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that it was at the cobblers being put right. After a week I asked him about it; he started wearing it—two days of clinks and squeaks, then he stopped. I asked why. It was biting. The brace was a greater affliction than the limp, a cure more painful than the ailment; the incident cured me of certain regrets.
    â€œAll full up,” the voice was saying to me over the phone. Gopi peddled over and I slammed the receiver into its cradle.
    â€œHupstairs,” said Gopi, pointing his slender finger to indicate that Leigh was in Hing’s office. He clamped his tongue at the side of his mouth and scribbled in an invisible ledger to show he had seen Leigh writing. Then he asked me about Leigh: Who was he? Where was he from? Did he have children? Was he a Eurasian?
    I told Gopi what I knew and asked what time Leigh had arrived.
    â€œSeven-something.”
    That was news. As an eager new employee at Hing’s, with the hunch that if I did a good job I had a chance for promotion, I used to come in at seven-something, too. By the time Hing rolled in I was already in a sweat, saying “Right you are, Mr. Hing,” and “Just leave it to me.” There was no promotion. I asked for Christmas off; Hing said, “I am Buddhist, but wucking on Besak Day, birthday of Buddha, isn’t it?” I started to come in at eight-something and never said “Leave it to me,” and after I made a go of my enterprise it was ten before I showed my face. I would not be promoted, but neither would I be sacked: he could never have gotten another
ang moh
for what he paid me. In the acceptance of this continuing meekness, the denial of any ambition, was an unvarying condition of enduring security and the annual promise of a renewed work permit. It was an angle, but it cost me my pride. When someone at a club bar or hotel lounge said, “Go on, Jack, have another one,” I was happy; I had the satisfaction of having earned my reward. The reminder that the drink would never have been offered if I hadn’t had a girl in tow was something that didn’t worry me unless a feller like Leigh woke up my scrupling with, “How do you stand it?” A feller who lived in Singapore and knew me would never have asked that. The real question was not how but why. My answer would have unstrung him, or anyone.
    Leigh was eager to please Hing—that was plain. He had not found out it was no use. And who was he, this accountant from Hong Kong? A clerkly fugitive, laying low after an incautious embezzlement in London? Sacked by a British bank for interfering with a woman in Fixed Deposits, or for incompetence; and like many
ang mohs
in the East, seeking cover in a Chinese shop, consoling himself with clubby fantasies and the fact that he was too far away to be of concern, an alien at a great distance, the bird of passage who mentioned from time to time when things got rough that there was always Australia? He had lied about his clubs—the first time anyone had tried that on me—but so had I, three times over. It could not be held against him.
    The feeling I had for him was an inward clutching at self-pity. There was so much I could have told him if only he had been friendly and stopped calling me Flowers. Go away and save yourself, I wanted to say; I could have watched him do that and watching him given myself hope. I had my girls; I knew the limits of employment; I had faith in extraordinary kinds of rescue, miraculous recoveries; I knew a thing or two about love. What was his alternative? I decided to watch him closely, this version of myself; his nervy question still rankled, and pity prevented me from asking him the same. He was not aware of how much I knew.
    Seeing me engrossed, Gopi left, shoulders heaving. His arms did not swing or give him motion. They dangled uselessly as he pedaled. He was a small man, and sometimes I believed that without him I would have floundered.
    I dialed another hotel for Gunstone and