Lorong 16 corner the fellow was truly tickled to receive the order. Not a little astonished.
— You want Jiang Cha? Yes, sir.
Local not more than one-point-five rattling at the tables with the customers. Now the man was newly delighted.
10pm was too early for the girls; only a small number had landed. Men drinking beer, including one or two Whites. Perhaps that was some part of the surprise. Jiang Cha. Ginger tea.
A good deal stronger brew was going down on the other side, three large shot glasses with Carlsberg chasers. Somehow the Danes had cornered the market in Geylang.
Seasoned lads here knew what they were about, seen off a couple of novices and settling in for the evening. Gestures like sober judges weighing life and death. The big beefy carrot-top needed another treatment; his faded tattoos too dated from an earlier generation’s inferior ink.
Budget One Hotel on the main road; off further two 81s faced each other. The Hotel 81s had started as hourly Love Hotels in Geylang. Now they were all over the island and the founder likely one of the billionaire class.
On the pavement workingmen using thumb and forefinger for nose-blow. The locals had disowned their cousins from the Mainland long ago—perhaps here with somewhat lesser contempt. Middle Geylang was almost entirely Chinese.
The first star in seven weeks stood high above the neon, pale and faltering. A single example standing in for the mass invisible in the grey cover.
It was Pure-heart, Minhtan the Viet, who had commented on the absence of stars here a few weeks before.
Ho Chi Min presumably was not the standard Minhtan had in memory; even in her childhood that city’s night skies could not have been covered by stars. Minhtan must have been thinking of her hometown two hours out, where she had been brought up by her divorced teacher mother; her “idol,” Minhtan had called her.
In youth Minhtan had not allowed her mother to re-marry, being unable to accept any of the suitors.
My mistake, Minhtan had frankly confessed.
Working in the capital as a materials engineer, Minhtan had been sent to Singapore for training by her German company. Chosen especially no doubt.
On the walk back from dinner that night under a blank sky the absence of stars had been felt by Minhtan. Earlier sitting at the table in upscale Katong, the Amerindians had come to mind during the conversation. Minh tan; Pure heart.
The young woman contained a great deal in her short, slender person. Like her manner and movement, the talk was measured and decisive.
For the first week here Minhtan had been chaperoned around the city by a newly married Filipino colleague, whose wife was jealous and monitored her husband’s movements by phone and GPS. Minhtan could not help scoffing a little in her report.
Freedom was essential in a marriage, in living, Minhtan maintained. Belief too. Minhtan herself needed both, she said.
The ruling principles stood clear without any need of elaboration with Minhtan’s words; something like newly emerged stars from the blank heavens above us, in fact. Freedom and belief together; not an automatic pairing usually.
Somewhere where Minhtan had lived there had been masses of stars; it sounded like the numberless cover that gave off enough light to see. Much about Minhtan made it easy to believe throughout her life the woman had been drenched in starlight.
It had been a pleasant evening. There was no surprise when Minhtan had not accepted the invitation upstairs at the hotel. The suggestion had been one of those reflexes that sometimes sprung out unintentionally. Another date during Minhtan’s short stay had seemed unlikely.
Now there were two more stars out above the Geylang street, dim and barely visible in the grey blanketing. Scanning more carefully, an unsteady third too on the other side. Champagne Hotel‘s vanilla signage skipped a couple of letters further down along the slope.
Two generations here, like so many in other cities across the globe, had lived beneath only empty stretches of night sky.
Katong, Singapore
Published in a longer sequence of work by QU Literary Magazine #19
https://qulitmag.com/the-heart-of-the-matter/
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