His smile told her that he was proof against wrecking knowledge, wrapped in his rapacious discovery of herself without reference to what she was; and thus revealed, happily vacant of words, unclothed of sentences, awaiting only the look, the smile, the gesture, the Word from her that would mean enter into life. Her life.

But she would not, could not, to the braying trumpet of the last judgement would she not say the Word which would become a world to the man in him waiting to be born. The woman in her had waited, but not for this. And so the moment passed on the wings of noise, in the braying harsh light of the neon, flat as the sun; never to return.

She remained sitting, absconded from life, self-disinherited prodigal in Singapore the prodigal island, Singapore profusion for all that the pentagonal mansion of the senses encompass: largesse, extravagance tangible, vision not dreams, touch not apotheosis, fragrance not savour; tropical land rich, and wealthy, and abundantly poor in strong dreams. Land where flower and leaf are large and fat with over-arching nothingness of growth, where man and woman grow ample with tangible ripe fruits of the wealthy earth to encompass within their fivefold large limitations.

Although transfigured by his vision swooping upon her in a world of twinkling lights and roaring engines; knowing herself no longer a tasteless formless lump, mechanical body, Abacus counting money, smooth unseen wheels clicking counters for the factories, the companies, the banks, the shops, the cinemas, the rubber estates of the House of Quo; but Woman, created from the effluvia of man’s desire, become through the need of a man eternal mystery, mystic lotus, Beatitude, Beauty out of the sea, breasts and belly and sex, desire’s blossom which is Beauty, divided flesh needing division, and in her mouth slowly rising the bitter-sweet waters of desire which is knowledge; yet from this she turned away, unsorrowing, looking mutely into the night, dooming herself and him, refusing tragedy and exaltation. The night enfolded her beyond the engines’ cacophony, the parleys of the loudspeaker, the body of the man beside her, bright with enchantment not yet discarded.

Silence came suddenly to help her in her betrayal, her denial for them both.

‘Are you going to Hongkong?’ he spoke in the lapse of silence, knowing himself naked and ashamed, grabbing at words as at leaves to cover his nakedness.

But he still remembered her as the ear his longing assayed, the memory of her face a spell, and tried to reach her with the fact he knew. ‘Your sister … I’ve been told. …’

She looked unmoved.

‘I am sorry if I intrude, I don’t mean to … I understand, I think I do, the young, their dreams, the propaganda, there isn’t much one can do.’

Nothing in the prodigal land of their fathers for them.

‘If I can help in any way … if it’s not gone too far …’