by Angie Abdou
the truth as she is. It might get in the way of the agency’s promised
“good personality and philosophical match.”
Vero and Iska work through half a dozen of these questions—
Vero reading the stock scenarios and Iska responding with the pre-
dictable answers. Mostly, they understand each other, though Vero
knows Iska can’t really imagine life with the Sprucedale Nanton-
Schoemans (the “Baa Baa Brown Poo,” song, Speedo Navidad, the
closet of one’s own) any more than Vero can really imagine Iska
living in their basement. Vero writes a dark “maybe” at the top of
Iska’s card.
“You don’t have children, Iska?” Vero holds her breath waiting
for Iska’s answer. Her card says no, but Bernie told her to ask. “Their
situation may have changed.”
Or maybe they lied? That thought blows into Vero’s mind in one
hot puff. Then I will make them lie again. Vero runs her finger along
the pane of glass in the window, draws a flower in the condensation.
It’s too dark to see the lake in the distance, but she imagines it.
“No, ma’am. I will care for your children like they’re my own.”
Vero’s field mouse turns into a twenty-pound rat and starts slam
dancing. It would seem, according to Vero’s stomach, she does not
want another woman caring for her children as if they are her own.
Not exactly.
“Thank you, Iska. It’s been nice talking to you,” Vero closes the
conversation just as she had with Mayumi, but then adds: “We might
be in touch. The agency will let you know. Thanks for your time.”
“Oh, I hope so, ma’am, I hope so.” Again, Vero feels the tentacles
of desperation and backs away, grateful when the line goes dead.
After Vero hangs up, she lays on her back, propping her feet up on
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the window ledge. She holds up the last card. Ligaya. The card says
she is twenty-six and single, working with a special needs child in
Hong Kong. Her card doesn’t have the same mug-shot quality to it
as the other nannies’ cards. Ligaya looks less like a trapped criminal
and more like someone Vero might want in her house, cooking her
family’s dinner. Ligaya’s full lips edge up toward a smile. She has soft
laugh lines around her eyes.
When the phone rings, Vero nearly doesn’t answer it. But she
begins the interview by making small talk.
“Your name is very pretty, Ligaya.”
“Thank you, ma’am. It means happiness.”
“Okay, let’s imagine Eliot and Jamal are in the bath. Jamal jumps
out and runs down the hall. What do you do?”
Ligaya’s been coached for this one, and answers instantly. “I never
leave a child in the bathtub alone. I take Eliot out of the bath, and
only then we go and get Jamal. Before the bath, I make sure to close
all troublesome zones so I know Jamal cannot find any trouble.”
Only someone who’s never met Vero’s children could speak with
such confidence. She imagines Ligaya hauling Eliot—a hulking
three year old who probably weighs over half as much as Ligaya does
already—out of the bath. And Jamal will invent “troublesome zones”
that will have this woman hitch-hiking home to the Philippines
within a week. Vero tells Ligaya none of this.
But she feels a palpable sense of relief when Ligaya answers all the
standard questions easily, with none of the frantic emphatic quality
of Mayumi’s replies, no giggles like Iska.
“Do you like to travel? My husband’s family has resort property
in Mexico. Perhaps you would like to visit there with us?” Vero
likes the look of Ligaya, the calmness of her voice, the clarity of her
English. She offers this hypothetical travel as a reward. She blocks
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the unbidden image of Drunkle Vince’s bikinied ass high in the air,
his face against the porcelain toilet seat.
“Oh, yes,” Ligaya’s voice has gone up an octave. “I would love to
travel and see Mexico! I see pictures on the Internet. Mexico is warm
with beaches, like my Philippines. Such a beautiful country.”
It’s unclear whether the beautiful country is meant for Mexico or
the Philippines. Either way, Ligaya’s high-pitched enthusiasm for
heat and beaches worries Vero. She doubts Ligaya will find Canada so
beautiful in the dead of winter. At the thought of the brown-skinned
Ligaya who loves beaches stranded in Sprucedale during icy February,
Vero is overwhelmed by a need to offer her more.
“Do you like hiking, Ligaya? I go every day on beautiful trails
through the woods. You could come with me.” Vero wonders if the
neighbours would approve of this word she uses to describe her spo-
radic and loud barefooted bolts into the woods.
“Hiking?” Ligaya’s voice wavers, uncertain. Vero has veered from
the script. She imagines Ligaya looking at the administrator in the
Hong Kong agency, a question in her eyes.
“It’s a great workout. The hills—I sweat buckets.” Vero realizes this
description doesn’t match the enthusiasm in her voice. “I just love it!
Invigorating! Cleansing! You feel great after!” She leaps off the sham-
pooed carpet with the force of each of her exclamation marks. She’s
an infomercial selling herself.
“Oh, ma’am, that sounds very funny. In my country, we sweat when
we work. I have never sweat for the fun.” There’s an echoing pause on
the line, and then she adds, “But if you like, I come with you, ma’am.”
“We should talk about the weather. It’s very cold here from
November to April. How do you feel about winter?” Vero poses the
question out of a sense of obligation, but then prompts her. “Are you
excited to see snow?”
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Ligaya picks up the answer that Vero hands her. “I love to see
snow!” Ligaya’s voice rings. “I love it very much!”
Vero’s grip tightens on the phone as she imagines Ligaya staring out
their living room windows late in February, stunned by the mountains
of snow, opening and closing her mouth without making a sound. Just
a mute oh-oh-oh. A cartoon goldfish. What could Ligaya possibly
know about winter weather, coming from the tropical Philippines and
having been nowhere else but Hong Kong? Vero might as well have
asked her how she would like living in a moon crater.
“Do you have family?”
“In the Philippines, I have little sister and brother, Nene and Totoy.
We live with my parents.” Something in Ligaya’s voice—a full-bodied
grief so present and solid that it might be contagious—stops Vero
from asking more.
“How do you like working in Hong Kong, Ligaya? Tell me about
your employment there.”
There’s an extended silence. Just when Vero thinks Ligaya has
hung-up, she says, “My employer is called Poons.” She pauses again.
“Hong Kong is very hard, ma’am. But I come here
so I get to Canada.
I nearly done Hong Kong now. I don’t speak bad of my employer.”
“We want you to be part of our family, Ligaya. Not a servant. Never
that. I would like if you just call me by my first name. Just Vero. That’s
all.”
“Yes, I will be like your sister. Your little sister helping you with
your babies, Vero. I can be like their auntie.”
Yes, an auntie. Vero smiles into the receiver. It’s her. The one. Ligaya
will be Shane’s promised portal into an easy, blissful future.
“I have no more questions for you, Ligaya. I guess I’ll talk to the
agency, now. I’m not allowed to make an offer to you directly, but you
will hear from us very soon. We will talk again, Ligaya. I promise.”
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“Oh I hope so, ma’am. Vero. I hope I talk to you again, Vero. I will
love your family.”
As Vero emerges from Shane’s office, she feels heavy and jet-lagged
as if she’s just flown in from Hong Kong itself. She fans Ligaya’s
nanny card at Shane and extends her hand for a high-five. “She’s per-
fect. She’ll be here in six months. By the fall for sure.”
Every muscle in his face relaxes. “This is a huge step in the right
direction. You’ll see, Vero Baby! Things are looking up for the
Sprucedale Nanton-Schoemans. We’ll think back to this night as
the moment when things really turned around for us.” He holds his
arms out, and she steps into him, pressing close to his sticky warm
chest. She notices the glow on his face and realizes he’s just come up
from the basement, from a workout with Cervella, propped on the
wind-trainer. She holds her nose against the evidence of his workout.
“You’ll see,” he says again, planting a firm kiss on the crown of Vero’s
head. She lets herself nod ever so slightly, but can’t help picturing
Ed ward’s hairy knuckles rapping the hot water pipes of the anti-tank.
She closes her eyes, shaking off her nagging questions.
Yes, but at whose expense? What gives us the right?
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CHAPTER EIGHT
Trees and rocks.
Trees and rocks.
And then:
more
trees
and
rocks.
That’s all Ligaya sees as her plane lowers toward Sprucedale. Nothing
but forests and mountains, green and grey as far as her vision can
stretch. Is this what opportunity looks like, then? Ligaya had expected
something different. High sparkling buildings, maybe. Smooth paved
roads. Golden statues. Something that looks like money.
In the terminal, the world swirls and dips around her, bobs and
sinks. Her senses gulp, trying to take in this new place. Perhaps this
spinning and whirling is what people mean by “jet lag,” her inner
senses lagging a step behind the external world. Or culture shock, it
could be that. The nanny agency manual warned her of both.
The woman who meets Ligaya at the luggage carousel speaks no
more of wealth than the trees and rocks. She grabs at Ligaya’s hand,
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squeezes her fingers hard, and pulls Ligaya so close to her body that
Ligaya hears herself squeak.
Wealth does not pull, Ligaya thinks. Money never needs.
“Ligaya! Hello! I’m Vero!” The words jump from the woman’s
mouth, the force of each practically lifting her from the ground.
The woman looks a bit like Ligaya herself—her little body, her dark
hair—but she vibrates. She seems to bounce on the spot, nervous as
a hunted street cat. Ligaya expected this North American woman
to look different—more like someone in the movies. Taller. Blonder.
Redder lips. More serene. This woman, this Vero, looks small and dark
and tired.
Ligaya knows she must say something by way of greeting. She
opens her mouth, but nothing comes out. Her eyes feel dry as day-
old chicken, her throat tight. It’s been too many hours since her feet
touched the ground. And she’s dizzy too; her head thick with the
transitions in altitude. She tries to shake off this cloak of disorien-
tation, but instead she finds herself picturing Pedro catching a street
cat, tying a noose around its neck, and slamming it hard into a cement
wall. “Cats don’t die easily,” he had said, “and people have to eat.”
Vero is trying again, less emphatically. “Welcome, Ligaya. You must
be tired. You’ve had such a long trip. Did you sleep? Have you eaten?
You had long layovers. Oh! You must be so jet lagged!” Her words
pick up speed as if they run down a hill. She reaches for Ligaya’s car-
ry-on bag. Their hands brush, but Ligaya pulls hers quickly away. “Let
me help you with that, Ligaya.” Vero stresses the last three syllables as
if saying Ligaya’s name will pull her into this place.
“Yes, ma’am,” Ligaya makes herself say. “Trip very long.”
“God, this bag’s heavy!” Vero slumps under the weight as she swings
Ligaya’s travel bag over her shoulder. “What’s in here?!”
“My laptop.”
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Vero looks surprised, as if Ligaya should have arrived from the
uncivilized wilds, trekked out of the jungle wearing nothing but
bamboo sandals and a palm-leaf skirt.
“I bought it during my year in Hong Kong. There is many electron-
ics there. I use it to talk with my family. If that okay.”
“Of course! Of course! Excellent! Shane and I planned to buy
you one ourselves!” Vero’s eyeballs bulge with each exclamation and
Ligaya feels herself flinch at the force of the words.
“Indian summer,” Vero explains in the car, rolling down her window.
“Hot, hot autumn. Roll down yours, too. If you want. Let’s get some
air in here.” The vehicle smells of new leather. Ligaya knows the scent
from the airport store, a bin full of brand-new Ralph Lauren wallets.
Ligaya wanted to put her face right up against them. She held one in
her hands, looked at the price, pretended she might buy it.
Ligaya cracks her window open. The air is heavy and humid. She
expected her new country to be cold and has dressed too warmly. She
unzips her heavy coat, a present from Corazon, peels it off her shoul-
ders, feeling foolish.
“I didn’t mean that to sound like an order. About rolling down
your window. I mean, you don’t have to roll anything down if you
don’t want to. It’s up to you. I hope you know that. I mean, I’ll never
order you around. You should know that, right? Ordering’s not my
style. All that ‘ma’am’ stuff, too—not my style. We’re all equals here.
Being equals, that is our style.” Vero nods quickly, keeping time with
the words and looking at Ligaya sideways as she drives. Ligaya wishes
the woman would just watch the road and feels her fingertips digging
hard into
her thighs as she stares at the oncoming vehicles.
The radio plays loudly, an upbeat song about suffering and loneli-
ness, but Vero rattles along over top of it:
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life will be so different here
you need something just ask
democratic
rules of course
but
must never, especially, let the boys boss you around
your home too.
She has two mouths. That’s what Filipinas say of Corazon with her
non-stop chatter. This Vero, then, she has twelve mouths.
Ligaya says nothing, just sits and sweats, moisture springing up on
her chest and back until her bra is damp. She wipes the sweat above
her upper lip on to her sleeve. Drops slide down her spine, pool in
the roll at her waist. The world outside the windows passes, simulta-
neously too fast and too slow.
“These are evergreen trees,” Vero says of the blur. “Ever green: they
won’t change colours. You can see the larch, though, they’re starting
to go. This hillside will be entirely golden within the week.”
Gold. Like money. Ligaya smiles. She doesn’t even know why.
Vero points out the other window. “And here’s the amusement
park, where we take the boys. Do you like roller coasting?” Vero
swings her head around to look at Ligaya again, and Ligaya wants
to take the woman’s chin in her hands and twist it until she faces
the road. “Up there’s the ski hill. I know you won’t have skied. We’l
get you out there. Over here’s the golf course. An old-people sport,
Shane says. We’re not taking it up seriously until we hit sixty. He has
to golf for work sometimes, of course, like everyone. But we certainly
don’t call ourselves golfers. But you’re welcome to golf. Then there’s
the strip mine.” She points up the mountain. “Ugly. We try not to
look there.”
The road, the road. Please look at the road, prays Ligaya. The trickle at
her waist has turned to a waterfall.
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“And now here are the malls. You know Manila, so I know you
know malls. This is where we’ll find you, isn’t it?” Vero winks.
Ligaya pictures her small home in the Philippines, with ibong bahay
flying in and out of the kitchen as they pleased. The closest shopping
mall was a four-hour walk followed by a thirteen-hour bus ride.
