Annabelle Thong

by Imran Hashim

  “I’ll see you tomorrow night?” I’m referring to our movie date, hoping that it hasn’t been jeapordised by this little kerfuffle.

  “Yes, I’ll see you…” The words float up into the air just as Patrick disappears out of sight.

  Despite my initial apprehension, it looked like all was forgiven, and the movie date with Patrick turned out to be another kick-ass milestone in my hitherto uneventful life. We made out during the show, like wild teenagers, and now I really need to talk to someone to share, dissect and analyse things, but mainly to brag.

  There are just a few friends you can call in the middle of the night and say “I’m dying to talk... Can we meet?” And in my hour of need, I know that friend is Didi.

  He answers my phone call with a sharp, “Oui?!”

  “Hey Didi, it’s Belle. Are you free? Could you come meet me at Frog et Rosbif?”

  “Chérie,” he snaps, “I’m in the middle of a boyzillian wax. Can this wait?”

  “I just made out for an hour with Patrick Dudoigt and if I don’t speak to anyone in the next five minutes I’ll implode, and they’ll have to scrape me off the sidewalk, so please, can we meet?”

  “Okay, let me put some pants on. See you there in 15,” he says and hangs up.

  Now that, literally, is naked friendship.

  When he arrives 25 minutes later—but who’s counting?—we settle into a corner and I recount the date to Didi, who laps up every single irrelevant detail like a Mills & Boons junkie.

  “So what kind of shirt was he wearing?” he asks a bit overeagerly.

  “Cotton shirt, short-sleeved, beige,” I say.

  “Stripes?”

  “Checks.”

  “Hmm… No sweater?”

  “He took it off in the cinema.”

  “Nice…nice,” he says appreciatively. “So how was the kissing?”

  “FAN-tastique. Oh…my…GOD. I think we were at it for over an hour. Can’t you tell? Look at my lips. Look! I think they’re swollen! Aren’t they swollen?” I say gleefully.

  He looks dutifully. “Are your gums bleeding?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” I say, taking in a gulpful of Coke anyway, just in case they are. (Sidebar: The trade-off of alcohol for Patrick? So worth it.)

  “So how does he kiss?”

  I close my eyes to relive our moment of passion. “I don’t know… It was soft and silky at times, and at other times, it was strong and…” I take in a deep breath as I search for the right word. “Cleansing,” I say finally.

  “Wow, a date and a dental appointment rolled into one. Some girls have all the luck.”

  Didi asks me what happened next and at first I’m too embarrassed, but he makes me tell him anyway because he says girlfriends should be able to tell each other everything. So I tell him how I got some over-the-sweater action, and how it was the first time a man had done that to me (for me?), not counting of course the quack/pervert Dr Chng who was always trying to screen me for breast cancer. I felt like a naughty girl (no, a naughty woman) and I must say that I revelled in it because at age 28, it’s about time I got up to no good. Not the nasty of course, Lord no, but at least a little mischief.

  Didi is just staring at me the whole time, and when I finally finish, he clasps both his hands over his mouth and says in a stage-whisper, “You mean, you’re a virgin?”

  I tell him that yes, I am, and that I’m planning on keeping it that way till I get married. This must really shock him because all he can do for the next five minutes is fan himself with his hand saying “Oh la la,” and “C’est pas possible.”

  I sit there bemused, until finally he takes both my hands in his, clears his throat and says, “Chérie, you know, I’m very accepting of all sorts of styles and ideas but this virginity thing…” He pauses to weight his words. “Are you sure it isn’t just a phase?”

  “I’m Catholic. You know that.”

  “You mean all your Catholic girlfriends were virgin brides?” Didi is unable, or more likely unwilling, to contain his disbelief.

  “Of course not! Don’t be an idiot. I know quite a few who weren’t. But for me, well, it’s what I was taught and it’s what I grew up believing. And since I’ve never had a boyfriend…”

  “But chérie, where are you going to find a boyfriend who is willing to commit to a relationship, much less marry you, without first testing the goods?”

  “A relationship’s not just about sex, you know. It’s about love and personal chemistry and caring for one another and shit like that.” He’s making me sound cheesy and I glare at him to compensate.

  “Look, I’m not asking you to be a salope. All I’m saying is, you need to shake up your belief system a little. Be open to the idea that things could be different, that you could be different.”

  “But I am! It’s not as if I’m being a total prude or anything. I can do foreplay… Foreplay’s good, but my hymen’s the limit.” There’s a short silence as I formulate my thoughts behind furrowed brows. “You know, my problem with sexual promiscuity is not just based on moral grounds, but aesthetic ones as well. It’s like tight, printed Capri pants—I just go yuck.”

  “Okay, if you say so. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you that no man is going to put up with this holy virgin nonsense. Anyway, listen, I’ve got a really pressing problem of my own,” Didi says.

  “What’s that?” I say, a little too eagerly. I love Didi’s problems. They’re always so much more exciting than my own.

  “Well, now that I’ve broken up with Jean-Philippe, he’s asked me to move out of his apartment, which is fair enough. I’ve been hunting for a place, but there’s just nothing I can afford here in Paris so I’ve been looking for something in the banlieue.”

  I gasp. We Parisians take great pride in living intra-muros, within the city limits. Moving to la banlieue, the suburbs, is the ultimate downgrade. Sure, there are some nice, prestigious residential areas outside the city, but I seriously doubt that Didi’s about to transplant himself to Neuilly-sur-Seine. By and large, la banlieue is, for us Parisians, the great social and urban wilderness that lies outside the gates of civilisation. It’s just one slippery step away from living in the countryside, for goodness’ sake.

  “And I’ve found something in La Courneuve,” he says.

  Another gasp. I compose myself, and then tentatively say, “Didi, but isn’t that where the…erm, rough neighbourhoods are?”

  “Oui, chérie. So, can you imagine me strutting up and down Dealer Street in my Louis Vuitton scarf and Gucci satchel? They’d rape me and dump me in a recycling bin before I can say ‘Bonjour tristesse’. Which is why we need to go shopping this Saturday.”

  “Oooh shopping! Yay! What are we shopping for?”

  “No need to get so excited. It’s just tracksuits and baseball caps. And maybe some bling bling. You know, to blend in.” He gives a sigh of pure contentment. “Oh chérie, the things I do for my Kevin.”

  “Oh, is he your Kevin already?”

  “Of course he is, chérie. He just doesn’t know it yet.”

  God, I hate being poor.

  To save money, I decided yesterday to see what a €15 haircut would look/feel like. I had gone to Jean-Luc Derousse the last time, who charged me bloody €34 for a 10-minute trim that didn’t even see a pair of scissors. After years of Bobby’s (my Singaporean hairdresser) pampering, I thought that if I couldn’t get the same level of service for a reasonable price, I might as well downgrade all the way, not once suspecting that such brashness would end in heartache. And so, it was with a sense of thrill and grim purpose that I stepped into the African hairdresser’s near the corner of Rue Myrha and Rue Léon, like someone about to go swimming with sharks.

  I was only one of three customers there but the place was crowded; it seemed to me like a Congolese village gathering was taking place. There were men, women, kids, senior citizens and even a transsexual (she’s one of the hairdressers). Anyway, they were mostly just hanging out and talking loudly to
one another as if in a noisy bar. A tall guy in a vest and a fedora showed me to a red vinyl seat and handed me a magazine. It took me a while to understand that he was going to be my “hairdresser”. I flipped through the magazine. It was dedicated to hair extensions in various shades of fake—not a good sign. As there was nothing in there I could point at, I gave a detailed description of what I wanted (a short China-doll bob). The barber tilted his head to one side as I explained, as if to be sure he caught every single word, and when I finished, he nodded seriously and said okay, like we were about to go into surgery. I felt reassured.

  Then he took a hair clipper and started to shear me willy nilly. The emotional pain I could handle (no shampoo—to be expected from a €15 haircut), but the physical pain came as a shock. His electric clipper was blunt and got stuck in my hair a couple of times, causing me to emit muffled screams as he played tug and tangle. I was also terrified of being electrocuted—the cord from the clipper, heavy with voltage, kept entwining itself like an electric snake around my ears, my shoulders, my neck… I was getting vibrations, and certainly not the good sort. After what felt like an eternity, he vaguely aimed the hairdryer at my head (and for one brief, startling moment, up my nose), brushed my hair, patted down my ears, and voilà!

  I stared into the mirror. I couldn’t tell if I had just gotten a haircut or a new helmet. What I did know was that I was now a fashion refugee, caught in a no-woman’s land that lay somewhere between Lego Man and G.I. Jane. I nearly cried as I forked out the money (what has he done? What have I done??) and stumbled out of the shop, shaking and vowing never to pinch pennies again when it came to haircuts.

  Another extreme measure I have taken to save money is to try and cut down my heating bill. Sure, winter was fun at first, and it’s great for accessorising, but after four long months of short days, grey skies and even greyer spirits, I will now do anything for the chance to loll about in a leopard-print bikini. Instead, these days I walk around the apartment with the duvet twirled around my waist like a bulletproof petticoat, as an alternative to electrical heating. Admittedly, it’s a bit cumbersome, but I amuse myself by imagining that I’m Jodie Foster in Anna and the King, though I fear this may not be a sustainable solution.

  And to top it all off, the unthinkable has happened—I have now become a Tati Auntie. Most people are blessed enough to visit Paris without discovering Tati and what it stands for, so let me begin by saying that it is a department store. But not just any department store. It is the department store with the lowest prices. In fact, that’s the store’s slogan: “The Lowest Prices”. No catchy tagline for Tati, no jeu de mots, not even a bold exclamation mark at the end to generate some kind of excitement. Just plain, matter-of-fact, in-your-face cheap. Evidently, there’s no need for Tati to try very hard because it knows that, like sex, cheap sells.

  The Tati experience starts the moment you step out of the Barbes Rochechouart Metro station, whereupon you are greeted by North African men, each holding out two or three packets of untaxed cigrarettes, chanting “Marlboro, Marlboro, Marlboro, Marlboro, Marlboro.” You descend the Metro steps, jostle with the crowd to cross Boulevard Barbes, and jostle with them again to get into Tati. Once inside, you realise the place is more Punggol Fish Market than Galeries Lafayette, teeming with people and chatter and all manners of mechandise.

  I take a good look around me. “Can you remind me once again why we’re here?” I whisper to Didi as we traipse from aisle to burgeoning aisle.

  “We’re here because you’re poor and your bank is on your case, and I’m in love. So stop bitching and look for something to buy.”

  “But I don’t need anything,” I whine.

  “Just get something. It’ll break you in. You need to get used to shopping here from now on.”

  I survey the endless racks of bright polyester and nearly have a breakdown. How the fashionable have fallen! Just a few months ago, Didi was steering me through the best of Rue du Faubourg St Honoré, and now, we’re sorting through discount bins in Tati like fashion convicts. I raid, ransack and rummage, but I can’t find anything that won’t be ostracised by the rest of my wardrobe.

  “How do you do it, Didi? How do you stay so positive and upbeat?” I drop a hideous sweater I picked up back into the bin. “I mean, you love Collette!”

  “Yes, but I can’t fuck Collette. Kevin, on the other hand…” He daintily pinches a striped yellow tracksuit with his thumbs and index fingers and brings it against his chest. “Is this too gangsta bitch, you think?” he asks, cocking his head to the left, to the left, à la Beyoncé.

  After two hours of very hard work, Didi manages to find himself three whole outfits that won’t make him itch, and I get myself a €6 camisole, just as a small start.

  We pay up and it suddenly becomes obvious why the stuff at Tati is so cheap. Their shopping bag needs to be seen to be believed. It is clear to me that Tati’s owner designed the bag himself during the height of 1980s aesthetics to cut costs (fat, heavy, navy blue letters “TATI” emblazoned on a pink and white chequered background—need I say more?), thus passing on the savings to customers like myself. I would be grateful for this if not for the fact that I actually have to carry it home, which means being seen in the streets of the world’s fashion capital with such a bag in hand.

  The only consolation in all this is that Tati bags are all the rage in my neighbourhood. All I need to do is start wearing my new camisole with low-slung jeans and a peek-a-boo G-string, and I’ll blend right in.

  My first meeting with Bony Face is as bizarre as a metaphysics tutorial with Yoda, but at least something comes out of it. Whereas Patrick was perfectly happy to chew the fat and quibble over semantics to fill our short meetings, Bony Face is the kind to cut through the verbiage and ask the really important questions. When I tell him I’m writing my thesis on Singapore’s relationship with ASEAN, he leans back into his chair, closes his eyes and joins the tips of his long index fingers as if he’s about to open his chakra right in front of me.

  “And how do you feel about ASEAN, Mademoiselle Thong?” he intones as he slowly opens his eyes again.

  How do I feel about ASEAN? Is this a trick question?

  It feels like déjà vu. I clear my throat.

  “I think that ASEAN is a very important regional organisation. As an inter-governmental organisation, it plays many different roles, be it…” And sure enough, the bony hand shoots out, as if to pinch my lips shut.

  “Listen to me, Mademoiselle Thong. I am asking you how you feel about ASEAN.” He leans back and closes his eyes once more.

  I am stumped. What do feelings have to do with my bloody thesis?

  “Monsieur…” I say tentatively, in case he’s stealing a power nap. “I don’t have any feelings for ASEAN.” I pause, and then decide that I better explain this to him clearly. “It is an inter-governmental organisation.”

  “Good. You will not write about ASEAN. Is there anything in Singapore that you feel strongly about?”

  “Well… I love my family,” I begin uncertainly. “Okay, my mum’s a bit special, but yes, I love my family. And my friends. Oh, and my maid. And I love shopping in Singapore, especially during…”

  “Your maid?” he interrupts.

  “Yes, our maid. She’s Indonesian, and she’s fantastic. She totally spoils us. Apart from her, I don’t think anybody in the house knows how to cook any more.”

  “Good. You now have a thesis topic. I want you to read up on foreign maids in Singapore and come back to me with the problématique for your thesis.” He puts on his reading glasses and extends his hand across the table for me to shake, signaling the end of my consultation. I give him a slow, lingering handshake so I can squeeze in one last question.

  “But Monsieur, what do maids have to do with political science?”

  “In your case, everything.”

  I wish he’d be eccentric in his own time, instead of dragging me down with him. I give him the universally understood “what-the-fish?
” look, which has the unexpected effect of tickling the residual funny bone in his body. He smiles at me for the first time in my life.

  “Feel the passion, Mademoiselle Thong, and you’ll find the politics.”

  Speaking of politics, I’ve started reading the newspapers again and the headlines are all devoted to a story about the death of a teenager who was knocked down by a car as he was fleeing from the police, and how this act of “police brutality” has sparked off a small riot by “youths” (French euphemism for delinquents) in a “difficult neighbourhood” (French euphemism for ghetto).

  The sad part is, further investigation has shown that the boy hadn’t committed any crime. He ran away simply because he was afraid of the cops approaching him. This is unlike the “youths”, who were not afraid of the cops and avenged the dead boy by burning 12 cars and looting three mobile phone shops. What I don’t understand in this whole sorry affair is why that teenager tried to run away in the first place. The police are here to protect us, right? Especially in that kind of neighbourhood. So what was he really running away from? And when I switch on the TV, there is widespread coverage of the banlieue riots as well, and it appears that youths from other major cities all over the country have also started running amok.

  I also know that the international media are monitoring the situation because I have been receiving calls and e-mails from friends and family alike asking me if I’m safe. It’s nice to know that they worry about me, although they always sound a bit disappointed when I tell them that the only thing burning around me is my chicken curry. I always have to explain to them that the affected areas are in the banlieues, and specifically in the HLMs (French version of HDBs, but way scarier). Going about my daily routine, I honestly can’t say that Paris is going down in flames. Sometimes I find my quartier a bit rough around the edges but now I’m beginning to wonder: is that just a discourse to construct my neighbours as the Other? (Am currently reading Derrida.) And if I were to do some deconstruction, wouldn’t I find that this quartier has lots of noisy but warm African people, and Arabs who run networks, not of terrorists or gangs, but yummy kebab shops? The truth is, this neighbourhood has got more bark than bite.