Maid In Singapore Read Free

were we to slug it out while she heard us shouting and I
crying, maybe with a slight smile on her face as she did the dishes,
inside? Or were we expected to sit down and discuss this, w e the three of us. Now there was a third person in our adult life, an
intruder who was similar to me, ready to be semi-raped by th e man at gunpoint. Two objects for the man to play with, like enjoying
the mastery of two musical instruments.
    When David emerged from
the bedroom, he was dressed and shaved. I was sitting on the couch,
face screwed in the pain of anger.
    ‘You are not in a
state to speak right now. We will talk about it later,’ he
picked up his bag and left for a Saturday at work.
    I went down to the
pool, changed Jay and took him out for lunch; he sensed my
disturbance and was quiet through lunch, a bit tired, too, after the
thirty laps.
    ‘Will be late
getting home, go to bed, will speak later,’ his sms read. I did
not reply, simply imagining myself sending him an mms of me being
defiled by the guard or the gardener or the barber. Would that make
him drop what he was doing and rush home? All the while, our son ate
the ham sandwich with soft powerless child bites.
    In the morning, I
delivered my caveat, ‘I am leaving, with Jay, heading back to
my mum’s place.’ My mum was almost eighty, but
clear-minded, a problem, since I would have to share my shame with
eighty years of calm, calculated reason. Of course, she would ponder
over it, talking to me about it before laughing it off.
    ‘You can’t
leave me now; I need your support and help. What if the maid files a
complaint against me? I will need you next to me. I am not saying
that she will, but what if she does?’ Self-preservation—that
is a banker ’s build, even at the cost of a global recession or
a family meltdown.
    What should have been
screaming matches with my husband became whispers, since we did not
want Mary to hear us. What should have been wails of sorrow were
muted sniffs and sobs.
    Was David actually
raping the maid, living out his dark fantasies, finally? Was my
compliance not enough to quench his sexual deviance—pleasurably
I confess, but pliable where another may have grown frigid? Maybe
they had simple sex . . . I was away and the maid got frisky seeing
sir’s early morning erection when delivering the tea. A few
hints dropped like sugar cubes
    . . . maybe a stir and
the game would have begun.
    Simpl e se x , what is that? A myth or a missionary mantra
all covered in sheets, with only the feet sticking out?
    ‘Did you rape
her?’ I asked.
    ‘Look, I don’t
know. All I know is that it was a genuine mistake, one that I am
paying for. She has already started the blackmails. I have already
given her a thousand dollars.’
    Al read y ,
a new word, learnt recently in a new place
    . . . already trite and
jarring.
    I was stunned, like
when emotions and logic coexist. They don’t coexist; they
simply collide, stunning us as they sandwich us. Yes, I was angry,
but I had to get the woman out of our lives without ruining us. Wait
a minute . . . if he was wrong, why was he not facing up to his
responsibilities? Or was he, by paying her off?
    ‘Please, we can
do whatever you like, but only after this episode is behind us. I
need you,’ he was almost pleading.
    I imagined myself in
the papers, like Hillary, or all the other wives who accompany their
cheating-celeb- husbands in what gets depicted as a pilla r o f strengt h , trussing up
familial piety.
    The maid would simply
appear well dressed, alone with her lawyers, or with her Bangladeshi
boyfriend, right alongside.
    The boyfriend wouldn’t
bother; he would find another girl, with lesser complications, making
this mess a threesome of two women tied to one white man.
    ‘Are there
others, apart from her whom you have been with?’ I asked. Was
it not logical that there would be others, like a habit, acceptable
and repeatable after the first few times one had done it?
    ‘Look, it is not
how you