Cake as Document

Chapter 24 – Cake as Document

Hawker centres keep better records than archives. Steam rose like signatures; fans spun minutes into weather; tables wore the patina of dinners that had solved weeks. Aleem reached Geylang Serai ten minutes early with a tote that contained practical courage: tissue packet, wet wipes, a Tupperware the color of sensible, two forks, and a box from an old-school bakery whose receipt read like a genealogy. On the label: Pandan chiffon – whole. Underlined once.

He chose a table under a fan that had lived a useful life and still refused drama. It faced a corridor where breeze, if it ever passed, would choose to pass there. He texted two messages that behaved like friendly signposts.

Aleem → A: Corner near the drinks stall with the orange sign. Fan cooperative. I’m the one trying not to arrange chairs like a manager.

Aleem → Mum: I’m at the table with the green tissue packet. I brought cake; it’s an acceptable document.

His mother’s reply arrived first. If cake is document, we will stamp it with appetite. Five minutes.

Aoi’s followed with lowercase calm. Crossing. I carry small appetite + polite face.

He put the cake on the table like a passport and waited, hands behaving.

His mother arrived with a basket and the gait of a woman who has always known where stalls place their best vegetables. She wore a blouse that respected weather and a look that respected boundaries. “Smell is good today,” she said, approving of the whole building.

“Smell is good,” he agreed, and stood enough to be proper. “Thank you for coming, Ma.”

She eyed the cake. “Correct. You remembered the law.” She set down her basket, then glanced at his shirt and nodded, because linen is the uniform of men trying to be decent.

Aoi came in a beat later with the stride of a person determined to be furniture, not exhibit. White cotton shirt, sleeves rolled, trousers that forgave sitting; a small tote that could hold a pencil case and a map but not attention. Cap until she chose the room; then off, tucked away, face practicing lowercase.

“Mdm Rahman?” she said, voice the exact temperature of respect. She bowed a hinge bow that had crossed borders intact. “Thank you for seeing me. I brought nothing useful… except appetite.”

Aleem’s mother looked at her for the necessary second–the measure between stranger and guest–then smiled the half-smile she saves for people who pass the bench test. “Appetite is useful. Sit. We stamp cake later.”

They sat. Aoi placed both hands on the table, open. His mother placed one hand on the cake box like a notary.

“Rules?” Aoi asked gently, the way you ask your host whether shoes belong by the door.

“Public first,” his mother said, a sentence that could supervise nations. “We eat, we talk, we do not make the hawker centre into a movie. If anyone is rude to you, I will use my teacher voice and they will apologize to tables.”

“Understood,” Aoi said, eyes grateful without apologizing. “We are boring on purpose.”

“Good,” Mdm Rahman said. “My favorite rebellion. Aleem, order. Your friend–what shall I call you?”

“Aoi is okay,” she said. “Or you can call me ‘girl’ like aunties do.”

“Girl is powerful,” his mother allowed. “But I will use Aoi. Today we eat like respectable people: carrot cake–black, you said?–satay, stingray, kailan. And one bitter gourd, small, to check your courage. Drink?”

“Barley, cold,” Aoi said, brave on vegetables, modest on drinks.

Aleem stood. “Signals?” he checked. Two taps under the table from Aoi–here–one hold from him–stay. His mother watched the silent exchange with the mild curiosity she reserves for new fads that might prove useful. He went to queue.

Queues are choreography. He placed his tissue packet like a flag and engaged in the national sport–auditing menus. The carrot cake auntie moved with declarative wrists; the stingray uncle wielded sambal as if it were a verb. At the satay pit, smoke made sentences in Malay; an uncle fanned fire with the authority of a judge.

He ordered in the language each stall preferred and laid coins down in ways that made arithmetic blush less. “Less sweet barley, please,” he added at the drink stall. “And one hot tea later for my mother when she wins.” The uncle clucked approval.

Back at the table, Aoi and his mother sat like two people participating in a polite interview for a position in each other’s lives.

“Work is… calmer?” his mother asked.

“Calmer and busy,” Aoi said. “We teach rooms to be kind. I am learning to sit with pride.”

“Good,” Mdm Rahman said. “Sitting is an art. Singaporeans are very bad at it unless there is TV.”

Aoi laughed correctly. “We practice,” she promised.

The food arrived in a parade of smells: garlic and smoke, sugar and oil, lime and bravery. The stingray hissed its last argument; the satay lay like a solved problem; the kailan shone as if it had reconsidered its career. A small plate of bitter gourd pretended innocence under egg.

“Bismillah,” his mother said, because some words are tablecloths. “We eat.”

They ate as citizens, not as characters. Aoi took the first square of carrot cake, black as night, and closed her eyes the way a tired dancer forgives a floor. “Correct,” she said. “This is the right kind of wrong.”

“Good,” his mother said. “She can stay.”

Satay went second–peanut prism, cucumber reprieve. Aoi rotated a stick like a baton between her fingers, amused at muscle memory showing off in the wrong sport. “Do you miss performing?” his mother asked, not nosy, just adult.

“I miss people breathing together,” Aoi said with a glance at Aleem that included him without making him prize. “But I like teaching rooms more. Crowds can be… honest.”

His mother considered this and allowed it into her collection of sentences to tell aunties later. “Honest crowds are rare like good durian.”

“They smell better,” Aoi said, which earned her the right to be teased later.

“Bitter gourd?” Aleem offered, treaty time. Aoi lifted one slice the size of a small verdict and ate it with the face of a citizen who has decided to respect other citizens’ favorites. She breathed once. “Moral lesson,” she announced, echoing herself. “Still fair.”

“Promoted to medium piece,” his mother said solemnly, moving the plate toward her again. “You have potential.”

Gentle tests arrived the way rain does–soft, thorough, choosing surfaces. His mother asked about travel without prying flights. Aoi answered in cities and benches, not schedules and gossip. His mother asked about parents; Aoi spoke of soup and laundry and a grandmother’s drawer of handkerchiefs folded like origami. “Knife drawer is also for sentences,” she added, and his mother laughed, approving the doctrine.

When a teenager drifted too close, phone rising on instinct, Aleem lifted his palm, hinge bow, the soft point to the sign that didn’t exist but lives in every decent person: No filming strangers’ dinners. The boy apologized with his whole body and retreated to a plate of satay. His mother watched the exchange and said nothing, which was praise.

Halfway through, Aoi stood–“May I bring sambal and calamansi?”–and his mother nodded as if promoting a junior staffer. Aoi returned with the correct ratio and the confidence of someone who had memorized the layout of a hawker centre in under ten minutes. She topped up water, wiped a small spill with the economy of a person who was once paid to manage other people’s shoes.

“Useful,” his mother said to nobody in particular, the checkmark tone. “We like useful.”

Cake intermission. He opened the box with a small ceremony appropriate to dessert. His mother took the plastic knife like a general handed a pen, cut clean quadrants, then halved those into democratic slices.

“Stamp,” she said. “Approved.” They ate pandan chiffon dense with memory.

Aoi dabbed a crumb from the table with her fingertip and made it disappear. “I wrote a letter once,” she said, eyes on the cake, not the people. “Four lines on heavy paper. It crossed a sea.” She did not elaborate; she did not need to. His mother, who knows letters, nodded and let the sentence sit.

“Cake is also letter,” his mother decreed. “You brought yours. I will send you home with mine.” She tapped the Tupperware. “Leftovers are love letters that don’t need stamps.”

Aoi looked delighted by the infrastructure of affection. “I will return container with biscuit inside,” she promised, understanding how economies continue.

After food, they did the choreography of trays. Aoi carried plates; Aleem cleared skewers into a dish like counting; his mother thanked stallholders by name, which is how she keeps the world organized. The satay uncle pretended to scold her for stealing the show; she told him his cucumber was stingy today only. He accepted the judgment like sacrament.

At the drinks stall, Aleem ordered his mother’s hot tea, less sugar. The uncle winked. “For the win,” he said, sliding the cup as if awarding points.

Back at the table, they lingered with the courtesy of people who know tables have appointments with other families. His mother opened her basket, produced a small container of ikan bilis sambal, and set it in front of Aoi. “This is bribe,” she said. “For future honesty. If you don’t like, tell me. If you like, I will cook more. We don’t pretend here.”

Aoi received it with both hands like a medal. “Thank you,” she said. “If I pretend, my manager will find out and make me do extra homework.”

“You have good manager,” his mother said. “She knows everything?”

“She knows everything,” Aoi said, amused and sincere. “We told her: we are trying, with rules.”

“Good,” his mother said, looking at Aleem with eyes that remembered him small and admired him medium. “Proceed by invitation. Public first. Keep the room kind.”

“Understood,” they said together, which made a nearby auntie look up and decide these people were not a hazard to society.

The quiet win arrived without trumpets. His mother, who does not hug in public unless there is a reason, placed her hand briefly over Aoi’s on the table. “Come again,” she said. “Another day we try ngoh hiang. And you bring cake or yourself. Both is also okay.”

Aoi bowed her head, relief and delight doing a polite duet. “Thank you,” she said. “I will bring biscuit for container. And courage for bitter gourd.”

“Bring yourself,” his mother repeated, and stood with the ceremony accorded to end of meal. “I must buy beansprouts while they are still behaving. You two clear the table as if you were brought up properly.”

“Yes, Ma,” Aleem said, and Aoi replicated the tone with perfect imitation, which earned her the rare gift of his mother’s laugh with teeth.

They watched her navigate the lanes like a ship built to cut small seas. Aoi exhaled, then looked at him the way people look at the person who just handed them a map.

“She likes you,” he said.

“She likes cake,” Aoi said. “And maybe me, a little.”

“Both true,” he said. “The order will change depending on hunger.”

They cleaned the table with the thoroughness of citizens. He took the cake box; she took the tray; they returned both like a ritual they were proud to be part of.

Outside, the corridor invented a breeze. They walked to the curb where cabs choose to be kind and buses keep promises.

“Thank you for today,” she said, palms open the way they were at the tea room, the museum, the garden. “Your mother is… correct.”

“She is,” he said. “She measured you with tape the shops don’t sell. You passed.”

Aoi lifted the Tupperware, smiled at its obligations. “I will return with biscuit. And a new signal maybe.”

“Text first,” he said. “So sleep can plan.”

“Always,” she said. “We will be boring on purpose.”

They bowed–earned, not deep, correct–and took different directions because sidewalks are not theatres.

At home, his mother had already placed two bowls on the counter as if dinner might reappear out of gratitude. She looked up. “She is a person,” she said, satisfied. “Not a story.”

“A person,” he said. “She brought appetite and returned tray.”

“Good,” she said. “Next time we do market. I will test her with fish eyes.” She grinned. “Kindly.”

He laughed, washed the Tupperware’s lid and dried it because he wanted the gift to start clean. He opened the locker door’s paper museum and considered–the squares like colleagues on a noticeboard.

Respect. Distance. Gratitude.
Approval, always.
Public first, always.
Don’t be the wind.
Rest is allowed.
Hold the room steady.
Small is brave.
Credit small; safety large.
We will be boring on purpose.
Be the bench.
Proceed by invitation.
Listen with hands.
Signals are kindness.
Check in, don’t guess.

He cut a new square from the corner of a calendar that had already paid for itself in wisdom and wrote: Feed people first. He slid it under Public first, always and above Hold the room steady. The stack inhaled like a kitchen.

His phone chimed once.

A: Home. Your mother stamped me with tea. Tupperware secure. Thank you for the room.

Aleem: Home. She said “come again” and meant it. Thank you for negotiating with bitter gourd.

A: Biscuit plan initiated. Courage rising. Good night.

Aleem: Good night. Two in, hold, three out.

He placed the phone face down. The fan kept its old rain. He lay on his side toward the wall that had memorized his breath and let the day settle its plates into the drying rack of his brain.

Respect. Distance. Gratitude.

Outside, stalls washed ladles with the pride of professionals, teenagers compared satay sticks like trophies, and somewhere a woman who had never liked public hugging decided to like one particular girl with cake.