by Fiona Cheong
So where had that rumor begun?
Shak was standing beside me, waiting, as I closed the gate after us. We could smell her mother's mutton curry, rich and spicy, coming from the back of the house, and I was thinking, at that moment, about Isabella. I was thinking of Isabella coming to the library that afternoon, and on the morning Laura Timmerman was telling everyone about the doctor's son (how after the doctor had pushed him outside the gate, he had crawled underneath a neighbor's car parked on the road, and he had hidden there until a servant was sent to get him, when it was almost midnight). I was thinking about Isabella watching Shak, the whole time Laura was talking, and when Shak finally noticed, the two of them had exchanged looks, just for a quick second, and then they had turned away from each other.
Since Shak had never spoken to me about it, I must have thought after a while, I had imagined it. But I hadn't, you know.
"Rose?"
I knew from her tone, Shak was thinking I wanted to say something, but there wasn't anything to say. So I shook my head, and I answered, "Nothing."
"You sure?"
Her American accent sounded stronger when I couldn't see her face clearly, since by now, the sun had gone down. That's how I remember the moment, not because it bothered me to hear the accent. Because on that other night, we were standing like that also, although it was later in the night, and she had asked my name like a question. Only then, her voice was still Singaporean, and young, so young. I wasn't sure when I had felt her lips touching mine what was happening, whether she was kissing me or not, and I've never been sure.
It was only that one time.
"Rose."
'There's nothing, Shak. Really." I shook my head again, and I thought I heard her sigh, but then, she said quietly, "Okay."
And we left the gate and went into the house, and we weren't outside again until Auntie Coco came up the road, which was shortly after eight o'clock.
OCCURRENCES ON THE
THIRD SUNDAY
IN
august, 1994
N LIKE I I i E V I N I)OWS in Madam's living room and most of the windows around the house, the ones in Madam's bedroom had never been replaced (as Madam's husband had fallen ill while the other windows were being replaced and with the workers hammering and drilling and walking in and out of the house all day, it had been impossible for anyone in the family to find a moment's calm, and so Madam had decided to pay the contractor before the job was finished, saying she would get in touch with him when her husband was better, which Malika was sure Madam had intended to do and would have, if things hadn't started going downhill so quickly, it seemed there had barely been time to catch one's breath).
So the windows in Madam's bedroom were the original windows of the house, with frosted panes and rusted levers and latches that in recent years had come unlocked on their own on a few blustery afternoons. Malika had never known the latches to loosen on a still night, so when Madam mentioned while she was sipping from her cup of coffee on Sunday morning that the window near the dressing table had been ajar when she woke up, Malika wondered at first if it was possible that she, Malika, had forgotten to lock it on the night before. (On the night before, Malika had heated up some left-over fish curry and eaten it with freshly cooked rice while she read by herself at the kitchen table. Madam had been out having dinner with a recently widowed friend, an American gentleman named Nigel, who used to be a friend of Madam's husband's. She had come home around ten o'clock, while Malika was still awake, but Malika hadn't known she would, and at half-past nine when Malika was closing the windows, she had gone into Madam's room to close those windows as well, which she would have left open if she had known Madam was on her way home, as Madam often liked to listen to the rhythms of the night (as Madam put it) before she went to sleep. Malika would find her sitting on her bed and looking towards the windows after reading or writing a letter (a page or a pen still in Madam's hand) when she brought her the usual glass of whiskey. There would be such an expression in Madam's eyes, Malika would say each time she stumbled upon this moment in her story. Such an expression, whether of yearning or relief, Malika was hard put to define as she shook her head and sighed, her fingers reaching for her red head, for its resplendent smoothness and its absolute fit between her thumb and finger. Madam had never admitted it to her, but it wasn't lost on Malika that it was Madam's husband who hadn't been able to tolerate any length of a time in a room without an air conditioner, at least not in Singapore. Ever since his death, she was no longer required to turn on the air conditioner in the master bedroom a half hour before Madam was expected home.)
I suppose it's high time we replace them-lah," Madam was saying, and when Malika looked back upon the morning, it always began this way, with Madam sitting at the kitchen table in her green-and-yellow floral pajamas (a hint of fuchsia lipstick from the night before still on Madam's lips), Madam's long, slim fingers folded around the steaming white cup as if to warm her hands. Malika would remember the sensation of being as if in a book, as if in a scene set in a foreign country on one of those brisk winter mornings imbued with a slant of light (or was it supposed to be on winter afternoons that the foreign poet had seen the slant of light?), as if Madam were a character she was encountering in some such place, a woman alone at breakfast in a house inundated with absences. (One could almost hear the timber crackling in a stone hearth to her left, just out of Malika's angle of vision, and a dry wind rasping behind her head, as if outside the kitchen window were bare, wiry trees and the sky ablaze in a chilling temperate light.)
"Would you like more toast, Madam?" she asked, even though Madam hadn't yet touched the two slices Malika had left on a plate on the table when she had brought Madam her coffee and The Sunday Times (which was lying unread beside the plate, the corners of the newsprint pages still flat and uncrinkled).
"No, Malika, thank you," was Madam's response, and Malika could hear in Madam's tone that Madam was preoccupied with a matter other than breakfast.
She herself had spoken only to break the delirium of feeling afloat on a page, as if she, too, were a character, wandering on the outskirts of the house owned by the woman at the table, the woman who tended to occupy the heart of any book, who dined alone now, on most days and nights, but who had once been married and surrounded by daughters (before they were teenagers and started spending more and more hours out of the house) and who used to dine every so often with the numerous friends and colleagues of her husband's, the woman who sometimes went out with a friend of her own, the wife of a colleague of her husband's or another schoolteacher (or sometimes one of Madam's cousins would visit from Malacca), and very, very occasionally, now that the woman's husband was deceased, went out on what might be called a date.
Unless they were about war and even when they were set in wartime, stories tended to revolve around dates, every story a romance of some sort, Malika thought as she stepped into the passageway outside the kitchen to gather pieces of handwashed laundry from the clothesline (there were two of Madam's sleeveless silk-knit tops, one in solid apple-green, the other an effervescent blue, and a dazzling mauve sari Madam had worn to a farewell luncheon for one of the nuns at school on Thursday, a young nun who, like Miss Shakilah, had been one of Madam's pupils and who would be leaving in a few days to study in the master's program in psychology at the University of Chicago in America).
It crossed Malika's mind (as it had on other occasions) that she had never experienced a date but she simply reminded herself (as she would on other occasions) that dating was a modern invention, a modern luxury and, in some respects, a frivolous pastime (to be enjoyed by the very young or by a widow like Madam who wasn't seeking another marriage). Romance wasn't a necessary human experience and the lack of it wasn't an issue worth dwelling upon (Malika's exact words, from what I remember). Having acquiesced before she was Sali's age or mine to her apparent lack of sex appeal in the eyes of men, and to the compounding unattractiveness of her station in life, Malika's indulgence of Sali's d
aydreams bore no reflection on her wishes for herself. No boys had ever whistled at her when she was a schoolgirl at the convent in Malacca, and not even the roguish-looking, blue-collar characters slouching over the tables at Newton paid her any mind when she accompanied Madam. It was no wonder then that she believed and acted on the conviction that romance lay beyond her realm of possibilities, for Malika knew no gentleman was going to come calling for her at Madam's gate, or try to steal a kiss from her at the end of the night, or send her roses in the middle of an ordinary day.)
"Eh, Malika, can you go to Holland Village this morning and buy some steaks?" asked Madam.
Malika lay her hand on the apple-green top, feeling the expensive Chinese silk like a caress on the calloused skin of her palm. She paused to say, "Yes, Madam, how many?"
"Just two will do," said Madam. 'Two thick and juicy Tbones, or three if you feel like having one today, you want one?"
"No, thank you, Madam." (Malika wasn't religious but she had never acquired a liking for beef, which she had tasted once as a young girl, at Madam's request.) "Mrs. Allen coming for lunch today, Madam?" she asked, folding the apple-green top and laying it on a clean corner of the dryer.
"No-lah, I can't meet with her today, although poor thing, I think she gets lonely without her husband. Miss Shakilah is coming over."
"Oh, I see, Madam."
"Let's also have baked potatoes and buttered peas, with sour cream on the side, just as they do it at the American Club. Okay, Malika?"
"Yes, Madam."
Reaching for the blue top, Malika noticed out of the corner of her eye the burst of sunlight in the flamboyant trees, rampant streams of gold over the branches and leaves, the crimson flowers edged in shadow sparkling and provocative on this morning. Her armpits felt damp with perspiration. She wondered as she was folding the blue top if she would dare to ask Miss Shakilah how Miss Shakilah had known about the girl in the sugar cane, and why she had asked Malika about it.
"So remember to buy sour cream-ah, when you go to the supermarket? And check to see if we need a new bottle of Worcestershire sauce before you go. Jangan lupa, okay?"
"No, I won't forget, Madam." Malika decided that if the opportunity arose, she would ask Miss Shakilah why she had asked about the girl, but only if the opportunity arose (which it would not).
A mournful howl rose from one of the neighboring gardens as she lay the blue top on top of the apple-green (a howl unlike that of any dog or cat, Malika would muse later when the memory returned swollen with other, wilder sounds, later when uncertainty flowered gasping and sputtering into a conundrum of meaning and the seething echo of things buried in monsoon mud lay imprinted on the wall of her womb, not like an embryo but like the thought of an embryo, Malika would say).
For the moment it seemed a Sunday like any other. Only the mynah birds were oddly subdued, their presence a limp fluttering somewhere in the air or a feathery brush through the grass. But Malika was sure she sensed the sharp note of a warble beginning in the treetops as she reached for Madam's sari, careful to fold it in layers as she lifted it off the clothesline so that the ends didn't even skim the ground.
She wouldn't remember hearing Madam getting up from the table and leaving the room, but when Malika turned towards the doorway, Madam was no longer in the kitchen. She thought nothing of it, however, when she saw that the plate of toast was empty and The Sunday Times wasn't on the table. (Madam had probably taken the paper into the bathroom to read, as was Madam's habit.)
A ball rolled out of the neighbor's house next-door and Malika heard it bouncing along the stone slabs that covered the neighbor's drain. No child ran out to pick it up, and when Malika glanced towards the fence before stepping into the kitchen, she saw the ball rolling onto the grass and coming to rest by a banana tree.
This, she would remember.
WHAT MALIKA DIDN'T know about Miss Shakilah wasn't important or relevant to the turn her life was about to take (and remains hearsay in our story, which is to say, one wouldn't hear about this in the daily, chatty conversations of the Madams in Miss Shakilah's neighborhood, but only in the most private of conversations muttered among the servants, and this is simply that in reality, Miss Shakilah wasn't the paragon of virtue Madam and Malika had believed her to be in school, for while it was true Miss Shakilah had been a straight As pupil, in the months before her departure for America in 1979 she was rumored to have been the more ardent pursuer of a forbidden affair between her and one of her neighbors, one of Miss Shakilah's female neighbors, a certain lovely and reclusive Madam Thumboo, a widow, who was not only a woman but also old enough to have given birth to Miss Shakilah herself, who was, indeed, exactly the same age as Miss Shakilah's mother, and Miss Shakilah herself being only eighteen at the time of the affair ... where did she find the nerve? a few of us had wanted to know and it's this that lingers on our minds).
It was just as well Malika didn't know (and fortuitous that Madam lived in Bukit Timah, a great distance away from us), as Malika might not have agreed so easily to the proposal about to be put forth by Madam Thumboo in a few months when Miss Shakilah went into labor (and if Malika hadn't said yes to Madam Thumboo, there's no telling what would have been done about the baby).
Of course the hint of what would come to pass was in the air when Miss Shakilah arrived for lunch on the Sunday following Madam Coco's sister's vanishing, but it was the merest hint.
Malika was removing Madam's set of bamboo placemats from the top drawer of the rosewood sideboard in the dining room when she heard Madam greeting Miss Shakilah in the front of the house ...
"Hello, darling, how are you feeling today?"
Malika heard Miss Shakilah's soft laugh and a low murmur as Miss Shakilah was taking off her sandals on the patio. (When she brought Miss Shakilah a glass of soya bean milk, she saw the sandals positioned neatly to the side of the doormat, clumsylooking brown Birkenstocks that reminded Malika of a water buffalo's hoofs. Malika had seen such footwear on the feet of the European tourists, too, and sometimes on the feet of local teenagers loitering about on Orchard Road, where Malika used to accompany Madam so that she could run errands for Madam while Madam was at the beauty salon-this happened infrequently now as Madam liked running her own errands, liked the feel of competence and self-sufficiency that came in the small act of taking care of oneself.)
Nothing seemed awry, as Malika would tell us months later, after Madam Thumboo had been to see her and when we heard of Madam's seemingly sudden decision to put the house up for sale. (Needless to say, Sali and I were dismayed at the news, but we're not the point of this story. We've been only eavesdroppers here, peering over Malika's shoulder while she rummages through her years with Madam, her fingers turning over leaves of glances and speechless moments for the lost unspoken, the missed unsaid but understood thread of their conversations that could have foretold their story's end.)
It was around noon or a little past it that Madam and Miss Shakilah sat down to lunch (in the dining room rather than in the kitchen, where Malika had laid the table with a white lace tablecloth crocheted by Madam's mother, utensils made of English silver, and Madam's expensive white chinaware and crystal stemware-Madam herself had arranged the tall cattleya orchids Miss Shakilah had brought in a crystal vase and set them in the center of the table, varying hues of pink and brilliant amber opening off the bifoliate bulbs and imparting to the table an elegantly festive touch).
The sliding doors to the garden were open and a mynah bird was skipping along the top of the British neighbor's wall. Malika drew the sheer gauze curtains together, to keep out the sun's glare as the afternoon wore on. She thought she sensed Miss Shakilah's gaze following her around the table as she walked towards the standing fan in the corner by the piano, but Malika could have been mistaken about it as when she turned around (after switching on the fan and setting it to rotate at medium speed), Miss Shakilah was shaking her head and smiling at Madam (who was giving Miss Shakilah an account of her dinner date with Nig
el), and looking at Madam with such muted adoration and affection, Malika wondered how she could have forgotten that expression of Miss Shakilah's from when Miss Shakilah had been a pupil of Madam's, for now the picture came flashing back of a sad-faced schoolgirl with plaited hair, sitting among her classmates on the patio floor and singing her bruised heart to ashes.
(It was this memory of Miss Shakilah at twelve that would prompt Malika to say yes to Madam Thumboo's proposal, but the event had yet to happen and as Malika was leaving the dining room, she felt merely grateful that life had never shown her such an expression on Michelle's face, or Caroline's or Francesca's.)
"And then, when we were sitting in his living room, he kept putting his hand on my lap, you know?" Madam was saying as Malika stepped into the corridor.
She paused to listen through the wall.
"You were surprised?" asked Miss Shakilah, with a smile in her voice.
Of course I was surprised. Alamak, you, as bad as my daughters-lah, you. You know what Caroline said when I told her? Mum, ask him if he has a slow touch. Can you believe it? I told her see-lah, here I was feeling sorry for the poor man because his wife just died, and I look down and there's his hand on my lap. I didn't know what to do with his hand, I told her. Ask him if he has a slow touch. That's what she said, my Caroline."
In the back of the house, a sudden gust shook the banyan trees, and Malika could hear the quiet moan of the bending leaves as Madam and Miss Shakilah went on talking. She closed her eyes (because there seemed to be whispers lapping about the corridor on this afternoon and as Malika would put it later, somewhere in the recesses of her mind she could feel a flickering, a hearkening of sorts towards a forgotten life, the one not lived, as Madam's and Miss Shakilah's voices receded momentarily). She was on the verge of hearing something else (Malika was sure of this) when one of Madam's bedroom windows came unhinged and started banging against the sill.