by O Thiam Chin
As the taxi stopped in the boy’s neighbourhood, Ai Ling’s thoughts returned to the task at hand. For the whole night, she searched the area, but with no success. She called out the boy’s name, whispered it into deserted alleyways, shouted it across dark empty fields; with each utterance, Ai Ling could sense the waning hold of his name, and she was gripped, again and again, by the premonition that something terrible had happened. The poor boy, her boy. She knew she mustn’t lose hope, yet hope was like an elusive bird, vanishing out of sight.
When the first light of the day started to seep up from the horizon, Ai Ling called the boy’s father; upon hearing his hoarse, sleepy voice, she could tell he had not fared any better.
“I’ve called her, but she denies knowing anything about this. That damn woman must have kidnapped him. What kind of a fucked-up mother is she? How can she even do this?” Yet his words lacked the heat of firm belief, carrying in them the dark hint of doubt. And Ai Ling suddenly pitied him.
“Maybe she didn’t do it.”
“You don’t know her, or what she is capable of. How could she just abandon her children and run off with another man? What kind of a mother does that, you tell me?”
Ai Ling could feel the weight of weariness finally descending on her, deadening her bones, and all she wanted to do was lie down where she was and never get up. She hung up the call and started her journey home, heartsick and wrecked.
The police never found the boy, and Ai Ling never saw the father again, except for the final time he came by the childcare centre to pay the outstanding school fees and collect the boy’s belongings. Ai Ling had packed everything—the boy’s slippers, blanket, his drawings—into a large shopping bag and placed it aside. She excused herself when she saw the father talking to the principal. He glanced in her direction, but did not make any sign of acknowledging her. He seemed diminished, his shoulders hunched, his eyes dull. Ai Ling tried to smile at him, but he turned away.
For weeks after the boy’s disappearance, Ai Ling forbade herself to think of him, putting a tight rein on her thoughts. She had glanced at the short newspaper report before putting it away, and the news soon trailed off; with that, the boy was gone a second time. Ai Ling went through her days at work as if in a daze, moving at a much slower pace, one simple task at a time. She taught new songs, words and games to the children, and wrote down their progress in the little blue books for their parents. She helped them put on their shoes and wiped them down after they dirtied themselves during mealtimes. She comforted those who were hurt and patted the shoulders of those who needed encouragement. She waited with them if their parents were late, and told them stories and fairy tales to pass the time. She did everything right, and the children adored her.
It was only in her dreams that Ai Ling was able to find the boy and bring him home with her and Wei Xiang; the boy would take to this new life with such joy that even Ai Ling was surprised by it. She would cook elaborate meals and give him any toy he wanted. She would watch over him, pat his head, and comb his curly hair. Even in her dreams, Ai Ling could feel the texture of his hair; the lightness and colour, the thickness and the darkness slipped through her fingers, like cool ribbons of water. How beautiful his laughter, chiming in Ai Ling’s ears. She would hold the boy, and the feeling that stirred in her was as natural as breathing, and as vital too. Yet the dreams always ended with the boy leaving her; she would turn her head for a second, and he would be gone, disappearing into the world, leaving not a single trace. Every dream had felt like a small death.
Ai Ling soon got used to these dreams and gradually they began to occur less frequently. Over time, her memory of the boy became fainter, receding further and further into her mind, until it became nothing more than a broken fragment of her past, one that no longer caused her unwanted pain.
13
CHEE SENG
I look out of the hut into the courtyard, narrowing my eyes against the morning glare. Drawn by the light, I step out of the hut, into the heat of the day. The old woman glances over at me, and returns to her chore of sweeping and weeding. I stretch out my arms, and turn my gaze to the shed beside the hut. The dead boy must still be in there.
The night before was a page torn out of time, and even as I try to recall aspects of it, everything feels unreal, impalpable: the old woman bending over the dead boy, her expression severe and watchful, motionless for a long time. Stunned with incomprehension, I stood frozen on the spot, failing to understand what was going on. Who was the boy—her kin perhaps, a grandson, or a stranger? Where had she found him—in the forest, or near the sea? What did she intend to do with the body?
The old woman unfolded the blanket from the boy’s body as if she were peeling a relic from its protective wrapping. The hard, marble-like skin, speckled with patches of dirt, shone with a luminescence in the light cast by the kerosene lamp. Eyes shut and mouth open, one could mistake the boy being in a deep slumber; his tousled hair, long eyelashes, and a tiny nub of a nose that held a disarming fragility. The deep, long scar.
Taking up a rag, the old woman wetted it in the bucket beside her and began to clean the body, starting with the face. Then she moved down the chest and stomach to the legs and feet, unhurried in her ministrations, as if she were executing a difficult task in precise, calculated steps. The old woman tried to pry open the fingers of the boy’s clenched fists, but they were closed as tight as a vise. Then, she tried to prop the boy’s body upright, struggling with his ungainly frame. Motioning in my direction, she gestured for me to hold up the body while she cleaned his back. I hesitated briefly before squatting down. The unyielding coldness of the hardened flesh was shocking; it was bewildering to imagine how the body of such a small boy could possess such a severe degree of rigidity.
I mustered the strength to not flinch and let go of the boy’s shoulders. The old woman finished cleaning his back. With a broken-toothed comb, she smoothed out the wild tangles of his hair, removing bits of sand and gravel. She hummed a song under her breath, timing each stroke of the comb to the rhythmic beat of it. Then she poured a coconut-smelling liquid from a bottle onto her hands and applied it to the boy’s hair from scalp to tip. Even after the hair shone from the strange oil, the old woman kept running her fingers through it, humming as if soothing a child to sleep. Patting down the stubborn screw-ends, she created a part on the left side, a tiny path through the mass of black hair.
Then taking up another bottle of oil, this one smelling of eucalyptus and sandalwood, she emptied the contents onto the body, rubbing it evenly over his skin, transforming him into a slick being, as if he had just been reborn into the world. With a nod, she signalled me to lower the body back down. In the dim light, I could not take my eyes off the boy’s face. The old woman cupped a palm over his eyes and uttered something that sounded like a chant or perhaps a prayer, authoritative yet hypnotic at the same time.
The timbre of the old woman’s voice coursed through the very marrow of my bones, resonating with a deep, ancient truth. In the silence between her words, I felt that I understood everything. Life begins, life flowers, and life ends: an endless cycle. I imagined her voice filling the shed as a physical thing, and then drifting away into the night, into the dark forest, to the edge of the sea and then over the waves, to distant, forgotten lands.
When she finally stopped, the shed fell into a deep silence. I was seized by a strange, crippling ache in my chest. The old woman started wrapping the boy in swathes of white cloth, binding his body tightly, leaving only the face exposed. Then, standing back, she looked at him for some time, before covering him with the blanket. She picked up the lamp, stepped out of the shed and nodded at me as she passed. I took a last backward glance at the dead boy, then followed her out.
What did the old woman plan to do with the boy? Did she intend to bury or cremate him? Or perhaps leave his body out in the forest? It was impossible to imagine leaving him in the shed for long, in this humid weather. In a day or two, even the strong smell of the oils
would not be able to camouflage the rotting smell of death. Something would have to be done.
Stretching my arms to ease the tension in them, I push these thoughts to the back of my mind. The morning sun, warm and intimate on my skin, has lifted my spirits. I shuffle over to the garden plot, which consists of neat rows of flowering plants, adorned with green calamansi limes and bullet-shaped red chillies. I bend down and help the old woman with her tasks: sprinkling a fine layer of fertilizer on the topsoil, removing the weeds, watering the plants. Despite my weakened body, once my hands touch the damp earth, they slip smoothly into motion, and in no time, I’m working up a sweat. When I feel light-headed, I sit back and rest to gather my strength; the old woman scoops water from the bucket beside her in a cup and makes me drink it.
At midday, we have a meal of gruel, stir-fried long beans and salted cabbage. Then we are back in the garden again, picking up where we left off. Working silently, we manage to complete all the tasks by mid-afternoon. The old woman fetches a pail of water from the well, and we wash our hands and feet as best as we can—the dirt is encrusted under my nails, and has made its way into some of my wounds. The old woman gestures at me to take a break, and I retreat to the shade under the eaves of the hut. Even after the hours of labour, the old woman does not display any sign of fatigue as she starts cleaning out the coops, feeding the chickens and sweeping up their faeces. The chickens, alert to the scattering of dry feed on the ground, come rushing to the old woman’s feet. She reaches down and, in one fluid motion, grabs the chicken nearest to her. The other chickens go about their business, nonchalant, unbothered by the slight disturbance.
After walking back to the hut, the old woman takes out a large carving knife and a wooden chopping board and puts them on the ground, while holding firmly onto the struggling chicken with her other hand. Positioning the slender neck of the chicken between her hands, she gives it a quick wring, and the chicken stops moving, its body suddenly slack. She slits the throat and drains the blood into a small urn, filling it to the brim, before putting the lifeless body of the chicken away. Then she covers the urn with a lid and walks over to the shed, nodding at me to follow. In the dusty semidarkness of the shed, she removes the blanket from the boy and motions for me to carry the body. In the cradle of my arms, the boy’s body is solid and unremitting, heavy with death. I hold him close, feeling his weight against me. The sweet, cloying smell of the oils wafts up from the body.
Leading us out of the shed, the old woman picks up the urn of chicken blood and a hoe from a display of gardening tools, and walks behind the main hut. The thick, untamed foliage all around presses in tight around us; a narrow dirt path provides a route between the hut and the forest behind it.
A short distance away, about a hundred metres from the hut, we come to a rise in the land, a mound of red earth that rises up to a plateau, resembling the arched, muscled back of a huge sleeping bear. Climbing a dozen hardened-mud steps, we come to flat ground, where several piles of stones are stacked together, spaced unevenly apart. With a gesture from the old woman, I lower the body to the ground, and glance at the boy’s face, half-expecting him to open his eyes. Using the hoe, the old woman marks out a hole in the ground, then passes it to me. I begin to dig slowly. The old woman stands back to assess the hole after I have been digging for some time, and kneels down beside the dead boy. She takes his hand and pats it, then nods at me. I place the body gently into the grave.
Against the damp, reddish soil, the dead boy looks preternaturally radiant, serene in repose. The old woman throws in the first handful of earth, which lands on the boy’s chest, spattering outward in a firework of blood-coloured dirt. As we cover him with the soil, and he slowly disappears into the ground, something makes me stop for a moment and choke up; tremors go through me like an electric charge, stinging my eyes. When the boy is completely buried, the old woman pours the urn of blood on the small mound of soil, from one end to the other, staining it in dark streaks. The blood is swiftly absorbed into the earth.
The old woman looks out over the lush sweep of trees that stretches into the distance, to the ridge of hills that serrates the skyline like the teeth of a chainsaw. Then she begins to sing the prayer-chant I heard the night before. The soft cadence of her voice carries through the still, silent air, a sorrowful, primordial sound that seems to rise from the dark heart of the earth.
I close my eyes and listen; the song fills me completely, just as the soil swallowed the boy whole. It feels as if the song will never end, as if it will continue until the end of the world, but it does end, eventually. Even so, I can still hear the old woman’s voice in my head as I sit on the ground beside the boy’s grave, weeping inconsolably.
14
CODY
Growing up, Cody was often left alone, even though he had two elder sisters who doted on him. They were eight and ten years older, already in adolescence, when he started school. Distracted with other things—boys, make-up, clothes, exams, extra-curricular activities in school—they did not pay much attention to him. But Cody had not minded, as he was preoccupied with his green toy soldiers, paper planes, and Old Master Q comics. To him, his sisters were like the creatures he sometimes read about in his storybooks, aliens from another planet who looked human but had blue blood flowing under their skin.
Because their parents were often busy at the wet market, where they were fishmongers, they left him in the care of his two sisters, who had to make him breakfast every day before school and make sure he got to school on time. Their parents were out of the house by three in the morning and usually did not return until late morning after they had closed their stall. Given their profession, the fridge was well stocked with all types of fish and seafood: sea bass, red snapper, garoupas, tiger prawns, stingrays. They usually had a steamed or fried fish for lunch and dinner, and while Cody never grew sick of eating it, his two sisters were always complaining about eating the same thing. Their father would ignore them, but their mother would silence them with a stern, disapproving stare.
Because of the age gap, Cody was left by himself most of the time while at home, since his sisters were either still in school or out with their friends. His father had given him a key, which he wore around his neck in Primary Three, and his parents did not track his whereabouts, unlike his classmates who had to report their every movement to their parents at all times. When he came home from school at one-thirty in the afternoon, his parents would both be taking their naps, and his mother would tell him to eat whatever was left on the stove or dining table—a meal of sweet potato porridge or rice with stir-fried vegetables, braised egg or fish. When he was done with lunch, he would wash the plate and utensils, and lie on the sofa and read comics until his parents woke up, and then he would start on homework.
In school, Cody had friends, though there was nobody whom he was particularly close to. During recess, he would play with a group of boys from his class, usually football on the school pitch—he always played the defender role, since being a striker or midfielder was too strenuous, involving a lot of running and aggressive body contact, which he was not comfortable with—or a game of catching around the canteen and assembly area. Because of his small build, he was often chosen last, or second to last, when the bigger boys picked players. Standing in the dwindling group, he would look at his feet, pretending not to care, even while he could feel himself shrinking inside, diminishing into something insubstantial. Sometimes, he would look at the boys who were chosen after him, or at the boys who stood at the fringe of the school pitch, who, for one reason or another, did not want to play football or preferred to play zero-point or five stones with the girls. Sometimes, the boys who played football would point out this group of boys and laugh openly at them and call them names, and Cody would join in. Though he longed to be part of this clique of boys who was sporty and popular and interesting, his position in the hierarchy was often at the bottom; it was all too easy to be left out, and this fear—felt rather than spoken—was what kept him
in line, constantly seeking the approval of those higher up.
In Primary Four, Cody was promoted to a new class after he received better-than-expected exam results. He was assigned to a desk beside Wee Boon, a quiet boy who sat ramrod-straight throughout the lessons, and brought his own food, prepared by his grandmother, for the recess breaks. Milk-pale and skinny, Wee Boon was one of those boys who did not like to play football or any kind of sports or games during recess; he was often alone, reading at the library corner under the stairwell, or walking about aimlessly in the school garden. He seemed happy to be left alone by himself, to do whatever he wanted. Whenever Cody bumped into him, by chance or intention, Wee Boon would break from his reverie and turn his full attention to him, always eager to do whatever Cody asked him to. Sometimes, when Cody grew bored of playing football, he would get Wee Boon to catch grasshoppers or dragonflies near the pond with him, and they would fill plastic bags full of these insects, clicking and beating against the surface like tiny bombs. They would keep these bags in the slots under their desks, and take them out from time to time to shake them up; sometimes they would forget about them, and when they did remember, the insects would all be dead. And they would catch a new batch.