Karma Gone Bad

by Jenny Feldon

  In the morning, I left the others behind and took a rickshaw to the Mumbadevi temple. In the early hours, the streets were still quiet. The driver whistled. We passed the Dhobi Ghat laundry, where hundreds of men and women were already deeply ensconced with the day’s work, and the slow stirrings of the Zaveri Bazaar, where peddlers were just beginning to set out the day’s wares of copper bangles, incense and spices, woven carpets, and hand-tooled leather slippers.

  At the entrance of the temple, I paid the driver and told him, in Hindi, not to wait. I stowed my shoes under a carved marble bench and scanned the sign of visiting rules posted just before the gates. I wondered if being pregnant, like having my period, would prevent me from visiting the temple’s interior. But the sign said nothing about expecting mothers, and I slipped through the turnstile into the dim inner chambers.

  I wanted a few moments alone in the quiet. I needed a place to say thank you to the universe—for bringing me here, for allowing me to find a path that led to acceptance and understanding. My sandalwood prayer beads wove between my fingers as I focused my thoughts on gratitude for what I’d been given and prayers for what was to come—for me, for Jay, and for our unborn child. Karma had given me the greatest gifts anyone could ask for. Now it would be up to me to live life with my eyes and heart open to everything I’d learned.

  “Done praying to Lord Krishna?” Jay joked when they arrived to get me. “You told him you’re Jewish, right?”

  “It’s Ganesh I was talking to,” I countered. “And I don’t think he cares.”

  “So is the baby going to be raised Hindu?” Jay asked.

  “Probably not. But she’ll know about it. Or he. And one day we’ll come back so they can see where they came from, where their story began.”

  We rode the ferry out to Elephanta Island to roam through the caves. I was walking slowly up the giant hill, sipping a lukewarm Sprite to calm my still-churning stomach, when a monkey leapt onto me and snatched it from my fingertips, chugging it down in one noisy gulp before I even had time to react.

  “Hey,” I protested. “NO! That’s my Sprite!”

  “Here, have mine,” Jay said, handing me his can. But the monkey was faster. He grabbed that one too, snatching it and running to a pile of rocks nearby, sipping it greedily and watching us with a mocking expression.

  “You should have said no in Hindi,” Diana said. “Maybe they don’t speak English.”

  “Simrahn would love that. All these months of lessons and the best I can do is tell a monkey not to steal my drink.”

  “I think these monkeys are smarter than we are,” Kyle said, watching the monkey rub his stomach in satisfaction. “And your Hindi is actually pretty good.”

  “For sure they’re better at adapting to their environment than I ever was,” I muttered, mourning the loss of my soda. “Talk about survival of the fittest.”

  We took the ferry back to the city. Diana and I browsed sidewalk stalls for souvenirs. She picked out om key chains for both of us.

  “So we’ll always have the universe at our fingertips.” Diana smiled as she handed me the carved wooden symbol that dangled from a smudged brass chain.

  Kyle and I ducked into our favorite bookstore, which was packed floor to ceiling with uneven towers of dusty paperbacks. I browsed the classics sections, hoping to add a few more titles to my collection before we left India for good. Kyle came up behind me and handed me a giant tome wrapped in paper.

  “What’s this?”

  “It’s a going-away present. Shantaram. If you really want to love and hate India at the same time, this will do it. It’s incredible. You’ll have a totally new appreciation for Leopold’s too. Plus they say ‘yar’ all the time, which I’m going to adopt as my own personal catchphrase.”

  “Thanks, yar. This is awesome.” I wanted to thank him for more, to find the words to tell him how much I appreciated so many things—the guidance, the comic relief, the companionship that kept me from being lonely when Jay and Diana got wrapped up in their BKC world. His comment about my Grace Kelly Indian haircut was one of the nicest things anyone had ever said to me. I tried to tell him all of it, but the words just stuck in my throat.

  “Come on, let’s go get a Kingfisher at Leopold’s and watch the tourists try to haggle with the street guys. It’ll be almost as good as moat watching.”

  “Nothing could ever be that good.”

  Chapter 27

  We returned to Hyderabad in the late afternoon. Venkat seemed unusually jumpy on the ride home from the airport. His black brows were knit down across his forehead and he tapped his fingers furiously against the dashboard. Something was bothering him, big time.

  “What’s wrong, Venkat?” I asked. It wasn’t like him to be so anxious. He was barely speaking to us, hunched down over the wheel and driving more slowly, it seemed, than usual.

  “I no say,” he muttered, under his breath, like he was admonishing himself. “I no say.”

  When Jay unlocked the front door, we knew immediately what was causing Venkat’s distress. Everything we’d left in the house was gone. Our dishes and clothing, the linens and the bedding, pots and pans, and even the spices that had been left in the kitchen cabinets. Tucker was frantic, darting back and forth between the empty rooms. Only my laptop was left behind, alone in a pile of dust on the marble floor.

  “Venkat, what happened?” Jay shouted, shocked and furious.

  Venkat crossed his arms and refused to speak. His face was a mask of frustration and anger.

  “Venkat, you must know who did that. What happened?”

  “Is Mary,” he burst out, anguished. “She coming here with brothers. Many rickshaws. Taking everything. I sorry, Sir! I no doing!”

  Jay and I stared at each other in stunned silence. Mary, who I’d treated like family, who I’d given food and money and clothing. Half of the things Mary had stolen had been destined for her anyway, once we’d officially moved out. But she’d had no way of knowing that. She had worked with us for months, diligent and true, so honest she’d leave a stack of coins from Jay’s pocket lined up on his nightstand, carefully arranged in plain view as if to prove she’d never dream of taking so much as a single rupee. Mary had taken care of me when I was sick, played with Tucker while we were gone. She’d been part of our family, part of our lives. Now she’d taken everything, leaving behind piles of cobwebs, forever altering the memories of the time we’d spent together, of a person I thought I knew.

  Venkat cowered in the doorway, angry and distraught. “I tried stopping, Sir,” he said, his brown eyes wounded.

  “Take me there,” Jay said, his face hard.

  “Sir?”

  “To Mary’s. You know where she lives. Take me there.”

  ***

  Jay pounded on the door of the crumbling concrete shack. A man, presumably Mary’s brother, answered the door lazily, wearing an undershirt and a pair of plaid pants. He saw it was Jay and tried to slam the door shut again, but Jay forced his way past him into the dim interior.

  “You stole from us,” Jay said, his voice level. “I want my stuff back.”

  “Get out of my home,” the man shouted. “We no stealing from you. Stealing nothing. Get out now!”

  “Oh really?” Jay replied, his voice rising. “You stole nothing? Then how come you’re WEARING MY SHOES?”

  The man looked down in spite of himself, where his hairy toes stuck out of Jay’s favorite pair of Adidas flip-flops. Jay gave him a look of disgust and pushed past him into a room no bigger than a closet. Cockroaches scurried beneath his feet. A single burnt pot smoked on a hot plate, a watery rice mixture cooking inside. The smell inside the shack was rank and sour, the smell of illness and filth and desperation.

  Mary lay huddled in the corner, eyes swollen, protecting her body with her arms like Jay was going to start beating her any second. All around her were our belo
ngings: jeans and shirts, the plastic Q-mart cups with fruit on them, my orange and yellow towels from college.

  Jay looked at her for a long moment. Then he turned and walked out without a word.

  “Go home, Venkat,” he said wearily, climbing back into the Scorpio. “Take us home.”

  “But, Sir, you things? Mary having?”

  “Just drive.”

  ***

  Driving through the rioting crowds in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks had felt like the lowest possible moment on our journey. It made me question the lessons I was learning and challenged my resolve to stay in India until I got things right. But the betrayal I felt now made the fear and uncertainty of that night seem mild in comparison. I’d wanted to cancel the bon voyage party, too confused and heavy-hearted about Mary to feel like celebrating anything. But Jay had insisted we continue as planned.

  “You’re the one who believes in karma,” Jay said, gesturing to the crates of wine still hidden beneath the stairs. “Don’t you think there was a reason the wine was one of the only things she left behind? That, and your laptop? She didn’t want to take away your writing. She knew it’s what meant the most to you.”

  “That’s not karma,” I said. “Mary’s Christian. She doesn’t believe in drinking alcohol. And she probably didn’t know what to do with the laptop.”

  “The point is, who cares? She needed all of it way more than we did. It’s the way it is. I’m just glad she’s OK, that those thug brothers of hers didn’t hurt her or anything.”

  “Do you think they might have?”

  “At least they’ll have a little money to get by for a while. I know it’s not the best note to go out on, but…let’s just forget about it and have a party. We’ve got plenty to celebrate.”

  “I didn’t get to tell her good-bye,” I whispered. I imagined her slim chocolate face peeking over my shoulder in the mirror while she wrapped me, laughing, in my bright blue sari. One long braid falling down her back, white even teeth, spine held straight and proud despite the hardships of the life she lived. Which Mary was the real one? The cowering thief, or the honest, good-hearted version I thought I’d known? I never wanted to find out.

  ***

  “Madam? I am having something good instead. Bad Mary. But for mine is good news.”

  “What is it, Venkat?” I pressed a palm against my forehead. I’d had about enough news for one day.

  “Swapna being my wife, Madam!” Venkat announced, bursting at the seams with joy. I jumped up in my seat, headache forgotten.

  “Venkat, that’s awesome! She liked the earrings? She said yes?”

  “Yes, earrings much liking.” He grinned. “But Swapna even more liking mine new bike.”

  We pulled up outside of the store. “Does that mean we get to come to the wedding?” I asked.

  “Yes please, Madam.” Venkat nodded vigorously. “You and Sir are being mine much honored guests.”

  ***

  My shopping cart was stacked sky-high, loaded with imported luxuries for this, our final expat bash. Dented boxes of Duncan Hines brownie mix; plastic tubs of deli turkey, cheese, and crackers; and jars of Old El Paso salsa. I shielded my eyes as the cash register cranked out a total. It was more than an Indian family would spend on groceries in a year, more than Venkat’s monthly salary. But if we were going out, we were going out in true expat style. I dug in my pockets for a credit card and came up empty-handed. No cash, no plastic, nothing. I’d been so distraught over Mary that I’d run out of the house without my wallet or my bag.

  A manager rushed over and took in the scene: the mounds of groceries, bagged and ready to go, me red-faced and mortified, mumbling apologies and calculating how long it would take to go all the way home and come back again. If they’d be willing to put all the ice cream back in the freezer. If this was really karma telling us to cancel the party after all. The manager put a hand on my shoulder. Unexpected, unorthodox, reassuring.

  “It’s OK, Ma’am. Take your items. Be bringing your payment later. We trust you.”

  In that moment, everything came full circle in the oddest of ways. We had trusted Mary, and she had betrayed us. But already, in our hearts, we’d forgiven her. What choice did we have but to look beyond ourselves and our sense of righteousness? We had everything, and she had nothing. The world kept spinning, whether we understood it or not. Whether we fought back or let go.

  And now, India trusted me. After all my transgressions, India had forgiven me. Or at least, Q-mart had. Which is more than I’d expected. And, maybe, more than I deserved. If India could forgive me—for every misunderstanding, for every judgment, for every minute I wasted with expectations that set us both up to fail—then maybe it was time to forgive myself. To smile at that girl in the broken mirror and tell her everything was going to be OK.

  I’d learned to survive. More importantly, I’d learned to let go. I’d learned to live.

  “Dhanyavad,” I said to the manager, bringing my hands to my heart in namaskar. “Thank you so much. Your kindness means more than you could ever know.”

  ***

  Jay and I stood together on the empty balcony. The last of our guests had straggled home. Now it was just the two of us, staring out over the tent camps and the vast empty fields the way we’d once gazed at the Manhattan skyline from our balcony on the twenty-second floor. I held his hand tight in my palm, needing the strength of his fingers to keep my own steady.

  “I’m sorry this wasn’t everything we wanted it to be,” Jay said. “I guess we really didn’t know what we were in for.”

  “Don’t be,” I answered. And meant it. “I wouldn’t change a thing.”

  Because, really, what was there to change? There had only been one path to this day, this feeling, this moment. Karma had brought us here, and now karma was taking us home again.

  Home. The space I moved and breathed in, the one where I woke up every morning and tried my absolute hardest to live like the day was beautiful and amazing and my very last. I’d learned to love India for what it was, and to let go of my frustrations for all the things it wasn’t. I’d learned that embracing a new culture didn’t have to mean abandoning the one I’d left behind. Home and happiness had always been right in front of me. I’d just needed to open my eyes to what the universe had been trying to show me all along.

  I rested my head on Jay’s shoulder just as an explosion of fireworks lit up the dusty night sky.

  “Think those are for us?” I asked, only half-kidding. I scooped Tucker into my arms, completing the circle of my own perfect family.

  “Hyderabad is celebrating the fact that we’re finally going back to where we came from, you mean?”

  “Exactly. A bon voyage present. Or an early baby gift,” I said, patting my stomach, willing the tiny life form within it to stay strong and grow.

  “More likely it’s some festival we didn’t know about. India always has something to celebrate.” Jay ran a hand down my back and pulled me closer.

  “Always,” I said. We stood there, our faces lit up red and green and blue in the darkness, and looked west over the horizon toward home.

  Acknowledgments

  To my agent, Lauren Galit, who earns the adjective “amazing” ten times over, for inspiring me, believing in me, and seeing straight through to the heart of this story in a way no else could have (me included).

  To my editor, Shana Drehs, for her unparalleled expertise and enthusiasm, and for her insightful feedback, along with Anna Klenke’s, that made this book a hundred times better. To Connie Gabbert, for the beautiful cover design I love more every day, and to Nicole Villeneuve for being the perfect ambassador to bring this book into the world. And to everyone at Sourcebooks, for making the journey incredible and giving my book the perfect home.

  To the teachers, editors, and mentors I’ve leaned on more times than I can count who have o
ffered wisdom and encouragement: Sasha Emmons, David Gates, Vivian Gornick, Daphne Kalotay, Scott Leibs, and Linda Roghaar. And most especially to Helen Smith, who informed me I was a writer and then, with her fierce red pen, taught me to be a better one, and to Helen Schulman, for reminding me to take deep breaths and good notes.

  To the dear friends and family members who served as beta readers and champions for this book every step of the way: Jon Feldon, Kent Liu, Robert Mockler, Nancy Molesworth, Jason and Amanda Tracey, and my “other half” Katie Hurley, who is living proof that karma is everywhere…even on the Internet. And to the incomparable Ed., who catches my typos before I’ve even made them.

  To the entire ’Bad crew, for the adventure of a lifetime.

  To Soleil Moon Frye, for the exciting journeys we’ve taken together and the ones still to come. There’s no one I’d rather make dreams come true with.

  To Katie Donohue, Alexina Vick, and Laura Dine Million, for every cup of coffee at the kitchen table and every glass of wine on the living room floor—I am so grateful for your friendship.

  To Milcy Palacios, for taking care of my children and loving them like crazy during the hours I spent lost in my world of words, for taking equally good care of me in the moments I was running on empty, and for the strong Guatemalan coffee that fueled me through the longest of nights.

  To Dorothy Cohen, for the artistry in her soul she passed on to me.

  To Sylvia Feldman, for her limitless supply of love, wisdom, kisses, and matzo balls, and for believing in me and inspiring me every single day.

  To my parents, Nan and Paul Feldon, for teaching me to dream big, and for a lifetime of unconditional love and steadfast support, plus lots of Krazy Glue and chicken noodle soup. And to Jon and Jess Feldon for being the best partners in crime a big sister could ask for.

  To my husband Jay, for supporting my dreams in every imaginable way, and for the beautiful life we’ve built that turned out to be so much better than all those dreams put together. (And, of course, for dragging me to India in the first place.)