by Ng Yi-Sheng
And while they whistle in dreamland, the bob-bob-bob of the tides somehow jerks, the shoreline sinks, and the seas around the island drain to reveal fresh sand, new shells, bleached corals. Like a boudoir curtain drawn sideways, the waters expose new nakednesses: a world of ancient horseshoe crabs and turtles scuttling amidst ugly derricks and trawler nets.
And there, in their huts of shipwreck jetsam, are the duyungs.
They are the first people. The original fisher folk. They who lived in the littorals of the island, bathing in quicksand, sleeping in sun-baked pools of starfish, the tide their blanket.
They who were dark and sleek and healthy, fed on a fat-rich diet of slippery bright souls. They who swam with the squid and fucked with the dolphins. They who wrote nothing, built nothing, claimed nothing, knew nothing save for themselves, till the brown man, yellow man, white man came.
If the historian should wake now in the nest of her office, lined with stacks of books and microfilms, she might recount the little we know of their tribe. How a rajah from the line of Iskandar Dzulkarnain once plumbed the depths to discover their sovereign kingdom. How he wed their princess, who bore him three noble sons. How each one of these sons grew to be a prince. How the youngest named the city he founded after a lion.
She knows nothing more. How could she, when she naps, peaceful as a skeleton in a morgue?
Besides, they have aged since the time of legends. See how dull the scales are at the edge of their lips, how ragged the fins that adorn the fringe of their toes and whirlpool eyes and navels. How grey the hairs of their nostrils, which flare in amazement at the sunlight, mistrusting it as an allotrope of water.
But with a blink, blink, they recall their duty. Clambering into their sampans, they gather their tools and wait.
Then the wind rushes in, and like long balloons their boats are aloft, hopping across the air, into the city, coasting through the mighty towers and steelworks, mere metres above the ground. They chuckle as their barks narrowly miss collision with construction cranes, concrete malls, playground equipment, abstract statuary, scalps of citizens still snoozing below. They clench their knuckles as the wind blows them higher, higher, flipping them wavelike, stringless kites. The sun bakes their skins and they laugh, the quiet, gurgling laughs of those whose years outnumber any heap of salt-grains.
And they bask in the open air for a moment, gazing with wistful bliss at the land below them, all spiked and grey. But the sun is high and can go no higher. They must set to work. Before the hour is out, the harvest must be complete.
So they throw out their nets, and what nets they are, knotted from the finest of silks, sheerer than any a worm or spider might purge from her belly. And they cast out their hooks, and what hooks, smaller and sharper than the spark in the eyes of a cornered cat.
And these traps fall. They fall into the laps of those of us sleeping below, at our desks and our workstations. They fall into our mouths. But we do not wake. We do not catch hold of these hooks and ride them, heavenwards, to say hello. We only toss our heads, smiling undisturbed, as magic covers us.
But something is caught. Their nets become heavy, their fishing lines taut. And we frown a little as they reel in their bounty from above, as if, in our unconscious slumberland, something has been irrevocably lost.
The boats of the duyungs drift back downwards. The waves blanket them as they pass.
The sky cools a tick, and as if on command, the city wakes. We gaze downwards at our hands, guilty that we have allowed ourselves this lapse of judgement. We reproach ourselves, privately promise it will never happen again, that it was not in character; that no one noticed anyway, therefore it never happened at all. We shall forget it ourselves by the evening.
And if the eyes of a few of us are a little emptier, our smiles more false, our chests more hollow, what of it? Nothing has truly changed. And look: our work is not even halfway done.
Below, they laugh at us, rustling the depths. They count and celebrate their spoils. But we shall pay them no heed. Whatever has happened, we are convinced we are none the poorer.
We can afford to be magnanimous, anyhow. We are wealthy sons and daughters of industry.
If something was taken, we are sure it will not be missed.
Hub
Boss. Boss.
Yah?
We checked out your competitor.
Good, good.
They have no name.
Yah.
Funny, right? So big, but don’t have name.
Hullo, friend. I am Chua Soon Teck. I am Founder and CEO of Golden Wonderland Integrated Resort, rated number one shopping complex in Southeast Asia. Five years old, I already sell fish in wet market; twelve years old, I open drinks stall in pasar malam. Hawker centre, mama shop, hypermart, boutique mall: All I also do. I pow kar leow, understand? I long time in this business already. So I know this kind of pattern. No name is also a name. No branding is also a kind of branding.
OK Boss. I call them No Name then?
Can also. What I want to know is, how can we tekan them? How can we steal their market share? What do they have that we don’t have?
Everything, boss.
Hah?
They have everything. We checked. White rice, brown rice, red rice, purple rice, they all have. Cinnamon, lemongrass, nutmeg, sumac, asafoetida. Strawberry, durian, cupuacu, jabuticaba, physalis. Tomato, bok choy, broccolini, samphire, manioc, coca leaf, cannabis sativa. Snickers, M&Ms, White Rabbit, haw flakes, murukku, Mysore pak, pemmican, balut, escamoles, Sriracha popcorn. Buffalo burger, crocodile steak, wagyu panda meat. You want, they have, Boss.
How can?
I don’t know how can.
Like this then cham. Goods and sundries, how?
They also got. Paperclips, coat hangers, shampoo, copper wire, dental floss, cupcake holders, surge protectors, oyster forks, cocktail umbrellas, hollow point bullets, sledgehammers, skipping ropes, satellite dishes, diapers, T-shirts, swimming goggles, friendship bracelets, kasut manek, three-piece tuxedos, Anarkali suits, invisibility cloaks, waffle irons, microwave ovens, aluminium foil, enriched uranium, jelly moulds, telegraph poles, X-ray machines, AM radios, gramophones, motorcycles, ocean liners, lifeboats, lifesavers, Nazi memorabilia, relics of the Christian martyrs, moon rocks, Buddha heads, amphorae, ushabti, Mayan codices, Dead Sea Scrolls, cave paintings, dinosaur fossils, pencil sharpeners, defibrillators, paper plates, cow manure, unclaimed ashes from the crematorium at Choa Chu Kang. They got everything lah, boss.
Never mind, never mind. This kind of specialty business very tok kong, but we also can undercut. Next question. Who goes there?
Everyone, boss.
Hah?
Everyone. Young, middle-aged, old. White-collar, blue-collar, no-collar. Locals, PRs, foreign workers, expatriates, tourists. Male, female, both, neither. Chinese, Malay, Indian, Eurasian, Other. Army boys, factory girls, civil servants, bankers, nurses, gangsters, pregnant mothers, novice monks, police, tai-tais, Mediacorp celebrities, homeless ah peks, airline stewardesses, hajis, hajjahs, multi-level marketing salesmen, gamblers, gangsters, retirees. Chinese Communist Party officials, Indian IT engineers, Filipino call centre operators, Korean cosplayers, Swiss bankers, Italian supermodels, Egyptian tour guides, Maasai warriors, Argentinean gauchos, Samoan wrestlers, scuba diving instructors from Pago Pago.
Like that then how?
I don’t know how, Boss.
You don’t know, then I tell you. Like that then we die liao lor! Fifty years! Fifty years I have built my company up from nothing, and for what?
Boss? Boss? Where are you going?
I am going to No Name!
Don’t cause trouble leh.
Trouble? What trouble? You tell my secretary we all can go home, close shop! Tell her to draft letter, send to all the shareholders tomorrow. Say we have to cut our losses. Golden Wonderland IR is finished. We cannot compete.
Boss?
Mm.
You’re back.
Mm.
Your secretary draft letter already. Wait for your OK, then can send.
Mm.
Boss, I never see you like this before.
Thirsty lah. You want whisky?
You go No Name already?
Of course I go.
And then?
I went shopping. I bought a soft drink that tastes of watermelon and chicken curry. I bought a TV that plays only black-and-white Hokkien shows from the 1960s. I bought the crown jewels of Wu Zetian for my wife and a pair of Cleopatra’s panties for my mistress. I bought a baby Triceratops for my son and the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge for my daughter. For my father I bought an oil painting of the Eight Immortals signed by Leonardo da Vinci. For my mother I bought a photograph of the boy she loved when she was a little girl, before the war.
Wah. Very nice.
I also saw many people I knew. I saw the Queen of England having kopi with the Sultan of Brunei. I saw my last-time neighbour laughing with Kim Jong-un and Oprah Winfrey and I saw my last-time girlfriend holding hands with the Dalai Lama. I saw Elvis Presley smoking with Francis Seow. I saw Joan of Arc sharing coupons with S Rajaratnam. I saw Adolf Hitler and Lin Dai and Othman Wok and Jesus Christ. I saw my grandson, who is not yet born. I saw my twin sister, who would have been here if not for the accident. And I saw the owner.
Owner? No Name got owner meh?
Yah. I got lost in the aisles. I walked around in circles in the section that sold only chandeliers and dragonfly wings. And then she saw me. She helped me with my purchases. She gave me a storewide discount. She ordered me a glass of seven thousand-year-old Persian wine. And she told me her business structure.
Wah! Can copy or not?
Cannot.
Why not? Copyright ah?
She says there is a point in the universe, in all possible universes, where everything meets, like the centre of a wheel. All times, all places, got connection there. All products, all customers will naturally flow here. She very lucky. She found just the right location.
Then how like that?
How? How, your head lah. You tell Gina, can delete the letter. Tomorrow we open as normal. We will be OK. The customers will still be there.
How you know?
No Name owner tell me one.
And you believe?
Yah. She a bit ko lian dai, actually. Very old, very lonely. No one takes care of her. You know what she say?
What?
Yah, everyone comes. But this one is a crossroads, not a centre. It is a nowhere place. Everyone comes. But eventually, everyone goes away.
Harbour
I.
It’s Sunday night, June 20, 1937. The pilot can’t sleep. She swelters in the tropical heat, choked by the veil of mosquito netting that cocoons her four-poster bed. Her coverlet itches, her pillowcase is soaked with sweat, and the humidity is wreaking havoc on her sinuses. And then there’s the dread: God help her, it’s growing in her heart, and its needs must be quenched.
In a fit of lucidity, she tries to calm herself. There is no reason to worry, she thinks. The day’s journey from Bangkok was a mere thousand miles: a virtual heartbeat in her aviation career. Her Lockheed Model 10E Electra now sleeps soundly in a hangar at the Kallang Aerodrome, a jewel of a terminus without equal in the Far East. Meanwhile, the American Consul-General and his wife have been perfect hosts, ensuring that she’s as clean and well-fed as she would be, were she back at her grandmother’s house in Kansas.
Yet her skull is flooded with mucus, and next door, her navigator snores like a buzz saw. “Fuck it,” she says aloud to the darkness. She’s had enough. She hauls herself out of bed, pulls on her checkered shirt and gabardine trousers, and slips out of the mansion into the gas-lit road.
She walks for half a mile, then hails herself a rickshaw, bargaining herself a deal based on the fact that her wallet’s still full of American dollars. A brisk ride later, she’s at the junction of Malay Street and Kandahar: the legendary pleasure district she’s heard whispers of amongst the oil-slicked mechanics of Calcutta and Rangoon; a pavement praised in drunken song amongst colonial officers in London pubs.
Strolling along, she melts easily into the crowd of tattooed sailors and gamblers, secret society members and opium addicts. No one questions her presence; with her cropped hair and small breasts, she passes easily for a man.
All eyes are on the women, anyhow. They come in all colours: Mongoloid, Caucasoid, Austronesian. Lashes mascaraed, lips daubed with carmine, faces powdered with rice dust, they sit and stand in the glow of red lanterns above their bordellos. Some laugh as they court their clients, playing mahjong or chap ji kee. Some strum on the pipa, chanting mournfully in Cantonese. And others stand sullenly, directing their eyes only at the spaces between the men. They find no joy in this business, and will not pretend.
And amongst them, there’s her. A tiny creature on the pavement, sitting cross-legged, dressed in a kimono, valiantly exorcising the heat with a silk fan printed with peonies. On closer examination, she’s no longer young: her once delicate features are ravaged by age. Yet her spine is erect and her gaze is unflinching.
Eventually, their eyes meet. They size each other up: a barely perceptible nod, a brief discussion of prices, and the transaction is sealed. Clasping her hand, she guides the pilot through a beaded curtain. The rabble of the street barely notice as they disappear.
II.
The karayuki-san’s name is Yoriko. She has lived in the city for thirty years now, and she has bedded countless men, of all colours and creeds, of all nations and professions and ages. This, however, will be her first woman. She does not relish the experience. She smears medicated oil on her hands and sets to work.
Her client, who wishes to be addressed as Millie, lies naked and facedown on her mattress. By the light of the kerosene lamp, she kneads the knots out of her back, smoothing the muscles with her practised fingers, just as she would for any stevedore or rubber-tapper who came to her door.
“I’m travelling around the world,” Millie says, quite suddenly. Her voice is American, light and young. “Where are you from? Maybe I’ll be in your neck of the woods.”
Yoriko thinks of her village on the island of Amakusa, named for its sweet grass. A place of famine, where little girls grew up knowing they might be sold at the first bad harvest. A land where folks were so poor, they never tasted fish, even though they lived next door to the boundless sea.
Try as she might, she finds she can barely remember the faces of her parents, her playmates, her infant siblings. Only the smell of an empty pigsty, a cowshed without a cow, the jetty and the beach where she stood in file to be taken away.
“I’m from Japan,” she says.
“Shame. I’m not headed that way. But I am crossing the Pacific to Honolulu. You know Honolulu? Lotsa Japs there.”
An awkward silence.
“You must miss home, huh?”
“No.”
“Come on, hon. You can tell me.”
“No. Once we leave, we do not return. Better not to be a burden. Better not to think of home.”
She does not speak of the money she has sent home through the decades to ease her family’s hunger and debts, nor the letters of thanks she has received, describing the auspicious weddings of her sisters, the graduation ceremonies of her brothers. These thoughts fill her with pride, but it would be too, too crude to speak of money. Even in front of an American. Even in front of another woman.
A question occurs to Yoriko. She dismisses it as impolite, yet there is something about this woman that has loosened her tongue.
“Why?”
“Sorry?”
“Why are you going around the world?”
“For the fun of it,” she replies, but she looks uncertain of her words, as if they were rehearsed for a radio broadcast interview, in a place quite different from a whorehouse cubicle in Malabar Street.
“It’ll be a world record,” she continues. “I took off in Oakland, California, thirty-two da
ys ago. I’ve passed through Burbank, Tucson, San Juan, Natal, Dakar, Khartoum, Karachi. Other folks have gone via Juneau, Hong Kong, London, but I’m doing it along the line of the equator. No pilot’s ever done that before. No man, no woman.”
There’s a moment of silence as Yoriko massages her temples, her cheeks, the lines of her neck. The names of the cities hang in the air, patient, inviting.
“You ever think about travelling?”
“No.”
“You never thought about what it’s like to fly? What it’s like to be up there, with the birds and the angels?”
She’s sitting up now, pulling at the hem of Yoriko’s kimono.
“No.”
“Lie back. Lemme show you how it feels.”
An hour passes, and then another. Then the two are conscious again, panting in each other’s arms. Millie’s chest heaves with grateful vigour: her sinuses are clear again, as they always are after lovemaking. In the low lamplight, she searches for something romantic to say.
But it’s Yoriko who speaks first. “America is a strong country,” she says.
Millie wonders if she should laugh at this, if it’s a compliment on her sexual prowess. Then she realises the moment is gone. She decides to be diplomatic instead.
“Not since the Depression, hon. Now we’re poor as a church full of mice.”
Yoriko shakes her head and buries her face in her arm.
“It is not the same. You have never been poor like us. You have never starved. You have never known a time when the one way to feed your children is to sell them across the seas.”