In the Country (13 page)

And so our Thursday parties resumed. We re-created the hams and rice cakes we'd eaten over Christmas and added new cassettes to our Minus One collections. Our husbands reopened their gambling dens. The babies destroyed the last of their new board games and stuffed animals. The teens discovered compact discs and shut themselves up in their rooms to play Depeche Mode and the Beastie Boys on repeat. Amid all our hostessing and gathering, we didn't notice, right away, who was missing. We heard it from the helpers first.

“Baby's found a place of her own,” announced her former roommate, Girlie.

“She drives herself to work now,” Dolly added, “instead of taking the bus.”

Later that week, at a traffic light, Lourdes Ocampo stopped and saw a black Saab to her left. Sunlight glanced off its windows, and a pair of dark glasses hid the driver's eyes. But there was no mistaking the orange hair, said Lourdes, or the long pale fingers on the steering wheel.

No one knew where the money came from. Baby didn't seem to be scrimping in other areas. Flor Bautista saw her buy a Persian rug in Adliya, while Vilma Bustamante spotted her leaving a pricey hair salon downtown. At the Suq, Rita Espiritu came across Baby trying on the nose chains and slave bracelets we'd refused to let our daughters wear.

“She must be moonlighting, then?” said Rowena Cruz, our constant Pollyanna. “Before her night shift at the bank? Maybe she's been cleaning houses, or watching someone's kids for extra cash.”

Whatever its source, Baby did not come explain her new windfall to us. She avoided our parties in February—even after her former flatmates accosted her at the time clock, even after Luz Salonga approached her in the parking lot outside Jawad's Cold Store. She may as well have donned a
niqab
for all we saw and understood of her new life.

By March, we'd all come to the same conclusion.

“What a disgrace,” said Luz Salonga.

“I suppose that cleaning offices on its own,” said Dulce deLumen, “can't keep you in jewelry and perfume for long.”

“She joined the family business after all,” said Rita Espiritu, who didn't mean the U.S. Navy.

Perhaps a Bahraini banker had eyed her shape while she vacuumed his office one night. Perhaps a British investor had copped a feel in the elevator. Perhaps Baby herself, her feet and shoulders aching more than usual one day, had wondered if this country of pearls and oil and gold, white yachts and ice-cold shopping complexes, might offer richer rewards for other exertions. In any case, something nudged her back into her mother's line of work, the seedy industry that claimed so many girls back home. We'd wanted to believe this island didn't deal in all of that, but our husbands called us naïve. “What do you think the lobby of the Two Seas Hotel is for?” they said. “Those girls aren't wearing housemaid uniforms.”

“Imagine,” said Fe Zaldivar, “coming all the way to the Middle East to do what she could've done in Olongapo.”

“It's one thing to do it
there,
” said Rosario Ledesma. “People lump us all together here.” This was true, and mostly worked in our favor. Now and then the sheikh himself declared his love for Filipinos, our cheerful, hardworking, and obedient tribe. And sometimes Bahraini women mistook us for their maids while shopping.
That'll teach me to dress better,
we'd joke, when the helpers couldn't hear.

Come March, Baby had stopped going to work.

“Her time card's missing from the rack,” said Girlie. A new Bangladeshi girl took over Baby's floors. We stopped seeing her in the Suq or at Jawad's. At most we'd find her in traffic, driving her black Saab behind dark glasses, like a film star who wished to elude the public.

“Where did we go wrong?” said Flor Bautista, as if she'd lost control of her own child. And we did feel that responsible for Baby. Back when we lived in Manila, our own country cousins had come to work for us as maids or
yaya,
supporting their children while they helped raise ours, hoping to climb into the middle class within a generation or two. If our rising tide lifted all boats, what did Baby's descent mean for us? If she could fall so fast from “maintenance” work to “hospitality,” just how far up
did
we live from the slop sink and the soil?

By spring Bongbong the gardener had proposed to Dolly the janitress, the happy coda to a match we'd orchestrated in September. We saw our chance to rescue Baby, if we acted fast. We bought
barong Tagalog
s for Bongbong and his groomsmen, a stiff
piña
gown for Dolly, bouquets and lavender dresses for the bridesmaids. Dolly chose her flatmates for attendants: Girlie, Tiny, Missy, Pinkie, and, at our urging, the woman who'd briefly lived and worked with them—Baby. What better showcase than a wedding, of the life that honest, decent work created? Didn't every girl, no matter how loose or eccentric, want the gown and cake in the end? We defied Baby to hear Mendelssohn's march or see the gold rings on their satin pillow and continue on her wayward path.

Of course, Baby said “Thanks-no” to the lavender dress. She didn't respond as a regular guest either. But we refused to give up. The next time Lourdes Ocampo saw the black Saab in traffic, she followed Baby home. As it turned out, “home” for Baby was not some run-down workers' village, but a small white bungalow near our own compound. Not far from the Evoras and deLumens—no former
katulong
we knew lived there.

“She got out wearing a black
abaya,
” said Lourdes, who'd idled her engine nearby. “Of all things.”

To see her new Muslim garb for ourselves—and really just to get poor Dolly her RSVP, we swore—we started following Baby too. Rosario Ledesma saw the
abaya,
but noted that Baby stopped short of covering her orange hair. “When she gathered up the hem to walk,” said Rosario, “I could still see the high heels underneath.” Dulce deLumen went so far as to knock on Baby's door, but the shades were drawn, and Baby didn't answer.

“She's found favor with an Arab,” Lourdes concluded.

No one had a better theory. Baby had receded from us, a hidden harem of one. What Rita Espiritu called her “family business” didn't explain the
abaya,
after all. It was true we'd never seen anyone, least of all an Arab, with her, but Lourdes countered that a man who could afford such a mistress could afford to keep her in a second home. “If you were his wife,” she said, “could
you
stand to have Baby around?”

This new hypothesis troubled us more than the first. If losing Baby to her mother's profession made us nervous, as if one of our children had joined a bad crowd, losing Baby to a world of mosques and
abaya
s and possible polygamy set off a more desperate alarm, as if one of our children had woken with a fever and was speaking in tongues. Without friends or her job at the Gulf Bank, what defense would Baby have against her new local benefactor? A few of our husbands' embassy ties could help, if only she'd let them.

But Dolly's wedding day arrived without any word from Baby. As Luz Salonga played the organ, we listened for high heels along the nave. As Father Almeida swung incense around the altar, we waited for the smell of Opium to pierce the smoke. As Dolly and Bongbong knelt, accepting a silk cord and pouch of coins from their sponsors, we still saw no sign of Baby. Soon the priest was blessing man and wife. Dolly turned, giggling at her new last name. “What a shame
she
isn't seeing this,” said Rowena Cruz.

We turned to watch Dolly and Bongbong recess past the pews. Before them, the church doors swung open, and the afternoon sun brightened the dim narthex, as if God Himself were easing and illuminating their path.

But it wasn't God at all. It was Baby who'd opened the doors and entered, wearing the black
abaya
we'd all seen or heard about by now. She turned sideways to nod at the newlyweds as they exited. And that was how she showed us.

Her shape had changed. The once slim, flat waistline had “popped,” as they say, tenting the black crepe out in front of her.

We looked to the altar, but Father Almeida had gone into the sacristy. We turned to our husbands, who only dropped their heads. Some of our teenagers trained the video cameras on her. We covered our babies' eyes. “Take them to the car now,” we said, and the men complied.

We filed out of the pews and circled her shyly, as if we were the maids and she the bride. Lourdes Ocampo guessed her to be six months along. But who could say for sure? Her proportions had never matched ours.

“I think she is farther gone than that,” said Luz Salonga.

Lourdes addressed her first. “We had no idea, Baby.” An admission of failure, from a woman we'd always relied on for the scoop.

“I suppose congratulations are in order,” said Dulce deLumen.

“If we can help in any way…” Rowena Cruz began.

That word
help
did relax us. We knew how to help an expectant mother. “Come to the reception, Baby,” said Paz Evora. “We've cooked enough at my place to feed an army! And we love to do it. Anytime we can feed you or the little one, just say the word.”

“Don't dream of buying any toys or clothes,” said Fe Zaldivar. “We've got more in boxes than our babies can use. Brand-new.”

“The teens would love to babysit,” said Vilma Bustamante, whether or not she believed this.

In the dim church, our words seemed to get through to Baby, or at least spook her. A hint of fear, like a trapped animal's, flashed in her eyes. This encouraged us. We gathered up the nerve to start offering the kind of help she truly needed.

“We'll throw another party,” Luz Salonga said, stepping forward, “when the child is baptized. The child will be baptized, Baby? Here in our church?”

“And attend Sunday school with our babies?” said Lourdes Ocampo.

“Of course
you'll
be her first teacher,” said Fe Zaldivar. “Children look to their mothers above all. My first pregnancy, I took the opportunity to…examine my life. It wasn't just
my
life anymore—do you know what I mean, Baby?”

“Cars and jewelry are one thing, Baby,” said Rosario Ledesma. “But a child needs a family, a—”

“Father?” Baby interrupted.

Rosario was going to say
community.
“Sure,” she said. “A father, while we're on the subject.”

“She has that.”

“Oh, Baby,” said Luz Salonga gently. “Of course she does, strictly speaking. But that's not all we mean by
father.
Who will teach the child and raise her? Who'll provide for her?”

“Who provided my house?” said Baby. “Who provided my car?”

Lourdes Ocampo decided to level with her. “Baby, we worry about you.” She grasped a fold of Baby's cloak between her thumb and finger, like the edge of a curtain. “Do you know what you're getting into? One day you wear their clothes, the next you're a slave to a stranger's way of life. Are you prepared to convert? To raise your child as one of them? To
lose
your child, if things don't work out?”

Baby knit her eyebrows in confusion. Then, as Lourdes released the
abaya,
she understood. A smile twitched at the corners of her mouth, threatening to expose the gap between her teeth. “Ah! If only!” Baby said. “I wore this because he wanted me to keep it secret first. Now it's the only thing fitting me. That's the only reason. If he's an Arab, then I'm rich!”

It was our turn to be confused, and Baby's sloppy English didn't help; the syntax almost taunted us. “He isn't, then?” Rowena Cruz said weakly.

“If he's an Arab, he can have a second wife,” said Baby. “They're allowed, isn't it?” This much she knew.

“I just don't follow,” said Vilma Bustamante coldly. “The English you insist on speaking is difficult to understand.”

Baby smiled, and then obliged her, with simple words that no one could misread. “He's a Catholic, like you. A
kababayan.
If he's here, I'll point to him. But you sent him out with the kids.”

She'd been saving up the news. That much was clear, as Baby threw her head back and let the coarse, full-throated cackle rip. “What did you think? While you were cooking in your kitchen, while you were shopping in the mall, while you were in the Philippines—where did you think he was?”

The stone walls echoed with her laughter. When she recovered, she stared ahead at the altar. We didn't try to catch her eye just then, or ask who
you
and
he
were.

“I think you'd better leave,” said Luz Salonga.

Baby tilted her head, returning the soft, pitying gaze Luz had given her just minutes earlier. “This is not your house,” she said, and stayed where she was.

We marched past the pews, tearing down the ribbons and flowers. Baby stood in the nave like a statue as we stormed out of the Pillar. Even stranding her there didn't satisfy us as it might have in the old days. She had her own car now, courtesy of a man who'd once drawn straws against driving her home. So she claimed.

Outside, we flung rice at Dolly and Bongbong and scolded the
katulong.
We felt they should have known. “A little warning,” said Dulce deLumen, “and we wouldn't have let her ruin Dolly's day.” We drove quickly to Paz Evora's house to get the reception over with.

A faction of us dismissed the charges out of hand. Flor, for one, didn't even mention it to Fidel Bautista. Driving away from the church, she remembered how Vic Ledesma and Pirmin Ocampo and her own husband had been punished for the simple favor of getting a
katulong
home. She didn't believe this latest delusional claim for a second. Paz did tell Alfonso Evora, but not because she bought it. “How could Baby tell such trashy lies in church?” she whispered, as they opened their home to the guests. “After all the times we reached out and welcomed her! After all the help we offered.” Lourdes Ocampo and Rita Espiritu laughed it off with their husbands, the wave of Pirmin's hand and the shake of Efren's head erasing any doubts they might have briefly entertained.