Fiction: Shamila’s World

A short story.

The eyes are unmistakable, the lips thinner, a little drawn, harder. Her face is still exquisite, with her high cheekbones and narrow nose, the lines of time barely noticeable. Her once short, almost boyish auburn hair now lightly streaked with threads of gray and coiled on her head in a tight bun. Her figure is still lithe, athletic, after a span of thirty years. She has her left arm draped across the sofa’s headrest, a delicately muscled shoulder traveling tautly down towards a pointy elbow, a sleek forearm and the fingers of a pianist, nails cut short. Across the lobby bar of the Makati Peninsular, Shamila lifts her face from the magazine on her lap, sweeps the scene with a perfunctory gaze, and returns to her reading. Not even a flicker of recognition. Why should she? The sweat begins to gather in micro-beads just below my hairline. Sitting there jowly faced, my gut hanging over my waist belt, I am in perfect disguise — natural consequences of age, exercised gluttony and gin. I had the moment all planned out. Now I begin to feel the sweat under my arms. I clumsily put the glass of gin down with a clunk, reach for my handkerchief and begin mopping the sweat from my brow. My heart pounds louder and faster, my breathing gasping and desperate. I fumble for the bottle of nitro pills in my jacket pocket and slip one under my tongue. “Damn! I can’t do it tonight, not in this state.” My hands run through the wisps of hair that I had tried to neatly comb over a balding patch as I stare at my shoes straining against badly swollen ankles.

The year is 1962. The scene, a high school on the fringe of the town of Port Dickson, sixty miles down the coast from Kuala Lumpur. A girl, petite in a uniformed blue smock, hugs a laboratory manual against her chest. She walks slowly, almost dreamily, her head gently tilted to one side, a silly smile across her face, eyes focused on nothing. In her mind she relives a kiss — gentle and sweet. Her heart throbs with excitement and skips with the joy of the memory. At that moment, all is sweet with the promise of requited love. Shamila is eighteen, a high school senior just three weeks shy of graduation. Robert, a young project engineer with Exxon is her math tutor. They met a year ago on the tennis courts at the Sport’s Club. Robert was friendly, treated her like an adult and helped her work her way through calculus. Shamila’s attraction to Robert was inevitable. He was young, handsome, exciting and foreign. The boys at Langley liked him too. He was well trained with an engineering degree from MIT and a masters in International Management from Thunderbird. They assigned him an Asian desk. A brilliant young Chinese lawyer Lee Kwan Yew was the new prime minister of Singapore. Lee’s associations with communist members both in Singapore and during his student years at Cambridge University in England worried Langley. Robert and half a dozen operatives were strategically placed around the region. Shamila’s father, Chandran, a shift technician at Exxon Oil was also the labor union chief, a position with known socialist connections. Twice a week Robert visited Shamila and tutored her under the oil company volunteer program. After each session he would sit down with Chandran and discuss local and regional politics over bottles of Tiger beer. Chandran enjoyed Robert’s company and gradually began to view him as a likely candidate for Shamila’s hand. That this could even occur is evidence of young Robert’s brilliance and skill. Shamila’s age was not an issue. Many girls married young and the only reason Shamila was still single was her own determination to complete her high school diploma. No, Robert’s brilliance lay in the fact that he was able to change a cultural paradigm that denied marriage eligibility to outsiders, especially foreigners.

I reach for the glass of gin, my hands visibly shaking. I begin taking long and deep breaths, exhaling through pursed lips in an effort to retain more oxygen and calm my nerves. Although I stopped smoking, the emphysema has already done its damage, reducing lung capacity to half. The recurring angina adds to my problems. The glass is half empty of pure gin diluted with a squeeze of lemon. I gulp it down and nod at the waiter. The lobby bar is three quarters full. I can safely observe Shamila unnoticed. She is seated about five lounge suites away. Three of the suites are occupied, leaving me in the background. Just above the lobby on the mezzanine floor a trio of violinists begin playing tunes of yesteryear. The melodious strains of “Red Roses for a Blue Lady” fill the air. Shamila turns her head towards the musicians. The tune seems to strike a deep chord, and Shamila appears far away, lost in a mist of memories.

The marriage took place six months after she graduated. She had just turned eighteen. They lived together at Robert’s apartment in the Exxon compound and Shamila quickly learned to perform the expected duties of the wife of an overseas oil executive. The other wives, while inwardly critical of the marriage, accepted her into their circle and discovered her to be mature for her age. They told her all about the different parts of America they came from and Shamila grew excited at the prospect of eventually moving there. Robert’s parents died in a plane crash when he was fourteen. An only child, he was raised by his grandmother who died two years ago. Shamila had a picture of Boston in her mind, created from descriptions she heard from Robert. That was home to him, and now, will be home to her as well. Robert made frequent trips out of Malaysia, some to Singapore, others to the region or back to the States. Although they traveled together on holidays, she had never accompanied him on his business trips. Robert continued to see Chandran regularly and encouraged his visits to the house. Chandran trusted his son-in-law and often used him as a sounding board for union problems and issues.

The last strains of “Red Roses for a Blue Lady” fade away. Shamila turns her head and a tear glistens momentarily. For a second she looks straight at me. I catch her eyes and panic grips me. Then she turns away, lowers her head back to the magazine and turns a page. The waiter places a fresh glass of gin at my disposal. The twist of lime releases its juices in a small eddy of current at the top of the glass. As I look down at the glass, drops of perspiration travel into the corners of my eyes, blurring my view. I pick up the glass. The gin sloshes about as I raise it to my lips. The ice cubes look like large bouncing bubbles. The gin trickles down my throat and my vision clears. The glass is shaking in my hand and I grip my wrist with my left hand to steady it.

Two years after their wedding they prepared to leave for the States. Robert was being transferred back to New York for a domestic job before reassignment with Exxon overseas. Shamila had mixed feelings about leaving her family, but was looking forward to living in America. Two months before their departure Robert went out on one of his regular diving trips with his close friend Joe. It was six in the evening and they were at a depth of fifty feet. Visibility was poor but they could still make out the shadowy shape of the anchor rope of their powerboat. They swam against a strong current to get to the boat, but when they got in they discovered the anchor was stuck. Robert volunteered to jump back in and dislodge it as well as collect some sand dollars he had noticed in the sandy patch under the boat. He pulled himself down the anchor rope and ripped his wet suit against the jagged edge of the anchor leaving a piece of rubber in its point. He then swam swiftly with the current, away from the boat holding his breath for long intervals to avoid bubble detection. He need not have worried. Joe was exhausted after swimming against the current. He lay slumped in the boat, sipping a coke and looking out to shore. Half a mile from the boat Robert came across the motorized underwater transporter tied to a coral patch. He used the coral to rip his regulator air hose. He began to suck air from a tank and regulator attached to the transporter. He dropped one fin by the coral, started the transporter and moved out to sea where he dropped the other fin and the ripped regulator hose. He then turned and traveled two miles up the coast to the rendezvous point. When Robert stepped from the yacht onto the shore of Sumatra two hours later, police frogmen were only just getting into the water off Port Dickson to search for his body. He flew by private plane to Jakarta where with a fresh passport he boarded a Qantas flight for Australia.

Shamila was numb for days. She could not believe that Robert was gone, that they had lost their future together. Two weeks later she discovered she was pregnant. Robert’s death left her a sizable insurance settlement, which when added to the Exxon benefits proved more than adequate. She already had immigration papers to the States and with the help of Emily, Joe’s wife, made preparations to move to Boston. She purchased a small house in Needham, and attended Boston University as a music major. When baby Robert Jr. arrived, she stayed home for a semester before taking advantage of the child care services at the university. She graduated with a degree in music education and started work as a teacher at St. Marys in the Boston suburbs. Three years later she converted to Catholicism and at her naturalization ceremony adopted her Confirmation name as her own. She became Mary Shamila Olsen. Although she had a wide circle of friends, she did not date. Her entire energy and motivation she drew from little Robert. The house in Needham was sufficient for their needs; memorabilia and pictures of Robert Sr. served as a constant reminder of the man they both lost. Shamila never left Boston, except for vacations to Florida, California, and Canada. Her strong, strict Asian values ensured that Robert Jr. rode a safe though occasionally bumpy ride through puberty. In 1982 Robert Jr. entered MIT as a freshman and graduated four years later with a degree in chemical engineering. He joined an environmental think tank in Washington D.C. for a couple of years before sitting for the foreign service examinations. In 1992 Robert Olsen Jr. was posted to the U.S. embassy in Manila as a regional environmental officer.

It is now fifteen minutes since Shamila walked into the lobby of the Peninsular Hotel in Makati. She had arrived a week ago to spend a month with Robert Jr. over her summer holidays. In about half an hour, her son would join her for dinner at the Peninsular. It was a daily routine. Shamila would arrive at five and read and listen to the violins while waiting for her son. I had half an hour to make contact and it did not appear probable. I would have to do it tomorrow as soon as she walked in. The gin, far from providing the courage, diminishes my resolve and my purpose. I scribble my signature and room number on the bill, push off from the chair and lumber towards the elevators. The elevator speeds to the fourteenth floor. I fumble with the magnetic key as I attempt to slide it through the key slot of the room. First a red light, then green, a sharp click and the door opens. I close it behind me, switch on the television and sit down heavily on the bed. I relieve my swollen ankles by untying my shoe laces and slipping the heavy orthopedic shoes off. I then fall back onto the bed, staring at the ceiling.

On the plane to Australia, Robert opened up his passport and took another look at his new identity. Geoffrey Tomlinson. He rationalized that Shamila would be well looked after. He wished it could have lasted longer. He actually enjoyed having her around. His was the philosophy of objectivism — self interest above all things. Mysticism and altruism muddied the waters and weakened the individual. Self interest and pure capitalism were the answers to individual happiness and that was all one could be responsible for — one’s very own happiness. From Chandran he discovered that Lee Kwan Yew’s influence through the Democratic Action Party was growing stronger day by day. The remedy was to isolate this charismatic leader from the rest of Malaysia, a move that would eventually cause the partition of Singapore from Malaysia and isolate her as a lone island state. In his enthusiasm Robert was careless. He was discovered by an operative of the Singapore government who tailed him to Manila on two occasions and saw him connect with the CIA station chief. Langley was told that if he was not removed Singapore would publish the evidence and embarrass the USA just before President Johnson’s planned visit to the region. Exxon immediately announced his transfer to New York. Robert was determined to continue in covert operations. In Sydney he had surgery performed on his nose, eyes and cheekbones. From Sydney he flew to Hawaii where he took graduate courses at the East -West center. In 1970 he surfaced in Manila as a consultant with the international rice research institute.

I awake to the buzz of the television. The station had long stopped transmitting. I glance at my watch — 3:00 A.M. I had slept through dinner, the evening and part of the night. This was becoming a regular pattern. I reach for my pills by the bedside and make my way to the bathroom. I run the water in the sink, splash my face and swallow a couple of painkillers. I can feel the pain rising deep in my joints. It is always at its worst after a long sleep. The hot shower feels good. I dress and start to work at my laptop by the window. From the fourteenth floor I can see the lights of the city of Makati leading to South-Super-Highway all the way to Paranaque. I work until the first rays of the rising sun begin to appear over the horizon. I squint at the approach of a new day.

Robert’s commitment to protecting democracies began to lose luster in the Philippines after Marcos declared martial law just before general elections. The leading opposition candidate Benigno Aquino was placed under arrest on charges of subversion. Later, Robert was involved in a web of negotiations and circumstances that allowed Aquino to leave for the USA to receive medical treatment. When Aquino returned years later he was gunned down as he was whisked off the plane in Manila. An airport baggage handler was immediately shot and killed and framed for the assassination. Marcos was a powerful US ally, but at the same time a dictator. US policy was filled with ambiguity. Robert reported the quiet undercurrents of discord among a population that appeared to openly revere the Marcos’s. Corazon Aquino, the widow of the slain politician, began leading a groundswell for change. US policy was directed at persuading Marcos to hold general elections. Marcos relented, confident that he still had the support of the military. The polls prematurely declared Marcos a victor, while massive poll rigging was reported by international observers. The millions of people streaming out onto the streets in peaceful protest befuddled and split the military. In the end “people power” forced Marcos to flee the country. Those were heady days for Robert. They were also days of deep soul searching. The movement that rid Marcos was the closest thing to a spiritual experience for him. He began to reexamine his philosophy and its consequences. He concluded that he could not describe himself as a happy person, and therefore his philosophy was flawed. Looking back on his life he further concluded that the closest to happiness he got was the short time he had with Shamila when he was in his twenties. For the first time in his life he experienced deep emotions of guilt and regret. He felt a need to remedy any wrong he caused Shamila. He was relieved when he discovered she had done so well for herself. He was shocked but thrilled when he learned of Robert Junior. There was nothing he could offer them and he retreated back into his work, his soul somewhat relieved and consoled.

I watch the sunrise dim the lights of the city until they are no longer discernible. I lift the receiver and call room service. At least I still have my appetite. Four fried eggs over easy, home fries, with a double order of bacon and toast with butter and marmalade. I have to talk to Shamila this evening. I spent three nights at the hotel getting enough nerve to make contact. It is today or never. Tomorrow I am due in Cotabato on the island of Mindanao. Although I have rehearsed the meeting countless times, I am still asking the same question. What do I tell her first, how would Robert handle it? Old, cool, confident Robert.

In the summer of ’91 they discovered the cancer. It was well into the bones and terminal. Robert was not afraid of death, but something began to gnaw at his soul. He had to face Shamila and tell her the truth. It was not forgiveness he sought, although that would be a bonus. He needed to confess, unburden his soul and leave in peace. He could not allow her to continue believing in a lie; could not allow their son to perpetuate the lie. Shortly after, Robert Jr. arrived in Manila. He never once made contact but observed his son with both pride and regret. Then he learned that Shamila was arriving for a visit and he knew the time for truth had come.

The next evening I sit at my usual place in the lobby. I resolve to cut out the gin and order a glass of soda water, much to the amusement of the waiter. Shamila arrives ten minutes later with her daily magazine and chooses her favorite spot. She orders tea and proceeds to read. The musicians ready themselves on the mezzanine floor and begin playing those old nostalgic tunes. She never remarried. It would have been so much easier for me if she had. It hangs heavy in my heart, that she allowed the memory of a lie to determine her life. She must have loved with a very special love, something I can never understand. What do I know about love? Maybe, she can teach me. Just maybe, she can look beyond what I have done and relive those memories for me. The fleeting thought and hope makes me light headed for a brief moment. The shameless moment passes quickly as I banish its existence. I have to do it now, I can feel my courage failing me again. I begin to push myself from the chair to go to her but feel a tug at my heart, and stop. Why am I doing this? For whom? I release my grip on the chair arms and slowly sit down. I realize that confession and the truth would be cruel and wrong. If I leave, I allow her the indulgence of the memory she knows, and maybe, just maybe, that fictional person will live for real in our son.

For the first time, I decide to live the remainder of my life for someone else — for Shamila, and her memory of the man I should have been. I stand up, walk across the lobby, catch her eye and smile. She returns a quizzical, amused smile. I wave a parting salute and walk out of her life for the second time.