Juggling

By Monideepa Sahu  

Nita swirled porridge in her mouth with the rapture of a just-canonized saint. How could she stomach that insipid muck and manage to look as though Mrs. Britto’s slop matched a cordon bleu chef’s creation? Painted simper perfectly in place, Nita was a shrewd girl, born to beguile.

The congealing oat flakes stuck to my tongue. The way Nita eyed me and then whispered something to Mrs. Britto, I got that chill tingling feeling that I was the butt of their private joke. I stroked my chin and felt a gobbet of porridge. It was dried and had been there a while. I eased it off, painfully pulling downy hairs from my chin. I must have looked ridiculous with that glob wiggling as I ate. Nita and Mrs. Britto seemed not to notice, but I knew they were choking down giggles. Had they found something else?

From the day I took up lodgings with her, I could sense Mrs. Britto’s preference for Nita. My landlady never squeezed my hand that way. When I sulked yesterday afternoon, Mrs. Britto sat with me for a minute, stroked my back once or twice, and then waddled off mumbling voodoo spells to turn me into her black cat for all I knew. But if Nita was quiet, she literally spent hours to make her smile again. And the way the hag cackled at Nita’s scatterbrained jokes! Watching those two carry on, I never felt like talking to them more than I had to.

I watched Nita hoping to learn her tricks for getting ahead in the world. I had asked her, but I knew Nita would never tell me her secret stratagems to please Mrs. Britto and ensure her place in this house. She only smiled and offered to lend me books from her collection; books with titles like ‘How to Earn Friends’, and ‘Negotiate and Win’. Sure, she took me to be a small town simpleton. But I wasn’t dumb enough to believe that self-help books held the key to success.

As I downed another gummy spoonful of what passed for breakfast, it was easy for me to picture Nita using her drop-dead gorgeous looks to charm her way as a marketing executive. In the three months we shared a room, she had already maneuvered two promotions.  She stood a head above me despite my high heels and looked like a model for cosmetic ads. When we went out together, the guys attended only to her and made me feel like a mildewed shoe, a size too small and several seasons out of style. Conscious of her looks, Nita sashayed through life like a queen of the catwalks. She would never be caught dead with even a hair tweezed out of line in her eyebrows.

We continued eating in silence, Nita watching me like a cat about to pounce upon a mouse. “Let me help you, Mrs. B.” Nita rose, reached for the water jug, and filled Mrs. Britto’s glass, flashing her pearlies yet again. I clenched my fist at the way Nita patted Mrs. Britto’s shoulder while deliberately saying something in a tone so low that I could not hear. Nita had this way of drawing attention to herself and making me feel left out. And of late, she and Mrs. Britto were having these private tête-à-têtes and sharing conspiratorial giggles more often. The porridge churned inside my guts at the suspicion. No, I was sure something sinister was afoot.

I knew why a girl like Nita lavished her charms upon Mrs. Britto, of all people. It was a question of survival. If we got on the wrong side of the old bag and had to leave her paying guest home, we would have a tough time negotiating with nefarious landlords. Heaven knows what shady dealings agents lured prospective tenants into, especially young, single women. Nita was wily enough to evade the traps and pitfalls of a teeming city. A simple, small town girl like me had to learn to match up to survive in this unfamiliar place.

I guess Nita pretended to relish her porridge and juggle her smiles and secret thoughts like a seasoned acrobat because she’s from Delhi. She was used to a bigger place where life can get even more complicated. Shifting my attention from Nita to Mrs. Britto’s bovine presence, I stopped myself from retching over a viciously sticky lump. Nita’s big city shrewdness baffled me.

Mrs. Britto’s rippling cheeks moved around her puckered, toothless mouth as she ruminated, for all the world like a complacent cow. This gray, viscous porridge was the closest I could imagine to actual cud. Nita said something softly to Mrs. Britto again. Mrs. Britto looked up at me and smiled, raising one bushy eyebrow in a sly manner.

I ignored this barb and concentrated upon eating. The porridge was cooling and thickening, the niggardly half-cup ration of milk now absorbed without a trace. Why, and for whom, did Mrs.Britto pinch her pennies? Her children were married and settled abroad. She never spoke of visiting them, or of their visiting. Maybe her sepulchral manner and toxic sludge cuisine deterred them. I looked at their photos, placed in gilded frames on top of the TV. The late Mr. Britto frowned down from the wall above, a garland of sandalwood shavings festooned around his zombie face. Food like this must have hastened his demise.

The fear of alternatives kept me going. I dared not complain. Rents for independent apartments were touching stratospheric heights here in Bangalore. Finding a place on rent-sharing basis, paying the bills, shopping for groceries and cleaning up, all after a twelve hour grind at the office, could I manage it on my own?

It wasn’t easy getting this food and lodging arrangement with Mrs. Britto. If it hadn’t been for my colleague Sheila, and the fact that Sheila’s aunt was Mrs. Britto’s sister’s husband’s niece or uncle’s mother-in-law. Baap re! Mrs. Britto was bleeding me dry for this pasty slop and laughing all the way to the bank. I had to extract every paisa’s worth even if the food was fit for a pig sty, and not let my disgust show through.

Mrs. Britto, in all her sagging-jowled, pug-faced glory, was a necessary evil.

I glanced at my watch, the one my parents had given me for my twenty-second birthday. I left home with my first job soon after. I was here for three months now and hadn’t seen my folks since. I missed his scent of smoke when my father hugged me. My mother singing as she cooked my favorite kadhi or pottered about the garden, my father’s long commentaries on the state of the nation, my eyes stung with unshed tears at the memories. I would get two weeks’ leave next month so maybe…    But now, I had all of fifteen minutes to catch the bus to reach work on time.

I clinked my spoon against the blue and white china bowl. I was almost done. Mrs. Britto had several hand-embroidered tablecloths to match her exquisite sets of crockery. Such misplaced elegance enhanced the loathsomeness of her cooking.

Nita flashed a smile and waved a sheet of paper at me from across the table. She hugged, actually hugged Mrs. Britto, and they beamed at me in unison. Their put on smiles didn’t fool me one bit. What odious surprise were they springing upon me?

“Hey! My cousin, Celina, has bagged a job as a software programmer here.” Nita bubbled over with her usual phony gusto. “It’s a big company and the terms are great. And Mrs. Britto’s letting her stay here, with me.”

I almost threw up. So that was their game. All this maskafying, so much put on sweetness, it was all to have me thrown out of a safe lodging. Mrs. Britto grinned at me ominously as if to say, ‘let’s see you find a better place, sweetheart.’ They were gloating over my travails already.

“Celina will share my room, of course.” Nita prattled on. “It’s all right with you, isn’t it Mrs. Britto?”

Of course you devious bitch. But it wasn’t all right with me. Where the hell was I supposed to go? Live on the footpaths?

“I’m sure Celina must be wonderful even if she is half as sweet as you,” Mrs., Britto said.  “But I don’t know if I can manage the extra cooking.” Then she looked at her hands, the gnarled claws of a witch. “My joints are so stiff even after all your massaging, Nita dear. I can barely stir the porridge after taking pain-killers.”

“Mrs. B,” that dirty double crosser Nita said, syrupy flattery oozing from every pore in her anorexic body. “This evening, I’ll teach you to make idlis. Celina loves them for breakfast, and they’re easy to make once you get the hang of it. And don’t worry about your arthritis, Mrs. B. Celina’s a great cook. The two of us will take turns waking up early to help you in the kitchen.”

I clutched at the edge of the tablecloth and considered yanking it off and strangling Nita with it. Or perhaps a pinch of arsenic would be more genteel, suited to her dainty ways.

“Thanks for understanding and adjusting with all my problems,” said Mrs. Britto. She looked up at Nita and patted her hand. “I could do with the extra money,” she continued in that guttural, porcine grunt of hers. “My Nitish is between jobs and hasn’t sent home money for five months. But I’ve always worried about managing another tenant. What with my aching joints and the gout acting up, I can barely cook for the two of you. You’re a good girl, Nita, to think of me.”

Oh sure, Nita thought of Mrs. Britto indeed. The only person she cared for was herself and her cousin, Celina. It made no sense to plead my case. I would have to face this disaster and beg my colleagues to help me find another place to stay. How much time did I have before Celina arrived to evict me?

“Celina will be here next Sunday,” Nita announced as though she had read my mind. She smirked, reveling in my chagrin. “So we have six whole days to shift out your stuff.”

That woman couldn’t wait to get rid of me. I felt a stiletto piercing through my guts. If that selfish, conniving woman didn’t stop exulting in the success of her conspiracy, I would throw up my porridge right on her face. What if I did it? I imagined globs of regurgitated porridge dripping down her pretty head and face and nearly smiled in the midst of my misery.

“Don’t you worry, Mrs. Britto,” Nita said as she rose from the table and began clearing up the dishes. “I’ll come early from work and clean the small bedroom. Don’t try to do anything yourself. The dust will make you sick.”

“You don’t mind moving to the smaller bedroom, do you?” Mrs. Britto looked at me with the sort of adoring look a calf gives to its mother cow. “I thought Celina would be more comfortable with Nita, and you will have a room all to yourself. …” Her words trailed off in an unspoken plea.

Nita beamed at me. Mrs. Britto’s eyes begged.

I eased my grip on the tablecloth. No, I didn’t mind having a room all to myself, even if it was a bit smaller, and especially because someone else would clean before I moved in. It was fine with me if Nita and her cousin helped Mrs. Britto, because that meant more edible food. I exhaled slowly, letting out air pent up for endless minutes.

Then, I smiled and nodded.

I had a lot to learn from Nita, especially her negotiating skills. “Mrs. Britto, I’m so sorry. I never knew you have gout and arthritis,” I said. “I’ll help out in the kitchen when I can. Maybe you all can try out my rajma or cauliflower bharta for Sunday’s lunch.”

Some day, yes some day, I would master her bag of tricks and upstage Nita at her own game.

Ms. Monideepa Sahu - I am a former bank manager. Since 1997 my feature articles and short fiction in English have appeared in national level publications in India such as The Times of India and Deccan Herald.  My short fiction has most recently been accepted for print publication in Hobart #5 and  The Gobshite Quarterly (both US). My stories have also appeared in the following 'zines'; A Long Story Short, Pindeldyboz, Timbuktu (U.K. based), and The Rivendell Gazette. My home, Bangalore, is in the southern tip of India and near the Equator. Contact Monideepa.