by O Thiam Chin
In it, she was back at the river, half asleep, listening to the rippling of the water. She sensed a presence emerging from the void of the night, out of the forest. It moved with the silence and stealth of an animal that was used to the dark. She did not raise her eyes to it or make any moves. The creature came right to her feet, radiating heat from its body, breathing hotly on her skin. Yifan kept very still, anticipating the sharp snap of jaws or fangs, but instead all she felt was a sandpapery tongue licking at her soles and moving up her legs. Her body shivered with an unbridled force, as if she were trying to break out of the shroud of her own body. She spread her legs, and the creature stuck its rough tongue into her and extended its full length inside her. Yifan gasped in agony, plummeting right into an oblivion deeper than death.
When it was finally over, Yifan felt as if the different parts of her body had become disassociated, forcibly stitched together into a person. She stepped out of the room depleted, a wisp of chaff in the shell of her new body.
She returned to school the following week. In the days that ensued, she felt nothing but the faintest impressions from the things and people around her, as if everything were coming to her from a great and vast distance, vague and impenetrable. She moved through the days like a spectre passing through invisible walls of time, neither here nor there. The voices and laughter and noisy chatter of her classmates were a language that had slipped from her tongue; how would she ever learn how to speak it again? She had been exiled, a refugee with no status.
It was during this period of time that she started cutting herself to feel something, anything. A cut was all it took to feel a different kind of pain: quick, sharp and bracing—one removed from the dull, constant, unswerving pain she had been feeling since that day she stepped out of the old woman’s room.
Yifan had refused to see Hai Feng or Peng Soon while she was recuperating at home; her mother told everyone she had a bout of stomach flu. When Hai Feng came up to her during recess on her first day back in school, Yifan smiled and steeled herself to the slew of questions. But when he reached out to touch her hand, Yifan flinched.
What’s wrong? he asked.
I’m still not feeling well, that’s all, she said, before turning to walk away.
In class, Peng Soon left small notes on her desk, which she crumpled without reading. When he turned to glance at her, attempting to get her attention, Yifan ignored him by staring rigidly ahead at the teacher or the chalkboard. When school ended, Yifan was among the first at the gates, making a quick exit.
By the end of the third week, Yifan could no longer find the strength to keep up appearances. The walls of her mind had finally caved in; everything seemed intolerable, beyond her. She stayed in bed the whole day, drifting in and out of sleep, mumbling to herself. Her mother came to her in the evening and, after taking a long assessment of Yifan’s condition, began to make the necessary plans with a few phone calls. Yifan was to be sent to stay with her aunt, her mother’s younger sister, and her family in Skudai, Johor Bahru, for a period of time.
Within two days, Yifan was on the bus, a small suitcase by her side. She left on the first bus out of Ipoh, the day still steeped in veiled darkness. At her aunt’s, Yifan settled quickly into a semblance of a life, helping her aunt and uncle at their bak kut teh stall instead of furthering her studies. Her past was an old story she had put behind her, quickly forgotten, worthless.
While Yifan continued to keep in touch with her mother and sisters with occasional phone calls and letters, she did not return to Ipoh, not even when her father died three years later of lung cancer. When the opportunity to work in Singapore presented itself through one of her aunt’s contacts, Yifan took it up immediately, ready to make something new out of a life she had slowly pieced together.
And what was her life, really, but the stories she made out of it? Time and again Yifan told herself stories she sincerely and wholeheartedly believed to be as close to the truth as she could possibly make of her fragmented history. The past was gone; the stories of it could still be reinvented, retold, over and over again.
• • •
As she collected her thoughts about the past and put them away in her mind, Yifan tucked the photograph back into the album and turned her mind to other matters. She needed to unpack her suitcase and settle into a new life here in Ipoh. Over a dinner of stirfried petai with garlic and anchovies and steamed batang fish, Yifan and her mother chatted lightly about news and gossip concerning relatives and old neighbours. Yifan was glad that her mother did not bring up the question of her return. Perhaps in a day or two, after she had settled in, she would have to tell her.
Living alone for the two years after the last of her siblings moved out had deepened the traits of stillness and stoicism that were always apparent in her mother. In her calm presence, Yifan could feel her own mind quietening down, smoothing over. Still, she could not ignore the signs of her mother’s physical decline: her dwindling, hunched frame, the blue-ringed irises, the deep creases on her face. In Yifan’s mind, her mother had in some ways seemed indefatigable, sturdy and resolute in her being and demeanour; in others, she came across as utterly fragile, worn-out and alone.
After dinner, Yifan decided to take a walk. She had not been sure whether she still remembered the route to the river, but once she was on the path, muscle memory took over, directing her down several bends among the trees. The air was cooler now, and her mind was alert to the mounting murmurs of the night. The forest had thickened in many parts, reaching out to scratch Yifan on her calves and arms. From a distance, she could hear the soft gush of the river; shortly after she caught sight of the shimmering band of light and motion. Stepping into the moonlit clearing, Yifan let out a deep sigh, the air around her surprisingly bracing. She put a hand on her stomach, anticipating subtle movements, but it was still in the early phases, and any movement she might have felt was probably imagined.
It was only a fortnight ago when she had tested herself with a pregnancy kit and confirmed what she already knew. The early signs had been unmistakable: a missed period, the slight swelling of her breasts, the constant nausea. The knowledge of the pregnancy brought with it a reawakening of an old, almost-forgotten dread— cold fingers of fear creeping up the inside of her calves, coring her hollow. The dusty, sun-dappled room, the rich, metallic reek of her blood, the old now-faceless woman. The baby, her baby—no, it wasn’t hers, not at all, Yifan pushed away the thought—plucked, taken away.
She shuddered uncontrollably; her body remembered the old wounds, its deepest loss. Much as she wished things were different this time round, with different circumstances, it was unfortunately not the case. She was where she was, eight years ago, with an unplanned pregnancy, and a heart riddled and sickened with indecision and crippling dread. As she stood by the river, Yifan let her mind slip, unguarded, into thoughts of Derrick and Tien Chen.
She had met Derrick at a newly-opened gelato café her flatmate had brought her to. She had been standing behind him in the queue; he had turned to her and suggested the D24 durian flavour, if she wasn’t turned off by the taste of the fruit. She had smiled politely, and Derrick had taken the lead with a run of questions.
She had liked Derrick there and then, with his charming lopsided smile and easy, offhand manner that was at once self-assured and affecting. Yifan had only been working in Singapore for five months then, at a seafood restaurant along Upper Thomson Road, and was feeling slightly adrift, lonely. She didn’t need much persuasion to take up the offer of a coffee date with Derrick—she needed to broaden her social circle, which at that point was made up entirely of her Malaysian flatmates.
From their dates, she gathered that Derrick was a writer of short stories, and had five published collections. Though she wasn’t much of a reader, she borrowed one of his books from the library out of curiosity. Most of the stories were simple enough to understand, and while she would have liked to talk about some of them with him, she didn’t. Given her lack of knowledge abou
t literature, she didn’t know how or what to begin with. In any case, Derrick rarely talked about his writing, though Yifan knew he put in long hours into it, writing late into the night, sacrificing sleep and health. He was often distracted if he was working on a new story, something he dismissed as general tiredness, which Yifan chided him gently for.
The first time she spent the night over at his place, Yifan had gone around his flat while he was sleeping, looking at the books on the shelves, and reading printouts of a new story that he had put on his table. There were lines of crossed-out text as well as scribblings in pencil on the sides of the pages. As she read the story, Yifan could not help reading the marginalia, too. She made sure to leave things as they were, careful not to leave behind any telltale tracks.
By the time a few weeks passed Yifan had learnt that, apart from his writing, there was not much in life that held his interest or that he cared for. He had a small group of acquaintances, classmates from university, but he was not close to them. As for his family, Derrick revealed very little, only mentioning in passing the deaths of his parents six months apart, and an estranged relationship with an older brother.
Still, the early months of her relationship with Derrick were a heady period of small pleasures and simple gratification. Yifan had sunk into it with a hunger that had caught her by surprise. She was madly in love, and every possibility seemed open to her then. For once she dared to imagine a future for herself, something permanent and within reach. Of course, she was aware of Derrick’s faults—his frequent mood swings, his aloofness, the long unexpected bouts of his depression—but they had felt minor and manageable in the larger view of things. Yifan was sure he could change if she helped him along.
It was two months into the relationship before Yifan found out about Derrick’s on-off drug use. He was quick to assure her it was only a casual habit, nothing serious, that he had it under control. Only Special K, XTC, ice—not the hard stuff, definitely not heroin, he told her. And she believed him for a while, before witnessing a series of blackouts that broke the faith she had in him.
Not wanting to be pulled deeper into a relationship that felt like it had already run its full course, Yifan decided to break up with Derrick. She was surprised when he let the whole thing slip away quietly and undemonstratively, with barely any reaction—no remorse, no guilt. He proceeded to shut her out of his life completely, refusing to pick up her calls or return her text messages, as if she had been nothing but a passing fancy, a one-time fling. It had hurt her to know that the relationship had mattered more to her than him, that whatever love she had felt was merely a fantasy she had conjured up. She felt foolish and chastened.
For some time after the breakup, Yifan did not go out with anyone, a deliberate choice on her part. She took up longer shifts at the seafood restaurant where she worked six days a week. On her day off she would stay in the flat and catch up on TVB and Korean drama serials. When her flatmates wanted to set up dates for her, she declined civilly, diverting their attention elsewhere. She would have preferred to live by herself, or at least have her own room, but her salary was barely enough to cover rent and basic necessities. She had considered other job options, which were few and far between, given her lack of paper qualifications. Even the idea of being a beer promoter held a certain appeal to her at one point; it paid the same amount as her current job, but with fewer hours and more flexible work arrangements. But she had seen the stares that were levelled at these beer promoters at the kopitiam, and it was something she didn’t feel comfortable about.
Sometimes she looked at her flatmates who held down office jobs, as secretaries or human resource assistants or sales associates, and wondered what her life could have been if she had stayed in Ipoh and completed her studies. What direction would her life have taken then? Would it have been better? She would break the train of such thoughts with a shake of her head. It would do no good to be plagued by the possibilities of a life she had never lived. She narrowed her vision and kept her anxiety in check. All she needed to do was to work hard and save whatever she could, and who knew? Her life might take a turn for the better.
It was in this period of time, where she had resolved to keep her nose to the grindstone and turn her life around, that Yifan got to know Tien Chen. She had quit her job at the seafood restaurant after a nasty fallout with another waitress, and was working at a zichar stall in a kopitiam. After her disastrous relationship with Derrick, she was wary of starting something new, and did little to encourage his attention. But he returned to the kopitiam every night and made every effort to talk to her.
Still, she continued to hold back—she wasn’t quite ready yet. While Tien Chen was persistent in his advances, he was not pushy, which allowed Yifan sufficient time to assess him. When she talked to him, Yifan was often reminded of Peng Soon—his natural reticence, an observant eye that took in the smallest details, his pale, veiny hands. It was a reminder that would have pained her, if the bite of the recollection hadn’t long faded. Whenever Tien Chen leant in to listen to her, Yifan had the uncanny sense that he was trying to commit everything she said to memory, as if every word were something he was using to build an image of her in his head, an effigy upon which he could invest his own emotions, to stake his claim.
She took the leap eventually, and her decision was justly rewarded: Tien Chen returned her affections with a fervency that dwarfed hers in every aspect. Whenever they went out on dates, he took up her suggestions willingly, and was quick to read and respond to her every mood. Yet, despite his easy, tractable nature, Yifan still felt a tiny chill of fear, an animal instinct cultivated from past experiences: how much of this was real, and would it truly last? While she had told him all that she was willing to reveal about her past, there were still many things she had left in the dark; and if so, how could he really know her for who she was? And for all she knew about him, she might know very little as well, for even though Tien Chen was patently straightforward and complaisant, there was an opaqueness to him that Yifan could not quite put a finger on.
Yifan wondered if knowing every part of him was necessary to love him fully. How does love work, she thought—with full disclosure, or certain blindness? For every attempt she had made at love—with Hai Feng, Peng Soon, and Derrick—there was always something she found wanting. Did the fault lie with her—in her ignorance, her duplicity, her own omission? Had she always been the one to make a mess of things? With Tien Chen, she felt like she had been given yet another chance to make it right, to redeem herself.
Things would have gone well between her and Tien Chen, had it not been for that chance encounter with Derrick at the hospital three months ago; she had been there to visit a flat-mate who was hospitalised after a surgery to treat appendicitis. She had seen him at the pharmacy and contemplated whether to make the first contact. She noticed the bandage on his left wrist, and noted a dull languidness in his movements, a blankness in his eyes. There was something broken and helpless in Derrick’s demeanour that spoke to Yifan. So she made her decision and called out his name, presenting a different side of her to him —a more measured, charitable self. She had once again slipped into an old familiar role, effortlessly, as if it had always been there, lying dormant in the core of who she was.
When Yifan first reached out to Derrick, she had only wanted to offer some comfort, a little kindness. But she soon found herself caught in a tangle of feelings for him, a rekindling of old affections, even as she tried to suppress them. This time he truly needed her, and because it was a need that she could understand and meet, she gave what she could. She was only helping him to get back on his feet, she told herself. When he recovered, she would leave.
Yifan sensed the pull of something dark inside him, ready to tip him into its chasm again, so to distract him from whatever lurked within him, to offer him a way to get out of his own head, she asked him to read her his stories. In return she told him the story of the fox spirit. As she told it over the nights, it began to feel like a real
but forgotten part of her past, and she fell right into its hold, believing it fully and unreservedly, as if she had truly lived every part of it.
Before long, Yifan was moving between the two men, between the different selves she was inhabiting, living out an existence that had felt familiar and precarious. How had it come to this—her history turning around, biting its own tail? Had she failed, once again, in a test to prove herself better than her actions? Every choice she had made—to love Tien Chen, to take care of Derrick—was made in good, clear conscience, but still the outcome was the same, every good intention gone to seed. At times, Yifan could not shake off the dread that at any moment everything would implode.
And then it did, and again she was on the lam, trying to outrun the consequences. But how far could she run this time?
Yifan closed her eyes and took a deep breath of the cold night air. The forest pressed itself against her, whispering into her ears. All her senses felt raw and tender. Time to head back, she told herself, you’re tired, it’s been a long day. The river pushed its way through the darkness into her. She stood there for a while longer, falling and falling.
• • •
Tossed out of a half-remembered dream (how vivid it was, the water on her skin, the breathlessness of full submission), Yifan sat up on the bed, her T-shirt damp on her back, her mind already kicking into full consciousness. The coy bluish light of dawn had crept into the bedroom, barely illuminating the dusty corners. The dream was one she’d had before: she recalled a good part of it as she stared out into the grassy courtyard. She felt herself refreshed by the memory, comforted. From the depth of the house, Yifan could hear the sounds of cooking and her mother moving about.
Quietly, she slipped out of bed and went over to the window. Mornings were her favourite part of the day: the riot of colours breaking up the grey sky, the lightness of the dewy air, and the stark, solitary beauty in everything—a tree, a blade of grass, a still-darkened house. Yifan had always been an early riser, and she had woken at this hour for the past week, her body already attuned to a certain rhythm. With little fuss, her days had fallen into a fixed, narrow pattern: house chores after breakfast, long walks around the town in the afternoon, meals with her mother, TV-watching at night.