The Hills of Singapore (20 page)

22

Noan was entertaining friends. Lilin could hear them all laughing downstairs. Noan had turned into their mother, the little toad. Tea and betel and
cherki
parties.

Lilin was terribly bored. It was raining heavily. It had been raining all last night and all day today. It was impossible to go out; the streets and the river were awash. She could have joined Noan's little party, but these women were so dull and stupid she couldn't bear it. They gossiped about other acquaintances, who had done what, prattle, prattle, their children this and that. Whose husband had got what. New jewellery and sarongs. When she went to the landing she could hear them clearly, gathered around the marble-topped table. One woman's husband had taken a second wife. She had been annoyed at first but now was glad. Her child-bearing days were over. Six was enough, two of them sons. And this second wife would be at her service, particularly after her husband had tired of her, she exulted. At this, there was a ripple of laughter.

Lilin smiled. She had discovered through Noan that Ah Teo had taken his own second wife, a daughter of some merchant from Malacca. Lilin didn't care. They would not live here. Ah Teo had been adamant that this second wife and his first should not be under the same roof. Truth be told, he feared what Lilin might do to her or their prospective children.

The second wife was pregnant. Ah Teo, Lilin suspected, would like to divorce her, but that was impossible, for she lived in her family's house and could not be put out, and he had been poor when he married her and was now much enriched. On both counts, divorce was impossible.

Lilin knew she had become superfluous in this family. A first son had died, appalling bad luck on the family. She had produced no other children, let alone boys. She caused havoc in the family and was unfilial to her parents. If Noan had a son, he would become the most important person in the family after her father and Zhen. If Ah Teo's second wife had sons, she would assume a powerful role in the family, favoured by Ah Teo and probably Zhen. That favour would further marginalise Lilin. Lilin no longer knew what to do about this situation. Bearing a son was now impossible.

Lilin rose and went to her bag, taking out the tobacco pouch. As she formed the cigarette, she realised that, at bottom, she did not care. She heard the voices downstairs raised in departure. She went to the window which gave onto the street. The rain had stopped, finally, and she threw the shutters wide, letting the cool, damp air into the house. She watched the women depart, putting up their rose and green flowered oiled-paper umbrellas, darting out of the gate and quickly along the street like swarms of butterflies.

The activities of the street began again immediately. Men emerged from the shelters of the five-foot ways, like insects from beneath leaves, took up their baggages, bundles, cooking pots and baskets and began to hawk their wares. A bullock cart, which had been sheltering against a wall, emerged and trundled its water barrels down the street. The energy of the town, quelled by the dinning and drenching rain, arose again as the street steamed quietly and fat drops dripped from the eaves.

She went downstairs. Noan was in the family hall, washed fresh by the rain from the air well. Her belly had swelled to a ball; she was seven months pregnant.

She was sewing. Baby garments, Lilin could see, for her new child. Lilin sat in a chair by the pond, and Noan glanced up at her before going back to her sewing.

“I have seen her, elder sister,” Lilin said softly.

Noan's needle stopped momentarily then started again.

“Every Monday morning at nine o'clock she takes her son to the big school on the sea front. She comes by the bridge where the big banyan tree stands. Afterwards she goes to meet your husband.”

Noan said nothing. Lilin had no idea if this was true, or even if Zhen had seen the white woman since she had heard them talking at the pond. But she had discovered who the woman was by simply asking Ah Soon, Qian's son. He had been happy to tell her about his friend Ah Rex and the white lady who came sometimes to visit his father. Lilin had found out from Gaston who she was. Mah Nuk is what he called her. She lived in a huge house on North Bridge Road and was incredibly rich. She was a widow and had two sons.

So Lilin had gone to look at this house and had been overwhelmed with awe and envy. She had never before imagined such wealth in the hands of a woman. A white woman with no husband, she was free, she had vast wealth and she had Zhen. Lilin hated her with every fibre of her being.

Though she would have liked to linger and watch the house, she had not dared to dawdle along the streets. Despite her boldness, Lilin was scared of the European town. Outside of Gaston's hotel, everything felt alien over here. It was hushed and spacious, the huge mansions barely visible through a screen of dense foliage and trees. Quiet, serene and frightening—not like the Chinese town, cheek by jowl, jostling, noisy, crowded.

Then, as she had turned away, her parasol raised against the sun, a carriage had come down the driveway and stopped at the gates. Lilin had moved into the shadow of a tree. She'd had a clear view of the open vehicle as a man ran to open the gates. The woman carried a parasol like herself, but not of oiled paper. It was made of a soft white cloth, cotton, she guessed. Its rim was trimmed with a deep line of exquisite white lace which fluttered in the small breeze. She was wearing a small bonnet of fine white cotton, trimmed with the same lace, over her jet black hair. Her dress was pearl grey and white with short, gathered sleeves and a high neck. She sat like a princess in her carriage. Lilin could see her skin, lovely and fair, her complexion flawless, her profile perfection. Then the carriage went forward and swept out of the drive onto North Bridge Road in the direction of the bridge.

Since then, she had set a young servant boy the task of watching this woman. He had reported that every Monday morning at the same time she went with one boy to the big school on the sea front. She left the boy there and stayed inside for some time, then went out again, and after that he did not know what she did.

“Would you not like to see the woman your husband loves to misery? The one he longs to be with, would give everything to be with?” Lilin whispered.

Noan rose, taking up her sewing, and walked from the room.

That night Zhen came to the house. Noan made him some of his favourite dishes,
kangkung belachan, hong bak
—braised pork in black soy sauce, black noodles and
ki ah kuei
, a steamed rice cake. These she served with Fukian-style preserved vegetables and pickled radish. She had sought Hokkien cooks to teach her these dishes in order to please him, for the spices of her own Nonya cuisine was not always to his taste. Noan loved to cook for him.

Ah Teo enjoyed these dishes too. He did not now always eat at this house, for his second wife was living in a house he had bought on Mosque Street. Tonight, though, he had come to the Market Street house, for he enjoyed his sister-in-law's cooking better than any other's. She had learned, for the pleasure of her husband, to combine the dishes of her local cuisine with Hokkien cooking, and he recognised in this a subtle art. He liked his sister-in-law very much. Sometimes he wished, very quietly to himself, that she had been his wife. He knew he could have found a profound happiness with this lovely, graceful and kind woman. She lacked Lilin's external beauty, but inside her, all was beauty and grace, and he saw it.

He resented Lilin even more for depriving him of the pleasant table and company of Noan and her small daughters. He was a family man, above all. One wife, a loving wife, would have been enough for him. His misfortune was that he had not been given Noan. And Noan liked Ah Teo, understood his torments at the hands of her sister; she was pleased to serve him these dishes he enjoyed in the company of her husband. Ah Teo could see how much Noan loved Zhen and envied him, for he was sure that Zhen did not value it as he should. He saw how pregnant Noan was becoming. His own second wife was just starting to show.

These thoughts had occupied him for some time, when suddenly he rose. Zhen looked up, surprised, finishing his dish. Ah Teo nodded at Zhen and left the room, returning almost immediately with a small bamboo box. He put it on the table. “Ask your wife to come. I have a small gift,” he announced.

Zhen looked at Ah Teo in surprise.

“Brother, ask your wife to come,” Ah Teo insisted.

Zhen shrugged and called Noan, and when she came into the room, Ah Teo opened the box. Inside was a small cake. “It is made from a powder called chocolate,” he informed her. “The English like to drink this chocolate, but it is also used in sweet things. Perhaps you would like it, to thank you for your cooking, for cooking our food.”

Zhen looked astonished. Thanking Noan for cooking? That was her job. What had got into the man?

Noan stood waiting for Zhen to give his permission. Zhen shrugged and waved his hand. Ah Teo came forward and took the cake from the box. “It is sweet, like nothing else. Second wife likes it a great deal. Will you taste it?” he invited her.

Noan looked at Ah Teo. His Baba Malay was almost amusing, but she recognised the effort and smiled. She looked at Zhen, always attentive to his wishes. He was finishing his meal. He loved her food, but it was Ah Teo who had brought her a gift, thanked her. Of course thanks from a husband, no one could expect that, but hers might pay a little attention. Insidiously, Lilin's words entered her mind. The white woman was his loved one. He thought of nothing but her.

Noan cut a small piece from the cake and nibbled it nervously. It was sweet and smooth, unlike anything she had ever tasted in her life. She put it into her mouth and looked at Ah Teo. It was a heavenly taste. Her eyes opened wide, and he smiled.

“Brother, do you wish to try?” Ah Teo asked Zhen.

Zhen put down his chopsticks, took some tea and rinsed his mouth. “What? No.” He rose and left the room without a backward glance.

Noan watched him leave, a sudden dull resentment entering her veins. It was a feeling she had never experienced before. She was pregnant with his child and had spent hours in the kitchen to make this feast for him, a feast which had demanded study, devotion and care. Momentarily she disliked him. She thanked Ah Teo graciously, and he was happy to see her pleased.

Everything that had happened so far this evening had brought her to a sudden decision. She wanted to see this white woman that Lilin told her about. It became, in an instant, imperative.

Two days later, Noan screwed up her courage. She had never in all her life crossed from the Chinese town where she had been born to the European town. It was, by foot, a small journey, but in every other respect it was immense. Thirty steps, that was all it took. Thirty steps to pass from one side of the river to the other, but it felt like a thousand
li
. She had no idea what to expect, but she knew she had to go.

She dressed carefully and modestly in a long
baju
and a sarong of sombre colour. Her
baju
was closed with the three simple brooches of the
kerosang
, and she had chosen her plainest set. She put on her plainest slippers, too, the most comfortable, for her belly was heavy and her legs often hurt her. She left the house on Market Street at eight o'clock. Lilin was asleep still. The maids had charge of her children. Zhen had not come back last night, and this, more than anything, had propelled her from her bed and out onto the street.

She put up her oiled-paper umbrella covered with the subtle and exquisite colours of myriad painted butterflies. It was her favourite, given to her by Zhen from a shipment from China. The butterfly symbolised love, the undying bonds of young love, the love she felt for her husband. It was not for shade, for the day was not yet hot, but for a sort of protection, a shield from men's eyes.

She walked to the riverside and hesitated. Tentatively she put her foot, for the first time, onto the bridge. A feeling of intense excitement caused her to stop, take hold of the parapet. She walked slowly to the middle of the bridge. The view opened out. She looked up and down the river, up to the English governor's house on the hill. It was an entirely new view on this town about which, she realised, she knew so little.

She looked back too, at the Chinese town, along Boat Quay for the first time. She could see the little wooden bridge which crossed the stream at Circular Road and further along her father's and her husband's godown. A stream of Chinese men, carrying baskets, was crossing the bridge. Intent on their tasks, eyes down, most ignored her completely. They were making for the marketplace, she could see, their loads strung bouncing from poles across their shoulders. She only vaguely understood that the fruit and vegetables were grown over here, somewhere on this side of the river. Usually she went to the market early to get the best vegetables, and it occurred to her that she had never before thought about where they came from.

Buoyed by this small discovery, she walked to the other side of the river. She hesitated a moment, touching her toe to the earth as if the land on this side of the bridge might not allow her to pass. Then she smiled at her own timidity and took a step off the bridge onto the road of the European town. She walked slowly down, alongside the wall of the Chinese compound, which accompanied her somewhat reassuringly to the street which led back to the river, in front of the ship builder and the English building. She thought for a moment but did not like the look of this street. In front of her lay the open field where, she knew, her father came sometimes, for one of his concubines lived on this side of the river somewhere.

She decided the safest way was to walk along the road in front of the big houses. The one on the corner was a big hotel, she knew. But now it was quiet. All the houses were quiet, only some Malay and Indian gardeners moved amongst the bushes, and she was shielded from view by the tall shrubberies. Nothing was moving on the plain, and she looked over its expanse to the prettiness of the sea beyond. She had never really looked at the sea. At Telok Ayer, from the market, it was pretty, the view, out to the fishing stakes on the bay, but here it was wide, a huge world spreading away to the furthest horizon. It was the first time she had seen the ships of the English and the other strange craft which seemed to fill the blue bay. Her world, she realised suddenly, was so small, so constricted. Her whole life was Market Street.