by Jeremy Tiang
At the next Low family dinner, Siew Li casually asked Uncle Roger—as she was learning to call Jason’s dad—whether he approved of student romances, and he said most certainly not, he believed schoolboys and girls should focus on their studies, and Mollie would definitely not be doing anything of that sort till she finished Form Six. Mollie held her gaze steady, but there was a ripple of panic in her eyes, and that was all Siew Li needed. She bent her head demurely over her soup, and said no more.
Somehow, that was all it took for Siew Li and Mollie to become friends, or at least friendly. They went on a cautious shopping expedition, but predictably enough they turned out to have completely different tastes and budgets. Despite the lack of common ground, Siew Li was fond of Mollie’s warmth and spiky sense of mischief, now that she could see it beneath the smooth exterior. When Siew Li found out she was pregnant, she and Jason told Mollie first, and they spent a long time discussing how best to break it to the parents.
•
When she announced she was going to marry Jason, her mother said, “I hope he improves his Chinese, so he can address me properly.” But then she added, “He’ll treat you well.” Which was something like approval. And who wouldn’t approve of Jason? His neat haircut, his steady job. People seemed to assume she would give up work and just be a married woman, but she didn’t think she could do that, and he never asked her to.
Jason’s parents were ecstatic. Uncle Roger grabbed his son’s hand and pumped it up and down, beaming. Auntie Mabel started talking about the dress—of course they’d have to do it soon, before she started showing, but even then corsetry would be necessary. To her relief, they appeared completely unscandalised at their grandchild’s illegitimacy, though this would be obvious to anyone who could do basic arithmetic.
Once the process was set in motion, she had little to do but submit to it. Without any discussion, it was decided that the Lows would pay for the wedding, and that therefore it would take place in their church, though Jason would go through a tea ceremony with Siew Li’s mother if it made her happy. There were meetings with the priest to be endured. They’d never discussed Jason’s religion—it was just something he did on Sundays—but now she understood that as the wife, she would be expected to attend services with him, and that this child would be baptised. When she mentioned this to her mother, the only response was a shrug. “You marry a rooster, live like a rooster; marry a dog, live like a dog. That’s how it is.”
They talked about both English and Chinese names, but it was clear the Chinese would be just a formality, something for forms and official documents, while the English was for daily use—Henry if a boy, Janet if a girl, even if Siew Li couldn’t quite get her tongue around those sounds. She’d known Jason for months before learning his Chinese name, which he seemed faintly embarrassed by, while she’d steadfastly refused the Lows’ attempts to re-christen her.
Her mother insisted on delivering pig trotters to Jason’s parents—it was traditional. A whole jar of the stuff, reeking porkily of soy sauce and star anise. Auntie Mabel’s face as she received this, equal parts amusement and distaste, ought to have angered Siew Li, but instead it was her mother she felt annoyed with. So many ways to be human, and most people were certain their way was best.
Meanwhile, her colleagues at SATU were giving her a hard time. It was one thing to go on dates with a class enemy, but to marry and have his child? Was she turning bourgeois? They were going at her quite hard, past the point of friendly teasing. When an anonymous note appeared on the notice board calling for her to be purged, Lay Kuan had to step in to stop the bullying. “The English-educated are not our enemies,” she told the sullen office. “We’ll need to build this country together, all of us. These people aren’t going to leave with the British. We’re stuck with them. Anyway, Siew Li can marry whoever she likes.”
After work, Siew Li sought out Lina and asked what the hell her problem was. There’d been a strange tension between them for some time now. Yet Lina insisted everything was fine, it was just in her imagination. Why did it matter so much to her, anyway?
“You know I only became active in the movement because of you,” said Siew Li. Something like a smile passed across Lina’s face. “I just want to know if I said something wrong.”
“You’re the one who’s busy. I never think you’d have time for me.”
“When did I ever say—”
“Forget it, okay? I don’t want to talk about it.” Lina lit a cigarette and drew hard from it. She’d looked insouciant doing that at school, sometimes right outside the gates in defiance of the discipline mistress, but now she merely seemed anxious, and the nicotine was already leaving faint brown stains on her teeth and fingers.
Lina, Siew Li realised, wanted to be back at school, where confidence and swagger had been enough for prominence. Now there was actual work to be done, and it was Siew Li who was better at navigating labour regulations, Siew Li who was rising faster within the movement, unsuitable spouse notwithstanding.
Siew Li was doing well. She allowed herself a moment to acknowledge this, then asked Lina if she had to be home for dinner, or if she’d like to go for fish ball noodles on Chin Chew Street. They ended up ordering far too much food and picking at it for hours, gossiping about everyone else in the office. Lina, to her relief, found the ideological know-it-all men just as annoying. She wished they’d had this talk sooner.
That seemed to do the trick, at least enough that Lina and a handful of others showed up at her wedding, a small affair at Wesley Methodist. No banquet, they’d decided, just a sandwich buffet after—better to put the money towards their new flat, which was a stretch even with Jason’s family helping them.
Then there was no time to think of anything but the impending birth. Her mother came round every other day with tonics and strengthening foods, and she cut back on her days in the office as she became unfeasibly large. When her water broke, it was just like in the movies, pain and frantic joy all mixed as Jason rushed her to Kandang Kerbau in a taxi where, to their surprise, it turned out to be twins, so they needed both names after all. A boy and a girl. Henry and Janet.
Just a couple of months after the births, while she was still on leave, Lina came round and said she had to come to this rally. What rally? “I’ll explain on the way. You’ll want to be there, trust me, nothing in your life will matter more than this moment.” So she left Jason in charge of the kids and hurried with Lina to Happy World stadium, where there were oceans of people (more than ten thousand, she later read) and banners everywhere saying “Merdeka”. Over the stage was a huge flag, a blue circle with a red star at its apex, and beneath that the firebrand, Lim Chin Siong, announcing that he’d left the main party to set up Barisan Sosialis, the Socialist Front. The cheering was deafening. They controlled more seats in the assembly now. The leftists didn’t need to work with the running dogs. They had strength enough on their own.
This was like the old days. If she’d ever thought having children would pull her away from all this, now she knew it was in her veins. When Lim Chin Siong spoke, he had the force and clarity of absolute truth. The government was taking them for granted, and there was no hope for a leftist future unless they took matters into their own hands. What good was it otherwise, moving from one dictatorship to another? Siew Li joined in all the chants, becoming part of something so much vaster than herself, ten thousand of them speaking as one. What on earth couldn’t they accomplish together?
“What is it for?” said Jason when she got home, breathless and flushed, and told him about it. “Doesn’t he think the government’s doing a good enough job?” Siew Li looked around their Tiong Bahru SIT flat, and had to admit its modernity was attractive, everything designed to be sleek and functional, all rounded corners and pleasing finishes. But what about people who weren’t as fortunate? She met them all the time at work, those who saw the progress around them but felt left out of it. There was still a lot to be done.
•
The Ca
mbridge-educated lawyer who’d claimed to be fighting for them in detention was now leading the main party, and disposed to detaining people himself. For all that he’d railed against repression while in opposition, there wasn’t much indication that he believed people should have the right to choose. In 1962, they had a farce of a referendum—about how they should merge with Malaysia, with no option for becoming independent instead. Barisan told their supporters to leave their ballots blank, only to have the main party counter that blank votes counted as support. What was the point of democracy, if your only options were bad or worse? That’s why the struggle had to continue. Those in charge would never truly have her interests at heart.
In the middle of all this, Mollie finished school, got a job at HSBC, and abruptly announced to her parents that she’d been seeing Barnaby Remedios all this time, and had decided to accept his proposal. She was young, but so certain. Her plans were settled. Siew Li envied how sure she was in her mind. This was a path she had chosen, not something she’d fallen into, the way so many things in Siew Li’s life had come down to chance.
In February the following year, more people were detained. Operation Coldstore, like the supermarket, as if they were simply being put into freezer cabinets until they were no longer dangerous. The others told her the government was on edge—between the revolt in Brunei and Indonesia’s declaration of Konfrontasi, this merger they were planning was looking fragile—and that was a good sign, it meant they were running scared. But what about those who were taken? For a while Siew Li walked around with a cold buzz of fear churning through her, convinced every van that drove past was filled with plain-clothes police who might suddenly jump out and take her. It was weeks before she was able to sleep easily again.
Part of this was the twins. It hadn’t been so bad when it was just her, but the thought of being taken away from them was unbearable. Jason pressed her to find another job, or just stay at home. “Don’t rock the boat,” he said. “Aren’t things good the way they are?” And she’d feel his strong arms around her and breathe in his scent. The woody bass of his voice made everything sound so reasonable, and how could she argue, looking down at her babies, that all was not as it should be? But still she continued going to SATU, though she wasn’t able to write as many pamphlets or go to as many rallies as before. It didn’t matter. She wanted to be part of this thing, in however small a way.
As often as she could, she brought the children to work with her. Some of the men frowned and said this was supposed to be an office, not a nursery, but she didn’t want to make her mother take care of them every day, and anyway, weren’t men and women supposed to be equal in this new world? Chairman Mao said that women hold up half the sky. That wasn’t going to happen if they had a baby in their arms the whole time.
Lay Kuan decided to run for the Legislative Assembly on a Barisan ticket, and asked Siew Li to run her campaign. She needed someone she could trust. Siew Li said yes, of course. It was right that Lay Kuan should run. There were already women in the assembly, but why not more? The unions were important, but they had to get their message out to the people.
The first event she organised was a rally outside the wet market in Havelock. It was a whirlwind, getting the flyers printed in time, hiring the makeshift stage and checking that the mics were hooked up to generators. The terrible anxiety on the day when dark clouds looked like they might gather, then when they cleared up but no one seemed prepared to stop and listen. Once Lay Kuan started, though, a crowd gathered. Her voice was clear and bright, and she was saying all the right things. Aren’t you tired of the government ignoring you? Don’t you deserve better? Siew Li went farther from the square to drag people over, and encouraged the other volunteers to do the same. Soon, they had a respectable crowd, and something electric was fizzing through the air.
Their picture was in the Chinese papers the next day. She was so proud, she cut out the article. The actual afternoon had been hot and sweaty, but in black and white they looked noble and determined, rather than scowling against the sun. The banners had hung limply, but someone had thought to give the flag a shake just as the shutter snapped so it waved in what might have been wind. She was looking straight into the camera, baby Janet in her arms, baby Henry in Lina’s. My children, she thought, playing their part in the struggle before they can even speak, imagine what they’ll do later on.
Jason complained that she was making him look bad—as a civil servant, how could he have a wife trying to bring down the government? She reminded him that he worked for the people, not just one party, and he backed down.
He would see, she thought, how much better things could be. It wasn’t his fault he didn’t understand, what chance did he have, with an education like that? Provided by the British—that was the hardest thing, having these people come in and run everything for a century and a half. No wonder he could only see through their eyes, valuing their opinion more than his own people's. She would change him, she was confident. In the meantime, she started work on Mollie. Nothing too overt, so as not to frighten the girl away, just a few nudges. She hung on to small signs of encouragement, like the day they were out shopping together and Mollie said, without prompting, what a shame it was that the bank workers didn’t have a proper union, she would have liked to be part of something so powerful, though maybe Barnaby wouldn’t have liked it.
The election took place five days after merger, their first as part of another country. The night before, the main party warned that Malaysia would send in troops and renew the state of emergency if Barisan were to win. This was scarily plausible—Emergency had only ended three years previously, why wouldn’t it start again? They also claimed, spuriously, that every vote for Barisan was a vote for Sukarno, that Barisan was conspiring with the Indonesians to bring Singapore down through Konfrontasi. Perhaps that’s why people voted the way they did, out of fear. Lay Kuan thought so. She won her seat, as did a dozen others from Barisan. Not enough to claim power, but something.
Staying up late for the count, her head buzzing as she stood still for the first time in days, Siew Li felt a flicker of optimism. This would just be the beginning. She wished her children could be here to witness it, but of course they were in bed. There was even more to do now. Once Lay Kuan was in parliament, she would be able to push forward legislation. Even in opposition, she would do a lot of good. Could the system be changed from within, after all? The leftists could no longer be ignored. This would be a new era, she was sure of it.
In the end, it lasted less than three weeks.
•
Later on, she would play those final minutes over and over in her mind, trying to find the break. There must have been a moment when her life cracked, actually broke wide open, falling into too many pieces to ever come back together again. But there was no single instant, or maybe it was too far back, long before she could possibly have known where this path or that would take her. Like the Chinese proverb, a thunderbolt from the clear sky. She would always remember afterwards the lack of clouds, the blue dome overhead like a promise.
She’d been double-boiling soup on a charcoal stove, hunched over on a low stool as she fanned the flames. Jason grumbled that they had a perfectly good gas cooker, and didn’t she know that heat was heat, the soup wouldn’t be any less nutritious if she made it on a modern appliance? Anyway no need to exhaust herself like that, they could just open a can of Campbell’s cream of mushroom.
Jason didn’t understand. That was fine, he would complain about the bitterness of the brew, but he’d drink it to please her. She’d asked the herbalist for something to help with stress. Jason kept getting these headaches, it couldn’t be good.
Mollie had come by to play with the twins. “Might as well help while I can, before this one comes out,” she said cheerfully, rubbing her gigantic belly. “Then you’ll have to return the favour.” She was always popping round, probably lonely with Barnaby at work. Jason encouraged this, he liked her singing nursery rhymes to the kids in English, o
therwise they might pick up Siew Li’s broken accent and that would never do.
Wiping the sweat from her forehead, Siew Li looked around her spick and span kitchen, its tiles so easy to wipe clean, the tidy canisters for tea and sugar on the counter. Everything in its place. After the soup was done, she’d make porridge for the children’s lunch, then start chopping the vegetables for dinner. Jason liked to have it waiting on the table when he got home.
When the voice called her name, she didn’t immediately register it. Again, “Siew Li!” They usually left the door open for the breeze, just the metal gate shut, and on the other side of the bars was Lina. Checking the fire, she scurried over to let her friend in. “Sorry, daydreaming. What are you doing here?”
“Come to the kopitiam with me, we need to talk.”
“So serious!” she laughed, but Lina wasn’t smiling. She strode through the flat, not even taking off her shoes. “We’ll go out by the back door.”
Siew Li glanced at Mollie, who nodded to say go, we’ll be fine. Grabbing her purse, Siew Li slipped on her own shoes and hurried to catch up. Lina was already clopping giddily down the narrow spiral staircase. Siew Li ducked under a bamboo pole of wet laundry, and went after her.
“I thought we were going to the kopitiam?” she said nervously, just to fill the silence. It was obvious now that something was wrong, it was written in every taut line of Lina’s body. She was trying to walk as fast as possible whilst not drawing attention to herself.
