6 March 1962
The Socialist Party is calling their supporters to boycott the referendum, urging them to cast blank votes. They are bent on sabotaging the merger. The high commissioner has the impudence to complain that I didn’t give the people the choice to oppose the merger. I am giving them equal rights with Malayans, and autonomy in education and labour. They can’t accuse me of selling the Singapore Chinese to the Malays.
1 September 1962
The referendum is a coup de grâce. Over 70 per cent voted for Option A and 25 per cent cast blank votes. My speech about Singapore’s inexorable march towards our destiny got a standing ovation. We’ll soon be part of the Federation of Malaysia. Sze Teck was genuinely moved to tears when the results were read out—he really sees Malaya as the Motherland. Good chap. He was after all born in Penang. But I wish he wouldn’t gush too much about changing our state flag and wearing batik shirts at sittings. That hibiscus symbol is most embarrassing. Tunku can have his big red flower; we will keep our orchid. Have to remind Sze Teck who his prime minister is.
We’ve popped the champagne, but the bubbly was tasteless. Maybe I’m just exhausted. I have a foreboding that blood will be shed on the streets. Whose blood? Bugger, why do I feel this sense of guilt? I may have skewed the referendum options in our favour, but merging with Malaya is only abiding by history. We have after all, always been one country. It was only the British who separated us. Now, this little island of two million people with no natural resources, not even water, is a political joke. Especially when it is overrun by communists. Can’t they see this simple fact? This worm is gnawing at my vital organs when all I did was for the greater good. Just as well I’m sleeping in the study so the wife won’t be disturbed. Had better go and see the abbot tomorrow.
THIRTEEN
THE INSPECTOR LOOKS out of the window and beholds a sea of humanity heaving and pitching below him. Hong Kong was called a piece of barren rock when its colonisers first landed. Now all the inspector sees from his seat on the 747 are impossibly tall buildings on hill slopes, like toothpicks stuck in mounds of black glutinous rice. The night shows the Fragrant Harbour at its best, a bewilderment of lights—neon signs, street lamps, car headlights and humming households. The plane is descending on the world’s most densely-populated district, Kowloon City, which is right next to the airport. The inspector’s heart sinks with the jumbo jet as he watches a wing of the plane narrowly miss the roofs of some ramshackle buildings near the runway. He reassures himself thinking about a report about the Kai Tak International Airport having some of the world’s best air traffic control and being accident-free in its aviation history.
As he steps out of the plane, he is buffeted by a blast of April chill and the glare of lights on the tarmac. He gets through immigration after getting a curious look from the officer who takes a dim view of Chinese who can’t speak Cantonese. The colonialists have left their charges’ language and culture unmolested, and the enterprising Cantonese people thrive in the laissez faire system. Many smart-alecky commentators would observe that Hong Kong has no independence but possesses freedom, while the opposite is true for Singapore. As the inspector waits for his luggage to tumble out onto the conveyor belt, his thoughts drift to a TV programme back home. The actor’s Singlish and Singapore-bashing jokes are such a hit that the prime minister has told the TV station to send the comedian for Oxford English classes. The station complied. The PM is concerned the sitcom’s popularity is degrading the standard of English among the younger people, making them less competitive in the global market.
The next day, the inspector walks from his hotel on Nathan Road to Tsim Sha Tsui underground station and down a long escalator, his coat flapping in the surging breath of one million commuters. Trains arrive every two minutes in this pocket-sized territory. Platform assistants in luminous vests control the crowds by pushing passengers into the train so they do not get squashed by the closing doors and cause a delay in the train schedule. Southern Chinese efficiency has ensured that train breakdowns and delays rarely happen. The inspector hops off the last two steps of the escalator, slips across the platform and squeezes into a crack in the tangled mass of human bodies. He finds his face a hair’s breadth away from a wheezy man who does not think about covering his mouth when he coughs. He is thankful the train zips through the tunnel under Victoria Harbour and hits Central station in just two minutes. The Singaporean government should go ahead with its mass rapid transport plan, he thinks.
He wanders around the station for a while, figuring out the exits, then climbs three flights of stairs to Pedder Street. He is elbowed by the masses into Theatre Lane, where itinerant vendors hawk all manner of cheap things no one needs. He trudges through the throng and emerges on Queen’s Road Central. It is 6.32 on a Friday evening and people are leaving their skyscraping offices like ants. He stands respectfully to the side of the pavement to consult the city map but soon finds himself propelled along by the swelling human wave.
After asking four locals for directions in a smattering of English, Mandarin and Cantonese, he finds the already crowded Yung Kee Restaurant, next to a mahjong parlour. The diners have to speak more loudly than usual to be heard, driving the noise level into a vicious cycle. The waiters expertly slide bowls and plates across the table, hurling spoons and chopsticks onto the porcelain, creating a clattering symphony. The inspector asks the manager for a table for two booked by a Miss Law, whereupon he sees a lissom 40-something woman in a peach silk pantsuit that matches her skin. He cannot help comparing this woman with Chow Hoong and has no problem deciding the older woman is the more charming.
He hurries over and shakes her hand. “Miss Law, I’m Lim Siew Kian. Thank you for coming to see me.”
“It’s my pleasure to meet you.” She speaks rather formally in Cantonese-accented English. It is a foreign language to her, giving the impression that she is aloof. Her smile accentuates the heart shape of her face.
“Hong Kong is bubbling with life. How long have you lived here?”
“Yes, it’s an exciting place once you have got used to the noise and the crowds.”
Not a strand of her shoulder-length black hair is out of place. Next to her, Lim Siew Kian feels like a bomb casualty having traversed the madding crowds of Hong Kong’s streets. He is convinced this queen of grace is incongruous with all he has seen of the territory so far, yet she epitomises the state of mind of its people: calm within a storm. Her light make-up sets off her intelligent, dark brown eyes with epicanthus folds.
“What would you like to have?” She shows him the menu to stop his staring at her.
“I have to rely on you to order.” He realises he is shouting above the din, whereas her voice is clear without seeming loud.
After the tedium of ordering food and easing into a conversation that does not sound like an interrogation, the inspector asks meaningfully, “You live near here?”
“Yes, Mid-Levels.”
“I hear that’s an expensive district.”
“Are you trying to find out if Sze Teck bought me the apartment?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to pry.”
“It’s alright. It’s your job to pry.”
He clears his throat. “Erm, you knew Mr Chow for a long time?”
“Ten years.”
“And your relationship with Mr Chow?”
“We were good friends.”
“I see.”
The inspector is saved by a waiter serving their first dish of roast goose, giving him time to strategise.
“Miss Law, in case there’s any misunderstanding, I’m not from the anti-corruption bureau, so I’m not interested in how much property Mr Chow had bought in Hong Kong. As explained to you on the phone, I’m from the CID and I’m here to find out what you know of Mr Chow and if he told you anything of importance before his death.”
“You want to continue your investigation even though your government has already announced that Sze Teck’s death was a suicide?”
“Do you believe that yourself?”
She does not immediately reply. Instead she invites him to tuck in. She picks up a small piece of the goose fillet and dips it into a saucer of sour plum sauce.
“Sze Teck was under a lot of pressure from the interrogation. He would have to suffer a lot more if he went to jail. But he would lose everything if he killed himself.”
“So, what do you think happened?”
“I don’t know. But I have a feeling whoever wanted him removed has killed two birds with one stone.” Her face, which has not betrayed her mood so far, creases and her voice loses its lilt.
“Who or what might the second bird be?” The inspector feels exquisitely stupid. He is not even sure who or what the first bird was. He makes up for his ignorance by narrowing his eyes to intimate cognisance.
“I don’t know. It’s just a feeling.”
“That he knew too much and needed to be got rid of?”
“Maybe.”
“You must have been a confidante to Mr Chow. When he was unhappy, he had only you to talk to.”
She puts down her chopsticks and looks at her teacup. He gazes at the cherry blossom pink rouge on her smooth cheeks. He shifts his chair closer to her as her voice drops.
“When he was a young man, he was fired by ideals. He joined the communist underground to fight the British. He went on to join the left-wing trade union because he believed it could help the workers. He went to jail for his beliefs. But when he got out of jail, he went over to the other side. Nobody knew what had happened to him when he was in jail. As he rose higher and higher in the government service, he lost the fire in his belly; that is the saying, isn’t it? And became more and more…heavy.”
“What do you think caused his heaviness?”
“Loss of ideals. Power struggle. Betrayal. Who knows?”
“Who do you think betrayed him?”
“It’s a jungle out there. Sze Teck always believed that because he was Chinese-educated and did not hold a university degree, he was never made a minister. He was angry with your government for treating him like an old horse. He said if he were to break a leg, they would shoot him instead of giving him his pension.”
“So he made his millions on the side to settle the score with his boss?”
“He felt that he had stabbed his old comrades in the back to help the party get into power, so he deserved a bit more. And he said if he didn’t do it, somebody else would.”
The inspector gets ridiculously jealous of Chow for what he thinks is her defending the dead man’s indefensible acts. To help her see Chow for the man he really was, the inspector probes, “What exactly did he do to get the party into power?”
“I thought that is all in his eulogies and the history books your government has written about mounting the communist tiger?”
“What else do you know?” It pains the inspector that he has to pursue her like a bloodhound instead of a lover.
“I don’t know.”
“You know there’s something else.”
“Politicians have more skeletons in their cupboards than political speeches. But Sze Teck didn’t tell me and I didn’t want to know.”
“Miss Law, every little bit of knowledge you have about Mr Chow could help us with the case. You also want to find the people responsible for his death, don’t you?”
“Yes, but I really don’t know. Sorry.”
Her shoulders sag and he feels ashamed. Yet he presses on. “What did Mr Chow say about Edward Wee?”
“He said he is a clever, cunning, paranoid man who thinks the sun rises for him. One main reason why Sze Teck crossed the battle line was because he actually thought Edward Wee would be able to reunite Singapore with Malaya, whereas his communist comrades did not like the idea at that time. He hated the British for partitioning Singapore from Malaya in 1946. So he was very heartbroken when the merger fell through. He was very much a Penang boy at heart.”
“That’s why he was so fond of the hibiscus? I know he was no horticulturist.”
“He was a sentimental man, though few people knew that side of him. He said he would mourn the death of the merger every August when others celebrate their National Day. Poor man, not only was he wounded in the political game, his children did not even say thank you for all he had given them. He came to Hong Kong to get away from his problems.”
“I would have thought he would go to Penang.”
“Too close to home.”
“Yes, and the women here are more beautiful.” The inspector could have kicked himself under the table for that slip.
She stares at him icily. “He was looking for an apartment rather than a mistress when he first arrived. I was his estate agent.”
“I see.” Discouraged by her stare, he manages only a fatuous grin.
“In Hong Kong he was anonymous, he could live and enjoy life as he liked. He had taken to drinking heavily in the last few years. Once he got so drunk on the plane that he was accused of molesting a flight stewardess. He paid a lot of money to try to hush things up, but somehow it got to the ears of his boss.”
“Who did Mr Chow really report to?”
She widens her dark eyes and raises her eyebrows at the question. “I thought that was obvious.”
The inspector’s admiration for the woman has by now reached beyond the horizon into eternity. He puts his elbows on the table and leans towards her. “What happened to Mr Chow after the flight stewardess episode?”
“He was threatened with the golden handshake if the scandal came to the surface.” She seems to grow even more frosty.
“Did he ever consider retiring if he was so unhappy at work?”
“Many times. But he could not let go. He wanted to be anonymous, yet at the same time he needed to be recognised.”
The inspector contemplates his own insignificance and wonders if it contributes to the woman’s lack of regard for him. “Just curious, were you a singer or actress in your younger days?”
“How did you guess?”
“Ah…that explains everything, doesn’t it?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Oh, I mean you have a nice voice.”
“You were probably too highbrow to have seen my films then.”
Mistaking sarcasm for flattery, the inspector laughs and regrets not recognising the former movie starlet. They have finished their dessert of black glutinous rice in coconut milk, and Miss Law says she likes to be home before nine. She says there are many gangs in Hong Kong, from snatch thieves to gun-toting triads. The inspector offers to walk her home, but she refuses, telling him Hong Kong criminals do not discriminate against men.
He says goodbye to her outside the restaurant, holding her hand with both of his, thanking her for the umpteenth time that evening for talking to him. He watches her turn the corner and disappear into the night.
He feels his head in the clouds and his body in its second spring. He decides to come down to earth. He follows the tramline and strolls from the Central to Admiralty district, then on to Wan Chai and Causeway Bay. The streets are ablaze with the gaudy neon signs of restaurants, nightclubs, massage parlours and cinemas. During the typhoons, which hit the territory every summer, these signboards become flying objects, and the main reason the meteorological board advises people to stay indoors.
At every street corner, makeshift newsstands offer a cornucopia of girlie magazines, gossip newspapers and current affairs journals spanning the political spectrum. Unlicensed stalls on wheels sell fishballs and innards in boiling aromatic soup, fake designer T-shirts and jeans, genuine leather goods from shut factories and pirated cassette tapes of Cantonese pop. Men shout from behind their stalls, “Buy one get two free!” “Fire sales!” There is such a host of temptations the inspector is enticed to part with HK$4 for two pairs of socks.
As he is bathed in the streetlight, he is overcome with nostalgia for the Singapore of 20 years ago, when he and Miss Law would have been in the spring of their lives. St
reet hawkers in Singapore have since been packed away into air-conditioned shopping malls and designated food centres in public housing estates.
His youth has been like a river rushing out to sea without watering any pasture. In his middle age, Miss Law and the fragrant harbour have disturbed the stillness in his heart and opened a hollow inside him. He blames the sterile system he lives in for his bachelorhood, a system that has bred so many single women and arrogant men. It isn’t as if he has never fallen in love before, but in his experience, the road to marital bliss is paved with missed opportunities and outright rejection. He eventually took a less humiliating, less exciting, but well-trodden path.
After that night, the inspector believes that people like Miss Law could only come from savvy, wheeling and dealing, open societies like Hong Kong. His intoxication with her loveliness aside, he finds her worldly-wise, speaking freely without having to look over her shoulder to see if she is being watched.
FOURTEEN
AFTER THE TRIAL, a sour mood creeps through the Ministry of Housing. A day after the court judgement, the ministry issues a damage control press statement:
The Case of Former Ministry of Housing Permanent Secretary Chow Sze Teck
Since its inception in 1965, the Ministry of Housing has achieved unmitigated success in providing high-quality yet affordable housing to over 80 per cent of our 2.5 million people. Foreign governments, including those from Hong Kong, China, Japan and even the United Kingdom, have sent representatives to study our housing programme that has enabled Singaporeans to enjoy the world’s highest home ownership, despite the scarcity of land and a growing population. These accomplishments can be attributed to our firm commitment to honest government, service to the people and a sound administration.
Death of a Perm Sec Page 8