by Yeoh Jo-Ann
“So you’re neither dead nor alive, and also equally dead and alive.” And you’re neither a cat nor a wave particle, he wants to add but doesn’t. “So what now?”
“I’m waiting.” She doesn’t elaborate. She starts to talk about whether the textbook drive should include novels as well, even the dreadful vampire-romance variety, because “we shouldn’t ignore books teenagers actually want to read, right?”
Utterly baffled but unable to ask her to please, please tell him what she’s waiting for, Sukhin goes for a run.
“You can’t not take it.”
“But what’s the point?” Sukhin unlocks his office and stares at the stack of printed lesson plans on his desk. They’re three weeks overdue, but he hasn’t had the strength to start. “Dennis, go away. I’ve got work to do.”
He sits down, tired and irritated. How does Dennis even know about the Tay offering him the role? So much for her going on and on in her email about how this was all meant to be strictly confidential. He’s written to ask her for another week to think about it, citing Head of Department responsibilities that can’t be put off. Not a lie—he gives the lesson plans a long look— but he wishes he had just gone up to her office and turned down the position.
Why doesn’t he? What is he waiting for? Alice is right. What a sheep he is.
He never wanted to be Head of the English Department—but here he is, three years on, trying not to fuck up too badly. What difference would it really make to accept the role the Tay is practically forcing on him, take the extra money and spend another few years trying not to fuck up too badly? If he has to choose between mundane and mundane with more money, the choice is obvious. But maybe he should dream beyond mundane and mundane with more money? But wouldn’t everyone think it awfully weak and unambitious of him if he turned it down? This bothers him much, much more than he ever thought it would. He disappoints himself—why does the respect of people he doesn’t actually like even matter? But it does. Oh, to be an otter.
“Sukhin, are you okay?”
“Yes. Sorry.”
Dennis drapes himself over the chair across from Sukhin’s, his legs over one of the arm rests and his head thrown over the other. “Sweetie, you have to take the job. Or someone lame will pounce on it.” He turns to face Sukhin. “Just think—you’ll be on the inside.”
“The inside of what?” He wishes the lesson plans were on the inside of a furnace.
“Who cares? You’ll know everything.”
“I don’t want to know everything. And it’s Director of Academic Studies, Dennis, not Chief Spy—you have that one sewn up.”
Dennis waves this off. “One day, you could stage a coup. Bring down the Tay. Bring down our enemies. Bring down—Ken.”
Sukhin raises his eyebrows at the mention of Ken. “I see you have this all planned. So how will I do all of these really fun things?”
“Stop asking me questions. Use your imagination, sweets.”
“Fine. I’ll be in the inner circle. I’ll orchestrate a scandal, then stage a coup. I’ll turn this school into a mob co-op.”
“You take care of the senior management team. I’ll work with the peasantry.”
Sukhin laughs, then sighs. Must every conversation degenerate into a farce? “Dennis, seriously. I really don’t know about this role.”
“Why? We have nothing to lose but our chains!”
It is nearly five. Most of the other teachers will have gone home by now, and the ones who haven’t are likely to be trapped in class. Staring at his empty glass, Sukhin decides that he will venture into the pantry for a refill—and he should hurry, before the last period ends.
As he’s about to enter, he stops. Someone has just said his name.
“But why Sukhin?”
He is just out of sight, just beyond the door frame. Should he stay or should he go?
“Probably the safest choice. I mean, look at him.”
Who is this fuckface? Okay, he should go. Turn around quietly and go back to his office.
“Safest? Heh. You mean he’s bulliable.”
“Totally—Mrs Tay and Mr Leong get an extra vote for their agenda every time the committee has to vote on anything. Of course they want him!”
“He’s not so bad lah. He’ll stand up to them.” This sounds like Renchun.
“Hah. You think because he’s this angry weird dude, he’ll stand up to them? Please lah. He’ll just sit back and enjoy the easy life.” This is Ken.
“Yah. And then later on, he’ll be safest choice for VP.”
“Huh. I can’t imagine Sukhin as Vice-Principal.”
“No need to imagine. It’s always the quiet, pathetic, zero-backbone type that gets all these promotions. Everyone just feels safer around them.” Just who is this venomous fuckface?
“I can be like that! Why didn’t anyone tell me earlier?”
Laughter. Sukhin backs away from the door, his face flushed with shame and anger. Shouldn’t have eavesdropped, didn’t need to hear any of that. He touches his forehead. It’s cold and clammy, and his head hurts. He goes back to his office and locks his door, then sits in the dark, under his desk.
By the time he leaves, it is dark outside. No one else is around. He cycles home thinking of the scene that greeted him last night—Jinn milling about the kitchen, cooking with unruffled, no, unruffleable calm.
He opens his door to find her milling about the kitchen, cooking with unruffleable calm.
“Come, Sukhin, taste this.” She holds up a spoon. “We made tomato soup at Rowell today. Imagine—hand-pureed tomatoes, basil, coriander.”
He goes to her.
This isn’t madness. If it is, it’s a far, far better thing to be.
A year after her death, the man makes the woman a kite.
It’s an onion. Virulent green layers puff out in the wind, causing it to dip and rise and dip and rise. It is unstable, unwieldy and ugly. Children point and ask their parents what it is. So far, no one has said “onion”.
The man and the woman spend hours flying it on the same field where they once flew kites as bright-eyed twentysomethings. The field has shrunk to make way for some concrete monster, but it is still green as green can be. Their onion looks like a runaway tuft of grass.
This makes the woman giggle like an idiot.
The man says nothing. But his heart is as light as their onion.
XVIII
THIRTY-EIGHT MINUTES and thirteen seconds today, from the time he enters the bathroom after his run to getting his bicycle to the back of the gardening shed. What the fuck—weeks of running every bloody morning and cycling every bloody evening and not even a thirty-second improvement? Fine. He’ll take seventeen seconds for now, but this—he glares at his bicycle—is not over.
The canteen is crowded, as always, with loitering students, but the regulars at the drinks stall know better than to get in the way of Mr Dhillon and his first teh si gao kosong. The infrequent customers, the more casual partakers of caffeine, are quickly shooed aside by Mrs Chan, as much for their well-being as for Mr Dhillon’s convenience.
Sukhin’s cup of tea is already waiting for him on the counter. As he takes it and turns to go, Mrs Chan says for the nth time, “Your cake very good, Mr Dhillon.”
Unknown to Sukhin, the pineapple upside-down cake he presented to Mrs Chan three days ago has become for her A Very Big Deal. It dominates every single one of her conversations; it has been described in eye-watering detail to every one of the other stall-keepers; it has been declared the best cake she’s ever had. Sukhin himself has been elevated in status, from That Handsome Teacher Who Isn’t Married Yet, Poor Thing, to That Handsome Teacher Who Is So Kind But Isn’t Married Yet, Why Are Women So Picky, He Can Bake Like An Angel.
“I’m glad you like it, Mrs Chan.” Also for the nth time, before he runs off, but after he decides he will bring her a different cake next week.
Also unknown to Sukhin, it is the second cup of tea that Mrs Chan has prepared for him that he
carries lovingly to his office—the first, which had a spot too much milk in it, was quickly dispensed to someone else. And so it is this second cup that Sukhin relishes in the silence of his office as he rereads the notes for his first lesson of the day, that he knocks over, just missing the pile of unread, unreviewed lesson plans.
“Oh, fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.”
He jumps up and back in time to save himself the ignominy of walking around for the rest of the day in tea-spattered trousers, but that is all—tea is everywhere. A large pool forms in the middle of the desk, from which a stream begins to flow towards Sukhin, who now makes frantic grabs at random things within reach. A dam. He must make a dam. A stapler, a ring binder, a few admin forms, an old issue of Time, and then the entire stack of lesson plans. Thankfully, the dam is a success—it cuts off the stream and contains the tea, lake-like, within it. He steps back to survey the damage. Appalling. How does half a cup of anything cover so much ground? Everything on his desk now has tea on it.
No. Next to the dam, in front of him, there is a thin, rectangular package—this is clean and dry. And addressed to him. And utterly alien. Sukhin doesn’t recognise it, but staring at it in bewilderment does not make it disappear. It only stares back. Sukhin doesn’t move, feeling like a character in a very bad horror movie. Or a third-rate student composition: “Suddenly, a package appeared before him. His name was on it. He knew it had to hold the clue to the mystery. A voice boomed, ‘OPEN IT.’”
The bell rings for assembly.
Sukhin jumps. With some effort, he gathers his tea-besmirched lesson notes and leaves his office. He checks, twice, that the door is locked, then rushes to the school courtyard. His form class is surprised to see him late—he’s normally there before they are—but they know him well enough not to comment. At the best of times, their Mr Dhillon is patient but exacting, kind but difficult to please. Right now, he looks like a caricature of himself at his worst—brow deeply furrowed, lips pressed tightly together, jaw clenched, eyes firmly fixed on the middle distance. Sukhin doesn’t bother taking attendance; he doesn’t hear their muttered good mornings; he drifts absently to his first lesson in the classroom block farthest away from the courtyard, for the first time barely registering the hectic post-assembly clamour of students rushing in every direction, chattering loudly, filling the air with the unabashed inanity of youth.
It strikes him only as he’s about to enter the classroom that the explanation for the package isn’t at all mysterious, but disappointingly banal. On his way out of the Tay’s office two weeks ago, after he managed to bring his chair down, someone had passed him something saying something—this must be that something passed; for the life of him he cannot remember the something said. He must have put this on his desk, then printed out those lesson plans and put them over the package without even noticing it. Unsurprising—he mostly worked under his desk last week, after all, while he struggled with the worst case of start-of-term blues he’d ever had.
He’s still struggling with the worst case of start-of-term blues he’s ever had, but it’s getting better. He’s survived a few staff meetings, a consultation with a group of students and a short but intense discussion with the Tay on the requirements of being Director of Academic Studies, in which he managed to stall for more time while appearing to be keen on the role, though it mystified him, even while he was talking to her, that he couldn’t just thank her, decline and walk away. But he couldn’t, and he can’t, because it keeps springing back on him, clawing at him, the thought that Of course I must take it. Only fools turn down promotions.
If he could only leave out the “of course”, it would be decided.
“Mr Dhillon?” A student pokes her head out the door, a quizzical smile on her face. “Are you okay?”
He’s been standing outside the door, in full view of the entire classroom, for fuck knows how long. He must look utterly mad—ah well, by the time the lesson is done, who knows what else they will think? He isn’t sure he cares. “Yes, Anne. Thanks. Sorry. Coming in now.”
Sukhin nods at the class as he enters, mumbles good morning, then steps up to the projector. He looks at the students, at their young, open faces, and is filled with envy. You have no idea yet what you’ll do, what you’ll want to do, and that’s okay—and you expect everything and nothing, and that’s…perfect.
He dives into the introduction he’s prepared, before his mind has a chance to wander off. “Last year, we did quite a bit of poetry—mostly classics, the big names, lines of poetry that will jump out at you over and over again all your lives, in novels and plays and films and songs and even adverts.”
He places the piece he’s chosen for today’s lesson on the projector but doesn’t turn it on.
“This year, let’s listen to other voices. It’s too easy to forget these when you’re doing your A-Levels, but trust me—you will be better readers if you allow yourselves to venture a little further than the syllabus, the required readings, the canon.” There is much more he’d like to say, but he won’t. They’re young, and he will sound far too old. All he allows himself is: “The older I am, the more I regret the distances untravelled. And the boundaries I let people convince me were there.”
A stillness settles over the room as Sukhin studies the students, disconcerted by what he’s just said because it’s so funny and cliché and stupid and true. The students study Sukhin, their faces comically serious. They aren’t used to personal revelations of any sort by Mr Dhillon, but they can tell this is a Big One. Sukhin smiles at their gravity—it’s like being in a parody of one of those awful inspiring-teacher movies, though right now, for the life of him, he can’t remember a single one. Whatever.
“I thought we’d start with something local, so I’ve chosen this untitled poem by Cyril Wong.” Sukhin turns on the projector, then adjusts the focus to sharpen the text. He’s copied this one out by hand and it feels a little odd to see his own handwriting looming large on the wall, but he ignores this and starts to read out loud.
We are in the same car, two men
making out in a deserted alleyway.
As we grope and cling, the car
rolls, we fail to care, half-suspecting
it is our kiss propelling the vehicle
out into the street. Behind you,
I see my parents on the sidewalk
fainting comically to the ground
at the sight of us, a wrist to the brow.
I want to laugh but I cannot do so
with my tongue in your mouth.
The car seems to know exactly
where to go. More people seem to drop
as we drive by: Father Arro
who told me God existed by virtue
of trees and the sun’s rise and fall,
every teacher who favoured us
for busting our asses to please them,
the rest of your family who have
yet to learn about us. They collapse
in spite of themselves. Buildings
are starting to sway too as we pass.
Soon the Parliament House is
caving unto itself. I watch
the Merlion wobble and topple
into the river with an unimpressive
splash. Churches, flats and malls
shudder to rubble in our wake.
Somehow we are still kissing,
you with your eyes closed, mine
wide open, as our ride takes us
to a shore and straight into the sea.
We are unable to stop kissing,
as waves gorge on our car,
darting fishes or an occasional
squid bouncing off the windshield.
We stop when we reach a world
where no person or building may
fall at the spectacle of our embrace.
I think we are almost there. Already,
the car is filling with water, warm
as saliva in a lover’s mouth. We
soar ac
ross a galaxy of plankton
undistracted by our kiss, water
rising intimately around our necks,
our destination so close we can
taste the ocean on our lips.
When he’s done reading, the silence is heavy. Sukhin feels it against his chest and in his belly. The students are busy figuring out how they’re expected to react. Some stare alternately at him and the projector screen, unable to conceal their shock. Most of the class are rereading the poem, frowning, scrutinising every line. Is this really a poem about two men kissing? Is there a joke somewhere they’re missing? A complex, satirical metaphor for cronyism? A few students lean back in their chairs, carefully arranging their faces into imitations of the most blasé expressions they’ve seen on television.
Sukhin tackles the elephant in the room by his massive tusks. “So. Why would anyone find this poem shocking?” He pauses to make sure he has their attention. “What shocks you? Why?”
His desk is tea-free again. A mountain of paper towels lies sodden in the bin. The stack of lesson plans is in there somewhere too, wiped out by the flood.
There is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will.
Sorry, he imagines saying to his team at the next department meeting, I’m not reviewing any lesson plans this term. Tea or water, a flood is a flood. I’m not particularly religious, but I’m not going against any divinity, just to be on the safe side. Sukhin smiles. Could he get away with it? They all think he’s weird enough; this probably won’t change things much.
Well, if he gets away with making a class of seventeen-year-olds read and discuss a poem about two men kissing in Singapore, wrapped in the same breath and rhythm as the Parliament House and the precious Merlion, he can get away with anything. And if he doesn’t, then the lesson plans— and the Tay’s poncy-sounding new job—won’t matter anyway.
Sukhin picks up the mystery package formerly thought of as the parcel from hell or proof that he’s being observed by a network of spies. The envelope is heavy white card, too heavy for figuring out the contents just by feeling it, the kind of envelope wedding invitations used to come in back in the eighties, when they were all delivered by hand. He recalls his parents’ friends arriving at the house, presenting the stiff envelope over tea and cake, adding some glamorous titbit about the wedding—the groom insisting on Raffles Hotel, or the wedding dress costing “as much as our first house, haha”—and his parents gushing appropriately at intervals. But this isn’t an invite—it’s far too large and there’s too much bulk to it. What the hell is this? Sukhin rolls his eyes. Is he so desperate for drama? He tears it open.
