One day, thinking all of them wouldn’t be home, he’d tried on one of Nan’s fancy bras. A flaming red bit of lace. Very beautiful. He gazed at himself in the mirror in the bathroom. The mirror wasn’t cracked then. It was Ma’s broom that cracked it when she found him wearing Nancy’s red bra. That night she told his Pa. The old man undid his leather belt and thrashed the living daylight out of him. His body was lacerated by the time his yelling brought their neighbours to their doorway. They yelled at the old man to stop, but not a single one lifted a hand to stop the thrashing. That was how he ended up sleeping in the corridor outside. The old man wouldn’t let him sleep in the flat after that.
Listen! He’s your son!
YOU listen! He’s not my son! Your womb was diseased! What have you given me? You call this worm a son?
Two years later, the old man threw him out, and wouldn’t even let him sleep out in the corridor. He groans as he rises from his squat on the toilet bowl.
‘Kow Kia! Are you all right in there?’
His grunt reassures her. She returns to her rosary, listening as she recites the words for his grunts and exhalations. She lives in fear of a thud on the wet cement floor. If he were to slip, God help her! She won’t be able to lift him. She’ll have to call the neighbours. But they may not want to come inside. And she won’t blame them. Kow Kia’s body is covered with sores.
‘Kow Kia! Kow Kia!’
She bangs on his door. When there’s no answer, she yells, ‘Call an ambulance, somebodiiii! Kow Kia! Don’t leave me!
8
‘Ma, how did he get pneumonia?’
‘Molly, why you ask Ma? How would she know? You blaming her or what?’ Nancy pounced on her sister.
‘I wasn’t blaming her!’
‘Didn’t you hear what the Indian doctor said? Kow Kia’s immune system is a gone case!’
‘Please stop. I’ve a headache,’ she tells her daughters.
A hostile silence settles on the table as they drink their coffee in the coffee shop. Her three daughters eye each other like boxers in the ring. She turns to Lily who can speak English better than the other two.
‘What’s ICU?’
‘Intensive care unit,’ Nancy answers, showing off that she knows about hospitals too, not just Lily. ‘Kow Kia will have to be warded there.’
‘No, Nan. The doctor didn’t say Kow Kia has to go to ICU now. Only if he gets worse. He said Kow Kia must have more blood tests. The doctor … he said we must wait for the test results first. He’s in the Communicable Diseases Centre.’
‘But there’s something else, isn’t it?’ She looks at Lily who is digging into her handbag for a tissue. She’s certain she heard something else. Something very serious, judging by the Indian doctor’s face. Something about a disease that had hit America, Africa and Asia. She presses Lily for an answer.
‘Yes, Ma. A deadly disease that has infected thousands in Mei Guo, Fei Zhou, and Ah Zhou.’
As the Chinese names of the three continents roll off Lily’s tongue, she sees faceless young men falling like dominoes and her son is among these skeletal hordes. She’s suddenly tired, very tired as her daughters’ rapid exchange of words fly like arrows around her. No cure? Even cancer can be cured these days. How come no cure? They can make guns to kill people they can’t make medicine to kill a disease?
‘It’s called the gay disease in America,’ Molly says, ‘the scourge of the twentieth century.’
‘That’s rubbish! It’s not a gay disease.’ Lily’s tone is authoritative. ‘I saw a tv documentary, married people can get it too. The tv didn’t show the woman’s face. Her husband gave her the disease and she passed it to her baby. It’s contagious.’
Ah Gek groans, holding her head, two fingers rubbing her temples. Her daughters’ words are like knives in her skull. She regrets phoning them. Talk, talk, talk. That’s all they do. Years ago, the three of them used to sit facing her like this across the table at home, the table with the blue Formica top cracked by Kow Kia’s father when he flew into a rage one night and hurled the table at Kow Kia. It cracked the poor boy’s head. And the girls were not spared either when they tried to protect their brother. Now, they’ve grown hard. She looks at Nancy, her eldest. Hair dyed a copper red. Face thick with make-up and a lipstick that’s much too red. She and Nan had fought each other bad. Fought over everything, mostly over the men Nan went out with. But she has stopped fretting about her daughter’s life. Stopped caring. Some day, men will tire of Nan. Will find her old, compared with the young chicks from China, Vietnam, Myanmar. What then? What will Nan do when she reaches fifty, sixty? Clean toilets? Molly is no better. Wearing a tee shirt so tight that her boobs stick out more than they ought. Lily is the only one who gives her some money each month. Fifty dollars isn’t much but at least, it helps to pay for her bus fares and the rare taxi ride.
‘Ma, you shouldn’t bring Kow Kia home,’ Nancy tells her.
‘What do you expect me to do then? Leave him in hospital to die? He’s my son, my only …’ She chokes up.
‘Drink your tea, Ma. Drink.’ Lily makes her drink her tea. ‘Just listen to us first. You don’t have to do what we say. But you listen first. Kow Kia’s illness is long term. Not just one or two weeks. He’s not going to die tomorrow. With proper care and medicine, he can live a long time more. The doctor said that.’
Like a drowning woman she grasps at the hope. Even a faint glimmer on the horizon is good. She’ll grasp at anything that might save her boy. O Mary, Holy Mother of God, please let him live. Let my son live. ‘Is there no medicine?’
‘It’s very expensive. Like more than a thousand a month. And that’s excluding hospital check-ups, X-rays, blood tests, doctor’s fees, etcetera. A lot of money, Ma. How to find more than a thousand a month?’ Lily sighs.
‘More than a thousand a month,’ she repeats.
‘There’s no government subsidy for these medicines.’
‘No subsidy? But we’re poor peo…’
‘I know, Ma. But the government doesn’t pay for such medicine. If you have Medisave, you can withdraw up to five hundred a month to pay for Kow Kia’s medicine.’
‘I don’t know if I have this…this Medi…’ her voice trails off.
‘People with not enough savings, die, lor. No subsidy. The poor pay like the rich! That’s equality. Not enough Medisave, too bad! Nobody asked you to go and get this kind of disease.’
Nancy’s cynical laugh jars her nerves. Ah Gek gulps down the rest of her tea and stands up. ‘I will look after Kow Kia myself at home.’
‘Ma. Listen, go and see the MP. May be the MP will help.’
‘No use, one, lah! At most they will just write a letter.’
9
‘Two coffee! One coke!’
‘Coming!’ Ah Gek hurries over to the tables with her tray of canned drinks and tall glasses of kopi ping.
Saturday night. The coffee shop is a hubbub of noise and activity with kids screaming and the television blaring overhead in the corner. She cleans a table, stacks the used plates and bowls into her red pail, sweeps the detritus of bones and used tissues into the blue pail and wipes the table with a grey dishcloth. A young couple sit down.
‘Thank you, Ah Po.’
She gives the girl a grateful smile. This is her second month working in the coffee shop, and this is the first time a customer has greeted her so politely. Usually, people take no notice of her, and she would rather that they don’t. Her only wish is for them not to dunk their used tissues into the bowls of leftover noodle soup. Customers, especially the young women, crunch up their used tissues into a ball and leave them in the bowls of soup. She loathes handling these soggy tissues. Families with young children are worse. They leave a huge mess on the tables. She doesn’t mind if the old folks do it. Old folks she can excuse. But young people with education and money should have better manners. Her mood is bitter tonight as she trundles back and forth between the tables with her cloth and pail, and trays of drinks. H
er head feels heavy, and her back aches. She’s been on her feet since ten this morning. This being the weekend, she has to work longer hours, the boss said. By the time she lugs the last pail into the kitchen, it’s past eleven thirty. The China woman who does the washing up gives her a nod.
‘Aah! My back hurts!’
‘Arthritis,’ the China woman grunts.
Arthritis or not, she can’t afford to lose this job. It doesn’t pay much, but work is work. If she doesn’t want it, someone else from China or Myanmar will take it. That’s what Mee Sua Soh said. Take it or leave it. It’s better than foraging in the dustbins for empty drink cans to sell. Better than stretching out a hand to her wretched daughters. Where’s their help? In the end, it’s all talk. She sloshes the contents of the pail into a large oil drum, and rinses the dishcloth furiously under the tap. Splashes water on her face and soaps her hands. Her knuckles are red and swollen. Her fingers are bent like claws and can’t straighten. The veins on the back of her hands are like green worms beneath her brown skin.
‘You finished?’ the China woman asks.
‘Ya, going home.’
She has clocked eleven hours, and is paid thirty-eight fifty. A good sum. She can save a few dollars. And that’s a consolation. She can buy pork bones, some herbs like cordyceps, ginseng and wolfberries to make a soup for Kow Kia. She’s counting every cent. His hospital bills have not yet been paid. Neither are her rent and utilities. The Housing Board has sent her another reminder to pay her rent. She’s several months in arrears. There’re just too many bills to settle.
‘Not taking the bus, Ah Gek?’
‘Nah! Why waste good money?’
She cuts across the empty car park. Her only indulgence these days is a smoke. Even then, she tries not to do it every day. Just one stick every two days. But she needs a cigarette now and fishes one out of her bag. She holds it to her nose, inhaling its woody fragrance and sits on a stone bench in the playground.
Aah, a rest and a smoke before walking to the public phone. She lights up and sighs. Sometimes when she walks past the brightly lit 7-Eleven convenience store, she longs to buy one of those packs inside, but they’re beyond her means. Such exorbitant prices! The cigarette makers and suppliers are thieves. She can’t afford to buy a whole pack, and shops no longer sell cigarettes by the stick, not like in the old days. Only the coffee shop boss is kind enough to sell her one cigarette at a time. As a favour, he said. But she reckons that she’s paying him forty percent more this way. But what to do? She needs a smoke now and then. It takes her mind off worrying. To make up for paying him more, she had nicked a cigarette from his tin on the counter this afternoon. He won’t miss it, and she won’t do it often. She needs a smoke real bad tonight. Si Tua Pui is after her. He had sent word through Mee Sua Soh pressing her to pay up. Big Eye Dragon is upset her loan has not been repaid.
I’ve no money to pay him yet.
Didn’t your daughters give you some money?
Lily gave me some last month. But I had to settle my water bill.
If Si Tua Pui finds out, he’ll wring your neck.
Wring my neck also no use.
Your interest is piling up.
I know, I know, but Kow Kia is very ill. I’m caught in a bind.
You’re caught in a bind? What about me? I was the one who introduced you to Si Tua Pui. He comes after me if you don’t pay him. And Big Eye Dragon goes after him. You better ask your daughters for more money. Swallow your damn pride for goodness sake!
But it wasn’t her pride. Molly has disappeared. Nancy wouldn’t take her calls. And Lily is always at work when she phones. Lily who works in a factory is the only one with a decent job and family, and some feelings, but Lily too won’t come up to the flat to see her brother.
He’s not a leper.
I’ve got my boys to think about, Ma.
He is your brother. You, Nan and Moll are heartless!
Can you not think only of your son? In their line of work, Nan and Moll have to be careful. If people know that their brother has this … this disease, the two of them might as well sit around and swat flies all day! Which man will want them?
She draws a last smoke from the cigarette, stubs it out and saves the unsmoked portion in the matchbox for after she has phoned her daughters.
‘Alllo! Allo! That you Ah Tee? Ah Mah here! Tell Mama to come to the phone!’
‘Granny, don’t shout. I can hear you. Mama is working night shift.’
‘Are you telling the truth?’
Maybe she has been too hard on Lily. She shouldn’t have said, ‘leper.’ How could Lily be doing night shift for so many weeks?
‘Ah Tee, after I put down the phone, you call Mama for me. Tell her Uncle Kow Kia has to go to the hospital again!’
‘Can’t. We’re not allowed to call her while she’s working!’
Gunshots and screeching cars in the background almost drowned out her grandson’s words. ‘What’re you two boys doing at home?’
‘Watching tv.’
‘Where’s your Pa? Is he home?’
‘No! Granny, I’ve to pee!’
Ah Gek puts down the receiver. That loudmouth guzzler is out again when he should be home with his sons while Lily is at work. When he’s not driving his truck into Malaysia, he’s always lounging in the coffee shops ogling at the China girls and they fleece him blind. Poor Lily. She clings to him for the sake of the children.
She dials Molly’s number next, and has to shout because the music in the background is too loud and the man at the other end seems deaf.
‘Molly who? We have Molly Wong. Molly Ang. Molly Soh.’
‘Molly Tan.’
‘No such person!’
She puts down the phone. Is there any point phoning Nancy? Someone had told her that Nancy is working in Geylang Lorong A. She didn’t know which house in Lorong A but she did walk down the lane one evening after work, hoping she would bump into Nancy. She didn’t like what she saw when she walked down those backlanes. Women lolling on plastic chairs, standing in doorways, along the road and street corners. Middle-aged and mini-skirted, they crowded these shadowy lanes and covered walkways. Younger women with less need to hide their wrinkles paraded under the streetlamps. Men with hungry eyes prowled among them. She searched for her daughter’s face in the crowds until, suddenly ashamed, she turned and left. What would she do if she met her daughter? Did she really want to see her Nan plying her trade?
You slut! She had screeched when she found out what Nancy was doing. Have you no shame?
What’s so shameful? You want me to be like you? A cleaner of loos? Cleaning up other people’s shit? It’s an honest living. I’m not stealing!
You’re prostituting.
Jesus did not condemn prostitutes, Ma. Lots of people are prostitutes. Some people prostitute their brains to earn fat pay! I use only my body!
O blessed Mary ever Virgin, forgive my daughter!
Once she dreamt of Mary, a silent figure in blue, trailing after her son. In her dream, she’d stood with her head bowed before the Holy Mother who towered above her. She saw herself shrinking smaller and smaller until small as a bug she’d scuttled away from the Virgin Mother. She had failed as a wife and mother. Fought her husband. Fought her children. Fought them throughout their childhood to adulthood. Yet not one of them would bend to her will. Not even Kow Kia. She’d loved him the most. Did he live with a Malay man? She was blind when she should be mute like the Holy Mother. Maybe that’s what children want from their mother. An inscrutable maternal silence.
10
She reaches her block and takes the lift up. At the tenth floor, some of her neighbours are still awake but their doors are shut. She can hear their television as she walks past. The stench in the corridor is awful. She wonders if Kow Kia is awake.
O God! She pulls up sharply outside her flat, knocking into her neighbour’s bicycle. Her door is smeared with red paint and faeces.
‘Kow Kia! Kow Kia! Are you all ri
ght in there?’
Hands trembling, she fumbles for her house key.
‘Vandals! Swine! No wonder people shut their doors! Did you hear anything, Kow Kia? Are you asleep?’
She rushes into the bathroom.
Kow Kia sits up. His mother is hauling a pail of water to the front door. Moments later, he hears her sniffling in the kitchen. There’s the sound of papers being crushed and stuffed down the rubbish chute. He wants to tell her that he had heard the men. They had knocked and banged on the door. Bold as daylight they were. They knew no one in this block would dare call the police. Every family in this block needs to borrow money some time or other. Smearing red paint and faeces on the door is mild. Loan sharks have done worst things. He struggles to stand up. He wants to go outside and help his mother clean the door. He stops when he hears Mak Som’s voice in the corridor.
‘What happened, Ah Gek?’
‘This, lah! Look! Look! All this shit on my front door!’
‘Adoi! This is very bad. But my Chinese friends, they tell me, faeces mean good luck. Faeces bring good luck! Don’t worry, lah. I help you wash.’
Chattering in a mix of Hokkien and Malay, he hears Mak Som clucking away like a mother hen, comforting his mother, and he’s grateful.
‘The red paint. Tak boleh chuchi! Can’t clean off easily. Never mind, lah! But this brown gob is very easy to wash off. Sabun sikit-sikit, air sikit-sikit boleh! Can wash off with soap and water. Brush hard. Then spray insecticide. After that, mana ada smell? No more bad smell.’
‘Very sorry, Mak Som.’
‘Ack! Sorry, for what? No need to be sorry, lah! We’re neighbours. Everybody here borrow money. We’re not rich people. What to do?’
Mak Som is the only one who comes out to help his mother. Other neighbours stay inside their flats. No one wants to get in the way of the loan sharks. Or a filthy diseased man. He decides not to go out to the corridor. Best not to let Mak Som see him.
‘Kam sia, Mak Som.’
‘Thank me for what? I didn’t do anything. I only talk. You wash.’
The Man Who Wore His Wife's Sarong Page 10