Sugarbread

by Balli Kaur Jaswal

  He was listening. He had to have been listening because when Daddy got home that evening, he announced that he had some very good news.

  “Pin, I won!” He shouted, fumbling with the padlock. It clanged impatiently against the iron bars of the gate, a sound that echoed down the hallway.

  “You won what?” I asked.

  “4D!” Daddy cried. “A consolation prize, so it’s not exactly the real thing, but I still won something!” He flung the gate open and stretched out his arms to pick me up, but I slipped past him into our flat like a burglar. Consolation prizes were three, four or five hundred dollars. The huge prizes were in the thousands. I tried to feel the weight of $300, then I tried to think of the weight of Ma’s jewellery. Were they both the same? I wasn’t sure. Still, I was excited for Daddy. He had finally won, and it was no coincidence. I thought of the money I had donated to the God at school and pictured it taking root like a tree.

  “Your Ma is very happy about it,” Daddy said. His voice was not convincing. He reached out for another hug and I returned it sideways. Like a ghost, Ma drifted out of her bedroom wearing her long-sleeved nightgown. “Aren’t you glad we’ve got some extra money to spoil Pin with?” he called out to Ma. I cringed. Spoiling me was probably the last thing Ma would want to do with the lottery money. Ma turned to look at me and gave me a half smile.

  “There’s some porridge for lunch if you haven’t eaten,” Ma said.

  I nodded. “I’m hungry,” I said. Ma’s feet sweeping across the floor sounded like the old rotan sapu we kept in the storeroom. When I was very little, I used to raise my feet and watch her beat the dust off the living room carpet with the hard bristles of that broom. I turned to Daddy to ask him what was wrong with her but he was pacing the living room excitedly and rambling about his strategy. “See, Pin, I knew that my numbers didn’t work last time because I didn’t feel it Pin, I didn’t feel it. But then I bought those tickets and there was something, I don’t know, like a light, a warmth, or something. I think I felt it in my heart. And I just knew what I had to do. The numbers just came to me. Sometimes, the numbers just come to you.” He paused and tore off a sheet of newspaper to write down his own inspired quote. He shook the scrap at me with determination. “We can do anything, Pin.”

  I started to get excited for Daddy, thinking that this could be the beginning of bigger prizes in the future. But every time happiness began to swell in my stomach, my eyes wandered towards Ma and the blank expression on her face made me worry. I should not have asked her to recount the whole story that day. It was too much, and now she was miserable, having brought her memories to the present.

  Ma put a bowl of porridge on the table and went back into her room without saying anything else. She didn’t look sad any more. Her eyes weren’t puffy and she wasn’t exactly frowning. I stirred the porridge with my spoon to let out the steam and after that, I took a small sip. She had forgotten the pepper and there was very little salt so the chicken broth tasted like nothing. Bloated grains of white rice clung to strips of white chicken. They came apart in strings when I tried to pick them up with my spoon, meaning that Ma had not been paying much attention to the pot when the porridge was boiling. Everything was overcooked and bland. On a good day, Ma would have sprinkled fried shallots on the porridge so there was some crunch to the dish. This should have been a good day because we suddenly had more money. But Ma was indifferent; her food did not lie.

  Daddy watched as I took a few sips, then he asked, “How is it, Pin?”

  “Not so good,” I whispered. My eyes were on Ma’s door in case she opened it suddenly. “There’s no taste. And I only like porridge with fried shallots.”

  “Let’s get out of here then. Let’s go eat somewhere else. Where do you want to go?”

  I thought for a while before I answered his question. “There’s actually something I really need,” I began. I was hesitant. I had asked the new God for money and now that we had it, I was nervous about using it. But then I reminded myself that it would be rude not to use a bit of Daddy’s money to buy a Chinese New Year dress because the new God must have gone through a lot of trouble just to get those lottery numbers to be chosen.

  I told Daddy about Kristen’s party and how I needed a dress. “Of course!” Daddy cried out. “Let’s go to Chinatown. Go get ready. And Pin—take your time, you hear me? Because we’re not taking the bus or the MRT there. We’re taking a taxi.”

  I let out a whoop and ran into my room to change out of my uniform into outside clothes. In the lift, I asked Daddy to show me the money he had won. He opened his wallet just a bit to reveal a few blue notes. $50 notes were blue and although I didn’t see them very often, I was disappointed. I thought that the 4D people would have given Daddy a stack of $100 notes or something like that. I had never seen notes in denominations larger than $50.

  The taxi sped across the highway until Singapore was just a series of heartbeats. We shot past trees and white blocks of flats, glittering buildings and signs pointing towards the city. We glided into Chinatown as if this was something we did every day. Daddy even told the driver to keep the change of five dollars but when the driver refused, I noticed a look of relief flashing across Daddy’s eyes. He pocketed the money and pushed me gently out of the cab.

  There were a few places like Chinatown in Singapore that immediately made me remember a past or a place I had never lived in. Little India was like this too—rows of colourful shophouses pushed together; men selling bloated jackfruits on wooden platforms; windows with mannequins wearing glittering wedding saris; pavements stained with dye and smashed fruit skins; the smoke of sandalwood incense so heavy that it clung to my hair. Chinatown was nosier than Little India because we were there during the festive period, and it was also more crowded. Daddy instructed me to hold on to his hand as we made our way through the crowds. Red lanterns hung from every ceiling and every lamppost. Golden statues of Buddha and ferocious dragons grinned at us from store windows. Deep red slabs of bak kwa and rubbery skinned ducks hung from hooks in restaurant windows. We passed the glaring lights of movie theatres, and heard drums and cymbals playing New Year songs. We ate a late lunch at a dim sum restaurant, where we chose from a menu and had our food brought to us by a waitress. I asked Daddy if he was going to leave his job now that he had won the lottery.

  “No, Pin,” he said with a laugh. “I didn’t win nearly enough to quit working!”

  “But maybe you can get a better job,” I told him.

  “I like my job,” he said. He took out a piece of paper from his pocket.

  “Is that the winning ticket?” I asked, reaching out to grab it from him. He pulled the paper away.

  “No.” he said. “I left that at home.” He began to sketch on the piece of paper. There was so much in Chinatown to draw, but there were too many colours. I looked behind me to see what he might possibly be sketching. There were two tall lanterns swinging in a light breeze, and there was also a row of shophouses with gaping windows revealing the dark insides of homes with television sets and clotheslines draped across the ledges. But Daddy was drawing a girl—me. He was drawing a portrait of me.

  “You’ve grown up so much, Pin. You look a lot like your Ma,” he said, examining the picture. I looked at the drawing and didn’t think it was very good. My eyebrows were crooked and my nose was wider in real life than in the picture. In Daddy’s drawing, I looked stern and unforgiving.

  “I know about what happened to Ma,” I blurted out. I expected the entire room to freeze—the fans to stop twirling and the waitresses to stop moving between the tables—but nothing happened. Daddy’s expression didn’t even change.

  “I know you know,” he finally said. He added a few strokes to thicken my hair in the picture. “I’ve told you before. Your Ma had a very hard time growing up. People still give her a lot of trouble, so she’s not always herself. But she loves you, Pin. She loves both of us very much.”

  “Why is she so sad today?” I asked.

&nb
sp; “She tried calling your Fat Auntie,” Daddy said. “She tried to reason with her and your Auntie told her to stop calling.”

  I did not allow myself to feel angry with Fat Auntie this time. At first I felt rage rise in me, creating a bitter taste in my mouth, but when I looked at my lunch laid out on the table, those feelings melted away. I took a bite of my dumpling. It was pork filling wrapped in soft white dumpling skin made of starch. In the bowl, it was neatly bundled together like a present. The skin slipped off when I tried to pick up the dumpling with my chopstick so all I had was the lump of pork.

  “Ma doesn’t know how to make this,” I told Daddy.

  “She does,” he said.

  “She’s never cooked dumplings.”

  “Maybe there has never been an occasion for dumplings.”

  I tried to think about what occasion would call for dumplings. They were fairly simple and plain looking, maybe a little oddly-shaped. I tried to pick up the chicken dumpling but it slipped too and this time it bounced across the table and fell onto the floor. I looked around me quickly to see if anybody had noticed but the restaurant was filled with loud chatter and if people weren’t busy talking, they were busy eating.

  “Sorry,” I told Daddy.

  “Why are you sorry? It’s your food.”

  I recited Ma’s mantra: “Because, ‘when you throw away food, you waste money’.”

  Daddy grinned. “And now you know why Ma has never cooked dumplings at home, Pinny-Pin. She’s waiting for you to grow into a graceful woman who won’t drop her main dish all over the floor.”

  After lunch, we crossed the main road and found a row of clothing shops. I liked the first dress I saw and wouldn’t even consider anything else. It was a deep red cheongsam with a high neck and a slit up the side. I looked like a lady when I wore it, not a little girl. Ma would usually yank my arm and drag me to every store until she was sure that the dress I liked was the best quality for the cheapest price. Daddy didn’t mind. He didn’t seem to know much about dresses. In the dressing room, I piled my hair on my head and turned a few times like a fashion model. There were white flowers on the dress, and on the centre of each flower was a small sequin that caught the light and sparkled.

  Outside, I could hear Daddy trying to bargain with the shopkeeper. He was not as aggressive as Ma. I could hear his voice wavering the minute he asked the shopkeeper to bring the price down. “I’m a local, you know. Not a foreigner,” he reminded the shopkeeper, a squat old woman who wore heavy jade earrings and a matching bangle.

  I came out of the dressing room to find Daddy grimly opening his wallet and peeling out two $50 notes to give to the woman. As she wrapped up my dress, I asked Daddy if the dress had really cost that much.

  “One hundred,” he said softly in Punjabi. “But you like this dress, yeah?”

  I nodded. Something did not seem right. Daddy forced a smile on his face but his eyes were downcast. I thought about how he must have spent the whole day consoling Ma after her phone call with Fat Auntie. How badly he always wanted to fix things and make everybody happy for a change. “Daddy?” I asked as we walked out of the store. “Did you really win the lottery?”

  “Of course I did, Pinny!” he replied. “Why? Do you think I’m lying to you? I’m just not used to spending a hundred dollars on a small dress.”

  “I know,” I said but I still did not believe him. The new God could not have been so quick in delivering my request, especially since there were people in parts of the world who prayed to him for money all the time and they seemed to need it more. I was stupid to think that he was paying that much attention to me. Who was I, anyway?

  As we walked down the street, Daddy waved down a cab but he stopped when he realised there were passengers inside. I pointed to a bus stop. “We can take the 166 from there. It goes straight to the Ang Mo Kio bus interchange.”

  Daddy shook his head. “It will take too long. Let’s just take a cab.” He tried to sound like this was something he did every day, but the words came out sounding forced, like he had rehearsed them earlier. I wondered how long he had planned on pretending to win at 4D.

  We tried flagging down another cab but the driver pointed to a sign that said “On Call”. I saw Daddy looking around and jiggling the change in his pocket. He was searching for a phone to call for a cab. Booking a taxi was even more expensive. “I’m thirsty,” I said quickly. “I want some juice or soya bean drink or something.”

  Daddy pointed at a small street stall and we walked to it. The signs advertised fruit juice blends and iced tea. I ordered a watermelon juice and we both sat down. Then I looked him in the eye and told him why I wanted the dress. I figured that if I told him about Kristen’s request and how she had made fun of Farizah, then he’d insist that we return the dress and I would have an excuse not to go to Kristen’s party. She couldn’t make fun of me if I said that my father didn’t let me go.

  “This Kristen girl doesn’t sound very nice,” Daddy said.

  “She just moved here,” I told him, as if that made up for everything. A doubtful look was etched in Daddy’s face. I looked at him expectantly. This was supposed to be his cue to tell the truth. But he simply said, “Pin, you can make your own decisions now. If you want to go to this party, you have a dress. If you don’t want to go, then we can return it.”

  I didn’t have to prod Daddy about wining the lottery any more. The truth became quite clear when the hawker arrived at our table with my watermelon juice. “Four-fifty,” he said.

  “For juice?!” Daddy exclaimed, looking at the glass. I was surprised too. The hawker shrugged, then narrowed his eyes. “My shop is very cheap. You going to pay?” he asked. There was an edge to his voice, like he was ready to fight. I looked around and realised that we were on a street filled with tourists. They milled through the narrow lanes and open stalls selling jade bracelets, small bronze Buddha statues and silk purses. They didn’t know how to haggle and they didn’t have to.

  “Yeah, yeah, okay,” Daddy said. He picked up his wallet and leafed through the remaining notes. He still had two $50 notes in there but suddenly, he did not want to part with them. When he finally gave the money to the hawker, he looked nervous. “I know I gave you fifty,” he said sternly as the hawker returned to his stall to get change.

  I opened my mouth to ask Daddy why he had lied about the lottery, but I knew it would embarrass him. And I knew why. Everybody wants to prove they are right all along, even if the whole world says they’re not. I thought about how Farizah insisted on her beliefs, even if they were a bit strange. I thought of the hope in Ma’s eyes as she relived her story for me. I thought of how badly I wanted to show the neighbourhood boys that I could be just like them and how I had nearly drowned trying to save that ball to prove I was brave and useful to their team.

  I picked up the bag with my new dress in it and pushed it across the table to Daddy. “Can you return it?” I asked him. “I don’t want to go to Kristen’s party any more.”

  Daddy rubbed his forehead. “Aiyoh, Pin. You’re causing me lots of trouble today,” he said. He looked troubled and he took the bag slowly from me. But the relief showed in his eyes, and in the grin that spread across his face and remained throughout our bus journey home.

  • • •

  At school the next day, I wrote a note to Kristen. “Dear Kristen, Sorry I can’t attend your Chinese New Year party.” I decided not to give her a reason. I tucked the note under her pencil box and asked Mrs Parasuram if I could be excused to go to the toilet.

  “Yes,” she said. “Please hurry. We have a lot of work to cover today.”

  I walked briskly to the door, then broke into a run once I turned the corner. I passed the toilets in a flash—I didn’t need to go there. I had to go to the chapel again.

  A cold blast of air hit my arms and legs. I sat down, shut my eyes and stewed in silence for a minute before I began to talk.

  “I think you tried to trick me,” I said. “You made Daddy lie abo
ut winning the lottery so I’d think we had money. Why?” The words bounced across the walls before they disappeared. It occurred to me that He was probably sick of people asking Him that question. God did not reply.

  “You’re all the same,” I said angrily, and at first I really was furious. But as my words quickly echoed back to me, I heard the truth in what I had said. They were all the same. All of the prayers, all of the teachings—the Gods only looked different, but their intentions were the same. They were always watching and they did some strange things, and sometimes it was hard to believe that they truly existed because they never seemed to appear when you needed them.

  I looked down at my knees poking out from under my pinafore skirt. I turned my hands over, examining the lines, the contrast between the lighter skin on my palms and the darker skin on the other side. All the same. Kristen could make fun of Farizah’s religion all she wanted. Fat Auntie could criticise Ma for her skin rashes. Abigail Goh could say nasty things about Mrs Parasuram behind her back. They were all the same. When I conjured this God again, I expected Him to nod and bless me for finally figuring it out, but His expression remained blank.

  The door creaked as it opened, making me jump out of my thoughts. I turned around to see who it was and when I did, I wished I had hidden under the benches or in a shadow. The colours on Mrs Parasuram’s sari stood out brilliantly against the light of the outdoors.

  “Just what do you think you’re doing here?” she asked sternly. I did not have a reply for her. She shook her head. “Come out right now, Miss Kaur.” I scrambled off the bench and walked quickly to the door. Still shaking her head, Mrs Parasuram continued to talk. “Here I was, just walking back to the staff room because I had left your workbooks there and I was thinking to myself, ‘I hope that Parveen is okay. This is the second time she’s asked to go to the toilet during the lesson when she knows the rules.’ And then I saw your shoes outside the chapel and true enough, you were sitting in there, avoiding my class.” As I put my shoes back on, I noticed that the rubber in the soles was peeling off and there were brownish-green streaks across the toes from the last time I had padded through the muddy school field during a game of catching. Mrs Parasuram had warned me to clean my shoes and scolded our class for playing games on the grass: “A nice concourse was built for you so you didn’t have to run around on the wet field like a bunch of village children,” she’d said, directing her gaze at the few of us who had suggested playing catching in the sun. This was probably how she had recognised my shoes outside. She was more observant than I had realised.