Readers have advised that the link on OJAL's site has not been functioning for a while, so here is the piece:
Murder at the Haig
Glimpsed in
passing feeding the pigeons and only once upon the lady did the realisation
strike. You could not stop and stare. Possibly the woman had made a more
certain ID herself immediately. A couple of weeks before she had been met in
the yard out front of the house. A rather awkward meeting in fact. This is her, Helen had announced proudly
with some kind of winner’s smile. The pair had been chatting by the greenery
while two or three cats weaved between their feet. The English had surprised,
together with the visage the woman presented. You assumed an old Chinese
battle-axe, surly and sharp. On the contrary, once again here was an altogether
classic soft Balkan Babushka—they were legion around the place. First word of
the notorious lady had emerged about a month before: there was a convicted
murderer living up at the Haig blocks, someone reported. It would turn out the
deed had been done right there at the Haig—a woman who had killed her husband
by her own hand. Ten or twelve towers of so many storeys, it stood to reason;
the odds were perfectly in order. Hmm…. Interesting of course. Had one on the
scent a little; casually, lazily. The fruiterer Mr Lim was asked, making
conversation more or less one morning over the purchase. Yes, knew the lady.
Quiet type; a little screwy. People kept away from her; a bit batty. What had
happened? Why? How? None could bring themselves to ask, Mr Lim answered. More
or less same again with Helen: gabbing one evening when she was feeding the
cats on the near corner opposite the house. Here though, in this case, Helen
unexpectedly declared she was in fact intimate with the party. I know the lady,
answered Helen with her usual judicial air. The story went she and her husband
had looked after the elderly ahma,
the grannie; hubbie’s mum. Of course the work all fell on the daughter-in-law.
Hubbie/son had been a bit aged himself by that stage, doddery and weak on his
pins. In time god took back the old soul; they had done their best. Afterward
the usual scramble for the cash. Those who had been absent before, visitors of
their mother earlier at elder brother’s place, gathered now for the spoils. And
promptly. Words exchanged; recriminations. How to grab the loot quick and get
away? (They were lucky not to have the flat sold from under their feet.) Over
that term of money-grabbing, the old, doddery hubbie had begun to echo some of
the criticisms of his siblings. Blah blah blah. The wife had not done this or
that right. Blah blah blah. One night continuing by the kitchen sink where the
daughter-in-law/wife was busy preparing dinner. No, not dicing veggies the
tired housewife; pounding chilli it must have been. In hand the mortar and
pestle. Pounding. The old guy unrelenting. One word too many tipped the boiling
bucket. POW! Crack! Like a lubenica, watermelon, they say in
Serbia. One strike was enough; dead pretty much on the spot the old jawbones.
Lady did five or seven years of her sentence; early release; temp. insanity
whatnot. Here she was back at her former dwelling, returned to the
neighbourhood. Auntie Helen lacked no gumption; a JW with lots of firm spirit;
one who had done her own time over a matter of principle. Helen got it straight
from the source. All the feeders in the neighbourhood naturally knew each
other. There were alliances, as well as animosities and demarcations. Fed more
than just birds this lady. (Helen herself had recently begun adding the crows
that gathered on the near corner.) The sweet, redemptive part came at the end a
few years later; few years back. The son, one of the children of the victim and
of the killer, must have been a Buddhist. One advanced some good way in his
studies and devotions. With enlightenment attained after proper reflection, the
chap, the son, comes up to Mum one day in order to announce: Mother dear, when
I come back, I want you to be my mother again.
Haig Road, Singapore
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