Free Shadow Theatre by Fiona Cheong Page A

closet. Isn't that so, Rose?"
    "Singapore has a lot of ghosts," I said, smiling so he would
think I was joking.
    Angmos never know how to understand ghosts, you know,
calling everything superstition even in the face of eyewitness
accounts. This one, for instance. Even after hearing enough stories, and for sure, not all from Chandra, the fellow wasn't interested in the truth, I could tell. Because he was assuming there was no truth. Otherwise, he would have done some background
checking already, to find out more about our history, not only
the parts everyone knows (about the Europeans coming and
taking over the spice trade, and all that), but also the earlier
parts. At least if he knew enough to think about Srivijaya and
Majapahit, he could figure out for himself how as long ago as
that, people here were cutting deals with the spirits. (The
women, of course. Signing contracts by fasting and not combing
their hair, letting themselves look ugly and mad, all for the sake
of their husbands and sons, or sometimes, to protect their
fathers. Because there was so much fighting and killing, how
else could those empires have been built?)

    Ghosts were roaming the region centuries before this fellow's ancestors arrived, and here he was, talking about them as
if they were just a figment of our imagination.
    All he wanted was fodder for his letters home, so he could
write interesting things about his life here, to his buddies or his
family or maybe even a girlfriend who was foolishly waiting for
him to return, having no idea he was over here sowing his wild
oats with Chandra. That's how foreigners are, the angmo ones
who come here. Using our own stories against us, to prove that
in spite of our commercial success, we're still a backward people. Still believing in ghosts. (Ask me whether I would bet my
soul that by telling our stories, the foreigner thinks he can
sound interesting to other people. As long as he doesn't say he
believes in the stories, he feels safe talking, right?)
    So I wasn't going to give this Jason fellow any information,
even if I had some, which I didn't. I wasn't sure why Chandra
had bothered to tell him about the rumor in the first place,
unless it was to pantang Shak, bring her bad luck, that sort of
thing. To make certain Shak couldn't use her charm to lure away
her boyfriend, in case they happened to meet. I could imagine
Chandra thinking up such a plot, because she was that sort. To
her, what we all wanted was a blondie boyfriend.

    If so, why pantang someone like that, right? And not only
Shak but her baby as well, saying there was a ghost following
them around.
    I was getting angry, thinking about it. And maybe that Jason
could sense there was no point talking to me further, because he
didn't ask any more questions.
    SO W I I I: N S I I I: showed up, Chandra, on the dot at two o'clock,
I glared at her with as much disapproval as I could muster. I
would have fired her off if we were by ourselves, but I didn't
want her to lose face in front of an angmo, whether he was her
boyfriend or not. Call me prejudiced, but an angmo's an angmo,
I thought. Even if Chandra ended up marrying this one, and
every soul is supposed to be sacred, I couldn't help feeling a gap
between their kind of people and our kind of people, you know.
Maybe because of Singapore's history with Europeans, or
maybe the gap's always been there, it didn't matter to me as I
looked at her, Chandra. What mattered was, I kept cool, so to
speak. I simply glared at her, and when she said, "Hi, Rose," I
could hear in her voice, she had gotten the message.
    And when she didn't ask what her boyfriend and I had been
talking about, now that she knew, I thought to myself, mission
accomplished. Making Chandra feel uncomfortable gave me a
lot of satisfaction, I must admit. Partly because I was tired of
watching her walk into the library with her short skirts, carrying
her high heels in her Gucci bag so she could