“No lah, kak,” I tell the lady. This is crazy, I think. I’m actually calling her kak. Kak is Malay for sister. I wouldn’t want a sister like that. Maybe I should have called her bang instead, Abang for brother. What would she say to that?
“No, just now when I walked in, I thought, eh, this is Ziana Zain. What is Ziana Zain doing in Singapore? I was thinking of telling my friends I saw Ziana Zain inside the MRT!”
I shake my head and still say no. I’m also wondering what kind of friends she has. Salmah on my left is pretending not to have heard a single thing, but I know inside she is kicking up her legs and laughing like mad. Salmah keeps looking at her Particle Mechanics notes, the same page, and although there is nothing funny with her notes she has this fixed smile on her face.
“Really, you know, you look just like her.” At this point, the lady gives me a concerned look, as if she is aware of all the possibilities of being a Ziana Zain lookalike. “Except for the specs. But you still look like Ziana Zain if she puts on specs. Hey, why don’t you take off your specs, let me take a good look at you?”
I look at what I am wearing. A Billabong T-shirt, and jeans. I have a haversack on my side. The Bangladeshi workers are all looking at me. This woman is crazy, I think. This woman is out to humiliate me. If there is one thing worse than sitting beside a pondan, it is sitting beside a pondan who is out of her mind.
I remove my spectacles and I look at the transvestite. I have nothing more to lose. Without my specs, she looks more like a woman. Her mouth doesn’t appear so big anymore, and when she smiles, it is less of a leer. Her hair is more natural, and I suddenly realise that she has quite a good figure, broad shoulders and a full chest. But I put my specs on again and I see him, his fake fingernails, fake wig, fake breasts, fake shaven shins. The only thing real about him is the surprise on his face, coupled with what looks like a satisfaction from being the only one in the world who is able to see that I look like Ziana Zain. He has the expression of someone who is about to groom a star.
And then just as suddenly, he leaves his seat and tells me, “I get off here. My station.”
The station is Outram Park. If he walks out, he will wander smack into the heart of Chinatown. I wonder what it will be like, this tall Malay transvestite walking around in Chinatown, past the medicinal halls smelling of dried herbs, the dumpling stalls, the pirated VCD shops with prices black-markered on fluorescent stars. This pondan and his fine fingertips.
Before he goes, he smiles at me. It is a mischievous smile. He then waves, still with his fingertips, and flicks his hair. It doesn’t fall off, the wig. It stays firm on his head. He says, “Bye Ziana, see you in concert!” And then he says to Salmah, “Bye Ziana’s friend, from just now so shy!”
When he leaves, Salmah breaks out laughing. She laughs until there are tears in her eyes. When she finishes she is almost breathless.
“Ow,” Salmah says, “stomach pain.”
“Salmah,” I ask her, “Salmah, if you are my friend, you will not tell this to anyone.”
Salmah snorts as if suppressing another round of laughter.
“Salmah,” I say again. “I don’t want the whole school to call me Ziana. That pondan was crazy.”
“See how,” was all Salmah could say. And she returned, smiling, to her notes.
On the walk to school, I find it hard to have any conversation with Salmah. Nothing seems to displace the one idea in her head. I try to talk about deadlines, homework, which lecturers are boring, which ones are cute but married to ugly wives, which ones drive what cars, which ones cycle and wear tight, tight bicycle shorts. But she doesn’t want to speak about any of it.
When we reach the polytechnic, we find that it is crowded; it appears that they are selling things in the foyer. Valentine’s Day is in one week’s time. There are photo frames, Forever Friends T-shirts, cards with hearts, even a booth selling healing crystals with names like “amethyst” and “hawkeye”, but they have to be bought in pairs. They are even selling inflatable sofas. Salmah has arranged to meet Sazalie near this noticeboard where lovers can write down messages on a red paper heart to be pinned on it. I had read some of them, really nonsense stuff like “I hope that our love will forever burn like an eternal flame” and “I was lost until I found you. It was fate that brought us together, and fate that will never keep us apart.”
“Eat already?” Sazalie asks Salmah.
“Not yet, want to go for lunch?” Salmah asks.
“OK.” Sazalie is smiling, his two dimples coming out from hiding.
“You won’t believe what happened to our friend here just now,” Salmah goes.
I stop suddenly behind the two of them. “Salmah,” I say. “Salmah.”
“What?” she asks. She is smiling. “What?” she asks again, in a higher voice.
At that moment I ask myself why the whole world has to pretend. That pondan, with his broad face, his rough skin, who does he think he can fool? And Salmah, all of a sudden, becoming very religious, wearing that tudung of hers. And Bugis Street pretending not to be the place
