“Wah!” everybody went, especially my mother.
She had spent years labouring to do the laundry for her entire family of 10. She had to haul water out from the well to wash bedsheets, pillow cases and clothes, string them out to dry, then heat up the charcoals to put into the caged iron. She had to scorch a piece of banana leaf to smoothen the glide. And now, if she lived in an HDB, her labour-intensive days would be over. For the first time since she got here, I saw her smile.
Inspired by our positive reaction, Miss Yap demonstrated the washing machine and how to hang clothes out on the bamboo poles outside the kitchen window. But when she put on the gas stove and the flames flared up, Mak uttered a yelp, as if she had been burnt.
“No! No! Switch off! Switch off!”
She was beside herself. Miss Yap quickly turned off the stove but Mak was still perturbed. Miss Yap and I tried to reassure her, but my mother had gone ghastly pale and was trembling. She looked as if she was about to faint. Luckily Miss Yap had a bottle of orange F&N and gave her some to drink, which seemed to calm her down a bit. But she wouldn’t take part in the tour anymore.
Just before my 24th birthday in March, I learnt that I had passed my HSC and would qualify for university! Mak couldn’t believe it.
“To think, you almost didn’t get educated!” she said. “How different your life would have been.”
“Mak,” I said, “I will never, ever forget that it was you who slaved hard to pay for my schooling. Everything I achieve will be dedicated in your honour.”
She nodded, too full for words.
At last I had a key to a better future. I was reeling from the sudden opportunities that were opened to me. I myself could not believe my new prospects. Indeed, what would my life have been if Mak hadn’t managed to sell her nasi lemak to put me through school? I couldn’t bear to think about it. I quickly applied for a place at Singapore University to read literature and philosophy. Meanwhile, I had to see how I was going to pay the fees as well as continue to contribute to the household. I applied for a bursary. To my great luck, I learnt that Lembaga was looking for part-time teachers to teach English and literature to students who had failed their School Certificate. I went to enquire about this. It was this positive prospect that helped me ease the trauma of relinquishing our way of life in the kampong.
Not long after the visit to the show-flat, Uncle Krishnan announced with joy that he had bought a five-room flat at Bedok South. In HDB terminology, this meant three bedrooms, a living room and a dining room, not counting the kitchen. Soon his house in our village would stand empty, like most of the others. His familiar Ford Prefect outside his house would no longer be seen. There was something dismal about this prospect.
“I will sponsor our last village get together,” he said generously. “We can have our last sing-song session and makan outdoors one evening before my family and I depart.”
He did not spare any expense. He paid for Nenek Bongkok to supply us with her best nasi lemak and mee siam and for my mother to supply her famed bubor kachang; the Punjabi ladies baked chapatis and made pureed spinach, and the other Malay ladies made lontong. To crown it all, Uncle Krishnan ordered packets of nasi briyani from Zam Zam. He bought crates of F&N drinks: Orange, Sarsi, Cherry and even bottles of Sinalco. Excited children kept on slurping and wetting their lips. They seemed unaware that their lives were about to change forever after we moved away. For the whole day, the fragrance of spices and rich coconut milk scents floated into the air. Fruit crates and tables were set up in our sandy yard and decorated with orchids, hibiscus, jasmine and bougainvillea flowers from our gardens. For the first time in our evening celebration outdoors, we could string electric light bulbs from coconut tree to coconut tree, which gave everything a festive air. We avoided stringing anything on the banana tree which was reputed to have a spirit living in it that abhorred any rope around its waist. We did not want to hear the spirit scream.
The entire scene was one of rustic merriment, albeit our very last. Karim brought out his guitar and started strumming, its sound reminding us of our halcyon days. The children turned pails and kerosene tins upside down to use for percussion.
Underneath it all, our hearts were breaking. But we did not allow it to show, smiling too-bright smiles and chattering louder than usual. After this, we would all be separated from each other, having lived together for years in such close proximity. We had to try to bottle this memory of our togetherness and kampong spirit, as life would never ever be the same again for us in Singapore. Not just for our village but for all the villages in this country. Soon all this would be filed into the past, our way of life would slip into the annals of history and become a lost heritage.
So we ate and laughed, sang and recited pantuns. We clapped as Krishnan’s teenage daughters, with bells on their feet and colourful skirts, swirled and danced their cultural dances. Sivalingam joined them, heady with arak. Karim’s fingers moved like lightning on his guitar. Some of the adults got up to do a ronggeng, a delightful Malay folk dance, which Peranakans also adopted as our own, and everybody joined in.
“I have a special English song which I think is appropriate for our last song,” Karim said. “I’ll explain the meaning. The chorus is easy to sing. It was sung by a British singer,
