The Sleeping Dictionary (10 page)

Bidushi copied my words into her own neat handwriting and posted the letter with the regular school-mail collection. Letters going overseas were very common, no cause for notice. However, letters to men outside of the family were forbidden, so we always put
Miss
on the envelope addressed to Pankaj. Miss Jamison, who checked over the incoming and outgoing student mail, couldn’t pronounce Indian names. We realized with great delight that she would probably never guess that Pankaj was a male name, especially since he’d got in the spirit and wrote his name on the back of the envelope as Miss Pankaj Bandopadhyay, Esq.

The letters flowed back and forth, at least one per fortnight. By 1935, the correspondence between Pankaj and me posing as Bidushi
became almost flirtatious. I was happy for Bidushi and proud of myself for engineering such a strong romance. I’d also gotten much better with my Bengali writing, although Bidushi was the one who always wrote, in her handwriting, the final version of the letter to be mailed.

“If you give a beggar a pitcher, he will never stop drinking,” Miss Rachael said one afternoon when I’d come back from the study hall. “Your association with the Mukherjee girl is not good. And what would her Brahmin family think if they knew who was sitting so closely to her every day?”

If the directress of housekeeping understood the extent of what was going on, she would have been even angrier.

CHAPTER

6

February 14, 1935

12 Milton Road

Cambridge, England

My dear Bidushi,

May I call you dear? I have found myself struggling not to use endearments when I think of you. That is why I have enclosed this pendant. Your family will give you jewelry to take to our marriage, and perhaps not all of it will be to my liking. Therefore, this is my gift to you.

Your most recent letter was my favorite to date. How your descriptions of the school setting and your teachers amuse a very bored and homesick student! You may not remember, but when we were small, I played school with you once when your family visited us. Of course, I claimed the right of teacher and used our darwan’s lathi to great effect as a pointer. Your mother took fright and brought you back to the other little girls who were making alpana designs on the veranda. But you were brave, and I believe you enjoyed playing my student, and I am pleased that you were willing to leave the comforts of your home for the rigors of school.

I’d like to say that I am as happy in England as I was upon arrival three years ago, but that is not the case. The laws I memorize form a droning sound in my mind, rather like the Vedas Brahmin boys are forced to learn. And to what end? Indian lawyers are a penny for a pound in Calcutta, and the thought of serving at the pleasure of a white-wigged English judge does not appeal. If only I could combine law with nationalism. To take risks in the name of India’s freedom would be my privilege. I have doubts about the likelihood of what Gandhiji says about the British granting us self-rule. For England has built its wealth on our backs, and if that wealth vanishes, how can they survive in this new century? What is your opinion of Gandhiji’s hope?

As ever, I am your devoted,

Pankaj

The day the envelope came, Bidushi took it to open with me on the evening walk. She jumped up and down in excitement at the gift, a ruby pendant that hung from a long, delicate gold chain. Lockwood girls could wear only religious medals or school rings; and even though Bidushi kept her collar closed to the neck, there was still a chance of discovery. Still, she demanded that I secure the clasp behind her neck.

“What is wrong, Didi?” Bidushi asked, as if sensing something was amiss.

“Nothing’s wrong. Ruby looks very well on you.” I was thinking that the gift had been given because of the sweet words I had written; but it wasn’t jealousy I felt as much as foreboding, an undefinable anxiety that had settled in the bottom of my stomach like one of the bricks in the school wall.

“Why are you frowning, then?”

If she were truly my sister, I would have put a black mark on her face to prevent the evil eye. That was how strongly I felt that she needed to be protected from whatever misfortune lay ahead. But I
could not paint her with Hindu preventives in this place. So I said, “I only hope you won’t be caught.”

“If I am, I’ll say wearing this is part of my religion.” Lovingly, she caressed the pendant. “And Pankaj is wrong in thinking my aunt will give any jewelry for my dowry.”

“Don’t mind her not gifting you!” Privately, I thought Bidushi sometimes complained too much. “Your mother’s jewelry must be exquisite. Enjoy that when it comes to you.”

“Oh, Auntie took it all as her own!” Bidushi’s laugh was brittle as a papadum wafer. “Anyway, I am pleased with this, but look at what he wrote, asking my opinion of Gandhiji. How shall I reply to him?”

“Tell him what you think.”

“I don’t know what to think! You have always given the ideas and sentences for me to write.”

“Bidushi, try it for once.” As I spoke, I resolved not to write the entire reply letter. We could consult an expert together, and Bidushi would pen her own thoughts after learning something.

The opportunity to ask Abbas-chacha arrived by chance. Miss Richmond became interested in the great poet Rabindranath Tagore’s writings, and she requested that I go into town to buy his latest Bengali publication and later translate it. I was delighted at my first trip to the town, to see a real bookstore and who knew what else. And the best part was that if I found the right book to bring back, Miss Richmond would teach me how to use her handsome typewriter for the translations.

Miss Rachael didn’t like the plan, and when I asked her for a fraction of the stipend she’d been keeping for me since I’d started working, she refused. I was disappointed not to have a little spending money for myself, but I was glad at least to be going.

The following Saturday afternoon, Abbas-chacha brought the tonga up to the school’s portico for our journey. Bidushi climbed straight up to the backseat without waiting for assistance. There, she bounced happily and urged me to join her. After an initial startled look, Abbas nodded his assent.

“Uncle, what do you think about the British giving us self-rule?” I started the interview once we were off school grounds.

“Hush!” Abbas scolded from the front bench. “Do not disturb the young mem. She comes from a jamidar family—they like the British.”

“But I want to know about it,” Bidushi said. “Gandhiji is certainly trying for India to get dominion status. He was invited to England to talk about it at a roundtable, wasn’t he?”

“There were no congressmen or Indian nationalists there to support him, just Indian royals who like what the British do for them,” Abbas said. “He was speaking into the wind; nobody agreed.”

“But how can change ever come, then?” I asked.

“Change won’t be made in the halls of English Parliament by Englishmen and Indian nawabs—but here, by us. Remember Gandhiji’s march down to the sea to rake salt?” Abbas turned around to look soberly at the two of us. “That was something important.”

“I thought salt only came from shops?” Bidushi sounded puzzled.

“No Indians are allowed to collect or sell salt,” Abbas called back to us loudly over the sound of the moving horse hooves. “The British have a monopoly on it. Gandhi was put in prison for picking up a piece of natural salt, and many of the people who went with him were beaten to death by the police. You girls weren’t here at the time, but our cook, Lalit, stopped cooking with salt out of sympathy. The food he makes for the teachers and students is so mild anyway that nobody complained right away. But then Burra-mem realized, and Lalit had to put it back in.”

Bidushi sighed. “Burra-mem stops everything, doesn’t she? And Gandhiji’s salt walk didn’t work, if we’re still not free.”

Abbas turned around to look at us soberly. “Because it became public, the British were embarrassed. Read the newspapers. Now they talk about wanting to treat us honorably.”

“But it’s like school, isn’t it? If a teacher gets embarrassed, she only make things harder on the student.”

“If that is what you feel, it’s how you must write.” I was pleased by Bidushi’s independent thinking. “Pankaj will be interested.”

Abbas turned back and stayed out of conversation the rest of the trip; I did not know if it was because he had decided to stop talking about politics or that he had heard me speaking the name of a man. Years ago, Abbas had taught me that the rule of Lockwood School was for servants to be quiet; in my relationship with Bidushi, I certainly had broken that.

Abbas brought his horses to rest in the shade of some trees and pointed to the direction of the main bazar. It was easy to find the poetry book at a bookstall; there were several annas left over, which I tucked into the pocket of my work dress to bring back to Miss Richmond. Bidushi was elated to be walking through a real bazar and bought us both snacks of crunchy phuchka from a street hawker. As we approached a sari shop, she licked the last of the tamarind-water dressing from her fingers and said, “I think you need something new to wear.”

I laughed lightly to cover up the sadness I felt. “When Miss Rachael thinks the same, she will take out something for me from the charity donations.”

“But you are so tall now that your dress is indecent. You should be wearing a proper sari.”

“What about you?” I gestured toward her boxy Lockwood uniform that hung to midcalf.

“I
must
wear this because I am a Lockwood girl. But you have freedom. Come, Didi. I shall buy you a sari and blouse set. I should have given something like this to you last Durga Puja anyway.”

Bidushi had learned bargaining skills at her mother’s knee; something I watched with fascination in the sari shop. She bought two saris and extra material that the shop’s tailor would make into blouses and petticoats. Although they were ordinary hand-loomed cottons, one sari was a pretty light green color, with yellow threads shot through it, and the other as pink as bougainvillea, a color that Bidushi thought suited my skin.

“I cannot work in such fine saris,” I said, looking in fear at the yards of fabric fanned out before us. The khadi saris Thakurma had woven for my mother and me had been much shorter in length and always a dull beige-brown color.

“Fine saris are always silk. These are not,” Bidushi said. “Let me show you another way to wrap. You must make the pleats fall just this way.”

“How do you know so much?” I asked her, as she worked around my body, shooing the shop assistants out of the way. The thickly tucked fabric felt uncomfortable at my waist, and I felt as though the pallu hanging over my shoulder could slip at any moment.

“My mother always had me fix her sari pleats. She would be happy to see you looking like this. Now you look like a smart young teacher at an Indian school.”

A teacher! I was almost fifteen, but I supposed with my height and figure I might have looked a bit older. What a pleasure teaching would be; but to do that required not just finishing school through the twelfth standard but also an advanced degree. Two things I’d never have.

Outside the shop, the bright sun was blinding. As we walked back toward where Abbas was waiting, a group of people moved in front of us. A mean-looking man walked straight up, demanding that we give him the shopping bag filled with cloth that we had purchased. My stomach cramped with fear, but I knew I’d have to defend us both.

“Go away, dacoit!” I shouted, hoping others on the street would notice and come to our aid. But nobody did and the man with red eyes and an angry scowl still was reaching for the bag. In a trembling voice I said, “Shame, shame, to bother girls! Where is your honor?”

“Nobody should shop at Atul Ganguly’s shop until he stops carrying foreign cloth,” the man retorted. “Indians pay taxes on the silks and chiffons and so on from England and Japan. Your memsaheb is selfish to think of herself and not the country.”

“This cloth is not foreign,” Bidushi protested before I could defend her. “It is simple cotton woven by people living in Dhonekhali.”

“Is that so? Let me look.” A woman with the group came forward
now and grabbed the bag from my hands. I watched helplessly as she shook each one of my folded saris. The fear I’d felt was turning to horror at the thought of my wonderful gift from Bidushi being stolen away.

“Please don’t!” I cried.

“It is not khadi, that is for certain,” the woman said, looking critically at the cotton’s weave.

“That’s true, but it is still cotton grown and spun in Bengal.” Bidushi snatched back the saris. “It is for my friend, since she would rather not wear any more English clothing.”

The woman and man looked at me in the ragged old dress; in their eyes, I had been just the servant, not worthy of notice. Bidushi’s arm was around me firmly like a sister’s. How much I loved her at this moment, for her bravery against these grown strangers. And then Abbas ran up, shouting at the people to let the little girls go and save their action for real villains. In moments, he had hustled us and the package of saris back onto the tonga.