That would have been the end of it had the woman not appeared in front of the Seng Poh Road ground-floor flat I was living in then.
I recognized the smug, strident voice mocking our simple wooden doors and painted window grills even as she stuffed Best Price Offered for Your Property flyers through them.
“I tell you, these days all the rich homos and poor ang mohs want to live here. These stupid old people don’t know what they are sitting on — eh-eh-eh, boy-boy, don’t throw!” A crash followed.
I opened the door to find her pale pudgy son had smashed the arowana tank on the five-foot way with a cup cactus. Water and broken glass were mixed with porcelain fragments and the pink-tipped petals of the crushed Sedum rubrotinctum were being smeared on the cement walkway by my two desperately flailing fish. The boy had already picked up another pot off the wall rack, a three-inch Tiger’s Jaw in a clay pot, and was looking around for his next target. When he saw me his eyes gleamed; he raised his arm in my direction but squeaked and dropped the plant as its needles twisted around and jabbed him. The husband and maid were nowhere to be seen, no doubt distributing flyers elsewhere, but the anorexic daughter was standing there looking both sullen and alarmed.
The woman smacked the girl on the back of her head, making the chubby boy forget his pinpricks to crow in glee. “Why didn’t you watch your brother? This is all your fault!”
Now the lift doors open again. Handsome, efficient Gary appears with his two Filipina maids and chauffeur, assorted neighbors, and an apologetic security guard. They are armed with kitchen knives, Gary’s golf clubs, and a Koran.
“Police are on their way,” Gary says. “Renee just said you had a psycho up here — I didn’t know if she meant psycho as in suicide, murderer, or opposition party member.”
“She’s the wicked one! She took my husband away! She’s killing my son!” the woman shouts at them.
Here, at last, we have arrived at the heart of the woman’s bitterness. Not surprisingly, Renee still doesn’t recognize her. Instead, stress and incredulity burst out of her in a sudden spurt of laughter.
“Her? She’s not into men and she won’t even eat meat because she won’t kill animals!”
Now the woman stops, her attention caught, and really looks at Renee for the first time. “And she took you too. I never knew you were so serious about singing. I thought you were just playing the fool. For once in your life, listen to me. Tell her to stop killing your brother!”
Renee looks confused. Fortunately, Gary steps in and directs his chauffeur and our security guard to take the woman downstairs. She is still struggling with them when the police arrive.
The policemen take the woman away, of course. One of them shyly tells Renee he has all her CDs and always watches President’s Star Charity when she sings on the show. She gives him a can of chrysanthemum tea and an autographed photo and he goes off happy, promising he will make sure she is never bothered again by this “whacko nutcase.”
The woman is still shouting. We can hear her at street level, the desperation in her voice growing with the distance.
“She cursed me! She cursed my whole family! She stole my daughter!”
I had not cursed the woman or her damned family. As her daughter had helped transfer my poor suffocating fish into a tub, I had spoken quietly to the woman, outlining the future coming to her. There is no need for harsh tones when your words hold power. Even her daughter, measuring capfuls of water conditioner into the tub as she held the plastic hose steady, had not heard a thing.
Besides, it was already clear to me then that her husband had left her bed for another months before and was well on his way out of her life. Likewise, her son’s cancer had already been hovering, a dark miasma of stickiness in the air around his soft, sickly body. All I had done was name it and bring it to the surface. I know the smell of sickness very well. I was only twenty-seven years old when I died of diphtheria during the Occupation.
Some things hang in the balance and a word spoken is all it takes to tip it...
“Will she be all right?” Renee says. She looks beautiful and concerned. “She’s crazy, isn’t she?”
No, the woman is not crazy yet, but she will be soon. And she is likely to find herself labeled crazy long before that happens. Perhaps after she tells her story to her boss — her shift supervisor at McDonald’s who, though sorry for her, will be forced to fire her because of parents’ complaints that she frightens their children. And of course the police and the court-appointed psychiatrist will label her delusional and psychotic.
I decide it is safe to forget her.
But Renee still looks shaken. “What she said just now — for a moment I almost seem to remember—” It is as though some bitter echo remains in her. “I don’t want to end up like her,” she says a second time.
When my Renee first said that a year ago she was referring to our uninvited visitor’s hard, calculating eyes and the harsh lines etched around a discontented mouth stained with cheap lipstick. That was when I decided to save her from her life. I called her “Renee,” meaning “reborn.” Because I rescued her, I will protect her.
“I love you,” I remind my Renee. “Nothing else matters. I will always keep you safe.”
My words protect and bind her securely to me again. Renee’s lovely face clears and she smiles and turns and goes into our home. I will follow.
But first I heal the shattered vase and its contents. I bless the shimmering koi in their new unbreakable tank. I adjust the sand, the salt, and the watching seeds that shield our entrance. The smooth, hard, shiny golden-brown shells of flax seeds in their box with two whole dried chilies will protect us from forces stronger than a desperate human, but I know better than to take them for granted. As I stir my energy into the seeds, I feel subtle barriers of protection rise and hear Renee laugh. These items are more for show than anything else, of course.
The most powerful magic still lies in words—
Not in words spoken but in directions heard.
Saiful and the Pink Edward VII
by Damon Chua
Woodlands
It is past two a.m. and Saiful stands outside the Church of St. Anthony on Woodlands Avenue 1, smoking one kretek after another as he nervously tugs on his long, greasy hair. He has been waiting for the better part of an hour and is ready to bolt. But he can’t. It is ridiculous to think that all this trouble has been the result of a stupid postage stamp. But the stamp — a rare Straits Settlement misprint from 1902 featuring a pink-colored King Edward VII — is all that Saiful has. On her deathbed, Saiful’s mom, dying prematurely of liver disease, told him to hang onto the family heirloom at any cost. At any cost — that was what she had said, and he had promised her that he would. Now, he is beginning to understand the gravity of his commitment.
Saiful was once considered a mat rocker, a somewhat derogatory term referring to a young Malay who is into heavy metal. With his tight leather jacket, gold-rimmed Ray-Bans, and long sun-bleached hair, he used to be a fixture at Studebaker’s disco in Pacific Plaza. But now that he is reaching the ripe old age of thirty-five, other priorities have surfaced. For one, he has begun to think seriously about getting married and starting a family. After all, his childhood friends Ismail and Khamsani are both hitched and have seven children between them. Plus, the government is extending all sorts of monetary incentives to increase the fertility rate of Singaporeans; though, of course, the unspoken truth is that the bureaucrats are hoping to have more Chinese babies, not Malay ones.