Authors: Kishore Modak
‘Her mandatory
medical test was okay when she came in.’ Ms Goh looked up,
knowing she had brought up a topic that had not yet crossed my mind
. . . sex and disease.
Did he bother using any
protection when he ventured in? I had caught him, but it had been too
sudden for me to note any rational details. Forgive me, I was already
too distracted.
‘Her next medical
exam is only a few weeks down the road. Please be careful till then,’
she added.
Carefu
l
.
. . did she mean me and David? The question did not arise since we
were sleeping apart.
‘I think she will
come to see me this Sunday when she gets her weekly day off. I will
not speak of our conversation. I will call you and let you know what
she has to say.’ Ms Goh wanted to defuse the situation and to
move on with what she did, supplying girls.
I stood up, mumbling
thank
s
, crying as I left.
At home, Mary was doing
household work while Jay and David were away. Now that we were alone,
she came to me.
‘Mum, please
don’t send me away to Manila, my family needs the money, please
mum, let me be here in Singapore. I will swear upon Jesus that I will
not tell anyone, mum?’ She broached the topic, not me.
T
el
l
anyon
e
. . . did the cluster of maids at the kid’s
play area already know? Was there a maid’s fraternity, keepers
of sexual secrets, to be discussed and detailed while they were away
from their homes and husbands?
I tried to be calm,
mostly failing.
‘You should have
thought of the consequences earlier, now be ready to face what comes
your way,’ I delivered my threat.
‘But, mum, it was
not my fault alone, sir was also to blame, what could I have done, he
is my owner.’ She knew, in this situation she had the upper
hand, legally at least. ‘Please,
mu
m
, just
transfer me to another house, I will forget the whole thing, please
mum,’ she added.
‘Let us see, I
will speak to Ms Goh,’ I dismissed her.
That Sunday while Mary
was away, Ms Goh called around noon. Hearing me speak to the agent,
David entered the second bedroom, which I had occupied these past few
days. He shut the door gently, so that Jay could not hear our
conversation, or so we thought.
‘It is exactly as
I had thought. Mary came and asked for a change of employer,’
Ms Goh seemed relieved.
‘Did you ask her
why?’
‘Yes, of course.
She said she was not happy with you and that the housework was far
too much for her to mange, she did not directly mention what had
happened, she just hinted that she felt uncomfortable in the presence
of sir,’ Ms Goh clarified.
‘I see.’
‘I am going to
start hunting for a replacement for you and send this one away to
another house, okay?’ she asked, hoping to resolve this issue.
David was listening to
our conversation, watching me like a hawk. How could I agree to a
compromise when I was the affected party? If I did agree, it meant
that I accepted David’s behaviour and was ready to move on. It
would be a defeat.
David grabbed the phone
from my hand. ‘Ms Goh, please get rid of her without creating
any further problems. Just get her transferred and that will be the
end of this,’ he said. ‘I will speak to my wife and
tackle her. Thanks.’ He cut the line.
A
defea
t
is when you lose, but what was I fighting for, or fighting against? I
was fighting for my dignity and I was fighting against being treated
as a problem that could be
tackle
d
.
‘
T
ackle
,
what do you mean tackle?’ I looked up at him; we were by
ourselves with the door still shut.
‘Not a single
minute passes when I wish I had not done what I did. I know I cannot
undo the past, but in the present, I live each moment in repentance,’
his head was in his hands, would he cry?
‘Please have me
back, I cannot have you away from me,’ he was crying. ‘I
am ready to go to the church or the temple with you right now and ask
for forgiveness, please let us be happy again.’ He came up to
me, sitting alongside, almost touching me.
‘The only reason
why I am still in this house is our son. I cannot ruin his childhood,
seeing him grow in the shadow of a broken family, scarred for the
rest of his adult life.’ This was a lie from my side. Deep
inside, I knew—children are resilient, they would grow up just
fine, stronger through tougher childhoods. It was me who would be
left limp and wandering through life. Even with all his money in my
hands, I would be the one who would need to rebuild my life; David’s
single life would be just fine too, full of legitimate women; but his
single wife would wilt all by herself. This is what I was fighting
against, the power that men wield in defining the structure of our
broken society.
I reached for the
phone, scrolled to the list of recent calls and spoke again to the
agent. ‘Ms Goh, it is your moral responsibility to protect your
girls. If you don’t, I will have to report to the police, and
if the need arises, I will also act as the main witness.’ From
the corner of my eye, I caught David sighing as he shook his head.
Mrs Goh spoke after a
pause. ‘It is your choice, but I would urge you to think it
over before you do anything. Mary is quite disturbed at the thought
of being deported, she seems unstable, but if that is what we have to
do then I can make all the arrangements. I will call you mid-week and
then you can let me know your final decision,’ she was hoping I
would change my mind.
Truth was, my threats
were empty, simply meant for David to understand that I was not yet
defeated
insid
e
, though I knew I was on the mat.
He opened the door and
went into the living room, switched on the tele with the familiar pop
of a beer can, a cold one to drown his afternoon of misery.
Later that afternoon,
visitors announced themselves, on the phone first with very real
threats of an actual visit. They were close friends and were visiting
on the weekend; it was David who answered their call.
‘Let us not have
them over at this point,’ I told him, knowing well that it was
too awkward to say no, especially to them; after all, we had known
them for many years and they had done a lot for us in the past.
‘How can we say
no? In any case, they will be with us for only two days.’ David
was right.
On the following
weekend, David and I were forced to share a bed, since I had to
decamp from the second bedroom, making room for our guests, moving
back into the master bedroom for reasons of perceived normalcy.
Our friends, Raj and
Alice, hit it off with Mary immediately. They had to, after all Mary
was to carry the additional burden of two dining guests for the next
couple of days.
Jay was happy with all
the gifts that
aunty
and
unc
le
had
got for him.
We kept up pretences
through the day; they could not tell things were amiss. At night, I
slipped into bed next to David, thinking of sneaking a knife under my
pillow in case he made any moves at night.
He did, first stroking
my head gently, apologizing all the time before pulling me close to
him. I was being petted to sleep, within minutes being patted all
over the body, all the while whispering, ‘No no, why did you do
it? No, Why did you do it?’ almost crying, in protest.
Untouched for days I came quickly, he did not demand anything in
return. We simply spoke.
‘Darling, please,
you have to leave it behind, let us please move on, I love you and
the wounding guilt of having cheated will never disappear. But please
forgive me and let us rebuild from here,’ he spoke in a genuine
manner. We spoke for quite a while.
‘David, I can
accept that you made a mistake this once, but what prevents it from
happening again, I am not sure. All I know is that if it happens
again, it will be end of your happy days,’ again a threat
delivered, again an empty one.
Mistak
e
,
in our case was fucking the maid, behind my back, but a mistake all
the same, like jumping a traffic signal as the lights turn. It is a
convenient word sweeping away our conscious-erroneous-past-actions as
if they were unreal, like our dreams, which we leave behind before
waking up and moving on into the future.
Intimacy, an essential
component in any relationship, because it disarms you into physical
submission . . . isn’t submission the path to acceptance? Think
back to shame-anger-hatred, acceptance and some pondering before you
laugh things off. It took houseguests and an orgasm without
penetration to catalyse my anger into acceptance, but I could never
come to laugh about it.
Wrong again, eventually
I would laugh about it.
In the morning after,
the tension that David and I had felt these past few days had eased.
It helped that Mary was away on her day off; we simply took our
guests and headed to the zoo, to see animals and maybe learn
something. David and Raj were at their back-slapping best.
Raj threaded away for a
smoke, ‘Hey David, I know you have stopped smoking, but a few
drags will not hurt. Come on for old times.’
‘Sure, you know
me well, I don’t quit anything in totality,’ David was
laughing, relieved with the light air of normalcy, finally off-guard
after many days.
‘You mean you
have not left her completely?’ I asked in an even toned voice.
‘No, no, I
meant,’ David, stuttered mid-sentence.
Raj burst out laughing
‘Come on we had an agreement, no bringing college girlfriends
up again, now you are breaking that.’
I looked at Raj,
smiling ‘Sorry, I forgot.’ Yes, I had smiled.
In the evening, we
drove to the airport, seeing Raj and Alice off. David hung around the
bar, swigging a few beers before we headed home. I could sense what
was coming at night, when we got home. It did and I enjoyed it, just
like old times, we were back in the saddle.
As regards Mary, she
would leave as soon as the agency found us a replacement. Till then I
had to live in the same house with my husband’s sex-fling, a
shame from which I had moved on mentally, making the physical
confinement a bit easier.
‘Ms Goh, I
thought about it, just find her another home in this city and let us
be done with it,’ I called the agent, throwing away obstinacy
and the false sense of victory it holds, finally defeated, even in
the agent’s eyes. Mary and I would continue living in the same
city, with suspicion always lurking in my mind, like a shadow that
never leaves, except when it is completely dark. Why did my suspicion
linger, did I not trust David’s promises? Of course I did, just
that there were two people involved in this situation.
‘I am sorry, that
cannot happen now,’ Ms Goh replied, interrupting my train of
thought.
‘Why not?’
I asked.
‘I have just
received a letter from the Ministry of Manpower asking us to deport
her within the next one week,’ she added.
‘Why, what
happened?’ more undulations, when all I wanted was a colourless
day.
‘Remember, I had
mentioned her medical tests, mandatory every six months? Apparently
she failed the most recent one.’
‘Why, what does
she have?’ is it not logical that you need to have something to
fail a medical test.
‘That, they don’t
say, it is confidential. What they do say is that she failed the test
and needs to be deported within the week,’ Ms Goh spoke
professionally.
‘But, you have
been running the agency for years, I am sure you can guess what she
has, can’t you?’
‘Aiya, yes, I can
only guess, I can’t be certain,’ she paused before
delivering a blow. ‘She could either be pregnant or she could
have contracted an infectious disease,’ she tried delivering
the shock softly. It landed with an iron punch.
It was my turn to
pause, a long one, mind racing with possibilities.
‘It’s okay
don’t worry, maybe it is better this way, anyway you wanted her
off the island, right? I will arrange for her tickets et cetera and
send you the invoice later; once you receive the same, just drop her
to the airport. Then we can all move on,’ Ms Goh took charge,
sighing almost in pity, knowing that I had been disarmed into
silence. ‘Don’t mention anything about the
medical-test-results to Mary, I will speak to her separately,’
she added.
I mumbled okays and
hung up.
Yes, I had witnessed
the act, but I did not know what stage of completion they were in
when I found them. Had David ejaculated inside her, finishing just-
in-time before he made a hasty exit when he was caught? Or had he
still been in the build-up phase, revving up for the explosion?
Whatever it was that
Mary had, was it also ours? I panicked, becoming restless and
anxious, starting to pace around mindlessly.
As regards infectious
diseases, did Ms Goh mean the ones that are transmitted by sexual
acts, or the ones delivered by sneezes and handshakes? It is obvious
isn’t it, which kind of disease puts a government off?
‘Call back,
URGENT,’ I sms’d David, walking aimlessly about, trying
hard to rein in my anxiety.
‘Did you come
inside her?’ I asked when he called. ‘What? No, I mean I
don’t know. What is going on? We went over this, right? Let us
leave it behind now, please,’ he was taken aback by my line of
questioning, stumbling and stuttering as he spoke.
‘David, why can’t
you give me a simple yes or no answer this once? Did you or did you
not come inside her?’ I repeated myself, a bit more
authoritatively.
‘Please, it is
behind us.’
‘No, it is not.
In fact I also need to know if you were wearing any protection,’
I cut him off, explaining the situation.