Singapore Noir

Potong Pasir

1

Two hours past midnight, Cha-li was sitting inside her gray Toyota, watching the corner house in Sennett Estate. There were nights when she wanted to call it quits, but she didn’t because she’d given her word. Keeping her word was essential in her business. It was what drew women to her. The scarred, the abused, the cheated, the exploited, the rejects, and the victims. Single or married, they came to her at the temple. They knew by word of mouth that her specialty was adultery and infidelity. Not for her — the commercial investigations or surveillance of employees or insurance fraud or missing persons. A specialist in unfaithfulness, that’s what you are, a client had told her. Cha-li liked the phrase. It made her feel she was more than a private eye. She was the PI who peered into hearts seething with dark secrets and contradictions. But she was cautious about making any claims. A private investigator deals with hard facts — the what, the when, and the where — not the speculative whys and wherefores. That was what she told Robina Lee, who’d come to see her two weeks ago.

Where is Charlie Wong? Robina had asked in a peremptory voice.

I am Cha-li Wong, she answered as confusion clouded the young woman’s eyes. Cha-li was used to such reactions. Before meeting her in person, many people thought her Mandarin name, Cha-li (Beautiful Guard), was Charlie, because they’d expected the investigator to be a guy. Just like they’d expected a guy to take over as the medium of Lord Sun Wukong’s temple. Ah well, such things no longer bothered her.

Robina Lee, the woman introduced herself. Not my married name, she added, and sat down across from Cha-li, who reckoned her age to be thirty or so. Robina was tanned, slim, and looked tense. Her lips were rouged a deep pink, and her eyes had dark rings around them. Cha-li noted the smart black stilettos and expensive black leather handbag, and wondered if Robina was one of those high-flying execs from the towering offices in Shenton Way. The look that Robina gave her seemed haughty at first. Seated with legs crossed and hands clenched tightly around the arms of the chair, she said in pitch-perfect Mandarin, My husband is seeing another woman. I would like to engage your services to find out who the woman is. What hold she has on him. What black magic, and here Robina switched to the Hokkien dialect and said emphatically, what kong tau the vixen used to ensnare him. I need a private investigator and a medium. I’m told you’re both. I will pay you well above market rates if you agree to handle the case.

Taken aback, Cha-li muttered that she’d stopped conducting séances. She was more of a caretaker than a medium of the temple these days. No matter, Robina Lee said, and would not take no for an answer. She desperately needed a private investigator with knowledge of the black arts and kong tau. But what proof did she have that her husband had eaten kong tau? Cha-li asked. Robina stared at her hands, still clenched. Her husband was always distracted at home after dinner each night. At times he was glassy-eyed, distant, and vague. He shot out of the house the moment his mobile rang. The family’s business and reputation were suffering. But that did not necessarily prove he was bewitched, Cha-li pointed out. Robina’s voice rose. Proof? You want proof? Then you tell me. Why else would a young man desert his young wife for a woman old enough to be his mother? Look at me. I am not yet thirty!

Cha-li calmed her down, agreed that it was an uncommon case. Far more common for a man to leave his old wife for a young mistress. But as a private investigator, she had to suspend judgement. Observe, listen, gather and assemble the facts, objects, people, and events without adding or subtracting, explaining or interpreting. That should be the PI’s objective, she explained to Robina. The temple medium, on the other hand, could go beyond the realm of fact and information to things hovering in the shadows, at the corner of one’s eye.

Look, I don’t care what you do. Just be discreet. I will pay you well. Those were Robina Lee’s parting words.

A black cat jumped onto the bonnet of Robert Lee’s white Mercedes and disappeared down the other side. Cha-li glanced at her watch. 2:38 a.m. Was he spending the night in the corner house? Could he be so bold as to leave his car parked in front of the house till morning? Cha-li rolled down her window and settled in to wait the whole night.

Butterfly Avenue was hushed, and the air was cool under the thick canopy of trees and bush. All the houses down the road had switched off their lights except the corner house at the end of the row of two-story terraces, each with a fenced-in garden, driveway, and a car under the porch, the symbols that spelled middle class and private property ownership. Cha-li doubted she’d ever be able to own one of these prim-looking terraces. She was familiar with this private housing estate known as Sennett Estate in Potong Pasir, which had made history when it voted in Singapore’s sole opposition MP in 1984. A teenager then, she saw how Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew tore into and shredded the academic record of the opposition candidate, Chiam See Tong, and that had so roused the residents of Potong Pasir that they voted for the underdog. That year her heart had swelled with pride as she watched Kai-yeh, her adoptive father and medium of the Lord Sun Wukong’s temple, rally the villagers to vote for Mr. Chiam. 1984 was also the year she crossed Upper Serangoon, the busy main road that separated her village from wealthy Sennett Estate, to attend Cedar Girls’ School, not far from Butterfly Avenue.

Cha-li reached for the night-vision binoculars in her glove box and trained them on the house at the corner. The front door had opened and two figures had emerged. Robert Lee was with a woman silhouetted against the light from the living room. The woman was laughing and pushing him toward the gate. Cha-li’s heart stopped. She couldn’t breathe. Is that Rose? But Rose was dead. Died in Macau. That was what her sources had told her years ago. Were they wrong? Cha-li watched the woman in the red housecoat open the gate, push Mr. Lee out, and shut it. Her eyes following the woman’s retreating figure, she failed to catch the sound of a car engine starting. She didn’t even see the white Mercedes drive away. Something was unraveling inside her head.

Mei kwei, Mei kwei, wo ai ni.

Rose, Rose, I love you.

A song she hadn’t heard for years.

They had grown up together, she and Rose, in Lord Sun Wukong’s temple in Potong Pasir village. She was the medium’s adopted daughter while Rose was the unwanted mewling waif fished out of the temple’s bucket latrine. Throughout their childhood, Rose was caned often, while she, Cha-li, was spoiled rotten by Kai-ma, her adoptive mother, and Kai-yeh, her adoptive father who channeled the spirit of Lord Sun Wukong, the Monkey King.

In those days, Potong Pasir was a stinking labyrinth of filthy lanes, muddy ponds, duck and vegetable farms, attap huts, and outhouses with bucket latrines. The latrine is in your flesh! Kai-ma railed at Rose. Go and bathe, you filthy rag! But no matter how often Rose took a bath, she could never shake off the stench that seemed to seep into her clothes, her hair, and under her skin. Rose cursed the mother who gave birth to her and dumped her in the temple’s outhouse. The children teased her. Sai! Sai! they yelled in Hokkien. Even the adults called her Ah Sai — lump of shit. The village boys would kick open the door of the outhouse whenever Rose was crouched inside. One day, Cha-li heard a loud quacking and flapping of wings. The bullies had jumped into the duck pond splashing and yelling as they frantically washed themselves — evidently, Rose had suddenly opened the outhouse door and hurled several brown lumps at them. You are the sai! Not me! I am Rose the beautiful! she screeched. Cha-li laughed.

Rose ran away from the temple several times, away from the stink and choke of joss and other incense. Away from Kai-ma’s caning and the boys’ taunting. But the trail of rot pursued her wherever she went. The faster she ran, darting this way and that among the huts, the more lost she felt. Sometimes Cha-li found her crying in Yee Soh’s outhouse with the mangy bitch snarling outside. Sometimes Rose hid under the bushes after Kai-ma had caned her. Once Cha-li found her on Upper Serangoon Road, a wiry urchin gulping exhaust fumes from the city’s buses as though they were fresh air. The fumes overwhelmed the stench in her flesh, Rose said, her eyes bright as stars. The world outside Potong Pasir was a heady mix of new smells, speed, and ceaseless motion to her. She gripped Cha-li’s arm. Run! she yelled, and pulled Cha-li along. Cars honked as they dashed across the busy road, dodging bicycles, motorcycles, hawkers’ carts, and trishaws ferrying women and children.

Once across, Rose demanded: How much you have in your pocket? Show me. Come on, you monkey. She twisted Cha-li’s arm. I know you’ve got money in your pocket. Her nails dug into Cha-li’s flesh until she cried out. Then all of a sudden she felt Rose’s hand stroking her face. Don’t cry, little monkey, please don’t cry. A thrill shot through Cha-li’s heart. It was pounding so hard against her rib cage she had to shut her eyes to stop the dizziness coursing through her, the better to savor the sensuous feel of Rose’s hand on her cheek. She took out all the coins in her pocket and dropped them into Rose’s hand.

I knew it! You little monkey! Forty cents! Let’s go and buy tau huey!

Sweet bean curd was Rose’s favorite dessert. She ate tubs of it in those half-forgotten days, which was why her skin was so smooth and fair, and smelled so sweet that Cha-li almost swooned when Rose held her in the kitchen the night they both turned fifteen. Prostitute! Kai-ma’s broom hit them on their heads. Rose sprinted out of the kitchen, and didn’t return for three days and three nights.

Cha-li sighed, and returned the binoculars to her glove box feeling as if she had crawled out of a black hole where time had warped like a rattan mat left in the sun too long. How long had she been sitting in the car lost in her own thoughts? She was ashamed. This was uncharacteristic. And worse, she’d lost her quarry. Robert Lee’s white Mercedes was gone. The gate of the corner house was shut, and the woman who looked like Rose had disappeared back inside. The house stood in darkness. Butterfly Avenue was wrapped in silence at three a.m. The night air was soft and sweet, as though this avenue was not part of such a densely populated city, as though it belonged to a time when there were few cars and migrant workers from China, India, or Bangladesh hadn’t yet squeezed Singaporeans out of the crowded buses and trains.

Cha-li took out her black notebook, wrote down the time, date, and her observations, and then shut it. It pained her to think of what she’d tell Robina Lee the next day. The woman had phoned earlier to say that she was coming to the temple tomorrow. Cha-li had no wish to see her yet, but an operative must maintain close contact with her client just as a medium must maintain close psychic contact with the spirit she is channeling.

She got out of the car. She had to clear her head. She walked past the corner house and followed the road beyond the silent gated bungalows, their orange roofs gleaming in the ghostly night sky. There was no moon. Just banks of ominous gray clouds. Her mind returned to the woman who looked like Rose. If it was Rose, what was she doing back here? Had she moved up in the world through Robert Lee, son of a hotel chain tycoon? Was he her young lover? Was he bankrolling her?

Information was scarce at this point. Robina Lee was reluctant to tell her more. You are the investigator. You find out, she’d said at their last meeting. And let me remind you of your high fee plus expenses. In return, I expect the strictest confidence.

Cha-li grimaced at the memory of that voice. No, she didn’t want to see Robina Lee tomorrow, and looked up, surprised that her feet had led her to the gate of Cedar Girls’ School. She must have turned onto Cedar Avenue without thinking. This was their secondary school before Rose was expelled for what the school called “unhealthy relationships.”

Monkey! Rose had yelled on the first day. Did you see the school toilet? No shit! No flies! No smell! So clean! You just pull the metal chain. And whooooosh! The water flushes away everything! Rose’s face was glowing. The toilets aren’t like those in Potong Pasir village. When I grow up I want to live in a beautiful house with a clean toilet just like this. And me? What about me? Cha-li asked. Oh, you? You will live in the temple, lor! You will be Lord Sun Wukong’s medium. No, Cha-li protested. But it was not a very strong protest.

She turned away from the school and returned to Butterfly Avenue. A dog barked at her, strident and querulous. Cha-li crossed over to the other side of the road just so the stupid Alsatian wouldn’t wake up the neighborhood. The avenue was U-shaped, and where it curved, there was a small playground with a slide and a swing under the trees. Their shadows fell across the park where a girl’s soft giggles broke the night’s calm. She saw a young Rose and herself on the swing. Rose was pushing her higher and higher, and she was laughing and screaming, Stop! Stop!

What must you say? What must you say?

Mei kwei, Mei kwei, wo ai ni.

Rose, Rose, I love you.

The Alsatian’s barking grew louder, joined now by the yelpings of other dogs. She quickened her pace. Just as she was about to reach her gray Toyota, a glimpse of black hair caught her attention. Near the red car. No, the black one. No. It’s a mirage. An optical illusion. She must be hallucinating. Go home, Cha-li. Get some sleep!

She parked her Toyota in the wasteland next to the canal, formerly known as the Kallang River, that meandered through Potong Pasir village. Wild grass, bush, and creepers grew around the old temple. The wasteland became a fairground every August during the feast of the Monkey King when an open-air stage was erected and a street opera was performed for the gods and devotees. When Kai-yeh was the medium, the entire village of Potong Pasir would gather at the temple to pray, eat, and watch street opera for three days and three nights. These days, however, like the slow-flowing Kallang River that had given way to the rapid Kallang Canal, the street operas had given way to getai in which scantily clad women sang and danced, not for the gods but for the younger devotees who loved MTV. The wasteland had also shrunk, and the concrete blocks of housing board apartments had moved closer to the temple each year.

Cha-li unlocked the side gate, collected the mail from the red letterbox, and opened the door to her private quarters. Exhausted but hungry, she cooked a bowl of instant noodles and ate it while sorting through her mail.

What’s this? She tore open the letter from the National Development Board. Her application to renew the temple’s lease had been rejected. We regret to inform you that the temple’s site has been rezoned for public housing... Cha-li swore under her breath. Lord Sun Wukong’s Temple had been here forever. This was her home. She must see Kai-yeh and let him know the bad news at once.

2

Outside the ward in the Goddess of Mercy Home for the Aged Sick, Mr. Singh, the night watchman, looked flummoxed. The gate, which he had padlocked the night before, was unlocked again this morning.

“The third time this week, Mr. Singh,” the staff nurse said.

“But Miss Tan, I lock the gate last night!”

“No, you didn’t. The gate was open when I arrived. And you weren’t at the gate.”

“I had to go to the loo.”

“We have residents here suffering from severe dementia. The gate must be locked at all times. I have to report this to the matron.”

“If you report, then I susah-lah!”

“If I don’t report, and something happens, then how? I’m not going to be responsible, you know!”

Sitting on a chair next to the bed, arms resting on her lap, Cha-li stared out the window and pretended not to look at Kai-yeh’s wizened face. Curled like a shriveled fetus on his side, Kai-yeh was following the altercation outside his ward with avid interest. Neither of them spoke until the nurse and watchman walked away.

“Troublemaker,” Cha-li hissed. “You did it, didn’t you?”

Kai-yeh’s eyes lit up. For a second, Cha-li saw the simian features pass through his wrinkled face like a wind moving across water. Then his lungs seized up. His chest heaved with the effort to draw in air. Fourth stage, the doctor had told her. The cancer had spread to his lungs. When his coughing worsened, Cha-li summoned the nurse. An oxygen mask was placed over his nostrils. Aahh... ah, Kai-yeh dragged in each breath of air. Cha-li placed a hand on his chest. Gradually his breathing quieted. He waved off her hand, and pointed to the mask clamped over his face. Cha-li took it off.

“I... I... Rose. Bring... her... back here.”

“What? Kai-yeh. Did Rose visit you?”

He coughed again and again, and could not stop. Each explosion was worse than the one before. The young Malay nurse strode into the room and clamped the oxygen mask back on. “You should go. The patient has to rest.”

Cha-li bent down and whispered in the old man’s ear, “Kai-yeh, you hang in there. I’ll find Rose.”

His eyes remained closed; he gave no sign that he’d heard. Cha-li knew he wouldn’t last long. She had to find Rose before Kai-yeh entered the eternal Peach Garden.

She drove back to Potong Pasir via Aljunied Road, past Mount Vernon where the crematorium used to be, where the Christian cemetery and its dead slept in peace, where love had made the evening air fragrant when Rose held her hand as they walked among the tombstones and kissed in front of the dead.

She slowed as she turned onto Serangoon Road, and let the trucks and buses roar past her. New condominiums and shopping malls had replaced the black-and-white colonial bungalows. No remnants of the dairies, duck farms, vegetable gardens, and attap houses remained. Rural disarray and abundant greenery had given way to concrete flyovers, congested roads, and blocks of flats built by the Housing and Development Board. The only real village left in Potong Pasir was St. Andrew’s Village, a school complex with a chapel and an artificial rugby pitch. Butterfly Avenue and Sennett Estate, on the other side of Upper Serangoon Road, were part of the Potong Pasir constituency now, although this could change in the next general election when boundaries would be redrawn, and the authorities would once again deny that such redrawing of electoral boundaries was gerrymandering.

Cha-li thought of going to see the opposition MP, but changed her mind. She doubted that the old man, Chiam, could save the temple sitting on land slated for development. The temple was famous for its support of the opposition. Since the early 1980s, Kai-yeh had invoked the spirit of Lord Sun Wukong to help Chiam See Tong win in every general election, and Chiam’s success was credited to Lord Sun Wukong’s benevolence to the people of Potong Pasir. Cha-li smiled. So many stories had circulated to explain how Chiam, a humble lawyer with less-than-stellar school results, had held his own against the might of the PAP in general election after general election. No, the temple was doomed. The authorities would sooner bulldoze it to the ground than preserve it.

Cha-li parked her car and went into the temple, surprised to find Robina Lee among the women praying at the altar of the Monkey King.

“Good morning, Wong Sifu,” the women greeted her.

In their eyes, she would always be Sifu or Master Wong, who channeled the spirit of the Monkey King. That she was also a private investigator was irrelevant to them; it was just a job to fill her rice bowl. Periodically, Cha-li suffered pangs of unease. She was a fraud burdened by a sacred duty that had been imposed on her as a child. As the chosen one, selected by Kai-yeh, who had consulted the Monkey King’s spirit before anointing her as his successor, she had to serve in his absence. Years of performing the rituals, the chanting, and the comforting had won her scores of grateful devotees, women who respected and adored her. Some had even been her lovers when she was young, handsome, lonely, and pining for Rose.

“Good morning, Sifu!” the women called out to her again.

“Good morning, good morning!” she said, laughing as she opened the door to her office. Robina followed her inside and closed the door. She was wearing a dark pantsuit and sunglasses. When she took off her glasses, Cha-li saw the wretched look in her eyes. Her face was puffy, and there was a dark bruise on her right temple.

“Did your husband do this?”

Robina shook her head, and Cha-li didn’t press her.

“He slept in the baby’s room last night. He didn’t want me near him.” Robina’s voice was flat. “You must give me a ritual cleansing. Please.”

Shocked by the request, Cha-li tried to focus her attention on the case instead.

“I have checked out your husband’s new office in Shenton Way. His clients are all Indians. Rich fat cats who are buying up our luxury condos.”

“Robert is repulsed by the sight of me.”

“He’s running some kind of consultancy that includes real estate.”

“Help me, Wong Sifu,” Robina pleaded, kneeling suddenly.

“No, no, please. Please stand up.”

“Our little boy is only six months old. Robert owes people a lot of money. My father-in-law does not know it yet. I fear... I...”

“Wait, Robina. I know. I ran a check—”

“He’s bewitched. It’s that vixen. Please, Wong Sifu, help me. The family... the... the scandal will ruin his father. Please, Sifu!”

Cha-li sighed. She was hoping it wouldn’t lead to this. “Go into the prayer hall, Robina. I have to change.”

She did not move until the woman had left the room. Then she locked the door.

The anointed are never free. They must respond to the cries of the broken and lost — Kai-yeh had drilled this into her from a young age. They sought her, these broken hearts. She had tried to tell them that Lord Sun Wukong, the Monkey King, was a figment of an author’s imagination, but all to no avail. Besides, there were the women’s testimonies. Lord Sun Wukong answered my prayers, some claimed. He granted me a son, declared another. He made my husband stop seeing that woman and come back to me.

She sighed. The women’s beliefs had tinted their perceptions and shaped their universe; Lord Sun Wukong was the godly spirit who came to their aid. If she was tempted at times to tell them to pray to a rock, which would work just as well, she restrained herself. If praying had helped these women to sit still long enough for their problems to work themselves out, what right had she to destroy their faith in something higher than themselves? No bloody right at all! She yanked off her blue jeans and pulled on a pair of gold-colored silk pants. Then she took off her red checked blouse and slipped on a white silk shirt and the Monkey King’s bronze headband. She gazed at the woman in the mirror, dressed in silk pajamas.

Would her features turn simian when she was as old as Kai-yeh?

She was six when Lord Sun Wukong, through the intercession of Kai-yeh, chose her to be his young messenger. Thrilled and scared that she, and not Rose, was the Chosen One, she had knelt before his altar and drunk a cup of tea mixed with holy joss ash. Lord Sun Wukong was a wise, courageous, shape-changing god in the Taoist pantheon of deities, Kai-yeh told her. Capable of forty-nine changes; he could change himself into a fly, a beautiful woman, a monster, or a rock at the blink of an eye. That’s what I want to do, she declared. Kai-yeh laughed: That you will, my child. That you will.

Later, in school, she discovered that the English storybooks referred to the deity as the Monkey King. In the temple, however, he was respectfully addressed as Lord Sun Wukong. His altar was covered with a red velvet ceremonial tablecloth embroidered with the Eight Immortals. The cloth reached down to the floor, hiding anyone under the altar from view. This was where she and Rose had slept as teenagers, hugging each other close each night, especially after Kai-ma’s death when Rose refused to sleep in the kitchen alone. Kai-yeh sleepwalks and touches me, she complained.

The temple’s drum boomed. Her assistant called out in a loud voice: “Make way for His Excellency, Lord Sun Wukong!”

Cha-li took her rod and glided into the prayer hall.

3

The following week, on Monday evening, Cha-li waited in the parking lot of Tower Block One, Shenton Way. Outside, a thunderstorm was pelting the city hard. After two weeks of blistering sunshine and high humidity that caused her shirts to cling to her back, the weather had finally turned. The storm raged as she sat in her car, watching Lift Lobby Two and the white Mercedes parked near it. Robert Lee should appear at any moment. By seven, the storm petered out. Several men and women walked out of the lift, got into their cars, and drove off, leaving large gaps between the remaining cars. Bored, Cha-li continued to keep an eye on movements in the lift lobby as a light drizzle started to fall on the city’s gray towers now gleaming wet in the lamplight. Another hour passed, and still no sign of Robert Lee. Lift Lobby Two was brightly lit and empty, most of the executives having left the building by now. For the past two weeks, Robert had left his office between six and seven. Tonight he was late, but he could dash out of the lift any minute. Two evenings ago, she’d had to duck her head and pretend she was reaching for something in the backseat when he’d come out of the lift suddenly with an Indian client in tow. Tonight she was better prepared. She had donned a wig and changed her glasses.

At 8:46 p.m. Robert Lee came out of the lift, alone. He drove out of the parking lot with Cha-li tailing him through heavy traffic to Orchard Road and the Hilton. She did not follow him into the hotel this time. Instead, she drove home to collect Saddam Hussein. Tonight she would try a new strategy.

At ten p.m. she parked her gray Toyota near the playground on Butterfly Avenue and got out. “Come on, Saddam boy. Okay, okay! Let’s go!” Her fox terrier jumped out of the car, pulling at its leash. Laughing, Cha-li jogged after Saddam Hussein — taking the dog out at night was good camouflage. Running down the lanes gave her a chance to observe the corner house on Butterfly Avenue from different vantage points. She could see a pattern beginning to emerge.

As she came around the corner, Robert Lee’s white Mercedes stopped in front of the corner house. His passenger, a well-groomed Indian male in a long-sleeved blue shirt and dark trousers, stepped out and pressed the buzzer on the gate. When it opened, Robert Lee drove off.

Back inside her gray Toyota with Saddam Hussein panting in the backseat, Cha-li checked her notes again. For the past several nights, Robert Lee had brought a different Indian male to the house. Sometimes, Robert went in with his guest. But last Tuesday night, he had dropped his Indian guy off and driven away, and Cha-li had tailed him back to his home. Last Monday, Wednesday, and Friday nights, Robert had parked his car and followed his Indian guest into the house. About two hours later, the two men had returned to the car and driven back to the Indian’s hotel. Just this week alone, she had followed Robert to several high-end hotels. On Monday night, it was the Fullerton. On Wednesday night, it was Marina Bay Sands. On Friday night, the Ritz-Carlton. On Saturday night, the Shangri-La. But all these details hardly spelled adultery. Robert Lee was simply the chauffeur for his rich Indians. She’d not seen any women coming out of the corner house yet except the one in red who looked like Rose.

She flipped over several more pages in her notebook. Nothing important in there. Her surveillance of Robert’s office had yielded little except a list of his dinner appointments with Indian clients, who inevitably ended up going to the corner house for dessert. Which was interesting. Is the house a brothel? Unlikely. Butterfly Avenue was not Geylang Road. Sennett Estate was in one of the city’s respectable middle-class areas. It’s true that some wealthy Chinese had bought houses here for their mistresses, but this had not dented the estate’s respectability. Besides, Cha-li had not seen any young women emerging from the corner house. Was the woman in red the sole magnet that attracted the Indians? But if the woman was Rose, she’d be fifty-five and considered over the hill, no? Unless... unless she was offering something kinky.

4

On Sunday the matron phoned. Kai-yeh had taken a turn for the worse. When Cha-li arrived at the home, Kai-yeh was hooked up to a ventilator and drip.

“Is he in pain?”

What she really wanted to know was: Is he going to die? He was all the family she had.

“He’s stable for now. The doctor has given him an injection.”

Cha-li slumped into the chair next to the bed. She stroked the old man’s hand. His eyes opened. He raised his forefinger with some effort, and tried to speak. But all he managed to croak was “Rose.” After that, he had to breathe hard to make up for that expense of energy.

“Kai-yeh, I’ll find her.”

Cha-li parked the rental van outside the corner house. Pulling a cap on her head, she got out, pressed the buzzer on the gate, and shouted into the intercom, “Karang guni! Collect old newspapers!”

The gate opened, and she walked up the driveway. The front door was ajar.

“Come in!” a woman shouted from the kitchen.

Cha-li stepped inside the spacious living room. Its walls were apple white, and the floor was made of white marble. A large white sofa and two armchairs upholstered in white leather sat on a thick beige and gray carpet. The woman who came out of the kitchen didn’t seem surprised to see her.

“I knew you’d find me sooner or later.”

“Rose.” That was all Cha-li could manage. Her throat was dry.

Rose, meanwhile, said nothing. She had not moved from her spot near the kitchen. Cha-li peered at her. Wearing a pink housecoat, she looked like the aunties who came to the temple to pray. At fifty-five, Rose was no longer the young dark beauty queen who had held men spellbound as she gyrated onstage with a python in the Great World Cabaret and broke Cha-li’s heart. A hard glint appeared in Rose’s eyes as she looked at Cha-li, who searched for something to say now that she was face to face with the girl — no, the woman — she had once loved.

Scenes from their past came and went in her head. She saw their two naked bodies, tinted red by sunlight shining through the red tablecloth covering Lord Sun Wukong’s altar, as Rose’s fingers reached into the deep moist recesses between her thighs, stirring feelings of love, guilt, and shame. Ashamed of what she felt, and conscious that she was Kai-yeh’s chosen successor, while Rose was just the temple’s waif, she fought hard to suppress her feelings. Until one day, Rose was gone. Gone without a word. Frantic with worry, and sobbing her heart out, Cha-li went to the police. A missing person’s report was filed but nothing came of it. She wept long and hard every night. For months she haunted the places they used to visit. Kai-yeh was philosophical. Rose is a temple stray. Strays come and go. It’s their nature, he said, and encouraged her to study hard.

Five years later, Cha-li became a private investigator. She was on duty in the Malaysian town of Ipoh when she chanced upon a large black-and-white photo of Rose in the Great World Cabaret. It showed a scantily clad sultry beauty with long, dark tresses, and a large python curled around her. Shocked, Cha-li sat through Rose’s show before charging into her dressing room backstage. Fuck off, Cha-li! I don’t owe you an explanation! The cabaret! Now, that’s my temple! It’s where I dance like a woman. Sexy and beautiful. You! You prance around that temple like a dressed-up monkey! Stung, Cha-li left the cabaret, and hadn’t seen Rose again.

“You might as well take off the cap.”

Cha-li pulled off her hat and stuffed it into the pocket of her jeans.

“Why have you come?” Rose asked in a hard voice.

“Kai-yeh is dying.”

“Good! May he rot in hell!”

“He gave you a roof over your head, Rose.”

“Keep your pious shit, Cha-li. You’re blind, and a fool. He gave me more than that. Come.”

Cha-li followed her into the kitchen. Rose threw open a door, and Cha-li walked into the kitchen of the house next door. She followed Rose into the dining room where an old woman was trying unsuccessfully to feed a young man strapped to his chair. The young man’s large shaved head was lolling on the back of the chair as though his neck was too soft to support it. Spit was dribbling from the corner of his mouth, which was making guttural sounds. The old woman wiped off the spit with a washcloth, and shoved another spoonful of rice into the gaping hole as though to stop the ugly sounds coming from it.

“Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!”

“What your Kai-yeh gave me.”

Cha-li stared at the head and vacant eyes. “Did he...? Did he...?” Helpless, she turned to Rose.

“He raped me. Then I tried to abort him.”

Rose patted the lolling head, which said, “Ugh! Ugh!” and more spit dribbled.

“Good morning, Madame Mei Kwei! Good morning, Ugh-Ugh!” two girls called out in Mandarin as they came down the stairs, their nipples showing under their skimpy nightdresses. Cha-li remembered seeing them when she was walking Saddam Hussein. One of the girls approached them and planted a kiss on the lolling head. “Ugh! Ugh!” The distended mouth dribbled more spit, and the wrists strained at the belt that strapped them to the armrests.

Rose turned away. “Let’s go back. They’re getting ready to eat.”

Cha-li followed her back to the first house. The sun had come into the living room, and the light that bounced off the white marble floor hurt Cha-li’s eyes. Her head was swimming.

“Is Robert the mastermind?”

“No. Robert has to settle his gambling debts. I... ah! I need the money and so do these China girls. They have something to sell that the Indians want to buy. Robert brings the Indians. I bring the girls. Everyone is happy. It’s not a crime.”

“I don’t know about that.”

Rose drew the curtains. “Report it to the police if you want. I don’t care what you do.”

“Why? Why didn’t you tell me what he did?”

“Tell you?” Rose’s laughter bordered on the hysterical, a wild gleam in her eyes. “Tell you? The bastard’s monkey girl? The Great Lord’s Chosen One with a paper gold band on your head? And a fake gold chain around your neck? The bastard was holding the bloody chain while you pranced before the devotees, drunk in their adoration. Strike me dead, Cha-li! I couldn’t tear open my heart to a prancing monkey in silk robes!”

She wanted to slap Rose, but walked to the front door instead and stopped at the doorway, surprised at the sudden weight in her limbs. Her shoulders sagged. The memory of the gilt headband that she’d worn in those days made her cringe. It was made of cardboard and cheap plastic, painted gold. Later, she had bought the bronze headband to replace it.

The sunlight outside hurt her eyes, which were beginning to tear, the same eyes that had remained shut when footsteps were shuffling in the middle of the night into the kitchen where Rose slept. Rose’s mouth was moving, saying something to her, but she couldn’t catch the words. She kept thinking of the lolling head and dribbling mouth next door.

“The... the temple will be demolished. Very soon,” she said without turning around. She couldn’t face Rose. She wanted to shut her eyes, shut out the noonday glare, but she forced herself to keep them open, fixed on the green lawn outside sizzling in the midday heat. “I... I can get a flat big enough for the three... three of us... er... you and him...” Her voice trailed off.