Fishy Chronicles 62: Lockdown Diaries – Lies And Underwear

Illustration by A. Peter

“So unmanly, I tell you!” Anjali seethed at Genie’s perfidy (Cooking The Goose). She glared in the direction of the Gonsalves’s flat. To us, Genie had suddenly shrunk a foot.

We heard the key turn in the door's lock and, in a flash, arranged ourselves around it.

I looked at handsome Genie and was at a loss for words. The sweltering Mumbai heat had done nothing to him except make his face a little red and sweat stain his tight white t-shirt in places. His handlebar moustache was still stiff and raring to go for a marchpast.

Beside me, Anjali spluttered like mustard in hot oil. “You told on us! So unmanly! So… ooof! It was a one-time thing… someone else would have forgiven and forgotten but you… you!”

Genie looked down his long pointy nose at us and one eyebrow rose haughtily. “What is it that I am supposed to have done?”

“Genie, yoohoo, Genie, sweetie!” Zeba Bobby, my luscious neighbour, cooed from her doorway, and began rushing towards mine. I tried to pull Genie away from the door, but he didn’t budge. I tried to close the door, but Zeba pushed it open angrily and glared at me.

“Where’s your mask, Zeba! Go and get it, don’t you even listen to the news!” Anjali burst out. Zeba shrank back, an uncertain look on her face and backed out quickly.

Genie turned his head around to look, but Zeba had now entered her home and shut her door firmly. “That was harsh, even by your standards, Anjali.”

“I don’t have standards, remember?”

“Tut, tut, save for rifling through my things, I believe you know the difference between right and wrong.”

“Don’t you think you’ve tormented us enough!”

Genie looked at the ground for several seconds, ostensibly thinking, and looked up. “No.” He pushed past us and put the bag he was carrying down in a corner of the kitchen. He noisily put a large stainless-steel vessel in the sink, squirted some dishwashing liquid into it and turned on the tap. The water gushed into it. We crowded into my small kitchen, moving close to Genie. He held up his arms, “Stand back. Don’t touch me until I’ve washed these things with detergent and have had a bath.”

“Don’t you think you’re overreacting?” Anjali said.

“No. If you want to stay alive during a pandemic, these are things we have to do... like killing any viruses on these” he held up the bag of vegetables and emptied them into the soap water. He turned towards the sink, and I could see Anjali working herself into a rage. I pinched her arm and shook my head.

“Come on, Genie. We just opened a drawer,” I said. Genie had seen us open his bedside table drawer and not his cupboards. “You could have thrashed it out with us rather than snitching to Uncle John. What are he and Aunty going to do? Come here and spank us? Uncle is too weak to give us a mighty whack with a rolling pin. It was unnecessary. Childish!”

“Ahh. Why do I deserve any respect, is that it?” Genie turned around, his eyes coldly boring into mine. “This is your home, and I’m a guest, that kind of thing, right? If it hadn’t been for the pandemic, I’d have left you both to your own devices. But here I am, stuck.”

I bristled. “Please don’t stay on my account. I’m perfectly able to fend for myself.”

“Hah!”

This is a fictional series about the narrator and her parents’ former man Friday Genie. The narrator and Genie are home bound because of the Covid-19 pandemic. But tensions run deep.

I stared at Genie, wanting to scream at him and kick his ass, but he was now bent over the sink as though in pain… and trembling.

“Hey, are you okay. Genie?” I moved closer, my hand on his shoulder, craning my head to look into his face.

“YOU!” I grabbed his t-shirt and tried to shake him. “YOUUUUU!!!” He stood up and laughed, holding my hands and laughing into my face. “YOU TROUBLEMAKER!”

“What’s going on?” Anjali said, confused.

I tried to launch myself into Genie, but he had a vice hold of me and was laughing wildly. “The idiot’s fooling about with us, Anjali. You idiot! Let me go, LET ME GO, GENIE.”

“Sshhh! What will the neighbours think, darling,” Genie said, releasing me. I grabbed a dishcloth, trying to stop myself from hitting him with it. I wiped the soap water off my neck where he had grabbed me. He was back at the sink, gently soaping a fat red tomato and looking at it tenderly.

“So much love for a tomato. Is that what you do for Zeba?” I said. Anjali poked me to stop.

“Maybe. Maybe not. Depends on what you mean by ‘do’.”

I opened my mouth but Anjali’s hand covered it. She shook her head at me, and I had a sudden epiphany that this was a war I could never hope to win.

“What exactly did you tell Uncle John?” I said.

“About what?”

“About us!”

“Oh. This and that.”

“Care to elaborate?” 

“I may have told Uncle that two young ladies were caught with their hands in my underwear drawer… examining things.”

“Whattttt!” Anjali spluttered.

I felt my face turn hot. “WE DIDN’T TOUCH YOUR UNDIES!”

“I know you didn’t. But Uncle doesn’t know that.”

“Why-Why would you say something so horrid!” Anjali said, embarrassed.

“It’s called something… something. Ahh, can’t recall the word…”

“What?” I said.

“What’s the word?” Anjali said.

“Ah. Got it. It’s called tit for tat.” He grinned and gently rotated another large shiny tomato at us. If looks could kill, ours would have done someone in. But really, what was there to say. I’d never be able to show my face outside now. I’d be known as that woman who had nothing better to do than root through a man’s delicates. Terrible!

I moved away from that evil man. Anjali glared at Genie, but he was now examining a cauliflower with more interest than he did the tomato.

I slid into the sitting room, took the binoculars from the coffee table, it hadn’t gone back into the cupboard as Anjali and I had started watching the Bollywood actor (Arushmaan Verma, Love Thy Neighbour) in the opposite building. I stood behind the curtain, and trained it through a gap in the curtains.

I felt frustration and rage. Uncle John and Aunty Glory were in their bedroom, using their binoculars and watching Genie in the kitchen with Anjali. They had just witnessed the whole drama. And we had now become their ‘lockdown’ entertainment.

                                                       ******