Library Light

Chapter 22 – Library Light

Lunch hours have their own weather. The pavements around Victoria Street steamed politely; the air‑con inside the National Library turned that steam into discipline. Aleem climbed the broad steps and let the building re‑teach him how to walk softer. Glass, red chairs, lifts that sighed like adults. He felt the small thrill of being on time for a room that had decided to be kind.

He arrived early, which is a way of honoring agreements. He checked in with the information desk, not because he had to, but because he likes when staff know what you’re doing in their house. “Study tables Level 7, quiet reading Level 8,” the librarian said, the badge on her lanyard older than some of the books. “No food, please. Phones on silent. Thank you.”

“Thank you,” he said, and meant it. He sent a text that read like a door held open: Level 8, red chairs under the high window. I’ll bring the map that isn’t a map.

A: Walking from Bugis. Carrying book I won’t read, came back, amused.

He took the escalator and let the library’s smell–paper, carpet, a hint of plastic from a child’s borrowed dinosaur–settle his shoulders. On Level 8 he chose a corner that let light behave. Two red chairs angled so they wouldn’t collide; a low table that would forgive elbows. He set a thin folder on it: a half‑dozen Borrowed Breath cards for the librarian who had asked last week, and a new one he’d designed last night in small type–Listen with hands. It was a diagram, not an instruction: thumb to fingertips, a palm‑to‑palm option, a tiny bar of two in, hold one, three out printed like a secret.

The lift chimed. Aoi walked into the floor’s hush with the body language of a person determined to be furniture, not exhibit. Linen shirt, sensible trousers, the kind of cap that looks like an apology to skylights. She removed the cap once she had chosen the room–the way you do when you decide to be present.

“Hello,” she said, a library hello. Vowels in lowercase.

“Hello,” he said, standing just enough to be polite without turning it into a spectacle. “Welcome to the red chairs.”

They sat. They did not touch the folder yet. The library thanked them by not noticing them.

“Rules?” she asked softly, the ritual both of them had learned makes rooms stronger.

“No photos,” he said. “Phones only for time and maps. We sit as if we were made of wood. We proceed by invitation.”

“And we will be boring on purpose,” she added, smiling with her eyes so they wouldn’t have to move anything else.

They exchanged the business of ordinary first, which is how a day becomes theirs. He pointed out the stacks where he used to lose an hour to old travelogues written by men who insisted on describing rivers. She pointed out that her book was a collection of essays with very serious covers and that she fully intended to disrespect it by only reading a paragraph.

“May I leave something for the librarian?” he asked, hand on the folder.

“Yes,” she said. “Staff first. Always.”

He slid the small stack of Borrowed Breath cards out; on top sat a different rectangle–a cream card in thick stock, edges rounded by his pocket. He touched it as if it were a sentence he wasn’t sure how to pronounce.

“For you,” he said, not pushing it across yet. “A small thing. We can trade later.”

She understood the later was the point. “After the room agrees,” she said.

They let silence do an easy minute. A school group trickled through, shepherded by a docent who had mastered the art of whispering with authority. A young couple navigated the stack of language textbooks with the courage of people planning to speak to grandparents more fluently. Somewhere a printer chirped once, changed its mind, and went back to sleep.

“Shall we walk to the atrium, then back?” he suggested. “So the building can audition us before we dare to give it gifts.”

“We shall,” she said, amused by the thought of a building with opinions about them.

They chose the long way because long ways teach you more. Past shelves of architecture titles Aoi touched spines like tree bark. Past the window with the view of Bras Basah where afternoon rain rehearsed without commitment. Down to Level 5’s Plaza where sunlight fell in a geometry that made people kinder.

Near the rail above the atrium, the near‑miss arrived like weather that had considered a tantrum. Two poly students, lanyards swinging, stopped mid‑sentence. One’s eyes widened; the other’s phone rose reflexively, the motor memory of a generation trained to catch proof. The screen hovered, not yet above shoulder.

Aleem did the choreography they’d practiced with smiles and ushers across cities. Palm up, hinge bow, eyes kind. He placed himself between their impulse and Aoi’s afternoon, not blocking, just editing the frame. “Library rules,” he murmured at the exact volume that reached them and no one else. He glanced at the sign ten steps away–Keep voices soft. No recording without permission. He pointed, not accusatory, but like a tour guide.

The student blinked as if woken from a nap he hadn’t meant to take. “Oh–sorry,” he whispered, cheeks doing the redness young faces do so well. He lowered the phone to a side tilt: still a souvenir, not a theft. “You’re… she’s…” He let the sentence end unprinted.

“Thank you,” Aoi said, including both of them in the gratitude. She put two fingers to the brim of the cap she wasn’t wearing, a gesture that looked like military courtesy translated into civilian kindness.

The first student, braver now that no one had scolded him, asked the question Aleem hoped someone in this city would eventually learn to ask. “Is it okay to just say hi?”

“Yes,” Aoi said, “when you ask.” She bowed the hinge bow they had been polishing in museums. “Hi.”

They returned the bow as if coached by some good auntie. “Hi,” the boys said, and then left, proud to have been adults in a small way. The phone stayed low. The moment sighed back into architecture.

“Near‑miss,” Aleem said once the air learned its regular shape again.

“Near‑miss handled,” Aoi said, the we inside the sentence implied, not displayed.

Back at the red chairs, he set the cream card on the table between them. “Now,” he said, “if the room agrees.”

“The room agrees,” she said.

She didn’t reach immediately. He turned it face up–a simple blind‑embossed line drawing of a bench, the wood grain rendered in small, fussy lines. In one corner, tiny letters: be the bench.

“I–hired a very patient auntie at Bras Basah to teach me her embossing press,” he confessed. “I made a few of these. For nothing in particular. Just… to remember to be furniture before feelings.”

Aoi touched the card with the respect reserved for paper that has suffered for art. “It is small,” she said. “And brave.” She slid it into her notebook without ceremony, which made it more ceremonial.

She reached into her sling bag and produced a small pouch of soft cloth tied with a knot so efficient it might seek employment. “For you,” she said. “Listen with hands.”

Inside the pouch lay a pair of thin cotton gloves, the kind used by museum docents to turn pages of something older than anyone has the right to handle. But these were different only in color–soft gray instead of gallery white–and in the small stitched letters near the cuff: A. on one, A. on the other. She glanced at his face and laughed quietly at the potential confusion. “One A for Aleem,” she said, “one A for… audience.”

He rolled the cuffs between finger and thumb. The cloth obeyed. “These are ridiculous and perfect,” he said, reverent. “I will keep them in my tote and use them when the day asks for calm.”

“And,” she added, with the precision of someone putting the last nail in a picture hook, “if we need to speak in crowded rooms, we can use… signals.” She laid her hand palm‑up on the table. “Two taps: I’m here. One hold: stay. Three light taps: I need fresh air.”

He matched his palm to hers–flat, no lacework. The red chairs learned the count with them. “Two, one, three,” he said. “We will be bilingual.”

They practiced, not like children, not like spies, just like people training a future to behave.

He excused himself to leave the small stack of cards with the Level 8 desk, framing it not as a gift but as stock. “For patrons who like diagrams,” he told the librarian. “No logos.”

“Ah,” she said, carding through the small pile. “Polite fonts. Appreciated. We’ll put them near the magazines where people forget to breathe.” She slid one under the acrylic like a café putting out a tip jar: not begging, merely offering.

When he returned, Aoi had flipped her essay collection to an essay about listening that contained entirely too many metaphors. She looked relieved at the interruption. “Do you want to not read this with me?”

“Very much,” he said. They leaned in, pages open, the way children do when they are pretending to do homework and are in fact learning how to be friends.

The library’s lunch hour spread itself thin and calm. They spoke in a voice designed for librarians to approve of. The red chairs comported themselves. A man at the far window operated a laptop as if performing heart surgery; a woman nearby fell asleep against her own wrist without apology.

“May I check something personal in a professional way?” Aoi asked, eye still on the page.

“Please.”

“When we are recognized,” she said, “and you… step between–does it cost you more than it should?”

He considered the question the way you pick up a cup you aren’t sure how hot it is. “It costs me if I’m trying to be clever,” he said. “It costs me less if I remember I’m furniture. Today cost me nothing. The boys wanted permission to be polite. That’s the easiest job.” He paused. “Ask me again if I come home stupid‑tired from catching other people’s wind.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I will ask. And I will also… catch wind.” She mimed the palm‑up gesture. “We are two ushers when needed.”

“We are,” he said, and the red chairs approved.

They read two pages longer than was required by their agreement with life, then closed the book on dignified terms. Aoi produced a pencil from nowhere and wrote on a small slip torn from the back of her notebook, the way people who have always been good students do. She slid it to him.

Signals are kindness.

He smiled because the sentence had found the square of paper behind his locker door already. “I’ll put this near the hinge,” he said. “So my hand can memorize it when I open the door.”

“I like that your house has a museum for instructions,” she said. “Mine has a drawer where I put knives and also sentences.”

“Correct,” he said gravely. “Knife drawer: the original thesis repository.”

They lost three minutes to a laugh that deserved it.

“Shall we walk to the map room and then let the city feed us?” he suggested.

“Yes,” she said. “We will admire lines pretending to be places.”

The map room on Level 10 felt like an attic that had won the lottery. They circled a glass case where an old plan of the harbor lay with all its dignified mistakes. They did not touch anything. They let their eyes touch things instead. A staff member in white gloves turned a page of a folio with the same reverence Aoi had stitched into his gift.

“Your gloves,” he whispered, “have cousins.”

She nodded. “They are inside my bag–jealous.”

They left the library like citizens–no fuss, no photos, a hello to the guard who had learned their faces as faces only. Outside, Victoria Street was deciding whether to be afternoon or evening. The bus stop gathered people who were brave about standing.

“Albert Centre?” he asked. “We can audition bitter gourd with an accompaniment of prata.”

She made the face of a person entering a polite duel with a vegetable. “Proceed by invitation,” she said. “Today we invite small slices.”

They crossed to the hawker centre where the ceiling fans did their endless ballet and every third stall promised a miracle. He queued at the stall where the carrot cake was black and correct; she fetched drinks like a champion of municipal hydraulics. They ate at a table that had hosted a thousand decent lunches and a few extraordinary ones.

“Bitter gourd treaty,” he said, pushing a small portion her way. “With egg. With mercy.”

She tried, made a face that was half comedy, half bravery, and then tried again. “It tastes like a moral lesson,” she observed, finishing her bite. “But a fair one.”

“Exactly,” he said, relieved. “We do not force, but we attempt.”

An auntie at the next table, having audited their behavior for ten minutes, decided they were not a hazard to the social order. “This stall better than across,” she announced, as Singaporeans do when sharing the fruits of research. “Next time you try the ngoh hiang–also good.”

“Thank you,” they said together, correctly.

After, they walked no further than the outside corridor where breeze could pretend it visited hawker centres. Aoi put her palm on the railing like a person greeting metal. “May I ask another question?”

“Please.”

“When you were in army,” she said, “before the group–before me–what did you hold on to when night was bigger than you?”

He looked at the road, where buses kept their appointments. “The rule my mother taught me without calling it a rule,” he said. “Respect, distance, gratitude. Inventory of small things. Keep your hands low. Count. Clean something. The wall that learned my breath.” He exhaled through his nose, not dramatic. “And sometimes–Kai’s bad jokes.”

She smiled at the last one, precise. “I would like to thank him for that someday.”

“You will be fed mints,” he warned. “It is their love language.”

She nodded, as if ready to be adopted by an entire telegram channel of aunties and two men with gaffer tape.

They set the time for their next ordinary: a weekday morning in the museum when light was freshly ironed. They set the rule about messages again: no novels at midnight; small notes with permission. They set the pace: two in, hold one, three out.

At the junction where they would part, she stopped as if reading a sign invisible to anyone else. “May I listen with hands?” she asked, palm up.

“Yes,” he said.

She placed her palm against his, flat. Two taps; one hold; three light taps. “Here,” she said. “Stay. Air.”

He returned the sequence, his hand steadier than he thought it would be. “Here,” he said. “Stay. Air.”

“Thank you,” she said, and removed her hand as if leaving a bookmark.

Home learned he had eaten well from the way he hummed while putting the kettle on. His mother, applying ginger to fish like affection, glanced at him. “Library?”

“Library,” he said. “We were not furniture but we behaved as if we wanted to be.”

“That is furniture,” she said. “You like her still?”

“Yes,” he said. “We exchanged… gloves.”

She blinked once at the poetry of that and decided to let it be literal. “Good. You two will not catch colds from books.”

He smiled, made tea, and stood in front of the locker door’s paper museum. He added two squares cut from the corner of a calendar that had been generous with its edges.

Signals are kindness.
Check in, don’t guess.

He placed them under Listen with hands and over Be the bench, then pressed the tape so they would accept his house as theirs.

His phone chimed once.

A: Home. The card in my book is behaving. The gloves say hello. Thank you for catching wind gently today.

Aleem: Home. Librarian liked the diagrams. The bitter gourd treaty is signed in pencil. Thank you for sharing the umbrella of lunch.

A: We proceeded by invitation. Next: light and stones.

He put the phone face down. The fan made its practiced rain. He lay on his side, toward the wall that had memorized his breath, and let his hands keep the count that love had chosen: two in, hold one, three out. Not a spell. A structure that had decided to be a home.

Respect. Distance. Gratitude.

Outside, the library returned books to shelves and the hawker centre wiped tables into histories and two poly boys told their friends, in soft voices, how they had learned to lower their phones and say hello properly.