Aunty Lee's Delights

by Ovidia Yu

  “They’re always worried about everything,” Cherril said. “In fact Dad Peters wanted to try to get in touch with her friends if she wouldn’t take their calls. But Mycroft wouldn’t let them fuss. He says the more they try to control Marianne, the more she will fight them, so they should just leave her to do her own thing and if she’s in trouble she’ll call.”

  “Why are you looking for Laura Kwee?” Aunty Lee asked Carla.

  “She was helping Marianne. Or rather she was getting a friend of hers to help,” Carla replied. “It’s really this guy I’m hoping to get in touch with.”

  Cherril, happily high on her evening out without her husband, was getting ready to say her farewells. She looked around for Mark, but apparently he had already forgotten her. He was watching his stepmother. Mark knew from long experience that when Aunty Lee served someone with what he thought of as her “special food face” on, it meant she wanted something from them. It was thanks to that food face (and lamb kebabs specially marinated in paprika, coriander, and cardamom) that Mark had told Aunty Lee and his father about the money problems he and Selina were then facing . . . in spite of all his promises to Selina. Even though things had all worked out wonderfully, thanks largely to Aunty Lee, he suspected Selina had never forgotten the episode and never forgiven Aunty Lee for making him break his promise. Now Mark was just glad he was not the one facing the hot bowl of soup.

  Besides, he was curious too. Either Aunty Lee’s “kaypohness” was infectious or he just wanted to find out why someone would go to such lengths to track down Laura Kwee.

  Cherril left and the Cunninghams asked for a taxi to take them back to their hotel—surprising Selina, who had not seen them as people who could afford to stay at the Raffles. She felt a pang that she had missed recognizing the Cunninghams for what they were. That was the problem with Australians playing tourist. They dressed for comfort and it was impossible to tell how much they were worth. Apart from Harry Sullivan, of course. At least Harry respected his hosts enough to dress decently when he came to the wine and dines.

  Selina could see that Harry was also studying Carla Saito thoughtfully. She wondered if he had reached the same conclusion as she had. Surely it was obvious (to everyone except Aunty Lee) what kind of relationship this woman was having with Marianne Peters. Selina felt a throb of glee. It was not only her duty to warn Aunty Lee that this might not be the sort of person she wanted to encourage as a customer; it was also clearly Selina’s duty to warn Mycroft Peters what kind of company his little sister had been keeping in America, and whom she had been making plans with. Selina had always felt that Mycroft Peters looked down on Mark and herself in spite of his stewardess wife. Well, she thought, at least Mark didn’t have a perverted sister!

  Meanwhile Nina had finished clearing up the table and washing up the kitchen and setting the kueh mixes for the following day in the enormous fridge . . . and still Aunty Lee was asking questions and Carla Saito was not answering them.

  4

  Laura Kwee on the Beach

  News that a woman’s (still-unidentified) body had been found on Sentosa was on the front page of the Straits Times the next morning. Nina could not see that there was anything more there than they had heard over the radio the day before, but Aunty Lee insisted on having the article read to her three times. Then she sent Nina to walk out to the 7-Eleven for the Today paper and told her, “You go online and look for me what the people are saying on STOMP!” (The Straits Times Online Mobile Print featured everything from shocking photos of highway accidents to rude service staff. It always had the latest news even if it was seldom accurate.)

  The Lees had enrolled Nina in a basic computer course within months of her arrival in the Lee household. M. L. Lee believed that people functioned satisfactorily only when they were constantly learning something, and Aunty Lee wanted somebody else’s eyes and efforts to give her a shortcut into the whole new world of gossip she sensed e-buzzing around her. Despite her insistence on using traditional cooking methods, Aunty Lee loved new gadgets and technology. She might have an old charcoal brazier installed in the back alleyway and an old granite mortar and pestle that was never to be washed with soap, but she also had the latest model in blender-mixers (for catering) and her enormous state-of-the-art fridge, specially ordered from Germany, which had different compartments kept at different temperatures in the most energy-efficient way possible. So it was not surprising that Aunty Lee had a computer at home and an iPad 2 always close at hand, and Nina’s skills and eyesight kept her connected with a planet of food and eaters.

  And perhaps it pleased Aunty Lee, just a little, to know this irritated Selina, who said as often as she could, “If you want someone to look up things online, you can ask Mark. He’s always fiddling around with his computer,” and “If Nina has enough free time to play with an iPad, you should send her over to clean our place!” That second suggestion, not really a joke, had been repeated several times.

  There could be no disputing how beautifully the Binjai Park bungalow was maintained and how Nina had set up and managed the home vegetable garden, where she grew enough vegetables to supply the house and enough pandan, limau purut, and chilis to supply the shop. In fact Selina had even approached Nina directly, saying that Aunty Lee wouldn’t need a live-in helper for much longer and for her own sake she should start looking for more long-term employers. Being Selina, she had added that Nina should know better than to expect that any other employer would allow her the same liberties that Aunty Lee did. As Aunty Lee said when Nina told her about this, Selina meant well. Nina tried to remember this. But still she enjoyed looking up things for Aunty Lee, and enjoyed it even more when Selina was around.

  “Go online and find out if they know who it is yet!”

  “Ma’am, when the police find out they will say. Now is just people guessing only.”

  Contrary to what Selina believed, there was quite enough work for Nina under Aunty Lee’s supervision. That morning she had already watered and trimmed the garden, prepared and washed up breakfast, and made the pot of lemongrass-and-ginger tea (from freshly harvested lemongrass) and was currently employed in tailing mung-bean sprouts or tow gay. Because Aunty Lee insisted on sprouting her own green beans, this was slightly more complicated. Rather than the uniformly slim straight sprouts you could find in the market or supermarket, her sprouts were twisted and contorted. But they were also lusciously plump and juicy. “Like women,” Aunty Lee said. “The skinny ones all no taste.” Nina thought it fortunate that Aunty Lee only said that in private—so far. It was the kind of comment Harry Sullivan would have leaped on to make one of his awkward jokes.

  “You don’t know. One of them may have guessed right!” Aunty Lee padded round the table and poked at the iPad. “Even now they may be arresting the murderers!”

  “Aunty Lee! Your hands are wet! After you short-circuit it, then you know!”

  Still, Nina preferred Aunty Lee like this in the mornings. In the weeks and months after M. L. Lee’s death, she had been politely silent. No trouble to anyone, she had said little, eaten little, and—as Nina knew because she was herself a light sleeper—slept little. All night she had heard her employer’s steady, sad steps going round and round the house. Down the stairs, around the living room, stopping at the door of the study, where her husband used to sit with his papers when he was alive, then back up the stairs . . . only to return again to repeat the same pattern. It would have been better, Nina thought, if only Aunty Lee could have cried and fallen apart, because then she could have helped put her back together again.

  Even now she occasionally found Aunty Lee standing silently before one of the portraits of the late M. L. Lee. There was at least one in each room—here, facing them in the living/dining room, M. L. Lee sat regally, his wife behind him with one small plump hand on his shoulder. That had been taken on their tenth wedding anniversary. They had not had so many years left together. There was also a smaller photograph of M. L. Lee with his first wife, Dimp
les Koh. Aunty Lee kept it there because Dimples was Mark and Mathilda’s mother, but it was unlikely Mark noticed the photo and Mathilda wasn’t in Singapore to see it. Nina had never seen Aunty Lee paused in thought in front of that particular photograph.

  Just then the intercom from the gate sounded. Nina was startled. They were not expecting any deliveries that morning.

  “Did you order anything, ma’am?” Singapore might be safe, but you still had to be careful. Even here there were probably people who would take advantage of a rich old woman alone in her house with a poor maid.

  “No, no.” Aunty Lee fluttered toward the door, obviously intending to examine their visitor in person.

  “Aunty Lee, please wait. Let me find out who it is and what they want first . . .”

  But then Nina saw the two uniformed policemen standing at their gate and the police car stopped behind them and knew she was not going to be the one asking the questions.

  “Sorry to disturb you like this,” one of the officers said. “I am Senior Staff Sergeant Salim and this is my colleague Officer Pang. We are looking for Mrs. Rosie Lee.”

  Nina was taken aback. Aunty Lee, on the other hand, looked delighted. “You must come in and sit down,” she insisted. When the men hesitated, she added, “I am an old lady, I cannot stand up for long. You want to ask me questions, you must come in and sit down.”

  SSS Salim was the newly appointed officer in charge of the Bukit Tinggi Neighbourhood Police Post, which included Binjai Park in its jurisdiction. This was a quiet, mostly upmarket residential area with few problems. The main reason for having a neighborhood police post there was because of the presence of the Swiss embassy, the International Community School, the Canadian International School, the German European School, and the homes of some of the wealthiest residents in Singapore.

  In fact this was a posting that managed to be simultaneously a dead end and a potential big break. Some officers might have been very happy with it. Others might view it as an opportunity to make valuable contacts for the future. SSS Salim Mawar was just trying to find his feet. Awarded the Singapore Police Force Overseas Scholarship, he had graduated from the National University of Singapore with a bachelor of law (honors) and almost immediately proceeded on to obtain his master’s of philosophy in criminology and law from Cambridge University. This was his first official post since returning to Singapore. He was well aware (some had said it to his face in warning) that he was being groomed to be one of the token Malays in the leading party. He was also well aware many of the English-educated, middle-class Chinese in his homeland treated him as more of an outsider than he had been in England.

  But even if he sometimes felt like an outsider, there was, as yet, no other place that Salim considered home, and until he found one, Singapore would have to do. And in Singapore he could physically blend into his surroundings—a definite advantage for a police investigator, which was still how Salim saw his job. His aide, Officer Pang, though Chinese (and speaking English, Mandarin, and Cantonese as well as a smattering of Malay and Hokkien) did not share this advantage. Sergeant Timothy Pang was too good-looking. Whenever he entered a space, old women forgot their age, young women forgot themselves, and even men were not immune. It was not Officer Pang’s fault, of course. And SSS Salim found it very useful having Officer Pang around because just looking at him threw most people off balance.

  SSS Salim was impressed by the neatly ordered living room he was shown in to. He sat down on the seat Aunty Lee indicated to him before she sat herself down on the other side of the little coffee table. Officer Pang remained standing by the door.

  “What about your colleague?”

  “He’s all right. Mrs. Lee, you called our head office to say that a woman was missing—a Miss Laura Kwee?”

  Aunty Lee threw a guilty look in Nina’s direction. As SSS Salim followed the look, Nina kept her face impassive. She hoped the policeman would recognize that she had no control over her boss’s actions and not hold her responsible.

  “I only said maybe it’s her—if you still don’t know the identity of the body you found in the sea. But I have a new name for you now: Marianne Peters is also missing.”

  The two policemen exchanged glances. This time it was Officer Pang who answered.

  “We have already received several calls concerning Marianne Peters. A friend of hers is concerned.”

  “And?”

  “And we have spoken to her family, who assured us there is nothing to worry about. In fact her brother, who is an NMP, informed us she is out of Singapore, traveling with friends.” It was clear from his tone that the word of a member of parliament, even if nominated rather than elected, was sacrosanct and therefore no further queries would be made.

  “Oh yes, of course. That is what she said she was going to tell them. But do they know where she really is? Have they spoken to her? Can you ask them who are those friends she is supposed to be traveling with?”

  SSS Salim dismissed Aunty Lee’s suggestions with a vague gesture that could have meant either that he would get onto their trail as soon as this interview was over or that he didn’t know and didn’t care. This ability to be respectfully vague had served him very well throughout his studies and was proving useful within the force as well.

  “It is Laura Kwee that we are concerned with right now, ma’am. Can you tell us how you know her? And how you came to believe that she was missing?”

  Aunty Lee looked at him for a long moment. She was not refusing to answer, just studying him; SSS Salim got the feeling that she was reading his mind. In reality, Aunty Lee was engaged in putting together all the facts she had so far—including the appearance of a police vehicle at her doorstep—and also studying Officer Pang, who was standing soberly by the entrance.

  “You aren’t just here to follow up on my phone call,” she said finally. “You came to tell me that Laura Kwee is dead.”

  The handsome policeman looked startled enough to confirm it.

  “Of course we try to follow up on every tip we get,” SSS Salim explained. “But most of the time it doesn’t come to anything.”

  “This time it did!” In spite of the horror of the news, Aunty Lee was clearly fascinated by it. She waved to Nina and hot tea (ginseng and Cordyceps this time to strengthen them against the shock) was made and brought out for all of them along with some of Aunty Lee’s peanut biscuits.

  “What we want to ask you . . .” As SSS Salim spoke he nodded to Officer Pang, who produced a small recorder that he placed on the coffee table. This was obviously the start of the official interview. “What alerted you to the fact that Miss Kwee was missing?”

  “But she was killed, wasn’t she? Or are you not sure whether it’s her? I don’t think I have any photographs of Laura Kwee . . . Nina, can you look up Laura Kwee’s Facebook page for the officers? Or would you like Nina to go with you to the mortuary to identify her body? I can come with you also, but my eyes are not so good already now.”

  “We are certain it is Miss Laura Kwee,” SSS Salim cut in hurriedly before Nina could follow up on any of Aunty Lee’s instructions. He was still calm and still authoritatively patient, but he was starting to show signs of the bemused stress that affected most people when they were first taken over by Aunty Lee. “I mean we are certain of her identity. We don’t need to identify her. What I would like to know is what made you report her as missing.”

  “I read in the newspapers this morning that you were trying to identify the body that was found,” Aunty Lee explained. “Or rather Nina read it to me. And yesterday already we heard it on the radio. So I thought I should help if I could.”

  “When did you phone, ma’am?” Nina usually had to dial the numbers for Aunty Lee.

  “Yesterday. When you were at the back setting up the grill, before all the other people arrived,” Aunty Lee admitted. “I didn’t want to worry you. Nine-nine-nine is such an easy number to tap-tap-tap, I thought I would just take care of it without bothering you.”

&
nbsp; “None of her colleagues or family members reported her missing.” SSS Salim was not to be diverted. “In fact, when we spoke to them, most of them said they thought she had gone off on holiday over Chinese New Year and taken leave to extend her trip. And when we checked—we found she had taken leave. So what alerted you to the fact that she was missing?”

  Nina was beginning to feel irritated. Shouldn’t these policemen be out running after whoever had killed Laura Kwee and thrown her into the sea rather than cross-examining Aunty Lee about her phone call?

  “We didn’t think that Laura Kwee is missing,” Nina said. “In fact we were sure she was not missing because just before dinner last night she phoned Ma’am Selina to say she not coming.”

  This was of interest to both policemen. “You say last night someone called Selina says she got a phone call from Laura Kwee?” SSS Salim asked for the benefit of the recording even as Officer Pang glanced at his watch to carefully note the time this nugget of information had been handed to them. “Do you know what time this call came through? And can you tell me how to get in touch with this Selina? What is her full name?”

  “Selina Lee. She’s married to my late husband’s son, Mark. You are trying to narrow down the time of death, right? Selina told us about the call around seven p.m. That means Laura Kwee must have phoned her earlier than that. That means she must have been killed between—” Aunty Lee stopped abruptly.

  “You found a body yesterday morning,” Aunty Lee began again. “You are saying that is the same body that you have now identified as Laura Kwee—even though Laura Kwee was alive yesterday evening.”

  “And that has probably been in the water for at least three days. That is why we would like to talk to Selina Lee,” said SSS Salim.

  “Ma’am Selina is going to be angry,” Nina suggested after the two police officers left with their information. That was not saying much, given how often Selina found something to be angry about.

  “I’m sure we’ll hear all about that soon enough,” Aunty Lee said. “Invite those two over for dinner tonight. Tell them I want to cook for them because they will be too tired after talking to the police. And then phone that Carla Saito for me. Tell her it is not the body of her friend Marianne, but I want her to come and talk to me. If she doesn’t want to come here or go to the shop to talk to me, I will go to her hotel to talk to her there. Quick, do it now!”