2006-10-04
I Remember A Person I Almost Left Behind
The only thing that keeps him from being someone Left Behind, is the leash of conscience that tugs his memory away from oblivion.
But I don't have the guts to call him. I don't know if the line he once told me was always open to me is an offer that still stands.
He was - I use the past tense on him, because my present doesn't dare to claim him - a very strange man. A rather tiny one, too, for I don't believe he was very much taller than me. The first and only time I met him, he was wearing weathered skin, beaten brown by the suns of various continents and denim covered in sprays of emulsion paint. They were tattered too, I think.
Scrutinizing the memory, I realize that the only things I truly remember are his eyes - large and beautiful, like a girl's, with a ring of black lashes that seemed too dainty for the rest of him. But even then, I can't quite remember their real colour.
Oh, I remember his voice too. Too well. When I first heard it over the phone sometime between 11pm and 12am, I remember thinking, "What a burly man he must be!" His voice was deep, like what my art teacher would have called "like God". God with a Chinaman's (no such word, I know, Straits Time's influence - I can't be blamed. :P) American twang.
"Oh, Charmaine," he said. He laughed throatily, more to himself than to me. He had been waiting for my call, he said. He knew me, before I knew him.
I believe he would be in his late thirties now. I could never decide if he was young or old. He tried to make me call him "Father", but mostly, we alternated between "Friend" and "Shifu".
For a number of weeks (I don't remember how long), we talked only through the phone. It was like Sophie's World, and I was Sophie. And instead of letters, I got phone calls. He was an artist, and I was his new project. A live one, and one that would possibly succeed him.
My first lesson remains so clear that I suspect he fried it into my brains. He never allowed me to call him Mr ____. Or "sir". Or "teacher". Only by his first name, and later, diminutive.
But what about Respect, I asked.
Respect isn't accorded by age. Besides, respect isn't about using pretentious addresses.
Nonetheless, it took me over a month to finally address him the way he wanted.
He told my art teachers he wanted to adopt me. He wanted to take me out of school and train me to be an artist. He said I had what it took. He wanted to take me to Venice.
But I stayed in school. I stayed in Singapore. I stayed Student-and-by-the-way-also-doing-art. Not Artist. Not Apprentice.
He told me about his career, his ideas, his lovelife (he made me write a poem on his behalf to win back his lost love). He lent me books. He lent me movies.
I listened. I learnt. I lived.
He tried to make me go for exhibitions, go to art shows. But I never did. I never could find the time to. Maybe I just didn't want to.
I don't know what happened. But the phone calls stopped. I got too busy. I suppose he got busy too.
He dropped me a couple of messages earlier this year. I can't say for sure if I replied them.
I hope he found a better Sophie.
I wish I could be that better Sophie.
nothing ever happens at 10:49 p.m.