A Yellow House

by Karien van Ditzhuijzen

  Dad was out playing tennis with friends. He would be amazed if – no, when – we pulled this off. He loved pineapple tarts. Dad had been away a lot lately. I felt he needed a reason to be home more often. Perhaps good food would be the thing. And Chloe’s first ever pineapple tart would be a proper one, not store bought. PoPo would have been pleased. She always said nothing conveyed love like a home cooked tart.

  I opened the notebook. ‘We need to clean the pineapple first.’

  Mama picked up a pineapple, and turned it in her hands. I could see she already regretted sending out Aunty M. She pondered the fruit for a while, then took a big knife and started peeling it.

  I read out my notes. ‘Peel the pineapple then remove the seeds.’ Pineapple seeds are on the outside and are a pain to get out.

  Mama did not clean the pineapples by cutting a curling downward spiral along the sides, like PoPo and Aunty M did. She just hacked at the seeds, cutting away a lot of the flesh. I bit my lip.

  ‘Then we need to shred it, very fine,’ I added. ‘PoPo used the big cleaver for that.’

  Mama looked horrified. ‘I remember that cleaver. She never let me touch it when I was little. Then all of a sudden I wasn’t a real woman if I couldn’t handle it. Well, you know, there’s more to being a woman than handling big knives.’

  She rummaged in a cabinet and dug out the blender. ‘This is the twenty-first century, Maya. No need to be stuck in the middle ages.’

  I could hear PoPo breathing down my neck. ‘Never grind a sambal in a blender, Maya, you kill the flavour.’ She would spend hours pounding spices on her flat stone pestle and mortar. She didn’t kill the flavour, but it must have killed her back. Aunty M mixed her sambals in the blender, and they tasted fine to me.

  I wasn’t even sure if PoPo’s old grinding stone was still there. Had Mama thrown it away with PoPo’s clothes and other stuff? Only a few weeks after PoPo died I had come back from school to find her colourful things vanished, her room painted over in a pale pink with white furniture, a crib with dainty trellis bars in pride of place in the centre.

  I looked over my notes again. They said nothing against the use of blenders in the case of pineapples, and I couldn’t remember PoPo mentioning it. I wanted the tarts to be perfect, just like PoPo’s. But I had to keep Mama in a good mood too, so I stayed quiet.

  Mama chopped the pineapples into coarse cubes and blitzed them to a pulp in less than a minute. I remembered PoPo shredding patiently and figured the blender had its advantages. We put the pineapple pulp in a pot with sugar and brought it to the boil.

  Mama rolled up her sleeves. ‘One down. Now for the pastry. What does she say?’ She took out the large mixing bowl and looked at me expectantly.

  I referred to the notebook. ‘Flour, four cups.’

  ‘That’s easy. Look, we have a cup measure.’ She got a set of six plastic cups in different sizes out of the drawer and started measuring from the largest one. ‘Three, four, done. Now what?’

  I wasn’t sure. PoPo had used an old teacup with roses to measure the flour. But that had disappeared too. So I read on: ‘Butter. One pack of butter.’

  ‘Pack of butter,’ Mama muttered. ‘What kind of measurement is that? What brand did she use?’

  I couldn’t remember. ‘I don’t know. It doesn’t say.’

  I had jotted down all sorts of comments, like ‘use cool hands’ and ‘work fast’ and ‘can add spice to the jam. Clove, cinnamon.’ I remembered what PoPo had said after that, the words I hadn’t written down. ‘But your mother likes them plain, so that’s how I make them.’

  ‘This is a pretty normal sized pack,’ Mama said, chucking the butter in the middle of the flour. White clouds puffed up.

  ‘Wait,’ I yelled. ‘We need to soften it first. To room temperature.’

  Mama shrugged. Too late for that.

  ‘Ok, never mind. Then, ten spoons of sugar.’ I recited the rest of the ingredients from my list. ‘Two eggs, two spoons of corn starch, but a different spoon, and a pinch of salt.’

  ‘Thank you PoPo, for your clarity,’ Mama said. ‘What does she mean, different spoon? What kind of an instruction is that? Was the spoon for the corn starch bigger, or smaller?’

  ‘I can’t remember. Sorry.’

  ‘My mother, seriously.’ She took out a smaller spoon and measured out the corn starch.

  Reading back, I suddenly realised we were supposed to have rubbed the butter and flour in to a crumbly mixture before adding the rest of the ingredients. I hoped it wouldn’t matter.

  ‘Now, we need to knead it, I think.’ I said.

  ‘You think? Or do you know? Read, Maya, don’t think.’

  I read out loud: ‘Knead fast, a few times, to get rid of the crumbly bits.’

  Mama looked at the bowl in despair. ‘What crumbly bits? It’s all still there. There’s a big chunk of butter in a pile of flour.’

  ‘Just knead, I think – I mean, I know. It says so.’ I hoped I was right.

  Mama started kneading, covering the kitchen in a thin layer of flour. ‘How can I get this smooth fast? It’s all lumpy and dry.’

  This I could answer. ‘It says here, if it’s too dry, add some water.’

  I added a couple of spoons of water and Mama kneaded on. ‘Now it’s very sticky,’ she said. Her voice started to sound tired. ‘Very sticky, Maya.’

  She stopped kneading. ‘Oh, seriously. Why on earth did I think we could do this? We need PoPo for this. Why…’ Mama looked like she was going to cry again.

  Because we can, I thought. Because we have to if we want to honour PoPo’s memory. I read over my comments again, swallowing tears of disappointment, trying to make sense of PoPo’s advice. Last year it had seemed so easy.

  Mama stopped kneading and stood frozen over the bowl, eyes closed. Suddenly she started. ‘What’s that smell?’

  I ran to the stove where an ominous smoke came from the pan with the pineapple. I turned off the gas and looked inside. The pineapple had turned golden. It looked lovely but

  smelled horrid.

  I looked at the clock in the corner. ‘We left it too long without stirring.’

  Getting carried away with the pastry I’d forgotten the bold, underlined writing at the top. Low heat. Stir the pineapple jam regularly.

  Mama looked at the clock too. ‘Shit! I have a hairdresser’s appointment in fifteen minutes. I’m going to be late. Fuck. Why did I even try this? I should have known better. I can’t cook. Don’t ask me again!’

  She looked at me as if it was all my fault, as if I had purposely lured her away from what was really important for something as stupid as pineapple tarts; as if I were just a silly child. Mama could be very eloquent with her looks. And she had really taken up swearing recently. PoPo would have rubbed chilli on her mouth, but now no one did.

  ‘I can’t do this, not without PoPo,’ she said, softer now. ‘Please don’t make me.’

  She shook the sticky dough off her hands and scrubbed them in the sink. She didn’t look at me again.

  ‘I’ll send Aunty M back from the playground on my way,’ she yelled, taking her purse and slamming the door behind her. I stared at the closed door. Conjuring up PoPo to get the real Mama back had failed. Mama really had to quit that job; it was the only solution left.

  I stood above the mixing bowl and tried to knead the sticky dough into a ball, like PoPo had. Tears wetted the dough even more. I shook in more flour, and kept kneading till I had something that could be rolled into a sticky ball, which I stuffed in the fridge. I washed my hands, ran to my room and played with the iPad under my covers. When I heard Aunty M come home and rummage in the kitchen, I ignored her.

  A while later, she knocked on my door. ‘Maya, come. I need your help.’

  I tried not to respond – it wasn’t as if she actually needed me – but after a while my curiosity got the better of me.

  In the kitchen, Aunty M had scooped the pineapple jam onto a plate and set it to cool. It was thick an
d solid, like it was supposed to be. What had she done to it? It still smelt a bit smoky though. The pan stood soaking in the sink, black-crusted bottom and all.

  She had rolled out my dough on the counter top and pointed at a round cookie cutter lying next to it. ‘You make the circles, I’ll spread the jam.’

  I cut out circles and Aunty M laid small blobs of pineapple on top. We worked in silence until the baking tray was filled and the dough finished.

  Aunty M popped the tarts in the oven and gave me the remaining balls of pineapple jam. ‘Here, eat those, sayang. It will make you feel good.’

  They tasted sweet, fragrant, fruity – and burnt.

  Aunty M hadn’t realised she’d said sayang again, but suddenly I felt I didn’t mind that much. She could never replace my PoPo. But she could be my Aunty M.

  When Mama and Dad came home, the tarts cooling on the rack made the whole house smell like Chinese New Year. Dad had a big smile.

  ‘That’s coming home. Can we eat them?’

  PoPo always made us wait until the actual New Year, but we weren’t going to be home for that, and neither Mama nor Aunty M said anything. But if Dad tasted the horrible flavour of the tarts, everything would be spoilt. ‘No!’ I yelled.

  Dad paid no attention, grabbed one, and bit into it greedily.

  ‘Almost as good as PoPo’s,’ he grinned. ‘Just a bit smoky. And a bit salty. Did you make them?’ he asked Mama, with a wink.

  ‘No, they did,’ she said, pointing at Aunty M and me. She went upstairs without tasting the tarts, and without berating Dad for not noticing her new haircut or the red rims around her eyes.

  I ate a pineapple tart too. It tasted burnt and I had to drink a big glug of water to keep it down. Was this why most people these days bought their pineapple tarts, because they were no longer capable of conveying love? Couldn’t you have an important career and bake pineapple tarts too? And if you couldn’t, what made Mama pick the bank over the kitchen?

  If I couldn’t make Mama see sense and quit her job, I had better stay away from her.

  12

  Chinese New Year turned out surprisingly well. I had to admit Mama had a point: for a small, confused family like ours it could be good to let old traditions go. The important thing was to make new ones, and it seemed that instead of pineapple tarts, our new tradition involved Thai pineapple fried rice, served exotically in the hollowed out fruit. We had ordered it the first day and all of us, including Chloe, wolfed it down. After that, we had it every day.

  The resort was as good as promised, and Mama and Dad acted normally most of the time. We were us again, an average family of four. Only once did things threaten to go wrong. Chloe had wanted Mama to build a sand castle for the umpteenth time, but seconds after Mama had made it, she smashed it and decided she preferred to swim instead. Or no, actually, another ice cream. Then she started pulling Mama’s hair when she couldn’t get one.

  Mama growled.

  She had begun doing this weird thing when she got really mad; she started to act like a monster, like she’d been taken over from the inside by another creature and the real Mama had disappeared. Her voice changed, her face got distorted, and her mind seemed to leave her body with the screams. I called it the Mamamonster. It was scary when it happened, but after, when I looked back and thought of her bulging eyes and imagined clouds of red smoke coming out of her ears, it was quite funny.

  This time, Mama realised all the other guests were staring, so she swallowed down the monster and muttered under her breath that she’d been stupid to leave Aunty M at home. But I loved it being just the four of us. Apart from that one incident, it felt like we were a family that could cope without PoPo. PoPo wouldn’t have liked it there anyway.

  There were plenty of children at the pool and beach and we all played together – tag and ball and the sort of games that no one can explain but all the kids understand anyway. Life was easy. At breakfast Mama, Dad and I debated the important decisions of the day. Swim at the pool or the beach? Have lunch at the restaurant or beach bar? Go back to the buffet for more eggs or stay where we were? There was a guy that would do your eggs any way you liked them. I loved that guy. For a few days I had fun, but then I started dreading the inevitable return home. I could see Mama felt the same. The shadow of the monster was behind her eyes again.

  On the plane back I felt like a snail slowly retreating into its shell. I pushed all the wonderful tastes and smells and feelings of the holiday down into my stomach: the pineapple rice, the fruit juices in the pool bar, the chargrilled jumbo prawns. I hoped I could preserve them there as long as possible, and that they could keep the nasty, bitter cockroach flavour in check. But as soon as the plane wheels hit the Changi concrete, it crept its way up. The bus would be there the next morning, eight o’clock sharp.

  When we came home Chloe rushed straight into Aunty M’s arms. ‘Auny M, Auny M!’ Aunty M picked her up and hugged her tight. ‘Can I put her to bed, ma’am?’ she asked Mama. She stuck her nose in Chloe’s hair, breathing in her scent.

  Mama nodded and started to unpack.

  I followed Aunty M to the bathroom, and while Chloe was in the tub I asked her for news of Sri. She’d had surgery before we left but had still been in the hospital. The fracture had been more complicated than they’d first thought.

  ‘Is she still in hospital?’ I asked.

  ‘No, her leg is much better. She can walk, but only slow.’

  ‘So where is she? Did they send her back to her employer? ’ I hoped not. She might jump again. ‘Or did she go to Indonesia?’

  ‘No, sayang, she is staying at a shelter. They are helping her.’

  Who is helping? I thought. Weren’t we doing that? I felt a stab of anger.

  ‘The police said Sri cannot leave Singapore as they need to investigate. She can’t go back to the employer either. They gave her a special pass so she can stay but cannot work.’

  ‘What do you mean, a shelter? Is she in the forest?’

  I pictured a piece of tarpaulin stretched over rope somewhere in the wood, like when we’d built a shelter once at summer camp.

  ‘In the forest? No, what do you mean? The shelter is a house. There are many women staying there, all domestic helpers, all being investigated.’

  ‘Were they all hit by their employers?’ I gasped.

  Aunty M laughed. ‘No, not all. But they all ran away. The people at the shelter, they help them. They have a helpdesk. I’m going to work there too.’

  Her words tightened my throat. No, no, no. Aunty M worked here, with us. Chloe loved her. Mama and Dad needed her. I was almost used to her. Then I felt relief. She was not allowed to quit, not for two years. All of a sudden that seemed a lot less unfair. I was sure Mama wouldn’t let her go.

  ‘You can’t go!’ I blurted out. ‘Chloe would miss you too much.’

  Aunty M laughed, and hugged me. ‘Sayang, I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying with you. I’m just going to help them on Sundays. Other maids come there for advice. They gave me training. I can help people like Sri.’

  I was relieved and annoyed at the same time. We’d helped Sri together. I didn’t want to be left out like a small child. Whatever Mama said, helping made me feel good. Besides, Mama needn’t know. It was obvious Aunty M saw that too.

  ‘What about me? I want to help as well.’

  ‘I’m sure we can find a way.’ Aunty M lifted Chloe out of the tub. ‘I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow. Now, I need to put Chloe to bed. It’s late. You have a bath too. The water is still warm.’

  The next day at school I didn’t understand why things were so different to the way they’d been in Thailand. At the resort I’d played with other kids, kids who seemed to think I was normal and fun to be with. Here, I was back to being nobody. I decided that nobody was not required to do her best in class. I just sat there waiting for the time to pass so I could go back and ask Aunty M about that helpdesk.

  But on the bus home, I suddenly ceased being nobo
dy.

  ‘Hey, Cockroach,’ shouted Jenny when I slung my backpack on the back row. ‘You look nice and tanned. You’re starting to look more like a real cockroach every day, with a brown face like that.’ The holiday had given me a healthy blush. ‘Did you go partying with the other cockroaches for New Year? In the sewers, heh heh. Must have been fun, to spend some time with your own kind?’

  Yes, it was actually, I thought.

  Then some big guy from secondary butted in. ‘Hey, you know what a female cockroach is called?’

  ‘No,’ Meena said, looking straight at me. ‘Tell us.’

  ‘A cuntroach!’ the guy hollered.

  Jenny and Meena folded double in their seats. ‘Seriously, I’m wetting myself! Maya is a cuntroach. Hilarious,’ Meena hiccupped.

  They all loved it, even the little ones who didn’t get the joke. I wasn’t sure I got it myself. But the laughing was contagious. I might even have joined in myself if the joke hadn’t tied my windpipe in a knot. If I’d been able to laugh too, would I have become one of them?

  The laughing subsided until another kid, a boy in the year above me, added, ‘I killed a cockroach yesterday. So sorry Maya. It might have been your uncle.’

  By now the whole bus was in fits. ‘Don’t kill too many,’ Jenny said. ‘Maya will starve as she’ll have nothing to eat.’

  Laugher roared again. I wanted to disappear, but there was nowhere to hide in the bus, not even a toilet.

  ‘Do you know,’ the boy went on, ‘I heard cockroaches can survive a nuclear blast. So after a blast, when everything else is dead, the shitty buggers still crawl out of every hole.’

  I huddled down in my seat, trying to ignore them whilst they threw cockroach jokes back and forth. I wished I had a switch in my mind that I could just flip, so all the sound was gone. Then they could say what they wanted and I would be nobody again.

  I wondered whether it was true, whether cockroaches really could survive a nuclear blast.

  When I got home, Aunty M asked whether I was ok. ‘You look pale,’ she said. ‘Are you tired?’