A Different Sky (62 page)

‘It's a party of unionists, for the unions; its members are riff-raff, and its leaders are rabble-rousers,' said Raj, dismissing the inauguration
once they were settled in the car. ‘They'll be no threat to our Progressive Party in the election.'

Howard leaned back on the soft leather as the car moved slowly through the dispersing crowd. People's Action Party men in their white shirts and white trousers still stood about conferring, the lawyer Lee amongst them. The man's intent face and razor sharp expression remained with Howard, as did the spontaneous cries of
Merdeka
. He heard the word shouted again as the car drew away from Victoria Memorial Hall.
Merdeka!

Yet already, in spite of its appeal, he knew he would not join the People's Action Party. Although sympathetic to its aims, he saw it as divided by dangerous elements, courting a mass vote through the communist-backed trade unions. As the car gathered speed the cry of
Merdeka
came to him again, and he knew that on it would turn the future.

Howard was busy the following week in the office. Preparations were made for a new survey by the Social Welfare Department on incomes and savings. Information was needed on the Central Provident Fund, a compulsory savings venture. The fund was the brainchild of David Marshall, a legendary lion of the courtroom, famous for sensational trials. He had championed the fund into reality some years before when he was still part of the Progressive Party. On his way to Marshall's office to interview him about the CPF, Howard had to walk past the Cricket Club, and was surprised to see the man himself addressing a crowd of people in the shade of a tall tembusu tree. Marshall, a flamboyant Sephardic Jew, was now a colourful part of the political scene as leader of yet another new party, the coalition Labour Front, a multiracial party also bent upon quick independence like the People's Action Party, but with a more velvet-gloved approach. It was lunchtime and clerks from nearby offices were out eating their lunch beside a coffee stall. A small van with a loudspeaker stood behind Marshall, and his deeply eloquent voice carried across the Padang to the Cricket Club. As he spoke he made sweeping gestures towards the building. Howard noticed that club members were leaning out of the windows to listen to the man and shout occasional jeers. On the Padang a cricket match was, as ever, in progress.

‘We cannot wait another eight years for Independence as the
Progressive Party solemn-facedly advises us after conferring with their colonial friends in the colonial government. There, right before us is the very temple of Britishness, the Cricket Club, and on its veranda sit our so-called masters, the
tuans,
sipping beer and eating their
tiffin
. Let them hear what we have to say, let them know we can no longer be yoked to their Empire, driven to plough their fields and fertilise their wealth with our sweat. Just look at them over there at the Cricket Club, craning their necks to see me, rushing their lunch to hear me . . . Why should so many be enslaved for the benefit of so few . . .'

The voice had such melodic resonance, rose and fell in such smooth undulations that the crowd of locals gathered before the tembusu tree, stood as if mesmerised. Marshall's large penetrating eyes beneath bushy eyebrows stared fiercely. Howard took his place at the edge of the crowd, listening with the same attention as everyone else, caught by the spellbinding effect. Marshall had already made his anti-communist stance clear and his vehement denial of communism was nothing but reassuring to Howard. The meeting soon ended and Howard introduced himself, and was invited immediately by Marshall to drive back in the loudspeaker van with him to his office; the man talked all the way.

‘The press attacks me but I welcome it; they are getting my name known all over the island and I am getting the Brits used to brutal criticism and debate. By taking my campaign to the roadside under “the old apple tree” so to speak, I am awakening the people. The most immediate and urgent task facing any serious political party in Malaya is to end colonialism as swiftly as possible. There is a near volcano of impatient youth thirsting for Independence. It is our duty to give it to them.' Marshall rattled on as he led Howard into his office, talking all the time over his shoulder.

‘I am not interested in just getting a seat. I am interested in putting before the people of Singapore what they are facing. You can vote for the Progressive Party if you like, but they are capitalist colonial stooges who, in order to maintain their leisured way of life, will never push for Independence. Or you can vote for me, I am a socialist and I am a Singaporean and I will push for Independence immediately. That is the choice.'

David Marshall sat down behind his desk and gesturing Howard into a seat before him. His mobile features of large nose, sad eyes,
generous mouth and brow were crammed with difficulty into his narrow face under a shock of unruly hair. It was a face of reckless emotion and reckless courage, and Howard was strongly drawn to the man. He seemed everything a liberal socialist should be, and Howard knew he could support him wholeheartedly. Even as this thought took root in his mind, the weight of his commitment to Raj pressed down upon him, and his heart sank.

Krishna had fallen into one of his depressions again. His moods changed quickly from bouts of excitable energy to troughs of darkness; what seemed full of affirmation one day appeared like a punctured balloon the next. The depression could last for days. Then, instead of being absent and untraceable most of the day, he seldom went out of the house. He sat in his room playing Indian songs full of warble and lilt on his ancient wind-up gramophone, a relic of the black market during the Japanese occupation. There was now a modern radiogram in the house that combined a radio and a record turntable, but Krishna was not interested in this contraption and continued to play his records on the old machine, much to Leila's annoyance. The sound of the music with its background crackle of age filled the house at all hours of the day. In the kitchen, directing a new cook in the proper combination of spices for a vegetable curry, Leila felt ready to scream. The songs were mournful with sorrowful themes, and one in particular Krishna played again and again. The kitchen was hot and she sweated, the aromatic smoke of frying onions full in her face. Her patience was wearing thin, and after a long day at Manikam's she was tired.

Death's happy release. Death's happy release.
The needle was stuck, but Krishna lay on his
charpoy
content to listen to the repeating wail. The sound hammered in Leila's head and with an abusive shout at the servant, she ran up the stairs and into her husband's room to snatch up the arm of gramophone.

‘What's the matter with you?' she shouted.

‘I'm old and useless,' he replied, prone upon the string bed. She was tempted to agree but held her tongue; the fuller her life became at Manikam's, the more the sight of him annoyed her. It was not the way a wife should feel, but he had failed her as a husband, she thought angrily.

‘What about the new political party? You were full of enthusiasm
not long ago,' Leila reminded him. She was secretly relieved that the People's Action Party, although apparently riddled with communists, appeared to offer her husband a welcome alternative to the Malayan Communist Party. She had recently discovered writings of such an inflammable nature in his desk that she had openly gasped. The article was rolled up in a copy of the notorious
Freedom News
and destined, she knew, for publication in the underground paper. If he were not careful, she feared he would soon be back on St John's.

‘You said with this new People's Action Party, Singapore had a future,' Leila repeated.

‘Well, now I'm not so sure,' Krishna replied aggressively. He did not feel he could give his allegiance to any party. Everyone was young and gung-ho, filled with ideals and energy, undeterred by the prospect of ploughing a minefield of impossible obstacles to achieve political goals. He thought sadly of Subhas Chandra Bose and knew, even more sadly, that he had once felt the same. Once, as an INA soldier he had held a gun easily, killed men at Imphal without thought in the cause of Indian Independence, and even seen his dream of Independence achieved. He did not know why he was depressed instead of fulfilled and elated. Now, he was afraid even to hide a cache of weapons for the Malayan Communist Party, did not like the thought of its vicious cadres in his house, and abhorred the way he was ordered about by arrogant youths half his age. BK had tried again to persuade him to shelter a cache of weapons, even threatening expulsion from the Party if he did not obey.

‘I'm too old,' he had told BK firmly once again as they sat at the same noodle shop.

‘I'm old,' he repeated now to Leila, who sighed in exasperation.

‘See here, the needle is broken,' Leila said, examining the arm of the phonograph. ‘Why can't you use the new radiogram downstairs instead of this old thing?' Krishna did not reply.

The sound of loud knocking at the front door came to them from downstairs. A servant boy soon appeared at the top of the stairs to announce that two Chinese men were asking for the Master.

‘All the riff-raff in Chinatown expect you to be at their beck and call,' Leila admonished as Krishna heaved himself off the
charpoy
and stood up. She wished she could speak more patiently.

Leaving Leila searching in a drawer for a new needle, and grateful
of an excuse to be free of his wife, Krishna went downstairs to attend to the visitors. He found two young men he did not recognise waiting by the half-open front door. At first he took them to be students; they were neatly dressed and smiled at him politely. The taller boy, whose hair was shaved above his ears in a pudding bowl cut, stepped forward and apologised for disturbing him. He said he came from the Town Committee with an urgent message.

‘What is the message?' Krishna asked. The other boy, whose face was pitted with acne, moved to stand in front of his friend. Krishna grew suspicious and frowned disapprovingly, wondering what he should do if a cache of weapons was now to be thrust upon him. He was sure this was why they had come, and that perhaps already guns were installed in the garage and protest would be helpless.

Still fumbling to insert a new needle into the gramophone, Leila heard a sudden loud crack, like the backfiring of a car in the road. A moment later the servant boy came running up the stairs for her, and one glance at his face made Leila follow. Krishna was lying on the floor, blood pouring from his chest. The front door stood open to the view of cars and carts trundling past in the street. With a moan Leila dropped to her knees beside her husband. The servant boy ran outside, shouting for help. Food hawkers stopped to turn and gawp.

‘Fetch the police, fetch a doctor!' Leila screamed at the motley crowd gathering curiously about her door. Within a moment a large car drew up and Raj got out, accompanied by Yoshiko Ho. Alarmed, he hurried forward but stopped in shock at the sight of the wounded Krishna. Yoshiko put a hand to her mouth in horror.

‘Fetch a doctor, fetch the police,' Raj yelled at the onlookers, his heart racing in panic.

Leila gazed down at her husband's face as she cradled his head in her lap. Everything seemed like a dream. Krishna opened his eyes and moved his lips, but no words took shape. Leila gave a sob, stricken by guilt at the way she had earlier spoken to him. Transfixed by horror, she held his hands as blood trickled from his mouth. Krishna looked up, fixing his eyes upon her face, and even when they stilled and the light was gone from his gaze, he continued to stare urgently up at her.

T
HE FIRST DAY OF
April, the day before the election, was one of frenzied activity. Howard spent the day in the constituency, going from door to door in streets that still might be persuaded to vote Progressive. In this mixed Chinese area of prosperous shopkeepers and well-to-do residents, a Progressive win was expected. In the weeks leading up to the election Howard and his team of volunteers had been out canvassing every spare moment, but he knew he gave up too easily, did not have the needed evangelical belief in the party he worked for. The new People's Action Party, for all their bluster, had only fielded four candidates, preferring to await political maturity and to strengthen their muscle in opposition. Both the volatile lawyer Lee Kwan Yew and his radical colleague Lim Chin Siong were standing as candidates in working-class Chinese areas where unionists, poor factory labourers and disenfranchised youths were a supportive electorate.

Howard had lost count of the number of doors he had knocked upon, shaking hands and distributing pamphlets. He had organised loudspeaker vans and driven around, his own voice echoing in his ears, promoting a candidate he barely knew and who was rarely seen in the constituency. As he himself was frequently to be seen there, people came to him with their grievances. Residents from a street called Lorong Sakai wanted permission to change its name, as the Japanese echo was distasteful to them. A poor area of one ward wanted electricity. People showed him their homes, which they complained were worse than stables, and he could not but agree. Other residents requested the removal of a hawker area or complained of a preponderance of rats. In these wards, much to Howard's chagrin, his face became known as the face of the Progressive Party.

Momentum had built all over the island as the election loomed. Under the tall tembusu tree, David Marshall continued with his
lunchtime forum but as much as the issue of Independence, he was now pressed to discuss the question of whether he would or would not wear the required formal robes if elected to the Legislative Assembly.

‘I hope to walk in dressed as I am,' he said firmly, standing his ground in his perennial belted safari jacket and trousers. ‘Will you at least wear a necktie?' someone shouted.

‘In this lovely climate, the necktie is not only not required, it is a constriction,' he responded.