Grandmother is incontinent and if her pads slip in the night it is extra washing for me. Madam expects all sheets and pillows to be handwashed. I have to use a cracked, plastic bowl and a separate tub to rinse. It would be so much easier by the river. In my village as we wash we sing songs and tease each other about flirtations with men, pretend and real. We help each other with the heavy sodden sheets and lift them over the rocks to dry quickly in the sun. There is a cadence to our scrubbing, a connection to the women before us, as we pound and laugh our way through the boredom.
However hard I try to recreate that happy scene it makes my head hurt and I have to stop. I feel feverish still, and flushed. If I look in the mirror there are spots of scarlet on my grey cheeks. I wonder if I am dying, and oddly, I do not feel threatened or anxious about death. My parents would be able to mourn me properly knowing that I tried to serve them until my last breath. This afternoon I go to the doctor’s. I haven’t had my periods for three months now. I suspect it is lack of proper food but my Madam won’t hear of it. She seems to think that the loss of my menses is a positive thing. You lucky. No mess for months. No cramping, no pain. No baby. I always smile inside at her insistence on this possible future pregnancy. It would be an immaculate conception considering I have no freedom at all. The doctor’s ‘appointment’ is a forced health check all maids are expected to have, by law, twice yearly. We are tested for all manner of diseases including HIV and have to have a pregnancy test. If we refuse then our passes are cancelled and we are sent back home. So we bite our lips and squeeze our fingernails into our palms and suffer the indignities with silence.
Today, the youngest boy pulled my hair so hard some came out in his hand. When I cried, he slapped my face. I looked up in shock to see my Madam standing in the doorway nodding her approval. You never reprimand my children. If you are stupid and lazy they are allowed to reprimand you. You disrespectful to my children I call police… You go to jail… I send you home. Always the same threats hang in the air. To be sent home is the worst outcome because in many instances we would not be allowed back to Singapore. Then our choices become even more limited and dangerous. You understand that many of us are village girls. Taught to be submissive and respectful as is the Asian way. Female purity is honoured in our culture. A fantasy that puts women on a pedestal will never have a good outcome. She will fall from grace quickly and painfully by the very men that put her there.
I know my English is not good but I try. If only Madam would slow down a bit I could catch up even more. But she speaks fast, like a hail of nuts, and if I don’t get it first time then I have to just nod because the alternative would be painful. I think about asking Madam for some headache pills but she only believes in Chinese medicine. Maybe this is why she is so bitter. The muddy draughts that smell like rot and sweat make me retch.
If I were back at Sabre Green I would try to whisper to Lucilla and she might sneak some tablets to me. On my birthday, Ebony Ma’am pushed a box full of lovely things over the fence for me. There was chocolate, a bracelet, two pretty dresses, some underwear, money and a tiny cake. I pray over the bracelet – it is pearl and silver. I like to think it shines with protection by the angels. Ebony Ma’am gave me a lovely smile. I carry that smile with me in my heart like cool lassi on a steamy day. I wonder about that lady and her good heart. I think about how she met her husband. Was it by a pearlescent seashore or did he rescue her from a Bengal tiger that had escaped from a rajah’s zoo?
She wears different-coloured gemstone dots on her forehead. Sometimes ruby, sapphire or emerald. Her eyes sparkle with goodness and love and when she cooks I press my forehead against the wooden fence that divides us and inhale the sharp spices that remind me bitter-sweetly of home. The fragrant air shimmers in the space between us. Chinese food uses large amount of oil and fish sauce. It never smells fragrant to me and sometimes I gag over the wok I use to cook for my employer. My lips twist into a tiny smile as I think about spitting into the food. And then I pinch myself. What is happening to me? I never used to think like this. I feel poisoned by my life here, poisoned by the double standards and my fear that something terrible is going to happen.
Tonight, Madam went out after the children were put to bed. She always kisses them on forehead and fusses with their blankets as if she has spent two hours bathing and cleaning them, not I. Shammi, you go on downstairs and clean up kitchen. Walk dogs after. Then clean car. Plants need watering.
I stumble downstairs and start on the washing up and clearing away. After a few minutes I hear the front door slam as Madam leaves. I have no idea where she has gone. I start to hum as I wash the dishes, allowing some hot water into the bowl, a luxury usually not allowed. When I’m on my own like this I sometimes imagine that I’m back in the village and if I turn round my Ebu will be sitting on the mat shucking vegetables for the stew. And she will gaze at my face and beckon and I will lie with my head in her lap and she will stroke the hair back from my face and I will feel at peace.
A pair of heavy hands are placed on my shoulders. The smell of him. Oily, overweight, cheap cologne mixed with sweat. My face tenses and I hold my breath. I feel his breath against my ear.
Meihua, Meihua.
His breathing gets harder as hands begin to knead my shoulders and my upper arms. It is painful because I am frail. Why does he do this? He cannot find me attractive. I’m skin and bone, my teeth are terrible, my skin is flaky, my hair hacked and lustreless. Every night he forces himself a bit further on me.
Tonight his hands slide over my hardly there breasts. He moans and I can feel a hardness pressing into my lower back. What I should do is take one of the knives and stick it in his neck but I just keep humming and washing, like an idiot. Then sounds from upstairs force him away from me and just like that he is gone and I have never seen his face.
It occurs to me that this need he has is not about sex but more about ownership. Like a cracked rowing boat that he has rented – this Sir owns me for fourteen days and will do with me as he wishes. The sense of power is what makes me so alluring. It is the worst type of cliché and a complicated game that I cannot hope to win.
MADAM EUNICE
134 Sabre Green
My revenge on Little Ping has been slow but beautifully crafted. Being respectful of hierarchy is important in Chinese culture and Little Ping has cut ribbons through ours. And she has paid.
First, I began to make subtle mentions of her unfaithfulness and always mentioned Joyce as the source. As I spun and wove Little Ping into tighter and tighter circles of deceit I gained strength from her dismay. She began to call me and beg my intervention to find who was spreading these terrible lies about her. I sympathised, in character, and assured her I would do anything I could to help. Her husband had heard the rumours and had become very angry. When she told me that he had hit her for the first time in their marriage I stifled an attack of the giggles. It was too funny. Watching her gulp her tears down, her face unbecomingly flushed and hot.
I felt powerful and I have always enjoyed that feeling.
The culmination of her calamitous downward journey is to take place at a charity event for the Chinese Women’s Association. This brittle yet sparkling occasion has long been seen as the event of the year, and it is a perfect stage to set Little Ping up for her big fall.
I have, as usual, bought a table which cost my husband around 8,000 dollars. This is quite usual and I am happy to tell anybody who asks. Chinese culture encourages one to demonstrate one’s prosperity and talking about money is completely acceptable. Discussing salaries, school fees and prices of houses and holidays is customary, and they are considered appropriate subjects for polite conversation. The westerners wince at this, which is very amusing. It is seen as the height of bad taste to ‘boast’ about one’s financial or fiscal position. People who do it may be tolerated if they have enough money, but are excluded if they don’t. It’s also a class matter for westerners. The older the money, the less it is discussed. The aristocrat an
d the artisan alike despise the nouveau riche. The aristocrats and the artisans chug along with each other and disregard the rest. Our class structure is more fixed. You would have thought that the reaping ideals of the Mao Tse Chung would have smashed it to death. Using the clumsy yet effective anvils of paranoia and fear to bludgeon China into a cohesive, single unit. But the system is tougher than it looked and is thousands of years old. A land and a people do not lose their cultural faith and mores even if they are forbidden. Look how the Restoration bounced back in England after Puritan rule. Overnight London was injected with colour and vibrancy, Charles II was resplendent and the country rejoiced. Ah, the British! They have always been sweaty, drunken barbarians with a sense of entitlement and pale snobbery that has allowed them to rampage through some countries and contaminate the shores of others. Although that served them better a hundred years ago or so. A great country bought down by champagne socialists. I think that is the term.
One thing that is very important in our culture is skin colour. The darker your skin, the more likely you are to be a farmer or a labourer, someone unrefined. An elongated fingernail on a little finger indicates wealth and a profession that does not require manual labour. My skin is the colour of lilies. Pure, creamy white and without blemish. I have the whitest skin of my peers, a fact I am very proud of. I have never exposed it to the sun in my life. I have the skin of an empress and the attitude to match.
This evening, Little Ping and her husband, and Joyce and hers, are guests of mine at the table. Or Joyce is. Little Ping thinks she has been invited, but in fact there is no room at the table for her. She will arrive in all her glory, slightly muted from the stress of being gossiped about, and approach me. I will step smartly out of the way while she looks at the place cards and when she fails to find her name beautifully calligraphed onto creamy parchment she will look at me, a confused smile attached to her mouth, and I will glance at her and hold her treasonous eyes for a full five seconds watching intently as she begins to understand. It will be delicious.
I am wearing a jade-green Vera Wang gown with matching satin shoes. My hair is ebony-sleek and in a high bun. My skin glistens under the dimmed lights. I feel astonishing. And I watch my husband with interest as he works the room, and he actually does just that. He researches who is on the guest list, and then, if there is a dignitary who doesn’t happen to know an author or politician or land developer, he will step in and broker the deals. A business card first and then a complex series of mini meetings. He has quite a name for himself, my husband, and tonight he looks rather dashing in his black tie. Our eyes meet and I nod discreetly at him. What we lack in passion we make up for in ambition. I think that is why our marriage has worked.
Oh! I know full well he takes mistresses sometimes for a short while – sometimes longer. The Polish girl, ruddy cheeked, huge bottomed and built like a farmhand, lasted almost two years. The little Chinese language student over three, and she had her own apartment that he paid for. We don’t discuss these things; it would be indelicate. But I’m very aware of these women and they are not in the least bit threatening. It is quite usual for a Chinese man to have mistresses. They have just taken the place of concubines in the second bedroom.
My great grandfather, Li Gang, had several concubines that my great grandmother, Ai Lan, accepted wholly. They would share his bed, prepare food, clean the house. Menial duties. It was not the most beautiful or the most sexually accomplished concubine that was the danger. It was the simplest, purest girl. Usually from a farm, sold by her family to stave off the ubiquitous starvation that followed the plague of famines in the Breadbasket and other areas of China: the Great Leap Forward became the Great Hunger. This girl would be a virgin. As my great grandfather Li Gang grew older, he became captivated by one of his youngest concubines. Her name was Mei and she was fourteen years old. The only one allowed to rub his feet, she rose in stature almost to equal his own wife, but in the end she died suddenly, painfully, wracked with terrible pains and vomiting blood. Li Gang alleged poison and suspicion fell firmly on the other concubines who railed and cried and denied everything. Eventually, no evidence could be found to corroborate his suspicions and harmony was once again restored. My great grandmother Ai Lan never admitted to being involved but it was most likely a conspiracy of women. Women can be vipers and turn on each other like maelstroms. Sisterhood is a pretty idea but women are naturally competitive and the older we get the more cut-throat we become. But the tendency for older men to look for younger, more fertile mates is part of natural selection; they are driven by a biological imperative and there is no point getting sad about it. Better to make the most of the good times and be respected and revered in later life. No Chinese man wants a wife who scolds and, although we are represented in most professions, it is still expected of us to maintain a beautiful, serene home and be the traditional wife and mother. Blood-on-the-sand imprints on the Chinese psyche. Our historical culture is too deep rooted for us to change it now. If the shock and awe of Mao failed to frustrate our natural inclinations then I think they are set in stone.
I check my immaculate hair in the mirror and relish what I see. I glitter like a jade dragon. Shimmering with vengeance and possibilities.
Then something catches my eye in the far left corner of the glass. I see a tall, robed figure standing immobile in a way that is unnatural. Something feels odd and disconnected about it. The head is bowed and a cowled hood conceals the face. I squint to try and see more. Then a chattering group of guests distracts me for an instant and when I glance up again the figure has vanished. I spin round and search the room discreetly but I can see nothing out of place at all. The Singapore butterflies are out in great numbers, the fine wine is flowing and the business chat is animated.
Ah! Little Ping and Joyce have arrived. Joyce is too pudgy and ten years too old for her Alexander McQueen creation, and Little Ping looks fragile and nervous but nevertheless rather beautiful in a crimson Marchesa.
I make my silken move towards my husband and wait with anticipation for the sweet inevitable.
LUCILLA
19 Sabre Green
Hurry! Hurry! Your time is my money! This is one of Joo’s favourite phrases and she smirks as she says it. It is probably the only honest thing she shares with us in these harsh, hateful weeks. As well as our passports and phones we have been ordered to hand over our bags. Phone cards and money are contraband and illegal in Joo’s house. We sleep in the sealed, shuttered laundry room side by side. Our prison cell, no more, no less. I watch the nightly battles between tiny geckos and large cockroaches and the lizards watch back with their unblinking basilisk stares like tiny collaborators.
We are allowed three moderate bowls of noodles per day and unlimited water from the containers. The tap is out of bounds and Joo checks the water meter daily and if it moves too fast then we all forfeit a bowl of noodles. The realisation that we are purely a commodity to her arrives quickly but I am surprised to feel so apathetic towards my fate. At 5pm on our first evening we are given our first bowl of noodles and harangued the whole way through it. The shouts and pushes become knitted into our daily routine, but I begin to suffer from heartburn because of it. We are split into groups of three and the maid trainer begins her work. The maid trainer is bought in by the agency boss to show novice maids how to clean and wash efficiently and effectively. We are taught the difference between an HBD flat and a house, the right way to ask questions and the best deferential manner. These are long, arduous and monotonous days. I haven’t been able to contact my parents and I fear for their anxiety. I lift the shutter that covers the window a few inches and peer out to a scene that reflects a very different world. The sun shines, the blossoms fall and I wonder if God is even aware of me. Two different worlds exist – there, and here. I am not very sure which one is reality.
One day we are taken to the agency proper. This time we travel by MRT and I find it clean and quick. All of us relish this supervised freedom and I see Ana glancing at th
e exits more than once. Don’t do it. It’s just not worth it, I whisper urgently. I don’t think I can bear it, she replies. I miss my babies and my breasts hurt. I’ve got lumps and red spots and I feel sick.
It’s true that Ana does not look well. Her eyes are too bright and her skin too pale. We have all lost weight over the past few days and most of our already tiny frames can ill afford it. Show me later, I say. And when she does her tiny breasts are swollen, ripe to bursting and red splotches cover both. I can see lumps dotted about and recognise that she is suffering from mastitis. My sister had the same thing when she was breastfeeding. Ana’s predicament is made worse by the fact that she has no way to express the milk that is now blocking the ducts. She needs medicine. I approach Madam Joo and explain the situation. You make trouble for me? she says. You want to cause problem? Troublemaker goes back to village in shame. I am prepared for this and quickly tell her that Ana is a hard worker but if she becomes ill she will lose more income for Joo. The old harridan understands this logic. Ana gets her medicine and recovers quickly but Joo never stops watching me after that. Her ghoulish face caught between curious and distrustful and her eyes inscrutable.
I find out later that the two thugs that Joo employs are her sons. Brutish, stupid and in sexual overdrive they leer and grope, pinch and whisper. They are the ones that stand guard at night outside the laundry room door. The window is barred anyway, the metal frames bolted tight against the wood. They never try to enter when we are sleeping because they are terrified of their tiny monster of a mother and though they push against the limits they are much too cowed to try actual assault. But to endure the day-long barrage of sexual comments and the endless mauling is so hard for us. There are so many invisible unknown rules. To answer back or to scold these boys is not sensible so we try to stay in pairs for safety.
Bitter Leaves Page 8