Birds of a Feather

A second call from Manager Zahruddin at the Wadi hotplate this morning. Half an hour earlier he had given his first usual greeting. Over the course of a sit at the tables Din might call out two or three times from his post in precisely the same way with simply the name. The man seemed to enjoy the roll of the two new syllables he had mastered, his pronunciation clear and confident. In younger days Zahruddin had been a student of Arabic in Syria; earnest studies over five or six years. The devastation over there of course pained Zahruddin more deeply than the rest of us, though Zahruddin was not a loud or demonstrative man. A highly reliable, trustworthy and efficient manager for the Wadi stakeholders; fair and decent with all the young foreign workers too. The man was now focused on raising his family up on the Peninsular in Malacca, two children still at school. Last week he had taken a well-deserved short break back home. Zahruddin’s second call this morning was something else however; not the usual clarion call. A tall buxom German was she? just then stepping down from the severy toward the tables. Zahruddin had lifted his chin after her indicating. Not young this lady, but in some Asian eyes perhaps formidably attractive. Tall, fleshy, big-boned Brunhilda. A loose singlet top revealed bare arms and cleavage; shorts the upper thighs. (It seems the Prophet had specifically warned men not to cast in the direction of the latter because of the particularly dangerous trigger there for lustfulness.) Zahruddin was in fact not a ladies man; it had been an mistake once some months before crowing into his ear after an entire morning devoted to the nest. Din merely pointed with his chin here; the largest part of the impulse being to give notice of the presence of an associate, a countrywoman perhaps. Here was one of your kind now among us, the man had signaled. (Westerners were not common in Geylang Serai; we had one stop for a prata perhaps every other week.) At numerous locales here, in Singapore particularly, an acquaintance or friend would do precisely as Zahruddin had done at the entry of a White into the circle. The assumption was some natural affinity and interest, some wish and even relish to greet one’s own. Your friend! has been the notice voiced by friends, waiters, plate-collectors and others here. There was none of the usual man-to-man nod, nod; wink, wink in this case with Manager Zahruddin; among the Muslims here that Latin and Western hi-jinks was entirely absent. And needless to add, for these Asians olive was indistinguishable from true white.