of happy endings
When I was five years old, my parents hired a maid (I never realized that the term maid was derogatory in nature until I came to america. Nanny or housekeeper would be more appropriate but I still use the word maid because in my mind it reminds me of one of the closest persons in my life and doesn't mean anything offensive to me). The reason was because both my parents were working and hence since young, my sister and I needed a maid to take care of us. The first time I met Gina (her real name is Virginia Umayam, as filipino names are essentially spanish or tagalog in nature), I could still rem my parents kinda interviewing her in a room and I was crawling and jumping around the whole room. And then I somehow or another managed to crawl under a sofa and then looked up at her and smiled. She smiled back and I thought that she was such a nice and warm person. My parents decided to hire her and we went to McDonald's for lunch (which was a big YAY for an almost 5 year old kid). YAY!
Gina had a diploma from a polytechnic-equivalent school in Philippines. In fact, my family soon realized that her spoken English was pretty superb and since my parents weren't at home most of the time anyway, I learned most of my English from her. As all filipinas do, she eventually formed a network with the other filipina maids and soon was going downstairs to chat with her newfound friends all the time. Every day, my dad would leave me a list of words to memorize their spellings before he left for work(crazy rite?) and she would try to force me to remember them (it didn't work and my dad always liked to use the cane). Every night, she would read me a bedtime story before I went to bed. I thought that she was an angel in my life.
When I entered Primary One, things took on a slightly different turn. Gina always picked me up at the place where the schoolbus dropped me off after school. But sometimes, and increasingly often, she would come in someone else's Mercedes to pick me up. The Indian man driving the car was called Mr Osman and he was this rich charming man that would take us out for lunch for KFC or chinese restaurants. Little kids don't really understand the complexity of the world and it took me another year to understand that this man was her boyfriend. Nonetheless, I promised Gina not to tell my mom since he was a nice man and took me out to lunch with Gina at times.
When we were out at lunch once, Mr Osman took a picture of me eating at the table at a restaurant once and I smiled back so happily. He developed it and gave it to Gina, who eventually gave it to me. That picture, of course, came to mean something else to me in years to come.
By the time I was in secondary school, I had come to realize that Mr Osman was actually a married man. Which meant that Gina was his mistress. But that word never came to my mind, because in my mind, if two people like each other, then the relationship would be as legitimate as any other. But of course, things were a little darker when you understand that married men should not have affairs outside of their marriages. Things got worse when his wife found out and constantly called our home and I was always the best person to run and pick up the phone to say "wrong number" so that my mom wouldn't suspect anything.
When I was in upper sec, Gina's mood turned horrendous for a very long time. She wouldn't cook lunch for me on some days (which explains my love for instant noodles) and was pretty fierce and hostile to me sometimes. I was a little sad because I didn't interact with my parents much and she meant a lot to me and my sister. I only remembered that just before her mood went bad, she had came home one sunday (her off day) crying, because she admitted that she had finally slept with Mr Osman. Secondary school kids seem to know everything about sex these days, but to be honest, I really didn't completely understand it and I wasn't judgemental too. I mean, the relationship, though an affair, was stable for so many years before they finally succumbed to sex. That was like, more than 5 years, before they did it? I don't think anyone can judge them for that. But of course, I kinda felt sad in my mind for Gina too.
It was only a year later that Gina admitted to my sis and I that she had been pregnant then. When she told Mr Osman, he was shocked and she was harbouring hopes that he would marry her one day, which he promised to do so all the time (incessantly saying that he would divorce his wife "soon"). He brought her out and made her drink something weird, and before she knew it, she was bleeding down under and he then quickly brought her to a quack doctor in Geylang where an extremely dangerous and unhygenic operation was performed on her to remove the dead foetus. Yes, Mr Osman had killed his own child because like most men, he didn't wanted to be tied down by a kid from an affair.
Gina refused to see him again after that. But she was also a changed person; harsh and hostile from the bitter betrayal.
When I reached upper secondary, Gina met a Filipino engineer who was working in Singapore. He commanded a pretty high pay and they fell in love very quickly. Within a year, Gina had decided that they would return to Philippines to get married and hence she would have to leave our household. By that time, I was in junior college and she had been with us for 14 years and was already 33 or 34 years old. On the day that she left, I told her to call my handphone at the airport since I was gonna be at school. When she called, I was very cheerful and wished her all the best.
But after I hanged up, I just broke down and wanted to cry out loud. In my heart, I was wishing so hard that she would have a happy ending. A HAPPY ENDING. Isn't that something that all good people deserve to get at the end of the day? Isn't that something we are taught since young in school that we could have if we were good? Didn't cinderella live happily ever after with her prince?
We kept in contact and soon, the news was broken to us. Gina couldn't have kids for him and he soon decided to come back to work in Singapore. Worse still, she had a cancer tumor in her uterus and needed surgery. At that point, I felt a stabbing sensation of pain in my heart because this was one person I wanted so badly to have a happy ending. She had spent her whole life working as a maid just so that she could remit money back to support her family and this had to happen to her. She eventually came back to Singapore 1.5 years ago, because she wanted to spy on her husband to see if he was cheating on her (the answer was yes). My sis and I tried to give her some money but she refused to accept any. She met up with my sis' boyfriend too (my current brother-in-law) and I thought it was so wonderful for her to see us all grown up.
After she returned to Philippines, one day, my mom found an old photo album in our drawers and there was a picture of 6 years-old me sitting in a chinese restaurant smiling at the camera. I was in my acs school uniform and was having lunch. My mom asked me why I was having lunch at a restaurant when I was in primary school (since all primary one school kids seem to go home for lunch then) and who took the picture of me. I stammered for a long time. I couldn't help but look at the picture and ponder about all the memories.
Eventually, he divorced her "unofficially" (she said that they had a wedding certificate from the village council but that didn't count or something like that). She tried opening a restaurant in the village but no one came to eat, since everyone cooked at home. She then reared pigs and she told me that she bought them right out of their moms' bellies and they took her as their mom. For many months, she fed them and bathed them and slept with them. Then, the day when they were slaughtered came and Gina brought them to the slaughter house. The first pig was slaughtered and she began to cry. Then the second one. And the third. As the slaughtering went on, one of her favourite pigs ran towards her and because he was so fat, he fell and broke his leg. He collapsed by her feet and just kept crying out to her. She cried so badly at the end of the day that even after she received a handsome sum for the many pigs, she swore never to do it again. I really teared when she told me this.
The most recent job that she told me of was being a loan shark. Apparently, a woman in her late 30s or early 40s could afford to be a loan shark because she had "big burly men" as subordinates who would help her collect debts too. Talk about entrepeneurship!
I remembered that Gina loved rosaries because when we went to Turkey together, she bought one that was blessed for her mom. So when I went to Washington D.C. last spring, I bought one for her and sent it with a postcard from St. Louis.
This summer, when I got back to Singapore, I felt really bad because I hadn't talked to her for a full year already (reason being that we call her every aug because it's her birthday, by hook or by crook, and because my academic year was so busy, I hadn't made any contact with her for a year since her previous birthday). When my sis and I tried to call her this time to wish her happy birthday, the line had been cut. I felt a sense of loss immediately, cos I didn't know if that meant the one and only link had been broken (I lost her address, plus she changed homes often).
A day before I returned to St. Louis, an army friend asked me to find an engineering textbook for him at my home, since my sis was a mechanical engineer. When I opened up the cardboard box, I realized that it was infested with termites, and so was the box below. The sight was just plain disgusting and my whole family scrambled to kill them. The termites had eaten through most of the paper and stuff inside and everything was basically "brown ash". We began placing everything in plastic bags and making trips to the central chute to dispose of them. As we threw the last bag away, I suddenly remembered that the photo album with me sitting in the restaurant eating lunch when I was 6 should be in that box. I returned to my room and like the time that Gina left to return to Philippines, I broke down again.
Where exactly are happy endings? Do they even exist? Or do we think that they do, and hence struggle from place to place, point to point, time to time, relationship to relationship, hoping that one day we would have a happy ending?
You know what? I want to backpack Philippines until I find you one day, Gina. I really wished you had a happy ending.
fuck