The Rose of Singapore (13 page)

Seating himself upon a wooden bench inside the shelter, he peered through a heat haze, down the long, straight road leading into Changi Village for signs of the bus. There were none. God, it was hot in that bus shelter, and on contemplating its merits, Peter thought how useless the shelter really was. It gave little or no protection from the sun and certainly none from the monsoon rains which so often lashed down in fury upon the island.

To him, the most interesting aspect of the bus stop was that it overlooked the main runway, where, from that lonely stand, one had a clear view of the planes taking off and landing. Peter watched as an RAF Viking aircraft of Transport Command raced down the runway and lifted lazily into the sky long before it reached the coconut palm-lined perimeter at the far end of the airfield. In the far distance, beyond the runway's end, Peter could see the waters of the Johore Strait twinkling like a million diamonds in the bright sunlight. A shimmering heat haze rose from one end of the runway to the other.

Peter was watching a four-engine transport plane making its final approach when a woman's shrill voice startled him. “Bananas, Johnny. Only ten cents. Pineapples. Pomelos.” Turning, Peter faced a diminutive, hunchbacked old Chinese woman pulling her fruit cart. Everyone at Changi knew this little Chinese woman and her fruit cart. She was a permanent fixture, never going further than between Changi Village and the bus stop she now stood at. In a small, wrinkled hand she held a bunch of very ripe finger bananas. “Very cheap, Johnny,” she said. “Only five cents for one.”

“Oh! Hello, Momma. No, I'm sorry, I don't want any fruit today,” Peter answered.

The little woman's parchment-like, suntanned face managed a sad smile. “Very cheap for you, Johnny,” she repeated, pleadingly.

Peter looked at the diminutive figure holding up the bananas, and at the pathetic little handcart she pushed all day and every day. Hell, he thought, a dollar doesn't mean much to me, but to her a dollar meant a lot. “OK Momma, I'll have a banana,” he said. From his wallet he took a green, one dollar note, the equivalent of two shillings and fourpence in Sterling. He handed her the note and chose a banana from the bunch offered. And as the old woman counted out the change, he said. “That's OK Momma. You keep it.” She seemed not to understand him, so he took the coins from her and dropped them into her apron pocket.

“Thank you! Thank you!” she exclaimed, her tired eyes lighting up and her weather-beaten face creasing into a big smile. First examining the bunch of bananas she held in her hand, she then held them out to him, saying, “For you, Johnny. You good boy.”

“Thanks, Momma, but I don't want them, really I don't,” Peter said, shaking his head and gently pushing away the hand holding the bananas.

“You take,” she insisted.

Thinking he might offend her if he kept refusing, he said, “All right, Momma. I'll take them. Thank you very much.”

The woman grinned her pleasure. “You, very good. You
ding ho
boy. Bye-bye,” and with that the little old lady picked up the shafts of her fruit cart, gave one heave, and was once again heading down the sloping, half a mile or so of road to Changi Village. She would rest only the once along the way. She always rested at the same spot beneath a huge poinciana tree in bloom with scarlet flowers, which grew at the roadside. Her husband was hanged from a limb of that tree by the Japanese during their brutal occupation. Now, she always rested beneath its heavy boughs, but what she thought about as she rested, nobody knew. She spoke neither of her dead husband nor of the Japanese. Peter's eyes followed her down the seemingly endless road. When she passes on to the next world, he thought, Changi Village will be that much smaller. But for now, she was a fixture.

A cream and red bus with a blunt nose raced from the village towards him. Fearing it would not stop, Peter held up his hand. The bus slowed then squealed to a stop alongside him. A Chinese conductor, dressed in a sweat-drenched, fawn-coloured uniform, stood impatiently on the slotted wooden platform at the doorway. Peter climbed aboard and sat facing inward, next to the door. He paid the twenty cents fare. The bus, drawing away, rapidly increased its speed along the deserted two-lane highway. There was never much traffic along that stretch of road except on weekends and holidays.

From his seat Peter studied the other passengers, a pastime he always found interesting, for without fail there would be a mixture of races riding the bus.

Across from him, a middle-aged Chinese couple sat bolt upright, looking straight ahead, their faces devoid of expression and seemingly oblivious to their surroundings or to the other occupants of the bus. Two Malay boys, probably not yet in their teens, each wearing a black
songkok
clamped securely to black wavy hair, sat giggling and whispering to each other. A white woman in her mid-thirties, obviously British and probably from the married quarters at Changi, sat staring out of the window, totally absorbed in the passing scenery. She was dressed completely in white. A new arrival from Britain, thought Peter.

An exquisitely beautiful Malay girl of about seventeen years, wearing a hint of lipstick and whose face was subtlety powdered white, sat directly opposite. Peter noticed the lipstick because it was so uncommon for Malay girls to use such make-up. He also noticed that her hands were dainty and that she wore tiny gold chains on delicate ankles. Fastened to her hair by colourful, shiny pins, she wore a purple and gold silk scarf, which fell lightly about her shoulders all the way to her slim waist almost concealing the brown and gold silk
baju
she wore. A multi-coloured
sarong
reached almost to her ankles.

Peter, fascinated by the girl's beauty, stared admiringly at her. Their eyes met, only for seconds, but long enough for him to see her blush and shyly turn her head as if to look out the window. Peter smiled to himself. This Malay girl was so lovely, he thought. But, he told himself, Rose was even lovelier. Thinking of Rose, he sank deeper into the leather upholstery. It was a forty-five minute journey to the city centre, so he must be patient.

Now, some distance to his left but clearly visible from the road, the grim-looking, grey stone walls of notorious Changi Gaol came in sight. Less than seven years ago, thousands of British and Australian prisoners of war had died within those walls, from starvation, neglect, brutality and torture at the hands of the conquering Imperial Japanese Army. And there, too, many hundreds of other servicemen and civilians, both men and boys, were shot, bayoneted, or beheaded by the ceremonial swords of the invaders. What awful secrets Changi Gaol held within its grim, grey walls! Now, it housed the island's criminals.

With no time for memories, the bus sped onward, passing through low-lying fertile farmland where fields were alive with young green shoots, white turnip tops, yellow heads of Chinese cabbage and carpets of blossoming multicoloured flowers. Farmers worked knee-deep in mud in some of the fields, bent low about their tasks, their brown, sinewy bodies glistening with sweat as they toiled in the torrid heat of the early afternoon. An ox, splashing in the mire, grunted and heaved between the shafts of a wooden plough, followed by the ploughman fighting his way against the slippery, sucking mud.

The bus roared onward through rustic, noisy little villages, through palm groves and worn-out rubber plantations, to eventually climb a twisting, treacherous hill to a hair-pin bend at the top. Once around this bend and over the brow, one could look down upon the outskirts of the Lion City, the main city of Singapore.

By now the traffic had increased in density making the going slow. The speed of the bus was reduced to a crawl at times as slow-moving trishaws crossed its path and crowds of people swarmed, not only on the wide pavements, but also out onto the wide road. The bus arrived at Geylang, where it stopped for a few minutes near the market to fill up with passengers until there was only standing room left. The bus then proceeded onward, but only for a short distance before it stopped again, at a road junction, this time greeted by the crash and clatter of gongs and cymbals. A Chinese funeral procession was crossing in front of the bus, the cortege preceded by a brass band playing a lively air. The highly decorated and picturesque hearse, drawn by umbrella-covered pallbearers, displayed a huge portrait of the deceased. This was followed by barefooted, loud-wailing mourners, some of them paid to drive evil spirits away from the deceased and to send him on his way with a free and easy passage. Several minutes passed before the procession came to an end, allowing the bus to resume its journey. But now it was at a faster speed, along Kallang Road, passing the civil airport. Then a traffic light turned red which held the bus up for a minute or so more; and when the light turned green, a motorist ahead stalled the engine of his car.

Peter swore softly to himself. He hadn't as much time to spare as he had thought. He wished he had hurried more when getting ready in the block. He should have caught an earlier bus. He had less than thirty minutes now to reach the Green Line bus station. Impatient now, he swore again. Finally, the engine of the car ahead started, and the car began a turn to the right. But now a trishaw blocked the path of the bus, and an elderly Chinese male passenger slowly dismounted from it, fumbled for money and then casually paid the fare. “For goodness sake, get a move on,” Peter murmured to himself. Every minute counted now. Supposing Rose was on time and he was late? Would she become angry with him and leave? No, he told himself, she wouldn't leave. She would wait for him.

Finally, with a sudden jerk, the bus drew up outside the Capital Theatre. The door slid open and almost everyone in the bus made the usual mad dash to get out first. Peter allowed himself to go with the flow of humanity, exiting the bus and finding himself between a deep monsoon drain and the pavement. He was well aware of that monsoon drain having had the misfortune of falling into it one dark night when it was flooded and raining, and he was hurrying to catch the last bus back to camp. Being new to Singapore and unaware of the monsoon drain running parallel with the rain-drenched street, he had fallen into it, breaking his Box Brownie camera and bruising just about every part of his body, plus getting soaked by filthy water. Now, he was always cautious when near monsoon drains.

He walked around the rear of the bus and out into the street. A cruising taxi slowed and the driver looked enquiringly at him. Peter nodded a reply and the taxi drew alongside him. The driver reached back and opened a rear door for Peter to get in.

“Green Line bus station,” Peter shouted, followed by, “
Fai di ah,
Johnny!
Fai di ah!
” (Hurry, Johnny! Hurry.)

“OK Johnny,” was the man's response. The taxi cautiously eased into the flow of traffic, accelerated and within minutes drew up outside the Green Line bus station. Peter alighted and handed the driver a couple of dollars.

With a pounding heart he anxiously looked for Rose among the waiting crowd, but he could not see her.

Moments later the Green Line bus arrived on schedule, made a U-turn and came to a stop at the Singapore/Johore Bahru bus shelter. Again Peter scanned the people who were waiting to get on that bus but Rose was not among them. Looking at his watch he noted that he was not late for their date, in fact the bus was not due to depart for another ten minutes. He watched as the few passengers who had arrived on the bus alighted.

The first off, and in a great hurry, was a Malay boy of about ten years, dressed in a multicoloured
sarong
and wearing a black
songkok
clamped over a mop of greasy-looking hair. He sprang from the doorway of the bus with such force that when his feet hit concrete the black
songkok
fell from his head and, caught by the wind, it began rolling towards a water-filled monsoon drain. The boy ran to retrieve the
songkok,
but in vain. The wind took it and deposited it in the middle of the monsoon drain, where it was swiftly carried away, bobbing along on the surface of the fast-flowing water. With a forlorn look on his face the boy gave up the hopeless chase and disappeared among the crowd.

A skinny, gaunt-faced Chinese woman with a baby strapped to her back was the next passenger off the bus. Carefully, she stepped down the two steps. How poor, ill and undernourished she looked, thought Peter. However, she was no worse off than so many other people on this island paradise where the population is vast but where there is much poverty and unemployment. The woman with her baby disappeared among the crowds milling on the sidewalk.

The next two people to alight had to be American tourists, Peter decided. Perhaps a rich businessman and his wife slumming it, travelling by bus while sightseeing in Singapore. The man, fat and in his fifties, had an expensive looking camera hanging from his shoulder and a big, unlit cigar clamped between his teeth. The woman wore expensive looking clothes, and God, what a hat! And she talked too much and too loud; ‘yak yak yak,' she carried on to her male companion, who didn't seem to be the slightest bit interested in what she was yakking on about. Indeed, he began to study a map and ignored her completely.

Dropping the two tourists from his mind, Peter began worrying about Rose. Why was she not here? A sinking feeling of disappointment was coming over him. Surely she was not going to let him down, not after they had so intimately enjoyed each other's company just days before. Perhaps she was sick or perhaps she had decided not to see him again. He recalled how, when they had first met, she had repeatedly told him he was too young for her. Or could she have forgotten the date with him? But he found that too difficult to accept, especially after the way she had acted towards him during that sex-saturated weekend together.

Frustrated, Peter looked at his watch again and said, “Damn it.” Any minute now the bus would be leaving. The driver was standing outside his cab smoking a cigarette and talking to the conductor. Both were khaki-uniformed Chinese males in their mid-thirties. Their conversation was coming to a close. The driver spat the cigarette end into a waste-bin and, laughing over a final joke, the two parted. The driver climbed into his cab and the conductor gave Peter a questioning look as if asking, ‘Well! Are you coming or not?' When Peter stared forlornly back at him and made no move to get on the bus, the conductor shrugged as if to say, ‘No! Very well then, stay there,' and he stepped onto the platform of the bus the same moment as the driver started the engine.