Singapore Noir

by Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan

  Standing almost five feet nine and with a sharp angular face, Madame Zhang is an unmistakable presence. Saiful sees that she is carrying her fake good-luck Gucci handbag.

  “You’re still alive,” Madame Zhang proclaims in broken Malay, revealing her two gold front teeth.

  “Why wouldn’t I be?” Suddenly a thought occurs to him. “Mr. Rao wants to take over your business, but I can protect you if you help me get my stamp back.”

  “Stamp? What stamp?”

  “It’s mine, but he took it.”

  “Mr. Rao is a religious man,” Madame Zhang says, apropos of nothing.

  Several things then happen in quick succession. Madame Zhang lets out a whistle, and four Chinese men appear, wielding machetes. They proceed to knock down the side door, and in no time everyone is in the temple.

  As the men fan out in all directions, Madame Zhang takes a compact from her handbag and starts to powder her nose and forehead. One of the men comes right back with the midget, a machete placed against his tiny neck. Soon, two others are escorting Mr. Rao out from the depths of the temple. Fernando the cat is nowhere to be seen.

  The negotiations begin. Though Madame Zhang has the upper hand, she remains a shrewd businesswoman. She quickly outlines how her black market operations can be expanded, especially given the Indian community’s predilection for ayurvedic preparations, many of which are banned. Madame Zhang has no doubt that a mutually beneficial agreement can be reached. Of course, she wants an above-market commission; and, in fact, she already knows of at least one supplier in Kenya who can ship the illicit merchandise.

  A deal is hammered out in no time. As the Chinese men relax into their sullen selves and the midget again assumes his cartoon pose, a look of unvarnished admiration begins to wash over Mr. Rao’s face.

  “I like how you do business, Madame Zhang. Quick and to the point.”

  Madame Zhang smiles for the first time that night, her gold teeth gleaming. Later, when all the handshaking is done, Mr. Rao lets Madame Zhang and her posse out the front door. It is done with such ceremony that it makes Saiful uncomfortable; still, it would appear to anyone looking on that the unlikely duo have become the best of friends.

  “What about my stamp?” Saiful shouts after Madame Zhang, who doesn’t even turn around.

  “I’m going to keep it,” replies Mr. Rao instead. “It will be my insurance that you keep your mouth shut.”

  “I will keep my mouth shut anyway.”

  “Just want to make 100 percent sure. Unless, of course, you have something valuable to trade.”

  “Like what?”

  With a wave of his hand, Mr. Rao dismisses the midget. It doesn’t take more than a split second for the Indian’s eyes to shine with carnal anticipation, as he sidles up to Saiful and places his moist, fleshy hand on his crotch. Saiful flinches in disgust.

  “Quite tragic, isn’t it, to have a girlfriend who betrays you?” Mr. Rao intones. “I can’t blame her really. She owes me quite a bundle, and she truly loves the roulette table at Sentosa.”

  Saiful wants to spit in the man’s face. He wants to get as far away from this den of depravity as possible. But he is frozen to the spot, overwhelmed by a deep sense of shame and revulsion. And there is another feeling, one that Saiful is trying hard to decipher. He starts to think about his stamp, and he recalls his mother’s dying words. At any cost. The phrase echoes like a phantasm in his conflicted mind.

  From nowhere Fernando appears, jumping onto the elephant’s head and purring as if it has something to say. Fernando looks at Saiful, who looks right back.

  Then Saiful stares straight into Mr. Rao’s eyes, and shapes his lips into a half-smile, half-sneer. The first jab lands squarely in the Indian’s solar plexus, and the next catches him in the rib cage. But before he can make good on his third punch, Mr. Rao pulls out a revolver and points it straight at Saiful. Simultaneously the midget appears, wielding his trusty machete.

  “You think it’s going to be so easy?” Mr. Rao’s voice is thick with unctuous venom. A rivulet of blood makes its way down his chin.

  With an earsplitting cry, Saiful lunges at Mr. Rao, and in the ensuing melee, four shots ring out. The first two miss completely. The third goes right through the midget’s heart, killing him at once. The fourth and last clips Fernando’s tail, scattering a puff of white fur.

  What happens next seems to Saiful like a scene from a Hollywood action flick. He clamps his hands down on Mr. Rao’s neck, squeezing with all his might. As his opponent thrashes about like a maniac, desperate for a gulp of air, a feeling of euphoria sweeps over Saiful. It is in this heightened state that he sees Mr. Rao’s body erupt into spasms and then go limp.

  By the time the police arrive, Saiful is already halfway across the causeway, the pink Edward VII carefully tucked away in his back pocket. Welcome to Malaysia, a sign says. He sees the city lights of Johor Bahru ahead, beckoning to him like a virgin. Calmly, he takes out a fake Malaysian passport and approaches the immigration kiosk. From now on his name will be Eddy bin Abdul Halim. Saiful quite likes the sound of it.

  PART IV

  THE HAVES & THE HAVE-NOTS

  CURRENT ESCAPE

  BY JOHANN S. LEE

  Sentosa Cove

  The first strike is a slap across her left cheek, but Merla barely flinches. She has learned to anticipate.

  His glare still fixed upon her, he steps backward slowly, assessing the situation for a way to force a reaction. There is the faint sound of water lapping against the private berth outside the house while he stands by the designer lamp that has been switched on for the night. Then a flare of inspiration. He turns his eyes to the gaudy Swarovski collection arranged on the console table. A calculated pause, to grant her time to read his next move. His hand hovers over his first choice. She stiffens.

  The heavy ornament hits her hard just above the right eye, triggering a mad scrambling of her arms. Even as it lands in her hands, the next projectile is already hurtling toward her, aimed to make her sink to her knees to catch it. The two objects collide in her small palms with a mercifully soft clink, so soft it infuriates him. He grabs another and takes an exaggerated swing, flinging it high up at the wall behind her. As Merla’s chin drops, she feels falling fragments bounce off her back. He strides toward her, seizes her by the hair, and clubs her over the head with his clenched fist. The blow instantly hurling her onto the marble floor, she rolls into a fetal position, disoriented, both ornaments clutched to her chest. Though her eyes are shut, she can feel his obese form looming over her, more so than the pain, which she recognizes as not being the kind that means blood. She does not know what set off this latest attack, but she knows he does not need a reason. She knows to keep still.

  You do not walk away. You wait for Sir to go.

  Later, when she thinks—prays—that she has seen the last of him for the night, Merla sweeps up. Then she goes to the garage where the Saab and Ferrari are parked, picks up leftover grayish-blue paint and a damp brush from the corner cupboard, and returns to the lounge to cover up the mark on the wall where the crystal smashed into pieces. The paint blends easily. In this opulent house, flanked on either side by similar ones which are still unsold, everything is still new. She has had plenty of practice covering up wall stains, mainly left by him and his guests in the den, for which the paint color is Dulux Black. She tries not to think about that room; these days she tries not to think at all.

  Meticulously, she rearranges the Swarovski collection, predominantly birds. Most of them are seagulls, birds that she has never seen in her two years in this country, even though the waterfront villas are nestled amidst lush tropical foliage, on an isle within a cove of an island off the Singapore shore. Perhaps there are no birds because the vegetation is landscaped, the isle built from Cambodian sand and the cove artificially carved. Or maybe because there are never any crumbs to be found.

  She picks up a small crystal seagull and looks at it more closely under the lamp. It has tiny r
ed gemstones for eyes—rubies? How much is it worth? she wonders, as she has in the past. Enough, surely, to pay for half a year of round-the-clock care when her mother’s Alzheimer’s takes full grip. Enough to buy time for her younger brother to complete secondary school.

  Look after Nanay. Study hard. I’ll send everything I get.

  A sound from the floor above startles her. He is clearing his throat, his usual noise like a skanky alley cat coughing up fur and filth. His noxious spit will follow. She turns off the lamp and briskly heads back to the servants’ quarters. She does not run anymore.

  Merla locks herself in her tiny room, behind the utility area where the washing machine and dryer are kept. She has a single bed with a thin mattress, a low chest of drawers, an unreachable window near the ceiling facing the side wall of the compound. The cicadas are quiet tonight. In the adjoining bathroom, she removes her blouse and winces as she lifts her bra away from her scalded breasts. The skin is still raw. She showers quickly, with cold water. She knows she should have seen him coming the other night, when he appeared in the kitchen doorway just as the kettle started to boil.

  As she towels herself off, she stops to touch her back, where the deep burn from a few months ago has dried and hardened into a large triangular scab. Not the way to do collar! he had yelled. He yanked the cord, grabbed the iron away from her, and rammed her face against the wall. Hot metal. Fabric stuck to melted skin. As she writhed on the floor, trying to muffle her own cries, he ransacked her room, leaving with her battered old Nokia, her address book, and her passport.

  At least that time there was a reason. The luxury of a reason. But sometimes there is no reason, or logic, or fairness. Only faith. She kneels and surrenders her eyes—one swollen, both weary—to the framed picture of Mother Mary on the bedside unit. Five hours to go before she is expected to toil again, but she knows that as always there will be little sleep. Still in need of solace, she recalls her long-dead father. The year His Holiness visited the Philippines, her father emptied his savings account to travel from their remote village by bus to Manila, bringing his teenage daughter with him. His wife and newborn son stayed at home. Young Merla watched as he wept in Luneta Park during closing Mass. She felt forever changed. From a roadside stall, he bought her first rosary beads, made of wood. Now the beads remind her not just of home, but of the time they were shoved into her mouth and forced down her clenched throat. The time she was left gagging, her shaking hand pushing through her open jaws to get a grip of the chain, her esophagus cut as she pulled out the metal crucifix.

  The rosary beads are where she always keeps them—coiled around a corner of a small mirror, next to the picture of the Virgin Mary.

  * * *

  Gray meets gray where the mackerel sky merges with the South China Sea on a blurry horizon. A light breeze blows across the upstairs balcony of the vast master bedroom. She prefers it like this. When the sun blazes, the light catches the thousands of specks that fly and float with every desperate stroke of her feather duster, making her work seem an impossible struggle; she is certain she has lost battles of several lifetimes. As she is alone in the house, she allows herself a minute. He left hours ago—she saw his red Ferrari speed down the driveway and swing right at the gates with a haughty vroom. His wealth, so incomprehensible to her, so inescapable, seems to be the only topic he deigns to speak of when he has no intention of abusing her. More than once he has described with glee, in his broken English, the expression on the real estate agent’s face when he turned up with a suitcase stuffed full of cash from Chengdu, and every retelling concludes with a rant about how the conveyance should have been completed then and there. FAH-king bu-raw-CRASSY!

  Just as Merla is about to shut the sliding door, she is jolted by the sound of a splash from the pool below. By the time she takes tentative steps toward the balcony railing and peers down, all she can see is a trail of wet footprints on the path leading into the house. The fact that he never uses the pool heightens her alertness. As she tiptoes along the landing and down the glass stairs, the stereo comes on at full blast. This is no burglar. Then the stranger moves into view.

  For a second, the unexpected sight of near nakedness and bright yellow swim trunks makes her avert her eyes and retreat behind a wall. But when she peeks again, she sees that he is more boy than man, though blessed with the promise of every physical glory of male adulthood. His wide-eyed good looks and not-too-tanned complexion remind her of the Pinoy pinups that adorn the celebrity rags she has seen in Manila. Not yet eighteen, she reckons, or else he would already be conscripted for national service. There is only one connection she can draw between the boy and the house. The den. She never lingers in that room long enough, never raises her eyes from the tray long enough, to see or remember faces. She cannot be sure. She has seen many young men in that room, and witnessed things that remind her that there is at least one kind of wickedness that will not befall her in this prison. For that, she thanks the Lord.

  The boy notices her and calls out, affably. My name is Zhiwei, he yells through the loud music with a grin, but everyone calls me Zach. Sensing her discomfort, he covers himself with a white bathrobe from the pool hut. He turns down the volume and talks as he runs his fingers through his shortish hair. About him being a lifeguard at the beach on the far side of the island, near the Cafe del Mar where he got to know the owner of this house. About how amazing this place is, how you can definitely fit the entire flat where he lives with his grandmother into just half of the lounge from there to there . . .

  She feels she should hurry away but his voice, with its rise and fall, so strange in a house of oppressive silence, takes an easy hold of her; so she stays, busying herself with her duster and cloth. He crisscrosses the room aimlessly, glancing at the paintings, now and then touching the sculptures. He speaks in the local English slang, his jumbled syntax interspersed with the occasional big, misused word. He tells her he is from one of the oldest housing estates, went to the neighborhood school—What’s the point?—from which he got expelled—What to do?—and that he has big plans for the future. There are other ways to make it in life, Zach says, as he slips his hands into the robe pockets; just look at the guy who owns this villa, he comes from some province in China and can’t be that well-educated. The boy emphasizes this with a shrug.

  Interrupted by the ringing of his mobile, Zach leaps onto the nearest oversized sofa to take the call, burrowing into the plush cushions. From what Merla can make of it, it is the man on the line. They converse in Mandarin for a minute or two before hanging up, after which Zach passes on the message that the man will not be coming home tonight, and that she is to serve the boy dinner. Their eyes meet for the first time, for just an instant.

  You don’t talk much, says the boy.

  When evening comes, Merla prepares the kind of meal she normally does—three dishes and rice. Zach hangs around in the kitchen, mostly perched on a stool by the breakfast bar, swiveling from side to side as he chatters away while she stir-fries. Eventually growing tired of talking to himself, the boy reaches into his worn-out rucksack and removes a large black folder and a copy of the day’s tabloid. She stops and stares. It was months ago when she last laid eyes on a newspaper, in the study, transfixed by an article on the front page of the Straits Times: Maid Tries to Flee, Jumps from Fourth-Story Condo. Merla did not hear the footsteps coming until it was too late. The man grabbed her wrist in a vicelike grip. I kill you, he said.

  Do you want this? Zach asks. She turns away. Feigning nonchalance, he moistens his fingertip and flicks through the tabloid, in truth trying to find something that he thinks might start a conversation, eventually settling on the single finance page. Look, he says, holding up the paper. Philippines to Become Sixteenth Largest Economy by 2050. No response.

  Merla sets a place in the middle of the long dining table, positioning the cutlery with painstaking precision. As she serves the food, he asks casually, And you? As he has not seen her put any aside, the response Zach anticip
ates is that she will eat what he leaves behind. She is visibly thrown by the question, her glance at the food too furtive. At last he sees her bony frame, dry complexion, sunken eyes. She shrinks further under his plain gaze. Zach weighs his options. He moves everything from the dining table to the utility room where he finds, tucked away at the back, a set of folding chairs and a plastic table. Merla watches in astonishment. He sets down the dinnerware and saunters back to the kitchen, rummaging around for a second bowl and an extra pair of chopsticks while she trails along like a lost creature. Finally, his eyes light up as he finds what he is looking for. The boy returns to where the food is, sits down, and peers at her expectantly.

  * * *

  Over a fortnight passes without them seeing so much as the man’s shadow—one of his occasional spells of unexplained absence to which Merla has become accustomed, and for which she prays. Zach comes and goes as he pleases, suns himself by the pool and in the manicured garden, where this boy who grew up in a shabby high-rise is enjoying the novelty of figuring out how to use a lawnmower. He has been sleeping over some nights, in the master bedroom, whether or not with the man’s consent Merla cannot tell. It is not for her to ask. But she changes the bed linen and plumps up the pillows after each time, leaving the sliding doors wide open to clear the room of the tang of male adolescence. It is the same smell that pervades the upstairs gym which he has taken to using, just next to the room with the closed door.

  Can I have a look inside? he asks, not really for permission—since he wanders freely—but because it is the only door in the house that is locked. Merla shakes her head and hurries away.

  When they eat, it is in the utility area, him engaged in one-sided chitchat, her with eyes cast down at her lap. He always helps with the washing up, though only after he has placed the man’s iPad in a stand and set it on the kitchen counter, with the screen facing the sink, playing an episode of America’s Next Top Model. He pretends not to see that she pretends not to watch. Tonight, however, he surprises her. No iPad. Instead, he sets his black folder on the counter. It is a portfolio, the kind every model, or aspiring model, possesses; this one filled with photos of Zach, the most striking among them amateurish at best. What do you think? he asks, slapping his palms together childishly. Merla returns her gaze to the soap suds. She shrugs.