to look it up on the Internet, at school. She did not want to stop the flow of her reading worrying about strange, exotic-sounding words.
The minute sounds of Amir’s naked feet on the floor, a gentle whoosh of air as his arm swept, in waves, in circles, was all the accompaniment there was to his satyr dance, and all Farah needed to be caught by his beauty and style. For those few minutes, she was in the thrall of glamour, beguiled by the Indian, fascinated by him.
Farah did not understand her feeling of longing. It had never been a part of her repertoire of feelings; until now. After sixteen and a half years, her body had reached puberty (and beyond) almost before she had realized what was taking place. It was only the obvious tell-tale signs of needing to wear a towel at certain times of the month, a little extra down in personal, private places, and the blossoming of her breasts which alerted her to her changing status.
Now, noting Amir’s silent dance, Farah felt warmth expanding inside her, changing her, perhaps forever. It was only while looking at this young Indian that Farah had any inkling of the woman she may yet become, sometime in her future.
If it had not been so embarrassing, the sudden warmth she experienced between her thighs and the unexpected tightening of her chest beneath her school uniform might have overwhelmed her as she watched the perfection of Amir’s silent dance.
As it was, her cheeks coloured with a blush, she felt her face become heated. Slowly, Farah tentatively put one hand beneath her school uniform to see if she bled; she did not. The sudden warmth was not that of her monthlies, so her fingers came away clear… but sticky, as she involuntarily sighed a world- changing sigh, tingling a little with a small tremor of aftershock.
Syafiqah stared at the book page, and then read the paragraph over again. ‘Coo,’ she said quietly to herself. Then she read it for a third time, just in case she had misread it the other two times. ‘Phew,’ she said as she read on.
To Farah, her sensations were not at all unpleasant, just inexplicable.
She had neither the words nor the experience to describe what she was beginning to feel. She was certain that she no longer felt like the child she had been, but something else. Farah watched, and as she watched, she grew.
As she watched, she gasped, a soft almost sensual gasp, a pretty gasp entirely suited to her young, inexperienced years.
It was a sharp intake of breath, a brief moment of inhalation, which in itself was paltry but summed up all her feelings and sensations at that very moment in time. That gasp reflected Farah’s myriad of feelings, thoughts, sensations, all new, all unnamed, awaiting her recognition. The gasp was the recognition.
Syafiqah stared at the book. Her heart was racing; she was scared and excited, scared to be caught reading such material, but also more than a little excited by the words. Once more, she checked the door, then turned to her bedroom window and made sure that the curtains were closed. With her heart sounding in her ear, she read more.
Catching his breath from his labours, Amir patted the dough with hands shining like gold in the lean-to’s brightening light. Then, when he was ready, he turned towards the rear of the shack and smiled a broad smile right to the spot where Farah was watching.
Farah, shocked, embarrassed, but with a small charge of excited electricity shooting through her body, shyly moved back from her spy-hole.
As she did so, she stumbled and fell. Farah’s careless tumble caused the loose plank to fall, and the one next to it also. Ungracefully, Farah tumbled into the half-light of the wooden lean-to, her skirt in distinct disarray, revealing the curvature of her calves. A breathless, panting Farah landed almost at Amir’s feet. To him, as he gazed at her, it was as if Aishwayra Rai herself had tumbled magically into his domain. Smiling, the glistening Amir reached a hand down to her…
That was it.
As Syafiqah read, she noticed that the page opposite the one she was on had been torn out. The numbering jumped from page 82, the page she was on, to page 85. It was obvious to her that the story ended somewhere between those pages, and there was more than a little disappointment showing in her face with this momentous realisation. With some annoyance, Syafiqah sellotaped the yellowing fragment of book to the base of her bottom drawer in her chest of drawers, believing it to be safe there.
Later, as Syafiqah was at the back of the kitchen, helping her mother place the pinching pegs out onto the rinsed washing, on their makeshift washing line, she turned to the older woman.
‘
‘Yes
‘Where can I get a copy of an old book?’
NAKED SCREW
Alison Lester, Singapore
My apartment in Singapore is immaculate. All the walls are clean and white, except for the one with the naked screw sticking out of it, where I took the wedding photo down. I’m the one who took the picture down; I know what that screw is doing there. But every day it catches my eye, and my brain needs to reassure itself again that the aberration on the wall isn’t a threat, a spider or a cockroach, a thing-that-shouldn’t-be-there. The broad windows sparkle, the pale grey-and-white marble floor shines so well it reflects perfect rectangles of sky. Now and then, the Singapore Air Force flies its planes overhead, and the reflection of the tiny fighters mimics running cockroaches so well I always speed over to see if I need to stamp on them, just in case.
Once, the shouldn’t-be-there thing was bigger. Much bigger.
I’d had my swim and my shower, and was making my usual undressed trip from my bedroom to my kitchen for some juice and yoghurt. I enjoy the cold marble on my feet and the hot sun on my belly and butt as I move through the room. I like to air-dry.
I’d forgotten the building was being painted. Three dark men, South Indians or maybe Bangladeshis, were standing on a suspended platform, staring at me through my living room window. I stopped to think: go to kitchen for food but get stuck there until they descend to paint the lower floors? Or retreat to bedroom and return clothed but still naked in their eyes?
I turned and retreated, but I’d had a good look at them in my moment of indecision. One was so shocked his heavy lower lip hung open, practically flapping in the breeze. One looked wicked to the core. One stared calmly, apparently unruffled, with something just a little fierce around the eyes. As I walked back into the bedroom I felt a strange urge to let these three chocolate men in through the window, into the refrigerated air of my home, so that they wouldn’t melt.
I dressed in a khaki skirt and T-shirt and crossed the living room again, aware of the men’s shapes suspended behind the couch but not looking at them. Once in the kitchen, I fought the urge to close the door, since I couldn’t stay there forever. The alternative was to close the living room curtains. I spooned out my yoghurt and poured my juice, left the kitchen to put them on the dining table, and crossed the living room to the window. I went to the corner where the curtain begins and pulled it across. When I arrived in front of the painters though, I had to stop.
I’d never come this close to a foreign labourer before, window or no window. I’d bought vegetables and ginger from shopkeepers in Little India, but those Indians weren’t new to Singapore, or temporary. My gas man is a Chinese Singaporean named Jacky Chan, who complains of having no girlfriends while the movie star has so many. My plumber is a Malay Singaporean named Rosli, who prays in the mosque near my apartment and appears to have
