Pansy is amazed at herself, at how she manages to pull the silly promise out from so many years ago. She closes her eyes and leans her forehead on the fence, as the other memories come scuttling back, how she used to sit with her back against Rama as she read Wordsworth’s poems. She still has the book that Sister Catherine had given her. She remembers seeing George coming down the hill that afternoon, and how she had leapt to his rescue when the bicycle threw him off like a rodeo horse. And how the signboard had stopped him from falling into the lake. What did the sign say? ‘Danger. No Swimming’? Or ‘Dangerous. Swimming Not Allowed’?
Goldie has given her some distance but now she says, “You okay, grandma?”
“This was where the lake used to be,” Pansy says, her voice tremulous. “You see these two banyan trees? The way they stand? No other trees in this area stand side by side like them. That’s why they’re distinguishable and tell me where the lake used to be. I nicknamed them Rama and Sita after the great lovers in the Indian epic Ramayana. There was no fence earlier, of course. I used to ride my bicycle and come here to read William Wordsworth’s poems and sit and lean against Rama, as he’s nearer to the lake, and pretend that the lake was Windermere. This was where I met your grandfather, that incident your father mentioned about the buffalo took place just there.”
“Windermere is in the Lake District, right?” Goldie says. “Let me google it.”
“Google? What does google mean? We didn’t have the Internet before. We had to use our imagination. I never knew what the real Windermere looked like until years later when we moved to England and your grandfather took me there. Let me recite to you our favourite poem:
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd
A host of golden daffodils
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.”
“That’s beautiful, grandma,” says Goldie. “It seems so old fashioned reciting a poem. There’s something peaceful about doing that…”
Pansy looks round at the current landscape. So much has changed. Of course it is no longer possible to see Haji Kahar’s house on the hill, as in the past, with the tall condominiums obscuring the house and altering the view. The old landscape is gone but Pansy tries to repaint the old canvas, so that her granddaughter can see the picture that lives in her mind. More importantly, she tries to impart to Goldie the happiness she shared with George and the love they had for each other.
“True love does exist,” she says. “I want you to know this, Goldie. It’s not an easy world that you have inherited. Everything is so fast paced, the focus is on what is outside, not inside. People don’t pay attention to each other in the same way as before, as attention is always given elsewhere, to one’s mobile phone, iPad, or other sensory distractions. But there is someone out there who is your true love. As your grandpa was mine.”
“Oh, grandma…” Goldie says, then for no apparent reason at all, she bursts into tears, covering her face with her hands.
Pansy takes Goldie in her arms and lets her sob and sob.
“I’m sorry,” she says afterwards, blowing her nose and wiping her eyes. “I don’t know what came over me. As if a sluice has been opened, and all the times that I’ve felt unloved simply poured out. It’s as if you’ve provided me a space to do so…”
“No apology needed,” Pansy says, kissing her on her forehead. “It’s good that you can unburden yourself to me. I am honoured. When you harden up and close your heart, you can never feel love coming to you. Now that you have opened your heart, you can feel my love for you. When there is love, you feel safe. This is how you will recognise your true love when he comes to you.”
“I can’t wait. By the way, grandma, I’m not a lesbian…”
“I know that. You dressed that way to protect your soft centre…”
“I’ve never been so connected to anyone as I am to you, grandma. Please, tell me more about grandpa…”
Pansy says her farewell to Rama and Sita, and Goldie drives down the remaining part of Koh Sek Lim Road.
“All this area was ploughed fields. We had all sorts of vegetable farms. I had to ride past tall maize plants. Have you ever eaten fresh jagong, simply boiled in salted water? Ohh, they were so delicious…”
But now the road ends in a huge tarmac car park that serves the NEWater manufacturing plant to recycle waste water for drinking. Not one single attap house or field remains. There is absolutely no sign that there had been villages and a thriving community here before. Visible beyond the car park, the Bedok River flows on, though it is not accessible as it is blocked by the circular container towers. The sea is nowhere to be seen, as if magicked away. Despite being warned by Anthony, Pansy suffers a keen sense of loss.
“Somewhere behind this concrete building was where my village used to be…” Pansy says in a shattered voice. She had not expected too much. But to see no remaining trace of her life with George and her parents at all is almost tantamount to someone having wiped clean the slate of her memory. Memories that are not passed on starve and die. What about all the other villagers who had lived here? Did they pass their memories to their children and grandchildren so that their old way of life can be held in theirs? How did they cope with being dislodged from a life they loved and
