This Is Where I Won't Be Alone

by Inez Tan

  He went inside, sat at the kitchen table and set both containers down. Using the back end of the paintbrush, he pounded the dead ants into a rough paste, the way he’d seen his Peranakan great-aunts crush chillies, garlic, lemongrass and ginger with a mortar and pestle to make beef rendang when he was a boy. He gently swished the tip of the paintbrush over the mucilage. It wasn’t as wet as paint, but the fine bristles must be picking some of it up. When he was ready, Boon pried the lid off the container of live ants. Working quickly, he painted each ant with the scent of the dead ants, refreshing the brush after each one. Any time an ant tried to crawl out over the edge, he used the ruler and paintbrush to knock them back in. It wasn’t easy, because the ants were in a frenzy, and several times he had to snap the lid back on just to prevent them from escaping. Given their frantic, erratic movements, Boon couldn’t be certain that he’d dabbed every one of them, but he did his best. At the end, he scraped the remaining paste into the container of live ants and shook it vigorously.

  When he was done, he hid the container under the kitchen sink, behind a cardboard box of cleaning products.

  After another Taiwanese drama where a young man lay in a coma, after more National Day songs, after Phyllis returned home at 5.30 with dinner—rice with fish, eggs and green vegetables—after she said, “That stingy old man,” after she did not ask if he’d met anyone for lunch that day, when Phyllis was in the toilet getting ready for bed, Boon knelt on the kitchen tiles and retrieved the plastic container of painted ants. Behold. They looked like perfectly normal ants, continuously active, benignly curious. Boon quietly searched for bait. In the fridge there was an old box of pineapple tarts left over from Chinese New Year. He set an entire cold pineapple tart in a corner near the back door. Then he lifted the lid off the container of ants, set it down nearby and turned off the lights.

  Phyllis was reading in bed. She looked up at him when he paused in the doorway. He thought she looked strangely vulnerable alone in their big bed, wearing thin flowered pyjamas. The backs of her hands looked rough and dry.

  “I’m feeling quite awake,” he said. “I think I’ll watch some TV.”

  “Now? So late?”

  Her voice, high and thin, seemed to startle them both. She lowered her eyes for a moment, embarrassed. They let a silence go by. Then in a gentler tone, Phyllis said, “Maybe I’ll join you. I haven’t watched any TV for so long.” With one hand, she flipped the blanket aside. Her pyjama bottoms didn’t match her top. His stomach twisted.

  “No need,” he said. “You’re tired, you should sleep.”

  After a moment, Phyllis nodded, strapped on her eye mask, twisted her earplugs into her ears and burrowed under the sheets. He turned off the light and closed the door.

  “Boon,” she called out then, and he jumped. He opened the door a crack.

  She was sitting up in bed with her eye mask pushed up, squinting in the light. Timidly, she said, “It won’t always be like this.”

  “I know,” he said.

  “Something will come through. You just have to keep on trying.”

  “I know,” he said again, and this time he sensed her displeasure. He gained no satisfaction from it. He backed out of the room and shut the door.

  It would take a little more time. He switched on the television and kept the volume on low. He watched two episodes of CSI. Then he went into the kitchen and clicked on the lights.

  A hairy swarming mass of ants writhed on the kitchen floor. The pineapple tart was blackly enfolded. The tart was far too large and heavy for them, so the ants on the surface were busy breaking it into crumbs. Boon watched them work with no sense of time passing, until he saw what he was looking for. In the thick parade of crumbs, some of the ants held one of Boon’s live ants aloft. The ant struggled frantically, feelers and legs scrabbling away at the air, yet the others didn’t seem to notice. As far as they were concerned, that ant was dead. And how would that ant know it was still alive, given the way it was treated?

  “Boon!”

  He started. Phyllis stood just beyond the doorway, her shirt sliding off one shoulder to reveal a thick white bra strap. He saw her look with horror at the seething black mass of ants, the now-empty plastic container and her husband, squatting there.

  “I did this,” he said. “Look.”

  She put a hand over her mouth.

  “Look,” he said again. He stretched out his hands to her, a plea. Please. But she shrank back from him. Ants were crawling up both his arms, so lightly that he almost couldn’t feel them.

  Why, Grandmother

  I. Smooth

  SHE ASKED HER granddaughter if she was studying hard in the USA. “Yes, grandmother, I’m studying very hard every day, in my room and in the library, studying,” her granddaughter replied.

  She asked her granddaughter if she was eating well in the USA. “Yes, grandmother, I’m eating very well every day; sometimes my college even cooks Chinese food, though it is different from what we eat in Singapore,” her granddaughter replied.

  She asked her granddaughter if she was able to wash her clothes properly in the USA. “Yes, grandmother, there are six washing machines downstairs in my dormitory. You have to pay to use them, but it isn’t too expensive,” her granddaughter replied.

  She asked her granddaughter if she was able to iron her clothes in the USA. Her granddaughter burst out laughing. “Oh, grandmother! No one irons their clothes in college!”

  She hung up the phone, shaken.

  II. The Sickness

  Soon I will be 18. My studies are going well. The weather is bad but I have not been ill. These are the sort of things I’m ready to say. My mother pretends to read as I dial my grandmother’s number. Now that I’m home for the summer, we go through this every month. When I was in primary school, I would wait at her old flat until my parents finished work. My grandmother never went out. She hung up wet clothes, or boiled soup, or surveyed Chinese newspapers with a silver magnifying glass.

  Please take care; I’m taking care of myself. I’m glad to have talked to you. But most of all, my grandmother and I are glad to keep our conversations short. We still haven’t learnt how to interest each other. My mother clears her throat; she wants me to give her the phone. In the background I hear the television going.

  “Yes, she’s fine, we’re all very well,” my mother says, words we always need to hear. Whatever it takes to secure a family, I imagine they’ve fixed it in me too, waiting only to be put to the test. It’s not love, but a sense of duty, which is like love, only dependable. No. When I’m honest, I know it is love. And the sickness is only the way I am—reluctant to give, to receive.

  III. Inventory

  Your aunt called your mother when their father passed away and said: Go through Ma’s house, remove any sharp objects you find—knives, ice picks, letter openers, needles, scissors, screwdrivers, nails—gather up any aerosol cans, rat poison, bleach, hair dye, drain cleaner, turpentine, any strong prescription medicines, any chemicals for starting fires, and keep them at your place when Ma isn’t looking.

  They imagine your quiet, self-contained grandmother resorting suddenly to suicide. It’s impressive, their dedication to preserving her a widow.

  Sit in your old closet years later, beside the white plastic bags swollen with your grandmother’s hazardous implements, still kept as doggedly as family albums. Some people must be the mouths, giving the instructions, some the hands, doing as they’re told, and some, sitting on dark floors, behind closed doors, must consider the question of who they can replace.

  Tragic Flaws

  I. Bildungsroman

  MY TRAGIC FLAW was to believe I could leave home behind, and then think I could never return.

  My tragic flaw was that I imagined myself as an orphan from nowhere, ground zero for self-development.

  Which is also Pip’s tragic flaw in Great Expectations, and the impetus behind theories that something can come out of nothing.

  That most enduring origin stor
y.

  That most untrue.

  Pip is not really an orphan from nowhere.

  He was raised by his sister and her husband Joe in marsh country down by the river.

  It is his homeland, yet not home.

  Like Pip, my tragic flaw was to think I could establish myself as self-made using the resources others had given to me.

  A beaver damming itself with the tragic debris of hubris.

  There are no beavers where I grew up, which is Singapore.

  Yet like many Singaporeans, I speak of things I have never seen: elm trees, starlings, ginger beer, a blazing hearth, geese, dragons, the wild and windy moors, lacrosse, goblins, mountains, boiled sweets, nightingales, holidays by the shore, snow.

  We read of them in books.

  We were stunned to discover, upon travelling overseas, that some of those things were real.

  It had never occurred to me that you could write about things that were real.

  There were no books describing Singapore.

  Which is strange.

  People from Singapore are strange.

  Their tragic flaw is that they tell themselves they are not.

  They are very educated.

  My tragic flaw, like Pip, was to trust too much in my education.

  I studied in Singapore as well as overseas.

  This is getting to be quite common among Singaporeans.

  I did not like to say I was a Singaporean, and I taught myself not to sound like one when I spoke.

  Still, I gave myself away.

  In London, one of my teachers said that I was like a little doggie who had been trained to do tricks by people putting bacon on its nose.

  Now, it was time I learnt to put the bacon on my own nose, she said.

  No Singaporean teacher would have said such a thing to me.

  For one thing, bacon is not as commonly eaten in Singapore, by dogs or otherwise.

  Nor does it enjoy the kind of cultural status that it does in the United Kingdom.

  Furthermore, it is “Western”.

  Making it especially fitting for the point I am trying to make.

  My tragic flaw was that I was forever trying to make points.

  For this I blame my mother.

  But unlike my mother, my tragic flaw does not arise from feeling for one’s family, which is a fearsome and magnificent force.

  Even in adoptive families.

  Ask Magwitch how he shackles Pip with his own societal aspirations and the means to make them come true.

  Ask Miss Havisham how she came to create Estella in her own ruined image.

  Ask Joe how he finds it within himself to forgive Pip his loutishness.

  All things done in the name of parental love will stand.

  In any case, they cannot be prevented.

  My tragic flaw was that I related too much to characters in books.

  It is dangerous to relate to literature.

  It is dangerous to think you are like another person at all, just as it is dangerous to think other people could be like you.

  Upon such tenets are societies built.

  People from overseas are confounded by the kinds of liberties that Singaporeans cede to the government.

  The more discerning among them note that they do so in exchange for considerable civil assets, including clean streets, low crime, good public schools, stable economic dealings, advanced military defence, the world’s highest trade to GDP ratio, the world’s highest percentage of millionaires and soon, universal healthcare coverage.

  The most discerning among them will see that this is the wisest course of action.

  This is my father’s view, anyway.

  His tragic flaw is that he has no tragic flaws.

  That is another thing he will tell you.

  Irony is lost on people like him.

  My father is not at all literary, but he bought me books.

  My mother is too pragmatic to have studied literature, but she taught me how to read.

  My parents say, you could call home more often if there wasn’t a seven-hour time difference.

  But we will get up early, they say.

  Or we will stay up late.

  I am less willing to do either of those things.

  For them, anyway.

  I am busy pursuing my dreams.

  I am busy becoming cruel.

  I am busy trying to cover up my tracks.

  My tragic flaw was that I tried to hide the people and the place I had come from.

  Which is Singapore.

  For the person I became was ashamed to recall them.

  Which is the most Singaporean experience of all.

  Failing to realise that was yet another tragic flaw.

  For I thought it made me different.

  And I thought no human had felt so alien.

  And I thought that was my secret.

  I tell you, it’s damn tragic sia.

  II. Dad Explains

  MONEY

  Must save. You must always have a plan in case suay suay something happens.

  FAMILY

  We always try to bring you up well and teach you morals. How to behave like a proper human being.

  WAR

  The big country will always bully the smaller countries. The rich countries will always squeeze the poor countries.

  COMPUTERS

  Hurt my neck.

  THE INTERNET

  There are a lot of weird people out there. Don’t anyhow make friends.

  SOCIAL MEDIA

  Full of nonsense. Just always reply your mother, okay? She send you funny video, you better watch.

  PERFECTIONISM

  No lah, I wouldn’t say I’m a perfectionist. I just do things right 99.999 per cent of the time.

  MUSIC

  Nowadays no one writes real songs anymore. This is not music, these horrible sounds, so full of vulgarities.

  TELEVISION

  Don’t do such disgraceful things.

  CINEMA

  You want to buy your popcorns? Waste money. Okay lah, we share.

  ECONOMICS/POLITICS/THE HOBBIT

  ( film trilogy )

  What is this? You fight me, I fight you, you attack the mountain, I defend the mountain, you like gold, I also like gold… You tell me, what is happening?

  ANTIGONE

  Ah, it’s about the conflict between the individual and the state.

  GOVERNMENT

  Human beings will always fight and kill one another. But the gahmen is meant to look after the people and serve their needs.

  PATRIOTISM

  I don’t want to hang a flag outside my house. Spoil my wall.

  NEIGHBOURS

  As far as possible, try not to rely on other people. You must be independent. You see the old people picking up the cardboards? They choose to be independent! Not always complaining nobody helps them, nobody gives them a chance, like the young people nowadays…

  THE YOUNG PEOPLE NOWADAYS

  They haven’t gone through real suffering.

  CHOLESTEROL

  (moody silence)

  PARKOUR

  Is it the jumping here, jumping there that one?

  THE OUTDOORS

  Don’t stand under the tree. Later your clothes got bird shit.

  DRUGS

  Don’t take drugs. People think it’s very fun, it’s very hip, it’s very cool…they’ve become so Westernised. They don’t realise how it affects everyone around them. If anyone ever offers you drugs, say no.

  TRAVELLING OVERSEAS

  That’s when you’re quite happy to see other Singaporeans, right?

  FASHION

  Aiyoh, what is that.

  SCIENCE

  Good. Easier to score on exams than humanities.

  HUMANITIES

  Too subjective. No good.

  PARENTING

  Don’t say I always nag you. It’s for your own good.

  GOD

  Cannot take the Lord’s name in vain.
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  FREE SPEECH/CENSORSHIP/RHETORIC

  Cannot anyhow say one.

  TERRORISM

  They just want to get back at you using any means possible. So? What do you do with people like that?

  DEATH

  I don’t want to be a burden.

  HOME

  This is your home. This will always be your home. Don’t forget that.

  THE WEATHER

  Don’t change the subject.

  FOOD

  Oh yah, what shall we eat for dinner tomorrow night?

  WINE

  This bouquet is very complex…oak barrel vanilla notes… Aiyah, don’t bullshit lah. You drink drink, you like, can already. Don’t drink too much. Don’t become an alcoholic.

  SHIOK

  That one cannot explain lah. It’s like, you try it, then you just feel…this one so shiok! There’s no better way to say it.

  POETICS

  What is this highfalutin academic drivel you’re writing? If you can’t explain something clearly and succinctly, then you don’t know what you’re talking about.

  III. Noodles

  My grandfather was born in a small village in Swatow, China.

  When he was still a boy, he and his mother walked from their village to the harbour.

  It took most of the day.

  He estimated they walked the distance from Changi to Jurong.

  Their crossing to Singapore lasted the next few weeks.