Miss Seetoh in the World (12 page)

I don’t believe in fate, thought Maria
defiantly. I’ll prove that I’m my own destiny. There was a proud quotation from
a poem that she had read out to her students; this was the time to live up to
its inspirational call to be master of one’s fate, captain of one’s soul.

‘Miss Seetoh,’ said Maggie excitedly,
cornering her as she descended the stairs on the way to the staffroom, ‘You
have boyfriend now, right? A friend of mine, he saw you and this guy, quite good-looking
and very classy, not like our Mr Chin – hey, Miss Seetoh, so you tell us of
romance in creative writing class?’

‘Stop talking nonsense, Maggie, and mind
your own business!’ she snapped.

‘Oh ho, ho! Now I know it’s all true! No
need to be shy, shy, Miss Seetoh!’ giggled the incorrigible girl. ‘Good for
everybody to have love in their life!’

‘Where’s Por Por?’ cried Maria in panic one
afternoon. She had taken her grandmother out for a little shopping with the
maid and had turned, after paying the bill at a departmental store, to find the
old woman missing.

‘Rosiah, you were supposed to keep an eye on
Por Por!’

They searched the whole store, called
loudly, enlisted the help of the sales attendants, but Por Por was nowhere to
be found. Once she had left the house on her own and been brought back by a
neighbour who had found her wandering in a market. Her escapades could be
comical if they involved no danger; one evening she had stolen out of the house
and gone to a nearby children’s playground where Heng found her sitting on a
horse in a merry-go-round.

They caused great concern if she walked
through busy roads to get to the White Heaven Temple of which she seemed to
retain some distinct memories, or if she got robbed, as happened once when she
came home without the jade bangle on her wrist. Heng had since removed the gold
chain from her neck and the jade studs on her ear lobes, and left instructions
that at no time should she carry more than two dollars in her blouse pocket.
The possibility of Por Por lying crushed under the wheels of a bus or inside a
deep monsoon drain was a constant nightmare.

In tears, Maria and Rosiah returned home to
report her loss and get help for a wider search.

 ‘Maybe you should think of putting her in a
home,’ said Heng who happened to be on one of his frequent visits, usually to
do a check on the apartment, one half of which he would one day inherit.

Maybe I should think of cutting you off
altogether from my life, thought Maria angrily. She was always comforted by the
thought that he was her brother not by circumstance of blood but of some
obscure Chinese tradition that had resulted in his adoption many years ago. I
wouldn’t want the same meanness to run in my veins, she thought with savage
glee.

 In two hours, Por Por was back at home,
muttering incoherently, led into the house by Bernard Tan who had found her in
a side lane near an Indian shrine at least four miles away. It was simply
amazing – his uncanny ability to be in every place where his generosity could
once more be demonstrated. Maria thanked him effusively, her mother invited him
for dinner the next day, cooking the most extravagant meal equal to any Chinese
New Year Eve banquet, the church encounters intensified with him now sitting
next to them in the pew, and bouquets of flowers started arriving for her with
cards filled with the most heartfelt sentiments of respect, regard and
affection. Bernard had taken his pursuit on a breathlessly rising trajectory of
ardour, that would surely soon peak with the realisation of his dreams.

He invited her for a movie and dinner date,
the first time they would be out on their own together. Father Rozario had said
to her, ‘Bernard is one of the finest, most God-fearing men in the parish.’ The
God-fearing virtues were less commendable than a few things she was beginning
to notice about him: he was utterly sincere, never said anything fatuous, was
unfailingly polite to everyone, including lowly waiters, petrol pump
attendants, maidservants and he spoke impeccable English.

Through habit she had developed an enormous
capacity to smile politely through male bombast: she had seen her mother nod
encouragingly through her father’s beer-sodden promises of making big money and
buying her a big house, even while he was in hiding from the loan sharks,
sometimes waking his family up in the night to run to yet another secret
location.

In her student days in the university, she
had been the object of interest of a fellow undergraduate who basked in his
self-given name of Valentino, and in his reputation, also self-initiated, as
the biggest heart-throb on campus. He took his boasting to an incredible level
of braggadochio that no longer had any connection with reality and that at the
same time, was suspiciously inaccessible to verification, since none of the
conquests were girls on campus.

There was a Francis Sng, a fellow
parishioner of the Church of Eternal Mercy, who talked endlessly about his job,
his salary, his good standing with his boss, his sheer good luck at selecting
the right stocks in the market that were now yielding amazing dividends, the
devotion of his mother and aunts who regularly fed him the most expensive and
healthful herbal brews from Korea, completely oblivious to her suppressed
yawns. She had only been out once with the obnoxious man, on a church outing,
during which he chose to sit next to her, his large, sweaty face and loud voice
obtruding upon her attention all afternoon until she made an excuse to go to
the washroom and returned to take another seat. If on a Repulsiveness Scale of
one to ten, he and Valentino scored a nine, the quiet-voiced, well-mannered
Bernard Tan was out of that hall of male infamy altogether.

She asked him about the heroic time when he
took care of both ailing parents, and was impressed by his simple modesty. He
had nursed both of them to the very end, and had been particularly close to his
mother who had died from a very painful liver disease. ‘It’s difficult to talk
about those times,’ he said, ‘and if you don’t mind, I’d rather not.’ She
wanted then to reach out to touch his hand. But no, she thought, that might
give him the wrong impression.

‘Can we stop here for a short while?’ said
Bernard, slowing down his car along a small gravel path, and for a moment, as
she looked out into the surrounding darkness and saw tall trees silhouetted
against the night sky, she had a wild thought that he was going to kiss her or
do something alarming.

Years ago, when she was still an
undergraduate at the university, she went on a date with someone on a motor
scooter; he took a different, unfamiliar route to the campus coffee house,
stopped in a dark spot with shady trees, got down from his scooter, and kissed
her. She was about to resist his advances when, in the most unexpected way, her
attention suddenly became diverted by the sight and sound of a couple in a
nearby bush, and then of two more couples, in different parts of the secluded
spot, all clearly too engrossed in their activities to notice any onlooker. It
was intriguing new knowledge in her innocent world which she would have been
happy to acquire without help from that stolen, disgusting kiss.

Bernard had managed to persuade her to go
out for a second movie and dinner date which she secretly swore would be their
last, for she was now completely convinced that she could never marry him. His
intensity was beginning to frighten her. To the discomfort of the evening was
added the sudden fear of an attack of passion; both feelings vanished in a gasp
of astonishment when he laid a small blue velvet box on her lap, opened it and
revealed the most beautiful diamond ring she had ever seen. ‘I got it from
Tiffany’s,’ said Bernard not with arrogance but in appreciative acknowledgment
of her taste and worth. ‘The salesgirl was kind and patient enough to help me
select it. I hope you like it.’

He took the ring out from the box and picked
up her left hand to slip it on the engagement finger. It was at this moment
that astonishment gave way to panic which mounted by the second.

‘No, no,’ she gasped, and as she did not
withdraw her hand, Bernard deftly slipped on the ring.

‘Don’t worry about the price, I needn’t tell
you,’ he smiled, and promptly told her.

‘Oh no,’ she said again, her powers of
resistance still locked inside her cold limbs, her stuttering tongue. For a
moment she found herself in the grip of an experience as amazing as it was
intimidating in her simple, ordered life, an experience tantamount to a
life-or-death matter that required her to quickly commandeer all her resources
of clear thinking and honest feeling to deal with it.

 ‘From the first moment I saw you, I knew
you were the one for me,’ he said fervently. ‘I couldn’t wait for the day of
our engagement, and it has come.’

He had a rich repertoire of the suitor’s
language, and he dealt it out, systematically and with feeling. Her mind was
working quickly, to enable her to break out of the paralysis of movement and
speech. This was not her understanding of how a woman got engaged and married,
her feelings unconsulted, the whole affair circumstantial only, finalised and
closed with the formality of a ring. The deep-seated, long-standing fear of
losing her world and her freedom, akin to the primordial aggressive
safeguarding of territory, asserted itself powerfully and she said, in clear
distinct tones, ‘Bernard, I thank you very much, but no, please no, we can’t be
engaged.’

At this stage, still completely convinced
that he was at the end of a long, laborious but divinely blessed mission, he
said, ‘We could wait a little longer if you like, though I don’t see any need
for that.’

She felt a rising tide of annoyance at the
presumptuousness, which gave an edge to her voice as she said, ‘You don’t
understand. I don’t want to be engaged to you. I don’t want to marry you – or
anybody.’ Capable of only the gentlest remonstrances, she surprised herself by
the brute delivery of truth.

By the light of a faint moon in the sky, she
saw his expression change quickly to frowning puzzlement. ‘But wasn’t it clear
to everybody that we were serious about each other? Weren’t you encouraging me
all the way?’

The word elicited the sharp response that
she had used for Meeta’s teasing accusation. ‘Oh no, I wasn’t encouraging you
at all,’ she protested and was almost tempted to let out the second part of the
protestation lying silent upon her tongue, ‘You chose not to see all those
signs of discouragement; you almost forced upon me those lifts in the car,
those gifts to my mother and Por Por, those –’

Years later, she would be even more
painfully aware of how the very same acts and words could have completely
different meanings for men and women, accusing each other across an enormous
chasm of misunderstanding.

‘I don’t understand,’ said Bernard very softly,
as if talking to himself. He turned to her and said, with a hint of pleading in
his voice, ‘All those times we were together –’ It was his turn to leave the
utterance unfinished, fearful of being dealt another of truth’s humiliating
blows.

There was silence for a long while, as he
stared out into the night. A man with a disposition to be magnanimous towards
others, and an unshakeable belief in his own worth, he was now reeling from the
sheer incredulity that a woman on whom he had lavished all that magnanimity and
who therefore must be aware of all that worthiness, could reject him. Having
sedulously built up a whole superstructure of intention, purpose, understanding
and expectation, he now saw it crumbling before his eyes.

His face stark and taut from the sheer
incomprehensibility of it all, he at last said, very slowly, ‘Listen, I want
you to understand this. I am a man of principle and honour. I want to get
everything right. I don’t play games.’ He made a final attempt to confront the
devastating reality and challenge it. ‘Surely you don’t mean what you just
said. Surely you’re not telling me that –’ he began, and she cut in to say with
a rush of breath, her heart beating wildly with the urgent need to hasten a
bizarre episode to its end, ‘No, I’m not interested in you.’

She saw his stricken face, and suddenly felt
a surge of pity that made her stretch out her hand to touch his, saying with
all the kindness of tone she could muster, ‘I’m so sorry.’

He moved his hand away abruptly, and
continued staring into the distance, his whole body rigid in the shock of his
discovery, the veins throbbing fearfully on his neck and temples.

The courtship had been an enormous
investment of time, money and energy, impossible to envisage losing. Trying to
save it, he made a last desperate effort – a reminder to her of the magnitude
of his gift, and a gentle reproach for her disregard of it. ‘One would imagine
any woman would be grateful to receive a twenty-thousand dollar ring –’
Instantly he saw his mistake for she replied with some hauteur, ‘It would make
no difference if it cost a hundred thousand dollars.’ Her tone belied the
mounting terror of a situation spinning out of control; only outwardly was she
in charge, dealing one pitiless blow after another.

Meeta had often said to her, shaking her
head, ‘You may be so intelligent and well-read, my dear, but you’re as naïve as
a child in the ways of the world.’ She was not naïve; she had an instinctive
sense, as well as the inner strength, for doing the right thing, the worthy
thing. Could he hear her heart thumping so hard she could faint any moment?