PHILIPPA ROSARIO met Vicky during the Japanese Occupation at old man Anselm Castelo’s funeral. Philippa hated funerals but Vera had insisted they go.
“The old bloke had been so good to Pa and Ma,” she said. “We have to go. We’ll be conspicuous if we are not seen. To the church, at least. No one would expect us to go to the cemetery with all the transport problems these days.”
Philippa found the black dress she had made from one of Ma’s old dresses and reluctantly followed Vera.
“Your dress looks awful,” Vera told her as they walked to St Joseph’s Church.
“What to do? I’ve got hardly anything left to wear.”
Then Vera suddenly stopped walking and held Philippa’s arm to stop her. She looked over her shoulder and around them and whispered, her ear almost touching Philippa’s.
“Have you heard? They’re bombing the shit out of Japan.”
Philippa reacted at once, “Shsss!” Not at Vera’s crude word but because it was dangerous to talk like that in public. Even being seen whispering could get one into trouble.
They started walking again.
“So the end is finally coming. Thank God,” Philippa said softly.
“Thank God we’ve come through,” Vera said.
“And didn’t go to Bahau,” Philippa added.
The very mention of Bahau depressed them. Auntie Rosa, de Camoes, Eddie’s parents … the list of those who had died there in the malaria infested colony was long.
Pa was against their going from the start. “It’s a Japanese trick to get us away from the battle of Singapore when the British land to recapture the island.” Those who did go went hoping they could be self-sufficient in food or would be away from the fighting when the British troops arrived.
“Ha. Life will start again,” Vera said, breaking Philippa’s chain of dark thoughts. She smiled and in an instant the message in her eyes stirred Philippa with hope. Life had not stopped. People would say that for years after the war. Life went on. Wearily. There were few births or marriages. But death, anger, falling in love, jealousies, cheating, sickness and pain, brief moments of happiness carried on.
The short sharp ray of hope Vera had thrust at Philippa faded away quickly. What lay ahead for them before the war really ended? All the rumours about the Americans bombing Japan brought a whole new set of worries.
The funeral service was over sooner than they expected. Some people they knew nodded, catching Philippa’s eye as she sat in the pew watching people walk out. Vera would not get up at once. She was on the outside. Nudging her didn’t work. Philippa thought Vera was waiting for someone to pass before she got up.
As they walked out into the twilight a middle-aged woman walking down the steps beside them turned to glance at Vera.
“Vera,” she said softly. Her voice had a beautiful mellow sound.
“Oh! Hello, Miss Viera,” Vera replied.
She introduced Philippa. “Miss Victoria Viera.”
Miss Viera smiled.
Vera and the woman talked as Philippa stood waiting, a little bored. Then she saw Vera rubbing the mole near her right eye. Their secret sign. She was warning Philippa to be careful what she said in front of Miss Viera. Snapping out of her boredom, Philippa watched Miss Viera closely as she talked to Vera.
She saw a tall, brown-skinned woman in her forties, with a body firm and curvaceous, standing there erect, but her shoulders sagging a little. It didn’t go with her general upright posture. She had big black Malay eyes and a mass of black hair. She was wearing a narrow frock with a pale pattern of blue flowers and leaves on a white ground. Her high-heeled shoes were dirty and had taken the shape of her toes. But this was the dress of the times.
Philippa thought she saw a fire in her eyes veiled by sadness or despair and restlessness. The chin was raised as she spoke to Vera, giving her the appearance of someone difficult to approach. Her occasional glance at Philippa seemed to say, stay away from me.
Her tone was impatient when she answered Vera’s social questions and her routine pleasantries were delivered abruptly. Philippa didn’t like what she read in her personality, but looked with admiration on the mature woman, who though badly dressed exuded a powerful aura of sexuality.
“Who is she?” Philippa asked as soon as she was out of earshot.
“From Malacca.”
“Why the sign?”
“There are rumours she has been living with a Jap.”
“Serani?”
“Yes. She definitely had a Jap boyfriend before the war. Married beggar, the bastard.”
Vera had not stopped trying to impress Philippa with her strong language since she turned 12.
“The same guy?”
“That’s what everybody’s trying to find out. They say she’s broken with him now … the fellow she was supposed to be bedding.”
“Before the war?”
“No!” Impatiently. “She was living with him after the surrender.”
“Ah. Is that why she seems to be well fed?”
“Well serviced,” Vera sneered.
Vera was obviously in no mood to discuss Miss Victoria.
As they passed the Short Street-Middle Road junction, Vera spoke again, “I believe Vicky’s related to us in a remote way.”
“Vicky?”
“That woman just now, lah.”
“Is she?”
“Yah. Didn’t you know that Granma was a Viera?”
“Oh yeah …”
Philippa met Vicky Viera again a week later at Kandang Kerbau market. Ma was not feeling well so Philippa offered to do the marketing that day. She hated marketing. As she walked out of the market she saw Vicky Viera standing in front of the vegetable woman snapping her purse shut with all the strength of her thumbs as though she was slamming a door in someone’s face with anger.
Philippa stopped in her stride and looked at Vicky. What Vera had told her provoked her curiosity. It took guts for anyone to live with a Jap and still try to stay in their social circles.
Vicky caught Philippa’s eye and saw she was waiting for Vicky to pass her. She gave Philippa a long hard look, then, as though she had decided, walked up to Philippa.
They greeted each other and began talking of prices, shortages, the value of money. Philippa spoke uneasily, guarded in her comments. Then suddenly realising her comments on prices could be taken as criticism of the Japanese Occupation government, Philippa added quickly, “I guess it’s the same in Tokyo, Berlin, Rome …” and stopped herself before she said London. Her voice trailed off and a cold hand clutched at her throat as she saw Vicky looking deep into her eyes. Philippa dropped hers to the wet market floor in fear and embarrassment.
Vicky was saying something slowly with a quiet intensity in her tone. The words hit her as her mind returned from the torture chambers at the YMCA to the market.
“You’re a beautiful woman.”
No woman had ever said that to her. And at their first meeting. Well, first real talking meeting. She blushed.
Vicky grabbed her arm, saying “C’mon. I’ll buy you a cup of coffee,” and propelled her to an Indian coffeeshop on Serangoon Road.
“Why … Thank you, Miss Viera.” She was probably only ten years older than Philippa.
“Call me Vicky, dear.”
Philippa looked at Vicky. A faint smile lifted the corners of her mouth. She looked at her body. It was as luscious as she had remembered it from outside the church.
“Kopi-oh?” Vicky asked and gave the order for two coffees without milk.
“Don’t look so startled. I’m not going to seduce you.” As blunt as Uncle Ramalho. Then she giggled, with a strange fire in her eyes. “Not today, anyway.”
Vicky reached out towards Philippa’s chest and moved her hair aside to reveal the Red Star buttoned onto Philippa’s dress, brushing her fingers against Philippa’s nipple, bare under the thin, threadbare dress. “Huh. Red Star. Because you’re blonde? But you’re beautiful. That hair and your lovely fair skin.”
Philippa was speechless. The woman was overpowering her.
“How old are you?”
“Oh, getting on.”
“Thirty?”
“Pretty close.”
“C’mon. Don’t be so darned feminine …”
“I’ll be thirty-one in October. And you?”
“Forty-two,” without any hesitation.
Philippa smiled at her for want of anything better to say.
“What do you do?”
Vicky saw Philippa’s nervous reaction to her direct questions, and began drawing out the information more gently, with comments and chatter in between. But Philippa couldn’t let Vicky dominate her.
“Tell me about yourself, Vicky. Now that we’ve exposed our naked ages to each other.”
Vicky laughed. The fire in her eyes was now clear and flickering. Then her face went deadly serious. Her eyes drilled into Philippa as she spoke, “Whatever I am, I’m not a spy for the Japanese. I know what they are saying. I just loved one Jap. Is that a crime?”
Again Philippa glimpsed the sadness. She realised why Vicky had hesitated earlier. She was probably deciding whether to nod and walk away or come up to her and chat. She was looking for a friend. At thirty, Philippa was one of the few single women of their community.
Philippa went to her flat at Tiong Bahru for dinner the next evening after work as they had arranged in the coffeeshop. Vicky kept running through her mind all day. Like when she fell so madly in love with Rudolf Foley at seventeen.
They became intimate friends. Most of Philippa’s first impressions of Vicky proved to be accurate. She was impatient and blunt. Often impulsive, rushing into situations with all her physical and burning sexual energy.
She had been travelling around Malaya selling sports goods before the war. Philippa imagined her almost attacking her buyers. Now she was running the prewar English Ladies Lawn Tennis Club at Bras Basah Road, with a new unpronounceable Japanese name. There were days when she was in a great tangle of frustration coaching the Japanese. Because she couldn’t get her message through to some chappie. When she met such a roadblock too many times she gave up.
But most of all Philippa saw in Vicky a yearning for freedom and the restlessness she tortured herself with if she was restrained. It was a strength but it also pulled her into depression, selfishness and an annoying aggressiveness that distanced her from many who were initially attracted to her.
In spite of Vicky’s open and blunt manner she told Philippa little about herself. Philippa could not get behind the sadness in her eyes until three months after their first meeting.
Scott de Souza walked into the Rosario home in August 1945 and gave them the news. Philippa was with her Pa when Scott stalked in with his head held high, his face glowing with happiness, and blurted out loudly, “It’s all over. Japan has surrendered. It was on the BBC.”
Adam sat down on the chair behind him as his knees went limp. Philippa stared at Scott open-mouthed.
“Did you hear it yourself?” Adam asked.
“Yes, Adam. The nine o’clock. We were up at four-twenty this morning to catch it.”
“It’s too good to be true,” Adam muttered, echoing Philippa’s feelings.
“Lucia! Vera! Barnabus!” he shouted.
Ma and Vera rushed in from the kitchen.
“Wassamatter?” Ma asked.
“The Nips have surrendered. It’s all over, Ma. Bring out the champagne.”
“What?”
“Yes,” Scott said. “Heard it myself on the BBC.”
Ma broke out into an almost hysterical laugh, “Gila! You’re mad, Adam! Champagne!”
Adam got up from the chair and hugged her. She buried her face in his chest and laughed softly. Philippa saw Vera cross herself to say a silent prayer. She was in that phase. Philippa could stand apart, feeling their relief and her own, and yet watch them react. She felt old at thirty that day, as the tears welled up in her eyes.
She wondered if Vicky’s Jap would come back to her.
Adam volunteered to do the washing up that night and sang After You’ve Gone with spirit as he worked.
“Listen to him,” Ma said, grinning, her thumb pointing over her shoulder. “Ready to start dancing again.”
Adam stopped singing and cut in at once. “I’m singing to the Nips, Ma. After they’ve gone!”
Vicky was a new woman when Philippa went to her flat in Tiong Bahru the next evening.
“You’ve heard, then?” Philippa asked unnecessarily.
“Yes! Yes, oh yes!” The veil of sadness had lifted. “Oh Philippa, We’re free again!”
“Yes. Thank God,” Philippa said, forgetting Vicky didn’t go to church any more since that day she met her outside St Joseph’s.
“Thank the British. Thank the Americans. The French, the Dutch … every man who fought for us. Freedom, Phil, freedom.”
She had never called her Phil before.
“I’ve got a bottle of brandy. Saved it for emergencies. We’ll splice the mainbrace. Cut all the bloody braces in Singapore. Farewell Syonan-to.” Syonan-to was the name the Japanese had given Singapore.
They had a wild time drinking and talking. Vicky egged Philippa on to plan an entirely new wardrobe. They laughed at how outdated their choices might be. Or hairstyles. Their joy overflowed into thinking they would be rich overnight. Champagne and caviar.
“Just give me plain honest-to-God corned beef!”
“And ham for Christmas.”
“And the records I’ll buy!”
“My Happiness!”
“Yah. And The Nearness Of You. My Heart Belongs To Daddy, The Lady Is A Tramp.”
“Thanks For The Memory.”
“Two Sleepy People.” Vicky started singing it. “That’s us.”
“My Heart Belongs To Daddy.”
“Moonlight And Shadows.”
They went on and on. Philippa went downstairs and bought a packet of fried noodles for dinner. It cost the earth, but it didn’t seem to matter a jot after three brandies. Three brandies after three years of no brandy for Philippa.
As they ate they continued to talk about the good times ahead.
After dinner Philippa asked Vicky, “What about your Japanese man? Won’t he too be freed from the war?” She carefully avoided using the word Jap in spite of being a little tiddly.
Vicky’s face changed suddenly.
“God, Phil. Didn’t I tell you he’s dead?”
“No. I’m sorry … Killed in action?”
Vicky buried her face in her hands and a great surge of emotion shook her body as she sat on the sofa beside Philippa. Sobbing uncontrollably, mucous running down over her mouth and chin, she turned a face twisted in pain to Philippa.
“I killed him, Phil.”
_______
*Tiga is ‘three’ in Malay.