Etiquette Lessons

“Next stop, Main and Queen!” It hardly mattered what the roads of the various intersections of one’s life were called and these two were just as promising or just as disappointing as any others.

With a resigned sigh Veena assumed the posture of one readying to get off the bus. She shifted in her sear, sitting much more erectly than her back and shoulders cared to and arranged her coat and scarf just so as she reached up and grabbed the vertical pole. In one sharp move she was standing and moved toward the rear doors amid a thicket of backpacks no one ever bothered to remove. Veena was determined to be the perfect bus rider; no hitting people with your bags then glaring at them as if it were their fault for being in the way. No sitting stupidly until the bus stopped and, suddenly realizing you had to get off, realizing you were hopelessly out of the correct disembarking position. No way was she going to be so ill-mannered and undignified. She would politely take the bus with a purpose, even if she didn’t always have one.

Today she had just such an important purpose and prepared herself accordingly, descended the steps and moved off to the side to collect her bearings. Of course, there was someone yelling at the driver about this being their stop and let me out, all because they were lost in their own world lacking proper bus etiquette. Stupid woman! She should know better! She has been here longer. Turning to her right, Veena walked along the street observing the addresses – oh good she was on the right side, being the even-numbered side – until she approached the correct address. At least she hoped it was correct because it was her last address on the list and it was late in the evening.

Vacancy – 1 & 2 bedrooms.
Sighing again Veena recounted the many adventures endured this day punctuated with long bus rides. She certainly had seen more of the city today that she had in the past year. East, West, this neighbourhood and that neighbourhood were dangerously blurring in her fatigued state into one long run one sentence. Each place had been the same. Approach the vestibule while striking a balance between careful inspector and desperate nomad. Ring the number on the directory by pushing the buttons and asking to please speak to the “property administrator” or “landlord” or “rental office agent.” Some unintelligible voice would mumble something or other and a buzzer would let her in. Fortunately every office had been easy to locate; just the apartments weren’t.

“No, sorry we don’t have that unit available anymore.”

“We just rented it this morning.”

“Can’t help you.”

Asking why the sign was still displayed brought only the following:
“I’ll have someone take care of it as soon as possible. Thank you for telling me.”

“We don’t take the sign down because it’s a pain in the ass. Good day.”

“It’s too fuckin’ cold out! I am very busy, you’ll have to leave.”

Learning the ropes of proper apartment hunting etiquette was much more a daunting lesson than mastering riding the bus!

The trouble was that this had been the fourth such day in a row and she was running out of addresses; at least those that she could realistically consider. A friend warned her to stay away from the ones that were constantly in the paper as they were no bargain no matter what the price. Please don’t tell be that it has come to this she prayed, but to no one for she had given up on praying to anyone this past year.

“Yes?”
‘Please, I have come about your apartments.”

“Mumble, mumble…” and the buzzer wailed with a forbidding melancholy squeal just like the one at her public school back in Mumbai.

Entering the office, Veena enjoyed a most welcome sight. He was a cheery man who sounded nothing like his bored and disinterested drive-through speaker voice. His slick dark hair shone with a hint of coconut oil and his heavy matching mustache smiled in time with his mouth. The eyes were burning pots of coat, searing right through her and past her grateful for the cheap-cheap-thrift-store wool coat into her still firm DD cup breasts. She was thankful for the layer of sweater between flesh and coat. Oh no! What if he wants that for a deposit!

But he simply scooped up a set of keys, happily jangling them as he led her down the hall to a flight of stairs. They were worn stairs and tired with age but still managed a gleam of pride due to the lemony wax stuff his wife used each day. Clambering up those stairs behind him she found it difficult to keep up with him as he took two at a time. Fortunately they only had to go as far as the second floor where he turned to his left and selected one of the non-descript white doors. As he rummaged through the key change with the flourish of a swashbuckler she noted the carpeted floors were a suitable dark brown. Mind you she had no real frame of reference because she had not gotten this far in her previous attempts.

“I thought I would show you the one bedroom first, yes? The two bedroom is exactly the same expect it has another bedroom, yes?” His Hindi accent was unmistakable and an enormous relief.

“Come, come! Here is the kitchen and see it is very clean with many cupboards and a fridge and stove, yes? We are in the process of replacing these appliances and will get to these shortly, yes?” He opened the cupboards and they were clean but not very as he said, and the stove and fridge looked in need of a good scrubbing.

“Now, here is the living room and you will put a table in year to eat, yes? I will shampoo the carpets before you move in but you have to pain yourself, yes?”

Indeed the walls were dull and grimy with years of neglectful and I-couldn’t-care-less attitudes from previous tenants. Peeling paint partially revealed one feeble attempt to obliterate FUCK THE RICH written in black magic marker.

“Now the bedroom, big enough for a double bed, yes?” His eyes had drank in enough of her breasts or where he imagined the breasts were and now mad a beeline for her vagina, mercifully protected by the coat, slacks and Marks and Spencer panties-her last pair.

Such a place! Mummy and daddy would be horrified to see this is where their pride and joy ended up in the promised land. Of course she must not tell them, just as she had not told them of Rakesh’s drunken beatings, one of which resulted in an assault on her vagina that felt like a cold, wicked sword slicing into her with each thrust. Or had it really been a sword? She had blacked out and woke up in a pool of blood. She fled to the women’s shelter where she learned about the importance of bus etiquette because it would take you to cleaning jobs and apartments. She prayed that final time that Rakesh would never find her before she told whatever deity was up there to leave her alone.

Rapidly jerked into the present, she found herself being led to the office with an application form thrust into her hands. He was so sure of himself; they all were! Timidly, Veena asked for a pen in Hindi in order to gauge his reaction in the etiquette dance. Besides these forms were intimidating! Even though she spoke English very well there were some matters that required the comfort of one’s native tongue. Things like health matters, rental matters and female matters were more difficult to articulate. In a mix of English and Hindi the communication with the landlord sparked with the ease and laughter of two old friends and jangled just like his keys. Veena carefully wrote out her deposit cheque and looked forward to his confirmation, by tomorrow afternoon at the latest, if she had the apartment. No. Correct that to when she could take possession!
“You can move in on the first which is next week and it is easy because the apartment is vacant, yes? I will have it in very good shape for you when you move in and maybe we can arrange some time of agreement about painting, yes?” By now he no longer hid his true motivation; Veena was new meat and likely much sweeter than his old, dried up, knows-what’s-good-for-her wife.

Veena was just grateful to have finally succeeded in this etiquette lesson. She would have to figure out the best way to fend him off without making him into an enemy, as friends of runaway women in her experience were virtually impossible to find. She strode out the front doors and turned to look at her latest sign of independence that might be her consolation prize in the promised land.

“Oh, wait! I forgot to tell you! You will enjoy a view of nice trees and a garden outside your window when it is spring, yes?” he yelled out the doors and quickly retreated into the vestibule.

She clearly heard his keys jangling, or what is a swashbuckler’s collection of swords including the one he had picked just for her?