Between

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Between Page 9

by Angie Abdou


  eyes, and though Ligaya is too modest to say so aloud, hers are iden-

  tical. Unlike Ligaya and her mother, Uncle Andres has tufts of hair

  growing from his ears. Ligaya will think of these when she asks him

  for the money.

  As she engages Uncle Andres in small talk of home, she fingers

  the gold cross at her throat, her gift from Mister Poon. Pure gold, she

  thinks. After she put Hui to sleep on Christmas night, she retreated

  to her closet and discovered the small square of mango-coloured

  paper next to her mattress, this golden necklace inside. At the Poons’

  apartment, Ligaya wears the cross tucked deep into her maid’s smock

  where Madam Poon will never see it. Ligaya has learned that she

  enjoys keeping secrets from Madam Poon. She focuses on the small

  pendant warm against her skin as she scrubs the scrawny witch’s dirty

  clothes. “Yes, ma’am. Sorry, ma’am. Right away, ma’am.” You know

  nothing about my present, ma’am. It’s from your husband and rests flat

  against my naked skin. Ma’am.

  Ligaya thinks this secret of the pendant feels almost like love, but

  it’s not that. The pendant—its touch of something that wasn’t hers

  and now is, even if it shouldn’t be—gives Ligaya a rush of energy that

  reminds her of love. Something given for free: such acts of kindness

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  are rare in Ligaya’s Hong Kong life. But Ligaya has nearly finished

  with Hong Kong. Uncle Andres will give her the money. It’s his

  business. He owns a money-lending company in Manila. He will

  give money to anybody who asks. The ease with which he parts with

  money is matched only by the steepness of his interest rates.

  “Business is business,” he says to Ligaya through the crackling

  phone line, “and family is family. Money, that’s business. Always.”

  She pictures the nuggets of wax clinging to his ear hairs, the mis-

  cellaneous free-floating particles that have attached themselves to

  those dense bushes. Each hair contains a galaxy of life. “Yes, I know,

  Uncle. I will pay the interest. You needn’t worry.” People of her vil-

  lage say that a man with low morals has a horizontal intestine. Uncle

  Andres’ intestine is maybe only a little diagonal.

  Ligaya watches Corazon across the street with the other girls,

  bright blankets across their laps. They look demure and innocent from

  this distance, but Ligaya knows the blankets are props to hide their

  gambling cards.

  Ligaya conducts her business with Uncle Andres quickly. If she lin-

  gers, she will think of the interest building on the money she already

  borrowed to get to Hong Kong. If she lets her thoughts go there, her

  legs weaken and her intestines turn to cold water. Corazon will have

  to pick Ligaya off the pavement and drag her back to the Poons’ high

  rise. She owes Uncle Andres far more money than she’s made in her

  entire life. More money than all of her family added together has

  earned, ever. But, she tells herself for the tenth time today, she just has

  to make it to North America—there she will find opportunity. That’s

  where it is, everybody knows. Instead of thinking of money, she imag-

  ines telling Madam Poon she is soon leaving. Ligaya will spend her

  final weeks in Hong Kong sleeping late and eating whatever leftovers

  catch her fancy. Let the wild-limbed witch yell.

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  Before Ligaya ends the call, Uncle Andres tells her that he has

  visited Taal for business and climbed up to her hillside village to see

  the family. “Those American do-gooders have been over with their

  help again,” he laughs, two sheets of sandpaper rubbing together at

  the bottom of his throat. “Thousands of dollars of toilets, carted across

  the ocean to a town that has no plumbing.” The sandpaper rubs again.

  Ligaya feels obliged to offer a titter from her end of the line. Those

  silly aid workers, her tinny laugh says. Uncle Andres continues. “The

  Kapitan and Konsehal declared: ‘Turn the toilets into planters! They

  will decorate the town square!’ Ingenious. A big circle of shitters filled

  with red and yellow santans right in the middle of the village: an ode

  to North American generosity.” The sandpaper has moved to the top

  of his throat, just behind his tongue, and Ligaya holds the phone away

  from her ear.

  She’s in the deep toilet planters with those flowers, dirt up to her

  neck, her face in full bloom. She knows the grating sound of Uncle

  Andres’ laugh will haunt her for a week.

  The rain falls harder and the wind blows icy sheets of it into her

  face. She presses her body firmly into the wall and puts her nose down

  the neck of her jacket. “But, you have to credit the crazy Americans

  this time: it’s the first time their aid has not done actual harm,” Uncle

  Andres concludes. “Just imagine! A whole garden full of shitters!”

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  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “We’re getting a new nanny! ” Vero hears the way she and Shane

  say it, as if they’re getting a new station wagon or a new fridge. A new

  pair of designer jeans. The sentence sends a shiver of displeasure down

  her spine. Her whole body clenches, the way it does late at night,

  moments before her babies cry, or after a crystal glass falls from the

  counter but before it smashes on the floor.

  “I know, I know,” she says to Joss. “It’s…I know.”

  Joss holds Vero in her gaze. Joss’s brow doesn’t furrow. Her eyes

  don’t squint. She chews her bottom lip and looks. Finally, she says

  simply, “It’s whatever you make it, Vero. Be good to her.”

  “But who’s my old nanny?” Eliot asks. “You said this is my new

  nanny, but then who is my old nanny?” His eyebrows squish together

  as he puzzles over this language trick.

  “Nobody, Eliot honey, this will be your first nanny. First real nanny.

  Before this, we just had babysitters. Part-time nannies.” All the fight

  has gone out of Vero. The Pantry Incident, as she and Shane call it,

  has forced Vero to admit she needs help. The degree of that need

  is, so to speak, completely out of the closet. In the evenings, after

  the boys go to bed, Vero works her way through nanny profiles. She

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  reads out details to Shane as he grunts his way through his nightly

  floor exercises and avoids looking at him while he crunches and lifts.

  She cannot bear the desperation with which he fights this partic-

  ular battle, imagining a darkly cloaked figure wielding a dangerous

  farming implement, looming above him and chortling, “Do as many

  abdominal crunches as you like, my sweaty friend, you’re still on the

  one-way highway that leads straight to my house.”

  Within a week, she and Shane narrow the nanny field: no women

  with kids back home (that they couldn’t handle); no women over thir-

  ty-five (how could a middle-
aged woman keep up with these two

  “active” boys all day?); no women without excellent English (Vero and

  Shane want help, not a pet project). Their nanny will need as much

  of a foot up as she can get. Once Vero narrows the pile to six, she

  arranges an interview day with Bernie at the agency.

  Bernie urges Vero to narrow her selections to three. “No sense

  wasting your time with so many phone interviews. Go with your gut

  instinct. You’ll know.” Vero looks at the pictures again and narrows

  the choices once more, picking the three women who look nicest. But

  what does “nice” look like? Maybe she just picks the three prettiest.

  After dinner on the chosen Sunday, she passes the kids off to

  Shane. He stands over the kitchen sink with a beer mug full of orange

  Metamucil and water—the cure for some digestive issues, the details

  of which he hasn’t, thankfully, shared with Vero. He looks at that mug

  of solidifying liquid the way he used to look at a smouldering joint

  just before he took his first toke, the anticipation nearly as pleasurable

  as the effect. Shane Schoeman knows how to party.

  As she heads upstairs with the phone, he gives her a thumbs-up of

  encouragement and puts his mouth to the lip of the mug.

  While Vero waits for the phone call from the Hong Kong agency,

  nerves rumble her stomach, a field mouse running laps deep in her

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  gut, as if she’s the one being interviewed. Vero uses the office above

  the garage because it’s quietest. She sits on the floor in the window

  nook. She’s rarely been in the office since having kids. She forgot

  about the view—one of the features that inspired them to buy this

  house—of rolling hills thick with trees and, in the far distance, just

  a glimmer of lake. “Waterfront property,” they’d exaggerated when

  they first moved in, cuddled in this nook, sharing a bottle of Vero’s

  favourite Malbec.

  Mayumi calls first. Twenty-eight years old. She has three girls

  of her own in the Philippines and currently cares for an eighteen-

  month-old boy in Hong Kong. Shane and Vero agreed, in the end,

  to interview one woman with kids. Who were they to judge? What

  did they know of these people’s hardships? Besides, Mayumi already

  lives in Hong Kong away from her children. Wouldn’t it be better

  to allow her to live in North America where she could create a real

  future for her family? Vero looks at Mayumi’s card as she talks to her

  and imagines that the weight of her life shows in the few thin lines at

  the corners of her eyes.

  “Why do you want to come to Canada?” Vero asks, her mouth so

  close to the receiver she feels her own breath.

  “Yes, I come, ma’am!” Mayumi sounds nervous, her words too

  shaky, too emphatic. Her thick accent makes it difficult to understand

  her, even this short sentence.

  Vero feels uneasy about asking the same question again, but she and

  Shane had insisted upon this one point: they need someone with good

  English. They’re bringing the woman here because they want help. It’s

  not an act of charity. “Thank you. Yes. But, um, why, Mayumi, why is

  it that you would like to come to Canada?” Vero yells the one syllable

  into the phone: why?! She thinks of Gregory Schoeman’s loud What

  do you people eat for Christmas? Give us it all! Again, she feels that

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  sickening rush of energy up her spine and pictures a glass just before

  it smashes.

  “I come now, ma’am. I come whenever you ask. You say come, I

  come. I do everything. I be what you want. I do laundry. I do bath.

  Food. Bathroom. Kids. I do all. I come. I make you life easy! I do all!”

  The words come fast, as if Mayumi has committed them to memory

  and practiced until she simply opens the crater of her mouth and they

  gush out.

  The tentacles of Mayumi’s desperation reach for Vero through the

  phone line as she runs her fingers across the office floor’s berber carpet

  which, according to the designer magazines, is a shade of espresso—

  never merely brown. Shane recently hired someone to shampoo the

  carpet, and the soapy aroma wafts up at her. She studies Shane’s

  bookshelves: manuals of golf tips at the bottom, bottles of scotch at

  the top, biking magazines spread out at its base, with articles such as:

  The Highs and Lows of the Home Mechanic

  Don’t Be a Hard Ass: Finding the Best Brands of Bike Shorts

  Descend with Confidence: Learning How to Go Down

  Days of Suffering: Training Tips from the Pros

  Vero’s eyes water. She doesn’t know why.

  Vero does not know this woman, she tells herself, taking a deep

  breath. She does not owe this woman anything. But because she

  wants to be kind, wants to help, because she is generous, Vero gives

  her one more chance. She looks out of the window, framing her next

  question. Spring has arrived early this year, and the trees are already

  turning green. But she’s been in Sprucedale too long to be fooled into

  optimism. It will snow again.

  “Is there any particular reason you’ve chosen Canada, Mayumi?”

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  “I do whatever you want, ma’am. Anything.”

  Vero doesn’t ask any of the agency questions, though Mayumi has

  likely memorized answers to many of them. She doesn’t ask what

  Mayumi will do if Jamal refuses to eat his broccoli. She doesn’t ask

  how Mayumi will respond when Eliot kicks his little brother. Vero

  knows she must be firm on this one point, about the English.

  “Thank you, Mayumi. It’s been nice talking to you. Goodbye.”

  The poor overseas connection makes it impossible to know for sure,

  but Vero thinks Mayumi’s voice breaks when she repeats Vero’s final

  word: goodbye.

  Vero rifles through her small deck of nanny cards fighting off tears

  for this woman who apparently doesn’t understand the simple ques-

  tion “Why?” yet wants to come to North America to make a better

  life for her children. I know why she wants to come, thinks Vero. Why

  did I keep asking when I already know? Suddenly, she’s angry. Angry at

  Shane, at Bernie, at the Schoemans, at Mayumi.

  She pulls Iska’s card from the deck and places it on top of the small

  pile. Iska, the card says, is twenty-four years old with no kids and cur-

  rently cares for two school-aged girls in Hong Kong. The card claims

  she has six years’ experience. Iska looks younger than twenty-four in

  her picture; two long braids hanging to her shoulders, yellow bows

  tied at the bottom of both. When the phone rings, Vero already feels

  less optimistic; her hello is wary. Mayumi’s desperation has blown a

  cavernous hole in the stage-set of this whole nanny operation. Vero

  can see the wires.

  “Hello, ma’am. My name is Iska. I apply for your position. In

  Canada.”

  “Thank you, Iska. Thank you for calling. And why is it that you
/>   would like to come to Canada?” The field mouse increases the pace of

  its laps in Vero’s stomach as she asks her question, again.

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  “I love to come there and help your family. I see pictures on the

  Internet. Very beautiful country. I hope to make home for me and,

  one day, for my family.” Iska’s accent is heavy, but not like Mayumi’s.

  Vero has no trouble understanding Iska.

  “You’re working with girls now, I see.” Bernie told Vero to always

  ask questions. Otherwise, the Filipina women won’t know they’re

  expected to respond. This sentence escapes Vero’s mouth before she

  realizes it isn’t a question. She tries again, “Do you especially like

  working with girls?”

  “I love girls. I love to do their hair. I make braids and bows! So

  pretty! Girls always so cute.” Iska giggles. Vero sees that she has set

  Iska up, posed a trick question. There’s an awkward pause during

  which Iska remembers that Vero has only boys. “I sing them songs

  too. I love all children.” She giggles again. “I do nice things with boys

  and girls.”

  “So,” Vero reads from the question sheet provided by the agency.

  “Let’s imagine you’ve taken my boys to a program at the library. Jamal

  wants to stay upstairs at the books, but Eliot wants to go downstairs

  and do crafts. What do you do?” Vero nearly adds that they’re both

  screaming, Eliot’s pounding his fists into his thighs and turning

  purple, and Jamal’s biting her in the arm. But she decides to save that

  information for another time.

  “I talk to them both. I use reason, ma’am. I be calm. I convince

  them it better to go downstairs now, ma’am, and then after, we look at

  the books.” Vero imagines this girl in braids using reason with Jamal

  while his teeth dig deeply into her wrist.

  The agency website admits to the challenge posed by gauging a

  stranger’s compatibility and competency based on one overseas phone

  call, but also assures potential clients that asking the right questions

  (the ones provided by the agency) will result in “the good personality

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  and philosophical match that are imperative to selecting the best

  nanny for your family.” Vero hopes Iska isn’t being as selective with

 

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