I thanked her. “People tell me that all the time.”
“I bet they do,” she said. “You’re quite famous, you know.”
“What do you mean?”
The woman smirked. “I think everybody living here knows who you are. Tanned, broad shoulders. No hair on his head. You’re the guy that’s down by the pool all the time.”
I shrugged. “My parents say I’m addicted.”
“God, no,” the woman said. “Don’t think of it that way. It’s good that you’re so active.”
“I’m not, though,” I said. “I swim for a bit, but that’s all. Mostly I just float on the water.”
The woman smiled. “You really like doing that, don’t you? Every single time I go out on the balcony I see you there, just floating away, like a starfish on the sand. It’s enough to make anybody jealous.”
“Jealous?”
The woman nodded. “You look so free,” she said.
I thanked her again. The woman sighed.
“I’d love to be just as free as you are,” she said. “But I don’t have that kind of time on my hands.”
“What do you do?” I asked.
“I’m a freelancer,” she said. She smirked again. “I do interior design. I’ve only started for about a year, I think, but it seems to pay well.”
“Have you always been freelancing?”
She gave me a peculiar look.
“This wasn’t part of some grand plan I had, if that’s what you’re asking. It’s just something I happen to be good at. Plus it pays the bills.” She paused. “Where do you live, by the way? Which block?”
“Block D,” I said. I pointed to my left. “Twentieth floor.”
“Wow,” said the woman. “That’s really high up. Don’t you ever get scared?”
“Scared? I don’t think so,” I said. “I’m not afraid of heights.”
The woman made an ooh-ing sound.
“That’s rare,” she said. “Almost everybody is afraid of heights.”
There was another pause. I asked her where she lived in return. She said she lived in Block C.
“Fifth floor. With my daughter.”
“How old?”
“She just turned six, two months ago. So as you can see, I’ve got my hands full.”
“What about your husband?” I asked.
She fixed me a stare.
“I love him,” she said. “With all my heart. But I don’t want to talk about him.”
“I see,” I said. I dipped my head in the pool and came back out again. My face had started to feel dry.
“I live with this other guy though,” the woman said. “A roommate. He helps to take care of my girl.”
“‘This other guy’…?”
The woman smiled.
“I’m sure you’ve seen him around,” the woman said to me. “He’s been coming down to the pool as well, to read his books and stuff like that.”
“I know him,” I said. I felt legitimately excited at the mention. “He’s always here whenever I am.”
“And vice versa,” the woman said. “He tried to kill himself, however. He’s done it in the past, multiple times, but it never seems to work. This time it’s not so bad, but he’s still got to rest at home. Which is why I’m here instead of him.”
I nodded. So that’s where he was.
“You make it sound like you’re taking turns,” I said. “Like you have to be in his place or something.”
The woman laughed. “I guess so, when you put it that way. I just want to be in his space for a while. Just to see what it feels like. We have very unique living arrangements, I must admit.”
I nodded again.
“Why don’t the two of you come down the pool at the same time? That would be nice, wouldn’t it?”
“Hmm,” the woman said. She puckered her lips together. “I wonder why we’ve never thought of that before.”
A minute passed between the two of us. The woman had her eyes closed again, with her arms folded behind her head. She seemed to be having the time of her life. Overhead, a cloud passed by across the sun and then moved on, its brief shadow no longer than a moment.
“What do you do, by the way?” the woman asked. “I realise I hadn’t asked.”
“I’m in uni,” I said to her. “Undergrad.”
“What major?”
I told her. She then asked which year I was in, and I told her I was in my second. She looked at me, intently, with her small but watchful eyes.
“And do you know what you want to do, after you graduate from university?”
I thought about it.
“Truth be told,” I said to her. “I don’t know.”
The woman smiled once more.
“I hate to break it to you, babe. But if you don’t know by now, you never, ever will.” She then closed her eyes again. “Take it as a blessing, though. Trust me on this.” The woman added nothing more after that.
•
The guy returned on Friday, two days later; neither he nor the woman had gone down to the pool that Thursday. Why that was the case, I hadn’t got a clue.
He was seated in his usual deck chair, with an open book resting on his chest. The day’s paper had already been folded and set aside, on the paved floor next to his bag. He seemed to be sleeping. The parasol, fully opened as always, cast a wide shadow across his frame. I looked at him for a while, wondering if his body betrayed any signs of his last attempt. But I couldn’t tell what he had done. His flatmate hadn’t said anything specific about it.
After my eleventh lap, I made my way towards the centre of the pool. I looked up at the sky. The weather hadn’t looked ideal that day, with only patches of clear sky amongst the gathering clouds. It was only a week later that I learnt that it was the start of the haze. I turned my head over to my right, just to get one more look at the guy, resting under the parasol, when he began to stir. He rubbed his eyes, just as his book fell off his chest. He made his way, slowly, to pick it back up. He then caught sight of me looking directly at him. I froze in that moment: it had been the first time either one of us had established eye contact. He nodded his head, and I had nodded mine.
The guy returned to his book. I began walking over to the edge of the pool.
“Hey there,” I said to him. “You’ve been missing for quite a while.”
The guy looked up at me, in an alert kind of way. He seemed surprised that I had spoken.
“I saw your flatmate, though. Two days ago. We had a nice chat.”
He said nothing in reply for about five seconds or so.
“Yeah,” the guy finally said. His voice sounded strained and yet clear all the same. “Su Lin told me about it,” he added.
“Su Lin?”
“That’s her name,” said the guy. “You didn’t ask?”
I shook my head.
“She didn’t ask for mine.”
The guy said nothing to that. I could sense he wasn’t disapproving.
“She told me why you were gone,” I said to him.
The guy smirked. “Did I worry you?”
“It’s not the same without you around,” I said. “I like to think we’re friends, on some level.”
The guy kept on smirking. “So we’re friends now.”
I let out a laugh. “I guess so.”
“Well, with that in mind—I’m sorry, then. I apologise.” He shook his head. “Whatever I keep doing to myself—it’s a bad habit of mine. I can’t quite shake it off. If anything, Su Lin isn’t worried about it at all, so you shouldn’t be either.”
“She isn’t?”
He shook his head. “I am an oddity. Oddities aren’t meant to exist. It’s why I do what I do, but it’s also why everything has failed, so far.”
I kept quiet, for a bit.
“I’m Zhiwei, by the way. That’s my name.”
I waited for him to respond. The guy appeared to consider whether he ought to or not.
“I’m Kevin,” he said eventually. “Kev
in Lim.”
“That’s a pretty common name,” I said. It was the first thing that came to my mind. “Sorry. That just came out.”
He rolled his eyes. There was a smirk, playing at the corner of his lips.
“Your name’s pretty common too,” he said.
“True,” I said. I smiled. “That’s true.”
Somewhere overhead came the screech of a chainsaw, whirring away at a high, grating pitch. Kevin raised his eyes, as though to see where it might have come from.
“You know, all this while I’ve been waiting to hear a bird in the trees.”
I looked behind me.
“The trees?” I said. I turned back towards him. He held his gaze onto the distance. “What bird is this?” I asked. Kevin kept his gaze firmly on the sky.
“The weather’s changing, isn’t it.”
I moved my legs in the water.
“I guess I should get out soon, then,” I said. “Why don’t you ever swim, by the way? The water’s nice.”
Kevin looked at me, with eyes that seemed almost sad. “I’d love to,” he said. “But I can’t. I become a different person when I do so.”
I felt confused. “What do you mean?” I asked. Kevin tilted his head to the side.
“Tell me something instead,” said Kevin, shifting himself to the edge of his chair. His figure, for the first time, came into full relief under the sun, and his skin turned out to be paler than I’d imagined. Kevin set his bare feet onto the ground, and placed his elbows on his knees. “Why do you go into the water? I wanna know.”
I thought about it.
“I just like it,” I said to him. “There’s no particular reason.”
Kevin smiled. “There’s no reason to lie either, Zhiwei.”
I blinked. “Well, then, I suppose—I suppose I like how the water makes me feel,” I said.
“And how does it make you feel?”
“Free, I suppose,” I replied, although I knew I was merely quoting Su Lin. I then reiterated my point. “Total freedom,” I said to him again; “like I’m not connected to anything in the world but the water.”
Kevin nodded. His hair, I realised, hadn’t been tied back with a band that day. It fell in thick wisps across the front of his eyes.
“Thanks for telling me,” he said. “I appreciate it.” He paused for a few seconds. “Su Lin actually wanted to swim that day, apparently. When she was out here on Wednesday. But you seemed to be having a great time. She didn’t want to disturb you.”
“Really?” I said.
“Yeah. She actually wanted to try floating on the water as well, just like how you do it.”
“But?”
He smiled.
“The whole pool seemed to be yours.”
I looked at him.
“You can come in, if you want. By all means. Nobody’s stopping you, least of all me.”
He shook his head. “It’s fine,” he said to me. “It’s not anything that I need to do.” He then retreated, back under the shade of his parasol. “I’m surprised nobody else has come down to use the pool. It’s always just the two of us.”
“You know about the incident, don’t you? About the body in the pool?”
“Yeah,” said Kevin. “It took place in April, didn’t it? On the third.”
“I think so,” I said.
“I remember the hoo-hah,” Kevin said. “The policemen, the reporters and the management, whom we never get to see. Every day there was somebody knocking on our door, asking us if we ever knew the person.”
“Did you recognise him, though? You seen him around before?”
Kevin gave me a look.
“Have you?”
I shook my head. “He turned out to be this woman’s brother-in-law, didn’t he?”
Kevin nodded. “Huge fight, apparently. The woman’s husband found out she’d been sleeping with his twin brother the whole time. Very dramatic.”
“The husband—what did he do? He pushed him over the balcony?”
“He knocked him out first,” Kevin said. “With a golf club. Pow. All this took place while the wife was still at work. The balcony thing happened after his brother was unconscious.”
I tried to imagine: a man swinging a golf club down on another man’s head, but a head that had looked identical to his own.
“From what floor did he fall?” I asked. “I’m sure you remember.”
“I do,” Kevin said. He looked almost excited. “Sixteenth floor.” He then pointed towards the right. “Block B.” He paused. “The things we get up to, because of lust.”
I looked at him.
“I haven’t been with anybody in a long time,” I said.
Kevin raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t have to say that.”
I shrugged.
“Since when?” he asked.
“Since I was…fifteen? Sec Three. It was a boy’s school.”
Kevin tilted his head to the side. “With whom, might I ask?”
“Not a classmate,” I said. “A relief teacher. She was really young, though. She was still in uni back then.”
“And who approached whom?” asked Kevin. I told him I had.
“It was the first time I’d ever wanted anything in my life,” I said to him. “I’m an only child, and so my parents always gave me everything I’d ever wanted. And then here comes something I never had before. And she was so pretty. So cool. I wanted that kind of confidence for myself, I started to think. And then after that it became a kind of attraction. One day I saw her waiting for the bus: it was nearly five o’ clock, and nobody else was there at the bus stop. I asked her where she was going.”
“And?”
“She said she was going to the same train station as I was. And then we started talking.”
“How did conversation lead to sex?” Kevin asked. He seemed genuinely interested.
“I don’t actually remember,” I said to him. “Not the specifics, anyway. I just asked her if I could come over to her place, I think, and then she let me. And that was how we ended up together.”
Kevin shifted in his seat. He had ignored his book entirely at this point.
“How was it?” he asked.
“It was good,” I said. “She really made sure that I was comfortable with everything, and I had to remind her that I was the one who wanted it more.” I paused. “After that day she stopped coming to school. Her time as a relief teacher had come to an end, and I never tried to see her again after that.”
Kevin asked why not. I told him I wasn’t sure.
“I guess I felt I didn’t need anything else anymore,” I said to him. “I wonder if you know what I mean?”
Kevin simply looked at me.
“I do,” he said. “But in a different way, I suppose.” He paused. “Do you think you’ve changed a lot, since then? Like you became a different person?”
“Since the time I had sex?”
He nodded. I thought about it.
“I suppose so,” I said to him. “You’re still a growing person, at the age of fifteen. You haven’t settled into anything just yet. Although things do start to happen to you, and that affects your growth somehow.” I gave him a smile. “I guess that happens to everybody, though. So I’m not exactly answering your question.”
“It’s okay,” said Kevin. “I understand.” He put one leg over the other. “Did you love her, Zhiwei?”
“My teacher?”
“Yes,” said Kevin. “Your teacher.”
I could feel the water, swaying against my body, as it lapped into the drain through the grates.
“I suppose so,” I said. “In the way a fifteen-year-old could love a person.”
“And did she love you back?”
I looked at him. I saw Kevin looking back at me, the object of his gaze never wavering. I told him what I knew. “She said she loved me back as well.” Kevin then nodded and closed his eyes. He felt around for his book and brought it back up to his chest, the pages open against his skin.
>
“Thank you,” he said to me. “I think that’s enough chat for one day.” He then fell asleep, his lips parted by a small gap. You could just about see a small flash of his teeth.
•
The haze crisis began soon after that. Forest fires, burning across Indonesia, sent plumes of smoke into our skies. I could barely see anything outside the window.
For a long time, across the stretch of June and a bit into July, I hadn’t returned to the pool. It just wasn’t the sensible thing to do, not with all the ash drifting in the air; the situation was so bad I found it hard to even make a case against my parents’ wishes. And so I had to let the pool go.
Since then, I haven’t seen either Kevin or his flatmate, even after the crisis was over. It seemed like I’d never learn how it felt for them, for either one of them to finally swim in that pool. I miss him, in a way. I miss them both. And it seemed like I’d never get to tell anybody about how, after all those years, I bumped into Ms Neo again.
II
MS NEO
Ahab and I met every Wednesday night, at the coffee shop situated at Block 146. There was a huge field of grass between the block and the train station; every time Ahab appeared at the exit, he’d wave at me, just a quick sort of gesture, and I’d wave back, all the way from our usual table. It was easy to spot one another, because of the lights that came on at night. Whenever we met, he’d have his small black backpack, worn over the shoulders with the straps tightened to the limit.
We started meeting at the coffee shop ever since the incident with the brother-in-law. It had made quite a splash, so to speak: the guy had been sleeping with his twin brother’s wife, and ended up getting clubbed in the head for it. His brother then threw him off the balcony, with enough force to land him straight into the swimming pool. Ahab had sent me there to check it out, to make sure nothing nasty had been left behind after they’d taken the body away. “Who knows what could be in the water,” he said to me. And that was how I found out about Kevin.
“He’s living with who?”
“A mother and her child,” I said. I was on the phone with Madam Lim.
“Who are they?” she asked. “What have they got to do with Kevin?”
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