by Jeremy Tiang
Mrs Chen turned out to be older than I imagined, or perhaps she hadn’t slept since hearing the news. She had come directly from the airport and was still clutching her luggage, an old trolley bag and various parcels. I hadn’t had time to prepare for this, and found myself running through my repertoire of condolences far too quickly. My Mandarin vocabulary was mostly culled from local TV serials, fortunately replete with many death scenes.
In the face of her eerie silence, my monologue sputtered and stammered to a halt. Had she even understood me? People talk differently in China. In desperation, I started to ask if she wanted a glass of water when she said, not looking at me, “I want to see his body.”
“I’m sure that can be arranged,” I said unsteadily, then remembered we were supposed to promise nothing. “I mean, possibly. I don’t know if they’ll need to carry out an inquest.”
“Where did he die?”
I mechanically pointed at the block where it happened, and described the circumstances in some detail. Fault couldn’t possibly be attributed to our organisation; we operated under the most stringent safety regulations and he should never have been up there on his own. Searching for a positive note to end on, I managed, “He died without any pain.”
“How do you know? Were you there?”
“No, of course not, Mrs Chen, no one was. That’s why it happened.”
“So he died all alone.”
“Unfortunately.”
“What will happen next?”
Glad to be on safer ground, I began to explain about the compensation structure. He hadn’t been working very long for us, so it wouldn’t be as high as it could be, but there would be some provision for his family.
She interrupted me. “I’m talking about his body.”
I blinked, finding this in bad taste. “He’ll be burnt”—I was momentarily unable to remember the Mandarin for “cremated”—“in the next few days, once the coroner is satisfied.”
“No.”
“We have to follow the procedure.”
“He will come with me.”
“Mrs Chen,” I tried to soften my tone by imagining she was my mother. “You can’t possibly bring the body back to China. It would cost far too much. Let us deal with this, and you can take the ashes back with you.”
“You can’t do this to him.”
“It’s out of our hands.” And that seemed to be the end of it. Once the conversation moved onto ascribing blame, it was relatively simple for me to deflect it in other directions. The lift manufacturers, the various Ministries with a hand in this—though I stopped short of pointing the finger at Chen himself, even though to my mind he was every bit the author of his own misfortune.
She continued to be silent, and I considered that enough time had passed for our interview to come to a natural end. I stood up and headed purposefully for the door. “It was good of you to come and see us, Mrs Chen. I’m glad I had the chance to speak with you. Do you know where you’re putting up?”
Without answering, she walked through the door I was holding open for her. I said something to cover the silence, and watched as she marched into the blazing sun, her bag trailing on the uneven ground. I thought of shouting goodbye, but it was far too noisy—all the machinery was once more going full pelt, the pile-driving for Phases 3 and 4 thump-thumping away even as we put the finishing glosses on the first two blocks.
“How was it?” While I was preoccupied, Li Hsia had come up behind me. I knew it was her before she spoke—unlike the sweaty bodies on site, she smelt faintly of oleander all day. When I turned, she was looking at me with an expression halfway between amusement and concern.
“Not too bad. She’s upset, of course.”
“I’m sure it’s all right. We just needed to meet her, to show we care.”
“I guess I’m not used to dealing with members of the public.”
“Public?” She smiled. “Wait till you’re really dealing with the public, then you’ll know the meaning of the word ‘difficult.’ Foreign workers don’t count. Who are they going to complain to?”
“I don’t think I was very helpful, though.”
“What are you going to do, bring her husband back to life?” She looked narrowly at me. “Calvin, you mustn’t care so much. You didn’t cause the accident, I don’t understand why you’re feeling so guilty. These things happen.”
Her callousness was bracing. I found myself wanting to be like her, with her certainty and confidence. Everything she said was true—I couldn’t argue with her. It wasn’t my fault.
“So what if she’s not happy? Do you think she’s going to blog about it?”
“Her husband’s dead,” I protested.
“That’s very sad, but we can’t stop everything because of one man.”
“Do you want to have lunch with me?”
A defensive colour entered her eyes, and I knew I had mistimed this somehow. Asked her at the wrong point in the conversation, or sounded too keen. Perhaps, as a pretty girl, she was always on the alert for invitations that carried too much meaning.
“I’m just going to eat at my desk. They want the revised schedule breakdown by this afternoon.” She smiled, softening the blow, and touched my forearm. “But another time, okay?”
I watched as she walked away. She was a few years younger than me, and already so sure of herself that the last few moments had felt completely natural, as if nothing at all awkward had taken place. I already knew that the next time I saw her, neither of us would mention this, and her manner to me would be as cheerful as ever.
My head badly needed clearing, so I decided not to seek out anyone else but to go for lunch on my own. There were a few food courts and coffee shops nearby—one of the estate’s selling points was its proximity to these outlets—and I knew that if I left now, it was unlikely I would run into any of my colleagues. As I walked through the gates, I noticed Mrs Chen across the road, struggling to get all of her bags onto a bus. She did not look in my direction.
■ ■ ■
Soong’s distorted face looked pained as he shouted rather than sang into the microphone, but his audience seemed to appreciate it. He was gripping the mike in both hands, his hair floppy with sweat. I have never seen the appeal of karaoke, but on this occasion had agreed to go with the flow because everyone from the office would be there. Although usually self-sufficient, on days like this one I felt the need of company.
The funeral had been earlier that afternoon. As a mark of respect, the site was closed so all the workers who wanted to could go—and of course, those of us in the office had to turn up as well. No one had thought to bring clothes to change into afterwards, and we must have made a strange group, turning up to the bar all in dark colours, the men in ties and the women with hair slicked demurely back.
Nobody was feeling good after the proceedings of that afternoon. We had filed into a vast wooden hall in Mandai crematorium, and it was immediately clear that someone had booked the wrong room. This was far too big for the dozen or so of us, defensively clumped together on just a couple of the benches, making the space look even more dauntingly empty. Mrs Chen sat some distance off, ostentatiously alone. Some of the workers spoke to her afterwards in their rough, kind way, and Mr Seetoh said something during the ceremony, but she knew no one in this country and made us all feel it.
Later, in the viewing gallery, I couldn’t shake off the feeling that we were somewhere unnatural, like an alien church. The high ceilings and sheer granite walls of the building loomed in all directions, presumably intended to give the occasion stature, vast and comfortless. I drew an involuntary breath when the doors opened and the coffin glided cleanly into the aperture behind it.
Soong’s discordant voice, heartbreakingly out of tune, dragged me from my thoughts. His last note, hoarse and flat, stretched out longer than the music. He got a respectable round of applause as he sauntered back to his seat, and a couple of the sillier showroom girls simpered at him. He had the casual swagger of the man wh
o knows it is in the delivery and not the tune that hearts are won.
Li Hsia, I was glad to see, appeared indifferent to these antics, and was speaking soberly to Mr Seetoh about whether the office ought to send flowers to the widow, as a gesture of goodwill. I approached to ask what they wanted to drink, and then slipped outside to order. When I came back, Mr Seetoh was at the mike belting out something in Cantonese. I took the opportunity to slip into his seat.
“You’re not singing?” said Li Hsia. She herself had been one of the first up, drifting tunefully through something by Adele before declaring she knew no other songs.
“I can’t sing,” I responded. She seemed to accept this, and I knew for sure she was different from the other girls, the ones who would have urged me to try, be a sport, have a go—Li Hsia left me to myself, and sipped at the dregs of her orange juice.
“What made you choose Geography? To study, I mean,” I said, after the silence had grown dense. I was on my third bottle of beer and fuzzy around the edges.
She shrugged. “No reason. It was my best A-Level subject.”
“Did you expect to end up here?”
“In a karaoke bar?”
“On a construction site.”
“I don’t mind it. I’ve met a lot of interesting people.” She flashed a smile at one of the better-looking sales staff, squeezing past us on his way to the toilet.
I leaned in as if I couldn’t hear her above the noise of the singing. Casually, my hand found her forearm. She didn’t react, apart from just as casually angling her body a little away.
“Harmonious Residences,” I said.
“What about it?”
“I like the name.”
“I don’t think it’s anything special.”
I was saved from having to explain by the waitress arriving. She bent herself expertly to fit into the tight space, and laid our drinks out just so—the coasters parallel to each other, not spilling a drop of the icy liquid. I murmured thanks but she seemed not to hear me, focussing entirely upon her task. She was thin and very young, I realised, and looked utterly exhausted.
Li Hsia toyed with her straw, and I decided it was up to me to ask another question. “Do you like working with us?” She smiled vaguely, not bothering to answer. “With me,” I should have said.
“What books do you like reading?”
“What?”
“Books. You.”
She shrugged, still smiling. I couldn’t work out if she still hadn’t heard me, or thought this was too odd a question. I took a pull from my beer bottle, wishing one of us was close to finishing so I could offer to go to the bar again.
“He’s quite good.” I indicated Mr Seetoh, currently bobbing along with his eyes shut, unfazed by a long instrumental interlude. “I didn’t know he spoke Cantonese.”
“Do you know him well?”
“No, I only met him on this project.”
She nodded again, graceful and contained. The room was not large, and all around us I was aware, despite the gloom, of the other warm bodies contained in it. One of the girls had actually fallen asleep. For all the people just a few inches from us, I felt enveloped in something claustrophobic and sticky, thickening in the air between Li Hsia and me.
“We should come out and have a drink sometime. I mean, just us. The two of us.” The English language was growing clumsy on my tongue. I thought how much more elegantly I could have put that in German. Uns beide. Or even in Chinese.
She nodded, vaguely, non-committal enough to avoid rudeness without giving anything away. She seemed to be scanning the air to the left of my head, hoping something would turn up, and it was from there that I heard Mr Seetoh’s voice.
I jumped up. “I’m in your seat,” I began automatically to apologise, relieved someone else had flattened the jagged silence between us.
“Hock,” said Li Hsia, looking at him. “I think we should go.”
“So soon?”
“I’m tired.”
He grunted and, without taking his eyes off me, tossed her the keys. “You drive.” A breath of perfume as she stood up. He continued to stare, but his tone was friendly. “Lucky she doesn’t drink. Such a good girl. Useful to have someone to take me home.”
My throat was too dry to construct a useful reply, but I think I managed to nod fitfully.
“See you at work, Calvin.” He patted me on the shoulder. “Bright and early.”
I watched them walk away, wondering if she would turn back and smile at me. Not a meaningful smile, just something kind to take the sting out of the evening. She didn’t, of course, she looked only at him. As they slipped through the door, I saw the tired waitress leaning against the corridor wall, her broom and tray beside her. As soon as we left, she would swoop in to erase the night’s mess as quickly as possible.
As the door closed, I noticed Soong glancing slyly at me. He whispered something to the girls beside him, and they giggled like monkeys. I ignored them as best I could, sat back down and picked up my beer. I would give them time to get clear, and then leave. It wouldn’t take long, the car park was only one floor up. Five minutes. I began counting to three hundred in my head.
■ ■ ■
Mrs Chen came back to Harmonious Residences the night of the funeral. Dressed in old clothes and carrying a large Styrofoam box, she convinced the night watchman she was a drinks seller, and he let her in. This would cost him his job, because the site was meant to be secure at night—but the men wanted food and drink, and were often too tired to go out to get it. As soon as she was out of sight of the entrance, she slipped round the side of the building, and punched in the security code she must have watched me entering that other day. The office had no alarm, and she was able to walk right in with no trouble. We found all this out much later, at the trial.
By the time the site supervisor called me, it was just after five in the morning and pitch black. I was lying face down on my bed, fully dressed. I briefly considered leaving just as I was, but that was too disgusting even for the way I felt, and I stopped to shower and change. The dull throbbing in my head would certainly become unbearable by lunchtime. I slipped some paracetamol in my pocket and left the flat, careful not to wake anyone else.
I had never had a reason to take the MRT so early in the morning—I got on the first train, the sky just lightening, and was surprised how few people were about. At some stations no one got on or off, and the doors did no more than a perfunctory shuffle. Everyone looked cold and tired, although no one quite as ill as I felt. I began working out the quickest way I could get hold of some coffee.
When I arrived at the construction site, everything was still, almost peaceful. With the great machines at rest, without noise and dust swirling around everything, it was possible to see the buildings as their true selves, magnificent. In a few months, defiled by human habitation, they would become commonplace: stained by polluted rain, sprouting laundry on bamboo poles and unmatched curtains from every window. But now, the first motes of sun just landing on their long glass surfaces, they stood proud of their surroundings like monuments, like tall and silent gods.
The security post was empty and I walked straight in, mechanically making a mental note to mention it later. They had told me where Mrs Chen was, but I felt the need to go to my office first, if only as a matter of routine. Entering the showroom, it became clear that Mrs Chen’s visit had not been a peaceful one. She had smashed everything breakable in the room—and there were many things, many mirrored surfaces intended to make the space look bigger. Because Minister insisted on creating a gracious ambience to reflect our cultured society and sophisticated clientele, we’d engaged a local interior design firm to dot delicate lamps and vases about the room, now so much crushed coloured glass.
Picking my way through the scarred furniture, I was struck by how little this mattered. I would make some phone calls, and in half a day everything would be put to rights. Perhaps not all the objets would be replaced, but the debris would be expertly cl
eared, and we would be able to admit members of the public by lunchtime. For all her destructive efforts (achieved, we later found out, with no more than a hammer from a stray toolbox), Mrs Chen had gained nothing permanent.
There was nothing to be done here, for the time being, and I made my way up the tallest tower, the one they were holding her in. The lift glided up the outside of the building on smooth treads, until I was clear of the surrounding clutter and could see the view our lucky residents would be paying a premium for, as yet unimpeded by other buildings. I never grew tired of this, the green sweep of East Coast Park and the sea beyond. It was a fine thing in Singapore to look out and see only earth and water, not people.
When the doors opened on the forty-first floor, I saw Mrs Chen on a plastic stool, the security guard’s hand firmly on her shoulder. It hardly seemed a necessary precaution; she clearly had no fight left. She was slumped, barely upright, her hands and head limp as though her neck were broken. All around her was chaos, the walls defiled and the floor thick with debris. The guard nodded at me, as did the short Malay policewoman just putting her notebook away.
“She doesn’t want to tell us anything. Do you know why she did this?”
“Her husband,” I said.
“Yes, I know, sir, we read the papers too,” she had a patient voice, but was clearly very tired, perhaps at the end of her shift. “But it was an accident, right? And she’s getting compensation?”
“Maybe. We still have to have a tribunal to prove it wasn’t his own negligence.” Suddenly I was tired of my voice. How could anyone possibly explain why this had happened? Mrs Chen would say nothing all the way through her trial, and remain silent as they sent her to prison. She’d already said all she possibly could.
“She refused to move from here. We’re waiting for another officer to assist.”
“Her husband died here,” I explained. “On this floor.”
