More Saturdays passed by as nobody was counting.
More months breezed by like the monsoons.
That is how time moves in Georgetown when you are no longer waiting for the ferry. In Butterworth, time is ferry time — 7:30, 8:00, 12:45, always leaving. In Hotel Malaya Bar, time is inventory time — 7 AM and 11 PM — and between, it is their time.
The Hotel Malaya Bar learned how to hold them.
Chengal bar that was supposed to be teak in 1936, that Whitby thought was teak, that survived Japanese bombs in December 1941, the Emergency, Chew's forty-one years of counting limes, learned a new shape. It learned where Lina's hip finds Arjun's when she slips into the counter where only one person is supposed to fit. It learned where Arjun's hand finds the small of Lina's back when he thinks no one is looking, hidden by the counter where no clipboard could count it — the same place he touched morning after morning during inventory.
Wood remembers. If you put your hand flat at 6 AM, cool; at 2 PM, warm like skin; at 11 PM, hot like fever. Now, at 11:30 PM on Saturdays, wood was hot in two places, where two people stood hip to hip pretending to look for the bottle opener.
The Saturday singer learned Lina's name and saved her the front stool when she wasn't on shift. She was not young, not old; a woman who had sung in three countries, emerald-red cheongsam slit to the knee, sequins catching the fan light that clicked every seventh turn. She sang Casablanca every Saturday because Chew paid an extra beer for Casablanca, because that song makes people drink more, and also because she liked Lina — a girl who listened with her eyes, not just her ears.
She would say, "Lina, you sit in front, you save my high note from falling." Lina would sit, cleanest blouse light yellow with small flowers, pearl hairpin Mrs. Tan left, crescent-moon scar showing, sleeves pushed up so people could see she was working even when not working, and the singer would sing, "I fell in love with you watching Casablanca..." and Lina would look at Arjun behind the counter, not at the singer, and Arjun would pour, measure, never waste, the army way Chew taught, but with his own thing added.
Ah Mei and Sheila learned not to squeeze past the counter when Arun was pouring, because Lina would be there, hip to hip, pretending to look for the bottle opener that was always on his side on purpose since Casablanca night. Ah Mei, who once spilled Anchor on a towkay's shoes and got shouted at, said to Sheila, "Don't go behind the bar when Arun is pouring. Lina is the bottle opener now." Sheila laughed, because Penang girls laugh when they know.
Rosie, in her tight black skirt Saturday uniform, who gave a fake phone number that was actually Ah Hock's sundry shop, learned to shout orders louder when Lina and Arun were behind the counter together, because orders are cover for not looking.
The 1977 calendar finally fell off the wall in August 1978. Miss Malaysia 1972 in a swimsuit faded pink, smile that had seen too many inventories, fell at 3 PM during nap time, when the fan wobbled and made the wall shake. Chew picked it up, looked at the pretty girl, said, "Time to go," and didn't replace it. Time inside the bar was no longer seven minutes slow. The clock still lost seven minutes every day — Chew never fixed it — but time inside the bar was their time.
Mr. Chew knows very well the flint between Lina and Arun.
Flint is the word Chew uses, not love, because flint makes fire and fire also cooks, like Lina's grandmother said when Lina got a wok burn at age twelve: "Good, now you will remember fire."
He counts limes. He counts cloves. He counts White Horse cigarettes, two missing from the desk, but never mind, probably rats. He counts bar glasses, 24 -> 22 -> 22, miracle, no missing. He counts how many times Arun's hand finds the small of Lina's back when he thinks no one is looking, hidden by the bar counter. He counts how many times Lina's sleeve stays pushed up just a little higher when she vaults over his side of the bar, which she learned to do on blackout night in March 1978.
He counts missing tamarind whiskey, two glasses upstairs, lime rinds that never make it to the bin because Arjun keeps lime peel in the cupboard to keep ants away and to keep the smell.
He has counted for forty-one years, since 1936 when he was fourteen washing glasses for Whitby, who thought Chengal was teak; since 1941 when Whitby left keys and a paper that said I LEAVE THIS JOINT TO CHEW, spelling wrong; since 1942-45 Japanese time when he kept the bar open as a kopi shop; since the 1950s Emergency, counting limes so you don't count dead friends; since 1963, the towel story — woman pregnant takes towels for baby blanket, he wrote Towels -1- for baby; since 1970, boy from Bagan Jermal came thin, anger folded tight, shirt pocket, asked for water, got a job, left in 1971, left Seiko watch, came back in 1977 from Butterworth.
He never says anything. Until one night just after closing time. Saturday night, October 1978, monsoon trying to come but not yet, air thick like kuah campur.
Chairs were up. Neon off — Red Lion, Carlsberg, Lucky Beer, dark — pink tube light of the sundry shop next door finally stopped buzzing like a tired mosquito because Ah Hock turned it off at 11 PM to save electricity. Till counted, heavy, $378, very good business because the singer sang Casablanca twice and people drink more when Casablanca plays.
Lina was counting tips, not money but who left what: Mrs. Tan, two twenty-cent coins, hairpin pearl now in Lina's hair; sailors, foreign coin not money here; towkay with mistress younger, bored, left $5 and mistress left lipstick mark on glass. Arun was washing the last glass slow, slow, because slow is how you stay longer when you don't want the night to end.
"Both of you. Come to the counter," Chew said. His clipboard was not in his hand. That is how you know it is not inventory.
They looked at each other. That old inventory panic from Part 3 — morning inventory at 7 AM, knock three sharp raps not Arjun's knock, counting what was missing, Lina with cot sheet line on cheek, Arjun with too-clean rag, Mr. Chew with clipboard limes 20->16, cloves half gone, glasses 24->22, tamarind paste 1kg->600g, Lina didn't miss a beat, picked up cloth, Arjun bad lie one broke in blackout Lina took upstairs to drink water rain night thirsty, Mr. Chew wrote something down, tapped pen, "In my hotel people pay to disappear for a night, but my staff doesn't get to disappear, I always do inventory, I always know what was taken."
Chew stood behind his own bar like Whitby must have stood in 1936, but smaller, older, with hands that had washed a thousand glasses, that had hidden the paper I LEAVE THIS JOINT TO CHEW under a loose floorboard in 1963 to hide money from his mahjong wins, that had kept the Red Anchor ledger with ship on cover almost full, that had oiled the fan every seventh turn since 1941.
"I never found true love," he said. No preamble. His voice gruff, the way it gets when a man hasn't used it for soft things in a long time, like tamarind whiskey that is bitter then sweet at the end if you wait, but you have to wait forty-one years.
"You think I don't know? I know. Whole life I was kind of married to this bar. To this hotel. I never knew what true love was. I only know what stays."
He looked at Arun. At Lina. At the cot upstairs that creaked three places — first near head, second middle, third near window only when both move at once — at the room behind the bar, ground floor, small mirror cracked same corner, photo of mother face-up since May 5th, at the room above the sundry shop, wall sweating, one window, back lane cats fighting, one mattress, one nail, two shirts, small biro, paper under leg, enough because hers, no one came in without knocking.
"You two make a lovely couple," he said, and the words were awkward in his mouth, like a new cocktail he never mixed before, like Batch 3 first time Lina said, "It's awful, like drinking forest fire put out with asam water." "Don't make that face. I have eyes. My till has eyes. My mynah bird has eyes. My floorboard has eyes. Forty-one years I count, I see."
Lina's hair hastily tied, pearl hairpin catching red emergency light, eyes filling — not rain-girl tears from Kuala Ketil, bamboo board bed rough, but other kind, kind that comes when someone finally says you are allowed to stay and be something, not just staff who doesn't get to disappear.
To be continued:
DISCLAIMER
This work is a work of pure fiction. All characters, names, incidents, dialogues, and locations including Hotel Malaya Bar, Mr. Chew, Lina, Arun, Shankar and all its regulars, staff and patrons are entirely fictitious and products of the author's imagination.
Any resemblance or connection to any actual place, whether still standing today, renovated, demolished, or bombed and destroyed during the Second World War, is purely coincidental.
Any resemblance to any person, whether alive, dead, buried, cremated, or committed to the sea, is also purely coincidental and unintentional.
No identification with actual persons, living or deceased, or with any existing establishment, is intended or should be inferred.
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