Heaven Has Eyes

by Philip Holden

  “Boy Boy!” Jacq said again, switching to Mandarin. “Shall we let Chawan out to play?”

  Teacup transposed into Mandarin. So even the pig’s name, he thought, was translated.

  The child nodded without enthusiasm, and trotted off to the door leading to the master bedroom. He heard a squeal, and a rumbling, a clicking of trotters on the marble floor. Then the sun came out, poking through the window grilles, and he was momentarily dazzled.

  “Growing, eh?” Samuel said. “You haven’t seen her for a few months?”

  The animal that stood before him was now the size of a small dog, and looked twice as heavy, its back sagging into a curve that mirrored a distended belly. The creature came up and snuffled his hand briefly with its wet snout, thrust forward through heavy jowls of fat. This wasn’t what struck him most, though. It was the eyes, black, like tiny berries in whorls of flesh, fixed on him with a malevolence he had seen before, but which he could not place.

  Samuel raised his arm and turned to Jacq.

  “Ling’s texting. Asking when we are coming.”

  “We just need to get Hani to mop the kitchen floor.”

  “No time. Do it tonight.”

  A last shuffling of bags, and the family flowed out towards the door, Hani pulling Boy Boy by the arm.

  “I’ll lock the gate,” Samuel said, turning the key from the outside. “Keys in the bowl there. Food in the pot. Join us for dinner? If you get bored, you can always take the pig for a walk.”

  • • •

  When they were gone, Jia Wen opened the windows wide, turned up the ceiling fan, and settled down on the sofa to watch television. The pig made several abortive efforts to join him, placing its front trotters on the cream leather cushion, and squirming upwards, only to fall backwards with a thump. On its third attempt, he decided to help it out, grabbing it round an area that he thought corresponded to a waist. The animal was heavier than he expected, a jelly-like mass that flowed through his hands as he fumbled for a handhold of muscle or bone. The thin fur on the belly, he noticed, was coarse: he twined his fingers in it, and the animal let out a loud, almost human, squeal. One more pull and it was sitting with him on the couch, pushing him against the armrest as it settled down, its snout nuzzling and then slobbering over his arm in what might be gratitude, but might equally be casual hunger.

  Jia Wen switched on the television. He’d only picked up the remote giving access to the terrestrial channels, but the weight of the pig and the aching in his joints made any further movement an effort. He scrolled through channels in different languages: Mandarin, then English, Malay, Tamil. On each the scene was more or less the same. Anxious studio presenters artfully engaging in product placement. Cut to a distant shot of the Padang, with a line of people going back and forth, and then to a reporter at ground level, thrusting a microphone into the faces in the queue. Then there would be photographs of the Founding Father, or archival footage of him at various stages of his political career. Fleshy, the Old Man, Jia Wen thought, surprised he hadn’t noticed it before. Billowing shirts and tight belts couldn’t hide a lifelong struggle with weight. Only late in life had he become thin. A buttoned-up life. He had cried, on television, on the day that he’d announced Singapore’s separation from its hinterland. That particular clip played over and over again, the man’s voice crackling, grinding to a stop, his hand raised to his face. “Do you mind if we pause for a while?” The footage was grainy; Jia Wen searched eagerly for tears, for a glint of moisture, in the corner of his eye, before the man raised a hand to his face. But there was nothing.

  The pig nuzzled closer to him as he watched, and his thigh grew clammy, either with sweat or, more likely, drool from the animal’s snout. It looked up at him, shuffled, and settled down again, its head lolling across his lap. He stroked its head absently, searching in this bloated creature for a trace of the lithe little piglet he had last seen. After five minutes more of archival footage, the pig gave out a snort, close to a sigh, and burrowed further towards his groin. Its breathing was rhythmic now. Sleeping, Jia Wen thought.

  There was, despite the discomfort, something pleasurably familiar about the pressure of flesh on flesh. He rooted around in his memory. In Brisbane, in those student days abroad before he was ill. Late afternoons, heavy with thunder. Nadia would come by, on her bicycle. From his room, he’d hear the lazy turns of the chain, the squeak of worn brake blocks, and then the clicking of a lock. He’d meet her on the porch, the screen door rattling closed behind them. Naked in his bedroom, they’d fall upon each other, lips locking and then letting go, flesh pressing close and then closer. Her hands were dry and freckled, he remembered, but her breasts and belly were milky white, soft, moist, even under the lazy fan. Later, in a darkening evening, he would wake without knowing where he was, or where his body began or ended, only that her flesh pressed softly onto his.

  The pig whimpered. On the television, a video of the Founding Father in his prime. Everything in city-state, he said, should work. Press every button, touch every lever. Lines behind him on a graph marched upwards from left to right, higher and higher. Productivity. Investment. Gross Domestic Product. The rutting frenzy of development. Then the programme cut to an aerial shot of a new industrial estate, of acres of level, dry red earth.

  A rhythmic movement now, against his thigh. The pig was still asleep, but pushing against him. A bright red tube, like an umbilical cord, had emerged from between its legs, its tip twisted like a corkscrew. So Teacup wasn’t a girl after all. He pushed the animal away, a little too violently, so that it slipped over the slick leather of the couch onto the floor, landing with a squeal. It shook itself, momentarily puzzled, and then looked at him again, but now without any pretence of affection, settling down on the marble floor with a sigh.

  He watched television for another ten minutes, trying not to focus on the pain in his joints. His condition had not developed until he returned to Singapore, almost ten years after he started work in the government-linked company. He’d done well in his career, moving slowly up the corporate ladder and then pausing, apparently forever, on a comfortable rung. He looked after himself well: he exercised, ate in moderation, spent time with family and a diminishing circle of school friends. Yet his body had a life of its own. He began to feel tired. His joints ached, especially after a day out in the sun. At times he felt dizzy; at work, he could not concentrate. And, above all, dryness: cracked lips, a parched mouth, eyes that grew red and were easily strained. There were rounds of tests, but no clear results. Rest, his doctor told him. Don’t think so much. Enjoy life. Finally, he was referred to a psychiatrist, and given little white pills to manage anxiety. Don’t worry, the psychiatrist told him, half the management of your company come to see me.

  At home and at work, the whispers had begun, faint at first, but getting louder and louder. In the office, he would overhear snippets of conversation from other booths. When he went to the pantry, he’d find a small group of colleagues in animated discussion; then one would nod in his direction, and the conversation would dry up at once. So they had been talking about him. His performance was, his reporting officer noted at annual review, slipping. Still adequate, but only just: he should remember how hungry to eat his lunch those foreign talents were. Samuel had taken him out one lunchtime for a “man to man” session, as he described it. Jacq was worried about him. Had he thought about coming to Church? Or doing some work for the less fortunate? Of course Jia Wen’s symptoms were real, very real, to him. But had he thought of how a change of attitude to life might help?

  His diagnosis, when he received it, came as a relief. An autoimmune condition with an exotic, unpronounceable European name, which he brandished like a talisman to relatives, a spell to put a stop to further inquiries. “Is that so?” his aunties and uncles would say in incomprehension across the table, and return to their tea, wine or rice bowls. Only his mother was more persistent, insisting he look it up in a dictionary, and tell her the Mandarin word. Dry Flesh Disea
se, he told her, and she listened without surprise. You were always like that, she told him. Even from young. Shrivelled up inside. You would never let go. Even a smile was so difficult to get out of you. That’s what your father said, also, before he died. At work, there was temporary sympathy. Reunion dinner was smaller that year, with two cousins staying away because, Jacq told him one day, they were frightened he might be infectious. He had felt momentarily angry at their stupidity. No outside threat here, just his body turning against itself, feasting on its own flesh. But he was also glad that they didn’t come: one less stumbling conversation, and one less set of red packets for the children. He worked with his doctor to titrate the medication; he could carry on with the business of living now, if not entirely comfortably.

  Medication. He’d not yet taken it this morning. He started up from the couch, and rummaged in his bag, pulling out the pillbox Jacq had bought for him at Daiso. The pills rattled as he padded across the floor to the kitchen, and then behind him he heard another sound, the clicking of trotters on the marble floor and a low grunt, almost like a growl.

  In the kitchen, he poured himself a mug of water from the kettle. Behind him, Teacup snorted, snuffled, and then brushed heavily against his calves. He looked down, to a black snout thrust upwards to reveal a row of uneven, blackened teeth. He opened the pillbox carefully, keeping it towards the back of the counter. This was when the pig started screaming. There was no other word for it: a high, thin, penetrating sound that wavered, and went on and on. He turned to the pig and pointed.

  “Quiet!”

  The noise stopped momentarily as the creature’s eyes followed his hand, but then began again, rising, insistent. As he reached for the medication, the screaming grew louder and more frantic, high enough for the neighbours to hear.

  “Bi zui!”

  Mandarin only gave him temporary relief. The pig wobbled onto his back legs, and shuffled against the kitchen cabinet, trying to reach the medication. Startled, Jia Wen dropped one of the pills, which bounced off the animal’s nose onto the floor and rolled away towards the fridge. A steroid? While Teacup tracked it down, he found time to take a pill, and chase it down with water. He repeated the action, until both he and the pig had finished a regular daily dose. Strangely, when he sealed up the box, the animal seemed satisfied, rooting around for any crumbs of medication he had missed, and then following his human companion back into the living room.

  Jia Wen placed a dining chair in front of the television and sat on it, leaning forward, so that there was no possibility Teacup could join him. The pig prowled around in a circle, and then settled at his feet. On television, more speeches, and the long, liquid lines on the Padang. Nonsense, he imagined the Old Man saying, Don’t waste time queuing up. Get back to work! After five minutes, the pain in his joints returned.

  In those early days after his diagnosis, he had often wondered why he had become ill. There was a genetic element, his doctor said. A predisposition. But it was small. There might also have been a trigger: stress, or trauma, or even a toxin ingested into the body. But there was another theory, he had read. The disease was more common in modern cities that were obsessively clean. For thousands of years, children had stuck their fingers in mud and then in their mouths, their bodies tiny teeming planets of life. Lice on the skin, tapeworm in the gut. The body might fight these off, or husband its strength, resorting to an uneasy truce. In the city, reinforcements arrived. Potable water. Hygiene laws. Lice inspections, and fine-tooth metal combs. Diseases vanished, and the drive for cleanliness, once begun, could not be halted. Tissues carried in the pocket. Antiseptic wipes. Water treated, filtered, and then boiled again. Face masks. And so, with nothing to grasp hold of, the body’s defences turned on the body itself: flesh would burn, or harden, or dry up.

  He stood up, rolling the pig’s body off his feet. He thought he might go out, but the animal had other ideas, lying heavily against the gate, and, when he pulled harder, opening its mouth to scream. A trip to the kitchen for the bak kwa had the same result, with Teacup demanding his share. Jia Wen divided up the sheet of dried pork with his sister’s new carving knife, nervous of its sharpness, and then left the creature indulging in small, piggy acts of cannibalism on the kitchen floor. Once he thought he had got away, slamming shut the master bedroom door and retreating to his sister and brother-in-law’s en suite bathroom, away from the creature’s screams. But then he noticed the litter tray by the sink, scattered with what Samuel had delicately referred to as Teacup’s “berries”. It was not so much the smell that drove him out as the fear of an accident outside, the sudden release of a sphincter over the cool marble of the floor.

  He moved reluctantly round the apartment, trying to still the pain, a wandering planet orbited by the pig’s oversize, erratic moon. Once or twice he turned to the pig, and spoke in English, Mandarin, broken Hokkien, or even fractured Malay. The animal stared back at him with its black eyes, malevolence now mixed with unmistakable triumph. He felt a sudden surge of anger.

  He had seen that expression before. He paced further, eyes itching, fumbling in his pocket for the drops. Those eyes. On the television, a long drum roll. The anthem.

  Then he remembered. A moment with Boy Boy, at another family dinner, another restaurant, waiting an age for the e-fu noodles while conversation sputtered. The boy had been bored and fractious, and so his mother had made space for him and his toys on an adjoining table. Jia Wen watched him out of the corner of his eye, wondering if he too might escape. Boy Boy, he noticed with approval, worked methodically, taking out the carriages of a toy train, and then some segments of track, and slotting them carefully together. Jacq caught his eye.

  “He loves that train. Go talk to him.”

  He went over, and sat next to the child. Nearer to, he saw that the carriages were bulbous, made of plastic. The front of the blue steam engine was capped by a small dome, like a pimple, and below it a grey, smiling face.

  “Thomas the Tank Engine?”

  Boy Boy nodded. He lined up the carriages behind the engine, leaving a foot or so of track in front of it. Then he reached into the bag his mother had placed on the table, and pulled out something pink, which he placed on the track. Jia Wen looked closely. A round cookie, with a fleshy foam and jelly snout.

  “Percy the Pig?”

  “No, uncle. Teacup.”

  The boy rolled the engine forward, and then back, its knife-sharp wheels cutting two parallel scars into the pig-biscuit’s face.

  “Isn’t that a bit violent? How do you think Teacup feels?”

  The boy’s dark eyes glittered. He picked up the sweet, put it in his mouth, chewed, swallowed, and then opened wide.

  “Uncle. See! No more Teacup.”

  • • •

  It was dark by the time his sister’s family returned. Samuel was as talkative as ever, but Jacq quiet, as though they’d had a quarrel. Boy Boy was sleeping and Hani carried him, head lolling like a limp rag doll.

  “Historic,” his brother-in-law told him. “You should have been there. The energy. Such a long line. The police wanted to turn us away, said we’d never make it in time, but we said no, we are citizens of this country. We insist on queuing up to say goodbye.”

  He took a few steps towards the kitchen.

  “Wah. Stew smells good!”

  Samuel opened up the crockpot, brimming with dark, braised meat, and stirred. When he took out the spoon, small globules of fat clung to it, and he could not resist licking it.

  “Shiok! Very tasty.”

  He turned to Jia Wen.

  “I was worried about this. The watch lost contact with the crockpot for a time. Must be a bug in the app.”

  Jia Wen nodded. “Pork’s a temperamental meat. Difficult to cook. It expands. I bet you only put a few pieces in, and look at how full the pot is now.”

  “Is that so?” Samuel looked at him with newfound respect.

  “We bought back rice and vegetables,” Jacq added. “Let’s eat now, at t
he kitchen table.”

  They shook Boy Boy awake, and placed him in a high chair. Hani opened the packets: steaming white rice, sambal kangkong, goldcoin tofu. Jacq bustled to get the plates, spoons and forks. Hani brought out her box of implements, and stood next to the boy.

  “Jiat, jiat!” said Samuel, not even pausing to say grace.

  Then there was silence, broken only by the clicking of chopsticks on bowls, sighs of appreciation, and smacking of lips.

  After a little, they rested. His sister, Jia Wen noticed, seemed more relaxed now. She smiled, and touched his arm.

  “Jacq?”

  “You didn’t have to mop the kitchen floor, you know. We weren’t hinting.”

  But she was happy, he could tell, sliding her toes across the squeaky surface that gleamed in the light.

  “You’ve done the dishes too. And cleaned the knives. Well done!” Samuel beamed, and reached out to shake his hand. “It just shows what you can do if you put your mind to it, if you don’t let life get you down.”

  “Uncle.” A soft touch on the back of his palm.

  “Boy Boy?”

  The child leaned towards him from his high chair, a dribble of gravy trickling from the corner of his mouth.

  “Uncle. Where’s Teacup?”

  Four pairs of eyes focused on him.

  “I was going to tell you all… He got away.”

  “Jia Wen.” Samuel stood up. “How could you be so careless?”

  Boy Boy began to speak, but his father cut him off. They should form separate teams to search, combing through the corridor and sky garden. A first sweep, before they talked to the neighbours.

  “Baba…”

  “Boy Boy?”

  “Baba, I saw Teacup in the car park.”

  “Just now?”

  “Yah. I think so.”

  “Are you sure?”

  The child thought for a moment, and then slowly shook his head.