The Bondmaid - by Catherine Lim

Set in Singapore in the fifties, the novelfocuses on the story of Han. Sold as a slave into the House of Wu at the age of four, she forms a close bond with the heir of the household, but the idyllic childhood soon turns into a life of struggling against tradition and tyranny

A little girl. Is sold as a bondmaid into the house of Wu, where she grows up with the young heir. But the idyll of childhood attachment quickly turns into a nightmare of thwarted sexual passion, as Han, beautiful, proud and uncompromisingly loyal, struggles against the forces of tradition and tyranny in a household where patriarch and matriarch wield inexorable power, lustful male relatives watch young bondmaids to claim their rightful share of pleasure and gods and goddesses smile to see the human drama unfold. The bondmaid chronicles the strength of one woman’s love – right to its terrifying climax.

PROLOGUE

In the later part of 1992, the Singapore newspapers were full of reports of an old man who held a whole nation in thrall. He was the caretaker of a little dilapidated shrine on a small plot of land, fronting what is now the Kio San Thong Road, that stood in the way of three – hundred- million dollar industrial development could not movie in. It was reported that when the developers offered him compensation of several million dollars, he spat, cursed and chased them away.

The newspapers showed pictures of a tiny, wizened old man angrily shooting away the reporters and, on one occasion, using a long bamboo pole to hit a reporter taking picture of the shrine and a small wooden hut adjoining it. There was a story, never probably pieced together, of a young woman who had died there under the most tragic circumstances, sometime in the middle 1950s, and was later seen in the vicinity by many people. They erected a shrine to her and, for some reason, called her ‘Goddess with Eyes and Ears’. The old caretaker was said to be connected with her in some way – a brother? a friend? a lover?

One evening, the old man’s hut caught fire. By the time he was pulled out, he was already dead.

The developers arranged for a team of monks to conduct elaborate ceremonies of appeasement at the shrine. Then the bulldozers moved in. Today, a huge petrochemical complex stands where once the strange goddess with eyes and ears dispensed miracles.