Now You See Us, page 27
Mariam scowls at Donita. “What do you want?”
“I want to contact the Philippines embassy.”
Mariam snorts and returns to her computer. “Think they have so much time to talk to you? Your agency will handle you.”
“When are they coming?” Donita asks.
“You want the police to hurry up for you too? Don’t worry, they’re on their way to question you first. Just you wait.”
Donita cannot tell if Mariam is joking, but when she returns to her room, she paces the narrow space between the beds, trying to quell her panic. If only she had her phone. Angel and Cora are probably trying to get in touch; she can imagine their messages: What were you thinking?
And what will become of Flor now? Donita can’t tell anyone anything if she’s locked up. She fantasizes a finger hovering over the video-record button on her phone. What would happen if she broadcast a video about Sterling and Elise, about everything she knows? She would be thrown in jail for sure then.
Footsteps pound outside and seem to shake the whole building. Through the thin walls, she can hear a girl giggling through a call with her boyfriend. Sanjeev, she thinks, and her chest tightens. She would tell him it was not over, that it was never over. She was scared of what she was feeling and frustrated by the futility of being close to someone in a place that conspired to keep them apart. Sanjeev, I miss you.
Her heart leaps at the knock on her door. The police? She casts a glance over her things and wonders if she should just leave them behind. There is another knock, the jiggling of keys, and then the door swings open. Mariam is standing with her arms crossed. “You have a visitor,” she says curtly before marching off.
From the balcony, Donita can see a woman standing in the courtyard, and she is struck by a sense of recognition. The slight slouch in this woman’s shoulders and the way her dress floats around her calves is exactly like the ghost of Flor that she spotted near the canal from her bedroom window. Donita feels her knees weaken but keeps her eyes on the woman as she descends the steep metal stairs that take her past the other floors. A small group of Pinoy women knit closer together and whisper as she passes.
The woman who turns to face her is not the spirit of Flordeliza—Donita already knew that. But she is not a total stranger either. She smiles at Donita uncertainly.
“Hi. Donita?” she says.
“Yes.”
“I’m Wes,” the woman says.
“Wes . . . ton?” Donita says. “Mrs. Fann’s . . . son?”
The woman shakes her head. “I stopped being Weston one year ago.”
There are some traces of Mrs. Fann’s features in Wes’s face, but mostly she looks like her father. That high nose, those pillowy lips. “You are very pretty,” Donita blurts out, because she doesn’t know what else to say.
It breaks the tension. Wes smiles. “Thank you. Could we go somewhere to talk?” Her voice is both whispery and deep, like the Sunflower Festival queens in Pasuquin.
Donita glances over her shoulder at the reception office. “Don’t worry about them. I told them I’m from the agency,” Wes says.
“Okay,” Donita says. They walk to the coffee shop around the corner. A soft black leather bag hangs from Wes’s shoulder. Donita can see a laptop and a water bottle peeping from it. “You are working?” she asks as they pull up the red plastic chairs.
Wes shakes her head. “I’m an undergraduate.”
“Mrs. Fann say you studying in Sydney.”
Wes shakes her head again. “I’m studying here, in Singapore. I live with my boyfriend’s family in Bishan.”
“So your mother . . . she never see you?” Donita asks.
“No,” Wes says. “She and my father didn’t want me in their house after I transitioned.”
Donita can picture Mrs. Fann’s frozen, screaming face. “Your father seem like he just follow everything,” she says.
“That hasn’t changed, then,” Wes says. “At one point I thought he would come through for me. He’s experienced her abuse too. He was diagnosed with depression after he lost his job, and my mother got the pastor to tell him to find God instead of taking medication.”
The pills. The nighttime visits to the common bathroom. “He take the medicine secretly,” Donita says. “I always see him.”
“Was he better, though?” Wes asks. “I know he works part-time now. I’ve . . . I’ve been around the place a few times.”
Donita doesn’t tell Wes that she saw her from her window. She wonders if this is why Wes has come to see her. “He’s quiet,” she says truthfully. “He reads his newspaper a lot. But,” she adds when Wes’s face begins to fall, “he does not like to go to church. Every Sunday, it’s an argument.”
Wes’s eyes light up. “Probably sounds a lot like the arguments I had with my mother. Especially when they rolled out that Come Home initiative.” Wes presses the heel of her palm between her eyes, remembering. “It was supposed to be a way to get young people interested in the church again, but then my mother’s friends got hold of it and made it about converting gay people. They put all the funds into protesting SingaPride and hiring these homophobic preachers from megachurches in the U.S. My mother followed along because she wanted to prove to them that she was trying to do everything to stop me from transitioning. It didn’t work, obviously, but I wonder if that’s why she volunteered to be front and centre with this whole SAGE takeover.”
“I think she did not volunteer,” Donita says. She remembers the surreptitious looks the other churchwomen gave one another when Mrs. Fann wasn’t aware. “I think those women put her there. They could blame her if it did not work.”
“Not surprising,” Wes says. “My mother trusted them more than anyone.”
“Wes, your parents cannot forget you,” Donita says. She tells Wes about her bedroom and about how Mrs. Fann didn’t want her staying there. “I know it’s because she thinks a maid shouldn’t have her own room, but she also said that one day you would come back.”
“I can’t, though,” Wes says, looking down and stirring her drink. “Not unless I change who I am. I’ve returned a few times just to picture what it would be like to walk into that building again, and it’s not possible.”
“Then you make your own family, okay?” Donita says.
Wes nods, her tight smile relaxing a fraction. “Thank you. I came to see you because I wanted to know if you were okay and if there was anything I could do for you. My mother was never nice to the helpers.”
“I’m okay,” Donita says. She’ll spare Wes the details of her torment, the fact that she still hears Mrs. Fann’s voice criticizing her when she is alone in the room and that, when she closes her eyes in the shower, she sees Mrs. Fann inspecting her body, prodding at her flesh with a mix of fear and disgust. Then she remembers something. “I also found one of your earrings in the cabinet near your father’s pills that he takes in secret.”
“My father kept my earrings?”
Just one, Donita thinks, feeling Mr. Fann’s loneliness and wishing he had the courage to keep more of his only child. She remembers the T-shirt too. “Your father wanted to hold on to everything of yours.”
The cloud over Wes’s expression breaks for a moment. “Thank you for telling me,” she says.
“Can I ask you . . . how did you know I was in this dormitory?”
“This is the one Merry Maids always sends the helpers to when things don’t work out,” Wes says. “I saw enough turnovers in our house to know where they ended up. After my father lost his job because he took too many days off, my mother had to let go of our helper Lucilla. That was when she turned all her attention on me, and she found out about my life. I think, after I left home, she probably hired a helper again just to have somebody to blame for things going wrong.”
It sounds about right to Donita. “Your mother wants people to think she is rich,” Donita says. “She thinks maybe this is a way to be happy. Blaming your father for not working harder.”
“I’m sorry for what she put you through,” Wes says. “Sometimes when I stood outside the building, I wondered what was going on inside. I didn’t think I’d ever find out, and then you appeared on the news.”
“You were watching?” Somehow, this makes Donita sadder, the idea of Wes sitting and waiting for her mother to come on-screen in a live interview.
“I’ve watched that video so many times, I could probably recite the whole thing,” Wes says with a grin. “People hire entire teams to reach the level of fame you’ve achieved. Everyone’s asking about you.”
“Who?” Donita asks.
Wes shows Donita her phone. At first, her eyes can’t adjust to the screen, filled with mentions of Donita’s name in bold lettering. Free Donita Tugade. Where is Donita Tugade? Donita is ALL of us. #DonitaTugade
“You’re all over social media,” Wes says. “You and SAGE are the most-talked-about topics in Singapore right now.”
Donita takes Wes’s phone and searches for her name. She taps on the question Where is Donita Tugade? and sees that a few people have answered with the name of this dormitory. The responses are outraged. Amid the sea of angry rants, somebody asks simply: Is she okay?
Donita wishes she could respond to that person. I am fine. I am away from Mrs. Fann. But there is one thing that I need . . .
“Wes, I know how you can help me,” she says.
Donita returns to the dorm to find Mariam standing outside the reception office, holding a clipboard. “You were supposed to sign out before leaving,” she says. She taps on the clipboard and starts to say something else when she notices Donita has Wes in tow.
“I would like to sign Ms. Tugade’s release forms,” says Wes. She is holding her laptop and she clears her throat in a businesslike way.
“I got a call from the agency just now saying that they will be sending her back tonight,” Mariam says, crossing her arms over her chest. “I don’t know who you are.”
“I’m her representative. Her legal representative. I’ll speak directly to your boss, please—you’re the receptionist, from what I understand,” Wes says. It is the way she says legal that makes Mariam shrink and mutter something about protocols. Wes persists. “Give Ms. Tugade her phone back immediately,” she snaps. There is something of Mrs. Fann in her sharp voice. Donita suppresses a smile as Mariam hurries into the office and returns with her phone. Wes continues to stare Mariam down as she speaks. “Miss Tugade, please go upstairs and pack your things. Meanwhile, Miss Mariam, I’m going to speak to your supervisor.”
Donita nearly trips up the stairs as she scrolls through the backlog of messages on her phone. Her Facebook page is flooded with people asking where she is and how she is doing—complete strangers concerned about her welfare. She goes to the WhatsApp group that she shares with Angel and Cora and sees Angel’s shouted messages from the moments after the interview was broadcast. She almost begins to laugh, thinking about it from Angel’s perspective.
There are no messages from her aunties or relatives back home, but news from Singapore will take a while to get to them unless it relates directly to Flor. Donita bites her lip and scrolls through her calls list. Although she deleted Sanjeev from her address book, there was only one person she texted all the time, and she could almost recite his phone number. She unblocks his number and lets out a breath she didn’t even realize she was holding. I’m sorry, she writes. I don’t want to fight anymore. Back in her room, she switches between staring at the screen to see if Sanjeev is typing and looking away because she can’t bear the thought of him seeing that message and slipping his phone back in his pocket, never to speak to her again.
To distract herself, Donita reads through Angel’s and Cora’s messages, starting from the most recent one. Going backward in time like this is strangely soothing. She watches Angel’s messages go from questions of shock and disbelief and OMGs to regular sentences, and then one message makes her stop. It is a picture of Mr. Hong and Elise with an explanation from Angel about cameras in the frame of a print of a painting called The Starry Night. Donita’s hands begin to shake again. It takes a few moments to steady herself and click on the link that Angel sent her. If there was really a camera there, it captured everything. Somewhere, there is a video of the whole murder.
As she reads this, a message appears at the top of her screen. It’s Sanjeev. I don’t want to fight either. I’ve been so worried—call me! Her heart swells. But she’ll deal with him later.
The first thing Donita does after she reads Angel’s text is send a message to Merry Maids: Hi. This is Donita. Let me break my contract or I will make a video and tell everybody about how you made me work in the mushroom factory.
Next, Donita trains the phone’s camera on herself. Her hands are shaking. It takes her a moment to get started, just like the news interview, but then the words start flowing.
“My name is Donita Tugade, and I want to thank you for your support. Today, I am here to tell you that Flordeliza Martinez is innocent.”
Police Caution Against False Accusations in Hong Murder Case
Singapore police have released a statement warning the public against jumping to conclusions in the pending murder case of Mrs. Carolyn Hong. The warning came after a video circulated showing a domestic worker claiming that former Olympic swimmer Sterling Luo was responsible for the killing of Mrs. Carolyn Hong, who wanted to break up his affair with her teenage daughter. Police had alleged that the murder was carried out by Flordeliza Martinez, the Hongs’ domestic worker.
In the video, which went viral on Tuesday evening, a friend of Ms. Martinez’s claims that there is recorded footage from a hidden camera in the Hongs’ bedroom, where the murder took place. It is unclear why investigators did not check this security footage, but the police statement suggests that it was a hidden camera, and that the police were not aware of it.
The video prompted both a flurry of police reports against Miss Tugade for making false statements and calls for the police to charge Mr. Luo for the murder. Netizens also speculate that Miss Tugade was the woman dressed as a ghost whom Mr. Hong reported to the authorities. “We want to remind people to refrain from interfering and spreading falsehoods on a pending investigation,” the police statement reads. “This includes online comments on social media channels.”
The police have not publicized any updates to the investigation. Ms. Martinez, who could not provide an alibi for her whereabouts on the evening of the alleged murder, is still being detained.
Eighteen
Angel hesitates for just a moment before pressing the Find Out More option. After months of ignoring the advertisements that crowded her screen every time she searched for physiotherapy videos, her instinct is still to find a way around them. But they are not pesky hurdles now; they are invitations: Become a nurse assistant! Training on Sundays for current domestic workers. High demand with excellent pay in private homes and aged-care facilities. Qualifications transferable for migration to Australia, New Zealand, Canada, United Arab Emirates, and Hong Kong.
The application does not take long to complete, but there is one question that gives Angel pause. Why do you want to work as a nurse assistant? Angel returns to the other details to make sure they are correct. She uploads her passport photograph and puts in her credit card information for the fee, but when she goes back to this question of why, her mind is still blank.
It’s overwhelming trying to find the words to explain how she felt when she saw Nurul marching through the flat with authority, that confidence that came with being recognized for a professional skill set, rather than the incidental patchwork of knowledge that Angel had. Then there was the way she felt when she learned a new skill, when she did something that helped Mr. Vijay’s healing. There was also the bleakness of the nursing homes on the tours that she took with Sumanthi and her certainty that she could make improvements.
Last night, Angel finally replied to all the families she had interviewed with; she told each one that she would consider a position only if they gave her time to undertake her studies in her training programme. The woman who had met her in Toast Box was the first to reply: I am very disappointed that you are already asking for time off. You would be lucky to work for our family, and you are taking advantage of the situation.
The family with the teenage son who was learning Tagalog said that they had decided on another helper, but they wished her the best of luck with her studies. The Tiong Bahru couple with the baby hadn’t replied until this morning.
Hi, Angel! Zamir wrote. We have discussed it, and we’re willing to work out an arrangement. Shu-yen’s mother will come over twice a week to take care of the baby during the day so that you are able to do your coursework. You will have all Sundays off, so you can attend your classes.
Then Angel did something she had never done before, something that made her feel both bold and foolish. Good morning, sir, she wrote. I would like these terms to be put in writing, please. It took only a few minutes for him to reply, Yes, of course. Not long after, she opened her messages to find an attached contract. It filled her with emotion to see her duties, hours, and pay typed in black ink.
The German family in Mount Sophia contacted Angel to say that none of their interviews had been successful and the position was still open. The ma’am sent Angel her list of requirements—everything from height to temperament was listed—and asked her to circulate it among her “maid community.” Angel didn’t reply. That ma’am is probably still trawling the direct-hire Facebook groups in search of the perfect worker, Angel thinks. She is likely a member of the employer groups as well, where the gossip about Donita and Flordeliza must be thriving.
On the pebbled footpath, some elderly people are doing their morning reflexology exercises. They grip the steel railings and make a painstaking journey across the round stones that knead into their soles, driving the blood in their veins to course through their bodies. Angel notices Mr. Vijay watching them and it makes her sad. It was one of her goals to teach him to walk again so he could step barefoot on those pebbles too. “Nurul will get you walking,” Angel tells him. “She will know how to help you.”
