by Balli Kaur
‘Let’s go,’ Narain said. His voice sounded like it was far away, mingling with the clatter of cutlery at the next table. Father remained seated. Narain saw the heavy rise and fall of his breath. It was like he was in a trance.
The blue-shirted man dragged the bottle of whiskey to the middle of the table and gave Narain a wink. ‘There’s a Punjabi girl who lives in that block over there, behind the closed shop. I forgot her name, or maybe she never told us. She’s a very special girl. If you want, I can find her for you. We met her here last night. For a few drinks, you can do anything you want with her. Four, five, six of us at one time, just for half a bottle of whiskey. A special girl.’ He poured another round for everybody at the table. His hands were even more unsteady this time and his eyes were bloodshot. He shook the last drops of whiskey into Father’s tea glass and then tapped the lip of his bottle against the glass.
Narain stared at the filmy mix of tiny specks of tealeaves, milk and whiskey. Drain water, he thought, thinking of the filth that used to surge through the island’s veins, through the canals and the river. He was aware that he was shaking with rage, that he might reach over the table and smash a bottle over the head of one of these men. He uttered a quick prayer – a string of words memorised in childhood which came to him automatically. Then he noticed Father. Staring wide-eyed at the men like a child witnessing his first horror, Father had begun to cry. He did not bother to wipe away his tears and his lips curled and quivered, his shoulders shook. He wept and mumbled until Narain steered him away from the men whose glasses began clinking again only moments after they left.
Amrit
‘What is happening is simple,’ Amrit said. Her new friends responded with wild laughter. She let out a high-pitched giggle as well. ‘No, listen. Listen to my idea.’
‘Your bullshit ideas,’ one man said loudly. His girlfriend placed an open palm over his mouth to shush him.
He twitched his nose and said something that made her retort, ‘You, lah!’
There were five of them sitting on the beach. The tide arrived like a furtive tongue against Amrit’s feet, leaving grit between her toes. Amrit had an idea about this earlier, about the earth eventually eroding if she sat here long enough to receive the sand. Her feet, she told all of them in a frenzy of discovery, her feet were taking what belonged to the seabed. If she kept collecting it and didn’t return it to the water, what would happen to the earth? That was when the laughing had begun, and it was contagious. The smell of beer on their skins mixing with the salty air, the blank night, made her feel braver, and she blurted out her every thought. She sensed their confusion, their bafflement and their impatience, but of course these people were not as clever as she, not even close.
‘Hey, Amrit,’ the man in the red shirt said, ‘just now, ah, when we saw you sitting alone, we thought, this is just a quiet Punjabi girl. Sitting near the seaside, maybe praying to your guru or something.’ Laughter scattered across the beach. Amrit closed her eyes and felt the laughter rock her body. ‘We didn’t know you have so many theories.’
Behind her, one of the men was sitting and watching her. She could feel the heat of his stare spreading over her skin like a firm hand. There were too many things to be said. She found it difficult to concentrate but she kept talking. ‘I’m just saying. There’s no such thing as no end. No end of the earth means that everything goes, bye-bye, done. But you really think everyone will allow it? And look. Look at the numbers. Today’s date, next week – it’s all the same as in the lottery. The lottery numbers follow the calendar. The lottery continues, so the world has to continue. If you just read the numbers correctly, you can predict everything that is going to happen, five, ten, twenty years from now.’ She pulled out the lottery tickets from her back pocket and spread them across the sand. One of the men whistled.
‘How many did you buy?’
‘Seventeen,’ Amrit said proudly. ‘I’ll win seventeen times.’ Her mind was foggy with the details of her winning strategy because she’d been planning it when they approached her. She’d been sitting on the beach, her clothes and hair soaked after taking a dip in the water. Clean me, she’d thought, swimming fast strokes away from the shore. She wanted to emerge without a trace of all the men she’d been with but when she was drying off, this group caught her eye.
The man sitting behind her reached over to touch her back. She smiled warmly and fell into his hands. The others gave each other looks and turned away, their gazes sweeping deliberately over the black sea and the tiny lights in the distance.
‘Where do you live?’ the man whispered. Amrit closed her eyes. It had been so long since she had been home that she could almost forget where it was. The day before New Year’s Eve, 30 December, had been the last time she remembered being home. She had woken up feeling a terrible sense of foreboding. The flat was empty; Narain was at work and the door of the master bedroom was shut. She had heard Father chattering away in his room. She went to his door and listened but only heard snippets of conversation. She knocked hard on the door and the noise from his room ceased. Amrit waited for Father to come out and scold her for interrupting him, and then it occurred to her that she had imagined all of it. She found a copy of the Yellow Pages in the storeroom and searched for the number for the Samaritans of Singapore. Her stomach twisting, she picked up the phone receiver, punched in the numbers and hung up on the first ring because she needed to rush to the bathroom. She called back several times afterwards and managed to stay on the line when a woman’s voice greeted her but she did not speak. How could she talk to this stranger? What would she say?
‘I live in Woodbridge Hospital,’ she joked, ‘for mad people.’ He chuckled and drew her closer. She had called them as well after she gave up on the Samaritans of Singapore. She had even spoken to a telephone operator about how to get a referral from a polyclinic doctor, but then the operator had asked for her name. Again, Amrit had found herself speechless. Imagine having to tell Father that she was now a lunatic, after all the shame she had already caused the family. Imagine Banu being unable to look her temple friends in the eye. Imagine Narain feeling defeated again. I’d rather be dead, she had thought.
Amrit heard the tide gently crashing over the sand and she couldn’t separate one sensation from another – his hands, the water, the ground dissolving beneath her feet. She constantly thought about the end, and all the possible ways it would happen when this thrill finally wore off. Escape. There were many possibilities. To think she had once thought of marriage as the only means to depart! She could lean far enough out of her bedroom window to let gravity take her down. She could drink a bottle of whiskey until it drowned every cell in her body. She could slam her head against the earth and let the noise in her mind give way to a peace she had never known.
Amrit woke to a clicking sound. A brief rush of wind cooled her feet and then left. The room became uncomfortably warm again. She forced her eyes open to the white morning light. This was not her room. The window grills were slanted bars behind a set of dust-coated blinds. The walls were covered in a tired shade of blue that made her think of hospital clothes.
There was also a mattress on the floor. A cartoon-printed sheet covered the lumpy shape of a person. Amrit was slowly remembering. It had been four – no, five – days since she left home with all the money she had and each morning, she had woken up somewhere different. Along the way she’d been to a string of pubs, the beach, the fancy club in town and more coffee shops. Sunlight streamed into the room, false and cheery. Amrit took in the white dresser with crayon lines scribbled across its side, and the pile of magazines on top. This was not a man’s room. Should she feel relieved? She was a little sick of men, but they were familiar. They had that same smell. Their tricks were predictable. She could close her eyes and shut out her senses and be with a man. Men did not expect very much from her, whereas the women she knew were full of expectations. They were sharper and they could see right into her. She was afraid to tell them anything about herself
because she knew what they would think of her. Loose and easy. Shameless.
The clicking started again. She thought it might be in her mind but it was too persistent. It was right behind her.
‘Taufiq, stop it,’ the shape under the blanket hissed. The clicking stopped. Amrit turned to see a young boy standing next to a kitchen stool on which sat a box fan. His finger hovered over a button.
‘I press this one and the wind go around,’ he told Amrit. ‘This one. Is R-O-T-A-T-E.’ She made an effort to smile. Her tongue tasted like ash. The boy turned and then bolted from the room. His feet were light as raindrops against the tiles.
‘Hafiza,’ Amrit said, suddenly. The name just flashed into her mind.
There was a pause before the person under the blanket responded with a groan. ‘Still early,’ Hafiza mumbled. Amrit sank back into the bed. Hafiza. They had met yesterday in the Lava Lounge on Tunnel Street. Hafiza had a head full of dyed brown hair and she was there with a large man with a pierced ear. He kept a strong arm linked around her waist like an anchor, and he slowly rubbed the fabric of her tight black tank top with his thumb.
Amrit had met a Dutch man there. Jacob. Her heart skipped a beat. She dug her hands into her pockets and pulled out two bus tickets, a rubber band for tying her hair, and a crumpled business card. Jacob’s phone number. He had told her to call him at some point. He was apologetic, she remembered, as he explained that she could not stay in his apartment. ‘But please call me some time. You can get me in my office.’ His parting kiss had been wet but not unpleasant. She felt it in her mouth now – his tongue against hers, his lips small but plump.
There was a clanging in the kitchen and then a heavy-set figure appeared in the doorway. ‘Hafiza! Hafiza, I’m going to work,’ she said in Malay. The woman, dressed in dark blue slacks and a white polka-dotted blouse stepped into the room. ‘Oi, Hafiza. I already gave Taufiq his breakfast. You take care of the rest.’
‘He’s not going to kindergarten?’ Hafiza mumbled. Amrit glanced at the calendar on the wall. It was Saturday.
‘Hafiza, get up!’ the woman shrieked. She kicked a toy truck. It skidded across the room and narrowly missed Hafiza’s head. ‘And tell your friend this isn’t a hotel.’ She glared at Amrit and stormed out. Amrit saw Taufiq trailing after her like a lanky shadow.
‘I’ll go soon,’ Amrit said. She got out of the bed. Her bones felt strangely stiff. She felt like she’d been running for days. Fragments of memories entered her mind. She remembered running, bursting out of the flat. She longed for that burst of energy now, that powerful rush of invincibility. So many friends made, so many jokes told. She remembered pitying people who were not like her. They were simply living, whereas she was electrified, magnified. She was fantastic. She wanted photographs taken of herself because she was certain her face glowed. Now she just felt worn and dull. Her hair was matted, her breath smelled terrible, her skin felt like it was covered with remnants of smoke and grease and last night’s rain. She’d been gradually descending since last night at the club, where all the drinks suddenly made her feel sombre and hopeless. They weighed her down and made her sob into Hafiza’s shoulder. ‘I can’t go home. I can’t go home,’ she had wailed as Hafiza stumbled onto the road and hailed a cab.
‘I should really leave,’ Amrit said.
‘No need,’ Hafiza said. She rose from the mattress. Her hair fell over the side of her face. She shook it away. Amrit studied her features in the light. Narrow eyes made to look wider with thick liquid eyeliner that curled around the corners, pointing to her temples. A wide nose. Small lips that looked like they were puckering even when they were not. There was a smudge of her blusher on the white pillowcase. The mattress was wrapped in an old sheet. It was faded yellow with squares and cartoon teddy bears.
‘You don’t have to go so quickly. She just loves to make a fuss. She’ll be at work the whole day anyway. No rush.’ Hafiza surveyed her surroundings. ‘What time is it?’
‘Don’t know,’ Amrit said, searching the room for a clock.
‘Taufiq!’ Hafiza suddenly shouted. It was as if she just remembered him. ‘My son,’ she explained. ‘Mum gives him one breakfast and she thinks I should treat her like the bloody Queen. Big deal. Taufiq!’
Amrit tried to digest this information. Hafiza’s mother looked no older than Hafiza herself. ‘Taufiq’s father?’ she asked.
Hafiza shrugged. ‘Don’t know, lah. Useless bum.’ She called for Taufiq again. He entered the room and sank into the mattress. ‘Oh my boy. Oh my big, big boy,’ Hafiza crooned. ‘Oh my big, big boy. Smelly boy.’ Taufiq giggled. Amrit smiled. Hafiza held her nose. ‘Stinky, stinky, smelly boy,’ she said.
After he ran off again, Hafiza turned to Amrit. ‘He’s easy to take care of. My mum just likes to nag. Climbs on top of my head, that woman.’
‘Mine too,’ Amrit said, trying out the complaint. ‘Always nagging.’ She tried to picture Mother hovering over her shoulders and telling her off. She tried to picture herself shaking off Mother and telling her to go away.
‘They can’t live without it, lah,’ Hafiza said. Then something occurred to her. ‘Eh, your mum’s okay with you not going home?’
Amrit shrugged. ‘She doesn’t notice.’
Hafiza let out a loud laugh. ‘Doesn’t notice? What the hell, you stay in a bungalow or what? Doesn’t notice?’
Amrit laughed along with her. ‘Yeah, I mean she knows but she can’t do anything, right? First time it happened she was upset. Now she’s used to it.’ How easy it was to conjure a mother like this, Amrit thought. She could create a few anecdotes and Mother could be sitting in this room between her and Hafiza, a model to study. She remembered doing this in primary school once, walking along the corridors and animatedly telling her classmates that her mother sewed her an apron for Home Economics, her mother was a dancer, her mother told great jokes. Word had gotten to Narain somehow and he told her to stop it. ‘It’s disrespectful,’ he told her quietly, although at the time she could not see how. She thought Mother was doing all these things in her absence.
Taufiq rushed back into the room again. ‘Can I watch cartoons?’ he asked Hafiza in Malay.
‘Can,’ Hafiza said, ‘but when I say it’s enough, you shut it off, understand?’
Taufiq nodded and left. Amrit could see the entire corridor of the flat from where she was. ‘Where’s your mother’s room?’ she asked Hafiza.
‘She sleeps here. Taufiq also. You took her bed, that’s why she’s so grumpy today. She came home and found us two drunkards.’ Hafiza giggled.
‘Oh shit. Sorry,’ Amrit mumbled.
‘No need to be sorry, lah. Happens. She needs something to get angry about anyway. At least today it’s you. She’ll have to spend her whole day at work thinking of excuses to be upset with me.’ Hafiza switched from Malay to English. ‘That’s why Taufiq television time also got limit. She see the electric bill – wah – big fuss, man. Like we suppose to live like animals or what.’ Hafiza shook her head. ‘Eh, yesterday I saw you with that ang moh guy. Not bad. Cantik. Usually I don’t like that kind, you know. Sly buggers. Come here and think they can screw every girl because they have white skin. But that fella was good looking, lah. Seeing him again?’
Jacob entered Amrit’s mind in a sharp flash. She remembered the wiry hairs on his arms and the surprisingly rough way they grazed her skin as they bumped against each other on the dance floor. ‘You’re not shy. My wife is shy,’ he had told her. His eyes were fixed on a spot far past her shoulders as he said this. He didn’t look her in the eye.
‘No,’ Amrit said. ‘Lost his number.’
‘Aiyoh. Stupid woman. Take, lah, next time. You never know. He might be rich.’ Hafiza studied her face. ‘What kind of house do you stay in?’ she asked.
‘Hmm?’
‘Flat, semidetached, condo, what kind of home your parents have?’
‘Flat,’ Amrit said.
‘Must be nice. Five room? Must be. Must be five room. Y
ou went to good schools, right? I can hear it in your English. Last night. That’s why the ang mohs like you. You can talk to them properly,’ Hafiza said, admiringly. She sat up and went closer to Amrit. ‘See. See your face.’ She raked her fingers slowly but with force through Amrit’s hair. The knots came loose. Amrit’s scalp stung. The shadows beneath her eyes and the uneven patches on her skin were more noticeable with her hair pulled away. She thought she looked haggard and worn, older than twenty-nine.
‘Ah. There,’ Hafiza said. ‘Hold this, I’ll get the mirror. I tell you, you put your hair like this, you look like somebody important. What job you want to have?’
‘Always thought I’d be a lawyer. Or work in advertising. I’m good with words,’ Amrit said, gazing into the mirror. Hafiza had twisted a few bits of hair into tendrils and let them hang down the sides of her face. ‘Failed all my exams though. No chance. Can’t even be a maid.’ She smiled to take the sting out of the words but she could not help remembering the stacks of applications she had sent in to advertising companies all over the island, even those who had no vacancies available. With each application, Amrit had included a portfolio of her own ideas for advertisements for household products. They surely trumped the unimaginative ones that repeated on television and bus stop posters, but nobody had replied. She finally gathered up the nerve to call one agency to ask them if they had received her application. On the other end, a tired sounding woman had told her that they were not interested. ‘Have you seen my drawings?’ Amrit had asked.
‘We hire people who are qualified to conduct business, not just draw pictures,’ the woman had said crisply.
‘Better, lah. Can be model or actress or what,’ Hafiza scoffed. ‘And you’re so skinny also. I tell you, I was like you until I got pregnant. After I gave birth, I went and bought this exercise thing.’ Hafiza crawled under the bed and began to search for something. Amrit continued to gaze at her own reflection. A sheen of sweat glistened on her cheeks. A row of fierce black hairs had sprouted up between her eyebrows and above her lip. Her eyes were bloodshot. She released her hair and let it fall loose. There was no reason to be showing her face.