by Lu Huiyi
In retrospect, it wasn’t too hard to guess why Mother strayed. It didn’t make it any less wrong, but it made it more understandable.
After all, they all knew she was with another man. It wasn’t hard to tell. After a while she had begun coming home at odd hours, with a spring in her step and a crooked smile on her lips. When Father touched her, a hand laid casually on her shoulder or when their fingers brushed, she looked a little discomforted, as if a stranger had been presumptuous enough to be so familiar with her. It wasn’t hard to tell at all. Mother wasn’t the best at keeping secrets, and this was a bigger secret than most.
It probably began soon after she had scored that job at the factory. Father didn’t quite know what to do about it. Beng thought he had sometimes taken Mother for granted. She had always been there, an aggravating backdrop of nagging and needling, solid and busy and willing to temper her discontent with dutiful providence. But when she had become the sole breadwinner, the only one who had managed to hold down a paying job, things had begun to change. Huat was bringing money in too, but on an ad-hoc basis, so Mother was really the main reason they got to eat at all. But the more she was tied down to the family as their key income source, the more distant she grew from them.
And how could they blame her? Beng imagined at some point that she must have found somebody who treated her as someone more than just a financial provider or a domestic carer, and that alone had swept her off her feet. She was hungry for love, so hungry that she would fall upon any old scraps thrown her way and think it a feast. What a falling-off it must have been, for her to be reduced to instincts so primal and slobbering and desperate.
The funny thing was that in all those coming-of-age movies Beng used to watch, the teenagers in them would get all disgusted at the mere hint that their parents were having sex. But he would give anything to know that his parents would be willing to be intimate with one another—that any kind of bond, be it emotional or carnal, still existed between them. In recent years they had shed off the cocoon of youth and vitality, and emerged as bewildered strangers blinking in the sunlight, as if mildly perplexed as to why they had lived side by side for so long, held together with nothing more than sticky web-strings of sourness and regret.
Now all they had was a sham of a marriage, tainted by infidelity and worn thin by poverty. It seemed like a dreadful waste of the past few decades.
Beng sometimes thought of that moment when Mother had heard, perhaps from colleagues, or her bosses, or just random gossip during breaks, about how her husband had been fired in disgrace. How small and narrow her life must have felt in that moment, and how it must have differed from her old dreams and hopes. And now Mother was walking into the hut unobtrusively, obviously fancying herself very good at her pretence at normalcy. But they all knew that her shift had ended hours ago, and her collar was visibly rumpled and her hair a bit of a mess. But the biggest giveaway was the look on her face, a certain quiet consciousness that she was in possession of something more than what lay before her. Father’s heart must have broken a little every time she came back like this.
Before the Steam Revival, Beng used to see life as a game, with rules to follow and hoops to jump through, and levels to cross during different life stages. It was a neat way to organise his life and to measure his worth, a steady progression of time where he was required to do only what was clearly expected of him. After the Steam Revival, he thought for the longest time that he was still playing a great but systematically re-arranged game, only that the rules had been changed and the rulebook burnt. So Beng tried his best to look for patterns and ways to get by, but nothing seemed to make sense.
Evading slavery and death had somehow earned him the disproportionate penalty of having his citizenship and right to housing stripped from all of them. Meanwhile, Mother’s affair had come out of nowhere and never ended in separation or any real confrontation, instead turning into a quiet unhappy reality amidst the family. The web of consequences didn’t link up. Nobody won, and everybody lost, but losing wasn’t something one paid much attention to in the day-to-day slog that life was generally broken down to. Instead there were brief conversations about replacing the toilet paper and food rationing and the roof leaking, and an undercurrent of unhappiness bubbling beneath it all. Meanwhile Grandfather went on, ageing surely but imperceptibly, and Father went on, souring instead of ripening, grousing instead of weeping, prickly and unlikable and miserable.
There was no logic to it. There was no way to beat the game. But it wasn’t something big enough to be called anything but a game; there didn’t seem to be any deeper truth or beauty to it. It wasn’t a journey, or a blessing, or an opportunity, or anything of that sort. The closest Beng got to understanding life after the Steam Revival was that it was a game—a game of charades, where they were all stuck trying to make out poor imitations of something they never got to see for real, and where they were watching from the sidelines and screaming names and labels and things, all trying to capture, in both words and deeds, a greater, truer something.
Chapter 5
A few days after, Mother asked Beng if he would like to take up some work at her factory.
Or rather, Mother asked if Beng “would like” to try working there, but what Mother really meant was “get your shit together because you will be going to the factory tomorrow morning, no questions, no objections, this is not a request”.
For the longest time, Huat and Beng only knew that Mother’s job required her to partake in heavy, exhausting labour. It was only after a while that they realised Mother wasn’t just employed in any second-rate factory—she worked at one of the biggest metal-work factories. They supplied the finest tools and instruments in the country, and all the Gahmen steam engines got their parts from the Copper & Brass Distributors (CBD). It was an unexpectedly decent position to be in in a Gahmen-led world, given where they had begun. She seemed to do well at it too, from what Beng could gather. Now she only dressed in dark fabrics, because the soot and dust tended to get everywhere and was incredibly hard to scrub off.
Beng didn’t like Mother’s idea very much. This was primarily because he was certain that any reputable establishment would throw him out at the door, despite Mother’s claim that she “knew somebody”. Heck, they would be lucky if Mother wasn’t fired too, for daring to sneak him in.
But Mother was very keen on him giving it a shot. She said it was an ad-hoc job, so he would have to come down when they needed extra hands, and it was just so he could keep busy while he was waiting for something more suitable, and so on. Beng didn’t want to upset her so soon after Father had been fired, and he was doing an admittedly crap job of finding gainful employment on his own, and so one Monday morning, he found himself plodding down the city streets with her.
This was a part of the city Beng rarely went anymore. He usually ventured to the markets and the stations, places where people lingered and hung out and ate. That was where there were food and loose change and sellable items to be found and salvaged. Mother was headed for the Factory Belt, a haphazard funky-town of factories of all kind. This used to be the bustling commercial hub of the country, but the lighted office buildings and suited businessmen were now long-lost relics of an irrecoverable past.
The smog was not too bad that morning, so they made it to their destination in relatively good time. Mother’s workplace was a great grey building, a stern, ugly affair which constantly emitted smoke.
“I feel like Oliver Twist at the orphanage,” said Beng with contrived lightness, as they stopped in front of a majestic self-indulgent affair of a main gate, which was adorned with all kinds of etchings and lion sculptures and the like.
“Don’t talk nonsense once we are inside,” said Mother.
It was a good ten minutes of hushed queuing before it was their turn to go through a routine pat-down and security clearance check. By the time they had made it into the building, Beng was already exhausted. Tension warped his insides and made him more jittery than usual
. Mother was uncharacteristically quiet.
“This place sure thinks highly of itself,” he commented to Mother. He didn’t know why he said that, only that he was overcome by an insipid desire to break the oppressive silence.
Mother looked at him, slightly admonishing.
“This is one of the biggest factories there are,” she said warningly. “It makes sense for them to keep themselves secure.”
Beng got the hint and shut his mouth. They strode down the corridors in silence, going down level by level via a series of never-ending staircases. Beng was half-dizzy by the time they reached her division—a furnace-like dungeon.
The room was buzzing with activity; workers going around dragging heavy loads about, their faces masked and their hands and clothes darkened with soot and grime. Only one man stood idle in the midst of it all, looking around expectantly. He didn’t quite belong here; he was in suit and tie, crisp and pristine amidst the filth of the place. When he saw Mother, his face lit up at once.
“Susan!” he called. He had a pleasant voice, but Beng didn’t like it. There was something overly and falsely familiar about it, as though he was trying very hard to put up a show of being pleasant.
But Mother crossed the room and hugged him with placid ease, which was a somewhat strange way to greet one’s superior at work.
Then he leaned in towards her, and Beng was suddenly very conscious of the man’s thin cruel lips butterflying closer and closer to his mother’s upturned face. But Mother turned and looked at Beng, a little guilty, and the kiss landed harmlessly on her cheek instead.
“Darryl,” she said to him, a little tentatively. Beng had never heard her speak so gently before. She sounded like a young girl.
Then she caught Beng’s arm in a sharp bony grip, and thrust him forward with an alacrity and violence that was completely at odds with her tone. Beng stumbled over his own feet, and teetered dangerously before regaining his balance. Darryl raised an eyebrow.
“I want you to meet my son, Beng. I spoke to you yesterday—”
Darryl looked me over, almost-calculating.
“He wants to take up work here, you said?” His pleasant voice had an edge to it that made Beng shiver inside.
“Ah—yes. He’s a good worker, Darryl, responsible—”
“He doesn’t look too strong.”
“Oh, but he is very young. He can handle—”
“And not too happy to be here, for someone whose name is on the Gahmen’s blacklist.”
Mother blanched.
“Oh no, of course not, Darryl—”
And then Darryl laughed.
“Relax,” he told Mother. “I’m just messing with you. He can start here if that’s what you want. I mean, what he wants.”
His eyes were full of merriment, but Beng was not reassured. It seemed dangerous to trust a man who would make sport out of one’s helplessness. But Mother looked relieved and infinitely grateful; for a woman so independent of mind and sharp at the corners, she seemed to pivot dramatically on the moods of this one unlikable man. They were all beggars, Beng thought abruptly. They were all beggars, worshipping different gods.
“I’ll leave you all to it then,” said Darryl, his voice still rich with that inerasable good cheer. He leant in closer and murmured something in Mother’s ear. She turned very red and Beng felt a little ill.
As he turned on his heel and clipped-clopped out of the hot room, Mother retrieved an apron and tossed it at Beng.
“We keep the oven going,” she said, gesturing to the great chimney-like structure smack in the centre of the room. It looked like a monstrous version of the temple furnaces that Father used to toss stacks of joss paper into.
“Why?” he asked.
“The welders work in the floor above. The fire melts the metals they use. If we let the fire die out, then their work will be spoilt.”
Her hands were busy even as she spoke. She had gathered up a gigantic set of bellows, and pushed a rusty shovel into Beng’s hands. Beng was suddenly aware of how pale and smooth his hands seemed, next to the grimy roughness of the tool they clutched.
“Don’t let the coals run out,” Mother said.
The hours passed with excruciating slowness. Barely a few minutes into the job, Beng’s shirt was soaked with sweat. The heat of the furnace was unrelenting and unavoidable, and the thick fumes and choking coal-dust constantly billowed in his face. He shovelled in loads of coal, his arms aching from the weight of it, and took as many breaks as he was able to get away with. Meanwhile, the workers around him were either shovelling or working the bellows or transporting new sacks of coal, huffing and grunting as they toiled. Nobody looked happy.
Beng wanted to go home very badly.
Then suddenly, the distant ringing of a bell tolled. As if on cue, everyone stepped back from the furnace instantly. Mother made some frantic flapping movements in Beng’s direction, but he was too slow to understand what she meant, and was left gasping and coughing in the fine yellow mist that suddenly shrouded him.
When he finally opened his stinging eyes, the fire was out. The floor of the furnace was lined with a thick layer of sand. The bell had apparently signalled the release of sand, to put the fire out. The welders were done for the morning; it was time for their lunch break.
Mother was by his side now, slapping gently at his clothes to remove the crust of sand and soot. It was a futile exercise and Beng was embarrassed by it.
“Make sure you drink water,” she said briskly. “A lot of water. And eat. The lunch cart will be here in a bit.”
The main door swung open, and all heads turned as one, expectant, only to turn back in deference and disappointment.
Darryl sauntered in. Now that Beng had looked at him a bit more, he realised that the man wasn’t quite as old as he had pegged him out to be. Maybe mid-forties, or so? His hairline was beginning to recede just a little, and he had distinct laugh lines around his eyes, but otherwise he looked reasonably young and fit. Next to Mother, with her cheap powder melting into the lines of her face, he seemed almost like a boy.
“Lunch?” he said to Mother. He spoke with such casual confidence that Beng realised, with a sickening jolt, that this was likely to be a regular occurrence.
Mother’s face was upturned towards his, glowing like a flower, compliant and so, so foolish and vapid.
“I’ll get my purse,” she said, gesturing towards the employee lockers.
Beng made to follow, and they both startled at that.
“What?” Beng said.
“I’m going for lunch,” Mother said deliberately.
“I know,” Beng said just as deliberately.
Mother looked at him with the despair of one who had always suspected her son to be a little stupid, only to be proven right beyond her wildest dreams.
Beng looked back at her with the disdain of one who had to witness his mother slip off for a lunch-break rendezvous with her cold eel of a supervisor.
“We don’t have all day, woman,” said Darryl, breaking the stand-off.
Mother responded like a dog on a leash.
“You get something from the food cart,” she said to Beng. Her mind was made up; there was no fighting with Mother when she got like that. She took Darryl’s arm and watched his face anxiously to ensure that all traces of impatience were gone from his features. Beng had subsided to little more than a peripheral concern. Mother barely even looked at him as she swept out of the room.
Then the room was silent, save for a few murmured conversations here and there. Beng’s muscles ached terribly and he sank down into a sitting position. Despite the newness of everything and an odd empty feeling of having been abandoned, he was close to drifting into an exhausted nap.
Then he realised that it was very silent, eerily so. He opened his eyes to see that everyone in the room was looking at him.
“Today’s the first Monday of the month, right, boy?” someone said. She was the scariest auntie Beng had ever seen. Her clothing wa
s faded, mismatched and very dowdy, with a short stocky figure and an overwhelming belly that dominated her entire presence. But her flabby arms were tattooed with some menacing ghoulish phantom figure—was it a gang symbol? Beng wasn’t sure; but it was better to be safe than sorry. There wasn’t a single centimetre of her arms that was not inked.
“Yes, Auntie,” Beng said politely. What a strange conversation starter.
She smiled, or rather, bared her teeth like an irate wolf.
“You don’t call me Auntie,” she said. “Here, you call me ma’am.”
Was this what prison felt like? He wondered when the food trolley would come and if she would stop talking then.
“First Monday,” Auntie—or Ma’am—said again, seeing that Beng wasn’t going to say anything.
She looked at Beng out of beady eyes. Ma’am did not seem like she needed to blink on a regular basis.
He nodded to pacify her, but she still did not blink.
“First Monday,” he tried. And then, because she was glaring— “…Ma’am.”
She sighed, making a show of her exasperation, as if she had said something very obvious and he had not understood. The rest tittered. Then she leant forward (there wasn’t actually a need to lean; she was really very short), and said, slowly and maliciously, “First Monday, we clean the chimney.”
Beng nodded again, completely out of his depth.
Another dramatic sigh. The audience was lapping it up, sniggering and nudging each other. It was every bit as vicious and ten times as dangerous as any of the bullies back in school had ever been. Beng wondered briefly, traitorously, if Mother had left him behind on purpose. Out of nowhere one of them sprang into his line of sight, and passed a metal bucket to Ma’am, who proceeded to dump it carelessly into his lap. He jumped as a stiff-bristled brush and an array of items clattered out of it.
“First Monday,” she said, and now she was smiling for real, full and wide and mean. “First Monday, you clean the chimney.”