“I don’t think it works like that,” I said.
“Couldn’t you learn to love me?” he said. “In time?” The settee was made of woven strips of rattan, but under the wavering porch light, they looked like individual squares, each separate from the others. Again, I was tempted—but only briefly. “Is that what you did?” I said. “Learn to love me?”
“No,” he said. “That is true. It was nothing I needed to learn.”
“You will love somebody else in time,” I said. “And then you will wonder how you could ever have thought you loved me.”
“I will never wonder about that,” Dawid said.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. I picked up his hand and held it. It was no longer pudgy or damp, I realized, as it had been when he was a child. It was a very nice hand. A man’s hand. Perfectly firm, perfectly dry. He let me hold it. He looked down at our linked fingers.
“You needn’t be,” he said. “I had to ask.”
We sat outside for another hour at least, barely speaking, our hands still folded together. I had no desire to let go. We had been holding hands from the time we were children, I in my long skirt uniform, Dawid in his jacket and tie. The time this last night passed quickly, though we spoke little. I think we both drew comfort from that hour. We knew it was likely the last time we would ever hold hands.
Around this time, Uncle Chachi began acting so peculiar that I feared we would lose him, too. He became snappish and irritable, finding fault with each of us and in everything. Though he had always been so easygoing, he had become a malcontent. “It is not right,” became his constant refrain. “It is not right, it is not decent.”
Old Sanang had taken down the black mourner’s bunting crepe from the doorway a few days too early and received a scolding. The gardener had disfigured some prized azalea bushes. Nei-Nei’s cooking was either too spicy or too bland, served too cold or so hot it scalded Chachi’s tongue. He went around shaking his head in constant disapproval, and spent more of his time alone in his “office,” praying, grumbling, and napping.
With Nei-Nei turned gentle and tender, and Uncle Chachi complaining, I barely recognized our household. When my great-uncle scolded me for walking too heavily on the wooden floorboards, disturbing him at his work, I finally confronted him.
“Uncle Chachi, tell me what’s wrong,” I said.
“You put too much weight on your heels,” he said. “That is why your footsteps are so loud. You must learn to lean forward, onto the ball of your foot and your toes.” He demonstrated, there in his office.
“No,” I said in an even voice, “I mean, what is really wrong? What is troubling you?”
“It is indecent!” he burst out. “A man and a woman, not married, not related, living together under the same roof. It is not right.”
I looked at him blankly.
“Myself and your grandmother!” he said in exasperation. “It was one thing while your grandfather was alive. But now! People must be gossiping all over Singapore. My ears are buzzing from all of this talk.”
“Don’t be silly,” I said. “You are nearly ninety years old. You and Nei-Nei have lived together in this palace forever. No one thinks anything of it.”
“I think something of it!” he declared. “I, myself, think something of it, and I tell you it is neither right nor proper! Something must be done . . .”
“What,” I said, “can possibly be done? Surely you don’t expect Nei-Nei to move out?”
“Of course not,” he said angrily. He had a collection of carved wooden birds in his office, and he began turning them this way and that, facing first in one direction, then another.
“Well, you yourself do not propose to leave, I hope?”
“I cannot leave,” he said. “I am the last living male heir of the original agreement. It all depends upon me. No, but I must think of something. Surely, something can be done.”
“You will think of a good solution,” I said in a soothing voice. But secretly, I hoped he would forget this foolishness.
When I mentioned it to Nei-Nei Down, she seemed neither surprised nor dismayed nor angry. “The old fool,” she said. “The old fool.” I saw that she was blushing, down to the roots of her fine white hair. Soon after, she stopped wearing her mourner’s white and began wearing dove gray and cream, the simple, sober colors of a widow.
Uncle Chachi turned eighty-eight that spring. There was to be no music, and no dancing, for we were still officially a household in mourning. But you cannot keep a Singaporean from celebrating.
Chachi’s cronies arranged a small fireworks display up on the hill above the palace and made a few touching speeches.
Chachi’s actual birthday, however, fell on a Tuesday that year, and we were back to our bare-bones nightly gatherings around the dining-room table. Nei-Nei Down had prepared Chachi’s favorite dishes, and I waited anxiously to see if my great-uncle would be disapproving of these as well.
Sanang and Danai now ate at the table with us every night. We no longer even pretended to be servant and master, a pretense we had kept up, I realized, only so as not to bewilder poor British Grandfather, who had grown up in another time and culture. Now we sat together in recognition of what we were—a draggletailed, impoverished extended family, each with his or her own obligations and duties. Sanang and Danai still brought the dishes in from the kitchen, but Uncle Chachi was just as likely to serve the meal, and Dawid and I always cleared the table and did the washing up, since the old folks grew sleepy as soon as they had finished their evening meal, and Danai was too young to stay up working late alone.
Uncle Chachi did not utter a word of complaint during his birthday meal, but I noticed that he ate very slowly and tentatively, like a man condemned. Indeed, when at last the cake was served, studded with large pieces of pineapple and cherries and nuts, he took one or two small bites and then stopped eating altogether. He laid down his fork and rose to his feet, I thought, to make a speech of thanks.
Instead, he looked at Nei-Nei Down, with wide, frightened eyes. “I am eighty-eight years old today,” he said. “I have waited more than forty years. Patiently. I have waited for you longer than Mohammad lived with Abu Talib, longer than Moses wandered in the desert. As I round the bend toward Allah and Paradise, I ask myself why I must continue in this way. There is no longer anything standing between us, and how we live now is not . . .” His voice trailed off. We could each silently fill in the words, it is not right, it is not decent. But he did not speak them aloud.
“For the love of God,” he said, “will you marry me or will you not?”
“Of course I will,” said Nei-Nei Down.
I sat beside Nei-Nei Down that night while she brushed her long hair, an old, old ritual with us. As a child, I had been mesmerized by the waterfall of shining black hair, and even now, threaded with silver, it was a beautiful sight.
“Were you ever going to tell me?” I asked my grandmother.
“There was nothing to tell,” she said, and pinched her mouth into a small, straight line.
“So Uncle Chachi met you first—”
“And introduced me to your grandfather,” she said. “Your grandfather put his arm behind the chair where I was sitting. He asked me to supper that night. He was a few years older than I, and very dashing. He was famous throughout Singapore.”
“Didn’t you ever love Grandfather?” I said. I rubbed my arm where the band of mourning still sat, as if I had bruised it.
“I always loved him,” Nei-Nei said. “I love him still.”
“So you didn’t love Uncle Chachi?” I asked.
“Him I came to love,” she admitted.
“So you loved them both? At the same time?”
“Not the way you mean,” she said grimly. She put her hair into an elastic and began to wind it round and round into its characteristic bun. This was always a sign that she would
soon climb into bed. “You think Nei-Nei is a bandit? You think she’s like some crazy woman in a motion picture? No. Life is more complicated than that. You’ll find out for yourself.”
She lit the two incense sticks and began her evening prayers to Buddha. I noticed that she prostrated herself lower than usual, prayed with more fervor, and smiled more often.
I waited impatiently, but I knew well enough to disguise my impatience. I even did the prostrations myself, though at the time I considered myself an agnostic, far too modern for anything so antique as religion. I helped her place the garland of flowers around Buddha’s chubby neck. He, too, seemed to be smiling more widely.
But all my efforts came to nothing. Nei-Nei offered not a single word of further explanation.
“That’s all you’re going to tell me?” I said, as she climbed into her single bed and pulled the light covers around her.
“I told you there was nothing to tell,” she said serenely. “Tomorrow, remind me. Your grandfather left you a birthday present.”
“But it isn’t my birthday yet,” I said. “What is it?”
“You think I know everything?”
I could not think of the right answer for that one, so I turned down the lamp and said, “Good night, Nei-Nei. Sweet dreams of your sweetheart.”
She snorted in the darkness.
The next morning, as soon as I opened my eyes, I thought of the mysterious birthday gift British Grandfather had left for me. What could it possibly be? He was not usually the family member to buy me gifts. Uncle Chachi and Nei-Nei Down had selected nearly everything I’d ever owned, from a family necklace of garnets and gold down to the smallest sack of candy. In all my life, I could count on the fingers of one hand the things that Grandfather himself had chosen and purchased for me. An encyclopedia of Oriental flowers. A bead necklace. A doll made in England. But those were all gifts for a child. That May, I would be turning eighteen. What could he have picked out for such a momentous birthday?
“Can’t I open it now?” I wheedled.
“Is it your birthday now?” countered Nei-Nei. “No? Then, no.”
She went on. “Maybe I shouldn’t let you see it at all. My mistake. Maybe I should keep it hidden under my bed.”
“You never could keep a secret,” said Uncle Chachi, shaking his head. “Now she knows where to look.”
“Maybe I will move it,” said Nei-Nei. But after breakfast, she trotted off and then came back to the kitchen, bearing a wrapped object in her arms. It was a strange shape—not exactly square, but not exactly anything else, either. I could tell that Grandfather had wrapped it himself. The way he had folded and secured the package was as distinctive as his spidery, old-fashioned handwriting. It made my heart ache to see this evidence of his handiwork.
“Your grandfather wanted this for you,” said Nei-Nei brusquely, thrusting the clumsily wrapped box into my hands. “He wrapped it himself,” she added unnecessarily. “But you’re not to open it until your birthday.”
Whatever was inside seemed to be muffled in tissue paper. It did not make a sound. “Can’t you at least give me a hint?” I asked.
“He did not tell me anything,” Nei-Nei Down said with injured pride. “Some foolish bit of luxury, no doubt.”
I gingerly touched the bow on top of my gift. It was one of those new cellophane bows, as large as a chrysanthemum.
I bore the box away to my bedroom, and did not open it or even examine and shake it as I would have done as a child. But I did not put it away, either. It sat on top of my chest of drawers, and I took comfort from the sight of it as I had always taken comfort from the sight of my grandfather. Its very presence, I believed, would bring me luck and a more peaceful heart.
Instead, it brought a stranger to our door within a matter of hours. When I opened the door and saw the young man standing there, in profile as if for a portrait, I feared it must be one of Geoffrey Brown’s agents. The silence from that corner had been welcome, but ominous—a sword of Damocles hanging over our heads.
Yet when I stood there—gingerly, keeping a tight hold of the handle—the young man turned with an expression that was distinctly not Brownish. He wore no uniform; he was not confident or suave or excessively polite. His suit was made of some inexpensive material that looked as if it had been ironed onto his body to keep the creases in place, and he carried a small briefcase. No, he could never be one of Brown’s men, not in a flimsy suit like that. When he opened his mouth to speak, he revealed himself to be an American.
“Who are you?” he said. He looked bewildered.
I checked up and down the street for Brown’s Pierce-Arrow or the official black cars of the police. There were none.
“It is customary,” I said, “when ringing someone’s doorbell, to identify oneself.” I had decided he must be one of those traveling salesmen.
“Oh!” he said. “Right. Sorry. Adrian James.” He stuck out his hand, awkwardly, but I ignored it. “I am not selling anything. I’m just here to talk.”
“How can I help,” I said. I did not loosen my death grip on the door but instead held it partly open, partly closed between us.
“I’m with the Singapore City Building and Preservation Department,” he said, “and please don’t close the door in my face.”
“I’m not,” I said.
“People generally do,” he said. “At least until I have a chance to explain what we’re about.”
“Are you collecting money?” I asked. “Because we don’t have any.”
“I know,” he said. Then at least he had the grace to blush. At his feet—his shoes, too, were inexpensive, brown, and polished to within an inch of their life—sat a notepad, with a big silver clip at the front, holding a bunch of official-looking papers. He bent and retrieved it. He heaved a small sigh of relief as soon as he got his hands on the clipboard, like a boy with a favorite toy. “I know something about your circumstances. Something about the history of the Kampong Glam Palace.”
I stepped onto the front porch and closed the door behind me, so nobody else in the house would have to be disturbed. From now on, I had decided, I would try to take care of things myself. No good had come, certainly, of my getting British Grandfather involved. The least I could do now was protect everyone who remained.
I pointed to two chairs on the porch. “Sit,” I said. “But be careful. That one has a dodgy leg.” The chair I sat in had a broken back. You had to lean forward to sit in it at all.
Adrian James sat down in the chair gingerly. I did not think it was possible for him to look more ill at ease than he already had standing there, straight as a pole, but he proved me wrong. His eyes focused behind me at the front door, over my head, down at his own two feet—in fact, everywhere except at my face. It always gave me a queasy feeling when someone refused to look me in the eyes, and this young man was no exception. The more nervous he seemed, the more nervous I felt.
“Your home,” he said, “technically belongs to the British government.” He held up one hand. “I say technically, because the East India Company made the original arrangement with your family, and I am not sure the British government had any legal right to end it. And, incredibly enough, no one seems to have a copy of the original documents deeding the property to . . .” He glanced down at the clipboard and paged forward and back until at last he found his place. “Sultan Hussein?” He raised his eyebrows. He had funny, short, light-brown eyebrows and a funny snub nose. No, he was nothing like Geoffrey Brown. He was not exactly homely, but he was so ordinary looking as to seem almost extraordinary. “Sultan?”
I nodded. I had learned from hard experience the value of not speaking.
“The only evidence I have, honestly, is anecdotal.”
I remained silent. I thought that sooner or later I could flush him out, like a hunter waiting out a bird.
“And when I say ‘evidence,’” he f
loundered on, “I don’t mean that we are looking for evidence in order to evict your family from your current living situation. Quite the contrary. My business is primarily to identify and protect historic buildings.”
“Protect?” I said.
“Yes.” For the first time, he smiled. And I have to admit, Adrian James had a transforming smile. It turned his lips upside down; it was elfin, it was merry, it lit up his eyes and made him look years younger. For half an instant, I considered the possibility that he was actually good-looking.
“You have money to protect historic buildings?” I asked bluntly.
The smile fled. “Very little, in fact. —But we can, at least, protect it from developers. Do you understand what I mean by developers? People with business interests, commercial interests, who radically change the nature of a property.”
“You mean Geoffrey Brown and his gang,” I said.
He blushed to the tips of his ears. “I mean men like that, yes.”
I leaned forward in my chair. “You can protect us from Brown?”
He tried to incline toward me as well, but the bad chair leg began to wobble, so instead he slammed both feet on the floor and gripped the arms. I could have told him if he planted both his feet firmly and angled his body slightly to the left, the dodgy leg of his chair would stop wobbling. But it would have probably just made things worse to mention it. “I have already effectively ended his claim on the property,” he said. “Brown is lacking some essential papers.”
I could have kissed this young man for telling me that. “But the bad news,” he went on, “is that the case has brought the attention of the government to the position of the Kampong Glam Palace.” He glanced behind me, into the rotting eaves, I thought. It had rained the night before. I prayed nothing was leaking.
“It seems to be in some disrepair,” he said. “If you could let me take a look around . . .” He paged through his notebook again and took out a silver pencil.