Shadow Theatre (27 page)

I must admit, I was slightly taken aback to hear that Mahani
had come over to visit Shak on her own, since I saw her almost
every day at the library, and she had never mentioned it to me.
But then, Mahani and I weren't friends, exactly. She wasn't friends
with Chandra, either, which I was glad about, now that I knew.
Not that I disliked Mahani in any way, you know. It wasn't because
of that, that we weren't friends.

But I've always liked my privacy, and privacy's not easy to
come by in Singapore. It never was.

"How did Mahani hear about Auntie Coco's sister?" I asked.
(Of course what I wanted to know was what else the two of
them had talked about, but I thought, sooner or later, Shak
would tell me on her own. And it was better that way.)

"Oh, you know." Shak was looking at me a bit wistfully, so
I wondered if she was thinking about the doctor's son again. We
hadn't talked about it since that Friday, although there were
moments I could feel her wanting to throw things into the open.
Other times, it seemed as if she was becoming more like me,
leaving the past alone. We hadn't even talked about the morning Laura Timmerman had looked out of the bathroom window
while she was uncapping the tube of toothpaste, and there was
the doctor's son, tied to one of the rambutan trees. Naked again.
Or about what the doctor's servant had seen, the one who was
sent out to untie the boy.

An old lady squatting overhead in the treetop, whom the
boy himself claimed he couldn't see. No one had ever known
what to make of it.

"I think it's too early to tell," I said. "For all we know, even
as we speak, someone may have found the sister and is taking
her to the police station right now."

"You don't really believe that, Rose."

"I know. But you remember how people here will gossip
without knowing anything. You remember?"

"Yes, I do remember."

Already, everyone could feel the sister was gone for good.
As if somehow, she was already just one more shadow when
the sun rose, just one more leaf dropping off the trees. (Auntie
Coco must have known it also. She especially. She seldom came
out of her house now, and those of the neighbors who had tried
to visit her were saying she wouldn't even come out to the gate
or answer the telephone.)

On the wall above Shak's bed, the pattern of the window
railing disappeared briefly, then appeared again. The same pattern as would show up on my bedroom wall, because all of our
houses had the same railing, to prevent children from tumbling
out and cracking their heads open.

It must have been around half-past two, although something
felt later. We had gone upstairs after lunch, I remember. I could
smell the lime blossoms drifting up to us from Shak's back garden. So familiar, the way her room smelled, as if here, nothing
could ever be ruined, or changed. Because see how Shak was
snuggling against the headboard with her pillows, facing me
where I was, at the foot of the bed just like years ago. We would
sit like that, our voices weaving together as we talked, our hearts
locking in the embrace of children's hearts. That was Shak and
me. The way we used to be, before anything had happened.

Perhaps it was why at the time, I didn't pay attention to the
missing photographs. Because at that moment, who cared why
of all things to remove from her room, her mother had chosen
to remove the photographs of Shak's father? There used to be
two, you know, up there on her bureau beside the bed. Those were the only things missing from the room. The other photographs were still there, I remember, those of Shak alone, or
Shak with her mother, or Shak with her aunties on her mother's
side, and there was one with Shak's grandmother, which had
been taken outside the grandmother's house, back when everyone was still in touch.

See how life is when your best friend comes home, never
mind whether or not she will stay for good, and never mind her
swollen feet and the watermelon.

Even with Auntie Coco's misfortune lingering in the air, I
felt oddly happy.

"Hey, Rose?"

When I looked away from the railing pattern on the wall,
Shak was eying me as if she knew exactly how I was feeling. But
all she asked was, "Do people still talk about the diamond
woman?"

"Sometimes," I said, "hut not much."

Because it was true. Although the story still came up now
and then, most of us had gone around it several times already.
And I wasn't fond of that story myself, you know. I remember,
when Shak and I had first heard about it, for days, I wasn't able
to look at my own father directly. I'll admit, I was glad when
people's attention wandered elsewhere.

"So people still don't know who she was," Shak murmured.

"No," I said. "No one knows."

She sighed, and I watched her tired face. Of course I wanted to tell her how much I had missed her. But why talk about
what we cannot change?

"Have you talked to Isabella about it?" Shak asked, returning again to Auntie Coco and her sister.

"No," I said, and then I thought I might as well tell her I
hadn't seen Isabella since that Friday at the library. (She had
asked me then, Isabella, whether I knew she would be leaving
for America soon, and of course I had heard about it. She was going over for further studies in psychology at the University of
Chicago, something like that. She had invited me to her
farewell luncheon at the convent, and I had said yes, even
though I knew I wouldn't be able to bring myself to do it. I was
surprised Shak hadn't asked me about it, but for some reason, we
hadn't talked about Isabella until now. Although I knew Isabella
had come to visit her, as she had said she would.)

"You didn't see her before she left?" Shak asked, after I had
told her. She sounded genuinely surprised, which surprised me,
because I thought after talking with Isabella, she would know
how Isabella and I didn't see much of each other.

"We're not that close, you know," I said. "You guys were
friends, but she and I, you know how it is, as time passes, and
we all end up with our own lives."

She and Shak, you know, in those two years while they
were on the team. Always laughing over something. Sitting on
the wet tiles at the edge of the pool with their feet kicking up
water, bending their heads together so they could whisper
about the coach, or about the other girls, or about boys. Back
then, it may have made me a bit jealous, I don't remember if it
did or not. But I always knew, it was only because I wasn't on the
team that Shak and Isabella became buddy buddy in that way.

Shak was looking at me, as if waiting for an answer.

"What?" I asked.

She shook her head and started smacking a pillow. "Mrs.
Sandhu's been asking about you," she said.

"Asking what?"

"She just wanted to know how you were. She says she never
runs into you. She was under the impression you had migrated
somewhere."

I watched Shak shoving the pillow wearily beneath her
right breast, her hair falling like a wave over her face.

"I'd forgotten how humid it can get." She sighed, pushing
her hair back from her face. "Mrs. Sandhu's thinking of selling her house, moving into a smaller place. You know her husband's
passed away?"

I nodded, having read the obituary when it happened.

"Remember how when we were in school, every now and
then he would send a bouquet of roses with the chauffeur when
the chauffeur came to pick her up?" Shak had lain back and
closed her eyes, a smile on her lips.

"You used to refer to him as Mr. Sandhu Charming," I said.
"And once, Mrs. Sandhu heard you."

"Yes, she did." Shak was still smiling, her face relaxing in a
way I hadn't seen since she had come home. "Aren't you sleepy,
Rose?"

"I'm used to the heat," I said. "You go ahead and rest, okay?"

She nodded, then asked, "Will you watch for the dragons?"

"Yes," I said, as if we were still children. "I'll watch for the
dragons."

She patted her womb and whispered, "Rose will watch for
the dragons," to the baby. (You know they say even in the
womb, babies can feel the world around them, can pick up on
feelings, that sort of thing.)

I must have been sleepier than I realized, because I don't
remember closing my eyes. One moment, I was watching Shak's
face while she slept. The next moment, I was waking up with
my right cheek resting on my right arm, my torso stretched out
sideways across the blue-and-white paisley sheet, and she was
watching me.

SHAK SAID SHE had been awake only a few minutes before I
opened my eyes. She was looking less tired as she sat at the
dressing table, brushing her hair. I had moved up from the foot
of the bed and was sitting near the pillows, watching her, trying
to seize every minute, since I didn't know how long more she
would be around.

We hadn't talked about when she was planning to go back to
America. When Shak had first arrived, she had said only that she
wasn't back for good. But she wanted to see how things went, with
her mother especially, before she thought about when to leave.

So I didn't want to ask her about it, in case talking made it
happen, somehow. And yet, deep down inside, I must have
known she could never settle here. Not now. Because
Singaporeans who go to England or Australia, they often return,
you know, but the ones who've gone to America, they seldom
come back. (With Isabella, it would have to be different, I
thought. Because of her vows.)

Shak's dress was aquamarine that afternoon, beautiful as a
kingfisher feather. And the sun, I remember, was coming
through the window on her left and flying off her hair.

"So, what if Auntie Coco's sister left of her own free will?"
she said, still facing the mirror. "Unless you're tired of talking
about it. Are you?" Shak glanced at me, and I shook my head.

"What do you mean?" I asked, although I could tell from her
tone, she was thinking of Che' Halimah. So I knew she had
heard a rumor that was only just starting, about how Che'
Halimah may have coaxed Auntie Coco's sister over to her
house. Because Che' Halimah was getting old, and it was time
for her to start training an apprentice.

So the rumor went. And as I've said, it was only just starting. Not even my mother knew about it, you know. Because
being of her generation, my mother wasn't paying attention to
certain conversations. And it's true. Some things, only those
who are silent most of the time, only they can hear.

"Do you think the police have been to Kampong Alam?"
Shak asked, putting down her brush.

"Probably," I replied, although I didn't know for certain.

"But they didn't visit every house."

Might as well get to the point, I thought, so I said, "You
think Auntie Coco's sister is in the bomoh's house?"

She could be. It's probably the one place nobody's looked."

"Our police are quite thorough, you know. Anyway, how
could Auntie Coco's sister make her way through the cemetery
on her own?"

"She wouldn't have had to do it on her own, Rose." Shak got
up and stepped over to the bed.

I moved back to my old position at the foot of the bed, so
she could sit with her pillows again.

"You don't think it's possible? Rose?"

"You think the beggar was here to guide her to the house?"
I was referring to the old fellow some neighbors were saying
might be involved in Auntie Coco's sister's disappearance, but
only because he was a stranger and had shown up in our neighborhood so suddenly. I myself hadn't seen him. Neither had
Shak, as far as I knew.

"Oh, I hadn't thought of that. But sure, maybe. That would
be one way. But Che' Halimah has other ways, you know."

But still, why would Che' Halimah have chosen a retarded
woman? I pointed it out to Shak, as if she wouldn't have thought
about it already. "Auntie Coco's sister is retarded," I reminded
her.

"What if she's really not?"

"I'm sure she is, Shak."

"You are?"

es.

That was when Shak reached for my hand, and I felt the
smoothness of the emeralds as she slid the bracelet into my
palm. "A close friend gave this to me," she said, out of the blue,
just like that. "I want to give it to you. Okay?"

All I could do was nod. I should have wondered then and
there, why she was giving it to me. And also, why she seemed
so certain the rumor about Auntie Coco's sister was true. But the
way she had said a close friend was stuck like a thorn in my heart,
and it was all I could think about at that moment.

Which close friend? Was it Mahani? Isabella? Why didn't
she want to tell me who it was? I wanted to ask, but now Shak
was sitting there with both hands on her womb, fingertips to
fingertips, and she was gazing down and smiling, as if she could
see right through her hands, through her dress, through her
abdomen, directly into her baby. As if she was smiling into her
baby, to fill the baby with her whole self, that was how it was.

So I didn't want to disturb her.

Only I found myself wondering more than ever, what her
baby was going to look like, since I still knew nothing about the
father. And if the baby turned out to have blond hair and blue
eyes, then what? Of course it mattered to me, whether or not
the baby would look like Shak.

Not anymore, but at the time, it mattered.

► is A SHRINE. Shak told me, when she showed me the red
matchbox with the picture of a couple holding hands painted
onto it. She had pulled out the matchbox drawer to show me
what was inside also-a doll with long black hair, wearing a yellow dress, a plastic capsule like a big pill capsule, and a strip of
white paper.

"A shrine," I repeated, and then I asked her, "What religion?"
since I had never seen a shrine like that.

"Catholic," she said, smiling because she could tell from my
expression, I didn't know whether or not she was joking.