The White Amah

by Ann Massey

  Dedan worked at the drycleaners in Miri and he found her a job there too. But Rubiah hadn’t liked the hot, steamy drycleaning shop; the smell of the chemicals made her feel sick. When Roger, one of the customers, told her that his wife was looking for a live-in amah she’d jumped at the chance. A middle-aged driller from Calgary, Roger told her they didn’t have any children of their own and they were adopting a local baby as soon as the mother gave birth. Just my luck to be looking after a baby again, Rubiah thought, but she accepted the job.

  In the days before the birth the missus spent most mornings shopping for the baby, taking along her new amah to carry the bags. Mountains of neatly folded BabyGros, frilly frocks, bootees, bibs and nappies filled every drawer and shelf of the room the missus had converted into a nursery. The rest of the tiny garments, still in their plastic carrybags, were strewn on the floor of the baby’s wardrobe. Who would have thought a baby would need so much? In Rubiah’s tribe children didn’t wear clothes until they approached the age of puberty, and except for special festivities, adults just wore a small piece of cloth wrapped round their waist made from flattened tree bark. What a lot I’ve missed out on, she would tell herself as she pressed the ruffles on a diminutive, flounced nightgown.

  Rubiah gazed with narrowed eyes at the baby decked out like a little doll in Swiss cotton, ribbons and lace. The missus had spent all that time and money buying fripperies and forgotten to purchase the one garment that was essential. Back home in the village no mother would ever leave her baby’s head exposed. Her mother had made Rubiah wear a thick woolly hat to stop evil spirits entering her head through the soft spot to steal her soul until she was more than three years old.

  Carefully, Rubiah pulled the bunny rug up over the baby’s head. The tiny infant looked so sweet and innocent. No one would guess that she was a witch’s child. But Rubiah had seen the evidence with her own eyes when she had reached down to take the baby from the mother’s arms: the sign of the snake, a fearsome symbol and absolute proof the wearer possessed supernatural powers was tattooed on her neck. With a feeling of foreboding Rubiah had backed away. She knew evil spirits could leap to a new host.

  But her employer had no such qualms. ‘Isn’t she sweet?’ Heather said. ‘May I pick her up?’ It was just empty civility. Crystal had no say. She had already signed over custody of the child.

  Fearfully, the superstitious Dayak touched the handmade necklace she always wore. The shell amulet, finely carved with protective motifs by the village witch doctor, was guaranteed to protect the wearer against evil spirits. But from the first moment Rubiah had set eyes on the fearsome tattoo she’d known it would take much stronger magic to save her from the witch’s curse. Perhaps Dedan could help her find a witch doctor. Getting the money to pay him wouldn’t be a problem: hadn’t Roger bought her the gold anklet she’d asked for? She looked down at her delicate ankle and smiled.

  Leonie turned around and looked at Rubiah nursing the baby in the back seat. ‘You should buy a baby capsule, Heather,’ she said bossily. ‘You’d be fined in Calgary if the police pulled you over.’

  ‘I already have. Roger’s going to install it when he gets home from work tonight.’

  ‘Is he pleased?’ asked Leonie.

  Heather had confided that she and Roger had been trying for a baby unsuccessfully for years and had little chance of adopting back in Canada because of their age, but all the same the arrangement with Michelle Kong, her doctor’s wife, seemed unorthodox, very dodgy. And she wasn’t the only one who thought so. The rest of the wives in her bridge club agreed. Leonie’s three children were all at boarding school, paid for by the oil company. Appalled, she couldn’t believe any woman would hand over her baby to strangers. Heather hadn’t admitted that she’d bought the baby, but Leonie knew for a fact that money had changed hands. Roger had confided to her husband that he’d handed over fifty thousand Malaysian ringgit to Michelle Kong to seal the deal. Twenty thousand was for Crystal and thirty thousand was for the Kongs.

  ‘Yes, he’s over the moon, can’t wait to be a daddy,’ replied Heather.

  ‘I can’t believe it was so easy. I’d have thought adopting a baby would have been more complicated. There has to be more to it than that, surely. For it to be legal, I mean.’

  ‘The mother signed an affidavit giving up all rights to the child, but I expect we’ll have to go through the proper channels to adopt her officially. I rang my sister, Hazel, and she’s looking into it for me. She’s really good at sorting things out. Did I tell you she works in the prime minister’s office in Ottawa?’

  Only about fifty times, thought Leonie. ‘Did you get a look at the mother? What about the snake tattoo? She’ll regret that. It’ll look awful when she’s older and her neck crepes.’ Leonie examined her own lined neck in the rearview mirror.

  ‘Madam Kong told me she sings in a band. The tat and the shaved head are probably just her way of making some kind of bizarre fashion statement.’

  ‘Do you think one of the boys in the band is the father?’

  ‘It’s not likely, is it? Even if he wouldn’t marry her, surely she’d have gone home to her family. I think she must’ve had a relationship with an Asian boy and she’s frightened about what her parents will say if she goes home with a baby.’

  ‘That makes sense. I can imagine Steve going through the roof if Rosie dated a local, let alone had a baby with him. How does Roger feel about it? I mean most men like their kids to look like them.’

  ‘He just wants to be a daddy. But I don’t think she looks Asian. She must have taken after her mother. What do you think?’

  Leonie turned around and snapped at Rubiah. ‘Give her to me, girl.’ She studied the sleeping baby closely. ‘Well, she’s got heaps of straight black hair and she’s quite yellow, but they’re often jaundiced if they’re overdue. It’s hard to tell … Ugh! She wants changing.’ She thrust the baby back at Rubiah. ‘If you’re going to have a baby, this is certainly the place. You’ve got your amah to do all the nasty, smelly work. It’s like being a grandparent, isn’t it? Just enjoy her, Heather, and give her back to your maid when you’ve had enough. What are you calling her, by the way?’

  ‘Millie, after my granny. Do you like it?’

  ‘Yes, I do. All the old names are coming back in fashion.’

  ‘What about you, Rubiah?’ asked Heather. She couldn’t get used to having a maid and felt embarrassed if she didn’t include Rubiah in the conversation.

  ‘Pardon, Missus,’ said Rubiah, who was still worrying whether the witch had put a spell on her. She knew witch doctors were expensive and she’d made up her mind to ask Mister Roger to give her extra money when he came to her room tonight.

  ‘We’re calling the baby Millie,’ said Heather slowly and patiently, as if she was addressing a backward child.

  ‘Mei Li,’ repeated Rubiah. ‘It’s a good name, a lucky name,’ and she smiled at the sleeping baby and covered her bare head tenderly.

  Chapter 9

  ‘I’M SORRY THE PLACE IS SUCH A MESS,’ APOLOGISED HEATHER. ‘I couldn’t get Millie to go down for her sleep.’

  ‘Well, she’s sleeping now,’ said Leonie smugly. She’d given Millie her bottle and put her down in her cot with her favourite teddy. ‘What else can I do to help?’ she asked.

  Really, Heather was hopeless, she thought, looking at the untidy living room. The other wives were due in half an hour for bridge, the place was a mess and Heather hadn’t even started preparing lunch.

  ‘Could you make the sandwiches?’ asked Heather gratefully, wishing she could have stayed home on her own, working on the patchwork quilt she’d started when Roger had first been posted to Miri. She found it overwhelming having the company wives round for lunch. They were so snooty. She knew they thought she was pathetic at bridge. She couldn’t bear to have them find out she was a hopeless housekeeper too. Why did Rubiah have to take off when it was her turn to entertain?

  ‘Rubiah is better with Millie than me,’ she
said. ‘I don’t seem to have the knack with babies.’

  ‘You need to spend more time with her. You won’t have a maid when you go home.’

  ‘That won’t be for another couple of years. I’ll be better with her when she’s walking and talking. They’re more interesting then, don’t you think?’

  Leonie didn’t agree. She’d loved her babies madly through all their different stages. But it’s probably different when you adopt, she thought complacently. ‘You shouldn’t have let her have time off,’ she scolded, changing the subject. ‘She takes advantage. You pay her too much, too. I give my amah three hundred ringgit a month and she does a lot more work than Rubiah. Noor keeps my place spotless,’ she boasted, looking critically at Heather’s kitchen floor.

  ‘Roger says we can afford it. He’s on a big salary and the company provides us with a house and car and pays all the utilities.’

  ‘It’s not good for the rest of us. They talk among themselves, you know. Noor asked me for more money yesterday, but I soon put a stop to that.’

  ‘They have to send money back to their families, Leonie. It’s their culture. They don’t keep much for themselves.’

  ‘Mmm,’ said Leonie. ‘She’s gone back to her village, you say. How long is she going to be away?’

  ‘Only a week. Her brother’s getting married.’

  ‘Oh well, at least Roger’s offshore so you’ve only got Millie and yourself to look after.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Heather. ‘That’s one blessing at least. Roger phoned me from the rig and said the job was going to take longer than they thought, an extra week at least.’

  The tiny sandwiches were arranged attractively on Heather’s best platters and looked like they’d been prepared by a professional caterer.

  ‘Thanks for doing the sandwiches, Leonie,’ she said. ‘You’re a good friend.’

  Pleased, Leonie said, ‘I’m happy to help out. I tell you what. How about I let you have Noor in the afternoons, just till your amah gets back. Would that help?’

  ‘Would it ever. But do you think she’ll do it?’

  ‘She will if she wants to keep her job,’ replied Leonie. ‘I’ll phone her later and she can come round and clean up after we’re through. There’s just one thing I want to talk to you about before the others get here, partner. Do you remember how I told you to respond when I bid three hearts?’

  Chapter 10

  ‘THIS IS FOR YOU, RUBY,’ SAID ROGER, holding out a small package wrapped in the hotel jeweller’s distinctive silver paper sprinkled with tiny gold hearts. ‘Do you like it? That’s a real ruby. That’s why I chose it. You’re my treasure, far beyond the price of rubies.’ He dimly remembered the biblical text but not that it was intended to extol the value of a virtuous woman. ‘It’s a locket. See, there’s a space where you can put a photo. I could get you one of me,’ he said hesitantly.

  Roger had never been a ladies’ man, even when he was a young, fit fellow three decades ago. It seemed improbable that a stunner like Ruby could really be in love with him. ‘You’ll have to be careful not to wear it round the house. We don’t want Heather finding out about us,’ he said uneasily. Perhaps he wouldn’t give her a photograph after all.

  ‘Is very nice, Roger,’ said Rubiah, placing the locket round her neck. ‘You fasten for me please.’

  Roger lifted up her heavy black hair and breathed in her alluring scent, so different from his wife’s, who was keen on the Body Shop’s fruity fragrances and smelt like a fruit salad most of the time. His big, clumsy fingers trembled as he fastened the chain round his amah’s delicate neck. He bent to kiss her but she slipped from his grasp and ran over to the mirror.

  ‘Very pretty … you like?’ She smiled her coy, knowing smile.

  Roger gazed at the lovely Dayak, overwhelmed by her graceful femininity. What was there not to like? She was exquisite: tiny, delicate and fragile. The heart-shaped locked gleamed against skin rich as smooth, golden butter, the perfect canvas to show off precious metal and rare stones. He didn’t begrudge the two thousand ringgit the jeweller had asked for the locket, not in the least, although he knew he’d have got a better deal if he’d taken Ruby with him. It was annoying that the prices weren’t marked on the goods, although he knew it was because there was a dual system: one price for the locals and another for the ex-pats, whom the locals considered fair game. On other occasions Ruby had haggled with the shopkeepers and he ended up paying the local price. She’s probably saved me thousands, he thought fondly. But this time he’d wanted to surprise her.

  His romantic impulse had upset Rubiah’s plan to swindle him. Whenever Roger bought her a gift she always offered to bargain with the shopkeeper. ‘I’ll get it cheaper for you. They think ex-pats are rich and stupid,’ she would say, confirming Roger’s own belief.

  She would slip into conversation with the shopkeeper in Bahasa, thinking how fortunate it was that Roger didn’t understand her language. Then she would suggest to the merchant that he add an extra thousand ringgit to the price and split the difference fifty-fifty.

  Still, the locket was pretty and she only knew one way to reward him. Slowly she removed the flimsy red nightdress trimmed with fake white fur, which she had admired at the airport in Labuan, the duty-free island in the South China Sea where Roger had slipped away for a romantic idyll with his enchanting maid. Roger looked at her slim, flawless body and wished once again that he’d carried out his New Year’s resolution.

  Twenty minutes later he lay exhausted on the bed and after a few moments began to snore loudly. Rubiah pulled the sheet over him to cover his nakedness; she didn’t like to look at his pale, flabby body. She didn’t go to sleep. She was already going over the next step in her plan to supplant Heather as his wife.

  To succeed, she needed Jelian’s help and he wanted money, lots of it. Her cousin Dedan told her that only a powerful bomoh, or shaman, could protect her from the white witch’s curse and he had introduced her to Jelian. The magician told her it would cost five hundred ringgit to remove the spell Mei Li’s mother had cast when her baby had been taken. This was an enormous sum of money. Illiterate girls from the longhouses were fortunate if they earned three hundred ringgit a month, but money wasn’t a problem for Rubiah as long as she kept her boss happy.

  The bomoh gave her a paper wrapped in yellow cloth. He told her that it had verses from the Quran and she should read them three times before sleeping for forty-one days. When she admitted that she couldn’t read he told her the spell would work just as well if she placed the paper under her pillow. She was counting off the days when she got word that there was a further ritual Jelian needed to perform if she was to be completely released from the spell, but it would cost another five hundred ringgit. The message came with a warning: if she didn’t pay for the purification ritual, the curse would come back doubled.

  Roger had laughed when she asked for money to pay the witch doctor and dismissed her fears as uneducated superstition. He told her she was a silly, gullible little ‘jungle bunny’ and he wouldn’t let her throw his money away on a cheat and a charlatan.

  Faced with arrogant, smug, ill-informed Western prejudice, Rubiah knew she had no alternative but to help herself to the cash left carelessly around the house by her rich employers. She didn’t feel guilty taking their money. They had so much, and after all, it was their fault she’d been cursed in the first place.

  When Rubiah entered the darkened house Jelian’s wife took her through to the living room for the ritual cleansing ceremony. The three-piece suite, still protected in the clear plastic wrap it had been covered with to keep it clean in transit, was pushed against the side walls. The room was dimly lit by common candles stuck in empty cola bottles. Through the gloom she saw the conjuror’s acolyte sitting cross-legged on the pink, imported marble floor playing the traditional three-stringed rebab. The medium was sitting on a carved sandalwood chair under a yellow umbrella, gazing vacantly at his daughter. Dressed in an exquisite dress of antique-gold clo
th, she was dancing around him, waving a palm frond and chanting an incantation.

  The air was heavy with the smell of incense, and the rhythmic chanting was working a spell on the susceptible jungle girl’s senses. Rubiah felt weightless, as though she was floating and looking down on the scene below, released from her body. This is what it must be like to be Mother, she thought sadly. For a moment she felt regret. Since she’d first learned of the ancient power possessed by the women of her family, to travel at will between the physical and metaphysical planes, she had longed for the gift to be bestowed on her too. Now it would never happen. In escaping the world of her ancestors she had severed links with her spiritual heritage.

  A candle spluttered and Rubiah’s gem-encrusted bangle flashed in the flickering flame. Grounded again, she gazed at it with satisfaction. She watched intently as the bomah’s body began to twitch and jerk, so violently that he fell from the chair and lay on the floor shuddering.

  His wife sidled up to Rubiah and whispered in her ear, ‘He is fighting a deadly battle with the witch for the return of your soul.’

  Suddenly the bomah’s body convulsed, his eyes rolled back in his head and an evil- smelling black liquid flowed from his mouth.

  Fearfully, Rubiah clung to Jelian’s wife, her eyes shut tight, too scared to look.

  ‘It’s okay, it’s over,’ the other woman said, frowning. Some of the vegetable dye had splashed on her new Persian rug. ‘My husband is a very powerful bomah,’ she whispered. ‘If you want to marry your boss, he can drive away your lover’s wife and you can step into her place.’

  ‘How much will it cost?’

  ‘Only three thousand ringgit for you. You give me the money and I’ll ask him.’

  Rubiah was determined to find the money, even if she had to go to a loan shark. But it wouldn’t come to that. She could always sell some more jewellery.