The Colour of Christmas by CBPena

THE COLOUR OF CHRISTMAS Carlo B Peña

Happy Hours Productions: An Imprint RNC Commercial Complex, Brgy San Carlos, Lipa City, Batangas Philippines 4217 https://issuu.com/carlovenson/docs

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Published in the Philippines Layout & Design by Carlo Venson Peña

THE COLOUR OF CHRISTMAS Carlo B Peña

I was about six when I ate my first kueh lapis for Christmas.

My parents and I drove all the way to East Coast Road to eat at a fancy Peranakan restaurant that sat at the side of the road, itself flanked with other shops on both sides–a Western place that served over-easy eggs and deep-red steaks, and on the other, a small shop that smelled of salted chicken cooked in a brick oven. It wasn’t an easy ride either, since that time of the year usually meant phenomenally long queues at the interstate highways that connected those dwelling in the far west to the rest of the island. I remember quite vividly that it felt like a weird Christmas morning that day though. There were barely any cars on the road, except for the few cyclists who rode their two-wheeled contraptions, lighting up their wheels as they skid past lonely bystanders walking here and there at the junction of Joo Chiat and East Coast Road. The wind was picking up, and the sky now wore a slightly greyer shawl over her shoulders. After parking at the hotel across the road, my family and I jaywalked across the street that led to the restaurant. I remember reading the sign outside the store as we walked towards the restaurant: ‘No photography,’ it said in bold golden letters printed on a metal slate hanging precariously at one side of the window display, while a few dainty cups and saucers were neatly laid out

on a wooden table that had other tiers of porcelain stacked over at the other edge. Through the window, I could see mannequins that wore cheongsams and sequined kebayas in light blue and green, drizzled in appliques of swirling vines that ended in embroidered fowers in monochromes of red and purple, all shimmering under the yellow light. They slightly blinded me as we made our way through the main entrance. The air wafted faintly of kaya and curry when Wei Kiat opened the door. I remember how my father’s face lit up the minute we entered the small restaurant; I rarely saw him do that. I still don’t. Mum was her usual sullen self whenever she was with Father. She took her time to come in through the glass door, only to slightly trip as she entered. She managed to say one or two curse words before she regained her balance. I looked at her with a smile on my face, my hand still clutching hers, even when she lost her balance. She smiled back momentarily and asked me to walk in on my own, releasing my hand as she tried shooing me slightly towards my father who had no hesitation to walk in before we could. My father couldn’t care less. He was home. A tall, heavy-boned lady greeted us as we entered the restaurant, and she asked us to sit at one of the tables near the window display. I could remember how excited I was to sit near the mannequins; it was all surreal for me. A while ago, I could only see them from the sidewalk, immobile and so distant–and now, my elbows were literally brushing onto one of the kebaya’s sequined hemlines. We were seated in between the mannequins; and although there were other tables available, my father insisted that we sat there. So we did. It was one of those days when your parents decided they wanted to eat somewhere both homey and distinct, only to let the other one wish they’d stayed back home and just eat fried mee

suah from the hawker centre downstairs. Mum was in no mood to go out, I guess. Throughout the ride, she felt distant, although she was sitting just right next to me at the back seat. Father insisted that he’d sit alone in front when he drove us around. He said we were too distracting–albeit the cars that flew past by ours, almost there but never were. Funny. Father could easily zone out, especially when it came to work, but more so when he was with us. Too focused, I guess. Father ordered quite a few things from the menu. He started with some fried popiah and kueh pie tee, and asked my mum if she wanted some belacan yam. She was unresponsive, and so he moved on to order a serving of balitong and otak while he casually glanced at the unrolled OLED menu card that the lady handed him. Before giving the card back, he managed to finish off the order with some kueh lapis and bengka. It was a feast that only my father could appreciate. Mum was never a fan of Peranakan food, although her mother taught her how to make kueh. Mum was unusually quiet that morning, but being the sixyear-old that I was, I didn’t really care. I had a few toys with me that day to keep me company, and I used all the space I could hoard to place them atop the table while my parents waited for the food to be served. I figured, my yellow car and the blue boat needed a dock, and I imagined the stacked serviettes as a wharf that headed off to the far north, like Nuovo Johor. Every now and then, my mum would shush me for making too much noise but then I would argue that boats and cars made loud noises in real life–although I’ve only read about them making such noises in books my mother would bring back home from the public library. She gave me a half-smile and then returned to her sullen self, sighing heavily. Not that my father noticed, who took

to his holowatch to check on his stocks and happily lost himself in the green and red lines that spread across the blown-up screen. Trading was ending soon on the other side of the world, and he needed to catch up on things. My father was a stock trader. A very good one. On top of that, he made money on almost everything he touched. It was a ‘gift,’ my grandfather used to say, like ‘Midas’ touch.’ As a young boy, my father sold candies to his classmates, and came home counting the one-dollar coins that filled his pockets which clanged as he walked across the void deck to the lift lobby. He was a diligent student who found the time to earn an extra buck from whatever he could sell to classmates, friends and teachers. Given his boyish smile, it was easy for him to pass off day-old bread as croutons to add to hot soup, or one of his old toys as a vintage collector’s item. His family stayed in a two-room flat along the old Dakota Crescent, with him sharing one room with his parents, while the other was occupied by his father’s youngest brother, who had a brood of four. It was a noisy household, but Grandfather had a way of keeping the house in order. Grandmother was always by his side, echoing everything he said. Sometimes I wondered whether it was ever her in that skin, and not grandfather’s clone hiding beneath the wrinkly folds. My father had to work his way through secondary school, taking late-night shifts at a 24-hour hawker centre along Marine Parade. He had no time, let alone money, for tuition, and so he made use of the rest of his afternoons by selling economic rice at the hawker centre till 2 a.m., and then going back home by foot. He did this each day for the next four years. He had to skip a few morning classes here and there though, often being too tired, but more so because he needed to take longer shifts to save enough for him to study in poly. And he never stopped there.

In poly, my father applied as a student assistant in one of the offices. He was accepted, with a stipend and a scholarship to boot. It took him close to four years to finish his diploma, but it was worth it. One after the other, people streamed into the restaurant. It was quite a busy day, weird as it was, for a Peranakan place to be busy on Christmas Eve. When the food arrived, my father almost finished the spring rolls in less than three bites; the otak was no different either. Mother took the last slice of roll and slowly munched on it. I could smell the fragrant garlic bits that ground in between her teeth, now slightly stained by the dark soy that meld with the bean paste. She smiled at me yet again–that same sad smile that she would wear for the next few years–and offered me to try the kueh pie tee. She picked one tiny drum from the saucer and slowly motioned me to take it from between her fingers. My pudgy hands struggled to keep the coriander leaf and peanut bits from falling off the kueh’s brim, and they plunged to their death on the tiled floor below. I remembered it being slightly salty and sweet and juicy all at the same time. I took a bite, and gave it back to my mother. The tiny shrimps in it were fighting back and were proving to be difficult to chew. ‘You need to eat more,’ my mum said. I shook my head violently and instead pointed at the balitong that looked inviting and yet rebelliously awkward to eat. ‘You want some of the balitong, is it?’ she said, holding off a chuckle. She took one small snail that rested at the top of the heap and carefully pulled out the meat from inside the shell using a fork. ‘There,’ she said, holding the meat in front of my beaming eyes. I took one look at it, sniffed the meat, smiled and pushed the fork, the meat and her hand away. She had no energy to argue,

and so she pushed a plate of lapis nearer to me.

‘What is it, Mum?’ I quaintly asked.

She painstakingly peeled off one layer of the lapis, and as if talking to the kueh, said, ‘Each layer its own self, and yet a part of one flavour that creates a memory.’ She handed me the layer, placing it on my palm. I squished it immediately, and laughed heartily at what I did. My mother came from a long line of doctors. Both her parents worked at Tan Tock Seng until they retired. Angkong was a paediatrician who specialised on children with respiratory problems, while grandmother was a gynaecologist whose reputation was longer than Angkong’s patience. They lived a fairly modest life, and encouraged all six of their children to take up medicine to continue the family legacy. All of Mum’s other five siblings became doctors. Both my aunts served as doctors in the infantry at some point, with one flying to the US during the second Civil War as part of Singapore’s military aid to the Clinton administration, and the other, to help in the refugee crisis in Germany. Her three brothers became a veterinarian, a plastic surgeon and an ophthalmologist, respectively. They all chose to live far away from their parents though, except for Mum. ‘Your mum is quite the odd ball,’ Angkong would say under his breath, when we played pretend in the old house along Dunman. ‘She never really liked seeing blood…or your father.’ In university, my mum pursued the letters. Graduating with a degree in literature, she began to teach at a local polytechnic after finishing an internship in Melbourne. Coming back, she brought with her stories about how different it was for Asian girls like her to be in a city like Melbourne, and how open people there were

with her ideas. My grandparents would sit for hours over dinner, listening to my mother talk about Australia, her days in university, how weird it was coming back home, and her students in poly. For the most part, Mum seemed to be a strict teacher in her days, letting no excuse get in the way of exacting the best from her students. Behind the stern countenance though, hid a quiet soul that enjoyed long walks and fishing along East Coast Park. Grandmother could never get her. ‘I told her to be a doctor,’ she would mumble over fish soup at times, ‘and instead she wanted to do this,’ pointing to the pile of unread general papers that were slowly occupying their living room. Angkong would dismiss her, and then ask her to pass the white pepper for his porridge. It was silent at the table. Father was busy biting on his loh bak as he swiped his watch’s screen. He was mumbling stuff about recessions and inflation and how his dividends were looking bleak. Forecasts. Upswings. It was amazing hearing those words. Everything was foreign, yet familiar. I was six; I didn’t bother. Mum took out and unfolded her phone and started browsing aimlessly. She looked at me and asked, ‘Would you like to play your bird game?’ I shook my head and instead put my car and boat on the table again; I left them on the seat when the food came. She caught wind of my plans, smiled, and returned to her phone. She was a petite woman, beautiful still for her age. She and Father got married after a seven-year on-off relationship. They met in poly–my mum as the teacher, and my father as the ‘over-aged’ student. They never really talked much about how they met, or who took whose mobile ID first. I was raised to believe that the meeting was serendipitous, and that the spark came almost instantly between them, or at least that’s what mum’s mother would tell me

whenever she dropped by the house to cook curry fish head for us– only to find out otherwise years later, while I studied in New York. Mum would always have guests in the house. I was four when I first met her, Auntie Mei. I was awaken from an afternoon nap by bursts of boisterous laughter from the kitchen. I decided to investigate, and found myself walking through the corridors that led me to where the noise came from. I peeped stealthily through the kitchen door left ajar as lazily as the afternoon was. There she was, this odd-looking lady sitting by the kitchen’s centre aisle, laughing loudly with my mother, occasionally landing her hand on my mother’s shoulder, tapping it lightly. Her olive-tanned skin bounced back the afternoon sun that seeped through the kitchen windows, casting a light shadow on the counter top, only to succumb to my mother’s own shadows that jiggled as violently as she tried to hold her laughter and herself together. She looked like a cheerful woman–her big eyes told me so. ‘Ma–‘ I cautiously uttered, bravely opening the kitchen door. The two women stopped laughing for a minute, looked at me, and smiled. Mum asked me to walk towards her, but I did not dare move an inch. She got off her seat and picked me up from where I stood. ‘This is Auntie Mei,’ she said. ‘Look, she brought us some chendol–‘ she added, moving a bowl of melting coloured ice from across the counter. Auntie Mei moved closer, took my right hand and shook it a few times. ‘That mall is closing,’ Father said, referring to the old mall that sat on the junction that had had more facelifts than any tai tai could hope for. ‘It’s been there for ages. It’s high time.’ And just as random and matter-of-factly as that, he shut himself back into his holowatch, and continued reading the stocks.

‘Maybe it should,’ Mum responded. ‘Maybe, it’s tired of all this bullshit.’ Father raised his brow from behind the screen, looked at my mum, and motioned to her that I was around. I wasn’t paying attention though. I had my yellow car and my blue boat, but I guess the argument went on for some time. It was all blurry for me. After a few swear words said sternly under their breath, other patrons started to stare at our table. I, for one though, was oblivious of everything and played happily with my toys. When I was nine, we had a small party to celebrate my birthday, and she introduced each of the mums who came with their kids to the old house–Auntie Soo, Auntie Becky, Auntie Lin–except Auntie Mei who came alone, well not alone: she came with lollipop cakes that day. Other days she came with Mum’s groceries, or her stack of papers, or her extra pair of house keys. Although busy playing as always, I took a peek into the kitchen where Mum prepped the cake before they all sang the birthday song. Auntie Mei was inside the kitchen with her, helping her out with the vegetables that needed cutting, the oversized cake Mother proudly made herself, and the lollipops Auntie Mei brought with her. They greeted me both with a smile and shooed me away to play with the rest of the rambunctious bunch of children who had ingeniously made a jungle out of the living room. The mothers laughed among themselves and kept shouting at their own kids, while politely shushing the rest of the younger brood who climbed up the couches and made banging noises with their hands and the floor while the rest of my friends sat in front of the plasma wall shooting at zombies. That day, Mum came out from the kitchen with a huge chocolate fudge cake she’d made the night before the party. Auntie Mei was right behind her with the

lollipop cakes whose sticks stuck on half a cabbage wrapped in tin foil. The ladies laughed among themselves some more, kept shouting at their own kids, while politely shushing the rest of us. Mum and Auntie Mei smiled at each other, and then gave out cake and lollipops to everyone. After my party, I kept seeing more of Auntie Mei in the house. Apparently, she and Mum worked at the same school, with Auntie Mei handling accounting modules and filling in for another lecturer who was on maternity leave. Mum would cook early dinners, and by the time I was 12, Auntie Mei was a regular in the house, helping Mum with the household chores and prepping dinner for me and my father. Father didn’t really mind, since we did have an extra room in the house which my grandparents occasionally used then they visited for the holidays. Another woman in the house did not concern him at all. At least it seemed to me that way. After leaving her teaching post at poly, Mum seemed to need someone to talk to about other things, and my father had no time for that. One after the other, Father’s promotions came, and with that the ‘burden’ to travel overseas more often, and to spend much later nights in the office. If I remembered it correctly, I would only see him during Wednesday and Thursday nights. I was 14. That was when Aunt Mei came by more frequently to the house. At first, it was a few times in a week, which soon became almost every day. I didn’t mind having her around. It didn’t bother me, and neither did it bother Mum. Although Father was out most of the time, we had food on the table and Auntie Mei, who kept us company most of the nights. ‘Tomorrow’s Christmas,’ Mum said, sipping teh-o which they brought in after they’d cleared all the plates. ‘Mei and I need to–’

Father looked at her from behind the screen and motioned her to stop, eyes wide open. Nonetheless, she continued, ‘I just wanted to say–’ but Father cut her off by staring at her even more sternly. She didn’t speak after that. ‘Boy,’ he then motioned me while I aimlessly tried to make my boat fly above the toy car which in turn tumbled a dozen times on the table, ‘tomorrow you stay with Angkong okay? Daddy has to work.’ I looked at him all quizzical, not that it made any difference to him, and said, ‘Okay.’ He called the waiter for a cup of coffee and then nonchalantly pushed the saucer of leftover lapis towards me again and said, ‘Eat.’ It wasn’t a request, and so I obliged.

‘People are talking,’ he muttered from behind the screen.

‘Let them,’ Mum responded firmly, sipping on her teh. ‘Let them talk.’ It was the night before I left for New York when I found a note underneath the bed where Mum and Father used to sleep on when they were still together. The crumpled sheet was snuck under one of the bed corners. Curious, I unfolded it and read what was legible. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you any sooner,’ it started. ‘I wanted to but I didn’t have the cour–’ The lines were smudged off after the first few words. It was crappy inkjet printing, and I couldn’t figure out the rest of the lines. It was typed, and so I didn’t know who wrote it for whom. I made my way through the corridors, and at the narrow hallway that led to the kitchen, I tried asking Mum about the letter–raising my voice as I entered the kitchen, since there was an ongoing construction from

just across the street. Without uttering a word, she took the note from my hand and threw it straight into the rubbish incinerator. ‘Okay–‘ was all that I could say. It felt weird, not hearing her argue about something. The following morning, I left for New York. That was the last that I heard my father raise his voice at Mum. A few years after settling in New York, they told me that they had divorced, through a voiced email Mum sent over the cloud service. In response, I didn’t ask her about it, and instead, tried to ask about the new kueh shops that mushroomed across the street from our old house. And whether Auntie Mei knew which one sold the best lapis. Funny though, after the divorce, I kept seeing more of my father in the house–more than the times when they were together. Mum didn’t mind having him around though. It was Auntie Mei who was visibly uncomfortable about the whole set-up. A few months after the divorce, Auntie Mei moved in. I remember the look on my father’s face when he saw her coming in with her luggage on the same day he was moving out his stuff. I was in the living room that humid morning, watching some Hokkien show that they fed through the dish. My mum was quick to intervene, and had beckoned Auntie Mei to go straight into the master’s bedroom. Father said nothing that day. He smiled at me from the doorway, and closed the door behind him. In the coming years, Mum and Aunt Mei became more open about their relationship, although Father really didn’t acknowledge it even after they started living together. It was in late secondary that I realised what had happened in the old house, and finally understood what the old-timers fought about with Mum behind the doors, whenever Angkong and Grandmother came to visit.

Years later, before Auntie Mei died of breast cancer, she asked my Father to move back into the old house. He never really came home though. ‘I think pink should be the colour of Christmas. What do you think, Thomas?’ my Mum said randomly, after sipping the last of her teh. I put down my toys on my seat and looked at her. ‘Pink is a much better colour than red,’ she continued. I nodded unwittingly, now beginning to eat the layers of kueh again one after another, painstakingly removing the sheets from atop each other. From the corner of my eye, I was trying to see whether Father was watching me wolf down the lapis, as much as he was asking my Mum to keep her mouth shut. Mum was silent the entire ride back to the old house. The cars that flew past us didn’t really matter to her, inasmuch as they did to me. The evening sky was slowly creeping from behind the afternoon sun, and people and the cars we flew past had only thoughts of going home stuck in their heads. After that afternoon jaunt, Father went out with friends and came home much later, and Mum had Auntie Mei waiting by the doorstep; she had already prepared a Christmas dinner for just the three of us. I liked pink too, I guess, but I only figured it out after I left my yellow car and my blue boat in the restaurant along East Coast Road, and met Jonathan one rainy Saturday morning at Argosy along 59th.

People always talk about the best

things they like about the holidays, but one boy discovers that there is

more to the season than just colours, food and toy cars. +++

The Colour of Christmas was a piece I submitted for SG150, a speculative fiction competition that envisioned how Singapore would look like in the next 100 years. It was not selected for the anthology though, and was also the last short story that I wrote before leaving Singapore.