The Catherine Lim Collection (11 page)

“A servant, an unpaid servant,” she had said
angrily. “That’s what your mother is now. A 71-year-old lady being made to take
care of a sick infant so that Gek Choo can go back to her cashier’s job at the
bank. Oh yes, I know – they say it’s temporary – they’re looking for a servant.
But you mark my words. Once the old lady is there, there will be no servant.
They’ll make her stay on and on and save on a servant. I know them!”

She became angrier and angrier.

“What’s happened to that big hoo-ha about
the flat being too small?” she demanded of her husband, while he sat, trying to
read the newspaper. “That flat is too small when it comes to taking in an old
mother, but not an old, unpaid servant! Do you know, Boon, where your mother
sleeps? In the room with the four girls! Crowded together, like sardines. And
she has to tend to that sick child from eight in the morning till five in the
evening, when Gek Choo returns from work. And I dare not think what food she
eats there. This is intolerable, Boon! How are you going to take it when your
friends see your poor old mother like that, no better than a servant? Dr Toh
Wee Boon, doing work among the poor old folks in Minister’s constituency, and
his own mother the victim of her unscrupulous children!”

“But she’ll be there for a short while only
to help out, while they look for a servant,” said Boon wearily. “She doesn’t
seem to mind it.”

“For a short while only!” Angela
expostulated. “Their short while means forever, if it means a saving of money,
to acquire more properties and of course your mother doesn’t mind. She can be
as soft as mud, for people to tread on. Look at how that unscrupulous Ah Kum
Soh is exploiting her? One of these days I’m going to check on her jewellery.
That woman is not above persuading Old Mother to part with her jewellery on
pretence of wanting to see some sin-seh to cure her wretched idiot son.”

“Old Mother says that she will leave as soon
as Ah Siong comes back,” said Boon.

“And when will Ah Siong come back?” demanded
Angela. “Pardon me for being so harsh, Boon, but you know it and I know it.
That brother of yours has no intention of coming back. See how many courses of
study he has taken up and abandoned? Now I hear that he and the Australian
divorcee have separated, that he’s joined some religious sect and is going
around preaching and evangelising. Remember the letters he had written about
her, in the first ardour of their relationship? He called her ‘angel’ and the
most wonderful woman in the world and the anchor of his world that had put an
end to his years of drifting or something like that. Every letter was full of
praises for her. He really was mad over her. And now it appears he’s chucked
her aside for religion. I wonder what he’ll do next?”

“You do what you think right, I really have
nothing to say in the matter,” said Boon in weary vexation. His wife softened.
“I’m really thinking of your old mother,” she said, with less fire. “She’s
already 71 years old, a simple, soft-hearted old woman who’s quite lost in a
society like ours. She can be very irritating at times, as you well know, and
the children and I, as well as Mooi Lan, have found some of her ways odd and
annoying. But that’s beside the point. She’s old and cannot be exploited in
this shameful manner. Do you know, Boon,” with the renewed energy of one who
holds the best information for the last, “do you know that Ah Tiong is planning
to apply for shares in her name, and to claim that fantastic reduction in
income tax for those who have old parents staying with them? You see, he and
Gek Choo have thought over everything very carefully.”

Boon said again, “You do as you like,” and
left the room, Angela thought peevishly, That’s just like you, unwilling to
face problems. Always letting me deal with problems. She remembered something
and shouted after him, “And do you know that the lifts in that wretched block
of
flats keep breaking down? Your old mother will have to climb seven flights of
steps as I once did!”

She took lots of delicious steaming hot food
to Old Mother, she bought a mattress to replace the thin cotton stuffed one
that Old Mother was sleeping on in the flat. She saw Old Mother washing some
cups and glasses at the sink and promptly took over.

She asked Gek Choo, with pointed malice,
“And when is your servant coming?”

“Kim Lan Soh is still looking,” said Gek
Choo with quiet complacence. “I interviewed one yesterday, and she didn’t seem
suitable. Old Mother herself didn’t find her suitable.” Fuming, Angela walked
into the room where the baby lay in a cradle. He was slightly bigger, he looked
better. Old Mother was all solicitousness as she rocked him in the cradle. Old
Mother looked thinner and paler – who could wonder at that? – but she was all
devotion to the puny little boy. She carried him up in her arms for Angela to
see, but she was in no mood to hold the child, so full of resentment was she
against the parents.

“I knew this kind of thing would happen –
what can you expect from such a squalid environment?” was her response when she
heard the story from Gek Choo. Gek Choo had related the incident reluctantly
and only because Angela, having heard it from another quarter, was bent on
eliciting the truth from her.

“Yes,” she had said. It was true that Old
Mother had got robbed of her gold chain. She was in the market one Sunday
morning with the idiot one. The idiot one had called and Old Mother wanted to
take him to eat at one of the food stalls in the market. Two men had come along
and struck up a conversation with Old Mother. Then they produced a round white
stone which they claimed to be a magic stone, with extraordinary properties.
They dropped the stone into a glass of water; nothing happened. They made Old
Mother drop the stone into another glass of water; nothing happened. But when
they made the idiot one drop the stone into his glass of water, the colour
turned black. This, they explained, meant that the idiot one had a rare
disease, which could only be cured by the magic stone. She was to say a prayer
every morning and every night over the stone, and drop it into a glass of water
for the idiot one to drink. He would be cured of his malady within three
months.

Old Mother had no money to pay for the magic
stone, but agreed to part with the gold chain around her neck. She did not tell
anyone about the stone when she returned, but Wee Tiong saw her performing the
rites and wormed the truth out of her. He took her down to the market place the
next morning to see if she could identify the tricksters so that he could hand
them over to the police, but they were either nowhere to be seen or Old Mother
could not identify them.

“What do you expect from surroundings like
that?” cried Angela angrily. “The market in that miserable housing estate teems
with gangsters and confidence tricksters! One of these days, Old Mother is
going to get robbed of her jade bangle, the diamond ear-studs we gave her for
her birthday, and God knows what else. She puts all her jewellery in an old
blue cloth bag which she leaves carelessly in a drawer or cupboard. If we, her
sons and daughters-in-law, don’t protect her from these evil elements in
society, who will?”

Angela suggested that Gek Choo keep all Old
Mother’s jewellery in her safe deposit box in the bank. “I have no safe deposit
box,” said Gek Choo and Angela thought, Of course, your Chinaman husband would
never allow you to buy jewellery. Every cent has to go into properties, and
more properties.

The turn of events was unexpected. Angela
received a call from Gek Choo. Old Mother had fallen and twisted her ankle. She
had also gone down with fever. Would Angela come over and take her to see Boon?

Angela went immediately. That decides it,
she thought, Old Mother comes to stay with us. It’s not a prospect I relish –
the Lord knows I dread it – but I just can’t bear the thought of those mean
vipers exploiting a poor old woman. If necessary, I shall get another servant
to take care of her.

Old Mother wanted to return to her own
house, but Angela said firmly, “Mother, you are not well. You need someone to
take care of you. When you are well, you can return to your own house. But for
the time being, you stay with Boon and me. Mooi Lan can cook for you. Ah Kum
Soh and her son can continue staying in your house if they like, but you must
get well. You’ve grown very thin and pale, and that’s not good for an old
person. We’ll take good care of you.”

“You are very kind,” murmured Old Mother.
“When Ah Siong comes back, he can take care of me.”

You poor fool, thought Angela, and she was
suddenly overcome with compassion for her old mother-in-law. It would not be
long before the new house was ready. That was the best possible compromise. Meanwhile,
she had to do her duty.

Angela was
profuse in her apologies
for having dragged Mee Kin
along to the house, to the old musty room, where upon entrance the two women,
suitably attired in T-shirts and slacks and with their hair covered with
headscarves for the task ahead, were hit in the faces by a cloud of dust and
the smell of decay and death.

Mee Kin said, “You know I wanted to come
along. I told you long ago that it would be foolish to leave these things to
rot. A lot of them might be valuable.” It turned out that none was worth
picking up, except the old carved bed with the four posts around which writhed
the ferocious dragons or serpents; it was difficult to tell which.

“This is a treasure worth restoring,” said
the knowledgeable Mee Kin. “Mine isn’t half as handsome. And this is even
better than Dorothy’s. It may look ugly to you now, dear, but once it’s come
back from the antique restorer’s shop –
voilà!
– you wouldn’t believe
your eyes!”

“Our first task is to get rid of those
dreadful layers of dust and cobwebs,” said Angela. She looked round the room
with a shiver. “This room really gives me the creeps. We’ll have to spend the
whole morning cleaning it up.”

Mee Kin had good-naturedly brought along her
maidservant to help clear up the mess; Angela could not spare Mooi Lan who had
to see about the children’s lunch as well as Boon’s lunch, if he came back from
the clinic. “All these old chairs and things – we’ll have to get rid of them,”
said Angela. “My God, who would believe that the old one could have accumulated
so much rubbish? Look, even empty biscuit tins and paper bags. They’ll all have
to go.”

Angela brought Mee Kin to have a good look
at the altar cups and jars. Mee Kin’s eyes lit up with recognition.

“Yes, they’re genuine antiques,” she said
with mounting excitement. “They’re worth keeping, Angie. Dorothy has a few
pieces exactly like these and she keeps them in a special show-case.”

“I can easily replace them with the pretty
tea-cups and jars being sold at S K Han’s,” said Angela, delighted by the new
acquisition. “My mother-in-law won’t mind, as they’ll hold the tea offerings
and whatnot just as well.”

The small piercing eyes in the framed
photograph above the altar again compelled her to look up. She looked up
quickly, then averted the gaze.

“Isn’t it creepy,” she later whispered to
Mee Kin. “The old man’s eyes seem to follow me everywhere.”

“My father-in-law’s photo gave me the same
eerie feelings,” confided Mee Kin. “My mother-in-law was, in many ways, more
eccentric than yours. She talked to the photograph for hours, in the last
months before her death.”

“If only these old ones were like your
mother!” cried Angela, who really liked the easy-going affable old lady of 67.
Mee Kin said she had just returned from a holiday in Australia to visit Mee
Kin’s brother and wife there.

“Do you know,” said Mee Kin, “she came back
and left off the old taboo of beef! Now she’s eating beef – even beef
hamburgers – like any of us. ‘If you don’t eat beef, there’s nothing to eat in
Australia,’ she said, and proceeded to enjoy herself at those Sunday barbecues
at the park that my brother and sister-in-law took her to.”

Angela marvelled at the contrast between Mee
Kin’s mother and her mother-in-law. “The old one won’t even come near butter,”
she said, “and is averse to leather goods like leather handbags and belts.
Would you believe it? I daren’t imagine what it’s going to be like now that
she’s coming to stay with us. Mark must have his steak a few times a week.
Michelle adores Mooi Lan’s beef patties. We’ll just have to see how things go.
What to do?”

The bed again took up their attention. “I
think it was their marital bed,” said Angela. “My mother-in-law was married at
the age of 18, though she didn’t have children till she was in her 20s. She was
virtually raped on her wedding night. You know what it was like in those days.”
She looked at the bed and laughed. “This bed probably has a rich and colourful
history of rape, incest, debauchery! I read somewhere – was it in Pearl S.
Buck? – about the rich lords of mansions and their young sons taking turns to
carry young bondmaids to their beds to deflower! My mother-in-law once told me
of a grand-uncle who was like that. My Mark is too young. If he were older, he
would probably write a colourful history of this bed!”

The history was less enchanting than the
tangible reality. Angela paid a visit out of curiosity to the antique restorer
while he was still in the process of restoration and gasped in pleased
astonishment at the transformation taking place before her very eyes. They were
serpents, not dragons; the original splendour of their superbly carved scales,
the open mouths with the long protruding tongues, the expressive eyes were
coaxed out by the patient skilful hands of the restorer.