“I want to remember it all. I want to remember your name, where we were, why we were there, how we got that far…” He stopped, suddenly realising that he had swept past what could be the key to the whole episode.
“And… why didn’t I go and get the tattoos?”
Her eyes narrowed further, as if they were turning into small creatures—mythical beings, half-reptile, half-whatever—going into attack mode. He actually started to get scared, thinking she might be able to physically attack him, take revenge for some wrong that he couldn’t remember but deeply deserved to be punished for.
“The pact,” she whispered, and then smiled. The smile looked like it tasted of strychnine. But it seemed as if this was a taste she enjoyed.
Here, he closed his own eyes, tightly. For one thing, he didn’t want to see her face at this moment. But more importantly, he needed to dig deep within himself to recover what kind of pact they could have made. If it was still there, he would find it. Nothing. He opened his eyes again, slowly, half-believing she’d be gone when he looked. But she was still there, of course.
However, the smile was gone; this time, there were tears trickling down her cheeks. As they reached her mouth, she opened it slightly and eased her tongue out. It seemed like she wanted to swallow them, to wash the acrid taste from her mouth.
“I’m sorry, I just can’t… what pactwas this?” She closed her mouth tightly, her stare fixed on him, and the tears seemed to stop instantly. “Look, I’m reallysorry if I’ve upset you. I didn’t mean that at all. I just wanted to… to get the whole story on what happened there.”
“There’s no story,” she answered. “There’s just ways in and ways out.” She glanced again at her handphone, more as an excuse than to read any messages there. “I have to go.”
She stood, started pulling her shopping bags together, then turned slightly to grab something off the next chair. Only at that moment did the impulse seize him; he acted on it without hesitation. As she was turned slightly to the right, he lunged over and touched the spot where he thought he remembered the tattoo being. He was, as it were, spot on. At the initial touch, she stiffened.
As he pressed harder against her flesh, she gasped. Her face knotted in a look of unwanted arousal. But almost immediately, she recovered: she swung around, looking like she had just been bitten by a snake. The expression on her face now clearly warned she was quite ready to attack.
What the hell was he doing? He could be charged with outrage of modesty. He was a lawyer, he knew that. If convicted, he could be suspended from practicing law—`for years maybe.
But being a lawyer, he also knew that he had a ready defence. He was just reaching out to flick something off her shift, there on the back. How did this constitute a sexual assault? To prove his guilt, she’d have to prove some offence was actually committed. Boy, would he love to see this in court: for her to stand up, expose the tattoo, have a deputy prosecutor touch the spot and watch her soar into instant ecstasy. The judge might even ask if he could touch it himself, just to be certain. He knew a few who would probably insist.
He laughed at this notion.
Of course, she had no idea he was laughing at some imagined judge, not her. So when she slapped him hard and jolted the laugh from his face, he was not, as he could have been, riled. But he realised it was useless trying to explain the matter to her. He would just accept the slap as a down payment on what he probably deserved from her.
“A joke, is it? Everything’s a joke for you.” She clutched her bags again and looked ready to pivot and leave.
“No, it’s not a joke, not at all. Look, stay just five more minutes.
I’m ready to fulfill my side of the pact. But I don’t remember what it is.
Honestly.” She looked at him hard, in a way he couldn’t read. Was she trying to judge whether to believe him or not? Or was she waiting for the perfect moment to do something awful to him, to gain what she must see as her justified revenge? “Honestly,” he repeated. “Honestly.” He shook his head in frustration, aware of how deeply dishonest the word “honestly” can sound.
Her features softened significantly. Had he reached her? Was she willing to listen to him, to give him back those parts of the story he was missing? Or was this just a trick to lull him before she struck again? She said nothing for about a minute, just stared at him; he felt like a cord was twisting inside him, slowly pulling his throat down further into his chest.
“No, I really have to go. I do.” She reached down, picked up a sheet of paper from the table, slightly torn at the top, coffee stains at one edge. She held it out to him. “This is yours.”
“No, you can keep it. It’s… it’s a present.”
She smiled at him for the first time, a smile without the strychnine anyway. She then reached into her soft black bag, extracted a pen, and inscribed something on the sheet. She extended it to him once more. “Now it’s my present to you.” After a slight hesitation, he took the drawing back.
“I have to go.”
“Can you give me a number or something where I can contact you?”
“No. You can’t contact me.”
“Okay then, how about… at least tell me where was it? Where did we?
No, better, why are those tattoos so… so powerful?” She smiled again, more warmly this time, whispered, “It’s there,” turned and moved off quickly. He rose, but then just stood there, watching her go. Until she disappeared, he had almost forgotten that he was holding the drawing. He quickly looked to see what she had written. He read, “What you can touch is just the beginning of what you can feel.” He frowned, then folded the sheet in half and slipped it into his wallet, next to the credit cards. “The beginning of what you can feel?” Well, he should be able to work this one out. He was a lawyer after all, someone who used logic to herd and corral the irrational.
And what was that last thing she said? “It’s there?” What’s there? The secret of the tattoos, the place where they met, the reason she couldn’t tell him?
Hmm… it was like his cappuccino, probably: at the bottom of all the foam, all the clouds, you eventually found what you were looking for. As she said, it’s there. And, somehow, he knew that it was.
MIRRORS
Christopher Taylor, Singapore
1. Caroline
He is reclining in his leather armchair, reading the newspaper and she is watching him from the other side of the room. She has just come home from work. She has mixed a gin and tonic, easy on the tonic. She sips the bitter liquid and watches him flip the page.
‘What’s new?’ she says.
‘The world is fucked,’ he says.
‘Lucky world,’ she says. He doesn’t react. She takes a few paces, stops behind the armchair and puts a hand on his shoulder. ‘Anything I should care about?’ she says.
‘Another stewardess has been raped… Forest fires in Sumatra. Protests outside terrorist trial in Manila.’
‘Nothing new, then.’ Her hand slides up his collarbone, her thumb massaging the back of his neck.
‘How was work?’ he says.
‘Oh, you know. I’m still working on that deal, the one with Jakarta. Lim’s still his pig-headed, sexist self. Company stocks holding up surprisingly well, considering.’
His gaze flicks back and forth. She sits on the arm of his chair and lets her hand rest casually on his chest. He manoeuvres his arm around hers to turn another page of the newspaper. She looks out of the plate glass windows beyond the balcony to the golf course, and further, to Sentosa Island and the harbour. ‘Manchester won,’ he says.