Seriously, Norman!, page 23
“How do you know this stuff?” said Leonard. “And I still don’t get it.”
“Don’t you see? You don’t have to change your watch settings, you just have to change your mind settings.”
“All right, all right,” said Emma, “time’s having fun again. What time is it, then, here, exactly, so I can set my watch and my mind?”
“Nine a.m.,” said Norman.
“And how long were we on the plane?” said Anna.
“Eighteen hours,” said Norman.
“And how long did we sleep?” said Emma.
“I dunno, exactly. Probably ten hours.”
“And what day is it again, here?” said Leonard.
“The day after Christmas.”
“Well, if it’s nine a.m. on the day after Christmas, no wonder I’m famished,” said Anna. “Let’s go look for some breakfast.”
“What about Mrs. Normann?” said Emma.
“She’ll sleep at least until the afternoon,” said Norman. “Let’s go.”
Norman and Leonard gathered up their maps and guidebooks and knapsacks and left behind all their excess layers of clothing.
The Quadrumvirate descended swiftly in the marvelous elevator and passed through the now busy lobby, back onto the wide, curved sidewalk in front of the hotel. The heat rolled up and around them like a long-lost aunt’s damp hug. Rainwater dripped from the wide-leaved bushes and palms as five black birds—like Crick, only with yellow heads—hopped and argued among themselves on the curbside.
“Hot, hot, hot,” said Emma.
Norman pulled his map out and bent his head to it, then straightened and pointed an emphatic thumb to the right, in which direction they then proceeded, down one long block skirting the Sun Sun shopping mall. They crossed the spacious boulevard before them by pedestrian bridge, from which Anna spotted a breakfast place. Diners sat in twos and threes at tables on the sidewalk. Toward this oasis they now hurried.
The menu was displayed above the counter in large photos of each combination of some familiar and some unknown items. After a hushed consultation, Anna approached the counter and ordered: “Four toast sets, please, with hot chocolate.”
The old woman behind the counter smiled up at Anna, who was considerably taller than herself, counted out the change from the money Anna had offered, then gathered several small plates of things and arranged these on four trays. After which, by means of some eyebrow-waggling and further smiling and head-nodding, the members of the Quadrumvirate at last understood that they were to take the trays away and find a place to sit down.
They found a table on the sidewalk outside.
“Oh boy, what did we get?” said Emma.
“Toast sets,” said Anna.
“I know what we ordered, what I want to know is what did we get?”
“Well, looks like a dish of two undercooked, runny, slimy eggs,” said Anna.
“Mmm, strangely delicious,” said Norman, wiping his eggy mouth with a napkin.
“And a stack of fat, perfectly square, toasty breads with green stuff oozing out between the slabs,” said Leonard.
“Mmmm,” said Emma. “Crispy, sweet, and buttery.”
“Coconut?” said Norman. “Yes, coconut.”
“And a surprisingly normal-looking cup of hot chocolate,” said Leonard.
They all slurped, crunched, and sipped contemplatively, shyly taking in the bustling scene around them.
“I wish Mr. B. were here to try the coffee,” said Norman.
“I wish Mr. B. were here to find your dad,” said Anna.
“Urp,” said Leonard, “we can do it ourselves.”
“Look, our nice lady is making the coffee, I think,” said Norman.
Turning in their seats, they watched her through the glass as she repeatedly and rapidly poured coffee from one long-spouted pitcher into another, the coffee flying through the air.
“How’d you like to do that every morning, all morning?” said Anna.
“No Sanka,” said Emma.
They turned back in their seats and contemplated their maps and guidebooks.
“Eureka!” said Norman.
“No, Sanka,” said Leonard.
“No, I’ve found the Tall Bar and the Snaffles Hotel, which”—Norman scrutinized his map—“doesn’t look that far from here.”
Revived after their long flight and thoroughly satisfied, for the toast really was delicious, with its creamy butter and coconut jam—nothing could have been better—they rose, bused their table, and followed Norman.
* * *
Norman led the way with determination until they reached another broad boulevard of many lanes of traffic, which appeared to offer no way across.
“Look, I think we have to go in here,” said Anna, pointing at the entrance to a sleek building. They wove themselves into the flow of people and were quickly swept onto a descending escalator that carried them to a glittering subterranean shopping center.
“Follow the signs to Snaffles City,” shouted Norman. A number of passersby paused and pointed in which direction they should go, which they duly did, following a long arcing hall of shops and restaurants.
They threaded their way through the throngs of people, often bumping awkwardly into them, until Norman called the Quadrumvirate to a halt.
“I just remembered something,” said Norman. “Did you observe that the taxi driver drove on the left this morning?”
“Everything’s backwards here,” said Emma.
“I imagine they walk on the left, too,” said Norman.
Now proceeding on the left—that is, the correct side of the hallway—they moved at a quicker tempo.
Rising up again to street level, they found themselves at the edge of a small park, with a war memorial at its center.
“War means bombers, which means we must be getting close,” said Leonard.
“You’re right,” said Norman, checking his map again. “On the other side of this park is the Bras Basah Road. All we need to do is go one block along it and we should bump right into the Snaffles Hotel.”
Leonard said to Emma, “Did he just say ‘bras’?”
“Yup,” said Emma.
Norman was quite right, and in five minutes they stood before the hotel.
The Snaffles Hotel occupies an entire square block of the old center of the city. Within its countless pink-columned verandahs, since the days when Queen Victoria ruled the British Empire, business propositions have been floated and sunk, fortunes have been won and lost on the turn of a card, writers’ pencils have been sharpened and dulled, and spies have always lurked and been lurked upon.
“If ever my dad was going to get into some shady dealings, this looks as likely a spot as any,” said Norman.
“Maybe we should go to the Singapore police. They’re probably the finest in the world,” said Anna.
“What if we get a one-thousand-dollar fine for burping, or parting our hair on the wrong side, or something?” said Emma.
“Or for being out without our mothers?” said Leonard.
“Or for being sarcastic without a permit?” added Emma.
“Don’t be sarcastic,” said Anna.
“Without a permit,” said Leonard.
“No, let’s see what we can find out ourselves, first,” said Norman. “Come on, let’s look for the Tall Bar.”
The Tall Bar, as any tourist could tell them, and did, is on the second floor at the northeast corner of the hotel. They climbed the outside stairs to the verandah and pushed open the door.
The polished wooden bar stretched before them. The few customers at that hour were seated in deep leather chairs or lounged on bentwood chaises, lifting slender glasses of pinkish drinks. Above them, an ingenious, many-bladed, slow-flapping fan, looking as though it had sprung from the pen of Dr. Seuss, kept the humid air gently moving.
Norman eased himself up onto a tall barstool, motioning the others to follow him, and prayed that the bartender was not going to ask them how old they were.
He, the bartender, glided along the bar, wiping it with a rag as he came, and stopped before the Quadrumvirate. Placing a companionable elbow on the bar, he said, “What’ll it be, mates?”
Norman cleared his throat squeakily and said, “Is the lemonade fresh?”
“The freshest,” said the bartender.
“Made on the premises?”
“Can you doubt it?” said the bartender, examining his eponychiums.
“We’ll take four.”
“Pink or yellow?”
Norman threw a questioning glance along the bar to his friends.
“Pink,” said Anna and Leonard.
“Yellow,” said Emma and Norman.
“Two pink, two yellow, with ice, I do presume?”
“Yes, please,” said Norman.
Norman took a deep breath and smiled as the bartender slid away.
“What do we do now?” said Anna.
“We gently steer the conversation around to his customers, find out if he’s seen anything out of the ordinary, you know, but casually like, so he doesn’t get suspicious.”
“Right,” said Emma.
They swiveled quietly on their barstools.
“He’s coming back,” said Anna.
“Four lemonades. Two pink, two yellow, all with ice,” said the bartender.
The Quadrumvirate sipped.
The bartender drifted down the bar to attend to an elderly gentleman.
When he returned, Norman yawned and said, “Nice weather today.”
“Nifty,” said the bartender.
“I did, however, notice some cumulonimbus to the east,” said Norman.
“Say, you’re pretty sharpish. Most likely, we’ll have another bit of a rainstorm this afternoon.”
There was a pause.
The bartender smiled at them.
“I see Singapore will play Australia in a cricket match on New Year’s Day,” said Anna nonchalantly.
“Right again. We have no chance.”
In the following silence the bartender sailed up to the other end of the bar to freshen a young woman’s pink drink.
The Quadrumvirate sipped again as he returned.
Leonard said, “Have you ever seen a couple of guys come in here in tall furry hats and blue coats, with big black mustaches and boots?”
Looks of mingled shock and horror registered across the three brows of his three friends.
“Oh, you mean Nigel and Reg, the Alfurnian spies?” said the bartender. “Sure, they come in all the time. Usually around four-thirty. Ish.”
“Great. Well, uh, thanks a lot,” said Leonard, slipping off his stool. “The lemonade was very refreshing,” and he ankled to the door.
“Oh yeah, thanks very much,” said Norman, pulling Singapore dollars out of his pocket.
“My pleasure. That’ll be twenty dollars. No tips required.”
Norman paid and, with the bartender’s “Toodle-oo” in his ears, caught up with the others.
Leonard said, “What? We got the information we wanted, didn’t we?”
* * *
That afternoon, dozing on the covered terrace beside the pool, the Quadrumvirate watched the tropical rain come hissing straight down, as if poured from an immense, widemouthed pickle jar directly onto the hotel pool, making a tremendous noise.
“Maybe I’ll find out what to do next in here,” said Norman, drowsily opening the dictionary to the Ws.
Leonard dozed in the next lounger.
Remembering something, Norman turned first to Wi. “Here it is,” he said.
Winchester bushel n : the volume measure equal to a cylinder 18½ inches wide and 8 inches deep
“So that’s what a Winchester bushel is.”
He went back to Wa.
wahoo n : an American tree and shrub
waif n : something ownerless, usually found by chance
wailful adj : sorrowful, mournful
waist n : the narrowed part of the body between the thorax and the hips
wait vb : to stay in place, usually in hopes of some event
waiting game n : a strategy in which the participant does nothing, hoping for a future occasion for better action
Norman looked up and said, “Of course!”
“What?” said Leonard, waking.
“We wait.”
“We wait?” said Leonard. “What?”
“We play the waiting game.”
“Like a spider?” said Leonard, yawning.
“Like four spiders.” Norman flopped back into his deck chair and let his eyelids slide slowly closed until he could just peek through them slitwise. “We will be the four katipos. Katipo, noun, a small, deadly spider of New Zealand.”
The rain hissed like a thousand Russell’s vipers and Norman slept.
act! act!
And they waited. And they watched. And they checked in at the Tall Bar at four-thirty. Ish. But their furry-hatted prey eluded them.
The bartender just raised a friendly eyebrow when he saw them at the door and shrugged his shoulders to let them know that Nigel and Reg had still not been in.
The first days in Singapore went like this: sightseeing in the morning with Norma along; lunch; then a much-needed nap for the maternal Normann. Having her unconscious for a bit served not only her need for recuperation but the Quadrumvirate’s need to hunt and reconnoiter, ending up, as has been mentioned, at the Tall Bar at four-thirty. Ish.
In sum, the first three days had netted them nothing.
The next day Anna said, “Let’s go to Little India here, for lunch. It’ll give us a taste of home.”
“How do we get there?” said Mrs. Normann.
“We walk,” said the Quadrumvirate.
“Oh dear.”
This time their walk brought them out of the city’s center into neighborhoods of shop-houses, the first floors of which were packed completely, from wall to wall and from floor to ceiling, with whatever wares were being sold, all the business seeming to take place on the sidewalks. The five walked stickily past mechanics squatting next to disassembled motor scooters, and ducked as plumbers pulled copper pipes out of nearly exploding shelves, and shuffled sideways around upholsterers stuffing their sofas.
In the Kampong Glam, golden-domed mosques towered above them as they peered through the twisted wrought-iron fence of a forsaken cemetery. The streets were no longer quite so clean; here and there the Quadrumvirate lifted its feet over broken bottles and discarded food wrappers.
“This place should be fined,” said Emma.
“And dandied,” said Leonard.
At last, they came to the Serangoon Road, with spice markets, textile stores, and shops filled with bangles. One large store sold every religious figurine imaginable, from twice double-armed Ganesh, with his noble elephant’s head, to Mary and Jesus, four arms and two heads between them.
“God-a-rama,” said Anna.
Outside the Sri Srinivasa Perumal Temple, everyone took off their shoes and socks, except for Leonard, who was sockless already, then entered the high entrance tower adorned with tiers of painted statues. Within the temple they happily did what they saw other families doing: They simply sat down on the floor and watched the drama, in painted stone and living flesh, unfolding around them.
“Look, a blue man with a monkey’s head,” said Anna.
“I observe and I imagine,” said Leonard. “This is a tale of an old man who evolved backwards.”
Shoes and socks back on, as the noon bells rang around them, they stopped at a curry shop and squeezed themselves into a tiny booth to feast on dosas with lentil curry and coconut chutney, washed down with mango lassis.
“Ah,” said Leonard, stretching back, “a taste of home.”
“Mr. B. should be here,” said Anna.
“Mr. B. most definitely should be here,” said Leonard.
“Mr. Should B. most definitely here be,” said Emma.
“I wonder what he would say, if he were,” said Norman.
“Find the answers in your friends, oh faithless ignoramuses,” said Emma.
“Well, friends,” said Norman, “what do we do, now that the waiting game is washed up?”
The Quadrumvirate sipped.
Norma Normann, fanning herself, said, “Maybe we should go back to the hotel and have a nice lie-down in the AC.”
“Wait, Mom,” said Norman. “We need a plan. What else would Mr. B. say?”
“Welcome to Singapore, now read the dictionary,” said Leonard.
“Okeydokey,” said Norman.
As they sipped their lassis, Norman paged through his travel dictionary. “Maybe something in the Xs will give us a clue about what we should do next.”
He read aloud.
xanthene dye n : a yellow dye
xanthic adj : tending toward yellow
“Norman,” said Emma, “maybe you’d better lay off the sunscreen a little, you’re looking a little xanthic.”
“I feel thic,” said Leonard.
xebec n : a three-masted sailing ship of the Mediterranean
xenophobe n : someone who is afraid of anything that is foreign or strange
Xmas n : short for Christmas
xylophagous adj : wood eating
“Emma,” said Leonard, “stop eating the table. I swear you’re getting more xylophagous every day.”
“Come on, Norman,” said Emma. “Let’s, like, make for the X-it.”
* * *
Before returning to the hotel, they spent half an hour in one of the many Internet cafés, composing a summary of their trip for Mr. B., which they sent in hopes of receiving some kind of direction from him. The waiting game had gotten them nowhere.
And time was running out; the next day was Tuesday, their fifth day in Singapore, one day before New Year’s Eve, when they were scheduled to depart for home.
At the Tall Bar that afternoon, there was still no sign of Nigel and Reg.
* * *
Over their toast sets the next morning, Norman convened the morning powwow.
“Well, we’re starting to look like four very hungry katipos. Nothing has wandered into our web. By the way, we got an e-mail from Mr. B.—I checked on one of the computers in the lobby.”
