Singapore Noir

by Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan

  5. COMING TO ENDINGS

  You haven’t called or sent any messages all day. But that sometimes happens when he is in town, returning suddenly. I sent one text but then kept quiet when there was no reply. Instead of thinking about you, I have kept busy with all the scandals now in the political realm—not so immense and I am not directly involved. But our system has little experience handling such political scandals, and the agencies directly in charge must themselves be monitored for the ways they approach these issues. So it is dusk by the time I drive down that road to sit outside the gate that leads into your condominium.

  There is a mover’s truck outside with boxes of different sizes being loaded up. Nothing unusual, because your condominium, like so many others, always has people coming and going. But something in my gut stirs me out of the car. I speak to the movers and then the security guard. The boxes are coming from your apartment.

  I ask the guard to buzz me up. He is used to me enough not to ask questions. But he tells me there is no one upstairs, that he has not seen you all day amidst the moving. I don’t believe him and bully my way up, riding the elevator that has become so familiar in these months, and yet I arrive in a space that is unrecognizable.

  It is the same apartment. But you are not there. Everything that you placed inside, and touched, has been emptied out until what remains is just a polished skeleton.

  I head back down with questions. The movers—Bangladeshis paid by the hour—don’t know what to say, but when I show the supervisor my credentials he brings out the manifest. What they are moving now is a second load of boxes, which are being sent on to Tokyo, while the first are in storage. The name on the invoice is not yours but that of a Japanese company. The destination address is also in the name of that company.

  I snap a photo of the manifest on my phone, for follow-up. I order the supervisor to allow me to inspect the boxes here and in storage. He hesitates but relents when I bark. I open every one, not even knowing what I expect.

  What I find horrifies me: there is the lamp that was by our bedside, the cushions that you held against your lap when we watched television, the television itself, and our bed, and the couch and other places where we lay together—all these and more things that marked our time with each other are bundled into boxes and wrapped up in cellophane, made inhuman, as if no one has ever used them, as if there has never been an us.

  I stare at the boxes and hardly nod when the supervisor asks if they can seal them back up. Then I follow the truck to their office in an industrial park, just fifteen minutes away, up the road, in the part of upper Bukit Timah that still has some space for light industry and commercial buildings. Around them, more condos for millionaires are being built, and the construction crews are at work even at night. It is a different world from the quiet, upper-class, leafy neighborhood the boxes and their belongings have come from.

  It is night as the supervisor and I stride across the cement floor between the office building and the storage area, where the first lot of boxes are kept. The sky is inky dark: a thief’s moon. I sense something and it feels like fear.

  When we approach the boxes, the lights come on and I see the stain on the floor that seeps from one box. Dark red. There is a strong, putrid smell.

  The supervisor sees it too and is startled, not knowing what it is. Without a word I shove the other boxes out of the way and get to the one that is bleeding. I reach for my penknife and cut it open and then I kneel and with my hands tear apart the heavy cardboard, and move aside one item and then another to get to the source.

  I breathe hard and deep as I work. I move urgently as if there are wounds that can still be staunched, crimes that may still somehow be prevented, and limbs that can yet be sewn back together to make a whole person.

  And then, with an exhalation of breath, I find it. It is nothing more than a bottle that has been broken in the move, a bottle of liquid that has not been wrapped carefully and that indeed should never have been in the box without refrigeration.

  I stare at the supervisor and he obeys when I insist we open every single box that remains. I find cutlery, crockery, cooking things, towels and linens, and all the heavy, bulky things that once allowed us to feel at home. Now they seem like props for a stage where nothing was ever real.

  There is no other sign of you, no clue to where you are and why you left like this. In the days that are to come, I will search, with all the skill and all the contacts I have accumulated.

  I cannot put to rest the question of whether he somehow found out because you or I were careless, or if he was simply reposted to another city. I will try to figure out where you are, and if the move is something you wanted, somehow to get away, and if you are alive. Without any resolution to these questions, I cannot know the answers that must apply to my life, my crime, and my death.

  I have prepared myself for different possibilities. That you are with him in Tokyo, and have gone back to that life which you never really left. Or that I will find that you are dead, killed in anger or icy vengeance. Or even that you are alive, having run away not only from him but also from me, to begin anew in a small town where nothing really happens as we sometimes fantasized about.

  As I look, I will also cover every track that you and I could have left between us, for even as I am looking for him and therefore for you, I am aware of the danger that he could in turn be looking for me.

  At night now, I eat alone, the simple dishes of vegetables, rice, and tauhu. I clean my gun daily and do my push-ups and other exercises. Some mornings, I park the car and then run around the Botanic Gardens and down Bukit Timah Road to where we used to meet amongst the rich and respectable people, and sometimes—at all kinds of hours—I sit in my car on the street outside your gate as if expecting you to return to the scene.

  I observe everything and write it down in my journal, with the pen that you gave me—which I fill with ink each day.

  I am waiting for death, or life. I am waiting for something to happen, an ending that is to come.

  I am a detective in a city they say has no crime. I am an artist in a city that—let’s not pretend—no longer has a heart.

  STRANGLER FIG

  BY PHILIP JEYARETNAM

  Bukit Panjang

  The strangler fig begins as an epiphyte, when a seed germinates in the crevice of another tree. Its roots grow downward, enveloping the other tree. At the same time, its branches grow upward toward the sunlight above the jungle canopy. In time, the host tree perishes, and the strangler fig comes to support its own weight. The ghostly remains of the original tree fall away, leaving a hollow core at the heart of the strangler. The strangler is doomed to this parasitic quest, drawn to engulf and overwhelm the other.

  Bernard had observed one such tree over the course of his childhood. It grew in a remnant of old forest near the bus stop, where he took a bus each morning from Bukit Panjang to school in Bishan. In the early-morning darkness it looked especially sinister, its roots descending like the tangled beard of an ancient pirate. Bernard was a short but fierce boy—Chilli Padi was the nickname his schoolmates gave him—a boy who was afraid of nothing, who gladly fought kids twice his size, and won. Yet the sight of that tree would unsettle him. When he was in Secondary One, parts of the original tree still clung to life, occasionally green shoots would sprout. But by Secondary Four it had given up the fight.

  He had grown up in Bukit Panjang. Wedged between the Mandai catchment area and the northern edge of the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, it still had fragments of jungle, slowly drying out, and soon to be bulldozed no doubt, but for a while it was at least sanctuary for monkeys and birds. He compared trees by their reproductive strategies—particularly appreciating the Kapok trees for their seed pods bursting with fluffy fiber, the berries of the Tembusu that attracted bats at dusk, but perhaps most of all the Saga trees with their curling pods, twisting ever more tightly till they split open and discharged their jewel-red seeds. These were majestic trees, relying on their own strength a
nd ingenuity.

  The strangler fig offended him by its sneaky behavior. It depended on, made use of, and ultimately destroyed another.

  The strangler fig is not the only possessor of this parasitic habit. Some women have it too. Chancing upon the right man, the more vibrant and sturdy the better, she draws him to her embrace. Her tendrils caress and soothe, tightening imperceptibly yet irresistibly. The victim, unsuspecting at first, is charmed to be the object of such obsessive attention, until, too late, he is trussed up, his breath squeezed out. The gently deepening deprivation of oxygen lulls him into unconsciousness, as she takes from him the keys to his condo and his car, and of course all of his credit cards.

  Bernard felt that he had spent his life struggling free from the embrace of women. Perhaps it was too dramatic to call them strangler figs, but certainly there were times when all his energy was being sucked from him. First there was his mother. After his father’s death when he was just a boy of seven, she had identified his potential and driven him on, through the Gifted Education Programme at Raffles and onward to an army scholarship to study engineering at Cambridge.

  Her constant refrain was the need to make the most of his time. Every spare moment should be spent reading or doing homework. Even meals were a distraction—she cared much less about how anything tasted than about whether it would provide the right energy boost at the right time for his studies. When he was in primary school she had warned him about his habit of loitering along the way to and from school. Once, exasperated by the fact that he had not taken her warning to heart, she told him that at dawn and dusk he must be especially careful, for in the shadows of the trees there would lurk female spirits, with long black hair, in long white gowns, and they watched for little boys who lacked purpose, who idly kicked stones at a street corner or missed their bus because of some foolish daydream or other.

  When Bernard got married he thought he had found an equal, a partner in life, but his wife, who had pretended disdain for material things all through their courtship, was soon complaining about how low his army pay was compared to friends of theirs who worked for banks or in the legal profession. Even after he left the army and became chief executive of the energy regulator, as well as a member of Parliament for the ruling party, she was unsatisfied, and urged him to push to become a minister. Great pay, great status, she said. When he explained that what he really enjoyed was meeting people, trying to find answers to their problems, she told him he was wasting his time—no one would really be grateful to him anyway—and he should focus on impressing the PM instead. Sometimes she made him angry, and he would feel like striking out, but he kept himself in check. One can strike a man, but never a woman. The same boy who had without hesitation fought schoolmates upon any slight or insult had been unfailingly polite to his mother, to teachers, and in time to the women he dated. No matter how much his wife provoked him, Bernard kept quiet, carried on.

  Whatever one does with the time one has, it passes. This morning Bernard had looked up from his phone and was startled by his own reflection in the mirror—how little hair he had was the first thought. But then, before self-pity overtook him, the second followed, the uplifting sight of his flashing white teeth, the crocodile smile that had proved so useful to his rise, first in the army and later in politics. People were disarmed by it. Charmed by him. And he had led a charmed life, in most respects.

  The message on his phone was unexpected, a shock, but he would survive. Perhaps it was the chance of a lifetime, to change the pattern of others taking advantage of him. Today he would act from love. And he would find his reward in that one true love.

  Perhaps because his father had died when he was young, Bernard had taken to heart the advice Polonius gave to his son Laertes: accept censure while not judging others; listen more and speak less; and above all, be true to himself. This had served him well. It even gave him the patience to endure his wife.

  When Bernard first became an MP, the ruling party had a viselike grip on power. Promotion to minister was mostly about one’s academic credentials and connections—being a minister was mostly about making decisions that were sound in economic theory that could then be implemented by an efficient, well-paid civil service. But it had all become so much harder when the people suddenly, unexpectedly, discovered that they could in fact vote against the ruling party without the social order collapsing, and that just maybe speaking up might not be met with a knock on the head but an apology and an offer to do more and better—to keep bus fares low, to provide more hospital beds, to limit the entry of foreigners.

  Everyone and anyone wanted things done for them, and done for them now. They complained about anything and everything. To make matters worse, there was an apparent conspiracy of the heavens over the past three years—flash floods, MRT breakdowns, sex scandals—all conspired to make it seem as if there was nothing the ruling party could do right.

  Many of his parliamentary colleagues resented the new situation. It was not the premise on which they had entered politics, which was meant to be a simple career progression—more pay, more status, as his wife had put it. They did not like the new orders to be on time for functions, not to keep people waiting, to be more approachable.

  But the new national mood suited Bernard. He started a Facebook page. It quickly generated more “likes” than those of any of the ministers. He had taken to Tweeting too, and soon had many followers. He spoke his heart. He was true to himself. In the real world, he started to meet with citizen groups that had previously been ignored. Of course, it was not easy. Everyone wanted change in how things were done: Conservationists wanted a block on development. Hotels wanted more leeway to hire foreign staff. Gays wanted whatever it was they did behind closed doors to be allowed, to be legal. And if change did not happen—then the ruling party was to blame. But at least as an ordinary member of parliament, he had more freedom than a minister—to convince people of the merits of government policy, while not being entirely bound by it either. And people liked him, they truly did—his lack of ostentation, his modesty, his simple, open manner. He lived by the words of Polonius.

  His wife, though, still nagged him. She felt that now was his chance to become a minister, given that it was precisely his EQ, his people skills, his popularity, that the party needed in these challenging times. For her, whatever strength he had was an opportunity for her to ascend. He was the tree she had found to be her scaffold. She badgered him to attend the right functions, and accompanied him so she could smile and flirt with the right people, who might support a promotion to the Cabinet for him. But he had long since come to feel that she did not love or care for him beyond the status he conferred on her, the network he gave her access to. At times, he felt as if she was truly intent on strangling him, choking him, her thumbs firmly against his windpipe as he gasped for air, although of course the pressure would never be enough to kill him, at least not until she had used him to get exactly where she wanted.

  The message on his phone was from Evelyn, the woman he had let into his life six months before.

  Evelyn was different from all the other women he had known. She loved him, of that he was sure. Loved him for himself. Not only did she love him, she did not depend on him. At last he had found his match, but in the best possible way. For the first time in a long while, he felt excited and purposeful about his life, and about the possibility of a new life with Evelyn, a new beginning.

  He had met her unexpectedly, at a meet-the-people session with his constituency. She was not a supplicant, of course, but a fresh volunteer—something that had become rarer after the debacle of the last elections. Her blunt, offhand manner captivated him, as did her long black hair and tanned athleticism. When he offered her Lipton’s tea or instant coffee from the pantry, she had made a face, leaving him speechless for a moment before her laughter told him she was teasing.

  Afterward, he pulled out her file. One child, husband a doctor. Her eyes, gazing steadily back at him, were the last thing he saw before sle
ep overcame him that night. The next morning he had a plan, and his secretary telephoned her to ask her to call him. She did, and once he had her mobile phone number, he started WhatsApping her. Restrained questions, seeking her views on constituency and national matters.

  He had prepared himself for a rebuff, but she was more than responsive. He was surprised how quickly she seemed to open up to him. They started with policy questions and political challenges, but were soon turning to more personal topics. It was not long before she was attending all of his constituency meetings. In between consultations they laughed and chatted together. Their WhatsApping grew more frequent, more direct and intense. Conspiratorially, she warned him of the perils of monitored communications, and he knew she was as interested in him as he was in her.

  At last they had lunch, at a little French restaurant. Three hours of flirting disguised by earnest discussions of what the government should or should not be doing to win back popular support. He lost count of the number of times her hand had lightly rested on his forearm, drawing him toward her, how often she had used the index finger of the other to make a little tapping motion in midair, both emphasizing a point and quickening his heartbeat.

  Lunch was soon followed by late-night drinks. They gazed into each other’s eyes. This, he knew, was a relationship that was truly special.

  The sex was good. Perhaps he had missed it for so long that he did not know any better, but he felt both fulfilled and truly triumphant. He had an apartment in River Valley that was between tenancies, and this became their sanctuary.

  She asked for nothing from him, although along the way he occasionally sought to impress her, to offer her snippets of information or gossip that would keep her captivated. He realized that he probably needed to be more careful. Possibly, something he had let slip about measures the government was considering to cool the property market had tipped her to sell an investment property sooner than she had planned, but surely what he had done was not strictly illegal, and even if illegal was hardly likely to be detected. His tips were unsolicited, of that he had no doubt. He felt so comforted by her, so loved by her, that this was surely small recompense, no different from the necklaces from Tiffany & Co. that he bought for her, necklaces that she appreciated so much and never once asked for.