Marie drove cautiously but impatiently through the snarling traffic. Trapped in one of those after-office-hours jams, her Volkswagen was nosing its way among the Datsuns, Mazdas, Hondas, Toyotas and Mercedes with tail-lights blinking red and orange. Signs of “Men at Work” and “Danger” and a long line of warning lamps hung at intervals had cordoned off a section of the road which had become a deep trench. In Singapore, one ignored such signs at one’s peril. Those with the courage to take risks often discovered when it was too late that driving their cars out of line with the others or in a manner different from the majority of timid drivers could lead to tragic results in a trench. Life must always be lived according to rules and regulations.
Red—stop.
Amber—green—move.
That was how they were supposed to live here—just follow the signals given, and refrain from asking awkward questions if one had nothing constructive to say. Then you would prosper and be saved.
She stepped on the brake hard, jerking the car to a sudden stop, causing a blast of horns from the cars behind. She had almost hit the car in front. She had always been an impatient driver. Leaning back into her seat she looked out of the window again.
The roads were always being dug up by various public departments. Why couldn’t they coordinate and dig the road once and for all? Roads were always broken up and re-tarred, broken and re-tarred for the laying of sewerage pipes, water pipes, telephone cables, electric cables for this and that and this and that—an endless cycle of activity which they chose to call progress. Cars, gold and diamonds, looming blocks, stocks and shares, dirty factories, noise and dust, TV sets—buy, buy, buy. Must progress always be linked with the accumulation of things?
Marie released the handbrake, and the car rolled slowly forward for a few feet and stopped again. This orderly procession of cars, buses and lorries inching their way down the narrow road, glowed like a red luminous worm in the night. The dark grey clouds of an approaching storm had made the sky a low cover pressing upon the air and preventing the escape of heat from the thousands of engines and exhaust pipes down below. It was oppressive with the traffic snaking down the road.
Marie looked to her left and right, hot and impatient.
Cars in front, moved, stopped.
Cars at the back moved, stopped.
Cars to her right moved, stopped.
Cars to her left stopped and then moved.
Such was the varied life around her. Even then she could not move. She was trapped. She rolled down the window to let in some air but the heat and noise generated by the cars around her hit her like a wave, flooding her in sweat so that she had to roll up her window again. If only she could fly, she would soar above this mess and leave this overcrowded island for some far-off shore where for miles, she wouldn’t have to meet another human face or car, where she could live with Hans in the freedom of open space. Here she felt cramped and watched, compelled to follow the signs and rules of the game. Why couldn’t people leave her alone? Always the questions in their eyes. And her taciturn father had not spoken a single word to her since her return. What do you want to do, Marie? What do you want to do in future? That was the only question her family asked, not how she felt or why she left the way she did. All they were interested in was what others would say, what others would think. And don’t get into trouble with the government, they told her. No one is starving. People here got food to eat and clothes to wear, why you want to protest this and protest that and bring trouble on yourself? Not worth it.
O God, why couldn’t they understand that man can’t live by bread alone? He must have freedom and dignity. But if wars were far away and their own sons were not being killed, they couldn’t be bothered.
Marie released the foot brake, touched the accelerator and let the car roll another few feet. How was she going to get out of this jam? Her mother and grandma had begun to talk about engagements and marriages. These daily hints and questions which she could no longer ignore were getting to be tiresome. Why couldn’t they let her be? She sighed for the anonymity of a big foreign city where people wouldn’t know that she had ever been a Sister Marie-Therese—pure, white and holy—as all nuns were expected to be, vestal virgins untouched and untainted by the filth of the earth! Why couldn’t her father accept a daughter who was ordinary and human? Must she perform some extraordinarily heroic task before he would call her daughter?
A blast of horns awoke her from her angry reverie. She drove the car for another few feet, stopped and glanced at her watch. 7.55. She hoped Mak would be late too. What if he weren’t there? Why didn’t he wait for her and Hans to fetch him? It was just like him to go off without a word. She hoped he had seen the message she left with his sister. Imagine, all this while she didn’t know that he had a sister or that his parents passed away when he was very young. Strange man. He never said anything to anyone. She hoped he would be all right now. She hoped everyone would forget about the embassy incident. They should’ve gotten over their shock by now. They hadn’t stopped talking about it the whole week. She was glad no photo had appeared in the press and wondered whether Paul had anything to do with it.
Amber. Green. A deft turn to the left, she overtook the car in front, stepped on the accelerator and was through the bottleneck. Then zooming down the road, she rolled down the windowpane for the rush of air to blow away the sweat, dust and heat. Now the car surged ahead on the near empty road, with Marie enjoying the speed and power of Hans’s Volks, and finally turning into Princess Avenue, a quiet road lined with the dark irregular shapes of the Madras Thorn. Then slinging her black Indian satchel across her shoulders, she walked quickly into the church compound toward the manse.
Yean looked up as Marie came in. The whole group seated on the green carpeted floor turned toward her, full of expectation.
“Hi,” she called out cheerily.
“Hi, hi!” Everyone greeted her, like one of their usual party-cum-discussion sessions where potato chips would be passed around soon.
“Sorry I’m late. Caught in a traffic jam as usual.”
“It’s alright, we know your habit,” Dr Jones laughed as he made space for her on the floor beside him.
“You’re born under a lucky star, and the rest of us are doomed to wait for you,” moaned Rev James in mock despair.
Marie gave him an affectionate punch on the arm.
Yean looked at the faces of the others. Peter, Ken, Aileen and Kim who had turned up despite what they had said earlier, seemed to be enjoying this banter between Marie and the two Westerners. Her group was decent after all. She examined the impassive faces of the five Chinese guys from Yuan Tung and Nan Hai. They didn’t seem to find this banter funny. Perhaps they couldn’t follow what was being said. Perhaps they were anxious about Mak who had not turned up yet. Anyway she had always found these Chinese-educated guys more serious than those from Bukit Temasek who were only good at recounting soccer games.
“Where’s Hans?” Marie asked, a trifle anxious since she did not know when he would be called up again for further questioning.
“He’ll be here in a jiff, meeting some youths next door.”
“Getting them to join Christian Aid for Bangladesh.”
“Anyone seen Mak yet?” Marie asked, looking round the group.
“Nope,” answered Peter, and Yean marvelled at his cheek for he had only come out of curiosity to see what this first meeting with Mak would be like. Nevertheless, she was glad of his presence though she did not approve of his motives. The four of them made her feel less isolated. Strange that she should feel like this now. Hadn’t she been the one to work alongside these people for the past year? Weren’t she and Sis, no, weren’t she and Marie… for soon she would no longer be Sister Marie-Therese, just plain Marie. Well, weren’t she and Marie regarded as comrades in the SWA? Was she, too, moving away from Marie?
“Must we always dig for causes and reasons every time someone rebels? Am I a radical simply because my father is strict and unreasonable? I mean, look at the society as well.”
Marie was arguing with Ken who was, as usual, trying to find a logical explanation for Mak’s bizarre behaviour.
“Ya, ya, ya, but how do we act when he turns up?”
“Act normal.”
“But isn’t it difficult to act normal now? Won’t they be watching us?” asked Aileen a little anxiously.
“Why should that bother us? We aren’t doing anything wrong. Why should we let that intimidate us? Meet as usual and next time just get a permit, lah. Then they can’t accuse us of breaking the law.”
“Yes, you’ll be a lawful assembly then,” laughed Dr Jones. “I told Mike he should come down and write about us for his Tribune.”
It was as if everything had been a joke and it had been fun being arrested and questioned by the police. Yean looked at the three of them. Rev James was grinning like a schoolboy. Everything had been such a lark, as the English would say in Enid Blyton’s books. Yean turned to the Chinese students. They were not laughing. They must be thinking these Westerners were crazy, and their perspectives, inverted. She wished she knew enough Mandarin to put them at ease.
“And are these all our future leaders?”
Mak’s voice rang out, harsh as the clash of cymbals. The whole group spun round. Mak stared at them through his thick glasses, his high forehead gleaming in the light of the overhead lamp. He seemed to loom large and wild with his hair in a mess, and his body seeming to fill the doorway like an angry giant. Yean involuntarily shrank nearer to the wall, hugging a cushion to her breast.
“You call them leaders?” Mak shouted as if he were at the political rallies of the opposition parties. “Those buggers pee all over the place like dogs. And the girls, hah! No bloody clean. Their bloody stuff all over the bowl! Sluts! All cocks and balls, I tell you! The cats do it better!”
Mak glared at the whole group. For a while, no one spoke. They held their breath waiting for the next explosion. Mak who had planted himself under the electric lamp looked like an avenger from the grave.
“Mak,” Rev James called gently, “come, it’s alright.”
“Ni de mah de! Zho kai!” Mak flung out an arm pushing an imaginary person away followed by a volley of Mandarin words. The faces of the Chinese students told Yean that those were four-letter words.
“Ang mo, you smell—go drop your shit somewhere else!” he shouted again.
Aileen let out a gasp and Mak turned on her.
“Why do you worship their asses? They have shat on us. Bloody spies and turncoats. Hah!”
Mak veered round and grabbed Hans by the shoulders just as Hans came in, not knowing what was happening.
“Here is the chief jackass of them all. You lied!”
“Hey, what’s going on?” Hans tried to pry loose Mak’s iron claws from his shoulders.
“Mah de! Ta gan wen wo ah! You Fascist pig! CIA agents! Running dogs of capitalism!” and Mak punched Hans in the stomach.
Hans caught hold of his arms and in the ensuing scuffle, Mak tripped and fell against the chair nearest to Marie. She tried to hold him down with the help of Dr Jones but Mak was too strong for them. He sprang up and grabbed hold of her satchel.
“You whore you! You think you’re a Mata Hari? His balls are bigger? Didn’t you see mine? You slut! Why? Why you work for them? They pay you better? I’m your leader! A Chiang Ching, you don’t want to be, you want to be a pros! He fuck better?”
“Mak!” Marie’s cry of pain rang out.
The rest fell silent, too stunned to move.
“Don’t Mak me. Too late, too late to repent. I’m going to expose you lot. Ni men kan kan,” he said, turning to the pale faced Chinese students as he ripped open Marie’s satchel and flung out mirrors, books, combs, coins, notes—and then he held up a gleaming gold pack, lips curled in ugly triumph like a wolf going for his first bite. Marie’s face went deadly pale. Her mouth opened but no words came. In that split second, Hans and Dr Jones sprang forward and grabbed Mak from behind, locking his arms in a vice-like grip. He struggled with the strength of ten men, broke loose and fought with all the men, for by this time Peter, Ken and the Chinese students had recovered the use of their limbs. The gold pack fell from Mak’s hands. Scuffling feet trampled on it and Yean watched as pale yellow pills spilled out of the pack and rolled in all directions across the room.
“Aiya, aiya! Lai, lai! He here, he here” a woman came in shouting hoarsely to some people outside in Hokkien.
Four burly Indian men dressed in white pushed their way into the room with a green canvas sheet and belts. Very quickly they wrapped the sheet around Mak and tied him up with the belts as he cursed the whole world in a torrid stream of Hokkien and Teochew, half of which Yean could not comprehend.
After the ambulance from Woodbridge had left, no one felt like saying anything, yet no one moved until Kim, the efficient social worker, came to the rescue.
“Okay, you guys, clear up the place. I’m going to make some coffee,” she said, bringing back a tone of normality into the room.
“I’ll help,” Aileen responded with alacrity and went into the kitchen with Kim.
What should she do now, Yean thought, looking at the overturned chairs? Marie was sitting on the legs of one of them with Hans stooping over her, rubbing one of her hands. Marie seemed to be crying, but Yean couldn’t tell. Her view was blocked by Hans and Kim, who were picking up various objects from the floor, and sweeping up the tiny pills into the dustpan.
“Move over, idiot,” Kim ordered her. “Go and rearrange those chairs.”
Yean glanced at the contents in the dustpan. The pale gold packet had some tiny pills still in its plastic pockets marked by the days of the week—Mon, Tue and Wed.
“Move!” shouted Kim as she looked into Yean’s eyes, silently ordering her not to say a word.
The five Chinese students muttered a hurried good-bye and left. They seemed to be mere spectators, not people who had worked with Mak. Was their silence simply part of their Chinese-educated reserve, a backing away from trouble? Yean was perplexed.
“A lift, anyone?” Dr Jones asked. “I’m driving down Bukit Temasek way.”
“Wait for me please, Dr Jones,” Kim said, raising her hand like a student answering a teacher’s question.
Abruptly, everyone seemed to be going home. Coffee was forgotten. Yean walked toward Marie but before she could reach her, Hans called out to the whole group.
“Night, Yean. Bye, everybody, I’ll send Marie home.” She was cut off, irrelevant. Marie didn’t need her so she followed the others out of the room, leaving Marie hunched on the upturned chair with Hans standing protectively beside her, like the final tableau in an Ibsen play.
Yean walked to her car, unlocked the door and slipped into the driver’s seat. Her whole body was numb. Her mind too. The violence unleashed tonight had torn something apart. Something had been smashed. A blue Ming vase dashed against the wall, its pieces never to be put together again.
NEWS BRIEFS
Anti-war Demonstration Aftermath
Told to leave
Church worker, Hans Kuhn of the American Christian Churches Mission to South-East Asia, has been told to leave by the end of this month, an Immigration Department spokesman confirmed. Leaving with him is Miss Marie Wang, the former Sister Marie-Therese of the Convent of the Blessed Virgin Mary. A university spokesman confirmed that Dr Tamney Jones’s teaching contract which expires in May this year will not be renewed.
Suspended
Five students have been suspended for six months to a year following the advice of a commission of inquiry. Their names have been withheld.
Deported
Three men and a woman have been deported and barred from further visits to Singapore. They are Tan Chye Huat @ Ah Huat @ Bah Bah, Tong Tze Hai @ Tong Tze Chai, Khoo Teck Kim, and Toh Pei Lan.