“You’re expecting a kiss? Perhaps something more?”
Arthur’s ears turned hot.
“I’m in the identity business,” said Hannah, now appearing rather pompous and impish about it. “I thought I could get you one.”
Arthur had to concede that her admission disappointed him.
Hannah put her chin back into her hands. “Are you an illegal immigrant?”
“No.”
“Born and bred here?”
“Yes.”
“Liar,” said Hannah. “You would’ve got yourself an identity when the registration ordinance came about in ‘48.”
Arthur had rehearsed for such conversations. “I got a registration of live birth back in ‘38. When the ordinance came about they told me I was too young to register, since I was under twelve and without a guardian. I tried again when I was fifteen but they rejected me because they said my birth registration was nothing more than a hospital record and that they’ve received too many forgeries to believe my story.”
“How old are you, exactly?”
“Seventeen.”
“You don’t look seventeen.”
“I take it as a compliment.”
“Don’t take it too far.”
Arthur threw out his arms a display of helplessness. “They wanted someone else who could validate my identity before they’d have me registered. When I told them my entire family died in the war they told me to get a guardian who would do so.”
“Rotten colonial administration,” Hannah griped, mumbling. “Then again, a live birth registration isn’t proof of identity. If the police catch you in the vicinity of any riots they’ll label you a commie and have you arrested.”
“With the way I look?” Arthur touched a finger to his nose. “You can’t be serious.”
“Eurasians aren’t off the list,” said Hannah. “Communism ranks as the highest threat to the region after the Japanese. They’ll still put you through a nice long interrogation and once they discover you’re without an identity they’d have you deported to China. But I could offer some help to fix this.”
Arthur listened glumly. The romantic prospect of the encounter was vanishing like mist in the sun. What better place to hold such surreptitious conversation than the old attic of a closed school at the break of curfew? Hannah was simply being practical. A kiss would’ve made his day. Even a braided friendship band would help. At least it would’ve suggested a beginning. But Hannah, as he had suspected, wasn’t what she seemed.
“So you accepting my help or not?” said Hannah.
“You can get me an identity?”
“Of course. It’s my business.”
“All right.”
Hannah smiled sweetly and rose to her feet.
“Where’re we going?”
“Lavender Street.”
Arthur frowned. “The red light district?”
“No one’s going to ask questions, Arthur.” Hannah surveyed him, somewhat contemptuously, from head to toe. “You look far too mellowed for anyone to believe you’re an underage seventeen-year-old.”
In contrast to her earlier vivacity Hannah did not speak a word throughout the journey. They went along Lavender Street and turned into the red-light district of Jalan Besar. Hannah hooked her arm around the crook of Arthur’s. Her skin felt cool and smooth even in the humid equatorial air. “Sorry if this makes you a pervert,” she said, brushing hair from her face. “We’re less conspicuous this way.”
Arthur’s heart sank deeper. No one would be in the identity business if they weren’t swindling tramps. And if she was indeed one he would’ve done better to reject her offer right where they met at the warehouse and dispense with this stupid romantic charade. Now he couldn’t turn back because he didn’t like things turning ugly, not when it came to relationships. He hobbled on beside her like a leashed puppy and wondered if he should’ve just paid for a night’s worth of her services and been done with it. The thought repulsed him immediately.
The main street had the usual complement of shabby shophouses and wholesale businesses. But the Jalan Besar junction, with its garish lighting and hoary tenements, offered lewd prospects for the night. Shuttered windows were thrown open, where powdered women lifted their skirts and adjusted their stockings and nylon underwear.
Men—locals and tourists—shopped for the night’s company. And when they started taking an interest in Hannah, Arthur tightened his grip around her arm.
They turned a corner and a few tipsy sailors called out to her, “Hoy there tidy love, we got four huge willies looking out for ya and we’ll triple what he’s payin’ ya!”
“Too early to be drinking, twits,” Hannah replied. “You won’t last the night.”
They left the catcalls behind them and Arthur looked over his shoulder to make sure no one was following. “Why bother answering?”
“Oh, shut up.” Hannah dragged him into an alley where more pimps solicited business with their wares hidden behind closed doors. “We’re here.”
A peeling wooden door marked their destination. Hannah said something in Cantonese to a heavy-eyed door-man and took Arthur into a short corridor suffused in pink light. It led into a larger space fringed by more doors. Outside these doors were queues of men. An incense smoked at the elaborate altar in a corner, where a deity with a livid black face sat in an ornate shed. The space reeked of a sweaty, metallic odour.
A narrow stairway took them to a brighter room upstairs. Upon their arrival a beefy, muscled man emerged shirtless from an adjoining room separated by a beaded curtain. The beads rattled loudly in his wake. He was twisting off the cap of a liquor bottle when he saw Hannah.
“Oh, love!” he exclaimed, miming a dramatic expression of shock. “What is my beautiful dolly doing in a place like this?”
Arthur observed tension on Hannah’s face. “The usual,” she said. “Immigrant.”
“Immigrant,” the man parroted, leaning sideways to catch a better look at Arthur and the brilliantine in his hair glistened. “An identity?” He grinned at Hannah and went to a bowl of noodles and took up where he left off. “The usual?” He slurped and chewed. “Or are you paying? You know it has to be official.”
“What’s official?” Arthur blurted.
Hannah squeezed his hand, hard. Then smiling forcibly she gestured at him, now addressing the gangster. “Arthur.” She turned to Arthur and said, “Arthur, meet Khun.”
They shook hands. In Khun’s grin Arthur could see flecks of green vegetables in his teeth. Khun returned to his noodles. “If it isn’t official you have to pay,” he said to Hannah. “There are rules.”
“A word with you in private?” Hannah passed behind the beaded screen. Khun got up, winked at Arthur and swaggered in after her and flushed out two skinny youths. They slumped into a couch and regarded Arthur scathingly. One of them lit a cigarette. Arthur spared them a wan smile, and looked at the wall of beads that now hid Hannah.
The first words out of Hannah’s mouth when the beads clacked behind Khun were: “You’re just a lackey for the Coterie,” she seethed. “Since when did you start charging for this?”
Khun tried to hold Hannah by her waist but she slid easily out of his grasp. He awkwardly scratched the side of his head. “I know what you’re doing with him,” he said. “You have to keep it that way before CODEX finds out you’re hiding him.”
“You know nothing. Official or not lies with me alone.”
“So you’re going to tag him?” Khun challenged. “Give him one of your kisses? Or have you already given him something more?”
“That’s none of your business. I come to you and you give him an identity. That’s all.”
“Not quite.” Khun waved a finger. “Why are you helping him?”