The Rice Mother by Rani Manicka Page B

and moaned with fear and sickness although none of them could understand each other’s dialect. Then they were all thrown on a junk set for Southeast Asia. The old boat tossed wildly on the South China Sea, made turbulent by strong monsoon winds. For many days the wretched children screamed in terror. The sour smell of ocean sickness plunged them into the sure belief that they would all perish at sea to become food for the sons and daughters of all the white-fleshed fish that they had unthinkingly consumed during their lifetimes. Miraculously they survived. Still wobbly from the miserable voyage, they were efficiently disposed of in Singapore and Malaya, sold as whores and domestic slaves at a handsome profit.
    Old Soong, Mui Tsai’s new master, paid the princely sum of two hundred and fifty ringgit for her. She was to be a gift for his new, third wife. Thus little Mui Tsai came to live in the grand house at the top of our cul-de-sac. For the first two years she did the housework and lived in a tiny room at the back of the house, but one day the master, who had until then concentrated on running his chubby hand up his wife’s ivory thighs and teasing morsels of food from the ends of his chopsticks into her sulky mouth, suddenly smiled at Mui Tsai in a manner not quite wholesome. Then, about the time I moved into the neighborhood, his greedy eyes began to follow her at meal-times with an intensity that was frightening to the young girl, for he was a repulsive creature.
    On my way to the market I sometimes saw him sitting in the cool of his living room reading the Chinese newspaper under a whirling fan, sweating profusely, his extra-large singlet stretched across his bulging belly. The tightly packed fat reminded me of his insatiable penchant for dog meat. He often brought home the flesh of puppies wrapped in waxed brown paper, for the cook to make into a stew laced with expensive ginseng imported specially from mainland China.
    Every evening the master played the same game. With both his pudgy hands covering his mouth, he picked his teeth while his hot eyes like fleshy hands roved over Mui Tsai’s youthful body. Her eyes carefully averted, Mui Tsai pretended not to notice. She did not realize that that was her role in the game. Reluctance. The wife, her eyes downcast, saw nothing. She sat in her fine garments, and poised like an eagle with elbows on the table waiting patiently for the arrival of each new dish, whereupon her waiting chopsticks moved with quick-silver speed, spearing the choicest morsels with unerring accuracy. Once the best pieces were in her bowl, she proceeded to eat with alluring daintiness.
    Soon Old Soong was finding occasions to let his fingers accidentally brush his wife’s “little sister,” and once his fat hand slid up her thigh while she was serving the soup. The soup spilled on the table. Still the wife saw nothing. “Stupid wasteful girl,” she muttered angrily into her bowl of tender suckling pig.
    “Tell her,” I urged, horrified.
    “How can I?” Mui Tsai whispered back, aghast, her almond eyes shocked. “He is the master of the house.”
    As his attentions grew bolder, Mui Tsai began to leave her room at night. She only slept there when her master was at one of his other wives’ homes. When he came to visit her mistress, Mui Tsai curled up under one of the beds in one of the rooms in the large sprawling house, and in this way for many months she managed to evade her master’s sweaty grasp. Often she climbed through my kitchen window, and we sat on my bench talking about our home-land into the wee hours of the morning.
    I couldn’t believe that what was happening to Mui Tsai was legal, and I was determined to report the matter. Someone had to do something to end her suffering. I told Ayah about it. He worked in an office—surely he knew someone who could help. But he shook his head. The law could do nothing as long as the domestic slave was not abused.
    “But her mistress slaps