eyes, and though Ligaya is too modest to say so aloud, hers are iden-
tical. Unlike Ligaya and her mother, Uncle Andres has tufts of hair
growing from his ears. Ligaya will think of these when she asks him
for the money.
As she engages Uncle Andres in small talk of home, she fingers
the gold cross at her throat, her gift from Mister Poon. Pure gold, she
thinks. After she put Hui to sleep on Christmas night, she retreated
to her closet and discovered the small square of mango-coloured
paper next to her mattress, this golden necklace inside. At the Poons’
apartment, Ligaya wears the cross tucked deep into her maid’s smock
where Madam Poon will never see it. Ligaya has learned that she
enjoys keeping secrets from Madam Poon. She focuses on the small
pendant warm against her skin as she scrubs the scrawny witch’s dirty
clothes. “Yes, ma’am. Sorry, ma’am. Right away, ma’am.” You know
nothing about my present, ma’am. It’s from your husband and rests flat
against my naked skin. Ma’am.
Ligaya thinks this secret of the pendant feels almost like love, but
it’s not that. The pendant—its touch of something that wasn’t hers
and now is, even if it shouldn’t be—gives Ligaya a rush of energy that
reminds her of love. Something given for free: such acts of kindness
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are rare in Ligaya’s Hong Kong life. But Ligaya has nearly finished
with Hong Kong. Uncle Andres will give her the money. It’s his
business. He owns a money-lending company in Manila. He will
give money to anybody who asks. The ease with which he parts with
money is matched only by the steepness of his interest rates.
“Business is business,” he says to Ligaya through the crackling
phone line, “and family is family. Money, that’s business. Always.”
She pictures the nuggets of wax clinging to his ear hairs, the mis-
cellaneous free-floating particles that have attached themselves to
those dense bushes. Each hair contains a galaxy of life. “Yes, I know,
Uncle. I will pay the interest. You needn’t worry.” People of her vil-
lage say that a man with low morals has a horizontal intestine. Uncle
Andres’ intestine is maybe only a little diagonal.
Ligaya watches Corazon across the street with the other girls,
bright blankets across their laps. They look demure and innocent from
this distance, but Ligaya knows the blankets are props to hide their
gambling cards.
Ligaya conducts her business with Uncle Andres quickly. If she lin-
gers, she will think of the interest building on the money she already
borrowed to get to Hong Kong. If she lets her thoughts go there, her
legs weaken and her intestines turn to cold water. Corazon will have
to pick Ligaya off the pavement and drag her back to the Poons’ high
rise. She owes Uncle Andres far more money than she’s made in her
entire life. More money than all of her family added together has
earned, ever. But, she tells herself for the tenth time today, she just has
to make it to North America—there she will find opportunity. That’s
where it is, everybody knows. Instead of thinking of money, she imag-
ines telling Madam Poon she is soon leaving. Ligaya will spend her
final weeks in Hong Kong sleeping late and eating whatever leftovers
catch her fancy. Let the wild-limbed witch yell.
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Before Ligaya ends the call, Uncle Andres tells her that he has
visited Taal for business and climbed up to her hillside village to see
the family. “Those American do-gooders have been over with their
help again,” he laughs, two sheets of sandpaper rubbing together at
the bottom of his throat. “Thousands of dollars of toilets, carted across
the ocean to a town that has no plumbing.” The sandpaper rubs again.
Ligaya feels obliged to offer a titter from her end of the line. Those
silly aid workers, her tinny laugh says. Uncle Andres continues. “The
Kapitan and Konsehal declared: ‘Turn the toilets into planters! They
will decorate the town square!’ Ingenious. A big circle of shitters filled
with red and yellow santans right in the middle of the village: an ode
to North American generosity.” The sandpaper has moved to the top
from her ear.
She’s in the deep toilet planters with those flowers, dirt up to her
neck, her face in full bloom. She knows the grating sound of Uncle
Andres’ laugh will haunt her for a week.
The rain falls harder and the wind blows icy sheets of it into her
face. She presses her body firmly into the wall and puts her nose down
the neck of her jacket. “But, you have to credit the crazy Americans
this time: it’s the first time their aid has not done actual harm,” Uncle
Andres concludes. “Just imagine! A whole garden full of shitters!”
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CHAPTER SEVEN
“We’re getting a new nanny! ” Vero hears the way she and Shane
say it, as if they’re getting a new station wagon or a new fridge. A new
pair of designer jeans. The sentence sends a shiver of displeasure down
her spine. Her whole body clenches, the way it does late at night,
moments before her babies cry, or after a crystal glass falls from the
counter but before it smashes on the floor.
“I know, I know,” she says to Joss. “It’s…I know.”
Joss holds Vero in her gaze. Joss’s brow doesn’t furrow. Her eyes
don’t squint. She chews her bottom lip and looks. Finally, she says
simply, “It’s whatever you make it, Vero. Be good to her.”
“But who’s my old nanny?” Eliot asks. “You said this is my new
nanny, but then who is my old nanny?” His eyebrows squish together
as he puzzles over this language trick.
“Nobody, Eliot honey, this will be your first nanny. First real nanny.
Before this, we just had babysitters. Part-time nannies.” All the fight
has gone out of Vero. The Pantry Incident, as she and Shane call it,
has forced Vero to admit she needs help. The degree of that need
is, so to speak, completely out of the closet. In the evenings, after
the boys go to bed, Vero works her way through nanny profiles. She
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reads out details to Shane as he grunts his way through his nightly
floor exercises and avoids looking at him while he crunches and lifts.
She cannot bear the desperation with which he fights this partic-
ular battle, imagining a darkly cloaked figure wielding a dangerous
farming implement, looming above him and chortling, “Do as many
abdominal crunches as you like, my sweaty friend, you’re still on the
one-way highway that leads straight to my house.”
Within a week, she and Shane narrow the nanny field: no women
with kids back home (that they couldn’t handle); no women over thir-
ty-five (how could a middle-
aged woman keep up with these two
“active” boys all day?); no women without excellent English (Vero and
Shane want help, not a pet project). Their nanny will need as much
of a foot up as she can get. Once Vero narrows the pile to six, she
arranges an interview day with Bernie at the agency.
Bernie urges Vero to narrow her selections to three. “No sense
wasting your time with so many phone interviews. Go with your gut
instinct. You’ll know.” Vero looks at the pictures again and narrows
the choices once more, picking the three women who look nicest. But
what does “nice” look like? Maybe she just picks the three prettiest.
After dinner on the chosen Sunday, she passes the kids off to
Shane. He stands over the kitchen sink with a beer mug full of orange
Metamucil and water—the cure for some digestive issues, the details
of which he hasn’t, thankfully, shared with Vero. He looks at that mug
of solidifying liquid the way he used to look at a smouldering joint
just before he took his first toke, the anticipation nearly as pleasurable
as the effect. Shane Schoeman knows how to party.
As she heads upstairs with the phone, he gives her a thumbs-up of
encouragement and puts his mouth to the lip of the mug.
While Vero waits for the phone call from the Hong Kong agency,
nerves rumble her stomach, a field mouse running laps deep in her
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gut, as if she’s the one being interviewed. Vero uses the office above
the garage because it’s quietest. She sits on the floor in the window
nook. She’s rarely been in the office since having kids. She forgot
about the view—one of the features that inspired them to buy this
house—of rolling hills thick with trees and, in the far distance, just
a glimmer of lake. “Waterfront property,” they’d exaggerated when
they first moved in, cuddled in this nook, sharing a bottle of Vero’s
favourite Malbec.
Mayumi calls first. Twenty-eight years old. She has three girls
of her own in the Philippines and currently cares for an eighteen-
month-old boy in Hong Kong. Shane and Vero agreed, in the end,
to interview one woman with kids. Who were they to judge? What
did they know of these people’s hardships? Besides, Mayumi already
lives in Hong Kong away from her children. Wouldn’t it be better
to allow her to live in North America where she could create a real
future for her family? Vero looks at Mayumi’s card as she talks to her
and imagines that the weight of her life shows in the few thin lines at
the corners of her eyes.
“Why do you want to come to Canada?” Vero asks, her mouth so
close to the receiver she feels her own breath.
“Yes, I come, ma’am!” Mayumi sounds nervous, her words too
shaky, too emphatic. Her thick accent makes it difficult to understand
her, even this short sentence.
Vero feels uneasy about asking the same question again, but she and
Shane had insisted upon this one point: they need someone with good
English. They’re bringing the woman here because they want help. It’s
not an act of charity. “Thank you. Yes. But, um, why, Mayumi, why is
it that you would like to come to Canada?” Vero yells the one syllable
into the phone: why?! She thinks of Gregory Schoeman’s loud What
do you people eat for Christmas? Give us it all! Again, she feels that
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sickening rush of energy up her spine and pictures a glass just before
it smashes.
“I come now, ma’am. I come whenever you ask. You say come, I
come. I do everything. I be what you want. I do laundry. I do bath.
Food. Bathroom. Kids. I do all. I come. I make you life easy! I do all!”
The words come fast, as if Mayumi has committed them to memory
and practiced until she simply opens the crater of her mouth and they
gush out.
The tentacles of Mayumi’s desperation reach for Vero through the
phone line as she runs her fingers across the office floor’s berber carpet
which, according to the designer magazines, is a shade of espresso—
never merely brown. Shane recently hired someone to shampoo the
carpet, and the soapy aroma wafts up at her. She studies Shane’s
bookshelves: manuals of golf tips at the bottom, bottles of scotch at
the top, biking magazines spread out at its base, with articles such as:
The Highs and Lows of the Home Mechanic
Don’t Be a Hard Ass: Finding the Best Brands of Bike Shorts
Descend with Confidence: Learning How to Go Down
Days of Suffering: Training Tips from the Pros
Vero’s eyes water. She doesn’t know why.
Vero does not know this woman, she tells herself, taking a deep
breath. She does not owe this woman anything. But because she
wants to be kind, wants to help, because she is generous, Vero gives
her one more chance. She looks out of the window, framing her next
question. Spring has arrived early this year, and the trees are already
turning green. But she’s been in Sprucedale too long to be fooled into
optimism. It will snow again.
“Is there any particular reason you’ve chosen Canada, Mayumi?”
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“I do whatever you want, ma’am. Anything.”
Vero doesn’t ask any of the agency questions, though Mayumi has
likely memorized answers to many of them. She doesn’t ask what
Mayumi will do if Jamal refuses to eat his broccoli. She doesn’t ask
how Mayumi will respond when Eliot kicks his little brother. Vero
knows she must be firm on this one point, about the English.
“Thank you, Mayumi. It’s been nice talking to you. Goodbye.”
The poor overseas connection makes it impossible to know for sure,
but Vero thinks Mayumi’s voice breaks when she repeats Vero’s final
word: goodbye.
Vero rifles through her small deck of nanny cards fighting off tears
for this woman who apparently doesn’t understand the simple ques-
tion “Why?” yet wants to come to North America to make a better
life for her children. I know why she wants to come, thinks Vero. Why
did I keep asking when I already know? Suddenly, she’s angry. Angry at
Shane, at Bernie, at the Schoemans, at Mayumi.
She pulls Iska’s card from the deck and places it on top of the small
pile. Iska, the card says, is twenty-four years old with no kids and cur-
rently cares for two school-aged girls in Hong Kong. The card claims
she has six years’ experience. Iska looks younger than twenty-four in
her picture; two long braids hanging to her shoulders, yellow bows
tied at the bottom of both. When the phone rings, Vero already feels
less optimistic; her hello is wary. Mayumi’s desperation has blown a
cavernous hole in the stage-set of this whole nanny operation. Vero
can see the wires.
“Hello, ma’am. My name is Iska. I apply for your position. In
Canada.”
“Thank you, Iska. Thank you for calling. And why is it that you
would like to come to Canada?” The field mouse increases the pace of
its laps in Vero’s stomach as she asks her question, again.
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“I love to come there and help your family. I see pictures on the
Internet. Very beautiful country. I hope to make home for me and,
one day, for my family.” Iska’s accent is heavy, but not like Mayumi’s.
Vero has no trouble understanding Iska.
“You’re working with girls now, I see.” Bernie told Vero to always
ask questions. Otherwise, the Filipina women won’t know they’re
expected to respond. This sentence escapes Vero’s mouth before she
realizes it isn’t a question. She tries again, “Do you especially like
working with girls?”
“I love girls. I love to do their hair. I make braids and bows! So
pretty! Girls always so cute.” Iska giggles. Vero sees that she has set
Iska up, posed a trick question. There’s an awkward pause during
which Iska remembers that Vero has only boys. “I sing them songs
too. I love all children.” She giggles again. “I do nice things with boys
and girls.”
“So,” Vero reads from the question sheet provided by the agency.
“Let’s imagine you’ve taken my boys to a program at the library. Jamal
wants to stay upstairs at the books, but Eliot wants to go downstairs
and do crafts. What do you do?” Vero nearly adds that they’re both
screaming, Eliot’s pounding his fists into his thighs and turning
purple, and Jamal’s biting her in the arm. But she decides to save that
information for another time.
“I talk to them both. I use reason, ma’am. I be calm. I convince
them it better to go downstairs now, ma’am, and then after, we look at
the books.” Vero imagines this girl in braids using reason with Jamal
while his teeth dig deeply into her wrist.
The agency website admits to the challenge posed by gauging a
stranger’s compatibility and competency based on one overseas phone
call, but also assures potential clients that asking the right questions
(the ones provided by the agency) will result in “the good personality
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and philosophical match that are imperative to selecting the best
nanny for your family.” Vero hopes Iska isn’t being as selective with