A Yellow House

by Karien van Ditzhuijzen

  Bella shrugged. ‘My ma’am, she says I am stupid. Every day she says this. And that I am lazy. She does not want me to use the machine because I am too stupid. The last maid broke the machine. I need to do the laundry by hand to spare the machine. And to spare the clothes. Only sheets and towels can go in the machine, ma’am will turn it on herself. But even if only clothes, it’s five people. So much. That’s why my hands hurt. I am not lazy. I am tired, all the time. I start at five, because so much to do. A big house. All the washing. Ma’am works different shifts. And the kids make everything dirty. And they always eat. Always hungry.’

  ‘What does your ma’am do, that she works shifts?’ Aunty M asked.

  ‘She is a nurse. I showed her my hands, she gave me this cream.’ Bella disappeared inside and returned with a small pink tube. ‘But it does not work. When I do the washing or cleaning, it comes off. I asked for a doctor, but she says no need, she is a nurse. Doctor is too much money.’

  ‘Wah,’ said Aunty M, ‘Such a big house, and no money for a doctor?’

  Bella shook her head. ‘Always they pay my salary late. Maybe they have no money? I don’t know.’

  Aunty M took a moment to answer. I tried to take advantage of the pause but I didn’t know what to say.

  ‘Did they ever not pay your salary?’ asked Aunty M. ‘You know, you can complain to MOM if they don’t pay you.’

  ‘No,’ Bella shook her head again. ‘They always pay late, but they pay.’

  ‘And what about the food?’

  I thought Bella looked pretty well fed.

  ‘The food is good, but many times not enough. Three boys, big boys already, they eat so much. Not enough is left for me. I eat after they finish.

  ‘I always work, work, work. And still they call me lazy. And stupid. Always shouting at me, stupid, stupid. What can I do? We are here to work, and I am trying my best to do all my tasks in the house. But I am also a human being. How difficult the work is, still I force myself to do it. But how come my employers feel it is all not enough, my hardship? Why do they still scold me?’

  Aunty M nodded. ‘For some people, it is never enough. Other employers are better. Did you ask for a transfer?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Bella. ‘I asked, but they said I have to finish my contract. One more year. I don’t want to. What can I do? Can I complain?’

  ‘I am not sure,’ Aunty M said. ‘The washing by hand, there is no rule that says it is not allowed. Any safety issues? Do they make you clean the windows upstairs? You might get hurt.’

  ‘Yes, they do!’ Bella jumped up. ‘Can I complain? Will it help me to transfer?’

  I had surprised myself by jumping up too. Embarrassed, I sat down again.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Aunty M, ‘Maybe. MOM takes safety very seriously since some maid fell and died. You are not allowed to clean windows without grilles.’

  Bella pointed to the windows at the top floor. ‘Look, the third floor, very high. Sometimes, I stand on that ledge to clean better. My employer says, “Just be careful, don’t fall, don’t give me trouble.” It is not allowed?’

  ‘No, it’s not allowed, said Aunty M, ‘but that does not mean MOM will give you the transfer. Better you call the helpdesk for advice.’ She handed Bella a piece of paper with a phone number on it.

  ‘What if I run away? Will they help me?’

  ‘Yes, they will help you. But it is better to ask your agency to help. Don’t make your employer angry.’

  ‘Ok,’ said Bella.

  ‘You can also come on Sunday, if you don’t want to call.’

  ‘I don’t have Sundays off,’ said Bella.

  ‘Then call,’ said Aunty M. ‘We need to go home now.’

  We didn’t speak much on the way home. When we were almost there, Aunty M asked me what I thought. I was full of questions about what had happened, but there were too many in my head for one to come out of my mouth. When I spoke it was about how I felt.

  ‘I didn’t do anything,’ I said.

  Aunty M smiled. ‘That is ok. This was your first case. You need to learn. You learn by shadowing me, the more experienced one. That is how we do it.’

  I marvelled at how fast she’d become the expert. To follow her example, I would need to let her teach me.

  Aunty M sighed. ‘Poor Bella. Many girls like her. It’s too much.’

  Too much what? I wanted to ask; but Aunty M was busy stopping Chloe from climbing out of the stroller.

  The following week Aunty M heard that Bella had run away after all. When she first showed up at the shelter, she slept for two days straight. Bella had then gone to MOM to complain about the hand washing, showing her rough, chapped hands to the officer in charge, pleading with him to give her a transfer. She brought up the window cleaning too, as Aunty M had suggested. They took the case, and told Bella to wait. When the employer found out Bella had gone to MOM, they got scared, and said that if Bella would drop the charges, they would allow the transfer. But by the time the agency passed on the message to Bella it was too late. The complaint had been filed and could not be cancelled. All anyone could do was wait and see what MOM would rule.

  It was my first real case, if I didn’t count Sri, and it left me confused. This employer, what was she thinking? I realised I needed to see more, more cases, in order to be able to process this properly. But I was starting to see one thing already: the domestic workers were left to the mercy of others. They had to put their faith in either their employers or MOM.

  As for me, I had my own dilemma. The bus rides hadn’t improved, and I dreaded the twice daily test of endurance. The key question was whether my parents would, or could, help me. Just like the domestic workers were afraid to go to MOM in case it backfired, I didn’t go to my parents. And where the workers had the helpdesk to advise them, I didn’t think to confide in Aunty M. She must have suspected what was going on, but she never mentioned it. We both wanted that distance between us to protect us from getting too attached.

  Aunty M got more requests for advice like Bella’s. She sometimes went out in the mornings, taking Chloe in the stroller. If she went to see someone in the afternoon she would let me join them. Other afternoons I’d go and see Win. I happily neglected my homework. As a nobody, I wasn’t bothered about my own future.

  Win told me about life in Myanmar – or Burma as she called it – about her father who was a farmer, and about the rain that had been so much one year that all the rice drowned. That was why she’d come to work in Singapore, to help the family to eat. Her stories made me curious about Aunty M’s life. I knew she was from Java, Indonesia, but that was all. One day when she was cooking soto ayam, an Indonesian chicken soup, I hung around in the kitchen.

  ‘Aunty M?’

  ‘Yes, sayang. What is it?’

  ‘Can you tell me about your hometown? What is it like?’

  ‘Sure. What do you want to know?’

  ‘Everything!’

  ‘Everything?’ she laughed. ‘Where to start?’

  ‘At the beginning?’ I offered.

  ‘I come from a village near Salatiga, central Java. It’s beautiful. Green rice fields as far as you can see. And there is a lake that is like a mirror. A big fire mountain hangs over the lake. You can see it two times, in the water and above. Gunung Merapi. Sometimes it spits flames and hot ash. You know why they made the mountain?’

  What did she mean? Could you make a mountain? ‘No, why? And how?’

  ‘The island of Java is very big. Much bigger than Singapore. In the beginning, it was not balanced. It wobbled.’ Aunty M demonstrated with a ladle full of stock. ‘There was only a mountain on one side. So the gods, they decided they needed a new mountain in the middle. They wanted to move a mountain from the sea to Java. But where they wanted to put it, there were two – how do you call that? – iron-makers.’

  ‘Blacksmiths?’ I said.

  ‘Yes. So, the iron-makers were making a keris, a magic knife, in a big fire. These men did not want to move
for the mountain and they got angry. The gods got angry too, and then they put the mountain on top of the iron-making fire. So now it’s a fire mountain. Sometimes the spirits of Rama and Permadi, the iron-makers, they get angry and the mountain bursts out in flames. So we need to keep the spirits happy.’

  The smell of spicy boiling chicken was filling the kitchen. My stomach rumbled. ‘How do you keep a volcano spirit happy?’

  ‘Food. Every year the people offer from the kraton, the palace in Jogja where the sultan lives. The sultan rules the land, the spirits rule the volcano. Everyone climbs up the mountain and throws food into the crater, for the spirits.’

  Wow. The island of Singapore did not wobble. Everything was clean and organised. Not a blade of grass was out of place. Lakes in Singapore were ponds, or reservoirs filled with water we had to drink and were not allowed to play in. The only thing towering above the land were the stacks and stacks of apartment blocks and high-rise condos. I loved Aunty M’s land of fiery mountains, sultans and spirits. It was like PoPo’s Singapore of old, colourful and exciting. Now that Singapore was buried under slabs of grey concrete. No looming danger of a fire mountain, just the fear of failing a school test. A fire mountain was so much cooler.

  ‘Does it ever erupt?’

  ‘Yes, a few years ago. Many people died. My village was evacuated. Afterwards, everything was covered in dust.’

  Ok, not so cool. ‘No way! Was it very scary?’

  ‘I was here, I just saw it on the news. It was a long time before I could speak to my family, no hand phones then. But my village is not very close to the mountain. I was sure they were ok.’

  Aunty M looked less sure. Even years later I could see the leftover worry in her eyes. What was better – safe and boring, or the excitement that came with fear?

  ‘And your family, what do they do?

  ‘Do? What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean,’ I said, ‘what sort of work? How do they make a living? Like your dad. Your mother.’

  ‘Ah. That. My mother does a lot. Get fire wood, work the garden, tend to the chicken, the tapioca. Sometimes she sells some produce at the market. My father does not have a job. He has a bad leg. Before, he would try to find work every week. Sometimes in the sugarcane factory. Sometimes on a paddy field. We have some land too, we grow rice. But now my father can’t work it. So we rent out the land, others plant it. But it is not enough money. That is why I came to Singapore.’

  It was always about the money. The investment. The deductions. Why did people need so much money?

  ‘And what about your husband? I mean, the father of your kids. Doesn’t he help?’

  Aunty M laughed heartily and the whole story gushed out. Her husband was unemployed, a good-for-nothing. Unhappy with both his life and his wife, he had left home and hadn’t been heard of for a long time. A year later they got divorced. Aunty M said he had remarried, and wasn’t interested in his children. She had heard rumours he had a new baby.

  ‘And your kids? How does that make them feel?’

  Aunty M started stirring the soup vigorously. ‘I don’t know. It has been a while since I spoke to them. Especially Nurul. She is angry with me.’

  I wanted to ask more but she kept her back turned to me as she hacked at an onion. ‘Don’t you have homework?’ she said.

  15

  I’d started to forget about school. I still went, of course, every day. What I mean is that I’d stopped thinking about it. Nobody spoke to me, and in class I did the bare minimum to make sure the teachers didn’t notice me either. Recess was the worst. For someone without friends, it lasted forever. Often I would hang around the library reading, or if I was fast enough, I could snatch a spot at one of the computers. My mind was never at school. As for the bus rides, the other kids had got tired of the cockroach jokes and had gone back to ignoring me.

  I didn’t care, I was excited to go home. I had a secret life.

  One Saturday, Aunty M took me to see Sri in a park near the shelter. When I saw her, I ran to her and we hugged. We’d seen each other often when she was still in our condo, but had rarely spoken or touched. The metal grille and her lack of English had been physical barriers, my distrust of Aunty M a barrier in my head – they had all prevented me from really connecting with Sri. But that day when we found her on the ledge had changed everything. Sri’s eyes had seemed empty to me then, but she cried when she looked at me now. Her English had improved, and with Aunty M’s help we managed to chat. Aunty M seemed to know more about Sri’s case than Sri herself. Did Sri understand what was happening to her?

  ‘Will the police throw Ah Mah into jail?’ I asked.

  Sri shrugged, and Aunty M answered for her. ‘The police are still investigating. They will hopefully decide soon whether they will press charges. Not just against Ah Mah, but the daughter too.’

  ‘But it’s been months!’ I cried.

  ‘Police very slow,’ said Sri. ‘Need to collect evidence. I had to do polygraph test last week.’

  ‘How did it go?’ asked Aunty M.

  ‘I don’t know. I very nervous. They said, practise first. They ask these questions, but even with translator, so difficult. They say, no worry, stay calm. Just say yes or no. Maybe I did wrong?’

  Aunty M shook her head. ‘You cannot do it wrong, as long as you told the truth.’

  I added, ‘That’s why it’s a lie detector test. If you tell the truth, you pass.’

  I didn’t actually know this for sure, but it sounded right. With Sri it was easier to say something than it had been with Bella. After what we’d been through together I felt part of her case, and the way Sri had hugged me back showed me she felt the same.

  Sri still looked nervous. ‘But, if me not sure which one truth, yes or no? Is that a lie?’

  None of us knew. ‘I think the photographs of your arms and face don’t lie, and the doctor’s report,’ said Aunty M. ‘They should be enough, right?’

  Sri shrugged again. ‘I want go home. I want drop charges. How can, Merpati? If I tell lie, that Ah Mah never did bad thing to me, can I go home?’

  Aunty M shook her head. ‘You can’t now. You have to wait for the police to decide whether they will move on with the case. It is them against the employers. You are just the witness.’

  ‘I don’t want!’ said Sri. ‘Annaliza, in the shelter, you know. Same same case, also employer beat her. She already in shelter three years! I don’t want to stay in Singapore three years. I need money. In shelter, I no money. I better go home Indonesia.’

  Aunty M looked at Sri. ‘You don’t have a choice anymore. It is in the hands of the police. I thought you liked the shelter? The other women, the activities? Look at you talking English to Maya. You learned that already there.’

  Sri told us about English classes and yoga lessons, but also bedbugs and bickering women. I was so curious about this place, but visitors were not allowed. Even Aunty M had never been.

  It was nice to see Sri again, and to see how she had changed. Not only did she speak English, her face was full and healthy again. She was still nervous, moody, and insecure about her case – but she was different. It was like she was a real person now, no longer a vague character in a fairy tale. Before I had thought of her as poor Sri, poor victim, someone that needed helping. Now she had a personality of her own, and it wasn’t just her improved English that had made the difference. I wondered whether Sri would grow even more if she left the shelter, went home to Indonesia.

  As the aunties became more and more real people to me – much more real than Jenny, Meena or the bland kids at school – my interest in them grew. At the playground, there were always friends and acquaintances of the aunties needing counsel. Slowly I started to feel I could contribute during our visits.

  Julia lived on one of the highest floors of our condo. We didn’t know her, as she was not a playground aunty – the children in her family were at secondary school. But she was a dog walker, and Mary Grace knew her. All the dog walkers got togeth
er in the morning by the benches. Mary Grace didn’t even have a dog but she often joined them, joking she needed the exercise.

  I started to notice that life was easier for the aunties that had a dog or small children to look after. They came out to walk the dogs and supervise the children playing, so they made friends quickly. Friends for gossip and boyfriend chat. The ones that had to stay inside all day, like Win and Sri, were lonelier. Maybe the work was lighter, but they couldn’t go out. Some went to the market to shop. Others never went anywhere.

  Mary Grace took us upstairs to meet Julia. The three aunties talked, first about Bella. The big news was that MOM had agreed with her complaint. The employers had received a warning, and Bella was allowed to transfer.

  But after that, they started talking about the same boring stuff they talked about in the playground. I got impatient and pulled Aunty M’s arm. Julia noticed me and suddenly pulled her shirt up and her shorts down to show us the reason she needed us. The skin on her torso had stretches of dark brown, almost black, with red and purple pimples. In places, it was broken and scabbed. Julia told us the rash covered her private parts, and hurt most when she used the toilet.

  The horror of it shocked away my shyness. ‘Have you seen a doctor?’ I asked. I knew from Aunty M that the employer had to send her there and pay for her treatment. But Julia said her employers didn’t believe in medicine.

  ‘Don’t believe in medicine?’ Aunty M asked.

  ‘Not modern medicine,’ Julia said. ‘They have their own.’

  Julia’s employers apparently didn’t believe in medicine for themselves either. Their three teenage sons had never seen a doctor unless their school required them to, but then they just went to get the necessary certificates and flushed any medicine down the toilet.

  ‘But what do they believe in?’ I asked.

  ‘Nan yan,’ Julia said, but none of us had heard of it. Julia wasn’t even sure how it was spelled.

  ‘They go this place, with other people, where they worship together. This lady supplies them with a holy water that is a cure for everything. Like magic.’