Getting to know Mummy and Papa, all over again
Koh and Tan met each other when Koh was around fourteen years old. Tan's school-teachers had sent him to Koh's school to use the latter's workshops. Workshops to train him in professions: woodworking, metalworking, and so on.
One day, Tan asked Koh to play badminton together, and Koh agreed.
What does Koh like about Tan? “His torso and frame have a pleasing shape to the eye. He doesn't drink alcohol, and doesn't smoke cigarettes.”
(narrator's voice, theatrically: it feels sad and disappointing to note that, decades later, as a 43-year-old father of three teenaged children, Tan would wander among the alleyways of the Internet to look for photos of naked women of a certain skin colour and of a certain race.)
Tan and Koh visited Taiwan for their honeymoon, on the eastern coast of the island: Hua Lien.（in the Chinese written language: 花蓮。）
They hung their wedding photo – decorated with a lavish frame – above the bed where they shared many evenings in privacy. (That was before the age of “social media” where people volunteered information about what they did inside their bedrooms, for an invisible eye to drink in.)
Tan is the second son among many siblings, which number three brothers and four sisters, seven in total. Their father manufactured soy-based ingredients – some kind of beancurd – and delivered them to cooks who were scattered throughout the island of Singapore.
Whereas Koh is the youngest among six sisters and two brothers (one brother is adopted). Koh's mother died when Koh was fourteen. Koh's father would develop incontinence in his elderly years, and eventually move in with Koh's third-eldest sister – who would become a corporate high-flyer – and die with his grandchild remembering his deep, gravelly voice, and huge, huge, nose, and “old people's smell”.
Two of Koh's sisters claimed to be followers of the organised religion known as The Christian Church. But, among Tan's relatives, there were no such followers. Tan's siblings practised a form of religious syncretism that was popular among descendants of migrants from China, who now found themselves breathing the humid tropical air of Singapore: they mumbled under their breath, in front of statues of wood and porcelain, requesting blessings from unseeing, unhearing idols – which are, of course, made by human hands – while burning incense sticks and shiny paper. And Koh would join Tan in visiting numerous temples that housed such statues and idols, according to the times of the appearance of the moon in the sky.
Koh is younger than Tan six years. When Koh was twenty-five years old, she gave birth to her first son. (Narrator's voice: it might be interesting to note that, in the Holy Bible, specifically, The Book of Exodus, Chapter 13, Verse 12, it is written: “you are to present to the LORD the firstborn male of every womb. All the firstborn males of your livestock belong to the LORD.”)
Three years later, at twenty-eight years old, Koh gave birth to a female. And then, a year after that, a male child followed.
Before her womb was opened, Koh was working in an organisation where strong chemicals surrounded her at her workplace. Feeling concerned during her first pregnancy, she departed from that workplace.
She gave birth to her firstborn in Singapore General Hospital.
Koh was diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer around fifty-eight years of age. She underwent surgery, and endured many rounds of chemotherapy that left her with diarrhoea and hair loss, besides other side effects.
She wore a wig to hide her hair loss. She called up her sisters with a telephone and had many lengthy chats with them.
Tan helped her with the housework when she felt too devoid of energy. Sweeping the floor, and so on.
Koh said, “After I retire, I just want to spend time with Tan. I appreciate his support for me, during my period of illness.”
Koh worked at a government-related organisation from forty-eight years old to fifty-eight years old – ten years – in an administrative role. During this period, Koh once spent half an hour on talking to her superior, in a defiant and agitated tone, through a telephone. “It's difficult to be working at my workplace,” she said when she put down the phone.
Narrator's voice: What did Tan like to do in his leisure time?
Tan's hobbies included playing badminton – when his body was younger – and then, later in his life, riding bicycles around nearby parks. He also liked to watch the cartoon video known as “Tom and Jerry”.
Narrator's voice: And, one can only guess the number of times, during his fleeting mortal life, that Tan looked at photos of young naked women, with lust in his eyes, and adultery in his heart. Women in various states of undress – women who were not his wife.