In the centre of the circle he had drawn, Kishore placed the urn and all that remained of my Vanita. She was now entirely on her own and I was glad that she was protected by yantras. Then the two older men began to chant and walk round the circle. I could not exactly catch what they said, still less understand, but recognised the aums and shantis that littered their prayers. Mohan caught my eye, wobbled his head and grinned. I glared at him and shook my head.
After about five minutes they stopped chanting. Kishore turned to me. “Take the urn and walk into the water holding it high above your head. When you have got as deep as you can, turn round and face the shore. Then immerse yourself and the urn completely three times, each time saying the words you were taught. When you emerge for the third time, throw the urn over your left shoulder and walk directly back to us. Under no circumstances, no circumstances whatever, must you look at the urn after it has been cast.”
My eyebrows must have gone up involuntarily for Kishore, speaking in a stern voice, added, “If you do, her atman, her soul, will be impeded on its journey towards the Absolute.” He put the urn into my hands.
Vanita had been a good-sized girl and I had had, on the few occasions that I had attempted it, difficulty in lifting her. What remained of her was surprisingly light. Yet I needed both hands to hold on to the urn. I clutched it to my heart and walked into the sea.
The water was cold and I shivered. I had not appreciated how salty sea-water was or how much it stung the eyes. Blind with grief, I walked on. When I was waist-deep I realised that there was a strong current beneath an apparently calm surface. I am not a strong swimmer and the undertow seemed to clutch at my dhoti, wanting to pull me out to sea. I reduced the length of my stride and held the urn high above my head.
In the distance I thought I heard Vanita singing, crooning the way she used to after we had made love. I was glad of my imagination. It provided me with the sounds that could still my fear. I wanted Vanita’s singing to get louder but her voice seemed to fade the further out I got from shore. Then I realised that the sounds were real and came from the beach. Sundram was singing the very same bajans he had taught his daughter. They were, as Vanita had claimed, holy songs, and funerals are a good place for hymns.
When the water reached my shoulders, I stopped. Kishore had joined Sundram and the intensity of the chanting had increased. I found myself clutching the urn more tightly than ever. I turned and faced the shore, determined to do as I had been ordered. Then I stopped. I was afraid to submerge myself completely, afraid of the current that might pull me out to sea. What was more, I had forgotten the words I was supposed to say.
Then my ghost began to speak and Vanita’s voice whispered in my ear. “Don’t be afraid, my darling. Just allow yourself to slip in slowly.”
My heart ached as I remembered when she had first spoken these words to me. Then as now, I did as my beloved instructed. I allowed the sea to close over my shoulders, my neck, my head. Even as it did, I remembered the invocation I had forgotten.
“Gunga arppanam,” I whispered. “Mother Ganges accept this offering. Gunga arppanam.” The words were lovely and, so being, became sacred. The water was warmer now and pleasantly salty. I stayed down for as long as I could, then emerged. I did this again and yet once more, each time staying below till my breath ran out. I surfaced for the third time and hugged the urn tightly to my chest. It was with difficulty that I released it and shoved it over my left shoulder.
Then I began walking back to the shore. I walked very slowly. The urge not just to look at the urn but to retrieve it, clutch it to my body once more, was very strong. The course of our lives may be determined by an immutable causality, our behaviour controlled by a code that must persist over our feelings, but what remained of the things that we loved had a power more than these combined. I wanted to go back to the urn, retrieve it, and keep it with me forever. I resisted and continued walking towards the three figures on the beach.
I felt cold and my dhoti clung uncomfortably to my legs, dragging me back into the sea. Vanita’s voice was not singing now. She was desperate, calling me, pleading to be saved from the depths of the ocean, wanting to be rescued from the infinity of the universe. I ignored it and strode towards her father.
Sundram offered me a towel and I dried myself. We shook hands. Both of us realised how meaningless the gesture was. We had just thrown away all that remained of a person we had dearly loved. Her presence remained with us but, instead of bringing us together, it made us uncomfortable with each other. We were happy to part and I took the bus to work.
On Mondays and Thursdays, fresh supplies of meat are delivered to our cold room. Supplying meat to Nats is a million-dollar business, and selecting our suppliers involves an elaborate system of tendering about which I know nothing. Nor am I usually curious as to whether or not the meat supplies conform to the specifications of the tender, and the ratios of the edible portion to bone and fat are, I don’t think, my business. My job is to check the freshness of the meat and to ensure that it has been sufficiently chilled to remain fresh and germ-free.
The first thing that I did when I got to Nats was to go to the “cold” room. I turned on the red light on the door as I entered to ensure that no one accidentally locked me inside.
Vanita’s presence, which had been with me from the moment I had relinquished her ashes, became stronger as soon as the cold hit me. I realised why.
Once, early in our relationship, we had made love in the cold room. It had been Vanita’s idea. In her usual style, she told me that she had made love in just about every place in which it was possible except in freezing conditions. She would, she said, liked to have done it in the Arctic but, since that was not possible, the cold room at Nats would have to do.
I did not ask why we should. She wanted to do something with me that she had not done with anyone else. Nevertheless, I was nervous about the idea. We had to leave the red light on or risk getting locked in and the light often provoked people to look inside. Vanita insisted that anxiety would increase our pleasure and, as with most such things, she was right.
All this came back to me as I entered the room.
It had been freezing but the cold only made our bodies feel warmer, our points of contact sweeter. I remembered, too, how the fear of discovery made my heart race even faster than when we made love in the park.
The room was soundproof. This caused the noises we made to seem louder and our pleasure more intense. I remembered how cold the back of my body was when compared to the front, could taste the ice dust in Vanita’s hair as I buried my face in it. I heard her moan, begin to gasp. I began to lose control and go over the edge myself, my hips taken over by irresistible rhythms.
Then I felt my beloved’s arm around my waist. I had, in the past, felt Vanita’s ghost with me, heard her voice, smelled her body. Never had I made physical contact with her. Faint with desire I began to push her hand down.
“I thought you’d come round in the end, HK,” said Symons in a hoarse voice.
“You fucking pervert,” I shouted, flinging his hand away.
“But HK,” he remonstrated. “I saw the red light and thought it must be you in the cold room. I come in to find you breathing as though you were about to have a wank. I touch you. You say nothing but push my hand downwards. I speak and you scream blue murder.”
“You go to the bloody top end of Orchard Road to find perverts like yourself but you fucking well leave me alone, Symons.”
His manner changed. “Actually it’s good I came upon you. I wanted to tell you about what your wonderful policeman friend’s been up to.” He moved to the far corner of the room to reassure me of his intentions.
My curiosity was aroused. “You’ve met D’Cruz?”
He shrugged. “For several hours and much against my will.”
“He’s been talking to you?”
“Interrogating would be a better word.”
“Did he assault you?” I asked hopefully.
&nbs
p; “Only with his foul language.”
“What did he actually say?”
“He seemed to think that I might have had something to do with the wretched girl’s murder. Went so far as to imply that I may have wanted the girl dead myself. I asked him why this might be as I had no interest whatsoever in the depraved creature…”
“And he said?”
“He started to harangue me about an unnatural…” he sniffed, “unnatural relationship that I may be having with you. I assured him that the only unnatural thing for people like you and me was the one you seemed to be having with the girl.” I could see it. Symons all prissy, D’Cruz sweaty and foulmouthed. Imagining what had gone on cheered me up. “I hope he set you straight about my being gay.”
“Yes.” He paused dramatically. “On the whole he seemed to agree with me that you were homosexual.” He grinned at my discomfiture and wiggled his bottom. “The inspector seemed to think that we were two of a kind. But I could see that that was not what he was really interested in.”
“And what was the inspector interested in?”
“The whole point of his inquiry was to find out what I was doing on Saturday night.”
“As a matter of interest, what were you doing on Saturday night?”
He folded his arms and rocked back and forth. “What I always do on Saturday nights. I was watching TV with Mummy.”
“Did D’Cruz buy that?”
“I guess he’ll check it out with Mummy. But she’ll say I was at home, even if I wasn’t.”
“Are you trying to tell me you were somewhere else on Saturday night? Like East Coast Park, perhaps?”
“Listen, HK,” he said, serious again. “You know how I feel about you. Thought I had a dream come true when I found you in the cold room in the state you were in. But you’d better get this straight here and now. I wouldn’t stick my knife or my anything else into that bitch for all the tea in China.”
I tended to agree with him. I could not see Symons as a murderer. Perhaps this was because a tiny bit of me still wanted to believe that the killer’s real target was Lip Bin or Esther, that Vanita’s murder was part of the cover-up of a clever killer.
Despite my wishful thinking, I understood what the inspector was doing. He was shaking things up, throwing pieces into the air. I hoped I could make sense of the shapes they formed when they fell to earth.
LATE ON THURSDAY night I heard Oscar and Ma arguing. Oscar’s voice was louder than usual and had a determined ring to it. He hadn’t sounded like this for a long time. I remember that, when they were young, Oscar and Ma quarrelled a good deal. Ma, I think, was the one to blame. She would, without any provocation that I could think of, begin to nag Oscar about his drinking. At the same time she would badger him about taking over the family business. Ma’s hassling only caused Oscar to drink more. At the height of one of his binges, it would have been impossible to reach Oscar. When he was relatively sober, however, he argued that there was no reason why he should not get drunk as often as he wanted to. He also maintained that we were more than comfortable with what we had and that, if we got involved in his family business, they would interfere with our lives.
I agreed with Oscar and, often enough, told Ma to stop pestering the poor chap. When Oscar could no longer stand her griping, he would disappear from the house. He called it going “walkabout”. This he explained was a term used by Australian aboriginals when they interrupted their lives and wandered into the bush without apparent purpose. These excursions of Oscar’s usually lasted three or four days. When he returned he would be smelly and unshaven, shaking the way the very old do, his clothes a mess from being slept in.
Ma never asked Oscar where he went or what he did on his “walkabouts”. She missed her man so much that she was just happy to have him back. She would bathe him and cook him his favourite food. She even provided him with an expensive cognac, a bottle of which she kept hidden away especially for these reconciliations. Their reunions were happy times, better than Christmas or the Chinese New Year. The warmth about them was unrehearsed and went on for several days.
Though Oscar never spoke to Ma about them, he did give me some idea as to what happened on his “walkabouts”.
“I get back to the old places to see what the world’s been up to in my absence. Who knows, dear boy, it may have changed for the better.”
He told me about whores, pimps, touts and small-time drug peddlers who had been his friends and to whom he returned from time to time. What amazed me most about these people was the kind of information they seemed to possess. They knew of scandals in the government long before they broke, offered stock market tips and had details of world events before these reached the newspapers. This was not why Oscar went back to them. He went to keep in touch with old friends, to hear the gossip that was circulating in the world he had inhabited before Lim Li Lian had come into his life.
In time Ma found it less and less necessary to change Oscar, and the “walkabouts” became less frequent. I was surprised, therefore, at the way in which they were now carrying on. It had been years since they had shouted at each other like this. I wondered what it was that Ma wanted to change at this stage of their relationship. After eavesdropping for a bit from my bedroom, I joined them in the dining-room.
I glared at Ma and she said, “It’s not me that wants him to change anything, son. It’s him that wants to go.” She looked her man straight in the face. ‘You tell How Kum, Os, what you want to do and why.”
Oscar seemed more sober than he usually was at this time of the evening, though his brandy bottle was two-thirds empty.
“It’s like this, dear chap. This girlie of yours gets murdered and two people with her. If I understand the papers,” he laughed, “and it’s not always easy to understand what the Straits Times is getting at, the police seem to have nothing to offer us in the way of suspects.
“I was worried they might be hiding things so I called Jafri. He apparently is in touch with that rogue elephant D’Cruz who heads the investigation.” He looked longingly at his bottle and, despite Ma’s disapproving look, splashed brandy into his glass. “According to Jafri, the police have drawn a complete blank. Nothing seems to lead anywhere.” He sniffed. “A fine situation indeed. Three people murdered and all suspects innocent.”
I sat down beside him. “What were you thinking of doing about it, Uncle Oscar?”
“No concrete plan, dear boy.” He sipped brandy. “Thought I’d drift by the old places and meet some of the friends. They often have a good notion of what’s what. Like to get a feel as to what they think this whole business is about.”
Ma interrupted. “His restlessness didn’t start with the murder, son. He’s been wandering off here and there for some months now. Sometimes he’s out till very late into the night.” She sniffed to remind us that tears were on standby. “Tell him, Os. You tell How Kum how worried I’ve been and why. Also tell him how you’ve been feeling.”
“To speak the truth I’ve been a touch restive, of late. Slope into the coffee-shop downstairs and chat. Sometimes I sit by myself so as not to be a nuisance. Lili doesn’t like me at home by myself when I’m a little overwhelmed by the grape.” He paused, touched his glass then changed his mind. “And you, dear chap, have been away quite a bit with your lady.”
“Yes,” Ma added. “Most of the times you’ve been out, I’ve been on my own.” She nodded several times.
“I’ve told Lili that we can’t expect, delightful though they’ve been, for things to always be the same with the three of us.” He seemed relieved at being able to get this off his chest and sipped his drink again. “You must have a life of your own, I’ve told your mother often enough, but, I must confess, I’ve had problems getting used to the idea myself.”
There was a tough look in Ma’s eyes. “He has been lonely, How Kum. Very, very lonely. You’ve been spending so much time with that Vanita of yours, it’s no wonder you’ve so little left for your mother, let alone your Uncle Oscar.”
“That’s not fair, Lili. I miss the dear chap right enough but not enough to want to get in the way of his courtship of a lady.” He drank more brandy. “But there’s more than a grain of truth in what your mother says. I am finding it a mite difficult to cope with the notion that you are no longer the little lad that your mother and I have been looking after all these years.”
“There,” said Ma, the argument concluded in her favour.
Both of them smiled and looked a little away from me: embarrassed, guilty at the resentment they felt for a dead girl.
I was surprised. I had guessed that Oscar and Ma were a little jealous of the effect that Vanita was having on our lives. I had even used it, when the picture got really distorted, to see them involved in killing her. But these, I knew, were glitches on the screen, sub-plots, unrealities.
Ma, I knew, had a strong maternal instinct. I was her little boy and she would resent me being in arms other than her own. Nevertheless, she was also an Asian mother and, from time to time, badgered me about finding a girl and settling down. Vanita, however, would not have been her first choice. Oscar, I was convinced, would welcome any woman into my life. All that was required of her was to produce the grandchildren he so yearned for. Children he could tell stories to and spoil just as he did me.
But Oscar was more than an indulgent uncle. He saw himself as a knight, duelling for his Lili, her kerchief flying from his lance. His main role in life was protecting Lili: caring for the maiden in distress who had turned to him when everyone had abandoned her. I watched as his hand crept across the table and covered Ma’s. I knew that her free hand squeezed his thigh under the table. I saw them exchange looks, their faces carrying on a conversation they had had many times before. They were immersed in each other, unaware of the world around them. Complete.
Normally I was warmed by such moments, rejoiced at being a spectator at this tableau of romance. Today, I felt differently. I was suspicious, frightened. The way they smiled at each other, the way they avoided my eye, told me that nothing really mattered to these two except each other. The hand that comforted could become a fist, wield a lance…or a kitchen knife. I did not know the suffering that Ma and Oscar had gone through or the extent to which they would go to protect what they put together over the years. I was very much a part of their happiness, was, possibly, responsible for holding them together; perhaps more than I would have been if Oscar was my real father. Vanita threatened to disrupt this.
Moonrise, Sunset Page 10