By this time, neighbourliness towards me had dwindled further. Not to the extent that it would later, but there was a noticeable change. If I needed something—like I did, when looking for a new maid—I didn’t have an outpouring of help like I used to.
It still hurt me. When was I going to inure myself to the state of not belonging to any intimate circle? Of all people, it was Raj who called me one morning: ‘Manas mentioned that you’re doing all the housework yourself. That’s crazy! You’ll destroy your health. Have you forgotten our Committee has set up a concierge service?’ His tone was strong and reprimanding like always, but I was almost moved to tears that he seemed so concerned about my wellbeing.
The concierge service was like everything else at Fantasia, a fancy term. Essentially we needed to call the manager, who would in turn alert other touts. In return, we were charged a month’s salary for successful hires. Most of us skirted the service to forego the fees, but now I was desperate enough to try anything. The manager promised to get back. Two days later, he called. A live-in woman was available, he said, but older than the average Fantasia maid. ‘Capable of all housework, despite her age. But one thing I can guarantee: she’s a good lady, she has references.’
I was taken aback when I first encountered Mariamma. I hadn’t expected anyone so grotesque-looking. Her front teeth, stained and crooked, protruded from her mouth. Her dark scalp shone through her thin grey hair, generously oiled and tightly coiled at the back. But what caught my breath, almost made me gasp, as she stood on my threshold, was her severe stoop. The manager hadn’t mentioned she was a hunchback. He hadn’t said anything about her appearance. I felt sorry for her, but couldn’t envisage her handling the housework with her already-bent spine. Besides, I couldn’t recruit her into Thimakka’s voyeuristic role; other Madams wouldn’t countenance her presence. Quelling the dismay in my voice, I said: ‘We have too much work for a woman of your age. I’ll call the manager and let him know this won’t work out.’
‘Madam, let me work for one day and show you,’ she said. Then she smiled, baring her crooked teeth. I was hesitant, but also intrigued. There was an impishness about her mouth, quickly wiped out by a beseeching look. ‘One day,’ she persisted. Exhausted by all the housework I’d been handling for two weeks, I was tempted by even a day’s reprieve.
By that evening, I was mesmerised. When I returned from my lakeside walk, my home was spotless. The floors gleamed, the corners sparkled, the ledges shone with new tints I hadn’t seen even when we’d first moved in. Our steel vessels and pots were handwashed and stacked in order of height. The toilets emitted a light floral fragrance. Our crystal trinkets glittered on newly-polished shelves and racks.
With her crooked, elfish grin, Mariamma spurned my assistance in the kitchen. She urged me to rest while she handled everything. She cooked an astounding meal that evening—an egg curry and fried rice that Manas said was lip-smacking. Rhea was equally enthralled. For most of the day, she hung about the new maid, spellbound by her village stories. Moreover, Mariamma twisted my daughter’s long hair into stylish braids that Rhea paraded with pride. ‘See Mama, how nice I look.’
That night, I convinced Manas that we should keep her. He too was thrown by her appearance, but agreed that wasn’t reason enough to dismiss her. At last, I had help again.
The next day, the chief security guard turned up at our villa. His portly build hovered over my threshold, his paunch menacingly tautened with a thick belt. I had spotted him a few times around the campus, bullying the skinnier, junior guards.
Arrogantly twirling his moustache at my doorstep, he warned me that Mariamma wasn’t from the surrounding village, so his agency could not complete the mandatory background check. For the first time, I looked into his dark eyes at close quarters. Was it my imagination or was there a cold aggression in the way they focused on my face? But this was the concierge service, I said. The manager had already vouched for her character.
The guard, unappeased, continued to linger by my door. ‘Madam, manager send someone else. That lady not come. This woman he doesn’t know.’
When I called the manager, he confirmed the guard’s story. His contact hadn’t shown up.
When questioned, Mariamma said that the milkman, Venkiah, had alerted her about the vacancy in my home. In the guard’s presence, I summoned the stout Venkiah to my threshold. He nodded eagerly to all my questions: Have you known her for long? Can you vouch for her character? He seemed not only to know her, but to be fond of her. His face seemed unusually animated when he responded to my queries. He also said, ‘Damini Madum know her.’
I called Damini at once. ‘Mariamma? She’s worked for someone I know, in the past. I think you can trust her, darling.’
But the guard stayed unappeased. He refused to issue Mariamma’s Fantasia employee permit and ID card without a background check. I was unnerved but I stood my ground.
‘She don’t know how to sign, we don’t know her village name,’ he said, as if those were valid objections to issuing her ID.
So what if she was illiterate? So what if she came from some unknown village? It was my decision, wasn’t it? With the guard still standing there, I had Mariamma stamp her thumbprint on a blank origami sheet. ‘You can use this for her ID.’ I handed over her inky swirls.
With a baleful stare the man departed from our porch, but promptly complained to Raj about my obstinacy.
Raj called me on the intercom. ‘What’s this Vedika? Why are you employing strangers? Surely, you can make do with someone local?’
‘She’s not a stranger, Raj. Venkiah has vouched for her.’
‘Venkiah? He’s a dull-witted fool. How can you listen to him? We have to be careful about security issues here.’
‘But Damini knows her.’
‘Damini? What is it about all you women and Damini? Even Hansika’s become a fan now. Woman has foisted a stray’s pup on us, like we don’t have enough--’
‘A pup?’
‘Vedika, don’t tell me later that I didn’t warn you.’ There was a simmering rage in his voice. Raj was helpful no doubt, but also insistent on getting his way.
When I told Rhea about Hansika Aunty’s new pup, she didn’t explode with excitement like I expected her to. But of course, maybe Topsy’s death was still weighing on her mind. When I asked her to accompany me to the golf course, where Hansika said she was taking little Ginger for a walk, she even seemed somewhat hesitant about accompanying me. ‘I want to play with Thambi, you go.’
‘But Rhea, Auntie has a new dog. Don’t you want to play with it?’
‘I want to play with Thambi,’ she persisted, as if it were too hurtful to respond to my question.
‘Bring Thambi along,’ I said. Perhaps it was foolhardy to take a cat along. In all those cartoons I had watched, hadn’t cats always fought with dogs? But still, I didn’t want Rhea to shy away from meeting Hansika’s new dog. It didn’t seem right for my child to be skirting today’s joy in order to shield herself from some future grief. It didn’t seem right for my child to be mirroring my own anxieties.
Hansika had little Adit with her, strapped into his pram. He smiled faintly at me. Of late, he had started recognizing a few people around the complex and I was glad that Rhea and I were among his favourites. The little pup, a champagne-coloured furry creature with wide, curious eyes rubbed itself softly against my legs. Earlier I would have started slightly. But Thambi’s presence and my daughter’s influence were rubbing off. I no longer feared dogs as much as I used to earlier. I had even started appreciating their indiscriminate affections. Rhea had Thambi in one arm and a frisbee in the other. When she spun it across the grassy expanse, little Ginger hobbled towards it. ‘Why is he limping?’ I asked.
‘Oh, didn’t you know? There was this stray near the gate that gave birth to six pups. The others were adopted by folks in the village, but this chap had no takers because of his injury. So Damini called and asked ---’
‘How did he injure his
foot?’
‘Landed in some bush -- don’t really know the details—ask Damini. She got him treated, then asked if I wanted…’ Since Adit’s birth, Hansika was always vague about things. There was an air of abstraction that surrounded everything in her life, as it did in mine. However for Sajan’s and Rhea’s sakes, I needed to attend to particulars. Were our kids involved in injuring the pup?
But just then, I too was distracted by the scene in the distance. With both ensconced on her lap, Rhea had Thambi and Ginger almost nuzzling against each other. In her presence, even the animosity between the dog and cat had vanished.
Later that evening, by the clubhouse pool where Damini agreed to meet me, she was surprised and even slightly concerned that I hadn’t heard about the litter by the gate: ‘The kids knew about it, darling.’ The sun was setting and the brick red Spanish roof of the clubhouse glowed orange as if a fire were lit inside. Tall cassia trees girded the pool on the west side, cast trembling shadows into salmon-tinted waters. We were seated under one of the dark green wooden gazebos.
She was wearing what she called a Moroccan gown that day. Even by the dim poolside, her dress - an electric blue kaftan embroidered with scarlet dragons - was startling. How had someone with such outlandish sensibilities been invited to stay at Fantasia, I wondered again.
‘But the injured pup, what happened --?’
‘You haven’t been coming to my place for sometime --.’
‘How did he get hurt?’ I persisted. I wasn’t willing to get thwarted that evening. I knew how clever Damini was at diverting my attention.
‘Litter had six pups to begin with. A few of us were taking turns to keep them fed and safe. Then one pup went missing—of course, we thought something ghastly had struck –’
I nodded. I may have been personally affected by the tragedy, but everyone here was affected enough to jump to the worst conclusions. ‘Then those two kids, amazing boys rescued him from Villa 37 yard.’
‘Which boys?’ I said holding my breath, though I didn’t need to hear her answer.
‘What’s his name, that --?’
‘Joel and Suhel?’
Noisily drawing her chair away from the table, Damini threw her head back and laughed. ‘So you know the story then?’ The security guard, who was standing in the vicinity, dropped his radio, startled. I shook my head and nodded. No, I didn’t know this story, but I knew something else. ‘What happened to the pup?’
‘Caught in some thorny bush. When they found him, he was already injured, on the porch. Poor little one still had limited vision, had barely started seeing the world –’
‘But how did he get there? The pup?’
‘Kids think some guard might have taken him—or some worker.’
‘How do you know it wasn’t the kids?’ Damini looked at me then with a blazing intensity, as if she were peering into me, searching for something. I shifted uncomfortably. She even seemed lost for a few seconds, her vision temporarily shuttered by some other image.
She shook her head, her necklaces jangling on her heaving breasts, as if gathering her thoughts and shaking herself out of a reverie: ‘I asked our kids to start hunting around the complex, so they brought the pup to my home. And they looked shaken, both those boys. They hung around, helped load him into a little basket, fed him milk from a dropper –’
‘Still, how can you suspect these guards or other people just because --?’
‘They’re poor? I wouldn’t do that, darling. You see, unlike others here, I wasn’t born rich. I understand how hard lives can be.’
‘I wasn’t born rich, either.’ No wonder I felt comfortable with Damini. She understood what it felt like to be excluded. But I also realised how much more she knew about me and how little I knew about her. ‘Your husband’s from a wealthy family?’
‘He made money, he’s a diamond trader. My parents would be appalled to see me here.’
‘So would my mother. What about your parents? What did they do?’
‘My father was a photographer. An idealist, bent on changing the world with his camera. His hero was Che Guevara, he planned to traverse the country on a motorbike.’ Damini laughed. ‘Well, you know what happens to people like that, don’t you? The world changes them faster than they can change the world.’
‘And your mother?’
‘She was a poet. They met at college. They were young, foolish and in love. Typical story, darling, a bit cliched these days. Rich girl, poor boy. My mother was from one of those landowner families. Her father was educated in England, an arrogant man who considered himself superior to everyone else in his town. But he paid for my education. Sent cheques with his driver, delivered every year in a long, silver car. For that I’m grateful. Because I’m not scared of people like Kusro. I can soothe them with my Reiki sessions.’ She winked and laughed again.
‘But Damini, those two boys—they were there when we found an injured cat at Villa –’
‘Vedika, if I were you, I wouldn’t ask too many questions. There are all kinds of rumours travelling around –’
‘About me?’
‘Not just you, darling. Something to do with your child.’
‘Sajan?’
Damini was always expressive, exaggeratedly so. More than the others, she seemed to seek and find theatrical possibilities in everyday interactions. ‘A drama queen,’ my mother would have called her, as she primly dismissed her more showy students. Extending her arm and laying it gently on mine, Damini sighed deeply and loudly, her eyes brimming with commiseration. ‘They said it was strange that an injured cat lay on the porch, ready to be adopted. And that if it worked with a cat, don’t you think a child might try it with a dog?’
I was speechless. Were they saying that Rhea had deliberately injured Thambi and then the pup as well? Who was spreading these horrendous rumours? Those two despicable boys? Because who else was capable of such evil machinations? Or were the other mothers framing my child, to get back at me? It was one thing to be thought of as inquisitive and nosey, but it was another thing entirely, when my child was being accused of something she wasn’t remotely capable of.
As I walked dolefully home, I tried to shut out the image of Rhea’s glee while pummelling Michael with pillows. Or her reluctance to greet Hansika’s new pup. To what lengths was my daughter willing to go to get her way? Were Manas and I faltering as parents?
TWENTY-FOUR
FROM TALK AT THE golf course park, I learned that Bijoy had invited Fantasia kids over for his birthday. Of late, I had started noticing that Rhea was being excluded from some kids’ birthdays. Not from all. My cluster friends still invited her. So did a few others, like Jacob’s wife, Simi. But I gathered, from stray remarks at the swing set or pool, that Villa 69 was organising a farm expedition, or that Villa 53 was fashioning a pottery theme party, and that Rhea didn’t feature on their invite lists. I wondered if it had to do with my snooping around. Though she always put on a brave face, I could sense the disappointment welling up inside her when other kids chatted about parties in the offing. So I was almost as rapturous as she was, when a day later, she received an invite from Bijoy.
Besides, my thoughts moved in new circles. Could I use this occasion to enter their home? To explore what had triggered Thimakka’s fear about Rhea’s safety? On that evening, Mariamma was directed to drop her to the party and to linger outside till I arrived to pick her up. Since Mariamma’s entry into the household, I no longer permitted my child to wander about our complex on her own, without my maid or me trailing behind her.
To fetch my daughter back, I approached Bijoy’s home when the party was almost over. Grey rain clouds had slipped over the sun, imparting a dusky gloom to the early evening. A gaggle of children were scattering from their front yard. Many were blowing loudly into whistles, with take-home gift wrappers strewn by their feet.
‘Hi Vedika,’ Bishnu said, her eyes looking larger and gogglier than I remembered. Her straightened hair had settled back into obstinate sp
irals. ‘Do you want to come in? Rhea and a few other kids are still playing in the backyard.’
‘Yes,’ I said, holding my breath. ‘I want to wish the birthday boy.’
‘He’s in the backyard, but you can come in anyway. Have some cake.’
I paused in her balloon-strewn garden, looking at those helium-filled ovals of red, yellow, peach and white held fast to bushes and low-hanging branches. I had a sudden urge to snap the cords, to watch the colours drift skywards, and merge with birds and shreds of mist. I had been expecting that slight sense of despair again, a surge of sorrow at the sight of those gleeful props, at the swagger of parents who had triumphed through another year without a mishap. But instead, I was filled with lightness, an inexplicable joy. Did this mean I was willing to start over, conceive another child?
‘Vedika?’ Bishnu’s voice beckoned me from the porch. I was entering Bijoy’s home. Heart thudding, I crossed the foyer into her living room. Her home was somewhat carelessly maintained. By the couch, a pair of stilettos had fallen, the centre table was stained by still uncleared coffee mugs, a leather recliner was weighed down by a pile of newspapers, and a dog’s bowl teetered on the steps leading into their dining room. I was appalled that she hadn’t cleared up the clutter even for a party.
She had the usual art objects - the brass pots, the clay sculptures, and Madhubani paintings lining her showcase. But the untidiness of her interiors detracted from any artistry that might have shone through otherwise. I asked her if she would take me on a guided tour, feigning interest in the wooden flooring, and saying we might want to get it done at ours. Too polite to refuse, she led me through all her rooms. ‘This is all fake wood, not real wood,’ she said, while my eyes roved over all the objects in her home. I noted the same sloppiness in the other rooms as well. In the master bedroom, clothes and papers and mugs cluttered the bedside tables.
Then we entered Bijoy’s room. From the backyard, we could hear the kids’ rowdy shouts and occasional yelps. My heart had been beating all along, but now I felt like my pulse had stopped. Bijoy’s tiny bed-cum-study revealed such an astonishing mismatch with the rest of the house, I almost wondered if he belonged to the same family. All objects in that room - his books, his stationery, his desk calendar, his notes, his stapler, his badminton and table tennis rackets - were so carefully placed, so unerringly aligned, you could tell that its inhabitant was obsessive about order.
No Trespassing Page 15