They walked down the shady path brightened by the purple blooms of the saga trees. Yean glanced at Ser Mei who seemed to be listening very attentively to Dr Jones who was delivering a long discourse on the history of America’s involvement in Vietnam. Sis was just a little ahead walking between Hans and Rev James, discussing what the Church’s stand on the war should be. They had just emerged from Mak Sean Loong’s study where they had planned to call for a moratorium on the Vietnam War to be held next term.
Ser Mei had not wanted to come at all but she knew how important this planning session was to Sis. Besides, she had not seen her since Christmas Eve. Neither had she seen Yean who had not called for her since that night when she had stripped herself to reveal her terrible scars and Yean had turned away, horrified.
Yean concentrated on the lilac blooms of the saga trees whose red seeds brightened the dry brown grass beneath her feet. She hadn’t even had the guts to ring Ser Mei. Was it lack of courage or was it repulsion? She recoiled from probing deeper and saw this reluctance as an attempt to hide her own guilt. This made her feel even worse. But the bitterness of that acid voice had shocked her more than she cared to admit.
Ser Mei. Quiet. Delicately beautiful as a tragic heroine in a Chinese opera. But such crudity of language, such crass worldliness.
She had never associated Ser Mei with anything sordid. It had never occurred to her that Ser Mei knew such ugliness or was capable of saying such ugly things. A shudder of disgust shook her but she struggled to be kind. God had been good to her. She had been very fortunate to have been born into an educated wealthy family. Yes, she had to be kinder to Ser Mei, so she quickened her pace, and reached them just as Dr Jones was saying, “Saigon is the most corrupt and degenerate city in Asia. According to the latest figures from the UN it has more women, girls and even children selling their sexual favours than any other city in Asia.”
“Many are peasants who had fled from the war in the countryside,” said Rev James, shaking his head. “It’s often their only means of survival. For them prostitution is an act of self-sacrifice.”
“No, not all of them are self-sacrificing peasants. Many of these prostitutes are from well-to-do families, who succumbed to the materialistic culture of Saigon. These are high-class professionals who service the wealthy mercantile and diplomatic communities,” Hans laughed, pleased that he had destroyed Rev James’s sociological stereotype of the hapless prostitute.
“They are the parasites of parasites then. The lap dogs of the rich,” exclaimed Marie.
Hans nodded with the authority of a foreigner who had spent a fortnight there and Marie, to show that like Hans, she had no romantic notions of the helpless prostitute either continued, “The immorality of the war and the immorality of this thing posing as love will taint Saigon forever. The scarlet woman cheapens life and love.”
Somewhere inside Ser Mei something imploded. It caved in, a dark gaping wound which like a Black Hole in space sucked everything inwards to bleak nothingness, and in the dim light, flashes of a red negligee and a tattooed hand stroking her mother’s thigh. Yean saw Ser Mei’s downcast eyes redden and brim with tears which threatened to spill, her facial muscles contorting and fighting in vain for mastery. Yean, turning away, quickly said, “I don’t think we can so easily dismiss prostitutes as cheap.”
Marie turned round. “I’m not saying that they all are. Those women who form the peasant class can’t be. They were forced by war and hunger. I was referring to those with some education who willingly became the lap dogs of the rich. These are the ones who cheapen life around them, tainting their vicinity by masquerading as the real thing ... like, like the harlot Life-in-Death in The Ancient Mariner ... and ...” Catching Yean’s look and glancing then at Ser Mei, she did not finish her sentence.
The three men stopped too, standing in the shade of the saga trees. Hans turned to Marie, his eyes seeking an explanation but she looked just as nonplussed. He recalled Ser Mei’s strange behaviour at Raffles Hostel. Ah, a sensitive girl’s reaction to the tragedy of the Vietnamese peasants. A noble feeling, and bending down he put an arm round Ser Mei’s shoulders to show his sympathy and approval.
“Hey, what’s wrong, girl?” His stage whisper was clearly audible to the rest of the group.
Ser Mei shrank from the easy intimacy of his touch. She broke away, turned and ran down the path. Hans straightened himself. Another overly sensitive Chinese girl.
Dr Jones and Rev James turned to Marie and Yean, questions in their eyes. “Did we say something wrong?”
Marie shook her head, “I was the one speaking,” was her curt reply.
“Look, you two go after her. We’ll see you sometime, okay?” Dr Jones left with Rev James.
Just before Hans followed them, he turned to Marie and gave her a light pat on the shoulders. “Good luck,” he said, “you’ve got a sensitive case on your hands.”
Marie acknowledged his sympathy with a smile. Yes, she could see that she had a sensitive case on her hands but Dr Jones and Rev James had recognised her counselling abilities; she should be able to handle this and get to the bottom of the matter. She turned to see Yean’s look of guilt.
“Alright, Yean, let me know the truth.”
“I can’t.”
“But why?”
“I just can’t. It’s not my right.”
“You’ve got to tell me what’s wrong. Did I say something wrong?”
Yean remained silent but Marie was not one to give up so easily.
“Look, Yean, you know that I’ve been trying all this while to encourage Mei to come out of her shell. Tell me what’s wrong.”
“I thought she had told you.”
“What?”
“You mean you really don’t know?” Yean was truly surprised.
“Know what for goodness’ sake!” Marie was getting impatient. She had always been the confidante of everyone in the group and the first to know. She turned to Yean with all the authority she was used to wielding, her eyes demanding an answer. So Yean took the plunge. She could not see what else she could do.
“Her mother is a prostitute.”
Marie remained silent. How could she not have known so basic a fact? Why didn’t Mei tell her? All this while she had been kept in the dark, yet she had been encouraging Mei to speak up, to trust more, to move out of herself, to be more involved with the group, and all this while Mei had kept quiet. She had Yean as her confidante. Ashes, ashes, all ashes.
Ser Mei was walking toward them now. She must have gone to clean up. Yean marvelled again at her demure beauty. A weeping willow, she mused, and felt a strong protective urge. But she held back, knowing that she had no right. Sis was here.
Ser Mei glanced at the two of them waiting for her. She did not hurry. Her mother’s words from last night were still ringing in her ears. Ya, you think you so high class. You think just because you go to university you so good. I got go to school last time also you know. I stop all because I born you. No one want you. You got no father. I keep you and look after you. Ser Mei wiped away the last traces of her tears. No one, no one, she felt, would understand her. Her mother was a cheap harlot. Harlot! Harlot! She wished she had been abandoned at the convent instead of suffering this canker in her life. Ser Mei looked up at Sis and Yean uncertainly. Yean’s face told her that Sis knew.
“Ser Mei, I’m sorry. I apologise,” Sis’s words shot out like the opening of a salvo.
“It’s alright, Sis ... I ... I was too emotional, I guess ... it’s not your fault ... you didn’t know ..."
“Yes, I was kept in the dark.” This second salvo shot out in immediate response.
“No, no, it’s not like this at all,” Mei protested, her face crumbling again at Sis’s disapproval. Yean too had caught that look of censure and anger which flashed across Sis’s face despite herself. She wanted to speak up for Mei but the words got stuck in her throat.
“No, no, it’s alright,” Sis protested as she gazed directly into Mei’s half-appealing, half-hesitant eyes. Ser Mei was twisting her wet handkerchief round and round. “Really, it’s alright,” she continued. “As I’ve always said, no strings attached. You’re not bound to reveal everything to me. You’re free to trust whom you like. I understand,” Sis said, looking at Yean who knew she was included in this third salvo. She cringed a little but thought it politic to remain silent, acknowledging her wrongdoing and receiving her due punishment. Mei, however, began again.
“Sis, please, Sis, I’m sorry.”
“Look, please, don’t make things worse by appealing like this. It’s spineless. Stand up for what you’ve chosen to do. It’s alright,” Sis insisted, “I should be the one to apologise. Let’s go home. No, I think I shall go to the library. Yean, don’t wait for me, I’ll go home on my own.”
Yean could not bear to see the look on Ser Mei’s face. She turned away and walked toward the car park in the opposite direction, a little impatient with Ser Mei. Why did she have to go on and on? Mei need not have apologised so profusely. She should have remained silent like herself or stood her ground or defended her own action. Then Sis would have respected her, however grudgingly.
Ser Mei found herself alone in the shade of the saga trees, the indifferent witnesses. Abandoned. Her mother was right. She did not know how to love. Like mouse’s shit you don’t kill, you wrench my guts out, her mother would have said, and her mother was right, she knew only how to hurt others, utterly selfish, unthinkably so. She had hurt Sis, the only one who had tried to pay attention to her. Yes, you selfish! You see my white hair, and you do what? You still want me to bitch. You think I never mind I cheap already? You think I enjoy is it? I only do for you what, my own daughter. Now I so old already I still sell my body. For what? I ask you for what? So you can go to university and come back only think your mother cheap and useless. I sacrifice for you so much you don’t know. I ask you this once only, one time only and no more. He old but he nice man. Once only you do this for me and you say don’t want. Why? High class university student what! My heaven ah! Show some justice. See my white hair see and show pity ahhhh! And her mother had collapsed on her bed in a mass of dishevelled hair. She shrank in horror at the sight of her mother’s undyed hair. She had never realised how old her mother was. Her dyes, her powders and her negligees had hidden her tired face and her worn-out body. Now that head of grey hair reared up in accusation. Having made her decision, Ser Mei ran down the path. She must get home before she changed her mind.
The air-conditioner in the room hummed softly. The bedroom was hushed, cool and new. Thick maroon velvet curtains blocked out the street lights and muffled all sounds coming from the outside. The brand new formica of the imported bedroom suite gleamed white and gold in the yellow light of the bedside lamp. The metallic gleam of its gold trimmings gave the room an air of newly bought luxury. Two red electric bridal candles cast a warm red glow upon the walls. The bright pink satin bedspread shone just a shade too bright so that despite the soft yellow light, its bright pink hurt her eyes.
Beneath the satin bedspread Ser Mei lay spread-eagled. Her arms and legs were tied to the four corners of the bed with red strands of velvet for good luck. The lower part of her body was raised by a hard kapok pillow. She was chewing a ginseng root slowly as she waited, her eyes closed. She had drunk a full glass of brandy straight off. She was determined to shut out everything, close her eyes and her ears. Her soul would fly to the stars and remain there forever. Then she need not care about what happened to her body. Her body, mere clay, let him have it, this old man. Let her mother have it. It’s the least she could offer her after all these years.
“Fifty thousand dollars is a lot of money what!”
“A very good price,” her mother’s friends had exclaimed and they had advised her not to haggle. She must accept it quickly before he changed his mind. You never could tell with these rich old men.
“Rich but so stingy, lah!”
“Why in Saigon or Hong Kong, price not so high, only one-tenth this. So cheap over there, those girls cheap like dirt.”
“Ah then no guarantee,” smiled another of her mother’s friends.
“They all say they young and innocent. They all say they real chicks. Where got? Most of them old hens, lah!”
And the older women had laughed, wise to the ways of the world. Her mother, glad of their sanction, had agreed then to fifty thousand dollars with twenty thousand dollars as down payment, and thirty thousand to be paid the morning after.
“That’s fair,” everyone had exclaimed, pleased with their part in the negotiations.
Ser Mei bit hard into the ginseng root, allowing its bitter-sweet juice to trickle slowly down her gullet. The ginseng would strengthen her, her mother had said. It would also prevent her from biting her tongue should she be unable to tolerate the pain. She must relax, her mother had said, then, it would not be so bad. Hovering between dream and stupor, Ser Mei struggled to keep her mother’s worn wrinkled face and dishevelled grey hair in front of her. Slowly she fell asleep.
The door opened and shut with a soft click. The old man entered. His florid face and balding head was so flushed with drink that his sparse silvery hair appeared even whiter than it was. He felt warm after the bowl of chicken brandy soup, and taking off his shirt, he carefully hung it on the back of the chair, deciding that his long-sleeved undershirt was warm enough for the air-conditioned room. He looked round the room with its brand new bridal suite and smiled approvingly. It was just like his newly married son’s room. The huge jade ring on his left hand gleamed in the yellow light of the bedside lamp. He unzipped his black pants and they slipped on to the floor.
White hair.
White singlet.
White knee-length cotton pants.
And a gleaming jade ring on a withered hand, rubbing a withered pouch.
His hand moved upward, rubbing his protruding belly—his “fook”—the Cantonese would say. He smiled. Tonight he was pleased with his ‘fook’ and his eyes rested on the face of the girl sleeping beneath the pink satin cover. Her youth moved him. Something reared between his groin. He moved to the table. Ah, it was ready for him. He picked up the cup of steaming ginseng chicken soup and gulped down the contents. It should work for him, this aphrodisiac. It should give him back his vitality.
He slipped off the satin cover and pulled down his knee-length underpants. The girl, spread-eagled, lay like an offering before him.
Fair body.
That wisp of curly black hair excited him.
He could feel himself throbbing.
In happiness, he burst into song—a bawdy Teochew refrain:
“The rider has far to go
The mare is waiting
To be mounted, ho!”
And he fell on top of her.
Ser Mei bit hard into her ginseng root.
Spasm after spasm of pain seared through her.
She bit harder.
Her eyes closed tight.
Her fists clenched as a load came crushing upon her.
A hard rod shoved into her, grating against her dry virginal walls.
Then a sudden squirt of hot liquid.
The deadweight sprawled limp.
The tears rolled down her cheeks.
She stifled a sob.
The air-conditioner hummed.
“The rider has far to go
His steed is rearing
The mare is impatient
to be mounted, ho!”
And again he fell on top of her.
Fifty thousand dollars!
He would get his money’s worth.
Ser Mei bit hard into the ginseng root.
Again and again the deadweight fell crushing upon her.
Harder and harder, she was pushed and shoved.
Harder and harder, faster and faster.
She screamed.
He shook convulsively.
Again and again he shook, clutching her.
His hands tore wildly into her.
She fought him.
She could not breathe.
A ton pushed her down, crushing her.
Suddenly, the deadweight went limp. Like a sack of rice, it lay on top of her. She tried to push the weight off. She opened her eyes and swallowed her scream. His face was frozen in a glassy stare.
“Ahhhhhhhh!” her voice returned.
The door flung open. Her mother, pale with fright, ran in with two other women. They pulled the old man off her. He was already dead. They covered him with the satin bedspread.
“Quick, quick! Call the police!”
“Call the ambulance!”
“No, no, close his eyes first, close his eyes first!”
“And push that thing down! Choy! Choy! This bad luck, very bad luck!” Mei’s mother moaned as she hurried to and fro about the room.
“Why this happen to me, hah? Why? And in my own house! Surely bad luck forever!”
“And he not old, only about sixty.” The women shook their heads and clucked sympathetically.
“The ginseng, lah,” theorised another woman.
“Ginseng and black chicken too strong, ah!”
“Don’t talk, don’t talk.”
“See to the girl! See the girl!”
“She’s fainted!”
“Untie her! Dress her and cut away the ropes!”
“Quick, quick! Go to altar downstairs, bring up goddess Kwan Yin’s glass of water, and two pomelo leaves from garden at the back! Quick, quick,” the distraught mother shouted again. Her good fortune was at stake.
The woman returned with water and pomelo leaves.
“Yes, yes! Now sprinkle her, sprinkle her with holy water. Use the leaves. Use the pomelo leaves. O mi toh fu, O mi toh fu,” Ser Mei’s mother chanted.
She felt the wet and the cold. She opened her eyes and let out another scream. She got up and rushed out. She ran down the stairs, out of the house and down the road just as the ambulance and police car came screeching round the corner, their orange lights blinking hot and fast.
I didn’t do it!
I didn’t do it!
A voice in her screamed, tears streaming down her face.
I’m only a hole, a rotten hole, a black hole of death!
I didn’t do it,
I didn’t do it!
She was battling for the last shred of self-respect.
But I killed him, O God, I killed him!
She ran aimlessly away from the house.
I killed him.
A hole of death, I killed him!
Nothing, nothing but rot.
I KILLED HIM!
She ran down the road, running toward the new blocks of flats as heedlessly as the cars whizzing past her in the night.
Kwan Koong Road, narrow, congested and alive with human traffic, chatter and clamour, the clashing of colours and the glare of the electric light from powerful lamps hanging from the crowded stalls. Near the entrance to the street, stalls heaped high with oranges, apples and watermelons jostled for the crowd’s attention. The hawkers cried their wares in loud strident voices, “Lai, lai, lai! Ngo kat! Fifty cents only! Very good melons, sister, very cheap.” Their Hokkien voices rising higher in pitch than the metallic mix of electrical sounds coming from the radio cassette stalls—A-go-go music vying with Mandarin pop belting out lyrics proclaiming a lover’s undying devotion.
Siew Yean walked through this sea of buying and selling crowding the verandahs of the shophouses and spilling on to the road. All down the street were food stalls selling noodles, porridge, turtle soup, cheap shirts and gaudy dresses. Passing those stalls busy with people at their evening meal, she turned into Sago Lane away from the bright lights and the hustle and bustle of shoppers and diners. An invisible barrier snuffed out the noise and gaiety of Kwan Koong Road. Sago Lane had the sombre air of decrepit age waiting for death to make his claim. Old men and women sat on the verandahs among abandoned boxes and cartons, fanning away the evening heat with palm leaf fans. Were those grasping hawkers and these dying old men the proletariat of Chinatown so extolled by Mr Mak? Yean did not know. Chinatown was so different from Kensington Park and Orchard Road. And this was a part of Chinatown, unfamiliar to her. She walked past the old people quickly till she reached a rickety stairway marked by a pole upon which a piece of white cloth was hung as a sign of mourning. She went up the stairs lighted by a single electric bulb whose dim yellow light was absorbed by the thick grime on the walls.
As she reached the landing she saw that Sis, Aileen, Kim, Peter, Hans and Mak Sean Loong were already there, looking solemn and ill at ease. Sis led her into a cavernous dimly lit room which was above the front of the shop. It looked huge and high because it had no ceiling. Great black beams arched across the room, laid bare like a crude declaration that Death had to be faced squarely, barren and harsh. Yean stole a glance at the two sides of the room. Along the walls in the semi-darkness were rows of beds upon which lay the shadows of the dying—old men and women—wheezing out the breath of slow decay in the twilight world of Chinatown’s death houses. Yean and Marie watched spellbound as an emaciated old man struggled to sit up. He got up, coughing a dry racking cough, cleared his throat loudly and spat into the spittoon by his bed. Then he leaned back and lay on his bed staring vacantly into space. Each of them had the look of one waiting, waiting for life to ebb out of their bodies, the hollow containers of souls no longer there.
Yean turned away and studied the black coffin squatting in the centre of this room where the dead and the dying met. Ser Mei’s photograph was propped against the head of the coffin. Her impassive unsmiling face was staring out of eternity now. Yean found herself staring back, her mind blank. She did not know what to say to the dead. Neither did she know what to say to the living.
Marie who had followed Yean’s glance along the walls shrank from such unadorned reality. She averted her look and nudged Yean. “Ser Mei’s mother.”
Yean raised her eyes and saw a tragic mask—the mask of one who had lost a daughter. There was nothing else to say. So Yean nodded, and the mother acknowledged her nod, silently motioning her to take a seat by the door.
When Marie and Yean rejoined their group, Peter asked, “May we say a prayer for her? Are they following Buddhist rites?” His voice was edged with irritation at the superstition of Ser Mei’s family. A Catholic brought up to believe that “God is Love” he felt that by placing Mei’s body in the death house, her family had rejected her because of the nature of her death and their selfish concern for their own “luck”.
“Let’s not disrupt anything. We’ll say a prayer for her in our hearts,” said Hans with professional caution.
The whole group bowed their heads and prayed that God in His Infinite Mercy would forgive Mei who had lost the courage to live.
“Come, come, take a drink.”
A woman came over and placed some bottled drinks on the table for them. She bustled off and brought back two plates of sweets and peanuts. Hans’ shocked expression at this unseemly custom made Kim giggle.
“Hans, we Chinese eat on every occasion. We eat to keep the dead company. Some people even play mahjong. You ang moh look stiff and solemn at a funeral wake. For us Chinese a wake is an occasion of high drama. Priests chant prayers, banging loudly on drums and gongs as they lead the dead man’s soul through the various layers of Hell. And in order to prove to the judges in Hell that the dead man had been good and therefore sorely missed by kith and kin, we wail near his coffin. We even hire professional mourners for this job.”
“Then why is it so quiet here?” asked Hans who had been listening with interest to Kim’s store of exotica.
“Mei committed suicide,” Kim whispered. “It’s considered a great misfortune to have an unhappy spirit in the family. Besides, Mei is young. The white-haired must not mourn for the black-haired, say the Cantonese. We, Peranakans, are also like this. The older person must not cry for the young. Tomorrow, Ser Mei’s mother, if she follows tradition, and it looks as if she would, will not accompany the coffin to the cemetery. It’s to avoid bad luck and misfortune. The living must be protected. Her unhappy spirit may drag her mother to the netherworld too,” Kim smiled. Her amusement over the last sentence was obviously for Hans’s benefit. He must not suppose that all Chinese believed in this.
The woman who had brought the drinks sat down among them. “You all Ser Mei’s classmates, ah?” she asked in Hokkien.
Hans looked to Marie for a translation, but she was no help since she spoke no dialects herself. Still she answered the old woman in English, “Yes, auntie.” She felt she had to be the spokesman of the group. After all, she was supposed to have known Ser Mei better than the rest.
Since the old woman had come to talk, not to enquire and listen, Marie’s friendly smile and short reply was enough for her to begin her story.
“Very good, you come,” she began in peasant Hokkien. “Mei Mei very sad. Her mother very sad too. She, very very small, I look after her. That high only she was.” She held out her hand to show them her Mei Mei’s height. She sighed and wiped her tears, obviously waiting for them to ask questions.
Aileen, in her usual mix of kindness and curiosity, obliged. “Auntie, what happened? Why did Ser Mei die like that?” she asked in her best Hokkien.
“Aiya, hard to say, hard to say! Mei Mei she good girl, always study so hard. She too good, too good. They say good people always die first,” and she shook her head while the group waited for her to continue.
Marie took a closer look at Ser Mei’s nanny. Again she realised this was another aspect of Ser Mei she did not know and she wondered whether Yean knew. She glanced at her but Yean was busy translating what had been said to Mak and Hans.
The nanny, dressed in a sombre blue and black samfoo, glanced round the room. Seeing Ser Mei’s mother in the other corner, she drew her stool closer to the group and began again in a low conspiratorial tone.
“My Mei Mei ah, very pitiful girl. Her mother, she very greedy. Never satisfied, always greedy for money. Always she wants more money to buy big house. Every day she cried and cried to my Mei Mei and she so soft hearted she cannot stand it and agreed to be old man’s wife for one night and then mistress. He very old already but want to be young again. Aiya, all men are like that. Pay very high price for virgin. And my Mei Mei she not cheap girl, always very good. Never got boy friend. And he not stupid, he knew good thing when he saw it. That old man paid,” and she lowered her voice dramatically and held out five fingers to impress upon them the worth of her Mei Mei, “Fifty thousand dollars!” she said with deliberate slowness.
The group gasped and the nanny smiled, satisfied with the success of her dramatic pause. Then just as dramatically, her smile disappeared.
“But she had bad luck, very bad luck. The old one died that night—right on top of her. So Mei Mei frightened ran away. I think the old man’s spirit not satisfied, followed and pulled her down the block.”
Marie stared wide-eyed at her. She could not believe what she had just heard—such horror spewing out of this woman’s mouth, flowing out in such a matter-of-fact manner. Was she talking about Ser Mei? Yean too was horrified, not by the nurse but by her own turning away from Ser Mei at the point when she most needed a friend. She had failed Ser Mei. The rest of the group were also struggling to understand Ser Mei’s death. Hans felt Ser Mei must be the truly genuine Chinese girl whose filial duty was as yet undiluted by exposure to the values of the West. Mak Sean Loong was trying to place this suicide case within an ideological framework he could understand.
Death and Revolution!
Death and Exploitation!
He was still trying when a loud commotion near the coffin made all of them turn round.
Ser Mei’s mother was knocking her head against the coffin, howling as if in great pain. Five or six women were trying to pull her away.
“Aiya, aiya, don’t do this. Let her spirit go! Don’t do this!”
“Oh, my Mei Mei, ahhh! My Mei Mei, ahhh! Your life so cheap, hah! Ten months I bore you in pain. Then I born you and bring you up all these nineteen years and now you want to go away from your mother so suddenly. Leave me all alone. Because of him, you die, ahhh! Other people kill you and other people treat you cheap. Now they cheat me. You die and what I get?”
Ser Mei’s mother looked up and gave the young man standing beside her a dark angry look. He cringed a little and held out a hand as if to console her. She refused it and turned away. She looked at her daughter’s photograph and wailed again, her Cantonese voice rising and falling in tragic cadenza.
“Yes, you die and what I get for you? Two thousand dollars only. They think very big money. They think can buy life with just two thousand dollars, is it? They think we poor people’s life so cheap. You know, my daughter she very clever, gone to university,” she said, appealing to her audience.
Mak listened intently. Here was a member of the proletariat attacking a member of the degenerate bourgeoisie. He marvelled at her innate political astuteness. Ah, this was the class struggle!
“Nineteen years I care for my daughter and they think two thousand dollars enough! You think this fair, hah? You say this fair or not?” she asked all the women gathered around her.
The man dressed in mourning black looked embarrassed and disconsolate.
“I born daughter. I gave her to your father and what I get? Two thousand dollars, eh? He promised me fifty thousand dollars, hah! You want to do honourable thing? Do properly. You want honour for your family? Then you, the eldest son, you settle his debts. I honest, I no cheat. Yes, he gave me deposit, twenty thousand dollars. Still owe me thirty thousand. This money—this my daughter’s blood money—her money, for me! Oh my Mei Mei, my filial Mei Mei, come back come back to your old mother. Come back, I don’t want their dirty money, come back, ahhhh!” and she collapsed beside her daughter’s coffin.
The man, obviously unprepared for such a display of grief, did not know what to do. He looked around helplessly, but none of the women were his allies. His honour and the honour of his family were at stake.
“Don’t cry, Ah Soh, don’t cry. I’ll try my best. I’ll talk to my mother when everything is over. She is now very sick. This cheque is just for the funeral expenses. Later I will ask my lawyer to contact you.” He hurriedly thrust a cheque upon her, and left.
Marie looked askance at the group of women who were trying to comfort Ser Mei’s mother, who kept moaning in a low voice, over her financial loss. Marie motioned the rest toward the staircase and the whole group shuffled out. The nanny, their sole point of contact with the situation, had deserted them for the drama around the coffin.
Such crass materialism!
Such brazen calculation!
Marie reeled off phrases angrily in her head. It was all too sordid. Hans understood Marie’s indignation. He placed his hand lightly on Marie’s shoulder as they went down the stairs, a touch suggesting so much warmth and affection that Marie felt comforted and even found the touch pleasurable. But that instantaneous realization of pleasure made her skip two steps down the stairs away from Hans’s hand. She was grateful for the dim light on the ancient stairway which hid her flushed face.
The group stood at the foot of the stairs, grim with helpless anger at the mother’s calculating ways. In life and in death, Ser Mei had been so unloved. Marie broke the silence.
“It’s not worth it! It’s just not worth it at all! She has died for a worthless cause!”
“It’s so obvious her mother was using her,” said Kim.
“I must say the mother is a damn good actress, boy,” said Peter. “Let’s not stand around here, I’m starved, I haven’t had my dinner yet.”
They followed Peter’s suggestion and sat down at one of the hawker stalls.
“I took a look at Ser Mei. She had a pearl between her lips. Isn’t this a sign of her mother’s love?” Aileen asked naively as usual in her perennial quest for some good in others.
“No, silly,” answered Kim who prided herself on being the voice of reality. Kim acknowledged goodness only if it were obvious. “The pearl in her mouth is to prevent the breath of death from contaminating the breath of life. It’s the usual selfish Chinese custom to protect the living.”
“In that room, death and life looked the same. Those poor old people lying on their beds might as well be dead. No one seemed to care,” observed Peter.
“It’s amazing,” said Hans. “Your culture upholds filial duty but you have such pretty death houses and even cite them as tourist attractions.”
The truth of Hans’s flippant observation could not be denied, Yean felt, but she had to clarify the situation for him. “These people have no families. They left their families in China when they came over here to work long ago. By right, their employers should look after them.”
“And why aren’t these employers doing that? They squeeze them dry and abandon them here. All are exploiters like the old man. Ser Mei’s mother is his running dog. That’s why she was paid.”
Mak was angry again and looked ready to launch into one of his readings from his favourite authors. After all, every opportunity must be used to demonstrate the evil of capitalism and materialism in bourgeois society.
“I never thought I would meet an actual case of parental exploitation, but now I believe Mao when he said that one should rebel to retain one’s rights even as children. Let me tell you what I’d read in this.”
Mak waved his copy of Red Star Over China. Before anyone could protest, he had launched into one of his monologues.
"The dialectical struggle is in the family. The father holds the power, and the mother and children must submit to him. When Mao was thirteen, he rebelled against this power structure. One day his father denounced him in front of many guests, berating him as lazy and useless. Mao was livid. He cursed his father and ran out of the house. His father went after him, cursing and swearing. Mao reached a large pond. He threatened to jump in if his father moved any nearer to him. His mother begged him to return home. His father swore at him. Mao cursed him in return. It was civil war. Accusations and grievances flew back and forth. His father demanded his sumission. Mao had to kneel and k’ou t’ou. Mao refused and forced his father to compromise. Mao would kneel on one knee instead of two. He did a one knee k’ou t’ou and that was how their war ended. Mao had defended his rights. The exploited in the family or the nation must rise and fight their oppressors!"
Mak looked expectantly at everybody, waiting for them to launch into a discussion of the class struggle in Chinese families. He was disappointed when Aileen commented, “How come Mao talked about his quarrel with his father as if it were an international conflict? Isn’t his vocabulary a bit bloated?”
Yean looked down at her bowl of noodles, too angry even to smile. Serve him right. How could he be so unfeeling? She knew that Aileen’s questions had offended Mak for whom Ser Mei’s death was an excellent example of the dialectics of the class struggle.
“Why didn’t she rebel?” asked Marie as if posing the question more to herself. “Why didn’t she see that her mother was exploiting her? Why didn’t she consult us?”
She could not understand how Ser Mei could have remained so weak and submissive. Hadn’t she always encouraged Mei to be strong and to stand up for her rights? What had gone wrong? Where had she, Marie, failed? She was upset tonight partly because she did not know the answer and partly because of what she felt on the stairway a moment ago.
Hans stole a glance at her. She looked so beautifully vulnerable when she was upset on someone’s behalf, her lips quivering as she sought to control her feelings.
But Yean who was also watching Marie did not see that beauty. Instead she saw useless tears of remorse.
“Where were you when she needed you?” she almost shouted but instead she swallowed a mouthful of noodles and was immediately sick. Tonight she could not eat. She stood condemned by Ser Mei’s death.
Marie hurried down the corridor toward the convent’s chapel. She needed to pray for Ser Mei’s soul, and ask God to forgive Ser Mei for taking her own life. What had gone wrong? Where had she failed? Why hadn’t Ser Mei consulted her? Hadn’t she done her best to draw Mei out of her shell? She was in no mood yet to join the other sisters in their evening prayers, but instead lingered in the evening light along the ancient arched corridor, its greyness matching her mood. Arch upon arch followed one another, a pattern in human life—of rising expectations, the achievement of happiness and then a fall into disillusionment. She must, she thought, be in the last third of this journey. As she climbed the steps into the chapel, the roar of the traffic grew distant and the candlelit interior swallowed up her white figure embracing her with the comfort woven by a hundred years of prayers offered to a God so mysterious to those who had dedicated their lives to Him; a God who bled and who was as vulnerable as those who adored Him.
She genuflected, slipped into her pew and knelt, concentrating on the Blessed Sacrament, trying to conjure Christ’s presence in the tabernacle. Row upon row of white-clad sisters, heads reverently bowed, murmured their prayers in unison, their chants rising like wreaths of incense woven jointly by so many loving hearts throbbing in unison. The evening light streamed through the red and blue stained glass windows high above the heads of the community, bathing them in a soft ethereal light. Marie watched and listened, lulled by the melody of the chanting. She was not one of its contributors. Occasionally she broke into their spiritual wreath-making but she had none of the others’ capacity for sustained prayer. She tried instead to centre her thoughts on prayer for the repose of Ser Mei’s soul but that dim stairway kept creeping into her consciousness, that warm touch of the hand, those blue eyes ... she shook off the image and turned her thoughts toward Ser Mei again. Had she failed her? Why didn’t Ser Mei confide in her? Hadn’t she always encouraged her to do so? She felt betrayed. Ser Mei had chosen to confide in Yean. Ser Mei had held back while she, Marie, had reached out and now, even after her death Marie still felt exposed and vulnerable. Her invitation had been rejected, but so silently that she had failed to sense it, interpreting it instead as hesitation, shyness and timidity. Marie looked steadily at the flickering candles. A warm flush stole over her, its heat increasing in intensity as it concentrated on the region of her heart till like a red hot brand the word, Rejected, was firmly imprinted there. She had been a fool! For a long time she knelt with her head bowed, letting the humiliation cauterise her once proud spirit. What a fool she had been! Looking up, the huge silhouette of Christ hanging on the Cross startled her. It seemed to say: I am the greatest fool in history. She paused. Alleluia, why didn’t she see it earlier? This was alright then. She had only been a fool for Christ. Was that not her calling and her vocation? Christ too had been betrayed by His apostles. Like Him, hers was a commitment to a journey of passion—a human journey. Hadn’t Paul Tan said that in each of us was either a journey of passion because of involvement with others or a journey of emptiness because of non-involvement with others? According to him, either way, man was trapped. No exit. Man could never win. It was either the painfulness of being human or the painlessness of being a zombie. Perhaps if she were a zombie she would not feel the warmth of that hand so intensely. Vexed by the dark humour of her Creator, she looked up at the Cross again. Was this the life she was committed to? Of heightened awareness? She was flesh and blood and each drop which oozed out had its own sensations, she thought, as the humiliation of rejection and the universal yearning for affection washed over her once again. The pain while it lasted told her that she had feelings, was indeed vulnerable and alive. This awareness was its own reward, releasing her from the intimate slumber of the dull earth. Although pleased with her own facility with words she was not sure whether this was a prayer or an insight she had gained. By the end of vespers she had accepted Ser Mei’s case as her failure. But she must not love her failures more than her God. Life was to be lived in the here and the now, Mother Superior had said. The important thing was not the fact of failing but what she had learnt from it. Her mission still lay in living life fully, embracing the world’s pain and suffering. Prayerful reflection reassured Marie that her vocation was still intact with a goal and a meaning.
The spacious garden still wet with dew shimmered green and blue in the early morning sunshine. The sparkling reflection of the clear blue sky in the swimming pool gave the garden its air of cheerful serenity. But Siew Yean, coming out of the pool, was neither cheerful nor serene. She grabbed a towel and began to rub herself vigorously, grimly determined not to spare herself any pain. For the past few days she had stayed at home, keeping away from the others. She was angry, very angry; mainly with herself but partly with Sis. A hot wave of shame still overwhelmed her whenever she recalled how she had very nearly shouted at Sis about Ser Mei. She should have, and not only that, she ought to have directed the same question at herself. Where was she when Ser Mei needed her? Why hadn’t she telephoned Mei herself? Why did she recoil from Mei, preferring her own romance to Mei’s reality? She too had rejected Mei—careful to preserve the marble polish of her own life’s surface.
For days Yean sat in judgement over her own failures, remembering all her sins. All the “ifs” and the “could haves” piled on her like so many sodden mattresses. She could hardly breathe. If she had only been more sensitive ... if she had possessed more courage, she could have helped Mei think through her problems. She could have helped Mei see through her mother’s drama ... She could have prevented Mei from jumping to her death! Coward and betrayer. She wished she could have disowned everything—her sprawling home and spacious garden, all the advantages she obviously had. She had taken her parents’ wealth for granted, with little or no thought for anybody else. Kim had every right to be sarcastic when she had failed to fetch Yin Peng, who had to use a crutch. And where was Yin Peng now? Abandoned by them, since she had decided against coming to varsity. Was this her own circle now—mere varsity acquaintances? Children of the rich? All those who had made it to the top?
She went into her room and changed quickly. She would go for a walk, say good-bye to Mei once and for all, and get on with her own life. She would not waste Ser Mei’s death in mere self-pity. Wealth had cocooned her. She would break free.