Karma Gone Bad

by Jenny Feldon

  “This is the most important room in the flat, of course. You will be having all the idols you need to do prayers here, Sir,” Subu said, beaming with pride.

  “We can get rid of all this stuff, right?” I asked at the same time.

  At that moment, Tucker’s scratching finally broke through the zipper of his bag, which I’d left open a crack so he could have some air. He leapt to the floor and headed straight for the puja room, clearly recognizing it as his domain.

  Subu screamed. Venkat looked appalled. Peter and Alexis laughed out loud. Even Younus couldn’t keep the smirk off his face. Tucker sniffed at the feet of a statue of a woman with a lot of arms.

  “Sir! Madam! Please! Get your wild animal away from Lakshmi!” Subu scooted toward Tucker, then darted away, waving his arms in frustration. “The puja room is sacred! No wild animals will be being allowed!”

  “He’s not a wild animal,” I said, insulted. “He’s a Maltese.”

  Chapter 2

  I woke up to the sound of hammers. Next to me, Jay was sprawled on his back, his red fleece hat pulled low over his ears. Tucker was curled upside down near Jay’s shoulder. The air conditioner had clanked to a halt sometime after we’d finally climbed into bed and now the room was sweltering. I stretched my arms over my head and winced. Our new Indian bed consisted of an inch-thick foam pad on top of a creaking wooden platform. My aching back already missed the Crown Jewel mattress that was floating somewhere in the Atlantic, packed into a container ship with the rest of our belongings.

  Without an international SIM card, my cell had no service at all, which meant it was useless both as a clock and a phone. Not that I had anyone to call. Still set to New York time, the digital display said 3:00 a.m. I wasn’t sure what time that made it in India; my brain was too foggy to tackle so much math. Daylight streamed through the curtainless windows. I stumbled toward the kitchen.

  The refrigerator was empty. Subu’s loaf of bread was still on the counter. Peter and Alexis had left the jar of Skippy and another of Smucker’s strawberry jam next to the bread, along with a Post-it where Alexis had scribbled her Indian cell phone number. “You’re going to need these,” the note said. I’d never been so overjoyed to see peanut butter in my life.

  I made myself a sandwich and hunted around for a coffeemaker. There was none. My head throbbed, an early warning sign of the full-on, caffeine-addict migraine brewing behind my forehead. I looked out the window at the construction site. The women had ceased their steadfast, antlike movements and were squatting on their heels in a circle, digging rice out of metal cylinders with their hands. Between bites there was a flurry of conversation. Strewn on the ground around them were piles of discarded yellow hard hats. But instead of being smooth and round on top, the hats had open plastic tubes in the center. That must be how they balanced those giant dishes of concrete and water on top of their heads.

  A peek back into the bedroom confirmed that my husband and my dog were still asleep. I found a pen in my bag and scribbled a note on the back of a boarding pass: Looking for coffee. Back soon. I looked around for a key to the apartment but found none. It felt weird to leave the house with nothing: no keys, no cell phone, no cash. Wherever the coffee was, I hoped they took AmEx.

  I opened the front door slowly, trying not to wake Jay. As I pushed the door forward, it banged into something solid. A huddled form collapsed onto my ankles. I clapped a hand over my mouth to muffle my scream.

  Venkat stood up quickly, shaking out his shoulders and rubbing his eyes with his fists. “Madam, something wrong?” He looked around, anxious.

  “You almost gave me a heart attack! Why are you sleeping in front of the door?”

  “I not sure what is ‘heart attack,’ Madam.”

  “You scared me, Venkat. To death practically. What are you DOING out here?”

  “No dismissal. You and Sir no sending me home, Madam.”

  “It was five in the morning! Of course you should have gone home.”

  “I no leaving until dismissal. Is my duty.” Venkat stood up tall, hiking his jeans a little higher around his narrow waist. He couldn’t be more than seventeen or eighteen, I realized. In America, he’d be studying for the SATs. Here, he was pledging knightly driver-allegiance to an under-caffeinated American woman who just finished hitting him in the head with a door. Was it safe to get in the car with him? He’d barely slept and now he had a concussion, maybe. Could you drive a car with a head injury? My own head throbbed harder. I knew I should probably send him home, wherever that was, but this was an emergency.

  “Um, Venkat, do you know where there’s coffee?”

  “Coffee, Madam?”

  “Yes, coffee.” I pantomimed drinking, curling my fingers around an imaginary mug. “Like Starbucks?”

  “No knowing Starbucks, Madam. But coffee being one place only. Jubilee Hills. I taking.”

  Confession: I was enthusiastically, irreparably, entirely addicted to coffee. Coffee was not just a morning routine; it was more like a religion. Nothing revived my soul like that first whiff of freshly brewed beans or the warmth in my palm through the side of the mug. It wasn’t just about the caffeine (though oh, how I loved the caffeine!). It was the ritual, those few moments of contemplation before the madness of the regular world set in. Any occasional worries I had about whether such an addiction was healthy were soothed by reminding myself how many other, worse things there were to be addicted to: doughnuts, tequila, crack cocaine.

  Obtaining coffee on my morning commute was as integral to Manhattan life as Metrocards and knee-high rubber boots on rainy days. I knew the best bodegas, the snobbiest Intelligentsia coffeehouses, and the location of every Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts within two miles of our apartment. There’d been other beverages I’d dallied with in my adult life: coconut water, wheatgrass smoothies, carrot juice. But those were the liquid equivalents of summer flings: flighty, insubstantial. Coffee and me were the real deal.

  Nothing sustained me like coffee. With it, I could do anything. Without it?

  I was pretty much a disaster.

  Twenty minutes into the ride, I could feel myself unraveling. Traffic moved at a crawl. The road was crammed with cars, all of which seemed to be moving in multiple directions, like a giant game of bumper cars. Except the cars had no bumpers and the only way to avoid collisions seemed to be blasting the horn as loudly as possible. On the backs of trucks, motorcycles, and auto rickshaws were small, circular stickers that read “HORN OK PLEASE” or “STOP HORN PLEASE,” both of which appeared to mean exactly the same thing: Please give us warning before you run us over. Honks erupted around us like a hailstorm. The racket upgraded the throbbing in my head to pounding. Even my eyeballs hurt.

  “How much longer, do you think?” I asked.

  “No much coffee Hyderabad, Madam,” Venkat said. “Only Cafe Coffee Day. Jubilee Hills.”

  “Is Jubilee Hills nearby?”

  “Yes, Madam.”

  I got the distinct impression his statement wasn’t even a little bit true.

  At this point, a cup of coffee wasn’t going to cut it. I needed a whole gallon. Or an IV drip.

  “Here, Madam,” Venkat said after what surely had been hours, pulling up in front of a squat beige building with a red awning. Even from the side of the road (there were no curbs or sidewalks anywhere) I could see the familiar, reassuring silhouettes of a pastry case, an espresso machine, groups of young people huddled around paper cups. “I staying here or going?”

  I wasn’t sure what the driver/drivee etiquette was. Was he supposed to stay with the car? Would it look strange if he came in with me? Was I supposed to offer him a beverage? I had a flash of homesickness for the 1 train. Faster service, fewer decisions.

  “I’ll go. Do you want anything?”

  “Madam?”

  “To drink? Like a coffee or something?”

  Ven
kat looked surprised, then ashamed. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to bring him something after all. But who goes into a Starbucks—or a Cafe Coffee Day—and doesn’t offer to bring back drinks for everyone?

  “Maybe…chai?”

  Oh. OK. Chai. They had those here too. “Got it. Be right back.”

  When I walked in, every single person in Cafe Coffee Day turned to stare. All five baristas behind the counter, which seemed like overkill for one espresso machine and no customers in line, and the handful of teenaged patrons hunched over low iron patio tables. In the center of each table was a blown-glass hookah with smoke spiraling from the top. A jean-clad kid with hipster glasses and a turban on his head stopped, mid-inhale, to look me up and down.

  “Welcome to Coffee Day. What can I be of preparing for you?” asked one of the five baristas. She wore a red cap and a starched red polo shirt. Her nametag said “Rashmi.”

  “Hi. Thanks. Can I get…just a coffee, please?”

  “A coffee?”

  “Yes, a large. With milk? Nonfat if you have it.”

  Rashmi looked sad. “I’m sorry, Ma’am. We are having no coffee.”

  “But this is Cafe Coffee Day, right? How can you not have coffee?”

  “We are having many beverages, Ma’am. Chai, chocolate, cafe mocha…”

  The stares were now accompanied by a lull in conversation and a heightened feeling of tension, a shift in the room’s barometric pressure. Everyone had turned to watch, hookahs and beverages forgotten as they watched my discomfort with growing interest.

  “Are you sure? I don’t want anything fancy. No espresso. Just drip…the kind that comes from a machine?”

  “I am not knowing what is ‘drip,’ Ma’am,” said Rashmi. Then she clasped her hands together. “But you are from U.S., correct? I have what is perfect for you. Cafe Americano!”

  “OK. Sure. I’ll try that,” I said, trying to be agreeable. “And a chai too, please. For my driver.” I looked into the display case, hoping for a muffin or a croissant. Instead, there was a plate of fried samosas and a couple of pieces of chocolate cake, their gluey frosting sweating with condensation behind the glass.

  Twenty minutes later, according to an old-school, wall-mounted Felix the Cat clock that ticked off each minute with the flick of his plastic tail, Rashmi handed me two waxed paper cups. I sniffed at Venkat’s. Instead of a creamy blend of milk and spices, Venkat’s chai was just…tea. Black tea. Rashmi must have heard me wrong. I hoped he wouldn’t be upset.

  “One hundred fifty rupees, please, Ma’am.”

  Juggling both cups in the crook of my elbow, I reached into my back pocket and retrieved my credit card. Rashmi looked at it blankly.

  “Sorry, Ma’am, but we are not taking cards. Rupees only.”

  I had no rupees. Coffee was so close and now I was stranded without a way to pay. I looked at her helplessly. “Can you hold these for a second?” I pushed them back across the counter and ran back to the car.

  “Venkat, can I borrow some money?”

  “Money, Madam?”

  “They won’t take my credit card and I don’t have any cash. Rupees. She said it was a hundred and fifty. I can pay you back as soon as we get back to Matwala Shayar. Jay must have gotten some cash before we left.”

  Venkat shrugged and reached into his pocket for a battered nylon wallet, the kind my little brother used to carry his allowance in fourth grade. He ripped open the worn Velcro and removed two small, tan bills with a picture of an old man on them. So these were rupees. I had no idea if he was handing me pocket change or his monthly salary.

  “I’ll pay you back as soon as we get back, I promise. Is it a lot of money?”

  Venkat looked uncomfortable.

  “Chai in mine village costing ten rupees, Madam.” He didn’t quite meet my eyes.

  Back in Cafe Coffee Day, I paid Rashmi, collected Venkat’s fifty rupees in change, and took our drinks. I looked around for the little table where the condiments should be: sugar packets, mixing sticks, cardboard holders so my hands wouldn’t suffer permanent nerve damage from what were surely the two hottest beverage containers I’d ever felt. There was none.

  “Ma’am? Are you having everything you need?”

  “I was just looking for milk, and some Sweet’N Low. And the holders for the coffee? The paper ones that go around the cup?”

  Rashmi took a yellow, waxed cardboard box labeled Nestlé Slim off a shelf and tore off a foil tab. She pushed the carton and two white pellets across the counter. “This is what we are having, Ma’am. Milk is being here. And these are saccharin tablets. There are no holders that you speak of. My apologies.”

  Fingers blistering, I hurried back to the car, convinced my coffee was tainted with salmonella. Who’d ever heard of milk in a box? I’d need to find the refrigerated kind as soon as possible, but for today this would have to do. It was just a little bit—maybe harmful foodborne bacteria only worked in large doses.

  Venkat opened his door to accept his cup. In the backseat, I popped a saccharin tablet through the hole in the lid. Was saccharin even safe to eat anymore? Wasn’t that the one that caused cancer in lab rats, like M&Ms dyed with Red #3? Shaking the cup a little to stir, I closed my eyes and took a sip. Which I promptly spat out the window.

  “Madam?” Venkat asked, clearly shocked. I’d seen drivers spitting out their windows all over the place on the ride here. Women passengers must be held to different standards. Oops.

  “Sorry. The coffee…”

  The coffee was awful. Worse, there was something chunky in it that definitely did not taste edible. I lifted the lid to investigate. It crumpled in my hand. Little bits of melted plastic floated at the top of the oily black liquid inside. The lid was melting. Into my Americano.

  Venkat sipped at his chai and made a face. “No good, Madam. Chai better at stand. Road #2. Tomorrow we going. No good Cafe Coffee Day.”

  ***

  Jay was pacing the hallway outside the apartment when we got back.

  “What took so long? I was worried about you.”

  I stood on tiptoe to give him a kiss. “Sorry. I went in search of coffee. Can I have some rupees? I owe Venkat money.”

  Jay pulled a couple of wrinkled bills from the pocket of his jeans and handed them to me. “Did you bring me any coffee?”

  “Don’t ask,” I said, pitching the melted cup on top of the pile of trash outside our door. “I can make you a peanut butter sandwich, though.”

  I turned to go inside, but Jay grabbed my elbow and steered me back toward the car instead. “Let’s go. I want to go to the car dealership before I need to be at the office.”

  I frowned. I’d hoped to spend the day settling in, unpacking a few things, maybe taking a tour of the city. Also, I was eager to get started on our search for a place to live. The corporate apartments at Matwala Shayar were just temporary accommodations while we waited for our sea shipment to arrive. And based on Alexis’s description of the all-night parties, it seemed like we’d be better off moving sooner rather than later. But Jay was all business, ticking off things from his mental checklist.

  “You’re going to work already? We just got here,” I said, climbing back into the Hyundai reluctantly. I handed Venkat his money and thanked him again for the loan. He looked relieved.

  “I should have been in this morning. They’ve been waiting for me for weeks.”

  When we arrived at the car dealership, it looked like a car dealership…a fact that filled me with dread after my experience in the familiar-looking but shockingly foreign Coffee Day. But the giant Mahindra showroom was, in fact, filled with cars. The salesman on the floor ignored me totally, which also felt familiar. Apparently, buying a car in India was just like buying one in America. Smoke, mirrors, negotiations, gender discrimination.

  “I should get behind the wheel too,” I informed the sales
man as he drooled all over Jay, who was perched behind the wheel of a massive SUV that looked like a combination of an Escalade and a toaster oven. “I’ll be driving too.”

  The salesman ignored me. He waved his hand through the glass, demonstrating the superior opacity of the windows, which were tinted Mafia black.

  “And I was hoping for something fuel efficient,” I continued. “We like to reduce our carbon imprint whenever we can.”

  The salesman turned to me with disdain. “The Scorpio is not running on carbon, Ma’am. The Scorpio is only running on premium diesel.”

  Diesel? “Well, what about one with an automatic transmission?”

  “No, Ma’am. You will only be finding automatic transmissions with costly imported vehicles. None are being available for purchase here at Mahindra.”

  I turned to Jay, who was kicking tires and looking all too pleased at the Scorpio’s impressive height. “Can we look somewhere else?” I’d tried to learn how to drive a manual transmission just once, when I was seventeen, with a boyfriend who made the unfortunate decision to start me off on a hill. I panicked, closed my eyes, and drove his ’94 Toyota Supra straight into a row of magnolia bushes. Sitting on the sidewalk while we waited for the tow truck, I vowed never to touch a stick shift ever again.

  “Too expensive. We’d pay double what we would in the U.S. We need to buy Indian to make it worthwhile. We’re only here for two years.”

  Venkat was in the corner, looking gleeful. His eyes positively glittered with anticipation.

  “Venkat, can you drive this car?”

  “Oh, YES, Madam,” he said. “Scorpio MUCH good car. I driving very well, much better Hyundai.” He took a tentative step forward to stroke the Scorpio’s ebony paint. “Best car for Americans. Much strong and tall, black windows. Much safety.”