Singapore Noir

She feels she should hurry away but his voice, with its rise and fall, so strange in a house of oppressive silence, takes an easy hold of her; so she stays, busying herself with her duster and cloth. He crisscrosses the room aimlessly, glancing at the paintings, now and then touching the sculptures. He speaks in the local English slang, his jumbled syntax interspersed with the occasional big, misused word. He tells her he is from one of the oldest housing estates, went to the neighborhood school — What’s the point? — from which he got expelled — What to do? — and that he has big plans for the future. There are other ways to make it in life, Zach says, as he slips his hands into the robe pockets; just look at the guy who owns this villa, he comes from some province in China and can’t be that well-educated. The boy emphasizes this with a shrug.

Interrupted by the ringing of his mobile, Zach leaps onto the nearest oversized sofa to take the call, burrowing into the plush cushions. From what Merla can make of it, it is the man on the line. They converse in Mandarin for a minute or two before hanging up, after which Zach passes on the message that the man will not be coming home tonight, and that she is to serve the boy dinner. Their eyes meet for the first time, for just an instant.

You don’t talk much, says the boy.

When evening comes, Merla prepares the kind of meal she normally does — three dishes and rice. Zach hangs around in the kitchen, mostly perched on a stool by the breakfast bar, swiveling from side to side as he chatters away while she stir-fries. Eventually growing tired of talking to himself, the boy reaches into his worn-out rucksack and removes a large black folder and a copy of the day’s tabloid. She stops and stares. It was months ago when she last laid eyes on a newspaper, in the study, transfixed by an article on the front page of the Straits Times: Maid Tries to Flee, Jumps from Fourth-Story Condo. Merla did not hear the footsteps coming until it was too late. The man grabbed her wrist in a vicelike grip. I kill you, he said.

Do you want this? Zach asks. She turns away. Feigning nonchalance, he moistens his fingertip and flicks through the tabloid, in truth trying to find something that he thinks might start a conversation, eventually settling on the single finance page. Look, he says, holding up the paper. Philippines to Become Sixteenth Largest Economy by 2050. No response.

Merla sets a place in the middle of the long dining table, positioning the cutlery with painstaking precision. As she serves the food, he asks casually, And you? As he has not seen her put any aside, the response Zach anticipates is that she will eat what he leaves behind. She is visibly thrown by the question, her glance at the food too furtive. At last he sees her bony frame, dry complexion, sunken eyes. She shrinks further under his plain gaze. Zach weighs his options. He moves everything from the dining table to the utility room where he finds, tucked away at the back, a set of folding chairs and a plastic table. Merla watches in astonishment. He sets down the dinnerware and saunters back to the kitchen, rummaging around for a second bowl and an extra pair of chopsticks while she trails along like a lost creature. Finally, his eyes light up as he finds what he is looking for. The boy returns to where the food is, sits down, and peers at her expectantly.

Over a fortnight passes without them seeing so much as the man’s shadow — one of his occasional spells of unexplained absence to which Merla has become accustomed, and for which she prays. Zach comes and goes as he pleases, suns himself by the pool and in the manicured garden, where this boy who grew up in a shabby high-rise is enjoying the novelty of figuring out how to use a lawnmower. He has been sleeping over some nights, in the master bedroom, whether or not with the man’s consent Merla cannot tell. It is not for her to ask. But she changes the bed linen and plumps up the pillows after each time, leaving the sliding doors wide open to clear the room of the tang of male adolescence. It is the same smell that pervades the upstairs gym which he has taken to using, just next to the room with the closed door.

Can I have a look inside? he asks, not really for permission — since he wanders freely — but because it is the only door in the house that is locked. Merla shakes her head and hurries away.