When a Flower Dies

by Josephine Chia

  The nation wakes to the sad news. His son, the present prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong, publicly announces his father’s death with measured tones, trying to remain stoic, his personal and political lives clashing. But the TV cameras catch the trembling of his lips and the tremor in the corner of his eyes. He declares a week of mourning.

  Like mushrooms, tribute centres sprout up all over Singapore where memorial ceremonies are carried out and where people can pay their last respects, the citizens told where to take their flowers and where to sign condolence books. People line the streets outside the Istana to wait for the ceremonial gun carriage that is carrying the casket from his ministerial home, Sri Temasek, to appear. It will journey to Parliament House where Lee Kuan Yew would lie in state for a week. The lone Gurkha, dressed in a Scottish kilt, standing on the rooftop level of the Istana plays ‘Auld Lang Syne’ plaintively on his bagpipes as the national flag flies at half-mast. People had queued outside the Istana as early as the previous night to get a good vantage point behind the crash barriers. People shout Mr Lee’s name as the cortege appears from the Istana gates and proceeds up Orchard Road, through Bras Basah Road, down North Bridge Road to Parliament Lane.

  “Lee Kuan Yew! Lee Kuan Yew!” The crowd shout in unison, the name echoing down the streets as the casket passes others, some voices breaking in mid-syllable. Cameras hone in on adults weeping openly, transmitting the emotion to all those watching, infectious in its intensity. All TV programmes on the main terrestrial channels have been suspended for the duration of the procession, which is telecast live in English, Malay, Chinese and Tamil.

  Throughout the entire week, video clips of Lee Kuan Yew’s political rise were aired. His epiphany had come when he was studying at Cambridge University and he realised that he was as capable of governing his own country as the British. The video clips flashing every second of each day of the week of mourning, remind Singaporeans of Lee Kuan Yew’s brilliance and foresight.

  People from all walks of life are interviewed on radio and TV.

  “He was a great man,” many say.

  “We will still have swamps and rats and poverty without him,” others lament.

  “You only need to look at Singapore today and you see how he had spent his life. Dedicated to us!” many cry out with some vicarious pride.

  Pansy, like all the others in the nursing home, is glued to the TV watching the continuing telecasts. Some of the videos are in black-and-white, as was the one of him weeping, wiping his face with a large handkerchief when he announced that Singapore was ousted out of the nation of Malaysia. Once seen by almost two million people, his anguish is now telecast to nearly six million people. Where had she watched that dramatic scene when it took place? Was it at the village coffeeshop that had a television? Pansy rakes her brain but can’t quite recall her exact location whilst she was watching the historic moment. Then, when a video clip of Lee Kuan Yew comes on showing his major walkabout in 1959 to all the shanty villages and kampongs of Singapore to rally for people to vote in his new political party, the People’s Action Party (PAP), Pansy sits up in alertness.

  “I remember that day,” she says aloud. “I remember when he came to Kampong Tepi Laut to talk to us!”

  “It’s ironic that she can’t remember whether she has eaten or not today and yet she can remember seeing Lee Kuan Yew in 1959,” a nursing aide, shaking her head, says sotto voce to her colleague. “Bless her!”

  Pansy was twenty-three and was a new mother when Pak Abdul told the villagers, “Let us prepare a feast for the rally. Kenduri! It is time for change. What did I tell you? Change is in the air!”

  Pak Abdul had used the same words in 1953 when a group of them had gone to watch the ceremony at the Padang to celebrate Queen Elizabeth’s ascension to the throne. Their new queen. It had been Pansy’s first public date with George though they were chaperoned by her mother and many others from the village.

  “The Singapore people are voting for independence,” he said. “Soon, we don’t have to swear allegiance to the English queen. Several different groups of people will be coming through the village to win our votes. We have to listen to what each political party has to tell us, how they are going to do better than our colonial masters. Be careful and make sure you vote for the right leaders to govern our country! Britain doesn’t think we are going to make it. The world will be watching us. Some people want us to fail. They think we cannot manage without the British. Every vote matters! The fate of our country is in our hands!”

  “Who is this Lee Kuan Yew of the People’s Action Party?” Pansy had asked George as the name was mentioned again and again in the press.

  “Young lawyer trained at Cambridge University,” George said. “Very admirable I am told. Since his return from England, he’s been helping the workers fight for better working conditions and pay.”

  “Is he very atas?”

  “He has a right to be,” said George. “But he has championed the causes of low-paid workers, acting as their lawyer. He is getting on well with labourers, bus and post-office workers and so I guess he’s not putting on any airs.”

  The kampong folks were surprised when the group of young men turned up in their attap-thatched village all dressed in white—white short-sleeved shirts and white long trousers. It was a circuitous walk through fields and kampong paths from Upper Changi Road through Koh Sek Lim Road to their hidden village.

  “Aiyoh!” Mak Siti said. “Our village so muddy, they come all in white one.”

  “They are expressing that the PAP strives to be pure and not corrupt,” Pak Abdul explained to Mak Siti and the others. “Tuan Lee believes that a corrupt government is the fastest route to the downfall of the government.”

  The open-air wooden stage was already constructed and prepared for the rally.

  Maniam and his family garlanded the young men with garlands of bright yellow marigold. The young men were cheerful and smiling, Chinese, Malays, Indians and Eurasians amongst them. This was one of Lee Kuan Yew’s stances that endeared him to the population. No one race should have a higher status than the others. All races are to be treated equally despite the fact that Singapore has a high percentage of Chinese. He stressed a system of meritocracy so that anyone who progressed should do so because of his merits, not because of the race he belonged to, who he knew, and what level of society he was from. The villagers of Kampong Tepi Laut watched with bated breath as one of the men amongst the group stood out with singular energy. His height lent him a regal elegance. He had a broad forehead, penetrating eyes and when he smiled, it was as if he was taking in each and every one of those present. He was impressive.

  “That’s Lee Kuan Yew,” George whispered in Pansy’s ears as they stood in front of the stage, Anthony strapped in a sarong next to Pansy’s chest.

  Pansy liked the way the man looked, his easy confidence, his warmth. The young lawyer strode on stage and his magnetic personality brought an immediate hush. It was quite astonishing how much stage presence he had. This was no ordinary man.

  “Well, it will be my chance to hear what the Queen’s English sounds like from an Asian mouth,” Pansy whispered back, as she had heard Sister Catherine speaking British English before in a British accent.

  As there was no electricity in the village, Lee Kuan Yew used a handheld megaphone to make himself heard.

  “Tuan, Tuan dan Puan Puan,” he opened his speech with a note of thanks for the turnout. “Selamat pagi! Saya ucapkan banyak terima kasih.”

  “Wah!” all the villagers went, impressed. “Wah! The man who studied in England is speaking in Malay!”

  “Perfect Malay,” Pak Abdul said. “No fake British accent either.”

  After his speech in Malay, Lee Kuan Yew spoke in Hokkien. Heads nodded approvingly. This was a man of the people, kind and concerned and also intelligent, not just some rich brat who did not know the sufferings of ordinary people. This was the kind of man to represent the ordinary folk. That was the moment Lee Kuan Yew swu
ng the votes.

  “We will give you electricity, running water, food, jobs, better living conditions and more schools,” he said later in well-spoken English but without any British drawl. “You help me form a government and I will fulfil all my promises!”

  The village folks were mesmerised. He had given them hope of a brighter future. Someone once said, that “without hope, life is like a winged bird that cannot fly”. Lee Kuan Yew showed the people that they can fly. When he raised his fisted arm and shouted out the word for independence in Malay, his colleagues on stage and everyone watching, including George and Pansy, shot their fists into the air and shouted, “Merdeka! Merdeka! Merdeka!”

  “Anthony,” Pansy says into her mobile. “Can you come and take me to Hong Lim to pay respects to Mr Lee? I’ve bought some bunga rampay to pay him a floral tribute.”

  Anthony is surprised by his mother’s request but does not anything on the phone.

  “Are you planning to leave that at the memorial? Isn’t it expensive?” he asks his mother as she settles back in the front seat of his Mercedes and he notices that she’s in one of her more lucid moments, carrying a pretty Peranakan dish with the fragrant bunga rampay in it.

  “Yes, why not?” Pansy says.

  Anthony doesn’t want to argue. He has learnt that the best way to deal with his mother’s meteoritic changing moods is to acquiesce.

  He remarks, “I thought you and dad didn’t like him…”

  “Just because we didn’t like some of his policies doesn’t mean we didn’t like him. It’s similar to our attitude towards our own child. We may not like everything our child does but we love him all the same,” Pansy says. “Mr Lee was a remarkable man and leader. He could have been more flexible on some issues and more prepared to listen to opposing views. Still, like he himself admitted, he didn’t have a manual on how to run a government or any instructions on how to take a country with no natural resources to provide each and every citizen with a good living. The man had done wonders…”

  Anthony is really surprised. Such a long speech coming from his mother, who, of late, hadn’t said much and had regularly entered into the world of the past to confuse people, dates and events. Dr Kwa said it was a natural regression of people suffering from Alzheimer’s but that it was also as likely for her to exhibit some moments of absolute clarity.

  “I admire him a lot, mum,” says Anthony. “It’s good to know you and dad did not harbour a grudge against him. I know you moved out of the country because you were cheesed off.”

  “Mr Lee was not perfect. He was human,” says Pansy. “If I was upset with you for something you did, it doesn’t mean I can’t see the good that you do. It doesn’t mean that I will stop loving you. But it doesn’t mean we can’t argue with you or have different opinions.

  “All the time we were in England, we carried Singapore in our hearts and minds. Even if you are in a foreign land, the warp and weft of your nation is stitched forever in your psyche.”

  At Hong Lim Park, the queue is very long for mourners to sign the condolence book and also to go up on stage to pay homage to Mr Lee’s giant-sized photo. But because Pansy is elderly, the officers there permit Anthony to help her jump the queue. There are thousands of floral bouquets already piling up, the people’s floral tribute to Mr Lee. Pansy bends down to place her dish of fragrant-smelling bunga rampay potpourri in front of Mr Lee’s photo and she genuflects several times.

  “Rest in peace,” she whispers, bowing her head. “You deserve a rest after all the hard years you’ve put in. I hope you will be reunited happily with Mrs Lee as I hope to be reunited with George soon.”

  The nation’s outpouring plumbs into the depth of Pansy’s pain. It appears that the sorrow had been lying in her all the time, only to be triggered off by the atmosphere of national grief.

  All over the country, the queues are non-ending to sign the condolence books and to pay respect. At Parliament House, where Mr Lee is lying in state, the queue snakes round the back of the building, all along the side of Singapore River, up Cavenagh Bridge and down the other side of the river just so that people can pay a minute’s homage to him. The doors were supposed to shut at 8 pm on the first day but the queue was so long, the hours were extended to midnight. And when at midnight, the queue doubled, it was decided that the viewing would continue for twenty-four hours. People persistently turn up, non-stop. The queue had to be diverted via the Padang where barricaded aisles were set up so that there was no stampede and danger to those shuffling slowly towards Parliament House.

  Portable toilets are placed along the paths in the queues as the queueing period extended. Volunteers distribute free drinks and snacks to those in the queues which at one point reach ten abreast. They give out umbrellas during the blazing heat in the day and for the rain in the evenings.

  “This slight discomfort is nothing,” many of them say tearfully, “after what Mr Lee had done for all of us.”

  “We are not oblivious to what Mr Lee had done,” they say.

  The funeral procession is a live telecast showing Mr Lee’s casket passing various notable developments arising from his leadership, one of which is the Pinnacle, the pièce de résistance of his Public Housing scheme by which every ordinary Singaporean family can own a home, and another stop at the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau at Bukit Merah, the anti-corruption bureau he had set up.

  Thousands line the streets to wait for Mr Lee’s casket to pass. The floral bouquets that had been laid at Parliament House are now tied to the central railings that divide the two-way road. As if weeping for the nation’s loss, the skies open with furious lashings of rain, yet the heavy downpour does not dissuade the people from remaining outdoors, some sheltering under umbrellas, others in plastic raincoats and still others, just allowing the rain to soak their skin. The 21-gun salute goes off as the cortege leaves Parliament House. As the cortege makes it way towards Shenton Way, there is a sail-past in the Marina Bay which is LKY’s latest achievement, having cleaned up Singapore River and created a new downtown area and financial district. The Singapore Air Force jets fly past the iconic Marina Bay Sands Hotel, the lotus-shaped ArtScience Museum and the humped backs of the Gardens by the Bays Conservatories.

  Pansy sobs throughout most of the telecast. The others sitting with her at the nursing home sob too as they watch the proceedings, some more than others. No one is dry-eyed. But people are curious as to why Pansy seems to be so hugely affected, her eyes reddening and her nose swelling up as she uses up tissue after tissue.

  “All week, we’ve had nothing but our own sadness that the crash of the Germanwings plane has been eclipsed,” remarks an elderly gentleman sitting beside Pansy.

  “What plane crash?” Pansy asks in a thick voice.

  “See what I mean?” the man says. “The plane crashed in the Alps in France on Tuesday. It is alleged that the co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz, did it on purpose. When the pilot left to go to the toilet, the co-pilot locked the cockpit door and didn’t allow the pilot back in. Apparently, the co-pilot was suffering from depression. He took 149 people down with him. Not one survived…”

  “Every death is a tragedy for the loved one left behind,” Pansy says.

  Chapter 14

  The extreme sadness of the nation hangs like a pall in Pansy’s psyche. A national tragedy has transposed into her own personal loss. All the suffering she had endured throughout George’s illness and his death comes back to her afresh. It is almost as if time has not passed and she is experiencing everything again, feeling her loss over and over again. Pansy’s memory comes and goes in fits and starts. Nothing is cast in stone. One minute she recognises a person, the next she doesn’t. When she loses it and bursts into obscenities, or goes on a rampage, this too doesn’t last. It’s as if there are two persons living inside her, one not knowing the other exists, Jekyll and Hyde, disconcerting to others. Goldie is pained by this; the gentle, loving woman she knew has metamorphosed into some unrecognisable creature. She reg
rets that she was not there to know more of her grandmother before her decline.

  “There’s a Peranakan musical at the Esplanade,” Emily says to her family. “It’s time you kids learn about your culture. Let’s take grandma there. It might brighten her day.”

  Winona moans, “Aiyah! So boring lah. I’m not bothered about learning about the old days and old ways…”

  “Can’t we go and see Beauty and The Beast instead?” Andie asks.

  “That’s a fantastic idea, mum,” enthuses Goldie. “Grandma will love that. What is the title of the play?”

  “Kahwin Anak Saya,” Emily says.

  “What does that mean?” Andie asks.

  “‘Marry My Child’,” Emily says. “I too used to think that heritage doesn’t matter. But I’m beginning to realise that our culture is our roots and foundation. In this age of easy communication with the rest of the world, speaking an Internet lingo, dressing in a global fashion, we can easily morph into a featureless global identity…”

  “Mum, that is so astute of you,” Goldie says.

  Emily beams with pleasure. She has never understood her eldest daughter before and now she looks at her with renewed sight. For the first time, she sees Goldie’s courage to be who she wants to be even if it is against social norms.

  “Wear your sarong kebaya to the play,” Emily says to Goldie. “It will make your grandmother happy. Maybe we should get one made for Winona and Andie too.”

  “No way!” Winona says. “I prefer my Prada.”

  “I don’t want to look like an old aunty,” Andie says.

  “Does your sister look like an old aunty huh? “Emily asks. “Didn’t you see how it enhances her slender figure and made her look so feminine?”

  Many women in the audience turn up for the play in their sarong kebayas. Some of the men are wearing batik shirts and even the baju cina or lok chuan, a tunic that harks back to their Chinese ancestry. It is a show of Peranakan solidarity. The play Kahwin Anak Saya or Marry My Child (Daughter) is about a matriarch desperately trying to marry her five daughters off to eligible bachelors to hilarious consequences. The dialogue is a mix of English and Peranakan Hokkien patois. The play is held in the newly refurbished Victoria Theatre. On either side of the stage are digital information screens which translate the Peranakan patois. When the cast sing the Peranakan songs, Emily sees Pansy clapping her hands and smiling. When they break into comedic acts, Pansy laughs out loud.