Читать книгу Sumalee - Javier Salazar Calle - Страница 6

In less than half an hour, the taxi stopped in front of the entrance of a building complex and the driver told me that this was the address on the paper. I looked and saw at the right of the entrance Spanish Village 56-88 Farrer Road and the same thing in what I assumed were Chinese characters. After exchanging a few words with the guard at the gate, he entered the complex and stopped. I paid with Singapore dollars I had brought from Spain and I watched him drive away.

I looked again at the paper where I had the address. I was in the right place. I started walking with all my luggage looking for the door. The complex was made up of a group of beige buildings with red tiled terraces. They were four storeys high including the ground floor forming the shape of an ellipse. In the centre there was a fairly large pool, a playground, parking, two tennis courts, a barbecue area ... It was clear that here the developments were perfect, not like the sad apartment in which I lived while looking for a better home to live with my ex. My ex, Cristina. She was now thousands of kilometres away from me and, although there were times when I felt her painfully close, even with frightening intensity, I had to forget her. I was so tired of so much sorrow, self-pity, and misery, I had to get back to enjoying life. I wanted to go back to being the crazy David from before I met her; unvarnished, uncompromising, not having to answer to anyone. To meet many women and enjoy with no strings attached.

While I was looking for the building, I was intercepted by a man with Asian features who asked me in a very strange English where I was going. I assumed it was someone from maintenance or the likes. I told him I was a new tenant and gave him the address. That seemed to reassure him. We shook hands and with a grin on his face he walked me to the door of my building helping me with a suitcase. He called my apartment, and someone answered, a voice that was familiar, he said that the new tenant had arrived. I stopped a moment to think about how smart he was, not questioning me, but rather accompanying me to the door to confirm my information with my roommates. When the voice confirmed that I was expected, he was satisfied, he said goodbye and I went into what would be my new home for at least the next six months. Or so I thought.

I rang the doorbell and pushed the door. I was surprised. I thought I recognized the voice of Josele, a co-worker, a friend with whom I worked side by side for three years. When we finished, he ended up in a project in the United States along with another co-worker from the bank. We hit it off from the beginning and we got along very well. I was sad when the project was over and we had to part ways, but we maintained regular contact and always met when he was in Spain.

At the door of the apartment, as I had suspected, Josele was waiting for me. He had not changed at all, he still had that hair that he grew like a toupee, a bad imitation of Elvis Presley. I left my suitcase and backpack on the floor and hugged him effusively.

“Josele, is it you?”

“Surprise! Come in and we will tell you. Look who's here”, he said opening the door wide.

“Damaso!”

I ran and hugged him lifting him into the air. Damaso was another fellow that the company had sent with Josele to the United States. A little quirky, but a familiar face in the end. The day could have not started better having these two characters as roommates.

“But what are you doing here? Were you not in America?”

“Yes, I was,” said Damaso. “The project ended and we both got sent here recently. Valentine told us you were coming, but we didn’t say anything because we wanted to surprise you.”

“And what a surprise, boys! It really can’t get any better. Together again and this time sharing an apartment. Singapore gets ready!”

“Yes!” Josele shouted excited. “We can play sports again together. Damaso and I go jogging twice a week and we are in a basketball league for expatriates. We've already entered you in the team.”

“Great!” I replied. “At least I will not get fat and I will meet new people. Well, tell me. What is life like here?”

“Tere and Diego are also here,” said Damaso.

“Them too! That's great, the whole gang together again. I didn’t think we would work together on a project again.”

“Yes, and we know something you don’t ...”

“I suppose, it is the fact that Diego is also on the basketball team.”

“Yes. But it’s not that.”

“What is it then?”

“They're together.”

“What! Tere and Diego? Since when?”

“Well, we do not know because they have just told us, but certainly since before coming here, so at least two months.”

“I had never suspected it; although, in fact, if you think about it, yes they are very compatible given the way they are. Good for them! So, what do we do now?”

Josele and Damaso first showed me around the apartment. It had three bedrooms and two bathrooms. I was going to share the bathroom with Josele. Apparently, Damaso insisted on having one for himself and Josele didn’t care. The living room and kitchen were spacious. The house had Wi-Fi and a closed terrace from where you could see the pool. They also told me that the complex had 24-hour security. The man who had intercepted me in the garden was of Chinese origin and was called Nan Shao and was the maintenance person during the day. At night there was a Malay named Datuk Musa. There was also a gym, sauna and squash courts on the ground floor, and a garden with several barbecues, which I had seen a moment ago, where you could have a picnic without leaving the building. Although there was a big TV in the living room, each room had a small one as well as air conditioning, a desk with a chair and a large closet. I didn’t know if the rest of the people in this country identical houses have, but the standard of living here looked amazing. We had two shopping centres within twenty minutes’ walk; with all kinds of restaurants, food and clothing shops, banks, and places to have fun. Wow, our location was perfect.

They also told me about transportation in the city. The subway was called MRT and it had four lines across Singapore from North to South and from East to West. There were also buses and the use of taxi was common, as it was quite cheap. The company had given me a mixed transport card that I could use for both the MRT and the buses. Our company offices were by the Singapore River estuary and close to a large urban park called Fort Canning Park. We could get there by bus. There was a direct line than in less than forty minutes got us to the office.

Working hours were in spurts, like everywhere else. The normal thing in Singapore was to work forty-four hours a week and to have fourteen days of vacation, although us, fortunately, kept the holidays from Spain. The work culture in Singapore was completely different than that of Spain. I don't think that in Spain we would be able to have a forty-four-hour work week and only two weeks of vacation.

Josele gave me a bag with a box inside.

“What is this?”

“A gift from the company. It's your corporate phone for Singapore. Inside you’ll find the phone, the SIM card, and the instructions to connect to all the apps in the company, although, in reality, the only useful one is the email. Monday at work they'll give you your laptop.”

“OK, thank you very much. Later you can explain to me the tariffs and calls to Spain. What about eating? How do you do it? From the menu? In restaurants like in Spain?”

“Well, there are a lot of options,” Josele replied. “It's very rare to find people eating in restaurants because they're so expensive. The norm here is to eat in the canteens of the office building, in the hawker centres, which are kitchen groups with a small counter that share an eating area or in the coffee shops which are like the hawkers, but more expensive and beautiful...”

“And with air conditioning!” Damaso interrupted. “It's where we usually eat.”

“Yes, yes, and with air conditioning,” Josele continued. “Because Damaso can’t take the heat and humidity. In any of these places you can both eat and buy food to go. That depends on everyone and whether there is room to sit, because sometimes there are no sits due to the large number of people there. Also, quite crowded are the fast-food restaurants type Burger King, McDonald's or other Asian food chains that don’t exist in Spain. There are also people who bring their own food, but it's very rare to see Westerners doing that. People from Bangladesh or the Philippines do it usually because they like to eat their traditional food and cook it themselves...”

“Good, good,” I cut him off laughing. “I've only asked where you usually eat, not to give me a report on the Singapore society and their eating habits. What a detailed response. It gave me time to set up the phone. Wait a minute, I'm going to call my mother.”

“Say hello from us.” They both said at the same time.

They knew her from when we worked together in Madrid and one day they came for dinner. My mother is an excellent cook. She become passionate about Spanish food and loved to have guests. She had had a stormy youth, so to speak, and was delighted to welcome new friends who, at first glance, seemed like good people; nothing to do with the unrecommended friendships of my adolescence. I took advantage of the company phone to call to tell her that I was all settled and that I was again with my soul friends. She was very glad I wasn't alone and that I knew people here. She sent them both many kisses. I promised to call and talk more in a few days. When I hung up, I kept asking about things I was interested in knowing about the place.

“And, to entertain yourself, what do you do around here? I don't need you to tell me everything there is to know about the city today, OK, Josele? You must have some fun, too, anything worth mentioning?”

“A lot of things,” Damaso replied. “In Singapore you're not going to get bored, that's for sure. There are all kinds of activities: from amazing flight simulators, horse racing, casinos, amusement parks, hiking trails, museums, shopping malls and, of course, hundreds of pubs and clubs where you can go out and meet people, especially a girl after what Cristina did to you.” My face showed how much I agreed with the latter. I felt like getting back to my crazy times, when what mattered was to end up with a girl no matter who. “Close to work, on the other side of the park, is one of the main strips. A street called Mohamed Sultan Road which is full of clubs and discos. Twenty minutes’ walk. And there's also golf across Marina Bay, of course!”

“I was wondering when you were gonna mention golf. I'm sure you looked into it before you even got here. How to become a member of a golf club around here and where to buy bread in the mornings.” I laughed.

“Do you have any idea what it feels like to shoot a hole in one? Neither do I, but I keep trying.”

“You know him so well David,” Josele said laughing. “As soon as he arrived, he asked the taxi driver on his way from the airport. And once a year they have Formula 1 races, of course. I think it's in September and we were told that it's amazing, because they race around the city at night; so, if we get a chance we should go, even if you don't like races very much, because the atmosphere alone I think it’s worth it.”

“But how long have you been here? You had time to do all these things?”

“No, man,” Josele laughed. The bars yes, of course; but the rest of the things we were told about by colleagues who have been here longer. Now that you're here, I'm sure we'll move more.”

“Man, I also hope to get out a little, too. Especially if it's in good company.”

“Do you mean us or some pretty girl?”

We all laughed hard. It was clear that the entire time they were in the United States we had not lost the complicity we always had in our projects together in Spain. Especially with Josele.

Good times were on the way.