One afternoon, I was in a taxi queue outside one of the premier hotels in Orchard Road, observing its grand facade, the magnificent moongate entrance with a huge stone lion on each side, a giant earthen jar in a corner, from which sprouted a large kumquat bush covered with the bright orange lucky fruit, festooned with lucky red ribbons (it was the Chinese New Year season).
My attention was soon fixed on one of the hotel doormen. He was an impressively tall and burly Indian, dressed in a costume that exuded oriental splendour: the tall, black and gold head-dress, with its black flapping side wings, like a powerful bird of prey; the resplendent jacket, of imperial red, trimmed with gold, the long sleeves also trimmed with gold; the gleaming black trousers ending in tall, black, shiny boots with their austerely handsome straps, that stood out from the boringly functional footwear all around.
The doorman’s costume, probably inspired by Genghis Khan’s warriors as they thundered through the steppes, had lifted the humble occupation into a most exalted one. It gave the doorman an almost regal bearing. I wondered to myself: Out of this costume, and back in his usual wear after work, what would he look like? Probably no different from the hundreds of labourers I had seen working on construction sites, wiping the sweat and dust from their bodies gleaming in the hot sun, sometimes shouting to each other, above the loud noise. Wow, the transforming power of a costume!
The target of my speculative thoughts was clearly aware of his special standing in the eyes of the tourists who were gathering in small groups outside the hotel. He was smiling broadly as he graciously consented to have his picture taken with a number of Japanese female tourists, some of whom were oohing and aahing over the magnificence of his costume. As he posed for a picture, with one arm around a pretty tourist and the other around her even prettier companion, he had an expression of pure bliss on his face. I could not help remarking to the lady who was in front of me in the taxi queue: ‘Hey, these are the perks of his job!’ The doorman heard me, turned round and gave a wink. And in that wink was the Eureka Moment, that is, the precise point at which a story forms in my mind, and is ready to be written down in one smooth flow of the pen.
It is not often that I get these Eureka Moments. Back at home that evening, I sat down to write my story (in those days, despite the advent of the computer, I was still using pen and paper). It was amazing. Whereas I would often have false starts with my stories, or even abandon them halfway, I wrote the story of ‘The Doorman’ effortlessly from start to finish, as if every detail of character, plot and structure had already been laid out in my head during the short taxi ride home.
Alas, my rather melancholy disposition as a writer did not give a happy ending to my doorman’s story. I suppose it was because I was obsessed by the deceptive power of that costume, and its eventual treachery.
In my story the doorman, a middle-aged Indian who had gone from one low-ranking job to another, was a completely different person before he was employed by the hotel. His appearance, having been damaged by a terrible skin disease, had made people look away, move aside. Only his face had been spared. The light, pinkish blotches and scars all over his neck, arms and legs stood out all the more horrendously against the sheer ebony blackness of his skin. Indeed, in his usual dishevelled state, he looked like a crazed giant, a monster out of some grotesque fairy tale, that children would run screaming from.
Then out of pity, a friend found him a job as a doorman in a large hotel, and hey presto! he is completely transformed. The special costume completely hides from sight the horrible marks of the skin disease. Moreover, what had previously contributed to his earlier monstrous appearance actually work in his favour now: the burliness gives him the imposing stature of a warrior, and the black gleam of his skin makes his face stand out in impressive contrast to the bright red and gold of his costume. Best of all the transformation changes people’s behaviour towards him. Instead of running away, they are actually drawn towards him. For the first time in his life, Doorman is attractive to pretty women who want to have their pictures taken with him.
There is one woman, a Japanese tourist, staying at the hotel, whom Doorman has become infatuated with. He has never met anyone so beautiful, so kind. Once he happened to cut his hand on the handle of a suitcase he was carrying for her. She had immediately shown her concern, and put a piece of plaster on the small cut. She had touched his palm — oh, so tenderly! That evening at home, he relived the experience, gently stroking that part of the palm that she had touched.
He is glad that she is staying at the hotel for a while. He watches out for her everyday. He knows the precise hour of her coming down for breakfast in the hotel’s large dining room, the exact time of her leaving to do her sightseeing and shopping. When she returns to the hotel, usually late in the afternoon, he is ready to greet her with a smile, to ask if he can do anything for her for the rest of the evening, for the rest of her stay. He knows the number of her room through the hotel keys that she leaves at the reception desk every morning. If only he were one of those hotel attendants on room service duty! Then he would have the opportunity, even if just once, to answer her call for a meal to be brought to her room. In the few minutes of setting up the meal for her, he would take a quick glance around the room, to see the small personal items scattered around, so that he would have a better knowledge of this dear, dear new friend. He has never been so happy.
One evening Doorman is at home, on sick leave. He is lying on his bed, in his small rented room in a HDB flat, groaning with the pain of his fever. Suddenly he remembers that it is the woman’s last day at the hotel. He sits up, wide-eyed with alarm. He must go to see her! She cannot leave without their saying goodbye! Forcing himself to get up despite his weakened state, he puts on a pair of trousers, reeking from its unwashed state, and a crumpled cotton shirt. His eyes are bloodshot, his hair is a wild tangle on his head, as he walks unsteadily out of the flat, blinking at the brightness of the street lights and the headlights of passing traffic. He walks all the way to the hotel, unaware of honking cars.
To his delight, he sees that his dear, dear lady friend has not yet left. She is standing in the hotel lobby with a pile of luggage beside her, dressed in comfortable, travelling clothes. So he is still in time. He walks quickly but unsteadily towards her, stretching out his hand. He wants to say, ‘I love you so much! You have brought such joy to my life!’ but the words come out as a series of squeaks and grunts.
The lady turns and suddenly sees him approaching her. She screams. She thinks it’s a madman coming to attack her. He says pleadingly, ‘I’m the doorman you were so kind to, remember? We had such a good time together, remember?’ But the words come out as the meaningless splutterings of a lunatic.
The woman’s screams bring the staff running. Two men manage to wrestle him to the ground at the moment that he is about to grasp his beloved’s hand and again profess his undying love. They shout for help, for despite his illness, he shows remarkable strength, roaring with all his might. In the end, it takes four men to subdue him. He lifts his head to see if his beloved is still around, but she has vanished. He begins to cry.
He loses his job. The hotel covers up the incident as best they can. Fortunately, the lady tourist is not pressing charges. She is only too happy to leave Singapore, to get back home.
What pains Doorman most of all is not the loss of his job, but his rejection by a woman he loves so much, whom he would die for. He keeps saying to himself, with tears in his eyes, ‘How could she not recognise me when we have been so happy together! How could she betray me like this?’ He cannot take the pain anymore. When the kind friend who had found him the job at the hotel comes to visit him, he is met by the sight of a lifeless body, crumpled beside the bed, a rope round the neck.
In the years following the publication of my book of short stories in which ‘The Doorman’ featured large, I would sometimes go to the hotel of its origin, for lunch or tea with friends. The doorman, still garbed in the magnificent costume, still having his picture taken with tourists, would always greet me with a cheerful smile and a friendly wave of the hand. I would look down sheepishly and guiltily, thinking, ‘Oh dear, the poor fellow doesn’t know I’ve killed him off!’
I’ve not had many Eureka Moments since that memorable day, although, like the insatiably curious species that we writers are, I continue to observe people in their varied activities along the busy highways, in the shopping malls, in restaurants and open air cafes, in taxi queues, at bus stops. My imagination, once unleashed, goes on a merry spree and spins fantastical tales around men and women who are innocently going about their everyday activities, unaware that they have just become villains and villainesses, detestable oppressors and tragic victims.
Once, in a coffee house, I was sipping coffee and watching, with great interest, a young couple a few tables away. Pretending to put on an air of great nonchalance, I watched the tension building up between them. They were facing each other, and were clearly in the midst of some serious confrontation. The young man was leaning across the table towards his companion, his brow furrowed with anxiety, his eyes wide with urgent pleading, his hands gesticulating wildly. The young woman was looking down intently, her hands resolutely folded across her chest, her nostrils angrily flaring.
I saw a story unfolding. A story of a young man who has been guilty of infidelity to his young wife. She has found him out, and is threatening a divorce. But he is pleading for forgiveness, for he has just realised that the woman he had been meeting in secret trysts in hotels is not worth his giving up his marriage, his wife, their two adorable children. Besides, he suspects that this woman was previously the mistress of a Malaysian tycoon who had set her up in a posh apartment in a prime district in Singapore.
Or it could be a different story. The young couple are not married, but have been dating for a while. But the man wants to end his relationship, giving all kinds of reasons which she rejects. She is completely hurt and humiliated and is already planning on how she can wreak vengeance on him, whether he breaks off or not with her. She has heard of a powerful charm, of Thai origin, that can be used on a man to diminish his potency, but only when he is with other women.
Or it could be yet another story. The young couple, married for some years now, and in high-paying jobs, are actually in a stable, loving relationship. The trouble comes from their families who are greedy, parasitic, with incessant demands for money. The couple have just won a large amount of money in the Singapore national lottery, and are now arguing about how they can keep it secret from their avaricious families. The man is for investing it in some business venture that their families need never know about; the woman is for buying an apartment in Australia that can be their secret hideaway when the stress gets too much at home. She is convinced that only in the peace of a foreign country can she conceive and have a baby after six years of marriage.
Much as I had desired it, the Eureka Moment did not come, and the tale of the Coffee House Couple remained an assortment of bits that could not fit together into a coherent whole. I left with some disappointment, but not before noticing that the couple were already smiling in reconciliation and about to leave too. Perhaps my over-eager imagination had turned an ordinary argument of a young couple into the high drama it never was. They were probably just one of those young, modern, hot-headed couples who like to argue loudly, even in public places, about anything and everything, such as which scene in a Tom Cruise movie is his best, whether to go to Phuket or Genting Highlands for their next holiday, whether to vote for the PAP or the opposition in a coming by-election, etc.
Such mundane, everyday events, alas, simply do not provoke a Eureka Moment.