The Moonlight Palace by Rosenberg Liz

Author:Rosenberg, Liz [Rosenberg, Liz]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Published: 2014-09-30T16:00:00+00:00

ELEVEN

The Sheik

Like any teenager, I had trusted my victory to be a stay against disaster. Grandfather rallied at my morsel of exciting news, it is true, but a few days later, he insisted on being taken out for a long, damp stroll and developed a fever worse than the one he’d had right after Christmas. Thereafter, he would rise and fall on the ocean of failing health, only to sink a little lower each time, just out of our grasp.

Our household became very quiet. I had never really felt the vastness of the silver palace around us till I felt its emptiness. Dawid had gone home for the month of heavy rains. The uncles and aunties and elderly cousins of course came around, but not in the usual chattering groups, jostling and shoving to be first through the door, bearing the fragrance of cardamom and cooking oil, carrying along their latest arguments, complaints, and bits of gossip. Uncle Chachi’s “business associates”—all of them retired now—had always visited on a nearly daily basis, for Uncle Chachi was a compulsively social human being, happiest in the company of others. Now, the visits of his old cronies slowed to a trickle. Relatives and friends still came, but one at a time, quietly removing their shoes at the door. Each came bearing something—a tin of cookies, a pot of chicken rice.

I was too young to remember, or I would have recognized it for what it was, a Singaporean deathwatch. We Singaporeans are a noisy bunch; we reserve our silence for important occasions. In the face of grave danger, in battle, in courtship, or in the presence of illness or death, we preserve a deep silence. It is certain that Geoffrey Brown was the most talkative boyfriend I had ever had, and his chatter sometimes made me doubt his sincerity. A Singapore boy would have been much quieter in his devotion.

Geoffrey, of course, could not understand the silence that descended over our palace. He tried time and again to show his care for British Grandfather with friendly visits, and time and again he was rebuffed. I could do nothing to alleviate his anxiety; Grandfather was ill, and Nei-Nei Down was in charge. When I tried to talk about it with Uncle Chachi, he refused to discuss it. When I complained to Sanang, she snapped at me, “You are a very stupid girl.”

Only little Danai was sympathetic. Watching Geoffrey trudge from the house, his step heavy, his head lowered, she said to me in a quiet voice, “Such a pretty man. It seems a shame to send him away.”

I squeezed her hand in gratitude, and that afternoon in Little India I bought her a bag of the sugared jellies she liked so much and a postcard of the screen actor Rudolph Valentino in The Sheik.

Geoffrey and I continued to meet, but secretly, away from the palace. Now that I was working at Kahani’s and also at the Singapore Gate, while still attending school, my free time was limited, and I spent as much time as possible near Grandfather.

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