Maid In Singapore

by Kishore Modak

  ‘Sure, we can do that on your behalf, though most of our clients keep their will confidential. But this is not a problem. I, for one, am all for sharing the details so no one is taken aback or surprised in the future,’ he was holding the door open again, against its mechanics. I stood up, thanking him before leaving.

  In the future, if Jay wanted to sell the flat, he would first have to get his son Rafael’s consent. It would upset him, and become a sticky issue if he did not cultivate a relationship with his family.

  The will and some of the related documents were ready in a week for me to see and sign. They seemed in order and I went ahead, leaving Jay’s New York address with my lawyer, for him to mail a copy to Jay.

  That evening, I called Jay and informed him that the documents he would receive were meant only to keep affairs neat, tidy for when the time came. I did not mention the terms of the will; I couldn’t get myself to tell him about Rafael, losing courage, hanging up without revealing the discovery of his past to him. I should have, I owed that to him, a personal message rather than an antiseptic package from a lawyer that brought with it the truth of consequences.

  In any case, his annual visit was due in a few months; we could talk about it then.

  In my list of mistakes, this was the gravest one. I should have spoken to Jay more often, now and in the past. That way, I would have saved him.

  After he received the package, he called.

  We spoke for a while about irrelevant things before settling on the germane.

  ‘Mum, I saw your will, and I accept your decision. It is the right one,’ he said, maturely, without histrionics.

  ‘What about Rafael, do you want to see him? He is your son after all?’ I asked, for the first time in years, opening up, openly revealing that I knew all about it. It, being his affair with the maid when he was all of fourteen years.

  ‘Mum, it happened a long while back, and I have had the time to think through it, not only by myself but with Dad too, and I want to let it go. I want to leave it behind, I want to look ahead. Your will is drafted with all the right intentions and I will abide by it, respectfully, without any fuss,’ grown up, measured and hollow, that is how he sounded, emotionless and practised to reveal nothing.

  Just like his dad, he wanted his problems to disappear; he wanted me to cover up, letting him move on.

  A father, who does not want to see the child he has brought into the world, makes the woman he loved a prostituting-whore-bitch. On the other hand, a prostitute who cares for her child is as much a saint-mother as the wedlock-ed millions of the world who need marriage to legitimize their children.

  Jay, he was a let-down, a complete and utter let- down; he was grown up and was rich but he was not a man, no more a man than what he was at fourteen, not yet at least. In my eyes, if there is a bastard in this family, it is Jay and not Rafael.

  ‘Well, that is okay and I understand it. These are your decisions and you don’t have to meet or even speak to Rafael or Mary ever, the lawyers will tackle all of the detail when the time comes,’ I hid my disappointment, simply asking him to send me his travel dates, telling him that I wanted to speak to him, a lot more, when he visited. He promised to do so and then we hung up, with outward civility. Inside, though, I was furious with him.

  That was the last conversation I had with Jay.

  He sent me his travel itinerary by email a few days later, which was the last I heard from him. He cut himself off, becoming completely silent, not replying to any of my messages. At that point, I took his silence simply as a reaction of displeasure; it would pass in a few weeks.

  I tried calling him a few times before he was to land in London, but he seemed to be away and I simply left him voice messages. He did not reply or call back.

  On the day he was to arrive, I headed to fetch him from the airport, but he was not on the flight. The airline was kind enough to accommodate an old woman’s request and informed me that the ticket was a ‘No Show’ at New York. They had opened the ticket up rather than cancelling it, as is the norm on international segments.

  I tried calling, but simply kept reaching the answering machine, too full to take messages.

  I called his work place; the firm’s HR partner said they had not seen him at work for over a few months and that they had sent him a notice of termination. They had tried visiting him at his apartment but he did not seem to be in, so they had filed a missing persons report with the NYPD a few days back. The police would probably call me soon.

  Panicked, I felt completely alone and helpless, wishing I had someone to turn too, someone to share the burden of this crisis. There was no one and I had to make the transatlantic journey all by myself, praying to Lord Krishna, begging him to return my son to me.

  It was the will, wasn’t it? Something in Jay had cracked when he received the will. I could find no other event or incident that may have triggered his sudden absence. In my thoughts, I had still not started using the word disappearance, in relation to Jay’s prolonged unresponsiveness.

  One can accept that he did not want any contact with me anymore, now that he was all grown up; but he simply had to tell me that, not leave me this way, tortured, without any hints on what was going on in his life.

  Was he well? I grew anxious with eventualities of accident and disease filling my mind, I thought myself out of my panic, telling myself that if any misfortune had befallen him, I would have probably gotten to know of it.

  Why had he cut me off? Was it the embarrassment of having to discuss his pathetic past and its perverse acts with his mother? Or was it just another act of rebellion, this time one of going missing.

  I missed David, the burden of finding a missing son, a grown up one at that too, was proving too heavy for an old woman to carry.

  At JFK, things were slow, immigration and luggage took time; eventually, though, I was outside the terminal, hailing a cab and moving towards Central Park where his apartment stood, along 5th Avenue, overlooking the serene Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir he had mentioned it to me a number of times, noting the location with pride. Seeing the ISKCON close by, I stopped to pray, very briefly, but with helpless intensity, before I walked up to his apartment block.

  It was a grand looking one, with valets and a manned front desk where I needed to announce myself before I could be shown in.

  ‘I am looking for Jay Kettlewood, on level eighteen, apartment number eight,’ I informed the concierge.

  ‘He has moved out a few weeks back, there is a new tenant now. He said he was renting out his apartment on a long lease and would not be back for a while,’ he replied, taking the luggage from my hand, and offering me a plastic chair to sit on. A kind gesture, as he made out I was tired from the strain of journey. He went in, to what I assumed was the private area for the staff, bringing back a glass of water, which he offered me.

  ‘Thank you,’ I drank up, feeling the sudden urge to urinate. ‘Can I please use the ladies’ room,’ I asked him. There wasn’t any for visitors but he led me to the staff toilets anyway, talking all the time.

  ‘I see you are his mother. I am surprised he never mentioned where he was going,’ he showed me the way and went back to his desk.

  ‘Do you think I can see the tenant who lives in Jay’s apartment, maybe they can help, he may have told them where he was headed or what his plans were,’ I asked the concierge, when I returned.

  ‘I will have to check with her and then let you through; sorry, those are the house rules. Please do sit down, this will only be a moment,’ he picked up the intercom.

  ‘Ma’am, there is a lady to see you, her name is Rashmi Kettlewood . . . yes, she is the landlord’s mother and is asking for you,’ he said, with pauses, filled by instructions from the tenant on the other end of the phone. ‘All right, I will have her sent through,’ he hung up.

  He scribbled #18-03 on a post-it and showed me to the lift, keeping my luggage case beneath his counter.

  The tenant, she greeted me with cou
rtesy, asking me to come in and sit down. She was stunning, beyond a simple head turner, more like a model that needed the world of camera flashes and expensive men to live with. We introduced ourselves; she told me her name but that is not important.

  ‘My son has not been in touch with me for a few months now and I am worried, I was hoping you could tell me anything that you may recall and that may help lead me to him,’ I asked her, not wanting to take up too much of her time.

  ‘I am not sure I can be of any help. We simply signed the lease and he handed the keys et cetera to my agent. I did not really meet him for that long,’ she seemed, as if she wanted to help. ‘He said he was going overseas and would be away for while, which was why he said he preferred a longer termed lease,’ she added.

  ‘Did he seem disturbed or anything else amiss that you may have caught?’ I asked again, desperate for leads, all the while eyeing the apartment for any clues that may still hang on the walls or the corner tables. There were no clues, neither from the talk with the gorgeous tenant, nor from the walls or the tables.

  Behind her, rich mauve curtains fell in fluted streams, diffusing the sunlight as it passed through their weave. Beyond the curtains must have been the bay windows and the stunning view of the lake, the vista that Jay had spoken so much about.

  ‘Would you mind if I looked through the window at the lake? He spoke to me about that view, when he got this apartment. I mean, if that is okay with you?’ I asked on impulse.

  ‘Sure,’ she said, opening them out for me to look beyond, into the waters.

  It was nice.

  She gave me her number and I scribbled my number and email id too, for her to keep just in case she came by any information in the weeks ahead.

  For good measure, I gave her a missed call too.

  I was not booked by the airline to return back to London until a couple of weeks more; I had made no arrangements for stay either.

  I decided to spend the night at the ISKCON. The caretaker obliged, requesting me to find a hotel in a day or two.

  At night, I grew stubborn, having the sanctum unlocked and opened for me, settling in front of the marble idol of the Lord, much to the consternation of the keeper.

  Physically, the idol was no more than a few feet tall; in stature though, it towered in front of my eyes, lending me a mute companionship, far stronger than any other man in this world could do, or has ever done.

  At Jay’s office, on the following day, things stood pretty much as they already were. I had only the name, number and address of an NYPD officer to show for progress, the one with whom Jay’s firm had filed a missing persons report.

  Officer Brown, Joe Brown, was African American, a decent man, offering sympathy and the might that security forces wield.

  ‘Mrs Kettlewood, in the US alone we have up to a hundred thousand people who go missing each month, half of them are below eighteen, mostly wanting to escape abuse,’ he was not resigning to excuses, he was simply being practical.

  ‘What have we found till now, Officer?’ I asked.

  ‘I am not sure what we have found, except, if it was anything it would have been at my desk by now. In short, nothing,’ he was not cocky, he was simply being practical.

  ‘Officer, I need your help. I am not sure what has happened to my boy, and I cannot leave without finding out,’ I pleaded.

  He soon exhibited why I said he was a good man.

  ‘Paula, can you please free up my day, if possible. I need to go in for some fieldwork,’ a pause, and a focused look at me, while Paula spoke in complaints, like when an uninspired office worker is given work.

  ‘We have been busy. Unfortunately, I have not been able to assign anyone on this missing report, but you are here now and let us find out what happened. Don’t worry, all questions have answers. There will be clues,’ he drove, without using the siren or the flasher lights that came with his car.

  I didn’t ask why they hadn’t acted earlier; I knew it was the never-ending exigencies of life and death that they got sucked into each day. Missing persons were not the priority. I was glad—since dead people were.

  At Jay’s apartment block, Officer Joe simply slid his hand into his trouser pockets, parting the elongated lapels of his tweed blazer, revealing the police badge on his belt. He walked slowly, allowing an old lady to keep pace, just about.

  The concierge almost saluted when he saw the badge, and I felt strangely elevated.

  ‘Hello there, is the resident in eighteen-o-three in or out,’ the officer asked the same kind man at the front desk whom I had met earlier. I tried to smile, feeling a bit guilty, for having pulled the police into this.

  ‘I think I saw her heading for a jog or a run or something a few minutes back,’ he replied.

  On the eighteenth floor, Officer Joe knocked on the door of a neighbour, announcing himself and asking if he could come in and ask a few questions about a missing person.

  The neighbour was a lady with a child; her husband was away at work.

  ‘Yes, we knew Jay, not well but certainly enough for him not to move away without giving us his contacts, or mentioning his plans,’ she was friendly, but busy, like when one is taking care of a little baby. The entire living room was strewn with baby things, which she was trying to neaten.

  ‘You mean you didn’t meet him before he left?’ the office asked.

  ‘No, we did not. He went away for a few months and then reappeared for a few days. When he returned, he was different,’ she said, pushing the blue potty under the sofa, out of sight, picking up the sipper next to it, simply holding things, not knowing where to put them.

  ‘In what way?’ the officer asked.

  ‘Just different, lost weight, his voice seemed to have changed, he had a bounce to his step, and he smiled a lot more than he used to—as if he was happier. And that was the last we saw of him. He has leased out his apartment to a new tenant. Have you seen her? My husband can’t keep his eyes off her.’

  ‘No, not yet,’ Officer Joe rose, leaving his visiting card with the lady. The child had begun to cry from the room inside. I pictured little arms and legs, flailing, as the infant demanded his feed, with the energetic gusto of infantile greed.

  I almost offered to help.

  In the hallway, the officer turned, surprising me with his tenacity and his will to help, ‘Mrs Kettlewood, here, take my mobile number and wait for me outside the apartment. You recognize the tenant and if you see her coming in, just call me. I may not answer the phone, but I will take it as a signal to vacate her apartment,’ he handed me his card, wanting to take a look inside Jay’s apartment, illegally, without a warrant, before heading back to the precinct.

  Like a thief, he looked around; making sure that the hallway was empty before picking his way through the lock and into Jay’s apartment.

  Outside, I moved away from the apartment block, keeping an eye out for the returning tenant-sex- bomb, from a distance, where I myself could be relatively hidden.

  She appeared in about fifteen minutes, and I called the officer as soon as I spotted her walking briskly towards the entrance of the apartment block. She was sweating, with her bike close at hand, alongside her.

  For a woman that striking and sexy, it seemed misplaced for her to reach deep within the crack of her arse, the inter-gluteal space, pulling at what may have been the folds of her sports underwear, letting the elastic de-tense with a snap, the membranes of elastic-fabric landing back on her arse with a thwack, faint but audible even from where I was, a good ten metres away. In itself, I may have ignored the act, except that it was done in a manner exactly like Jay’s, following the uncouth garment-adjustments with a brush of the fingers against one’s nose, as if to catch hints of whatever it was that got dislodged or redeployed between the arse and the underwear. It was a strange coincidence, for the landlord and the tenant to have an identical mannerism in setting right sweaty-bothersome-underwear.

  Isn’t that the indelible mark of familiarity, when one start
s picking another’s mannerisms?

  The inspector appeared in a couple of minutes, walking towards where he had parked his car earlier. I didn’t mention my suspicion, which was that the sexy woman knew Jay, beyond the boundaries of a tenant-landlord relationship. It would sound very silly if I had told him why I thought so.

  Inside the car, he handed me his iPhone, ‘Mrs Kettlewood, I took some photographs of the apartment. Can you please take a look at them, just in case I may have missed anything that you may be able to spot, things that your son may have left behind?’ He fired the engine, pulling away from the apartment block.

  I thumbed through the pictures, perfunctorily, where I should have been attentive. I couldn’t be attentive since the phone rang, silently, every now and then, needing the officer’s attention all the while.

  Officer Joe drove to the People’s Bank, explaining his visit only when he was with the bank’s manager. Till then, he was on his phone, attending to other more urgent matters.

  ‘Can you please help track the history and usage for this card?’ He took out his cell phone, pointing to the zoomed image of a credit card on the screen. The manager turned to his computer, after he had noted the card details on a post-it.

  ‘I found this card in the apartment; it had your son’s name on it,’ he said, turning towards me, still pointing at the phone’s screen, even though it had turned dark and sleepy within seconds. The bank manager ’s keystrokes clicked rapidly in the background.

  ‘This card is still active, Officer, and in good credit and payment condition, no problems with this one,’ the bank manager swivelled his chair around, picking paper regurgitated from the printer’s mouth, from where it spewed. ‘Here are the card statements. You can keep these, but I will need you to please sign a written request,’ the manager said, placing the statements in an envelope, handing them over to the officer.

  At the precinct, the officer studied the statements, ‘It was used about four days back at the Deli on 5th Avenue. There are fairly large amounts of charges from Thailand, at the Bangkok Hospital. We can find out more tonight, once the doctors and the staff come in for the day,’ he said. ‘You can come by in the afternoon tomorrow. I should be here. I am sure we will have something for you by then. Please, call before you come,’ he added.