1944: What the Street Shared

In 1944, the Tan family's fourth year of war, the street holds together. Neighbours share what they have and warn one another of what they hear, and an older neighbour is kind to four-year-old Mei Lin. Tan Cheng Huat's small trading holds up, and he and Lim Swee Neo grow closer in the evenings. Swee Neo's sewing and cooking bring in more custom, but she eats last and hunger leaves her weaker. Nobody in the house dies or falls seriously ill, and the military police pass the door.

The Street

By the fourth year of it the street had become a kind of household. There was nothing grand in this. A neighbour left a basket of sweet potato leaves on the step with no explanation. A boy ran from door to door at dusk to say which road the patrol was on tonight. A woman two houses down, whose own children were grown and gone, had taken to sitting on her front step at the hour when the light was good, and watching the little ones.

She was the one who was kind to Mei Lin. Nobody had asked her to be. She called the child over one afternoon to show her how to fold a banana leaf into a boat, and the next afternoon, without a word about it, there was another leaf. She never gave her anything to eat, because she had nothing to give. She gave her the afternoon, and her name, and the boat.

Mei Lin carried the boat home in both hands. She floated it in the rain barrel, and it sank, and she cried for a minute and then asked to be taken back for another.

The Table After Dark

Cheng Huat's trading held up that year. He did not know why, and did not trust it. The goods that he bought were the goods that were there when he came for them. The men he sold to paid, mostly, and mostly on time. He wrote it all down in the narrow book and read the figures over twice before he believed them.

What he noticed more, afterwards, was the evenings. In the early years of the marriage they had spoken at the table about the house, the child, the firm. Then the war had made speech careful, and then silent. This year, somewhere in the middle, it started to come back. They spoke about small things: the neighbour's boat of leaves, the price of lamp oil, the way Mei Lin had begun to count in three languages and mix them. They sat at the table after the child had gone to sleep, with the lamp turned low, and he told her about his day, and she told him about hers.

Neither of them spoke about the curfew, the patrols, or the night he had been late. It was an agreement not to, and it held.

Eats Last

Swee Neo's custom grew that year. More women came with sleeves and hems, and one of them, whose husband had a post of some kind with the new administration, brought cloth to be made over. She worked at the window until the light went and a good while after.

She fed the household in an order that nobody had agreed to. The child first. Then Cheng Huat, who needed to be strong for the walking. Then the cook, and the girl who helped. Swee Neo ate last, from what was in the pot, and some days there was little in the pot.

She noticed it in the autumn. The stairs took longer. Her wrist, at the sewing, began to ache. She stood up too quickly one afternoon and the room went white at the edges and came back. She sat down again and went on, with her hands where they had been. She said nothing about it. In the evenings, at the table, she was careful to be seen eating.

Swee Neo put the last of the tapioca on Mei Lin's plate and said she had eaten in the kitchen. Cheng Huat, who had been in the kitchen, said nothing, and later put half of his own on her plate when she wasn't looking.

Household income about $204 a month, against a peer median of $42: 4.9 times the median (nominal dollars; a model estimate).

The comic of this issue is still at the drawing board.