A Yellow House

by Karien van Ditzhuijzen

  ‘Let’s go to the swings,’ I said. In plain sight, in safety.

  ‘No, let’s go there,’ said Jenny, pointing at the bushes behind them. ‘I have some fun stuff in my bag.’

  Jenny’s idea of fun wasn’t mine, and I pulled my hand free. ‘No. You can’t make me.’

  Jenny looked at me. The suspiciously sweet expression she’d worn earlier had gone. ‘Come on. We were friends, weren’t we?’

  ‘Yes,’ I mumbled, ‘but Meena is your friend now, not me.’

  ‘Do you see Meena? No. Meena went to India. Her grandfather is ill. Come on. Please?’

  I shook my head again.

  ‘Are you going to make me beg? Look, I got some new make-up.’

  She showed me the contents of her zip bag. There was an eye shadow kit with at least twenty colours. And lipstick. And little jars of glitter. Cute brushes with sparkles on the stems and fluffy bristles. We’d begged our parents for this kind of stuff for years.

  ‘It’s the Stargirl set,’ Jenny pointed out unnecessarily.

  She smiled again and the dancing sensation in my stomach subsided. ‘Ok,’ I said.

  We disappeared behind the bushes. It was dark there and the air was still, cooler than where the aunties sat but stifling. A butterfly fluttered past, its fragile wings shimmering in a single ray of sun that had broken through the branches. I felt a few more flutters inside, and managed to convince myself that was a butterfly too.

  We crouched on the ground, laying out all the products in a line before us.

  ‘Where did you get it?’

  ‘My mum went on a business trip. A lot of them actually. I guess she felt bad.’

  Jenny’s mother’s career always seemed even more important than Mama’s. Her dad was home a lot though. He didn’t speak much English. I fingered the products jealously. Mama hardly wore eye shadow or lipstick, just mascara and concealer under her eyes. PoPo had said that painted faces were ghostly. Dad said I was too young.

  Jenny thrust the eye shadow set in my hands. ‘You do me first.’

  ‘Ok. What colour?

  ‘Purple,’ she said, squatting down in front of me. ‘With pearl glitter.’

  I picked up the brush, and swept it over the palm of my hand. So soft. I felt the butterfly flutter again.

  Gently I painted Jenny’s eyelids in three tones of purple, finishing with a small dab of the glitter. Jenny opened her eyes. She took out a compact mirror from our line of goodies and stared at her reflection. ‘Not bad. More glitter on my cheeks.’

  I obeyed. When Jenny finally approved my work, she pushed me to the floor. ‘Close your eyes.’

  She didn’t ask what I wanted, but I didn’t really care. I felt the brush tickle my eyelid and tried to suppress a giggle.

  ‘Sit still.’ The brush caressed my face. ‘I’m going to do this super make up on you,’ Jenny said. The brush now stroked my forehead too. ‘I saw it in a magazine. They did it in a fashion show. Super wow.’

  She stopped to admire my face with a snigger that squeezed my throat shut. The air around me seemed suddenly hotter and hard to breathe. I opened my eyes and grabbed the compact.

  Jenny had made dark brown circles around my eyes, spotted with little yellow dots. On my forehead two antennae pointed up to my ears.

  Jenny’s giggle rang out louder. It echoed all the way down my throat to the pit of my stomach, stirring up the cockroach flavour.

  How could I have been so stupid? I ran away.

  As soon as I’d left the bushes it was as if taps had opened in the corners of my eyes. I kneeled, sobbing, and rubbed the tears over my face, trying to scrub off the insulting brown. A loud wail built up inside me but I tried to keep it in – Jenny was just behind me. I swallowed and swallowed until I felt sick. I struggled to my feet and crashed headfirst into a squishy stomach.

  ‘What’s the matter, girlie?’ asked a soft voice.

  From the pink flip-flops with the daisies on them, I could tell it was Mary Grace.

  I hugged her midriff like it was a stuffed animal, and let her cushiony softness envelop me until I managed to swallow the bile. I sniffled.

  ‘Hey, you make my shirt wet. Come on.’

  Mary Grace pulled me to the barbecue pits on the other side of the playground, out of sight of anyone else. She handed me a water bottle. ‘Drink. You lost a lot of water.’

  With a tissue she wiped my face and nose. Slowly, with a last few hiccups, the tears subsided. ‘What is going on, baby girl? You are all brown smudges. Do you want to tell Aunty Grace? Or do you want me to call Merpati?’

  I shook my head violently. I liked Mary Grace. She always treated me like a grownup. With Aunty M you never knew – sometimes she did, sometimes she didn’t. Besides, I’d seen enough to know that in some cases she just couldn’t help. I was her assistant, not her client.

  Mary Grace was a mother hen, always fussing about everyone else. Before Aunty M came, she was the one everyone turned to. These days, Mary Grace sent many women to Aunty M and me, and came along on some of our visits. But she didn’t talk about herself much – she obviously didn’t need any advice. Sometimes she could be a bit rough around the edges, telling people not to moan. I wasn’t sure how she’d react to me crying my eyes out all over her shirt and leaving brown streaks down her white top. But Mary Grace ignored that.

  ‘I am a good listener, you know, and it can really help to have someone listen to your problems.’

  I knew that, it was one of the things Aunty M and I did a lot, especially with the cases we knew we couldn’t help. But Jenny was my secret. I hadn’t told anyone about what she was doing, and I wasn’t ready to make it feel more real by changing that now. I’d rather hear about someone else’s ugly truths. I said that to Mary Grace, and she laughed.

  ‘You know, you are right. I am the same. Focusing on someone else takes the attention off you. I do it all the time. Why do you think I keep busy?’ She hugged me. ‘You know what? I’ll tell you my story. That will make you feel better.’

  Mary Grace grinned, and a cascade poured out. She had grown up in a village in the Philippines, on a mango plantation. After marrying young, she now had a husband and a fifteen-year-old daughter and, like all the other domestic workers, was in need of money. This was her second job in Singapore, but not her second as a domestic worker.

  ‘You always think, I am so lucky, have such a good employer – but, you know, it wasn’t always like this. I have had it both. Good and bad. Being a maid, it is like a lottery.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘Like the birth lottery.’

  ‘Birth lottery?’ Mary Grace asked.

  ‘Yes, we covered that at school. It’s like a lottery where you are born, and from which parents. Like, some people are born in a rich country from rich parents, so they’re winners. But others are born in a poor country, or from poor parents, or in a country where there’s a war. So they’re the losers of the birth lottery.’

  ‘Ah. That’s a good way of putting it. First, we maids, we lose already – born in a poor country from poor parents. Then we make it worse by picking the wrong husband.’

  Mary Grace laughed a throaty laugh. ‘Actually, no, my husband used to be ok, before I left him alone too long in the Philippines. It’s my own fault. But he didn’t make enough money. So I went to be a maid. I played the maid lottery a few times. Sometimes I win. Sometimes I lose. Now, I won top prize. My employer is very good. After this, I go home. No one wins the jackpot twice.’

  Before coming to Singapore, Mary Grace had worked in Kuwait, with a Kuwaiti family who were very nice to her. She was treated like part of the family, going on trips and eating nice food at the table with them. But as their children got older, she was no longer needed. She then found a job in Qatar with an Egyptian family. They beat her when she made mistakes. Mary Grace had escaped and flown back to the Philippines, black eyes and all. She hadn’t wanted to deal with the police in Qatar. ‘Qatari police is not interested in domestic workers that have pro
blems,’ she said. ‘It’s not like Singapore where the police can help you when your employer beats you up.’

  After that, Mary Grace had gone home for healing rest, and then decided to try Singapore. The money was better here. And maybe the treatment too, so Mary Grace hoped. But she got unlucky again.

  She told me about her first Singapore employer, how she’d had to work long hours helping the family business by wrapping up parcels on top of her regular work. That meant she ended up with very little sleep. The food was bad too, and whenever she was given something decent to eat, she was told how expensive it was, and how she ought to be grateful.

  ‘You know, Maya. I have this dream. I’m not going to be a domestic worker all my life. I have plans. I wanted another chance, a decent employer, just for a year or two, so I could save some money for my own business. I don’t need a perfect employer – I’m not perfect myself – just someone who treats me as a human being.’

  Mary Grace told me how her husband worked filleting tuna, and how he loved his job. They wanted to invest in more equipment, so he let her go again reluctantly. ‘Take good care of yourself,’ he had said when she left and he stayed. But Mary Grace’s plans did not stop at fish-filleting. Together with her mother she had a business selling bottled water, buying in bulk and delivering it to people’s houses. ‘Never give all your money to a man, Maya. That’s my advice, and I’m happy I took it.’

  Suddenly Mary Grace was the one crying. I felt confused. Mary Grace was the strong one, always giving a shoulder to cry on. So I did what Mary Grace always did. I got up and hugged her.

  Mary Grace sniffled. ‘I told myself, I only want to ask the Lord for another chance, just one more. What did I do? Did I commit some sin that this happens to me?’

  ‘What happened?’ I asked.

  ‘I asked them for a transfer, and first they said no. Then I asked my agent. They did not want to help either. So I threatened them. I told them I would make trouble for them with MOM, because it was not allowed what they asked me to do, help in the family business. I got a new employer, and bingo. Now, I have a good life. I will stay a few more years, I cannot leave ma’am Tan. She is so sweet. She needs me. I sent the money home to my husband, to put in the business.’

  Mary Grace started crying again.

  ‘But he… the bastard. I did it all for him. But I should not have left him alone so long.’ Mary Grace broke off and looked me in the eye. ‘You’re a little girl. Let’s stop talking about me.’

  I still didn’t feel like telling Mary Grace my problems. Why would I bother her? She’d just laugh. I’d always thought it was normal the way we lived, in a condo with a pool and a playground, going to a good school. I knew about people in poor countries living in bamboo huts and being hungry and all, but they were no more real to me than Harry Potter. I felt ashamed. I had to stop feeling sorry for myself. But was it my fault I’d been born here and not there?

  I didn’t think I’d said anything out loud, but Mary Grace answered anyhow. ‘One person’s problems are not worse than someone else’s. They are all bad. Bad employers, bad husbands, and bad friends. You have a bad friend back there, don’t you?’

  She pointed behind the bushes I had come running from. ‘She’s not my friend,’ I grumbled, ‘Not anymore.’

  ‘Good. Never waste your time on bad friends,’ Mary Grace said.

  ‘Or bad employers. Or husbands,’ I added.

  Mary Grace laughed. ‘Those too. Do you want to tell me what she did?’

  ‘Most of the time she doesn’t really do anything. They all just leave me alone. And that’s fine by me.

  Mary Grace looked at me in a way that showed she knew I wasn’t telling the truth. ‘No. Not fine.’ I corrected myself. ‘Before, Jenny was my friend. Now, she’s Meena’s friend. But today, Meena was away. And Jenny was being nice, so I hoped. Hope is so stupid.’

  The tap started dripping again. I told her about the bullying in the bus. The way they made everyone ignore me at school. That I had no friends. That I maybe won this birth lottery thing, but I was still a loser. Not because of the ticket I got, but because of who I was. And I told her that she could never, ever tell Aunty M. Because she would tell Mama, and then she would go talk to Jenny’s mum and everything would get even worse.

  ‘So there really is no solution, you see. This is my life. I can’t go and complain to MOM, now can I?’

  Mary Grace shook her head.

  ‘You know,’ said Mary Grace. ‘Another thing I learned: some problems you can’t fix. You have to sit them out. This is your life now. This is not your life forever. Things will get better.’

  But when, I wanted to ask – but before I could, Aunty M saw us and called me over.

  ‘I need to go.’ I gave Mary Grace a last hug.

  Aunty M stared at my puffy, brown-blotched eyes but didn’t ask any questions. When we got back, I went straight to the bathroom. I took Mama’s cotton wool and make-up remover and it wasn’t until I felt the sting that I realised it was nail polish remover instead. I took a long, long shower with the water falling on my face, waiting for the tears to clean my eyes. I cried for Mary Grace, for myself, for PoPo, Mama, Dad, Aunty M, Sri, for all of us. A few years ago, life had seemed so simple.

  Getting older, I’d expected to understand things better, but I just found it harder and harder. All those different kinds of people struggling. Moving around, exploited as ‘foreign workers’, or others who were ‘expats’ like Dad. What was the difference? At school most people called themselves expats, but nobody said that about Mary Grace and Aunty M. Instinctively I felt the difference: the lives of expats were easier than those of the foreign workers. They were in control of themselves, made their own choices and lived with their own families. Like Sri, waiting for the police to decide on her case, the aunties had placed their destinies in someone else’s hands when poverty pushed them to pursue an unpredictable career abroad. Their families stayed behind, which presented a whole slew of different risks. We were all humans that moved around the globe, but we were not the same.

  All types of migrants had to leave the country as soon as they finished their contracts, but thankfully Dad was PR, a permanent resident. How come people still called him an expat? Could he ever become Singaporean with his blonde hair? And the most difficult question of all: where – if anywhere – did I fit in?

  I was born here, so why did it seem so unclear? Was it the international school? Or was I homesick for PoPo’s Singapore of old? I had so many questions but no-one to ask for answers.

  If only PoPo hadn’t died. Aunty M could never replace PoPo, I told myself; but deep down I knew that was what had been happening. Aunty M was here, PoPo wasn’t, so I had to make do with her. I needed to have Mary Grace’s perseverance.

  But Aunty M could never help me feel like I belonged; I needed PoPo’s memories for that. ‘If you are forgotten, you are really dead,’ she used to say. That’s why the Chinese had ancestor tablets in shrines. PoPo used to have one on a small shelf in her room. Now we had no shrine, but I did have a picture of PoPo and me on my dresser, with a little tea light in front of it. I would keep PoPo alive.

  When I saw Mama she commented on my red eyes. I told her Jenny had a new make-up set, and that I’d accidentally used nail polish remover to take off the eye make-up. Again, it was all true. She was extra sweet when she put me to bed. We read together and she crawled into bed with me for a cuddle. I didn’t tell her anything.

  18

  Half asleep, I tried to forget the cockroach that kept biting at my eyes. Another insect popped into my mind, one that was green, luminescent and sparkling like the colours in Jenny’s eye shadow box. PoPo had told me about the green beetle on the string. Now it flew around my head, fluttering its shiny wings but never managing to get further than the string’s length away.

  When Meena first arrived, she was nice to me. Nicer to me than to Jenny, in fact. One day I had been at the playground with Meena, when we saw Jenny approach
ing in the distance. Meena tugged my arm, and whispered we should go to the bushes. But that was our special place – mine and Jenny’s, so I shook my head. ‘Let’s wait for her.’

  Meena smirked. ‘Don’t you think Jenny is a bit childish? Let’s go before she sees us.’

  But I refused. That afternoon, the three of us played together awkwardly, whilst I took care not to suggest doing anything Meena would think was childish. The week after I saw their hunched, hidden shapes behind the bushes; but I didn’t dare follow. Somehow I knew it was no game.

  I went back home instead, and hung around PoPo moping. When she said I couldn’t go on the iPad, I asked her to tell me stories instead, stories of the old days, when she was a little girl like me. But PoPo had been in a mood. ‘You kacau me all day. Go play,’ she said. ‘What am I here for, your entertainment only?’

  I didn’t move and PoPo kept grumbling. ‘These kids these days, they do not know how to play. Itchy backside lor. So many toys, cupboards full, lego, playmobil, games, Barbie dolls, all these things, and madam is bored. You all malas, lazy, ah. She thinks I am just like that machine, lah, that flat computer thing, that she can turn me on, flip a switch, and I will start entertaining her? Don’t I have chores to do? Her mother spoils her, lazy child. Go fly a kite.’

  I had no kite, nor did I know how to fly one. But I did know exactly which buttons to push with PoPo. ‘PoPo, when you were a little girl, was that what you did? Did you fly kites? Please tell me about the games you played.’

  PoPo put down the laundry she was folding, and looked at me. ‘We knew how to play, sayang, not like you modern girls. A little ya ya papaya, nose-in-books girl like you. What do you know?’

  ‘Then teach me, PoPo,’ I implored.

  PoPo settled in her chair and looked around. ‘Why you so kaypoh? But not your fault, really. This flat, you know, it’s too small. No garden. The playground, the pool, not leave anything to imagination. In the kampong, we knew how to play. Boleh. I will tell you.’