In my mind, I congratulate the Vice-Chancellor for holding this congregation within the spectre of ghosts and history instead of inside one of the more impermeable and spirit-less air-conditioned lecture halls. Staff House is a modest architectural hybrid of Imperial Empire, the Costa del Sol and a kampong kedai makan; something for everyone. Curved whitewashed arches open the house to the elements on three of its sides; on the fourth side, out of sight under a corrugated iron roof on which the rain machine-guns, is an afterthought kitchen. Long eaves provide some protection from the more aggressive of nature’s moods while ensuring a continuous circulation of mosquitoes inside and reducing the light on a cloudy or rainy day – most days in Singapore – to something like the inside of a smoky London club. It still amazes me how dark and broody the equator can be once the sun goes out. The mood, I feel, is appropriate for the occasion.
A ceiling-less high roof extends up into invisible heavens. Li Fang swears the murky cavernous overhead harbours the ghosts of Japanese officers who committed suicide on hearing on the radio their Emperor’s surrender. Li Fang himself is already here, with a little group of non-academic staff; Bernard’s death belongs to all. The restive mutter of the gathered is stilled to silence as the amplified VC comes through loud and clear above the drumming rain.
‘The reason we are here is a sad one. Professor Bernard Fox died last night. His death is under inquiry by the police and I am pleased to say Superintendent Wong is taking personal charge of investigations.’ The VC looks appreciatively towards Wong. Siggy zooms in. ‘All of us must help the police by cooperating with them. Superintendent Wong’s team will be interviewing all of us over the coming days and fingerprints will be taken as a matter of course. The police investigation will tell us all we can know about this tragic death. There is no room for rumour.’
The congregation murmurs agreement as Siggy pans across the serious face of academe. The VC is a practised if unexciting speaker. He allows a pause to mark the end of point one before point two.
‘The death of a dean … well … the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, is a regrettable inconvenience.’ So, Bernard’s demise is a regrettable inconvenience. I suppose it is, Bernard was always something of a regrettable inconvenience when alive and I think he’ll be happy to retain that distinction. ‘Classes and all university activities will be suspended for three days effective immediately with a possible extension. This is for two reasons: firstly, as a mark of respect and mourning for Professor Fox and, secondly, to allow the police to conduct their enquiries without having to work around teaching schedules or undergraduates coming and going. All students are being informed of the suspension and sent home today. You are, at the request of the police, required to remain accessible for interview, either in your offices or in Guild House, which will be the temporary police field-quarters as it is conveniently close to the scene of the … er … event.’
The VC plays things as straight as the causeway. There is absolutely no hint that the murderer, if murderer there be, might be among us. My mind stands at ease and begins to wander to thoughts of Venus and Danish pastries, only to be drawn sharply back to attention by the VC’s third point.
‘We will all mourn our departed colleague and friend but university life must go on. That is, I’m sure, what Professor Fox would have wanted. Thus, the position of dean will be filled ad interim.’ Murmurs of supportive agreement ripple obediently through the House, although nobody could possibly think of any need to rush to fill the post even ad interim; Bernard had been almost banished from the policy body of the university for months before his death and everybody knows it. I wonder benignly if the VC wants to do Bernard the posthumous honour of suggesting he played some kind of important role that must be maintained. Wrong. The VC’s next sentence drops like a guillotine blade. ‘Doctor Harry Chin will be Acting Dean of Humanities pending a permanent appointment. I know you will all support Dr Chin.’
Ra’mad gives an audible gasp; eyes turn to him. A very wet man standing on the edge of shelter in a world full of electricity searching for an earth, Ra’mad looks as if he has been struck by lightning. His intake of breath is epidemic and for seconds the building itself seems to draw in its sides. Chin of all people! Support Chin as a replacement for Bernard? Impossible! Harry Chin, my Head of Department, characterised by his principle antagonist, Kingsley Woolf, as the one man on faculty staff who could be replaced by a cardboard cut-out without any of his students and certainly not his wife noticing other than a change for the better.
One year only as Social Studies Head, Chin has nothing to show for an academic career except an eight-hundred-page Demography of Singapore. This singular work was attacked by a nom de plume review – of suspected Woolfish origins – and dismissed as: ‘A thoroughly original work – eight hundred pages of tables and charts pulled from all over the place and stuck together with no discernible thread of meaning and serving no function other than the ambition of an unknown academic to get to somewhere he should not be.’
K’s attempts to discredit Chin before he took over the Social Studies Department achieved only the eternal animosity of Harold Chin. Few members of faculty read reviews of anything other than their own publications. Even fewer are ever likely to open an eight-hundred-page book unless they have their names on it or at least in it. Chin’s eight hundred large pages of heavy paper, solidly hardbound, weighs in at over a kilo. The book and his attractive wife Agnes, especially Agnes, had been enough to land Chin the department leadership. But Acting Dean? How on earth did Chin wheedle his way overnight into Bernard’s yet warm chair? Bernard had led opposition to Chin getting the Head of Department position; what would he be thinking now?
I search for Chin’s face in the crowd. Nothing registers there, no surprise, no exhilaration, nothing. He remains wrapped in his impenetrable cocoon. Inscrutable. As the VC calls for a minute of silence to remember the dead and end the meeting, questions buzz around my suspicious mind. Where was Chin last night? At home I suppose, I saw his BMW outside his house. The nearest neighbour to Bernard’s place, on the other side of it to my flat, Chin’s house had remained dark throughout all the activity surrounding the discovery of Bernard’s body. Who could have slept through Barnaby and the sirens?
I doubt any one of those present thinks of the dear-departed but the silent minute does work some kind of miracle. As the VC finishes mouthing his count of sixty and raises his head, the clouds roll away as rapidly as they came and the rain fades to a steamy mist. The sun sends a rainbow over the university and Siggy films it. The end lands smack in the middle of Acting Dean Harold Chin’s house.
A few of the more ambitious members of staff hang back to congratulate Chin. David, K and I meet at the car. ‘What bloody humbug,’ K spits out, winding down a window. (We are in 1980: cars are an extravagance, air-conditioned cars a luxury and electric windows a novelty.)
Ra’mad walks past us, face set like brown granite, and agrees very loudly, ‘Really. Bloody humbug!’
‘Christ,’ says David. ‘Things must be really bad if K and Rat Man are in the same bed. Can you believe it, Chin as Dean? Truly, we are all in the gutter but some of our noses are in the shit while others are looking at the fucking stars.’
The super holds up a hand for a lift. K waves for him to jump in and guns the Mustang into reverse. We see Chin walk out from Staff House into a halo of sunshine, his star rising faster than the Singapore dollar.
‘Well, Davey-boy, that twisting, crawling turd you see in front of you,’ K stabs a finger towards Chin to make it quite clear to which particular turd he refers, ‘will very soon be a falling star face down in the gutter.’ The super looks genuinely puzzled at K’s words. I suppose he holds the naïvely popular view of academic life as something removed from the rat race of perpetual in-fighting. By the end of the investigations, he will be more tuned in to the reality of life in Ivory Towers.
On the narrow road back to the flat, the Mustang’s tires shed screaming
rubber on every turn. It seems K is taking Chin’s good fortune worse than the news of Bernard’s death. The super braces himself against the dashboard and his tired face looks as if he regrets asking for a lift.
‘You know what I reckon, K?’ K tosses his locks to indicate that he cares not what I reckon, so I continue. ‘I reckon the VC just placed a non-entity in the job to keep it open. Chin can’t remain as dean. He’s not a senior faculty member.’
‘Fat chance. Chin’s a limpet.’ K cuts a corner so violently two wheels briefly leave the road. The Citroën of the night before pulls off onto the grass for safety ahead of us. K toots and waves cheerily at the scowling blond as he brushes past Black Beauty with barely a paint job to spare. Had K’s reactions been a smidgen less than perfect, that magnificent French car, one of those that fearless blond officers chose over their own Volkswagen to ride into their thousand-year Reich, would have been forced down the steepest slope on campus – hopefully to combust in a rage of flames on the cricket field and save me lots of grief later.
‘No way Chin will let someone take his place now he’s in it. If you think that, Haddock-me-lad, you ain’t learnt much about the chinks during your time in Singapore.’ K glances sideways at the super, who is too busy trying to stay upright to take offence at a racial diminutive. David’s eyes fix on K’s flowing silver mane; hero worship in his eyes. Where, I think, is all the sadness that should be spilling from each of us? ‘Mark my words, Haddock,’ K continues. ‘Chin will want a clean sweep of Bernard’s men – beginning with us, no doubt.’
* * *
‘Good news for you,’ Chin says, in Mandarin, of course. And in my imagination, of course.
‘You don’t gamble so we haven’t won the lottery,’ Agnes replies, happy to put a damper on anything her husband considers good news. The events of the night before have drained her vivacity, not that she wasted much of it on Chin.
‘Much better than that,’ says Chin, who thinks the national lottery should be banned along with chewing gum. ‘I’m the new dean.’
‘Darling!’ Agnes can’t remember when she last used the word – probably, she thinks, when Harry bought the BMW. Her mood doesn’t swing, it positively leaps from depression to elation. ‘So fast! The position’s only been vacant twelve hours. How did it go through Faculty so quickly?’
‘It didn’t yet. The VC just announced it. That’s why he called me in at 8.00 before the meeting. Wanted to know: if he offered it, would I accept? Of course, I said yes and he’s just announced it. It will have to be confirmed by Faculty but that’s a formality. Until it is, I’m ad interim. That’s good in a way as it gives me a few weeks to clear away the opposition and the status to do just that.’
‘Well, Darling, I don’t know what you mean by opposition. I suppose you mean Ra’mad, he must be the longest-serving member of faculty. Not much opposition there. He doesn’t even have a wife.’
‘Yes, he does. But she’s well out of things in a nursing home. I’m not thinking of him – he may be senior but he’s in place as Head of Malay Studies only because they couldn’t find anybody qualified – I’m thinking more of those foreigners. Not all of them, but those who have voting rights.’
‘Internal politics. Don’t expect a simple girl like me to understand. I’m sure you’ll manage whatever’s necessary. Now, this is cause for celebration.’ Agnes takes the hand of her husband and leads him through to the bedroom to give him his reward.
6
Quiet Words with Wong
AT SUPERINTENDENT Wong’s request, K drops both of us outside Bernard’s front door. ‘We can have that talk now, just the two of us, inside the professor’s house.’ The super tells the policeman outside to open up then go get himself a cold drink in Guild House opposite. We enter the house quietly and respectfully, like going into an empty church. Barnaby, having finished her massage or maybe just coming home, or just being Barnaby, who goes wheresoever she likes, when she likes, on her campus, pants in after us.
‘You were pretty good friends with the professor, Doctor Haddock?’
‘Yes. Very good friends. I knew him well enough to know if he had any enemies. That is one of the first things you’ll want to know, isn’t it? The police always ask that question in the movies.’ Super Wong gives the smallest nod of affirmation. ‘On campus, there were two. Ra’mad, the longest-serving head of department after Bernard, who no doubt expected to be the new dean. Maybe enemy is too strong a word for Ra’mad – the two just weren’t friends. And Chin, who lives next door. Their enmity goes way back. Chin is the new dean ad interim.’
‘To judge from Ra’mad’s remarks outside Staff House just now, it seems Ra’mad and Chin don’t exactly get on, either. What do you think is the reason for their particular antagonism? Or does everyone hate everyone around here?’
‘Perceptive of you, Superintendent. Ra’mad and Chin have a lot in common but are worlds apart. Bernard told me Ra’mad was hand in glove with the Japanese-led anti-colonial movement in World War II. Chin’s too young to have been involved in the darker history of Singapore, but Bernard said Chin’s father was nationalist-Chinese and that he too cooperated with the Japanese. Chin’s Chinese-educated all the way. That’s why his English is so flaky. His father, Chin Jin-Hui, was convinced Mandarin would become the primary language of Singapore and the whole of Southeast Asia. Harry Chin is said, at least by Bernard, to share his father’s dreams regarding language.
‘It’s the language question that sets Ra’mad and Chin apart. Chin has no place for the Malay language, while Ra’mad not only is Malay, he is Head of Malay Studies, although his PhD is in Chemistry and his thesis is entitled “The Use of Poison in Malay Communities” and his interests lie less in analysis of the Malay Annals than in the analysis of poisons. He got to be Head of Malay Studies because nobody else with a doctorate wanted the job. Rumour has it he would still like to see a pan-Malay union embracing the peninsula, Singapore, Borneo and Indonesia. But rumour is rumour and Bernard thought him harmless. So, while Chin and Ra’mad share origins that had no love for the British or for Bernard, they have no love for each other.’
Wong surprises me with his next remark. ‘If the truth were known, we might say the same for many members of Singapore’s multi-ethnic society; I can remember the bloody riots of 1964 between Malays and Chinese, but violence was even worse between Teochew and Hokkien speakers. That sort of thing is gone but not forgotten. Fortunately, although you might not share my opinion, today we do not discuss issues of race and language in the public forum.’
Super Wong is a pretty good psychologist under his crumpled uniform. He manages to draw me out from the academic’s usual hedge of qualification and on-the-other-hand-ness, although I can’t give up my double negatives. ‘I’m not sure I do not share your opinion, Superintendent. Even if Singapore’s ethnic harmony is only skin deep, race relations are much better here than in just about any country in the region, perhaps in the world. I only hope that racial distrust is disappearing and not just brooding beneath the surface waiting to explode.’
‘You’re the anthropologist, Doctor Haddock, what’s your long-term prognosis for Singapore?’
‘I share the opinion of Bernard there. He was optimistic short term and pessimistic long term. He thought there would be few problems as long as things were getting better all the time for everybody but that people might close ranks within language and skin colour when the pickings are less abundant. He would have loved things to be otherwise but he thought the history of Man to be one of different peoples living happily side by side for decades or generations and then suddenly hacking each other to death for no particular reason.’
‘Or hanging each other from fans?’
‘Then you don’t think Bernard’s death suicide, Superintendent?’
‘Let’s leave that one for the moment. Let me first ask you another of those questions you will be expecting: when and where did you last see Professor Fox alive?’
‘Soon after lun
ch yesterday, about three in the afternoon. Right here.’
‘Did you use the front or the back door?’
‘Both. Had lunch at the Guild, crossed the road, spent half an hour or so with Bernard, then left by the back door.’
‘How did he seem?’
‘You mean were there any signs of depression? No. Bernard had taken his nap and was back into his work at his desk.’
‘Anybody see you leave?’
‘Li Fang was already here; he saw me. There’s a little path between Bernard’s back door and mine. I always leave my back door open – so did Bernard; he started locking it just last week, don’t know why. Bernard’s housekeeper is away and I just dropped in to see if he needed anything.’ I’m aware this is a revision of our last meeting but there is nothing to be gained by making known what Uncle made me swear to keep secret.
‘And you say, Doctor Haddock, that you sat alone all evening, until Li Fang came for you near midnight. Can anybody confirm your presence at home?’
‘The blond man in that vintage Citroën we passed just now came to my window soon after 10 o’clock at night. I’d never seen him before and don’t know his name – he had a German accent. He wanted to use my phone to call Bernard. Bit late for a social call on Bernard.’ I try to sound helpful. ‘He said Bernard didn’t open his door to him.’
Waiting for Venus - A Novel Page 5