Surrogate Protocol

by Tham Cheng-E

  Mrs Langfield tucked in her chin. “You speak very good English.”

  “And also Latin, to the credit of Jesuit missionaries,” said Ning Yan. She nudged Vivian and got her to perform a curtsy.

  “Your daughter, I presume?” said Mrs Langfield.

  “Foster daughter,” said Ning Yan. “As you are aware, we run an orphanage.”

  “Of course,” Mrs Langfield smiled in passing and did a quick examination of Vivian in her dress. “She looks almost a lady.”

  Almost? Ning Yan curtsied graciously nonetheless. “Forgive me for taking the liberty of bringing her along. Today is her fifteenth birthday and she has never been to a luncheon of such status.”

  “Oh, Lucy.” Mrs Langfield touched Ning Yan on her elbow. “You should’ve told me!” She turned to Vivian. “Come then! No need to be bashful. Fill your plate with the finest.”

  Vivian sought out her Mama’s approval with an abashed, dimpled grin and, when she had obtained it, proceeded forth. As Vivian dissected the spread, a tall, grey-haired man sporting a bristly moustache and a sunhat came over to Mrs Langfield. Behind him trailed four younger gentlemen.

  “I don’t think we’ve met,” said he to Ning Yan.

  Mrs Langfield introduced them. “Lucy, meet Robert Langfield, my husband and Chairman of the company.”

  “An honour, Mr Langfield.” Ning Yan curtsied and offered her hand for a kiss that lingered a little too long for comfort.

  Langfield surveyed Ning Yan from top to toe with a sweep of his eyes. “What a splendid vagary of life.”

  Ning Yan smiled thinly in response, uncertain of what to make of the remark.

  After lunch a photographer arrived and gathered them before the portico. A bursting flash captured their smiles in a collodion print, and Vivian was delighted to be standing in the front row. It was to be her first photographic portrait.

  In time they sat down near the pond to a round of port. Under normal circumstances the men would have retired to the smoking room for an exchange of politics and business. It was to the suspicion of the ladies that the men stayed on account of Ning Yan’s presence.

  “And I say, ingenuity is survival.” So said a young, suave gentleman who looked too eager to impress. “An old policy it was, some thirty years ago. Then it was a cent for three rats. Now the Straits Government pays them three cents for a single dead rat and the downtrodden coolies made a business out of it!” He leaned back and took a draw from his pipe. “By which one coolie earned himself a small fortune. Astounding but true.”

  “An expensive solution to the rat problem,” said an older gentleman, belching on his port. “We overpay coolies and turn them into rat-catchers.”

  “Not a small problem, Edward,” said a plump, tight-lipped lady, his wife perhaps. “I’ve seen them. Those rats are large as cats!”

  Ning Yan stretched her lips politely when the lady looked at her as if seeking validation for her claim. She couldn’t help noticing that most of the ladies appeared somewhat haggard and blowsy compared to the men.

  Young Vivian, having eaten her fill of honeyed hams, olives, greens, figs and an assortment of tarts, cakes and sweetmeats, began to drowse while sitting upright on the chair beside her Mama. As the conversation staled Ning Yan was introduced to another dashing young man who sat beside her and appeared somewhat embarrassed by her beauty.

  “William here just got off the steamer two days ago,” said a man, presumably a friend. He was wearing a woven country hat and squeezing the young man named William on the shoulders. “Tell us your opinion of this place, William.”

  “Well,” he began, stealing a diffident sidelong glance at Ning Yan. “I find it a rather—handy city.”

  “A very apt description, William.” A slightly tipsy Langfield remarked agreeably.

  Ning Yan forced a smile. The heat was getting to her.

  “Speaking of coolies,” the man named Edward said, plucking the pipe from his lips. “I’ve heard of another tiger attack last week at a place called Passier Rice—somewhere east, I believe. Yet we’ve heard no attacks on European hunters however plump and well-fed they are. It appears that the tigers here have acquired quite a penchant for the leaner flesh of coolies!”

  “Flavoursome,” the eager young man offered. “Like salted dried fish.”

  The remark roused a round of laughter. And when it died away Langfield smiled dreamily at Ning Yan and asked her opinion on that matter.

  “Well.” Ning Yan surveyed the anticipation in her audience that would’ve intimidated any common guest. “If only Europeans would labour in the jungles the tigers would have developed a greater penchant for European fat. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  From the unsettling silence rose a faint chuckle. The ladies began smiling nervously at one another and a large-bellied man shoved a quid of tobacco between his molars and began chewing it avidly.

  “You mentioned Latin,” came Mrs Langfield’s tentative and genteel voice. “Would you care to recite some?”

  Ning Yan saw, in Mrs Langfield’s words, a subtle intent to repay the humiliation. “Why certainly, Mrs Langfield.” She roused Vivian from her sleep and whispered something into her ear.

  Drowsily Vivian greeted them with a dimpled smile and recited a phrase.

  Damnant quod non intellegunt.

  Mrs Langfield lifted her chin thoughtfully. “That sounded very good,” she said, despite a cautionary grunt from her husband. “Would you care to elucidate its meaning?”

  “They condemn what they do not understand,” said Ning Yan, rising from her chair and taking Vivian’s hand. “It has been a most wonderful luncheon, Mrs Langfield, Chairman. But we must impose on you no more.”

  At the portico Ning Yan hailed an empty hackney carriage that waited nearby. Vivian willingly entered the carriage because she knew her mother was splurging on account of her birthday. So it was only appropriate that she reciprocated the generosity with gratitude. “You were very brave back there, Mama,” she said, gathering her skirt through the door.

  “Was I?” Ning Yan lifted her brows and touched her chest, miming surprise. “I was scared to death.”

  Vivian giggled and looked outside the curtained window as the carriage, drawn by a single white horse, began rattling down the path and back towards Tanglin Road.

  “I feel like a queen in this,” said Vivian.

  Ning Yan pulled her close. “You already are, my dear.”

  Along the way they passed an emaciated Kling who, by the side of the road, was conducting a tumbril drawn by buffaloes. The tumbril was heaped with fresh, pungent manure, and the buffaloes’ legs were cased in mud.

  From somewhere up the hillocks they caught a faint roar of boisterous laughter. Ning Yan could almost hear the clink of champagne glasses that so often went with it.

  / / /

  After shedding their dresses, Vivian and her Mama were tremendously relieved to slip back into their cotton blouses with the Mandarin fabric buttons and huge, airy sleeves. That evening they settled down to a spread of greens and roasted pork—a feast compared to their regular staple of rice gruel and pickles.

  It was customary for the Chinese to consume a bowl of longevity noodles on their birthdays. Supposedly the noodle strands were stretched unbroken from a single slab of dough and cooked in its full length. Vivian had a bowl to herself—a delightful microcosm of sweet broth, chives and a smooth, glistening boiled egg.

  By the illumination of two kerosene lamps and huddled in a partitioned room at the upper level of a mouldering shophouse, Ning Yan and her foster daughter dined like royalty. They made fun of the ang mohs whose arrogance they thought would be the cause of their eventual decline, whenever that might be. They made animal caricatures of them: blonde gibbons and auburn orang utans, and tittered till their tummies hurt.

  After dinner Vivian read by lamplight into the hour before drowsiness took hold. And with an embrace Ning Yan tucked her into bed. She lingered beside her daughter, watching her lovely, dimpl
ed cheeks.

  “Aren’t you going to bed?” asked Vivian.

  “In a short while.” Ning Yan stroked her daughter across the forehead. “Happy fifteenth birthday, darling.”

  Vivian returned a sleepy smile and Ning Yan leaned over to kiss her between the eyes.

  “It feels nice,” said Vivian.

  “Really?” Ning Yan’s lower lip trembled. She was choking back on tears with immense effort. “I could kiss you again.”

  And kissed Vivian she did, for the last time.

  Vivian slipped away just before the first teardrop fell upon her arm. Ning Yan reeled off the bed weeping bitterly; though behind thin walls she could afford only whimpers. She made it count and expended as much sorrow as she could by clasping both hands tightly over her mouth. Tears gushed like a deluge from a broken dam. Fits of violent sobbing racked her shoulders and drained all strength from her limbs.

  When it all finally ebbed Ning Yan returned to her daughter to find her asleep with an angelic visage. She touched her hand and felt an unsettling chill. She passed a quivering hand over her face and felt no breath. Trembling she pressed her cheek upon her daughter’s chest and listened to a dark, eternal stillness.

  Ning Yan fell over and expelled her dinner all over the floor. Her sorrow might have been assuaged if only she’d smashed the kerosene lamp and its burning fuel on herself. But she didn’t. Her heart went cold, and in a state of stoic calm she began gathering up Vivian’s papers and documents and shoving them into a lacquered box that chimed to a melody when opened. She had given it to Vivian on her last birthday, and it made her weep anew. She retrieved the omnicron from a hidden compartment behind the wardrobe, threw on a cloak and left the tenement.

  It was standard protocol. Someone else would soon arrive to get rid of the corpse and no one would ask questions because CODEX ran Straits Welfare. For orphans it was a haven, but for Chronomorph-operatives like her it was simply a farm.

  Whoever dreamed up this policy had to be a genius or a tinkering fool. Ning Yan indulged in the macabre thoughts thinking they would ossify any softness that remained inside her.

  Damn that bastard to hell. Damn him to the deepest hell.

  She roamed the night like a wraith, her strides full of malaise, her eyes unseeing. The residents on this island probably numbered no more than fifty thousand and the streets were deathly silent. But the silence was comforting. In the stillness of night, and in a voice tremulous and raspy, she started singing:

  Her coffin was brought; in it she was laid,

  And took to the churchyard that was called Leatherhead,

  No father, no mother, nor no friend, I’m told,

  Come to see that poor creature put under the mould.

  So now I’ll conclude, and finish my song,

  And those that have done it, they will find themselves wrong.

  For the last day of Judgment the trumpet will sound,

  And their souls not in heaven, I’m afraid, won’t be found.

  Someone had taught her this song when she was on a galleon off to somewhere in a distant past; when Chinese like herself spoke Latin and the Spanish flag flew and silver was traded in copious amounts. Men did things to her in the ship’s hold, and when they had finished someone cuddled her and sang her this song.

  She remembered the voice. It was a motherly voice.

  From putrid drains came the squeaks of unseen rats. Ning Yan turned a corner and entered a narrow alley. Her frayed nerves bade her to sit on a small flight of steps that led to the backdoor of a shophouse. From her purse she slid out a small bundle and peeled away the folds of a silk kerchief to reveal a pocket percussion revolver. She bent it open to make sure the caps were in place, snapped it back and held it to her chin. Her mind was set, and the misery made it easy for her to squeeze the trigger.

  Instead of a blast her vision vanished in a whiteout and her limbs locked painfully in place. She gagged and foamed. She fell to her side and juddered. Her muscles locked up so excruciatingly that her senses stalled. In that single, agonising moment she prayed for death.

  A face filled her sights, a hard and greasy one. The braids of a pigtail ran across his crown. An apelike upper lip hung over a pair of large incisors. Genuine concern seemed to be pouring out of the face. She felt him shaking her by the shoulders, the touch of a callused hand across her forehead. Her eyes rolled and her vision blurred. Then she felt the same hand groping her and she was helpless against it.

  The man vanished in a shuffling of feet and a series of sickly thuds that could only be made by the impact of fists against flesh. Her heart jolted at a sting at the side of her neck. The spasms eased, and the cramps in her muscles gradually dissolved. But on the ground she remained, heaving, her cheek pressing into the grit.

  A hand touched her shoulder. She slapped it aside and wearily pulled herself to a sitting position and wrapped her arms around each other as if to warm herself. With the back of her hand she swiped spittle from her lips.

  “Look what they’ve done to you…” she heard a voice say.

  It was the voice of a man—a big man, well-built, dressed in white slacks, a blue Chinese shirt and a straw boater hat. He reached out a hand to touch a bruise by the side of her face and it was brusquely slapped away.

  “Don’t touch me,” said Ning Yan. She staggered over to a ditch, retrieved her bundle containing Vivian’s lacquered music box and clutched it preciously to her chest as she walked away.

  “Must’ve been hard.” The man started after her. “I’m sent to get you back in service, take care of your needs.”

  “You’re a dastardly pimp working for the Seers.”

  “I saved you.” The man hastened his strides and held out his hand. “Name’s Khun. I presume you will be called Vivian from now on?”

  Ning Yan did not answer and did not stop walking either.

  “I’ll let you in on a secret.” He twisted his hands together. “I’m one of you, so I know how this feels. I’m coming on seventy. Tell me, dolly, how old are you?”

  She pushed past him. “Too old.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To kill myself.”

  “Doesn’t work with the Preservation Protocol, dolly. And if they learned of it they’ll put you through Torment,” said Khun.

  She walked on.

  “Grieve, but not too long.” Khun raised his voice, revealing a twinge of annoyance. “After all, they’re just farmed orphans.”

  In a whirring flash Khun found himself on the ground, the left side of his face numbed as if it had been ripped away by the jarring blow. He leapt to his feet, and in a fit of rage attempted to grab Ning Yan but caught only air. In that same instance his nose met a wall. He rose to his feet, swung clumsily around to deliver a punch and instead had his face dashed against the edge of a drain. He hobbled to his feet, blood streaming from his nose. Again he struck, and again he was whipped back onto the ground. Only this time he did not rise.

  Farther away Ning Yan walked on, weeping once more, mourning her lost daughter, and passing beyond the shaft of lamplight.

  41

  LABRADOR

  AT EXACTLY TWO-thirty in the morning Marco’s GTR rumbles into the driveway of the Inter-Continental. There, Casey perches on a stone bollard and stands up when she sees the arriving coupe. In a startling act of courtesy Marco leans across the seat and opens the door and watches her enter. “Neutralised the jamming bug in him?” he asks.

  “Naturally.” She does not look at him, but takes out a touchpad and taps on it.

  “How? Kisses?”

  “From the water I gave him at the clinic.” She glances at him. “In the past we used to do micro-cuts on the lips. Now the new stuff works through saliva.”

  She raises the pad to him. On its small, mirrored screen Marco sees the rush of an image enlarging, its details crystallising—the viaduct, the roadway, the white infrared specks of two living individuals, one of them of a darkening shade. A flickering triangle app
ears over the brighter speck, and sets a grin on Marco’s face. “That’s very good.”

  “After you’ve disposed of Alpine-One I figured you’d need another Tracker.” Casey pinches her lips; the smile slight, tentative, bordering between formality and irony.

  It pleases Marco. “Coming on fast, Gaius-Four,” says he. “What’s your alias?”

  “Casey,” says the young lady.

  “Well, we should get to know each other first, Casey.”

  “Where’re you taking me?”

  “Your choice, love.”

  They drive onto Mackenzie Road and turn up into Mount Emily Park. By a small slipway Marco conceals his GTR in the dark of a banyan tree. He applies the brake, leaves the engine running and proceeds to inspect his new prize. But Casey does not reciprocate just yet. She goes on tapping on her pad and humming a tune to herself.

  It annoys him more than he thinks it would. “I’ve never seen you.”

  “I worked undercover as the doctor’s assistant.”

  “Ah, that explains it,” he says. “You are very good.”

  “The doctor was a good man.”

  “A sacrifice for the Cause.” Marco fingers her arm. “Quick, painless and full of grace.”

  Casey says nothing to that. For another minute she goes on tapping and wears out Marco’s patience. He tries peering over at it but sees nothing through the privacy film. At last curiosity gets the better of him. “What are you doing?”

  “Programming a tag,” she answers.

  “Whose tag?”

  She looks up and smiles. “Yours, darling.”

  Whiteout. Marco rushes at Casey but she slips easily beyond his reach and out of the car. He lunges but the constriction in his chest has begun, and the shock of it washes over him like a shroud of death. Seconds later a debilitating stab of pain infuses his heart. He crouches, his arms wrapped tightly around his torso as if he is about to defecate. Then as a dying vessel he keels over to his side.