Singapore Noir полностью

Tears and memories overcome her words. She cannot make herself say the word die. But I know it is not only her son that these harsh raw sobs are for as she twists herself in agony against our front door.

“And that stupid maid. Can you believe the girl had the cheek to offer me money for my boy’s treatment? Whoever heard of such a thing? I told her, if you so laowah and got so much money to throw at people, why are you here washing toilets? I told the police, I told the maid agency, if the girl got so much money she must have stolen it from me! Those useless people come and tell me I’m the one that owes her back pay!”

Renee, ever softhearted, moves over to comfort the intruder. Instinctively, I reach out an arm to block, to protect. The blue ceramic vase shatters on the wall rack beside her head and—

“Did you see that?” The madness in the woman’s voice rises and she shrieks again. “Did you see what she did? I didn’t break that — but I know you are going to blame me!”

“No one is blaming you...” Renee says, but she retreats to safety behind me. She obviously doesn’t recognize the woman.

It is not surprising that I remember her. After all, I remember everything about Tiong Bahru since the 1930s and it was only a year ago that I first encountered our not-yet-mad visitor at the newly reopened market. The old stigma of subsidized government housing is forgotten in our district’s graceful curved balconies and pastel wooden shutters, and the vegetable patches between rows of terraced walk-ups are tended by a mix of original inhabitants and recent arrivals. In the prewar days the buildings were called mei ren wu or houses of beauty because mistresses of wealthy businessmen lived here. Now that coffee bars, modern bistros, and retro bookshops have moved in, property prices have gone up, attracting real estate agents like this woman.

The first time I saw her was at the market when she cut in front of me at the chwee kueh stall. Chwee kueh is rice flour and water steamed into delicate discs and topped with fried pickled vegetables and sesame seeds. It is still one of Renee’s favorite treats.

The woman had her husband, maid, and two children in tow and was talking loudly about the profits she intended to make. “I don’t see why this place is supposed to be such a big deal. People buying to rent to homos and foreigners — that’s why the prices are so high!”

She complained about the quality of the chwee kueh. She complained about the seating and the birds and she scolded her daughter for not eating, her husband for not listening, and her maid for not stopping her son from throwing his fork and plate and water bottle at the birds.

Then she slapped her maid for trying to collect their unfinished food in a plastic bag. “So dirty! People will think we don’t feed you!”

The maid had not been given anything to eat or drink. But the maid was not as thin as the daughter, who had transferred the food from inside her bowl to under her plate, bypassing her mouth. I noticed, even if her mother did not. She might have been a pretty girl, I thought, if not dwarfed by her mother’s size and manner.

That would have been the end of it had the woman not appeared in front of the Seng Poh Road ground-floor flat I was living in then.

I recognized the smug, strident voice mocking our simple wooden doors and painted window grills even as she stuffed Best Price Offered for Your Property flyers through them.

“I tell you, these days all the rich homos and poor ang mohs want to live here. These stupid old people don’t know what they are sitting on — eh-eh-eh, boy-boy, don’t throw!” A crash followed.

I opened the door to find her pale pudgy son had smashed the arowana tank on the five-foot way with a cup cactus. Water and broken glass were mixed with porcelain fragments and the pink-tipped petals of the crushed Sedum rubrotinctum were being smeared on the cement walkway by my two desperately flailing fish. The boy had already picked up another pot off the wall rack, a three-inch Tiger’s Jaw in a clay pot, and was looking around for his next target. When he saw me his eyes gleamed; he raised his arm in my direction but squeaked and dropped the plant as its needles twisted around and jabbed him. The husband and maid were nowhere to be seen, no doubt distributing flyers elsewhere, but the anorexic daughter was standing there looking both sullen and alarmed.

The woman smacked the girl on the back of her head, making the chubby boy forget his pinpricks to crow in glee. “Why didn’t you watch your brother? This is all your fault!”

Now the lift doors open again. Handsome, efficient Gary appears with his two Filipina maids and chauffeur, assorted neighbors, and an apologetic security guard. They are armed with kitchen knives, Gary’s golf clubs, and a Koran.