Surrogate Protocol

by Tham Cheng-E

  John laughed bitterly. “Is this part of a test? To see how badly I wanted this?”

  “No, it’s not. Off the record, I don’t want to lose a good man in the team.”

  “You speak as if you already lost one.”

  “There are many things you don’t know.”

  “I know enough to come this far.” John folded his arms across his broad chest. “Interior knows about the rift in CODEX as well as we do, and each faction is pumping in more resources than the other just to work their policies. Soon everyone will have to choose sides, Interior included. By taking on Selection I’m making my choice, just as you’ve made yours.”

  Thaddeus shook his head. “You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into.”

  “A fourfold pay hike, plus bonus. It’s in the contract, isn’t it?” said John. “You can speak to the highest of high in the regular force and still won’t get me half of this.”

  “CODEX don’t normally take people like you.”

  “What? Normal ones with families?”

  “That’s right. Apart from the grief we get questions, and that’s dangerous.”

  “I still get my fourfold pay hike.”

  “You’re being irrational.”

  “I’m being practical,” John rejoined sharply. “My family needs this and you know it better than anyone else. Ginn and I took seven years to conceive Fanny and I’m not about to give her up. She survived a near stillbirth and the doctor’s odds to die before she turns three when she got diagnosed with both PKU and the neuroblastoma. She’s turned five and no insurance company will grant coverage because she’s so damn special. She practically lives in the hospital four days a week and social aid won’t even pay a fraction of the bill. That’s over twelve grand a month, Thaddeus. Twelve grand.”

  “My sympathies. But it doesn’t change anything.”

  “So you’re dropping me for personal reasons?”

  “I don’t think you’re good enough.”

  “There’re others who think otherwise.”

  Thaddeus leaned across the table. His gaze, sombre and impassive, was eerily still. “CODEX needs men who are crazy enough to walk the line and look death in the face. There are more Chronies involved this round than I’ve ever known. Interior is stepping up because they know the Other Side is making their move and there’s no stopping them.”

  “Them operatives?”

  “Them politicians,” says Thaddeus. “They hold the strings.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  “We have reasons to believe they’re backing some factions of CODEX we don’t know about. Even the Opposition might be involved.”

  John gave a quick, insipid laugh. “A family feud, Thaddeus. And we just happened to be in the thick of it.”

  Petulance flashed across Thaddeus’ face. “Interior got you here not because they think you’re good enough, but because they think you’re dispensable. Think about it.”

  John shrugged. “Regardless. I still get the money. Even the insurance payouts would help. Ginn wouldn’t have to worry. You don’t get such deals in the regular force and you know it.”

  “I could terminate your application.”

  John held up a finger. “You do that and you ruin everything between us. You have no right, not after all I’ve been through. You either put me in this side or I go to the other. You make the choice, Thaddeus. Any short of this you’ll have to kill me.”

  Thaddeus took off his glasses and surveyed John’s face dolefully. He was observing every twitch of his facial muscles, studying his emotions and prying his thoughts. Until at last, with a series of spasmodic blinks, he said, “I only wanted for us to speak openly.”

  John was looking past Thaddeus; his stare pensive, distant.

  With a tilt of head Thaddeus added, “You’ll risk dragging Ginn and Fanny into this.”

  “It’s already better than what we’re going through.”

  The seat creaked when Thaddeus reclined into it. “It’s my last opportunity to talk you out of this. I hope you would give it some thought.”

  “You shouldn’t even have tried, Thaddeus.”

  / / /

  It felt like a vacation with the trolley luggage in the back. The last vacation they had was nine years ago and Ginn longed for another. She had been telling John about it, not in a badgering sort of way, but as someone dreaming aloud, recounting a lofty wish. As if the doctors would let Fanny on a plane.

  John cruised along the highway with Ginn beside him. Fanny was reclining on the backseat with a hot fudge sundae. She was six, and anyone who’d met her would have thought she was three. Everything about her was small except her protuberant eyes and bulging forehead. The luggage that lay across the seat belonged to her, though it also contained five days’ worth of clothing and toiletries for mommy. They were headed to the hospital for an intensive three-day dosage of a new drug that the doctors hoped would metabolise the phenylalanine that was accumulating in her bloodstream.

  “She’ll freeze her brain,” said Ginn.

  John glanced at the rear-view mirror and found Fanny grinning at him through sundae-smeared lips. “Brain-freeze isn’t real, Ginn.” Ginn rode on silently for a while, then said, “We could stay with her, you know, until she checks in, then with the doctor’s blessing we could take Fanny to dinner at Prunes and Poppies downstairs.”

  John drove on without answering.

  “Then let’s do a round of Scrabble after dinner, winner gets the bed.” Ginn turned to him and smiled.

  John did not look at her. “You take the bed.”

  “That’s generous of you,” said Ginn. “You know how your back stiffens when you sleep upright on the chair.”

  “I can’t stay, Ginn.”

  Ginn worked to sustain her smile. “You’re leaving after dinner?”

  “I’ve to go after dropping you and Fanny off.”

  Ginn turned away and surrendered herself to her seat, unspeaking.

  “Got duties till noon tomorrow,” John added, “when my partner takes over.”

  “You don’t tell me anything,” Ginn muttered almost inaudibly.

  “I’m telling you now.”

  “You didn’t even tell me when you signed up for Fanny’s new course of treatment. You didn’t tell me where you got the money.”

  “A new department and a raise. Just for a year or two. It helps with the bills.”

  “Fanny misses you,” Ginn croaked. “She hardly sees you these days. You just can’t keep buying her affection with chocolate sundaes.” She shook her head as she contemplated whether or not to speak her heart, and her nose burned. “We never see you these days. You don’t live here. There are times when I wish I could just walk away…”

  John did not reply. Ginn had expected reassuring words, or at least a grunt of understanding, of empathy, of fear of losing her, of losing his family. If only John would look at her with so much as sympathy.

  But John did nothing.

  Ginn wept silently by the window while Fanny, strapped in at the rear seat, looked quizzically at her parents with her bulbous, half-closed eyes. She ran her tongue around her lips, smearing sundae all over. A plastic spoon hung loosely between her thin, frail fingers.

  9

  RACHEL

  August 19th, 1971 Wednesday

  My name is Arthur. I’ve known Rachel before she knew me. I heard so much about her in my eight months at Robinsons. She does sales at the lingerie department and has been there for three years. She was notoriously difficult, I think, because of her wits and her good looks. It was rumoured that she was a vivacious little rebel from a good family. Suitors came and went, and she remained gloriously single.

  Well-intentioned colleagues advised against courting her, lest she broke my heart, as she has done to others. I didn’t court her. We sort of just clicked when she developed a penchant for my coffee.

  Today is a special day because Rachel agreed to be my girlfriend. And from her smile when she said �
�yes”, I could tell she wasn’t reluctant about it.

  I’ve just returned from our first date: Pat Boone’s concert at Tropicana. Had dinner at Rasa Sayang and lazed at Le Bistro till way past midnight. Dropped her off at her home in Queenstown. Turned out she’s the only daughter of a typist and a shopkeeper. I am in afterglow. I didn’t have to plan much. It all went very smoothly. I figured she wasn’t looking for loaded men, but someone with whom she can connect in a natural way.

  Perhaps this is chemistry.

  My heart glows to the thought of seeing her again tomorrow.

  How I long for dawn.

  10

  NOVEMBER 1972

  RACHEL WAS WAITING at the counter when Arthur arrived. She wore her dark hair short, and blue plastic loops dangled from her earlobes. She looked across her shoulder at him. “You said you would have coffee and toast waiting by the time I arrived.”

  Arthur went behind the counter, grinning. “You’re not being fair. No one gets here this early. Did you wait long?” He began warming up the percolator.

  “Ten minutes, plus minus.”

  He rinsed his hands and dried them on a white dishcloth. “The usual?”

  “Blueberry muffin.” Rachel pointed her chin at the chiller case lined with pastries. “Hope they’re not expired.”

  Arthur gave her a dirty look and popped a muffin into the oven behind him. He poured a handful of coffee beans into a hopper and ground them in a burr-grinder, occasionally dipping his pinky into the lot to gauge its grind. The percolator shone like silverware, its surface capturing the surroundings in a medley of stretched, sinuous reflections. Steam whistled through the seams of its cover, where it was soon forced back into the percolator’s lower chamber and into the ground coffee.

  The infusion flowed from a spout at the bottom. Arthur tilted the cup and let the liquid run rich and silky on the white ceramic. The perfume of roasted coffee went very well with the aroma of hot pastries. Rachel held the cup to her lips, took a slow, lingering sip, and closed her eyes.

  “I wonder if we’ll do this every day after we’re married,” she said.

  Arthur gave a short, indulgent laugh. “That’s a brave thought.”

  “I’m sizing you up, to see if you fit the bill.”

  “And then you’d propose?”

  Rachel threw him a sneer. “Honestly, I think the hippy thing suits me. I’m not a sucker for marriages; I could wait forever.”

  Arthur’s gaze fell to the ironic statement. “No, you can’t.”

  “Then don’t make me.”

  He laughed again because he could find nothing else to say. Then he lapsed into an uncomfortable silence which Rachel seemed to relish. When he looked up he met her haughty gaze and it forced another uneasy chuckle out of him.

  “I won’t,” he said.

  Rachel emptied her cup, placed a bill on the countertop and triumphantly pulled herself from the bar stool.

  “Your muffin’s still in the oven,” said Arthur.

  “It’s yours now.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To sell underwear,” said Rachel, strutting out of the café like royalty. “See you at lunch.”

  “But I’m working at lunch.”

  Rachel raised a hand with her back turned. “After work then.”

  Robert, the store’s general manager, passed her on his way to the café. He was a large man of broad waddling hips, stout shoulders and a belly on which his tie rested. Splashes of silver crowned his greased hair. His eyes, large as a hawk’s, peered through a jarring pair of heavy-framed glasses. He thumbed at the departing Rachel. “I hope she paid. They only get staff discounts, not free meals.”

  “She even gave a tip,” said Arthur, clearing Rachel’s empty cup. “What can I get you, Robert?”

  “The usual.” Robert sat down with a grunt. “Grab a pie for yourself too, Arthur. Put it on my tab.”

  “Thank you, but Rachel got me a muffin.”

  Arthur went about his preparations for the café’s opening at ten. There was the hissing of steam, coffee cups clinking softly against one another, the metallic rustling of cutlery being poured onto a tray. An assistant went into the kitchen, and in that moment they were alone.

  “Arthur.” Robert’s voice rose and thickened.

  Arthur peered over the stacked trays. That tone usually meant something.

  “The grapevine says your ID isn’t legitimate.”

  Arthur went on working with deliberate casualness. “The authorities had no problems with it.”

  “Suppose it isn’t in their records. I’d be hiring you illegally.”

  “So you’re firing me?”

  Robert landed his cup hard on the saucer. “I just want to know what’s going on with you, Arthur. I’ve heard things about you in London.”

  “I trained there as a barista for three years.”

  Robert took off his glasses and polished them with a handkerchief. “I heard you got into a tangle with the triads.”

  “No tangle, Robert,” said Arthur. “I loved the brew and that was it.”

  Robert regarded Arthur sternly from beneath his brows, his gaze unflinching. He permitted a few moments of silence while Arthur worked on. Then at the height of Arthur’s discomfort, he spoke, “Tread carefully, Arthur. I don’t want trouble and I don’t want some other bloke running this café either.”

  Arthur twitched the corners of his mouth into what he thought was a smile. “I won’t get you into trouble, Robert. You’ve been very kind to me.”

  The café’s phone rang; Arthur picked it up. It was from administration and he handed it over to Robert. The conversation went on inaudibly, with Robert nodding away while shoving forkfuls of pie into his mouth. When it ended Robert returned the handset, emptied his cup and hurriedly departed.

  The clock read 9.15. Along the way to the latrine Arthur met Aini, a petite young salesgirl from the food department on the same level. She uttered a soft, polite greeting and Arthur returned one. He didn’t know much about her, except that she was about six months pregnant and that whenever she had time she would be knitting little woollen clothes for her unborn baby.

  In the washroom Arthur doused his face and shut the tap. The mirror before him reflected the same youth—a face framed in countless, forgettable mirrors, hair falling thickly over his ears and in an incline across his forehead. Someone who has committed a great sin isn’t meant to live that long. But life isn’t fair. Only with justice and judgement can there be fairness. And to which he knew he had to be judged someday.

  The irony was that he couldn’t even remember the source of the conviction in his guts. It felt as if it had been there the whole time, taunting and reminding him that he was a vile person who had done a vile deed.

  Arthur left the latrine to a rush of footfalls along the corridor. He found the store’s peon scurrying past him in search of someone.

  “You see wireman Song?” asked the peon.

  “No. What happened?”

  “Loft store, the fuse blow lah,” said the peon.

  “Maybe he’s there already.”

  The peon pointed petulantly at an imaginary space. “I come from there lah, got smoke. Sekali blackout lah.” Then he scurried round a corner and disappeared down the stairs.

  Arthur followed him. There was a foreboding stench of burning rubber as he descended the staircase.

  He lost the peon on the second floor and ended up along the corridor that accommodated the store’s administrative services and Robert’s office. He could hear the ring of a telephone behind closed doors, the buzzing of a fluorescent light tube.

  From somewhere a bell rattled. It sounded slightly flat, as if someone had dampened its insides with paper. The frequency of false alarms had desensitized store employees to the fire bell. But coupled with the stench of charring rubber, the implication became obvious.

  The door to Robert’s office flew open, and Robert’s head emerged. “Did you smell that?”

&
nbsp; Arthur told him about the loft store.

  Robert yelled across the corridor. “Does anyone know if maintenance sent anyone?”

  Vacant stares, faces turning left and right.

  “All right then, we’ll take no chances now.” Robert swung his thick arm across his belly. “Down the stairs in an orderly fashion; gather at Raffles Mall and wait there until I give the green light to come back in.”

  The troupe passed him like a procession amid the bell’s throbbing rattle. Robert and Arthur joined the back of the line and they trudged down the steps that would take them to the rear of the men’s department on the first floor.

  The lights went out. A gasp swept through the procession. Robert’s attempts to calm his fear-stricken employees were soon drowned in the din of escalating screams. For the first time since it happened, Arthur took notice of the panic that was sapping strength from his limbs. There were the palpitations, the numb tingling at the fingertips. His eyes burned from unseen fumes; its stench pricked his throat, and he knew a fire was truly at hand.

  The bottom of the stairwell promised illumination—of misty daylight filtered through the welters of grey smoke that were already gathering near the ceiling. No sign of the fire yet. The store employees flowed between racks of merchandise and poured into the foyer. There, an angry orange glow and a fearsome wave of heat beset them from the left.

  An eruption of screams.

  Draperies near the watch section burned. The flames licked high against the ceiling boards but were confined to the heavy fabric. Arthur searched the fleeing crowds, but couldn’t see Rachel anywhere.

  Arthur grabbed a fire extinguisher from its place behind a column, and ran towards the fire like a capricious fool. Robert was already there with two others, one of them the store’s wireman whom the peon had been looking for.

  Arthur directed the shaft of foam at the fire. “Have you seen Rachel?” he asked Robert.