by Gwee Li Sui
MOTHER: We are having a conversation. A discussion. There’s no need to raise your voice.
DAUGHTER: My Drama teacher, my Muslim teacher… and every other teacher who has seen the rehearsals don’t have a problem. Because we set the play during Roman times. When they were pagan. When they had blood sports. And we were really excited because we made Romulus’s family Christians… and the Romans were persecuting the Christians at that time, so –
MOTHER: Girl, I know you’re very invested in this play. I’ve seen you, for the past few weeks, spending a lot of time on it… but –
DAUGHTER: No. No buts. Don’t interfere. Please… Mum, I’m playing Julius.
MOTHER: I know… [Slight pause.] Who is playing Romulus?
DAUGHTER: There’s this girl in the Drama Club. Sean. I think she’s there because –
MOTHER: Sean?
DAUGHTER: It’s a long story OK, Mum… She’s butch. Ish. So Sean keeps hanging around and coming to the meetings, and I think… we think… she… maybe… likes… me?
MOTHER: Are you a lesbian now?
DAUGHTER: No! Of course, not! I don’t know! I’m only fifteen!
MOTHER: What do you mean you don’t know? Are you attracted to girls? You never said anything about being attracted to girls.
DAUGHTER: Because I’m not!
MOTHER: OK!
DAUGHTER: I’m not a lesbian!
MOTHER: You don’t have to shout. Your father and brother are watching the football match.
DAUGHTER: So was I before you started interrogating me.
MOTHER: Why are you interested in football?
DAUGHTER: Why can’t I be interested in football?
MOTHER: When I ask you to watch the Food Network shows with me, you’re not interested.
DAUGHTER: Can I please go? I will watch Food Network if you just let me go.
MOTHER: I called your principal just now.
DAUGHTER: You spoke to Mrs. Yap? About me? About the play?
MOTHER: Yes. I told her that I do not approve of the school performing this play. It’s not right.
DAUGHTER: It’s not right?
MOTHER: You have two guys kissing.
DAUGHTER: We’re girls!
MOTHER: It’s still wrong.
DAUGHTER: It’s just a play!
MOTHER: It’s a school play. This is going to be a public event. The show is in two weeks. Parents will be coming. There will be children in the audience. You are all fifteen and sixteen. You’re not old enough to be dealing with these issues. I am very, very surprised that the teachers are allowing this. I know your Drama teacher is very liberal.
DAUGHTER: He’s gay. You can say it.
MOTHER: Did he say that he’s gay? To you? To the other girls?
DAUGHTER: Have you seen his shoes? He wears Louboutins.
MOTHER: Did he try to promote his homosexuality?
DAUGHTER: Yes, he put his homosexuality in our drinks. Now we are all gay too.
MOTHER: No need to get smart. I have nothing against him or any of your teachers. They don’t have children so they don’t understand what parents go through every single day, and why this play shouldn’t be performed. I’m just glad – and Mrs. Yap agrees with me – that we caught it in time.
DAUGHTER: Caught it in time.
MOTHER: That’s why I had to talk to you. This is not an interrogation. Tomorrow morning, the Drama Club will be asked to choose another play. You still have time. You can still stage the original Romeo and Juliet…
DAUGHTER: Fine! Sean and I will be Romeo and Juliet, and we will profess our love to each other and kiss in front of the whole school.
MOTHER: What is that supposed to mean? Did Sean make a move on you? [Slight pause.] Did she?
DAUGHTER: Maybe I am a lesbian. So? Is that wrong? Will you disown me? Maybe I want to be a lesbian for a year, a month, a day. Maybe I will like it when Sean kisses me.
MOTHER: I’m going to call the police.
DAUGHTER: Call the police. Tell them to arrest me because I’m the one who has a crush on Sean. Not the other way round.
MOTHER: I know it’s very confusing at your age.
DAUGHTER: Mum, please… not the “confusing at my age” talk. It’s probably very confusing at your age too. [Slight pause.] You know what? Forget it. I’m done with the play. Can I go watch football now?
MOTHER: Why can’t you see where I’m coming from? I’m trying to protect you and your Drama Club. What if someone watches the show and then complains? What if they write on Facebook or, worse, send a letter to the forum page?
DAUGHTER: And what if they do? Will you be their accomplice or will you defend your daughter against them?
MOTHER: I will always be on your side. Don’t you dare question me on that. But this is about appropriateness. If you are one of those arty theatre groups out there doing such a show, I would say go ahead. Because they have all these checks and balances, the Arts Council, the censorship board, and all that. But, in school, who arbitrates?
DAUGHTER: Mum, we are students. We’re doing literature. We’re doing drama… stuff no one else wants to do. Let us just have some fun. If you want to find fault, you’ll find fault with any play we choose. Hamlet. Too much violence. A Streetcar Named Desire. Too much sex. A local play? Too much Singlish! Then why don’t you go write our plays? You and all you.
MOTHER: Puritans?
DAUGHTER: Where is all this coming from? Your so-called values. From the church.
MOTHER: My values, my dear girl, are not “so-called”. They come from teachings that have been handed down for generations.
DAUGHTER: Teachings. Right. Well, on behalf of my generation, we would like to inform parents out there that your teachings are outdated, and it’s about time you learnt from our teachings.
MOTHER: I will tolerate neither rebellion nor rudeness.
DAUGHTER: Every “conversation” we have these days is about right and wrong. This is right. That is wrong. These are the rules –
MOTHER: You are a girl –
DAUGHTER: You are a girl. Your brother is a boy. This is right. That is wrong. So, if I’m a boy in an all-boys school, you will allow this?
MOTHER: It’s not about allowing or disallowing. The rules are –
DAUGHTER: The rules are different. Exactly. Will you let him do this play because he’s a guy?
MOTHER: Yes.
Pause.
MOTHER: You know how difficult it is for me? Your father doesn’t understand. Your bother doesn’t understand. They go on living their male masculine lives, not a clue what we have to go through. What we wear, what we say, how we act – everything we do is judged twice, three times more than men. I want you to grow up to be –
DAUGHTER: Like you.
MOTHER: I want you to grow up to be respected. An independent, accomplished woman.
DAUGHTER: I’m only fifteen. I want to be sixteen and seventeen and eighteen. I want to learn… and make mistakes and learn some more. I can’t be anything if I am constantly being protected and prevented and prohibited. [Slight pause.] The other day, in class… I asked the teacher, my gay teacher, about homosexuality. What is its history? Why is it illegal in Singapore when there are gay marriages taking place in other parts of the world? And he said… as long as the government doesn’t repeal 377A, he can’t have a open discussion about homosexuality in the classroom.
MOTHER: I should have sent you to a neighbourhood school.
DAUGHTER: Can you please call Mrs. Yap and tell her you are fine with the play?
MOTHER: I am not fine with the play.
DAUGHTER: What if I don’t act? Someone else can play Julius.
MOTHER: …
DAUGHTER: Why can’t you do it for me? Isn’t that the right thing to do?
Pause. MOTHER takes the script. She looks at it. She reads.
MOTHER: O Romulus, Romulus! Wherefore art thou Romulus? [Slight pause.] Seriously? Everyone’s going to burst out laughing. Shakespeare will get up from
his grave and protest.
DAUGHTER: So, if we were to stage Shakespeare’s version, everyone will be fine? No one will have a problem with the fact that Juliet is actually only thirteen and Romeo sixteen?
MOTHER: What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet; so Romulus would, were he not Romulus call’d, retain that dear perfection which he owes without that title. Romulus, doff thy name and, for that name which is no part of thee, take all myself.
DAUGHTER: I take thee at thy word. Call me but love, and I’ll be new baptised; henceforth I never will be Romulus.
MOTHER: What man art thou that, thus bescreen’d in night, so stumblest on my counsel?
DAUGHTER: By a name I know not how to tell thee who I am: my name, dear saint, is hateful to myself because it is an enemy to thee. Had I it written, I would tear the word.
MOTHER: If they do see thee, they will murder thee.
DAUGHTER: There lies more peril in thine eye than twenty of their swords. Look thou but sweet, and I am proof against their enmity.
MOTHER: I would not for the world they saw thee here.
DAUGHTER: I have night’s cloak to hide me from their sight, and, but thou love me, let them find me here. My life were better ended by their hate… Dost thou love me? I know thou wilt say “Ay”, and I will take thy word. Yet, if thou swear’st, thou mayst prove false. If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully. Or, if thou think’st I am too quickly won, I’ll frown, and be perverse, and say thee nay, so thou wilt woo: but else, not for the world.
MOTHER: OK, enough.
DAUGHTER: I have no joy of this contract tonight. It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden, too like the lightning...
MOTHER: I said enough.
DAUGHTER: [As Romulus.] O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied? [As Julius.] What satisfaction canst thou have tonight? [As Romulus.] The exchange of thy love’s faithful vow for mine. [As Julius.] I gave thee mine before thou didst request it. And yet I would it were to give again. [As Romulus.] Wouldst thou withdraw it? For what purpose, love? [As Julius.] My bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep; the more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite.
Long pause.
MOTHER: When you go to school tomorrow, you can put the blame on me. You can sit with your classmates and cry and tell everyone how much you hate me and how horrible I am. And once all of you have collectively rallied against me, choose another play.
DAUGHTER: What time tomorrow morning?
MOTHER: 8 a.m. Principal’s office.
DAUGHTER: Will you be there?
MOTHER: No.
DAUGHTER: I’m still going to do it. Not for you. Not for the public. But the play will be staged. And Sean and I will kiss… in character.
MOTHER: Bring Sean home. I want to meet her.
DAUGHTER: Si Ann. That’s her name. Only a few of us get to call her Sean. [Slight pause.] Anyway… It’s late.
MOTHER: There will be other plays. You’ll be fine tomorrow?
DAUGHTER: I will be fine tomorrow.
MUM: I love you.
DAUGHTER: Don’t worry, mum. I’m not going to kill myself. I’m not going to hate you. I’m not going to be scarred for life. [Slight pause.] You know what this feels like? It feels like being punched in the gut. But somehow it doesn’t hurt. As if… as if just today, just this evening, a shield was created around me. And it’s still there.
MOTHER: Good night.
DAUGHTER: Night.
DAUGHTER walks away. MOTHER looks at her. Pause. DAUGHTER returns, goes to MOTHER, kisses her, and exits.
Lights fade.
The Balinese Duck
BY HO MINFONG
The dirt road threaded its way down the hillside, a grey ribbon between the terraced rice fields. Nyoman squinted at it, trying to imagine walking on it all the way down to the southern coast of Bali. How many days would it take to reach the ocean? Three? Four? Maybe even five, having to herd the ducks in front of him. Could he really do this?
“If you don’t think, you can do it,” his big brother said. “I will go along with you.”
Nyoman glanced up at his brother – a head taller and four years older he was, yet he couldn’t walk more than a few steps without limping, even using his cane, that glossy rosewood cane he had carved for himself after the bombing incident. Nyoman took a deep breath. No, he would do this alone. Instead of his big brother, his now lame big brother, Nyoman would be the one this year to herd the flock of ducks down to the marketplace.
“I’ll be fine,” Nyoman said, with more assurance than he felt.
“Make sure you get a good price for them then. And remember to head for the Kuta marketplace, even though it’s further away than the Denpasar market – understand?”
Nyoman nodded. Yes, yes – he had heard it from his brother so many times before: how he should herd their flock of ducks an extra twenty miles, bypassing the huge market at Denpasar, and head towards the coast, to Kuta – where the presence of tourists at the beach raised the price of everything, even ducks.
“And don’t spend the money on anything but the bus fare home,” his brother added. “Mama needs all the money you can bring back.”
Fifty ducks, five times more than his age, Nyoman thought. Hopefully, he would sell each for about 70,000 rupiahs each, so the whole flock of them should be enough to buy rice seed and fertiliser for next year’s rice crop. Times were hard, with the recent tsunami and, before that, the bombings having stemmed the tide of tourist dollars which had flowed so freely in good years.
“And remember where to stop each night, with Auntie Kadek in Mas and Uncle Wayan’s after that, then…”
“I know, I know,” Nyoman said. He had heard it a dozen times, committed it to memory. The road ahead unfurled into the distance, and he suddenly felt impatient to set out. With a swish of his bamboo pole, he flushed the ducks out of the stubbles of rice stalks and started to walk after them down the road.
“Wait, I have something for you,” his brother said, limping after him. In his outstretched hand was a small block of mahogany, its grain a lustrous brown. “To help you pass the time in the evenings,” he said, slipping Nyoman a whittling knife too. “Careful when you use it. I sharpened the blade myself this morning.”
Nodding his thanks, Nyoman slipped the knife and piece of wood into the woven rattan basket filled with a day’s worth of sticky rice and continued walking down the lane. He glanced over his shoulder and saw his brother limping back up the hill, his gait crooked and unsteady. Nyoman watched until the other boy had reached the bamboo fence around their house, and then he turned to the road ahead.
***
It was high noon before Nyoman stopped to rest. In the shade of a large tamarind tree, he sat down and ate his lunch. The ducks padded around him, quick to nip at the few grains of rice he dropped.
If only he had something to finish off the lunch with, Nyoman thought – and then he saw the pods of ripe tamarind hanging off the branch overhead. His mouth watered. The tart sweetness of the tamarind would be just the thing!
Kicking off his sandals, he started to climb up the tree. He hoisted himself onto the first big branch and reached over for a tamarind pod. Just as he was twisting off its stem, he lost his balance and, with a startled cry, fell off.
Below him, the ducks scattered in a flurry of feathers and flapping wings. As he fell, Nyoman twisted instinctively away from the ducks, trying to avoid landing on them. But, as he hit the ground, his arm smashed against something soft. A duck? Hurriedly, Nyoman got up and dusted himself. There was a scrape on his left knee but nothing serious. He took a step or two and realised with relief that he could walk without pain.
Then he noticed the duck next to him. It was struggling to get up, but it could barely stand upright. Awkwardly, it tried to waddle off, dragging one wing behind lopsidedly.
“It’s hurt,” Nyoman realised. Gently, he reached down and scooped up the lame duck. Warm and soft to the to
uch, its glossy brown feathers felt as smooth as the finest silk. Nyoman stroked its back, examining its wingtips as he did so. The duck gazed up at him, unblinking.
Nyoman felt its quick heartbeat pulsing against his own. Carefully, he reached under its soft belly and probed its legs. One of them was fine, firm, and flexed at the mid-joint. The other leg dangled limply – broken.
Once, years ago, when Nyoman was still a little boy, he had broken his arm falling off a tree, and the thin bone had fractured just above his elbow. The village doctor fashioned a splint made from some pliable bamboo to hold the arm in place until the bone had mended itself and he could flex his arm gradually again.
He tried to remember what the splint looked like. Two sticks, held in place by tightly wrapped cloth – couldn’t he make the same thing for this duck?
Nyoman looked at the bamboo pole he used to herd the ducks with. It was much too thick for the duck’s tiny leg. But what if he cut some splinters from one end of it – might that work? He reached into the rattan basket for the knife his brother had given him and tested its blade against his thumb. It was very sharp.
In no time at all, he shaved two strips off his bamboo pole and, holding the unresisting duck in his lap, tied them onto either side of its broken leg. Then, carefully, he set the duck on its feet again.
“There you are, little one,” Nyoman said, nudging it away. He liked the name he had given this duck. Memeri: little duckling.
By this time, the other ducks had wandered back and gathered around as if to watch. Nyoman took no notice of them. He stared at Memeri: it stood still, on one leg, and continued to gaze at Nyoman.
“Walk, Memeri,” Nyoman said and prodded it. “Go on…”
It took two steps, dragging its lame leg after it, then sank down again.
“I’ll have to carry you,” Nyoman said, and, although he said it grudgingly, he liked the idea of having the duck close again.
Together, they made their way down the hillside, with the lame duck tucked under Nyoman’s arm while he herded the others in front of him.
When the sun started to sink behind the tallest mountain ridge, Nyoman knew that he would have to find shelter for the night soon. Nestled below in the valley below him now, he saw a cluster of thatched roofs, spots of brown against the patchwork gold green of the padi fields.