by Angie Abdou
Ligaya shapes her brief answers to give no encouragement. She just
wants this woman to watch the road, but still Vero’s mouth moves.
Eventually, Ligaya’s brain will no longer compute the English. She
knows she must look terribly blank, a simpleton. Her body has arrived
in Sprucedale, but her mind is elsewhere; it’s fallen off the luggage
trolley in some foreign airport. She gives up and tries to relax into the
warm leather seat. This Vero, in her tight blue jeans and her dangling
earrings, will take Ligaya for an imbecile and send her and her single
suitcase of possessions packing, straight back to Madam Poon.
Who will not take her.
Ligaya forces herself to nod at Vero’s mouth, opening and closing.
She picks up what words she can.
Boys, winter, lake, room.
Phone, family, Skype, food.
Ski, bike, boat, swim.
Ligaya smiles at the words she recognizes. Otherwise, she wonders
if Vero speaks English at all.
In the driveway, Ligaya’s jet-lagged swirl and dip turns into a full-
fledged sea storm. She grabs the passenger door to steady herself, her
nails digging into the leather. This house is as big as a hotel. The front
staircase alone is bigger than Ligaya’s home in the Philippines.
But children. Children she knows. Children are the same every-
where. “Eliot and Jamal,” she says. Inside the front door, she reaches
a hand around each boy, smiles until she feels her face stretch, know-
ing this moment is important. The older boy has cheeks plump as
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guava fruit and hair the colour of santan flowers basking in the sun.
“Ang guwapo, ” Ligaya’s mother would say. Ligaya’s mother watches
too many Filipino telenovelas. She will bike for an hour to her sis-
ter’s house for only thirty minutes of television and then bike another
hour home. Her legs will ache for days after, but she will do it again
the next week. She says any male who is not ugly is guwapo. Ligaya
suspects she just likes the roll and pop of the words in her old mouth.
The smaller child is dark and slight. Indistinct about his features.
Babyish, she supposes, as if he hasn’t quite found his looks yet. He
could be Ligaya’s own son. People might mistake him for such.
“I am your nanny. Ligaya. I have gift for you. Pasalubong. ”
“No!” Eliot screams. “Lee-lee! Lee-lee! Lee-lee!”
Ligaya does not know what this lee-lee means. She steps away,
looks toward the parents. Quick, she wants to say, he is turning blue.
Get him this lee-lee. Lee-lee, someone, fast!
“Sorry, sorry, sorry.” Mister Shane steps between them, pulls on the
boy’s arm. “Sorry. Eliot is very…particular. He likes things a certain
way. We told the boys that your name is LiLi. He’s been expecting
a LiLi.” Mister Shane twists his mouth, cringes, as if his own words
embarrass him. “We figured it’d be easier for the boys to pronounce.
LiLi.” He looks to Vero for help.
“LiLi fine,” Ligaya says, to help them all.
“First we change your name,” he blushes. “Next, we’ll arrange you
a marriage. We’ll write you a whole new life before you know it. Just
check in with us for updates. We’ll tell you who you are.” Ligaya does
not know what to say. This is not in the manual. She looks to Vero.
“Don’t mind him. He’s joking. He’s always joking.” She swats him
across the behind.
Behind him, red and white balloons are scattered across the floor.
Eliot jumps around, gallops from one side of the room to another,
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throwing balloons over his head. “It’s a party! It’s a big party! It’s a
new nanny party! A welcome LiLi to Sprucedale party!” Each “party!”
gets louder until Ligaya feels herself backing away from the wild boy.
She squats down and digs in her bag for the presents she has made
on the plane—origami. She learned in Hong Kong. A swan for each
child. She made them both the same so the children would not quar-
rel. She hands each an aqua blue piece of tissue with a delicate neck
and tiny, fragile beak. She shaped each perfectly, distracted by the
detailed work, as her plane roared over the Pacific Ocean.
“From me. I made these for you. The beautiful swan.”
“Oh. We don’t play with this kind of thing here in Sprucedale,”
Eliot explains as if he is the adult and she the child. “But that’s okay.”
He kneels down to put his hands on her knees where she squats, and
smiles into her eyes. “I know you’re new. Mommy says it might take
you some time to get used to it here.” He puts the piece of folded
paper down on the floor. For a second, he looks puzzled, as if he’s
forgotten something. Then his features clear. “Thank you, anyways!”
He sings the words, smiles up at his mother and father, pleased with
his own manners. “Thank you, anyways!”
Ligaya wonders if he knows what the words mean, and then feels
a nauseous rush of shame. She should not let herself be stung by a
child’s words. But before she can dwell on it, Eliot grabs her hands and
pulls her around the room, showing off each of his toys. “That’s Yellow
Horse. This is Green Cup, JJ’s favourite. He also likes this toy—Little
Baby—but I’m too big for babies.” Eliot tilts the baby violently back
and forth, showing how its eyes open and close, then throws it over
his shoulder. “Some things you need to make up names for, and some
things come with names already.” He leaps across the room to a bin
by an empty fireplace, reaches in and pulls out a handful of toy cars.
“This car is called Lightning. It came with that name. This car came
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with no name. We call it Very Fast Black Car. We gave it that name.
You can use my cars. You can borrow them, I mean. I’m very good at
sharing. But not these cars. These cars are my favourites. You can use
those cars, though.” He points at a different full bin. There must be a
hundred tiny cars inside. “You can use some of those. Whenever you
want.” He puts one in Ligaya’s hand. It is jet-black and has no roof.
The doors slide open. She holds it to her chest and smiles her thanks.
“I used to live in mommy’s tummy. I slept in there, way up high near
her heart. JJ lived there too. For longer. He was more down by her
bum. He only came out one year ago—he isn’t two yet—that’s why he
still seems like a baby. He can’t even hardly talk yet. But I can tell you
what he wants to say.”
Even the children in this family have twelve mouths. Ligaya will
need twenty-four ears to keep up.
“He says hi. That’s what he wants to say now. Hi, hi, hi.” Eliot grabs
his little brother’s hand and waves it. “Hi, LiLi, Hi!” Eliot laughs. The
little brother starts to cry. Ligaya reaches for him, thinking her work
has begun. She will find herself in the work. But Vero scoops the boy
“Tour?” Vero throws the word to Ligaya like it’s a life-preserver,
hands the boy to Shane, and pulls Ligaya by the elbow out the side
door. Then they are in what seems to be another house, though not
as pretty as the first. The walls are plain, bare wood and plaster, nails
showing in shiny neat rows. Ligaya wonders if this might be where
she will live. Her head swims at the thought, so much room, and then
she shakes it off. She should not be so presumptuous; her whole family
could live in here. Her whole village would fit if it weren’t for all the
equipment, which lines the walls, clutters the floor, and even hangs
from the ceiling.
Without the equipment, this could be a party hall. She imagines a
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village dance. Girls and children with their bright dresses dance in the
space below. The men lean up here, sipping beer or gin and peering
over the railing at the pretty girls below. Ligaya will dance until she
glows, pretending the whole while that she’s unaware of Pedro watch-
ing her from above.
“So this is the garage,” Vero says. “Nothing fancy.”
“Garage?” Ligaya repeats. In her home, a garage is an open-sided
shelter under which one parks a car. She does not know what this
building can have to do with that.
“Where we keep the car.” Vero moves her hands as if they grip a
steering wheel, lifts one hand and honks the pretend horn with force.
I speak English, Ligaya wanted to say, just give me the words. “When
Shane manages to keep his junk out of the way, that is, and leaves
enough room for the damn car. All the bike stuff is supposed to be up
here in the mezzanine, so the car fits down there.” Vero points over
the railing and rolls her eyes. Ligaya knows that look. Annoyed wife
is universal.
Ligaya looks from the ceiling to the floor down the stairs far below
them, lets her eyes bounce off all four of the walls. A house for a car?
But she does not say that aloud. Bernie from the agency has advised
her. “Watch and learn first. There will be much that is new. Nobody
will expect you to understand it all at once. Give it time.” Bernie has a
funny way of saying things. Give it time. As if Ligaya’s understanding
is a wild beast, and she must feed it little bits of her life, in five-minute
chunks, to tame it.
But even kind-hearted Bernie has not warned Ligaya of car-houses
with mezzanines. Ligaya feels faint. Black pushes in at the edges of
her vision, and she looks for windows or a door—somewhere for air.
Maybe there’s no oxygen in a car-house. Ligaya holds the mezzanine
railing, closes her eyes. A car does not need air.
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Only when she feels Vero’s hand in the middle of her back does
she realize there’s no oxygen because she has forgotten to breathe.
Ligaya opens her eyes, but Vero’s face blurs until she has no eyes, no
mouth, just a smudge of skin. Ligaya fills her lungs, and Vero’s hand
moves with her rising breath. “We call it the Gah-Raj-Mahal,” Vero
says, “Our little joke.”
“Mahal in my language mean love. Or expensive. I will need to
learn so much new in this country,” Ligaya says as her vision clears.
She’s relieved to see Vero nod as if she understands.
Ligaya breathes deeply, soaking in the smell of rubber, and follows
Vero down the stairs of the garage. Vero points at a rack with five
bikes in a neat row, her nose wrinkled like someone has waved durian
fruit in her face.
“How many bikes does one guy need? It’s embarrassing.”
Ligaya has not even recognized the scattered equipment as bicy-
cles, hung sideways on walls and upside-down from the ceiling.
There’s a pile of bike seats in one corner and a mess of bike tubes in
the other. A partially dismantled bike sits propped in the middle of
the downstairs space, where Ligaya guesses the car is meant to live.
“Oh, so many bikes,” she hears herself say, but then swallows the
words as she learned to do in Hong Kong.
“Seriously, you’re not kidding. He’s got a winter bike, a summer
bike, a townie bike, a country bike, a hills bike, a flats bike, a racing
bike, a cruising bike.” Vero’s hands fly off in all directions, point-
ing out each of the culprits. For a moment, she reminds Ligaya of
angry Madam Poon, a skinny scarecrow, arms flapping in the wind.
But Ligaya forces her mind back to this place, one she does not yet
understand.
It would be so much more pleasant to leave her mind to drift.
“That’s Cervella.” Vero’s hand picks at something in her hair, as
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she glares down at a disassembled bike. “This one’s his favourite. Do
you bike?”
Ligaya nods as she remembers the fat-tire red bike. Pedro’s. He
let her borrow it to visit family in the next village. She touches her
thighs as she remembers the feeling of freedom, covering such dis-
tance by the strength of her own legs, not minding at all when she
had to ride home in the pouring rain, her sweat and the rainwater
indistinguishable on her cheeks.
Again, she feels the uncomfortable vertigo of her body being in
one place and her mind in another, the two so far apart.
But Vero does not wait for an answer. She pulls Ligaya—not
roughly—her fingertips soft on the exposed skin of Ligaya’s wrist.
But Ligaya is unaccustomed to touch. Nobody touched her at the
Poons. She breathes deeply and counts the bikes. She must not
flinch, wills herself not to pull away; she cannot afford to give
offense.
Vero twirls her around and points at a poster above the work-
bench. “That! Read it!” But Ligaya does not have to read it. Vero
reads it for her.
Since the bike makes little demand on material or
energy resources, contributes little to pollution,
makes a positive contribution to health and causes
little death, or injury, it can be regarded as the most
benevolent of machines. —Stuart S. Wilson
She pauses as if she might expect a response this time. She gestures
at the room stuffed with bikes until it seems the very walls and
ceiling are made of bikes, the scent of rubber tires replacing oxygen.
“Ridiculous, right? The bike will save the world, he says. Yes, but you just
need one, I say. One bike. That I can see. That I can even admire. I’m
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sure Stuart buddy here couldn’t even imagine this …this …biket-
rocity. And that he should be to blame?!”
Biketrocity? The look on Vero’s face tells Ligaya the word could be
nothing but an insult. Ligaya says nothing. She will not smile. She
will not even let her eyes meet Vero’s, lest the gesture be mistaken for
empathy. The nanny manuals are especially strict on this point—do
not get involved in domestic disputes.
“Never take sides,” advised the nanny manual. “You must live with
these people and share their home but know when to disengage, for the
healthy functioning of a long relationship. ” Ligaya did not expect to
have occasion to apply these rules so soon.
“May I see where I sleep, please, ma’am?” It is the first question
Ligaya has asked and it requires a physical effort, as if she must push
the question up and out of her body. “Please,” she says again with
less push. Her breath catches, and she hears her own voice, high and
squeaky, the sound of a mere girl child. But Bernie told her—it is
different here, not like Hong Kong, you never have to be afraid. So
she meets Vero’s gaze and waits to be taken to the place where she
will sleep.
Down in her bedroom, giant posters cover the walls—children’s
pictures of snowy mountains and evergreen trees in bright sloppy
paint. Adult’s words in steady black underneath:
WELCOME TO OUR NEW NANNY!!!
WELCOME, LILI!!!
“I hope you don’t mind,” Vero says. “The LiLi.” Her voice is soft. It is
the first thing she has said slowly.
It’s only my name. Why would I mind? Ligaya’s eyes water, hot and
fast. She blinks, wishing the tears away, hoping Vero does not notice.
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She will not be one of those weak women who wear their tears on
the surface.
Under the posters, she sees: a single bed with a rainbow comforter,
worn but not ragged; a night stand; and a tall dresser with six drawers.
Vero pulls each out: “A place for all of your stuff.” Then she waves at
a closet that stretches the full length of the wall, its hungry hangers
waiting.
All of Ligaya’s “stuff ” could fit in a single drawer.
Across from the closet, the room has a window which looks out at
ground level onto the front lawn. “Sorry,” Vero says following Ligaya’s
gaze, “it’s brown. Shane’s given up on watering it for the season.”
Ligaya nods. “Thank you.” Thank you for the airplane ticket, she
means, for the tour, for the room, for the bed, for the drawers, for the hang-
ers. That’s what she means. But she cannot make herself say it, cannot
make herself put down her bag or step out of the doorway and into
the room. “Thank you.”