by Phoen, Sam;
“Oh, Uncle!” Eric says, suddenly inspired. “That’s exactly it. I’ve been so unhappy and trapped, and I get so angry because I don’t know what’s wrong. But you’ve put the finger on it. All it means is that I am in the wrong pot! I must go and tell my mother I don’t want to be a lawyer. I don’t want to be a cog in a corporate machine. I want to be a writer, and maybe go and help orphans in Zambia or Nepal. Climb mountains. Scuba dive. Skydive. Be at one with nature. See the world, meet other people!”
“Marvellous!” says Mr Devan. “When you are joyful, you infect others with it. When you’re depressed and miserable, you pollute the environment with negative energy.”
“I’m not a misfit after all!” Eric says, hugely relieved. “I always thought I was weird because I didn’t think in the way that my parents and many people in school think. I’ve been so unhappy and angry because I can’t see why I’m not satisfied with my life. I know I have a privileged life but it feels so wasteful and empty.”
“Yes, I gather that,” Rajah agrees. “I can sense that you want to be like Don Quixote and go out into the world, to explore, to fight windmills!”
“I suppose, yes. I just can’t bear the inertia of ordinary life. There is so much to see and do, so much to achieve. Better to fight windmills than to go through the daily grind, filled with apathy. I want to explore, not just the physical world but the world inside us, like the way you explore the metaphysical world.”
“Wah! Appa is right!” Rajah says. “You’re a big tree in a small pot! You have so much going on in your head but your body hasn’t kept up with the growth!”
Eric is so happy, he slaps Rajah on the back.
“Maybe you can be a travel writer and earn money while you’re traipsing round the world,” Rajah suggests.
“A travel writer! Rajah, that’s brilliant!” says Eric. “It’s exactly the kind of thing that’s right for me.”
“Hey, don’t forget to report everything back to me, huh?” says Rajah. “So that I can experience all that through you.”
The enormity of Rajah’s request makes Eric thoughtful. How sad for Rajah that he is deprived of even the possibility of exciting adventures. Those of us who have the chance never make use of them. Yes, Eric thinks. He can live life to the full and share it with others. He can help someone like Rajah experience a life he cannot live himself.
I have a purpose now! Eric thinks to himself.
Six
Auntie Devan is singing again, delicious smells wafting from the kitchen. There is a warm, homey feeling from the smell of food being cooked at home and the voices of loved ones, all mingling in the air. Eric has visited several times and tasted her vegetable pakora, mutton curry, sup kambing, dhal cha and various other delights. The love she pours into her cooking brings out a unique flavour in the food, as if it has been blessed by her joy. Nathan is always experimenting on his dance moves and asking Eric for advice, making him feel like a big brother. Eric enjoys reading to Rajah, with Saraswati on the floor, propped on her elbows, listening, as though mesmerised by his voice. He likes her attention, the shape of her face, her slender arms. He wonders if it will be possible to take things a step further.
Eric does not want to do anything that will jeopardise his friendship with the Devan family. With them, he feels wanted and valued. He talks to Rajah about all sorts of things. Eric does not tell him about everything that is happening at home but Rajah is good at picking up clues.
“So, when are we going to start looking for your grandmother?” Rajah asks.
“You mean you will come with me?”
“Yes, why not? I can’t see but I can walk. We’re friends, aren’t we?”
“Of course.” He paused. “Actually, have you ever thought of looking for your birth mother?”
A cloud passes over Rajah’s face and Eric regrets his question.
“Sometimes, I do think of her. Genes, right? Can’t help it,” says Rajah, trying to be upbeat. “Though Amma here is everything I imagine a mother to be…” He trails off. “But she understands and let me voice my inner turmoil. We know it’s an impossible task to search for my birth mother. Appa and the police during that time had exhausted all the avenues. Besides, if her family did not know about the pregnancy, to confront them with the truth might ruin her life. She might be married now, and her husband may not know about me.”
“Yes, I guess so,” agrees Eric. “I’m beginning to see that life is not all black-and-white.”
“Yes, but searching for your grandmother is a different matter.”
“What if she doesn’t want to see me?”
“Sorry for eavesdropping,” says Mrs Devan. “But I couldn’t help hearing. To me it’s highly unlikely that your grandmother wouldn’t want to see you. From what you’ve told us about what your mother said, it appears that your mother didn’t feel the relationship was important. So it’s possible that she didn’t go out of her way to maintain it. In the old days, it’s the responsibility of the wife to make the social arrangements, so that her husband will see his mother. But these days, things are different.”
“Thank you for that assurance, Auntie,” says Eric. “I suppose that I have to talk to my parents to find out what happened exactly.”
“Yes, you have to do that.”
“Well, I’ll have to ask my father to see if he has some kind of address.”
Benson must have been thinking about it as well. Eric returns home to an apartment which doesn’t have the welcoming feel of the Devans’ small flat; its interior has an atmosphere of a mausoleum. He goes straight up to his room. From inside he hears someone coming to his door. He expects his father to knock and call out to him again. But instead, an envelope is pushed under the door. When Eric opens it, a pair of keys and a note fall out.
Strangely, for a man who can communicate complex ideas about microbiology, Benson has a shortage of words when it comes to communicating his feelings.
The note is brief:
So much to say, don’t know where to start. Maybe when you’re not so angry, we can sit and chat together. Just you and I. But here is your Grandma’s last known address…
It’s an address on the island of Pulau Ubin. Eric has never been there. Pulau is Malay for island. It’s off the mainland, in the north-east, just under a fifteen-minute bumboat ride away.
Eric Googles the address, but sees no image online – the location is outside the satellite’s range. Maybe the keys are to his grandmother’s house.
The note continues:
Be careful. Your mother doesn’t know about this. The keys are to a storage place out in Alexandra. The security tag will get you into the building. The keys are for the door and lock at Unit 2019. I hope I’ve done the right thing for you.
Eric finds the security tag inside the envelope. He punches the address and unit number into his iPhone, then shreds the note and puts the keys and tag into his backpack. He’s so excited he can hardly sleep.
“Curiouser and curiouser,” Eric says, after relating to Rajah the contents of the envelope the next day.
“What does that mean?” Rajah asks.
“Oh, I have to read you Alice in Wonderland. Lewis Carroll writes such amusing stuff and he makes words up,” Eric explains. “So anyway, do you want to come with me to find out what the store is all about?”
“Of course!” Rajah says. “What an adventure!”
“Auntie, is it okay if I take Rajah with me?”
“I don’t see why not,” Mrs Devan says. “Good luck!”
The storage block is not far from Alexandra Hospital. Once heavily forested, the area now boasts of several shopping malls, car showrooms and mega-stores.
“Narrate to me what you’re seeing so that I can see it with you,” Rajah says.
“This is an industrial building,” Eric says. “There are flatbed trolleys near the cargo lift which is much larger than a normal lift. Here we go. Now, I’m tapping the security tag, opening the glass doors to let us off at the se
cond floor. So here, we have rows and rows of storage units in cheerful canary yellow. The place is well lit. There are electric fans mounted on the walls, probably for ventilation when you’re sorting out the stores. I’m impressed. Okay, let me figure out where Unit 2019 is.”
Eric is surprised at how his mind commits the details to memory as he speaks them out loud to Rajah.
“Okay this is it,” Eric announces with some trepidation. “Unit 2019. I feel like Ali Baba standing outside the cave for the first time. What treasures will I find? Or will there be skeletons? What has my father kept here that my mother doesn’t know anything about?”
“Oh I know that book!” Rajah says. “It’s a popular one in braille. I can say the magic words: Open Sesame!”
Eric slides the door open. He switches on the fan.
“Your magic words worked,” he says playfully.
“Okay, okay, what do you see?” Rajah says excitedly.
“Shelving racks. Packages everywhere. Brown packages and fat envelopes. Postcards…”
“Curiouser and curiouser,” says Rajah.
“They are all addressed to me,” Eric says in wonder as he checks them out. “Sent to my home address.”
“Who are they from?”
Eric turns the packages, envelopes and postcards. The same name on the back: Mrs Isabelle Lim Wainwright. Some addressed from Scotland, some from other places around the world and some from Pulau Ubin.
Eric tears open the nearest letter. It starts with Dear Eric and ends with Love from your Grandma.
“They’re from my grandmother!” he tells Rajah, reading out the names of places. “Why were they never delivered to me?”
“Help me to sit down,” Rajah says. “Then you can open the letters and parcels. Talk to me as you’re doing it so I can share what is happening.”
Eric helps Rajah to sit on the concrete floor so that he can lean against the wall of the cubicle. Rajah folds his legs in a half lotus pose. Eric goes to the biggest parcel and rips apart the brown wrapping.
“My gosh,” he exclaims aloud. “It’s a kid’s bike! And there’s a card.”
Eric reads it in silence.
“Eric?”
“I can’t believe it. It’s a birthday card from Grandma for my fourth birthday! She sent the bike! Why would my parents not want me to know? Why did my father bring it here? There are presents, letters and postcards, from all over the world. She must have travelled a lot. It looks as though she was married to a Scotsman, Graham Wainwright. She must have divorced my paternal grandfather and remarried. Listen to this card:
My dear Eric, Uncle Graham and I are thinking of you on your birthday. How I wish to be there with you. You must be a big boy now. Sadly, I didn’t get to speak to you when I called.
“There you are,” Rajah says. “She tried to get in touch.”
“But why didn’t I get to speak to her?”
Eric slits more envelopes and he sits reading – impassioned letters, words from a woman he thought was dead. She wrote beautifully, sharing her adventures and travels, unafraid to express her thoughts and feelings about him. Loving words – she had loved him! The knowledge is a joyous gift.
At first he reads them out loud so that Rajah can share the discovery of his grandmother with him but as the words became sadder, he found it harder to read aloud, the emotions drowning his voice. His grandmother had missed him, was obviously prevented from seeing him, though she did not say why or blamed anyone. As he reads of her pain at their separation, Eric almost chokes with sorrow. I imagine you approaching your teenage years now. You must be so handsome, one letter said, wherever you are, my dear grandson Eric, I shall be thinking of you and loving you…
“Eric?” Rajah says. “I know you’re still here but are you all right?”
Eric is so overwhelmed that he cannot speak.
Rajah edges carefully towards Eric. When his knee collides with Eric’s, he reaches out to touch Eric’s face. His hand meets wet cheeks.
“My dear friend,” Rajah says, putting his arms around Eric’s shoulders.
When he finally finds his voice, Eric says, “All these years, she’s been trying to see me! I’m her only grandchild. Loving me from afar. Suffering such cruelty silently. She even moved back to Singapore after her husband’s death to be near me. Yet she’s never been allowed to see me!”
“Someone must think so badly of her,” says Rajah. “Obviously that someone thinks she might be a bad influence on you.”
“It makes me so mad that people can be so judgemental. Especially when they profess to be Catholics!”
“Someone who swears by a religion is not the same as someone who lives spiritually. One follows dogmas, the other abides by spiritual truths.”
“I have to come back to read the rest of the letters. Somehow, I feel as if some hole in my psyche has just been filled.”
“That’s good,” Rajah says, patting Eric’s hand. “Your grandmother is part of your history so she is part of your life’s jigsaw puzzle. Sadly for me, my own psychic hole that is caused by not knowing my birth mother can never be filled.”
It was Eric’s turn to hug Rajah.
Seven
Eric feels like confronting his mother. Yet he does not want to reveal the secret of the store or get his father into trouble.
“The great gurus taught us that when we speak in haste or anger, we often regret it afterwards,” Mr Devan says when Eric shares his dilemma with him. “Our rows of teeth act like a fence. Only when words are meant to be spoken should the fence open and the words be let out.”
“You are right, Uncle,” Eric agrees. “I have so much anger inside, the words are tumbling to get out. Probably the wrong words.”
“You are human, so you can feel the anger. But you mustn’t attach yourself to the anger.”
“But it’s impossible not to feel without getting attached,” Eric wails.
“Attaching yourself to the anger is more damaging to yourself than to the person you are angry at,” Mr Devan says. “What you have to learn is to be witness to your anger and emotions. That’s the only way to acquire emotional distance so that you are not pulled in by the emotions. Come on, let’s try it. Bring up that moment when you find yourself getting angry.”
Eric visualises the scene when he was reading his grandmother’s letters, the sadness overwhelming him, then the anger.
“Don’t connect with the anger. Be aware of it but don’t let it possess you.”
“Aiyah, Uncle, it’s so hard.”
“It just takes time and lots of practice.”
“Eric!” Clara says when he arrives home. “We have to talk.”
His parents are seated in the living room, the air-conditioner blasting Arctic winds. Benson is in his armchair reading the paper, legs stretched out on the extended slide-out. Clara is wrapped in a woollen shawl. Seeing him, she reaches for the remote control and switches off the TV. Eric stands in front of them, trying not to be rude though he is seething inside. He desperately visualises his teeth as a fence blocking all the angry words from coming out, trying hard to practise all that Mr Devan had taught him. There is so much he wants to say to his mother but he knows he should not let the words get past the fence.
“Are you deaf or what?” Clara raises her voice. “I’m trying to talk to you and you’re playing dumb.”
“Don’t you think a different tone might be more helpful, honey?” Benson says.
“You shut your mouth! I’m not talking to you!”
“Dad is right,” Eric says quietly, pleased that he can control his voice and his anger. “When you can talk to me like I’m a human being, I shall be prepared to listen.”
“See! See!” Clara says crossly. “See what you’ve taught him to do! He’s answering me back.”
Eric refuses to stay to hear anymore. He walks up to his room, not realising that his father was following him on his heels. Before he can shut his door, Benson jams a foot to stop it closing.
“I’ve to talk to you.”
“Okay,” says the new, calm Eric, still using the relaxed tone of voice that he has acquired. “Come in so I can shut the door. Okay, what have you got to say?”
Benson paces the parquet floor.
“So much to say, don’t know where to start.”
“For goodness’ sake, Dad, stop procrastinating!”
“That’s the thing,” says Benson in abject misery. “I procrastinated to avoid trouble with your mother, and let things get out of hand. It’s all my fault.”
He sits on Eric’s bed and puts his head in his hands. Eric lets out a sigh of impatience.
“Your mother is trying to protect you, Eric. She does love you.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Trust me, she does. As she does love me. When we met, I wanted her to care for me so I… I probably exaggerated a few things.”
“Like what?”
“When my mother, your grandma, left my father for that man Graham Wainwright, my father refused to let her take me out of Singapore to Scotland. He took her to court to fight for custody of me. The court apparently decreed that a young child should not be taken to a foreign culture and country. So she left without me.”
Eric sits down in shock, not liking the revelation, this idea of his grandmother being ruthless enough to leave her young son.
“I was only six. I was angry and the anger stayed with me for a long time. I must have used the word abandoned to your mother once after we met and your mother latched on to it. In reality, my mother never did abandon me. She wanted to take me but my father didn’t allow it. He forced her to hand over the custody. She had had a difficult life with my father so she needed to love and be loved.
“She didn’t know what kind of life awaited her in Scotland. So in the end, she thought it best to leave me with my father in a home that’s secure for me until she’s sure. But as soon as she signed over the custody, my father made it difficult for her, refused to let her see me even though she made occasional visits when she could. Then he even stopped putting the phone calls through. But she never stopped loving me and sent me presents and tried to speak to me. Just as she did for you. But my father refused to let her see me, and shouted abuse at her when she came to our house.