A candle or the sun, p.9
A Candle or the Sun, page 9
At a loss for words, I bent over my coffee cup, taking tiny sips and staring into the steam. Seeing that I was not going to speak, he continued.
“Any loving act is good. Must be. Nothing, no intention, no ulterior motive can make it wrong or evil.”
I looked up from my coffee, smiling. I understood why Peter’s speech seemed so wonderfully fluid. As he talked, he pre-empted or embellished words with facial expressions, and hand and body movements. Watching him speak I was unaware of interruptions, for he filled them with gestures that added to his meaning.
He continued, “We really,” he rapped his forehead with his knuckles, “believe this to be true.”
“Is that a belief or a hope?” I asked.
“I can never seem to tell them apart,” he said, raising both palms in surrender. “Can you?”
He looked at me wide-eyed, his face open, and waited for my answer. It took me a moment to grasp what he was getting at.
“It wasn’t just convenient for me to think that one of your lot told my father about Su-May and me,” I protested. “It wasn’t simply what I wished to believe. It just seemed that you would be the people who would most benefit by breaking us up. Who else would have done it?”
“I don’t know,” he said, his face expressionless. “We are not a detective agency.”
I felt anger stir in me and said, “But you don’t deny that you and your … your group urged Su-May to break things off with me?”
“That we,” he nodded abjectly, “did.”
“After all your big talk about love, you seem quite prepared to destroy a loving relationship.” My anger fed on itself and I continued, “Because, adulterous or not, that’s what Su-May and I have. You, a good Christian type, were prepared to destroy the love of two people for purely selfish reasons.”
“What you say is the truth.” The veins under his transparent eyelids had become more prominent and his eyes were beginning to redden. He rubbed them with his knuckles, the way children do when they are about to cry. “Yes, the truth and the more painful to bear for being so.”
“So you don’t deny,” I said, pursuing my advantage, “that you tried to get rid of me so you could have Su-May to yourself.”
For a moment he looked stunned. Then his face cleared, brightened. He laughed and touched my shoulder, almost coyly. “Oh, dear, oh, dear,” he said, shaking his head several times. “Try to be honest without saying too much and you’re sure to screw things up.”
“What the hell d’you mean by that?”
“That you’ve got it all wrong.”
“You mean there’s nothing going on between you and Su-May?”
“That’s not,” he said, shaking his head very slowly, “what I meant. What I was trying to say is that we don’t let jealousy live with us. Except for very short spells and even then,” he smiled, “only on a day-to-day basis.”
“Then why—” I began.
“We agreed when we first,” he locked his fingers, “grouped that we would try not to seek close relationships with outsiders. Very,” he looked down, “sad, isn’t it, for Christians who believe so totally in universal love to start talking of insiders and outsiders?”
“Why make such a rule?”
“We thought we had reasons. Certain,” he shrugged, “things that, for the moment at least, we should keep to ourselves.”
“What things?”
We both saw the absurdity of my question at the same time and laughed. Still laughing, he reached across and put his hand on mine. “I’ll tell you when we next meet,” he said.
I felt lighter, relieved of my anger, and asked, “When will that be?”
“Why not be with us on Christmas Eve?” He leaned back and looked at me, his eyes strangely affectionate. “We gather in the afternoon. Come with Su.”
As I walked across to Benson’s I felt a kind of gladness that I had never experienced before. It wasn’t relief. Relief is emptiness, a temporary draining away of fears, ill humours, suspicions. What I now had was fullness, not a sense of satiety, but a welling up of something inside me that made me want, if not to sing out aloud, at least to hum under my breath. It made me want to reach out and touch the people who stood beside me at the pedestrian-crossing opposite Benson’s. I didn’t. But when the lights changed and we hurried across, I was grateful for an arm, a leg or a shopping-bag that bumped accidentally into me.
I arrived in my office to find Samson Alagaratnam stomping impatiently around my desk. He looked on the verge of an apoplectic attack and I asked, “Is something the matter, Sam?”
“Some weirdo threatens to put out all the lights in the carnival and this cat asks,” he put on an exaggerated English accent, “‘Is anything the matter, sir?’”
He was pulsating with indignation. I forced him into a chair and indicated to Ahmad that we were not to be disturbed. “What’s happened, Sam?”
“You mean you don’t know?” He stared at me, his eyes bulging fiercely out of his head as though better to detect any dissimulation on my part. “It’s filthy vibes, man. Someone’s putting out filth, making the kind of waves that can pull us all under.”
“How is that possible, Sam?”
“With this kind of shit.” He whipped out the streetpaper I had seen the day before and placed it on my desk. “This shit-paper is all over town.”
“I know,” I said, trying to sound unconcerned.
“One thing we know, sure as we know that chicken pox ain’t the clap, and it’s this: some mangy cat and his groupies started pushing this muck, and now every skunk in town is going to give his balls an airing.”
“Have you got the culprit?” I asked, thinking of the blind newspaper man.
“Not the main cat, man. Not the main cat,” he said almost in a whisper. He slumped in the chair, even his eyeballs seeming to recede into their sockets. “We pick up some bloke—worse, some chick, on info we get and try to make them sing. Not scream loud. Just croon.”
“You mean you torture these kids, Sam? Beat them up, use thumbscrews?”
He grinned. “These ain’t the Dark Ages, man. We got electricity.” He let his body quiver rhythmically. “We load sixteen tons and what d’we get?” He held up his hands in despair. “F—all. Forget about energy conservation. We pump all that juice into some cat and what d’you think he says?”
“I haven’t a clue, Sam?”
“He tells us that he is Mr Big.” He looked at me appealingly.
“But?” I prompted.
“But he can’t be, man. This ain’t no one-man band. Behind the main scene is some production, man. One cat in control and a lot of kits helping. And you know one thing about all the cats we’ve bagged, Hernie?”
“What?” I obliged.
“They ain’t got the cool, Hernie. Style’s all wrong.” He shook his head. “Told the deputy minister this and what does he say? We gotta find the culprit. And soon.” He rolled his eyes heavenwards. “Says the man up top wants these streetpapers stopped, but yesterday, man. Yesterday.” He sighed at the injustice of it all and was silent.
“Anything more about a job for me, Sam?”
His whole manner brightened. “Yup. There we have ignition, man. Click, click, click and vroom, it will be blast off, baby. But we gotta do this right. All official like, geddit? Kill any talk of favouritism dead, dead, dead, si?”
“Sure, Sam. What’ll I have to do?”
“Check this form then sign it. We’ve already filled it in for you.” He smiled mysteriously. “All facts and figures in place, right, man?”
“You seem to know a lot about me. How is that, Sam?”
“How come, he asks, how come?” He laughed. “Piped straight out of our whiz-brain computer. Neat, man, real neat.” I nodded and he continued, “Now hit us with a sample of the merchandise.”
“One of my stories, you mean?”
“Just it, man. But,” he leaned over and grasped my arm firmly, “not the one about farts.”
“Not farts, Sam,” I protested “Smells.”
“Listen, Hernie-Bernie. Don’t farts have smells?”
“Not always—” I began, but he would not be interrupted.
“Anyway, they don’t interest us. Give us something real solid to impress Mr Numero Uno.”
“Mister who?”
“The Deputy Secretary of Culture. Punch through a real mean message, man, and you’ll zap Mr One.”
“I’ve got a few possibles lying around. I could bring one round to your flat this evening.”
“Sure thing,” he said, standing up. “See your face around the place. Back of nine, be on time.”
Sylvie wasn’t in when I got home. This was lucky, for I was able to get down to choosing a story for Sam. Flipping through my pile of stories I realised how distant I had become from them. Not only had I forgotten the words I put into my characters’ mouths but I seemed to have lost even the purpose of those words and had to discover it anew in the context of my narrative. It was a nice feeling. I paused sometimes to smile, sometimes to bite my knuckle. I was moved by my people, these strangers who had once been part of me but were now my grown-up children.
It was going to be difficult to find a story for Sam. On top of the pile was “Dead Certain”, a tale that explored the most gentle of erotic expressions: necrophilia. A little below this was “Eyes Only”, in which I had examined the aesthetic reactions of a cannibal to the human body. Would he look upon Michelangelo’s David as a banquet, feel short-changed by Venus De Milo, or would he be moved beyond carnality? My stories were indulgences. They were my designs for experiencing an inaccessible world in the only way possible: with words. They were discoveries, not parables. It wasn’t going to be easy to find among them something suitable for Sam.
Finally I settled on one called “Double Exposure”. I flipped through it and found it trite and dull. Then I began to think of how I had come to write it. Sylvie and I had just moved into our flat. New to high-rise living, I was struck by how it offered intimacy and aloofness at the same time. I didn’t, of course, dare talk to my neighbours, still less spy on them, but I wondered what they would say if I offered them some of my thoughts, or how I would react to some of theirs. My head buzzed with hypothetical conversations all day. I read “Double Exposure” again. Remembering how it had come to be and my early troubles with it, I began to warm a little to my tale. It had been written a long time ago and I had grown distant from the person who had written it but it contained, unquestionably, something that was a part of me. There were times when my commitment to the goings-on in my head was so complete that contact with reality was unnecessary and, even, irksome. This characteristic I did not regard, as an asset; not, that is, till the nightmare that was to fill all my conscious moments began.
Just as I was putting the sheets of typescript together, Sylvie came in.
“Hern,” she said, “Pa upped and walked out of the hospital today.”
“What about the special anti-cancer treatment?”
“Told that horrid little specialist where he could put that.” Her face became prim and affected, the way my father’s did when he was about to make a pronouncement. “‘Your medicaments, my dear fellow, are hardly suitable for the nether end of a water-buffalo, let alone a fellow creature in pain.’ Really told him, Pa did.” She grinned happily. “It was great to hear Pa talk that way again.”
“But what happens now?”
“He swans off on that second honeymoon with Ma.” She shrugged. “You know how it is. Keep out the future with the past.”
“And then?”
“And then, whatever.” She seemed annoyed with me. “The crystal ball I use suffers from voluntary shortsight.”
“Where’s Pa now?”
“At home and they want to see you before they leave on that trip tomorrow.”
As we drove to my parents’ home, I told Sylvie what had been happening at Benson’s, that I had put in my letter of resignation and that I hoped to get a job with Samson in the Ministry of Culture. She was silent but had a hand on my knee throughout.
“I’ve got to see Sam later this evening to drop off one of my stories.”
As I reversed into the driveway of my parents’ house she said, “Life’s a smokescreen. Never can tell what’s for the best.” She took my arm. “I think that Samson is a nasty and can’t say I’m thrilled about your spending hours in your room typing, but still…”
My mother let us into the living-room which, like the rest of the house, was cluttered with oddments of the most unlikely sort. A papier mâché Buddha sat nonchalantly cross-legged below a print of a wild-eyed Cardigan leading the Light Brigade on their last disastrous charge. Washington pointing the way across an icy Delaware inadvertently indicated the bosom of the Virgin exposing a sacred heart. Rosewood tables huddled in dark corners already occupied by wrought-iron garden seats that had belonged to my grandmother. I never entered without feeling that the room had once been visited by beings who had passed on, leaving behind haphazard evidence of their passage. This feeling was heightened by my mother’s use of extremely low-wattage light bulbs, which seemed permanently on the point of going out.
“Pa’s in the bedroom,” said my mother, leading the way.
My father lay in bed in his street clothes, unaware of how incongruous he looked. He was terribly short of breath, almost gasping, and seemed to have withered away from his clothes. There was in his eyes a wild devil-may-care look that even the dim lighting could not hide. I seemed to have seen that look somewhere recently, then I remembered: it was the look in Lord Cardigan’s eyes as he led the men of the Light Brigade to their deaths at Balaclava.
As though his thoughts were in resonance with my own, my father began, “Mine not to reason why, mine not to make reply…” He stopped, and managed a spluttered laugh. “You see, my boy, I obey the dictates of my heart, not my head.” He gazed fondly at Clara.
“You’re off tomorrow, then,” I said.
“At the first light of dawn,” he said. “The very first.”
“Just like we did the day after the wedding,” said Clara, a faraway look in her eyes.
“Yes, ma’am,” said Fred. “It’s going to be just like it was. Taxi up to Mersing, then up the east coast of the peninsula by bus. Whenever possible, that is.”
I knew the type of taxicab that ran the eighty-odd miles between Singapore and Mersing. They were antiquated vehicles whose drivers knew little and cared less for the rules of the road. Their attitude, combined with the unpredictable internal (though not always entirely so) combustion processes of the vehicles they drove, made rides in them bumpy enough to disrupt the innards of a person unafflicted by cancer or cytotoxic drugs.
“Marvellous,” I said. Then, catching Sylvie’s eye, quickly added, “I’m sure you two will have a really marvellous time.” I reached out to grasp my father’s arm and was shocked at how much of his shirt sleeve I had to squeeze before I reached it.
“Good news for all,” chirped Sylvie. “Hern’s getting a government job. He’s on his way to see Sam Alagaratnam about it.”
“I’m glad to see you getting on, Hern,” said my father. “Yes, indeed. Seeing you getting on in the world is really a sight for sore eyes.”
“You run along whenever you wish, darling,” said Sylvie, “I’ll catch a cab home.”
I kissed my mother and, as always, shook hands with my father. There was an uneasy finality about our actions that I did not like at all. My father was dying but he was doing it all wrong. Death should come upon one in a noisy, brightly-lit house full of baby smells, children’s laughter and the murmurings of lovers. Then a man could make his exit touching, almost sampling, the future he was not going to share. I understood why my father was so anxious to see Sylvie pregnant. What he asked was very small indeed: a tiny fragment of the future to clutch on to as he entered the tunnel of darkness. I started the car and, putting aside such thoughts, slipped it into gear.
I drove around aimlessly for a while, needing time to think before facing Sam. It wasn’t fear of what he might say about “Double Exposure” that bothered me. While rereading it had made me dislike the story a little less, I was certainly not proud of it or particularly attached to it. Nor had I any grandiose notions of my literary abilities, or reservations about selling myself. Why then was I so troubled?
Sam lived in an area of luxury condominiums some distance out of the city. This entire district was surrounded by highways on which there was a steady stream of traffic at all times. As I drove round and round the area, I became aware of a single, dim, square headlight in my wing mirror. I made a left turn, which took me back to a road I had already crossed. The light did the same. I ignored it, increased speed and drove round in a huge circle. The motorcyclist remained with me. In Singapore one is followed only by would-be kidnappers or by the police. I was not rich enough to attract the former and couldn’t imagine what there was about me that could be of interest to the law. I have a habit of getting involved with minor distractions when confronted with problems I cannot solve. Rather than let this happen, I turned down my mirror slightly and went back to thinking about Sam.
Once I accepted Sam’s job, I was sure I would have to do things I found distasteful. In my writing, I would support causes of which I disapproved, distort reality if my masters wished, suppress truths inimical to their purpose. I suppose this loss of self-respect is what distressed me. It must be something that all whores grappled with. Every prostitute must learn to disentangle temporarily the act from its association. It was simple. I would do the same. But, for the fourth time, I drove by the entrance to Sam’s apartment.
Words were more to me than a part of my body which I could put up for hire and from which I could be temporarily dissociated. They were the instruments with which I explored the world; my organs for tasting and testing it, smelling and sounding it, palpating and plumbing it. With them, I sensed the world and grasped it. They were my antennae and my tentacles. And by joining Sam I was betraying them.
