Bird Call

No kind of meowing of any sort has been heard from any of the Geylang cats over these many months now. Not once. This side of town the cats are certainly not plentiful. Occasionally one sees them in the shade stretched on their side on the paving, more dead than alive by the look of them. One never sees them curled up into a ball. Often when passersby stoop down to give them a delicate caress the signs of sympathy and pity seem as large as tenderness. Most of the poor old devils are unusually scrawny and decidedly slow-moving, when they are not playing dead on the pavement. None of this is surprising in this heat. Throughout the June/July durian season, old men could be seen almost literally on every corner stretched out in very much the same fashion. A five million enclave in such a location spitting distance from the equator goes entirely against nature and reason. Thanks in large part to what the grand old political maestro here, Mr. Lee Kwan Yew, termed the greatest invention of humanity—air conditioning—the place has prospered enormously. The environmentally sensible measure would be to return the island to native forest and transplant the population to the temperate zones to the north from which their ancestors came a short few generations ago. In the current journalese, that aint going to happen anytime soon.
The few dogs one sees—again almost never in Geylang in these nine months—have never let out a yelp or whimper of any kind whatever either. Once in a blue moon one hears the crows. It might have been once or twice over the term. The mynahs more so. These latter in fact have been causing a nuisance with their squabbling in the prime retail district of Orchard Road, where various schemes of extermination have been proposed by the traders. It has not been possible to establish whether it is the call of the mynah one hears from the rain-trees planted along the roadside in the approach to dusk. These repeated, plaintive calls startle a little in this environment. Once or twice in the evenings large groomed furry dogs have been seen on leads around upper Geylang underneath the condos, the kind of boutique TV and magazine dog favoured by celebrities. Through the day the dogs are of course kept within air conditioning. The problem is exercise, for which the maids can be called upon. You might see a dark, pretty lass checking her texts on a brightly illuminated screen that throws up its light onto her face, while at her feet the darling of the house circles a tree or strains at the trunk. A yelp on this occasion or any other never a once.
As previously stated, in order to see other life-forms in Singapore one needs to visit the zoos and other enclosures. A highly coloured bus on a run around Arab Street shows what looks like oversized toucans, storks and cranes at what is advertised as the World's Largest Bird Paradise out in Jurong, no more than ten kilometres from the western end of Geylang. In this temperature and with this rainfall, where the circle of concrete, steel and glass is closed, fecund nature no doubt rapidly reasserts itself. Otherwise cartoon canine figures stand mounted in playground and recreation spaces at the base of housing blocks. Exotic robotic animals figure prominently on the omnipresent screens in the buses at rush-hour. The bark of Barb and Ashley's corner dogs back home, the cooing doves, the crows and masterful magpies within the giant Norfolk Island pine that has completely undermined the house foundations—it has been a surprise how these meagre suburban signs have been missed here. The rattle of sheet iron, wind in the trees—there are welcome breezes in Singapore, but the towers must block much of the effect—the goods train over the sunken sleepers and the horns on the river... Much to ponder on the matter of the way of life here since the boom times.
At five this morning there was disquiet in the air such as has been heard at least twice before from this same hotel room. On all three occasions the direction the sound was coming from was impossible to pin-point. It must have come from within the hotel. Certainly on the earlier occasions that seemed clear. This morning there was some doubt.
The little cries and whimpers continued for something like a half hour. Perhaps the hard listening exaggerated the matter. This morning it seemed as if it possibly came from outdoors, the multi-level car-park, or else the vacant ground adjacent to the hotel. As the cries persisted they became impossible to ignore or dismiss. The window had to be opened to investigate. Then a second time shortly after again opened. Someone may have been lying on the footpath outside with no more strength than to cry out at these unusual intervals. A victim of some soundless violence, quiet enough not to have disturbed sleep at any rate.
The karaoke bar in front often brought patrons out back. One heard vomiting occasionally below the window. Discreet assignations took place on the rear corner, where girls waited for men to bring the car down from the car-park. No kind of violence of any kind has been witnessed over this period, and this in the context of a two or three kilometre red-light district holding perhaps one hundred liquor outlets that remain in operation until the wee hours. Nonetheless, the newspapers report regular outbreaks and deaths, the last at a favourite corner up beyond Aljunied Road.
The cries came again and again after what seemed a regular interval. The indescribable cries could not have come from an animal, almost certainly. Even in the dead of night, in the relative cool of that time, it is highly unlikely that the cats or dogs of Geylang could find voice. The short, choked length of the cry, its tone and timbre, discounted an animal of any kind other than a human.
There had been no particular reason for the waking on this occasion. At some point after the re-surfacing the sounds started and kept up. On both occasions when the window was opened the electric buzz of lighting and signage invaded the room and nothing else. There was nothing to be seen on the pavement below, nor in the grass behind the cyclone fence. The whimpering kept up, brief short cries impossible to translate. Volume, pitch and energy did not seem to alter. Were the sounds emitted in response to continued assaults of some kind? That seemed unlikely. The uniformity of the sound and also what seemed its set measures did not suggest a course of pain over such a term. The call was always almost exactly the same, seemingly undifferentiated from the one at the very outset. How could this be? There was no understanding it. As on the last two occasions, these were certainly not calls of pleasure. Not of any familiar kind. On the last occasion a few months before there had been a higher pitch and more force. On that occasion the translation to a plea for help had been very close. How had that ended on the earlier occasion? The same as on this subsequent from memory, petering out suddenly before one knew it.
Last night the cries arrived from a further remove. Once again the thought had turned to a call for emergency services, the police. Downstairs Jo-Jo was at the reception desk relieving for the more competent Myu-tu, who had returned to Myanmar to marry his young wife a second time, officially in the traditional way. Googling the number was the option. One might undertake a little preliminary detective work before the police arrived. Indeed, without that it might turn out a bit silly waiting with the officers in the corridor for the cry to restart. The corridor at the end of the first passage might be tried. It seemed more likely as the source. A few more thoughts spun in the cycle in the last of it.
On all three occasions the woman had made no effort to raise the alarm. It was of course likeliest a woman, a wife in question; and not a young one particularly. The likelihood was this was practiced, habitual violence of a particular pattern and form. The literature seemed to suggest that was the way these things took place. Did that mean the perpetrator was laying into the victim repeatedly, taking his time about it and no let-up? Not to mention the hour. Possibly the pair could have checked in after a flight arrival before dawn. At reception Myu-tu could usually get some shut-eye after three, he said. Of the regulars encountered at the lifts each and every couple seemed impossible candidates for such eruptions. In all cases, just as out on the street and at the eatery tables, it was always the warm and fine adjustment that was apparent in these mostly Malay couples. Never a sign of anything to suggest something of this kind. Of course violence in the family was often hidden even from intimates. If these were beatings of some sort, accusations and rantings must form part of the scene, whispered in this case in the dead of night. Muffling employed perhaps with pillows and such like. As on the earlier couple of occasions such cries had been heard, the scope, rhythm and tenor suggested an order and arrangement was involved. A long-term marriage perhaps, with set roles and patterns. Anecdotally, wife-beating was said to be common in the Malay community. Quite the contrary to the impressions at all the eateries, the markets and karaoke nights staged around the hotel. All together very much contrary.