Impractical Uses of Cake

by Yeoh Jo-Ann

The same combination of personalised nothing each time. Sukhin has often wondered if all doctors needed to master this technique, if this is, at root, the foundation of a good bedside manner. God, my father is a fortune cookie.

  Sukhin only half-listens as his father talks on, saying something about seeing an article somewhere about English Literature being taught in schools “with outdated books, from centuries ago, that have nothing to do with our way of life now”.

  Five years ago, even two, that would have been enough to send Sukhin into a rage. He might have jumped on his father, even knowing that he had only brought up the article as a matter of interest and not as provocation. He might have raised his voice; he might have roused himself into a sneering, growling thing.

  But now Sukhin only manages a tired shrug. He picks up the bag he left on the shoe rack earlier. “I’ll see you guys soon. If I don’t head to Chinatown now, all the shops will be closed.” He pauses. “Should I buy any cookies or whatever for Ah Mah?”

  “Your grandmother doesn’t need any more encouragement—your Aunty Lillian is already killing her with cake.”

  “Jas!” his mother shouts.

  “It’s true lah, darling, your sister really needs to stop all the baking and baking. Can’t she get another hobby? It’s a miracle Bobby doesn’t have diabetes…”

  Doris hisses. “How can you say things like that? So suay. Every year you eat so many of Lillian’s pineapple tarts, so don’t pretend…”

  Sukhin slips out the door and out the gate, which he opens by flicking a switch next to the front door. The automatic gate used to annoy him because it deprived him of a step in his routine—the flick of the switch didn’t have the finality of the heavy, clanging latch of the old gate. But these days, the soft whirring, followed by the click, of the new gate has come to suit him, now that his exits have, over the years, lost their drama. The boy Sukhin was a slammer of doors and gates, a shouter of rude things calculated to shock. The man Sukhin doesn’t like noise.

  As Sukhin gets into his car and drives off, his parents notice that he has left.

  “Why does he do that?” says Doris, irritated. Absently, she has opened the box of rose barfi and is nibbling on a large piece. “He never says bye properly.”

  Dr Jaswant reaches for one too. “He makes me worry, you know.” He adds quickly, knowing his wife’s protective instinct will launch her into an argument with him faster than he can pacify her with sweets: “Yes, yes, he’s a good boy, good job, seems to be fine. But something’s missing.”

  “Ah, don’t start—if you’re going to try the matchmaking again, he’ll stop speaking to us. Remember what happened the last time.”

  He does, and eats another piece of barfi to stifle a sigh. How do barfi-less parents cope?

  The day they met, the first time, they were enduring a chemistry lecture in the coldest lecture theatre in school. They were both late, and this meant having to sit all the way up front. She had the seat next to the aisle. He was two seats away, having left an empty place between them—exactly as unknown-persons protocol demanded.

  He fell asleep. She didn’t. When the lecture ended, she grabbed him firmly by the shoulder and shook him. He jumped, ran out and didn’t look in her direction for the rest of the year.

  For years after, she would recall the horror on his face and laugh.

  For years after, he would drink copious amounts of coffee at lunchtime.

  III

  BUYING THE CAR was a mistake. He doesn’t drive to work, so he feels he must drive on weekends. Which means he must endure parking on weekends, a special circle of Hell designed for the local driver, that privileged class of Singaporean willing to part with more money than it takes to put a child through a lifetime of school for the pleasure of not putting up with public transport and its promise of other people.

  But three years ago when Johan told him he was relocating the family to Brunei and offered him the car at fifty per cent off the market value, Sukhin had jumped at the chance and bought it. Which was so unlike him, he who never made any big (or small) purchases without careful research. He’d felt weak and stupid for weeks afterwards, but put it down to the fact that he’d been rereading King Solomon’s Mines at the time and was therefore in a bit of a state, wondering if he’d ever feel compelled to follow a map into unknown deserts and jungles and mountain ranges. Victorian adventure novels—always a bloody mistake.

  For the third time, he drives through Mosque Street, then Trengganu Street, eyes peeled for a parking spot. No luck—everyone and his brother are in Chinatown. And probably for the same reason that he is: to buy hyper-kitsch Chinese New Year décor and ridiculously expensive snacks that no shopkeeper would be able to shift from his shelves if it weren’t for the mixture of sentimentality and desperation that drives people to fritter away hard-earned cash on things they don’t even want—everyone decorates to please everyone else, and stocks up on cookies, fried seaweed, peanut brittle and cashews to feed other people.

  In the end, he finds a spot far from the chaos of Chinatown and has to walk fifteen minutes to reach the main street. By the time he gets there, all Sukhin wants to do is turn around, walk back to his car and drive home.

  “Towkay!”

  Sukhin sets his teeth. He hates being called “towkay”—sure, it’s meant to be deferential, but it also means that anyone using it on him thinks he can be buttered up by being called boss. He waves the man off.

  “Towkay! You looking for what?”

  Sukhin looks at his feet and walks to the end of the street without stopping to look at anything. Feeling ridiculous, he turns and goes down the next street. Here, it’s even more crowded. Appalling. Even though it’s past five, the heat is thick enough to grill steaks on the pavement. The people make it worse, crowding around the shelves, squeezing past each other. Someone brushes against him. Sukhin stares at his forearm, at the streak of sweat the stranger has left on him, wanting to scream. He can already feel the beginnings of a Very Bad Headache.

  The tall man is hardly making sense, but she nods anyway.

  Ai Ling knows his type. Desperate, completely pliable. Everything fast fast fast, never mind the price. Her favourite kind of customer—much, much better than the little old ladies with plenty of time to kill, the ones who want to inspect every last item and bargain down everything to its cost price.

  “What about pineapples? Do I need a gold pineapple? Is that still a thing?” He is babbling, looking down at a handwritten list. It is wrinkled and damp; the ink is already smudged.

  “Ong lai,” she pronounces with a sweeping gesture towards the store ceiling, from which hang hundreds of pineapples of different sizes. Cardboard, plastic film, crepe paper, sequinned, glossy, covered in glitter— all he has to do is choose. “Which one you want?”

  Her customer stands very still for a minute, blinking at the ceiling. Ai Ling realises she shouldn’t have bothered asking—you had to be very careful with his sort. They got scared easily—one wrong move and they’d give up, run off.

  Smiling widely, she goes to a shelf and takes four large flat packs, each holding a folded-up pineapple. “Nice one. Okay?”

  He nods, looking grateful. She picks out more things for him and piles them into his arms—strands and strands of plastic firecrackers, cardboard cutouts of the god of prosperity, two dozen carp made out of bright red felt, a three-metre golden banner proclaiming the arrival of the new year. Ai Ling wonders how far she can push him, then decides to take a risk—she lifts a large furry yellow lion from the middle of a display table and plants it right on top of the pile. He looks at it for a moment, confused, but says nothing.

  “Okay! Can already!” Her work is done—any more and the man will crumple. She leads him to the cashier counter, where he pays for everything without protest, then leaves the store with three bulging plastic bags, bumping into everyone in his way.

  If every customer were like this one, Ai Ling wouldn’t mind her job so much. She might ask for a bit mo
re overtime pay today—Mrs Lee will be so pleased when she hears that the lion from two years ago has finally sold.

  A light drizzle keeps Sukhin company as he trudges back to the car, cumbersome plastic bags swinging in every direction, and, inside them, plastic and cardboard in random motion—not Brownian, that’s only for particles in suspension, or is it? Better ask Tat Meng. He glares at the sky. Of course. He stops and checks each bag he’s carrying to make sure it’s tied up tightly enough to withstand the rain—there is no way he’s coming back here, so these stupid, garish things cannot be ruined. And he’s forgot all about the snacks—well, too bad.

  The rain gets heavier. Sukhin’s first instinct is to launch himself and his plastic charges forward in as much of a sprint as he can muster, but very soon this proves to be a poor decision—one of the bags breaks, and a heap of plastic firecrackers spills onto the pavement.

  All he wants to do is throw himself onto the ground and howl, but that would just be wasting time. Grabbing the firecracker strands, he winds them around his neck, then picks up the two remaining bags and dashes into the nearest shelter. This is a multi-storey public car park, and as Sukhin waits out the rain, walking aimlessly around the first level, he finds himself mulling over how effectively soulless it is designed to be—no one would ever linger here longer than necessary. Like its fellows all over the country, it is floor-to-ceiling concrete, a hollow cuboid with punctures for air circulation that could never count as windows. No one growing up in Singapore could be faulted for not having the capacity for poetry, Sukhin thinks, feeling a sudden indignation on behalf of all the students he’s ever heard say, “I just don’t get it”—the Romans took concrete and made the Pantheon; in Singapore, we just keep making more and more of these things.

  There is a lull in the rain and he decides to make a run for it.

  He dashes out of the building and into the nearest alley, a long and darkish gap between the backs of two buildings he doesn’t quite recognise, but at least there’s shelter—the roof of one of the buildings extends across most of the gap, and only a sliver of light and rain passes through. He isn’t sure where this alley leads, but tells himself he will figure it out once he gets to the end. The bags bounce along, mocking him, depriving every step of its potential speed.

  Near the middle of the alley, a pyramidal stack of boxes is piled high against the more sheltered wall, taking up most of the walkway. As he tries to edge past it, one bag irreverently, violently throws itself against the cardboard structure, which trembles for a moment and then comes crashing down. And then Sukhin is surrounded by boxes—boxes in his path, boxes behind him, and a large box that only narrowly missed his head and lies next to him. Of course. Now would be the time to howl, but then he hears a muffled sound from beneath the pile, close to the wall. OF COURSE.

  Another sound. What remains of the structure shudders a little, and then a figure emerges from among the boxes.

  “I’m so sorry,” he hears himself say. “I’m so sorry.” He drops his bags in a sudden wave of mortification—he’s just brought someone’s makeshift home down with his CNY crap. All the rage at the rain and the bags and the soulless car park vanishes. “Let me help you put all of this back.” He starts picking up the boxes nearest to him.

  The figure takes a step towards him. Sukhin is a little afraid now, but he is more ashamed than afraid. “Sorry, sorry. Please, let me help.” He starts stacking the boxes on one side of the alley, instinctively grouping them by size, already thinking of how he will rearrange them into a cardboard igloo.

  A rustle among the boxes, as the figure approaches.

  He looks up. Backlit, it is thin and insubstantial, all long limbs in loose clothes. Another step towards him—and as he bends down to pick up more boxes, he can feel it moving even closer. He is now equal parts remorse and fear, quickly tipping towards the latter.

  “Sukhin?”

  All fear now. He throws a box at the figure and runs, runs, runs.

  It is past eleven and still raining as Sukhin makes his way down the alley again. He tells himself he’s here to retrieve the bags of decorations, but he’s really here because he’s embarrassed that he allowed himself to become so worked up earlier that he ran away like a cockroach thinking this random stranger was calling his name, instead of being logical, i.e. staying put and speaking nicely to the guy, who was probably just asking for money or something. So he’s back—and he needs to prove to himself that he’s not a mean, stupid coward.

  The house of cardboard has been rebuilt against the wall. From inside comes the sound of a radio playing softly—not music, just voices, could be the news. Outside, a large box sits apart, also propped against the wall. A firecracker strand peeks out of it. Sukhin leaps towards it, then springs back.

  SUKHIN—upper case, black marker, on the side of the box. What the fuck is going on? His heart pounds like a wild thing, but his head is empty— nothing in his life has prepared him for this.

  A sort of shuffle, from behind him.

  It’s like a bad movie. He turns around and it’s the figure from before. It’s difficult to see by the street light left over from bouncing off other buildings, but the guy appears relaxed and unarmed.

  The guy takes a step closer.

  It isn’t a guy.

  “It’s me.”

  It’s her. It’s her. It’s her.

  They are younger and she is alive. They’ve just seen a movie, the plot of which neither will recall in the years that follow, and they’re walking aimlessly through the city. It is past eleven, and later they will both be in trouble for this.

  He wants to tell her he loves her. Instead he says, “When I was a kid, I wanted to be a palaeontologist because I thought I’d actually get to meet dinosaurs.” He has never told anyone this, so for him this is the same as a declaration of love.

  She doesn’t laugh. He takes her hand for the very first time and holds it tight.

  She tells him she wants to be a rock, thrown into the sea, flying straight to the bottom.

  IV

  “YOU CAN’T HIDE in here forever—just get in there, smile at the Tay and get it over with.” Dennis slinks into Sukhin’s office and drapes himself over a chair, head grazing the floor and legs over its back.

  “You sound like one of your stupid fortune cookies.”

  “So you’ve been eating them!” Dennis picks a scrap of paper off the floor and reads it: “Sea of change, not the stagnant puddle.”

  “One of my favourites.” Sukhin allows himself to smile, but refuses to look up from his marking.

  “Really? But you’re such a puddle kind of man.”

  “Shapeless, wet and ruins shoes? I can live with that.”

  Dennis swings himself upright. “Come on then, puddle—let’s go. You know you can’t miss the party.”

  Sukhin does know. The school board, prominent parents and select alumni are invited to the Tay’s annual suck-up fest, and every head of department—sadly, this includes Sukhin—is expected to entertain them, talk pointedly of the year’s glorious plans, and hopefully elicit a donation. It’s also the principal’s chance to indulge her fantasies of herself as goddess-guide-queen-mother, swanning around the room doling out scraps of praise, crumbs of encouragement and sugary promises that won’t be remembered the week after. (“You’re doing such a wonderful job in the Physics department— I don’t know how Tat Meng ever managed without you!” “Ganesh, we must arrange for an overseas training course for you in June—maybe somewhere in New Zealand, where they’re doing some really interesting marine biology research?” “We’re so lucky to have you—so rare to see someone with such a natural gift for teaching!”) Still too cheap to hire professionals, though—the food is mostly whipped up by Mrs Chan in her tiny stall in the school canteen, and Sukhin cringes as he recalls his décor-buying trip to Chinatown two weeks ago. What a horror that was, even if it did lead him to her—not that he’d decided that that was a good thing.

  Seeing Jinn ag
ain—that was a level of drama he hasn’t allowed in his life for years. And seeing her like that—it shook him to find her so changed. It wasn’t just that she looked different. What unsettled him more—far more than the short, jagged hair and the sparseness of her face and frame—was her new quietness. Every word, every movement seemed pared down and restrained. This wasn’t the girl who once told him, at the top of her voice and in the middle of a very crowded train, to go fuck himself because she never would.

  Well, this could use a little restraint. It is far too loud in the teachers’ lounge, even from the outside. Some sort of pseudo-jazz blares overhead, refusing to be relegated to background music, forcing everyone to raise their voices to be heard over it. As he enters the room, Sukhin is assaulted by the sound of about fifty simultaneously shouted conversations and a soprano saxophone dragging on “How Deep Is Your Love”—someone’s idea of culture, probably Ken’s. The party shows alarmingly little sign of winding down and the Tay is nowhere in sight, which lays waste his plan to pay court and leave in the next half-hour. As Dennis is swallowed up by a group of young trainee teachers who want to know why he’s late, Sukhin heads straight for the buffet table and piles his plate high. Those who can’t leave, eat.

  “Wah, you very late yah.”

  “Not late enough.”

  Tat Meng grins and shrugs—nothing ever bothers Tat Meng; Sukhin’s brand of morose doesn’t even register. “Never mind lah, once a year only. Eh, try the butter cake. My wife made it.”

  He takes Sukhin by the elbow and leads him to the dessert section. Sukhin doesn’t feel like eating cake, but he cuts himself a sliver of Tat Meng’s wife’s almond-encrusted handiwork and takes a large, dutiful bite. “Very nice.”

  This gets rid of Tat Meng, who sails off to find more people to force-feed. And the cake does turn out to be very nice—when a few colleagues try to strike up conversation, Sukhin leads them to the cake and tells them they must try it, then slips away. He slinks into a corner and stuffs his face with fried noodles.