The apartment also came equipped with a servant who was sitting on her haunches in a corner of the kitchen in a kind of copse composed of the squeegee, the stunted straw broom, the mop, the dustpan, and other assorted forlorn cleaning implements as Dassi was showing us around, so that we did not at first notice her during the tour. Only when the rebbetzin announced that she was also throwing in her helper as part of Ma’s package, and called out, “Manika?” did she come into focus, a tiny creature, black and shriveled like a prune. She flashed a bashful toothless smile, and automatically twitched the loose end of her green-and-orange print cotton sari forward over her head like a monk’s cowl. The rebbetzin said, “Manika means jewel in their language, and I’m telling you, she is like her name. She’s my gem.”

Ma objected ardently, it was the only feature she disliked in the entire setup. She had been looking forward to living on her own, she valued her privacy, she didn’t want or need a maid, but the rebbetzin insisted. “She’s a present, you can’t refuse a present, a very good girl, from the sweeper and toilet cleaner caste, we don’t hold by that but it’s the lowest of the low, she’ll lick the cow caca off your feet for two paisa, that’s their mentality, she’ll do anything you ask, you won’t even know she’s there, like a fly.”

For my part, although I found the rebbetzin’s patronizing, even racist language deeply offensive, I pleaded with Ma to accept, if only for my sake, for my peace of mind, so that I could feel reassured that she would not be alone after I left. What if you slip in the tub? What if your food goes down the wrong pipe? What if something happens? My mother shook her head—she didn’t want this alter cocker around, it made her feel like an old lady. “She’s probably younger than I am, Ma,” I said, but still my mother wouldn’t yield. It was only after I reminded Ma of the courageous loyalty of the Indian nanny who had rescued the baby Moshe’le during the Mumbai massacre, an event as Ma well knew that had seriously impacted my life also, and of how this blessed Sandra ayah had gone on to become a heroine of the State of Israel and deservedly so, that my mother softened and finally relented, in patriotic solidarity, to hold out an incentive to other budding righteous gentiles no matter what caste, no matter where situated on the great chain of being, to do the right thing and save a Jew.