Introduction

Hello

I was never particularly interested in food until I had my first proper Chinese lunch somewhere in Zhejiang province. I thought it was too good. I went further and read a book “The food of China” by E.N. Anderson. This definitely the most astonishing non-fictional read that ever dropped in my hands starts like that:

“Dedicated to the hungry people of the world, in the hope that China’s experience in feeding one-fourth of humanity will be made more widely useful through this book”.

I started talking to my friends and to expats living in china. What I found out was that people are confused. Honestly they were enthusiastic but full of prejudice and wrong information. Strange animals, too oily, they use WEIJIN[MSG]. The worst came to the Chinese menus translated into English. I think the unbeatable leader of menu pictures taken is this one rahoi.com.

Then I decided to create a blog to help people to order food in China and to understand what they eat and what is behind the taste.

I was thinking for a long time what would be the best format to do it. Especially for hungry ones going to China that do not speak any Mandarin. So the solution for the time being is instead of looking at the menus in restaurants with no proper English translation is to take a print out of regional cuisine with you (i.e. Sichuan when you are going to Sichuan restaurant) and to show to the waiter what dish you would like to have. The list for each of the typical regional cuisines were done based on "generally accepted" typical regional dishes (how Chinese classify them) lists and restaurant menus. There is also one peculiarity of how we came up with english description - instead of blind translation of names we looked all the way through to Chinese recipes and put a short summary of how the dish is typically cooked.

This is just the beginning. More to come on big cities specialties and vegetarian delights.

I am bringing my apologise in advance. I am not a native speaker of English and Mandarin and to save time I will write as I can. So if you see some really dramatic errors please email me on 1208@mail.ru and I will be a very 努力 student and will process timely all your corrections. Try not to post it as comments to save space for Chinese menus ☺

Forget-me-not

Forget-me-not

All of us have a question we hate to answer. Even if we have a prepared answer, even if we know that the question is routinely asked, even if we've accepted its inevitability, we're never completely ready to answer it.

We hate the eternity stretching ahead of us as words construct a perfectly innocent inquiry. As the sentence is formed the interrogation begins, a cruel inquisition, a wound irritation if you like. We hate our impotence; but everything has been decided. The question travels with us everywhere, as if our own very being doesn't make any sense without it. We can work hard, outperform the rest, be the top achievers; but the question hangs heavy on us like the Ancient Mariner's albatross. It is asked over and over again. Usually, the context of the question is totally innocuous. For an interested party it fits perfectly into a script of any conversation. People smile at our restless eyes and wait expectantly for our response. Our heartbeats struggle to keep the natural rhythm; we're forced to speak. We paraphrase; we think even an anorexic, deprived response is more nutritious than silence. Eventually we squeeze our little drops of pain out. But we cannot satisfy curiosity and thirst. There is a pregnant pause and we begin with an uncomfortable, "Now that you mention it...." and the poor answer reinforces itself through a loop. We are the question's prisoner. The question without response is our immortal midnight shadow.
"That's the way things came out." I used to respond whenever people asked me why I had become a painter. For years I did my best to avoid those questions and to keep short any temptations to revive the past. I painted, there were people who liked my work, some enough to buy it. Who knows what motivated their purchase? Perhaps the colours matched their interior design; perhaps they mysteriously related to the composition; perhaps they thought it was a good investment. But the universe didn't allow me to just paint. It demanded an explanation for my artistic abilities but I couldn't answer. Prevarication descended into bullshit. But the real question-I-hate-to-answer was the one I had to ask myself. While the media and art gallery owners were concerned with 'how did it start', I was horrified with a notion that it wouldn't stop.
I have been painting for eight years. How long is eight years exactly? An eight years span is a highly individual measure. It can be a whole life, a whole love, as well as nothing. If you asked me about these eight years - between not painting and painting; like if I'd change a lot, if I'd lost a lot - I have no idea. Universally our memory is not to be relied upon and my memory in particular has its own shortcomings. I just remember certain events, largely related to the activities of Anill Singh; the rest remains unclear to me. Probably some of my paintings could give me an indication of what I was up to at different moments; what I felt, what I thought, what I saw. But to be completely honest with you, the more I look at them, the more unfamiliar they feel.
I'd struggled with my demons many times as I tried to quit. I left the country and lived abroad. I took manual jobs, just to have my hands busy with something. On many occasions I destroyed all my artist's materials. Nothing helped. As soon as my hands didn't touch a pencil or a brush for more than two days, withdrawal symptoms seized my body. Sooner or later depression, anxiety and an agonizing craving led me to resume painting. At some point I gave up. Undeniably, of all the evils in the world, being a successful painter wasn't the worst that could have happened to me.
Then one day I set on the entrance stairs to the "Ocean Shopping Mall" eating "Hainan chicken rice". It was a lunchtime; office workers came down to the streets searching for fast food. I thought about the office people for while, trying to decide whether or not to paint something related to their daily lives. When I rose to my feet and walked towards the waste bin, disposable plate in my hands; I felt an unimaginable lightness on my shoulders. The next second I knew I wouldn't draw again.
And now we can talk about it.
***
Most probably, I started painting because Anil Singh died. He died in Singapore, where I was born twenty-one years before his death. On top of that Singapore was an international expatriate city, where human's joys and sorrows drifted in the open air all day long. Sometimes those sentiments got lost and appeared in the most unexpected places. In my case I encountered them in the museum.
But let's keep the order.
Anil Singh had died before his life intersected with mine. Still, mysteriously I can perfectly remember that day. I learned about his death from an obituary in "Globalization Weekly" on the 21st of December 1999. It was a rainy, sickly sweet day in Singapore. Pre-Christmas Tuesday, with the entire population engaged in discussions about Christmas presents, shopping, packing and wrapping. My sister Yu had just received the results of her accounting exam. She had passed all three and was filthily happy about it. What I was doing reading "Globalization Weekly" at the age of twenty-one? A family thing. My sister's boyfriend had left a copy in our house. He was going to be an investment banker and had to be sure that all countries were recovering after 1997 Asian crisis.
"Anil Singh, a collector of humans' souls died three days before his eightieth birthday", an ominous title announced. The two photos that accompanied the text pictured him in his later years. He was a slender man with kind eyes and irresistible smile. Born and raised in Fuji islands, his Indian roots eventually floated him to Singapore. He was a self made, capable fellow, who made his fortune through numerous real estate deals across Asia. He actually made it to the "extremely rich". But simply being extremely rich doesn't buy you a public farewell in the major business media. Neither was he a serial killer as the article's title suggested. His legacy was one of the largest private collections of Asian art. There was feverish speculation about the real value of masterpieces he possessed, ranging from dozens to hundreds of millions of dollars. Works included anything from the China Ming Dynasties, to family objects that once belonged to Korean communities in Central Asia or Japanese in Peru. Any art specialist familiar with his possessions considered them a stunning enclypopedia of the modern history of Asia.
But to collect the art, Mr. Singh needed reasons. What did make people create, buy or lose a piece of art? He never acquired something that just came from a bankrupt museum at an auction. If he couldn't smell a story behind, no matter how valuable the showpiece was, he wouldn't buy it. What he really collected were stories, fables and legends.
As years passed by he had built up a strong team of detectives. They searched archives of failed dictatorships, bribed existing ones and interviewed worldwide immigrant communities. Aside from the story the only thing he demanded was that the story had to have taken place in Asia. No one knew why. It seemed to be one of those rich people's whims. His final will and testament bequeathed all his possessions to the government of Singapore.
When I finished reading the article my sister was still jumping around our apartment. She phoned everyone. Overexcited she spoke of her results. Before hanging up, she gave some hints to uncles and cousins on what she'd like as a Christmas gift. I recall her wearing green homely clothes. From everything she wanted in her life, she had been just three exams away. Those things were career, husband and nice apartment. Kids? Probably, but it felt like she was centuries away from any thoughts of kids. Accounting exams were her top priority. For a second she stopped. She sat still on the sofa in the living room holding a Disneyland teacup in her hands beaming.
"Why are you staring at me?" She chuckled.
"Get lost champion," I laughed, squeezing "Globalization weekly" in my hand and throwing it at her. She dodged well, the magazine landed on the sofa next to her. She leaned back shaking her head, giggling. That was the instant to remember her. She was young, unattached, and available to any imaginable turbulence of fate. Perhaps, if I asked her that night of her largest fear in life, she'd respond: "To fail the exams". I didn't ask her, I just recorded that manifestation of her. My sister, still a young girl; no bad habits, no fixed attitudes, light and determined.
During the night, I couldn't stop thinking of the museum. "It will be huge." I mused. "There will be hoards of foreigners and locals wandering around staring at countless masterpieces. Asians Americans, Australians and Mainland Chinese will arrive to search for their own little bit of soul. There will be tears, memories and reconciliations. Ultimately a proactive writer or journalist will overhear a story and write a fat sad book. The book will become a bestseller and a Hollywood producer will buy the rights to bring it to a big screen. There will be Oscars and Golden Globes; best screenplay and best actors. The movie will cash out an indecent amount of money. Then videos will take over shelf space. For a while it will be debated and then the movie will move into the classics of world cinema. In the end its fate will be that of all other tiny parts of history- it will be forgotten.
***
That night and the whole December 1999 had vanished and now exists only in the chronicles of the diarists. 1999 years of our era had past; we celebrated the New Millennium and Chinese New Year. And I didn't believe or feel anything special; I didn't have a thing that really grabbed me. I'd already served in the National Service, while my friends were just commencing. I had a semi-girlfriend. She was shorthaired tiny Chinese Singaporean. Both of our grandparents were from Hainan Island. That was the only strong connection we had. She was hundred percent against premarital sex and I was hundred percent against people who were against premarital sex. Disconnected from the obvious youth, I was ahead of my childhood friends; likewise I wasn't geared up for the New Millennium challenges.
My parents made me think of the future. Something they always meant to do. On an ordinary family Sunday my mother cooked my favorite mutton soup. Earlier that morning, I noticed the ingredients that she'd shopped for. Instantly I knew she was up to something. All the meals she cooked were themed. Textures and ingredients were the cables that bonded her with the rest of us. For the duration of Yu's exams she fed us with braised pig hoofs. When Yu and I had a quarrel, she stuffed our angriness with fish. When my father looked too stressed she'd spent days creating elaborate and exquisite shark fin soups. Yu and I grew up, struggled with adolescence; our father jumped over layers in his office. All the while our mother kept searching for the meaning of her life at wet markets' counters. Subsequently, we learned to recognize house moods simply by looking in the fridge.
On the mutton soup's Sunday she spent several hours in the kitchen. By noon, she asked us to spread dark red table runners. She liked using them on special days. Halfway through the lunch and just before a spoon with a yummy broth reached my lips for the first sip, she simply said: "There will be a day I'd like to teach a nice young lady to cook your favorite dish. For you." My hand froze in the air - my sister had already cooked that soup to my mother's standards. Instead of looking at my mother, I gave my father a slanting glance. He was already into the soup, but he noticed me being taken by surprise. He nodded, keeping his eyes on the bowl. "For a good mutton soup, you need a good cooker, fresh lamb and a cozy kitchen." My sister's head also jiggled to a total family unity. I said nothing during the rest of the lunch, just concentrating on my soup. I slurped it insanely to drown whining voices of human emptiness inside me.
I still squandered some of my time away, until I picked up a decent school. I enrolled in an Art history pre-university course at University of Singapore. As a child, my grandma's bedtime stories had given me a hint that history was often associated with pain. Also, I wasn't any good with numbers, strategic thinking and literature all together; I could only rely on art to enlighten me. For any turmoil or age of prosperity in the past, I would rather examine the point of view of an individual artist. I enjoyed depicting communications of mostly dead individuals. I took it for the ultimate truth, the subjective visions of artists. Deep inside I hoped to find something to help me express myself.
My Hainanese girlfriend found my sudden passion for art boring and unsustainable. We met for the last time on the zigzag stairways of Fort Canning Park. She stood holding a blue umbrella, Monsoon cut into hundreds of streams above it; her face resolute and serious. I stood under the open rain, my wet hair glued to my cheeks. I leaned towards her attempting a farewell kiss. She pushed the umbrella to shield herself and my lips landed on a soaking nylon. We remained like that for several minutes, enveloped in silence and rain.
"It's time for us to get back to reality," she was the first to talk.
"I don't have a real reason to disagree with you," I said.
"Is this true?"
"It is true. There is nothing that really holds us together."
Our little romance slipped through me like Monsoon water in my hands. In my head though, I was floating on volumes of Renaissance. Uncertain about the whole life thing, I realized I was slowly arriving at the summer break. I'd applied for internships to all major museums in Singapore: the Raffles Museum, Asian Civilizations Museum, the National Museum of Singapore, Singapore Art Museum and to the recently opened Anil Singh Museum. I got interviews with the Singapore History Museum and the Anil Singh Museum. The Anil Singh Museum definitely seemed the place to be and luckily I was accepted. I wasn't an exceptional art guru, but the newly opened museum attracted vast crowds and management could hardly cope with visitors' inflow.
In July 2001, once I started the internship, everything changed for me. I moved to the world of art, memories and history. Frequently, at nights, when the museum was closed and the staff were organizing things for the next day, I slipped past and wandered through different halls, my eyes always closed. I sensed the enduring power of the human footprint that held the Museum together. The Museum was a maternal womb for me. I could feel its pulse, its heart. Back in 2001 I was still a crumpled fetus; I needed the Museum's body to grow. Simultaneously, at night dreams became nightmares; but for me they were research projects that otherwise I'd never had done. Several months after the start, I memorized the whole catalogue by heart. In the evenings I read the accompanying stories over and over again. "You love the Museum more than Anil Singh would," someone told me.
All of a sudden I was a museum guide everyone wanted. For all of the museum staff that was the most glamorous job - to guide visitors. But I liked it for other reasons. I witnessed everything that boring history schoolbooks failed to express. More than once I cried together with families. With an old couple falling on their knees in front of a simple Cambodian stool acquired in Thailand. The husband's uncle had carved it before being executed by the Khmer Rouge "The soul is never lost." I looked at visitors through a shield of tears; the reality outside the Museum seemed a wall of blatant lies, a cloud of hypocritical silence.
***
It was early October when I first saw her. Visitor crowds got thinner. It was easy to spot her as one of the museum's most loyal visitors. Each day around noon she came to the Korean room. She walked around in a leisurely fashion and then sat on a bench in front of the "Forget-me-not" painting. She sat alone for several hours. She fixed her gaze upon the painting, occasionally looking at some photos she held in her hands. She would usually leave at around four in the afternoon. Her behavior couldn't be considered unusual. The Museum didn't have any code of conduct. It was envisioned that the exhibitions would reincarnate human memory in all possible forms.
The thing that immediately caught my attention was her look. From the back she looked totally Asian, more precisely, Chinese. She was very slim, with straight black hair and porcelain white arms. When she moved around the Korean room, she did it with the lightness of a thief. When I first saw her face however, I had to do a double take. I saw a European face. I wasn't a great expert in anthropology, but what I knew was enough to tell all her other features were Asian.
On the last hot and humid week of November we spoke for the first time. That day she seemed particularly concentrated on sorting the photos in her hands. She did it fiercely; as if she wanted to erase images she looked at. She looked different; her usual calmness was missing. I waited for a moment when there weren't many people around; I inhaled deeply, straighten my back, went directly to her and offered a glass of water. Actually I approached her carrying the glass. To my surprise she responded in a friendly way. "Thank you very much", she said. I had never had such an experience, approaching a woman in a direct way, but I gradually relaxed. She was on her last sip of water when I asked her if she wanted a guided tour around the Museum. Her eyes lit up and again she said "I've gotten to know the Korean room pretty well, but I'd like to see other parts as well."
"There are a lot of interesting things, I am sure you will like it," was all I murmured before she let me into her mysterious world.
By then, I worked as an official guide of The Korean room. The Korean room was composed of art objects primarily from the families who lived in the Pre-war North Korea. The majority were acquired over a period of years from missionaries who served in Korea and from some of the South Korean families. There were Goryeo Dynasty paintings, Buddha sculptures, Silla Dynasty Korean ceramics and pottery. There was even a piece of a Goguryeo roof tile allegedly acquired from a war veteran family. By then the soldier had a second family in the South Korea and no knowledge of what had happen to his wife and daughter that stayed behind in the North Korea.
"Forget-me-not" was a portrait of a Russian lady, Zoya. There were a fair number of art objects linked to Russian families. The 1917 revolution made many Russians flee the country and settle in Asia. For the majority of them however, Asia was a bridge to cross on the way to USA or Australia.
Soon her ceremonial visits entwined with the daily routine in The Korean room. Sitting as still as a sphinx, she grew to form an integral part of the room. It was as if she was one of art objects herself, with no one, except for me coming to look at her. Sometimes I saw her eyes getting wet, tiny streams moistened her face. Her heartbreak sent electric currents through my veins during the day; in the nights uninvited she showed up in my dreams. In many ways she resembled the last human being in the world; her sculptured posture wouldn't move even if the whole of human kind around her were reduced to Pompeii dust.
She set guard over "Forget-Me-Not"; I guided visitors. I used moments when tourists were reading informational booklets to glance at her. Several times our eyes met. But as soon as it happened she looked away indifferently. It was as if I was just another article that she encountered in her dreamy thoughts.
On the last day of November, I had to guide only two groups. My second group was at three in the afternoon and by the time I reached the Korean room it was well past four. I found her sitting in the same place. When the tourists had left I invited her for a meal. For about twenty seconds she looked at her nails on the right hand, but then she agreed.
We went to a small Indian restaurant. We ate Alu Tikki and Masala Dosa, and washed it down with Mango lassi. The only waiter in that place was very loud. He kept shouting
to the kitchen staff across the restaurant. Each time he shouted, we turned our heads in unison to follow the path of his voice' waves. Then our eyes met and we both smiled. She looked relaxed although she wasn't very talkative. In between asking me about my work and the Museum she looked through the window at the road. Each time she averted her eyes, I thought she was deciding on something, to be there with me or be somewhere else. I realized she hadn't even told me her name. I leaned back in my chair after drinking the last sip of Lassi and asked.
"Do you work in Singapore?"
"Hmm... No, but I moved here due to family reasons." She turned her head and looked at me. Her mind was definitely floating somewhere unknown to me.
"I see." I called the waiter and ordered another Lassi.
"Many women are here for the same reasons as me." She moved her chair aside and crossed her legs. "So do you think Anil Singh's museum is a success? Do you think it has achieved what he wanted?" She changed the subject, but kept staring straight at me, straight into my eyes.
"I guess so. A lot of people came and found information related to their families and friends. I presume that what it was all about. People to be remembered."
"Do you want to be remembered?" She asked with a slight gesture of judgement in her voice.
"Maybe, I do. But I am not sure. My life is too quiet to be remembered. All the guys in Anil Singh's catalogue went through hell. I don't know hell. I am not the kind of person to be placed in the museum. I was born in peace and I live in peace. Who needs the story of a guy like me? Only advertisement agencies."
I sipped my Lassi and watch her squeezing her rights thumb and forefinger together tightly.
She chuckled. I had an impression she was trying to place herself in the Museum catalogue. We went silent. I sat with a confident posture, but inside I couldn't believe anything happening. She was a foreigner, so it had made it easier to approach her. Nevertheless, I wasn't sure, what it was that I wanted. Since I'd noticed her, she became a treasury casket I was dying to open. I wasn't even sure that I liked her in the way I'd liked girls before. But some irrevocable call made it pretty clear to me, I wasn't there to just walk away.
She finally stopped squeezing her fingers and asked. "Tell me more about the "Forget-me-not" portrait, you know the one in the Korean room, of that lady, who was she?"
"Ah, the "Forget-me-not. That's a long story."
"I'd love to hear it. I have time. Do you?"
***
The next days she didn't show up. I felt uncomfortable, as I always did when things lost order. Each time something fell out of routine I felt it represented a fatal omen. I couldn't concentrate. I asked my colleague to switch with me. I went to work in the research centre. But I couldn't stop continually returning to the Korean room to check if she had arrived. But the bench remained empty.
On the fifth day I saw her as I was leaving the museum. She had her hair up in ponytail. She wore a white cotton short-sleeve dress and beige leather sandals. With a ponytail she looked younger.
"I am sorry, I've popped up just like this. I thought you might like to have some food after you've been working all day long." She came closer to me and I could sense her perfume. I could hardly describe what it smelled like, but it was a light, uncomplicated fragrance.
"Oh, no problem. I've just thought of getting some food before I go home." I replied, looking around and scratching my head. "There is another good place two blocks away. They serve all kinds of food."
She smiled and nodded her head. I felt relieved but worried. I was glad that this woman came back, and I was totally happy with the fact that she wanted to spend time with me. But as I watched her light steps, her swinging her handbag as we walked; she seemed anything in between a schoolgirl and a devil. Such was the contradiction of her very essence. She spoke of unrelated things like the weather and humidity; from time to time she turned her head to me and stared at me with such intensity that I even stumbled a couple of times.
In the restaurant we quickly picked up some dishes; she asked for a beer and I ordered a fruit juice.
She sat across the table from me with her handbag on her knees. She either kept her hands crossed or pulled her ponytail outwards several times to tighten it.
"My husband got a job in Singapore a couple of years ago. So we had to move here from Australia," she suddenly said as a waiter was putting our drinks on the table.
I was a bit surprised, but at the bottom of my heart I had anticipated something similar to come out.
"The first year, he largely spent on his own while I was living between Sidney and Singapore. It wasn't easy but I thought as a stable couple we could afford to live separately for a while. He was a good guy and I trusted him." She unexpectedly pulled out a cigarette from somewhere and began to smoke.
"Eventually about a year ago I moved here permanently. It was difficult for me leave Australia and come here with no job or friends, my husband was here and in many senses he was pretty much all I had anyway. He worked long hours, traveled and had to attend work related dinners. Although we were living together again, I felt that something that used to hold our hands together got broken. We hardly made love and
when we did I could sense he was somewhere else.... Oh, I'm sorry. If I embarrass you with all these details, just tell me and I will stop, okay?"
"No go ahead, I've heard much more delicate stories when I served in the National Service." I said. I moved closer to the table, leaned my elbow on the table, my chin resting in the palms of my hands.
"There were late night calls; each day he came back from work later and later. Even on weekends he tried to avoid staying around me and when he did, he grew angry and irritated with each little detail. It was as if I was keeping him away from somewhere he really belonged." She finished her cigarette and immediately lit another one. I could sense she was telling this for the first time. She made long breaks between sentences and even words, as if she was trying to comprehend what exactly had happened to her.
"There was a corporate party in May. Everybody had to come with spouses. So we went together. My husband introduced me to his colleagues, reluctantly holding his arm around my waist. I could feel the coldness and indifference of his arm through my evening dress. When we first got married, I would take his arm and spent hours energizing from the extreme warmth of his body. But by then, in that party - all he used to have for me was gone. Every bit of love and affection was absent. And you, have you ever been in love?" She wrapped her arms around herself as if an invisible cold chilled her to the bone.
"Not really, I used to date several girls, but nothing serious."
For a while she seemed to reflect on what had happened to her. I also remained silent. The couple eating in the table next to us asked for a bill. She watched the waiter to bring the bill. Then she moved on.
"And then I saw her. We weren't introduced. We simply happened to reach a bar corner for a glass of champagne at same time. When she noticed me, she just gazed for a second and gave me a one-second smile. She turned her back and ordered her champagne. But I saw, behind her smile that unique triumphant look of a rival, the rival who just turned you inside out and left you bleeding alone. I didn't need anyone to point her out as my husband's lover. She told me everything with that look." She tightened her ponytail again and fidgeted in the chair. For a while she searched for a waiter with her eyes and when she got his attention she ordered another beer.
"The worst was that the woman looked truly spectacular." She took her time to pour the beer, watching the white foam to water down in the glass.
"She was Chinese, with amazing long black hair. She was wearing very expensive cloths, I guess. As she left, all I could do was to watch her self-assured tread, her shiny hair swaying with each step. She killed me. I'd never considered myself a beauty, but neither had I felt inferior to anyone. But the shadow of her magnificence made me feel like a rotten pumpkin. The newly bought evening dress suddenly felt like an old wash out gown, my hair seemed messy and dirty yellow. And I knew there was nothing I could to change the way things were." She gave a deep sigh and raised her eyebrows.
I noticed she looked sadder than before. But I waited silently to let her tell all she had to tell.
"After that party, one day, when my husband was at work, I searched though his belongings and found a fat pile of photos. All about the two of them. Just like a movie about my husband that I'd never watched before. Trips to Thailand, Malaysia, Japan. All of what were business trips for me were everlasting holidays for them. She was always in the foreground. On all photos she was like an ancient goddess, posing in her countless mini-bikinis from top designers. My husband behind her, to be there and to make her beam."
I stretched myself and leaned on the chair. The restaurant was half empty by then. She looked at the wall, to her right, hesitated for a while and opened her handbag. She took a yellow envelope out, opened it and shook some photos out.
"That's her." She stretched her hand to me.
I recalled her carrying some photos to the Museum. Uncertain, I took the photos and looked through them. All the pictures were of a girl. She looked young and attractive. Personally I didn't think she was that attractive. She did look confident and seemed to enjoy posing for a camera. "These kind of people always take seriously every shot, as if it was for a fashion magazine," I thought. I looked over the photos several time. Only the girl, no trace of the husband.
"She looks pretty normal to me. Sometimes foreigners overestimate the beauty of Asian women." I finally said.
She chuckled. Then she took the photos back from me and started shuffling them, as if they were playing cards.
"Of course she won. We got divorced. It's silly to think of a divorce as a theft, but that what I felt. I felt I was robbed and left on a side of the road. The road that even wasn't on my way."
"I think to avoid too much attention my ex-husband got a transfer to Kuala Lumpur and they both left Singapore. And I stayed. I could have gone back to Australia; tried to rebuild my life. But this girl got into me. Initially I just had nightmares, weird dreams and stuff. But later I realized I couldn't stop thinking of that woman. The photos I've just showed you, I stole them from my husband before I moved out. I stole them so I could look at her. I looked and thought. "What is it that makes you so perfect and me so miserable?" Several months passed and I realized I'd started dressing like her. All I wanted was to look exactly like her. I got my hair straightened; I lost weight. I had numerous beauty treatments to whiten my skin. I used to be a sporty, fit woman with a fluffy blond hair and a suntan." She kept looking at the photos as she spoke.
"Originally I took it for a nervous breakdown; as long as that strange chinification made me fell better I didn't mind. But then one morning I realized I'd lost my face. I've lost mine, I mean it, I've lost my face to her. Whenever I look at the mirror - I see her."
"You mean you don't recognize yourself?"
"No I recognize myself, my head, my body, even in a different style of clothing. But the face, the face is gone. In my reflection I only see her face. Overall it's a silly story. You must think I am crazy. Let's stop here, no need to go into more details." She put the photos back to her handbag and asked the waiter for a bill.
She folded her hands on the table and sighed. I drank the last bit of my fruit juice, long since unpleasantly warm. The waiter brought the bill and she paid. Who'd ever had thought my first love would turn up like this?
Outside I sensed the proximity of rain. We stayed silent for a while and then she said she would take a cab to get back to the hotel. She gave me her phone number before we said goodbye. As I walked, the weather grew more confusing. Highly explosive city lid pressed over me all the way home. As if the skies hadn't decided whether to open up for a Northeast Monsoon or to wait for a couple of weeks.
***
We went on a few dates after that. Nothing special, we kept eating out in small private restaurants. We talked or kept silent. There was always a harmony, as if we waited for a personal end of the world together - each anticipating an independent ending. Several weeks had passed before she invited me to her place.
She lived in an inexpensive hotel on Balmoral Road. The room was tiny with old furniture and odd red lamps on the ceiling. Her little space always looked clean and orderly. No clothes thrown over the floor, even my jeans and shirt laid carefully on the chair. All the tourist booklets and guidebooks were neatly organized on the desk. There was a little vase with blue flowers on the two-drawer night table. A small redwood happy Buddha statue was sitting on top of the TV set. A bright wine-colored bed-runner covered a gray hotel bedspread. The same style runner covered the mirror on the wardrobe door.
Usually we met in that room to make love. She always initiated it. I liked it, I even felt relieved. Sometimes she didn't make any move and we just sat in armchairs chatting quietly. I was scared to make any wrong move and destroy our fragile moments. She took the lead very often; our lovemaking was amorous, excited and even somehow violent. For many days and weeks I could never get enough of her. But when I realized she opened up more and seemed more relaxed, I started seeing the other woman's face. Each time when the passion and lust tied me to her body - her rival, her most hated person stared from her face at me. Incapable to endure sultry looks of that other woman I would hide my own face in the depth of pillows.
The strangeness of that situation was almost unbearable. Throughout my life, I believed that I had done my best not to betray anyone. But when I was in that room, I couldn't help seeing the face of that other woman. Again and again I would ask myself, "How is it possible?" I was hesitating between telling her the truth and abandoning our relationship all at once. But I could never reach an answer.
She on the contrary, never spoke of her husband again. She didn't cry, at least not in front of me. When she was reminded of her face, she stayed calm, as if she'd accepted
her irrevocable change. She was like a beautiful bamboo forest - peaceful, tranquil and easy to get lost in.
One day when I touched her chin and kissed her, she abruptly turned her face away and asked, "When you look at me, what do you see?"
"Well, you mean your face, how do I see your face?"
"Do you see my face? How is it?"
"Hm, I see a pretty woman. With clear green eyes, straight nose; she has a mole on the right above her lip. And she has dimples when she smiles. "
"I still see her in the mirror." Then her whole body would go cadaver pale, and her face would flash, as if she was fighting to get her face back. I knew I had lied to her. Certain emotions made me see the other woman's face. But whenever I saw her body like that, I knew there was nothing else I could ever say.
She tried to smile. She stood up and instantly fell on the bed right next to me. We kept silent. I tried to reach her, but she just stroked my hand for seconds and turned away from me. She turned away a lot; it pained me. Many nights I thought she was the one. I was a part of the Museum; she was a part of the Museum. She was already a part of the hotel she stayed; I was becoming a part of it too. Both of us we were confined. She was a flower bud unable to open up. I was still stacked in the Museum womb. Sometimes I wished a fire would break out in the hotel. The hotel structure wouldn't last an hour. I wanted to suffocate lying next to her. I wanted to go to hell with her, if it was a better place for her to be. But nothing dramatic ever happened to us. Outside, the December Northeast Monsoon was flooding the city. Christmas was on its way. And only our bodies lay in that forgotten hotel totally unconcerned. We were just a part of nothingness.
***
I don't know whether it was a good idea or not to draw a sketch of her. That day, I had finished my work by seven. I phoned her and told I had to work from home that night. She said it was okay and wished me a good night in advance. I stayed in the museum library looking for tutorials on sketch techniques. After an hour of searching I came across a book for children. I wasn't planning on becoming an artist, so it was enough for me.
Before I left the museum, I went to the Korean room to have a last look at "Forget-me-not". The cleaning personnel were still in other rooms so I wasn't disturbing anybody. I borrowed a Polaroid camera from the Admin office. I took several pictures and while I waited for images to appear, I sat on a bench that she used to sit on. I looked at the portrait. Again. It was beautifully painted but didn't create any special energy around me. A blond woman, with her head covered with a scarf, probably a silk scarf. Her hair was curly. Some of the curls showed below her scarf. I couldn't tell her age, but she looked young. She had blue eyes, more specifically, blue/grey eyes. Her hands held the ends of the scarf, as if she was going to take it off. "Technically", I thought, the portrait was great. It captured the moment, when she was probably going to say something or even
to make a decision. But still as I looked at it didn't feel anything from the beyond. I checked the Polaroid's shots and they looked fine. I put them inside the tutorial book.
At home, when my parents and my sister had gone to bed, I turned on a bedside lamp, took out a few drawing sheets I'd borrowed in the Museum. I stared at a white sheet. "Blank opportunity", I thought. I sharpened the pencil. I didn't know how to draw; I didn't know how to start; I didn't even have time. As a beginner I was supposed to shade squares just to get some blending practice. I didn't care about squares. But the book insisted on shades. I needed to draw a face, to draw the lost face. Exactly the opposite of the tutorial; I wanted the lost face to come out of shades. I needed lightness or enlightenment. The stupid tutorial called for excruciating knowledge of the artist's model. "Understanding of the face and head were vital to the portrait," the book insisted. I tried to remember her in all kind of ways; how her face felt under my fingers, how did she look unzipping her dress in the shadow of curtains. These memories brought vivid images, but nothing complete. As if she was an Indian goddess with many faces. Each time, I, an average man, came near her, she changed. I was unable to capture her divine air. But I kept searching for her in the semi-darkness of my room.
Suddenly, Zoya's portrait and her face opened clearly to my eyes as if lightning strokes illumined their omnipresent faces to me. And she came; she appeared - her hair resting on her shoulders, eyes staring at me. I stretched my arm to touch her, but an invisible force brought me back to the drawing paper. My eyes moistened and I touched the unfamiliar white with needle-sharp pencil. And then I couldn't stop. Although I trashed many drawing sheets, by sunrise, when the first sounds of bus and car horns were building the streets, I was holding a decent amateur sketch in my hands. The goddess suddenly fell on the Land and acquired a human look.
On my way to work I stopped by a public phone booth. I called the Admin department and asked for a day off. I was held in high esteem such was my work ethic; the Admin manager approved and even expressed some concern of my health. I promised to take it easy and to relax. I couldn't bear the temptation to enter the Korean Room and see the "Forget-Me-Not" portrait. I hated Zoya's portrait. I was jealous; I envied Zoya's lover for his ability to talk by drawing. That day was excessively grey. It was a kind of day that lost me. Singapore felt like a strangers' city. I knew I was right in the centre of Orchard road, but I couldn't really recognize anything. I spent long hours walking up and down the road. People passed in front of me as landscapes outside a train window. For how long I went walking I couldn't tell. But it was long enough to realize it was getting dark. I rushed to locate where I was. Just next to Balmoral road. The hidden fate brought me right to the hotel.
That day we didn't make love. I couldn't. I was terrified of fantasies of the other woman. All I wanted was to be a virgin again. I wanted to give us a fresh start.
"Do you like it?" I handed the sketch to her only when I was leaving.
She stopped there, in the doorway, sketch griped between the tips of her fingers. For a second I thought the curtain of grief that sheltered her had faded away. I was almost sure I saw something that she would call "Her face." I wanted to hold her shoulders tight, to shake her body, to ask, "What is it? What do you see?" But I did nothing of that
kind. I'd never dare to approach her in a direct way. And she never replied. That was the last time I saw her.
***
One can tell how well he knew his woman only after she'd left him. I knew so little that even the name remained a mystery for me. She was Australian; she stayed in the hotel on Balmoral Road. The receptionist told me she had paid cash and hadn't left any contact information.
I stayed in that room for one month. I used up all my savings. It was the worst place in the world to miss her. In the first days I inspected the room several times. I hoped that a room maid missed her hairs in the bathroom; or a button from her blouse had rolled under the bed. But there were no signs left. The hoover and liquid furniture polish had erased her footprints. All our passion was laundered away from washed down bed sheets.
But I stayed waiting for her to come back. On the edge of hope, I reasoned she went off somewhere to get used to her face. I believed she did see her own face in that innocent unskilled sketch. Her thin shadow played with me by day and disappeared by night. I couldn't sleep. I sat on a bed through the night stupidly staring at a single point on the wall. In many ways I felt like I was going to die anyway. Lying in bed I was lying in my own coffin. But one night, when I couldn't find a place on the ceiling I could throw my mind to; I picked up a hotel notebook. For a while I hesitated about what I wanted to do with it. I leafed over the blank pages. Something inside me was longing. Impossible hunger struggled through my stomach towards my throat. I was sweating. I rummaged around the dark and found a pen on the coffee table. I fiercely pressed my upper lip. Just as I was getting used to the mounting pain I drew a line, then another. My hand mechanically pressed the pen against the sheet until I recognized features of a familiar face.
Soon after I quit the Museum job. My parents were shocked with my behavior. Still they loaned me some money to rent a studio with the promise that I'd wait for one year to see how my painting career would come along. I passed my parent's test, New Year came again and I kept on painting.
Mostly I painted her, trying all kinds of techniques. Sometimes she came as a ghost; sometimes she looked like a Chinese empress; sometimes she turned up as an Australian movie star. There were days when a horrible lump inside me grew so big that I felt she'd died. When I felt like that - I produced more portraits of her. Then I would sit on the floor of my studio just staring at them.
To cheat on the rest I diversified my work. I started painting all kinds of things. Luckily I still had vivid images from the Museum. Landscapes, urbanism, still-life. Whatever I was painting there was a small niche for her. In my world she was still present; likewise my paintings couldn't exist without her attendance.
By this point of my life, I'd been involved with several different women. Probably 'involved' is the wrong word to use, but that is what they called it. Each time, after I'd finished the new portrait of her I went on a date. Thanks to the numerous social events I
had to attend I got to know lots of different people. But I dated only foreigners. And each time there was a lust in the air I took them to the same hotel, to the same hotel room. I watched women undress in front of me, I stroked their hair, and I let myself to enjoy a passing moment of passion. During those moments I could barely recall her face. What I did recall, though, was her rival's face, a total stranger who trashed me into the rotten pieces of lust. Except those instants, nothing gave me the slightest hint I could fill in a hole grown to the size of a well inside me.
I had nothing else to drain my resources. When I felt my bank account balance was sufficiently fat I took a plane to Australia. In the beginning I just went to Sidney. I wandered forever on the streets, but I'd never meet her. Later on I visited other places. I rented cars and drove through a desert landscape, trying to arrive to the very point of nowhere before the sunset.
***
Just a week ago Anil Singh's daughter came to see me. I was a kind of a local celebrity, but not celebrity enough for Anil Singh's daughter. Still she came to pay me a visit, straight to my studio without any call.
"Forgive me," she apologized. "I hate being uninvited, neither have I much time. But there is a reason for me to be here. Am I interrupting you?"
Not at all, I said. I was in a horrible morning mood and wasn't going to produce anything constructive. I offered her some tea.
"A woman called us, at Anil Singh's foundation." She started and I felt tightness in my stomach.
"Usually we're not looking for donations. You've probably heard my father had very precise rules for everything. But this was a specific case. The woman insisted. She insisted on donating an indecent amount of money."
"Of course money business always has a condition. She's said you should also donate us all your female portraits. She said you'd be willing to give all of them to us." She sipped her tea, straightened her back and continued.
"I know that may sounds rude, but it wasn't our idea. You have to understand me correctly. I've agreed to her proposal only because she convinced me that both of you were truly committed to my father's cause."
For a while I couldn't connect to what she was saying. I leaned back on my chair, shook my head and closed my eyes. Then I heard a thousand sounds. Normal, day-by-day sounds of Singapore. All were equally unfamiliar to me. We must have been right in the busiest part of the city.
"Which part of the Singapore are we in?" I wondered.
"What do you mean? Where is Anil Singh's foundation office located?" She asked me puzzled.
"No, now. Where are we now?"
"Ah, we're in Central Business District. We're in your studio."
"In my studio. How could it be?" I said aloud. I didn't even like this place. But there was no way I could tell. I turned my head around. She was right, there were plenty of portraits around. That woman, Anil Singh's daughter made my mind blink. She was after the portraits. And she seemed to have a reasonable excuse for wanting them.
"Did she tell you how did we meet?" I asked Anil Singh's daughter when I got some of my composure back.
"Yes, she did."
"Did she say anything else? Like, did she have anything to tell me?"
"Yes, indeed, she asked me to say thank you. I understand it might be painful for you to revisit the past. But she convinced me, you'd be totally okay with everything."
"What will you do with those "female portraits" you look for?"
"We haven't decided yet. All of this came so suddenly. We haven't planned yet. I can only assure you, you'll be giving them into trusting hands."
"That's fine. You can send over your people anytime you want. Is she all right?
"She is. Don't worry. I'm glad. Everything seems much easier than I've expected."
When I'd finally connected, she was already in the doorway. She hesitated a moment. Then she turned her head to me and said. "We have an entire collection of Zoya portraits in the office of Anil Singh's foundation."
"Different aquarelles, charcoals, different moods. It feels like someone loved painting her. No one had a clue why my father had started his collection. Even us, the family, we lived without any understanding. Several months ago I came across his notes; kind of memoirs he'd written back in Fiji. It was a revelation. I think, taking into account what has happened to you, my father wouldn't mind me telling you this story."
"The museum booklet for the "Forget-me-not" portrait included only some details about the origins of the work. For some reason, my father documented Zoya's story only partially. But in his notes he took a full account of it."
"During the Second World War, a son of an American missionary - William Green met Zoya in Korea, at the sea resort. She lived there in a house of white Russians who escaped the Bolshevik revolution. William was married; Zoya had lost her husband to the Russian turbulence. They fell in love. Facing the foreseeable end of the world they became lovers. He and Zoya spent several months in the agony of love. James's wife went back to the USA. When the death whisper moved too close, they parted. Zoya decided to stay in Korea, in North Korea; after the wars she ended locked up forever in political prisoners' camps. William joined the US military. He fought in the Pacific."
"He'd sent his wife a skull of a Japanese soldier along with a sketch of the soldier's face. There was a note attached, "Clarisse, forgive me for what I've done to you. Please bury the skull." One month later she received a telegram informing her of his suicide, another month later a package arrived. Inside the box she found a pile of Zoya's portraits and love letters. All letters from Zoya to her husband were signed at the bottom "Forget-Me-Not".
"It was William Green's wife who gave my father Zoya's portraits. She was doing voluntary work in Fiji. My father, a young man then, helped her with translation. Before she went back to the US she handed over to him the entire package. "I am old. I'm so old in my way that I don't know anyone alive. I have to pass the story to someone who can remember." Was the only thing she told my father."
***
Next days I didn't leave my studio. I just sat in the middle of the workshop, doing nothing in particular. She was looking at me from every angle and corner. There was so much of her, that it became cartoon sequences. For several days my eyes followed her. She changed; she was getting older; she accumulated the tiredness of the artist's hand. Everything was building up to a culmination, but then she would change again to a spring cherry blossom. I knew she wanted to open herself up this way, but all it did was to confuse me further. I wanted to give her a farewell drawing, but I didn't feel her face anymore. I tried copying her features from my previous works, but pencils just slipped out of my hands. There wasn't more I could have told her.
Several men came to take the portraits. They were wrapped and taken outside my studio. The portraits had disappeared; later on that afternoon my eight-year old hump also vanished. Somewhere on the stairs of the "Ocean Shopping Mall."
"Why aren't you painting anymore?"
"Have you lost your inspiration?"
"Who was she, your muse?"
"Where have all female portraits gone?"
They'd continue asking.
In the world of 'us', it takes all kinds of questions and answers to get through a day. But if something doesn't want to respond, we can spend thousands years hunting for the perfect answer to the perfect question. We might as well miss all great parties on the way and never get there. To the Reason! Now, for a guy like me, no questions are the best answers. I just take it the way my eyes see it; the way my heart feel it. At the end of the day, that's what our heart is for. Just to feel the intangible, without logic, without judgment. When I feel more than I think, I almost hear the heartbeat of the Universe. Instead of talking "yes's" and "no's" it continuously expands, swirling me right in the centre of its magnetism. Perhaps one day if I do my homework, I'll find my own little tiny place in the stream of little people, little planets and a huge cosmos. But all of this can only be learnt during eight years blackout of the logical mind.
I am still an amateur in this field. And I get shivers. Now, as I'm cleaning my studio (arranging for all of my other paintings to be sold) I hear her voice insisting "Forget-me-not." I am still tempted to doubt "Why?" And in thousand years when her unforgotten image reaches another unconcerned habitant of the planet, he will wonder "Why?" But I know I did what I could do. Because that's the way things came out.

Gising-gising

Gising-gising
***
When I was eight, a 47-years old neighbour committed suicide. After his second wife divorced him, he came home, had dinner, changed into jeans and went to the garage. "Let me be free of love" he wrote on a ten-pound note and left it in the glove compartment of his old golf. He started the engine and fell into an eternal sleep.
After the funeral things would never be the same again. Not that the entire neighbourhood was cursed. Simply it felt like all households were waiting for their turn. Each time neighbours greeted each other on the street, they immediately rushed inside their cars or homes. Nobody wanted news. Especially bad news.
I, on the other hand, spent long nights thinking how brave the neighbour was. I thought of my own suicide many times. But I had no real reason to kill myself. In the same way I could not find a real reason to live. Not that I tried hard to find either, but those thoughts never fully abandoned me. Sometimes I grew nervous thinking that with a valid reason to die I still could not do it.
Cut my veins? - I was one of those guys who fainted even thinking of blood.
Hang myself? - I never trusted the ceilings in my apartment.
Take a poison? - I had a strong stomach.
Throw myself under a car? - And what about the poor driver?
Exhaust fumes? - I did not own car or garage.
Getting nowhere, I decided to wait. Life promised to be long.
***
My own life, before I took the plane to Singapore, was agonizingly ordinary. My most vivid childhood memories were the neighbour's funeral, being beaten at the age of fourteen and being drunk at the age of sixteen. Nobody ever died in my family. Nobody got sick. Unfortunately, we had enough money not to suffer from poverty and never saw a reason to want more. We did not question anything. We just carried on from one spring to another.
My parents were teachers. They dedicated their lives to educating Britain's pupils. They were humble, strict and conservative. We were two, two years in between, my sister Rosy and I. When Rosy turned eighteen, she was the one to cut the rope that tied our family together. She got pregnant from an acquaintance, had a baby and got a council house. The baby maker never showed up. There were rumours that he "helped" several Rosy's friends to get pregnant in order to get out of parent's homes. The day Rosy left, something my mother had inside, boiled with anger and darkened her eyes. They never spoke again. I was a boy and could not get pregnant myself; doing it with a girl seemed even less possible. To choose the lesser of two evils I became a chartered accountant.
I was a first time pass. That was the only time when I felt I was capable, determined and all these other things you were supposed to have when you described your strengths during job interviews. I started my career at "Loobert & Johnes", an internationally expanding American accounting practice. To make us competitive, we were classified as Accountant Entry Level 1, Semi Senior Accountant Level 1 etc. Each year at the annual performance assessment I was asked to establish my development goals and to identify my development needs. All to become an Accountant Entry Level 2. Each year I looked at a different face in front of me and whispered: "Leadership skills and political savvy". After five years of assessments I was finally fired in order to give my place to freshly qualified aggressive Accountants Entry Level 1.
My parents got divorced three years before my dismissal. My father ended up in the council house, just like my sister, but in a different neighbourhood. My mother went to live in a Buddhist centre on the Canary Islands. The house was sold right at the real estate market peak. The majority of my college friends went to start ups and IT businesses. The year I was fired some of them got to own a Ferrari and planned exotic holidays with celebrity fashion models. Either they were too embarrassed to talk in front of me of their income or I was too reluctant to express my fascination, but that year, our already infrequent beer drinking sessions were gradually ceased. That is how the first thirty years passed by, with everyone alive, our ship had sunk. It was like a perfect scene for Garcia Marquez's story.
***
Instead of looking for new friends or a new job I shut myself in the rented apartment and drank. The only connection to the world was my Indian landlord. He was the only person I told that I had been fired. He was a most preoccupied person. But he was cool. He was a native of Tamil Nadu, fit, with shinning white teeth and was always dating British girls. Each time I bumped into him (he lived in the same neighbourhood) I saw him folding some hot chick in his arms. Watching his confident pace, I wanted to be him.
He gave me a three-month payment holiday. On the forth month he gave me a job. One of his cousins had a middle size industrial business. Nothing special, stable and expanding. I was hired out of compromise. The cousin did not like me. He thought the place should have been for some other relative. I wasn't family, too timid and did not like Indian food.
I started my new job, with news that my father was officially an alcoholic and my sister was dating a carpenter, who had fixed the roof on the pub in her neighbourhood the month before. Outside the office, January was hitting on London; the wind blew stealing the hats of daydreaming ladies.
***
What is the most extraordinary of all ordinary? Sex! I did not make it to the Accountant Entry level 2 at "Loobert & Johnes", but I was not a virgin.
It happened thanks to Rosy. She introduced me to her friend's sister in a party. Rosie's friend's sister was sweet. Sweet, shy and drunk. We spoke and even danced. She asked
me to see her off. As we walked, I told her about the chartered accountant daily routines, she shared hers.
"My father is back from jail; with sophisticated tattoos and angriness. For the flashing moments when he is sober he just speaks of fucking packies and the Iron Bitch all the time." - she said grabbing my hand and pushing her hips closer to me, - I like you, you are such a piece of peace. By then I was shaking from tips to toes.
I lost my virginity in a wood near the school my nephew attended. The night was cold; I was afraid that somebody would see us. I did not know how old she was. I did not know what I had to do or to say afterwards. All other feelings were pleasant. I never saw her again. It happened that we had a big argument with Rosy soon after the wood event and I had no reason to come to the neighbourhood anymore. I could ask about the girl. I could try to see her and at least to catch up on how her father was adjusting to freedom. But I did not. And what happens in Stanmore woods stays in Stanmore woods.
But of course I dreamed of her, hundreds of nights, during my hormones-provoked self-devotion moments. And when fantasies were running low, I would buy celebrity gossip magazines and search for similar faces. As time passed, the creativity busted. I had an unprecedented collection of porno videos, magazines and bookmarked websites. I also diluted my do-it-yourself moments with web cam and chats. My favourite women lived their second life in the most classified records of my head as Lucies, Mangoes, "Sweet & mature" and so on. In the normal, offline life, they cooked delicious meals, cared for their husbands and were too shy to speak up to bosses. But in front of the web cam they burst with unclaimed passion and unrealized dreams. As milk was boiling over in their kitchens they were screaming into the cold lenses of webcams. And I was there in front of my monitor catching the dying waves of their voices.
But on my thirty-fifth birthday I woke up and found myself old. Old and lonely. Not that I was lonelier than before, but modern life made a stronger point of it. I received three electronic birthday cards. One from my email provider, another from my bank. The third e-card arrived during the day, offering me a birthday discount at an online bookstore.
In the evening I bought a promotional bottle of champagne with two glasses.
"At the end of the day, who am I? A Flying Fireman (my nick name in the porno chats)" I asked totally lost.
"You are. And you are not. You are from Stanmore, from Middlesex, you are British, you are a chartered accountant, you are son of your mom and dad, you are Rosy's brother." I replied trying to sound convincing.
"Yes, but who am I? All people I am close to, know me as the "Flying Fireman", and there is no way we could meet even to share a birthday drink." I lit a cigarette and unenthusiastically blew a couple of smoke rings.
"You know why things have gone like this, don't you?" I said, carefully, trying not to hurt me further. At the end of the day it was my birthday.
I, we kept silent for a while.
"Okay" - I said when finishing the bottle and sipping the last bits of warm champagne. "I will try it out there. I mean in the real world. But only once. Do not expect more of me."
"No harm in trying." I agreed and me both, we went to bed.
***
Even the real world nowadays begins somewhere @ www.meetic.com. That is where I finally got into real trouble. Online dating was like roulette, uncertainty and chance, for both sitting behind monitors. Contrary to the porno sites it wasn't an easy task. As an amateur I made several mistakes. Being so removed from human contact and longing for a cuddle I went straight to the root. "A cuddle and love, all I want." I used to write. Naturally I was blocked by the profiles I was interested in. As if I did not have the right to a big bear hug. In time, I got more experienced. I took time to read what ladies looked for. And mirrored it.
"I have strong family values." Natalie would mention.
"The hearth of the human family is my altar." I would improvise.
"I like self-determined guys, who leave me my own space." Carla would insist.
"A 21 first century independent woman is the most attractive thing in the world." I would flirt.
But 99% of dates did not work. All vanishing in the infinity of missed incoming calls and deleted text messages. And then she appeared. A Romanian. Slim, beautiful and lonely. An investment banker but still lonely. All the investment bankers I had heard of were male, busy and rich. She was unique in that sense. She did not run away. And then we almost made love. Our sex never crystallised into something as beautiful as love. She got transferred to Tokyo. Why they needed so urgently a Romanian in Tokyo remains unclear to me to this day. She did not even speak Japanese. To give it a try, I asked my Tamil boss if he planned to invest in Japan. He laughed back and told me not be late the last month's actual numbers.
"Are you satisfied now?" My heartbroken voice angrily asked.
"A relationship is a tricky thing. And you are not in love, aren't you?" I answered trying to redress the wrong.
"In love, not in love? How would I know? Enough of talking. Lets get back to work." I would appreciate it if we did not talk at all for a while.
***
The main event took place just before Easter. Whether I wanted it or not, but the departure of the Romanian investment banker affected me. I hardly slept and ate one
sandwich every two days. In the ever-long nights, Lucies and Mangoes kept knocking with their alluring incoming messages on my insomnia. I felt a lump of sadness and anger spreading roots inside me. I uninstalled all bipping and talking programs, trashed all images and videos and drank all the alcohol I could find in the depth of my kitchen closets. She left on Sunday night and on Friday, unable to resist anymore, I fainted in front of five Tamil cousins, during a routine finance meeting.
I regained consciousness in the hospital. The nurse, she must have been in her late forties, smiled at me and called in the doctor. He was a tall man with fancy glasses. He sat in the chair next to my bed and professionally explained to me the sequence and consequence of what was happening to me. His measured speech reminded me of a priest in an empty church reading a Sunday Mass sermon. He scratched his nose repeatedly and slowly led me to the fact that I had a liver cancer.
I stayed in the hospital for various tests for another week. I carried obediently my body from one test room to another. I tried not to look at other patients. As if looking at them would instantly melt me down. A PA from my office visited me and brought some fruit. Rosy called and said she was unable to take a leave from her job. At the end of the week I was free to go and had to come back in seven days to start the treatment.
On the way home I drifted in and out, as the cab was pushing its way through rush hour traffic. The city, the selfishness of it's inhabitants, so easy to be in and be out. Once you are out, do not ask for a life raft.
***
"Rosy, they say it's liver cancer. Twelve month to go."
"Oh, that's not good. Do you want to come over and stay with us? You will need to bring some money; you know I cannot afford having you here. Although I think your doctors will take a better care of you."
"How is your boy?"
"The boy? Do you mean Roger? He dumped me two weeks ago. Can you imagine he brought some Chinese foot massage ass to his apartment! These girls just come over here, without even speaking English; they are just good at massaging penis or how they call it "a foot". This bastard just brought that bitch from nowhere. And now he has a 24-hour penis massage service."
"I meant Jimmy, my nephew."
"Oh, he is just fine. The truck driver who dates my friend Lora looks after him. He is fine. He is becoming one whole man."
"I see."
"Have you spoken to our parents yet?"
"Yes, mother told me to accept my karma and meditate. She offered to come. I prefer to face it alone."
"Hm."
Family silence. Is it the most silent silence of all silences in the universe? Bye, bye Stanmore, Rosy and the Canary Islands, I am a broken-away meteorite. I fly away separated from where you are by millions of life moments that we are not able to share anymore.
***
Before I did not know much about Singapore. Of course I did my history homework and was aware of Sir Raffles achievements. But that night I could not sleep. I stocked my fridge with ten beer cans and two frozen pizzas "di quarto formaggio". Not the best choice of a diet, but who really cared? Me or me?
I went online. I tried to google my name. I mean my nickname. Soon I learned "Flying Fireman" had a lot to do with helicopters. I could not say that I related to a helicopter. Neither did I remember why I had picked up "Flying Fireman" as a nickname in the first place. At least it explained a certain success I had in the past. Whether as a helicopter or as man, I did not exist in the Internet, beyond encrypted databases of adult's sites.
Anticipating the worst, I typed my real name. John Austin as a key word returned 27,600,000 results. I spent five beers and two hours scrolling through the first hundred of pages. There was nothing about me. Nobody referred to me or mentioned my existence. I did not expect news of my cancer to make it to the front pages, but I hoped to find at least a minor reference of myself.
"Who am I?" A "Flying Fireman"? Since I uninstalled all applications I was not related to him anymore.
"John Austin? I was, for my bank, my insurer and my doctor. A cancer patient John Austin: 36 years old, single, social smoker and drinker, no allergies."
While I still hoped to find myself alive for a billion internet users, I came across an article about an Australian John Austin, who was executed in Singapore two month ago, after he had been caught smuggling one kilogram of heroin. "Australian John Austin drugs" sent me into reading an endless pile of international news archives, human rights organization websites, Australian government pleads, family and friends anti-death penalty sites. "A human life..." I thought. Spring birds were not late to remind me that my alarm clock had reached 6.00 a.m. With an ashtray full of Marlboro cigarette-butts and the table covered with empty beer cans I suddenly felt alive.
And so it started.
***
To my pleasure I had not been spending any money. My bank account showed a positive balance of £ 100.000. No credit card debt, no mortgage payments, and no dependants. I called my Indian boss and resigned. He said, he understood, that life was tough and ensured I would get all my payments settled in a weeks time. At the bottom of my heart I knew he was happy.
The most complicated task was to get the drugs. First, I did not know anyone who was openly a drug addict (or at least a casual taker). Second, even If I knew, I could hardly think of a feasible reason for me to be interested in acquiring a scandalous quantity of any prohibited substance. I won't go into details of what I went through to get those 50 grams of cocaine. Enough mentioning, that after hesitating for sometime, I contacted my unsuccessful love. The Romanian investment banker. Through facebook. I didn't assume that Romanians most likely took cocaine, instead I assumed that some investment bankers certainly did. And I was right. After a small writing-talking on the facebook chatting window, I got her phone number and called. I explained that I was going to drastically change my life, to throw lots of parties with lots of VIP guests. As a consequence I needed a reliable provider of an eternal happiness, cocaine, I explained. To my surprise she was not even slightly surprised. She said it was true, that some of her colleagues liked those kinds of parties and had some sources of drugs. After several days of camouflaged test messages, emails, unknown number incoming calls, I finally paid a £ 2.500 for a small 50 grams plastic bag with white, look-a-like flour stuff inside. Apparently it trades anything from £1 to £300 depending on the country. Since there was no international price control over the matter, I considered I had paid a reasonable price for my own planned suicide @ £50 a gram.
On the day of my departure, I put the cocaine packet inside the little golden box my mother gave me to store the yellow Kodak childhood photos when she left the UK. I closed the box and stroked it's slightly wrecked surface. I thought of her, of my mother. Of how sad she was to leave. With those thoughts, I placed the box right in the middle of the suitcase, between socks and underwear.
***
Everything went wrong from the beginning.
First of all, my flight arrived at Changi airport with almost three hours delay. Although I was not in a hurry it didn't feel good.
Secondly, I had slept thought the whole thirteen-hour flight. This was particularly annoying since I travelled business class. My Indian bosses never made me travel, so I did not plan to take a vengeance for thicken up blood in the veins. The deal was that in my last days I wanted to think and feel rich. Just that.
I woke up as we landed and looked at the lady next to me. My grief turned unbearable. She was one of that meet-once-in-your-lifetime-in-person. She wore paired black pants with a razor sharp jacket and killer heels. It was late morning in Singapore, but she looked as if she was going straight to a cocktail party.
As we were heading towards passport control, I felt all my once-in-a-lifetime-dreams shamelessly crushing behind my back. The limitless champagne, wines, beers, getting a
little tipsy and the random conversations - all stayed unrealized on my seat, back on the plane.
Thirdly, everybody was totally disinterested in my arrival to Singapore. Everyone including: Interpol, the airport police, passport control officers, customs officers and the unknown next-seat passenger. The airport life was absorbed by a daily routine of arrivals and departures, checking and stamping, letting in and letting out. Everything else mattered except me. Airport staff was energetically engaged in the flow of travellers and luggage. But as soon as I approached any area, they would turn absolutely indifferent. As if I walked wrapped in a bubble and did not form part of anything what was going on in the airport. Of course they stamped pages of my passport, ran it through the barcode reader, smiled and let me go.
After I got my luggage and went to the customs zone, I intentionally slowed my pace down, pulling my suitcase by the handle, as if it was an unruly, naughty child. Just before my eyes, two customs officers stopped an Indian couple with a trolley full of suitcases and boxes. The third officer was busy, looking something up in the computer. I slowed down further, hesitating what to do next. I turned my head round and round, exactly as you do when you try to follow moves of a lizard that mistakenly got into your bedroom in Brazil. At last the third officer held his head up and looked at me.
"Do you need any help Sir?" His abrupt interest made me go hot and cold.
I looked around again and forced myself to speak.
"Where is the bathroom sir? I am sorry Sir, but this travel always messes me up" As I said it, I felt acid turning in a spiral in my stomach.
"No problem sir. You have one just as you get out of the door to your right. Behind the doors."
"Thank you".
I felt really embarrassed. Not because I confessed to the custom's officer that I had intestines and needed a toilet, but because I just made such a long trip to get to nowhere. Just to get to the "Behind the doors". The officer murmured something like "Welcome" and went back to his work on the computer. I scratched my head and the next moment I found myself behind the sliding doors, on the territory of the Parliamentary republic of Singapore.
***
If you told me a year ago that I would be in Singapore, with £100,000 and nothing to worry about I wouldn't believe you. Or if I did believe you, I would still worry about something. So it means I haven't changed for the last year. Now I was worried about what do next. Since my main objective of coming to Singapore was to die, and to die before I have to think about anything else, I didn't really know where to go.
You know that on a murky days beer is a best man's friend. So I headed to a coffee shop in the arrival area. In the UK we honestly say "Pub" and do not pretend to sell ice
creams. The coffee shop sign I followed was a cover for an extensive menu of strong alcoholic drinks. Relative to the early morning in Singapore I ordered an ice-called Tiger.
"It was your idea in the first place. Do not even try to blame me." My quiet side said, anticipating the crush.
"True. But you could've gone crazy for once and given the custom officer a hint." You could never rely on your voice of Reason.
"I was just about to, but then you came up with that bathroom thing. How could you let yourself get into such level of details with him?" The Reason still felt embarrassed.
I lost my caution, as I never used to bring these dialogues into public places. I sized disapproving looks from two ladies, wrapped up in saris, sipping their coffees in the corner. To be honest, I was surprised that ladies noticed me (us) in the first place. Taking into account the bubble syndrome, they were supposed to mind just sipping their coffee business. To avoid further disturbance I tried to locate myself. Singapore, Changi airport, just arrived, all wrong. And then as per divine occurrence, my eyes landed on a billboard: "Marriott, twenty minutes from the airport, warm service and best location."
***
The lady at the reception looked nothing like Chinese, Malay or Indian. She turned out to be British. I told her that I'd given myself a surprise holiday and would stay for a week or so. She enthusiastically explained to me different room options. As if she was talking about our own wedding reception plans. She offered to show the luxury rooms. My indifferent look definitely wet her sales appetite. After half an hour tour I decided for Tang Sok Kiar Suite with poolside view and access. 1,800 SGD or sixteen grams of cocaine a night. Since I was not planning to live for much longer I considered I could afford that level of spending.
In the room I went to try the Jacuzzi. Nothing special, bubbles, bubbles and bubbles. Since I had a bubble of my own, why bother paying for it? Still add-ons can be considered. Champagne and stuff. Just a joke.
"Chuck always made his insidious plans out of his Suite 1812 in The New York Palace Hotel in Manhattan. So would I..." The jacuzzi was full, the bath foam was fizzy, the Moët & Chandon was cool. As soon as I remembered Chuck - I started.
"So you think you are Charles Bartholomew "Chuck" Bass in the late Gossip girl, he?" Sometimes earnestness hurts.
"Yes, I like watching US TV series. Is it a crime?" In the same way I never confessed to anyone that I loved Julio Iglesias songs. Not even to myself. Not that someone was particularly interested, but I even took Spanish courses for a time in order to understand his lyrics. I quit as soon as I realized that his universal voice was recorded in a variety of languages, including my mother tongue. I had "Starry Night", "Moments", not to mention "Crazy" albums, all available for me to understand what he was also trying to say in Spanish.
"No crime at all. But did it do any good for you? You watched The O.C., Sex in the City, The Mad Man, Desperate House Wives, and you are still uncertain who you are." I think the reason always wanted me to change the channel when I watched a TV series.
"What should I watch then?" Let's see what do the perfect people think.
"Anything else. Like a rugby game or football match." Uncertainty stroked my voice.
"Some would agree, rather than watching a game you'll never win, it's better to watch the woman you'll never date and listen to the words you'll never hear." Yes, yes, yes!
"What a nonsense! That's why you're bogged down in you miserable world." Shall I shout? Hurt, hurt me or I love to hurt me, I love to hurt me!
"Yes I'm bogged down. But I also like watching other people's happiness. Like I prefer to watch the happiness I'll never experience. I've noticed that through the years that moviemakers moved from the West coast to the East coast. Although I've never been to the USA, personally I prefer the East coast. They seem to have more single women out there. On the West coast all the series were about families. Weddings, adulteries, divorces - too much of a hassle. For my part I felt more comfortable with eternally single, selfish shopaholics, the New York women." I think the Reason always preferred family values."
"But they did not shop for you. Didn't you realise, London is also full of lonely shoppers. The average credit card debt had reached £35,000 in 2007. Who do you think did the shopping? Ok, I am sorry I know you've tried." I've accidentally touched the forbidden topic. "So what is the plan?"
In reality I didn't have any new plan. Probably after a week of Jacuzzi bathing I could hand myself to the police, I thought. I was not sure if a self-confession could mess up my ultimate goal. Alternatively I could just take cocaine, overdose and sleep.
When I was done with champagne, with the Jacuzzi, and with half of the minibar, I remembered I hadn't undone my luggage. I looked for my suitcase everywhere. I was drunk and lost in the different rooms; flat panel LCD televisions, DVD players, the golden glow of walls. I felt like an angry monkey that had been moved to a different cage in the zoo. Finally I found it sitting on the stylish suitcase stand with cross-curved legs.
The order in which I packed my possessions seemed untouched. Shaving cream, aftershave and deodorant bottles turned over during the travel. I rummaged though my underwear until I reached the surface of the Golden box. I opened it. I saw my mom smiling at me on the photo taken during our trip to Oxford in 1989. I thrust my fingers under the photo, the plastic bag was there, unhurt. I set down on the edge of the bed and felt the coolness of the red silk bed runner under the palms of hands. The next moment I guess I felt asleep.
***
My Indian boss used to say: - "Are you blocked and need ideas? Go out on a busy street, watch people, cars and shop windows, or at least read news. We live in the 21st century; nobody gets anything done by meditating in privacy."
I went to the Orchard road. It looked liked a shopping mall after a shopping mall. It was Tuesday, the shopping crowds were still thin. Moist and heat made my body sweat. Sweat drop by drop made it's way though my hair and linen shirt. Just as worms crawl on the sidewalk after the rain. I struggled until lunchtime and went back to the hotel.
In the afternoon I went to the swimming pool. I ordered a Tiger beer to heal the hangover and picked up a copy of The Straits Times. Let's see how the world looked through Singaporean eyes. Headlines included:" Militants torch trucks", "Chinese helicopter crash", and a 15-year-old Singapore schoolboy posting online about his life. Typical 21-century drama. Except for Ang Lay Yeng. She was executed the day before. Arrested on the Singaporean border trying to smuggle half kilogram of heroin from Malaysia to Singapore in the fake bottom of her suitcase. Suddenly the swimming pool smelt of chlorine. Newspaper left black dirty marks, that mixed with chlorine and moist made fingers appear quite unsightly. Still the fingers didn't look any dirtier than my own thoughts.
***
I rented a car and decided to drive through The Causeway. In the beginning I took my suitcase with me, hoping that it would bring more attention to my routine appearance on the border. And you know what? Each time I drove in and out, nobody bothered to look at me. They just waved me through. Day after day. Just waved me through.
I took notes of dates and times in my diary, as I passed through the Malay-Singaporean boarder. Like Edmond Dantès carved the wall, to keep count of the days, lying forgotten in his cell. My cell was full of shopping malls and hawker centres , and provided me with a good supply of stationery. But still it was a cell.
When the suitcase did not prove any value-added, I just put the golden box inside my laptop bag with no laptop inside. And I drove. I also changed the route. I drove through Tuas instead of the Causeway. Same result. My passport was full of day-in-out stamps. All the officers waved me through. I totalled the brisk notes I made in my diary. I'd been through the border fourteen times, multiplied by two, I'd passed twenty-eight border controls. And I'd been stopped twice.
The first time it happened on the Malaysian side of the border of The Causeway. A grumpy custom's officer leant his elbow on the windscreen of my car and asked:
"What have you been doing in Malaysia Sir?" He looked as bored as a street-vendor who noticed you had run out of cash at the previous hawker's tray.
My Reason started writhing in hysterics. My darker side was happy; in the same way when a rescue worker forces you to the light after an earthquake.
"I am in the process of discovering Malaysian cuisine. I go each day to eat in the different villages across the border." We never agreed who said it first.
The officer yawned and waived me through.
The second time was purely intentional. I arrived at the border on the Singaporean side with no petrol. You were supposed to be ¾ full to continue. I made it to be as early in the morning as possible, so the Reason would still be asleep and would not say anything reasonable. The officer that approached my car to fine me suddenly said. "You can go Sir. Check your tank level next time."
"The bubble syndrome." The Reason said half-awaken. I wanted to weep, as wild as I could, but the Reason, anticipating something else coming, made me drive.
***
Sometimes, all it takes is a meeting of the eyes and a quick smile to change your life.
On the last day of my failed suicide I came back to the hotel, miserable and desperate. Actually we agreed that the Reason would go back to the UK as our mutual coexistence did not work. I couldn't sit still and was continuously wandering from one corner of room to another. Like squirrels scamper hither and thither with eyes keen on food. Yes, I needed food. I took a cab and went to the nearest hawker centre.
And there she was, Rachelle Brinas. Sweet little pinay with a broad nose, dark skin, and long straight hair. She stood in the line before me. The waiter messed up something and disappeared behind the counter. She looked at me with her eyes apologizing for the delay. She ordered samosas, I chose beer and fried rice.
She was a maid, about to leave her Singaporean host family for Spain. Her female cousin had been working in Madrid for the last five years. Cleaning, cooking and babysitting. One day the Spanish host family asked her cousin if she knew of any professional maid from Philippines for another Spanish family. The cousin did not wait long to suggest Rachelle as a candidate.
"I am very excited to go to Spain. The Philippines used to be a Spanish colony. So we share some history. And I think it will be easy to learn Spanish. Our language, Tagalog, has some Spanish words like querida, madre, entonses. Although sometimes it can be tricky with languages, In Philippines we call "coño" all posh people who prefer to speak English and try to be cool, or if they are Spanish mixed-blood. Like Enrique Iglesias. But actually in Spain coño means "cunt".
"Upps," She slapped her lips as her face turned slightly red. "I am sorry. I have to watch my mouse."
I laughed. "Never mind." I never had investigated into Julio Iglesias private life, I thought. The idea that I could potentially discuss with her his music art made me feel warmth at heart.
"The Singaporean host family was good to me. The husband worked for an IT Company and he taught me all kinds of things about computers. He even made me join his Company's special program to make Filipino workers good with computers. "Computer
literate" as they called it. Some older maids found it boring and were reluctant to learn, but overall it was nice."
"You are obsessed with learning, aren't you?"
"My father works in Saudi Arabia and he hates it. We are Catholics and it is difficult for him to live there. He works hard, but Saudi Arabia is a tough place. He keeps on telling me: "Work and study hard, learn as much as you can and then you can choose the place you really want to live in."
She finished eating samosas and put away her empty carton plate. She looked smiley and replete.
"I used to think that Manila was the place to be. But here in Singapore between cleaning and ironing I've learnt so much, I've realized the world is so big, so strange and so attractive. Of course I was lucky with my host family. They are true learning freaks. And I learned everything they thought was good for me to learn. Computers, Chinese, difference between Buddhism, Taoism, Catholicism, Protestantism, Islam, Sikhism and Hinduism. How to cook and appreciate different Chinese cuisines: Fujian, Hainan and Cantonese. I can organize a Chinese banquet and even arrange some classical Chinese wedding decorations. I did it for my employer's younger sister's wedding. And I can tell you all about Oolong tea. Of course if you are interested." She giggled as kids do when they overhear some hotty-naughty adult words.
"You can speak Chinese? That's insane!" All I could think off were five Spanish classes I had ever attended and some crappy French course at school. All I knew to die with were "una cerveza por favor" and "la vie de merde".
"When I'd arrived, the wife hired a private teacher for the kids. Since it made no difference in price I started learning with them. But do not think that Singapore is a charity for worldwide education. Some maids got into a trouble, were abused, bitten and sexually harassed. Since nobody was stealing my time with beatings and curses, I could use my energy to learn. I am twenty-six; never slept much; I had internet access and one full day off per week. My employer's house was full of books in English and I read them each night. And I prayed and prayed every day that I can learn for the rest of my live. "
"Do you have a boyfriend?" I finally asked. By that time I could imagine her being fluent in Malay and quote Confucius in ancient Chinese, but I could not imagine what kind of guy could cope with that sea of energy and thirst for life.
"No boyfriends. No time for love and it is dangerous. My grandmother always told me "Huwag kang magtiwala sa di mo kakilala", which means, "Never trust a stranger" in Tagalog. Singapore is a city of lonely maids and lonely expatriates. All complete strangers. Dirty thoughts are in the air. There are rumours that Filipino maids make extra money by consoling lonely expatriates. Oh these rumours! You know, people love rumours; rumours bring us together and help to avoid small talk. But because of these rumours, even taxi drivers asked me several times to join them for a coffee. Hm, I could have dated a pinoy, but I decided not to compromise my work. One Filipino maid I was friendly with was dating an Indonesian worker. Tired of his jealously she dumped him.
He went on extorting money from her employer and threatening to kill their children. He set the employer's car on fire. Then the police put him in jail and she lost her job, and was deported."
I felt relieved. There were no guys out there capable of coping with her.
We stayed talking until it was well past midnight. We agreed to share a cab. The taxi dropped me first at the hotel, she said she preferred to get to her host family house alone. Just as I was getting out of the cab she gave me a little white piece of paper.
"Although you are a complete estrangharo to me, I am leaving so soon that I can hardly screw it up." She smiled the warmest possible smile at me and closed the taxi door.
Sometimes, all it takes is to get a phone number to change your life. With an eight-digit number you are no longer a stranger, semi-criminal, runaway cancer patient or ungrateful son. You are connected. You can claim to identify yourself with the megapolis, with the Singaporean expatriate community, with a fun club of the most beautiful girls of the world - the pinays, with a defender of domestic workers rights, and finally with being a Man.
So that's how things were.
***
I stopped my trips to Malaysia. But before my first official date with Rachelle I needed to get rid of my notorious past. And I was obsessed with being caught. Nervous, I went to a shopping mall to buy a toilet cleaning liquid. I cautiously left "Do not disturb sign" on the doorknob. No uninvited guests please. In the shopping mall the checkout line went fast for all the other shoppers, as none of them seemed to put that waiting-bored faces. For me, as I watched shopping baskets getting emptied by an Indian cashier, time slowed as it only slows in the moments before imminent death.
"What if the police tracked me down long ago and decided to trail me? What if they wait to see who are my accomplices? Accomplices, Rachelle... what if...?" I prayed to something watching over me to let me have that chance. I apologized for not appreciating life, for not learning Spanish, for not being promoted at "Loobert & Johnes", for not being close to my family, for using death row prisoner's grief stories as a recipe for action and in particular I apologized for being so eager to sacrifice my own life.
But I returned safely to the hotel, emptied the cocaine packet into the lavatory. I used the toilet cleaning liquid to clean up any residue of the substance. The Reason was absent; I guess he had safely reached the UK.
As you probably have realized my murky plan was to smuggle some cocaine into Singapore, get arrested, get sentenced to death and eventually be hanged. From the time when I started my driving trips to Malaysia it did not really matter if I was to die in a Malaysian or Singaporean prison. I made the decision to die, back in London, but I did not have guts to commit an unassisted suicide. Since I wanted to die anyway, I secretly hoped that the media coverage of the case would serve to pressurize death-penalty
enthusiastic countries. Instead, I ended up playing Russian roulette, like a Christopher Walken's Nick in "The Deer Hunter". According to the scriptwriter - Nick lost his memory. According to me - I did not have much to remember. According to Rachelle there was always something to look forward too.
***
It was Rachelle's last week in Singapore. Each day of the seven days granted to me were rainy, suffocating and carefree. We ate out in all possible Filipino food restaurants in Singapore. I grew fond of
sisig, crispy pata, sinigang. lechon de leche and kare-kare. For breakfast, lunch and dinner, one hundred percent Filipino flavours.
"Try Pancit Molo soup. It's delicious." She would say.
"What it is made of?" I was still an amateur in decrypting Filipino menus.
"Oh, it is made of everything that tastes like home. Actually it is called a noodle soup. With no noodles. Instead you get a reasonable quantity of wantons. Delicious, unforgettable pork wantons. Some people also add chicken to the meat broth that wantons are cooked in."
And then she would go on and on explaining how all the ingredients come together to create a divine taste. I must admit I had never been hungrier in my life. As soon as she said something like "and the garlic together with the soy sauce....", my mouth was already watering and my stomach rumbled and grumbled to no end.
"You should seriously think about running a restaurant or at least trying as a restaurant critic." I suggested.
"When your duties include general housework, washing the car once a week, shopping at wet markets, cooking becomes a rare opportunity for an entertainment. As I cooked Chinese, Western, Filipino food I imagined myself being a chef at "Sin Ho Sui" on Amoy street. Since I had to operate multiple cooking utensils, I made myself believe I worked with a team of cooks, explained them their tasks and criticized their work. I had a Chinese - Choe, a Frenchman- Pierre and a Filipino - Juan. I had to speak to the French cook in English as I did not speak French. With Chinese we managed pretty well in Mandarin. My host family was understanding and did not mind me talking to myself in the kitchen. And they explained to the kids that I was not crazy, they said all people should have their own style in getting things done."
That night I dreamed of Rachelle acting as an orchestra conductor. But instead of musicians playing instruments together, there were cooks stroking cooking utensils. It sounded almost like a Beijing Opera to me. In between conducting, Rachelle turned around and gave me her remarkable smile.
***
On the day of her departure we went for dinner in the Filipino place on the Orchard road. We ordered food, I got a beer and she was drinking a coke. She went on talking about the last seven days that we had spent together, about how she would miss always-tropical Singapore and its food malls.
"What are you planning to do next? You can come over to Spain to see me sometime". She was playing with a straw in her glass of coke, her head slightly inclined and her right hand supporting her head.
During our pinoy eating trips, I mentioned to her that I'd quit my job in the UK and intended to stay for sometime in Asia to think what I wanted to do next. I sipped my beer and coughed to gain some time. I looked at her straight, black silk hair, so shiny and soft and all of a sudden I realized how connected I was to her. She was the one, in the whole universe of choices I did not think of before. How she did not know me, how she did not imagine how ugly my home neighbourhood was, how she did not picture what an asshole I was to my family and to myself. And still she was the one. To avoid jumping over the table and kissing her, I lay back on my chair and blurted out:
"I will look into studying something."
She suddenly drew herself up and I saw our food coming.
Before she left, we spent sometime in the lobby of the hotel. I wished of all the evils, at least we would do like in "Lost in translation" and kiss. But we did not. Instead she shook my hand and gave me her email address. She said kissing could undermine her determination to adjust as soon as she could to her new life in Spain.
That night I cried for the first time in my adult life. And I regretted I had not done it more often before.
***
In the morning I was ready to read my emails. Actually I got into my email account because I wanted to write to Rachelle. I had two beer cans for breakfast with some peanuts and tried to concentrate and to produce an emotional but meaningful letter.
My inbox was full. I have not been in contact with my past since my arrival to Singapore. The majority of letters were coming from my sister Rosy with the subject lines all indicating great trouble. Fearing the worst, I opened her latest email. It took me a while to bring my thoughts together, I screened the words like mistake, doctor, hospital, you are not sick. By the time I finished the third beer, it was just ten in the morning, but I already knew that I lost my dearest person and the cancer. I was not a terminal patient anymore; as of that day I was not any kind of patient. Everything went swimming before my eyes, the hotel room, the laptop screen and empty beer cans. The room become an entrance to the underworld. And I fainted.
When I opened my eyes, a young hotel maid with a worried face was bent over me. She kindly offered to call a hotel doctor. Keeping in mind my last experience with healthcare, I refused. In any case, now when I was officially cancer free, what surprise
they could give me? I still could carry some unknown modern lifestyle decease. Computer monitors and plastic sandwiches are no good for anybody.
"You know, in the UK we all faint from time to time. Too much stress." I confidently explained her and she left.
***
I got a message on the phone from the front desk officer saying that there was a post for me. I could not focus anyway and went down to the lobby. I picked up the envelope and went to the bar. Nobody could leave me a message, I thought. Nobody except. Scared to drink more alcohol I ordered an orange juice.
There was a postcard inside the envelope with a picture of Singapore skyline in the night. On the reverse side, the dark blue ink cursive letters told me:
"Kung gusto, maraming paraan; kung ayaw, maraming dahilan."
Unable to understand and reluctant to ask for help, I spent my time memorizing it. I ordered a Singapore Sling and imagined Rachelle sitting in front of me. Rachelle, her hair, her white teeth. She would tell me: "The Singapore Sling tastes of Singapore. The best place to have it is the Raffles hotel. To prepare it you need to mix gin, cherry brandy, lemon juice, sugar and club soda." She had never drunk alcohol when we went out but she could go on forever about the cocktail recipes. That is how she was, my wonderful Rachelle.
I consumed £100 worth of Singapore Sling, I was perfectly drunk and was able to repeat her message one hundred times. In Tagalog of course, my monolinguistic friend.
***
The next days I spent in banks. Not that I needed a private wealth advisor. All I wanted was to get rid of the cash I had. And with a purpose. When you are a broke, it is easier to decide what to do next.
As you may know, globalization works only for protestors before G7 meetings. It took me three days to sort out how to transfer some cash from Singapore and Australia. I learned all about the Monetary Authority of Singapore, International Anti Money laundering and Anti Terrorist Financing regulations. On the third day a random electronic transfer company offered me a solution. I decided to send £ 40,000 to John Austin's family in Melbourne. Another local bank accepted to cash a cheque for another £ 40,000 to the parents of Ang Lay Yeng if I was present.
***
On the fourth night I shaved and went to the restaurant where I had the last dinner with Rachelle. The place was busy and I had to wait to be seated. Waiters did not smile at me. Of course, too many customers to smile at, at the end of the day, the lips are not a resistance band.
Eventually, a young waitress, with hair parted in the middle, seated me at a small table in the corner and gave me a menu. I stupidly started at it for a while and started stroking it, as it was Rachelle's hair. Do not get me wrong; I am not a crazy dick like that guy in "The Perfumer". I do not need to kill to remember. All I needed was to eat. Hunger, memory and longing are devastating ingredients for the mind. And the food was exactly what made me feel that Rachelle was still around.
I was eating my chicken-pork adobo at "Fely J's", when she told me about her first love. She complained about beef caldereta at "Cafe Havana" right after I told her I had had sex only with two women in my whole life. As I was finishing pinakbet na bagnet in "1000 Flavours" she told me I was cute. She was about to order gising-gising at "Abe" when I realized that I loved her.
I ordered humba, bam-i guisado and a beer. As I waited, I examined the place. The dining room was flourishing with enjoyable sounds of gossips and mixed languages. The crowd was diverse: expats, singaporeans, pinoy and pinays. Loud, energetic mass, exactly what you need in the dark days. Beer was routinely reordered and waiters were masterly floating, holding trays of ice-cold San Miguel.
As a waitress arranged the plates on my table, I pulled Rachelle's postcard out of my pocket.
"Can I ask you for a favour? Are you Filipino?"
"Yes, I am. What can I do for you?" She sounded reluctant, probably thinking that a single guy like me was there only to make indecent proposals.
"I have a message to read. I assume it was written in Tagalog. Would you be so kind to translate it for me?" A small apologizing grin spread onto my lips.
She took a card and looked at the text, whispering "maraming paraa...... with a puzzled smile gave it back to me.
"You have a good friend, Sir. It means, if you want it, you'll find a way. If you don't, you'll find an excuse."
Just that.
***
After I finished my meal and paid, I returned to the hotel. The air conditioner maintained 16C degrees all day long. The room was cold and unwelcoming, as if it was asking me to leave at last. "Sky news" transmitted Barack Obama's anti crisis speech. Of all the human beings awake I was the least preoccupied with survival through the financial crisis.
I lay on my bed with my legs apart and arms outstretched. With eyes shut I saw a little boy crying and holding to his chest a pair of broken glasses. He cried so hard that the entire neighbourhood switched on their outdoor lights and looked out of the windows. He looked completely lost and abandoned. Running, he turned around several times.
Though, there was nobody looking for him. Some neighbours opened their windows and asked him to come in. But the little boy, scared and undecided, finally threw his broken glasses on the sidewalk and rushed as fast as he could to the top of the street, where the biggest streetlight was spreading its rays over the sleepy lane.
By the time I recognized the little boy, I had already fallen into the black tunnel leading into a new day.
***
John Austin did it because he wanted to buy out the sex slave - a girl he felt in love with. Society took it for legend until Melbourne police made pubic his multiple petitions for help. Unable to apply the rule of law, he went directly to the mafia and negotiated to free his beloved. The price was drug smuggling. None of the traffickers got caught or punished. Under the social pressure, Melbourne police raided several places until they found John's Chinese Juliet. She testified and now lives under Australian Police Witness Protection Program.
Ang Lay Yeng was a third generation Singaporean. Her Nigerian online love convinced her to smuggle one kilo of heroin from Malaysia to Singapore. After multiple romantic encounters in Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, they went on holidays to Malaysia where the Nigerian macho talked her into doing a drug run.
Roads crossed on the wrong intersection. An accidental mistake in engineering plans. The lead engineer remains unknown.
Gising-gising my friend before it's too late. Didn't you know that accountants talk to themselves?