“No, no, I’m heading out now.”
“Where sir go today? Outside messy, no good to go out today.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know where I’ll go.”
“Then stay in hotel. I bring sir breakfast.”
“No, no need. I have to find someone.”
Wei Xiang moves away, his eyes already on the exit. The shattered glass panes and metal frame of the doors have been removed, leaving only a gaping entryway, through which the late-morning sunlight pours in mercilessly, blinding Wei Xiang temporarily to the outside.
“Wait, sir.” The porter runs off and returns with a bottle of water, handing it to Wei Xiang. He thanks the man, takes the bottle and leaves.
Out on the street, he feels an uncanny sense of déjà vu, with the crush of people pushing in opposite directions, the scene before him familiar, and Wei Xiang can’t tell whether he is reliving the same day again. The only difference is that the sea water in the street has largely subsided overnight, though many side lanes are still impassable. The salty air holds a rank fetidness—is it the sea? or the smell of rotting flesh? Instantly the images of the dead bodies he saw yesterday flash through his mind, and he has to fight off a sudden urge to retch. He spins the cap off the bottle and gulps down several mouthfuls of water. In the humid heat, Wei Xiang has already started to perspire, his armpits and forehead damp. He assesses the scene before him: an elderly man driving a bullock cart on which sits a family of six; a trio of shirtless street kids—the boy he has been following is not one of them—nosily dousing one another with toy pails of water; and a young woman sitting on a high stool opposite the hotel, staring blankly into space, biting her nails.
From somewhere across the town, a high-pitched siren blares. Wei Xiang swivels his head in the direction of the sea and holds his breath. Except for the wreckage of collapsed buildings, telephone poles and uprooted trees, there is only stagnant water all around. Lumpy clouds hang low in the azure sky. He waits for a few seconds, anticipating a sudden change in the density of the air, or for something ominous to appear on the horizon. Nothing but the stream of people dispersing into the alleyways and lanes, each moving with a sense of purpose.
Then he hears the words in his head: You’re not really looking; you are not seeing what’s there.
Ai Ling uttered these words to him on their first day in Phuket, after they checked into the hotel and were planning to take a short stroll to Bangla Road, the main thoroughfare in Patong, before meeting Cody and Chee Seng for dinner. She pointed to something in the sky, but Wei Xiang could not see what it was at first. Then she told him: a flock of seagulls gliding back and forth in the distance, over a patch of sea. The sharpness of the memory causes his insides to tighten: You are not seeing what’s there.
Shaking off his thoughts, Wei Xiang heads back to the school, where he can check for updates. He refuses to entertain any thoughts that might pull him asunder; as long as he acts decisively, things will come around or take a fortuitous turn. Everything will be all right in the end. Life is unpredictable this way, he reasons, and it’s no excuse to lose hope and despair. He only needs to press on, and to have faith in his own actions.
At a bend along Sai Nam Yen Road, near a row of boarded-up restaurants, Wei Xiang feels an odd sensation rippling under his skin, of being observed. He whips his head around, and comes eye to eye with the boy with the scar, who is standing several metres away from him beside a pile of fallen bricks. The boy tilts his head as though he’s hearing something interesting in the commotion around him. His feet are coal-dark with dirt and grime, and his skinny arms hang from his body like the long limbs of a marionette doll. Despite his shoddy appearance, he is calm and composed. Not wanting to scare him off, Wei Xiang crosses the street without any visible hurry, and walks up to him. The boy does not run away this time, but remains where he is, looking up at Wei Xiang with a steady gaze.
The previous day, he was plagued with questions about the boy—who is he? where has he come from? why isn’t he accompanied by an adult?—but now, standing close enough to touch him, Wei Xiang finds himself dumbstruck, unable to speak. He mutters a simple greeting in Thai, but it does not elicit any response from the boy. He utters another phrase, but still nothing. Apart from these pleasantries, Wei Xiang does not know how to break the silence between them. Looking around, he hopes to find someone who might be able to interpret on his behalf, but the stricken looks on the passers-by hold him back.
The thoroughfare where they are standing has been closed off to traffic, with roadblocks on both ends, only allowing in medical supply trucks and ambulances. The media has descended on Phuket—Wei Xiang notices a small television crew setting up their equipment near a toppled two-storey shophouse, and a swarm of photographers, wearing vests with many pockets and carrying bulky bags, aiming their long-lens cameras at every sign of destruction—and for a moment he imagines himself watching these captured images and videos on the nine o’clock news back at home in Singapore, with Ai Ling beside him. Then the spell breaks: he’s still here and Ai Ling’s still missing. The present moment sucks him right back in, demanding his full attention: the noise, the heat, and the water that is everywhere he walks.
And the boy still stands before him, motionless, waiting.
Wei Xiang offers the bottle of water, but the boy only stares at it, not moving to take it. Houseflies whir about the boy’s head, but he does not swat them away. Wei Xiang studies the face in detail; unlike the other street kids he has seen over the past few days, with their flat noses and wide-set eyes, the boy has a sharper set of features and a fair complexion. Perhaps he’s of mixed ethnicity, Thai-Chinese. And the deep scar across his left eye. Wei Xiang can’t shake off the impression that he finds the boy familiar, that there’s something about him that triggers a vague recognition. Maybe he has got the boy’s face mixed up with the numerous faces of the dead children he has seen. Yes, he must have been confused by all those faces. Yet when he looks into the boy’s face, Wei Xiang is very certain that he has seen him before—in a different place or time.
The boy regards Wei Xiang with the same interest, a smile raising the corners of his mouth. It’s a strange, knowing smile, one that holds a deeper meaning unknown to Wei Xiang. He returns the smile. The noises in the background come and go—the sporadic shouting, the honking of trucks, and the desolate blast of the siren. Wei Xiang and the boy seem to be in their own bubble, surrounded but untouched by the sea of people around them.
“Who are you?” Wei Xiang finally blurts out in English. The question hangs in the air, an invisible buffer between them, before fading away.
The boy remains silent. Then suddenly he extends his left hand and slips it into Wei Xiang’s. It’s small, light and bony, like a tiny sparrow, frail and vulnerable in his hand. He could easily crush it with little effort. The boy glances down the crowded road, turns on his heel, and steps in the direction opposite from where Wei Xiang was planning to go, towards the southern end of Phuket. The boy’s gentle tug breaks Wei Xiang’s flow of thoughts, overcoming his hesitation. He quickly follows the boy’s lead, a small seed of hope sprouting inside him.
19
AI LING
Back in 2002, Ai Ling visited her aunt in the hospital daily after the car accident. She knew it was not required or expected, but the act of visiting made her feel useful, as if she were helping in her aunt’s recovery through her presence. While her aunt slept, comatose, Ai Ling would keep up a steady one-sided conversation, careful to enunciate each word slowly, keeping the topics light. With plastic tubes running to the machines that stood to the side of the bed, beeping with stubborn regularity, her aunt looked like a creature entangled in its own mess of tentacles. Ai Ling would study the numbers displayed on these machines, trying to understand what they indicated.