I took the job in the Gulf to get closer to Maria. 

Maria had found me with a snake charmer when I was a child. Many people saw me, but they chose not to see. Only Maria went out of her way to rescue me. When she learned about how my parents died, she vowed to protect me. All the time she was away, working as a nanny in the Gulf, she didn’t forget me. She sent money every month without fail and ensured I got the best treatment in the convent orphanage. 

The sisters envied me for it. The more I tried to camouflage myself in my new surroundings, the more I stood out. All I wanted was to be treated like every other child. They made me do all sorts of chores. After having had enough, I finally decided to play a prank on the meanest sister, Sr Gloria. She always left her room door open in case of emergencies. I snuck out of bed after lights out and hid in her room. I made hissing sounds that had to be louder than her snores. She woke up eventually. As she wasn’t wearing her glasses, she had to squint even harder in the dark. For days after, she kept screaming about seeing a snake in her room. She even called the priest to bless her room. 

Whenever Maria came on vacation, she brought so many treats along with her, it was difficult to believe that someone could love a stranger more than their own children. I often doubted her love as no human had been so kind to me before. On her retirement, her kindness shocked me even more. 

She gave me both the bedrooms in her house. I converted one room into my garden space. And the smaller room into a shrine for Mahadev. She had no hobbies, she didn’t need a room of her own, and the altar in the hall was more than enough for her prayers—she convinced me time and again when I felt guilty of her generosity. Her kids completely stopped talking to her when she told them I would get the house upon her demise. 

 ‘They are selfish! They have gone abroad. Who is taking care of me now? You! Of course, I’ll give you the house. That much sense they don’t have or what?’ Maria had said, stuffing my mouth with panpole filled with jaggery.

Maria’s husband left her when her kids were very young. She hadn’t seen him since. Looking at her own children’s faces reminded her of her husband, they had his face, his manners, and his genes. Maybe that’s why she loved me the most. 

During Shraavan, when I abstained from eating fish, even though fish is cheaper during that month, she never bought any. She waited for the month to pass, to eat fresh fish with me. 

‘Your Shraavan is like my Lent, you also fast with me na,’ she said.

Our favourite was Pomfret curry.

She would read out headlines, and then punctuate them with advice, ‘Girl raped while returning from work. Don’t take panga with men. You know na what happened to that nurse.’

‘Yes, Aruna Shanbaug, I know. Don’t worry.’

‘I’m not worrying. I know you are capable of defending yourself. You are a strong woman. Still.’

I didn’t have to pretend with her, I could be myself. When I finally told her about the pranks I played on the sisters in the convent, she laughed and through tears she said, ‘God will kill me for being friends with Satan!’ and then kissed me. Living together made us understand each other better. She got to see my temper, and tried her best to calm me down by chanting ‘Forgive and forget!’ And I got to see the way working in the Gulf had taken a toll on her body. Yet, she was adamant about cooking for me.

No one could see Maria and me together. Everyone envied us. I’m sure evil eyes took her away from me, but our neighbor, Manisha, was the worst. She used to supply maids to the Gulf, and I thought she could be trusted. I should have known she was trying to separate us.

The day the three of us went out to Elephanta Caves, Manisha was clearly uncomfortable with our closeness. When I ranted about how I didn’t like the name ‘Elephanta’ and blamed it on the Portuguese, she didn’t expect Maria to understand. She wanted our differences to cause distance between us. But Maria said she understood. That she didn’t like the Portuguese much because she had heard that Mangaloreans fled Goa because of them. 

I remember the look on Manisha’s face. When we hugged, I saw her turn away. How could I have not understood she was jealous? Manisha had been plotting my move for long, I should have known. She was good at brainwashing women to feel they had better opportunities outside India. She told me it was selfish of me to live at home while Maria spent her life working for me. Working in the Gulf would bring me closer to Maria, she promised. I could give her the life of retirement she deserved with the money I earned in the Gulf. Just a few years, she said.

Maria wanted me to stay. She had been waiting for retirement to be with me. And that even though the pay wasn’t good for a dance instructor in Mumbai, being around her was more important. She said I could get any job. Why a nanny? Manisha convinced me all I had to do was be a good nanny to a child of good working parents.

And I fell for it.

How bad could it be? Maria had been a nanny too. She never complained. I promised Maria I would take her on a trip when I returned. She deserved it. She wanted to see Madame Tussauds. I was tempted at times, to get easy money, it’s easy to trick men once they are a bit drunk, but Maria’s hard work made me want to earn money the right way.

 The flight was just how Manisha had promised it would be. It was good except for the passenger beside me who kept talking about how much she hated leaving her dog behind. Had it not been for the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in the Gulf, she would have never abandoned her dog! What he ate, when he shat, what he loved to watch on Netflix, how many partners he has had… in short how great she is for not neutering him. If anyone loved their pet as much as she claimed to, would they ever leave them behind? The view out of the window made me want to pluck bits of the clouds and keep them safe in my bra, away from everyone’s reach. 

Manisha had promised it was just the Arabs that treated their help and staff poorly. And that I was lucky to go to an Indian house. But from the moment I reached the country, my boss stared at me as if he had never seen an ordinary-looking woman before. Throughout the ride from the airport to his house, his eyes were on me. Through the rearview mirror, his eyes were locked on my face, as if I would disappear if he blinked. He turned out to live in a small flat in a run-down building. We were in the middle of a remote area amidst barren land. His wife was at work, and his child was playing in the living room. A small boy with a bad temper. 

My boss stood too close whenever we crossed paths in the corridor or the kitchen. When he said I would be sleeping in the kitchen, I didn’t argue. Maybe it was shock. I expected some empathy as he was Indian. A wall in the living room had many family photos, and it reminded me of Mummy, and Papa. Their brutal murder flashed before my eyes.

Madam, Boss’ wife, on returning from work, confiscated my phone, claiming maids these days spent too much time on the phone. She even took away my chain, the one Maria gifted me on my birthday. She said the pendant could fall and the child could swallow it. After locking up my most precious belongings, she switched on the TV as if nothing had happened, and to my surprise, she started watching the Naagin serial. I rolled my eyes at the nonsensical flow of events. ‘Are we paying you to watch TV? Go inside,’ Madam said. I obeyed.

It’s high time naagins started writing their own scripts, I thought, as I stood in the kitchen, staring at the wall. My throat was parched. I opened the fridge to look for a drink. I found two lemons, when I took them out to make nimbu paani, madam appeared out of nowhere and told me to keep them back. 

‘Next time, ask me before you touch anything. We don’t have a lemon tree here that it will grow and then fall in our laps. Okay? Drink water if you are so thirsty. It’s your first day. Who knows, tomorrow you will start drinking whisky!’ 

Maybe I could make it as a scriptwriter if the nanny job didn’t work out. I would also be around Maria, I thought and stood in attention, not daring to drink water also. As the days passed, I soon realised I couldn’t just leave for another job. I couldn’t take a vacation. Sitting inside A/C rooms all day made me sick. They made me clean every inch of the house. I started swabbing the tiles in the rooms. They had a mop but they wanted me to squat and swab “The Indian way”. I thought they would be kinder to me because I was an Indian, but I was very wrong. My legs almost gave way from reaching under the bed, under the closets, and under the cooking stove. If only I could be more agile. 

When I had to wash clothes by hand and then hang them on the hanger inside the living room, I yearned for my garden in Maria’s home. It was my happy place. Their boy refused to listen to me, hitting me with whatever he could get. I couldn’t hit him back. In the mornings, it was usually just us. He had a favourite toy car which he liked to send in all directions with his remote, especially under the sofas, cackling loudly, when the car disappeared from sight. For some time, I tried reaching under the sofa to get the car, but one day when my hand failed to reach the end, even after using a stick, I decided to think out of the box. The sofa was too heavy to move, and the child was crying. I had to. The human body does have its limitations. 

I told the boy to close his eyes as I slithered under the sofa and pushed the car towards him with my body. He had his eyes open. He became silent for a minute and then he demanded that I repeat the trick, crying louder than before. I told him I would do the trick again only if he ate his lunch without any fuss. He understood, and ate quietly. Managing the child became easier eventually.

But what I was least prepared for was starvation. Madam left me a bread or two, mostly stale, but for the kind of work I did it just wasn’t enough. The fridge was empty most of the time, and I had to cook small portions that would only last a day. Sometimes, I ate from the child’s food. The child in his own language told on me, that I was eating his lunch. Madam hit me that day. I was so desperate I even considered going through the commode pipe to go in search of food, but I didn’t. It scared me.

 I became weak. I missed Maria’s haldi doodh. It was almost as if Madam wanted to catch me stealing food. She watched me like a CCTV camera after work. During work hours, either she or boss made surprise visits so I could never cook anything for myself. They didn’t pay me. They said they would directly deposit my money in my account. Maria never mentioned anything like this. Did she go through the same struggles as a nanny? Maybe her life was better. I hoped it was better. 

Madam made me wash each dish twice. I knew she wanted to feel like she had control over the house, control over something by controlling me. Her child didn’t listen to her. Her husband didn’t listen to her. Her manager at work insulted her every day. She usually slept by 12, and then I would put the child to sleep in the hall, in his crib, before going to the kitchen. He used to sleep in their room before I came, but now, he’s my headache.

 On many nights, I would wake up to him crying and then find my boss lurking in the kitchen by the filter, as if sipping water. His eyes never left me. ‘He’s been crying for half an hour. Now you heard?’ He said that once, and banged the glass of water on the counter like a judge in a court. He went back to his room without even looking at his child.

It first happened when I was cleaning the bathroom. I was on all fours, scrubbing the tiles when I felt something brush past me. When I turned, I saw my boss’ leg move away from the frame of the door.

The second time I had to reach the top shelf to get the masala for the curry. The child only ate chicken curry, and I had to make it the way he liked it. Boss offered to help, but I didn’t have enough room to move. As his hand reached for the box, it brushed against my breast.

One weekend, six months after I had been working for the Indian family, they announced that they would be going out for the long Eid weekend. To a friend’s villa. And that I wasn’t invited. I had to cook and got to eat nothing but I knew I would be all alone once they left. They warned me that if I ran away or allowed anyone else into the house in their absence, they would kill me.

 I couldn’t believe my luck. This was my chance. They left no key at home and the windows were sealed anyway. But I would find a way. Maybe the embassy could help. There was no use looking for my phone, I couldn’t find it. The moment they left, I wanted to start planning my escape, but I was so exhausted that my eyes felt heavy like boulders. I lay down on madam and boss’ bed. I could sleep for hours and no one would stop me, I knew it, but I felt tense. I couldn’t relax completely. I dreamt I had reached Madame Tussauds but Maria wasn’t beside me. She was a wax figure, and everyone wanted a photo with her. I had a suitcase in my hand, and it opened, spilling out different colourful fabrics, jewellery, and lots of dinars. Someone in the crowd started shaking me.

I woke up to find my boss on top of me. He was the one shaking. At first, I thought it was my dream, a continuation. But when his sweat fell on my face, I knew it was real. When had he returned? I couldn’t move. Maybe it was shock. His silhouette looked like a mongoose in the dark. He was inside me and then outside me. In a few minutes. He lay down beside me once he was done. ‘Your aunty, Maria, died this morning. There’s no use of thinking about it. Her funeral is also done. I wanted to give you the news but also give you some happiness with it,’ he said, and stroked my waist. He buried his head in my neck, and closed his eyes, as if falling asleep. I again wondered if it was a dream, but it couldn’t. He must have planned this all along. Maybe Maria had been sick, and she had tried to reach out. How would I have known?

Forgive and forget! Forgive and forget! Maria’s voice crowded my mind. He had to be lying. There was no way he could be so cold-blooded. I was tired of hiding myself from the world. Tired of being meek. I closed my eyes, prayed for courage, and then coiled around him with all the strength I had left. He opened his eyes, and saw me for who I truly was. Even after all the staring, he never knew what I really looked like. He couldn’t have imagined, even in his wildest dreams. I didn’t waste any time. I dug my fangs into his neck, face, and back, before swallowing him whole. He was the best meal I had had in ages.

***