Maid In Singapore

by Kishore Modak

  ‘I don’t know, mum, I also don’t care, I will take care of him,’ she replied, shutting her handbag.

  The boys on the lawn had resumed their game, scruffier and evermore determined, a little pace bowler charged in from the far end of the lawn, almost from near the lily pond beyond.

  ‘You do not care, but I do. Who do you think is his father?’ I asked with authority—after all she had been my maid and that flavour of relational dominance remained.

  ‘Swear on Jesus, mum, I don’t know,’ was all that she said, and I believed her because she would not have used the Lord’s name, unless cornered.

  ‘I want to ask you, how did it happen, I mean I saw you with sir so I know, but what about Jay?’ the dam of inhibitions had been broken and my questions began to flow, gushing through the sluice, relieving the pressure created by their build-up over time.

  ‘Same way, mum. Just like sir,’ she was looking down in shame.

  Krishna, my inner voice cried, had Jay also inherited his father’s perversity? If Mary was to be believed, it certainly seemed so.

  ‘How many times did you do it with Jay?’ I asked.

  ‘A few, but it was a long time back and I am sorry it happened that way,’ she grabbed her bag, crying as she rose, moving away, in grief.

  On the lawn, the winning team celebrated with hugs and back slaps while the losers held their little heads low, the pace bowlers arms resting stiff on folded, buckling knees, in tired submission as they left for home, leaving the tired paceboy to follow. The light began to fade and the afternoon grew overcast.

  At home, I found myself by the window again, rain obliterating the view of the street below.

  Same way like sir, which is how she had put her encounters with Jay, very clearly for me to build the rest of the picture in my mind. They had done it a few times, and in just those few times a child’s imagination had fired to the level of a middle-aged man’s. It was either a case of hyper-creativity of a fecund imagination or a case of being led by a host, a host who taught you what to do and how to do it.

  Here I go again, putting all the blame on the prostituting maid, absolving the other party altogether. The prostituting-victimized-maid had raised a child without a whimper of complaint, the absolved had simply moved on, one had died and the other practised law, seeking justice on behalf of his clients. Not justice—much of it may be covering up crimes that his clients commit. As a lawyer, was he scrupulous, walking away from criminals? Obviously not, since he was quite successful.

  The perversity of David, was also mine, like a restless itchy palm needing another to sound a clap. I missed my dead husband.

  On purely legal grounds, Jay stood steady; after all, he was only fourteen when it had happened, clearly a minor.

  But on moral grounds, he should share the blame, not for having sex with a woman, but for making her do it at gunpoint, whatever it is that men of his age say, and do at gunpoint.

  Men should wield guns for a singular purpose— killing, and getting done in by a quick death.

  Mary was no angel, but she had redeemed herself, and in some sense, had the courage to face the consequences of her actions, raising the boy and loving him, not caring about who the father was, standing up for her actions, accepting them and being responsible for them. Catholic fears, too, may have played their part in her decisions and her staged bravado. Catholic or not, they were brave decisions, correct decisions.

  David had simply wished the consequences of his actions away, wanting to be rid of the problem, rather than standing up and facing them. He had begged and pleaded for me to help him through the mess, weak and genuine, like a child’s fear of the dark.

  How could you leave anyone in the dark, scared, claustrophobic and alone?

  Since his death, I was happy, happy that I had not caused any angst to a dying man.

  Jay, though young, had been strangely strong. Through the shooting and the police visits, he had been strong enough to carry his carnal secrets inside of him, never unburdening, wanting to move through life harbouring a dark and pitiful past through all the living years. What sort of a man had I raised, someone who could carry the poison of his actions deep within for a lifetime, ready to take it to his grave, but never once turning around and facing their consequence?

  For someone as young as Jay, it was incredible to be able to carry such humongous mental loads without buckling.

  When I was young, killing an ant left me pensive. Death, burials and such still wrench my heart and fill my mind with gloom. Maybe it is best to be cremated, committed in flames, after all, a pyre burns and melts the body while a grave seems to embalm and preserve rather than consume, as if waiting for someone to come searching for things that are gone, before resurrecting one’s own hopes and fears.

  Jay may not have laughed and chuckled in the pub, with his friends, about his juvenile adventures; he would have simply bottled them up, keeping his secrets well within himself. That was my reading of his adult build.

  I had seen his girlfriend’s photo from America; he had shown it to me. Was she compliant, just like me with David, or had she set him right in bed?

  Sexually speaking, if Jay was doing at fourteen what his father had been doing at forty, what would the prodigal son evolve to by the time he reached forty?

  What is good sex and what is bad? Do we need to prescribe physical boundaries to our youth, like no-oral, or no-anal, or no-slapping or no-binding? We cannot, because in all those acts may lie the sexual salvation of a couple. So then, can we conclude that all good sex is consensual and let our youth know that as long as both the partners are in agreement, anything goes? Then again, my consent to your excesses may be wrong and one-sided, as it was in our case.

  To answer that question, one may have to generalize, as long as both the parties had a good time, with no residual guilt or ill will, then that is good sex, even if it means leaving you un-adventured and dissatisfied, like following a prescribed religion, stifling and boring in the long run, without any thought for experimentation.

  I am all for the sexual revolution . . . but a revolt which upholds the regime that it creates, not one that settles into a plush life on Wall Street, leaving the by-product of revolution to survive upon the meagre income of domestic servitude.

  The sum total of happiness, with or without the trappings of wealth is all good and fine, but only if the fisher-folk get the taste of urban excesses and then reject it, retreating back to the sea and the sand.

  Who is Rafael’s father, David or Jay?

  Maybe this was the answer. Do whatever you like as long as you don’t get pregnant, don’t carry the proof of your ill judgment for all to see. She could have killed it but she chose to keep that seed, letting it grow, caring for it, even giving up her own family, loving the product of debauched acts committed on her body, by my son and my husband.

  The prostituting-bitch was now a ferocious caring mother, ready to protect what was hers, and I had the sudden urge to take it all away from her.

  Much before I chose my next action, I had to get a test done. I had to be sure who was Rafael’s father, and then I would do it, irrespective of the result of the test.

  Son or grandson, does it matter? Yes it does, because it would leave me either a wife who had been cheated or a mother who had raised a child wrong.

  It was best to let a few days pass before I called her again; she had been agitated and needed the time to become herself, before we could speak.

  ‘Hello, Mary, it is me Rashmi,’ I used a payphone, not yet wanting to reveal my telephone numbers.

  ‘Hello, mum. Yes, mum?’ she answered, a bit cold and icy after our previous interaction, wanting to know why I kept calling her.

  ‘I called to say, you don’t have to worry about Rafael. He is my son too, I can help you finish his education if you like.’ Another ten thousand dollars would be a small price to pay for the truth.

  ‘Thank you so much, mum, but I cannot accept it. He is the only one left wit
h me and I cannot give him away to anyone,’ her fears came pouring out. She thought I wanted to have her son for myself. I did not want Rafael; I just wanted the truth of his paternity.

  ‘Mary, I don’t want to meet or even see your Rafael, so please don’t get me wrong at all here. I simply want to help,’ I slowed my speech, so she could catch each word, the line was not very clear. A lie, meant to lure her, because I could fathom the pleasure grandchildren can provide.

  ‘But why, mum?’ she asked.

  The question stumped me, catching me unprepared. I could not tell her the truth, which was—I want to know if your boy is my husband’s or my son’s kid.

  ‘Well, it is the right thing to do, and I want to do it, before we all pass on. Your son, he does have our blood in his veins, after all. My charity will start in my house and not in some far away non-profit organization, that is all,’ it was not an outright lie. There was a part of me that wanted to help the boy, a small part. The larger intent was one of establishing the boy’s paternity, and to do that, I needed something, his hair.

  ‘Mum, you don’t know how much this means to me, to us, because now I can see my boy get educated and live in the city, maybe even work overseas, in the offices,’ her tone was soft.

  ‘I can spend up to ten thousand dollars and I can give you the money as soon as you need it, but I need something in return from you,’ I broached my proposed trade.

  ‘What is that, mum?’

  ‘Some hair, from Rafael’s head, a few grams will do,’ I said, hoping to close the deal without inviting too many questions.

  A few grams of hair are an entire clump, lesser would do.

  ‘Hair, what will you do with his hair, mum?’

  ‘I returned back our hair and nails to you and I didn’t ask you what you wanted to do with it. Rafael’s hair with me will be insurance enough for you not to try any voodoo or tantra on us. I know you love your son, but I love mine, too, and I will do anything to protect him.’ My counter had dawned in a flash, a genius flash, which she bought without guessing why I had asked for the boy’s hair. ‘When can you give it to me?’ we started to close the trade.

  She paused, thinking about it. ‘In a week, maybe two. I can call him tonight and he will mail it to me,’ she replied. To my relief and excitement, it had worked.

  One thing got established; the fishing villages of Cebu had phones, at least community phones.

  ‘I can give you the money as soon as I receive it,’ I hung up, after a few conversational pleasantries.

  By the time I reached home, it was getting dark, so I decided not to search for the other missing part of the puzzle; it was somewhere at home, best to wait for daylight before looking for it.

  The missing link was a sample of Jay’s hair; and if I had that, along with a sample of Rafael’s hair, I presumed I could get a genetic test done, a test of paternity. Digging David up for reaching the truth would be macabre, an unnecessary act, one that would draw attention, requiring prolix reasoning in explanations. However, if Jay was not a paternal match then it had to be David, so the truth would present itself with a single test on the living, pre- empting the need for the dead to be dragged into this concluding chapter of my life.

  On the following day, I combed through Jay’s room, quite literally since I picked out his hair from the combs and hair brushes that he used when he visited each year. I thought I had enough of what I was looking for, placing it in a plastic Ziploc and setting it aside.

  At Mt. Elizabeth clinic, the technicians and the doctors refused to help; apparently paternity tests are done only if you have the consent of both the parties or if you have a judge who verifies the validity and the legitimacy of your request.

  Where doctors fail, lawyers appear. Mine tackled the matter elegantly, once I had laid out the background, truthfully, for them to consider. They simply asked me to declare a written intent, an intent to draft a will. That way we were well within our rights to have a genetic test done before I concluded on matters regarding inheritance, after I was gone. This preparation for death was purely for reasons of making the paternity test legitimate; it wasn’t like I had a fortune to worry over. The lawyer’s assistant took the better part of the morning to put all the papers together. I decided to wait rather than return, signing the documents there and then before heading to the flat.

  On Saturday morning, I called Mary to check if she had what I had asked for. She said she did and asked if we could meet on the following day, which was her day off, at the same park where we had met earlier.

  Of course we could meet. I felt excited and close to closing this loop out, for good, before moving on to other simpler preoccupations, ones that suited my age, like knitting patterns and discovering the secrets hidden in the Gita.

  On the following day, I arrived early at the park, sitting on the bench near the lawn.

  The cricket on the lawn stood interrupted; the boys had gathered near the pond beyond the grassy field, peering into the water, no doubt for the ball that they had lost. Inevitably, after a few minutes, one of the boys took off his jeans and waded in, feeling with his feet for the sphere in the murk below.

  I did not notice Mary walking up, until she was right next to me.

  We sat and spoke for over an hour, about things, never once visiting our dark past.

  ‘Mum, here, I have it.’ She gave me the packet, I took it, and handed her the money.

  We left, just as the boys gave up their search for the ball. By now, there were quite a few of them in the water, dejected with drooping shoulders. The grass in the foreground seemed to breathe and rejoice, having been given a reprieve from the trampling of kids, even if it was for just one afternoon.

  Later at home, I observed the hair carefully, seeing, smelling and touching them, I had to, before handing them over to the lawyer-technicians. They seemed unmistakably brown and straight.

  On Monday, I left the samples of hair at the lawyer’s office, not wanting to go back to the clinic from where I had been returned once before. My lawyer promised to do the needful, reverting in a few days, when the results came in.

  I tried to fall back into my daily routine, in vain, while I waited, ending up spending an inordinate amount of time at the ISKCON temple, preparing double-edged arguments that would calm an old woman, whichever way the test results turned out.

  It brought back the agonizing memories of another wait, the agony of waiting for Dr Paul Ng to announce the results of venereal tests. Some memories don’t fade with age, resurfacing, even with senility, the residual of a sifted lifetime, the coarse bits left behind, the ones that the mind cannot filter away into oblivion or madness.

  Senectitude, does it not begin at birth, in as infinitesimally meagre manner, growing though adolescence and youth, till it finds its rightful dominance, displacing all in its path?

  By Wednesday, I grew impatient, calling the lawyers, demanding a status – If You Had Provided The Mother’s Genetic Samples, Lead Times May Have Been Shorter, was all that they said, almost like an answering machine shutting you up.

  If I knew, I would have pulled an entire tree off her head, delivering to the lawyer, hair, scalp, tissue, blood and all.

  Maybe I should have researched more, not only about genetics but other things as well, like—Sexual Positions and their Correlation with Conception Outcomes. Shouldn’t every woman know that, selecting or at least influencing, before getting fucked?

  I waited, restless, resisting follow-up, wandering around the parks and libraries, exchanging hellos with people.

  They called on Thursday, asking me to either collect the results in person, or if I wanted, I could have them post me a copy. I hung up, and rushed to their office, where I was handed a brown envelope, with at least one clear answer inside of it, one lesser question to torment over.

  The result, it was a 99% plus match, which meant, even in a court of law, it was beyond doubt that Rafael was Jay’s son, the stock of a domestic worker and a Wall Street lawyer.r />
  In some sense, I was relieved; having a grandson was more acceptable than having a second son. A betrayed mother is far less venomous than a cheated wife, which is why a betrayed mother can still think of the welfare of her grandson, entrusting care to his biological father after she passes on.

  Just like Mary, would Jay feel the pleasure and the pride of having a strapping youth for a son? Or, would he shun his own child, escaping to a safer more comfortable high ground of excuses, not wanting to acknowledge what was his. In my judgment, it would be the latter. He would want to move on and make the bastard offspring go away, begging me to put this knotty affair straight again, just like his father.

  I thought I knew what Jay’s excuse for distancing his own son would be — It was long back, I was too young and I made a mistake.

  ‘Mrs Rashmi, do you want to come in? We can discuss and draw out your will, if you think you are ready,’ my lawyer had opened the door to his office, still holding the doorknob in his hand, resisting the swinging door from shutting on him.

  ‘Yes sure, thank you,’ I stepped inside and sat down in the seat meant for clients.

  ‘I saw the results. How would you like to have your proceeds drawn out?’ he asked.

  ‘My wish is to go fifty-fifty, leaving a half of all my assets to my son Jay and the other half to my grandson, Rafael.’ Yes, I had made up my mind, it would be a symbolic move, meant to deliver a message to both Jay and Mary, since the total amount in question was not very large, not nearly large enough for the Wall Street lawyer. For the fisherman though, it would be a fortune, half of which, still a treasure. In fact, even a quarter, or a lesser decimal would be like dividing an infinite amount, always leaving the infinite behind.

  ‘Sure, I will have it drafted and then sent to you for approval and acceptance. You can change the terms at any time during your life, so if you want any amendments, just call us,’ he was getting up, moving towards the door, thinking about his next appointment.

  ‘Would you help me share a copy of the will with my son, Jay, after we have put it in place?’ I asked, wanting to ensure that Jay understood how I felt and had the ability to talk about it while I was still alive.