by Lavie Tidhar
The young woman stays quietly in the shade of the dome, waiting for them to leave so that she can be alone with the one man on the roof no one else can see.
Across the length of the roof from her, the former Supreme Court watches her silently, expression inscrutable to bystanders.
* * *
The last straggler of the group vanished downwards with a clatter, and Jing-Li finally let herself relax. The ability to stay invisible in the confines of a building was entirely dependent on the sufferance of its guardian, and she hadn’t been sure the former Supreme Court would be so kind to its assigned executioner. She watched carefully as he strolled across the expanse of the roof, analysing the way he took each step (with confidence), the way his hips swayed (hint of mischief).
“I’m not here to finish the job,” she said, hands held up. “See, I didn’t bring the weapon.”
The former Supreme Court laughed. “I know,” he said. “Or you would not have made it this far.” As her hands went to her hips in protest, and he said: “This building still has working fire alarms.”
“Fire alarms can’t keep me out forever.”
“If I have my way I won’t have to keep you out.”
She reached her envelope bag and pulled out a small sealed packet of brown paper, which she offered to him. “Courtesy of the groundskeeper’s association,” she said. “I ran into a senior on the way here and he thought it might be helpful in getting into your good books.” Devon, according to his own account, had conveniently been on his way to buy something nearby and had just happened to bump into her in the two hundred metres between her workplace and the former Supreme Court building. Singapore was small, but not that small—Jing-Li wasn’t stupid. The association was getting impatient.
The former Supreme Court wrinkled his nose. “Bribery will get you nowhere.”
She returned the packet to her bag. “You don’t like sweets anyway. You’d prefer a nice rat or some other small dead animal, right?”
“You know me well.” He sounded pleased.
“I’ve done my research.”
She had done more than that. Like anyone with an ounce of self-respect she had gone home and dug into difficult guardian culls, carefully populating her browser with pages from countries bearing historic architecture, where the encrusted hearts of cities pulsed in medieval nerve centres laid over and over by infrastructural palimpsest. Places where guardians clung deeply and stubbornly to their location, fed by nostalgia and notions of heritage. She had come out of that tangle discouraged and confused: every story had different tips on how to get stubborn guardians to give up their guardianship, and most of them were quite location-specific. Her one takeaway was that she was on her own, and therefore in deep shit.
Urgency itched under her skin, in her chest, like hungry parasites. Earlier this week the groundkeepers’ association had sent an email: “This is not a game. If we knew you were going to mess around, we would have hired someone to actually do the job.” She wondered if they understood that the last time in recorded history an unwilling guardian had been culled, hundreds of deaths had resulted from a building collapse.
“I don’t like it,” the former Supreme Court said suddenly, leaning over the roof ledge, eyes fixed on the green of the Padang stretched before them.
“What?” The Padang outranked the Supreme Court in age and they had no history of animosity that she could recall. A few years ago the Padang had gone underground, not long after the National Day parades had moved to the Marina Bay floating platform. It had not been seen since then. “You don’t like what?”
She followed his gaze. The Padang, hemmed in around all sides by temporary light fixtures, had a festive air about it. Banners hung by the street lights explained why: the Formula One races dropped in on Singapore for their yearly call-by in two weeks’ time, and the roads around the Padang became part of a racetrack in their honour.
“The Marina Bay Street Circuit,” she said. “You don’t like him?”
“He’s a brat,” the former Supreme Court said with finality, as though passing a sentence on the ephemeral entity that only existed for less than a week each year. “Guardians shouldn’t be allowed to come and go. It’s unnatural.”
Jing-Li followed him in leaning over the ledge, hands in her chin. “You mean places shouldn’t be allowed to come and go. But it happens all the time.” He turned to interrupt her and she cut him off. “If you’re talking about naturalness, none of this is natural. Your existence is entirely man-made, you know. You live on our sufferance.”
“If you wanted to get into my good books, you’re doing a terrible job of it.”
Jing-Li blew out a short breath through her nose. Despite the roar of passing cars, in some other part of the city close by, Singapore seemed quiet, too quiet. “I’m just being honest.”
Arms folded, gazing out across the green of the silent Padang, the former Supreme Court said nothing. Jing-Li continued: “If you have such problems with transient guardians how are you going to cope with the construction site deity for the next two years?”
Now he did look at her. “Is that your concession that you’ve stopped trying to cull me?”
“I’m serious,” Jing-Li said. “Accidents at worksites will happen if the construction deity is disturbed. You could get people killed.” In case he didn’t understand the ramifications of that, she added, “Humans will die on your watch.”
“I’m not obliged to keep humans alive,” he said.
“You don’t believe that, and I know that because you’re not a rogue guardian. Just a really stubborn one.”
His laugh was soft, burbling, like the sound of engines. “I’m perhaps the most fortunate, to have you chosen as my executioner.”
“Chosen,” Jing-Li says under her breath, and he doesn’t hear.
“I can’t think of any of your other compatriots who’s known me since childhood. Daughter of a judge…” He looked at her, almost fondly, and Jing-Li stepped back a little from him. “And you’re a lawyer now, working just a few buildings down the road.”
“Okay, sure.”
He tossed something at her and she barely caught it. When she opened her palm she was confronted with something small and copper and intricately carved. “A coin?”
“Not just any coin. That’s a Straits Settlement coin.”
She turned it over and over in her fingers. It felt odd, strangely solid. “Where did you get it?”
“There is a time capsule buried under the flagstone of the main court. Nothing much to it, just a few coins and the day’s papers. But they’ll open it in the year 3000. I suppose they won’t miss one little coin.”
“The year 3000,” Jing-Li said. It sounded like the title of a sci-fi movie, something Arthur C. Clarke might have written.
“I’d like to be there when they do that.”
“In the year 3000.”
“Yes.”
“That’s nine hundred years in the future.” She held the coin out to him. “You have a lot of faith, don’t you?”
“Keep the coin,” he said, still looking outwards. “Consider it a gift.”
And then he was gone.
* * *
Sunday, mid-morning. The air thrums with life and the city is busy, consumed in festival-madness. Roads are closed and speakers pop as sound technicians take them through their paces. A hundred thousand people bustle, working themselves up to the frenzy that will take place when the sun sets. In their pens, at the hub of it all, the racecars that will be the stars of the night’s festivities sleep fitfully. Anticipation feels like a breathable, drinkable thing.
Within the madness-in-waiting sits a young woman in a big metal swing set on top of the hill that used to be a fort. Cross-legged quietude surrounds her and the plastic sword resting by her side. Eyes shut, she leans into the movement of the swing, back and forth, back and forth.
Two weeks have passed since she met the former Supreme Court on the roof of the building, and the groundb
reaking ceremony is less than a month away. She is no closer to solving her problem. Despite her appearance of immobility her fingers twitch over the coin she holds loosely in her right hand, in her lap.
She whispers to herself, whether consciously or unconsciously, it’s hard to tell. It is also hard to hear what she is saying, but it sounds like a prayer.
And then a guardian, whom she thought was dead, appears on the swing beside her.
* * *
Jing-Li sprang into alertness at the unexpected presence beside her, even if the swing continued its back-and-forth unperturbed. Her heart tapped a funny rhythm as she realized who it was. “But you’re supposed to be gone.”
“Yes, I am gone,” said the guardian who used to be the City Hall building. “I’m not connected to my old place anymore.”
“You’re supposed to disappear,” Jing-Li said, as if her first sentence hadn’t been clear. “Once a guardian has been disconnected from their location they lose the energy from the place that fed them.”
The former City Hall building laughed and shrugged, somehow avuncular when he did so. “That’s what they told you in school, right? But I guess it’s not true. I spend my days here now, here and there. Talking to my friends.” He gestured in the direction of a spreading banyan tree nearby, its hanging roots like sturdy beams.
Jing-Li could not see who he was gesturing to, and she guessed it was a tree spirit, because she had problems seeing them. “But the blood,” she said, still refusing to believe this was happening. “The falling over, the vanishing, what was all of that? Were you trying to make me feel bad? What?”
He crossed his legs and leaned back in the chair. He looked like her grandfather, but in demeanour he reminded her of her primary school Chinese language teacher. “I always thought that groundskeepers should appreciate the responsibilities they hold.”
Jing-Li let her hands drop into her lap. “You think I don’t? Like I don’t understand the consequences of my actions? You think I’m doing it this just for fun?”
The former City Hall building said nothing, attention caught by something on the metal grating that formed the floor of the swing. He leaned over and picked it up: it was the coin she had been holding. “Wow, haven’t seen this in a long time.” He flipped it back and forth. “Did he give it to you?”
When she nodded, he handed it to her. “Typical of him,” he said.
“Emotional manipulation?” She flipped the coin back and forth in her fingers. “Like falling over in an explosion of blood wasn’t?” Her hand closed around the coin, hard enough to press into the skin. “Yours was the first cull I’d ever done and I was so scared I couldn’t do the next one. And I still can’t.”
“Are you scared?” He looked at her. “Or is it something else?”
Jing-Li put her feet down and the movement stopped the swing’s momentum. Crickets sang in the greenery as she thought over the question carefully. Finally, she said: “No, probably not. I won’t let fear get in the way. It’s that he doesn’t want to go, and I don’t know how to convince him to. Because…” She gestured in no particular direction. “It’s a horrible thing. I can’t blame him for not wanting to go through with it.”
“Horrible?” The former City Hall huffed. “We are not humans, you know. It’s not about life or death, it’s about moving on, about becoming different. It’s natural.” He tapped her on the shoulder, in a teacherly way. “You remember your classes, when they taught you about culling? What did they say?”
“A lot of mumbo-jumbo, most of it was not relevant to Singapore, anyway. Most of it was how to give pep talks about heritage and changing perceptions and how things never really go away. What kind of heritage does Singapore have? Even our national symbols are invented.”
The former City Hall just smiled.
Silence settled, uncomfortably, and Jing-Li remembered she had been carrying around the small sacrifice packet from the groundskeepers’ association ever since the former Supreme Court refused it. She found it at the bottom of her bag, slightly squashed and with a worn corner, but still sealed. “This talk is getting us nowhere, so you might as well have some of this.”
“Oh, thank you,” he said, accepting it and breaking packet’s little paper seal. “I won’t be getting these much anymore, I suppose.” He dug in with his fingers and pulled out one of those soft, pink-and-white candies coated in powder that Jing-Li had no name for. “This is very good,” he said, and then held the packet out, across to the swing’s other bench. “You should try one.”
Jing-Li blinked. Seated across them, where there had been no one a moment ago, was a young Malay man in formal wear. A guardian, she realized, but one she did not recognize. “I live here,” he said simply, probably in response to her facial expression.
“But you’re not Fort Canning,” Jing-Li said. The Fort Canning was a moody-looking teenager whom she often found perched on the old display cannons scattered around the park, smoking. He had been in place for slightly more than thirty years, she was told.
“I’m the old dude,” he said, reaching into the bag that the former City Hall was holding out. “I’ve been here a long time. I used to be called Bukit Larangan. The Forbidden Hill, you know?”
“You’re the original hill,” she said, in slow wonder. “From the 14th century.”
“It’s been a bit longer than that.” He tasted the sweet, gingerly. “This is good. I don’t get many of them these days.”
“You’re still around,” she said. “After all these years.”
“It’s like he said. We stay around long after we’re gone.”
“See, history remembers us, in a certain way,” said the former City Hall.
“And do you remember history?” She leaned forward, her heart pounding, consumed by a sudden eagerness that she hadn’t felt since she was a very young schoolchild. She turned to the former Bukit Larangan. “Do you remember the 14th century?”
“Hmm.” He leaned back in the swing seat. “I cannot say. I remember what it was like, but I don’t really remember it. It was so long ago.”
She couldn’t understand. “But you were there. Weren’t you?”
He leaned backwards into the chair, completely calm. “Yes. But memory is quite difficult.” He pointed to a sign, one of many that were scattered around the park, packed with information written in four languages. “See that? That’s all anybody remembers. Some days I think of the old kings who used to live here, and I realize that I cannot remember their faces, or I only remember a very vague picture of them. Then I wonder if the Tumasik I remember is the same as it was back then.”
“You’ve told me stories,” said the former City Hall. “But I’m sure there was so much more.”
“Of course there was much more,” the former Bukit Larangan said. “But it’s all gone now. Singapore’s history started in 1819, that’s what the history books say, right?” He gestured at the signs. “That’s all left. That’s who I became.”
Jing-Li shook her head. “But—”
“How much of Singapore’s history before the 19th century do you know?” The former City Hall asked.
“A sleepy fishing village,” she said softly. “That’s what they teach us at school.”
“No, it was a lot more than that,” said the former Bukit Larangan said. “But I don’t remember what it was anymore.”
She looked down at the sword in her lap and felt like she was falling outwards. The Straits Settlement coin resting in her hand had taken on immense weight and heat, like it was a burning coal.
“But you were there,” she repeated emptily to herself.
* * *
Sunday night. Halogen lights of unthinkable wattage sear the air, burning a bright orthogonal circuit into the cityscape, thousands of metres long. Thousands cram into rows of seats, specially erected for the weekend, while thousands more press against wire nettings at odd ends and corners of the circuit, as racecars streak past at 400kmh, blurs of screaming metal tracked by faithless, tirel
ess cameras. The Padang, forcibly crowned with a strobe-lit stage, suffocates under the weight of a sweaty, screaming crowd, while above the city, people in air-conditioned restaurants and bars peer down at the blips of cars blazing, ant-like, around the track.
The young woman runs in the alley behind the former Supreme Court, sealed off to prevent people from getting close to the racetrack. The Marina Bay Street Circuit has given her grace to wander the grounds, even the areas deemed off-limits, but she has more pressing matters on her mind. Her target is the former Supreme Court.
For her, for the both of them, it has to end tonight.
* * *
Jing-Li ran up the grand steps of the former Supreme Court, her footsteps sending solid echoes reverberating. She knew where the guardian was, up on the roof where they’d last met. She was sweaty, and her heart raced from shoving through the clamouring, oblivious crowd, but none of that mattered.
The moment she burst out through the stairwell the guardian turned towards her from his spot at the edge of the roof, haloed by the stadium-strength lights surrounding the Padang. “I see you’ve come.”
“Don’t think of going anywhere,” she said, pulling the plastic sword from its plastic sheath, her voice and breathing harsh. Down on the road the F1 racers screeched and made popping noises as they slowed down for the corner turn, lending the scene the surreal soundtrack of an air raid.
“I would not dream of it,” he said, his voice carrying over the melee. “In fact, I was rather hoping to stay here for the long term.”
“No,” Jing-Li shouted, over the din. “You can’t. I’ve decided. That’s not how this country works. You served a purpose, that purpose is done, it’s time to move on. Your neighbour has done it. You’re no different.”
He looked a lot smaller than she seemed to recall, like a lost doll somebody left by the roadside. “But I am different. I thought you might think of me fondly, given your childhood. There’s such strong nostalgia…”
