The Hope of Shridula (27 page)

Again, the mumble of Rajeev's unintelligible response.

"You may go against your God, Husband. Your entire family may go against your God. But I will not go against Allah!"

Sheeba Esther stepped softly onto the veranda. "A treat to refresh you," she said to her husband and her father-in-law. "Nothing cools the temper and eases the heart like a sweet dish of
payasam."
Mmmm. . . . Rice boiled with milk and sugar, and flavored with cardamom, raisins, saffron, and pistachio nuts. With a demure smile, she handed the first bowl to Saji Stephen. He thanked her with a broad smile.

After Sheeba Esther went back inside, while Saji Stephen and his son enjoyed their rice pudding, Rajeev's angry voice once again echoed through to the veranda. "If you will not help me, Wife, neither will you stand in my way. That I promise you!"

Nihal Amos swallowed a bite of the
payasam.
"I wonder," he said to his father, "does Rajeev have any idea what kind of government he struggles so hard to join?"

"He thinks he does," Saji Stephen answered.

"Mr. Nehru wants a modern India, but Mr. Gandhi wants a modified and purified caste system. Mr. Ambedkar demands more power for the Untouchables. Put them all together and India will be an independent republic stewing with confusion and contradiction. No one will be happy."

After several moments of silence, a small child's wail echoed from the back of the house. Nothing more.

"Why did you come?" Ashish exclaimed when he saw Shridula hurrying down the path. "It is not safe for you to be out!"

But he was not the first one to see his daughter. The young man with an old man's face had been gathering thorn brush to patch holes in the fences around the fields of ripening rice when he caught sight of her. "Shridula has come!" he called as he ran back to the settlement. "Shridula is here!"

Jinraj picked up his cry: "Shridula! She brings news!"

"Shridula has come!" Dinkar called. "Now we will hear the truth."

As word spread of Shridula's arrival, people dropped whatever they were doing and hurried to gather at Ashish's hut.

The woman with three teeth lifted her scrawny arms and cried, "Do not go inside your father's hut so we cannot hear your news, Shridula. If you do, we will push the door down and listen anyway!"

Shridula didn't even try to go inside. The gathering crowd listened with rapt attention as she told them everything she knew about Independent India. She told about Mr. Nehru and Mr. Gandhi, of course, but also about Mr. Ambedkar who was fighting so hard to make certain that Untouchables also had rights.

"Are we also free?" an old man called out.

"I do not think so," Shridula answered. "Not yet. But no one seems to know for certain."

"We will fight!" the young man with an old man's face yelled. "We want independence for everyone! That means for us, too!"

"Especially for us!" someone called out from the back of the crowd.

So much anger and excitement! So very many questions! One after another after another, many shouted out at the same time. Shridula did her best to answer each one, but there was much she simply did not know. Finally Ashish stood up and said to the crowd, "I know you still have concerns. I have concerns, too. But Shridula is running out of answers, and I am running out of time with my daughter. Please, let us have some time together."

No one wanted to leave. Several ignored Ashish and shouted out more questions. But Dinkar stepped forward and ordered, "Go home! Shridula has done us a great kindness. Listen to what Ashish says and be on your way."

In the simmering heat, Shridula and Ashish could not bear to sit inside the stifling hut. They might as well have sat in the cooking fire. So even though it meant giving up their hope of privacy, they huddled close together under the shading branches of the
neem
tree and whispered to each other.

"Jyoti and Falak are gone?" Shridula asked.

"Yes. But two different watchmen whisper that they caught sight of Hari stealing rice from the fields. We think he is hiding out in the marsh. Perhaps his mother and brother are there, too."

"How could that be?"

"No one actually saw the landlord's men come for Jyoti. Maybe it was Hari who came for her and Falak. Or it could be that the two of them ran away and met up with Hari."

Shridula looked doubtful.

"It could be," Ashish said.

Shridula nodded. "It could be."

For several minutes the two fell silent. Finally Shridula said, "I really do not know anything for certain,
Appa.
I hear things, but I do not know what will happen. All I can do is hope."

"No one knows what will happen," Ashish said. "As the saying goes:
Ruling India is like clanging on the head of a cobra."

Shridula leaned close and whispered, "Do you still read the Holy Book?"

"More than ever, Daughter."

"I copied this for you from the part called Romans. Chapter 8, verses 24 and 25." Shridula handed her father a crumpled slip of paper. "Can you read the way I wrote it?"

Slowly, pointing to each word as he pronounced it, Ashish read,
We . . . are saved . . . by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope . . . for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not . . . then do we with patience wait for it.

"We can still hope,
Appa,"
Shridula said. "Even if everyone else is clanging on the head of a cobra, we can still hope."

"Even when we cannot see it," Ashish said.

"Especially when we cannot see it. That is what makes it hope, is it not? Not being able to see it but continuing to wait anyway?"

"Yes, Daughter," Ashish said. "Continuing to wait with patience."

August 1947

D
urga," Rajeev informed his wife. "No longer is your name Amina. From this day forward, you will be called Durga. And a proud name it is, too. Durga, the invincible Mother Goddess."

"Never will I answer to such a name!" Amina shouted. "Nor will I call my sons by the names of Hindu gods. Or my daughter . . . I will not call my daughter by any Hindu name at all. No, I will not!"

Anger rose in Rajeev's dark eyes. His voice turned hard and cold. "You forget yourself, woman. You are my wife. The decision is not yours to make. I alone will decide what you will and will not do."

"I will not be called by the name of a Hindu goddess! You could not make a Christian of me, and you cannot make a Hindu of me either."

"Soon I shall be a man of great importance. Surely, even you would not be such a fool as to risk all the advantages of being my wife on something as unimportant as a name. You were born a Muslim, but you need not remain so."

Amina looked him straight in the eye. "I
am
Muslim," she insisted. "Nothing in the past changed that, and nothing will change it in the future."

Such insulting insolence! And in his father's own house, where his entire family could hear every word of the disgraceful exchange. Rajeev fumed. He burned with rage. "You stubborn woman! If you will be a Muslim, gather up your belongings and take yourself away to the new Muslim country of Pakistan. Carry your daughter along with you, too. But do not think you will take my sons from me. They will remain with me always. And from this day forward, they will be Hindus!"

Amina turned away and said no more.

Rajeev, extremely pleased with his show of strength, strode out to the veranda where his father and brother sat in silence enjoying a respite after the exhausting heat of the day. He strutted about, waiting for one or the other of them to offer him praise for the way he had handled his hardheaded wife. When neither one did, Rajeev harrumphed loudly in an effort to catch their attention.

"Cup of tea?" Saji Stephen asked Nihal Amos.

Rajeev sucked in noisy breaths of evening air. "Ahhhhh," he sighed loudly. "Wonderfully welcome after so decisive a day."

Saji Stephen poured a cup of tea and handed it to Nihal Amos, then he poured another for himself.

His irritation growing, Rajeev made a great show of preparing himself to sit. When neither his father nor his brother paid him any mind, Rajeev grunted his annoyance and settled himself on the far side of the veranda.

"A Muslim can never go to hell no matter how black his sins might be," Rajeev stated. "A strange belief, that. Would you not agree?"

"In good time, we shall see for ourselves whether or not that is true," Nihal Amos said.

Rajeev ignored the mocking tone of his brother's voice. "The Muslims say a dispensation exists for every kind of sin. Still, no one who fails to believe in Mohammad as the prophet can ever go to heaven under any circumstances, according to their belief. They say heaven is a place reserved for the believers of Islam alone."

"In that case, how surprised they will be," Saji Stephen said.

"Of course, I shall not be quick to give up on my wife," Rajeev said. "My Durga. She is not the kind of woman who can be fooled forever. By tomorrow morning she will come to her senses."

Glory Anna could make out mounds on the veranda, each one snoring loudly in the pale gray before sunrise. It would be the men of the family, of course. Perhaps Rajeev's children, too. She eased past the doorway and through the great room to the back of the house where Rajeev's and Nihal's wives slept. Glory Anna hardly ever went back there. The very thought of her days under Amina's angry rule sent shivers down her back.

"Sheeba Esther!" Glory Anna called quietly. "Sheeba Esther!"

All was quiet. No children's voices, no morning preparations, no smoke from a cooking fire. Overhead, the last stars faded from the sky.

Glory Anna tapped on Nihal Amos's door. "Sheeba Esther!" she called again.

"What is it?" Sheeba Esther answered, her voice muffled through the panels and thick with sleep. She stumbled to the door and opened it a crack. Sheeba was still in her sleeping garment, her hair hanging long and undone down her back. But as soon as she saw Glory Anna, she shook herself awake. "What is it?" she asked. "Is something wrong?"

"It is Shridula. She has been crying all night."

"Is she ill?"

"She is afraid. She wants to go back to her father's house."

Despite the heat, Rajeev walked down the road to the marketplace. He paused at one vendor's stall after another to take in the village gossip. Everyone was out, in a rush to accomplish as much as possible in the cooler hours of the morning. To Rajeev's great pleasure, everyone's chatter revolved around the same topic: independent India. What would befall their village? Even more, what would independence mean to them personally?

Rajeev smoothed down the high caste folds in the front of his crisp white
mundu
and cleared his throat. "I am quite aware that no person, not even Jawaharlal Nehru, could rightly call himself an expert on the affairs of the new India," Rajeev stated in a loud voice. "So much has come to pass so quickly that everything is far too new for everyone."

Conversations quieted, and eyes turned toward the landlord's son.

"Yet it is with all humility that I confess to having more knowledge about it than do most men. If I may say so, more knowledge by far."

"Is that so?" challenged an eager young man. Despite his age, he sported a most impressive beard and moustache, which gave him an air of authority beyond his years.

Rajeev looked the young man up and down. "Most certainly it is so. I am also a humble servant to my countrymen, I might add." A look of mild disgust flashed in Rajeev's eyes, and the corners of his mouth twisted upward, though not in a pleasant way. "Even to you, Mani Rao. Even to a spice merchant. Even to one far more lowly than myself."

"You are acquainted with the partition of India, then?" Mani said. "You know of the new border lines that sever Pakistan from the mother country? That cleave Sikh regions in half?"

"Yes, yes. Of course I know," Rajeev said, but not without a noticeable degree of hesitation.

"You know that villages are split in two, right down the middle of the road? You know that the line chops through fields and severs houses, leaving one room in India and the other in Pakistan?" Before Rajeev could gather his wits and stammer an answer, Mani added, "You know, too, I suppose, that blood flows in the streets and soaks the roads?"

"A line had to be drawn," Rajeev said. "Of course some conflict is inevitable. Unfortunate, to be sure, but unavoidable."

"Since you are so well informed, surely you also know that the family of your wife decided to cast their lots with the new Muslim country," Mani said. "Surely you know that they boarded a train to Delhi this morning."

"The family of my . . . wife?" Rajeev stammered. "But they . . . Surely they will—"

"Your wife and all your children went with them," Mani said. "But of course you know that, do you not? That they are right now on their way to Pakistan? Since you are more knowledgeable than most men by far, this cannot be news to you."

With trembling hands, Shridula struggled to braid her hair. "Let me help you," Sheeba Esther said gently. First she combed her fingers through the uneven lumps, then she picked up Glory Anna's brush and pulled it through Shridula's thick locks. "You should look nice for your father," she told Shridula.

The girl gasped and lifted guilty eyes to Glory Anna.

"I do not mind if she uses my brush in your hair," Glory Anna said. She did, however, cast a disapproving eye at Shridula's worn garment. "But you should not wear that dingy old thing. Take one of my bright
saris
for today. Even my new pink one, if you promise to treat it carefully."

Shridula lowered her eyes and said nothing. Self consciously she pressed at the unpleated front of her own shabby garment.

"Never mind," Sheeba Esther said brightly. She picked up one of Glory Anna's ribbons and tied Shridula's braid fast. "You could not look more lovely, Shridula."

"Everyone will want me to tell them everything," Shridula said to Sheeba Esther. "They will ask me questions and questions and more questions. But I know nothing. What answers can I give them?"

Sheeba Esther clasped Shridula's hands in hers. "Tell them the truth," she said. "Right now two new countries hang in the throes of frightening birth pangs. What the end will be, no one knows. We would all be wise to turn away from anyone arrogant enough to claim to have more answers than that."

Sneering, Rajeev kicked at a bag of dried peppercorns propped up at the end of the spice stall. "You dare to instruct
me,
Mani Rao? Such a brazen young man you are!" The bag tipped over. Hard, black peppercorns spilled out and rolled across the ground. Rajeev strode through the river of pepper. With each step, he ground the corns into the hard dirt.

"A spice merchant, are you not? Grandson of a spice merchant? Son of Irfan Rao, a
Vaisya?"

Rajeev sucked in a deep breath and made a great show of taking in the pungent pepper fragrance that filled the air. He turned back to Mani. "You know nothing of my family, Mister Spice Merchant, so I would suggest you hold your tongue."

Mani pulled himself up to his full height. "A spice merchant, yes, but one whose father, Irfan Rao, is right now with his army regiment in Malabar. I went to meet him when he arrived by train, fresh from the bloody road to Pakistan. I heard the horrible truth from soldiers who witnessed it with their own eyes. It was there that I saw your family boarding the train for Delhi."

The smirking smile left Rajeev's face.

"I am a spice merchant who knows you determined that power was more important than your family. Your own wife told me as much. And I fear, Landlord's Son, that the road to Pakistan will turn redder still with their blood."

Rajeev, trembling uncontrollably, turned his back on Mani Rao. Stumbling over bulging sacks, he hurried away from the spice stall.

"You turned your wife and children away!" Mani shouted after him. "You turned them away because they were an embarrassment to you!"