“Look at this,” Maimon said, handing her the video camera.
“Why?”
“What’s that red light?”
“Oh, it means... wait, Mak, you got the manual?”
Maimon gave her daughter the manual which had a Japanese section, a Spanish section and an English one.
“Oh,” Jamilah said after reading the manual, “It means battery is low. You didn’t switch it off from yesterday.”
“Is it spoilt?”
“I don’t know. Mak, do you have the big cassette converter?”
“What is that? I don’t know, I just pass everything to you, you take what you want.”
“Okay.”
After half an hour of reading the manual and trying things out on the video camera, Jamilah figured that she now understood how to use it. While her mother was sweeping the kitchen, Jamilah slotted the video cassette into the player that was on the shelf under the television.
“Don’t want lah, put it away.”
“Say anything, Mak, don’t be shy!”
“You want it you take it. Don’t play with it here.”
“Smile!”
When Maimon heard her voice, she walked out into the living room to find her face on the television screen. All the wall mirrors in the house had been turned over to face the wall during the funeral out of superstition, and Maimon had never felt the need to restore them to their proper positions. For the first time in a week, Maimon caught sight of her many white hairs and was convinced that her grieving had caused many more wrinkles to appear.
Then the screen showed the camera hovering from the living room to the kitchen. It showed from the level of the dining table: the kitchen cabinets with the Milo tins, the ketchup bottles and even the woks and aluminium pots on the cooker. The screen was still for a long time. Jamilah reached out to press the fast forward button.
Very soon a figure walked into the frame, and Jamilah eased her finger off the button. The figure was taking out a match to light one of the cooker hobs. It moved slowly, placing a pot over the hob. With one hand, it stirred the things in the pot with a red ladle that was lying on a pink towel on the cabinet. The other hand the figure placed on its hip. Then suddenly, the figure stopped stirring and put both of its hands to its face. The video camera caught what sounded like sobbing. Then the figure pulled the front of its clothes up to its face and the lower part of its back could be seen. Then it continued stirring, faster this time.
When Jamilah turned back to look at her mother she saw the frowning expression on her face.
“That’s me,” said Maimon. She was leaning on the edge of the sofa, a frail right hand gripping the armrest.
“Yah.”
“Jamilah, I have something to ask from you.”
“What?”
“Today don’t go home so early. Teach me how to use the camera. And also the video player. I want you to teach me.”
When Jamilah finally left her mother’s house it was already dark. She vowed to herself not to visit her mother so often. She also regretted not being able to bring home the video camera. But she soon forgot all about it as the scent of roasted chestnuts reached her, and the throaty voice of a Chinese man hawked it at ten dollars per kilo.* * *It had been a month since Jamilah visited her mother. Within the time she had been busy organising a potluck for the members of her aerobics group. She had also managed to lose three kilograms.
Azhar still worked at the post office and sometimes brought home souvenirs like a calculator-cum-digital alarm clock that commemorated his “Ten Years of Outstanding Service”. When he showed it to Jamilah she said, “Good, we can use it the next time we go on our honeymoon.” Of course as usual Azhar had nothing to say in return.
Within that month, Jamilah never missed an episode of The Pyramid Game, although sometimes Azhar pointed out that the people who won weren’t going to share their prizes with her. Jamilah also tried each night to love Azhar more than the previous night, but on some nights she would stop. That was when she started thinking of how it would be to video themselves in bed to see what they were doing wrong. There was one night when the thought entered her head and she had to stop suddenly.
She clutched Azhar by his shoulders and told him, “Azhar, we cannot go on like this. Tomorrow I will see the doctor.”* * *Jamilah was ticking off names on a list when the telephone rang. She thought it was going to be one of her aerobics friends but it turned out to be Maimon.
“Milah, when are you coming to visit me again?”
“You want me to come down?”
“I’m just asking. It’s been one month.”
“I’ll come down later today.”
“I have something to show you.”
In the afternoon, Jamilah took the train down to Choa Chu Kang. When she looked around the carriage, she saw an Indian woman who had her son sitting beside her. He was sleeping on her shoulder with his mouth slightly open.
When Jamilah settled down at her mother’s place, Maimon made her sit on the sofa while she got out a glass of rose syrup. Maimon then took out the video camera and slotted a video cassette tape into the video player.
“I have been playing around with this thing,” Maimon told Jamilah.
“My mother wants to be a director. Can go Malaysia and make movies. Like Yusof Haslam.”
“No, you see what I did with it. You just see.”
The television screen flickered and then showed the living room. There was no sound except that of passing cars. A vase of flowers appeared on the screen, the plastic violet ones that Jamilah had bought for her mother for Hari Raya three years ago. They were dusty and scentless, but their colour had not faded. The camera panned, and Jamilah recognised the sofa she was sitting on. It was unoccupied.
“Mak, you got nothing to do ah?” Jamilah asked.
Maimon
