Singapore Noir

When they eat, it is in the utility area, him engaged in one-sided chitchat, her with eyes cast down at her lap. He always helps with the washing up, though only after he has placed the man’s iPad in a stand and set it on the kitchen counter, with the screen facing the sink, playing an episode of America’s Next Top Model. He pretends not to see that she pretends not to watch. Tonight, however, he surprises her. No iPad. Instead, he sets his black folder on the counter. It is a portfolio, the kind every model, or aspiring model, possesses; this one filled with photos of Zach, the most striking among them amateurish at best. What do you think? he asks, slapping his palms together childishly. Merla returns her gaze to the soap suds. She shrugs.

He knows people, Zach says after a while.

Later, while Merla is ironing, Zach engages in a series of phone calls. With his mates, he sounds jovial and frivolous. To his presumably deaf grandmother, he shouts in deliberate, slow, monosyllabic dialect, though Merla can tell the exchange is tender. Then comes a theatrical coyness in his demeanor which immediately fills her with dread. He is talking to the man, in increasingly excited tones. Zach mouths to Merla: He’s coming back tomorrow! The conversation is in Mandarin mingled here and there with a word or two of English. One particular word is all it takes to propel her into a further state of panic.

Party.

Fumbling around her apron and withdrawing from one of the pockets a single key, Merla walks away with uncharacteristic speed, carrying with her his puzzled stare. It is not long before she finds Zach standing beside her in the den, slack-jawed. To her, this room, with its black walls, black rubber flooring, and blackout curtains permanently drawn, is as unholy now with all the lights on as it is when lit with only garish candlesticks and lava lamps. She looks down, focusing on twisting the key around in her fingers while he takes it all in. Everything has been contrived with care, from the racks of chains, handcuffs, whips, to more bizarre equipment and instruments of bondage and torture that neither of them can name. Here was the scene of her first beating, within minutes of her becoming acquainted with the house, sparked off by the involuntary, almost imperceptible shaking of her head when she was told she was to clean everything in the room, every day.

Oh my god, says Zach, barely audible. His line of vision is directed toward the ceiling, where large mirrored panels cover every inch, magnifying the depth of the chamber. In spite of herself, Merla glances up, instantly flinching at the sight of their reflection. In her earliest encounter with this room in its intended use, when strangled cries and hoarse growls and cigarette smoke and chemical fumes invaded her senses, she lifted her head so her eyes could dodge the bare bodies, only to be shaken by what she saw in the mirrors as a bloodcurdling negative of the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel.

You must go, she says to Zach. She is taken aback by the sound of her own voice. He has already left the room.

The following day, there is no sign of Zach. She does not dare to call out for him, for anything, so she searches around the house, floor by floor, room by room, every hour. Nothing. Just after nightfall, the Ferrari appears, at the front of a small convoy of trophy cars carrying about a dozen people, all male. The man leads his guests through the doors. Only three of them are young. Raucous laughter reverberates through the house, cigar and cigarette smoke spreading, thickening. A glint from a Rolex watch. A flicker off a heavy gold chain. Overpowering eau de cologne. Behind the kitchen door, Merla goes about filling the large tray. A bucket of ice, cognac, and bottles of mineral water. Two vials of Viagra, four bottles of GHB, a large bag of pure cocaine. She prays that tonight she will only need to do this once. Bent low and with eyes down, she carries the tray past the lounge where the men are gathered and makes her way up the stairs toward the den, slowing down a fraction when the doorbell suddenly chimes. Seconds later, she judders to a halt from the sound of Zach’s voice. An Evian bottle tumbles off the tray, hits the glass stairs, and rolls noisily down... one... step... at... a... time... She freezes. The laughter dies.

Leave it! she hears the man shout.

Her heart at once pounding and heavy with dismay, Merla finishes the task at hand as swiftly as she can, and withdraws to her room, latching the door behind her. She wraps her rosary beads around her wrists and clasps her hands tightly around the crucifix. A feeling threatens to engulf her, the sense that she is fouled, like a beached seagull overwhelmed by slick. But even the black swell of a spill cannot sully the red of a seagull’s flesh and blood.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners...