Maid In Singapore

by Kishore Modak

  ‘Thailand? Was he there?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, it seems so, for a few weeks, by the look of this statement. Since all the charges are physically swiped rather than on the Internet, he was there. What he was doing there—I will find out in a day or so,’ he said, buzzing for this assistant to come in, a cue for me to leave, which I did after thanking him, profusely.

  Thailand, for a few months, in a hospital . . . he must have fallen ill, not wanting to tell me till he recovered.

  It was the melanoma, wasn’t it, the white part of him, the one that his father gave him?

  My son, how wrong you are to run and shut yourself out from your mother’s love. I would have nursed him back to health, if he had let me have him.

  At least his credit card was alive, as few days back as four, rekindling a hope of his well-being. It was simply a hope since I knew that a credit card can be used easily by anybody, on anyone’s behalf.

  Was he dead? But, that did not add up either since the credit card was active and un-tampered with, showing regular charges and payments. If it was a fraudster using the card, he or she would simply max it out and then throw it in the garbage, of course another person’s garbage.

  Back at the ISKCON, in the sanctum, I wept. The manager simply let me stay for another day, leaving the sanctum open for me at night, going away, leaving me alone.

  I wished I had not made the will and shared it with him the way I did, at least then I would not be consumed by this overarching doubt that I had driven my son away from me. I should have let things be the way they were between us, cold and distant. That way he may not have turned his back on me, doing whatever it was that he had gone and done, without me as a confidant.

  I, me and myself—I had begun using those three words far more than a Krishn’ite should.

  What had Jay ended up doing or being caught up with? I was about to find out, very soon, in fact on the following day, since the officer was pretty much ready with whatever it was that I wanted to know.

  I did not call to check if Officer Joe Brown was in, simply landing up after an early lunch, announcing myself, ready to wait for whatever time it took for him to see me.

  He saw me in about half an hour, not in an office, but in an investigation room, accompanied by a lady, with a gaunt, un-smiling face, making the setting ominous.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Kettlewood, this is Doctor Jane Kelly,’ he introduced me to the lady with him; she, too, was wearing a police badge on her waist.

  ‘A doctor, what kind of a doctor, like one of medicine?’ I asked, growing alarmed with the gravity that had suddenly gripped the officer’s voice.

  ‘Yes ma’am, I am a doctor of medicine, more specifically, a psychiatrist. Criminal psychology is my specialty, not that there is any crime involved in this case,’ she added, seeing that I was growing anxious with concern.

  The officer cut in gently ‘As regards your son’s stay in Thailand, it was for a medical procedure, which he opted for voluntarily. We are quite certain about it since we have spoken to the surgeons who performed the surgery and the staff that cared for your son in Thailand.’

  ‘Is he all right, what was wrong with him?’ Poor boy, he should have let his mother care for him.

  ‘He is fine. I mean . . .’ the officer was at a complete loss and looked at the police doctor for help.

  ‘Mrs Kettlewood, people can encounter identity- related questions anytime time in their life . . .’ she began.

  ‘Fuck you both, just tell me, just lay it out, what happened to Jay,’ I was shouting with a tremble of lip and a widening of everyone’s eyes.

  ‘Okay,’ the police doctor moved closer to me. ‘Your son chose to change his sex, in totality from being male to being female with a series of surgeries to make the change lasting and irreversible,’ she was holding my hand; the water spilt from the glass, tilted by my loosening grip on it, gently flowing over my long woollen skirt and onto the floor, as if I was incontinent and urinating, forming a little pool in which my left foot was planted.

  No one moved to tidy up. I barely held on to the glass, preventing a crash, trying to pull together what was scattered in my mind.

  ‘What,’ it was not really a question, just an exclamation of shock. The officer got me some more water, the police doctor handed me a pill, ‘have this, it will help calm you down’.

  I did so, starting to cry in muted whimpers. In a minute or so I could speak again.

  ‘Where is he now?’ I asked.

  The officer moved his chair close to mine, keeping his hand on my shoulder ‘He is still right there at the apartment where he used to live. He simply recovered from the surgery and started living in his own apartment, as a tenant’.

  ‘But we have been there, you and me, we went together—have you gone back and seen him this morning?’ I was still crying, imagining my son in drag, with a badly concealed stubble and an Adam’s apple bobbing up and down underneath his make-up, hanging around with men in a trans- bar with their palms on his thighs, their eyes on his breasts.

  ‘Mrs Kettlewood, the tenant who is living in the apartment is your son. He is completely changed and transformed that is all,’ he said, very gently.

  ‘You mean that sexy woman I met and spoke to, is my son? What is her name? I didn’t even care to remember her name.’ She had told me, but I had thought it unimportant, not making an effort at memorizing it. At my age, I have to make efforts to remember things. True, but it is also true that the aged view the young and the beautiful as eyesores, abhorrent, a reminder of what one can no longer be, fazing them out, mentally.

  ‘Her name is Eve,’ the officer replied. He had moved away, as I composed myself.

  ‘Does she have a second name, a surname?’ I asked. She. Yes, that is what I had said, clearly knowing that I was talking about my son.

  ‘Costello, Eve Costello,’ he added, never once letting his eyes stray from me.

  Yes, the name, it came flooding back like an icy wall of water, her name was Eve Costello.

  ‘How can this happen? I mean, what is his legal status here?’ the logical part with the questions started to surface inside me.

  ‘Legally, there is nothing that stops an adult from undergoing a change of identity. There are provisions for establishing new passports; social security et cetera, as long as the documentation is done in advance. A decent lawyer will find it as easy as child’s play,’ the officer had come into his own, answering my questions with confidence. ‘He is still not done finishing up the paperwork, which is why he is using his old credit card, the last link with his old life; the bank does not bother as long as the bills are paid.’

  ‘How can someone transform to an extent that his own mother cannot recognize him?’ I turned to Dr Kelly.

  Only a failed mother is taken in by the disguise of her child, searching desperately for her own, on that life-stage full of kids, all dressed and dancing in shiny clothes, as if to evade search and inflict pain.

  ‘Physical transformation is a reality, even in nature, and I don’t mean some fish in the sea. There are humans, too, who are born to a distinct sex but grow into another with time. Assisted by plastic surgeries and a series of other medications, the change can be dramatic, especially when a male patient comes in and wants to become female’.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The gonads or the sex organs are easier to transform from male to female. The other way round is less successful,’ she said, pencil twirling, clumsily through her fingers.

  ‘You mean he no longer has male sex organs?’

  ‘No, he does not. I spoke to the surgeons myself,’ she said.

  ‘How can a surgeon perform such ghastly disfigurements?’

  ‘Mrs Rashmi, I must add that the physical transformation is probably easier to accept. It is the mental and the psychological aspects that take time and sometimes a heavy toll on the patient. Identity morph, is not a simple matter of a man wanting to experience a female orgasm; it is a far more cerebra
l longing, running deep in the psyche of a man.’

  ‘Why did he do it?’

  ‘That is difficult for me to answer, especially without sessions with your son, and those I cannot have because he is now not himself. So the answer to that question will at best be a conjecture.’

  ‘Officer, you have to bring her in. I have to know what is going on in that head of hers,’ I turned to Officer Joe Brown.

  ‘Unfortunately, we cannot do that. We have probably overstepped already. There is no reason for us to bring her in, and she hasn’t done anything wrong,’ he said.

  Dr Kelly cut in, ‘Probing, needling a person who has had a gender change can be detrimental. If you try to pull her back, the damage, dealt on both of you, may be irreparable. If anything, my advice for you will be to help ease her into her new life, rather than torment her with the past.’

  She was tormenting me with his past; it was not the other way round—I wanted to scream.

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ I screamed.

  ‘Just go away for a while, give her the time to settle back in, and then take a measurement after a few years before seeing her again’.

  Measurement, of what . . . his sexuality, calibrating his maleness or femaleness as the months went by?

  Later, outside, I just wandered, a jumble of thoughts leaving me in unknown bus numbers, stunned yet soothed by the journey, trying to head towards 5th Avenue, straying often, in thought and in journey, before settling on a bench by the Jackie Kennedy Onassis Reservoir—an unnecessarily long- winded name, far too respectful for a woman of dual last-names.

  A silly self-longing, having an unchanging name throughout one’s lifetime, isn’t it? The image of the Ardhanaareshwari formed in the shadows of the leaves and tree trunks beyond, half male and half female, dancing on dead conformity, trampling it with its feet, even though it was already dead.

  Across the lake, Jay’s apartment block stood still, as if pausing to enjoy the view before uprooting itself and moving on.

  A park warden approached me through the shadows. ‘Madam, I can accompany you to the bus stop or the car park if you like. It is getting dark,’ he said with concern.

  I walked alongside him, alone, past the apartment block, looking but finding no trace of the gorgeous tenant while moving towards the ISKCON temple, thanking the park-warden before disappearing.

  Why couldn’t I simply think of him as a new daughter, the one who would care for me when my bones ached intolerably with rheumatism? I glared deadpan, at the marble statue in the sanctum. I would accept her as a daughter, if she accepted me as a mother. But she had simply looked through me, making small talk as I showed concern for my missing son, ridiculing me with her false ignorance, humouring me with the view from her rented flat. Why did she not simply tell me? I would have understood. Krishna knows I would have accepted any reason, no matter how silly? Then again, how could she? Each throwback to her male past would be another nail in her female present, she had to move on—simply seeing what she saw in front of her, her landlord’s mother.

  In her mind, wasn’t Jay her mother and her father, a dead mother and a dead father, parents dying soon after her birth, lying mutilated and conjoined, crammed into one coffin.

  She—Eve Costello—had emerged from the ashes of my son’s cremation.

  He was dead and gone. I broke into a pitiful wail, hitting my head against the stolid marble feet of the Lord. The caretaker was alerted by the sound, he came rushing, turning the lights on, illuminating the blood stained feet of my failing God, before leaving.

  How does one identify with oneself? Probably, by standing aside or alongside oneself, making conversations, before accepting or rejecting oneself. What is at the root of an identity crisis? Is it the need to run away from an existing identity, or is it the allure and appeal of the new identity, a longing to be someone else, something strong enough to overshadow even the truth of actual existence?

  How would it all have started? It would have happened in phases, rather than a single jolt of rebellion.

  First, may have come cross-dressing, pink satin under a lawyer’s male business suit. The next step was perhaps drag-fashion, and the test of looks that she may have received from the guys on the streets and in the bars. Someone peering down her cleavage, or making a pass, gratifications and cues to move a step further, where actual dating and hanging around with males may have begun, just one step before making out. Making out, would have been a dangerous game—she would have to ensure that her male date did not reach into her crotch or her bra, where she had only a penis and some padding to show for passion.

  At this point, she would have been filled with the guilt of homosexuality or lesbianism, a guilt that may have fuelled her eventual decision towards a surgical intervention.

  All the while, she would have consulted physicians, taking oestrogen and other hormonal injections, suffering the searing headaches and the giddiness that comes with them. The final step would be to prepare for actual sex, with penetration.

  Maybe, to her mind, fucking is a male act, getting fucked would be female, to accept another into the dark unknown depths of the female anatomy, where her secrets reside. After the surgery, with ever increasing dosages of drugs, she may have experienced female orgasm, at which point the sexual salvation would be over, but the psychological resurrection, just beginning.

  The more I thought about it, the more I came to respect what the police doctor had said; a mental transition from male to female would have been an elusive quest.

  The act of copulation is a few minutes, but for the rest of the day, a male heart pumps blood into a male consciousness; it would take years to get the mind to transition from that male to this female. Any recollection of the male past may be a setback in that journey.

  The day would be filled with hours, spent in front of the mirror.

  She, Eve—let me get used to using that name— had handled my presence well, training her mind to block out her past male recollections. I am certain the strain of the past is tackled best by moving away, physically away from your old life, carving out a new one, where everyone knows you as a woman right from the start, which may be key in making the mental transition, continuous reaffirmation of identity from all those around you.

  If I simply left, and let things be, I would lose her

  forever; she would vanish.

  ‘Costello’ was the choice of last name that my son had chosen, after he became a woman. It is of Irish origin. I cannot fathom what may have driven that choice.

  The caretaker let me be in the sanctum all night, where I eventually fell asleep for a few hours. In the morning, he came and sent me to my bed, cleansing my crusted blood, from the Lord’s feet before other devotees arrived.

  The sleep left me slightly reasonable. I showered and ate, before heading back to the park, where I simply sat and pondered. The caretaker had helped dress my self-inflicted wounds; they were minor cuts.

  Why did Jay do it?

  There could be many avenues that may have presented themselves.

  Maybe, he was simply transsexual and did it after many years of reasoning. I hoped that was the reason; I did not want my will, either the written one or the one that I exhibited in my life, culminating in the discovery of his son, to be a contributing factor in his confusion of identity. Or shall I say the clarity of his identity.

  Did he prefer being a mother to his son rather than a father? Now, his son Rafael had two biological mothers. Not like two lesbians adopting a son; this was two women having an equally valid biological claim of maternity.

  Or did he do it because of me? Our life, Jay’s and mine, had been a series of shocks and blows delivered by one to the other. The first was his doing, when he had sex with the maid, and got away with it. The second was my doing, digging up the present and finding his son, then informing him about his parenthood. That had played a role, hadn’t it, even if he was naturally inclined to being a transsexual, that information would have forced hi
m to think about paternity, comparing it to maternity, choosing one? Proverbially, the ball was now in my court to hit. In the sequence, was I not expected to deliver the next blow?

  I looked back, way back to when he was born— our bundle of joy—until now. I did not pick up any effeminate traces in his childhood or through adolescence when he was with me.

  Now what? Was I to launch an all-out mission of finding everything about his life in New York, his friends, his hobbies, books he read, movies he saw and so forth, observing from a distance, never once resurfacing in his female life?

  Was there any remorse in Eve’s life, a longing for maleness after he had become a female?

  A repulsive thought crossed my mind—one of me becoming a male, a thick stringy muscle from my thigh, surgically implanted as my penis, in my crotch, grey-pubic-hair all around it.

  What could be the outcome of my project of discovery? More details about his life? But, did it matter? Probably not, not unless I got a son or a daughter back in return from the labour of what would be a tiresome discovery.

  It was better, as advised by the police doctor, for me to simply return to where I had come from, forget him, simply praying for him to come back if and when she was ready.

  When I died, the lawyers would inform her, leaving what was rightfully hers. It was possible that during the execution of my will, after my death, he or she would have to face the ghosts of his fisherman son.

  Did he long for breast milk, as in feeding an infant, having a child?

  Over the next one week, I simply retreated to the ISKCON, pulling out my laptop and completing this journal, a pointless journal but in my mind, it needed completing and sharing.

  I couldn’t sleep much; I went to a clinic and asked for sleeping pills. The doctor gave me only a couple at a time, with hesitation.