Dedication
For my mother
If I keep a green bough in my heart, the singing bird will come.
– Chinese proverb
Singapore
2010
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Chapter One
At the time Maris didn’t realize she was witnessing a murder. Peter seemed fine at first. Then he began slurring his words, which she thought was odd because he hadn’t even finished his first drink. Peter always liked a glass of Campari on the rocks before dinner. She had tried it once, years ago, but didn’t care for it. She preferred a gin and tonic. They would be having wine with dinner, probably white, maybe a nice Riesling. Peter’s face seemed to be going rigid and he was having a hard time speaking. Oh my God, she thought, he’s having a stroke.
“Peter,” she said, “smile. Can you smile?” It wasn’t really a smile. More like he was clenching his teeth. “Put your hands up in the air!” she shouted at him as she reached into her bag for her mobile. “Up, up.” This is serious, she thought. He was staring at her just the way the sea bass he was going to cook for supper had stared at her: a wide-eyed, fishy stare.
“What’s your name?” she asked, as she dialed 9-9-5. Don’t die, she thought. Please don’t die on me.
Those were the three things you were supposed to do when you thought someone might be having a stroke, weren’t they? Ask them to smile, to raise their hands in the air, and to tell you their name. Something about facial muscles, arm strength, and memory.
“Hurry,” she said when someone answered. “I think he’s having a stroke. He’s not responding to any of my questions.” She gave them the details, trying not to panic. There was white, foamy spit dribbling from the corner of Peter’s mouth. “Please hurry,” she pleaded. “I don’t know what to do.”
In the ten minutes it took for the ambulance to arrive, Peter sat slumped over on the tan coloured sofa that he prized above all the other art deco pieces he had collected over the years. It was made of a silky suede — the original covering — and worth twice what he’d paid for it. He had discovered it in a photographer’s studio just off Orchard Road and had offered to buy it immediately. The owner, an elderly Chinese man who was in the process of closing his business and retiring, was only too happy to sell it to Peter, along with a lamp and an end table that he had owned since the 1930s.
Maris didn’t know what to do. Why am I thinking about his furniture? she wondered. Peter appeared to be unconscious, his chin touching his chest, his hands palms up at his sides. He was still wearing his wire-rimmed Armani reading glasses. She couldn’t tell if he was breathing; there didn’t appear to be any movement of his chest under the butter-yellow silk shirt, but it was hard to tell because his head was blocking her view of the upper part of his body. It reminded her of the way penguins buried their heads in their chests to sleep. But she knew he wasn’t asleep.
Shouldn’t I be giving him CPR or something? she thought. But she didn’t know how to do that. She seemed to be riveted to the spot, on the opposite side of the low, curved coffee table (another art deco find of Peter’s) staring down at him, completely incapable of thinking of anything except art deco furniture. She was still clutching the mobile in her right hand, and her left hand was half-raised in a reaching gesture as if she were just about to give him benediction. She’d seen the Pope make this same gesture from his balcony in St. Peter’s Square.
It was so quiet. As if the power had just been cut and every humming appliance — refrigerator, air conditioner, laptop computer — had suddenly died. Maris realized she’d been holding her breath. She exhaled softly through her mouth and half expected Peter to do the same. But he didn’t. He didn’t move.
Where are they? she thought. What’s taking so long? Singapore was the most efficient city in the world. Why hadn’t the paramedics arrived yet? Would they be too late?
She heard a commotion in the hallway outside the apartment and realized that she hadn’t opened the door. Oh God, she thought, are these few wasted seconds the ones that will kill Peter? Was she, ultimately, going to be responsible for his death? She ran for the door and turned the safety lock to release the spring. She was fumbling with the cellphone, the spring lock, and the doorknob, and cursing her stupidity when the door swung open and two men with a gurney pushed past her.
“He’s in there,” she said, pointing to the living room. She ran after them. “I haven’t touched him. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to do the wrong thing.”
One of them had pushed Peter’s head back and was pulling his eyelids up to look at his eyes, which appeared to be staring up at the ceiling in surprise. Then the paramedic ripped Peter’s shirt open and the buttons flew onto the sofa. He’s going to be mad, she thought. That’s his favourite shirt.
She heard one of the men say, “No vitals,” and then they were laying him out flat and rubbing his chest. The paramedic closest to her was pulling something out of a suitcase and she saw it was those paddles they use to get people’s hearts going when they’re flatlining. She’d seen it on television on ER. Then the one who’d been rubbing Peter’s chest stood back and the one with the paddles drove his hands into Peter’s chest. She heard a buzzing, crackling sound, then nothing, then the buzzing, crackling sound again.
“He’s had a stroke,” she heard herself say, but they didn’t appear to be listening to her. The buzzing, crackling sound filled her ears again and then there was silence.
She looked at Peter’s bare chest. The red marks from the paddles were like two patches of sunburn on his pale skin. Then she looked at his face. He wasn’t wearing his glasses.
I’d better find them, she thought. He needs them to read.
Are you his next of kin? they’d asked her at the hospital. No, she’d said. I’m a friend. We need to notify his next of kin. Well, she’d said, he has an ex-wife who’s in Germany right now and a half-sister here in Singapore. Dinah, she thought, I should have called Dinah. She searched for the number on her mobile and gave it to the hospital administrator, a no-nonsense Chinese woman in a severe grey suit with the jacket buttoned. The pointed collar of her white silk blouse laid flat against the worsted material of the suit. She wore no jewellery other than a pair of small pearl studs in her ears.
“Please take a seat over there,” she said pointing to a row of yellow plastic tub chairs bolted to the floor. “I’ll make the call from my office.”
There were very few people in emergency, maybe because it was dinnertime. Hospitals had their ebbs and flows of activity just like everything else, she guessed. She thought of the sea bass lying on Peter’s kitchen counter, staring at the ceiling the way Peter had stared at the ceiling when they’d pulled back his eyelids. Peter was lying on a gurney behind a dull beige curtain.
Maris hadn’t had time to find his glasses or pick up the buttons from his shirt. She’d have to go back to the apartment and do that later. And put the fish in the fridge. She tried to make a mental list of the things she’d have to do in the next day or two. She should call Angela in Berlin. It was only fair. She and Peter were no longer married but they were still business partners. Angela, she thought, pronouncing it in her head with the hard “g” so it sounded more like angle instead of angel.
She tried to figure out what time it was in Berlin. How many hours difference was it? And were they behind or ahead? No, no, she thought, they had to be behind. It would be earlier there, late morning, she figured, or lunchtime.
God, she was tired. She tried to remember if she’d locked the door to Peter’s apartment and then she remembered it had a spring lock so it would have locked automatically. Thank God, she thought. Peter had a lot of valuable stuff.