Miss Yap took the remainder of us next, except Sivalingam, who went up by the staircase. Mak looked as if she was going to follow Sivalingam, but I told her that her knees would not make the ascent. She reluctantly came with us, closing in on herself in quiet fear. Her face turned white when the lift doors closed, and we were shut in that box. It felt as if the air had been left outside. It was our first time in a lift. My own heart beat wildly as I gasped for breath. But I tried not to show my panic so that I could pacify my mother, grabbing hold of her arm tightly. I could feel her shiver. Nobody said a word, as if we were trying to conserve the oxygen in the moving lift.
“Wah! Heng uh,” Mak said when the lift doors opened, as if it was a matter of luck.
We gulped at the fresh air. When we stepped outside, we almost swooned at the height. We had never been so far off the ground before. Nenek Bongkok would not have survived the lift ride. She was right. If God wanted us to live so far off the ground, he would have given us wings. We could see that the block opposite was surrounded by the blue sky and clouds. We felt as if the block of flats was swaying. After a while we adjusted to being so high up, but we walked along the corridor closer to the doorsteps rather than the corridor wall. We did not dare to look down at the traffic below. What would happen to the likes of Nenek Bongkok? Where would she go to live? How was she going to sell her nasi lemak and mee siam? I decided to ask Miss Yap.
“No worries. Government building hawker centres and indoor markets near the residential blocks,” she said. “Your lady can sell her nasi lemak there. There are also flats right on the ground floor for people who don’t want to live up high. But as you haven’t been, I want you to see the high-rise flat. It’s much cooler up here than on the ground floor.”
“If we can afford it, we will take one on the ground floor,” Mak said. “Then I can still have my garden.”
My mother was dreaming, of course. Even with my salary and contributions from Eldest and Second Elder Brothers, we would not be able to afford the rent, let alone buy one. But what was the point of dashing her hopes?
“Wah, really stylo mylo,” Uncle Krishnan hailed us enthusiastically when we arrived at the show-flat.” Everything so clean! You should see the bathroom and toilet. So private! Very big for one family. No need to share with any neighbour. Plus, not one cockroach anywhere! And got water to flush our big job away!”
He was right. We were duly impressed when we stepped into the cheerful flat lighted up by electric bulbs, a ceiling fan whirring away to make the curtains flutter merrily. The walls were concrete and the tiled floor looked grand. The flat was huge by our standards, with beautifully appointed rooms, kitchen and bathroom. It was like stepping into a millionaire’s home! We were so swa ku, like mountain tortoises who had never experienced such modern facilities. Indeed, there was much to entice us.
“Wah!” everybody exclaimed, including my mother.
“Gar’ment is kind no?” Uncle Krishnan, ever the faithful civil servant, said. “They are offering us a better life. No more fear of short of water in hot season. No need to worry about our attap houses catching fire. Everything here so clean and hygienic. No more smelly jambans or problems with rats.”
“No more pontianak too?” Sivalingam asked.
He was referring to the female vampire that he was supposed to have seen. The pontianak, spirits and ghosts were all part of kampong folklore. But when he mentioned the sightings people mumbled that he exuded the alcoholic fumes of arak, the moonshine he drank after a day of hard work.
“The paint smells so fresh,” Mak said. “Better than the kapor we use.”
I was glad that my mother was sounding perkier. She was referring to the white limestone wash with which we painted our wooden walls each year for Chinese New Year. The brush that we used was thick and bushy and we had to be careful not to spill the limestone on our skin, as it was sharp and alkaline.
Indeed, there was much to be impressed about. Mak was entirely fascinated by the flush toilet. She kept pulling the chain to see the water rush out, as I had done when I first encountered a flush toilet in my primary school. It was a squat toilet, but so clean that we could not believe it was a toilet. The toilet paper was a neat roll of soft, white paper. We wouldn’t have to use scratchy newspaper-paper on our bottoms anymore. No bad smells, no cockroaches and centipedes. It would be a huge leap forward for all of us.
“I won’t have to empty the tambui anymore,” Mak said.
She was referring to the chamber pot that was used in the night so that we need not visit the outhouse in the darkness. In that show-flat, we behaved like kids. We turned on the taps to marvel at the water flowing out into the stainless-steel sink. We flipped electric light switches to see the light bulbs go on and off, the fan stop and move. For those few short moments, we were joyous. Maybe this new way of life was not as bad as we had thought, after all.
“See this,” Miss Yap said, stopping at an ironing board that had a shirt draped over it, the long sleeves hanging down languidly towards the floor.
“Electric iron! No need to use charcoals anymore!”
If she had not told us, we wouldn’t have known it was an iron, with its trailing cord that led to a plug on the wall. Our iron was heavy and
