It was a bright blue and white Saturday morning, the kind of morning that came after the heavy rains. Yean drove down the tree-lined avenue leading to Dr Jones’s house off the Bukit Temasek campus. She parked her car under a spreading Flame of the Forest, and smiling at its red blooms, locked her car door and went tripping into the garden which was ablaze with hibiscus reds and acacia yellows. The ground around the stone pillars of the kampong-style colonial bungalow was a hive of activity. The workers and students assembled by Mak had strung large strips of cloth between the pillars and were now busily painting red and black slogans on them. Others, working in groups scattered around the garden, were daubing waxed-paper umbrellas with huge blobs of red and black paint. The sight of everyone working together for a common purpose and their happy chatter and laughter warmed Yean’s heart. She was glad that she could leave her family problems behind, and join this band of committed people.
“This government, hah, makes everything good for the foreign companies.”
Mak told the small group of men and women gathered around the steps leading up to the balcony of the bungalow. Yean sat down beside Pei Lan and Ah Huat, the leaders of the workers, and were held up as fine examples of the success of the SWA project.
“They pay, hah, low wages and earn high profits, get cheap housing and want everything hygienic.”
Everyone laughed, but it was derisive laughter. The administration was being short-changed by these grasping foreign companies.
“What, man, these ang mo sai, white man’s turd, come back from abroad think they are too clean for us. Roadside stalls, pasar malam all dirty they say. Beachee Load satay dirty now, they say, must eat now in Ang Teng Tow. They forgot that their ancestors for eighteen generations ate satay in Beachee Load and never died,” exclaimed one of the men in Hokkien, a man whom Yean had never seen before. Everyone laughed again at this stupidity of the Western-trained administrators who had adopted the Westerners’ concept of hygiene.
“Wah-lau, these people now act tough only and got no heart,” another unkempt-looking young man chipped in. Yean guessed that he must be one of the construction workers brought in by Ah Huat. “My old father lost one thousand dollars, hah, to those bastard inspectors. No license they say and broke all his cups and plates. All new. Three days in business. No license. One thousand dollars broken in front of his eyes. My old man cried like he lost his own father.”
The group which had grown larger now shook their heads sympathetically. The women murmured, “Jing chau ah, jing suay ay. Very bad. Very unlucky.”
The men let off a volley of four-letter words in Hokkien and Teochew.
“Last time so good hah, you can make a living hawking the streets. No trouble. Now,” said the woman as she paused and looked at the crowd, “you have to go here, go there, see this officer, that officer and sign and sign this-ah that-ah form. Pink, green, so many! Head-ache-ah!” and she beat her forehead.
“Ya, ay,” the crowd laughed. Yean smiled at this grass-root perception of bureaucratic red tape and marvelled at the way Mak could get the people to speak out in this way. She glanced at Mak, seated at the top of the stairs, smiling his approval like a lord comfortable among his loyal subjects.
“Now ah money talk. You do this, it’s money; you do that, it’s money. Throw rubbish even must pay money and we poor people suffer.”
“But you try to make more money, change job and they call you irresponsible and money-greedy. Say we go here, go there, not steady!” another young woman chipped in.
Yean had never met any of these workers before. Nonetheless, she was pleased to hear so many of them speaking so eloquently about injustice in society. She had no idea that Mak and Ah Huat could gather such an articulate crowd. This success of the SWA had far exceeded her expectations.
“What man! They want us to tighten our belts and eat less! The American companies want more profit!”
“Sure, that’s their goal. They give us lousy third-rate machines and squeeze every drop of blood out of us Asians. That’s why the Chinese fight them and the Vietnamese fight them. And we’ve got to fight them too!”
Mak pronounced his verdict, pleased that the crowd approved and seemed to accept his judgement.
At this point, Marie and Hans strolled in, hand in hand. A scowl flitted across Mak’s face. He turned to Ah Huat, whispered something in Mandarin that Yean could not catch. The group got up and dispersed except for Pei Lan, Ah Huat, Mak and Yean.
“Hi, morning,” Marie greeted them.
“How’s everything?” Hans asked.
“All’s well. Everything under control, boss,” answered Mak in mock submission.
Pei Lan giggled and Ah Huat, the grim, silent man, managed a smile.
“How’s your end of things?” Mak asked Marie.
“I’ve already told them that my decision, though painful, is irrevocable. Our ideological split is too deep. I can’t work with them. I know some of them are sympathetic but they’re not willing to go all the way. As a community, they’re more interested in social welfarism than in working for more fundamental changes in the social order.”
Yean listened, knowing that this was Sis at her eloquent best. Laughing, Marie recounted her confrontation with her community—a confrontation that she presented as her willingness to live at the radical edge of life as opposed to the sisters’ clinging to the security of the set old ways.
“I said to them, look, you’ve locked yourselves in within the walls of the convent and the schools, pretending that what you do is important and relevant. Do you really think that you can make an impact on the education system? Do you think you matter at all now that a new pragmatic leadership has taken over?”
There was a brief silence after Sis’s speech as if the group needed time to digest her words.
“So when are you leaving the convent?” Yean was the first to speak.
“As soon as the council approves and accepts my decision. In the meantime, I’m supposed to wait and pray. I wonder how long I’m supposed to wait.”
The undertone of irritation in her voice did not escape Yean. This delay in the execution of her will was quite unbearable. Sis looked up at Hans who smiled. He squeezed her shoulders in possessive sympathy. Yean looked away, embarrassed at this open display of affection. Ah Huat and Pei Lan excused themselves. They too moved away. Mak handed a neatly typed sheet to Marie who read it in silence before handing it to Hans. That slight wrinkling of her nose betrayed her irritation again. Yean wondered whether Mak was aware of it. Yean knew that the contents of the sheet was what she and Sis had secretly laughed at as Mak’s obsession, and to Yean, it looked as if this morning, Marie would no longer let it remain a secret joke between them.
“Look, Mak, you’re getting paranoid. You really think you’re that important in their eyes? So important that they’ll spend all that money to employ someone to tail you? What have you done to endanger them? Nothing.” Marie shrugged her shoulders. “So why get all worked up?” She could no longer hide her impatience after all these months with Mak hinting at his own importance.
Mak sat slumped on the broad stone steps, hands in his pockets and legs stretched out. Yean could see his eyes, which in contrast to his slack body, burned with steely determination and anger.
Nothing? He, Mak Sean Loong, had done nothing important? Is that what she thinks? Mak suppressed his rage.
But Marie, aware only of the slack body stretched out on the steps and the beads of sweat on the oily forehead, seemed only to add oil to fire when she tried to push aside her own impatience, and she consoled him.
“Look, don’t worry. Give them some credit. They may be jealous. Anyone with any sense can see the potential in this project. The students are encouraged to use their initiative to grapple with real problems, not just politicking among themselves in Union House. This is consciousness-raising.” She ended with a word she had learnt from Hans.
“What about this guy, Santok, hah?” muttered Mak into his handkerchief as he wiped the beads of sweat off his face. “Santok is one of the scholarship students. He had been advised by the dean himself to beware of me—of Mr Mak’s brand of politics—Santok himself told me. He had been advised not to do anything foolish to jeopardise his bright future.”
“So Santok has decided to drop out of the SWA—good for him. It just shows what a soft backbone he has. He’s just more worried about his own future, that’s all.”
Yean could see that at that Sis had dismissed Santok from all her future plans.
“What about your jokers—Peter, Ken and the great inspector, Paul Tan?” Mak retaliated.
“What about them? You’re too suspicious, Mak. Ken and Pete had been my students and all my students support me. And Paul, well, Paul has always been like this—cynical—that’s why we can never see eye to eye. But I don’t think he will do anything against us.”
Marie turned to Hans. Hans who had finished reading, looked down and winked at his fellow conspirator.
“Don’t take this too seriously, Mak.” He smiled and turned to survey the activity in the garden. “You’ve a piece of fantastic action here. They don’t want to be locked out of the political process.” Pointing to the groups painting slogans and umbrellas, he said, “Let’s celebrate this instead of worrying about police spies and detectives. Don’t worry about food or what you are to wear ... “ he sang cheerfully the refrain from a Catholic hymn he must have learnt from Sis.
“Oho, I almost forgot. We can’t stay, Mak. We’ve a wedding to attend this morning. It’s a girl who had been a novice. She left some years ago and today she’s getting married. We’ve been invited,” Marie said, pointing to Hans and herself.
“Ah hah,” Mak nodded with a smile.
He hid his rage. These two had come to survey his work and insult him.
“I’ve read somewhere that one of the Berrigan brothers is leaving the priesthood to get married too—some nun or other,” he said with a wave of his hand, dismissing the frivolity of it all. “I don’t think your pope likes this at all,” he said grimly, examining his feet.
Marie and Hans exchanged a secret smile.
“I’ll be back later in the afternoon,” Marie called out as she waved good-bye, dragging Yean along with her.
“You and I will have to see that Mak doesn’t get out of hand,” Marie said as soon as they were out of earshot. “I want to make sure that this demonstration is peaceful and orderly to show that we can discipline ourselves. Keep an eye on Mak and Ah Huat.”
Marie got into the car beside Hans.
Yean waved them off and stopped for a moment at the gate. That sense of camaraderie among committed people that she had felt when she first arrived this morning had disappeared. In its place was the sour taste of suspicion and distrust. She pushed this aside and walked back into Dr Jones’s garden.