The Bamboo Stalk

4

4My mother continued her story. ‘Aida and I ran into Father with his cage of birds in the narrow passageway that leads to the lane at the end of the front yard. He didn’t look in our direction. He’d been avoiding looking at Aida since the incident with the c***s. As soon as she came into sight, he looked aside as if he thought she had some eye disease and he was frightened of catching it. Aida had freed herself from slavery and put a stop to my father’s tyranny. I wanted to escape from slavery too, but I’m not Aida. That morning she took me to the grocer’s shop at the end of the lane. The grocer knew us well and had often lent us small sums of money when my mother was alive. Aida told him the whole story. She said I needed money to work abroad as a maid. The man was sympathetic, as he usually was with us, but he said he was sorry he couldn’t provide that amount. As we were about to give up and go home, he said, “I can vouch for you with the Indians. They trust me. I’ve been dealing with them for years.”

‘Dealing with the Indians meant setting in motion an endless cycle of debt. It meant obediently making regular payments to people who took advantage of your poverty and then watching with your own eyes as the money you paid multiplied and went into other people’s pockets.

‘The shopkeeper arranged a meeting between us and one of the Indian moneylenders,’ my mother continued. ‘We knew the Indians because we’d had dealings with them years earlier. We’d bought a cooker and a television and some ceiling fans and floor fans from them on credit. It took us ages to pay back all the money we owed. They were greedy then, but the terms when we bought all those things from them were better than the terms they asked for giving me a loan to go abroad. The shopkeeper tried to explain my circumstances to them, but they still doubled the interest rate. They took advantage of my urgent need for cash.’

My mother shook her head sadly, then continued. ‘We had no choice but to accept. We would have done anything to save ourselves in the short term, even if it meant more trouble down the road.

‘In the employment agency in central Manila the next day I had to stand in a long queue that started at the door to the little office and ran along the pavement, down the street and far into the distance.

‘Hours later I managed to meet the clerk. I paid him half the amount and started to fill in the forms. On my next visit, after my application was accepted, I paid the rest of the money. The clerk told me I would be working in Kuwait, and that was the first time I had ever heard of the country. I cheerfully got ready to leave, though I knew I would have to give half of what I earned abroad to the Indians and the other half to my family. I willingly agreed to let them share out my money between them, in exchange for leaving me free to do what I liked with my body, free to give it to whoever I chose.’