Part VII – The Other Eusoff
Taxi drivers, Atiqah knew, considered her the bane of their existence.
She felt guilty for not taking Eusoff out more often to let him participate in society. Our Tampines Hub, a mega-facility with sporting and community facilities for residents of all ages, had regular wellness and social activities for seniors. But one kilometre was too far for Eusoff to walk, and Atiqah didn't want him to trip and fall getting on and off the public feeder bus.
So, every time they went there, Atiqah would get a taxi or call a Grab, and deal with the driver's chagrin at the short and unprofitable trip. Aizah gave her a stash of cash to tip the drivers to ensure they received fair compensation, but Atiqah still felt a stab of remorse over the justified surliness with which she and Eusoff were often greeted.
If on any occasion the taxi driver was kind to them, Atiqah felt even worse. It was hard to earn money in a world where the cost of living was spiralling up. Taxi and Grab drivers' margins were razor thin. So, anyone who willingly gave up their profits to ferry an elderly man and his daughter was an angel.
During Ramadan, though, one was supposed to do good deeds. Atiqah hoped to be altruistic enough not to expect rewards, but it couldn't hurt that virtuous acts were multiplied in this holy month. That gave her an extra incentive to power through discomfort to do things which were unpleasant for her, but good for her father.
Zumba, cooking classes, brisk walking, and gardening were among the many activities available for seniors at Our Tampines Hub. At 55, Eusoff was younger than most of the senior citizens who attended People's Association (PA) active ageing programmes. But with his unwillingness to use his prosthetic foot to its full potential, he behaved twenty years older than he really was.
Atiqah was used to standing out as the only young person attending the seniors' activities. Or at least, the only one who wasn't a domestic helper. Unlike the helpers, Atiqah participated zealously to encourage her father to enjoy himself. Sadly, her efforts, which often felt uncomfortably performative, were often futile because Eusoff was perfectly satisfied to do nothing.
The volunteers often took pity on Atiqah and gave Eusoff extra attention to coax him to participate. Therefore, when another pair of brown hands came into her field of vision as she harvested worm compost for the Eco-Community Garden, she wasn't entirely surprised.
Surely, this was the month when every Malay person was trying to do good, after all.
"Encik (Mister), come, let me help you," said the owner of the hands, addressing her father even though he was taking the worm compost from her.
"It's OK," said Atiqah instinctively. "I can manage."
In truth, she hated handling worm poop, but she accepted that this was the eco-friendly way to make fertiliser. And community gardening was one of the few activities that wasn't too fast paced for Eusoff to fully participate in.
"I need practice, anyway," the man demurred, taking over the task of harvesting from her. "I just started volunteering here – by the way, my name is Said bin Eusoff."
Malays didn't have surnames. Instead, their last names were their fathers' names. Therefore, sharing the last name of "Eusoff" didn't mean Said and Atiqah were related in any way, only that they both had fathers named Eusoff.
"Are you volunteering for Ramadan?" asked Eusoff.
Atiqah couldn't blame her father for being nosy when Said looked far too young to be a retiree. By her estimation, he was probably in his late thirties, at most about forty. Global warming was making it increasingly uncomfortable to wear long pants in Singapore without air-conditioning, but he was decked out in hipster-style skinny jeans and a loose plaid button-down thrown over a T-shirt. Definitely overdressed for a neighbourhood community centre, though Atiqah was the pot calling the kettle black since, in the interest of modesty, she'd swapped her shorts out for jeans.
"I just sold my company, so I thought it might be nice to help out in the community until I get my next idea," explained Said. "Just in time for Ramadan, not bad, right?"
"What type of company was it?" Atiqah asked. She was intrigued that Said had apparently made enough of a windfall not to work. It was far more common for the Chinese, who had a killer instinct for money, to strike it rich than the Malays, who preferred to take life slowly.
"We grew biomass in Indonesia. Quite a good business lah, every Singaporean wants to travel, right? This is the stuff that keeps planes flying even with the end of fossil fuels."
Travel was only a theoretical notion for Atiqah. Even when she'd lived in Barcelona, she hadn't been at liberty to go elsewhere except for competitions. Aizah added to their growing collection of bric-a-bracs after every official trip, but even she travelled mostly within the region, and only for work.
Yet Atiqah knew that hers wasn't the typical Singapore experience. Even at the neighbourhood primary and secondary schools she'd attended before going to Spain, she'd had classmates whose parents took them overseas twice a year or more. And those whose parents couldn't afford to go on family holidays earned money through part-time jobs to do so after they graduated. Singapore was a small island, and people were naturally curious about the world beyond it.
Sometime in the distant future, perhaps Atiqah's appetite for travel might change. But for now, she simply saw no point in coveting things that weren't available to her. That was a principle which she'd been forced to apply lately to matters other than travel, too.
"When my children have the money, I want to go on the haj," declared Eusoff. Atiqah knew he'd say that, because he'd been wishing for it since she and her siblings were children.
The haj was a pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammed. Every adult Muslim was expected to make this journey once in a lifetime if they were physically and financially able to do so.
"Actually, the haj was the first thing I did when I had enough money to travel," Said acknowledged breezily. "It was my father's dream, too. I was, like, 28, I think? Anyway, it was about a year after I finished uni."
"So, you took your dad on the haj." Atiqah couldn't help smiling at Said.
She wasn't fazed by Said's admission that he had graduated at a later age than most. With two years of mandatory military service, men in Singapore normally got out of uni at 24 or 25. Rather, it impressed Atiqah that Said's first priority had been to fulfil his father's wish, above the many places that must be more interesting to people of their generation. When they set aside enough money to do so, she and Aizah aimed to do the same.
"Yah, that was his first time going out of Singapore. My first time, too." Said grinned. "When I was young, we were poor. My father was a condo security guard his whole life. I never thought I could get a windfall and give my parents everything."
Atiqah wasn't surprised that Eusoff perked up upon hearing that Said had more in common with them than they might imagine. Despite the equality of opportunity across the races in education and employment, the Malays were over-represented in the lower-income groups because they valued religion and community more than paper qualifications and money, unlike their Chinese and Indian counterparts.
Malays who rose above their disadvantaged circumstances and did well were highly estimable, and even more so when they honoured their roots and family ties. Madam Halimah Yacob, the eighth President of Singapore, had been such. Born to an Indian father and a Malay mother, Madam Halimah had grown up in the humblest of households. Her father had died when she was eight. The youngest of five siblings supported by their widowed mother, she had worked at her mother's food stall since the age of 10.
The empowerment given to American children by telling them that they could become the next President rang hollow compared to witnessing a Malay woman who had grown up in a one-room rental HDB flat taking on one of the highest offices in the government. Although the Prime Minister, as the head of government, was responsible for all the major policy decisions, the President served as a ceremonial head of state and had custodial duties of the national budget.
It had been even more inspiring to see that at the time of her appointment to office in an uncontested election, Madam Halimah had still lived in a HDB flat. At the time, Atiqah had been an impressionable 11-year-old in Primary Five. She never forgot the sense of pride that she'd felt, all through her tween and teen years, at seeing her country represented by a woman in a tudung.
Every Malay rags-to-riches story – her former President's, Aizah's, and now Said's – was a comforting reminder to Atiqah that social mobility in Singapore was very much alive. Self-made success was something she liked to root for.
"Which condo?" asked Eusoff.
"Erm, I think it was called Kellynch Hall?" Said scratched his head. "Anyway, it was really far, my dad had to ride his motorbike every day."
"Kellynch Hall? I was security guard there too! Ah, so your father was on the other shift, is it? Now I remember, he was also called Eusoff!"
Atiqah hadn't seen her father crack such a wide smile since his diagnosis. It had never entered her consciousness that he might miss his old life so much.
"Orr!" A look of comprehension dawned on Said's face. "So, Pakcik, you are the other Eusoff! My dad used to talk about you, he said you rode a Vespa!"
"And your father rode a Kawasaki!" Eusoff hadn't been this animated in years, Atiqah realised. She'd been so focused on her father's physical needs that she hadn't thought much about his emotional ones. Surely, it was a gift from Allah to allow her father to reconnect with the family of his old colleague, especially in the month of Ramadan!
"We should visit your father," suggested Eusoff. "You still stay in Tampines?"
"Yah, we stay on the other side, Tampines Street 41. I bought an exec maisonette five years ago," announced Said with visible pride.
Surreptitiously, Atiqah checked the time on her phone. True enough, the hour was almost up – and surely, it had been rude of them to monopolise Said's time.
"Said," she interjected, "do you need to help other people?"
"S -!" Said swore, glancing at his smartwatch. "I should be helping to wrap up in a few minutes. Thanks for reminding me, I totally forgot about the time."
"No problem." Atiqah waved him off with a smile. "Sorry we held you up, please do whatever you need to do."
"Do you all have transport later? I can give you a lift if you need," offered Said.
"Wah, thank you so much! Where should we wait for you?" Eusoff's ready acceptance of an offer of transport from a stranger surprised Atiqah. If he trusted people so readily, what kind of security guard had he been?
But then, Eusoff had worked with Said's father. It was her to whom Said was a stranger, not her father, she realised. She'd still been in school when Eusoff had been working, so naturally, there had been no reason for her to cross paths with her father's colleague's son who was so much older than her.
And besides, Atiqah recalled, she'd once allowed someone to walk her back to her dorm on much less prior acquaintance. All she had known about Fang Wu, at the very beginning of their relationship, was that he had played as a pro at the same club where she had trained, and that he was Chinese. Those were hardly good reasons to trust somebody, yet she had done so instantly.
Surely, with Said's business success and his current occupation as a People's Association (PA) volunteer, there could be no doubt of his being a sensible man. Ten minutes were enough to certify that.
And his black BMW X5 with M Sport coloured trim on its kidney grille was so extravagant that it made her jaw drop. Prices of cars were so beyond her reach that Atiqah didn't keep track of them, but she knew a luxury vehicle could outprice a small HDB flat.
"It's second-hand," rationalised Said with an apologetic attempt at modesty. "I don't really need it now that I'm not in business anymore, but I might as well run out the rest of my COE (Certificate of Entitlement)."
Instead of dropping them off at their void deck, Said parked the car and helped Eusoff all the way to their front door. There had been only one other person who had done that in the recent past. Towards her father, Said's manners were so exactly what they ought to be, so polished, so easy, so agreeable, that she could compare them in excellence to only one other person's manners. They were not the same, but they were, perhaps, equally good.
Said didn't address Atiqah directly until he left them at their gate. "You're the daughter, right?" he asked, just before he took his leave.
"I'm the second daughter. My name is Atiqah." Awkwardly, she wondered if she should extend her hand so he should shake it. Western manners would dictate so, but Muslim conduct didn't require it.
"Pleased to meet you, Atiqah." She realised that Said wasn't looking at her hand, but at her face.
Honestly, with her tudung, her face was all that anyone might look at. Atiqah felt self-conscious that her loose long sleeve T-shirt and jeans were decidedly more casual than Said's hipster outfit, even though it was evident that Said (while completely a gentleman in manner) admired her exceedingly.
"Thanks for taking care of my father." Atiqah didn't know why she found Said's attention just as awkward as it was flattering. At her age, she shouldn't be unaccustomed to men admiring her. It was pathetic – it spoke of how little she went out into the world.
"No problem. Eh, I gave Pakcik my number, so next time you come to the CC (community centre), text me, OK? I can come and drive you." Said waved his phone at her to say goodbye.
"OK." Atiqah knew she ought to feel elated at this solution to her predicament. She could take her father to community activities without having to feel bad about making taxi drivers lose money.
So, why didn't she? A filial, devout, kind, and rich Malay man had just befriended her father. There were so many aspects of Said that were worthy of respect, yet she hesitated at the prospect of becoming too beholden to him. Knowing that her reasons might not fully stand up to scrutiny, she avoided thinking about them too deeply.
"How many cans should we get?" Atiqah was shopping with Aizah at the NTUC (National Trades Union Congress) FairPrice supermarket opposite their block. Xixi's and Xiaoming's engagement photo, backlit with the sunset at Bedok Jetty, had just popped up on their Instagram feeds, which meant they needed to prepare a gift.
"There's four of them, right? So, one can each will look stingy, but maybe we can do two cans each? Or three? There's three of us working, so yah, let's do four times three." The supermarket shelf looked pitifully bare after Aizah divested it of twelve cans of abalone.
Four of them – of course. Atiqah had to get used to the fact that Fang Wu was nearly a part of Xixi and Lele's family now. There could not be a doubt, to her mind there was none, of what would follow before long. When she only had to swipe left on Xixi's engagement Instagram post to reveal a shot of the two couples feasting on chili crab by the sea, the prospect of one engagement engendering another was inevitable.
"Come, come, come!" Xixi ushered Aizah and Atiqah into her flat eagerly when the sisters arrived carrying two reusable bags with six cans each. "Wah, you didn't have to spend so much money, this must have cost a lot!"
"It's just a small gift," replied Aizah modestly. Two hundred and forty dollars wasn't a small amount to Atiqah, but she knew Aizah would consider anything less inappropriately stingy for a once-in-a-lifetime event like this, given the (theoretical) number of working adults in the family. To keep up with her university friends, Aizah imposed upper-middle-class expectations on the expenditures which were visible to others.
"I'm so happy for you!" Atiqah exclaimed, throwing her arms around Xixi in a hug.
"Come and hug me too!" Lele launched herself at Atiqah the moment she let go of Xixi. "I hope there will be another happy occasion soon."
It was a relief, Atiqah decided, that neither of the gentlemen were visiting with Xixi and Lele at the moment. How awkward it would be – beyond awkward – to congratulate them on this long-awaited engagement with the tacit anticipation of another!
Had the men been present, even hugging Xixi and Lele would have drawn up memories of what she might have once wished to do with one of them, even if they had never acted on that impulse.
Was it true, then, that a man and a woman could never be alone, because the third person among them was the devil?
Perhaps it was, because Atiqah could not speak the name of Fang Wu, and look straight forward to anybody's eye. She'd become so selfish that she couldn't even offer anticipatory congratulations to Lele.
"We're going home for Chinese New Year," Lele barrelled on, thankfully not waiting for any response from her. "And this time, we'll be staying for fifteen days. I can't wait, it's so exciting to show Xiaowu my home and my family!"
"And since Xiaoming is getting posted to Chengdu, Lele and Fang Wu can have this flat all to themselves!" squealed Xixi.
"Wah, Xiaoming got promoted? You're so lucky, congrats!" Aizah pounced on Xixi, sparking off another round of enthusiastic hugging and joyful exclamations.
This flat, the one next to Atiqah's, would almost certainly become the matrimonial home of Fang Wu and Zheng Xinle. A few months hence, and it might be filled with all that was glowing and bright in prosperous love, all that was most unlike her!
It could be the last time she would feel comfortable visiting this place, Atiqah realised. For the past four years, her family and the Zheng sisters had gone back and forth between their flats, exchanging food gifts and simply hanging out to chat. She and Aizah had been trusted confidantes in every aspect of the sisters' love lives.
But once Fang Wu and Lele were married, this chapter would have to close. Leaving their neighbourly relationship open, at least on her end, would be tantamount to inviting back the devil which never ceased to haunt her every moment in that gentleman's presence.
This was goodbye, then, to the flat which would continue to exist, but which would never be the same again to her. It stood the record of many sensations of pain, once severe, but now softened; and of some instances of relenting feeling, some breathings of friendship and reconciliation, which could never be looked for again, and which could never cease to be dear.
Aizah's, Lele's, and Xixi's voices continued in happy animation, completely oblivious to Atiqah's quietness.
"Next time, please take a picture with Le Le for us, OK? I mean, Le Le the panda, not you!" Naturally Aizah, who so loved travelling, was beyond thrilled about Xiaoming's future posting to Chengdu.
"Why not me? I'm not cuter than a panda?" Lele pretended to sulk in mock disappointment, but the perky lilt in her voice betrayed what she really knew. Of course, Lele was cute, and Atiqah was sure no man in the world existed who'd deny that.
"You got someone else to take pictures of you already," Aizah teased, chuckling. "Don't be so greedy, can or not?"
"I can't help it if everyone loves me," declared Lele. "And after both of us are married, we will find some nice Muslim guys for you! I mean, both of you. Atiqah, where are you?"
"I'm here." Popping up from where she had hunched in a corner of the sectional while Aizah and the Zheng sisters were gathered around the dining table, Atiqah waved feebly to indicate that she wasn't ignoring them.
"I was saying – Atiqah, are you OK?" Self-centred as Lele could be, she still had a kind heart. That was why the Zheng sisters were such good friends with Atiqah and Aizah. But much as she would have appreciated Lele's friendly concern at other times, Atiqah wished that Lele could have remained oblivious to this.
"Yah, yah, I'm fine." Atiqah forced a smile. "Did you say you're going to the city of pandas? How cute!"
"Yes! Chengdu is the home of the pandas." Plopping herself next to Atiqah on the sofa, Xixi scrolled through her phone to pull up a panda video. "It's so sweet that they only mate with the one they love, just like me!
"We used to think they would go extinct, because it was so hard to breed them! People tried all kinds of ways to get pandas to have babies: they created 'panda porn' for the boy pandas, they did artificial insemination… Xiaoming told me the Le Le panda baby from Singapore was born that way.
"But then, when they let the pandas move around on their own, they found out pandas don't really have such a low sex drive after all. They were so much better at having babies when they could find another panda they liked, instead of people choosing for them! And now, they're not endangered anymore!"
Oh no, thought Atiqah, I'm a panda. And with an unavailable panda mate, the idea of such monogamy didn't warrant the cutesy heart-hands Xixi was making over the subject.
It was utterly depressing that even a topic as innocuous as pandas could remind her of the hopelessness of her situation. Holding the phone that Xixi had handed her, she pretended to be engrossed in panda photos until Aizah tapped her on the shoulder and told her it was time to leave.
"I truly congratulate you," Atiqah said to Xixi as they parted at the door. With some effort, she added, "Both of you."
Lele deserved graciousness, for her well-earned and impending domestic bliss. Atiqah knew how long Lele had been waiting for a man who would commit, the way Xiaoming had to Xixi, and that Fang Wu would be the husband she deserved. For Atiqah had no doubt that Fang Wu would be a good husband for anyone.
"Thank you." Xixi's eyes were shining. "I can't wait to invite you to the wedding dinner, we can do a no pork no lard table for you."
"We're looking forward to it!" Aizah's effusiveness was enough for the two of them, Atiqah noted with some relief.
They left the flat then, and she left it all behind her, all but the recollection that such things had been. If Atiqah mourned at all for the briefness of her reconnection with Fang Wu – briefer even than their initial acquaintance in Barcelona had been – she could never show it. At her flat where she even shared a bedroom with her sister, there was no space for the tears that pricked threateningly at her eyes.
Her past with Fang Wu was a haram secret which Atiqah had never shared with her family because one's sins were private. Perhaps it was a blessing from Allah, she decided, that things could be left to end like this. With Fang Wu married to her neighbour, everything would be safe enough. She would no longer bemoan the many anxious feelings she had wasted on the subject when forced to lock away the past and keep her eyes on the future.
Hadn't she wished, just weeks ago, that she didn't have to see Fang Wu falling in love with and marrying a Chinese woman? And yet, here she was grieving the loss of the scraps of friendship and kindness that Fang Wu had tossed to her. All this contradictory thinking made hardly any sense to her. Why couldn't she just be logical and either accept him as an indifferent neighbour, or forget about him completely?
If trying to move on (though she would never forget) was the only way Atiqah could expunge her sin for good, she decided she ought to be thankful for it.
Before Atiqah could plan for another outing to Our Tampines Hub with her father, Said texted Eusoff with an invitation to his flat to visit his parents.
"Ayah can't wait to see you," he said eagerly to Eusoff while helping him into the front passenger seat of his BMW. "He misses working, too."
Everybody missed working – Atiqah certainly did, especially when her work had also been a sport she loved. But to admit it would sound too much like a resentment of her filial duty.
Said's block was on the other side of the town centre from theirs, close to Gongshang Primary which was the most over-subscribed school in Tampines. It was certain that his flat was worth more than S$1 million. Atiqah's family home was not too shabby either – if they sold their flat, they would get S$800K at least – but cash-poor as they were, they'd never sell because it would be impossible to afford another place with the same combination of space and accessibility.
Nonetheless, the real indicator of Said's disposable income was not the size and location of his flat, but the industrial-chic décor that could not have been achieved without the heavy hand of an architect and an interior designer.
Executive maisonettes, which were designed to give the illusion of living in a house instead of an apartment, measured 1,700 square feet and had two storeys with a balcony on the lower floor. With its bold black panel walls and fittings, every square foot of Said's flat screamed "bachelor pad". Even the original stairs had been hacked away and replaced with a black metal spiral staircase.
Despite the relentlessly modern interior, Said's parents, Eusoff and Fatimah, seemed highly traditional. They'd dressed in baju kurung (Malay traditional attire) even though this was a casual home gathering. So had Eusoff and Atiqah, lending a strange air of formality to this meeting which was ostensibly a reunion between two former colleagues.
"Brother!" The two Eusoffs heartily exchanged pats on the back. Atiqah was heartened to see her father rekindle an old friendship. She knew he'd been isolated and lonely, especially after he lost his foot.
There were lots of things the two Eusoffs had to catch up on. They reminisced about their old motorcycles, discussed the changes in their neighbourhoods, and boasted about the achievements of their children.
"You know, my son was in the newspapers," Said's father said, pointing to a framed Straits Times article on the wall. "From zero to hero! You think N(T) (Normal (Technical) Stream) hopeless already, right? Who thought he can go university?"
Compared to the awkward and scruffy young man pictured in the newspaper cutting, Said had visibly aged. His underbite had gotten more prominent, and he had gained weight. Nonetheless, with maturity and success he had gained a sense of sophistication, too. Or was it simply that he now had the money to buy more fashionable clothes?
Either way, Said wasn't innately handsome, but he looked much better now than before, thanks to the hipster vibe that he'd cultivated.
From her seat, Atiqah couldn't read the fine print of the article, only the headline. But that was enough to see that he'd made the news for getting his Bachelor's degree at age 27 after working his way up from the Normal (Technical) stream.
"Ayah, why must you always boast about this?" protested Said. "What's there to be proud of about being in Normal Tech?"
The Normal (Technical) Stream, also known as "Normal Tech" or "N(T)", used to be the secondary school stream for the lowest academic achievers. Even Azlan, who never studied, had ended up one step higher in the Normal (Academic) Stream.
Working all the way up from the bottom was a trait which Atiqah deemed worthy of respect. Normal Tech students, who were channelled into the Institute of Technical Education (ITE) for vocational training after secondary school, had to prove themselves through multiple academic promotions to enter university. Said's road to success couldn't have been easy, even though Atiqah was shocked that his primary school results had apparently been worse than Azlan's.
"I think you should be proud of what you've achieved," said Atiqah, surprising herself with her willingness to speak up for Said. "It means everything you have is from your own effort, because nothing was handed to you."
"It just means I was a pai kia (Hokkien for gangster) when I was young," remarked Said, brusquely waving Atiqah's comment away.
"My daughter was in the papers too," Atiqah's father chimed in, eager to show that his family was by no means inferior. "She got a football scholarship to Barcelona when she was 14 years old only!"
"Ah, that's why you look so familiar!" A glint of recognition came into Said's father's eyes. "Which team were you?"
"Tampines Rovers, 2026 to 2031," Atiqah rattled off almost mechanically.
"So, you went to Barcelona in 2022?" Said's mother, Fatimah, counted off the years on her fingers with creased eyebrows.
"2021, actually," Atiqah corrected. "It was the year I was in Sec 3."
"2021 was also Said's graduation year," Fatimah pointed out. "Encik, our kids made the newspapers in the same year!"
Fatimah made it sound like some crazy kind of kismet, but when she did the arithmetic, Atiqah found it meant that Said was 40. That was the uppermost part of the age range she'd pegged him in.
Perhaps the age gap was enough to explain Atiqah's lack of reciprocity to Said's attraction. Was that reasonable, or was it wrong to practise age discrimination? Every positive thing she learned about Said added to the pressure Atiqah felt to desire something more than friendship from him, and when she didn't, she couldn't stop second-guessing herself.
"So, are you married?" her father asked Said. Atiqah could only presume that he'd been doing the maths too and found Said's apparent singlehood at this advanced age hard to believe.
"Not yet," replied Said. "I spent most of the last 10 years almost living in Indonesia. To make a successful business, you need to eat, sleep and breathe it, where got time?"
"Now you better hurry up, ah," urged Said's father. "40 years old already, still wait for what?"
"Ayah, don't worry lah." Rightfully, Said seemed just as eager to shut down this tangent of conversation as Atiqah felt. "Marriage is serious, cannot rush one."
Every opinion Said uttered was either technically or politically correct. Even with his parents pushing him towards insta-love, Said was still giving Atiqah space, despite being attracted to her. The force of unspoken expectations, Atiqah realised, could be more crushing than if those obligations had been stated out loud.
"That's enough about me," continued Said, deflecting the conversation. "Pakcik, how will you be celebrating Hari Raya?"
It couldn't be denied that Said was very socially adept. He saved the afternoon from spiralling into a nagging session about marriage by turning the conversation toward his business and the renovations in his flat. Everything he said painted Said in the best light: he had interesting and extensive knowledge about Indonesia, he was a canny entrepreneur, and his aesthetic tastes were perfectly on-trend for an affluent Millennial.
Atiqah never doubted that Said was a great guy. When he talked about how he'd cobbled together money from various odd jobs in his last year of uni to fund his parents' haj, she had to call him a good Muslim, too. But still, in many ways that mattered, he was everything she wasn't.
They left Said's flat at 5 PM, late enough to give Atiqah stress about getting dinner ready in time and being late to pick up the boys from preschool. Deftly, Said put those concerns to rest by making stops at Tampines Central for them to pick up dinner, and at the boys' preschool to take them home. He didn't even complain about the boys leaving greasy handprints on his shiny leather seats.
Much as Atiqah was obliged to feel grateful to Said, she couldn't help worrying that a policeman might pull them over for ferrying two preschoolers without child seats. Within a five-minute car ride, Aziz managed to defeat the purpose of being belted in by wriggling free of the adult shoulder belt. Meanwhile, the only way Atiqah could keep two-year-old Yusuf safe was to hold him on her lap, but that wasn't legal.
Said carried Yusuf up to their flat while Atiqah held Aziz by one hand and her father by the other. With some dread, she expected him to try to catch her eye again when he said goodbye, yet she didn't know what to think when he didn't.
He left them with an invitation to break their fast on Hari Raya at his flat with his family, all seven of them. It was incredibly generous – it led Atiqah to consider that maybe he might not be interested in her after all, but simply in reconnecting their families. Perhaps she had fallen into the trap of over-thinking.
Grow up, Atiqah told herself. There was no denying that Said's friendship would be good for her father. Having such egotistical thoughts as to believe Said was attracted to her because of just one look was an unnecessary over-complication of the situation.
She'd made the mistake once of assuming that a man and a woman couldn't develop an attraction beyond the boundaries of race, language, and religion. Now, she wouldn't fall into the reverse trap of assuming that because those barriers didn't exist, romance must follow.
Atiqah might have lost all hope in one relationship, but it didn't have to mean that she had to jump into love with the next man who came along. Said could be her friend. She could do this. He might speak of things that were beyond her world, but he was still easy to talk to.
And now that Atiqah would be losing the company of Xixi and Lele in a few months, perhaps having a new friend might be as good for her as it was for her father.
"It's over," sobbed Lele. Resting her crossed arms on the coffee table, she buried her face in them and dissolved into tears.
Lele had nearly beaten down their front door while Atiqah was tidying up the bedroom. At first, Atiqah had wondered if anyone next door might be sick or injured, but now she realised why Lele had come here, instead of going home.
Xixi and Xiaoming must be in the thick of wedding planning, especially since it was Saturday. If Lele and Fang Wu had just broken up, a blissfully engaged couple would be the last thing Lele would wish to see, and she wouldn't want to taint their joy by inflicting her grief on them.
"Who broke it off, you or him?" asked Eusoff. "If it's him, I can scold him for you."
"I did," replied Lele, her muffled voice breaking up between sobs. "I broke off with him."
"Why?" Atiqah was perplexed. She knew Lele was eager to be in a relationship, and she hoped that Fang Wu would know his own mind early enough not to be endangering the happiness of anyone or impeaching his own honour. Unlike Atiqah's own situation eight years ago, there were no obstacles to a blissful marriage between Lele and him.
Putting an arm around Lele's trembling shoulders, Atiqah grabbed a tissue and handed it to Lele under the table.
"Thanks." Lele took the tissue, but didn't raise her head for a very long while, though Atiqah could feel the shaking of her shoulders slowly subsiding.
In a tiny voice, Lele said, "It… it's hopeless. He's never been warm to me."
The truth of that statement hit Atiqah like a sledgehammer.
She had, several times, reflected that the dynamic between Fang Wu and Lele did not yet look like love. He was friendly and jovial, and bantered with Lele in Mandarin as if it was their own secret language.
But Atiqah hadn't seen Fang Wu discussing anything truly personal with Lele. Of course, she assumed that such conversations would probably take place behind closed doors, out of her earshot, so she couldn't be sure that what she didn't see wasn't happening.
To know that such interactions had never happened left her divided between sympathy for Lele and, if her conscience allowed it, something very much like relief for herself.
Atiqah scarcely dared to keep the conversation going, unsure if she was helping Lele to achieve closure, or if she was seeking it for her own sake.
"Why do you believe that?" she finally asked, after a long period of hesitation.
Dabbing at her eyes with the tissue that Atiqah had given her, Lele raised her head, then her shoulders, straightening up and lifting her chin.
"I asked him to come with me to visit my parents for the New Year," she said, a measured air of injured dignity creeping into her voice. "But he refused."
"Going to meet parents for Chinese New Year is for when you want to marry already," lectured Eusoff. "You so impatient for what? Marriage cannot be rushed - our Azlan dated Farah for two years before they got married! Why don't you wait one more year and see?"
"It's not even about marriage." Lele sighed. "I taught him the phrase 'ai stead mai' to get him to say it to me. But he won't even say that. He doesn't love me, when I loved him so much!"
"You must have," Atiqah affirmed, though she felt blindsided by Lele's statement. Had she been deceiving herself with her conviction that Lele hadn't behaved any differently with Fang Wu than with all the other men who had dated her?
Or did Lele believe it was love simply because Fang Wu had stuck around the longest?
"I mean, I know a lot of girls would find him easy to love," Lele continued. "He's smart, he's handsome, and he was a football celebrity back home.
"But… I thought… I was better than that, I had a chance to see the person he is inside. In Chinese, we say 正人君子 zheng ren jun zi, you know, a true gentleman?
"That's what he is. It's what makes him so special. Remember the time he carried your nephew back after the hot pot and made your brother help with the other one? He wouldn't let the ladies carry the kids when the men are there to do it!"
That incident had stayed with Atiqah, too. She, Aizah, and Farah were inured to the reality of having to wrangle the boys, while also helping their father, whenever the family ventured out of their flat. With a ratio of four adults to two rambunctious children and an amputee elder, nobody was spared from pitching in.
If Azlan was with them, he did his duty by handling one of his children. Atiqah gave her brother the credit for that. Still, it was far from enough to spare the women from physical labour.
Azlan's kids weren't Fang Wu's responsibility at all, not by a long way. Yet, he was the only person who not only stood by the belief that it was unfair to make the fasting women carry the boys but also acted on it.
He'd even taken the bigger child, the one who was injured, because he'd seen Azlan bump Aziz's shoulder by accident before. Ending the evening with a four-year-old's meltdown would have ruined the mood for everyone.
That was why Atiqah had such difficulty putting Fang Wu out of her mind. And she'd given Lele far too little credit for her ability to appreciate Fang Wu's full worth.
"Lele, do you believe in fate?" Atiqah asked. She wouldn't speculate on why Fang Wu couldn't commit to Lele, but she could draw some cold comfort from one thing: she and Lele were now in the same boat. There would be no need for her to stifle any jealousy for her neighbour.
"I don't want to," replied Lele staunchly. "Do you know why the Ne Zha film broke so many records? It's because he says, '我命由我不由天 wo ming you wo bu you tian'. My fate is up to me, not to God. Everyone wants to believe that. I want to, and I did. But maybe you're right; some things are just not up to me."
"Lele," Atiqah pulled her friend into a tight hug, burying her face in Lele's shoulder. "I think all of us need to accept that there will be things not meant for us. It isn't anybody's fault."
"I know." Lele hugged back, and Atiqah could feel Lele's tears soaking through her T-shirt. "Now I do."
Atiqah wished that she could let her own tears fall. But just as it had been Lele's prerogative to love Fang Wu when Atiqah couldn't, Lele now had the right to openly display her heartbreak, which Atiqah never had.
Said didn't wait for Hari Raya to hang out again. Immediately after the two Eusoffs met, they set up a WhatsApp group chat for both families. The first post on that chat came from Said, requesting permission to come by that Sunday to meet all the siblings, which was willingly granted.
Eusoff had described the visit to Said's flat so vividly that Aizah and Azlan were full of curiosity about their wealthy new friend. While Aizah was intrigued by the possibility of conversation with someone as educated as she was, Azlan cared more about the down-to-earth matter of raiding Said's video library.
Azlan: "do u hv netflix?"
Said: "sure do. netflix, hulu, everything"
Azlan: "can bring laptop anot?"
Said: "np"
Said was an immediate hit with Atiqah's siblings, but most of that was due to cupboard love.
Streaming wasn't in the family budget since they were already paying for local cable TV on Starhub. When Atiqah started buying the Sports package to watch Chinese Super League, Aizah gave up HBO so their total cable bill wouldn't increase. It mattered little to Aizah, who got her HBO fix from hotels during work trips, but Azlan complained constantly about not having access to American programmes that 'everybody' was talking about.
Hulu, which wasn't locally available in Singapore, was too unattainable for them to even dream of. When they were already pinching pennies on cable, getting a VPN was far down the list of non-essentials.
"Have you watched Ramy?" Said asked the sisters, while Azlan browsed the video library on his laptop.
"No," said Atiqah, "but I've always been OK without streaming. I only need Channel News Asia and football to make me happy."
"I'd like to," said Aizah, "and since you have Hulu, why not?"
Watching an American drama whose opening sequence showed people standing in line at a mosque was a transformative experience. Local TV aired Malay programming on the free Suria channel, but this was the first time Atiqah saw a Western TV show depicting Muslim life in such detail.
It was refreshing to see Muslims portrayed as everyday people on Western media, instead of being stereotyped as terrorists. Yet, this story was nothing like her lived reality.
"I think Ramy is a horrible person," Atiqah blurted out at the end of Episode 1.
Almost immediately, she regretted saying it, in case she hurt Said's feelings. She needn't have worried, because Said agreed enthusiastically.
"I think so too," he said. "Will you tell me why?"
"Because he got the seriousness of the sins wrong!" Atiqah threw up her hands in exasperation. "How can he call himself a practicing Muslim when he thinks nothing of committing the second worst sin and sweats all the small ones?
"Just because he commits it with non-Muslims doesn't mean HE isn't committing it! What a hypocrite!"
At the end of Atiqah's diatribe, Said gave her a hearty round of applause.
"I agree with everything you said. Yes, he's a hypocrite. But do such hypocrites exist? I think you know the answer as well as I do."
They were talking about zina (fornication), but of course, none of them would speak the word out loud. It was the second worst Islamic crime next to murder.
Participating in American hookup culture, for Muslims, was a crime that was technically punishable by 100 strokes of the cane. In Singapore, just like in the West, the punishment might not be meted out, but Atiqah didn't think it possible to justify hooking up without a crazy amount of moral whiplash.
"I think Atiqah has a point," said Aizah. "When Crazy Rich Asians came out, everyone was up in arms about what it meant for Chinese representation. If this is supposed to be Muslim representation, I agree it isn't our story."
Atiqah knew Aizah would be just as proud and happy as she was that this wasn't their story. Watching Ramy left her with a deep sense of just how privileged she was.
Malays were indigenous to Singapore, and Islam was respected and supported, but not militantly enforced. Atiqah and her family were able to practice her religion freely with neither draconian punishment for their sins, nor discrimination from non-Muslims despite being an ethnic minority.
This supportive environment was why Atiqah could spend the four most impressionable years of her life in Spain, and yet not be tempted into the permissiveness of the local culture. She had come home with her faith intact. That ought to be a justifiable reason for pride, she felt.
"No, it's not," agreed Said. "But this is American TV. People like to watch trainwrecks."
"This is definitely a trainwreck," said Atiqah, "but we're still paying money to watch it."
"That's because nothing is seen until it's seen by the US," observed Said. "Why did you think I bought my VPN?"
"But you agree," said Atiqah with a smile, "that a good Muslim is one who truly believes in the principle of what they are practicing and makes their best effort to avoid sin?"
"That isn't a good Muslim," replied Said. "That's the best. A good Muslim just needs to fast, pray, and repent his sins."
"I'm a good Muslim," Azlan chimed in. "I married the first girl who made me want to jerk off, so I never sinned."
"You?" Aizah playfully swung a cushion at her brother. "Come on lah, how can you call yourself a good Muslim when you can't even support your own kids?"
"I can," protested Azlan. "Who pays for all the toys?"
"And who pays for all the food?" retorted Aizah.
"You do," admitted Azlan. "But the amount Farah and I pay every month is just as much as you."
That was true, too. Raising kids in middle-class Singapore was highly competitive and came with staggering costs. As the person who did the accounts in the family, Atiqah knew that Azlan and Farah's monthly expenditure exceeded the total of everyone else's.
If they hadn't had children, Azlan and Farah might have been able to squeak by. But when private tuition bills would replace preschool fees after the boys started primary school, it would be a long time before they'd be able to contribute anything meaningful to the household at large.
"Brother, you're not bad already," Said reassured Azlan. "I couldn't support my parents until I was 30."
Men valued their support to the family in terms of the money they raked in, but what about the work Atiqah did to keep the house running? What was the value of that, when with no formal earnings (only a spending allowance from Aizah), its worth on paper was nothing?
As if he had read Atiqah's thoughts, Said jumped in to defend her case.
"Actually, I think giving money is taking the easy way out," he said. "We need to give more credit to the women who do the heavy lifting." He raised his can of Coke Zero to Atiqah in a mock toast.
For too long, Atiqah had been accustomed to her contributions being overlooked because of their lack of monetary value. The men patted themselves on the back whenever they raked in a dollar (look at Azlan!) but the hard physical labour she did every day was taken for granted, even by her family who loved her.
Though Atiqah couldn't fully agree with Said's sense of patriarchy and could not believe in their having the same sort of piety, she was pleased with him for acknowledging her sacrifices for her family. Her conscience also admitted that while Said spent too much money chasing American culture, it was more than excusable in the light of the worldliness he needed to make it in business. At least, he saw the disconnect of compromising one's faith to fit into Western Millennial culture as clearly as she did.
"Hey, women can be the breadwinners, too!" protested Aizah, giving Said a playful whack with the sofa cushion she'd been hugging. "Look at me!"
In retrospect, Atiqah would eventually see that this was the closest her sister had come to physically touching any man in her presence. But in that moment, she was too caught up in Said's praise to realise it.
By the time the two families met to break their fast on Hari Raya Puasa, Said was nearly a fixture in Eusoff's and Atiqah's lives.
Not only had they seen him at a few more community activities, but he also dropped by regularly at their flat to watch TV. Because of his familiarity with Western pop culture, he was considered a firm friend of all the family members from her generation, including Farah.
Said was incredibly skilful at pleasing everybody. Azlan forgave Said for knowing nothing about video games because he generously streamed the Western TV shows they didn't normally get to watch. Eusoff overlooked the permissiveness portrayed in those shows because, as an international businessman, Said had the right to be worldlier than them. And Said only needed to buy McDonald's Happy Meals for the boys to turn Farah into putty.
Aizah continued to flirt subtly at Said, but Atiqah supposed that Said didn't notice because she was hardly at home. In any case, Said was just as friendly to Aizah as he was to the rest of the family, but not more, and he didn't flirt back.
For Hari Raya, Said and his parents had prepared a real spread. Or rather, most of the work had been done by Said's mother Fatimah, which the men gave her due credit for.
There were several variations of curry: beef rendang and the vegetable curry sayur lodeh were staunch favourites. They had ketupat, which was rice cubes wrapped in woven coconut leaves, and stir-fried prawns in sambal sauce too.
Everything was laid out on the floor, where they ate sitting cross-legged. With the furniture moved aside to create a large eating space, Said's spacious living room looked positively cavernous. The traditional patterned woven rug they spread out on the floor to sit on clashed with the bare stone industrial-chic flooring but gave it a splash of warmth.
Said's pointed efforts to draw Atiqah out in conversation were painfully obvious. She wondered why he wished to single her out, when surely her sister would have more intelligent things to say. Being a university graduate, Aizah was so much more matched to Said in education than Atiqah felt herself to be.
"Did you watch Aksi Mat Yoyo when you a kid?" he asked. When the show hadn't been called that since the 1990s, the question immediately underscored his age.
Atiqah didn't remember which children's programmes she'd watched. All her childhood memories were about football.
"Oh, you mean Mat Yoyo!" Aizah answered instead. "Yoyo and Yaya were so cute! Yah, I watched it in Malay and English."
"Tell me more about Europe." Lots of people had asked Atiqah that when she first returned, but by now that was old news. "How many countries did you visit when you were there?"
"Most of the time, I didn't leave Spain," said Atiqah. "I was a student, so I only travelled to compete."
"Did you know Europe is my favourite? I go there at least once a year. Scenery, culture, history, all that cannot be beat!"
That had to be expensive again, another indication of the wide gulf between their habits and expectations.
"Oh, you did? I went Switzerland once," said Aizah excitedly. "Geneva, for WTO (World Trade Organization) meetings. I had such bad jet lag, six o' clock I wanted to sleep already!"
"Switzerland was interesting," agreed Said, "but it's so disciplined, I feel like I'm still in Singapore. Guess it means we got the Swiss standard of living! I prefer France or Italy, to rent a car and drive in the countryside."
His lived experience of Europe was miles away from hers. Despite having lived for more than four years in Spain, Atiqah had never ventured outside the cities and had never seen snow.
"I really like the art," said Atiqah, marvelling at her ability to speak of anything relating to that fateful summer with a considerable portion of apparent indifference and calmness. "Barcelona is so open and expressive… the opposite of Singapore, where everything is about efficiency."
"You're so extraordinary," observed Said. "When you went there, you were so young. But you still knew how to appreciate the culture, without being overly influenced by it."
To be so highly rated by a sensible man and held up thus as a model of female excellence, was a charm which Atiqah could not immediately resist. Said had hit upon the one thing she was immensely proud of and given her due appreciation for it.
"You know," whispered Aizah, "he's right. I think Said likes you."
"No, lah!" denied Atiqah in a fierce whisper, though she felt her cheeks burning with embarrassment.
She hoped Said hadn't overheard their exchange. No, he was engaged in a conversation with Azlan about Netflix's Adolescence. That was another thing she couldn't reconcile – how Said openly admired her virtue while gravitating towards all the "trending" Western TV shows that displayed highly toxic behaviour.
Could it be true that Said was interested in her? But if so, why didn't she feel any warmth in the way he spoke to her? Was it that her feelings were still adverse to any man save one, or was it merely an availability bias? Because Atiqah was the sibling who always accompanied their father, Said saw her the most. It couldn't be anything else, when they'd barely known each other for a month.
Or perhaps, the answer was simply that she was a panda.