by Ng Yi-Sheng
Anom shrinks back from her touch. In her journeying, she has tasted many strange fruits, but never this. Unperturbed, the Peri continues her siren call.
“Stay a night, a month, a year,” she says. “Let me teach you the rudiments of pleasure. Let us tend this garden together.”
If she runs, turn to 1987.
If she stays, turn to 2287.
1823
Sir Stamford Raffles is examining his nutmegs. He holds a lantern close to the branches, peering at the yellow globes of fruit, sides cleft to reveal crimson arils. They are shrunken, paltry, nothing compared to the bounty of the Dutch East Indies. It is the same as his experiments with cloves, cotton, cacao. This plantation, like so many of his ventures, is a failure.
The full moon rises above him. Of late, he has been given to nightly strolls on Government Hill, unaccompanied by even a sepoy. Amidst the trees, he is untroubled by the petty squabbles of his underlings, unplagued by memories of his children, dead of tropical fevers in Bencoolen. When the pain grips him, as it does so often, he is free to fall to the earth and weep.
It grips him now. “Fuck fuck fuck,” he mutters. He has learnt to manage these attacks: he takes slow, deep breaths, places one hand on a tree trunk and uses the other on his temples and lowers himself to the soil.
Yet he realises he is not alone. A native woman is towering over him, blocking the light of the moon. He would fly into a rage, but until his affliction ceases, he is in no condition to speak.
“Where am I?” she says. It takes him a moment to grasp her meaning: she speaks an odd, archaic form of Malay, not unlike the words of the manuscripts he has collected. “Who are you? Where is the palace? Where is the sun?”
Could she be a spy of the Temenggong? A pawang or bomoh, come to perform a keramat ritual? She turns, and the beams of the lantern reveal her jewelled hairpins, the gold threads woven into her kemban. As the lightning sears through his brain, he hangs on to this mystery: why an ancient queen, or a madwoman dressed as one, might manifest before him and his withered spices.
She shoots him a wild-eyed glance and runs off into the distance. Later, when the torment is over, he traces her footprints and discovers that they end at the border of his estate. He recalls the old name of these slopes: Bukit Larangan, the Forbidden Hill. A place of ghosts, so haunted that no native dared trespass on the soil.
Then the pain visits him once again, splitting his head like a nutmeg. He sinks into the mud. He must go home to England, he thinks. He is a sick man. He can no longer tend these gardens.
Turn to 1849.
1849
Seah Eu Chin is overseeing his gambier harvest when there is a commotion amongst his coolies: a barbarian girl is running through the farmland, ducking between the flying pigtails and the posts of the pepper vines, upsetting ladders and overturning baskets full of unprocessed leaves. He rises to challenge her, knocking aside the servant carrying his parasol. But just as suddenly as she appeared, the girl is gone…
Turn to 1876.
1876
Marianne North is painting in the greenhouse, capturing in oils the delicate strokes of the Bornean pitcher plant and Vanda hookeriana. But she looks up from her canvas, for every monkey in the Botanic Gardens has begun to scream at a wretched lass who is—good gracious—naked save for a slip of fabric, hurtling past the greenhouses towards the gate, whereupon she vanishes…
Turn to 1470.
1910
Chen Cuifen is assembling a gun. It is a Type 88 bolt-action rifle, a Qing dynasty copy of the Gewehr 88, only missing a barrel shroud and with an extended bayonet. She has learnt, through diligent practice, to strip and rebuild the weapon within two minutes. It makes her husband proud, but she keeps her skills secret from other men. A revolutionary should never be outshone by his wife.
She gets up and wipes the grass from the knees of her samfu. “Now you try,” she tells the servant girl. She watches with approval as Anom goes through the steps, one by one, gracefully but methodically. Only three years ago, she appeared on the steps of the Wan Qing Yuan villa, offering her services in a strange, barely intelligible dialect of Malay. Now she speaks fluent Cantonese and a smattering of English, and cooks the best steamed fish in Nanyang.
Anom stands, the assembled rifle hanging round her neck on a bandolier. Cuifen checks the hands of her watch: two minutes, thirty seconds. “Little sister, I am proud of you,” she says. “You must come with us to China. Join the Revolution.”
But Anom smiles and shakes her head.
“You know I am cursed.”
“In the new century, there is no room for superstition.”
“You and Dr Sun have been so kind.”
“Then repay us. Fight with us. We must be prepared. We leave for Penang tomorrow.”
Once again, a thorn of suspicion pricks her heart. It was a risk to trust an outsider with their secrets. Could Anom be the reason the last uprising failed? The girl never leaves the villa grounds, even on festival days, yet there is a chance she has been in some government’s employ all along, that all her innocence, all her love for the dream of democracy, has been an act…
Anom bows deeply to her. “Elder sister, you have taught me more than I could ever have dreamt of knowing. I cannot repay you.”
“It is all in your mind. Have courage, and you can conquer the gods.”
“I am bonded to time. That is a god no man can conquer.” She clasps Cuifen’s hand. “Since you do not believe me, I must show you. Goodbye, elder sister. Give my love to Dr Sun, and glory to the Revolution.”
Later, Cuifen will convince herself that it was a trick of the light. The brilliance of the Nanyang sun can addle the senses, lead the brain astray from logic. She will never admit to herself that she saw her dearest friend walk down the driveway and dissolve into a midday mist.
She looks down at her grease-covered hands. Somehow, she will have to explain to the Revolution why they are missing a gun.
If she steps out with her left foot, turn to 2019.
If she steps out with her right foot, turn to 2047.
1945
Harry Lee is praying. Twice, he claps his hands to summon the gods. The sound echoes across the wooden pillars of the heiden.
Religion is a foolish thing, he thinks, as he lowers his head and eyelids. Nonetheless, if one must worship, then it is not a bad thing to worship nature. Unlike the Christian god, nature can be touched, seen, even bent to one’s own will. The shrine itself is proof of this: it is a recreation of the sacred complex at Ise, engineered in the thick of the Malayan rainforest. Here, one may forget the war, the famine, the daily humiliation of bowing to scrawny soldiers even younger than his own twenty-two years.
He takes a moment, in the darkness of his mind, to perceive the singing of crickets, the trickle of water in the temizuya, the wind in the rainforest canopy beyond the torii gate.
Then it’s time for business. He exits the offering hall; the girl is waiting for him at the stone lantern next to the bridge. He’s seen her around the Syonan Jinja for some time, training as a maiko, though he suspects she services love-starved soldiers on the side.
“Anything good?” he says.
“Only this,” she says, and slips him a tiny bottle from under her kimono sleeve. He steals a glance at it before he pockets it, and smiles. Johnny Walker. The black market always has a demand for spirits.
“Brilliant. I’ll have the payment by Tuesday.”
“Forget it,” she says. And he sees that under her tapioca flour makeup, she has grown gaunt, and her once-bright eyes are dull and rheumy. “The shinshoku sent a doctor from Syonan Medical College. It’s worse.” She covers her mouth and coughs. The sleeve comes away speckled with dots of blood.
“I’ll get you some medicine.”
“Don’t.”
“I know a dealer. He has contacts the Jap doctors don’t.”
“A million other people are suffering. Help them. I can’t anymore. I’ve tried and tried. Now I
’m tired.”
He finds he is furious at her selflessness. She has always been thus: once, behind the bamboo grove, he saw her pressing a jewelled brooch into the hands of an old beggar woman, just so she could buy a day’s worth of rice. For a split-second, he wonders if he might have feelings for her. She is pleasant enough to look at, so pleasant that he has never dared mention her to Geok Choo. But her next words dispel any thoughts of romance from his mind.
“This place will burn.”
“Pardon?”
“The Japanese know they’ve lost. After Germany’s surrender, how could they not? Now the officers have told me, in the secrecy of night, what they plan to do when the Allies are victorious. All this,” and she extends a bony arm across the arch of the shrine, “will be razed. They must protect their honour. To spare their shame, they will ensure there is nothing left to desecrate.”
Harry stands stock still, trying to digest this news. He, too, has heard the rumours of an end to the Occupation. But until now, he has not stopped to think what, in the process of liberation, might be lost. “It’s dangerous for you here,” he says eventually. “If they’re getting rid of everything, that includes you.”
She nods, observing a yellow butterfly that has come to feed on the sweat of her wrist. It is clear that the thought has occurred to her already, and she has made her peace with it.
“I’m taking my leave while I still can,” she announces, coughs again, and begins to walk across the bridge. “Please, enjoy the whisky.”
She stumbles on the final step, then falls into nothingness. The shrine suddenly seems colder, as if its kami has been sucked from its pavilions. Harry gazes at its beams, wondering if the girl is playing some trick: maybe she lurks inside, staying her disease through a game of hide-and-seek.
The thought occurs to him that it is not so terrible to destroy a building, once its purpose has been served. One era succeeds another, like a cycle of seasons, as cherry blossoms replace the snows. He will have no compunction, in the future, about toppling ageing, antiquated towers; no, not even when the time comes to demolish his own home.
Still, he is frightened. Wars may break out, empires may fall, but girls do not simply disappear.
Against his better judgment, he falls to his knees and begins to pray.
If she falls on her face, go to 1705.
If she falls on her back, go to 1970.
1970
Princess Michiko is planting a tree. She grips the shovel with her kid gloves and smiles for the photographers, smiles for the politicians, smiles for her husband the Crown Prince, who is sweltering in the equatorial heat, but also smiling.
It is utterly sweet, she thinks, of the Jurong Town Corporation to invite them to what will be their Japanese Garden, the largest of its kind outside Japan. It is a splendid feat for a country so young: an artificial island in an artificial lake, in the centre of their industrial district, no less. A mosquito buzzes by her ear, but she does not flinch: to do so would reflect badly on the royals, on her status as a commoner, on bilateral ties.
But as she chucks dirt at the sapling, something shifts beneath the soil. She freezes. Hidden in the hole, she spies the body of a brown-skinned woman, clad in a bloodied kimono.
No one else, it seems, has seen the vision. They are looking at her, not the roots of the king sago. This is fortunate, she decides. For the sake of the future, certain things must remain buried.
She shovels.
She shovels.
She does not stop smiling.
The End
1987
Ah Meng is hosting breakfast. Enthroned beneath a travellers’ palm, she indulges the affections of her subjects: a Bollywood starlet feeds her honeydew, a CFO runs curious hands through her rosy fur. Then an offensive odour invades the Zoo: there is an uninvited human, its body a chaos of unfamiliar perfumes. She will tolerate no trespassers. She lunges forth, baring her teeth, spilling coffee and congee on wailing tourists, but her quarry leaps into Seletar Reservoir, its scent dissolving into water…
Turn to 2008.
2008
Mas Selamat is escaping. He limps through the Chinese cemetery of Kopi Sua, praising God, cursing his bad leg, searching for a way out from this labyrinth of carven headstones and forbidden idols, this maze of fig and mahang and grave flowers and wild cinnamon. Incredibly, the alarms have not yet sounded at Whitley Road Detention Centre: this means he still has time; he still has hope. But a woman has emerged from behind a tomb, dripping wet. He can afford no witnesses. But before he can silence her, she reaches the perimeter fence…
Turn to 2135.
2019
Halimah Yacob is sipping a mocktail. It’s a mangosteen-açaí concoction, brewed by one of the nation’s up-and-coming genius mixologists in honour of the Bicentennial: divine, of course, but far too sweet—she makes a note of this—to be in line with the government’s Healthy Lifestyle campaign. Elsewhere, the VIPs are milling about, feasting on the Peranakan buffet, taking selfies with the statue of Queen Victoria. She, however, has commanded her bodyguards to take ten and give her a moment’s solitude under a secluded copse of tembusus, one that doesn’t appear on the visitors’ maps of the Istana grounds.
She does not, in fact, enjoy being the President. The fact that some people hate her is a given: if that had bothered her, she would never have lasted long in politics. No, what she truly cannot stand is the ludicrous rule that obliges her to stay in this ridiculous mat salleh mansion, rather than the Yishun flat she bought three decades ago as a newlywed lawyer. Here, in this miserable compound, there is no escape from her duties. Also, she is sure it is haunted. Old buildings invariably are.
This is why she values these precious minutes away from the public eye, when she can adjust her tudung and her lipstick, when she can exchange silly WhatsApp memes with her law school friends. This is what she is doing when the woman appears before her.
“Makcik, I am lost. Can you help me?” she says.
She might find it endearing that the woman does not recognise her. Anonymity has become valuable to her, now that it is so rare. But she is distracted by the sight of the rifle around her neck.
“Who are you?” she says.
“I call myself Anom. I have trained, and I have pledged to help the defenceless,” she says.
“I see.” Halimah’s heart is pounding. She has heard the slogan before, she is sure of it. But which terrorist group is it from? She hits the emergency code on her phone, and forces a smile. “You are in my garden, and you are welcome. What do you want? Are you hungry or thirsty?”
Anom hesitates, but accepts the mocktail.
“Don’t worry,” the President says. “It’s just syrup.”
“I have escaped great peril. But over the years, I have come to find meaning in my fate. I will serve my people, though I am bound to wander history forever…”
The shot rings out like thunder. Anom sways and crumples to the ground. The bodyguard steps forward and cuffs her hands, but it is an empty ritual: the entry point of the bullet is clean between her eyes. “She’s safe. Stand down,” the bodyguard says into a comms set.
Halimah is trembling, but the bodyguard grips her hand and guides her back to the crowds. Behind her the mocktail glass lies shattered, its contents mingling with cow grass and blood. No one must know of this, she thinks, for it is a night of celebration. Yet she utters a yelp as she hears another boom, this time filling the sky.
She gazes heavenwards. The fireworks have begun.
The End
2047
Akash Vijay is fleeing the Concordance. Through a labyrinth of service tunnels, he leads his fellow survivors towards the KPE. He unlocks a gate with his pass. The lights have gone out in this stretch, either due to the blackout, or because the zorgs have got to the backup generators. With his Singapore Survey Corps flashlight, he scans the way ahead, checking for danger, searching for some sign of hope.
They trudge along in silence, save for a baby in
a mother’s arms, who has begun to wail. After ten minutes, they turn a corner and notice a square of light ahead. He considers sending a scout, maybe the Lance Corporal who tried to murder him an hour ago. Still, there’s only one way forward from here. He moves on. Unbidden, the others move too.
In the glowing doorway, there’s the silhouette of a woman. “Come in,” she says. “It’s safe here.”
He lets his eyes adjust to the light. It seems she’s taken refuge in one of the hydroponic farming vaults, built under the remains of East Coast Park. Behind her are racks of chye sim, kailan and shiitake mushroom. There are others here too: an imam in a skullcap, two schoolgirls, a middle-aged man in a tattered Ministry of Agriculture blazer.
“You’re with the SAF?” he asks.
“No.”
“Then who’s protecting you?”
“I am,” she says, and raises her weapon. It is a long, slender antique thing, maybe a Hanyang 88. It belongs in a museum.
“You won’t kill a lot of zorgs with that,” he says. As if on cue, a distant echo of machinery ripples from below. He exchanges glances with the ministry official. He, too, recognises the telltale call of the Concordance. They cannot stay still. It is time to run.
“Take the food,” the woman says, as those she sheltered file out of the chamber. A few of them stuff handfuls of mushrooms and leafy greens down their pockets. Most pay her no heed. The weight of extra provisions will slow them down, and right now, time and speed are of the essence.