The strangler fig offended him by its sneaky behavior. It depended on, made use of, and ultimately destroyed another.
The strangler fig is not the only possessor of this parasitic habit. Some women have it too. Chancing upon the right man, the more vibrant and sturdy the better, she draws him to her embrace. Her tendrils caress and soothe, tightening imperceptibly yet irresistibly. The victim, unsuspecting at first, is charmed to be the object of such obsessive attention, until, too late, he is trussed up, his breath squeezed out. The gently deepening deprivation of oxygen lulls him into unconsciousness, as she takes from him the keys to his condo and his car, and of course all of his credit cards.
Bernard felt that he had spent his life struggling free from the embrace of women. Perhaps it was too dramatic to call them strangler figs, but certainly there were times when all his energy was being sucked from him. First there was his mother. After his father’s death when he was just a boy of seven, she had identified his potential and driven him on, through the Gifted Education Programme at Raffles and onward to an army scholarship to study engineering at Cambridge.
Her constant refrain was the need to make the most of his time. Every spare moment should be spent reading or doing homework. Even meals were a distraction — she cared much less about how anything tasted than about whether it would provide the right energy boost at the right time for his studies. When he was in primary school she had warned him about his habit of loitering along the way to and from school. Once, exasperated by the fact that he had not taken her warning to heart, she told him that at dawn and dusk he must be especially careful, for in the shadows of the trees there would lurk female spirits, with long black hair, in long white gowns, and they watched for little boys who lacked purpose, who idly kicked stones at a street corner or missed their bus because of some foolish daydream or other.
When Bernard got married he thought he had found an equal, a partner in life, but his wife, who had pretended disdain for material things all through their courtship, was soon complaining about how low his army pay was compared to friends of theirs who worked for banks or in the legal profession. Even after he left the army and became chief executive of the energy regulator, as well as a member of Parliament for the ruling party, she was unsatisfied, and urged him to push to become a minister. Great pay, great status, she said. When he explained that what he really enjoyed was meeting people, trying to find answers to their problems, she told him he was wasting his time — no one would really be grateful to him anyway — and he should focus on impressing the PM instead. Sometimes she made him angry, and he would feel like striking out, but he kept himself in check. One can strike a man, but never a woman. The same boy who had without hesitation fought schoolmates upon any slight or insult had been unfailingly polite to his mother, to teachers, and in time to the women he dated. No matter how much his wife provoked him, Bernard kept quiet, carried on.
Whatever one does with the time one has, it passes. This morning Bernard had looked up from his phone and was startled by his own reflection in the mirror — how little hair he had was the first thought. But then, before self-pity overtook him, the second followed, the uplifting sight of his flashing white teeth, the crocodile smile that had proved so useful to his rise, first in the army and later in politics. People were disarmed by it. Charmed by him. And he had led a charmed life, in most respects.
The message on his phone was unexpected, a shock, but he would survive. Perhaps it was the chance of a lifetime, to change the pattern of others taking advantage of him. Today he would act from love. And he would find his reward in that one true love.
Perhaps because his father had died when he was young, Bernard had taken to heart the advice Polonius gave to his son Laertes: accept censure while not judging others; listen more and speak less; and above all, be true to himself. This had served him well. It even gave him the patience to endure his wife.
When Bernard first became an MP, the ruling party had a viselike grip on power. Promotion to minister was mostly about one’s academic credentials and connections — being a minister was mostly about making decisions that were sound in economic theory that could then be implemented by an efficient, well-paid civil service. But it had all become so much harder when the people suddenly, unexpectedly, discovered that they could in fact vote against the ruling party without the social order collapsing, and that just maybe speaking up might not be met with a knock on the head but an apology and an offer to do more and better — to keep bus fares low, to provide more hospital beds, to limit the entry of foreigners.
Everyone and anyone wanted things done for them, and done for them now. They complained about anything and everything. To make matters worse, there was an apparent conspiracy of the heavens over the past three years — flash floods, MRT breakdowns, sex scandals — all conspired to make it seem as if there was nothing the ruling party could do right.
Many of his parliamentary colleagues resented the new situation. It was not the premise on which they had entered politics, which was meant to be a simple career progression — more pay, more status, as his wife had put it. They did not like the new orders to be on time for functions, not to keep people waiting, to be more approachable.
But the new national mood suited Bernard. He started a Facebook page. It quickly generated more “likes” than those of any of the ministers. He had taken to Tweeting too, and soon had many followers. He spoke his heart. He was true to himself. In the real world, he started to meet with citizen groups that had previously been ignored. Of course, it was not easy. Everyone wanted change in how things were done: Conservationists wanted a block on development. Hotels wanted more leeway to hire foreign staff. Gays wanted whatever it was they did behind closed doors to be allowed, to be legal. And if change did not happen — then the ruling party was to blame. But at least as an ordinary member of parliament, he had more freedom than a minister — to convince people of the merits of government policy, while not being entirely bound by it either. And people liked him, they truly did — his lack of ostentation, his modesty, his simple, open manner. He lived by the words of Polonius.
His wife, though, still nagged him. She felt that now was his chance to become a minister, given that it was precisely his EQ, his people skills, his popularity, that the party needed in these challenging times. For her, whatever strength he had was an opportunity for her to ascend. He was the tree she had found to be her scaffold. She badgered him to attend the right functions, and accompanied him so she could smile and flirt with the right people, who might support a promotion to the Cabinet for him. But he had long since come to feel that she did not love or care for him beyond the status he conferred on her, the network he gave her access to. At times, he felt as if she was truly intent on strangling him, choking him, her thumbs firmly against his windpipe as he gasped for air, although of course the pressure would never be enough to kill him, at least not until she had used him to get exactly where she wanted.