Jason visited less often after starting his National Service. He seemed quite happy about having to do it, but then he’d been able to finish school—the system had been designed with him in mind. She held onto this thought, but still found herself infected with his boyish excitement. It did sound almost fun when they crawled through patches of jungle and learnt to put up tents. After his first time firing a rifle, he showed up aglow. Their trainers were Israeli, he told her. They knew about fighting.

She wondered if he’d told the other boys about her, his little Communist girlfriend. Something told her not—it would be inconvenient, and he struck her as being very good at compartmentalising. She didn’t say anything. It was enough that he kept coming.

The longer they were there, the more latitude the guards gave them, allowing them to spend more time in the courtyard where at least there was sunlight, at least they could talk. It didn’t help. When they spoke of what they’d do when they got out, the first things they’d eat, it never seemed real to her, though it was easy enough to join in and say what was expected of her. Lay Kuan had a seemingly inexhaustible supply of stories and quotes to keep the despair away, and the great gift of making the gleaming utopian future seem inevitable, if they just waited this out.

There were nights when Siew Li lay on her concrete slab staring at the patches of mould on the ceiling, trying hard to pull thoughts out of the overwhelming fear that filled every inch of her. If she fell asleep in this state, she dreamt that her cell was made of living flesh, that the walls contracted with each breath and pulsed with bulging veins. Waking, she’d lie perfectly still as the world realigned itself. How long had she been here? She wished Singapore had seasons, like she’d read about in books, so there’d be variations in temperature, and she could sense the passage of time by how the air was changing.

Lim Chin Siong came to visit the women—he’d been let out a couple of weeks before, and the government had sent him with a message. There was a hold-up over some paperwork, a little more investigation was needed for one of the women, but the rest of them would soon be free to go. “No,” said Lay Kuan right away, “We’re not leaving anyone behind.” The others nodded, and so did Siew Li. She wondered if she was the one, and was glad Lay Kuan hadn’t asked. Better not to know.

When she tried later to work out the sequence of events, Siew Li found she had no memory of how much time passed between that visit and being let out, whether it was days or months. She’d find it was morning, and have no idea if she’d slept that night. She started declining exercise sessions, claiming to feel unwell, and the guards left her alone. Jason must have visited during this time, but she didn’t remember that either.