“Actually, I’m planning to get a degree first.”
“That’s good. That’s good,” he said. “When we are married, I’ll help pay your fees.”
I was surprised by his offer.
“Are you suggesting that we get engaged?”
He shifted awkwardly.
“Cannot lah,” he said. “My mother don’t know about you yet. Aiyyah! She’s such a control freak and don’t want me to have any girlfriends.”
I couldn’t believe what he was asking of me. He was proposing to me in advance, asking me to wait for him for a year, but hadn’t gotten his mother’s approval. I should have read all the danger signs. But I didn’t. I was too caught up in the idea of romance.
“Okay,” I said. Love knows no logic.
Whilst Boy Friend was abroad, I kept working hard all day, studying during my lunchtimes and in the evenings. Now that we had electricity in the village, I could switch on a table lamp to work till late.
When I had my first posting at the Lepers’ Home, I didn’t carry a book along in case it became contaminated, and took the contamination home to my family. Dr M drove me to Woodbridge in his MG. It was the first time I sat in a low-slung, sports car, the trees whizzing past me in a blur. When we arrived at the venue, I admired Trafalgar Home’s beautiful colonial building with its white columns and portico. Dr M ushered me into the clinic and told me how to make doubly sure that I sterilised all the instruments properly after he had used them on a patient. I had to admit that if I had not been forewarned by Sister A, I might have reacted adversely to the patients who came. Some of them had badly deformed features, a missing nose or finger. They were highly embarrassed about themselves and their posture reflected their shame. Many were actually members from the same families, in which one had infected the other. It was so touching. Their condition and unenviable situation propelled me to contemplate more deeply about life and its meaning. I decided that apart from reading literature at university, I would also read philosophy if I should qualify. Meanwhile, I tried my level best to ignore their looks, and concentrated on them as people. I had read the memoir, The Story of a Soul, by a Catholic Saint, St Therese de Lisieux, who had been a Carmelite nun. I remembered reading the part when the nun had purposely kissed the spot where a leper had been, to show she did not abhor such people. Sadly, I did not possess that kind of spiritual strength.
On Tuesday, 31 January, Singapore experienced its first hijacking incident. Four terrorists from the Japanese Red Army, and some from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) attacked the Shell oil refinery complex on Pulau Bukom. The men subsequently hijacked the ferryboat Laju and took its five crew members hostage.
Only the Saturday before, I had gone with Dr M to the dental clinic at St John’s Island, whose former Malay name was Sekijang Bendera or Deer Flag. Historically, this southern island, between Lazarus Island and Kusu Island, began as a penal colony and subsequently was used as a place of quarantine for people who had infectious diseases, before they could enter Singapore. People are always surprised to hear that Singapore has more than 60 offshore islands and islets. In 1874, a lazaretto had been built on St John’s, a hospital that took care of patients with diseases like cholera, beri-beri and also leprosy. Muslim pilgrims returning from Mecca as well as animals suspected of carrying any infectious disease would also be quarantined here. So, many locals called St John’s “Quarantine Island”. It also had a small section for the rehabilitation of drug addicts. The prison department kept the eastern part of the island for detainees. During the Second World War, some Germans were incarcerated here. In 1963, after the high security alert called Operation Coldstore, many political detainees, like Barisan Socialis leader Lim Chin Siong, were brought here from Changi Prison.
St John’s Island had a huge expanse of forest, palm trees and beautiful sandy beaches. Its waters were much clearer than around our present main island. They reminded me of our original East Coast beaches, where we could find agar-agar in the shallow waters and pick fresh gong-gong and other shellfish to cook. Our boat stopped at a wooden jetty for Dr M and me to step off, its pillars crusted with age-old barnacles.
“Be careful, Nurse Chia,” Dr M cautioned. “The steps are slippery with seaweed.”
I felt like I was on some kind of Famous Five adventure. This was the kind of faraway island where we could hike and explore. Before discovering the local and mobile library, my reading had been restricted to books and comics the English people at Atas Bukit threw out. I recalled how I used to read out the stories of Julian, Dick, Anne, their tomboy cousin George (Georgina) and Timmy the dog, to Parvathi and Fatima. We had loved their adventures and we had talked and dreamt of going overseas, doing similar things. Both the girls would have been proud to know that I was now a nurse. How I wished I could share my adventure now with my childhood friends. I wished too that I could tell Parvathi that times had changed and that Fatima and I had not been forced into marriage and that she would not have needed to
