Maid In Singapore (11 page)

Just like his dad, he
wanted his problems to disappear; he wanted me to cover up, letting
him move on.

A father, who does not
want to see the child he has brought into the world, makes the woman
he loved a prostituting-whore-bitch. On the other hand, a prostitute
who cares for her child is as much a saint-mother as the wedlock-ed
millions of the world who need marriage to legitimize their children.

Jay, he was a let-down,
a complete and utter let- down; he was grown up and was rich but he
was not a man, no more a man than what he was at fourteen, not yet at
least. In my eyes, if there is a bastard in this family, it is Jay
and not Rafael.

‘Well, that is
okay and I understand it. These are your decisions and you don’t
have to meet or even speak to Rafael or Mary ever, the lawyers will
tackle all of the detail when the time comes,’ I hid my
disappointment, simply asking him to send me his travel dates,
telling him that I wanted to speak to him, a lot more, when he
visited. He promised to do so and then we hung up, with outward
civility. Inside, though, I was furious with him.

That was the last
conversation I had with Jay.

He sent me his travel
itinerary by email a few days later, which was the last I heard from
him. He cut himself off, becoming completely silent, not replying to
any of my messages. At that point, I took his silence simply as a
reaction of displeasure; it would pass in a few weeks.

I tried calling him a
few times before he was to land in London, but he seemed to be away
and I simply left him voice messages. He did not reply or call back.

On the day he was to
arrive, I headed to fetch him from the airport, but he was not on the
flight. The airline was kind enough to accommodate an old woman’s
request and informed me that the ticket was a ‘No Show’
at New York. They had opened the ticket up rather than cancelling it,
as is the norm on international segments.

I tried calling, but
simply kept reaching the answering machine, too full to take
messages.

I called his work
place; the firm’s HR partner said they had not seen him at work
for over a few months and that they had sent him a notice of
termination. They had tried visiting him at his apartment but he did
not seem to be in, so they had filed a missing persons report with
the NYPD a few days back. The police would probably call me soon.

Panicked, I felt
completely alone and helpless, wishing I had someone to turn too,
someone to share the burden of this crisis. There was no one and I
had to make the transatlantic journey all by myself, praying to Lord
Krishna, begging him to return my son to me.

It was the will, wasn’t
it? Something in Jay had cracked when he received the will. I could
find no other event or incident that may have triggered his sudden
absence. In my thoughts, I had still not started using the word
disappearanc
e
, in relation to Jay’s prolonged
unresponsiveness.

One can accept that he
did not want any contact with me anymore, now that he was all grown
up; but he simply had to tell me that, not leave me this way,
tortured, without any hints on what was going on in his life.

Was he well? I grew
anxious with eventualities of accident and disease filling my mind, I
thought myself out of my panic, telling myself that if any misfortune
had befallen him, I would have probably gotten to know of it.

Why had he cut me off?
Was it the embarrassment of having to discuss his pathetic past and
its perverse acts with his mother? Or was it just another act of
rebellion, this time one of going missing.

I missed David, the
burden of finding a missing son, a grown up one at that too, was
proving too heavy for an old woman to carry.

At JFK, things were
slow, immigration and luggage took time; eventually, though, I was
outside the terminal, hailing a cab and moving towards Central Park
where his apartment stood, along 5
^th
Avenue, overlooking the serene Jacqueline Kennedy
Onassis Reservoir he had mentioned it to me a number of times, noting
the location with pride. Seeing the ISKCON close by, I stopped to
pray, very briefly, but with helpless intensity, before I walked up
to his apartment block.

It was a grand looking
one, with valets and a manned front desk where I needed to announce
myself before I could be shown in.

‘I am looking for
Jay Kettlewood, on level eighteen, apartment number eight,’ I
informed the concierge.

‘He has moved out
a few weeks back, there is a new tenant now. He said he was renting
out his apartment on a long lease and would not be back for a while,’
he replied, taking the luggage from my hand, and offering me a
plastic chair to sit on. A kind gesture, as he made out I was tired
from the strain of journey. He went in, to what I assumed was the
private area for the staff, bringing back a glass of water, which he
offered me.

‘Thank you,’
I drank up, feeling the sudden urge to urinate. ‘Can I please
use the ladies’ room,’ I asked him. There wasn’t
any for visitors but he led me to the staff toilets anyway, talking
all the time.

‘I see you are
his mother. I am surprised he never mentioned where he was going,’
he showed me the way and went back to his desk.

‘Do you think I
can see the tenant who lives in Jay’s apartment, maybe they can
help, he may have told them where he was headed or what his plans
were,’ I asked the concierge, when I returned.

‘I will have to
check with her and then let you through; sorry, those are the house
rules. Please do sit down, this will only be a moment,’ he
picked up the intercom.

‘Ma’am,
there is a lady to see you, her name is Rashmi Kettlewood . . . yes,
she is the landlord’s mother and is asking for you,’ he
said, with pauses, filled by instructions from the tenant on the
other end of the phone. ‘All right, I will have her sent
through,’ he hung up.

He scribbled #18-03 on
a post-it and showed me to the lift, keeping my luggage case beneath
his counter.

The tenant, she greeted
me with courtesy, asking me to come in and sit down. She was
stunning, beyond a simple head turner, more like a model that needed
the world of camera flashes and expensive men to live with. We
introduced ourselves; she told me her name but that is not important.

‘My son has not
been in touch with me for a few months now and I am worried, I was
hoping you could tell me anything that you may recall and that may
help lead me to him,’ I asked her, not wanting to take up too
much of her time.

‘I am not sure I
can be of any help. We simply signed the lease and he handed the keys
et cetera to my agent. I did not really meet him for that long,’
she seemed, as if she wanted to help. ‘He said he was going
overseas and would be away for while, which was why he said he
preferred a longer termed lease,’ she added.

‘Did he seem
disturbed or anything else amiss that you may have caught?’ I
asked again, desperate for leads, all the while eyeing the apartment
for any clues that may still hang on the walls or the corner tables.
There were no clues, neither from the talk with the gorgeous tenant,
nor from the walls or the tables.

Behind her, rich mauve
curtains fell in fluted streams, diffusing the sunlight as it passed
through their weave. Beyond the curtains must have been the bay
windows and the stunning view of the lake, the vista that Jay had
spoken so much about.

‘Would you mind
if I looked through the window at the lake? He spoke to me about that
view, when he got this apartment. I mean, if that is okay with you?’
I asked on impulse.

‘Sure,’ she
said, opening them out for me to look beyond, into the waters.

It was nice.

She gave me her number
and I scribbled my number and email id too, for her to keep just in
case she came by any information in the weeks ahead.

For good measure, I
gave her a missed call too.

I was not booked by the
airline to return back to London until a couple of weeks more; I had
made no arrangements for stay either.

I decided to spend the
night at the ISKCON. The caretaker obliged, requesting me to find a
hotel in a day or two.

At night, I grew
stubborn, having the sanctum unlocked and opened for me, settling in
front of the marble idol of the Lord, much to the consternation of
the keeper.

Physically, the idol
was no more than a few feet tall; in stature though, it towered in
front of my eyes, lending me a mute companionship, far stronger than
any other man in this world could do, or has ever done.

At Jay’s office,
on the following day, things stood pretty much as they already were.
I had only the name, number and address of an NYPD officer to show
for progress, the one with whom Jay’s firm had filed a missing
persons report.

Officer Brown, Joe
Brown, was African American, a decent man, offering sympathy and the
might that security forces wield.

‘Mrs Kettlewood,
in the US alone we have up to a hundred thousand people who go
missing each month, half of them are below eighteen, mostly wanting
to escape abuse,’ he was not resigning to excuses, he was
simply being practical.

‘What have we
found till now, Officer?’ I asked.

‘I am not sure
what we have found, except, if it was anything it would have been at
my desk by now. In short, nothing,’ he was not cocky, he was
simply being practical.

‘Officer, I need
your help. I am not sure what has happened to my boy, and I cannot
leave without finding out,’ I pleaded.

He soon exhibited why I
said he was a good man.

‘Paula, can you
please free up my day, if possible. I need to go in for some
fieldwork,’ a pause, and a focused look at me, while Paula
spoke in complaints, like when an uninspired office worker is given
work.

‘We have been
busy. Unfortunately, I have not been able to assign anyone on this
missing report, but you are here now and let us find out what
happened. Don’t worry, all questions have answers. There will
be clues,’ he drove, without using the siren or the flasher
lights that came with his car.

I didn’t ask why
they hadn’t acted earlier; I knew it was the never-ending
exigencies of life and death that they got sucked into each day.
Missing persons were not the priority. I was glad—since dead
people were.

At Jay’s
apartment block, Officer Joe simply slid his hand into his trouser
pockets, parting the elongated lapels of his tweed blazer, revealing
the police badge on his belt. He walked slowly, allowing an old lady
to keep pace, just about.

The concierge almost
saluted when he saw the badge, and I felt strangely elevated.

‘Hello there, is
the resident in eighteen-o-three in or out,’ the officer asked
the same kind man at the front desk whom I had met earlier. I tried
to smile, feeling a bit guilty, for having pulled the police into
this.

‘I think I saw
her heading for a jog or a run or something a few minutes back,’
he replied.

On the eighteenth
floor, Officer Joe knocked on the door of a neighbour, announcing
himself and asking if he could come in and ask a few questions about
a missing person.

The neighbour was a
lady with a child; her husband was away at work.

‘Yes, we knew
Jay, not well but certainly enough for him
no
t
to move
away without giving us his contacts, or mentioning his plans,’
she was friendly, but busy, like when one is taking care of a little
baby. The entire living room was strewn with baby things, which she
was trying to neaten.

‘You mean you
didn’t meet him before he left?’ the office asked.

‘No, we did not.
He went away for a few months and then reappeared for a few days.
When he returned, he was different,’ she said, pushing the blue
potty under the sofa, out of sight, picking up the sipper next to it,
simply holding things, not knowing where to put them.

‘In what way?’
the officer asked.

‘Just different,
lost weight, his voice seemed to have changed, he had a bounce to his
step, and he smiled a lot more than he used to—as if he was
happier. And that was the last we saw of him. He has leased out his
apartment to a new tenant. Have you seen her? My husband can’t
keep his eyes off her.’

‘No, not yet,’
Officer Joe rose, leaving his visiting card with the lady. The child
had begun to cry from the room inside. I pictured little arms and
legs, flailing, as the infant demanded his feed, with the energetic
gusto of infantile greed.

I almost offered to
help.

In the hallway, the
officer turned, surprising me with his tenacity and his will to help,
‘Mrs Kettlewood, here, take my mobile number and wait for me
outside the apartment. You recognize the tenant and if you see her
coming in, just call me. I may not answer the phone, but I will take
it as a signal to vacate her apartment,’ he handed me his card,
wanting to take a look inside Jay’s apartment, illegally,
without a warrant, before heading back to the precinct.

Like a thief, he looked
around; making sure that the hallway was empty before picking his way
through the lock and into Jay’s apartment.

Outside, I moved away
from the apartment block, keeping an eye out for the returning
tenant-sex- bomb, from a distance, where I myself could be relatively
hidden.

She appeared in about
fifteen minutes, and I called the officer as soon as I spotted her
walking briskly towards the entrance of the apartment block. She was
sweating, with her bike close at hand, alongside her.

For a woman that
striking and sexy, it seemed misplaced for her to reach deep within
the crack of her arse, the inter-gluteal space, pulling at what may
have been the folds of her sports underwear, letting the elastic
de-tense with a snap, the membranes of elastic-fabric landing back on
her arse with a thwack, faint but audible even from where I was, a
good ten metres away. In itself, I may have ignored the act, except
that it was done in a manner exactly like Jay’s, following the
uncouth garment-adjustments with a brush of the fingers against one’s
nose, as if to catch hints of whatever it was that got dislodged or
redeployed between the arse and the underwear. It was a strange
coincidence, for the landlord and the tenant to have an identical
mannerism in setting right sweaty-bothersome-underwear.