Tham Cheng-E - Surrogate Protocol

Along the way Anton considered Vivian’s words with disgust. If he truly was as prudish as she had claimed he would have rejected her salacious offer at once. He knew he stammered only because he coveted it so bloody much.

Vivian drowsed limply on his shoulder and he grasped the side of the rickshaw, belching frequently and being ever ready to retch. The puller’s back glistened in the light of street lamps, capering from side to side in tandem with his running strides.

The three-mile run with the burden of two passengers almost killed the puller. At the end of Rangoon Road he stopped and panted heavily for a moment before he mustered the energy to drop the shafts and allow his passengers to alight. Anton paid him handsomely, and he sustained his bow long after Anton lumbered up the staircase of a shophouse with his arm around Vivian.

A lone, naked light bulb lit the narrow stairway. When Anton reached its top fatigue scorched his throbbing thighs like acid. The second storey was a warren of subdivided rooms where filmy curtains were all the privacy offered. A hefty, middle-aged lady with a long braided pigtail recognised Vivian and pointed Anton to her room, though not without a disapproving shake of her head.

Anton parted the curtain and was surprised to find an unlocked door. The room was clean and smelled of sandalwood and cosmetics. It was furnished with only a wardrobe and a bed with a thin mattress. He carried Vivian in and laid her on the bed as softly as he could.

A few cotton frocks were slung over a string drawn from wall to wall. A calendar hung from a rusted nail. Crockery resided inside a large, blackened pot. A bunch of chopsticks bristled from a tin mug. Anton could hear the sound of mah-jong being played downstairs.

Vivian lay on her side, soundly sleeping. Anton watched her slow, regular breaths through the red silk of her gown that fitted snugly over her midriff. A flap of her skirt had fallen away at the slit, revealing her stockinged legs. When he tried to cover them she suddenly moaned and flipped on her back, thrusting up the contours of her chest and offering Anton a full frontal view of her slumbering visage.

Anton paced the tiny room like a stag in heat. Then in a burst of resolve he smothered his temptation by pulling a terrycloth blanket over her. Still he couldn’t resist planting a kiss. He stared longingly at her lips, and after being painfully undecided as to where he should kiss, finally picked out a spot he thought would be perfectly neutral.

He kissed her between her eyes.

The gasp that slid out of Vivian’s lips went undetected as Anton showed himself to the door and closed it softly behind him. And for a long time she lay in bed, berating herself for conceiving the despicable notion of luring him into a kiss on the lips with the prospect of tagging him. It felt inimical even if it was to be done with the seemingly harmless intent of tracking him.

Finally she sat up and touched the spot where he had kissed her, awestricken by the miracle that the paths of two random Chronomorphs should cross so fortuitously, and deeply moved by Arthur’s virtuous gesture. She had believed the centuries of her existence had eroded her vulnerability to emotions and had taken pride in the stoicism she possessed. But with a single kiss Anton had shattered everything.

To dispel a thickening cloud of melancholia she unlocked her wardrobe and retrieved a battered Pathe phonograph with the only vinyl she owned, cranked it up and put on the needle. The old vinyl scratched to life, and from it flowed these lyrical words:

Sorrow bade Vivian to pull the needle off and leave the vinyl spinning forlornly to a stop on the plateau. She buried her face in her hands and did something she had never done in almost a century. She wept.

LANDON’S HEAD SPINS and throbs. He finds himself in a hotel room of the budget kind, with steel-framed beds and tiled flooring. Beyond the window he hears the vehicular traffic of a small street. The sunlight is white. It feels like lunchtime. In the background, to a light instrumental accompaniment, a songstress sings:

When Landon finally feels up to it he rolls onto his side and closes his eyes until the vertigo eases. He opens them to the sight of Hannah seated on a chair, her tilted head pressing forlornly against a wall. The music flows from a touchpad on the table. Beside it an omnicron gleams in the daylight.

“I love that song,” Hannah says, looking at a spot at the ceiling. Her smile is wan, and Landon thinks he sees the remnant of tears in her eyes. “It’s a nice lyrical dream.”

He throws his leg over the edge of a bed, shakes off the somnolence and hangs his head between his shoulders. An information card on a nightstand reads: Come Inn! A haven for all streetwise backpackers and budget travellers! Free wi-fi!

The moment is surreal. Not all his memories have returned, but enough to thread some sense across the disparate fragments. The object of his quest now sits before him, flexing her feet and tucking strands of hair behind an ear. He finds himself remembering every detail of that gentle face, every line, every contour. They affirm recognition and kindle a radiant warmth in his chest. At last he musters sufficient confidence to speak.

“So what do I call you now? Clara? Hannah? Or another name I don’t know about?”

His tone is mordant, but Hannah does not appear to have taken offence. She goes on looking at the ceiling, now aloof and distant. “Whichever one you want.”

Assailed by her effrontery Landon almost succumbs to a fit of rage. If not for his spinning head he would’ve stomped up to her. “Don’t get all sassy on me. I’m beginning to remember all that I ought to.”

It does not impress her. She blinks and swallows a nub of emotion in her throat. “Pansy died last night,” she says.

“Your pet?”

“A little girl with HIV.” Her voice, hard and indicting, stills the air in the room. “An orphan who’s lived out the first half of her life in an institution and the other in a hospice. I loved her as a daughter.”

He would’ve liked to believe her. But he opts for caution, staying silent.

At last she lowers her gaze and looks at him. “How’s your head?”

Landon presses on his temples. “Still swimming.”

“It’ll go away,” she says. “Nice seeing you again, Arthur.”

There she is, after five decades or more, youthful as ever. The reality of it settles, calcifying in his head, almost inuring it to the fascination of it all. For an instant it feels as though she had left him just yesterday, and the intensity of it renders him speechless. It’s easy to forget that she might well be out to murder him.

“What are you doing here?” he manages, with only a slight stutter.

Hannah moves over to the bed and Landon leaps to his feet in a feeble attempt to get away. Straining against a spinning head he staggers over to the table and collapses into a chair. She takes her place at the edge of the bed and tilts her head and regards him with something that could be discerned as fondness. “Keeping you hidden.”