Life in the West (29 page)

‘Of course it’s not an ideal city, despite what our tourist propaganda says, but maybe there’s no such thing as an ideal city — except existing as an ideal. However, if you don’t mind if I get a bit egg-headed, I want to draw a parallel between Singapore and Venice, because you’ll be able to get a free drink on Four Star Coach Company when we stop at Raffles Hotel in the glamorous heart of the city.

‘Both Venice and Singapore depend on the sea, of course. That much is clear even to the thickest tourist from the USA or wherever. As the Middle Ages closed in Europe, it was the golden city of Venice which stood out above all other cities as supreme in beauty and wealth. In its internal development, it showed the promise of a new urban constellation far remote from the old walled cities which till then had existed since Neolithic times. So it was the city looking to the future.

‘For many years and centuries, Venice was a symbol and legend of city-state success. We think Singapore is the current example of a demographic urban solution. We are peaceful but energetic.

‘Trade was the golden key in Venice. Here in Singapore, it’s the same. But much more so. We depend not only on water but also the air. Two hundred ocean-going vessels float in our harbours each day, and sixty countries send their shipping lines here. At the Paya Lebar airport — and soon we will have a newer bigger one at picturesque Changi — we form a hub for international air routes, and over thirty important airlines operate their services through us. If you are male and your hair is too long when you arrive here, then you must get it cut short, but that’s a minor detail because nobody wants to harbour hippies in our hard-working republic — they can go on to Bali or India, where nobody seems to care if they shit on the beaches.

‘In the future, we will expand also into space if necessary and at all profitable. We can build a spaceport as easily as anyone. There are still a few
kampongs
we could knock down, or we could take over an unused pleasure island. We have to do all we can, because we have no defences and so no crippling defence budget to be paid for in taxes. So we make an appeal to pacifists the world over, but pacifists won’t come here to live in case they must work too hard.

‘After all, in a hard world, the population of Singapore must work. We’ve got enemies. Indonesia’s a pain at the back of the neck. And all the desperate nations of Indo-China. So here you can work and live comfortably, with dignity. Some of our girls are very beautiful, but sex is an invisible earner and we are realistic. Venice was called The Brothel of Europe in the eighteenth century. We have no danger of a similar label today, not with the Thais about, and Bangkok such a flesh market.

‘You know that this whole island was rather a dump, with just a few indolent Malay fishermen and snakes before Sir Stamford Raffles arrived and stirred things up. Well, Venice was much the same until some Italians from Padua escaped from an invader, crossing lagoons and settling on unpromising swamps and islands in the fifth century AD, So was the canal developed and the gondola, which we hear of by the eleventh century. We have created a city out of similar material, due mainly to the energy of the Chinese. It’s true we have none of the arts which made Venice great, and no painters or even stars like Piranesi or Tiepolo, but international cabaret stars like Sammy Davis Jnr often perform here and all the latest films are shown from all over the world. In fact, we’re suspicious of art, which is often produced by layabouts or religious maniacs, but it’s great
f16
country. Our business men are strictly commercial, yet honourable and look after their families well.

‘Perhaps you are whispering to yourselves that Singapore is fun to visit but it must be hell to live in. Let me tell you otherwise, because the health record is so good. Even the President of the Republic is a notable gynaecologist. We have here, I’m proud to say it, the fourth highest urban population density in the globe, which is to say about three million people of all the nationalities I mentioned once, but the GNP figure is about just over four and a half thousand dollars a person, and rising. That’s not only because we are industrious and don’t allow strikes like in Britain and Australia, to name two disgraceful examples, but because we develop industries and people invest in them, the workers themselves not least. Oil, banking, shipbuilding, all increase.

‘Fortunately, we learned something from the appalling state of manufacturing towns in Europe and the USA not forgetting those busy little Japanese people to the north. We have brought in good legislation under our Prime Minister, Lee Kwan Yew, who is certainly no fool. Not only do we avoid a lot of socialism going on, we have strong anti-pollution laws and clean air acts. So the workers have their good health, industry is zoned away from residential areas, and we can generally do without filth and disease. Our record is greatly better than Venice, don’t forget, because of the disgusting Italian habits.

‘The cleanliness of the Chinese is so well-known as to need no emphasis from us. Often we think our tourists smell bad, but are too hospitable to say it. After all, this is such a clean place, with no diseases such as malaria or plague or smallpox. Syphilis — well, a lot of that is brought in from abroad, and we know gonorrhoea is prevalent in the United States. That’s all in all why our death rate is down to 5.4 per 1000 of the population — one of the lowest in the globe.

‘French visitors to our shores will be particularly interested to note how we have taken to the English language as the common tongue. The French language is hopeless as it’s pronounced. Far more English is spoken here inter-racially every day than, in Hong Kong — or in France, for that matter. This is not because we like the English, and any way Somerset Maugham was decidedly queer, which is not a popular habit in our republic, but because it cools things between the various racial groups, particularly Chinese and Malays, and is used a lot in international trade.

‘There’s plenty more we could tell, but outside the windows of our coach you see all the lights twinkling in invitation to spend and enjoy, which speak more eloquently than words. So in conclusion I’ll say that human beings will always make cities, unless they are just indolent Malay fishermen, and progress has to go on.

‘Here in Singapore, fortunately with geography, we think we have one of the best ways of progress, and thank goodness we’re a long way from China and the Soviet Union, so we work hard, enjoy play, be kind to our through-put tourists, and hope that you enjoy a pleasant stay here, remembering that our emblemaic flower is the fragile orchid, the symbol of how delicate nature is, and its beauty. Good-night, and thanks for listening. Have a fun holiday.’

As the tourists disembark from the coach, clattering with cameras, past the smiling slant-eyed hostess, night comes on and geopolitical constellations wheel overhead.

Even for the a-political state, time is running out. The lights of Europe may be guttering, but the USSR too is low in the westering sky. As for those stars of lesser magnitude in South America, their light is eclipsed by the brightness of the North American galaxy, which now burns at the zenith. The configurations of the Middle East presage no greater ascendancy for them.

Meanwhile, over the northern horizon, the bulk of that vast planet China continues inexorably to rise, tawny, magnificent, and fringed with an ever-increasing number of satellites.

10

Slatko

Ermalpa, September 1978

A gleaming band of light out to sea separated day from night. Although it was not yet entirely dark, a few stars shone. Thursday was sinking without trace into Ermalpa harbour.

It was possible to stand on the seaward side of the Via della Cala and gaze across a low concrete wall at the old port. Among a muddle of derricks and sheds, the masts of a sailing ship could be discerned. Beyond the masts was the sea, the Mediterranean.

Squire stood with his hands in his pockets, looking across the wall. He let the memory of other seas refresh his mind, but thoughts of the difficulties he faced, here and at home, stayed with him.

Pedestrians brushed past as they hurried home. He glanced at his watch. It was almost time for the last session of the day, at which his friend Herman Fittich would speak; for Fittich’s sake, he would submit to being incarcerated again in the mirrored conference hall. As he turned to make his way back to the Grand Hotel Marittimo, he caught sight of Selina Ajdini walking towards him; accompanying her was one of the more cut-glass young Italians, Enrico Pelli, who had earlier delivered a prolix paper on ‘Psychiatry and the Popular Understanding of Prehistory’. Ajdini saluted Squire with some eagerness in her gesture, and the customary mocking note in her voice.

‘Are you looking for more flying saucers, I suppose?’

‘In search of the miraculous? Waiting for a sign?’

She laughed. ‘I’ve seen too many signs in my life. They all point different ways.’

‘Ha! “What meaneth Nature by these diverse laws? Passion and reason, self division cause.” ’

If she recognized a couplet from one of Aldous Huxley’s favourite poems, she gave no sign, saying cheerfully, ‘If you are about to turn back to the hotel, Signor Pelli and I will walk along with you.’

He smiled warmly at her, suddenly full of affection, loving that naked face, and reflected again on the beautiful curvature of her lips, only made possible by the topography of her lower jaw. How long would you have to live with Selina before you failed to notice those affecting proportions? Enrico was no doubt under the spell of them. He had given Squire no greeting. His face was clouded, his heavy brows drawn together, his back rigid. As he moved reluctantly to walk beside Ajdini and Squire, the latter thought, ‘So he’s been propositioning her hard, and had no luck.’

And, as his gaze rested on her, ‘I wonder what luck I’d have?’

‘There’s a sailing boat moored by the harbour,’ he said, walking on the other side of Ajdini from Pelli, and addressing her left profile. ‘How pleasant to sail away now, before the moon is up, to forget all your responsibilities… To discover a little sunlit island no one had ever happened across, with a golden beach and no footballers…’

‘Footballers! How did they get there?’

‘They didn’t.’

‘And on the island…?’

‘Coconut palms…’

‘Your dreams are so standard. Better natural products are oil, wheat and whisky…’

‘I wasn’t planning to work or get rich.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ she said. ‘I’m not a bad sailor.’

Outside a bar in a side alley, a broken sign burned, advertising a Belgian lager with the words ‘STELLA ART’ in blurred mauve neon. He took it as a good omen: there were islands somewhere, even if not readily accessible.

‘ “All I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by…” ’

‘It would be a good alternative to listening to Herman Fittich, I’m sure.’

‘I like the man. I’m confident he will have something interesting to say.’

She gestured. ‘His perpetual irony I cannot stand. A defeated man. But I don’t like the Germans in any case.’

‘They did make themselves a bit unpopular a few years ago.’

She flashed him a reproving expression.’ Don’t you start on the irony. You were safe in Britain when the Germans were killing off Europe. Me, I am Yugoslav by birth, or half Serbian and half Turkish, plus a dash of Persian.’

‘So you have reason to hate the Germans.’

She gave a curt nod, and tossed her head.

‘I was a tiny girl when the damned Nazis invaded my homeland. Everyone fought them, young and old. No country was more brave, more determined, than Serbia. My father was killed by the Bosch, then my elder brother. So I can’t help hating them. An uncle and I escaped to the United States after the war, but one does not forget those times. They leave a mark.’

Pelli said something to her angrily in Italian, but she silenced him with one of her quelling glances.

‘The Americans understand little of the rest of the world,’ she said. ‘But you see I am not like that, although I have American citizenship.’

‘Yugoslavia’s a magnificent country. If you’re so Left Wing, and you dislike the States as much as it seems you do, why don’t you return to Yugoslavia?’

She appeared to undergo a sudden change of mood. As if dismissing the subject, she slipped a slender arm on which bracelets clattered through his arm, and made him look with her in a small lighted shop window. Pelli stood awkwardly by, hands impatiently on hips.

‘That handbag’s not bad, eh? I bet it was made in Milano. You know Yugoslavia, don’t you? You have lived there?’

‘Yes, I have.’

‘There are more job opportunities for me in the States.’

‘Thank democracy for that, Selina. Be grateful for what you’ve got.’

She sighed and they walked up the street in silence.

‘Well, dear, dear. You see, Tom, I do really quite fancy you — much more than I fancy this sulky young man who wants only to go to bed with me and fortunately does not talk English. Well, I go to bed with whom I feel like and maybe tonight I feel like you if you are so inclined. So I don’t want to offend you. But you are — oh, so simple. The British are like Americans, they do not know the real world. Okay, there are more job opportunities in the States, but that’s only your debating point to be scored. You don’t see why there are all those jobs more.