–You’re romantic, little Chloe, he replied. He had that hazy, forlorn look in his eyes that indicated his thoughts were elsewhere. They had been together for seven months. Sometimes she felt like she understood him better than she understood herself. She paid closer attention to his mannerisms and likes and dislikes than her own.
One day he stopped returning her calls. Chloe kept messaging him. Her parents, irritated, told her to put her phone away at dinner. After dinner her fifty calls clanged straight to voicemail. She rang so many times she memorized the cadences of the Singtel robot telling her the mobile user was unavailable. A week and a half passed. Now she knew why people called it radio silence. It was everywhere. She couldn’t tune out the questions. Mostly, she blamed herself. She bit her knuckles until they chafed and bled, and wept until her eyes puffed up and she looked like a different person.
In college her best friends Choon See and Iris complained that she was going crazy for nothing, wrapped up in this old ah beng who had likely been married the entire time. He probably had three kids and a swollen, nothing-faced wife who posted housekeeping hacks, xenophobic memes, and alarmist product scares on Facebook all day. Although they conceded that he was cute “in an uncle way,” they had never trusted him.
The following Monday, Iris thrust a copy of the Straits Times in front of Chloe’s face. There was Alvin’s photo on page ten. He looked old and misplaced. The newspaper referred to him simply as Lim Bock Ho, Alvin not included. So the boxes in the back seat and in the trunk didn’t just contain wrapping and red longan tea. When two plainclothes officers from the Central Narcotics Bureau stopped his car, they found 1.8 kilograms of pure grade Vietnamese heroin, hidden in the lining of the trunk, concealed in packaging. The law stated that being found in possession of anything above 2 grams was considered trafficking. And anything above 15 grams resulted in the mandatory death penalty. Alvin was over 120 times that limit. He was going to be hanged. This was Singapore. There would be no arguing around it.
She couldn’t even visit him. Not even through thick glass like she’d seen on television. The prison authorities didn’t approve her request for a visit card. She couldn’t focus on revision. Her A Levels were in three weeks.
–You’re completely losing yourself, Choon See said. He’s a druggie and a dealer and a criminal, and you guys are pretty much done. Plus, he’s got a death sentence! Wake up your idea! Don’t you care about the A Levels?
Chloe clenched her fists and turned away from her. She had known Choon See since kindergarten, but now she felt like she didn’t even want to be friends with this smartass for a minute longer. She muttered her goodbyes, citing that she was late for tuition, and stalked out of the leafy junior college campus. Back home, in the privacy of her bedroom she rang Changi Prison again. His face-to-face and televisit rights were temporarily suspended. They told her to check back again, wouldn’t disclose anything further. Maybe he was in solitary confinement.
The CNB officers turned up at her house the next day, asking for Chloe Cheong. Her parents would not have known about her connection to Alvin otherwise; before then he had been a sloppy secret, one they were happy to leave unturned. Now the harsh and torrid reality of their daughter’s love life was parked across their driveway. Her mother shriveled at the possibility of their neighbors spying from second-story windows.
–Were you aware of Lim Bock Ho’s criminal activities? the officer asked her in the station. Did he ever ask you to transport anything for him?
–No sir, Chloe answered sadly. I had no idea.
–Then what did you think he sold?
–Packet drinks.
The officer sighed and took off his spectacles. She could tell he’d had a long day, and also that he was assessing her. He studied Chloe’s features. She looked like a gormless, sexy stingray with her widely spaced eyes and chalky complexion. After three hours of questioning both officers seemed satisfied. She went into a side room and peed into a cup. She was clean as a whistle. She was free to go. Outside, it was late and dark. Her parents pulled up, ashen faced. Once she was buckled in the back seat, her father started talking.
–You’re only eighteen, he said. Which is too young to throw everything away. Or even to know what’s good for you. You gave us a real scare today. And we’ve made some serious decisions. Don’t even try arguing about it. Be lucky that we can support you.
They were worried about the newspapers. Her father ran an insurance business. It couldn’t afford to be compromised. What would their friends think? The day after Chloe’s final A Level exam (economics) her parents sent her off to the airport. She had no idea how well or badly she was going to do for her exams. They had flown by in a fog.
And now she was going to England for ten weeks, or two and a half months. Her uncle Chua Bock Tin owned two luxury flats in central London. Her parents arranged for her to stay in the one-bed a floor under where her uncle’s business associate Mr. Goh lived with his wife. This couple would “make sure she was settled in” (keep an eye on her). Chloe was being exiled to a safe, respectable place. Her mother found a holistic therapist who specialized in “the recovery and rehabilitation of toxic dependencies/ toxic relationships, low self-esteem, eating/emotional disorders, lowness of spirit.”
–You’re not being punished. We do this because we love you, her mother said. Chloe nodded gravely and walked through the departure gates. She felt her parent’s eyes on her. She turned around and waved at them from behind the counters of plasticky purple, the same color as cherry yogurt.
England was punishment. England didn’t excite her. And it was very far from Alvin. Now there would be thousands of miles and a couple of oceans that separated them, instead of just concrete and metal. Everybody else judged wrongly. She was more than just his stupid teenaged girlfriend. And he was not just some heroin dealer bound for the gallows. So what if heroin was one of the baddest of the bad drugs, the king bad drug, the life ruiner? She’d never tried it, wasn’t interested, and did not even like alcohol or cigarettes. Why did the consequences have to be so super serious? Some babies and puppies were heavier than two kilograms. Ditto rice. Ditto her rucksack. Nobody got hung for possessing those. She wished, uselessly, that it had been salt in there, or soybean milk, like he said.
THE FLIGHT TOOK over twelve hours. She cricked her neck from sleeping funny, stuck between a fat Australian man and an auntie with a severe perm who sucked the air through her teeth every time their arms brushed. When the plane landed it did a balletic hop on the runway that made Chloe jump. Half-awake she thought that the plane had been sucked into a vortex, or shot into the sea by Russians or North Koreans. And this would be the end of her, the same way it would be the end for Alvin on whatever date the higher-ups decided. This thought brought her heart rate down and seemed to unite them.
The airport taxi pulled up onto an unimpressive brick building. She unloaded her suitcase blearily. London was freezing in such a charmless way. Less “Christmas-movie ice-cream special” and more “get inside, tropical foreigner, or you’ll die out.” The one-bed flat was just off Bond Street. Even totally unfamiliar with the city she thought, who lives around here? It was a soulless area that was more commercial than residential, and on weekdays and weekends alike, the streets below her window thronged with tourists and businessmen. The building had a concierge, a portly old man with a clipped accent and reptilian eyes. She often just nodded and hurried past him.
It was hard to tell those first days apart, or to find any comfort. But maybe that was the point. Her parents had said this stint was “for her own good.” But she wasn’t sure what her own good was. This seemed more like her parents’ polished, carpeted brand of good. For the first week she had terrible jet lag and a mild tummy ache. Even the water didn’t agree with her. Pushed through her letter box one day was a flyer for yoga classes in a Soho studio. She had always been curious about yoga. So she signed up. Her parents were pleased to hear about this new development, although they cautioned her not
to get involved in any “cult, yogi Hare Krishna stuff.”
Her appointment was on a Monday. The therapy center was a huge cake-white Regency building by a canal. It had a grand painted stucco facade and two huge columns by the entryway. The first time she visited, she thought she had come to the wrong place. A small sign indicated to press for the bell. She was buzzed in after a pause. Inside, it was very confusing. There was a reception area with polished wooden floors, and a labyrinth of narrow hallways and numbered doors.
She knocked on her designated door and entered a small, sepulchral room with bare shelves and a plant dying in the corner. The therapist was in her late thirties, with a shock of red hair and hazel eyes. Chloe couldn’t tell regional English accents apart but assumed this woman had the same sort of clipped BBC diction as newscasters. Her name was Shona. She looked like the sort of person who showered with bar soaps and never embarrassed herself.
–Why do you think you’re here, Chloe?
–Because I’ve been stupid. Even though I’ve done well at school, I have poor judgment.
–Why do you think that?
–Because my parents say so.
During the first session, she found it awkward to talk about herself initially but after just fifteen minutes private things tumbled from her mouth. Shona had a way about her. It was like she was playing games with Chloe, and the objective was to give as little of herself away as possible whilst using stares and silence to squeeze feelings out from the girl. At some points Chloe’s words got tangled up in big hungry fish tears, like she was a fish that had just been taken out of a tank and laid out on a board to be gutted.
–You see, that’s how I feel all the time, Chloe said. Like I’m about to be gutted.
–Or you’re in prison with a death sentence, Shona added.
–Well, yeah. I never connected it like that. But you’re right.
When Chloe reemerged into the street outside she didn’t feel purged so much as empty. The two feelings were not the same, although they overlapped substantially.
WHEN SHE GOT home she flicked through terrestrial television. There was the usual gamut of trade deficits and interior decorating shows and police procedurals, which hit a little too close to home. She finally settled on a movie from the early nineties about a phlebotomist who spent her wild teenaged years as a groupie for a rock band. The woman looked like if you took Demi Moore and photoshopped her less hot. She had a rebellious teenage daughter, blond with a sour-cream face. The whole film structured itself around their clashes. The freewheeling, wisecracking rock-star father got off pretty lightly, in Chloe’s opinion. Toward the end of the movie demi-Demi wept and said to her daughter:
–So what if you think drawing blood for a living is boring? So what if you think I’m a cop-out? Well, Kimberley, I’ve got news for you! You’re sucking the blood out of me! Don’t be like that! Don’t make the same mistakes I did!
The actresses were standing by some interstate highway, shouting at each other. This depressed Chloe, both the American highway and the impassioned speech of last resort. She was near the end of her Singaporean teenhood and couldn’t even imagine being fifty. Was this all she had to look forward to, the histrionic unraveling of hope into regret? Everything fun retrospectively frowned upon? If so maybe it was better to die young. It’s just a dumb, trashy movie I hadn’t even heard of, she sulked to herself, and stared at her silent phone.
–How would you describe your parents? Shona asked.
–That’s so the sort of question a therapist would pose in a movie, Chloe replied.
Shona just smiled a safe close-lipped smile.
–Well, I’ve been wrong to them once, Chloe began. She always started speaking first, and felt in some small way that because of this Shona always won.
–Wrong like how?
–I made the wrong assessment, according to them, about my boyfriend. Didn’t see that he was a criminal. And my parents have the memory of elephants. So now that I’ve been wrong in my judgment once, to them, I’ll always be wrong.
–That must be very hard for you.
–It’s okay, Chloe said. She looked out of the window and bit her lip.
–Let’s go back to your ex-boyfriend, Shona said. This reminded Chloe that Shona was one of them. She was just like (and indeed getting paid by) her parents, or Choon See and Iris, any of the mean faceless people who read the newspapers and believed what they condemned.
Because of this, Chloe didn’t mention that on the four days that she didn’t have yoga or therapy, she stayed indoors and surfed the Internet. She read about prison life all day and thought of Alvin. In prison, inmates had to squat a lot of the time; it was less of a security risk if they were closer to the ground. Executions were always scheduled on Fridays at 6:00 a.m. Nobody watched. She stored these nuggets of information with a dreadful protectiveness, like ammunition, as if knowing details could possibly change anything. She didn’t talk to anyone and only left the flat to get food. Christmas came and went. She watched the snow through the old sash windows without wonderment. When she emerged to the small Tesco around the corner, the real world, with its weather, felt like virtual reality. In a way, everything did.
In yoga class, the helmet-haired teacher constantly came over and adjusted her. This made Chloe feel very self-conscious, and demoralized that no matter how closely she thought she was following instructions she was still wrong. Nonetheless, she kept returning. There was something tortuous yet calming about how every minute in class seemed to stretch for a supernaturally long time. The other regulars were all better than her, and she suspected they attended every day, whereas she only went twice a week. The half-Asian woman was the best student. She always took the mat to the front left of the class, never sweated or had a hair out of place. When she caught Chloe trying to emulate her in the mirror, she always returned a neutral gaze. What did women like her and Shona do at the end of the day, after they had unmasked their perfect, proper selves? What little rituals did they perform before bedtime, what did they binge-watch? Chloe felt like the only unruly person in the world who pondered these questions.
SHE WROTE TO Alvin every fortnight. In the first letter she recommended yoga, complained about England. The prison regulations forbade her, if not she would have enclosed a selfie they took just before he got arrested. In the picture she pouted and he looked at her with open-faced adoration. She wanted to keep that feeling fresh in his memory but could only describe. Because the letters were screened she found her tone stilted and formal, as if she were writing essays. Clichés and platitudes were unavoidable, because they did the closest job. I love you; I miss you, I think about you all the time, etc. She could never get it right. Then again, who wrote letters anymore? Not even her grandparents. She wished she could email or WhatsApp him or even call.
In the two months she had been there, Chloe had met her uncle’s business associate in passing only a few times. Mr. Goh was predictable enough: a typical Singaporean businessman in his early fifties with a sparse pate of hair, a driving-range tan, and a quiet manner. But the identity of Mrs. Goh remained an open question. Chloe had expected a docile, amiable tai tai in a silk blouse and designer slacks or a maternal busybody of the soup-offering variety. Instead a bevy of different but equally unobtrusive fortysomething Asian women trailed Mr. Goh across the gloomy marble lobby, sometimes followed by one or two men, in both super casual and business attire. The concierge, who was Egyptian and intimidated her, noted all these comings and goings with his milky eyes. She wondered if he had cataracts, and if he had been working at that front desk for a hundred years.
–It’s a cold and impersonal place, and my neighbors are weird, Chloe said to Shona. Sometimes I feel like I’m living in a mafia den. There’s something shady going on. Maybe everyone is a criminal. If most people in the world are criminals, then what is the point of punishing someone to death for doing one thing wrong?
–You’re referring to Alvin, Shona said. Have you heard from him?
–No, Chloe said. Well, actually, yeah. But I don’t want to talk about it.
–You can talk about whatever you want, Shona said.
Chloe’s face clouded. She smiled benignly and stared at the empty shelf behind her therapist’s shoulder. She had finally received a reply from Alvin the morning before and was still getting used to it.
Dear Chloe, it is so good to hear from you. Thank you for your letters. Time really drags here, it began. The handwriting was like tidy chicken-claw scratching, exactly like how she’d imagined. She pictured him taking a long time to make it legible. The alphabet swooped and curved almost like simplified Chinese characters. He wasn’t allowed to discuss any details of his case. But he, too, missed her. So sick of the food. Lunch was fried bee hoon with one sacred piece of fish cake. Rice and sardines for dinner. When she reached the last paragraph the handwriting turned to scrawl. Chloe, you already know this won’t work. You’re still young. If I’m lucky I get life in here. It’s not really a life. Don’t waste your time. I can’t keep this up. I didn’t take your calls because it’s easier this way. I’m sorry. Please take care of yourself. He signed it LIM BOCK HO in block capitals.
Chloe’s eyes smarted. She drew her knees up onto the chair and held them close with her hands.
–Over here, it’s easy for me to just think about him all day, Chloe said after a pause, when I have nothing else to do in my flat. It’s my first time on my own. And this city is so scary and boring. I think about him all the time, Shona. And I miss home and miss him. We didn’t even get to say goodbye properly. How am I supposed to let it go like that?
Shona handed her a tissue. Chloe cried and gulped, gulped and cried in helpless waves, kept saying sorry as her shoulders shook. She was aware of Shona watching her, aware that she looked nineteen, and stricken, that feelings so consuming were considered normal for her age, even expected, even trite. She wished she were older to validate the heaviness she felt, this worn weight in the hollow of her throat.
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