You should perform in Singapore, I said to her the first time we were alone together. Providentially, the Comrade had dashed out of the room, clutching his guts and cursing last night’s lamb hotpot. She smiled and said she’d been planning a few dates, probably at one of the casinos. I told her that I’d like to take her to some of Singapore’s best eating spots, but was afraid she’d be mobbed.
“Are Singaporeans like that?” She looked at me quizzically. “I thought you were all very restrained and law-abiding.”
It depends on the subject, I replied. We’ve famously come to blows over Hello Kitty giveaways at McDonald’s. And you sing much better than Hello Kitty, I grinned, since you have a mouth.
She laughed at this and said, “You must protect me, then.” I willed myself not to blush.
Your first time in Singapore and even more people turned up to greet you than for Prince William and Kate Middleton, I felt proud to tell her.
“You mean you’d expect more Singaporeans would turn up for their former colonial masters?” She interlaced her fingers and stretched out her arms.
The bellboy patted her luggage and bowed. He didn’t even look at me as he accepted my tip. His gaze was fixed firmly on her as she leaned against the glass window of her hotel suite, the evening sun glinting off her jewelry, transforming her into a literal star.
Mainland Chinese aren’t exactly Singaporeans’ favorite immigrants at the moment, I explained as I shut the door. They feel the working class are taking away the low-end jobs while the upper class are driving up prices. (I recalled the scene earlier that day of the Comrade in the conference room at my firm, signing purchase after purchase of property and stock, pausing every so often to spew a gob of phlegm into the wastepaper basket, and wondered into which class I would place him.)
But you’re different, I added quickly. You have real talent. Most Singaporeans would consider it an honor if you became a citizen.
“Most?” she laughed, looking right into me. As she moved away from the window, she reached back to unclasp her diamond necklace. “A gift from the Comrade,” she said. As was almost everything else she was wearing.
He must be very grateful to have you, I said.
“More grateful that I’ve denied our relationship to the press, the Party, everyone.” She sat down at the dresser and laid the necklace in a velvet-lined metal box. “But most especially his wife.” She let out a small girlish giggle.
You could have anyone, I blurted. What do you see in him?
Instantly, I wished I could have withdrawn my question. I’m sorry, I stammered. I had no right to ask.
She removed her watch, the gems encrusting its face sparkling at me, and placed it in the box along with the other baubles. “He needs me,” she said. “And I need him.”
I nodded, kicking myself. How could I think our encounters over the past year — on trips to attend to her lover, at that — had somehow earned me any degree of intimacy? I wondered if she would tell the Comrade. I could lose my job.
You should rest before your interview tomorrow, I said, backing toward the door. I’ll be here at eight to take you to the TV station.
“Before you go,” she said, “please help me put this in the safe.” She held out the box of jewelry.
I moved toward her to take it, and she grabbed my wrist.
“Are you disappointed?” she asked.
I have no right, I replied, blood roaring in my ears.
“That’s the second time you’ve brought up ‘rights.’ Rights have nothing to do with anything. Is that the lawyer in you talking? Or the Singaporean?” She pulled me down and whispered in my ear, “Sometimes we do things out of need, and sometimes just because we want to.”
As she placed her lips on mine, I realized I couldn’t remember the last time I’d made love. There were adolescent fumblings, but love... This. This might have been the first time.
The last time I’d seen a dead body was a drowning as well.
I was on holiday in Port Dickson with my family, and I’d scurried to the front of a crowd gathered at the beach, thinking they’d landed some fish, or maybe a turtle. Instead there was a drowned boy, his body sallow and stiff as a candle, save for his wrinkled hands and feet. It was the first thing that came to my mind when I saw the Comrade’s pallid, distended corpse on the mortuary gurney.
She identified him to the police investigator with a single, solemn nod. There were no tears.
Outside in the hall, Mr. Chong told us he was confident the coroner would rule the death an accident. In the harsh fluorescent light, she shook her head and said, “No, he died of a broken heart.” I put an arm around her shoulder, and told her she was very kind.
In the morning, I would brief her public relations firm to tell the press that she was “shocked and dismayed by the tragedy,” but would not be canceling the upcoming dates of her Southeast Asian tour. In fact, she would dedicate a song to her “childhood friend.”
I would go on to share with them only the facts: the Comrade’s body was found floating on a stretch of the Singapore River not far from the bars on Boat Quay, where he had been witnessed drinking heavily. He had been under a lot of stress since the Commercial Affairs Department had begun investigating him for possible money-laundering offenses, allegations which he had strenuously denied.
I would not share with them, or her, or Mr. Chong, just how the CAD had come to build their case.
The last time I saw her perform in China, it was a multimedia extravaganza involving giant props, a multitude of costume changes, and an army of backup singers, dancers, and engineers.
Her premiere in Singapore was a pared-down affair, just a chamber orchestra and her voice — a velvety, almost husky instrument that occasionally swelled into a melismatic yodel to devastating effect. On that first night, I felt as if my senses had been fully activated for the first time. I started becoming aware of the smallest details.
The dust motes dancing in the spotlight above her.
The way her upper lip arched when she reached for the high notes.
The box that the Comrade bore away from her dressing room after the concert, and how it looked exactly like the one in which she had stashed his gifts of jewelry.
The fact that I never saw her wear a gift from him more than once.
The first time I’d actually taken a proper look at the paperwork was in the wee hours of the morning after her opening night.
As a lowly first-year associate, the main job Mr. Chong had given me was to ensure that the Comrade signed the correct documents in the correct places, the correct way, and by the correct time, and in a manner that caused him the least annoyance. It was more than a full-time occupation, but it involved relatively little legal analysis on my part, which was, frankly, fine by me. All along, I’d assumed the documents contained standard boilerplate culled from hoary precedents anyway. And they did.
But even after over a year of flying to and from Beijing, I didn’t really know the extent or substance of the Comrade’s business. There were various corporations with bizarre relationships, some of which had been in operation for years without any record of financial transactions. There were also multiple wire transfers between multiple accounts in multiple names in multiple countries, and subsidiaries purchasing everything from real estate to antiques to art to yachts to jewelry.
I’d just presumed it was all the usual rich-guy stuff. You know. Like keeping a mistress.
A mistress who could fly out of countries wearing expensive trinkets without attracting scrutiny from customs officials.