The two-storey bungalow stood in a large garden in fashionable Kensington Park. Ken, Peter, Aileen and Kim waited outside its elaborately wrought iron gate, tired but cheerful after walking a long way in from the bus stop.
“I’m deadbeat,” said Peter. “Obviously these people here don’t go around by bus.”
“Mutt, look at Yean. They all drive or are driven.”
“I hope she invites us to swim in her pool.”
Ken rang the bell again. A huge black and brown Alsatian came bounding down the path, barking.
“Rex, Rex! Come back. Quiet!” commanded Yean as she came running after her dog. Rex obeyed and stood aside, wagging its tail.
“Hi, come in everyone. You are late.”
“We had to wait for a bus and then stroll in, you know,” explained Aileen, as if to inform Yean who probably never had to know about such things. But it was lost on Yean.
“Where are the others?”
“They are inside.”
“Anything to munch? I’m hungry.”
“I never knew when you weren’t, Kim,” said Yean. “My servant has cooked something special for tea. Buboh cha cha with pisang raja. Come in.”
Everybody trooped into the house with its spacious sitting room dominated by a grand piano and a curved settee for ten people.
“Hello, Ser Mei,” greeted Peter.
“Wow! Look at her,” shouted Kim. “Look at these kinky bracelets. Where did you get them?”
“I don’t know,” Ser Mei replied with characteristic nonchalance. “My mum bought them and I wear them.”
She was very attractively dressed in artist’s smock, silk scarf, pedal pushers, white knee-length socks and sneakers. Of all the girls in the group Ser Mei had always been the most fashionably dressed.
“Where’s Yin Peng?”
“Oh, she can’t come; no one to drive her here,” replied Yean.
“She should have told me, I would have found a car to fetch her,” said Kim, looking at Yean and Ser Mei pointedly.
“Dumb! Don’t fantasise, you have no car,” laughed Peter; his maleness was too blunt and blind to perceive the subtleties of women. Ser Mei and Yean exchanged uncomfortable looks.
“Both our cars are being used this morning,” Yean apologised, “and my mother has taken my car to go shopping.”
“Hey, even if you had offered, Yin Peng’s father would have refused. How can he trust a baby—barely six months on the road. Here,” said Ken, “I’ve bought a St Christopher’s medal for your new car.”
Yean, conscience-stricken by her oversight, was grateful for Ken’s protective gesture now that Miss Wang, who was Sis to all of them now since joining the convent, was no longer by her side.
Ser Mei as usual looked impassive; nothing seemed to touch her, and everyone knew that she had come more to listen to the letter from Sis than to socialise with the rest of them.
I'm writing again because I'm a little worried about you. Your letters reveal a fractious group, almost breaking into individual little cells. You're a group with the talent and the willingess to use this talent to serve others. I'm very happy and proud of all of you.
But if we want to be useful, we have to share at a deeper level, developing our commitment to Christ and finding alternative ways of expressing our faith in a nation committed to material progress.
If our group is cohesive and strong just imagine what things we can accomplish together as the leaven of the loaf!
Sis
“Wow!” Ken exclaimed, partly to express his own inadequacy in the face of Sis’s lofty ideals and partly to dispel the group’s unease at having failed to live up to her expectations.
“May I keep this letter together with the other two?” Ser Mei asked.
“I’ll keep this one since it was sent here,” was Yean’s immediate response.
“Oh alright then; I only wanted to read it again.” Ser Mei’s voice sounded matter-of-fact but they could see that she was disappointed.
But although she felt a little uneasy, Yean was not to be dissuaded by Mei’s feelings. It was as if in refusing Ser Mei’s request she had, there and then, fragmented the group—an act which would disappoint Sis and therefore be disapproved of by the rest.
After the group had left, Yean locked the letter in her drawer, determined not to feel guilty over her action. Surely she had as much right as Ser Mei to keep Sis’s letters.
The usual dignified silence of the gallery leading to the convent’s chapel was broken by the excited whispers and laughter of their group. Yean felt her happiness straining for release like the thousands of airborne balloons and pigeons on National Day. Like the apostles her group had waited and prayed and their Easter had finally dawned. They had all been accepted into the U. All their anxieties were over, their prayers had been answered, their hard work amply rewarded! But the best reward of all was—their Sis was also going to the U.
“Let’s celebrate, this is God’s will,” Peter shouted.
“Shhh!” the rest calmed him, and settled down to wait under the arches of the gallery for Sis’s arrival. The pink and white crinum lilies nodded in the breeze and the carved cherubims and seraphims smiled in silent joy.
“Hey,” a soft voice called from behind, and before they knew it Sister Marie-Therese, without a thought for her new status, had sat down on the floor beside them, looking a little self-conscious in her snow-white habit. This gesture, so characteristic of her, warmed Yean’s heart. Formality was for the other nuns and priests.
“Wow! Sis,” the boys hooted and the girls hugged her.
Ser Mei gave one of her rare warm smiles, looking deep into Sis’s eyes with pleasure before hugging her and Yean noticed, pressing a note into her hands.
“Hey, what subjects are you doing, Sis?” Peter asked, pleased that Sis was still the same.
“Why are all of you going to the university?” Sis asked, stopping the excited chatter and, as usual, prodding them into thought.
“Why not? Our results qualify us.”
“But why not do something else instead?”
“What else can we do?”
“So you are going because you have no choice?”
“Sis, ah, Singapore’s a meritocracy, you know. Qualifications count! You wouldn’t want us to be salesmen,” Peter laughed a little uneasily because he was not sure whether he wanted to be taken seriously.
“What’s wrong with being a salesman? It’s a decent job.”
“Nothing wrong; just near the bottom of the ladder that’s all.”
Peter was already a little defensive.
“Is this what you mean by meritocracy? Just fighting to get to the top?” Yean knew what Sis wanted their answer to be, but to test her response, they answered in the affirmative.
“Is that really what you want? What happens to the underdogs? Do I detect an attempt to suppress the heart?” and Sis laughed. She had won again.
Later, in the convent’s recreation room, Marie looked at the two letters on her lap. One was from Ser Mei, the other from her father. She took up Mei’s letter first and as she read it a slight frown creased her brows. “Now that you’re back, it’s going to be worse. You are so near and yet so unapproachable. Why do you do this to me? Why didn’t you leave me alone?”
She would have to see Mei soon. That girl needed her. Then taking up her father’s letter, she read it with a dimpled smile on her face. This was the first time her father had written to her so enthusiastically after his disappointment over her failure to obtain that scholarship. He had hoped that she would be as successful as Paul but her concept of success had to be different from her father’s. He was devoted to his children, claiming that they had made his own meagre life as a government clerk worth living. Theirs had been the typical tradition-bound Catholic family in which the Sunday mass was the social highpoint in their family life revolving around meatless Fridays, confession, family rosaries and The Legion of Mary, of which her father was president. If her father had been disappointed, he was now very proud, joyous at being able to give to God his favourite child.
Marie excused herself from the recreation room and slipped into the chapel. Its semi-darkness gave her thoughts and pleasure the needed privacy.
“Thank you, Lord, for making the way so smooth for me. I’m glad that father is alright now. You alone know how much I love him and how terrible I felt in having to disappoint him. I’m glad he’s feeling the honour of having a child chosen by you. You’ve been very patient with me, putting up with all my doubts and vacillations. Paul had been helpful too ...”, but the moment thoughts of Paul came to mind she tried to push them away. “No, why should I feel guilty about him? You, Lord, know all the ins and outs of my heart. I loved him but he has changed, he has changed. He is no longer the Paul who dreamed dreams. But I have found you, Lord. Give me the grace to do Your work. Take my eyes, they are Yours, my Lord. Take my ears, they too are Yours. Take my hands, my heart, my all. They’re Yours, they’re Yours, My Lord, take me, take me ...” Marie intoned in the manner she had been taught as a child, feeling herself filled with a love which wanted to give and give, which wanted to dedicate itself to something or someone who would embrace the whole of life, consume the whole of her being, the whole of everything and in whose centre was the mystery of Life itself. She bowed her head before the Blessed Sacrament with the altar lamp casting an orange glow about her head. At last she was happy. At last she could feel that she had done the right thing, that this was not an escape from the ignominy of failure as Paul had so cruelly suggested.
When Marie came out of the chapel, her Mother Superior saw the glow of happiness on her face and felt confident that here was one who would make it to permanent vows.
The Lord be praised. Amen.