Two dirty yellow fans whirred incessantly on the ceiling. They were wet, embarrassed, silent and shivering, huddled in one corner of the police detention room whose bare grey walls were relieved only by the black and white portraits of the President and his wife, smiling blankly down at them. Yean looked at herself and the girls. With stringy wet hair clinging to their faces, they looked like half-drowned chickens pale with fright. They were not looking at each other. Each was busy with her private thoughts. That was how the powers-that-be robbed them of their dignity, and divided them with shame. She would demand that they be allowed to use the telephone as soon as the woman constable returned. Where was Sis? When the women were separated from the men, Sis was the first to be called in for questioning. The rest were told to wait.
Yes, wait here. Wait. Waiting in limbo. That was it. Just waiting powerlessly like one caught in the grip of a nightmare, unable to stop the dream, unable to wake up. This must be a dream, being rounded up by the police and herded together like common criminals. Lord, help us, give us strength, Yean prayed, wanting to believe this invocation would work, but knowing that it would not. Man after all has to learn to bear the consequences of his acts. Why else was he given free will?
The door opened. Two women officers came in, carrying piles of olive-green towels and solemnly distributed these to the girls who tried to wipe themselves dry. Yean was the next to be called in for questioning.
She walked into the office and her heart skipped a beat. Paul Tan! She saw Paul dressed in the dark blue suit of a police inspector walk out with Marie.
“Thank you, Lord,” escaped from her lips involuntarily.
“Yes, what you say?” the woman constable walking beside her asked.
“Nothing, nothing,” Yean smiled for the first time. She hadn’t expected such a speedy answer to her prayer.
Glittering blades pierced Marie’s eyes as she emerged from the gloomy doorway into the noonday sun in the car park. Row upon row of neatly parked police cars with the light bouncing off their highly polished bodies. The potent power of steel held in a grid waiting to be released. Marie was surprised to see so many police cars assembled in the yard. Did they need so many machines against unarmed workers and students? Mak was right after all. Her little group must have been more influential than she thought.
“Use that side gate. The reporters won’t see you from here. They’re still waiting for you at the front office.”
Marie nodded.
“Bye, all the best,” and Senior Inspector Paul Tan held out his hand.
Marie shook it stiffly.
“I hope you’ll see the pointlessness of it all,” he said with a thin-lipped smile, pushing his glasses further up the bridge of his nose as if to see more clearly. A gesture all too familiar to Marie. Then he turned and went into the building.
He could not bear to see that half-defensive, vulnerable look, vacillating between stiff upper lip and appeal, that row of pearly teeth biting her lower lip, fighting for control. He knew something like this would happen. He had done his best to warn her. But she would not listen. He could not help her now, and he was as angry with himself as he was with her. He pulled open the door of his filing cabinet, drew out the file on Sister Marie-Therese Wang, threw it on his desk and strode out again. He needed a walk to regain his objectivity. The source of her missionary spirit, if one could call it that, was such a mixture of arrogance and ignorance. Her desire to do good to others was not the result of humility but the outcome of that strange perception which prided itself on being capable of leading others to a higher level of existence. So dangerous! But there you are! She was liable to go through life convinced that she had been chosen to save the rest of humanity. Always seeing herself and those with her either as the leaven in the bread or cadres to the cause of Liberty, Fraternity and Equality! As if they were the only ones worthy to be in the vanguard of society! Such pride! Such romance! As if Man’s nature could be so easily moulded. The great leaders had failed. Yet she thought she could succeed with her little coterie! Doesn’t she realise that those born cows will be cows no matter what she might do? She accused him of being cynical. Here she was, so lacking in faith in people, thinking she must save them from a loss of political will. What utter nonsense! Singaporeans are stronger than this. They will act when the time comes, but only when necessary.
Marie too needed a walk. Out of the car park, through the side gate as directed, and down the quiet road with its two-storey pre-war shophouses. The muffled roar of traffic down Robinson Road reached her ears like distant sounds from behind a thick high wall. A quiet haven right in the heart of the city, strangely empty of traffic and people. The sun shining white and hot cast firm shadows on one side of the street, lined with lorries.
TAMIL TIMES PRESS
Black and white sheets of newsprint plastered its walls.
TET OFFENSIVE
BULLS IN GOLD MART
Chinese characters in bright vermilion.
GUAN HENG EXPORT IMPORT CO. LTD.
CHOP BAN GUAN
KIM SENG ENGINEERING
KHOO KONG SI CLAN ASSOCIATION
The heat rising from the asphalt of the tarmac road choked her already dry throat—her only dry place she felt. The rest of her was wet with perspiration as the bourgeois termed it. Perspiration. Such a delicate term for a condition caused by insufferable heat and hard physical labour. She watched two red- and blue-clad samsui women clamber up the scaffolding on the opposite side of the road. Of course, those who worked in air-conditioned offices could afford such delicacy in language. Perspiration! What a refined word! Tiny drops of water glistening on foreheads, or a sheen on noses to be gently dabbed away with the help of Elizabeth Arden. This was Paul Tan’s world, not hers. And he had said, I hope you’ll see the pointlessness of it all. She knew he would have added this other bit if his courage had not failed him at the last moment. You see where it all leads to? Betrayal! All commitment other than to the self is an illusion, as I’ve told you time and again. Yours is not the answer. All men work for their self-interest. Betrayal. Self-interest. All these he would have stressed. Did he know St Peter’s sin at all?
“Under the spreading chestnut tree
I sold you and you sold me
Under the spreading chestnut tree.”
Where had she heard that refrain? Such resigned acceptance of the inevitable. Had she sinned and not felt it? Had she done wrong and not know it? Had her conscience become so hardened that she could not feel guilt any more? But here, Hans would say, was her Catholic guilt at work again—punishing her with remorse. Her grandma had often told her to examine a man’s ten fingers whenever she felt she was being unduly harsh on others. Look, girl, she had said, not all the same length, lah. Ada jari panjang, ada jari pendek. Some fingers are long; some fingers are short. How true. She had to learn to accept others’ shortcomings, including her own. She had to admit her ignorance under questioning. What else could she do? They knew everything. And in Paul’s presence, she had to tell the truth. She did not know anything about Mak and his workers. She had no inkling that the illegal underground was involved. How was she to know? She didn’t even know that Mak could be that crazy. It had never occurred to her. It was just too incredible. She had always looked upon him as intelligent. An incisive theoretician. A little eccentric, yes. Obsessed with police and spies, yes. Sinister? No! Loony? Definitely not!
Marie walked unseeing, intent only upon presenting her case to an imaginary panel of judges as she had done in debates long ago. And this was the most important debate in her life. She had to win. Mak had been a brilliant debater too whenever he wanted others to see things from his point of view.
“You think this war is none of your business? Did you know that GIs on R & R here had called up the girls’ hostels in BT to book for dates?”
Marie could hear Mak’s booming voice haranguing the girls as if his manhood was at stake. Could such a person be mad? Surely something must have snapped. Who was it who said that the irrationality of capitalism was reflected in the number of cuckoo cases referred to psychiatrists? Hans. Yes, Hans was right. In its very rationality lies its madness. Capitalism creates its own Shylocks and Edmunds. One had to be mad in order to be sane under such a system, Hans had said. Was she mad then? Should she have lied? Lied that she did know of Mak’s connections? And jeopardised the SWA project?
Nothing cohered. Her mind was in fragments. The recent past were just bits of grit. It was difficult for her to even admit that she had simply lost control. She had paid too much attention to Hans and her own personal interests. She went over what happened at the police station. She was questioned like a common criminal. And he had come in, brisk and efficient, in his police blue and silver pips. He had sat, eyes down, shuffling his papers.
“You may go. We’ll issue a summons when we require your presence again. Should it be sent to the convent or your parents’ house?”
And she had winced. That was so unnecessary. Obviously, he had wanted to hurt her. She stood up and he had followed.
“I’ll try to do all I can, but I will have to follow the due process of law,” he had said in his familiar self-righteous tone.
“It’s all right. I’m not begging,” she had replied.
It was a hit from the look on his face. If looks could kill, he had already killed her. Her little hit was nothing compared to his brisk official tone in front of his superiors. He had to let her know that this was pure business. He would deal with her as with everyone else. She was no one special (as if she had not known it all along). He had to do his duty. His own position was at stake. He must show that he could put the public good before his personal interests. And yes, he was right. What is the point of it all? It was both a personal and an official question. Personal feelings and personal history no longer mattered. He had become a stranger. The OC—Officer-in-charge.
But why? Why must he strip off all her illusions? Sully all her experiences? Every encounter had brought pain. Nothing but pain. Couldn’t he be satisfied that she had once loved him? Must they continue to fight even now? And she had wanted to remember him as someone she had once loved. Not this ugly career climber. This stooge, as Hans would say, exercising the power the real masters confer only on those of unquestioning loyalty. That would be Paul’s definition of loyalty exactly—unquestioning obedience. She simply called it stupidity. No will of his own! Acting only according to orders. No, she would fight. She would resist. Workers and students must learn to exercise their collective will!
With that conviction, she hailed a taxi and headed home to the convent.