Now You See Us, page 28
Mr. Vijay offers Angel a small smile. “She will,” Angel insists. She pats Mr. Vijay’s hands, which are folded together on his lap. The clouds that hovered over the park earlier have shifted, and the afternoon sun prickles her skin. Angel wheels Mr. Vijay home; she sees Rubylyn, the helper from upstairs, emerging from their building. The toddler under her care is collecting the bright red beads of saga seeds that have fallen onto the ground. “Not for eating, okay? It’s not candy,” Rubylyn says. She fishes a folded paper cup from her pocket and tells him to put the seeds in there. Her face lights up when she sees Angel approaching.
“How many days left?” she asks.
“One more week,” Angel says. She is supposed to spend this week sorting out the apartment to make it easier for Sumanthi to manage when things inevitably crack or break or run out of batteries, but when Nurul called to say she was held up this morning, Angel took the opportunity to steal some time with Mr. Vijay.
“You’re looking forward to your new job?”
Angel nods. “They seem like good people.”
“That’s a relief.” Rubylyn lowers her voice. “Have you heard about what’s happening tonight?”
“No, what’s going on?”
Rubylyn pulls out her phone and shows Angel a message: Tonight, eight p.m., we make our voices heard. Stand at your kitchen or bedroom window and shine your phone’s flashlight to show solidarity for Flordeliza Martinez.
It’s ridiculous. Nobody will show up. These sorts of things have circulated before, although the dates and times were not as specific. Ladies, we call for a strike this week. Refuse to wash the dishes! Don’t pick up the kids from school! See what happens!
Angel stifles a smile. Rubylyn arrived in Singapore only a year ago. She doesn’t realize that protests don’t happen here. Ever since Donita’s video was released, the comments have piled up and Angel has been keeping track. Some people suggest storming the police station or marching in the streets. It’s all fanciful thinking. Angel indulges her anyway. “I’m glad people are going to say something. Hopefully the police will listen.”
“They’d better. Imagine if we all stopped working. Imagine what would happen to this country.”
Angel has fantasized about this scenario. Those skyline centrepieces would shine only in an architect’s imagination; that reclaimed land on the island’s edge would once more be underwater. In houses, dishes would become crusty with old food stains, curtains would grow furry coats of dust, and plants would shrivel into nothingness. Mustiness would replace the smell of air freshener and clean laundry. Children would wander the streets, not knowing how to get home after school. The windows would be left open, and after storms, spider wasps would pack their conical dirt nests against the sturdy surfaces of bookcases and bed frames.
“They wouldn’t know what hit them,” Angel offers.
Rubylyn giggles appreciatively. “My ma’am is most grateful for me after my day off. She joked the other day that she’s always ready to give her children away by Sunday evening.”
Angel watches the toddler burying his face in Rubylyn’s thigh, and she gives him a tickle that makes him squeal. They have never stopped to talk for this long before. Rubylyn begins to tell Angel about her sore calves from a long walk she took with friends along the rail corridor on Sunday, but midsentence, the toddler begins to give chase to a pigeon, and Rubylyn chases after him. Angel watches the way she tosses her hair and turns slightly to give Angel a view of her side profile and it occurs to her that Rubylyn has been trying to talk to her for a while.
“You can text me, you know,” Angel says. She feels as if she has forgotten how to do this. “I mean, if you need any help.”
Rubylyn’s smile is like honey.
“I know,” she says, her eyes lingering on Angel’s.
At home, after Mr. Vijay is settled in his chair on the balcony and the dogs have had their morning treat, Angel looks at the nurse-training application again. She considers writing I want to learn these skills and change my career so I can grow as a person. Immediately, she hears Joy’s teasing voice: You want to grow? Have another empanada. She smiles to herself. I want to care for others, she finally writes. It is probably what everybody else has written, but there isn’t a better way to describe her ambition. If she is honest, she wants to be cared for as well, and she knows this will come. She thinks of the way Rubylyn’s smile was like sunlight glancing off the trees in the park.
It gives Angel the courage to reply to Joy. Joy’s employer has finally given her phone privileges. Her husband conveyed this information to Angel last night by text, but Joy had already sent Angel several video messages by that point. “I’m too tired to type, I’ll just talk,” she began and launched into a summary of everything she had been through since coming to Saudi Arabia. Her lips are cracking and her hair is limp in the dry, air-conditioned world of her employers’ home. Even the buildings are beige here, because why bother with colour when dust storms coat every surface? The men wear white thobes, the women wear black abayas. The walls are high so nobody can see into the home, which has different entrances for men and women. In another message, Joy describes the way the trees are watered, each with its own tiny irrigation system, and the swollen black dates that droop from the branches. She sets an alarm to wake her up at two a.m. so she can help her daughters with their homework questions over FaceTime before they have to go to school. Her crucifix and Bible had to stay behind in Bulacan, but she worships in her heart.
In her hunger for all that she has been missing from her sister, Angel hasn’t yet replied with any updates of her own. Her life is worlds away from anything Joy knows right now. Even a glimpse out the window would reveal such different landscapes—for Angel, it is the plumes of greenery; for Joy, endless miles of sand. There was a murder, Angel imagines herself typing, and I think I’ve helped to solve it. This morning, a headline came up: “Is Donita Tugade a Performance Artist?” Angel read through the comments to find that most people wanted to know where she was now and if the video was a hoax, as the newspapers were suggesting. Only Angel and Cora know that Donita has moved to a migrant workers’ shelter whose representatives picked her up from the dormitory after a call from Wes. Her last message on the group chat was a picture of the clean room she was sleeping in.
Angel starts by typing: Dearest Joy, there is so much I want to say to you. I have wanted to talk to you about these things for a while now, but I’ve been afraid. I didn’t want to ruin our relationship after things became strained already during my last visit.
Soon, Angel’s fingers can’t keep up with her thoughts, and she finds herself whispering her sentiments. As her voice gets louder and clearer, she turns on the Record function in her WhatsApp so she can do what Joy has been doing—send a video message. She paces her bedroom and narrates the truths of her life to the person who knows her best, who cannot interrupt her this time. “Joy, I am a lesbian. I like women. I loved my ex-girlfriend Suzan. She was not a replacement for something I couldn’t have; she was everything I wanted to have. You didn’t believe my heartbreak was real because it was not the kind of love that seems natural to you, but I know that this love is like any other. You have to trust that this is true.”
It is a few minutes past eight p.m. now, and, as Angel predicted, there is no protest. The windows in the surrounding buildings are as blank as always. She continues talking to Joy.
“It took a lot of strength for me to tell you about who I am. I wanted you to know because I needed you to accept me. Remember that time I fell while playing patintero with the older kids? You crouched next to me and told me to look up at the sky to keep the tears from falling, and it worked. And the time your husband remarked that I laughed like a hyena, and you retorted that he didn’t have such a great laugh himself. That was the sister I wanted then.”
A hooting sound from outside interrupts Angel’s message, and it’s just as well, because her voice was beginning to break. She takes a deep breath, vowing to get through this message without crying, when another sound pierces the air. It’s a distinctly human whoop.
Angel pauses her recording and goes to the window. She sees nothing but the shadows of the trees and the nighttime landscape of glass windows but there is a tiny bright flash in one of the windows, followed by a shout: “Free Flordeliza Martinez!” There is applause and cheering, and then a few more lights appear. “We want freedom for Flordeliza!” somebody hollers.
The lights and cheers are scattered at first, but Angel watches in disbelief as they begin to grow. Could this really be happening? She closes her eyes and listens to the protests ringing out into the night sky. The scattered shouts become chants: “Flor-de-li-za! Flor-de-li-za! Flor-de-li-za!” Light after light after light appears, and soon it feels as if the entire block has erupted in demands for Flordeliza’s freedom. The lights are on in nearly every window, joining together to form one strong bolt.
Her throat has gone dry; she wants to join in, but she is stunned. The hairs on her arms stand on end. “Freedom for Donita Tugade!” somebody else yells, followed by a burst of cheers that reminds Angel of flocks of mynahs that lift off from the nature reserve’s branches in unison at sunset. She turns on her recording and scans the street with her camera so Joy will be able to see this too. “Do you see this, Joy?” Angel asks. “This is happening in Singapore.”
“Free Flordeliza Martinez!” This shout is nearby. Angel cranes her neck to see Sumanthi standing on the balcony, holding up her cell phone’s flashlight. “We want justice for Flordeliza and Donita!” a man shouts, then he repeats the phrase in Chinese. Pots and pans clamour noisily against window rails, followed by more whoops and cheers. A bass beat starts to throb between the apartment buildings. Somebody has brought an electric guitar into this. An accompanying drumbeat begins to rattle the skies like thunder. Angel sees more pinpoints of flashlights. “We’re in our own homes!” a woman shouts, and Angel laughs. It’s brilliant. The police can’t call it a public assembly if people are simply shouting out of their windows. And how would they know whom to arrest? From where Angel is standing, it appears that the whole island is cheering for Flor.
Her arms are covered in goose bumps. There is a message on her phone from Rubylyn.
It’s happening!
Angel will finish her message to Joy later. For now, she wants to stand at her window and watch these beams of light. It might never happen again. She closes her eyes and tips her head to the sky. A chorus of “Amazing Grace” has started and she can hear Rubylyn’s voice joining in from above.
Epilogue
Three Months Later . . .
In daylight, Cora can still see the confetti littering the driveway. She picks a few strands of foil streamers from the hedges as she leaves the Lee residence, even though Ma’am Elizabeth added a party-cleaning service to today’s Sunday crew so Cora wouldn’t have to do the work. For the finale of her bachelorette party, Jacqueline’s bridesmaids brought her home for a night of reminiscing. Ma’am Elizabeth greeted them at the door with a knowing smile, having coordinated this with Cecilia, who ran straight from the limo to the guest bathroom to throw up.
Cora will not be attending the wedding this afternoon. She informed Ma’am Elizabeth of her decision as four barefoot bridesmaids traipsed around the garden, spraying champagne on one another. Cora could not imagine spending her Sunday off with this lot. She’d have to smile politely all day and fend off the guests’ constant requests for her to refill their glasses. Ma’am Elizabeth understood and didn’t ask her to reconsider.
Instead, Cora is spending her Sunday at the Botanic Gardens. It is a short walk, but she takes a longer route through the neighbourhood because she is early for her picnic with Angel. These sloping suburban streets are even quieter on Sundays. The thin branch of a young tree dips under the weight of two crooning bulbuls, and frangipani petals lay scattered on the path to the bus stop. Cora catches a flash of long legs peeking out from a miniskirt, and she almost calls out “Donita!” before the woman turns and Cora sees it is actually a teenager from the house down the street.
She has run into Donita a few times since that Japanese family in Tanglin hired her. They live with a King Charles spaniel that Donita simultaneously complains about and poses for photographs with on her social media pages. This silly little fool, she posted yesterday, along with a picture of her stroking his drooping ears. Her work seems to revolve around walking, grooming, feeding, and training the dog. She bakes special pies for him and takes him to playdates with other dogs in the area.
Cora thinks it’s all absurd, and sometimes she wants to remind Donita that she got lucky with that new job. Her employers give her every Sunday and public holiday off, and they pay her reasonably well. She had her pick of employers after her video about Flordeliza came out, and she has become a social media star in Singapore—the first domestic worker with a massive online following. Cora clicked on Donita’s TikTok link one day and had no idea what was going on—music videos, voice-overs, filters distorting Donita’s face as she talked. After coming across something called the Hot Bae Challenge, Cora decided she didn’t need to understand Donita’s life. What mattered was that she was thriving.
Some people are still calling for Donita to be punished, of course. They tend to be anonymous commenters, but Cora forces herself to scroll through everything they say because she knows that Donita will not. It used to upset her, seeing all the ugly things that people said when they could hide behind pseudonyms—the continuing accusations of murder, the broad strokes with which they painted all Filipino women. One person who called herself @Flordeliza_the_Killer wrote: They let me get away with murder! Who will be my next victim?
The local press hasn’t said much about Flordeliza Martinez since the charges were dropped. She was last publicly mentioned in a terse news article stating that she had returned to the Philippines. With the SAGE reelections dominating the headlines—“Thousands Show Up to Suntec Convention Centre!” “SAGE Original Executive Committee Restored!” “A Win for Feminists!”—there wasn’t much room to follow Flor’s story, but there was the distraction factor as well. Nobody wants to admit how poorly the investigation was handled, how Flor was presumed guilty without any concrete evidence. The headlines about SAGE give people confidence that justice and good sense always prevail.
Cora finally had a chance to meet and talk to Flor one afternoon when Donita patched her and Angel in on a video call.
“She wants to thank you both for your help,” Donita said.
On the call, it was hard to ignore how diminished Flor looked compared to the photographs of her in the newspapers, which had been taken from social media. Her face looked gaunt and her smile was thin.
“I don’t have the words to tell you both how grateful I am,” she said in Tagalog, her voice cracking.
Later, Angel told Cora that the phone call had made her feel sad. Cora said, “It’s still early. She’ll take time to heal from everything.”
They receive updates from Donita: Flor is back in the Philippines with her daughter. She has taken over an ailing aunt’s sari-sari shop, and she has plans to work abroad again, in Hong Kong, perhaps, or Qatar. So far, no agent has wanted to take her on without a huge deposit—collateral, in case she gets into trouble again.
In private, Donita rails against the unfairness of Flor’s situation.
“She didn’t do anything wrong, and now she is marked forever? Why is she still paying the price for being falsely accused?” she asked Cora one afternoon when they ran into each other in the car park of the local shopping mall. Cora refrained from saying, This is how it is. She knew it was useless, so she gave Donita a tight hug. It surprised both of them.
“Be careful, okay?” Cora said.
She checks Donita’s videos every day. She reads the comments. She keeps watch, whether Donita wants her there or not. The best videos are the ones featuring Sanjeev. He tends to look down shyly, but there are moments when his gaze lands on Donita, and anybody can see that he has trouble looking away from her. Cora was happy to hear from Donita that Sanjeev decided not to hide their relationship from his friends and family.
“They are still getting used to the idea, and maybe it will take them some time to accept it, but the important thing is honesty,” Donita said in a TikTok video in which she invited domestic workers to share their challenges navigating romance in Singapore. She got a huge reaction to that one. It went viral. Donita + Sanjeev = Singapore’s #1 Couple, somebody commented on Donita’s YouTube page. Genuine love is so nice to see, another person agreed, and the trolls could not gain any traction or support for their racist comments. This is the kind of thing that gives Cora hope. It means that things could change.
The gardens are bustling because it is the kind of day that happens only a handful of times in a year, when the air is cool but the sky shows no hint of an oncoming storm. Cora keeps in step with the families and walking tours at the entrance, but she breaks away to the path leading to the pond where Angel said to meet. A large gazebo overlooks the water, and the fields stretch out on both sides. As Cora approaches, she notices two figures in the gazebo, and she pauses. Rubylyn is there too. She flicks Angel’s hair away from her face and says something to make her laugh.
On my way. Cora sends the message to Angel as she turns to walk in the opposite direction. It’s not that she disapproves of their relationship or dislikes Rubylyn, but it’s getting harder to spend time with Angel alone, and she misses her friend. Angel has become completely absorbed in her relationship—just look at the way she and Rubylyn appear to be attached at the hip, their silhouettes in the gazebo melding into one double-headed figure. Cora has things to tell Angel that Rubylyn wouldn’t understand: The bachelorette party and Ma’am Elizabeth’s patience wearing thin as the bridesmaids overstayed their welcome; the accidental message Cora and Angel received from Donita a few days ago on their group chat—a picture of her bare breasts that was surely meant for Sanjeev; the way she has started tentatively looking at old photos of Raymond, even though the pain of raw grief still terrifies her.
