by Alfian Sa'at
Suddenly I go, “Yesterday my grandma made trouble again.”
Salmah looks up from her Particle Mechanics lecture notes.
“What did she do?” she asks.
“Don’t know lah.” I always go ‘don’t know lah’ before I start off telling a long story. I’m not sure where I picked the habit up from, but it has been pointed out to me by who else, but my best friend since primary school. For those who don’t know, it’s Salmah.
Then I continue, “Yesterday, I was at the void deck with the guys. And then when I went up, that old woman started scolding me for nothing. She said I was grown up already, shouldn’t be mixing so freely with guys, what will people say?”
“Who were you with?” Salmah asked.
“You know lah, the usual void deck people. Hisham, Firdaus, Omar.” Hisham is this really fat guy who wears baggy Cross Colour jeans. Firdaus is this guy who pierced his right eyebrow. And Omar is this half-Arab, half-Malay guy who has the biggest collection of dirty jokes ever. He never tells the same joke twice. I think the day Omar tells us a joke we’ve heard from him before will be the day he finally passes his ‘O’ levels. This year he is taking it as a private candidate, for the third time. The other guys like to tease Omar about it, and keep asking him when he’s ever going to become a corporal. Once in a while they call him Private Omar, but the good thing about the guys is that they know just when to stop.
* * *
I first met the boys one day while walking home from school with Salmah. They were playing skateboard under my void deck. At that time, Salmah had her hair long and I must say she looked good with her two ponytails, one on each shoulder. Like a decent girl, hugging her file to her chest. When we were near the void deck I asked Salmah if she wanted to walk near the grass slopes, but she said, “Don’t care about them, we can walk wherever we want. Anyway, those boys all blind, cannot see the sign that says ‘No Skateboarding’.”
So Salmah and I walked towards the void deck, and my heart was beating a little faster because I didn’t like the sound of the skateboard wheels being dragged across the cement floor. I got the feeling that something was getting spoilt and worn out. Suddenly, one of the boys, Firdaus, the eyebrow-ring guy, glided up in front of us and very consciously arched his pierced eyebrow. He wiggled it up and down.
“Just got back from school?” he asked.
Salmah and I kept silent. We could have walked ahead but it seemed as if there were now three boys, poised on their skateboards, in front of us.
“Yah, unlike some people, we got school,” I replied. I didn’t know what made me talk back to them.
“Wah, this one, so fierce,” the fat guy said.
I looked at Salmah. She was looking away, irritated. Then she started placing her chin on the edge of her file. She sighed. She looked as if we were going to be there for a long time.
“Yah lah, a bit fierce,” said the third guy, the one in a singlet.
I knew it was all up to me. I knew how it worked, but the thought made me a little sad. Usually when two girls are confronted, the one who will speak up, who will defend both of them, the fierce one, is the less pretty one. The prettier girl gets to keep quiet, because if she opens her mouth then pearls will drop out, and their harassers will all scramble to pick them off the ground. Then the guys will never leave them alone, and they will do everything to hear their princess speak again.
“You all got nothing better to do ah?” I asked. “Blind or what? Cannot see the sign over there, that picture, no skateboarding?”
“Eh, she’s scolding us lah,” the singlet guy said. Then the eyebrow-ring guy spoke.
“Miss, you look at the sign again. What is there? This black person. One leg long, one leg short. He is riding a skateboard, ok, fine. But you see us. Which of us is black? Which of us is crippled? See, the sign only means: Black and crippled people cannot skateboard. Black people cannot, because at night, people cannot see. Crippled people also cannot because later fall down.”
I had never until then heard something more stupid in my whole life. I turned to my right and saw Salmah smiling slightly. She was going to sabotage my efforts. Suddenly I told the boys, in the rudest tone I could find, “Hey, we all don’t go for you Mats˚ under the block. At our school got so many better people, people who can study, who don’t waste time in the void deck. You all think, skateboard, very cool ah? Make noise only. Disturb others.” And then I tugged Salmah’s sleeve and walked off with her, never turning to look back, whispering things in Salmah’s ear. I left the boys behind us. I had a princess to safeguard. I also left my house behind me, to walk Salmah all the way to her home.
Three weeks after that, we were back again at the void deck. Salmah had met a new member of the skateboarding group. He had dimples and his hair always had this wet look. He was the only one among all the skateboarding boys who had really clear skin. When he told Salmah that he was studying at the polytechnic I could see her eyes light up. I was wrong, there were some void deck Mats who went to school.
The boy’s name was Sazalie.
Not long after, we would hang around regularly at the void deck, four guys and two girls, and one day I saw Sazalie’s arm behind Salmah’s back. At that time, I had one foot on a skateboard and I was pushing it back and forth, back and forth. And then it suddenly slipped from my sole and went off on its own. It hit a pillar, bounced off and stopped.
Soon, because I hung around so much with Salmah, I found myself hanging around with the boys too. And when Salmah and Sazalie decided to get together, Salmah left me at that void deck with the rest of them. One thing though, I never shook off that fierce image I had since the first day I met the boys. Sometimes I think that wasn’t even the real me, when I spoke so loudly on that day, my heart was actually beating very fast. I was trembling. But words still came out.
Nowadays I’m fiercer than ever, so the boys can call me what they want and give me nicknames. I sit around with them and sometimes I laugh like mad when one of them falls doing a skateboarding stunt. And then with that loud voice I’ve learnt to use, I’d go, “Ha! Serves you right! Do again, I want to see!”
* * *
Salmah looks out of the window and watches the roofs of shophouses pass by, with their antennae, their circling crows. Suddenly, the train shuttles into a tunnel and we hear the cavern-like whoosh surrounding the train. There is nothing but a rushing darkness outside, and the train passengers can all look at their reflections. I just take one glimpse at mine and then start unfolding my New Paper. Salmah is still looking at hers; adjusting her tudung.
“You’re so good you’re not living with your grandma,” I tell her.
“Both my grandmothers are dead,” Salmah replies.
“You’re so lucky.”
The train stops at Lavender station and a group of Bangladeshi men walk in. I used to ask Salmah who gets off and on at Lavender, it was usually so deserted. Now the answer is: the whole world. The new Singapore Immigration Building was built next to it, and sometimes we would see groups of Filipinos, Thais and even Caucasians. The Bangladeshi men take a seat opposite us. Most of them are wearing white shirts, with pin stripes, tucked neatly into their trousers. All of them have moustaches. And all of them have combed their hair with oil.
“How are the guys?” Salmah suddenly asks me.
“Like devils,” I tell her.
“That’s nothing new,” she says.
“I don’t know how they can talk so much rubbish,” I tell her. “There was this one day when I brought down my lecture notes, to see if I can study with them. I mean, if I get tired, I can joke around with them for a while. Five minutes. And then get back to work. I couldn’t study in the house because my grandma was awake and she was nagging and nagging. She was telling me how when she was my age she knew how to cook, how to clean the house. So I sat with the guys. And I realised that I couldn’t study at all. They’re so funny. Everything they said was funny. I couldn’t stop laughing. You should hang around more
with us.”
The train stops at Bugis. People walk in and find seats. At this time of the afternoon, the train is not so crowded and everyone finds a seat. Some even have space to lean to one side and occupy two seats. A Malay woman walks in through the door on our left. She weaves her way towards us, holding on to the strap of her handbag with one hand. She is wearing highheeled shoes, and she has to walk near the side of the aisles so her head does not knock into the horizontal handrails. She has high cheekbones, and she is wearing this white satin spaghettistrap dress that has a very high hemline. It shows off her thighs, her strong calves. She settles down two seats away from me. I take one look at her Adam’s apple. The Malay lady is a man.
I look at the Bangladeshi men opposite me. Some of them are frowning, looking at her. The lady crosses one leg over another and leans forward, and then she rests her chin on her fist, her elbow on her knee. Her eyeballs swing from side to side, and then settle on an MRT poster. She is behaving as if she is an actress in a movie. She sucks in her cheeks for her best shot.
I wonder whether if this were their country, the Bangladeshi men might make wolf-whistle sounds at her. But they are quiet, and after a while, they start pretending that they didn’t see her walking in, sashaying, and then now tucking strands of hair with those big hands behind her ears. I steal a glance at this lady and wonder if she is wearing a wig. Her fingernails are painted a deep blood red. Suddenly I hear Salmah whispering into my ear.
“Transvestite,” she says. But she uses the Malay word for it, which has more sting, which makes one giggle. “Pondan.”
“Isn’t it funny,” Salmah then informs me, still whispering, “that of all stations, she has to come in at Bugis?”
When I was small, my father used to tell me stories of how he used to go to Bugis Street with my mother for a laugh. I thought it was strange, to go and see pondans on your date, but I supposed that was how courtship was for them at that time. My father used to say that some of them were really gutsy, wearing tight clothes, mini-skirts, flirting around with the Caucasian sailors. He said he once saw one climb a table top with her high heels and then do a strip-tease show. When she took off her bra people applauded; she had a flat male chest, shaven to smoothness. She threw the bra upwards and it hooked onto a lamp post. It was scenes like these that kept my mother and father occupied and amused when they went out on dates. But nowadays, Bugis has been cleaned up, dolled up decently for the tourists. There’s nothing there but a shopping mall. The transvestites are gone. But somehow this one, with her biceps and lipstick, has found her way into our train.
The lady starts to yawn, and she uses that coarse hand to cover her mouth. But her fingers are bent delicately, in defiance of its design. I have seen the way the fingers of transvestites work. They touch everything as if it carried germs. They only use their fingertips, which is what the lady is using to wipe the sides of her eyes. Then she turns to me, and smiles.
“Eh,” she exclaims, softly. She places her fingertips on her chest. Her voice is deep. She has it under control though, she tunes it soft so instead of gruff she can keep it sultry.
“You look like Ziana Zain!” she suddenly exclaims. Ziana Zain is a Malaysian singer hysterically famous among the Malays. She sings ballads with titles like ‘The Peak of Love’. Her eyebrows are very arched, and when she sings, her mouth is very wide, such that my mother always says, “She’s going to swallow the microphone.” But she has many fans. When she had her wedding, the 10,000 guests who turned up caused a tent to collapse, and months after that, Malay weddings had the bride in a green baju kurung˚ because that was what Ziana had worn. But I look nothing like Ziana Zain. Salmah, who knew this, giggled by my side.
“No lah, kak,” I tell the lady. This is crazy, I think. I’m actually calling her kak. Kak is Malay for sister. I wouldn’t want a sister like that. Maybe I should have called her bang instead, Abang for brother. What would she say to that?
“No, just now when I walked in, I thought, eh, this is Ziana Zain. What is Ziana Zain doing in Singapore? I was thinking of telling my friends I saw Ziana Zain inside the MRT!”
I shake my head and still say no. I’m also wondering what kind of friends she has. Salmah on my left is pretending not to have heard a single thing, but I know inside she is kicking up her legs and laughing like mad. Salmah keeps looking at her Particle Mechanics notes, the same page, and although there is nothing funny with her notes she has this fixed smile on her face.
“Really, you know, you look just like her.” At this point, the lady gives me a concerned look, as if she is aware of all the possibilities of being a Ziana Zain lookalike. “Except for the specs. But you still look like Ziana Zain if she puts on specs. Hey, why don’t you take off your specs, let me take a good look at you?”
I look at what I am wearing. A Billabong T-shirt, and jeans. I have a haversack on my side. The Bangladeshi workers are all looking at me. This woman is crazy, I think. This woman is out to humiliate me. If there is one thing worse than sitting beside a pondan, it is sitting beside a pondan who is out of her mind.
I remove my spectacles and I look at the transvestite. I have nothing more to lose. Without my specs, she looks more like a woman. Her mouth doesn’t appear so big anymore, and when she smiles, it is less of a leer. Her hair is more natural, and I suddenly realise that she has quite a good figure, broad shoulders and a full chest. But I put my specs on again and I see him, his fake fingernails, fake wig, fake breasts, fake shaven shins. The only thing real about him is the surprise on his face, coupled with what looks like a satisfaction from being the only one in the world who is able to see that I look like Ziana Zain. He has the expression of someone who is about to groom a star.
And then just as suddenly, he leaves his seat and tells me, “I get off here. My station.”
The station is Outram Park. If he walks out, he will wander smack into the heart of Chinatown. I wonder what it will be like, this tall Malay transvestite walking around in Chinatown, past the medicinal halls smelling of dried herbs, the dumpling stalls, the pirated VCD shops with prices black-markered on fluorescent stars. This pondan and his fine fingertips.
Before he goes, he smiles at me. It is a mischievous smile. He then waves, still with his fingertips, and flicks his hair. It doesn’t fall off, the wig. It stays firm on his head. He says, “Bye Ziana, see you in concert!” And then he says to Salmah, “Bye Ziana’s friend, from just now so shy!”
When he leaves, Salmah breaks out laughing. She laughs until there are tears in her eyes. When she finishes she is almost breathless.
“Ow,” Salmah says, “stomach pain.”
“Salmah,” I ask her, “Salmah, if you are my friend, you will not tell this to anyone.”
Salmah snorts as if suppressing another round of laughter.
“Salmah,” I say again. “I don’t want the whole school to call me Ziana. That pondan was crazy.”
“See how,” was all Salmah could say. And she returned, smiling, to her notes.
On the walk to school, I find it hard to have any conversation with Salmah. Nothing seems to displace the one idea in her head. I try to talk about deadlines, homework, which lecturers are boring, which ones are cute but married to ugly wives, which ones drive what cars, which ones cycle and wear tight, tight bicycle shorts. But she doesn’t want to speak about any of it.
When we reach the polytechnic, we find that it is crowded; it appears that they are selling things in the foyer. Valentine’s Day is in one week’s time. There are photo frames, Forever Friends T-shirts, cards with hearts, even a booth selling healing crystals with names like “amethyst” and “hawkeye”, but they have to be bought in pairs. They are even selling inflatable sofas. Salmah has arranged to meet Sazalie near this noticeboard where lovers can write down messages on a red paper heart to be pinned on it. I had read some of them, really nonsense stuff like “I hope that our love will forever burn like an eternal flame” and “I was lost until I found you. It was fate that brough
t us together, and fate that will never keep us apart.”
“Eat already?” Sazalie asks Salmah.
“Not yet, want to go for lunch?” Salmah asks.
“OK.” Sazalie is smiling, his two dimples coming out from hiding.
“You won’t believe what happened to our friend here just now,” Salmah goes.
I stop suddenly behind the two of them. “Salmah,” I say. “Salmah.”
“What?” she asks. She is smiling. “What?” she asks again, in a higher voice.
At that moment I ask myself why the whole world has to pretend. That pondan, with his broad face, his rough skin, who does he think he can fool? And Salmah, all of a sudden, becoming very religious, wearing that tudung of hers. And Bugis Street pretending not to be the place it once was, full of wolf-whistles and bras swinging from lamp posts. And the Bangladeshi workers pretending not to have seen the pondan, pretending it is none of their business! I start feeling sick of pretending. I reach out and pull Salmah’s tudung from her head. I pull it all the way as if I were pulling the wig off the pondan’s head. Salmah screams and people look in our direction.
“What are you doing?” she shouts.
Salmah’s hair is tied up in a bun at the back of her head. Sazalie looks at me with an expression that could be angry or puzzled or both. I look back at him. I want to tell him that I am doing all this for him, but he wouldn’t be able to understand. I want to tell him that ever since that first day I saw him in the void deck I could never stop thinking about him. But Salmah’s tudung is crumpled and silent in my hands.
BIRTHDAY
“I’m not asking you to pawn off your jewellery,” Rosminah’s husband tells her.
Rosminah picks out a 50-dollar note from her purse, the equivalent of two days’ work. It had been folded neatly into one special corner of her purse. It was to be used to buy her friend Kala a birthday present. For Rosminah’s birthday, Kala had given her a sandwich maker. Rosminah had opened it with care, taking her time with the scotch tape. She had later used the wrapping paper to line her drawers.
