Friday, December 29, 2006
I am looking up at the wall before me filled with pinned up photos in my older sibling’s room. I spot a few family photos taken in Singapore exactly a year ago- me in my green vintage dress.
I remember that night distinctly. That night, after our family dinner at the Ritz, M was due to arrive from Hong Kong. Time flies- a year has just passed.
But I remember our weekend ever so distinctly.
****
When I was a child, I had this theory.
When you like a person, you cannot seem to recall his/her face in your head. He/she is always blurry in your mind’s eye. But once you stopped liking him/her, quite instantly you would remember the face! That happened with many people that I grew up being infatuated with. Just like Mr. London whom I liked dearly for eight years, the moment I decided to let him go, I could automatically see his face when I imagine him.
I thought it was my own theory until Po said the same to me one day in the living room of my bohemian apartment in Paris.
Try testing it, maybe you might find a similar result.
****
I never seemed to remember M’s features clearly.
Just like that day where we bumped into each other at the Odeon train station where I caught him with Julie. He recognized me, frowned and walked away from me. It took Pato coming towards me to say hi that dawn upon me that it was my lover boy with another girl. And all day, I was going around town with a sense of blissful light-headedness dreaming of my beautiful M.
I would have missed him if not for the fact that I missed my previous train by a minute for the bathroom.
****
At Changi Airport, I stood at the arrival hall, searching through the throng of human traffic.
I have not seen M for thirteen months.
I squinted my eyes, attempting to spot his face impatiently in the crowd of passengers, awaiting for their luggage from the revolving conveyor belt.
It was close to 12 midnight. B and her then latest crush were awaiting for us to meet them at MOS. She had been hurrying me on SMS as she required my assistance as a social buffer, given that her night has proven to be non-eventful with Mr. Blockhead.
From afar, I noticed a Caucasian guy holding onto the handle of a trolley and waiting at the conveyor belt. He wore a white shirt and a blue jeans, similarly to what M used to wear in Paris. I figured that must be him and waved wildly at him to catch his attention. I have slipped under the metal bar and was standing at the glass panel. My eyes continued to focus on that man who was still oblivious to my presence.
Out of nowhere, a Caucasian guy came into my view. It was M! I was caught unaware and felt slightly embarrassed as I had previously waved excitedly at a stranger and he saw me.
He exited from the door into the arrival hall and while we looked slightly awkward (perhaps since we never formally bade farewell in Paris and left much unsaid), we threw our arms into each other’s embrace.
****
Later that night, I confessed that I mistook someone else for him at the airport before.
“I know,” he said.
“Just like the day where you saw me at the train station. I knew you didn’t recognize me at first.”
****
By the way, I could never remember the colour of M’s eyes. I remember his beautiful eyes, as in his look and his tender gaze. Strangely, his eyes or rather the look from his eyes are what I remember most lucidly of his look.
I remember where exactly at Sentosa I asked about the colour of his eyes in the dark of the night. I don’t exactly remember the answer but I know he didn’t give me a straight answer because the colour varies under different light. But he did say it is mostly a certain colour.
The other week I finally found a picture he sent me of us hugged together (when he arrived back in Hong Kong)- B, M and me. The first night where we all looked happy as we sojourned to Velvet Underground- B, sufficiently drunk from sadness (for Mr. Blockhead’s stupidity for not picking up any romantic hints) but decided to let loose and enjoy the night nonetheless, me drunk with surprised elation that M still had feelings for me (since I was careful to psych myself into thinking that he was visiting as a friend) and keen to make amends for his duration in Singapore, and M was simply happy to see me and rekindle our Parisian romance again. Paris- la ville d'armour, he once wrote nostalgically to me. I was in the middle, dressed in that green vintage dress.
But the picture was poorly taken. He had mostly red-eye effect in that picture.
Somehow, I managed to make out that he has blue eyes.
****
I wonder what happen to our favourite picture- that one, where we took during New Year’s Day countdown at Indo Chine that he denied me? Just him and me- hugged together, that blissful look on our faces with our cheeky smiles, although I was to learn later in the wee hours of the morning that he was hurting from his inability to get over the knowledge of my truth…
