The Nation Celebrates

The Nation Celebrates

I think he only loves the world for him

- The Merchant of Venice

It’s five o’ clock in the late afternoon. I am gawking at a dyed-hair old man stirring watery-thin rice congee in a blackened pot. Three eggs are flipping and jumping in the bone white simmering gruel.

“Don’t feel bad about not doing anything,” he said, seeming to read my thoughts. “I just like having a young person around for company. It’s good you come join us for an occasional meal.” Mr Fong smiles at me kindly,flashing his gleaming false teeth. I say I appreciate his invitation and that I have nothing to do on a national day actually. But, of course that is not exactly true because I have a date with Geena, later on in the night. We are planning to go to the Ministry of Sound.

“You’re lucky to go to university you know. If I had the chance, I would have gone too, but I left school when I was only fifteen.” I tell him it is now common for people to have professional degrees and easily a master’s or two under their belts. But I keep from him the fact that reading geriatric psychology in the social work department and not business or law makes me a loser. I wouldn’t be stuck with doing charity work like now if not for the requirement of my course.

For three months already, I have been bearing with Mr Fong’s bad body smell which reminds me of urine in the lift that has just dried up. He is my case-study and as my mentor says, I have to put myself in the shoes of these old folks and try to understand their way of thinking. He shares the flat with Mr Chow. They are both singles and are not allowed under housing rulings and regulations to have a flat by themselves. They live in a tumbledown flat and the rental fee is $26 per month.

Mr Fong now places wok on the stove. It looks like he has in his mind a lavish spread of dishes judging from the messiness of the dingy kitchen. The meals he prepares are usually simple. He says today is a special occasion and there is reason for celebration. But despite his efforts, it doesn’t look like I would take to his kind of food. He tells me he used to do a lot of cooking and helped his mother a lot in the kitchen when he was young. The he goes on to talk on and on about the death of his mother, about how she drank liquid detergent – a melodramatic tale which I have heard many times before and how he eventually became a clerk in a used-car company. He stayed there for about twenty-five years working hard and saving hard and does not party, smoke or drink which I think is amazing. I just find it hard to believe that anyone could be capable of such clean living. Surely he is not that boring, is he? Sometimes I have this sudden urge to interrupt him in his story and ask him if he is a virgin. But I baulk at it. This question of virginity just sounds offensive if applied on someone who is sixty-eight.

The minced pork with black bean sauce is starting to sizzle in the wok. The overturned empty can from which it comes lies discarded amidst the bottles of condiments: black soy sauce, light soy sauce, white pepper, plus salt. There is only little cooking oil left in the plastic bottle and blackish-brown dregs swim at the bottom of it. “I’ve sent Ah Chow to buy some more oil,” he says, noticing that I am looking at the container. Smoke rises and he fends them off from his eyes with palm outward and waving. I offer to help but he asks me to open door because someone is knocking and it is probably his room-mate Mr Chow.

It is indeed Mr Chow, back from his errand and he gives me a curt nod of recognition. He strikes me as an unfriendly fellow who wears a constant scowl on his face. I couldn’t care about his dark moods but I wonder sometimes how the two, who have been initially perfect strangers to each other could bear the sight of each other in that claustrophobic rat-hole, day in and day out. The peeling walls of the flat have already a stale ole stubborn smell that clings to them.

Mr Chow deposits the groceries on the wicker chair. He says to nobody in particular, “Thirty dollars.” The items do not look like they cost that amount. He charges extra for his effort of going to the shop, I suppose.

The other old man who suffers from bad knees and has difficulty going to the shops is now busy dishing out the bean sprouts from the wok. He says, “Get it yourself from my wallet.”

Mr Chow who was just removed his yellow-stained singlet saunters towards the dresser to pick up wallet. From it, he pulls out four ten-dollar bills with his crooked fingers. I do not know if I should expose his dishonesty. Instead, I distract myself by gasping at his amazing hairy black tits which look like small spiders pinned to his chest. Folds of creased brown skin drape loosely around his ribcage. The old man puts himself on a wooden stool and is now puffing out smoke without a care in the world.

Mr Chow, according to his room-mate is sixty-two this year. He has worked in several odd jobs and the last job he held was that of a hawker assistant. He hardly saves and that is why the other man has to ‘sponsor’ him for his smoking habit. Cigarettes don’t come cheap nowadays.

The radio is crackling and tuned to an English station playing forgotten songs of a by-gone era. It is Mr Fong’s favorite radio station but Mr Chow does not like it at all. It annoys him and puts him in a grouchy mood. The smoker gets up from the stool and pushes the button of the television. The TV comes to life. It is showing the national day parade and the commentary is in Mandarin. His lips twist into some kind of a smirk and he asks me if I like to watch the parade. I know he has already decided. He wants TV noise to fight with radio noise.

Mr Fong calls out that we eat now because the young man is hungry. We shift stools and sit at the table which is near the TV. We can eat and watch the TV at the same time. The parade commander is shouting and people from different walks of life put their arms across their chests, fists clenched. They wear different uniforms to show they hold different trades. There is a boy in a wheelchair. His head is held high and his chest is puffed up. One man is waving his hands, making signs in the air. All of them have serious looks fixed on their faces and they say the pledge in one voice. I am watching the show from the corner of my eye and at the same time picking out morsels of food, separating the edible from the inedible and thinking of how much I should eat so as not to hurt the feelings of Mr Fong. The minced meat tastes like it really comes out of a tin can and the limp strands of vegetables like they have traces of pesticide on them. But his room-mate is clearly enjoying himself. He is pushing down spoonfuls of rice into his throat. “Some more meat for you,” Mr Fong encourages him, putting even more food into his bowl with his chopsticks. “Have some more.” The other fellow who is concentrating on his feasting and who hardly looks up from his food makes a grunt of appreciation.

Mr Fong says to himself as he stirs the soup-bowl with a spoon, “If I am not here, who can take care of him? If I am not here, he will die.”

The skinny man who as so far been relishing his food blusters, “What die, what die.” His eyes are bulging. “If you not here, I no die.” He becomes even louder now. “You take my milo and no pay me. You take my toilet paper also no pay me.”

Mr Fong is red-faced and his puckered lips quiver. “What I no pay! Every time you take my money I no say anything. You only take, take, take. You take my money you think I don’t know.”

“You say you want to give me money what, so I take lah!”

The squabble is a cue that I should go. The war-planes in the TV are now skirting around the clouds, leaving trails of pinkish-red smoke behind them. I stand up and say, “I have to go now. Thank you for the dinner.”

“No, no, stay a little while more. Have some tea.” Mr Fong stands up too and presses my shoulder with his fingers to make me sit down. His companion who pretends that nothing has happened is absorbed with his food again. So we watch some more TV and listen to the radio at the same time.

Mr Fong is now in a chatty mood. He chatters like a magpie: “Tony Bennett, Johnny Mathis, Andy Williams, all my favorite singers.” He is rocking his body from side to side following the waltzing strains of ‘Moon River’ on the radio, humming along and making cooling motions with his paper fan which he wields with his slender wrist. “Audrey Hepburn my favorite actress – Breakfast at Tiffany.” He is smiling to himself, wrapped up in a reverie. He could be talking to himself. I am only half-listening. I don’t know these people. But a little bit of his talk somehow does get into my head. I get educated by listening to his distant private memories. He talks about this singer, that actress, this song and that movie and I learn along the way.

“Tea?” he remembers. He goes to the kitchen and takes out a canister. He opens it and almost dips his head inside. When he takes his head out, he shakes it sadly and announces it like he is disappointed. “No tea.” I volunteer to go downstairs to the Indian mama shop to get some. He waves his hand vigorously from side to side looking horrified that I could have entertained such an idea. “Ah Chow can do it,” he says. But Ah Chow has better things to do. He eyes are for the TV only and it looks as if the march-past is the most thrilling thing that is happening in the universe at that moment. To save Mr Fong from further trouble, I say I really have to go. He lets me off this time and sends me off. He waves me goodbye from his doorstep and before I step into the lift, I manage to catch a glimpse of his spectral silhouette at the end of the sunless corridor getting sucked back into the pit of banal drabness.

As I make my way along the tree-lined path to the bus-stop, I feel like I can breathe once again. I have to halve my intake of oxygen whenever I visit the odd couple. The flat just does not smell like a bed of flowers. I count myself lucky on a given day if I don’t step on a dead cockroach/lizard in their kitchen/living room/bedroom. At the same time, I am thinking about what an interesting specimen Mr Fong is for an old folk. He is still bouncy in his steps, has a wealth of interesting entertainment trivia in his head and a ring of youthfulness in his voice. But there is a side of him that puts me off. He tends to be touch-feely and I find it difficult to maintain a discreet distance from him in the tiny flat without having to rub my back against the wall all the time. He just gives me the creeps. I don’t know if it is my overworked imagination that is playing tricks on me, so I have tried to behave normally in his presence so as not to arouse his suspicions. There could be nothing really and I don’t want to over-react. Besides his over-friendliness, his sophisticated Hollywood interest bothers and bewilders me. Which old man, particularly those living in one-room rental flats would wax lyrical about the Hepburns and Connie Frances? It just doesn’t match. Not to mention his dyed hair which is something of a strange color – ginger yellow or whatever, that just looks like a very bad job of DIY. I try my best to be tolerant of his fashion statement.

My mobile beeps, breaking my thoughts. It is a message from Geena. She reminds me about our meeting. It is about seven o’clock and there is time for me to get back home for a bath and possibly a turkey sandwich. Contact with sordid conditions makes me want to take a bath.

When I come out of the shower and smelling pretty (that’s what one of the contestants would say about that host of the singing competition), my mobile breaks out into a song. “Hello?” I say. The voice from the other end of the line wants me to go back to Mr Fong’s flat as soon as possible. He is murdered. The line then breaks off. I put on a shirt and say to myself it cannot be. It will take me about twenty minutes if I go by the taxi.

My mentor, Dr Liu is already at the crime scene. He teaches the module of geriatric counseling. He looks serious and is talking to a police officer. He barely notices my arrival or pretends not to see me, I don’t know. Another police officer sees me and walks towards me. He knows that I was the guy who left about an hour ago. He has questions for me and asks me to co-operate. His pen is ready to take down notes.

After I give him the answers I ask him what has happened. It seems that Mr Chow has strangled Mr Fong with a telephone coil and probably battered his skull with the telephone. They had a row before that. The officer looks at me, as if waiting for response. I keep quiet for a while, trying to absorb things. I ask for permission to enter the flat. He says okay but tells me not to touch anything. I promise him and enter the flat.

My heart skips a beat when I see the body. His orange hair is in a mess. Next to the body is a mutilated black telephone. It is the big black obscene one and not one of those modern fragile ones. Its coil is missing.

A pale figure is sitting on a bed. He sits there unmoving, hand-cuffed and looking haggard and woe-begone, forgetting the bustling activities that encircle him. The investigators are measuring distances with a gamut of instruments and clicking photographs from strange angles. He looks like he is left out of a hip party, perched unobtrusively on the solitary bed. The rusty metal frame of the bed supports a soiled mattress and two flower-embroidered pillows. Four empty beer bottles lie sideways below it.

The TV is still on but nobody’s watching it. The man in the TV who is forever smiling says it is time for the fireworks and people tilt their heads upwards to look at the sky. Some of them are jumping on their feet, moving to the hypnotizing beat of the loud music, hips swaying from side to side obeying the encouragement of the party-rousers. In the next second, a meteor rises from nowhere and opens up like an umbrella, raining sparks. People poke their fingers into the sky and give out cries of oohs and aahs. Hissing rockets spits and sizzles across the profound stillness of the night. The dark canvas is now stained with a whirling orgy of startling colors. It is a beautiful picture.

Then a strange thing happens. The noise in the TV becomes softer and more subdued. Bit by bit, it becomes eclipsed by a sound of an alien origin. From the dark secluded corner of the room, a haunting voice insinuates itself into the carnival atmosphere. It has filtered out of the radio. Slowly and surely it permeates the dusk-lit old flat and makes its ghostly presence felt. The radio voice wants to be a part of the euphoria and refuses to be denied. The radio warbles:

Strangers and we were sweet heart for so long

Lovers until you let your love go wrong

Kiss me then give your heart to someone new

Darling this is our last adieu

I recognize the song. It is ‘Perfidia’ – his favorite. I have never approved of it because of its cabaret campiness. But at this moment, it seems to provide a suitable music for the fireworks. It may be a song of sad wistfulness, but the band has played it in the manner of over-the-top flamboyance that makes it endearingly comic. The vibrant and spirited dance of the pyrotechnics is connecting and merging with the broken melody from the old radio. Except that the people don’t know it.

Looking at the happy faces in the TV and hearing the singer’s plaintive vocals, I suddenly have the feeling that I am caught up in the middle of one of those arthouse movies. This time the femme fatale is not the wide-eyed nymphet or the bosomy temptress. It is only Mr Fong with an immaculately coiffed bee-hive hairdo and pink feather boas wrapped round his neck, descending with a dignified air from the top of a dark smoky stairway.

It makes me chuckle to think about it.

I am sure he would have laughed at the idea and liked it too.