National Day
9 August 2006, Wednesday
Long ago, Ben decided that National Day was the best day of the year, after Christmas and his birthday, because that was the day he got to make popiah.
His mom had come up with the idea, one day, while walking through a hawker center, Ben trailing along behind her and a very young Jerry cradled in her arms.
“It’s simple,” she pronounced, while staring at a hawker throw popiah ingredients together. “All you have to do is get the peanuts, and the tau pok, and the bean sprouts, and the sauce, and the egg, and who knows what else we can add besides! Then you just roll it up, and eat!” Ben’s father had had no objections, so they set off for the nearby NTUC, and bought piles of popiah ingredients, and brought it home.
That evening, Ben’s family sat at the dining table and made popiah while watching the National Day Parade on TV. Ben had managed to splatter sauce down his shirt, and Jerry whacked playfully at the stack of popiah skin. Ben’s father spent most of the time trying to clean up after Ben, and his mother ended up making popiah for them all, because hers were the only ones that they were able to eat without scooping it up with a spoon. But all in all, it was a good way to celebrate National Day, and so it was decided, while fireworks lit up the sky, visible through the window on the third floor, that this was to be a Tay family tradition.
-
“You’ll love it, Alex.”
“Right.”
“I’m serious! It’s really fun, and tastes delicious, and you can run upstairs and watch the fireworks after that!”
Alex looked up from the math assignment they had to complete over the National Day holidays.
“First of all, Sirius is dead. And, no thanks, Ben. The idea of mushing random vegetables and crushed peanuts together into a roll I can barely fit into my mouth doesn’t appeal to me very much.”
“Aw but Alex! Please?” Ben, in all his passion for popiah, had jumped onto the bed and was now looking down forlornly at Alex, who had turned back to his math, tapping his pen against question 4.
“Benjamin? Ben! It’s six, we’re going to start on the popiah now!” Mr. Tay’s voice echoes in the stairwell.
Ben climbs off his bed and decides to give it one more go but before he can open his mouth, Alex has put his Math homework away and is already at the door.
“If this tastes bad I blame you entirely.”
Ben pumps his fists into the air, feeling delighted, for some reason.
-
There are five plates of popiah on the table, one for each of them, sauce smeared around the edges and bits of fried egg poking out. Over the years Ben and Jerry have gotten better at making popiah, and Alex, for a first-timer, is unexpectedly good at it. His popiah is a little lopsided, and tapers off strangely at one end, but other than that it is well made, and does not fall apart, not like Ben’s did, every single time all the way until he was twelve, when Jerry pointed out that the whole point was to roll, not fold (Jerry’s popiahs have always been made into near-perfect cylindrical shapes, with a mathematical accuracy that used to scare Ben, until he realised that Jerry was scary by nature, and let it be).
While Ben’s dad slices the popiahs up into bite-sized pieces, the rest of the family gravitates towards the kitchen, where they wash sesame seeds and black sauce off their fingers. Alex is closest to the kitchen and gets to use the sink first, leaving Ben to wait behind Jerry. Ben stares as Alex rubs his fingers under the tap, foam forming on the back of his hand, and thinks of the way Alex drizzles the sauce on the popiah skin, how he spreads the turnip out into a rough circle in the center, how he rolls the popiah up, fingers curling around it, applying pressure to make sure it stays.
Ben nearly manages to impale himself on the knife his father is holding as he brushes past him, out of the kitchen.
“Where are you going, Ben?” His father presses himself against the wall, holding the knife at a safe distance.
“Uh. I’ll use the sink in the bathroom,” and he turns towards the bathroom so his father can’t tell he’s lying.
He slinks back into the dining room, and stares at the five plates of popiah. He scrutinizes his own, a little squashed but still edible, six separate slices, collapsed to one side. He scrutinizes Alex’s, also six slices, still standing. Without thinking, Ben grabs one of his popiah slices and exchanges it with one of Alex’s, and dashes off to the bathroom to wash his hands.
They watch the rest of the National Day Parade in the living room, chopsticks in one hand and plate in the other. Ben spends much of the Parade & Ceremony segment nibbling at the same slice of popiah, trying to be discreet while watching to see if Alex had noticed the fact that one of his slices was not like the others. But Alex had just bit into his popiah and chewed, seemingly unaware of what he was ingesting. Ben relaxes, but just after his first mouthful, he wonders if he has sauce smeared around his lips, and if he should get up and walk past the television set to the tissue box, next to where Alex was seated. But the concert items start then, and he is absorbed by the light and colour and sound, and the repetitive videos of Singapore and her achievements.
In the middle of the display by the People’s Association, Ben realises that he is down to his last piece - it is Alex’s piece, and he almost doesn’t eat it. He thinks, that despite the fact that the ingredients are identical, despite the fact that in the end, popiah is popiah, Alex’s piece will taste different somehow, and as the turnip is being ground up between his molars Ben comes to the conclusion that he is right, for once.
At the fireworks segment Ben leaps up, and runs to the stairs. No one follows.
“Jerry! Fireworks!”
Jerry doesn’t even turn around. “I’ll watch them from here, it’s not worth the climb.”
Ben is getting rather frantic. “Come on Alex!”
Alex sighs, and gets up. Ben takes off up the stairs.
At the third floor, Ben presses himself against the window, at the sprays of light exploding not too far away, covered slightly by the neighbour’s tree. Alex hovers behind him, arms crossed. After a few minutes, Alex gets tired of standing, and instead seats himself on Ben’s bed, while Ben jabs at the window and makes sounds like “OOOH” and “WAAAHH”.
After the glow from the last firework dies down, Ben, stupid grin plastered on his face, finds Alex stoning, eyes trained on the wall, the only light coming from the street lamps outside, turning the walls slightly orange. He crosses the space between the bed and the window in two steps, and seats himself slowly. They sit in silence like that, strains of the national anthem barely audible, blasting from the TV downstairs. Ben clears his throat.
“In primary school, I had a classmate, who stoned a lot, and my teacher always scolded him, saying, ‘What are you doing? Counting the dust on the walls?’” Ben laughs, half-hearted and cut short. Alex doesn’t respond. Ben shifts closer, the mattress sinking down under their combined weight, one big depression rather than two smaller ones.
“Hey.” Ben fidgets, and stares at his toes. “Are you okay?”
Alex tilts his head up, and swallows - Ben can see Alex’s throat move, and tastes residues of the sweet black sauce in his mouth.
“Thanks.” The word is said to the ceiling, thrown up in the air for Ben to catch, but he misses completely.
“Huh? What are you thanking me for?”
“We should go down, now.” Alex gets up, and Ben experiences the sensation of having the mattress tilting up on one side, cool air brushing against his skin in the empty space.
“Yeah. We should,” and Ben thinks: next year.
The view from the window.
Stairs.