by Sandi Tan
Was marriage all that important? Today’s women might roll their eyes at me, but back then it meant securing Kenneth’s heart. Of course, it’s not as if I were a simpering Victorian heroine in a frilly pinafore, waiting for Mr. Darcy and his sachets of gold. I was a strong woman who could summon forth spirits and accomplish in weeks what Kenneth couldn’t begin to do in years. Even so, when it came to making the first move, I was still only a woman. And in those days, in that benighted part of the world, women didn’t propose. That was strictly a man’s job, no matter how enlightened the beau or brave his girl. If Kenneth didn’t want it, I wasn’t going to risk pushing him away with my eagerness. Had the notion even crossed his mind once, he’d had ample opportunity to ask. We were, after all, the best of friends.
“There’s a contagion of sentimentality about,” he said, cutting into the medium-rare beef Wellington we both ordered. “I know we’ve been through a lot of drama and uncertainty—occupation, emergency, independence. But life is full of uncertainty. People can never progress if they refuse to confront this. It demeans them. It turns them into children.”
He’d said such things before, but on this evening, I sensed a double meaning, as if he were offering a critique of my lingering romantic expectations—or what he perceived as such. The waiter refilled our champagne flutes and we sat back, gazing at each other in our corner alcove—the make-believe captain’s cabin. Since becoming a public figure, Kenneth would only go to restaurants with private nooks where he could dine, hidden from view. At first I assumed he was self-conscious about his tongue; later I realized that he feared his image as a working-class hero might be compromised if people discovered his fondness for fine food and, worse, expensive wine.
He always ordered champagne on birthdays. But over the years, I’d come to learn that he was far more enamored of the idea of champagne than its taste. He gulped it down and got drunk far too quickly.
Already more than a little tipsy, he suddenly leaned into the table. “Listen. I have two proposals I’d like to run by you tonight.”
I knew not to get hopeful; as usual, Kenneth was just having fun with words.
“What’s that term again, the one you use to describe a ghost-free area?”
“Clean,” I said, sipping my drink.
“Right, clean. I was always fond of that term. It’s concise, unfussy. Conveys everything, really. I’ve been thinking quite a bit about how to get the Isle clean. It’s almost as if we have to rip out the sentimental, backward-looking lobe from people’s brains so they’ll stop their blasted fixation on those awful things.”
“Ken, I really don’t think it’s sentimentality. I think it’s fear.”
“Whatever it is, it’s crippling us. I have two solutions. To start with, in any case.”
I nodded. He smiled and took a big swallow of champagne.
“I was appointed deputy minister today.”
This good news took me aback. He’d given no hint of it and had seemed, until this moment, almost peevish. The appointment had loomed as a possibility, but I never imagined it could happen so soon, especially when older generations of grassroots leaders, the kind who hated educated elites, were still holding the reins. As deputy minister of Social Affairs, he’d be in contact with factory workers and captains of industry, and this mobility was what he’d always craved.
“That’s wonderful!” I took his hand.
“Yes, they, too, like my handshake.” He gave my palm a good, hard squeeze. “And though they’ll never admit it, it’s because I shake hands like an American.”
“So when will the news be out?”
“Press release goes out tomorrow. Which was why I wanted to celebrate with you tonight—in addition to your birthday, of course. I haven’t even told Issa and Zhang yet.” Another smile. “And you thought you were the only one who could keep secrets.”
I brought his hand to my lips and discreetly kissed it.
“So, my proposals,” he said. “I will share one with the public tomorrow. The other’s strictly between you and me.”
I returned his hand to show he had my full attention.
“First proposal: I’m going to suggest a master plan for lighting up every last dark corner of this island. We’ll begin with the city, of course, putting lights in alleyways and lights in the slums; then we’ll move outward, expanding to the suburbs until we get to the rural areas. Bright, electric streetlights by kampungs and shantytowns, anywhere ignorance might breed. Eventually I want all public areas, roads, reservoirs, cemeteries, and open fields to be lit so that everyone can feel free to roam about at any time, without fear.” He cracked a smile. “If we can’t control the minds of these ninnies, why not illuminate the hell out of them?”
“It’ll have no effect on ghosts, you know. They exist regardless of light or dark.”
“Ah, but it’ll have an impact on people. I’m not planning for the ghosts at all—they don’t vote. But if we can liberate people from the habit of superstition, think of all the things we can achieve! Think how productive we could be if everyone spent less time on prayer and idiotic rites. They’re all incredibly wasteful—of time, of energy, of material.” His voice grew subdued but his conviction was no less strong. “I know that for you, ghosts are real. But to everyone else, they needn’t be. And this is where my second proposal comes in.”
“The one that’s between you and me?”
He nodded slowly. “You will set up a ghost-hunting business.”
I couldn’t tell if he was actually being serious. “Like pest removal?”
“If you like.” He smirked, but his tone remained earnest. “I say ‘ghost-hunting’ only because it sounds more scintillating. I will supply you with your clientele. They won’t be just any old Tom, Dick, or Harry but important people who need such services and don’t want their names known to the world. There’s a demand for this, I tell you. I can send you four or five names as early as tomorrow. People who’ll pay beautifully. The only thing is you must leave absolutely no trace. It’s entirely sub rosa.”
“Ken”—I lowered my voice to a whisper—“don’t you remember last time? I was almost killed. It’s not a game.”
He seized both my wrists. “Cassandra, I am asking you to make them go away. It’s the exact opposite of calling them up. I’ll work in the light, you’ll work in the shadows, and together we’ll make this filthy little island clean.”
He was proposing I become his spiritual housekeeper. Even the language he used was insulting.
“Let me think about it,” I said, wringing his hands off me. But I already knew I wanted no part of it.
“What’s there to think about? It’s you and me, Cassandra. Just you and me.”
I looked into his eyes. Despite the boldness of his plan, the grandness of his ambition, there was not the faintest trace of the fevered visionary about him. Kenneth had never looked more sober, more calmly convinced about what would be good for me.
Kenneth had called it a proposal, but for him the plan was already set in stone.
The moment I entered work the next morning, I was greeted with Arctic coolness by Miss Joseph, the head nurse who’d become a sort of grande dame at Woodbridge. Over the years, her detached mien had hardened into an icy armor, inspiring fear in patients and nurses alike. She held a special distaste for me, regarding me as the poor, bedraggled thing she’d taken in years ago, only to have me maneuver my way up into becoming overseer of her nursing staff. This was her version, of course; the way I saw it, I’d put in long, hard years at the front desk and was promoted for my diligence and, unlike her, my comfort working in the wee hours, all alone in the dark.
“You got your wish,” she said, her eyes glued to her coffee mug.
“My wish?”
“Oh, don’t act coy.”
She fished out a letter from a register close to her, smoothing out its two fold lines, and thrust it in my face.
I saw the gleaming red imprint of the hospital’s official chop—“A
pproved”—and began reading. It was a neatly typed letter of resignation, in eloquent, lightly condescending prose, about my accepting an offer from an employer more appreciative of my skills. At the base was my supposed signature, made in Kenneth’s hand.
He was waiting when I came home—perched in my armchair, legs crossed, reading the Tribune.
“I forgot your presents last night.” On his lap sat a leather-bound book, a bar of chocolate, and a small bottle of cognac. “Happy birthday, toots.”
“How dare you!”
I ran over to slap him. He moved his head, and I missed.
“A simple ‘thank you’ would have sufficed.” He smirked. “Book, chocolate, cognac—still your holy trinity, I hope?”
“Who do you think you are? You made me look like a bloody fool! I never said yes to your proposal—I said I would think about it! Don’t you care about what I want?”
“It’s because I care that I did it. You’re better than that hospital and you know it.”
“I can’t afford to make enemies at Woodbridge. Li’s still there.”
“So take him out. There are better places in town. And soon you’ll be able to afford them.”
He pulled out a folded slip of paper from his shirt pocket and handed it to me. It was a list of five names, complete with telephone numbers and addresses.
“As promised. Should be a year’s salary right there, if not more.”
The names were familiar. I’d seen them in the papers—G. B., the owner of Robinsons department store; Dr. S. Y., the chief surgeon at Mount Alvernia Hospital; W. K. B., the president of the Green Spot bus company; and a couple of prominent housing developers. I could understand why these men might feel they needed the assurances of a state-approved “psychic.” Most of the Isle’s construction projects sought the blessings of a geomancer, but they were a famously shady bunch, so to get one vouched for by Kenneth, who everyone thought the coming man, probably made all the difference.
The money would certainly be helpful to me—and Li. But did I want to deal with that world again? I remembered all too well what it was like when things went wrong: jungles of snow, rivers of blood, a physical and emotional toll that might well kill me.
“Aren’t you supposed to be at work?” I finally spoke. “You said the news was going out this morning.”
“It did go out. I want to let the excitement die down a bit before I make my entrance. Not everyone there likes me, you know. And I didn’t want to go in without the knowledge that I have this consolidation in place.” He peered briefly at the list in my hand. “I’ve sorted them according to importance. Importance of the requester, not of the situation. For all I know, they may need nothing more than a plumber. Or a podiatrist. But you’re discreet. You won’t make them feel like fools. And if there happens to be some ghosts…”
“Ken, this doesn’t change anything. I still need time to think about it.”
He stood up to leave.
“Then this should help you think.” Lifting the book that was his present to me, he rapped his fingers on its gold-embossed cover: Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy. He smiled. “Best book ever written about missed opportunities.”
Three weeks later, I saw my first client, G. B., owner of the Robinsons department store. We met at his private, unlisted club, on the second floor of an innocuous office building on D’Almeida Street. The moment I stepped inside, I realized this was less a watering hole for the elite than a collection of waiter-serviced conference rooms, a venue for towkays to hold meetings they wanted neither the home nor the workplace to find out about. The largest room could fit up to twenty comfortably, but most had tables just for two. We took one of these small chambers. Little did I know then that over the next ten years, I would return to these rooms time and again.
G. B. was a corpulent Eurasian with an oily toupee, exactly as he appeared in news photos, but to my surprise, he had the gentle manner of an old dowager. He took a lot of sugar and cream with his orange pekoe and held the teacup with his pinky aloft. After a bit of polite chitchat, he handed me a slip of paper with an address.
“My mannequin warehouse,” he said. “We use them in my store. They’re high quality, imported from Czechoslovakia, not like the cheap ones my competitors use. Anyway, my dolls have been doing a bit of dancing at night, on their own.” He eyed me carefully. “You don’t think I’m being fanciful, do you?”
“Has anything been stolen or vandalized?”
“No, no, it’s not like that. After the fifth time, I knew it couldn’t be some kind of a prank, because no joker is that committed. It would take hours. You’ll see.”
He handed me a stuffed envelope, the contents of which had been previously negotiated by Kenneth: Six months of my old wages. I tried not to gasp when I saw those crisp new bills. G. B. and I signed no contracts; in those days, grown-ups knew how to trust each other and keep their mouths shut.
At nine that night, I went to the warehouse. It spanned the length of a short street in the southwest corner of the Isle that, only a few years before, had been entirely swampland. I wasn’t alone. As G. B. had promised, a band of freelance Gurkha guards stood watching the property, shirtless and smoking aromatic clove cigarettes. G. B. had also offered dogs but I politely declined—canines never liked me.
With my hair pulled back into a severe bun and my grim ensemble of black blouse, black shawl, black skirt, I made the guards a little nervous.
“Good evening, madam.” They put out their cigarettes and bowed to me.
I nodded mysteriously in return.
It was a bare-bones warehouse, with moonlight leaking through ventilation slats in the walls. I entered on my own. Stealth was key. I resisted turning on the lights. They would only send the culprits—I hadn’t ruled out human mischief—scattering into the shadows. In the silvery dark, I could make out the assembly of five hundred mannequins—bald, naked, grinning. All female. They stood in neat rows, ready to be activated, like a mechanical concubine army.
I moved to the darkest corner and sat down.
Nothing happened for hours. No noise, no motion, not even the scurrying of rats.
Then, around midnight, it began.
From the back of the hall rose a piercing squeal—the sound of a mannequin’s limb joint being turned. It was followed by another squeal, closer to the center. I stood up slowly, then, hearing the next sound, darted to its source. There I found at the front of the hall a dummy trio facing one another, their arms stretched out to join hands.
A patter of quick footsteps, from the deep center of the hall. A dark shadow flitted between the dolls, humanoid in form yet much too swift to be so. My client’s suspicions were right. This was no common thief.
There was no choice. I had to enter the mannequin maze.
The gaps between them were narrow, just enough for me to squeeze through. I inched along this beige forest, feeling the hard plaster arms grazing my sides. Gooseflesh sprouted all over me. Each of these bald women was identical—blue eyes, dark Slavic eyebrows, ruby lips, breasts without nipples—and they were all six feet tall. What outlandish fantasy was G. B. encouraging with these models? No housewife on the Isle looked remotely like them.
An earsplitting series of squeaks scattered my thoughts. I stopped moving.
Suddenly, the squeaks were replaced by rumbling that grew louder as it neared. One after another, beginning at the back, these Amazonian women had begun to tumble, face forward, like dominos. When the one before me came bearing down, laden with the shocking weight of her sisters behind her, I was pinned beneath her artificial grin.
She was as cold as ice. I screamed.
The warehouse grew eerily quiet.
“Who is it?” called a young girl’s anxious voice.
“A friend,” I said, freeing myself from the doll that had crushed me. “And you?”
Astride two felled bodies, at the back of the hall, stood a girl of twelve or thirteen—Indian, wrapped in a sari that glowed pink even in the da
rk.
“You can see me,” she said.
“I can hear you, too.”
I stood and showed myself. She advanced toward me, stepping on the dummies as if they were her bridge. This was a fearless child.
As she neared, I saw the blackened welts on her cheeks and neck: smallpox. The sight of her—so young, so spirited, so dead—brought a lump to my throat.
She eyed me. “You didn’t turn on the light. They always turn on the light when they come in.”
“I thought you might run away if you knew I was here.”
“Aren’t you afraid of me?” The boastful little thing.
“Frankly, I’m more afraid of them.” I gestured to the fallen women, some of whose arms and legs had popped off at the joint, their faces still placidly smiling.
She laughed, the bright laughter of a quick-witted girl. “But they’re so pretty! I wish I could look like them. But with hair, of course. And clothes. Not a stupid sari but nice, modern type of clothes. Like in the departmental stores.”
“I don’t understand. Why do you toss them around? Is it fun?”
“I can’t sleep!” She gave the nearest doll a firm kick. “It’s so unfair. I have a soul but obviously I have no body. And here are these bodies, and they have no souls!”
Again she laughed, but this time her eyes surveyed the mannequins with a mixture of longing and sadness.
“We can’t have everything, you know, dear,” I said gently.
“I’m not asking for everything. I’ve got nothing! I had nothing in life, and then in death, nothing! I mean, look at me!” She bared her arms and legs, darkened and deformed by disease. “All I want is a pretty body to go to sleep in, that’s all. If I had one, just one, I’ll finally be able to sleep.”
“So why don’t you choose one?”