On a moisture-warped table sat dishes of stir-fried beef, steamed peanuts, roasted pork and oil-drenched greens. Vivian poured the sixth serving of Chinese huangjiu into Anton’s glass and topped up her own. The clear red-brown liquid sloshed luxuriantly and gave off a fragrant waft of herbs and alcohol. Behind them, a wizened wizard of oriental stir-fry clattered away at his wok over a roaring furnace. The tables around the stall were filled.
“How many palms did you grease to get this job?” Vivian took a sip out of her glass and watched Anton over the lipstick-stained rim.
“I don’t know,” said Anton, chewing on meat and greens. He washed them down with a sip of wine. “Amal does the negotiating. I only help him.”
“And you think that’s sensible?”
Anton shrugged. “We’re partners.”
Vivian lifted her chin and fanned her neck. “That’s what they’ll make you think.”
“So why are the police looking for you?” said Anton.
“Mistaken identity.”
“Really?”
Vivian poured him another drink. “I’ve never met someone who could hold his liquor as well as I.”
Anton looked at the two empty wine bottles at the far side of the table. “You drink very well for a lady.”
“And you’re the first who’s standing up to the challenge.”
“Maybe it’s in my blood,” Anton uttered without thought and resumed eating.
That response worked up a fantastic possibility that made her very excited. What are the chances? The thought left Vivian’s lips in a whisper. She considered the impossible odds of them being acquainted so fortuitously and couldn’t help breaking a smile. She surveyed Anton, her shrewd, darting eyes now seething with curiosity.
“So what is in your blood?” she asked.
Anton frowned, uncertain of what she meant.
“Let me see your palm,” she added.
Anton acceded, thinking it to be a round of amateur palmistry. She took his hand tenderly in hers and traced the creases with a finger. Then with a flirtatious smile and a flick of her wrist something pricked Anton’s pinky and drew blood.
“What was that?” Anton withdrew his hand. “What did you do?”
“To see if you have venereal diseases,” Vivian pouted innocently.
“Venereal?”
“I like being safe.” She leaned away and adjusted her gown at the waist. “Safer for my clients too.”
“Clients?”
“Don’t you want it?”
“I…” Anton fumbled at the allusion of her words. “Do we have things like that?”
“Afforded only to the rich. A client gave it to me,” she said. “To keep me clean.”
Anton poured himself another drink, though it would do little to calm his nerves.
“So do you want it?” Vivian cupped her chin and playfully joggled her eyebrows.
Anton’s jaw fell open and he made such a fool of himself that Vivian reeled back and hid her rancorous laughter behind the sandalwood fan.
“You, Anton, are such a prudish, proper young man,” she said.
By the end of their supper Vivian had swooned, slumped across the table like a log with her head resting on a thin white arm. From her beaded purse Anton extracted a crumpled blue card that bore a tiny, scarcely recognisable monochromatic portrait of her and an address. It was quite a run from where they had supped, and the rickshaw puller—a sunken, sun-dried Chinese man with bulging calves and enormous callused feet—agreed to take them only after much haggling.
Along the way Anton considered Vivian’s words with disgust. If he truly was as prudish as she had claimed he would have rejected her salacious offer at once. He knew he stammered only because he coveted it so bloody much.
Vivian drowsed limply on his shoulder and he grasped the side of the rickshaw, belching frequently and being ever ready to retch. The puller’s back glistened in the light of street lamps, capering from side to side in tandem with his running strides.
The three-mile run with the burden of two passengers almost killed the puller. At the end of Rangoon Road he stopped and panted heavily for a moment before he mustered the energy to drop the shafts and allow his passengers to alight. Anton paid him handsomely, and he sustained his bow long after Anton lumbered up the staircase of a shophouse with his arm around Vivian.
A lone, naked light bulb lit the narrow stairway. When Anton reached its top fatigue scorched his throbbing thighs like acid. The second storey was a warren of subdivided rooms where filmy curtains were all the privacy offered. A hefty, middle-aged lady with a long braided pigtail recognised Vivian and pointed Anton to her room, though not without a disapproving shake of her head.
Anton parted the curtain and was surprised to find an unlocked door. The room was clean and smelled of sandalwood and cosmetics. It was furnished with only a wardrobe and a bed with a thin mattress. He carried Vivian in and laid her on the bed as softly as he could.
A few cotton frocks were slung over a string drawn from wall to wall. A calendar hung from a rusted nail. Crockery resided inside a large, blackened pot. A bunch of chopsticks bristled from a tin mug. Anton could hear the sound of mah-jong being played downstairs.
Vivian lay on her side, soundly sleeping. Anton watched her slow, regular breaths through the red silk of her gown that fitted snugly over her midriff. A flap of her skirt had fallen away at the slit, revealing her stockinged legs. When he tried to cover them she suddenly moaned and flipped on her back, thrusting up the contours of her chest and offering Anton a full frontal view of her slumbering visage.
Anton paced the tiny room like a stag in heat. Then in a burst of resolve he smothered his temptation by pulling a terrycloth blanket over her. Still he couldn’t resist planting a kiss. He stared longingly at her lips, and after being painfully undecided as to where he should kiss, finally picked out a spot he thought would be perfectly neutral.
He kissed her between her eyes.
The gasp that slid out of Vivian’s lips went undetected as Anton showed himself to the door and closed it softly behind him. And for a long time she lay in bed, berating herself for conceiving the despicable notion of luring him into a kiss on the lips with the prospect of tagging him. It felt inimical even if it was to be done with the seemingly harmless intent of tracking him.
Finally she sat up and touched the spot where he had kissed her, awestricken by the miracle that the paths of two random Chronomorphs should cross so fortuitously, and deeply moved by Arthur’s virtuous gesture. She had believed the centuries of her existence had eroded her vulnerability to emotions and had taken pride in the stoicism she possessed. But with a single kiss Anton had shattered everything.
To dispel a thickening cloud of melancholia she unlocked her wardrobe and retrieved a battered Pathe phonograph with the only vinyl she owned, cranked it up and put on the needle. The old vinyl scratched to life, and from it flowed these lyrical words:
Sorrow bade Vivian to pull the needle off and leave the vinyl spinning forlornly to a stop on the plateau. She buried her face in her hands and did something she had never done in almost a century. She wept.