Once We Were There

by Bernice Chauly

  And yet there we were waving the flag for our hero in prison, with a black eye, a bad back, his spirit still unbroken.

  Perhaps we were foolish to believe that politicians could change things. That “things” could be somehow righted with gumption and sheer will, political or otherwise. That there was a right and wrong, that the notion of a certain afterlife that had been preached to us in school bore weight. That somehow, we could navigate through life with a semblance of what we needed to right the wrongs of our society—with optimism, bravado and what we believed to be truth.

  Truth—that word had always beguiled me. What was the nature of truth? Was it the duty of ordinary folk to define it, was it the duty of artists to speak and write the “truth”. Was everything ever that absolute? Could it ever be? Could politicians ever speak the truth? Or was it intrinsic for humans to lie?

  I remember Sumi recounting the recent breakup of a volatile two-year relationship and when in a fit of despair she had said, You can’t handle the truth, he had dragged her by her hair and gave her not only a black eye, but the most hideous purple, yellow, blue bruise all over her right arm. An archipelago of anger. So, the desire to speak of the truth itself was dangerous. Perhaps if she had kept silent, she would not have had to admit herself in the emergency ward in the dead of night, another statistic to the sad and sorry story of domestic violence.

  I think that truth is possible. Still. In spite of what I knew then, and what I know now.

  On 29 November, Election Day arrived. Frayed nerves and adrenaline pumped us up for days before that. We had campaigned non-stop in our constituency. Tens of thousands of leaflets distributed, endless bottles of water shared along with buttons, T-shirts, posters and flags. We were exhausted, but the most important act had yet to be done.

  That morning, I drove Papa to the La Salle school where our polling station was. He was neatly dressed for the occasion and as I stood with him in the long line of people in the queue, he observed.

  Here we all are, voting for change, but can we deal with the change that we want? This country has been so corrupt for so long, how do we know that Anwar himself is not corrupt? Do you believe that Anwar is the answer to this country? What if he isn’t?

  I sighed.

  Papa, anything is better than Mahathir.

  Yes, but don’t you think he has done much for Malaysia?

  He needs to go.

  But he won’t, Del, not for a long, long time.

  My father’s statement depressed me. I saw a man in a wheelchair being pushed by a girl who was about ten. A young man in a white kopiah and a neatly tucked-in shirt. A lady with a rattan basket full of groceries from the market. I spied a fish wrapped in newspaper, cabbage, and a huge head of broccoli. The lady was fanning herself with a newspaper. I hoped the fish would not spoil. We were standing in the hot sun, the line snaking through the car park and into the school compound. Here we all were, ordinary Malaysians exercising our right to vote. Were we all voting for change? Did people believe in the power that we could change our futures?

  Millions voted but many didn’t; it was still easier to deal with ambivalence in the face of adversity, and better to stick with the status quo. Malaysians could be the worst fence-sitters. Better the devil you know than the one you don’t. The new party had yet to show its ability to govern. Anwar was in jail and all some of us could do, really, was continue to fight the fight that he had started. Or really, just vote. Every single vote mattered. This much we knew.

  In the end, the same thing happened, as it had for the last five elections. Justice was served like a sandbag in the trenches of WW1. Useless and unjustifiable. Mahathir was victorious, and smiled smugly from the television screen in Fairman’s apartment. We had brought only alcohol and cigarettes to calm our nerves.

  The newscaster on TV3 looked insipid in her headscarf and her male counterpart kept fidgeting with his sheets. The ruling coalition of the Barisan National had won two thirds of the vote. We were devastated. Then Mahathir came on and gloated like a sow in heat. His vitriol was as potent as if he were in the room.

  It was over. I threw my glass at the TV screen. It shattered.

  I hate him. Hate him. Hate him!

  I crumpled onto Omar’s shoulder. He was wordless. Fairman and Sumi clutched each other, defeated, exhausted. A montage of clapping, cheering, camera flashes. Mahathir paraded like a hero surrounded by cronies, rogues, gutless thugs. Fairman’s cat was snoring on the rug. I was moved to tears.

  We carried on with a certain measure of sadness and futility. Omar was reflective and thoughtful and talked of going into a business partnership with Fairman. Their Englishness was a commonality they thrived on and it became a salve of sorts, both of them reverting to its peculiar brand of humour and intellectual tropes. And when Imran found time to join them both at the Bulldog from time to time, they were happy. Three pseudo-English lads, bonding over football, pints of beer and endless banter.

  Fairman and Sumi were in a relationship too and they seemed happy. We had to find ways to be happy. There was so much uncertainty around us and we gravitated towards things and people that made us feel safe, secure. It was that simple, really.

  In retrospect, I guess there was always sexual tension between those two, the sly comments, and snarky remarks they sometimes shared were some measure of affection. We felt like comrades fighting a battle that we were surely losing, but we had to keep trying.

  There were nights when the four of us sat and drank whisky till dawn, speaking only of politics and change. We weren’t aligned as Marxists or Socialists, and although we had all dabbled with some kind of activism as students, this was no time for armchair theorising. We had to put your money where your mouth is, Fairman said. We wanted a country that had checks and balances, where the judiciary functioned independently, where politicians were not imprisoned on trumped-up charges, where democracy worked and thrived. Where people were not bullied and coerced by fear. Where freedom of speech was available to all. Where the government was loved by its people.

  My relationship with Omar was the cornerstone of my life. I felt understood, appreciated, loved. But, there were times when I felt that I could lose it all. After all, my father had lost my mother, just like that.

  I sometimes thought of asking Omar what my father had said to him that day. I didn’t want Omar’s pity, though I sometimes saw it in his eyes. My father had made the choices he did. His decision to not really feature in my life was yes, perhaps a little selfish. But that was Papa. And I had resigned myself to the fact. And ever since Omar entered my life, I was not alone any more. We had become intertwined with each other. Our rhythms merged, days and nights were seamless. It was the most important thing in my life—nothing else mattered.

  By now he was running his father’s company. He wasn’t fulfilled by the work, but felt obliged to, since his father had given him the best education and worldly experience money could buy, and this was his way of repaying it.

  Give me some time, Del, I will figure it out, what I really want to do.

  He was not as secretive about finances as before, but I knew that he sometimes felt over-privileged and unworthy of his family’s wealth. He was generous and made sure that all our bills were paid, he bought groceries, took me out to dinner from time to time. I felt for the first time in my life that I really and truly had a man who was capable, someone who had my back, someone I could trust with my life.

  I suppose I’d always felt guilt about José. I knew that I had treated him unfairly and discarded him when my time in Montreal was up. It was as I’d said, “I don’t love you anymore, can you go away now?” I didn’t think that I was inadvertently cruel. Perhaps I had used him for companionship and sex. Yes, I did love him, but that love felt like a pond. This, with Omar, was as vast and unknowable like the deepest of ocean trenches. I imagined this was the kind of love my father had for my mother. The kind of love that came only once in a lifetime.

  I thought of Omar day and nigh
t, and the scent of him filled my pores, infiltrating the hours I spent away from him. I had never wanted the nearness of another human being as much as I wanted his. If I closed my eyes I could hear his sighs when I took him in my mouth, I could hear the way he moaned when he was inside me, his quick cry of release; I could see the iridescence of his eyes when he was aroused, the way he pushed his hair back with his fingers; I could see the way his hands grasped the steering wheel and how the hairs lay, the way his lips bent to the right when he smiled, his laugh when we joked together, the way he trailed his fingers on my skin. I suppose this was the kind of love that could really and truly exist. A great love.

  Sumi and Fairman were also in the process of defining their relationship. From the frivolous, we’re just fucking to we’re living together, kinda, to we’re going on holiday to Bali, theirs was also a pairing that had simply become stronger.

  I love him, Del, I really do, I mean he’s nerdy sometimes and drinks way too much tea, but he’s a really good man, and he’s kind and sensitive and considerate. He turns me on in a sexy, weird way. We’re good for each other, we really are. He makes me laugh, Del, like an idiot. I laugh till I’m silly. That’s never happened before. I think this is it, this is the man I am going to be with for the rest of my life.

  Rest of my life. The finality of it all. The possibilities that now loomed between a man and a woman. Marriage. Children. A house. Happily ever after. The end.

  So in the midst of the same draconian mandate by a Prime Minister still hated by many, the four of us shared an awareness that we were on the threshold of new lives, lives that we would share with someone other than ourselves. The path to adulthood was more impending and palpable than ever, and it seemed to be paved with roses.

  When I was a child we had a maid called Bernadette. She had lived with us from the time I was born, and was indispensible to our household. I imagine my mother had practically handed me over to Bernadette as soon as her confinement was over because all I remember of my early childhood was this matronly Indian woman who perpetually smelled of turmeric and coconut oil. She had a room next to the kitchen with an altar that had a picture of Mother Mary and that of a handsome man in robes with a bleeding heart that glowed. Yes, I used to think that Jesus was very handsome. When she was not cooking or sweeping or ironing, Bernadette sat in front of the altar, rosary in hand, praying. As a little girl, whenever Mother and Papa were out, I would go to her room, lie on the bed sucking my milk bottle in cotton knickers and a singlet, then reading or playing with toys. I remember the ceiling with water marks, a cloud of spidery mould in one corner, Bernadette’s thin pile of clothes on the shelf, a red plastic alarm clock, old copies of “the Catholic newspapers” on her desk along with an orange Cuticura can of talcum powder, a brown glass bottle of coconut oil and a blue plastic comb.

  Bernadette was an orphan and had worked with one other family before ours. She never finished secondary school and could only read and write basic English. She was very devout and went to church as often as she could, sometimes dragging me along when there was no one else at home. She came to us when she was in her mid 20s and stayed with us until Mother died. She made creamy curries with fish and crab, mutton varuval, perfect round chappatis, chai with cow’s milk. She took the bus from Jalan Gasing to the market and back every day for almost 14 years. One day as she was getting off the bus, a motorcycle hit her and broke her leg in three places, and she had to be hospitalised for a month at Assunta Hospital.

  I was six years old at the time and we found another maid from the same orphanage. Her name was Girly. She was 19 and had boyish hair. One night, when Mother and Papa went out, Girly took me into her room. First she took off my pyjamas, then she asked me to lie down with her on the bed. Then she guided my fingers to her breasts, and asked me to kiss the dark brown nipples. I did as I was told and Girly moaned and groaned beside me, rubbing her body against mine. Suddenly, we heard the car drive into the porch and Girly panicked. I heard Papa’s voice as he walked down the stairs into the kitchen.

  Del, Del, we’re home. Where are you?

  Girly squeezed me under the bed, her hand around my mouth. I remember the cold floor. The door opened and I saw Papa’s feet from under the bed.

  Del, Del. Where are you?

  I sensed the worry in his voice but I could not make a sound. He turned, walked out and closed the door. I scrambled out from under the bed, and then realised that my panties were wet. Girly put my pyjamas back on and carried me up the stairs.

  Sir, sorry sir. I took Del for a walk in the garden. We were sitting near the pool. Sorry, sir. Very sorry, sir.

  Don’t sit outside at night, Girly. There are snakes in the garden, you know. Mosquitoes too. Don’t do it again.

  Yes sir, very sorry, sir.

  Papa carried me to my bed and read me a bedtime story. I looked up at my wall and saw the painting of Humpty Dumpty and thought of how all the king’s horses and all the king’s men who were trying to put him together again.

  I think what mattered more than anything seemed to be what was right in front of me. It was so obvious now, the anticipation of being in the relationship gave me a sense of security that I had not felt since my mother died.

  I had also started going to the drop-in centre in Chow Kit, the one which Marina and other sex workers frequented. Once a week, I taught nine women and transsexuals whose ages ranged from 15 to 55, who hailed from all parts of the country. All had come from extreme poverty and had fled their small towns and villages and, in most cases, systemic and prolonged sexual abuse. It was grim work but I felt that by empowering these women with the rudiments of basic English, they could at least be more pro-active with their clients.

  Please use a condom.

  I want safe sex.

  Please do not hit me.

  Please be gentle with me.

  Many clients came from the working class—labourers from Bangladesh and Indonesia, to the occasional backpacker—so these women and men were basically spreading their legs for just tens of ringgit. A blowjob was cheaper, of course, and many clients refused to wear condoms, rendering the workers extremely vulnerable to sexually transmitted diseases and HIV. The centre had started distributing free condoms after a government initiative to prevent the spread of HIV among sex workers, but in reality it had little effect.

  Most days I had all nine students. They would show up chattering and settling at the desks that were set in a semi-circle. I would ask them to tell me about their week and many would chirp in unison.

  Sama aje.

  The same.

  Kerja, cari makan.

  Work. Put food on the table.

  And they would giggle and laugh, in the most polite of ways. Even the big burly transwoman, Honey, who towered over all of us in the heels that she always wore, even at ten in the morning.

  They all had families to support, and some had children. Minah had a son, aged 10, who always glared at me with disdain. He was a scrawny little thing, with scabies all over his arms and face, who refused to learn to read or write, but who was an expert when it came to pimping for his mother. He was the one who approached potential clients, making eye contact with them and then deftly negotiating a price. There were times when I really thought that he saw me as a threat.

  Then there was Jaya, who had fled from an oil-palm estate in the heart of Perak whilst she was six months pregnant with her father’s child. Nini was the centre’s darling—she was born with cerebral palsy, but she was happy and content in her crib surrounded by toys.

  One day I showed up to class and found Jaya in tears with a black eye and bruises on the right side of her face.

  What happened?

  He slap me.

  Why?

  Because I ask him wear condom. He don’t want. Then he pull my hair and kick my stomach.

  I just sat and hugged her, while she sobbed loudly. Nini sat and smiled in her crib.

  Then I go back and wash with Clorox because he don’t want t
o wear the condom.

  What? You wash what with Clorox?

  She looked at me with eyes that told of only pain and heartbreak and they pointed downwards. So it was true. I had heard of stories of bleach and vaginas and how the girls used it to clean their insides. I could only imagine the horror of what it did to the sensitive folds of flesh, of how it tore up the mucous membranes. And then they had to continue working, with or without condoms. That night, as I lay with Omar, I thought of a pink, bloodied vagina and dreamt of a giant river of pestilence and pus.

  Marina decided to go across the road to get some food. It was a Saturday night and the streets were surprisingly quiet. Marina put on a pair of shorts and a faded pink T-shirt, and slipped on a pair of plastic sandals.

  The night air was cool. The weather lately had been hot, dry. Many of the girls were ill with the flu and cough. Many smoked too much but the arid heat swallowed them up in the stifling streets, creating a cocoon of confined illness. Many were also addicted to heroin. Some nights, you’d see a two or three of them shooting up in the alleyways, squatting in the dark, their presence betrayed only by the intermittent flares of cigarette lighters. Marina had never tried heroin and didn’t intend to.

  The coffee shop below her apartment was empty, except for a table of men drinking beer and smoking. One of them leered at her when she walked past.

  She could see the glow of light from the pasar malam, the night bazaar selling clothes in five-ringgit bundles, fake designer watches, shoes, leather jackets and the herbal preparations popular with men who believed in their power to make erections last. Leech oil, sea cucumber potions, and tinctures made from anything else in nature that resembled a penis. She had a client who was insistent on rubbing on such oils during sex. It was a hindrance to putting on a condom as the experience often resulted in an oily, sticky black mess. But the erection always lasted, and the client would eventually have to pay for two extra hours.