Our Past Lives

I got to know of Singapore-born Rachel Heng's writing through 'Suicide Club' (2018). She has been writing short stories, and a new book is in the works, slated to be released next year. I was pleased to come across her new short story. It make a good read. So much unspoken meaning between the lines. It's 'Before the Valley', published in The New Yorker on May 31, 2021.

Set in Singapore, the protagonist is eighty-two-year old Hwee Bin. She is a resident in Ward 4 at Sunrise Valley, a sanatorium. The high-dependency residents live on the third floor, High-D, the other residents call it. They tend to move there after a few years, as they deteriorate from their various afflictions and illnesses. The residents meet in the Big Hall, the common dining room at meal times, and in the Rec Room for socials and human interaction. 

They were all here now, Sunrise Valley residents one and the same. Sure, Cynthia was in a two-bedder with a garden view, and Hasmi had one of the few, coveted, and very expensive single wards. They still had to come to the linoleum-tiled dining room each morning for the same soggy kaya toast and watered-down coffee. Still took their seats each evening in front of the television, which blared, alternately, English-, Chinese-, Malay-, and Tamil-language soaps. Wards aside, were the residents not all in the same boat? The details might differ—mild dementia, children too busy to visit, loss of leg function, no living relatives—but the crux of the matter was the same. You were stuck in Sunrise Valley regardless, whether it was paid for by your dwindling pension, the government, or an erstwhile child.

The readers come to know of some of the residents in the sanatorium. There was yet another birthday celebration. It was Kirpal's birthday, and his granddaughter Satveer had come to celebrate with him. He was the life of the party in the sanatorium, cheering up many residents — "Everyone had a Kirpal story." Yet Hwee Bin could sense that he was unhappy at this party, unhappy with his granddaughter arranging an interview for him with the local newspaper. Kirpal was not pleased that they mentioned his previous career in the published feature, and he wasn't pleased that his friends at the home found out about his past life. His granddaughter never returned to visit after this birthday celebration.

Hwee Bin herself had an agenda. She wanted to go home to live with her daughter, and not in this place. She thought she wouldn't be a fall risk anymore since she could get around easily with a walker. Her leg wasn't better, but it had stabilized. Her daughter visited her, but so rarely. But she couldn't go home. Her daughter couldn't manage her care. Sunrise Valley was now home. 

Hwee Bin’s daughter had always been tightly wound, but she seemed to be getting worse of late. Hwee Bin wondered about her life. Was she not lonely? Didn’t she want a family of her own? Though, in truth, Hwee Bin knew very well the reason for Doreen’s solitude. After her father vanished, she’d built her walls carefully, painstakingly, as only a child knew how, so that no errant gap would let in the light of pain. And now here she was—living on her own, working days and nights and often weekends, so busy she had time to see no one, not even her own mother.

But Hwee Bin didn’t actually know that. Possibly, Doreen kept strings of lovers, held dinner parties with her school friends, was a regular social butterfly. Perhaps she had a husband, a child, even. An entire life kept secret, like the one her father had once had with his second family, across the causeway. His blood ran in her veins. Just because Hwee Bin had always taken Doreen at her word didn’t mean that it was true.

Would I care about what I did at 40 when I'm 80 years old? I wonder, how it would be like growing old alone. (No, children aren't an insurance against the perils of aging. I'd rather not deal with that.) I don't know if I want to live that long. Hopefully I'll be mobile, maybe I'll hire a caregiver for the day. Perhaps I would check myself into an elderly home where it might be safer in terms of its amenities to prevent falls and prompt medical attention. Whatever it is, I hope to have my sanity and coherence.