by Yap Swi Neo
‘Mother, the theory room is cold and noisy and Teacher Pi An is the Wicked Witch of the East. He wouldn’t let us go pee!’ Ebony was abandoned, and Teacher Pi An was unceremoniously discharged but I still had to polish Ebony with the piano cloth daily. If only I was allowed to run my fingers on the keys, all eighty-eight of them.
Agnes and Amy were excited. They had watched ‘Swan Lake on Ice’ at the Esplanade Theatre. Agnes believed herself Princess Odette, and that was when the fight started – who would Prince Siegfried choose, Agnes or Amy. Young Mistress Lee was pleased. Nothing like ballet for posture and grace in young ladies of good families. The chauffer drove us to Belle’s Ballet Studio. Young Mistress Lee had requested private lessons. ‘Ballet lessons are always taught in a class,’ Ms Belle Lee snapped.
‘I want the white tutu.’
‘Beginners, pink.’ Ms Belle Lee was firm.
At the first ballet class, I packed their tutus, ballet shoes, hair nets to bun their hair, and water to keep them hydrated during the strenuous exercises. We had to change in the public washrooms, that first time.
Ms Belle Lee’s studio proudly displayed dated life-size photos of her over the years teaching and winning awards. In her younger years she had danced Coppelia, Cinderella, Giselle, Odette and several others I did not recognize. ‘Class, this is a slow exercise to test whether your posture is good, so make sure to keep your back nice and straight. Don’t bend forward. And don’t look down ever. Head and eye line nice and high.’
The girls stood in line holding on the bar on the mirrored wall and mirrored Ms Belle who held her posture and her breath for ten minutes. Ms Belle was kind, she knew it took practice and more practice and patience to do what she had done for thirty-two years.
‘Watch me carefully. I’ll do this slowly. Practice at home, one hour a day.’ She did not explain how it was to be done. I told Young Mistress Lee to help practice balance and good posture, place an Oxford Dictionary on the heads as crowns and for a start, sit on stools for ten minutes, gradually increasing to twenty minutes. Then walk around slowly, not dropping Oxford.
‘Mother, same, same, same. My toes ache, hands ache, tutu tickles. Our heads will shrink into our necks to our chest to our belly and pass out! Mother do you want headless girls? Ms Belle Lee is the Wicked Witch of the West!’
‘Darlings, you want to be swan princesses, don’t you? Rosi, put Oxford on their heads, count to fifty. OK darlings. Love you both. Have to go now.’
‘Mother, how can we practise without any guide?’ Two Apple laptops, one for each girl, took their places in the large study room. The girls only had to login to You Tube and search for Ballet for Beginners for practice exercises. There were many.
‘Mother, it’s so boring. Why would I want to be a swan, ha?’ Agnes in tears, mourned.
‘Ya, Mother why would I want to be a swan?’ Young Mistress Lee’s unfulfilled dream as a child ballerina herself was shattered. She had to think of another sophisticated activity for her girls of a respectable family. Mistress Lee told her daughter-in-law not to pressure the girls, to let them take a break. Their genealogy already put them in good social standing. Mistress Lee‘s opinion always held.
The two Apples were stored in the storeroom together with the bird’s nest.
Mak and I waited at the dinner table. At one dinner, Towkay Lee asked for extra virgin olive oil for his sambal pasta with lobsters and petai. I asked, ‘What is extra virgin?’ As I served him, he smiled, looked me straight in the eye and replied, ‘You are extra virgin. And you are sooooo beautiful, Rosi.’ He fed me a little of the pasta with a dash of extra virgin olive oil and patted me on the cheek. It tasted yucky and I told him so. I was never present at the dinner table again.
Two months later Mak told me that Towkay’s sister had learnt all she wanted about Indonesian cuisine. We could go home to Bapa, Datuk and Nenek. We had been away for ten months. Agnes and Amy begged to go with us. I was sad to leave them. We had become close friends, a sort of sisterly bonding. I was also happy to go home to Bapa, Datuk and Nenek. I was sad as I had to sleep in my own bed in my room, no Mak to embrace. I was happy to eat bakso again. Agnes and Amy gave me their laptops. Young Mistress Lee was nonchalant about them giving away both Apples, one for me, and one for Mak. The iconic bite had not a byte in it. It would help Mak writing her notes.
Three months after we arrived home Mak submitted her M.A. thesis Peranakan Culture: A Case Study in a Peranakan Household to the University of Indonesia.
First published in The Best Asian Short Stories 2020 (Zafar Anjum, ed.) Singapore: Kitaab (2020)
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Patriarch; boss. ↵
A ukelele-like Indonesian musical instrument, and a musical style that often features the keroncong instrument. ↵
Fish or meat wrapped in banana leaf. ↵
Goat satay. ↵
An Indonesian salad of steamed vegetables with grated coconut. ↵
Silent One
In the past, poor Chinese families sometimes gave away baby daughters to rich households as servant girls or bondmaids. They believed and hoped their daughters would have a better life. The babies were left nameless, with no birth certificates. The adoptive parents referred to them as ‘chabor’, ‘girl’, or ‘chaborkan’, a variation of the Hokkien word and used in Peranakan households to refer to bondmaids. A sympathetic household might adopt them legally.
I never knew my parents or where I came from, or how old I was. In the big house they called me Chabor. So I was Girl, nothing more. Everyone addressed the gentleman of the house Ye-Ye Chai, grandfather Chai, and Nai-Nai, grandmother, was the mistress of the house. They relished the honorifics, which bestowed stature as patriarch and matriarch, caring for their household staff and other employees. However I did not think they were old enough to be grandparents. They did not even have children!
Nai-Nai said she took me as a newborn because my parents did not want me and used that to humiliate and mentally torture me. She did not know who my parents were or where they were from. A woman had come to her house and asked if she would adopt me, and she did. Ah Hanjie, a ‘white and black’[1] head servant and three other general servants were tasked to look after me, until I could make myself useful doing chores. Ah Hanjie cradled me when I was sick or frightened or bullied by the other servants. They called me bad names, cursed my mother, but Ah Hanjie was kind and gentle. She taught me to sing Cantonese songs. The household spoke a mixture of Cantonese and Hokkien, local Chinese dialects. Ye-Ye and Nai-Nai were fluent in English as well. In the big house I was the only child, so logically I should have been loved and spoilt, shouldn’t I? I did love Ah Hanjie. She offered to be my mother. It was so nice to have a mother in the big house. I was the only one with a mother. I had never seen or heard anyone talked about Ye-Ye or Nai-Nai’s parents.
During one of Ye-Ye’s birthday celebrations I asked Mother, ‘When is my birthday? I want a cake, a big one like Ye-Ye’s.’ She did not know.
‘You came to this house on the 8th, so we take 8 July as your birth date.’
‘Why 8? I was born before 8.’
‘Eight is a good number. In Chinese, eight is the same sound as ‘luck, good fortune’. Now your fortune is not good, you are a servant girl, but who knows the future?’ So 8 July was my birthday, but still no cake.
One birthday I went to Nai-Nai, ‘Nai-Nai, today is my birthday. I want a big cake, like Ye-Ye’s cake.’
I got a big kick instead and was screamed at. ‘You are a nobody, even your mother did not want you! She abandoned you. There is nowhere you can go. You are nameless, person-less, no birth certificate, no nothing. So I can do anything I want with you. You chabor, my servant, will live here forever!’
That night I told Mother when I grew up I would be a Nai-Nai and throw her out!
I babbled a lot, asking for things, teasing the cats and dogs and the servants. Sometimes a servant reported to Nai-Nai what I did or said or when I broke something and Nai-Nai spanked
me, usually with a broom. It was so unfair! I hated her, and her diamonds and her painted nails, and makeup, all compressed into her pantsuit, like an anaconda that had swallowed a crocodile. I made faces at the servants, pinched them, and ran away. I was too fast for them to catch me. Mother impressed upon me to speak little. My silence kept me out of trouble. Silence, my friend. So I was silent most of my growing up years. I talked only to Mother. In whispers. But I listened, listened to what everyone said, and watched what they did, and I learnt. Thus my moniker ‘Silent One’. Soon Ye-Ye too called me Silent One. But to Nai-Nai I was just chabor, servant girl, nothing more.
Nai-Nai said my hands were large enough to massage body parts – large but still delicate. Mother taught me to gently massage hands and legs, and to ‘flap’, that is to gently tap aching muscles. At four years old, I was flapping Nai-Nai’s shoulders and arms. Ye-Ye however preferred me to massage his legs, thighs, hands, arms, and flap his back. Ye-Ye took off his shirt and wore only his pyjama pants when I massaged and flapped him. He explained that my hands were not strong enough for a good massage and flap if he kept his clothes on. Sometimes he turned round for me to flap his abdomen. When I was about ten years old, he pointed to ‘that thing’ below his abdomen and asked if I knew what it was. I didn’t. He said that made him a man. ‘Girls don’t have them, but when they grow up, they want that thing. Men must give girls that thing when they want it. When you become a woman, I will show you my thing and you will want it too. I will give it to you.’ After each massage he gave me a chocolate and we ate it together. The chocolate, our little secret. I was happy. He also gave me a proper name, Orchid Chai. That was our secret too, not to share with anyone.
When I was eight, Ye-Ye had a private tutor teach me Maths, English and Mandarin. Nai-Nai screamed, ‘Chabor, servant girl, don’t waste money!’
Ye-Ye explained that I would be able to help the business reading letters, writing simple reports, doing simple accounts and other administrative tasks, as all his gardeners were barely literate and not to be fully trusted. Nai-Nai was not happy. After every lesson she asked me, ‘Chabor, what did you learn today? Waste my money!’ When I could not respond fast enough, she slapped me, sometimes kicked me. She did not understand that sometimes I could not follow the lesson. That made me more determined to study well.
My English teacher was the best. He taught me a lot about how to speak, read and write. The storybooks were my best friends. One day I would be one of the Famous Five in Enid Blyton’s books. I would go on adventures like Anne and have a dog like Timmy, my best friend. He would do what I asked of him, ‘Timmy bite Nai-Nai.’ I saw her screaming and running like a headless chicken in three-inch sandals. I gave Timmy a thumbs-up. And I read many more books. Ye-Ye gave my tutor money to buy all the books I wanted. My English teacher also bought me a book he said should be my ‘lifetime friend’, the Oxford Dictionary, a big fat book too heavy to carry, but weightless in my head.
As I grew older, everyone in the big house was suspicious that Ye-Ye needed daily massages and flaps in his locked study room where he had a large daybed. I told Mother that Ye-Ye wore only his pyjama pants, she was sad. I did not tell her about the chocolates, my new name or Ye-Ye’s ‘that thing’. He had said it was for me only.
Mother warned me, ‘You are a poor, servant girl. Nai-Nai can punish you and even throw you out anytime. Be careful not to let Ye-Ye touch you.’
‘Why, Mother?’ She did not tell me why. The other servants looked me in the eye whenever Ye-Ye asked for massage and flaps and sniggered when I came out of the room. But no one said a word, not even Mother.
Ye-Ye Chai was the owner of Chai Orchids the largest orchid farm in Pahang, Malaysia. One day he took me with him to his farm, an hour’s drive away from his house.
Nai-Nai was suspicious, ‘What can chabor do at the farm?’ Ye-Ye explained that my little hands would be gentle and delicate with his prized orchids, Cattelyas of all species and colours. That was also the first time I sat in a car. It was so wonderful, the wind in my face, the different scenery.
The orchids were so beautiful that I spontaneously plucked a slightly opened white bloom with blushing pink lips to tuck into my hair. The gardeners gasped in speechlessness, one quickly pulled it away, squinted around to ensure no one else saw what I had done. But Ye-Ye saw. He tucked the bloom into my blouse button, patted me on the cheek and bellowed, ‘This time OK, one more time not OK!’ The menacing look made me pee in my pants.
Head Gardener Li pinched me hard on the arm and whispered, ‘Silent One, one more time you pluck orchid I throw you inside manure. No one find you! You die, you die!’ Gardener Li was to teach me about packing the orchids. My small delicate hands were perfect to pack the fragile blooms for export.
The farm had a small house. It had a room with two beds in the corner, a small table and four chairs, a toilet, a small fridge and kettle and a few pieces of cutlery, lots of chocolates and snacks. I could have them. In the afternoons Ye-Ye said I could rest there till we went home. Sometimes he rested there, he and I, on one bed each. I liked it there, the serenity, the chirping birds, the beautiful trumpet tree. No Nai-Nai to order me to do chores or to hit me. No servants to find fault with my chores. Only Mother protected me from their taunts of ‘sayang sayang, nice nice, ya?’ with Ye-Ye. I didn’t know what they meant.
One day I cried, I thought I was going to die. I was bleeding in my pants. Life was hard, but still I did not want to die. Mother told me that I must be eleven years old or so, and I had become a woman. She taught me all I needed to know about being a woman and taking care of my personal hygiene. My breasts were showing too. Ye-Ye noticed. He took me to the farm more often and spent more time in the little house, resting with me.
On one visit, when I was sixteen there was a thunderstorm. He gave the gardeners the afternoon off. He would lock up. We could not go home yet. Gardener Li thanked Ye-Ye, smiled broadly, and looked at me straight in the eye. Alone, Ye-Ye reminded me about ‘that thing’ he had. I was curious and nodded. Amidst the furious pounding of the rain, spasmodic roaring thunder and flashes of lightning, Ye-Ye taught me what it meant to be a woman; for a man and woman to please and enjoy each other. The night was naughty and wet and loud. He did not warn me of the consequences.
We stayed at the farm more often. Mother asked me what happened. I snapped, ‘Ye-Ye wants me to work on the farm. I can read and write English and Mandarin, and do math.’ Period. She knew. I felt privileged. I felt loved. I felt superior. Superior over Nai-Nai, that barren woman, superior over Mother in her uniform of white blouse and black pants, and the servants in their samfoo, all barren women, all servants, all their lives. Ye-Ye wanted me, not them! Ye-Ye also bought me pretty dresses, ‘office clothes’ he explained.
Nai-Nai knew. Ye-Ye knew she knew. The servants and gardeners knew. Everyone knew. Then Nai-Nai threw me out. Such was the fate of a chabor. Who cared about a servant girl? The driver put me on the train to Penang, to the Snake Temple, as a servant to a friend of Nai-Nai’s friend. She had hoped the numerous snakes would kill me and mine. The driver advised me, ‘Study the snakes. Snakes in the temple may look lethargic, but they are not. They use their hypnotic eyes, their silence, their hearing, their speed to strike. Be friends with them.’ He hugged me, too tight, his chest crushed my breasts, pinched me on the cheek, smiled through his tobacco-stained teeth and added, ‘Take care of yourself and … and others.’
Ye-Ye where are you? In the Snake Temple I watched the snakes, their patient, silent slithering in the dark, listening intently for movements, eyes focussed on the prey, and their lightning strikes. Success always. Good strategy. They had baby snakes, hatched out of eggs. Sadly, baby snakes were taken and kept aside, I wasn’t sure why. However, eventually they were brought back to their mothers when they had grown a little. In the temple I was alone, I enjoyed being alone, just me and mine, for a while. Nobody could hurt me. This break away from everyone allowed me to figure everything out. I thought I
wanted to disappear, but I really wanted to be found. I wanted revenge. I talked to my only true companion, Oxford and it demonstrated what revenge is:
/rɪˈvendʒ/ [uncountable] something that you do in order to make somebody suffer because they have made you suffer. revenge for something She is seeking revenge for the murder of her husband.
I needed to punish Nai-Nai for beating me, kicking me, cursing my mother whom I did not know. For sending me far away from my Ye-Ye and mine. Revenge was dancing in my mind. Each day the dance got better.
Two years later, Ye-Ye came for me. Now I lived in the little garden house beside the trumpet tree. The house was larger, more modern and a little kitchen had been added. Everything there was new. There was a small bookshelf filled with books. I loved it. I loved Ye-Ye and we loved ours. I did not step into the main house again till years later. Everything about me had changed. I had hoped to see Mother. For years I was abandoned, she, my mother could not find me. So, it was over, Mother and I. I was twenty-one, a full woman with a man and a child not like her, always a servant without a man.
Gardener Li, all smiles, welcomed me with a hug, too tight, his hands stained with manure. There were new gardeners. I was now a new gardener, an apprentice, not an orchid packer. Ye-Ye’s menacing body language, fiery voice, and piercing eyes silenced everyone at work. At other times when we slept in the garden house, he was gentle. We talked of love, children, and many things.