We, the Survivors

by Tash Aw

  I went back to the living room and held Jenny tightly. She put her arms around me lightly, but it didn’t feel like an embrace – her body was heavy, almost lifeless. She’d had stomach cramps towards the end of her day at work, she told me, and she’d rushed home just in time, before the worst of it started. She’d been vomiting, had thrown up at least five, six times, and then the diarrhoea began. She was so thirsty, her throat burned and her mouth stank from the acid in her stomach that she could taste on her tongue, but she couldn’t even hold down a glass of water. Every time she drank a few mouthfuls she would throw it all up again. After a few hours, she didn’t even have enough strength to fill the bucket and wash away the worst of the filth.

  The toilet was broken already, it’s not your fault, I said. But she just pulled away from me and went to bed.

  I sat in the dark watching the near-silent wuxia movie. A woman fighting two men and a woman, three against one. She used one weapon after another, battling away until it broke – the eighteen forms of Chinese combat. A thought formed in my head: Maybe it was Jenny’s fault. If she hadn’t got diarrhoea we wouldn’t be sleeping next to a bathroom that smelled of shit. We wouldn’t have to be reminded of a broken toilet, a broken house. But it’s not her fault, it’s not her fault, I kept repeating to myself. Shit happens. Isn’t that what people say in America? Shit happens shit happens shit happens. I whispered the expression to myself, quietly. It was not her fault.

  The next day I picked up a leaflet from the UOB Bank branch down the road, about low-interest home loans. I announced, ‘Next year we’re moving house.’ Jenny was watching Akademi Fantasia on TV while eating pumpkin seeds, cracking them open carefully with her teeth with barely a sound as she stared at a cute Malay girl singing a romantic song.

  ‘Shh. It’s Whitney Houston,’ she said.

  ‘We should get a new place. Somewhere better.’

  Still she didn’t look at me. She laughed, but I didn’t know if she was laughing at the singing or at me.

  A few weeks later she quit her job to start a new line of work: ‘MLM’. She explained it to me three, four times, but in the end we both knew that I wouldn’t be able to understand exactly how it worked. Multi-Level Marketing. That didn’t sound like a proper job to me. ‘Are you sure it’s OK?’ I asked.

  She snorted. ‘Huh. You men. What kind of question is that? You work on a farm where you don’t even wear shoes, but still dare to look down on my work? Always putting me down.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that. I just want to be sure. To be safe. Just in case.’

  ‘In case what? In case I earn so much money I make you feel inadequate?’

  I hugged her and told her I hoped her work would be a great success, that she would make a fortune and be able to keep me like a gigolo. She pushed me away gently. ‘Gigolo?’ She laughed. ‘You don’t have the looks.’

  I asked her to explain. Again. I wanted to understand. She sat me down in front of the papers and flow charts she’d laid out on the table and spoke slowly. ‘It’s a big American company,’ she said, pointing to a photo of a sprawling complex of buildings with snow-topped mountains in the background. ‘You think they’re going to cheat me?’ She laughed. ‘This isn’t some lousy local business that’s going to rip you off at any time.’ She read from the brochure: ‘Skin-Glo. Founded in 1983 in Colorado. Annual turnover, US$1.1 billion.’ There was a diagram in the shape of a pyramid. ‘Right now I’m down here, but all I have to do is recruit a few people and I’ll move up one step, then another, then one day’ – she traced her finger all the way to the apex of the pyramid – ‘that will be me.’

  ‘Soon, right?’

  ‘Maybe. Probably. Ten years. Our children will grow up as rich people.’

  She opened a box of creams and lotions of various sizes – beauty products that achieved amazing results. ‘This one firms your neckline.’ She dabbed a little marble of cream on her skin and began to rub it in. ‘You see? You apply it like this, it’s a special cream that requires a special technique.’

  ‘If I were a customer I’d buy a whole box from you right now.’ It was true. She was so convincing I felt that even I could improve my looks just by buying her Skin-Glo products.

  The next few weeks it was as if we were newlyweds again, living a life that was full of promise. I even took a day off work to fix things around the house – the broken cistern, the loose tiles in the kitchen, the cracked window pane. I bought a new Panasonic water boiler so Jenny could have fresh-brewed tea all day while she worked from home. Often, if I came home early, she would be explaining how Skin-Glo products worked to other people – ex-colleagues of hers from the supermarket distribution company, or neighbours I recognised but had never taken the time to say hello to. I realised that we’d all been living completely separate lives, each family tucked away in their little two-bedroomed single-storey house, linked to each other by walls less than a foot thick, yet also divided by that same thin layer of brick and cement. All of us just trying to get on with the day-to-day of our lives. And now we were together, in my house, with Jenny serving cups of tea, laughing, as though this was the life we had always been destined to have, filled with people who could become friends. Teenagers just about to start college, old retired uncles and aunties, professional-looking men and women of our age – they all sat at the table and dabbed creams onto their cheeks. Their eyelids would flutter lightly as they waited for Jenny to spray a fine mist onto their faces. ‘Wait for it, relax,’ she said – ‘It’ll feel as light as mountain dew!’ I loved that expression, even after I’d heard it twenty times. I loved the little sigh of pleasure or the giggle that followed the quick shh of the spray.

  She recruited ten, fifteen, eventually twenty-eight people – all of them friends now as well as business partners of sorts. I looked at them when I came back from work on the farm – watched them sitting in the bright glow of the fluorescent light above the dining table, making jokes I didn’t quite understand, constructing a glorious world of promise around them. They’d fill in forms, and I’d imagine those pieces of paper making their way across the Pacific Ocean, over mountains, all the way to Colorado. Sometimes I’d think: I don’t even know twenty-eight people in the entire world. One day I found a smartly dressed woman, barely older than me, sitting in our house, sipping coffee from a Starbucks cup. She sat with her back perfectly straight, perched lightly on the edge of the armchair as if reluctant to come into contact with it. She’d driven down from KL and was one of the company’s star salespeople, who’d come to congratulate Jenny for all the people she’d recruited (thirty-three and counting).

  ‘Why does she care how many you recruit?’ I said when she’d gone.

  ‘My recruits become her recruits. Of course she cares.’

  ‘What? So you recruit for her? She gets the money?’

  ‘That’s how it works,’ Jenny said as she turned on the TV. ‘If my recruits hire more people, they become mine.’

  ‘And then they all belong to that woman?’

  Jenny laughed at something on the TV – a game show with people hitting each other with bouncy-foam sausages. ‘She has thirteen thousand salespeople below her.’ As if that explained everything.

  I couldn’t stand the idea of a woman in KL making so much money from all the time Jenny was spending with people she barely knew – all the nights that we could and should have been going out to the movies, driving to dinner at a seafood place on the coast. All the things we’d once shared, not so long ago. But I said nothing, I didn’t understand the way these things worked. Shit happens. The words came to me, forming in my head like thunderclouds, and I tried to stifle them quickly. Everything would work out.

  From time to time Jenny would show me a text message from the woman in KL, a line of encouragement. The only person who can stop you is YOU. Go for it! Jia you! Sometimes she’d show me a photo of the woman posing in various locations – Hong Kong airport, Vancouver airport, in front of Big Ben in London, the E
iffel Tower in Paris, and other places I’d never heard of. Jenny had bought a new phone, a Samsung, one of the first that could receive photos, a square blur of colour that didn’t mean anything to me. At home she started following this woman – who she called her ‘mentor’ – on the internet, and spent long hours staring at the computer screen, scrolling through pages of photos of things that seemed unconnected, to me at least. Cars. Beauty salons. Fast trains in Japan. A hot-air balloon over African plains. A gym in Los Angeles. When I asked about them she replied, ‘It’s work.’

  I’d come home in the evening and she’d be in front of the computer, so I’d eat dinner on my own, quickly, trying to avoid the feeling of being cut off from her even in our own house. We went to bed at separate hours, woke up at different times. I barely even noticed that she was receiving fewer and fewer new business contacts, or that the boxes of Skin-Glo products stacked up along the wall remained unopened. I asked her once how it was going, whether she’d made a lot of recruits recently, and she started shouting at me. Why was I always trying to criticise her? Why couldn’t I understand anything? Why was I so ignorant and low-class? Why couldn’t I get some education so that I could figure out complicated things in life?

  It was true, I didn’t understand complex arrangements for business, I couldn’t figure out how Jenny’s line of work was profitable. But there were more straightforward things I could work out. I asked Mr Lai for a loan, and added the money to my savings, which made me appear better-off than I actually was, so the bank lent me more money to buy a new house in Taman Bestari – three bedrooms, a garden at the front and a small concrete yard at the back, in an area that had only been developed a few months previously. No one had lived in it before, and it gave me a sense of freedom: in the space and light of this new house I was going to become someone different – someone better. The smell of glue and paint and cement, the powdery feel of concrete dust that covered every surface – all that seemed thrilling, but also reassuring, as though the place had always been destined to be mine. Someone had built this house just for us.

  For a while I thought the house had saved us. Jenny used one of the bedrooms as an office, her computer set up on a desk on one side of the room, the screen always on, flickering and colourful even late at night as I walked past the door just before bedtime. She started inviting people over to the house for Skin-Glo meetings once more.

  We carried on this way, each of us working at our jobs, our separate lives, until it all seemed normal, not even worthy of comment – by me or by her.

  And then Keong rang me at the farm and came back into my life.

  I recognise the tune she’s humming, but I can’t remember where it’s from. Just a few notes, repeated on and off throughout the morning, whenever we take a break.

  What’s that song?

  Huh? Oh. She laughs. It’s nothing. An advert on TV, I think.

  You had a good week?

  I guess so. Actually, yes.

  She looks at her papers and puts the phone down, ready to record our conversation, but she doesn’t press the bright red button to start the way she usually does. Maybe I should ask her more questions, but I remember what she’s always saying: We’re here for your story.

  What have you been up to? I ask after a long pause.

  Oh, this and that. I mean, it’s been very busy. Lots going on.

  Like what?

  I went on the Bersih march. You know, the anti-corruption demonstration. Felt I needed to be in the streets, physically protesting against the government and not just observing and writing.

  Sure, I saw it on Facebook.

  It was such an incredible atmosphere. So many people on the streets. Tens and tens of thousands. Maybe even a hundred thousand. I was standing on the overhead bridge outside Masjid Jamek and I couldn’t see a single square foot of empty road. Every street was crammed full of protestors. I’ve never felt such excitement in my life. It was as though people were breathing each other’s optimism. There was anger too, don’t get me wrong. But it all mixed into a weird kind of energy, as if the air in KL was carrying an electrical charge, like it does during a lightning storm, when everything feels dangerous and unstable, but also, I don’t know, alive with the possibility of change. It felt as if every political structure in the country, every outmoded social custom, can be torn down, and that was like, wow, scary, but also just so damn exhilarating. Every so often there’d be a small cheer, some people making a rallying cry, and then their voices would gather more voices around them, and more and more, and you’d hear this wave of voices swelling and growing, moving through the crowd, just like an angry sea. A tsunami. People would start chanting around me, and I’d join them without even thinking. Late in the afternoon, standing in the crowd in front of Public Bank, I’ve never had such an extraordinary feeling of belonging to something bigger than just myself or my family. Something that stood for change. For the betterment of society.

  Were the police there?

  Of course. Dozens and dozens, everywhere. Armed policemen, and drones overhead taking pictures. And some pro-government supporters too, trying to intimidate us.

  You weren’t scared? I mean, you’re young.

  You mean, was I scared because I’m a woman? Of course not! At least half the people there were women. There were entire women’s groups out there, all kinds of people. Old, young, rich, poor. I was next to a group of old Chinese aunties from Kepong. They were all wearing baseball caps, and when the police drones flew overhead they said, Hey miss, hide your face! And they all pulled cloths over their mouths and noses. They knew the drones were taking photos. They were carrying backpacks with little bottles of water, in case of tear gas. They’d been there before. It was amazing.

  You’re very brave.

  It’s got nothing to do with bravery. It’s about changing our country. Making the world a better place for everyone, regardless of race or religion.

  You make it sound like a big party. I wish I could have been there. But my legs, my body … I don’t know if I could have made it through the day.

  It was a fight, not a party. We’re all fighting, remember. For something better.

  You really think things will change?

  Of course. Why else would I have gone?

  Sometimes we act because we have no choice. Especially nowadays.

  Hmmm. She nods and tilts her head, as if she’s about to disagree with what I said, only she doesn’t. Well, she says. Let’s see what happens. Politics is crazy right now, anything can happen. Even me and my friends, we argue about stuff all the time. I had some people over for a housewarming party the other night, we just sat among all the boxes and ate pizza, drank wine. And guess what? People started arguing! I guess we were all still pumped up about the demonstrations. Someone said something, someone else took offence. It was nuts. We’re all supposed to be friends.

  You moved house?

  Yeah. Crazy time to move, huh? It was time, though.

  Time for what?

  She pauses, and her smile tightens. I get the feeling I’ve asked her too much, and now she feels that she’s said too much, that she shouldn’t be telling me things about herself. Maybe she’s afraid of telling me where she lives, what her family does.

  Time to make a commitment, she says at last. I thought, well, it’s as good a time as any to move in with my, my partner. She hesitates, as if she’s searching for the right word. Airen. My sweetheart. We’ve been seeing each other for a while now, and it gets to the point where you either commit or separate. So, we committed!

  Congratulations, I’m happy for you.

  Thank you. It’s only been a few days, but I’m enjoying the experience so far.

  When are you getting married?

  You must be joking! It’s too early for that. Anyway, I don’t believe that two people need to marry in order to live together.

  Don’t talk nonsense, of course you do. Besides, if your airen doesn’t marry you, another man will steal you away sooner or la
ter.

  Actually, she says. She holds my eye without blinking. Actually, my partner is a woman.

  Oh. A woman.

  Yes.

  I’m sorry. I didn’t know.

  She laughs and opens her folder, leaning forward to check her phone. It’s absolutely fine. But in the future, it might be better not to make assumptions about people’s sexuality based on traditional gender lines.

  I nod. I’m really sorry.

  Oh, it’s fine. Now, shall we begin?

  October 24th

  I had never seen the other man before that night. He wasn’t one of the migrants who drifted in from the plantations seeking work along the coast. You saw them often, skinny red-eyed Bangladeshis with patches of skin on their arms and faces rubbed raw from all the pesticides they sprayed. Always on the move. Always giving the impression they were in search of something, yet always slow in their movements, as if the air around them had turned to water and they were wading through the world. Swim-walking. The oxygen sucked out of their world so they were forever in motion, but never making progress.

  That man, the one who waited for Keong and me on the riverbank that night, he didn’t have the same restlessness as the others. He was Bangladeshi too. You already know that, you’ve read the court documents, done your research – but that’s all you’ve got. Where he came from, maybe his name, age – nothing else. You might have seen a photo, the one he used on his identity card, the same one that supplied you his name. Mohammad Ashadul. I heard that name only once, in court. I’m surprised I remember it. The rest of the time he was referred to only as the victim, or the deceased, in public and in private. My lawyer, the prosecutors – they never used his name, so I’m not sure why I remember it.