Ministry of Moral Panic

by Amanda Lee Koe

  I wondered why I hadn’t been turned on to this sooner.

  I realised:

  My daughter has completed her degree and gotten married, my husband has left me for a woman from mainland China. Finally, for once, I can do whatever I want. Maybe that, to you, sounds ridiculous. But your generation—the thing you are best at is placing yourselves first. You have no problems being your own person, even in relation to other people. It’s as natural as breathing.

  But for us, to have people in our lives, to have relations, is to have duties, is to serve. We can’t shake it off. We can’t be the ones to turn our backs. But when you are the one who has been left behind—the truth is that you have been set free.

  I was independent of being a wife, a mother, even, a woman. I was simply, me. I felt an incredible elation course through my body. I went about my daily routines as if nothing had changed—and indeed, nothing had changed, but I knew that this was the start of something new, and that this something would last me through the end of my days.

  You won’t need it now, you are young and beautiful—beauty is subjective, but who would dispute that youth is beauty? But one day, it might be all that you need, so dig a hole and bury it like a bone, and don’t say no one told you: loneliness is freedom.

  Two Ways To Do This

  ZUROTUL WAS MADE for love, only she was born in the wrong environs for love to occur.

  Sometimes when the husband and wife were out, Zurotul would go to the wife’s side of the wardrobe and pull out a dress or a pantsuit. Initially she only had enough nerve to hold the hanger up to her chin in the full-length mirror in the master bedroom, but finally she took to putting the garments on.

  She progressed to lying on the wife’s side of the bed, body turned towards where the husband would lie. Always she was careful to smooth out the bedclothes after, to redo her undoing of the morning’s bed-making. Every morning when she made the bed, Zurotul would press her face into the husband’s pillow. The faint smell of oil, dribbled saliva and something slightly milky.

  When she prepared his meals, when she ironed his shirts and pants, when she laid out his socks across his work shoes and left them on the little stool by the door, she imagined them as spouses, she and him. These were, after all, spousal duties. It made her happy. She didn’t need his touch. Once in a while, as he left the house, as he was locking up the gate, depending on where she stood, he would even call out Bye! to her, with that easy smile. She would look up from her sweeping or her wiping, heart a-flutter, to say: Have a good day, Sir. Those days were the best.

  She took pride in taking good care of his dying mother, always cheerful and gentle to the shrivelled woman even though she was so far gone, coaxing her to swallow her medicine, turning her over by the hour to prevent bedsores, kneading moisturiser into her papery skin. The dying mother was asleep most of the time and hard of hearing, and she never once heard Zurotul calling her ibu, mother.

  Zurotul was perfectly happy to have the husband in this way, if it weren’t for the wife—the tantrums, the name-calling, the expectations of deference, all directed at the loving husband. It happened for any reason or no apparent reason at all, at least twice a week. The husband invisibly pummelled, you could see it in his face, but never seeming to tire. Yet even in his seeming tirelessness, she could feel him becoming smaller and smaller from being constantly chipped at. The man she loved was going under.

  Then the day she saw the wife slap the husband, from the kitchen. The wife went off in a huff to the master bedroom and slammed the door shut. Zurotul ached. She poured a glass of water and approached the husband timidly. The husband was sitting on the sofa, his eyes red. When she proffered the glass of water, the husband dashed it away. The glass shattered on the terrazzo floor. Zurotul scurried for a rag to clean the mess and in her haste cut her hand on a glass shard. The husband heard her yelp and he took her hand in hers, applying pressure to stop the bleeding. I’m sorry, he was saying, I’m so sorry, it’s just—

  Zurotul began crying—the anxiety of having angered him, the empathy for this man, the fact of his touch, his hand on hers, how good it felt. He was half-holding her now, and she wished that it was after 10pm, which would’ve meant that she’d have had her daily shower: she wished she smelled better. She collected herself and, awkwardly, they came apart. He said he would go get her a plaster. As he rose to his feet, she saw that her blood was on his index finger. It was then that she remembered the village hag’s dying words.

  • • •

  She’d always had irregular periods, and it was four months before she menstruated on the night of a full moon.

  She served it to him the next morning, mixed into the instant coffee he had with his breakfast toast, further masked by a teaspoon of condensed milk. Zurotul had dipped in as much blood as she’d dared—with two fingers, back and forth, such that her nether regions were, likewise, greased with instant coffee.

  She approached him shyly, ceremoniously, full of fear. Her hands shook as she brought him the cup. The wife looked at her quizzically, and it seemed for a moment Zurotul would be unable to set it down on the mahogany dining table.

  Well? the wife said. Where’s my jasmine green tea?

  Coming, Ma’am, coming. Zurotul set the cup down and returned to the kitchen, turning to see if the husband had already taken a drink. Over time she’d noticed the angle at which he would reach for the cup, and she’d always made it a point to set the cup’s handle down in a facilitative position. His eyes were on the morning paper and his hand was reaching for the cup. He drank and swallowed.

  She spent the next week looking for signs. Once or twice she thought she noticed a new, marked displeasure in his tone to the wife, but nothing of consequence—he held his peace, gave in to the wife, and they went about their working lives. Zurotul was not overly disappointed. Much as she had believed in the mysticism of the hag, she might have been a crackpot after all, suffering the incoherent delirium of a tropical deathbed. Or perhaps, she’d performed the ritual wrongly—might it not be that instant coffee was an inappropriate base liquid? She knew, though, that she would never try again; it wasn’t in her nature.

  Almost exactly a month later, on a working day, the husband came home early. Sir, Zurotul said, early?

  Sir not feeling well, he said, slipping off his shoes and socks. He went to his room and she hastened to the kitchen to make him a mug of warm water with honey and lemon.

  She knocked on his door and he came to it, having stripped down to his boxers and the flimsy white singlet he would wear under his work shirt. He looked pale. She gave him the drink and he took it to his bed, lacing his fingers around the warm mug. She was kneeling to gather the fallen work shirt and pants by his bed, removing the leather belt from the belt loops, when she felt him behind her. He was hard.

  Zurotul was clutching the laundry in her hands. They had the sour but powdery smell of perspiration dried off under office air-conditioning. Her heart was pounding. She wanted this to be special. She thought: What would Ma’am not do?

  Without turning round to face him she pulled her shorts and underwear down, offering him the tawny warmth within, then prostrated herself on the floor, her face in his soiled office wear. He took her again, and again, and again.

  • • •

  He started coming home during his lunch breaks, as often as he could. She took to waiting for his silver Toyota to pull into the HDB car park at half past noon. She loved watching the husband step out of the car and point the remote lock to it. Sometimes if the neighbourhood was quiet she could hear the Toyota’s locking beep.

  He preferred it on the floor, from the back. This, too, was her preference—the one time he’d slipped under her, she felt a lack of confidence as she sat astride him. She thought it felt wrong, being able to watch his face lose control to the pleasure she was giving him from above. They fucked in every room in the house—from the living room to the study—besides the room where the dying mother slept. For a treat, they wou
ld do it in the master bedroom’s en suite bathtub, and then take a shower together. She loved holding on to his penis and scrubbing it with her hands, the way she would a radish or a carrot. She would smile to herself when she prepared root vegetables. They never talked before or after sex, but she thought he seemed relaxed and happy with her.

  When he was away and she’d finished the housework, she would read the labels of the toiletries in the master bathroom, opening the caps up and placing her nose to them. Cranberry Body Scrub. Mint & Jojoba Conditioner. Brazil Nut Moisturiser. The words looked so exquisite though she didn’t know what they meant.

  They began to have perpetually bruised knees. They began wearing clothing that would cover their knees—he now slept in pyjama pants rather than sport shorts. The wife never noticed. She continued with her tantrums and the husband continued giving in, though he now did so in an ever-so-slightly ironic way.

  • • •

  As all things go, there came the day when the wife returned to the apartment at lunch time to pick up a dossier she’d left on the bedroom table.

  As it was, they were having sex in the shower. They’d never had to stifle their cries for the bedridden mother was hard of hearing anyway. The wife heard the running water, the moaning. She opened the bathroom door. Her husband, her maid, down on their knees in the tub, jets of running water from the shower hose falling upon them.

  The wife screamed, The maid? You really couldn’t do any better? She turned away and stalked out of the room.

  The husband was trembling. He grabbed a towel and ran after her, out the house, wet.

  Zurotul remained under the running water, hugging her naked body for a long time.

  • • •

  She was to be repatriated. She didn’t qualify as a transfer maid because of what had happened. She was a loose, dangerous woman—unsuited to be a domestic helper. She sat in the back room of Happy Maid Employment Services Pte Ltd.

  Somehow, she’d imagined that if they were ever found out, he would choose her—how could he not? She kept his house clean, she took care of his mother, she cooked his favourite dishes, she gave him pleasure. He would be crazy not to choose her.

  It surprised her, too, that the wife had opted to stay. Perhaps she would excoriate the husband and pay him back in his own coin, slow burn.

  But I love Sir long time, she’d said repeatedly, blubbering, but I love Sir long time.

  The wife got up and slapped her smartly across the face. Love? The wife gave a bark of laughter. What do you think you know about love?

  • • •

  It was a five-hour bus ride from the airport, and a three-hour walk in from where the bus stopped. She was careful to avoid the main paths that were used by the villagers. She could feel the forest teeming with wildlife as she stepped through it. She realised she’d missed this, whilst in the city. Finally she found the old shack, dank and caved in.

  In the shack, there was a dirty jar of dried areca nuts in a corner of a hand-hewn shelf, cobbled together with large branches and stones. Zurotul unscrewed the lid, sprinkled a handful into her mouth and started chewing, as she perused the contents of the other jars—dead spiders, shards of glass, various lengths of rope, and one that was obscured by fungi. There was a ragged robe hung on a nail in a corner of the shack, and Zurotul found herself removing her polo t-shirt, cheap jeans and shoes, and putting the robe on.

  Clearing away weeds and roots from the area before the shack, she found the large beige rock she’d used to mark the village hag’s resting place. She’d dug the grave with her bare hands, and evidently it had not been deep enough—she saw a white bone, perhaps a rib, protruding from the soil amidst the undergrowth. Again she felt the butterfly sensation in her lower abdomen, and this time she rested a hand on it. She’d swallowed back her vomit the week in transit at the agency every morning, afraid any sign would give it away, that they would make her abort the unborn child who’d only just begun to be substantially enough formed to tease her womb. She knew it was a girl she carried. She reached out and stroked the bleached bone gently, and made her first prayer for her daughter:

  She will be made for love.

  Alice, You Must Be the Fulcrum of Your Own Universe

  WE’RE IN THE Flyer, the one meant to trump the London Eye as the tallest observation wheel in the world, and she’s started to hyperventilate. Each ride, each oscillation takes half an hour, and I look at her small, thin frame, her bony shoulders, her prominent cheekbones, and I wonder if there is enough breath inside her to hyperventilate for half an hour and come out intact.

  We don’t have a plastic bag on us, but I do know I have to find some way to restrict her airflow, so I end up putting my mouth over hers.

  She breathes through me, breathes me in, breathes me out, and her sharp intakes of breath slow gradually. When she catches her breath, she says lightly: The last time I was kissed for that long, I was eighteen, under a banyan tree. Bad joke, I say. Do you need a doctor? We stand by the glass windows of the capsule and look out at the bay.

  Do you know that right under Marina Bay is a cesspool? The waste can’t flow out to sea any more. If you fall in, you need a tetanus jab.

  • • •

  She keeps doing this, taking me to places high above ground.

  First, it was the cable cars near the port, a thing of my 80s childhood, then the Flyer by the bay, then the hyper-modern infinity pool on the fiftieth floor of the grandest hotel in town with the basement casino, for which you had to be a hotel guest to enter. Her niece and her family, who lived in London, were staying in that hotel and she was taking them around, but she’d deposited them at Orchard Road for the day and she had the spare pass key—would I like to go to the pool with her?

  If you’re feeling lucky, we could go play roulette after.

  She was in a fluffy white bathrobe, as was I. My swimsuit was well worn; when I put it on I realised that it had thinned out in some unfortunate regions. I hadn’t swum in years. I wagered with myself on the cut of her swimsuit. And what sort of swimsuit would I wear when I was sixty-six? The answer was clear, which was that I could never imagine myself as the kind of old lady who would swim.

  We got to the deck, and she unfastened and dropped her robe in one economical movement. Her swimsuit was a simple black one piece, turtle-necked, cut in at the shoulders. I’d expected looser skin, but her flesh tone was not too uneven. She turned to me, and I fumbled with the belt of the plush robe.

  We slid into the large pool that overlooked the city, that appeared to merge with the horizon. We stared out at the city, at the monumental greenhouses by the bay, rising like a quicksilver beast from land that used to be sea.

  Does the city ever frighten you?

  Not ever.

  How do you know what I’m asking?

  Because I can smell your fear. Not me. I love change.

  Is that why you’re beautiful? If you keep up with the times, the times go gentler on you because there’s less catching up to do?

  She laughed, chlorinated hand held up to her crimson mouth—who wears lipstick into a pool?

  I like the thought. Now tell me, have you ever pantomimed a picnic across a swimming pool floor?

  • • •

  We were two strangers standing outside the UK embassy, a steady rain falling beyond the shelter of the eaves, unequipped with umbrellas. She unclasped her hexagonal white leather handbag and brought out a cigarette case.

  You’re going to the United Kingdom?

  To study in London, yes, in September.

  Oh, I’ll be there in October, to visit my niece for a month. Perhaps I’ll bump into you outside Harrods or something, wouldn’t that be funny. What will you study?

  Art. At Central Saint Martins.

  Ah, an artist, she said conspiratorially, placing the cigarette to her lips. I read law at Oxford when I was your age, but I’ve always admired artists. She lit up with a mother-of-pearl lighter, her head tilted at an angle to catch the flame.


  I’m Jennifer, she said as she exhaled, but please call me Jenny.

  Auntie Jenny.

  No. Just Jenny.

  Jenny.

  We stood there talking for a long time. When the rain stopped, we traded numbers.

  • • •

  Jenny laughs with her hand over her mouth and uses words like deportment, haberdashery, cavalier. Men thirty, forty years younger than her hold doors open for us when we’re out, and she winks at them. She takes my hand on the street and we walk for hours, fingers laced. I get tired before she does.

  How many lovers have you had? she asks me in a café. She’s wearing a smart black hat, as if she were going to the races. None yet, I say, and she laughs. And you? Oh my, they’re innumerable, Jenny says as she asks for more sugar syrup for her iced tea. You’re married, aren’t you, I say, and she says, Sure I am—but no children. Tied my tubes when I was thirty and my mother-in-law almost had a fit. She looks at me and says as she puts down her teacup, It’s important to live for yourself. To know life.

  I’m draining the tea in my cup, and she’s looking at me expectantly. When I say nothing, she leans forward and asks, What are you afraid of? I stare at the street outside for a long time, but she is patient. I’m afraid of giving myself away, because I don’t know what I am yet, I say finally. Jenny puts a hand on my knee as if she knows something about me I don’t know about myself. She finishes up her éclair and then she says, You don’t have to be afraid to give, because we are always in a process of becoming. She wipes a spot of cream from the side of her mouth, licks her finger. Alice, you must be the fulcrum of your own universe.

  On the weekdays I don’t see her, I think of her cheeks falling in when she chain smokes, the slight frown before she exhales, the way she teases me out of myself. The thrill of stepping out of the conversation to find myself less guarded. Are you doing charity? my mother began asking me. She’d found it sweet until we began seeing each other every weekend. Does she see you as her granddaughter? my mother wants to know, and I think of Jenny’s mother-of-pearl lighter, her painted nails and the ropy veins on the backs of her hands. We’re friends, I say. Friends? Yes, friends. You don’t even see Mama once a month, and don’t you have friends your age? Mama only speaks Teochew, I can’t even understand her, and besides, Jenny’s different. My mother pauses. Is she rich? Maybe she’ll include you in her will.