He took a long look at Mr Chiam. Was this what it meant, to lead a good life? He was entirely self-reliant. A modest business, a large family. Was that enough? On impulse, he asked. Mr Chiam sighed, “Sure, I suppose. You’re asking the wrong question. You should say: can you live with the choices you’ve made? And you know what, I can, every last one of them. I envy you. What are you, twenty? You still have everything ahead. By the time you get to my age, the course is set. I know what’s going to happen, all of it, right up till I die. Some people would call that a blessing.”

The next weekend, he went back to Seminyih to see his mother. If only he could ask her, but of course that was impossible—too risky to even mention. How would she feel, her son doing the very thing her husband had been mistakenly killed for? Would this be consolation, or betrayal? Which would be the better revenge: to thrive within this system, spiting the people who’d tried to crush you? Or to upend everything, crushing them in turn?

He gave his mum more money than usual, and said he might not be able to visit for a while. Work was getting busier with Mr Chiam expanding the business (this was true—he was buying the premises next door; not unrelatedly, Mrs Chiam was pregnant again). His mother nodded, resigned. As long as he was doing well, she said. He hugged her goodbye, which he didn’t usually do, and held Auntie Poh’s hand before leaving. On the bus back, his eyes dampened, as if he already knew he wouldn’t see them again, even though his mind didn’t feel made up yet.

Siew Li had shoved some pamphlets into his pocket. He read them over and over, whenever Seng wasn’t around. They were called things like “Stories of the Comrades”, and even if he hadn’t known she’d written some of them (which ones, he wondered—none were credited), he’d still have been riveted. It was thrilling, this glimpse of a different world, in which the things he’d been taught to value were shown to be as hollow as he’d always suspected.

It seemed clear to him that something was brewing. There were reports of race riots in Singapore. Could that happen here? The country, hastily stitched together, was fraying at the seams—the Malays fighting to keep their hereditary privileges, the Chinese laying claim to a bigger slice of the pie. He’d been vaguely aware of all this before, but now he understood how relevant it was to his life, and how by choosing indifference before, he’d allowed himself to remain powerless.