She shuffled into the kitchen and switched on the
fluorescent light overhead. It flickered to life, illuminating a lone gecko
which chirruped noisily and scampered away in search of a meal. The sound of
the ‘azan’ reverberated through the twilight air and the children playing in
the football field ran home to their mothers and homemade dinners, laughing and
chattering. She opened the fridge door and retrieved a carrot, green ‘sawi’ and
a plastic pack of noodles.
He would usually be home around this time. She would be
watching her favorite Hong Kong soap opera on television as he entered the
porch on his old sputtering Honda motorcycle. She would get off the couch,
switch off the television and pour a glass of cold water for him. He would wave
at her from the front gate, remove his leather shoes at the door and hug her as
he entered the house. After gulping down the glass of water, he would then head
to the back of the house for his shower.
She arranged the vegetables on the edge of the rusted sink,
washed the ‘sawi’ in a small plastic tub and emptied the packet of noodles into
a china bowl. Then she went over to the fridge again, opened the freezer
section and took out an orange plastic bowl which contained a few left-over
fish balls, fishcakes and limp red-striped crab sticks. She glanced up at the
clock. It was almost half past seven.
As she prepared the evening meal, she would hear him hum his
favorite 90s pop songs as the water splashed onto the tiles in the bathroom.
She would place the plates of food on the table and put the cutlery next to the
dishes. Then she would start rinsing the wok while waiting for him.
She scraped and sliced up the carrot. Then she scattered a
few pips of garlic and shallots onto the stained plastic chopping board and used
a cleaver to smash them, mincing them into minuscule bits. She poured some
peanut oil from the flask into the wok and tossed the garlic-shallot mince until
she could smell the burnt fragrance rising up from the hot metal surface.
He wasn’t home yet. She wasn’t perturbed. She had expected
this. She would wait for him. Then she would be able to ask how his day went as
they ate dinner together.
The wok was ready. She added the fish balls, fishcakes and
crab sticks and stir-fried the ingredients till the crab sticks started to unravel
into lacy seafood-flavoured sheets. The vegetables went in next.
He would often tell her stories of what happened at his work
place. She heard it all – the scandalous affairs going on between the manager
and the office staff, the disputes with the Indonesian contract workers, the
details of the negotiation with the overseas clients. She would listen, nodding
while she ate.
She leaned against the sink, looking intently at the
spindle-shaped rice noodles. They had a slippery, slick feel as she slid the
mass of writhing noodles into the simmering ingredients in the hot wok. These
were his favorite noodles – the ‘lou shu fun’. He had loved them for as long as she could remember. She knew that he would enjoy his dinner that night. Perhaps she could even fish for a compliment. She smiled indulgently as she stirred a stream of briny, brown soy sauce into the wok. She dished up the food into two plates and left them on the counter.
She cracked two eggs into the emptied wok and watched as the
globular yolks turned a warm golden saffron on a base of pure white. Just as he
liked it, she thought. The eggs went on top of the individual servings of
noodles, reflecting the glow of the fluorescent lights in an oily sheen. She
sprinkled chopped spring onions onto the steaming noodles and glistening eggs.
Twenty years. The time had disappeared in a flash. She
glanced at herself in the mirror as she balanced one plate on each hand and
headed to the dining area. When they first moved into this house, her hair was
jet-black, her cheeks pink and supple. He was still young then. He used to have
such a cheeky grin in those days. Now her hair was streaked with silver and her
joints creaked as she walked. She wondered if he had ever noticed.
It was pitch-dark outside save for the fluid glow of the
streetlamps lining the street. She wiped the grimy surface of the table, put
the plates down at their respective places and arranged the chopsticks and
spoons next to the polka-dotted placemats. She sat down on her own plastic
stool and inhaled sharply.
“Son, it’s time for dinner,” she whispered.
On the coffee-table in the hall, lay a stack of yellowing
newspapers, half-open. A heavy, dust-covered porcelain ash-tray kept the papers
open at that position. “Engineer, 27, dies in horrific car-crash along the
Karak highway,” read the title of the top article on that page.
