The Oddfits (20 page)

Or at least, that was what he tried, with the utmost discipline, to keep his mind on. Lying in bed, the covers pulled up to his neck, he nestled his head against the soft blue pillow and tried to think of how good his father and mother were to let him indulge in such luxury. But then again, wasn’t it normal for everybody to have a bed? Hadn’t his parents been sleeping in a bed all this time? And didn’t they already have hot water in their bathroom? Kay Huat had always had a bed
and
hot water. Squinching his eyes shut, he tried to remember how happy he had felt that morning of his first day at school when his father had personally given him a haircut for the occasion. He could only remember feeling distressed and disappointed at what he had seen in the mirror. Taking up his father’s reminder that morning of the blind man’s bluff game they used to play, he tried to recall what fun it had been. His most vivid recollection was of one time where he had scrambled around in the jungle alone and terrified until a tall, dark-skinned, moustachioed stranger wearing big rubber boots and gardening gloves, and wielding enormous pruning shears, had discovered him whimpering in a dark, dank grove of trees. Gently taking up little Murgatroyd in his arms, he had carried him to his lorry and called the police, who had returned him to his parents.

Even worse than these unhappy and ungrateful memories, Murgatroyd found his thoughts straying in the direction of self-pity, frustration, and even anger at not being able to go on the Quest at all; at being forced by this unfortunate turn of events to give it all up and stay with a mother and father who never seemed interested in spending time with him or talking with him, and who seemed, despite all their professions of affection and love for him, distant
somehow—cold, and at times, cruel.

There! He had dared to think it! And his eyes and heart grew large with fright at the dreadful things he had just thought. What was wrong with him? He jumped up and hastily began to make the bed, smoothing and stroking the sheets and pillows, meditating deliberately on how soft and beautiful they were. He squatted down to glance at his alarm clock, which was still sitting in its usual place on the floor. It was almost time to leave for work! Nearly six hours had passed and he still had to change out of his pyjamas and clean up the flat! With a feeling akin to relief, he changed his clothes, washed the dishes, and, fleeing the swarm of disquieting thoughts, dashed off to catch his bus.

Once at work, Murgatroyd threw his whole grief-stricken self into his role as waiter extraordinaire. He found an unexpected amount of comfort in the seamlessly placid and elegant demeanour he assumed as a matter of course. It felt as if he were in a protective shell—no, even more than that—a protective, form-fitting bodysuit, for the role fit him so snugly that it muffled the emotional tumult brewing inside him. The anguish and sorrow, the rage and confusion, all felt muted, as if something heavy and soft had been wrapped around them so that they couldn’t cause him pain.

It was in this emotionally numb state that he was descended upon by Shakti, who waylaid him as he returned from the dining room to deliver an order from one of his tables.

“So, Shwet Foo. How are you this evening?”

The question—uncharacteristic for Shakti—jolted him unpleasantly out of his muffled consciousness. He wasn’t quite sure what to say. So, uncharacteristically, he lied. “Well.”

“Still thinking about leaving?”

“Erh.” Murgatroyd shook his head and stared down at his shoes. “No, no. Actually, I’m not leaving at all.”

This piece of information caught Shakti by surprise, but she did her best to act as if she didn’t care. “Really?”

“Erh. Yes?”

“So you’re not leaving.”

“No.”

Shakti was silent for a long time, as if she were carefully weighing his answer. She decided that he needed to be taught a lesson.

“‘No’? But you thought you’d waste my valuable time on Monday by telling me that you were thinking of leaving?”

“Yes. I mean, no. Erh. What I—”

“What
you
? Never mind what
you
.” Shakti leaned closer. “What
I
want to do is impress upon your soft, soft brain the gravity of your situation. You’re walking on the very thin ice of my patience, Shwet Foo. And if I were you
. . .
” she tried to think of a good way to end her warning. “If I were you, I’d get off the ice.”

Murgatroyd lowered his head. “Yes, Mrs. Vithani.”

Shakti smiled thinly. She couldn’t resist giving a last wounding swipe. “It’s always a difficult quest, don’t you agree, Shwet Foo?”

He froze in surprise. “Erh. Say again?”

“A difficult
quest
. Finding new employment, that is.”

“Oh. Yes. Erh. Yes, it is.”

Thoroughly rattled, Murgatroyd ran to the back room to regain his composure. In the meantime, unbeknownst to him, Ann was bringing his plight to the attention of the One and the Other.

CHAPTER 17

The Aminah Caves of the Himalaya-Ablaze Territory were the first caves to be discovered in the More Known World. Yusuf had found them in his third year on the Quest. He loved the Caves. He wasn’t sure why, but then again, no Oddfit ever knew the exact reasons why he or she felt more drawn to some Territories than others. There were many things that they didn’t know yet, and Yusuf was sure there were many things that they would never truly be able to understand. All Yusuf knew when he happened upon these caves was that they were his. Or perhaps he was theirs. He didn’t quite know. What he was certain of, however, was that they were the one place he could remain for long periods of time without feeling, too acutely, the anxious and perpetual homesickness that was the curse and the blessing of the Oddfit.

In the chilly depths of the Aminah Caves, which he had discovered and therefore had the honour of naming, a young Yusuf had set up his abode: a small bedroom well-stocked with heavy blankets and candles, a kitchen chamber more than cool enough to keep food and store drinking water in, and a passageway that no one else knew about until after Yusuf had passed away. At the end of this downward-sloping passageway, the Questians who had come to sort through his possessions found that there was more to Yusuf’s abode than he had ever told anyone, even those who had visited him often. There were four rooms, all of them at a natural constant temperature of negative 28.9 degrees Celsius—the perfect temperature for storing ice cream. Two of the rooms appeared to have functioned as experimenting chambers. One of the rooms contained five large ingenious-looking machines for churning ice cream using manpower alone. And the last room was greater and its contents more wonderful than anyone in the history of the Worlds could have ever believed possible.

How Yusuf had managed to produce so much ice cream, the means by which he had managed to distribute it throughout the Territories, and how he had dared to discover a space so large that it defied any attempts to calculate its height and breadth and depth and keep it to himself remained a mystery—a knot yet to be unravelled.

It was in the space that had once been the Great Freezer that Ann had arranged to meet with the One and the Other to discuss the case of Murgatroyd Floyd.

“That’s a bit out of the way, don’t you think?” the One had asked. “Why can’t we just meet at one of
our
abodes?”

Ann had been adamant, arguing that the extra exercise would do them all good and that there was something especially invigorating about the air in the Aminah Caves. She was right, but those weren’t really the reasons she had chosen to meet where the Great Freezer had once been. There was a superstitious part of her that wanted to use its associations with Yusuf and the undeniable mystery of the space to strengthen the proposal she was about to put forth to the One and the Other. (How the One shied away from that word: “mystery.”) What she was proposing would defy one of the few rules governing the recruitment of new Questians, but she believed that Murgatroyd’s wellbeing—nay, his very life—was at stake.

It was possible to transfer to the interior of the Caves themselves, but Ann had felt a bit too worked up about what she was going to say—a combination of anticipatory aggressiveness and, more unusual for her, nervousness. A short trek beforehand would calm her down. She transferred to the topaz fields of wild-growing grain surrounding the Caves and commenced walking briskly towards the meeting place.

From the outside journeying in, the Caves were magnificent: petrified blue-grey clouds billowing forth from the land’s surface. The rock they were formed out of was Aminate—similar in every way to obsidian except for its colour. All through this great rock formation snaked a series of tunnels, hollowed out, it was conjectured, by some elemental force at some bygone point in time: streams of liquid perhaps, or wind currents, maybe an ancient rock-eating fungus. Yusuf’s abode lay somewhere within them, and getting to it was so complicated that the trail markers he’d planted for the benefit of any visitors approaching his abode from the exterior also served to remind himself of the way back whenever he emerged from the Caves to retrieve drinking water, bathe, or empty his chamber pot. Thankfully, the trail markers were still in place: clusters of spiral-shaped mushrooms. In the sunlight, they were the same blue-grey colour of the Aminate on which they grew, and one had to have a practiced eye to spot them. Ann had taken this way to the Great Freezer several times in the past, and she could pick them out easily. Two clumps of them flanked the entrance to Yusuf’s; or rather, the entrance to the vast subterranean passageways in which his abode could be found. In this cold underground world, the mushrooms grew too, but in sunlight’s absence, they emitted a steady phosphorescent orange glow. They lined the corridors—not only underfoot, but also on the walls and overhead. Also growing in the tunnels were tufts of soft-wheat—a variation of its sister species growing on the plains outside. The outdoor variety, if properly detoxified, made a versatile and nutritious stew, excellent with melted cheese or fruit jam. This cave variety made poor eating but excellent wearing. The fluffy white tufts could be spun and woven into a luxuriously soft fabric, and held colour so beautifully that even soft-wheat dyed with the palest of pigments took on a rich hue. Soft-wheat, like the mushrooms, grew everywhere, and whenever Ann passed any, she reached out and ran her fingers through the silky stalks.

The air inside the caves was cold and dry, and grew colder and drier the deeper Ann went. Before too long, Ann had to pull out the sweater and hat she had brought along in her oversized bag. Deeper and deeper she descended, down twisting slopes and around turning bends, one after another, until she finally reached the last long, narrow tunnel, which terminated in a door—a wooden slab on hinges fitted roughly into the surrounding stone. Yusuf’s abode. Pushing it open, she entered the rooms within, navigated a few more winding bends, slid down a chute-like tunnel, and emerged into the frozen, wide-open space that had once been the Great Freezer.

The One and the Other were already there. She could make out two tiny silhouettes waiting a considerable distance away, illuminated dimly by the patch of glowing mushrooms they were standing in. It took Ann another twenty minutes to cross the vast, dark plain to where they were. The One was appropriately dressed for a visit to the Aminah Caves: a practical cloak made of soft-wheat-and-wool blend, a heavy shawl swathed around her neck, a giant fur turban, and mittens. The bulky clothing would have overwhelmed anyone else of that slight a frame, but the One’s presence far exceeded her size. The Other, who took great pride in his ability to withstand discomfort and inclement weather conditions of all sorts, was not only standing, but standing on one leg while maintaining a painful-looking yoga pose. He was wearing hiking boots, tiny track shorts, and a spandex cycling top. Remarkably spry for a man of sixty-five years, he could cover as much Territory as the fittest of the younger Oddfits—oftentimes more, because of his experience.

Ann took a battery-powered lantern out of her bag, switched it on, and set it at his feet. By the new light, Ann could see that the Other had grown even more tan than when she’d last seen him; almost as brown as the One, but with a ruddy red glow.

“Hi, Ann. Long time no see,” he chirruped, breaking out of his pose to stretch his hamstrings.

“Yes, it’s been three months, Other,” Ann replied, addressing him by his title because reminding the Other that he had a title always made him happy. The Other was so good-natured, easygoing, and predisposed to being content that it was easy to make him happy. Sure enough, like a toddler rediscovering the pleasures of a once-favoured toy, his face broke into an enormous grin.

“I’ve been exploring,” he explained. He was always exploring. That was what made him happiest. “Twelve new territories in just three months. Not bad, eh? One of them has great rock-face for climbing. And great rapids for rafting. And great cloud dirt for skiing.”

Ann smiled inwardly. The One and the Other were about as different as any two beings could be.

“Can we get on with things?” the One asked grumpily. Stiffly, she rose to her feet. There was a reason why she’d chosen a warm desert for her abode.

Ann pulled Murgatroyd’s file out of her bag. “We need to discuss Murgatroyd Floyd’s situation.”

“We do?” the Other asked, scratching his head. “Why? You said on the phone that he’s decided not to join the Quest after all.”

The One folded her arms. “Yes, Ann. Just out of curiosity, what
is
there to discuss?”

At this display of condescension, Ann could feel the anger that she’d spent the last hour trying to dissipate bubbling up within her. Forgetting the well-reasoned argument she’d practiced in her head earlier that day, she went straight to the point.

“We need to change Murgatroyd’s mind about the Quest. The Known World is destroying him.”

Once the words were out of her mouth, she knew that she had said it all in the worst way possible.

The Other looked quizzically at the One. “We can’t change people’s minds for them, can we? It’s not
. . .
” he searched for the word he wanted. “Ethical.”

“You’re right,” the One affirmed. “We can’t. You know that as well as anyone, Ann. If this is your way of explaining yourself, you need a lot more training.” Thinking even more on the two sentences Ann had just uttered, she frowned. “Did you just say he’s being
destroyed
?”

Inwardly, Ann slapped her forehead. Outwardly, she tried to look unfazed. “Yes,” she stated, straightening her spine. “Yes, I did.”

“What in the worlds are you talking about? He’s still alive, isn’t he?”

“Will you let me explain?”

“By all means, please do,” the One said, her voice oozing sarcasm.

“Yes, do! This is quite interesting,” the Other chimed in enthusiastically. He plopped himself down on the ground and crossed his legs as if he were waiting for a bedtime story.

Ann struggled to regain her composure—she almost always had it, so on the rare occasion she lost it, she always found it immensely difficult to get it back. After a few calming breaths she did, and she proceeded to point out to her audience of two the perplexing inconsistencies of Murgatroyd’s situation: how long he had been in the Known World, but how oddfitting and out of place he still was, almost as if he hadn’t been undergoing adaptation at all.

“Ridiculous,” the One snapped. “If he wasn’t adapting, he’d be dead by now. It’s the only way an Oddfit can continue to live in the Known World.”

“And yet, he hasn’t turned Sumfit, has he? Shouldn’t he have by now?”

The One sighed. “Didn’t we discuss this already?” She turned to the Other to explain what she and Ann had discussed a few days ago. “He probably started out at an exceptionally high level of oddfittingness, so it’s taking him longer to adapt.”

“Oh, I see.” The Other nodded approvingly. “That sounds like a good explanation.”

“What?!” Ann said indignantly. “No, it doesn’t! It’s no better than mine. And I have other reasons to believe that Murgatroyd isn’t adapting.”

“Really?” the Other asked, his eyes wide.

“Really,” she affirmed. “Tell me: what’s it like for a very oddfitting Oddfit to live in the Known World?”

“They don’t feel like they belong,” the Other promptly answered. “They feel homesick all the time. Depressed. They don’t understand things the same way others do. They don’t get things right, and they say things wrong. Other people think they’re weird.” Having revisited his own unhappy childhood experiences of oddfittingness to come up with this answer, the Other looked profoundly sad. He sighed deeply and, with an abstracted look in his eyes, wrapped his arms around his head, almost as if he were giving his brain a consoling hug. “It’s terrible, really.”

“Yes, it is,” Ann said pityingly, almost sorry that she had asked the question at all. “But imagine if other people didn’t just think you were weird. Imagine if they wanted to make you miserable.”

The Other gasped and, clutching his knees, nimbly rolled himself into a horrified ball.

“Now look what you’ve done!” The One bent down and patted him comfortingly.

“I’m sorry,” Ann said. “But I think that really
is
what’s happening. Look!”

Crouching down next to the Other as well, Ann took a piece of paper out of the file and lightly brushed the crown of the Other’s head with it. Cautiously, he raised his head, and the three of them looked together. It was a copy of a class photo from Murgatroyd’s secondary school days. Murgatroyd, the only white child in the class, was also wearing what appeared to be complicated and needlessly ornate orthodontic headgear.

“According to his official dental records, there has never been anything wrong with the alignment of his teeth,” Ann informed them. “And look at this.”

It was a page torn out of
Prestige
magazine: “An Interview with Singapore’s Restaurant Queen” the title read. It was a picture of Shakti Vithani dressed in a scarlet, puffy-sleeved Versace gown with an oversized gold crown on her head and a black leash in her hand. The leash was attached to the shirt collar of a docile Murgatroyd kneeling on all fours in his waiter’s tuxedo. Ann read the caption out loud: “Queen Shakti and her star waiter.”

Last but not least came the photo of the Floyd family by the hyena exhibit at the zoo. “He looks like he’s having a good time, doesn’t he?” Ann remarked dryly.

“No! He doesn’t!” exclaimed the Other. Ann sighed. She always forgot that the Other didn’t get sarcasm.

The One broke in. “Ann, what’s your point?”

“The point is that Murgatroyd hasn’t adapted. And worse still, the Known World is obviously doing something to him. Something bad. Something destructive. He can’t stay there. We have to tell him.”

The One spoke quietly. “Tell him
what
exactly? That we
think
the Known World is ‘doing something bad’ to him and that he
must
leave it? That goes against all our principles. Choosing to exile one’s self permanently from the Known World is a tremendous, life-altering decision. People can’t be told to choose it. It’s not right. They have to choose it themselves.”