The Hills of Singapore by Dawn Farnham Page B

Patronage, doubtless then, to the political bench of the bishops in parliament. Who can say? The visible and familiar sign of England, even in a dusty landscape? All I know is that the chaplain is here because he is well paid, and his only thoughts are how to make money and go home.”
    She thought of this now and looked around her. No wonder then that the Catholic Church found such fertile ground. It was all but abandoned to them. Good for them then, she thought, if they do some good. She took Evangeline’s arm in hers and smiled at her friend.

6
    Zhen tossed his head back and swallowed the small cup of rice wine. It tasted good and a feeling of mellowness crept over him. He lay back on the thick cushions on the floor and looked up at the ceiling. He loved to be in this room. This was Qian’s inner sanctum. This had been Qian’s dead father-in-law’s bedroom and strongroom, he knew. When the old miser had been alive, he kept his treasure chests in here and never let anyone enter. Sang had been the most miserly man in Singapore but immensely rich and powerful. He had been head of the kongsi , the society which ran everything Chinese here in Singapore, the temples, the coolies, the farms, everything. When he died, ten thousand men had been ordered to his funeral. The British authorities could not believe their eyes. Despite the vast numbers of Chinese pouring, with each monsoon season, into Singapore, the administration never increased. Zhen smiled, nothing had changed much. The kongsi still ran almost everything.
    Still, Sang had lacked the one thing he craved. He had no son to carry out the rites for him. Two daughters had been born to two wives, but no son had ever survived. So Qian, like Zhen, educated and poor, had been selected to marry the second daughter and despite his personal leanings towards the “pleasures of the bitten peach”, had managed to sire two healthy sons on his young wife, Swan Neo.
    Husbands were often selected from the pool of poor coolies that turned up on these shores in their thousands each year: fresh new Chinese blood for the local merchant’s daughters, men who spoke the language and understood the ancient rites. Swan Neo spoke Hokkien, a somewhat old-fashioned type of Hokkien, but at least she and Qian could talk. Zhen had been forced to learn Baba Malay to talk to his own wife, for she had been born and raised in a Peranakan family
    Qian could not have known his luck. Everyone knew Sang was rich, but how rich he discovered on the second day of his marriage, when he had found the chests of silver and jewels in this room. Qian had taken Sang’s name, and now he ran the company and his own sons were the heirs to this vast fortune.
    Zhen poured himself another cup of rice wine and drank it down quickly, gazing upwards. The ceiling was decorated with wooden beams painted in gold and black with writhing dragons. Carved folding doors stood back, showing the open inner courtyard into which late golden sunlight was pouring onto a pond filled with flitting gold and red carp and touching the leaves of great pots of bamboo. The floor was made of gleaming, cool, green and white Malacca tiles. It was secluded, opulent and expensive. Here Zhen knew, Qian made love to his young catamite, a half-Chinese half-Malay boy called Salim whom he had rescued from a brothel.
    Here Qian and Zhen could be alone in their close friendship, alone to talk and get drunk. Here in this place, Zhen could truly relax. In his own home, the top floor of the shophouse on Circular Road, he could find peace but there was always a servant or someone to bother him. In the house in Market Street he shared with his wife and sister-in-law, there was absolutely no peace. Only here could he truly do as he pleased, for Qian, despite his humble beginnings, now lived like a Mandarin.
    He looked up as the subject of his ruminations came and sat down next to him. Zhen punched him lightly on the arm and poured