, Arlene said. For a while it was a game, and Nelly fussed over Arlene with tissue she wetted on her tongue every time she drew blood. She collected Arlene’s scabs in the groove of her classroom desk, where the other girls stowed their pencils. The other girls in class, noticing this, wanted to try too. No, Nelly said to them as she rolled Arlene’s sleeve up, she’s mine.

  After Arlene’s wounds healed, their friendship grew boring. They drifted apart quickly, Nelly moving on to the company of the only girl in class who had a pager. Arlene’s scars took a decade to fade.

  The second:

  When Arlene met Nelly again, they were nineteen, at the state teachers’ college, a month before term commenced. Arlene stared and stared across the crowded room awaiting the pre-admission medical check-up, but Nelly never looked once in her direction.

  Arlene had always been quiet by nature, but after they’d peed into tiny cups, pressed their breasts to X-ray machines and changed out of the medical-blue shifts, she went up to Nelly. She did not say hi; merely stood in Nelly’s way. They remained this way for almost a full minute, until Arlene rolled up the sleeve on her left arm. When Nelly saw the long scar, she started laughing a husky laugh, leaning forward to embrace Arlene in recognition. Arlene placed her arms carefully around Nelly. Nelly’s hair was damp and her shampoo smelled of lavender.

  They shared a room at the National Institute of Education. By the end of their second year, it came to be known that they were more than friends. They’d never been seen displaying public affection, but a friend of a friend in their class had walked in on two spooning bodies one morning when she’d meant to return Arlene her tennis racquet. Their dorm-issue single beds were pushed together in the middle of the room, covered by a queen-sized duvet. The friend had slipped out quietly without waking the pair, returning the tennis racquet later in the afternoon after knocking on the door, but the revelation made its rounds.

  There was the occasional lesbian couple in every cohort in every college, but there were always easy surface clues—a butch-femme dynamic, the laissez faire of holding hands in public, superficial proclivities towards piercings or closely cropped hair. The pairing off of Nelly and Arlene, however, was a great surprise to most of their cohort-mates, because they both came across as inordinately conservative.

  The truth of the matter was that although Nelly and Arlene were in love as they knew it, there was also the understanding that this arrangement would hold only as long as they were in college together. Rather, this was what Nelly had always insinuated, and what kept Arlene up at night.

  As they went from freshmen to sophomores, there was an anxiety about Arlene that became increasingly pronounced. She never forgot that, each day, she was incrementally closer to losing Nelly. In her senior year, she found herself snapping at friends, crying whilst watching TV commercials.

  The third:

  When Arlene r
eceived the invitation card, she burnt it on her stove. Then she pressed her left palm cleanly onto the stove, the ashes swirling around. The blister was so large that a plaster couldn’t cover the diameter of it and she had to bandage her hand. It’d been five years, they were twenty-seven. She imagined Nelly deciding between lilies and peonies.

  At the dinner reception, Arlene was seated to the back of the ballroom. All she saw of Nelly was a head of coiffed hair seated upfront, bare shoulders glowing in an ivory gown. Throughout the dinner, there was a video projection of congenial photos of the bride and groom with their old friends. There were no pictures of Arlene and Nelly together. Her old acquaintances at the table tried to make conversation with her, but Arlene was silent. Course by course, the banquet servers cleared plate after untouched plate of food placed before Arlene.

  Towards the end of the dinner, the emcee hustled everyone to their feet. Now everyone, it’s time for my favourite part—yam seng. Remember, the longer you hold the note yam, the more happiness to the bride and groom. The emcee took a theatrically deep breath.

  Arlene didn’t even inhale, but she couldn’t stop holding the note.

  Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaammmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

  —she’d gone on longer than everyone at her table, everyone in the ballroom, and the emcee, who’d gone a little blue in the face from trying to match her, was spluttering slightly.

  Everyone’d turned to her, she sounded like she was screaming in anguish; finally there was no more breath left in her, and she stopped short, feeling as if her throat and heart were on fire. She turned squarely to look at Nelly, and for the first time that night Nelly looked directly at her, her face inscrutable under all that make-up. The emcee had finally caught his breath, he lifted a hand as if conducting an orchestra, trying to rouse the guests back to complete the toast—

  Seng!

  Arlene excused herself from the dinner table, where a peach cream cake was being served. She found her way to the bathroom and locked herself into a stall.

  There was a rap on the door. She opened it. Nelly entered the cubicle, cumbersome in the volume of her gown, and latched the door.

  Why did you even invite me?

  How could I not?

  Why did you even invite me!

  I hoped you would be happy for me.

  What about my happiness?

  It is yours to pursue.

  Do you love him?

  Stop talking like you’re in a movie.

  Do you love him!

  Yes!

  Nelly, I’ll let you walk away now. But if I ever see you again—I’ll kill you.

  How is it they eventually came together?

  It was in Sheng Siong, the most economical of local supermarkets, which had made them feel old—it’d been fourteen years, they were forty-one—and unglamourous. Arlene was out of her housing estate, ferrying her parents halfway across the island to a reputedly auspicious temple at their request. She’d left them to their own devices in the temple and had walked over to the supermarket in the neighbourhood centre for a bottle of mineral water. Her parents had not mentioned to her the two things they were praying for: the safe passage of an uncle who’d gone back to Xiamen to visit distant relatives, and that Arlene not be left on the shelf.

  Nelly was in the condiments aisle, on her tippy toes, trying to get to a can of sardines.

  Arlene saw her from the back, and though fourteen years had passed, she knew at once that it was Nelly. Her breath caught in her throat. Nelly had put on a little weight around the thighs and hips, and her hair had sparse greys in it. She was in sweat pants and a t-shirt.

  Arlene walked right up behind Nelly as if in a dream, then reached over for the sardines.

  Remember how we used to have this with bread in the middle of the night?

  Nelly turned. Somehow, her face carried no surprise. She said: Arlene.

  You wouldn’t brush your teeth after, and your breath stank in the morning.

  Arlene held up the can of sardines, and brought it down hard onto Nelly’s right cheek, twice in quick succession. Nelly let out an involuntary cry as metal connected with bone. Shoppers stopped to stare, trolleys in tow. Arlene raised her hand again.

  Arlene, Nelly said, her hand on her cheek, swelling a brilliant purple. Arlene, I left him.

  Why had Nelly left her husband?

  Arlene had never asked this of Nelly. Nelly thought this was grace on Arlene’s part, but as time went by, she realised it was only because Arlene was hoping the reason was—her.

  Nelly left her husband because he cheated on her, simple and banal. Nelly knew this reason would never be good enough for Arlene, and she feared the day Arlene would ask, but as it turned out, Arlene never did.

  Did Arlene have any lovers in the (fourteen-year) interim?

  No.

  There were men who pursued Arlene for a time, but the consistency of her rejections would finally wear them down. Though plain, she was not unattractive, but she sought to downplay her looks.

  She wore her hair in a dowdy crop that was neither feminine nor masculine, merely utilitarian. She steered clear of makeup, and stuck to a staple of neutral-coloured blouses and shirts tucked neatly into dark pants, paired with sensible shoes.

  After just three years, the pursuits ceased altogether. As a teacher, it was easy to get stuck in the same routine, and the only new people she met were students.

  She thought of getting a pet, but it was difficult for her to imagine forming attachments to a living thing. Finally, she taught herself to paint, from books. She was terrible in the beginning, but she kept at it, because she knew she needed something, any one thing, to hold on to, to invest in. After a year or two, she became fairly proficient with watercolours.

  What did Arlene paint?

  Arlene painted faceless women. That is, she painted women who were looking away from her, who had hair obscuring their face, who were reclined so far back their faces were never visible, whose profiles were in shadow, etc. There was always an excuse to call upon.

  Outwardly, she told herself she did this because she couldn’t paint faces to save her life—too much detail, she couldn’t imagine rendering eyes, noses, lips. The lines of bodies soothed her. They weren’t difficult to perfect, and it was faintly erotic to put finishing touches to breasts and thighs, observing the way light fell on the source paintings and sketches she used as references.

  Inwardly, she knew that if she ever tried to paint a face, it would look like Nelly, and she could not afford to see Nelly ever again.

  Did Arlene have sex in the interim?

  No, but she subscribed to a virtual private network and streamed ample amounts of independent Swedish porn.

  Whenever she masturbated, she felt guilty. Not as a matter of prudence, but Arlene felt compelled to keep herself perfectly chaste. It wasn’t that she thought Nelly would one day return to her. Arlene merely wanted to hold on to the certainty that she’d met the only person she wanted to emote to in this lifetime. That person had gone away, but Arlene thought that was a poor excuse to slip up in the emotional and physical sanctity of that certainty. She wouldn’t even allow herself a cat. Arlene tended and guarded the altar of Nelly she had in her heart with care, in the manner of the most faithful, who have no prayers they want answered.

  How long did it take Arlene’s condition to deteriorate?

  It took seven months before it became impossible to hide.

  During these seven months, however, Arlene paid utmost attention to every last detail compounding Nelly. The spot of pigmentation at the tip of her left cheekbone that so bothered Nelly, but that was, really, barely more than a freckle. The differentials in the pitch of her sneeze, depending on whether it was her sinus or something more incidental.

  Casually, she asked Nelly about her bucket list, which was conveniently short. Nelly was always a decisive
woman. She laughed when Arlene came to her with the pencil and paper. She stroked the back of Arlene’s neck: Are you afraid we’re getting old? We’re only fifty-two. I want to live till I’m a hundred and ten, with you. We’ve a whole life ahead of us.

  They did what they could within those months—some were simple enough: the tattoo of a crane, perpendicular to the base of Nelly’s spine, a teenage whim that never materialised; a month’s worth of a raw vegan diet, Nelly posing as Venus of Urbino on their living room floor, Arlene sketching her, trembling as she painted in the details of Nelly’s face.

  The trip to the Galápagos—two weeks, the longest they could reasonably afford during the June holidays—Nelly screaming in delight as a waved albatross nipped her ankle, running back to Arlene, having gone on ahead and sighted a bale of the famed giant tortoises. They could walk hand in hand as two women, fearless, in Ecuador. This was an unspoken part of the trip: to go somewhere far enough, that would be safe for them to be as they were. Here they pecked one another’s cheeks on the cobblestone, on the coast, watched only by iguanas and mockingbirds. The days and nights seemed endless in the inn. They skipped the tour of Wolf Island on the last day to stay—quite alone—in the inn. As their fellow tourists pointed cameras at fur seals and vampire finches, Arlene and Nelly made covert love in the hot afternoon, buoyant in the deep-end of the kidney-shaped hotel pool, hands slipping under wet lycra.

  Did Arlene get better?

  Nelly rode in the ambulance with her, but when they got to the emergency room, the nurse asked if she was kin, and Nelly said slowly, No. How are you related? We’re, we’re friends. I’m sorry ma’am, you’ll have to wait outside then. Nelly’s fists were bunched up in the shape and size of her furious beating heart. She clenched and unclenched them, lub dub lub dub. The counter nurse was asking her to fill up a form with Arlene’s particulars. She sat down on the blue plastic seats. The counter nurse was picking up the phone, calling immediate members of Arlene’s family.