Karma Gone Bad

by Jenny Feldon

  In the master bathroom, we took turns brushing our teeth with bottled water. “A four-thousand-square-foot mansion and we still can’t get separate sinks,” Jay grumbled.

  “The shower has walls. Stop complaining.”

  “Well, what about this crack?” Jay said around a mouthful of toothpaste, pointing to a long, jagged break down the center of the bathroom mirror. It distorted our reflections into crumpled, clownlike masks. “It’s a brand new house. How could the mirror already be broken?”

  “They must have broken it while it was getting installed,” I said, running my finger across the sharp edge. “I’ll call the landlord and tell her.”

  Our bathroom towels were yellow and orange, a threadbare set I’d had since college. When I was packing up the New York apartment, I’d been just about to throw them away, but a wave of nostalgia made me reluctant to let them go and I’d tossed them in the sea shipment, a sentimental afterthought. I buried my nose in a hand towel. It smelled like us, like home.

  Chapter 12

  My first shower in our new bathroom was glorious. I unpacked my lemon and sage scented body wash, which I’d wrapped carefully in duct tape and tucked into a plastic bag so it wouldn’t spill on the long ocean journey. The smell, after weeks of nothing but Indian sandalwood, was divine. The water was hot, with actual pressure, and the presence of shower walls meant the steam stayed wrapped around me, cloaking me in warmth.

  I soaked. I lathered. I tried out my new Ayurvedic apple cleansing shampoo, which the woman in the beauty aisle at Q-mart swore would make my hair stop falling out. It was still coming out by the handful, making messy piles on my pillow, on the counters, in the drain. All the shedding was driving Jay crazy. “It’s like living with a sheepdog,” he complained, flicking a hair off his toothbrush. “Gross.”

  Packed with my toiletries had been an aerosol container of Skintimate. Shaving with actual shaving cream, instead of a rough pass with the razor and plain old water, was a luxury I’d rarely had time for in my jam-packed Manhattan days. But now, in India, there was finally time to take it slow, to enjoy the little things. I massaged a handful of Kerastase deep moisturizing mask into my hair. If the Ayurveda didn’t work there, surely high-end salon conditioner would undo the damage. I foamed a handful of Skintimate onto my legs, lathering them from hip to toe while the conditioner soaked in.

  The water shut off. I screamed.

  Frantically, I pulled at both handles, twisting back and forth. One came off in my hand. Still no water. Not even a trickle. I grabbed the bathmat, the closest towel within reach, wrapped it around myself, and headed downstairs, yelling for Venkat at the top of my lungs.

  Halfway down the staircase, leaving a slimy trail of baby powder-scented foam behind me, I slipped. The combination of marble and water was deadly. My feet flew out from under me and I skidded down the last few steps on my tailbone, clutching the bath mat around me and clenching my jaw with pain.

  I collapsed in a soaking wet pile just as Venkat burst through the front door, a tall Indian man wearing a hard hat and carrying a clipboard close at his heels.

  When he saw me, Venkat let out a little girl shriek and shielded his eyes. The man with him moved away from me like a VHS tape on rewind, stepping back into the shoes he’d left by the door, edging backward onto the porch with his head tipped down so only his mustache was showing.

  “What happened to the WATER?” I asked, failing to keep the hysteria from my voice. “And who are you?”

  “I am Raju,” said the man from the safety of the porch. “I am building manager for Jasmine Heights, Ma’am. I am coming to introduce myself to being at your service.”

  Great. I’d swapped a Subu for a Raju. I said a silent prayer for better luck with this latest Indian version of Mr. Roper.

  “I was in the shower and it just shut off,” I said, rearranging the bathmat and gingerly feeling my tailbone for signs of permanent damage.

  “The water tank is empty, Madam. You will need to have it refilled,” Raju said, removing his hard hat and taking a few steps forward but still averting his eyes from the dripping, barely decent spectacle I was making in the middle of the living room floor.

  “There’s no automatic refill?”

  “No, Madam. You will need to have someone standing on the roof and watching the water level in the tank. When it is being low, then they can go and attach the pipes for refilling.”

  “But I can’t go on the roof and stand around watching the water tank all day!”

  Raju looked aghast. He fidgeted with his clipboard. “Of COURSE not, Madam. The lady of the house cannot go. You will be needing a servant for that.” He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry for the intrusion into your household. There were just a few things I wanted to review about your living conditions here. Is there a better time for which I could come back?”

  I gritted my teeth and smiled the most sincere smile I could muster. Our no-Subu celebration might have been the tiniest bit premature. “It’s nice to meet you, Raju. Let me go get cleaned up and I’ll meet you back downstairs in a few minutes. Feel free to make yourself comfortable.” I gestured to the couch.

  Raju took a step forward, about to remove his shoes again. Tucker growled and bared his teeth.

  “On second thought, Madam, I’ll be waiting outside.”

  ***

  The last thing I thought I’d ever do was hire servants. In New York, we’d had Julia, a twice-monthly cleaning lady who talked incessantly in a high-pitched voice and spared me scrubbing toilets and baseboards. Everything else, I’d managed myself. Servants, I thought, were a bourgeois concept for a prehistoric elite. I was a Democrat. I was from Manhattan. I was here for enlightenment, to frown on the caste system and help elevate India’s emerging middle class. I was not here to hire a man to stand on my roof all day, staring at my water tank and roasting in the sun.

  I finally understood what Carole, the expat queen, had meant when she offered her assistance finding me “adequate help.” Raju seemed startled every time he rang the doorbell and I opened it myself. “Servants still no, Ma’am?” he asked. In Matwala Shayar, practically a boarding house for workaholic twentysomethings, everyone got by with just Subu and his small staff. But in our own household, we were expected to have servants. Lots of them.

  A cook, a couple of housekeepers, a security guard, a landscaper, the guy to watch the water tank, plus Venkat…it was too much. I was far from a feminist, but I liked being self-sufficient. And I liked privacy. Even Venkat sometimes felt like a burden. Having someone lurking around, waiting for me to need something, was stifling. The thought of someone actually in my house all the time—hearing our conversations, touching our belongings, scrutinizing our behavior—made me positively itchy.

  Jay came home early one night so we could go to Anish’s house for dinner. It was our first invitation to an Indian home, and I was excited. Anish lived in Jubilee Hills. A security guard stood sentry out front, rising from his metal folding chair to look us up and down before waving us forward. The massive carved wood door opened, as if with invisible hands, before I could even knock.

  “Welcome, welcome,” Anish said, gesturing for us to follow him into a small sitting room to the right of the entrance. Framed pictures of him and Sunita, clad in traditional Indian wedding attire, hung above a black imitation leather couch. Across the hall, a puja room was set with altars and idols.

  “Your furniture is lovely,” I said. “Where did you buy it?”

  “Thank you,” Sunita said, appearing with a silver tray. Her dark blue salwar kameez shimmered in the light. “All of our items were custom made right here in Hyderabad by local artisans. Chai?”

  “How is your new home?” Anish asked me, offering a sticky golden ball of gulab jamun. I declined. It was a delicacy, I knew, and turning down food was considered terribly rude in India, but the globby, honey-covered balls of dough were
one of the things my weak American stomach had never learned to tolerate. I hoped they wouldn’t be offended.

  “We’re just getting settled, but it’s great. I love being in our own place after being trapped in Matwala Shayar for so long.” I blew on my chai to stall from having to drink it, wondering for the ten thousandth time why Indian people couldn’t just drink coffee. A female servant appeared, gesturing silently toward the dining room. Dinner was being served.

  In the hallway, Anish’s little girl played with a nanny, counting out the pieces of a giant jigsaw puzzle. She stared at us as we passed. I gave her a wink and a wave, pointing to the leftover gulab jamun in the sitting room. Her eyes widened below her thick brown bangs. She grinned back at me. She wore a Dora the Explorer T-shirt and jean shorts, a surprising jolt of Western culture in Anish’s traditional Indian household.

  We settled around a massive table, covered in black-and-white block print linens. My seat faced the kitchen, where two cooks were conferring over a pot on the stove. The back door was open, revealing a clothesline covered with freshly washed laundry. A woman, older than my grandmother, caught me looking and stared back, her mouth full of clothespins.

  “Have you hired your servants yet?” Sunita asked, following my gaze. “We have some contacts if you are having difficulty.”

  “I was thinking of maybe not getting any,” I admitted. “We have Venkat, and Jasmine Heights has security at the gate, plus they patrol the development on bicycles overnight. I don’t really think we need more than that.”

  “But what about the cooking and the washing and the yard? Who will you be sending to pay the bills or wait in queue at the vegetable stand?” Anish asked, breaking off a piece of roti with his hands and dipping in into his dal. “Running an Indian household has many challenges.”

  “I thought I’d do it myself,” I said, a blush spreading down toward my neck. “It’s not like I don’t have enough time on my hands.”

  Anish smiled at me indulgently. “That is simply not the way things are being done in Hyderabad. You should be enjoying this type of luxury while you can. Think of it like this: you will be supporting many families by employing your servants. It is the Indian way.”

  “But I’m not Indian.”

  “But when in India…” Anish winked. A servant materialized behind me and spooned more dal on my plate. “Don’t worry. It is much like the food. You will grow accustomed to it eventually. You simply cannot do everything yourself.” He offered me more roti. “And besides…why would you want to?”

  I opened my mouth to respond, but Jay kicked my leg under the table. I gave him a furtive, meaningful glare. Then I smiled for the benefit of the rest of the table, stirring the food around on my plate, trying to make it look as though I’d eaten.

  ***

  When I came downstairs early the next morning, the kitchen was flooded.

  Everything had been normal when I’d turned in for the night. We’d come home, said hi to the porch people, turned out the lights, and gone to bed. There had been nothing unusual, nothing amiss.

  There had most definitely NOT been a three-inch deep puddle of water all over the kitchen floor.

  I went back upstairs. Jay and Tucker were still sleeping, sprawled out on top of the covers. Now that we were sleeping in our own bed with our own sheets, Jay’s sleeping hat had been retired to the nightstand drawer. I sort of missed it.

  “Hey. Wake up. The kitchen’s flooded. There must be a leak or something.”

  Jay grunted and flipped over, away from me.

  “Seriously. You need to get up. I need help. There’s water everywhere.”

  “Call Subu,” Jay answered, the words muffled by the pillow he’d shoved over his head.

  “Subu’s at Matwala Shayar! We don’t have anything to do with Subu anymore, remember?!”

  “Oh. Right. Well, call someone else. Household issues are your administrative responsibility. This is my morning to sleep in; my first meeting isn’t till ten. Can you reset the air conditioner when you leave? The dog and I are hot.”

  I stomped back downstairs. Raju answered the phone on my fifth call. He promised to send a plumber right away. Which probably meant “sometime next week.” I got out the bucket and a pile of rags and started to clean up the mess.

  Jay came down as I was wiping up the last of the water.

  “You missed a spot,” he said, pointing to a corner.

  I ignored him.

  “Listen, I want you to be at dinner tonight. It’s with a couple of the partners in from New York, plus Anish and some of the guys from the office. We’re going to Little Italy, OK?”

  “Sure.”

  “Try not to talk about how much you hate it here. I want to make sure these guys know I’m fully committed, OK?”

  “You mean you want me to pretend we love it here so they won’t know you’re only here because you have to be.”

  “Well, if you want to be literal about it. Just keep the nasty comments about the food and the dirt and stuff to yourself.”

  “You’re making it sound like I complain all the time.”

  “Well, don’t you?”

  Outside, Venkat honked. Jay grabbed his briefcase and held out his arm. I leaned in for a hug, but he pointed to the sink instead.

  “Looks like your leak is starting again.” Sure enough, a stream of water was creeping across the kitchen floor. “While Raju is here, have him check the freon in the air-conditioning units. I think something might be wrong with the lines.”

  “Sure! Just leave! Everything’s under control here,” I called after him, but my sarcasm was lost in the roar of the Scorpio’s engine and the cloud of dust left in its wake. I stood there on the porch, still holding the bucket full of soaked rags. Across the street, a woman—the owner’s wife? a housekeeper?—stared at me from the doorway. I waved. She disappeared back into the house.

  Three hours later, Raju arrived with the plumber. I showed them the puddle of water on the kitchen floor. They conferred for a moment. I mopped up more water. The plumber sat down in front of the sink with a wrench in his hand, peering up into the pipes. He asked Raju something in Telugu.

  “He wants to know if you are having a flashlight?” Raju asked.

  I handed him the electric camping lantern we used to find the stairs at night when the power was off. He bobbled his head and thanked me.

  Twenty minutes passed. Twenty-five. The plumber clanked and prodded beneath the sink. Finally he stood, wiping his hands on his pants, which were soaked from ankle to hip from sitting in the puddle of water. He handed me back the lantern and spoke to Raju in clipped sentences.

  Raju translated.

  “No leak, Madam.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He is saying there is no leak. All is fine.”

  “But that’s crazy. Of course there’s a leak. Would I have called you here if there wasn’t? And look, he’s all wet. From SITTING IN WATER. Do you think I poured water all over the floor myself?”

  Raju looked confused. “No, Madam, I am not sure why you would be doing something like that.”

  “Of course not! Why would I! Which is why there’s a LEAK in my sink!”

  The plumber shook his head, emphatic. “No. No leak.”

  Raju looked at me with his hands in the air, like See? I told you.

  “Are you seriously leaving here without fixing the sink?”

  “Be of having a wonderful day, Madam,” said Raju, one foot already out the door.

  INDIAN HOUSEWIFE AND MISTRESS OF MY OWN DOMAIN, WEEK 2

  Number of appliances sacrificed to 220-volt electricity? Six, and counting. So far we’d bid farewell to the dust buster, the blender, the toaster oven, an electric toothbrush, and the hair trimmer we’d bought for Tucker. There were no dog groomers in Hyderabad and he was starting to look like a tiny, ov
ergrown sheepdog. Jay had insisted on cutting his fur as soon as I unearthed the clippers from a pile in the bedroom. The hair trimmer died midswipe down Tucker’s furry back—no sparks, no smoke. Tucker looked ridiculous with a reverse Mohawk, but, thank god, he’d escaped the incident unharmed. My beloved Mr. Coffee, on the other hand, died an especially violent death. With no coffee grounds to speak of, I’d decided to plug it in and fill it with espresso from Coffee Day. It had glugged twice, choked, and exploded in fiery plumes that left smoke stains on the kitchen ceiling.

  Venkat and I made three separate trips to the electrical shack, an open garage on Madhapur Road that was filled floor to ceiling with wires, plugs, and shiny metal coils. The proprietor swore up and down (in Telugu, via Venkat) that his converters would make my 120-volt American appliances work seamlessly with the raw, uncut 220-volt electricity streaming through our Indian outlets. With each new appliance death, I cursed him and his family to a lifetime of burnt toast and dust-covered floors.

  I missed my dad. He was a genius with anything mechanical, using complex procedures to mend things with an arsenal of supplies like duct tape and wire cutters and Krazy glue. He’d have been able to fix it so the upstairs toilet would actually flush, or so I could use my electric frying pan without shorting out every circuit in the house. But he and his toolbox were ten thousand miles away, and I was stuck here with my broken Mr. Coffee and a trash can full of charred plastic.

  Even Indian-made appliances turned out to be useless. There was a reason Indian housekeepers stuck to buckets of water, cloth rags, and stick brooms. Every day, at exactly 9:05 a.m. when Jay pulled out of the driveway, the electricity in the development shut off. Except for a few brief surges in the afternoon, when every light and fan went berserk with sudden, Frankenstein-esque life, the power remained off until 9 p.m., which was right about when Venkat pulled the Scorpio back into the driveway. Just in time for Jay to deny such an inconvenient, maddening phenomenon could possibly be happening.

  “It does not go off every single morning,” Jay said with a sigh. “You’re exaggerating because you hate it here.”