May 1987
We are one body Papa always says. If one part is sullied the whole is contaminated. A dot of indigo in a pot of milk: and how proud he is to cite the idiom in translation. How pleased to be able to celebrate Malay culture to demonstrate his all-embracing principles. Only long afterwards will I learn that he either misunderstood or misrepresented this expression which is in fact all about reputation. The pot of milk is not what you are but what people say about you. Whereas what Papa believes is that one person’s unclean thought or act could truly ruin all of us. All the drops of ink he does not see! One day his eyes will snap open to find the milk bright blue.
And so I bear these small offerings to him between my teeth like a cat leaving decapitated mice on its master’s doormat:
Estelle Foo slaps Annabelle sometimes.
Mrs Arasu uses race words.
“Race words?” he says. And I say “Yes. Naatukaran. Chinaman. Like that.”
“Oh dear,” he mumbles. “How distressing.” And then in a less mumbly fashion, “Thank you, Kannu. It is good to see that you care so much about our movement. About our principles and our vision. Yes, yes, very good.”
Of course I do not expect the impressive effects of the very first accusation. Estelle Foo and Mrs Arasu are not expelled from Eden but pulled aside for quiet talks. Afterwards they may or may not be a wee bit subdued. How to tell?
With Annabelle Foo I play it cool. “I also got eyes lah,” I tell her. “What you know I’ve already known for years.”
Yet a new desperation is taking hold of me. Though I could become his favourite son if I wanted. Slowly-slowly I could manage it. The prize is within my reach. It’s just that an urgent new mission has presented itself. Actually it has been there all the while staring me in the face. Mama’s hidden fashion magazines. The lingering smell of smoke in the toilets. Her rolling eyes and sharp tongue. Except before, I observed these things and that was that. I did not consider it my business to fix what was breaking. It is only now—after the scene on the porch with the cousin—that I have understood what this new mission is. I cannot fix anything that is happening to Mama, I can only distract Papa from it.
So I may yawn and scoff at Annabelle Foo but I wait eagerly for her titbits. She is a carrion feeder dropping her morsels at my feet but so what? How is my father to know and why would he care that I did not kill the mice myself?
One day she tells me, “That Neela. She is the worst one. Other people at least came here for good reasons. Maybe bit by bit they got lazy or they forgot but at least in the beginning they had those grand dreams. Not Neela. She just came here to take advantage. To have an easy life for herself and her stupid son. Free room and board. If not she’ll have to be washing dishes somewhere or scrubbing toilets isn’t it?”
I wait for her to work her way in to the soft centre of her prey. The liver and kidneys and spleen.
“I’ve seen the type of person she is,” Annabelle says. “Do you know she keeps aside the best parts of everything for her own son?”
“The best parts of what?”
“She steals. She steals from the kitchen. Just watch her and see if you don’t believe me. She’ll hide-hide and give her son extra portions. I’ve seen her do it for Deepavali, I’ve seen her do it for Hari Raya. And even on normal days. She takes out the ripest mango and the sweetest papaya and she hides it just for him. Can you believe it? She’s just the cook here. She’s supposed to be working for us. But she thinks she and her son are better than us.”
The thought of it—the image of those thin quick hands flicking a mango here spiriting away a papaya slice there—twists its blade into me. But it isn’t indignation that has left me gasping. It’s the deepest saddest longing in the history of the world. How is it that I recognize it immediately—as though it were an old friend—although I do not know its name? What is it I’m longing for? Someone to squirrel away treats for me? A mother desperate enough to flee everything except me, the way Neela ran with Leo and Mama ran with Reza? Someone who picked me and only me as the other half of their team.
I shrug and roll my eyes at Annabelle but day by day her words worm their way up through the chambers of my heart secreting an urge to provoke my father to anger. To win. But here dear reader is where you are mistaken: you think it is the old jealousy. Sibling rivalry. Reza might be titillating entertaining intriguing but I am useful. Papa needs me. The rivalry is not gone of course, deep inside me it circles and swirls, circles and swirls quietly. But the darkest clouds are not those anymore: at some point Leo became the principal object of my jealousy.
So that now I see so clearly what I did not see before: Leo it is who has everything I want and do not have. A mother so fiercely on his side that she is willing to break all the laws of the universe for him; a life free of shame and guilt despite all these sins committed in his name; and my brother. Leo has my brother.