Slashing (updated Jan24)

 

Outside her lift at the Haig this morning Jeanette wanted to relay her news. The disappearances of the four cats again, that Wanling had revealed earlier last week. New info now was the street ginger that had kept outside Jeanette's Block, over at the upper end toward the road, had been the one found dead. And what was more, the ginger had been found mutilated, slashed across the face. Jeanette seemed to indicate more by her gesture than her words. There had been much blood. It was gruesome, appalling. (Had Wanling not wanted to utter the added atrocity, perhaps; or she had not yet heard of this?) Jeanette was angry; enraged would not be too strong. Some of her feeling was possibly coloured by the grief too from her elder sister's death the week before. VERY angry, Jeanette declared herself, with her violet tattooed brows that might have been applied for the funeral, starkly marked like some kind of primitive ritual of grief. Three or four days Jeanette had sat at the tables at the wake on the Void beneath her Block. Her sister having stayed somewhere around Amber Road, there had been little room for vehicular access at the house. Jeanette in her usual, practical way, made arrangements for the use of the Void beneath her own Block. It had been a traditional Buddhist observance, the two sisters having deviated in their faiths. Jeanette had converted to Christianity and worshipped at Our Lady Queen of Peace, on Tanjung Katong Road. Of Chinese origin, the family hailed from Indonesia. Unfortunately, Jeanette had lost the ancestral language. Along with the Buddhism, it may have been the elder sister who had retained the language too. Some few days after the funeral Jeanette had been at the table on the Void by her lift taking lessons in Mandarin from an old Chinese uncle. The uncle had been facing the inner walkway and Jeanette out toward the community gardens along the canal. During the course there a chap had walked along the covered walkway with a carrier in hand, at which the teacher had remarked to Jeanette. Turning to look, Jeanette saw the man pacing along, thinking to herself, Oh, another feeder; possibly not long started. After the word of the ginger and the slashing, Jeanette thought again. Oh! Great god! The culprit! That must have been him! Such individuals, she knew, wormed their way into the affections of the strays, offering food, until they could snatch them and do their worst. Over the years strangulations, tossing from balconies and bashings had been reported. Now Jeanette was cursing herself for not taking more notice, not getting a better look at the man. Had she known then of the atrocity, Jeanette would have immediately rushed up to the fellow and challenged him. You know me, Jeanette confidently suggested. A lucky escape for the chap; an innocent until proven otherwise, we needs must say. A few days ago, Wanling had said  the Feeders were seeking to view the estate’s CCTV recordings. Hearing of this, Jeanette revealed, in a whisper, that many of the cameras at the Haig were inoperative. It was too expensive to run them all. Only in China, Jeanette added; meaning reliable surveillance there on the Mainland. There seemed to be approval in those words and pride at the advance. In the recent geopolitical reorientation, many of the local Chinese were beginning to turn toward the ancestral homeland.