Bineesh Daadi hung up the phone and shook his head, sighing. Another disappointing article. It was hard to get good press for a regime that bans chewing gum and still espouses corporal punishment for minor offenses. But that was Bineesh’s job. The phone rang again. Bineesh listened and hung up. The wire transfer from Frankfurt had come in already. For Germans, these journalists were acting pretty French. What had happened to the days where one could simply pay a journalist or promise him a favor and then have a glowing article on one’s desk the next morning?
This was probably it for Bineesh. The regime had fired three Travel Bureau chiefs in as many years, and there was no reason to think that he would survive this scandal. There had been perks: the car and driver, weekends in Vietnam, the job at the airline for Preetha. All of that would be gone now. But so would the pressure.
Bineesh heard the door click in the foyer. He left his office to see Preetha standing on the threshold, her floral skirt ruffled and face muddied with runny mascara. She should have been on her way back to Newark by now. She barely got out, “Dad, I quit. I hate that place,” before she ran through the apartment and slammed the door to her room.
Bineesh stood in the foyer, holding the door to the apartment with his hand. It seemed that both of the Daadis had been under a lot of pressure since they had moved here. Singapore was odd: there was this oppressive sense of untouchable perfection, impossibly created on a tropical island that should have been covered with kimono dragons and poisonous spiders, a perfection that was impossible to live up to. Maybe it was time, Bineesh thought, to go back to their place in Kuala Lumpur.
Bineesh moved over to the window and glanced at the glass windows of the skyscrapers across the street. Singapore was the worst city he knew.
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