•
Ahab came round to my place in his Honda Civic, on the twenty-eighth of June; it was two in the morning. He told me to hop in. “We’re going to town,” he said. “We have to hurry.”
When I got in I asked him what the matter was.
“It’s Noor,” he said.
Ahab got onto the expressway. The roads were empty. The streetlamps, as tall as the trees, bathed the roads in an orange, unearthly light. Ahab’s gaze remained focused on what lay ahead. We still had a while before we got there.
“So have you finished the book?” I asked.
“The what?”
“The Chiba Mari book,” I said. “The one about the sky.”
“Oh,” said Ahab. “It’s not about the sky, though.”
“I know, I know,” I said. “Last meeting you were only a few chapters from the end. Are you done with it now?”
“Yeah,” he said.
“When?”
“This afternoon?”
“Wow,” I said. “It’s a good feeling, isn’t it? Finishing a book.”
“Best feeling ever,” Ahab said. He kept his eyes locked forward. “You know, once I was on the train, and I saw someone finish a book right in front of my eyes. The look on the girl’s face was priceless.”
“That’s nice,” I said. I looked out of the window. “Would you recommend the book to me?”
“Sure, yeah,” said Ahab. “I’d recommend it to anybody.”
“But me, specifically?”
He took a quick glance at me. “Yeah,” he said. “No problem. It’d probably take a while, though, for the English translation to be released. Unless you want me to spoil the story for you?”
“Are you talking about the ending?”
“Yeah,” said Ahab. The car entered a tunnel. Bars of light passed over us, continuously, in a long belt over our heads.
“Probably not,” I said to him. “You’ve spoiled me enough already.”
“Have I?”
I nodded. “I don’t want to know how the story ends.”
We came out on Holland Road, and turned left towards Tanglin. Soon we got on to Orchard. It was the heart of town, but none of the usual lights were on. All I could see were tall trees, and even taller buildings. A soft and thick light, hovering in a soft mass, like a mist. Ahab stopped the car. There were no people on the sidewalk, save for one solitary woman, walking past Far East Plaza. She had a large T-shirt on, and barely anything else. The soles of her feet were black.
“Go talk to her,” Ahab said to me. “I’ll remain close by.”
I got out, and closed the car door quietly behind me. It was so quiet, save for this sound in the background, like someone breathing over your ear. I stepped onto the sidewalk, and took one final look around. No other cars. No other people. I went up to Noor.
“Hi there,” I said.
She didn’t seem to have heard me. She turned her head to the right.
“Hey,” she said. She took note of my presence, as though I had always somehow been there. “Hey, you.”
Noor was moving slowly, one step forward a time.
“What are you doing out here?” I asked.
“Me?” Noor said. “I don’t know. I don’t know what I am doing.”
“Do you know where you are?”
Noor stopped. She looked at the buildings around her. Clouded light, all around.
“Tell me where I am,” she said.
“You’re in Orchard.”
“I am?” Noor said. “But nothing’s how I remembered it.”
“How do you remember it?” I asked. But Noor didn’t seem to have heard my question.
“This is a dream,” she said to me. “I am home. This is just a dream.”
“A dream?”
She nodded.
“I am walking in my dream,” she said. “I am always walking in my dreams. And I am always alone.”
I looked over my shoulder. Ahab’s car was only a few metres behind us.
“You’re not alone,” I said to Noor. “My friend and I are here to help.”
Noor looked behind her as well. She smiled.
“This is a dream,” she said. “I am alone. I don’t need help if I’m in my dreams.” She turned towards me. “Do dreamers need help?”
I looked back at her. I didn’t know what to say.
“Let’s keep walking, my dear.” She beckoned me to follow. “Let’s just keep walking.”
For half an hour Noor and I walked, side by side, down the empty sidewalk of Orchard Road. We walked past Wheelock Place, past the roads on the junction; we walked past Ion and Isetan, followed by Ngee Ann City. The both of us just kept on walking, across the empty and quiet heart of the city.
I received a message on my phone. It was from Ahab. Get her in the car, it said.
“In the car?” Noor later asked. She turned behind once more. “Is that the one?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s do that.”
Noor and I got into the backseat of the Honda. Ahab locked the doors. He then stepped on the pedal, and started driving us back towards Bukit Merah, where Noor now lived. Noor sat by the windows and watched as the buildings went by, faster and faster and faster.
“All these trees,” she said. “It’s the trees that never change.” She turned away from the windows.
“I know you,” she said to Ahab. “I know the driver,” she said to me. “Even with his mask on. He’s been watching me, for quite some time. I see his face in the black windows.”
“How do you know?”
She sniggered.
“He thinks I can’t see him, but I can. I can always see him.”
Ahab remained silent. I asked her if she knew how she had ended up in Orchard, of all places.
“Isn’t it quite far from your parents’?”
“It is,” said Noor. “It’s just a dream, though. You fall asleep in your own bed, and then you wake up in a different place. That is what dreaming is all about.” She turned back to the window. “Harry and I would go to Orchard all the time, back when we were still dating. Before we got married. It’s the thing you do, if both individuals happen to be uncreative. You just meet up in town and find a place to eat.”
A momentary silence settled over the car. We had just passed by Bukit Merah station.
“Don’t you mean Henry?” I asked.
“What?”
“Henry,” I said. “Don’t you mean Henry, instead of Harry?”
A blank look passed over her eyes. She then coughed: it was a wet cough, full of phlegm. Her eyes began to water. Her clothes smelt faintly of ash.
“Ah,” she said. “Of course. That’s right.”
I waited in the car, as Ahab guided Noor back to her parents’ flat. When he came back, he patted me on the shoulder, and told me I had done a good job. I thanked him. It was almost five in the morning.
“I want to know now,” I said to Ahab.
“Know what?”
“The ending,” I said. “Would you tell me, please? Tell me how the story ends.”
•
Madam Lim showed up at the coffee shop, unannounced, at the foot of Block 146. This took place the following Wednesday, on the third of July. There were others now, aside from the five old men, sitting at tables and eating their food. The haze crisis was nearly over.
“Good evening, Ms Neo,” said Madam Lim. “It’s been a while.”
I took my seat. I wondered how she had learnt to find us. “Have you ordered a drink?” I asked.
“I got my coffee,” she said in reply. “I took the liberty of ordering you something as well.”
I asked her what she had gotten for me. She said she couldn’t say; it was meant to be a surprise.
“I think you’ll like it all the same,” she said.
The drinks auntie came round. She gave Madam Lim a cup of kopi o po, and myself a bottle of Tiger beer.
“You’re still young,” Madam Lim expl
ained. “You should drink more often.”
I drank straight from the bottle. Madam Lim reached into her handbag.
“There’s something I need you to give to Kevin,” she said. She took it out: a notebook, bound in a simple black cover. She slid it across the table. “I’m assuming, of course, that you have yet to speak to him.”
I took the notebook. It wasn’t a thick sort of notebook, but it felt used, somehow—like it had gone through a lot with its owner.
“I haven’t, admittedly,” I said to Madam Lim. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right,” she said. “That’s perfectly all right.” She took a sip of her kopi o po. “I know it’s horrible to say this, Ms Neo, but I’ve slowly started to feel like myself again.”
“Is that so?” I asked. Madam Lim smiled.
“We’re nearly there,” she said to me. She got up from her chair. Her coffee was barely touched. “All we need is one final push.”
“Where are your parents?” I found myself asking. We were in Zhiwei’s living room later that evening, looking towards his balcony. The view on the twentieth floor only went so far, before stopping altogether. A wall of fog remained standing between this world and the next. But the air, gratefully enough, had started to smell like air again.
He said his parents were at a wedding. “It’s my mom’s cousin’s second son,” he said to me. “It’s not something I have to attend.”
He brought two open bottles of beer from the kitchen.
“I told them about you, by the way.”
I looked at him.
“You did?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Just the more recent bit, though. I told them I was seeing an older girl.”
I drank from my bottle. My second beer of the night.
“Is that what this is?” I asked.
He nodded. He drank as well.
“It is,” he said.
Zhiwei and I looked at one another. He placed a hand on the side of my cheek, and ran a thumb across the corner of my lips. I closed my eyes and felt the warmth of his palm, spread across the side of my face. When I opened my eyes again his face was just centimetres away from my own, and all I could feel was heat, the gentle brush of it, across my eyes, my nose, my cheeks. I laid a hand on his knee, and moved it upwards, across the length of his thigh.
We wrapped our arms around each other and kissed. I ran my hand over his shirt, and started undoing his buttons. He took off his glasses. He then lifted me, with both of his arms, and carried me to his bedroom. After we were done, his mouth was on my ear, his breath warm and moist on my earlobe.
“I thought I had enough,” he said. “I really, really did. From back then till now, I thought my life was over.”
Later that night, I woke. I glanced at the clock in Zhiwei’s bedroom, mounted on the wall before us. It was nearly three in the morning. I slid out from under the covers; Zhiwei’s chest rose and fell, locked in a deep, peaceful sleep. My heart was pounding.
I went out into the hallway. I made my way, quietly towards the kitchen. I switched on a light, and poured a glass of water to calm myself. As I drank I could hear sounds, vaguely, of what seemed like laughter, but didn’t know where it came from. I took my glass and walked across the living room, sliding the door to the balcony open. Far below, down at the pool on the first floor, was a single white figure, floating across the surface of the water. Kevin flashed me a smile.
Come here, his smile seemed to say. I went back into the living room and grabbed my bag.
The lift arrived at the first floor. I stepped out into the cold, following the signs that led me to the pool. By the time I arrived, Kevin had lain himself across one of the deck chairs, his eyes tracking my every movement.
“Good evening,” I said. I sat down beside him. He seemed to be shivering.
“Good evening, Ms Neo. Where’s your friend?”
“What friend?”
“The one with the knife,” he said.
“He’s not here,” I said. “He doesn’t know I’m here.” Laughter, I kept hearing; at the end of the pool was a Jacuzzi, in which a mother and child were playing. “Who are those people?” I asked. Kevin turned and looked at them, splashing about in the bubbling water.
“We live together,” he said. “Although I’m sure you know that already.”
I looked at him. His skin was marble white, and covered in black spots. A pair of gills flapped on the sides of his neck, sucking on the air every few seconds. Kevin continued to shiver.
“The mother is Su Lin,” he explained. “Michelle’s the child.” He then turned away from them, and fixed me with his eyes. He seemed worried, somehow. “Don’t ever breathe a word of this to anybody,” he said in a whisper. “But you see, that girl…”
I nodded.
“I see it,” I said.
He looked surprised.
“You do?”
I nodded again.
“Her child,” I said. “The girl’s soul is missing.”
He fell silent. His mouth hung open, a small gap between the lips. He then closed his mouth. Kevin settled, still shivering, back into his chair.
“You do see, after all.”
He turned back to the mother and child. They were laughing and screaming, at three in the morning, but nobody seemed to mind. Kevin asked if I knew why he had chosen to live with them. I told him I didn’t know.
“You don’t?” he said.
I shook my head.
“It’s kinship, Ms Neo. Familial.”
“How so?”
He paused.
“The three of us are waiting,” said Kevin.
“Waiting?”
He nodded.
“We’re waiting for a man,” he said. “A man with a silver car. One day he’ll come and pick us up. We’ll see his lights, cruising down the main road.”
“I see,” I said, even though I didn’t. I didn’t know who he was talking about. I reached into my bag. “I met your mother earlier.”
He didn’t stir.
“You did?”
I took out the notebook.
“She wanted you to have this.”
He blinked. Kevin stared at the notebook, and took it in his hands. He flipped it open, and turned the first couple of pages. It was mostly empty.
“Is this it?” he asked. He kept on flipping through the pages, right to the very end. It was all the same.
“No,” I said. I placed my bag aside. “Your mother wants you to know that she’s been to Japan, many times over the past year. Even the bookstore, she says. And the hotel. She wants you to know that she understands everything now.”
Kevin froze. He became absolutely still for a couple of seconds. Even his gills seemed to stop. A while passed before he finally closed the notebook: he laid it down, slowly, onto his lap.
“What else?” he said.
“She wants you to know that she gave birth to you. And that it was a hard and difficult labour.” I paused. “She says that it’s her fault that you don’t have a soul.”
Kevin blinked. He seemed confused, at first, unsure of what he was being told. And then he looked at the mother and child, playing in the Jacuzzi. And then he turned back towards me. I watched as an inexplicable calmness spread, slowly, across his features. The tension seemed to melt away, leaving behind a strange composure. He leant his head back against his chair, and then directed his gaze towards the sky.
“Is that everything?” he asked.
I told him it was. Kevin thanked me.
“You’ve been so helpful, Ms Neo.”
He paused. He continued to look towards the sky.
“Do you know what’s the first thing Su Lin taught me?”
I said I didn’t know. He smiled.
“It was something she’d told her husband, Michelle’s father,” he added. “She said to him, ‘There’s only one way by which you can leave this world, and that’s the way you came in.’” He licked his lips. “For the longest time, her husband could
n’t figure it out. And neither could I. I knew what she said—I understood what she meant—but I didn’t know how it could apply to me.”
He paused again.
“I know how this all ends, Ms Neo.”
“You do?”
He didn’t react. He remained silent. I waited a little while longer, before choosing to speak.
“Is this remorse, Kevin? Over what you did to Mr Haruhito?”
He looked at me.
“No,” he said.
“Nothing at all?”
He didn’t even blink.
“Remorse and regret are different things, Ms Neo.”
“Right,” I said. “I understand.”
He looked away. He turned back to the sky.
“I’ve tried all kinds of ways. All kinds of methods. All on my own. I guess I was trying to preserve some sort of dignity, doing it myself—but none of it ever seemed to work. I don’t know why. But thank you, Ms Neo. I think... I think I know of a way now.”
I looked at him. The sky above showed no signs of changing, and yet he kept on looking. There was a row of palm trees, standing between the outer wall and the main road. Kevin and I remained seated, unmoving, as Su Lin and her daughter continued to play.
“Do you hear that, Ms Neo?”
“Hear what?” I asked.
Kevin continued to smile. “Music,” he said.
8
THE KAPPA QUARTET
SEPTEMBER 2013
KEVIN
When I close my eyes, I can hear the song of a bird, calling out towards me. It is a sweet and gentle song, like a hello one hears in the morning, when the weather is still cool and the sun half-risen. I remember hearing a bird like that, whenever I visited my father as a kid: it was hidden, in the midst of a tree standing outside his window. Sometimes I’d sit on his bed and gaze at the view, just listening to its cry.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
“Hmm.”
My father’s voice was strained. “I only hear it, whenever someone special visits me. Someone important to me.”
“Oh, really?”
He smiled. “Do you know what I mean by important?”
I shook my head. I told him I didn’t know.
My father grabbed the front of his gown, and wiped his face with it.
Kappa Quartet Page 20
