Now You See Us, page 1
Dedication
For H.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Prologue
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Balli Kaur Jaswal
Copyright
About the Publisher
Prologue
Breaking News
A woman was found dead in her home in the east of Singapore on Sunday evening. Police received a call for assistance from a neighbour between 6:30 and 7:00 p.m. They classified the death as “unnatural” but declined to provide further details on the cause of death.
Neighbours of the victim say that they saw police arresting a woman near the crime scene. Police have confirmed that a person of interest connected with the case is in custody and that she is a domestic worker from the Philippines.
Investigations are ongoing.
One
One Month Earlier . . .
From the way Corazon Bautista is clutching her rosary beads, she could be mistaken for a religious woman. Every other person in the waiting room of the Merry Maids Employment Agency is peering into her phone screen or staring straight ahead, but Cora—with her eyes closed and her lips moving—appears to be having a spiritual moment.
The truth: She is only holding the beads because she discovered a rip in the lining of her purse and doesn’t want them falling in there. She lost a gold earring that way once. Prayer is the last thing on her mind. Sitting in a hard plastic chair along with all the other Merry Maids, she is making up a grocery list and ticking the items off each rosary bead. Rice, vegetable oil, eggs, milk . . . It has been a week since she arrived in Singapore, and Ma’am Elizabeth hasn’t asked her to cook a thing.
The rosary beads slip through Cora’s fingers like water. Onions, garlic, ginger, soy sauce . . . The waiting room is full of women—ma’ams and their maids sitting on the plastic chairs joined in rows to face a long reception counter that is partitioned into cubicles. A blue sky is painted on all four walls, with words like Happiness and Service floating in white clouds. The wall behind the reception counter is a gallery of framed photographs. Our Merriest Maids! The title is made from cutout birthday-party letters that dance over pictures of maids clipping pieces of laundry to bamboo poles or running vacuum cleaners over Oriental rugs. There are young maids dutifully wiping ketchup off the faces of small children and others helping elderly men into their wheelchairs. One grinning maid wearing a kerudung holds her broom at her side like it’s her best friend. Printed under each photo is a description of the woman’s nationality and her marketable qualities:
The Filipina maid is a favourite among Singaporeans because of her ability to speak English and her friendly demeanour. Good with children, the elderly, and pets. Suggested monthly wage: $580–$750. Public holidays and Sundays off.
Indonesians can handle all household chores, including deep cleaning of floors and windows. They will cook a variety of dishes but may not be able to handle pork for religious reasons. Suggested monthly wage: $580–$650. Some public holidays and alternate Sundays off.
**NEW!** The Myanmar maid: She will need some training, especially about living in high-rise apartments and other aspects of city life, but if you are on a budget, the Myanmar girl is a cost-effective option. Suggested monthly wage: Please enquire.
Cora supposes Merry Maids has a friendlier environment than those agencies on the first floor of this quiet shopping plaza. In brightly lit storefront windows, the maids on the first floor perform their skills for potential passing clients. They run cordless irons over men’s office shirts and wipe counters in the same circular motion all afternoon. There is a model kitchen outfitted with a fridge and a sink where one maid is stationed, rinsing dishes under an imaginary flow of water. Every surface is already as glossy as a pamphlet, and a slick-haired woman wearing a fitted black blazer struts between the maids, nodding her approval.
As Cora and Ma’am Elizabeth passed one of those agencies on their way upstairs, Ma’am Elizabeth muttered, “There’s no need to be so literal,” and twitched her shawl over her shoulders. Cora nodded and then wondered if that was too much agreement—maybe ma’am was trying to test her? Who was Cora to criticize the way the agencies advertised their services? So she shook her head as if this action would neutralize her response, except then it looked as though she was disagreeing with her ma’am.
“Are you all right, Cora?” Ma’am Elizabeth asked.
Cora brought her hand to the back of her neck. “Just having stiff neck, ma’am,” she said, and right away she wondered if this sounded like a complaint about the pillows in her room, which were comfortably firm. Luckily, Ma’am Elizabeth didn’t seem to notice, as she became preoccupied with searching her purse for her buzzing phone.
“You go on, Cora. I’m on my way,” she said. Riding the escalator up, Cora watched two maids in the window of the first-floor agency pantomiming a scene of a nanny feeding a child. The maid dressed as the child wore a PAW Patrol bib and clapped as the nanny scooped air out of a plastic bowl and brought it to her mouth.
Plain flour, rice flour, salad dressing, sugar, sliced cheese, breakfast cereal . . . does Ma’am Elizabeth have allergies? These are things Cora will have to guess at or wait for Ma’am Elizabeth to reveal. Hopefully it won’t take long. Some employers shroud their preferences in mystery and contradiction for years; others are prepared with long lists of dislikes.
Ma’am Elizabeth has been chatty since Cora’s arrival, though not in ways that are relevant to Cora’s grocery list. Cora knows about her daughters: Jacqueline, a banker who lives in River Valley with her Swiss fiancé, and Cecilia, who is at university in New York (“She’s on a six-year undergraduate track,” Ma’am Elizabeth said with an eyebrow raised).
“Do you have children?” Ma’am Elizabeth asked, and Cora thought about the picture on her phone of her nephew Raymond in the restaurant where they celebrated her birthday. He had died later that night, and she had not been able to look at that picture since.
“No children,” she said.
Ma’am Elizabeth’s late husband was Harold Lee, the founder of Lee’s Kopi; he passed away two years ago in a tragic car accident. “I helped him here and there with the business, but for the most part I’ve been . . .” She paused and slipped Cora a smile as if there were some joke between them. “I’ve been Mrs. Lee,” she said.
That was several days ago and Ma’am Elizabeth still hasn’t told Cora yet what her job will entail. Not that Cora needs a detailed job description—she knows the general needs of a household: cooking meals, making the beds, dusting, scrubbing the toilets, hosing the grit off the cars in the driveway, lighting the mosquito coil, changing the light bulbs. Et cetera, et cetera. But so far, every time Cora tries to do any work, Ma’am Elizabeth asks her to stop.
“Oh, Cora, don’t bother with that,” she’ll say, looking embarrassed at the sight of Cora dusting the banisters or picking the laundry off the line in the backyard. And the fridge! The shelves are completely empty except for a packet of spinach leaves, a jar of ginger paste, and containers of leftover bistek Tagalog from Tuesday night, when Ma’am Elizabeth insisted on ordering takeaway from a Filipino restaurant because Cora must be homesick.
(For the record, the bistek was quite good, although Cora would have let the meat braise low and slow rather than trying to rush the process with a meat tenderizer, as the restaurant clearly had, and it was obvious that they used lemons instead of calamansi because the marinade wasn’t as tangy as it should have been.)
“I want to speak to a manager immediately!”
The voice that breaks into Cora’s thoughts comes from the back of the room. Spines straighten automatically as the reprimand sweeps through the rows. A middle-aged Chinese woman with a frowning, heavily made-up face and hair shellacked into a stiff, short bob marches down the aisle of the waiting room. With each stab of the woman’s heels into the floor, the receptionist shrinks into her seat, until she is nearly on the floor herself. A man behind the desk grabs a stack of papers and hurries to the photocopier, which is in the front corner of the room, near Cora’s seat. She can see that the papers going in and coming out are totally blank.
As the shouting woman advances on the front desk, there is only one staff member left there. The young woman’s round gold-framed glasses magnify her fear a thousand times. Her decision to gather resolve is visible—she grits her teeth, then crosses her arms over her chest, then uncrosses them. The shouting woman demands again to see a manager.
“Mrs. Fann, you need to take a number,” the girl says firmly, adjusting her glasses on her nose. “We will attend to you as soon as—”
“I want a refund,” Mrs. Fann says. “I want to return my maid.”
Return her to where? As though there’s a storage room full of maids, stacked like mannequins and waiting to be chosen. Then again, seeing that first-floor agency with the maids on display, Cora can see where Mrs. Fann got that idea.
“Cooking? Terrible. Ironing? Clothes still r
“I understand, Mrs. Fann, but there is a procedure,” the girl with the glasses insists. “We told you this the last time you came here.”
“Last time I came here, Belinda Quek still ran this agency efficiently. She’s a church friend of mine, and she was very understanding. Now I don’t know who is running the place. I tried calling several times this morning and got no response. Who is answering the phones?”
Accusatory looks shoot between the staff members. Glasses Girl straightens her posture and tries an official approach: “If you want to transfer your maid, there are government protocols to follow. You will have to contact the Ministry of Manpower first—”
“I called them on my way here,” Mrs. Fann interrupts. “Automated system, press one for this, press two for that. I waited to speak to an actual customer-service representative and they put me on hold for so long, the call timed out.” Cora suspects that the whole of Singapore recognizes Mrs. Fann’s voice and goes into hiding when she approaches. She looks around for the maid in question, but Mrs. Fann hasn’t brought her along. “Just let me know who the manager is here so I can speak with them.”
The argument continues, with Mrs. Fann waving her hands around and Glasses Girl trying to calm her down. They have switched from English to Mandarin. A handbag hangs from the crook of Mrs. Fann’s bent elbow. It’s a solid case of deep navy leather with gold buckles that clatter like bangles and a silk scarf knotted at the handles. Cora expects a dog to pop its head out of the bag—something with pointy ears and a sharp bark to punctuate Mrs. Fann’s accusations.
Somehow Glasses Girl convinces Mrs. Fann to take a seat. She casts a disdainful glance over the waiting room. There is an empty seat in the front row next to Cora, but Mrs. Fann doesn’t take it—she walks back down the aisle and settles in a seat near another ma’am. Moments later, Cora can hear her fuming, this time to the woman next to her.
“How can they send me a maid who can’t do anything properly? And then she wants one day off a week. I tell her, ‘You’re a fresh maid, you are here for experience. You’re lucky to have any work at all.’ In their country, there are no jobs—even teachers and nurses are only making two hundred dollars a month. Here she gets free lodging and food in my flat—I mean, my house—and she’s earning in Singapore dollars, and she still complains?”
Thank goodness Cora was hired directly, through Ma’am Elizabeth’s network of friends. They are using the agency only to complete her work-permit paperwork. If the agency employed her, she wouldn’t see her salary for months, not until she paid off her placement debt. One of Cora’s former employers from years ago, Ma’am Anne-Marie Gomez, didn’t ask any questions when Cora got in touch out of the blue to ask if there were jobs in Singapore, and she recommended Cora to Ma’am Elizabeth without hesitation.
“She’s very nice,” Ma’am Annie assured Cora, who, in her short time with Ma’am Elizabeth, already knows this to be true. Ma’am Elizabeth makes a point of saying each of her neighbours’ names when she greets them. The GrabFood delivery boys always receive a generous tip from her. On the drive over here, she pulled over when she noticed a stray cat wandering along the main road. Cora watched from the passenger seat as Ma’am Elizabeth picked up the cat and walked all the way to the grassy lot at the end of the street, where the cat leaped out of her arms and scrambled off into the bushes.
However, no employer can be so nice that she will pay Cora simply to live in her huge house and not expect her to do any work. This morning, Cora woke up with the uneasy feeling that Ma’am Elizabeth had changed her mind and the trip to Merry Maids was her polite way of cancelling her work permit. Then, as they entered this shopping mall, Ma’am Elizabeth glanced at the arrow sign for Cold Storage, the supermarket, and said, “We’ll do some shopping later. Maybe you can make lunch today?”
What a relief! Cora’s idle fingers have been worrying away at her rosary since she arrived in Singapore and now she can put them to some use. Ma’am Elizabeth is not here yet, and while Mrs. Fann continues to fume, Cora concentrates on adding to her list. She can do a hearty chicken Caesar salad with crispy bacon and a special dressing if Cold Storage has those bottled anchovies that she used to buy for the Calverts, her American employers in Manila.
Now that the agency workers have settled back into their seats, they begin clacking on their keyboards and answering phones again. Nervous tension thrums in the air as Mrs. Fann continues her complaints.
“At least the previous maid was good in character,” she says. “Not that I can prove this maid has done anything wrong, but just look at her, give her one look, and you’ll know what type she is and what she’ll be doing on her days off.”
Cora doesn’t turn around but it sounds as if Mrs. Fann is showing a picture on her phone to the woman next to her, who murmurs her agreement.
“Corazon Bautista?” the man at the front desk calls, shuffling some paperwork.
“Yes,” Cora says, raising her hand and glancing over her shoulder at the door. Where is Ma’am Elizabeth? Cora takes out her phone to send a quick text: Ma’am, they are calling me. Are you coming? The second sentence looks a bit aggressive and she deletes it. Then she changes Ma’am to Ma’am Elizabeth, but her thumb hovers over the backspace. Is it necessary? Obviously she’s referring to Ma’am Elizabeth. She adds Dear before Ma’am Elizabeth.
Dear Ma’am Elizabeth, they are calling me. I hope to see you soon. With warmest regards, Corazon Bautista.
What is this, a love letter? The man calls her name again, louder this time.
Cora’s thumb slips and lands on the emoji menu. She presses Delete several times, erasing the whole message and replacing it with emojis, then accidentally hits Send.
“No!” she cries, shooting out of her chair.
The man looks confused. “You are not Corazon Bautista?”
To her horror, she has sent Ma’am Elizabeth a row of salsa-dancing girls and a cow.
“I am Corazon,” she says, approaching the counter. “My ma’am is coming.” She settles into the seat across from him, still staring in dismay at her phone.
“Your passport and employment forms, please,” he says. His confusion is gone, replaced by a grimace that makes him look more like that angry Mrs. Fann. Cora takes the plastic folder from her bag and shakes out her passport. “The forms are with my ma’am,” Cora says.
He opens up her passport and types the details into his computer. Cora wonders if the scan of her old passport is still in the government database. Age has scored the corners of her eyes; gravity tugs down the loose skin at her jaw. For her first passport photo ever, a twenty-four-year-old Cora had worn lipstick and crimped her shoulder-length hair with a curling iron. Flying was a bigger deal back then, even if you were going abroad to clean houses. At fifty-two, Cora is all about the practicalities: cotton T-shirts that don’t get easily rumpled and a pageboy haircut that keeps her neck from getting sweaty.
“You worked in Singapore before?” the man asks.
“Yes, sir,” Cora says. “From 1991 until 2007.” How much information is recorded in his system? Do they know about Cora’s first employers, three generations of a family who lived in a terrace house in Serangoon Gardens where snakes sometimes flitted across their doorstep? Or Mrs. Motwani, who taught Cora how to cook rich korma dishes that she still smells in her dreams? Do they know about Ma’am Roberta’s husband, who flung an ashtray at Cora because he was convinced she’d thrown away his parking coupon?
The man’s expression betrays nothing as he continues to type. His fingers are long and slender, and there is a jade ring on his little finger. She watches the polished stone catch the fluorescent light of the place and turn it into something softer, but she looks away when he notices her staring. It is a reminder that Cora should never let her gaze linger on anything; many people don’t know the difference between admiring and coveting.
Ma’am Elizabeth finally arrives, pulling up a seat next to Cora. “Sorry about that,” she says. She looks a bit harried. Cora wonders if the salsa-dancing girls came across as an insult—who knows what any of these things mean? She learned only recently what the eggplant emoji meant and she was horrified, having sent it several times to Maddy Calvert to let her know she was making her favourite vegetarian lasagna.
