Impractical Uses of Cake

by Yeoh Jo-Ann

  “Eh, where is the bag of onions? I just put it here. Just!”

  “Here, here. You left it in the fridge lah. Aiyoh, so much to do…how to finish in time?”

  “Can, can—don’t stop, don’t stop!”

  “You all want kopi? I go buy. If I don’t have one soon, sure KO.”

  “Hey guys, does three tablespoons of salt sound like too much? Seems like a lot.”

  “Just taruk lah, okay? If it’s too much, we’ll add coconut milk. Can’t have too much coconut milk, right?”

  “When was your last cholesterol check?”

  Sukhin is peeling potatoes. He’s been peeling potatoes since he arrived three hours ago. Every time he thinks the ordeal is over, a new batch of potatoes arrives. When today is over, he will be done with potatoes forever. No, I’m afraid I can’t make that casserole any more—took a vow on Christmas Eve years ago never to touch another spud.

  Kim Seng sets another bag of potatoes on the kitchen counter in front of Sukhin. The next time his students ask who Sisyphus is, he will bring them here and make them peel potatoes for a big dinner.

  “How many sailors are we expecting for dinner?” Sukhin asks, louder than he intended.

  Everyone turns to look at him. Choppers, knives, ladles, spoons stop and wait.

  This is a little awkward.

  “Potatoes prevent scurvy,” he explains. No, not good. He tries again: “Sailors used to eat potatoes to prevent scurvy.”

  Stares, none of comprehension.

  “On long journeys at sea.”

  No one says anything.

  “We’ve got lots of potatoes here.” He gestures with the peeler and tries to sound friendly. “So I’m saying, maybe we’re expecting many sailors tonight. You know, because of the potatoes.”

  Stares slowly and carefully shift. Choppers, knives, ladles, spoons tentatively resume motion.

  Kim Seng calls out, “Okay, who can take over with the potatoes?” He puts a hand on Sukhin’s shoulder. “Go on, take a break.”

  A hand on his other shoulder. Jinn. “Come. I’ll make some tea.”

  They drink it upstairs, among the rows of micro-greens and edible flowers that finance the Free Kitchen operations. A technician moves from pod to pod, checking the temperature controls and water levels. Another carefully prepares pea tendrils in dainty beds, each the size of a placemat, for delivery.

  “Christmas Eve delivery—where the big money is,” Raj told them last week.

  Sukhin peers at a pod marked “micro carrots”. How very, very odd— what would his grandmother think?—that a carrot barely the size of his little finger could be sold for ten times as much as a regular carrot?

  Jinn touches his wrist, just for a moment. “Thanks, Sukhin.”

  “Sorry—I didn’t mean to complain about the potatoes.”

  “No, silly. For everything—Kim Seng says you’ve been wonderful. You have.”

  “It’s not a big deal.”

  “You always say that.” She’s done with her tea. She takes his cup, stacks it onto hers and heads towards the stairwell. “Don’t say things you don’t mean.”

  “Wah. That’s so cool.”

  “Please. It’s an open flame—please, don’t try to touch it.”

  “You sure this is for cooking? Looks like something from my brother’s workshop. He’s a plumber.”

  “So just pour the brandy over and light? Just like that?”

  “Yes.”

  Everything looks—well, everything looks much better than he expected. Tables and chairs have been set up along the entire back alley, along with candles, cutlery, plates and glasses. Fairy lights dangle from the rooftop edges, criss-crossing over the tables. The pirates and other volunteers have all brought portable lights and lamps from home—most of it is décor from other festivals and some rather random pieces, but no one really minds. Sukhin doesn’t; he thinks the large blinking ketupat lamp and the Spider-Man desk light are brilliant Christmas ornaments—who needs stars and angels?

  Someone puts on the dinner gong song. As “Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps” begins to play, that silly first line—“You won’t admit you love me”—swelling over the street, the crew brings out the food: platters and platters of turkey, potatoes, curry, bread, biryani, rojak—discordant dishes for a mismatched mise-en-scène.

  “They’re coming, they’re coming!”

  It’s 1909, according to his watch. Nearly on schedule. Sukhin takes the back door, in through the kitchen, past the stark, empty airwell, past Raj’s office and out the front entrance of the shophouse. An assortment of cars, minibuses and vans are double-parked along the road; an assortment of people climbs out of them. Some are Free Kitchen regulars; others—staring confused at the dark, quiet row of shophouses, wondering if this has all been some very weird, mean trick—are clearly here for the first time.

  This is Group Three, to which Sukhin has been assigned.

  “Hello!” He isn’t used to raising his voice, especially not while trying to sound cheerful and festive, but he forces himself. “Happy Christmas, everyone. Thanks for coming. Follow me—let’s get you comfortable. This way, please.”

  Group Three begins talking all at once. No one follows Sukhin.

  If hell is other people, Christmas is a very special kind of hell.

  Sukhin drinks to this, from a bottle of wine stowed in the kitchen fridge among bowls of fruit, after he’s finally settled everyone at the long table. The Christmas tok panjang—what an excellent idea, to have groups of ten share a set of dishes, instead of serving everyone individually. A lot less work, and at least people would talk. Well, they can talk to each other—he isn’t going back out there. He drinks a bit too much, grateful to whoever brought the wine—probably one of the new volunteers, in a bid to liven things up.

  By the time she arrives, he is more than a little tipsy, still hiding in the kitchen, grateful to his Christmas bombs for the excuse of checking on them and planning their grand entrance.

  From the outside, a few cheers, then silence.

  Gopal rushes into the kitchen. “She’s here. Come, you should see this.”

  Sukhin follows Gopal to the back door. They stand at the doorway, leaning out for a better view. This is instinctive but unnecessary—they’re already four steps above the ground, more than enough to appreciate her mastery of the art of spectacle.

  A procession, slow and ceremonious, has begun on the farthest end of the alley. Thirty doll-like men and women in white gloves and jackets walk in a straight line along the row of tables, each one bearing a large cake on a platter, every cake lit with as many sparklers as it can tastefully hold. These are cakes whipped up by whimsical hands—frothy, cloud-like, some flecked with gold, some glowing with spun sugar, others topped with ferns and flowers. At the head of the procession, she holds out an architectural marvel with glistening spires, her posture regal, her smile the perfect balance of garden grin and dental advert. Her gold dress marks her out as the key player here, the proper subject of the trio who follow and document the procession—a photographer, his lighting assistant and a girl typing furiously into her phone—and the camera-wielding drone flying overhead, its red lights blinking. Every guest at every table is awestruck, silent. The volunteers have all backed up against the walls, unwilling to mar the scene.

  She reaches the last table, all the way at the opposite end of the alley from where she started, and turns around to enjoy the scene she’s created. A nod at her posse, and every platter of sparkler-studded dreamlike confectionery is laid onto the tables.

  “Merry Christmas, everyone!” Thirty-one birdlike voices in sing-song unison.

  Clapping, cheering, excited chatter as the guests contemplate the cakes. Bursting with superlatives, they declare that they have never seen anything quite so wonderful. They stare openly at her, the obvious bearer of these treats, with the same reverence regularly wasted on royalty.

  All hail the queen of tarts.

  “Sukhin.”

&n
bsp; The anger in Jinn’s voice makes him spin around so fast he nearly loses his balance. Gopal takes one look at her and dashes off without a word, leaving them alone in the kitchen.

  “Why did you bring her here?”

  Her voice is low, but she’s pale and shaking, her arms stiff at her sides. He doesn’t move from the doorway. Outside, a few voices pipe up in a decent rendition of “Feliz Navidad”. He steps into the kitchen and closes the door.

  “I thought—you might—she’s your sister.”

  “I know that.” If looks could kill… “What were you thinking?”

  Sukhin didn’t know—it hadn’t been an elaborate plan. Desserts were required; he knew a baker—and he wanted to see what would happen if she saw her sister again. Not that he had any clue what would actually happen. How could he? And that’s the whole point of an experiment, isn’t it? No, dumbfuck, it is not; an experiment should, ideally, test a hypothesis.

  To his horror, she begins to cry. “Why did you do this?”

  “I just wanted to help—” But it isn’t true. He just wanted to know.

  “Has she seen me? Does she know I’m here? What have you told her? Why, why did you do this?” Her voice cracks. She scratches at her cheeks, her neck, her wrists.

  “I haven’t told her anything. Jinn—”

  “Oh Sukhin, what is wrong with you.”

  She takes a few steps back, away from him and the bright kitchen lights. Her weeping is animal-like, mewling and gasping and guttural. She clenches and unclenches her hands over and over, then wraps them tightly around her neck, palms pressed tight against her throat.

  He doesn’t move. He didn’t expect this—but what did he expect? Inviting Ping into Jinn’s new territory—nothing short of chaos could have ensued, and he knew that.

  “I’m sorry.” He is.

  She turns around and walks out the way she came, through the dark shophouse and out the front entrance.

  There’s a knock on the back door as he’s about to follow her—the timing is so perfect that he almost laughs. It swings open and Gopal steps in. “Your turn, Sukhin. Let’s light up.”

  Just as well—he knows he won’t find her.

  “Okay, did we get everything?”

  “Let’s see. Miss Teo… Photos with homeless peeps—done and done and done. Photos with organiser chief dude—done. Photos with kitchen help—done. Photos with cake, whole—done. Photos with cake, sliced— done. Yes, we’ve got everything.”

  “What about the servers?”

  “Done. We’ve got them entering the alley, standing in a row, close-ups of the better-looking ones. We have them setting down the cakes, mingling with people. And we have that cute shot of all of them surrounding Miss Teo.”

  “Did you check the drone footage? All good?”

  “All good. Candlelight showed up better than we’d hoped.”

  “Okay, great. Get all the pics and vids uploaded, send the link to the usual people. They’ve all received the press release, right?”

  “Of course—three days ago.”

  “Good job. Is Eling done with the social media bits?”

  Ping accosts him afterwards, when the guests have left and clean-up is about to begin. He stares, surprised to see her.

  “I thought you’d gone.”

  “About to leave—just thought I’d say hi. And bye.” She laughs.

  “Thanks for doing this.”

  “Oh no—thank you for asking.” She leans over, gives him a half-hug. “Merry Christmas, Sukhin. That really was lovely—and such great PR. Cakes on me, anytime.”

  “Thanks.”

  “And this.” She gestures at the tables, the décor, the remnants of dinner. “How good of you to help with—this. I think—I think she would have approved.”

  He doesn’t respond. All he can think is that she’s using the past tense.

  The man has not asked the woman if she is happy. He doesn’t dare.

  The woman has not given any thought to happiness. She doesn’t care.

  It has been months and months since she died. It occurred to her, at some point, that she might experience some sort of void, a diminishing sense of being anything. But there isn’t a void. Quite the opposite—her heart and her days are full.

  She knows that he watches her, and that he is sometimes afraid of her going away. She knows he will feel better if she promises him that she won’t ever leave, but she doesn’t like to make promises.

  Instead, she makes him copious amounts of tea and holds his hand while they take walks together in the neighbourhood after dark. In return, he drinks the copious amounts of tea and holds her hand while they take walks together in the neighbourhood after dark.

  It is, for both of them, a lot.

  XV

  AN ORANGE CHIFFON cake rises in the oven as he contemplates the nearly finished Four. It’s his third orange chiffon—the first was an utter disaster, limp and damp; the second was fluffy but not nearly orange enough.

  Four is a beauty. Another trip to Kim Seng’s for a couple of parts, a few final adjustments to the mechanism—and Four will be complete.

  And then what?

  Sukhin isn’t sure what he will do with Four once he’s finished. He can’t think of anyone who could use it—what use could it possibly be to anyone? He might keep it himself—why not? He designed it to be entirely collapsible, after all, so it will fit into a box and he can keep it in the study, always knowing that it’s there if he wants it. Lonesome. Waiting. Hopeful.

  The smell of butter reaching browning point fills the apartment, elevating it from being the place that keeps him to being the place that keeps him and this. This, this is why all those damned supermarkets put their bakeries near the entrance—to cast a spell on all who enter, to chemically compel everyone to buy the overpriced organic stuff and the pointless health food no one really wants to eat. Oh, I smell brown butter; better balance it out by buying some of that vile gluten-free pasta.

  The cake looks promising through the oven door. Golden-brown, plump in its rounded mold, steadily swelling at 180 degrees Celsius—who decides that it can’t be 182 instead? Candied strips of orange peel glisten on top—wait, was it a mistake to have added them before perfecting the texture? Will they alter the chemical reactions in any way? He snarls at the cake in the oven. If this turns out well, he can never make it without the candied orange—unless he makes another one without the candied orange. Tomorrow. He’ll do that tomorrow.

  He’s looked everywhere he can think of.

  This morning, he went back to Chinatown. He parked the car in the same multi-storey horror he always parked in whenever he went to see her, took the same route to the alley, hoped to see the pile of boxes somehow reincarnated. But the alley was completely empty. Not a shred of evidence anywhere that she once lived there, in a house of boxes that he once brought crashing down with a bag of tacky decorations.

  Of course he will keep Four—what man gives up the light of his life? He stares in wonder at the two-metre-high cardboard structure that has taken him weeks to build, that has demanded—and received—hefty sacrifices of time, sleep and thought. Did he really build this? How? Is this what it means to be visited by a muse? Working on and on in oblivion, not caring for anything outside the orbit of the task, knowing that it is the centre of everything that gives life meaning—he hasn’t felt this way in years. And now there’s so little left to do. Standing on a stool, Sukhin lifts Four’s roof and looks at the system of string, slats and grooves inside. Maybe he will add more ball bearings to the sliding bits.

  Last night, he roamed the park in Punggol for hours. Up and down along the river, checking every bridge and every pavilion, every bench, everywhere he could think of. No sign of her. He even asked the otters.

  He cuts himself a slice of cake. Good colour, inside and out. Good texture, even distribution of tiny air bubbles with no obvious pockets. He takes a bite. Ah, seven out of ten. It’s light enough to justify the term “chiffon” and flavour
ful without being too orangey, which he hates in any cake or pudding. A bit on the sweet side for Sukhin—but a cake is a cake, and the orange peel bits help with that. When she comes back, she will be pleased—she’s always liked orange chiffon.

  She’ll be back—all her things are here, in his apartment. It’s only been two days. All he has to do is wait.

  X’s weird boyfriend-not-boyfriend has dropped by to ask if he has any more ball bearings to spare. Didn’t even call first—just appeared out of nowhere. Kim Seng scans the piles of rescued furniture, trying to think of what could possibly have ball bearings here that he can extract for the guy—he’s become quite fond of him; the fellow did his best to help over Christmas and X seems to like him.

  “More ball bearings? What are you making?”

  “Nothing.”

  Kim Seng pauses in mid-crawl. He’s under a table, making his way towards a box of random odds and ends he’s salvaged over the years. “Nothing?” Seriously? He’s a little irritated. How can it be nothing? Why do people say things like that?

  Sukhin sighs. “It’s a project.”

  “Everything is a project.” Kim Seng emerges from under the table with the box.

  They dig through the contents of the box together. Everything is either a bit broken off something else or the remnant of something broken— antennae, brackets, hooks, handles, wheels, lids, doors and parts of toys and random machines. Sukhin helps himself to a couple of wheels and a doorknob. No ball bearings, though.

  “Sorry—but if I find something, I’ll call you, okay?”

  Sukhin wonders if he should ask Kim Seng if he’s heard from Jinn—on one hand, he’ll have to endure a strange look or three, perhaps an awkward question; on the other, Kim Seng might know something.

  “Thanks.” Sukhin pauses. Should he ask? “Have you heard from her since Christmas Eve?”