Singapore Noir

Ed ruffled Davey’s hair. Yes, things were buay pai. No, better than not bad — everything was shiok, lah. Great. He settled more comfortably against the mahogany tree, wiped sweat from his face in the hot, rich air, watched the old man’s macaque hands, and waited for his phone to ring.

Tattoo by Lawrence Osborne

Geylang

When he was hired by Hiroshi Systems, Ryu was offered a family apartment in Bayshore Park for himself, his wife, and his son. Relocated from Japan, they had little idea where they were, but the condo faced the sea over the East Coast and a cooler wind swept through the private roof garden where he and his son Tomiko grew pepper plants in pots and arranged a little Zen enclosure of white pebbles within a square of white tea shrubs.

At thirty-two, Ryu was viewed favorably by his cynical superiors, though he was never quite fully aware of the degree to which he was being groomed for more exalted responsibilities at the commading heights of Hiroshi Systems. He was given a company car and a Malay driver to take him every morning down to Orchard, where he stayed until late at night working at a seven-floor HQ decorated with silk scrolls and antique samurai swords.

More conscientious and puritanical than his peers, he rarely joined the raucous drinking parties that were held at Orihara Shoten or Kinki. He was never seen paralytic under a table chewing on a napkin or ramming yen notes into tassled hostess bras. He punctually called Natsuo an hour before he left the office to make sure that when he got home Tomiko was not yet in bed. He prized the hour that he could spend with his son, reading in bed or watering the shrubs on the roof, the seven-year-old following him around with a watering can. After he had put him to bed, he and Natsuo ate together in their ocean-view dining room and afterward, according to their mood, enjoyed an hour together in bed or watched old Zatoichi movies animated by the incomparable Shintaro Katsu. They were the same movies his mother used to watch.

Their life went on like this for six months. Natsuo’s mother visited from Osaka, and Ryu’s father visited from Hiroshima. They went to the movies in Orchard once a week while the Filipina nanny looked after Tomiko, and on Wednesday nights he took Natsuo to Gordon Grill for an English meal followed by a Baked Alaska, a dish so lavishly outmoded that it felt startling and arousing to them. Once a month they sat behind candles at Tong Le and peered out over the lights of a city they did not understand and never would. It seemed like a place they should be enjoying, but which they did not know how to enjoy. The most enjoyable, the most sensual thing about it for them, was the heat.

Natsuo worked part-time at a Japanese food consortium, and she had more hours to feel out her adopted city than her husband did. But that same enjoyable heat dogged her when she spent time in it and she too often felt her will sapped as soon as she hit the streets. During the rains, she went to the movies by herself and grew a little plumper on daily servings of kaya toast; she went to spas in five-star hotels and had her nails done after her massages and wondered if this was decadent or virtuous. There was no way of knowing. Whether or not she was a typical expat Japanese wife never occurred to her. It was the passing of time that was the great problem, the riddle with which she had to grapple. And then there was the buying of lavender-flavored Hokkaido milk and sake from Meidi-ya supermarket.

Ryu had little time to himself. One night, however, when he had finished work earlier than expected, he got into a cab on Grange Road and asked, as usual, to be taken home. While they headed eastward, the driver caught his eye in the rearview mirror and offered him a smile.

“Tired go home, lor?”

“Why — do I look tired?”

He touched his face and caught a glimpse of the wan specter in the same mirror. It was true, he looked appallingly sapped.

“No fun after work, bad time, lah.”

Fun after work? The concept, so ubiquitous around him, had never really occurred to him. Yet the driver’s surprise made perfect sense. He was hurrying home to the same routine he enjoyed every day, but as it happened the word enjoyed was a slight exaggeration.

Feeling suddenly resentful, he fired back: “So, what do you suggest?”

“If you like it, I’ll take you for some relax.”

“I think I’d like that,” Ryu blurted out, and before he could change his mind the driver had shifted lanes and then turned away from the usual road.

“Where, then?” Ryu asked, leaning forward weakly.

“Don’t worry, san, a place where Japanese gentlemen like.”