It Never Rains On National Day

by Jeremy Tiang

  Sophia comes back in with a man Nicholas vaguely recognises. Calvin, says Joy reproachfully. Why so late? You missed the whole parade. Calvin sullenly mutters something about having too much work, even on a supposed public holiday, and the constant persecution of being a civil servant. We’re civil servants too, says Joy, but he slaps away her comment. You’re teachers, that’s not the same thing.

  At least you’re in time to catch the show, says Brian, pushing the chips in his direction. He grunts and scoops up a handful. A couple of days from now, Nicholas will finally feel strong enough to ask his wife why on earth she invited this person, and she will reply that she felt sorry for him; he doesn’t get on with his family and for some reason he’s been single forever.

  On the stage, a handful of schoolchildren are performing a sketch, over-enunciating every word as they’ve been trained to. Something about home being where they belong. As is expected, they are scrupulously diverse—both boys and girls, two Chinese, one Malay, one Indian, and an indeterminate one who is probably Eurasian. Come quickly, Soph, you’re missing the opening, calls Joy, and Huixin darts out with cocktail sausages and napkins. Almost done, she says breathlessly.

  By the time the dancing starts, the girls have laid a feast out on the coffee table. It is all finger food, easy to eat without taking your eyes off the screen. They are all now ranged around the TV set, on the sofa and pouffes and armrests, picking at dinner, watching the contingents of adults run out to surround the children, wheeling in and out of each other, droning their song. As a giant silk orchid, the national flower, blossoms behind them, they raise their arms to it. Huixin and Joy join in the chorus.

  The number lasts no more than ten minutes, but by the end of it the mood of the evening has been quite transformed. Choreography on such a massive scale must take no less co-ordination than the military parade, Nicholas knows—indeed, he read somewhere that the army helps train the schoolchildren in learning the dance steps—but this is sweetly unthreatening, soft and gauzy. Even Sophia, global traveller that she is, looks moved by the display. This is a school concert amped up on a massive scale, Nicholas tells himself, but even then it is hard to resist the shameless manipulation of expertly-designed proselytising.

  As the first set of performers leave, the screen brightens into another montage, more national songs, more faces saying what this country means to them. More advertising, laughs Huixin, and Joy says, Of course, this whole thing is an advertisement for the country. It is easy to mock the cheap sentimentality of this video, and Nicholas joins in, They’d better make sure they’re targeting the right audience. Maybe nobody wants to buy what they have.

  If you don’t like it, feel free to leave, says Calvin sourly, and there is a frozen moment before everyone leaps in. He didn’t mean it like that, says Sophia. At the same time, Huixin wades in with something about how they don’t have National Day celebrations in Britain so Nicholas doesn’t understand what this is all about, he didn’t mean to be offensive. They are apologising on his behalf rather than defending him, Nicholas notices, not saying anything himself. There are moments when he wonders how much he will ever fit into this country, how much of himself he will have to slough off before he can glide through these occasions without friction.

  Do we need to leave food for anyone? says Joy in a transparent attempt to change the subject—there is no danger that they will run out, the girls have prepared enough for at least double the number. Karen’s at Brewerkz, she said maybe she’ll come later, says Sophia, which they all know means she won’t. This happens every year, Karen promising herself to three or four parties and sending drunken texts through the evening deferring her arrival at each.

  The next segments of the show are more of the same, hundreds of volunteers moving in formation to make a lion’s head, the shape of the island, a glowing torch, in between fluttering their props—fans, lanterns, trailing ribbons—so ripples quiver over the mass of individuals. Now and then there is a theatrical coup. Blue parachute silk glides suddenly over the space, white sails popping up as if from nowhere. To depict the difficult journeys our immigrant forefathers undertook to arrive here, explains the emcee. As she speaks, the bay glows suddenly as dozens of sampans put on their lights and unfurl sails, bobbing towards the floating stage.

  Eat some more, says Sophia, returning from the kitchen with a tray of spiced chicken wings and roquefort arancini, but save room for dessert. Nicholas she nudges with the heel of her hand and mouths, Pills. It has become part of the ritual of every meal time, the ration of immuno-suppressants that keeps him alive, the thrice-daily reminder that he is not a whole man. The others look away politely as he rattles a multi-coloured stream from his pill-container. Sophia brings him a glass of water.

  Everyone must now be sated, but they continue picking at the savoury mouthfuls while the TV blares more music, more commentary. Remember at uni, your mum would record the parade and post it to us—and we thought it was so high-tech because she burnt it to a CD-ROM, not videotape. Joy laughs at the memory, and Brian chips in. Yeah, nowadays the kids are probably live-streaming it on Youtube.

  Clear, sinuous erhu music gives way to a bespectacled schoolboy rapping somewhat self-consciously, then bhangra drums pick up this beat and draw in some weepy gamelan. So many different cultures coming together seamlessly, proclaims the announcer, sounding emotional. That sums up everything that’s special about Singapore.

  More schoolchildren bubble onto the stage. Or the same ones in different costumes? There seems to be an inexhaustible supply. They spread into three groups—Chinese fan dancers in pink and blue, Malay girls doing the ronggeng in green, and an Indian kathak group in golden saris. Multi-racialism, Singapore style, rejoices the announcer. Multi-racial if you’re Chinese, Malay or Indian, says Joy, who is some complicated blend of Portuguese, Javanese and Thai, and frequently complains that the only category available to her on forms is “Other”. There isn’t a pigeonhole for Nicholas either, but he says nothing.

  And all across the island, in tiny flats like this, people are sprawled before their TV sets, absorbing the entertainment provided for them, imbibing the messages, overt or not—though none particularly subtle—and feeling stirrings of patriotism and belonging. Can it be that simple? wonders Nicholas. But it must work at some level. All the Singaporeans in this room have spent a few years abroad, and all have returned, the idea of greener pastures seeming not to occur to them at all.

  So Huixin, are you seeing anyone these days? Calvin has leaned across the table and is rather grotesquely allowing his hand to graze her wrist, his voice probably louder than he means it to be. She shakes her head firmly, but he doesn’t seem to see. I thought maybe we could go for a drink, I mean, not all of us, just the two— He breaks off as he realises they are all looking. Did he think he could slide this in unnoticed under the performance music?

  Huixin jumps up. Excuse me. And she is efficiently stacking dishes, brushing crumbs from the table. Sophia, too, begins whisking glasses into the kitchen. Too late, Nicholas notices the four empty beer bottles at Calvin’s feet, and a fifth in his hand. He does not look like a man who can hold his liquor.

  I’ll help, says Joy gracefully, and heads to the kitchen too. The girls huddle tactfully in the far corner, where they cannot be seen. Calvin looks crestfallen, mumbling that he hadn’t meant to upset anyone. Let it go, man, says Brian. This always happens, says Calvin, shaking his head. I’m a nice guy, I asked nicely, but they’re never interested in nice guys. Nicholas can think of nothing to say, and sits stiffly as Brian talks about waiting for the right person to come along.

  The awkwardness threatens one minute to take over the evening, and the next is dispelled entirely as Huixin comes running into the living room. Fireworks! she cries, and sure enough they are bursting ripely over the night sky, pink chalky streaks, green whirligigs and yellow stars, fizzling on the TV screen at the same time as the emcee shouts Happy birthday, Singapore! and the spectators wave the giant inflatable
lions they’ve been given.

  They crowd onto the narrow balcony, childishly excited by the spectacle. Outside the air-conditioning, the night air is heavy and humid. Brian raises his glass in a toast and those who brought their drinks out join him. Happy National Day, says Sophia, and unexpectedly hugs Nicholas. She is trembling slightly, from excitement or stray emotion or the stress of the evening.

  Back inside, she wheels out a retro hostess trolley with an array of desserts: red agar-agar, profiteroles, cupcakes with lion heads stamped into their icing. The parade is winding down after the climax of the pyrotechnics. When the camera pans over the crowd, some of them are already heading for the exits, trying to beat the car park rush. All the performers have gathered on the field and are once again singing that song.

  By the time the credits roll, the party has entered a comfortable state of vegetative equilibrium, the sense that all rough edges have been smoothed out, at least for tonight, and they can marinate in one another’s presence. Sophia proudly produces a variety of caffeinated beverages from their new Nespresso machine, the stimulating effect of coffee seeming to keep people barely awake, rather than actually energising them.

  Nicholas finds his mind drifting towards sleep, and when he returns, Joy is, for some reason, telling the story of how she met Brian. He looks nervously at Calvin in case coupledom is a sensitive point still, but Calvin seems lulled into gentle stasis, the earlier episode smoothed away, and is looking at them as if they are a distant story, nothing to do with him. It is not, in any case, a particularly riveting tale—they were introduced by mutual friends at university, and later discovered they’d trained as teachers in the same batch but never actually met. And then the marriage, the HDB flat and the baby.

  And you and Nicholas? says Huixin. You know the story, protests Sophia, but this happens all the time, especially after a few drinks. Huixin wanting to hear it again, like a child, what she calls the fairy tale of their marriage.

  They are practiced at this, and Nicholas knows when he is expected to chip in, when to laugh or contradict her on trivial details or nod emphatically. He actually left me, she is saying. He wanted to go back to London. I was heartbroken, wasn’t I, dear?

  He nods, sombrely. You begged me to stay—

  Asked you to stay—

  But I wouldn’t. I’d had enough—this country, it suffocates you, if you aren’t careful. So I went away—

  But then… Sophia threads her arm through his, rests her head on his shoulder. As soon as he got to Heathrow, the minute he touched down, he realised he’d made a terrible mistake. That’s what he said to me, a terrible mistake. And without even unpacking his bags, he went straight to the British Airways counter and bought a ticket back to Singapore.

  Nicholas smiles at the top of her head. It actually took him six months to acknowledge that he missed her, and then another two to persuade her to take him back. Still, he must admit that her version of events is more engaging. He wonders if she has by now convinced herself of it. I came back for her, he thinks. She pulled me back to this place.

  So romantic, Joy is saying. I wish someone would do that for me.

  What, leave you and come back again? Brian, raucous. I can do that, the first part anyway, I might forget to come back.

  Idiot. I mean, give up everything for me.

  What makes you think he’s given up anything? Look at him.

  What else does he need?

  And Nicholas, looking at his tasteful flat, his beautiful wife, honestly believes at this moment that he does have everything he needs. Some version of health, and more than enough money to keep them from starvation. Here they are, and the story is as good an organising principle as any to make sense of their lives. He wonders sometimes how long they will stay in this country, and how long they will remain together. At least hearing Sophia talk so brightly about their early days, how they began, makes him feel momentarily hopeful.

  Leaning back, looking companionably at his wife’s friends, Nicholas sinks into a warm fog of alcohol and something like contentment. His mind fills with the memory of himself returning, the prodigal, not much younger than now but entirely different. The day he stood, indecisive, in the great bronze hall of Changi Terminal 2, wondering if this was right or yet another mistake. Stiff currents of air-conditioning swirled around his body and muffled announcements called out other arrivals. His luggage slumped on a trolley next to him, cumbersome, everything he owned. What next? What next for him?

  A second before the fear became overwhelming, he felt a change in temperature and sensed rather than heard her footstep. This is what’s next, he thought. This is the next moment. Breath came back into his body. His mind gleaming, the air thick around him, Nicholas steadied himself and turned to see, striding towards him—Sophia, her eyes wet, her arms wide with welcome.

  About the Author

  Jeremy Tiang’s writing has appeared in The Guardian, Esquire (Singapore), Asia Literary Review, Brooklyn Rail, Drunken Boat, Meanjin, Ambit, Quarterly Literary Review Singapore and the first two volumes of The Epigram Book of Best New Singaporean Short Stories. He won the Golden Point Award in 2009 and has been shortlisted for the Iowa Review Award and American Short Fiction Prize. He has also translated more than ten books from the Chinese, including work by You Jin, Wong Yoon Wah, Yeng Pway Ngon, Yan Geling and Zhang Yueran, and has been awarded translation grants from PEN American Center, the National Endowment for the Arts (USA) and the National Museum of Taiwanese Literature. Jeremy’s plays include The Last Days of Limehouse (Yellow Earth, London), Floating Bones (The Arts House; translations of Han Lao Da and Quah Sy Ren one-acts) and A Dream of Red Pavilions (Pan Asian Rep, NYC; adapted from the novel by Cao Xueqin). He lives in New York City.

  Acknowledgements

  MUCH OF THIS book grew out of my time at various writing residencies, for which I thank all at the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program (including but not limited to Christopher Merrill, Hualing Nieh Engle, Nataša Durovicová, Mary and Peter Nazareth, Hugh Ferrer, Joe Tiefenthaler, Kecia Lynn, Nate Brown and Kelly Bedeian), Kulturverein Mecklenburg Inspiriert at Kühlungsborn (particularly Familie Kurbjuhn and all at Hotel Polar-Stern for their generous hospitality), Sangam House (Arshia Sattar, Rahul Soni and DW Gibson) and the Chennai Mathematical Institute (K Srilata, KV Subrahmanyam and Madhavan Mukund).

  I am also grateful to the journals that have published these stories individually, and the editors who made them so much better along the way: Martin Alexander at the Asia Literary Review, Briony Bax at Ambit, Yeow Kai Chai at QLRS, Zora Sanders at Meanjin, Hande Zapsu Watt at The Istanbul Review, Ravi Shankar and Alvin Pang at Drunken Boat, Andrew Lloyd-Jones, Dan Coxon and Eric Akoto at Litro, and Joel Toledo at the Philippines Free Press. Also, thanks to Dorothy Tse for her fine translation of “Stray” into Chinese.

  The travel that provided the raw material for these stories could not have taken place without the help of many friends, including: Glynne Steele for bringing me to Zurich, Susan Sturton and Maarten Felix for their hospitality in Trondheim, Jacqui Harrison for driving all the way to Prora, Zhang Yueran for my time in Beijing, Nicole St Martin and Michael Bradley for their hospitality in Toronto, Tim Luscombe for the flat in Bangkok, and Caroline Lena Olsson for the Meatpacking flat.

  I also used as reference points Jonathan Mirsky’s “China’s Death-Row Reality Show” (New York Review of Books) and Ethan Gutmann’s “The Xinjiang Procedure” (The Weekly Standard) for “Sophia’s Aunt”, the KdF Museum Prora for “Schwellenangst”, and the interviews with migrant workers at Transient Workers Count Too for “National Day”.

  And finally my agent Karolina Sutton, my editor Jason Erik Lundberg, Edmund Wee and all at Epigram Books.

  Some of these stories were originally published, in slightly different form, as follows:

  “Sophia’s Honeymoon” in Istanbul Review (Feb 2013), The Sangam House Reader, (Nov 2013) and Singapore Poetry (Apr 2014); “Schwellenangst” in Litro no. 125 (May 20
13) and Transatlantic: The Litro Anthology (Oct 2014); “Sophia’s Aunt” as “Beijing Hospital” in Asia Literary Review no. 27 (Spring 2015); “Toronto” in Meanjin (Jan 2014) and The Epigram Books Collection of Best New Singaporean Short Stories: Volume Two (Oct 2015); “Harmonious Residences” in Quarterly Literary Review Singapore vol. 10 no. 1 (Jan 2011) and The Epigram Books Collection of Best New Singaporean Short Stories: Volume One (Oct 2013); “Stray” in Philippines Free Press (Nov 2010) and Fleurs des Lettres (May 2012, translated into Chinese by Dorothy Tse); “Meatpacking” in Drunken Boat no. 21, Union Folio (Apr 2015); “National Day” in Ambit no. 216 (Spring 2014) and UNION: 15 Years of Drunken Boat, 50 Years of Writing From Singapore (Sep 2015); “Sophia’s Party” in Quarterly Literary Review Singapore vol. 12 no. 4 (Oct 2013).

  “Trondheim” won the 2009 Golden Point Award for English Fiction, and appeared on the National Arts Council’s website. “Tick” is original to this collection.