by Alfian Sa'at
“Are you listening to me? Were you afraid it would turn out ugly? Then maybe we could have used the concealer on its face, make it look better.”
“It was paper.”
“It wouldn’t have turned out ugly, Michelle. If the baby came out at least a bit like you, it wouldn’t have turned out ugly.”
Michelle turned to look at her best friend. All this while she had been looking at the space that the two waiters had already vacated. She placed a hand on May-Lin’s shoulder.
“You heart is in the right place.”
“What does that mean, Michelle?”
Michelle smiled.
“What does that mean? Or did you just say it because you like the way it sounds?”
Michelle was still smiling. Then the two girls decided to walk to the MRT station. Along the way, May-Lin stared hard at Michelle from the back. She was glad she stared from the back because the look she had would have scared Michelle. Then May-Lin said in a voice that was so hard and wounded it surprised even her, “What have you done to me?”
Michelle turned back and glanced at her. “What did you say?”
May-Lin had her palms at her elbows so she looked like she was freezing. Above them, the stars were barely visible. The pavements were wet and slicked with the molten light that spilled from the street lamps.
“I didn’t say anything.”
* * *
The next morning Michelle was hysterical. She was sobbing helplessly over the phone. When she got back from HMV the night before, she had received a page from Angela. Angela had told her that she was going to Europe. Michelle’s heart had sunk then. But worse was to come. She was going with Michael, because his sister had fractured her leg and he needed someone to take over the air ticket. Michelle often wished that the guy’s name was anything but Michael. It sounded so much like her own. Like she once told May-Lin, “It’s like we’re the same person, except that he’s got something hanging from him down there.” Angela had told her about how Michael was going to teach her to ski, how they were going to take the London bus, and come back with snapshots of the Eiffel Tower. It was as if Angela was talking about Europe as one big country, borderless, honeymoon capital of the world. And then Michelle had asked, “So how are you and Michael?”
“What do you want to know about us?”
Angela had used the word “us”. Michelle knew everything was almost over. But she had to still hang on to the telephone; she had to witness its death.
“Yah. You and Michael. Is he still sleeping around?”
Angela sounded offended. “Was he sleeping around? I don’t know anything about that. And I don’t think I’d want to bring it to his attention. These kinds of things, they’re private, don’t you think so? All that matters is that I’m going to spend three weeks with him away from here. Can you imagine that? Three weeks in a foreign country with only Michael by my side.” And then Angela got defensive. “Anyway, you sleep around too. You always keep telling me about all those encounters you have with all those pretty girls you pick up from those bars. But I never ask you too much about them.”
“So you and Michael are finally together?”
“I’m just hoping for the best.”
“You must be very happy.”
“Michelle, if you were here right now, I’d squeeze your hand really tight. I’m so excited about this trip.”
But Michelle already felt that squeeze, and it was nowhere near her hand. It was somewhere in the proximity of her chest. It was at that point that she decided to put down the phone without saying goodbye. She instinctively dialled May-Lin’s number.
“It’s over,” she began.
“I know,” May-Lin replied. “It was over a long time ago, Michelle. It never started. Nothing started.”
“Is there anything wrong with me, May-Lin?”
“No, there’s nothing wrong with you.”
“Then what went wrong?”
“I’m not sure, Michelle.”
“It was wrong timing,” Michelle went. “The timing was all wrong.”
“Yes, it was wrong timing,” May-Lin went. “If you like the way it sounds, so be it. Wrong timing.”
“May-Lin, I feel so lost right now. I don’t know what to do anymore. Will you meet me tomorrow? At HMV. We don’t have to buy CDs. I’m broke anyway. I just need someone to cuddle me. I just need a little tenderness right now.”
“I’ll see you, Michelle.” When May-Lin put down the telephone she heaved a sigh that broke into a smile. She had been waiting for this day for a long time. She knew exactly what to do; it had been rehearsed in her head during those dull hours of longing. Tomorrow, they were going to make love, and for the first time, free from Angela’s shadow looming above them like a terrible angel. Or in Michelle’s scheme of things, a jealous one whose will was steadily crumbling, watching the two girls embracing each other, up till that last moment when it decided to turn its back and flee with a devastating flap of its wings. To Europe.
* * *
The next morning, May-Lin sneaked into her brother’s room while he was still asleep and sprayed his Aramis on her wrists. She felt supremely confident. Michelle and her had decided to skip school for the day to meet at HMV. When they met, Michelle said, “You smell different today.”
May-Lin simply smiled, and after browsing through some CDs they made their way to the toilet. This time, for the first time, it was May-Lin leading the way. That was how confident she was, she didn’t need any more tentative seduction scenes from Michelle. She was in control now. In the toilet, MayLin stalled for a while at the washbasins, and allowed Michelle to choose the cubicle. May-Lin laughed. It was as if she was choosing some five-star honeymoon suite. Michelle seemed to be more daring than ever, instead of their usual corner cubicle she chose the one nearest the door.
May-Lin then looked at herself in the mirror. Her hair was in place, she smelt good, and her skin was tinged with a warm flush of anticipation that was rather attractive. There was something cute about her glasses, too. And then suddenly a flash came across her glasses and she thought, “Maybe I need concealer.”
Nevertheless, May-Lin walked towards the first cubicle. They had chosen a good time to be in the toilet; it was morning on a weekday and there were not many shoppers around. She opened the unlocked door and saw Michelle smiling. Michelle nodded to her, and she suddenly realised it wasn’t a sign that gave invitation, it just gave permission. And she would then walk into the cubicle, and drum through the motions, as if there were step-by-step instructions on the wall.
Smile. Bashfully, at first. Coyness was important; it stood in for reluctance when there was none.
Look at each other incredulously. They cannot believe this is happening. For May-Lin, that someone as pretty as Michelle would want to do something with her. For Michelle, that she had gotten this far and this low, to have joyless sex with a friend so stubborn about defending her plainness. Neither can believe that any of it is taking place, but it is; the clash of tongues, chests squeezed together, fingernail-welts, licks (how much do you mind the sour smell of my saliva?), nibbles, the countless invisible scars left behind by two people damaged by desire.
Finally, everything should be left behind as it was, untouched. They had just been visitors to each other’s bodies, passing through, traceless. Walked through each other like phantoms through walls.
May-Lin stepped up into the cubicle. When she looked down at the floor, she saw smears of wetness on it, the toilet paper holder with its cigarette-burn craters like a kind of firstaid kit from which one tore out flimsy useless bandages. Then May-Lin walked out without looking at the girl who had once inhabited her dreams. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe that was why this whole thing seemed so much like a dream, a meaningless mime full of sighs and weird shadows waltzing clumsily on cubicle walls.
“I’ll be waiting for you outside, Michelle. Once you’re finished look for me outside.” Then she walked over to the mirrors and took off her glasses. Sh
e washed her face and blinked in the mirror. She wanted her expression to ask “What am I doing?” but it looked back at her blankly.
Then May-Lin heard a flush. That was the first. And then May-Lin heard another. After the fourth furious roar from the cubicle, May-Lin decided to walk out of the toilet. As she looked behind her, she caught sight of the ‘Ladies’ sign, and the bald, stump-armed figure on it, with test-tube legs. She stared at it, the door swinging to a close, and concluded that the sharp triangle that jutted from the hips – like a rocket-fin pelvis – was supposed to represent a skirt.
UMBRELLA
Truth is, I’m not good at my studies. This year I’m doing my ‘O’ levels for the second time. Actually, half my class is doing their ‘O’ levels for the second time. So in a way, people can’t just place the blame on me. Sure I play soccer once in a while, and in class sometimes I draw on my textbooks, but I’m not lazy. I know how important my studies are. I know the whole story about getting a certificate and getting a job and moving out of the flat and buying jewellery for my mum, etc. But drawing on textbooks is something you do when your teacher is just not making any sense. After a while you look up and wonder what all the stuff on the blackboard means. What those underlines in coloured chalk are for, for goodness’ sake.
When I started out I drew in pencil, but after a while I went on to use my pen instead. I was thinking, “What the heck, who’s going to use my book anyway?” It was a Five Normal˚ book, and I know everyone in my family is hoping that my younger brother, who is doing his PSLE˚ this year, might be able to get into the Express stream. He wouldn’t need a textbook like mine. There are sketches everywhere. Some are of teachers’ faces, but with devil horns and stuck-out tongues. There are also sketches of coconut trees with sunsets behind them. If there’s one thing I’ve realised I’m an expert in, it’s drawing coconut trees. Sometimes if I felt like it, there’d be a hut beside the tree. Birds flying against a backdrop of a setting sun. Meanwhile, the inside covers of my book have messages like, “Are you going for the Sentosa concert?” and “Boy bands suck!”
Another problem was that we had a Maths teacher the year before who quit after just two months. He was a relief teacher. You could tell. He would walk into class and the first thing he would say was, “Class, we’re behind schedule.” He was fresh from the university, and you could tell too. His shirts all looked new, like he just bought them for his new job. He wore black leather loafers and he parted his hair severely. Yet, he somehow missed mowing down the few strands of hair that jutted out like unruly weeds from the back of his head.
Anyway, he taught like shit. There’s no other way to describe it. He would scribble things on the board, ask us to do some sums, and then he’d write down the answer. If we got the answer, good, give ourselves ticks. He enjoyed saying, “You want to give yourself star also can, can even draw the sun and moon, up to you.” As if it was the funniest thing in the whole world. If we didn’t get it right, then we’re supposed to read the chapter again. He always kept on telling us, “Maths is about formulas, if you understand the formula you can do any sums.” But he never taught us any formulas. He taught us shit. It was during his lessons that I perfected my sketches on coconut trees. I realised one day during his lesson that a coconut tree looked better with coconuts on it. I wondered how come a simple fact like that could have escaped me. So I drew them in.
Anyway, there was this one day when my father saw my report card. My father is the type who doesn’t talk much. He was away most of the time, as a cook in an ocean liner. But there was this day when he got hold of my report card, which my mother had already signed. He called me from my room, where I was playing Championship Manager, this soccer computer game.
“Hafiz, what’s all this?”
I kept quiet, but in my mind I was thinking of Cantona on my computer.
“Hafiz, all red! You don’t like studying is it? We send you to school for what? Buy you uniform, pay school fees, for what? What do you do in school?”
“Study.”
“Then how come I get this? Shima, you saw your son’s report book?”
“Yah, I sign already,” my mother replied.
“You know he fail everything except Malay and English?”
“What to do,” was my mother’s reply. “The boy is like that.”
“Hafiz, you got no shame ah? This is your second time taking your exams you know!” Then my father switched over to scolding me in English. He did this usually when he thought he didn’t sound important enough. My guess is that it’s because his supervisor scolds him in English, and he treats scoldings like those with absolute seriousness. “Wake up your idea, man, Hafiz! Wake up your funny idea!”
My mother, as usual, had to butt in. “It’s not that I don’t tell him to study. I tell him every day. I tell him until my mouth is dry, but he never listens.”
“Shima, this is very bad,” my father continued. “As parents we can’t just let this go on. Hafiz, I’m getting you a tuition teacher. Expensive never mind. As long as you catch up with your work. You bring me the newspaper. We find something for you.”
And that was how Chris arrived at our door one day, 10 minutes late, a law student from the university. A tuition agency had sent him. He had to knock for about three minutes before my mother finally opened the door. She had been peeping out from the window louvers and it didn’t occur to her that he was a tutor because for one thing, he looked rather young, and for another, he was dressed in a polo T-shirt and jeans. I supposed my mother was expecting someone with a briefcase and tie. When he saw my mother, Chris went “Hello Auntie.” My mother, who doesn’t speak much English, simply nodded at him and asked “Tuition ah?”
When she unlocked the gate to let Chris in, my mother was still smiling, and it was an embarrassed smile. It was as if mother was apologising for not being able to speak English, or for the house being messy, or for the fact that she didn’t have anything to offer him to eat except for what was under the dish cover in the kitchen. Some fried eggs and rice and a bottle of soy sauce.
* * *
When Chris came into my room, the first thing he noticed was of course, the cartons of Wrigley’s chewing gum stacked in one corner. Green peppermint, white spearmint, yellow fruitflavoured ones.
“Wah, so much ah?”
I was clearing my table to make room for the two of us. I put aside the Teen magazines, a soccer jersey and some pirated computer games I had bought from Funan Centre.
“Yah, my father go overseas a lot. So can get cheap. So what can I call you ah, sir?”
“No no, don’t call me sir. You can call me Chris.”
“Okay, Chris. Is the chair okay for you? Or you want my chair, because this one got wheels. Office chair.”
“No, this will do.”
“That one is the dinner table chair.”
“It’s okay. So, do you have your ten-year-series˚ with you?”
“Oh, that one I left at school. But next time I bring. Promise, promise.”
“Okay, where can we start?”
Suddenly we heard a beeping sound and Chris fumbled in his pocket for his pager. I managed to take a look at his face and thought he was quite handsome. He was the sort who had made a point to shave each day. When he looked up, he brushed his hair back, and then he clapped his hands together, as if he were the speaker at the beginning of a seminar.
“Can I use your phone?” he asked.
“Wait ah,” I said, “I check if my mother is using.”
Sure enough when I went out of the room, my mother was curled on the sofa giggling into the telephone. My mother already has two sons, but whenever she used the telephone she acted like a girl. She would bring her legs up to rest on the sofa and she would twirl the spiral, springy telephone wire with her finger. She could hang from the phone for two hours at one go.
“Ma, tuition teacher want to use the phone,” I told her.
My mother gave me a concerned look, and then immediately told
her friend that she needed to go. She said an important call was coming in. I didn’t know why she couldn’t just say someone needed to use the phone. As I walked back into my room, I realised that I was walking in a funny way, not the usual manner, almost as if I wanted to appear confident. Then when I spoke it was as if my voice had some kind of puton American accent.
“Er, Chris, you can use the phone now.”
As I settled back into my chair, I wished that we had a different telephone for guests. My mother had bought a Garfield phone, and his eyelids would rise if you lifted the receiver off his paw. It looked funny the first time we saw it in the store, and that was why my brother and I insisted my mother buy it. My brother had said the words, “Very cute, Mak,” over and over and after a while he made it sound more longing than wistful. We also made her buy a rooster alarm clock that crowed in the morning. But now it seemed like a childish phone, something not fit for a guest to use.
“Cute phone,” Chris said when he came back.
“We last time had a normal type of phone, but that one spoiled.”
“Well, I mean, Garfield’s cute.”
“Yah.”
“So, where do you want to start? Any problems?”
When I showed Chris my report book I saw his face change. He bit his lower lip and nodded to himself. As his eyes roved over the page, he lifted his eyebrows at certain points.
“My teacher last year sick, so there was this new teacher who took over,” I explained.
“Really?”
“And he didn’t know how to teach. Almost the whole class fail Maths. It’s very hard to switch after you’re used to one style of teaching.”
“Sure.”
I didn’t know what else to say. Chris looked up from my report book and looked around the room. I was sure he spotted the no-brand badminton rackets on my bed, the poster of Cantona that had Scotchtape across it, because my brother had one day torn it in half during an argument. He started looking at the desk and he saw a few S-League stickers, a keychain that said ‘I Love Malaysia’ and my pencil holder where almost half of the pens inside were uncapped or had gone dry.
