The Catherine Lim Collection

by Catherine Lim

  “Seven months, mem,” said Aminah, smiling nervously, showing blackened, rotting teeth.

  “Mooi Lan,” said Angela briskly, “those tins of condensed milk in the store room – put six in a paper bag for Aminah to take back today. She needs proper nourishment now. How come you didn’t notice, Mooi Lan?”

  “She’s like that every time – up it goes, up, down, then up again!” the girl giggled. “I can’t keep count of her pregnancies.”

  “But Minah,” said Angela patiently, “I gave you those pills. Remember the little green pills in the plastic pack. I purposely asked my husband to bring them back for you. Why didn’t you take them?”

  The woman protested she did, then said something about forgetting or losing the pills, then smiled again nervously. “Minah, listen carefully,” said Angela, “you’ve got to listen to me. You can’t be having a baby every year. You’ll die in no time. How many children do you have now? 10? 12? Minah, you can’t expect men to co-operate. They’re animals. Your husband wants his pleasure every night. He doesn’t think of you. So you must help yourself. After the birth of this baby, Minah, will you let me take you to hospital for an operation? A simple operation that will mean no more babies? You can’t afford to have any more babies, Minah. Singapore today is different from Singapore years ago, in your mother’s time, in your grandmother’s time. Look at me, Minah. I’ve only three children. I can afford many more but I’ve only three. So that I can take good care of them. Give them a good education. Bring them up properly. Don’t you want that for your children, Minah? Look at Mooi Lan here. When she gets married, she will have only two children. Right, Mooi Lan?”

  She’s an idiot, thought Angela with exasperation. If she’d told me earlier, I could have arranged for an abortion. Now it’s too late.

  But compassion – compassion was her overriding weakness, Angela told her friends. She loaded the miserable woman with food – condensed milk, biscuits, fresh eggs.

  “Every day when you come, Mooi Lan will give you a fresh egg which you will take directly, is that clear, Minah?” The washerwoman cried softly. “You are very good to me, mem,” she said.

  “But you must help yourself too, Minah,” said Angela, exasperation returning. “So no use thanking me unless you promise that after the birth of this baby, you’ll let me take you for the operation. Is that clear?”

  The washerwoman cried again and said with a sob, “Sharifah.”

  “Now what’s she been up to?” asked Angela severely. Sharifah was the eldest girl, aged 15. A pretty, well-formed girl. A part-time maid-servant for two households.

  “Can she come and sleep in your house at night?” asked Minah with a sob.

  “What are you talking about – can she come and sleep here? Whatever do you mean?”

  “It’s her father. She’s afraid of him. And I’m afraid. He’s okay when not drunk. But when he’s drunk, we’re afraid. Sharifah’s very afraid of him.”

  “Oh my God,” said Angela. For days, the plaintive Malay words ‘Takut-lah, mem, susah – takut!’ would ring in Angela’s ears, a dreadful howl for help from dark depths.

  Oh, my God, she thought. “Minah,” she said with great authority. “Don’t let her father get near her! Be vigilant, let me know. If necessary, we’ll have to tell the police.”

  Poor child, she thought. She felt sick at heart.

  “They’re all like that,” she told Mooi Lan later. “You look at that miserable wife of Muniandy. Her husband beats her, and she gets pregnant every year. They all sleep together in one smelly bedroom, including the eldest son who’s 16, I think, and the eldest daughter who’s 15. Like animals. One of these days we’re going to hear the same story. Poor things. But what can we do for them? These low-class labourers are real animals, brutes who get drunk, beat up their wives and then sleep with them.”

  Mooi Lan looked down, the heat of coy embarrassment spreading on her face and neck. She giggled a little. “You are only 18, Mooi Lan,” said Angela smiling. “You don’t know what happens among men and women. But Mooi Lan, you’re not going to be like the miserable Aminah and that Muniandy’s wife, when you get married. You know better, for I’ve told you a lot of things. You’re going to marry better and have only two children. You’re not going to be as stupid as Aminah or Muniandy’s wife, are you?”

  Chapter 11

  Mark usually met his English Language teacher in school on Saturdays, to discuss and prepare for the National Speech contest. It was months away, but the teacher, a very conscientious and committed man who also happened to be very fond of Mark, felt that it was never too early to prepare for a competition that would receive extensive coverage in the press and on television and that would be graced by the presence of the Minister of Education himself. Mark was the star student, the school pinned its hopes on him, and he had never disappointed the school yet in the myriad inter-school oratorical and essay-writing competitions carried on throughout the year. The school grounds being used for the band practices that particular Saturday, Angela suggested that Mark invite his teacher home for the discussions, to be followed by lunch.

  The boy did not object to the suggestion and Angela immediately flew into a whirl of activity, giving instructions to Mooi Lan to prepare something really good and to get a flask of hot coffee ready, while she herself would drive out to get some nonya kueh for tea, in case the discussions went on till tea-time. Mooi Lan suggested Hokkien mee; Angela thought it was a good idea as Mooi Lan made excellent Hokkien mee. She consulted Mark again, and again the boy made no objection. Mooi Lan was to prepare a lot of the good stuff for Angela wanted to take some for Old Mother and Mee Kin. She would deliver the food and still be in time to take Michelle for her practice at the Century Swimming Club.

  “You wait for our new house to be ready, darling,” she told her daughter who had said she was feeling rather tired and didn’t want to go to the Century Swimming Club. “There’ll be the swimming pool, and then you can practise at home. Okay, darling?”

  She peeped into Michael’s room; the boy was lying on his stomach on the bed and drawing something. He was less sullen of late, but he still refused to come out of his room to meet visitors. He had reluctantly shown his mother the monthly test-sheets for her to sign. The grades were disappointing, but not as bad as she had expected, and when she handed the sheets back to him, she had said, with a great effort at cheerfulness, “Mikey will try his best for the next month’s tests, won’t he? Then Daddy and Mummy will be so happy.” She had successfully kept the idiot one from coming to make a nuisance of himself with the boy; the further removed Michael was from the pernicious influence of the imbecile, the greater would be the boy’s chances of improvement.

  The teacher came with armfuls of Shakespeare texts. While he sat with Mark in the sitting room, discussing the choice of a speech for the great event, Angela stayed in the piano room, wanting to listen in, but not wishing to displease her son by her presence. She was all excitement. She marvelled at the resourcefulness and imaginativeness of Mark’s teacher – how I wish Michael’s teacher could be like that, she said later to Mee Kin – for he was planning to tie the speech to the current campaign on ‘Filial Piety’ to make sure its delivery would have maximum impact upon the nationwide audience. He was also planning for Mark to read a poem in Chinese, on the same theme, following a speech from Shakespeare.

  “Shakespeare,” he had said, “Shakespeare, because his works are the best. You will stand head and shoulders above the rest of the contestants with a speech from Shakespeare, for they will be mouthing silly little poems from Tennyson or some obscure poet. Shakespeare’s language is demanding – and that’s precisely the point. If you can recite a speech from Shakespeare, and do it well, you will make all those others with their silly little rhyming lines look childish and ludicrous.” The last argument had appealed very much to Mark.

  They pored over possible speeches from Shakespeare, to reflect the spirit of the campaign. The teacher was for King Lear. �
��It’s a superb play,” he said enthusiastically, “one of Shakespeare’s best, if not the best, and my favourite. The theme is relevant. It’s about an old man driven out into the storm by his wicked daughters. The play condemns filial impiety. So it will be most relevant.”

  Mark was glad. He had been afraid when the teacher spoke about doing Shakespeare, that Mark Antony’s ‘Friends, Romans, Countrymen’ speech would be chosen. It had been bludgeoned to death by schoolboy orators; Mark wanted something far more challenging. “Look,” said the teacher, opening the text. “Look at this speech. It’s my favourite, so powerful, charged with forceful imagery throughout. It may well be regarded as the climax of the play. King Lear cries out to the gods to punish his daughters for their wickedness. He curses them with barrenness, so that they will never have children to love them, since they have so shamefully treated him. But if they succeed in bearing children, these children will grow up to hurt them, in the same way as they have hurt their poor old father. Don’t you think the theme is just right? Listen, I’ll read the speech to you:

  Hear, Nature, hear; dear goddess, hear;

  Suspend thy purpose if thou didst intend

  To make this creature fruitful.

  Into her womb convey sterility,

  Dry up in her the organs of increase,

  And from her derogate body never spring

  A babe to honor her. If she must teem,

  Create her child of spleen, that it may live

  And be a thwart disnatured torment to her.

  Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth,

  With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks,

  Turn all her mother’s pains and benefits

  To laughter and contempt, that she may feel

  How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is

  To have a thankless child. Away, away!

  Mark was impressed. He was visibly excited by the challenge of the speech, especially when his teacher had told him, “Even Pre-University students will not be able to manage a speech like that. But you can, Mark. With a little bit of coaching, you can manage. Remember, the judges include University professors who are probably going to yawn at the namby-pamby that I know some of the contestants have chosen – snowy clouds and daffodils and waves breaking over rocks, and all that stuff. I know Miss de Silva from the Convent has chosen a silly poem from Tennyson for one of her students. We go along with something sophisticated, something that gives you scope for real expression, something that is at the same time, related to social issues in Singapore!” Moreover his father had told him, Minister had once again spoken of him, called him the budding orator. The teacher’s enthusiasm was infectious. Mark looked very happy.

  “I’m making arrangements for Mark to listen to a tape recording of King Lear,” he told Angela at lunch. “The actor taking the part is no other than Richard Burton. And there’s a certain expatriate teacher in the Premier Junior College, a Mr Roy Nicholls, who’s an expert in correct pronunciation and intonation. He’s a good friend of mine, and I’m getting him to coach Mark in these aspects. I’m not very good in these,” in a tone of humility.

  Angela helped him to another bowl of Hokkien mee, very pleased with this committed and inspiring teacher. She did not say very much to him, apart from the niceties of polite conversation, in case she said something that might embarrass Mark who was a very sensitive boy. But later she told Mee Kin, with an enthusiasm bordering on elation, that it was a good thing that there was such a teacher in Mark’s school to develop his potential to the fullest.

  “If only we had more teachers like that in Singapore,” she said, taking out a tier of the Hokkien mee soup, and then another tier of the boiled pork, prawns and vegetables.

  “How thoughtful of you,” said Mee Kin. “Just when I was longing for some Hokkien mee! Wait, I have something to show you.”

  Mee Kin led her to the guest bedroom where stood a large antique bed with a carved top and posts, resplendent with new oriental silk bed-curtains. Angela gasped.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said. “Where did you get it? You never told me!”

  “I meant it as a surprise,” replied the amiable Mee Kin. “Dorothy had the same reaction. I picked it up at the old junk-shop in Irrawaddy Road. There was only one left and I grabbed it. Then I had it done up by the man who’s been doing up Dorothy’s antiques.”

  “It looks as if I’m the only one without an antique bed!” cried Angela laughing. “But listen, Mee Kin, I’ve no time to talk now, I must fly. Mark’s tutor is still in the house. If he stays till three, I must get some tea and kueh ready for him!”

  She bought a new cassette recorder for Mark to practise his speech, as the old one was not functioning properly. The teacher appeared to have some difficulty obtaining the King Lear tape recording. Angela made inquiries at the British Council and was overjoyed to find the tape available, and that it could be rented out. She brought the tape back breathlessly to her son, her joy, and was rewarded by an appreciative smile and a “Thanks, Mum.”

  “You can practise with me as your audience,” she teased her son. “I’ll listen. It sounds a very good speech indeed.” But Mark preferred to practise in the privacy of his room.

  Angela’s heart glowed with pride as, passing her son’s room, she heard his voice, loud and steady and strong. The boy was a natural orator; Angela paused outside the door and heard the young, firm voice rise in a crescendo of feeling at the end of the speech.

  “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!”

  Chapter 12

  The annoyance that Angela felt about the arrangement – a highly undesirable arrangement – was heightened by the knowledge that Wee Tiong and Gek Choo (I tell you they’re snakes, real snakes) had kept the information from her for weeks. It was by pure chance that she came to know of it. She had not been visiting the old one lately, and had sent a tiffin carrier of food through Ah Kum Soh who came to collect it, but the wretched woman didn’t have the sense to tell her. Then she had rung up Gek Choo, to inquire about the little baby who had had his first operation. It was Old Mother who answered the phone. Angela had thought it was a casual visit, to see the baby, but it turned out that the old one had actually been asked by Wee Tiong and Gek Choo to stay with them.

  The old one had later insisted that she herself had offered to take care of the baby when Gek Choo went back to work. Angela saw things differently. She was vehement in her complaints, first to her husband and then to her friends.

  “A servant, an unpaid servant,” she had said angrily. “That’s what your mother is now. A 71-year-old lady being made to take care of a sick infant so that Gek Choo can go back to her cashier’s job at the bank. Oh yes, I know – they say it’s temporary – they’re looking for a servant. But you mark my words. Once the old lady is there, there will be no servant. They’ll make her stay on and on and save on a servant. I know them!”

  She became angrier and angrier.

  “What’s happened to that big hoo-ha about the flat being too small?” she demanded of her husband, while he sat, trying to read the newspaper. “That flat is too small when it comes to taking in an old mother, but not an old, unpaid servant! Do you know, Boon, where your mother sleeps? In the room with the four girls! Crowded together, like sardines. And she has to tend to that sick child from eight in the morning till five in the evening, when Gek Choo returns from work. And I dare not think what food she eats there. This is intolerable, Boon! How are you going to take it when your friends see your poor old mother like that, no better than a servant? Dr Toh Wee Boon, doing work among the poor old folks in Minister’s constituency, and his own mother the victim of her unscrupulous children!”

  “But she’ll be there for a short while only to help out, while they look for a servant,” said Boon wearily. “She doesn’t seem to mind it.”

  “For a short while only!” Angela expostulated. “Their short while means forever, if it means a saving of money, to acquire more
properties and of course your mother doesn’t mind. She can be as soft as mud, for people to tread on. Look at how that unscrupulous Ah Kum Soh is exploiting her? One of these days I’m going to check on her jewellery. That woman is not above persuading Old Mother to part with her jewellery on pretence of wanting to see some sin-seh to cure her wretched idiot son.”

  “Old Mother says that she will leave as soon as Ah Siong comes back,” said Boon.

  “And when will Ah Siong come back?” demanded Angela. “Pardon me for being so harsh, Boon, but you know it and I know it. That brother of yours has no intention of coming back. See how many courses of study he has taken up and abandoned? Now I hear that he and the Australian divorcee have separated, that he’s joined some religious sect and is going around preaching and evangelising. Remember the letters he had written about her, in the first ardour of their relationship? He called her ‘angel’ and the most wonderful woman in the world and the anchor of his world that had put an end to his years of drifting or something like that. Every letter was full of praises for her. He really was mad over her. And now it appears he’s chucked her aside for religion. I wonder what he’ll do next?”

  “You do what you think right, I really have nothing to say in the matter,” said Boon in weary vexation. His wife softened. “I’m really thinking of your old mother,” she said, with less fire. “She’s already 71 years old, a simple, soft-hearted old woman who’s quite lost in a society like ours. She can be very irritating at times, as you well know, and the children and I, as well as Mooi Lan, have found some of her ways odd and annoying. But that’s beside the point. She’s old and cannot be exploited in this shameful manner. Do you know, Boon,” with the renewed energy of one who holds the best information for the last, “do you know that Ah Tiong is planning to apply for shares in her name, and to claim that fantastic reduction in income tax for those who have old parents staying with them? You see, he and Gek Choo have thought over everything very carefully.”