My entire wardrobe seems to be draped across my bed and Jocelyn is twirling in front of the mirror. I see her feet tucked into a pair of my Louboutins, which swamp her tiny feet and make her look, for a fleeting moment, like a sweet small girl trying to impress her mother. She catches sight of me in the mirror. I’m not sure what I had been expecting, perhaps some residue of embarrassment or a blush at being caught out, but I had underestimated this cuckoo.
‘Your feet are too big? Why so fat?’
‘Those are my clothes,’ I venture.
Jocelyn shrugs. ‘You too fat to wear, why waste?’ And the challenge at the end of the sentence is laid bare. She holds the threat of Ralph’s violence in between us like an angry sky.
I shake my head and try to think of a single thing to say, but I just want some peace. I certainly do not want Ralph’s anger directed at me any more. I am almost certain that he will accept this switch between the women of his household with relief and I might even receive some kindness for being so accommodating. I feel myself being swept away by lethargy, a disassociation that happens when I feel threatened or something is too difficult to deal with.
‘I’m going to go and do the shopping.’
I wait for an acknowledgement but receive none so I go back downstairs, find my purse and a shawl-type piece of clothing and open the front door.
The idea of a taxi is appealing, but I decide I will get some exercise and enjoy a stroll. As I emerge from the house into the midday sun it is clear that I have made a mistake. It is blisteringly hot. The heat assaults me in thick waves and almost immediately I am sweating. I pull a straw monstrosity over my hair and step out onto the steaming road. The humidity hangs visibly in between the fronds and palms, emboldened by the lack of wind. It is very quiet out except for the odd car, or a maid wandering back from the shops with heavy bags stuffed with groceries or walking the vast shaggy dogs that Singaporeans are so fond of and that are so inappropriate in the tropics.
I smile at a few of the maids and they cautiously smile back. Any westerner is treated with reserve until it’s known if they are friend or foe. If you slip up and say something negative about your employer and that gets reported back, well, you could lose your job and your family their livelihood. I hope eventually I can get them to trust me. The cheeky young woman I met earlier is nowhere to be seen and I trudge on down the road with a lift in my heart and a feeling of expectation, of promise.
The sun is high in the sky and something has changed, shifted, but I have no idea what it is. I am ready to be patient and let the play unfold.
SHAMMI
112 Sabre Green
I don’t feel so well today. My head aches and my stomach feels like fishing knives are gutting me. There is no point saying anything to Madam. She doesn’t believe in illness. I have to work regardless. My head is very hot and even though I drink and drink my throat is dry and rough.
It is not a good day to be ill. Last night my Madam told me that the family was going on holiday and I was to go to work at her friend’s house. She said I had to work extra hard as her friend was very fussy and she didn’t want any complaints because it would reflect badly on her. A taxi would take me. I was to be there for fourteen days and during that time I would be expected to perform all the duties that I do for Madam as well as look after the three children and the grandmother. This seems a lot of work for me but I keep silent. My head is throbbing and if Madam strikes me again I think I will sink to the floor and stay there.
I enjoy the taxi ride. It is the first time I have been out of the house in, perhaps, months. I ask Uncle if I can let the window down in the back just so I can feel the wind on my face. It makes me feel a little free for one moment and then the sadness hits solid, like Madam’s hand, and I have to pant to stop the tears from falling. I am full of despair and as I look out of the window, as we fly down the AYE towards Tampines where Madam’s friend lives, I think of all the other maids in the city that are sad. Huddled behind chain-link fences, dry lipped and dry mouthed. Hollowed-out eyes and lank hair. Grieving for their children, their marriages and their lost youth.
I feel ancient, like a crone from the village. I am dust beneath the plastic sole of a Little India slipper. And I’m hungry – so very hungry. Hungry for love, ravenous for touch, greedy for freedom, famished for comfort.
And there is none for me here in this city of flowers and tears.
We draw up to a large blue house. It is an odd colour blue for a house. The type of blue that rich boy-babies wear. It has four pillars in the front and I can see three floors. It will mean a lot of work for me. The taxi stops and Uncle gestures to the house.
‘Yes,’ I say, ‘I think.’ I give him fifteen dollars.
He looks at me. ‘You wan receipt?’
‘Yes, Uncle.’ He clicks his teeth in annoyance and I think, why did you ask then?
His hair is greasy and swept back from his face in a hairstyle that is twenty years too young for him. His lined face betrays the unnatural total sooty blackness of his hair that sits densely like charcoal in a box. Eyes squint at me, then he sighs and he says, ‘Work hard, lah? Be good girl.’
‘Yes, Uncle,’ I say, even though I am past twenty-eight years.
I could have three children by now and a husband to keep me warm at night. I could have. I could have! And what do I have? I look down at the small, battered case at my feet and I see my frayed trousers and bleached-out shirt and I am so ashamed. And Madam cut my long hair last week. She said it keep falling in the food. She used big pinking shears with a crinkle edge to hack it off. Oh! My beautiful, silky hair. I felt the last bits of my hope, my heart and myself fall in a pile on the dusty floor among the stripes of black silk. Now it is short to my ears and looks odd. I don’t think it is cut straight, but to complain would be too dangerous.
My English is not good and so I don’t know how to question things in this country. My Madam say that if I displease her she can send me back to Indonesia or, worse, to jail. She say badly behaved maids in Singapore are flogged. Lucilla, from next door, who works for Ebony Ma’am, tries to talk to me but I point at the newly installed security cameras. Madam says she look at the film at night to see that I am not slacking off like bloody Banglas.
How can I be lazy? I work from before the blushing dawn to hours after dusk. I want to ask about my wages. I know I must pay back money to the agency but months have passed now and still I have nothing to show for my labours. To work this hard, to be this sorrowful, for nothing.
‘Are you the girl?’
A tiny, birdlike woman is darting forward on impossible foolish heels. She wears layers of red silk with ruffles in electric blue. Her face has thick make-up. Her eyeshadow is peacock-feather sharp. It makes my head ache to look at her.
‘Yes, Madam.’
‘You can start straight away,’ she snaps. I gesture to my bag.
‘Where should I put this, please, Madam?’
Then she sighs, clicks her teeth and steps close to me so I can smell her sour breath. ‘I don’t want a troublemaker, lah. You will put it where I tell you to put it. You will speak when I let you speak. You will eat when I say you eat. Now come.’ This is not new to me, this hateful way.
I follow her to the kitchen trying to acquaint myself with how it all works. New kitchens are hazardous if you don’t have a patient employer. I’m expected to find where everything is quickly and without fuss.
I ask again where I might put my bag. If I have a room.
Madam Peacock lifts a heavily plucked eyebrow. So thin it might be a pencil drawing. She gestures with her head to the outside door. Outside I see a mattress, stained pillow and dirty cover.
‘Maid’s room all full.’ I nod slowly. I need to sit down. ‘You lucky, tonight we go out. All family. No eating from our food. No drinking from our cups. You have your own cup. Plate. There are ready noodles in that cupboard. You can have one tonight.’
‘Thank you,’ I say.
She ignores m
e as one might a black speck amongst one million black specks and disappears.
A gentle breeze blows through this part of the house and I feel it soft on my skin, nudging me to a smile. At least here I could imagine I am free. I don’t care about sleeping outside; it will be cool and private. I can pretend I am back in the village. Perhaps Madam will let me bake her rotis. Or perhaps not.
There is a cracked old mirror fastened to the wall and I catch a glimpse of someone so strange I think the woman is behind me. But the woman is me.
My skin is marked and I have the ends of an egg-yolk yellow bruise around my eye and my lip is swollen where it split last week. My hair is chopped without reason or style. My eyes are large and fearful. The light of hope has faded and I feel meaningless. How do I hope to endure when I am so wounded? If suicide were not a mortal sin I would have thrown myself off the roof months ago. How desperate do you have to be before killing yourself becomes unimportant? I have ashes in my mouth and ringing in my ears. Temptation is everywhere. Knives and burning, pills and high places.
It hurts. Oh! It hurts. I look like Koti, who thought she was a soothsayer and marked her face with twigs and threatened to eat all the children.
I am poison.
I am nothing.
I am a dark blemish on your radiance. You cannot love me.
And so, I cannot love myself.
MADAM EUNICE
134 Sabre Green
I woke up today with an inglorious hangover and felt foolish, pretending to my husband that I had a touch of the flu but he wasn’t to worry.
Chinese men don’t care about suffering very much, especially the older ones. Suffering is a badge of honour. If it hurts do it harder. Our people have experienced mass suffering for hundreds of years. The sleeping bear has experienced famines that have eradicated millions of peasants and country folk. And still the Chinese plough on breathing and living and making and denying themselves. Privately, I wonder if that denial is caused by our imperial guilt. In the same way the British people tend to go overboard with the Singaporean Indians here. As if they could make up for their ancestral swaggering by smiling too wide and inviting them to a few dinners. But the Chinese have many smiles. Compensatory smiles, bitter smiles, vengeful smiles. Unlike the Thais whose every smile is the same whether they are about to kiss your neck or slit it. We are a complicated people and should not be underestimated.
A few days after the disastrous Mahjong affair I realised that I had received no contact at all from Joyce or Little Ping. This was particularly odd as usually one or both would ring me to gossip and arrange the next meeting. We would circulate hosting duties every week. It was Joyce’s turn and nothing had been arranged. I had left a message on both their phones but still nothing. I felt suspicious and excluded. A very odd feeling for me. I am used to being what the westerners call the alpha female. My husband has the best job and the highest salary. I have sons. That fact, in itself, usually sorts the pecking order. Little Ping languishes at the bottom but irritatingly not only does she not seem to mind – she doesn’t even notice. Joyce is much more submissive and behaves accordingly. But it is Little Ping’s deference that I need. I want her fear to translate to obedience. Being frightened of me is one thing. But ignoring my position is quite another.
I have a manicure appointment later. The maid will do the weekly shop. She has her list, which I reviewed earlier, and enough cash to cover it. I will of course examine the bill minutely later and check the change. I think the girl would be too scared of the consequences to steal, but you never know, and I have had bad experiences before with dishonest maids.
I think I will drive by Little Ping’s house and see what is really happening. I don’t have to go in; I can just park and observe from the car or do a slow drive by. I am feeling very annoyed with myself, and increasingly furious with my friends.
And the suspicion that I am being shunned grows, and I feel quite rabid with indignation. Here are two women whom I have had the benevolence to befriend when, let me be honest here, they are well below my social rank. But I accepted them into my home and my heart because they seemed lonely and unsure of themselves. I shan’t jump to conclusions. Both of them know me well enough by now to understand offending this particular Tiger would be very unwise indeed. I have quite a reputation for legal revenge. I have ostracised women for disagreeing with the type of flowers I have chosen for a fundraiser. I have made unfortunates less popular than lepers for interrupting me during conversation. I allow myself a little smile. I enjoy being feared. It gives me a bit of a kick, actually. Most Chinese people of good character are the same. To be strong you must be feared and prepared to do that which others do not have the mettle for.
From my window I watch that fat, western woman paying for a taxi to take her maid shopping. Makes me crazy. These Filipina women have attitude enough. Don’t go filling her head with taxis and an easy life, makes it harder for her in the end. I watch this young woman with her hair swinging down her back like the fronds of a passion flower, laughing and getting into the taxi as if she owned the place. Her employer even waves her off and mouths a thank you. How naive. But then, this woman is struggling, you can see it. She wears native costume – huge sarongs wrapped around her body. And there are shocking rumours about her husband and the maid. And she is so fat! No control, lah! Disgusting.
It will all come to a bad end. You have to have boundaries with these people. Village girls need to be guided and protected, not allowed to have ideas above their station. It will make it harder for them when they have to return to poverty. The best lesson these girls can learn (and the most valuable one I can teach them) is hard work. It might sound harsh but most of them have families relying on their wages. The harder they work, the less likely they are to get into trouble.
There is talk at the moment in our circles and in the Straits Times that the government is very close to putting through a mandatory day off for all maids. This is very foolish of them. Freedom is not a prize. It must be earned. If I want to give my maid time off then I will. The government should stay out of it. Already there has been a barrage of letters to the papers condemning this proposal. Many employers feel quite rightly that their lives will be seriously curtailed by such a development. Who will look after the children at the weekends? And the elderly parents? The weekend is the only time we can have time without the children. It would be a serious inconvenience.
The other concern is what the maids would do on their day off. If it does come to pass, I want to have some control over what mine does. If she gets pregnant and sent back to the fields, I will have the double inconvenience of having to hire a new maid and teach her the ropes. This is a long and arduous process. I have little patience in general and these girls drive me mad. Their English is poor and they seem to have trouble understanding my accent. My accent! It is flawless! I won several prizes for my diction at school.
Already there are online spats between Chinese employers and the westerners. One stupid female implied that we were monsters and modern-day slave traders because we didn’t believe in a day off. These idiots live in the clouds. How dare they cast aspersions on us? We are only thinking of our maids and how best to protect them. They are there to work for us. We give them a roof, a bed and food. Our own hours are long and we expect employees to sacrifice in the same way. It is not selfish, just a different perspective. It is becoming a hot topic in the very worst of ways.
I drive to my manicure. The girls are very good here. Gentle with no distracting chatter. If it is empty enough, sometimes I nap, and I think I might snore as sometimes I wake to stifled laughter, but I can’t say I let it bother me. I wait in the car for a bit, admiring my long, lacquered nails. They gleam like a crimson glaze on a freshly fired pot.
Little Ping lives off Orchard Road in one of those huge serviced apartments. Clearly they have more money to spend because she is barren. I drive past slowly. My mouth feels inexplicably dry and my nails tap like pecking chickens. I see cars in
the driveway that I recognise as Joyce’s and those of two other passing acquaintances. I slow the car down and I open the window. A faint clacking sound and shrieks of laughter confirm my suspicions.
The Mahjong afternoon has gone ahead without me.
My hands grip the steering wheel so tightly that my nails score marks in the leather. I am gripped by rage, and my reflection in the rear-view mirror is of a pale woman with eyes glittering with fury. My smile is terrible as I press hard on the accelerator and roar away.
LUCILLA
19 Sabre Green
When I first came to Singapore it was 2006. I was full of hope and excitement. Everybody knew someone who was a maid or nanny. We had shared those stories by the fire. We would giggle about the girls that had married the ang moh and discuss how big the ang moh were. The more brazen worldly girls would say, big everywhere! And we would stare wide-eyed at the fire and chew on our meat and wash it down with Coke.
There were horror stories but mostly they were ignored like a troublesome cough. There was so little choice for us village girls. The road well travelled seemed to us the safest. So for most of us it would be service of one kind or another. Some fathers were not as loving as mine. They believed that daughters were there to serve the family. And as it is much easier for a daughter to work in Asia than it is for a son the matter was settled very early on. Some fathers in Thailand and Cambodia were not anxious if their daughters became prostitutes. They were not Catholic like us and had no worry about sin the way we had. So we dismissed the stories because we had little choice and we pretended that we would have a wonderful time and the fairy story would come true. The lies start early.
Bitter Leaves Page 6