“Jonathan, that was sooo beautiful,” purred Pauline, when the crowd finally quieted. She was very wide-eyed. All woman.
“Jonathan, I felt — soo much,” said Pavithra, and Pauline reached to clasp her hand when she seemed in danger of swooning from her chair. The women laughed.
“Very good, Jonathan. Extremely, extremely good,” said Rich, exciting me so much that I hardly registered the ominous note of reserve in Ken’s comment, which came softly and under cover of screams of approval.
“Jonathan, you have definitely given me what I expected of you.”
His eyes were as bland as an idol’s. At the moment I concluded what I wanted to: that he was pleased and gratified, that his expectations were met. It made sense he’d have particular expectations. After all, the song was his.
I felt sorry for Hady having to go second, on the heels of a performance like this one. I thought probably he’d vary his staging somewhat. He would if he were smart. He was. Panting in the wings, I watched.
He brought lights up slowly before he began. It was effective. First he was there in silhouette, then substantial. It was like sunrise. He lifted his bowed head, and light flooded his face. My panting stilled like a hand had smoothed waters. He was like incarnation.
How is he to be described in that moment? Boyish throughout the competition, now his face was manly. Grave and serious, in an intense and profound-seeming way, he suddenly smiled. It was a tender smile, brimming with sweetness. With it he took possession, of us and of this place. His birthright.
I could see everything. The crowd. The dignitaries like wax figures in their raised chairs. The judges. Pauline and Pavithra looked dazzled. Ken Wyranto smiled for once, and it was the leer of a wolf. Rich Lee registered the vision like a blow. Reflexively, his hands rose from the judging table and stretched so he resembled the Dali. Like he’d sink into Hady if he could, as he’d gobbled Godiva until his lips were slick. Like a famished man seeing the feast he desired at last.
Now, I understood him.
“Your smile is sun in the darkness. . . ” Hady began, and it was an extension of his smile, his voice as silvery as water verging the lip of a silver pitcher. My heart stopped. This was no romantic man calling on a girl, no matter how ideal. Now I felt how mistaken my interpretation had been.
“You hear my voice when I call. . . ”
“Oh, “ I groaned.
“You lift me high —”
Ken’s lyrics were flexible. Amenable to the interpretation I’d given them, yes. But much better for what Hady did to them. Oh, so much better. Which was to make them a prayer.
“Touching the sky —”
The Singapore Arena is ordinary glass and steel, but for Hady it echoed like a city of stone. When he stretched his hand to point, we were there with him. He was pointing to the hills, and sun, and the new day dawning. To God. His prayerful voice both showed us the way and somehow brought it into being. That’s what a herald does, I guess. I never knew it before that moment when Hady, singing like the most beautiful muzzein from the loveliest minaret amidst a city of God that must be shown that it was, showed us not. Ringing and tender, he was calling upon God. And God heard.
“Together, we — fly,” he sang, throwing his head back.
A shock went through us all. Hady grimaced, and his body jerked upward like he’d fly away. But he didn’t. Instead, he swept his hand, in a gesture assuring us he was still with us, still ours. His eyes still fixed keenly on what he saw, the vision he must show to us, but now his grimace vanished. Filled with his vision, he looked at us, and his smile all through sadder verses was pure delight. He could indulge the sadness, admit to it without being diminishment of delight and indulgence because, as he showed us — that sadness was behind us, now. What he saw from his greater heights gave him joy. Sweetly as the tenderest brother, the most indulgent lover, he was telling us — the time had come.
The choir rose, and their faces were ecstatic. I’ve reviewed my tape, and the choir did not look that way for me. The stadium was like a sea of mounting waves and, looking at it from my vantage similar to Hady’s, I wondered he could continue. I don’t believe I could have. He was too transported to notice. “Together, we fly” he sang, stretching out his free hand like the Dali sculpture’s but with fingers graceful instead of flailing, as if indicating something just beyond his fingers. At that moment, I’d swear all of us understood what feeling is. What cutting loose means. It is our deepest fear and our highest potential. Our feeling, strong and authentic and repressed for so long, may explode! But if it does, that’s not the end. It’s the chaotic start of something new. Better. “Together we fly” — straight into the arms of God.
Ninety-eight percent of Singaporeans watched the Final Showdown. They know the vote was not “too close to call.” The differential was a whopping fourteen percent. There are not two Singapore Idols. There is only one, and he is Hady Musa.
When the Minister of Arts informed me of the Twin Idols campaign, to be launched that very night and by the following morning to entail the pictures on busses, the posters everywhere, the famous Ngee Ann Shopping Mall marquee lit with our images PhotoShopped and superimposed, I was too numb to resist.
Remember that Jemaah Islamiyah thrives just across the Straits of Johor,” he said. “Remember the unrest on our own island just a decade and a half ago, and never forget that our powerful neighbors would not mind seeing us kampong villages once more.”
Naturally I remember these things. They are part of the indoctrination of every Singaporean.
It was only on a harassed evening walk down on the Esplanade that my mind changed. Gazing upon the Dali, empty-hearted and dancing manic like a puppet, I felt my own heart swell. With anger, yes, but also with its own strong beat that Hady had put there. Reflecting upon the Arts Minister’s maxim, “Silence is a friend who will never betray,” my heart responded with another, equally true: “To know what is right and not to do it is to be without courage.” I have sharpened my courage to the sticking point.
Our press onSingaporeis not free. ButIndonesia’s is. I know this excitable neighbor will be very interested in my true story. And remember, Singapura: change needn’t be bloody. Think of Tunisia. Think of Cairo. And even if it is violent, it is cleansing. Think of the tsunami that swept over the Indian Ocean and devastated the Andaman Coast. Thousands died, but snorkel off Phuket and, deep and far as the eye can see, reefs are more glorious than before. Coral blooms like paradise. Seas shimmer with fish, fat and slow, and lucky. All of this because of the flesh the tsunami gave the reefs to feast upon.
Think of Hady’s transcendent message and the feeling he evoked.
Let go, as I do. Place yourself in God’s hands.
About Elizabeth Sachs
