The Sleeping Dictionary (16 page)

“But I don’t deserve this.” I turned the sari over in my hands, thinking it the finest garment I’d ever held. Likely Hafeeza had gotten it as a wedding gift years ago.

“I have no need for it anymore. Dress yourself and comb your hair. I can give you a pair of chappals, but they won’t fit perfectly. I’m afraid that your feet are larger than mine.”

I looked at the leather thong sandals that she held out. I’d seen townspeople wearing such chappals and a few upper-level servants like Rachael and Abbas, but I’d never worn anything on my rough, bare feet.

“Put them on now and practice,” Hafeeza said. “You must not fall out of them as you take your first steps into a new life.”

BOOK THREE

KHARAGPUR

1935–1938

 . . . The moral character of some of the English officers has not been a blessing to India. The majority, indeed, are choice men and many of a grand personality; yet others have disgraced their position, and replied the confidences of the natives.

However, British rule has been an incalculable blessing. India has never before had so just a government in all its history. Never until now has the whole country known peace, since its first settlement. The petty kingdoms, with shifting boundaries, that formerly were engaged in frequent external and internal wars, are now gathered under one stable government, conducted for the benefit of the governed and not for the glory of a single prince. There is a new feeling of security. Every one realizes that the English Government is firm and has come to stay. . . .

Margaret Beahm Denning,
Mosaics from India
, 1902

CHAPTER

9

This heart of mine, a night express, is on the way.

The night is deep, the carriages are loaded all with sleep.

What seems a murky nothing plunged in the infinite dark,

Awaits the frontiers of sleep in lands unspecified.

—Rabindranath Tagore, “The Night Express,” (“Rater Gari”), 1940

G
ood-bye, Sarah, they had told me, with tears in their eyes.

I didn’t know it, but that would be the last time anyone addressed me by that tarnished, unlucky name. As years passed, I would meet many other Sarahs, and I always wondered if they felt their name to be a blessing. The servant girl Sarah was someone I was eager to abandon, although I did not yet know who I would become. For this reason, I was relieved not to be asked for any name when I bought the train ticket, just for the money.

I should have been excited about going to Calcutta. But as the monstrous steam locomotive approached, I felt myself shrinking away from it. The engine was almost the height of Lockwood’s buildings
and roared like a cyclone. The long black snake made of giant metal compartments settled along the platform, and the crowd on the platform surged forward, taking me with them. As I lifted my foot to the first high step, I lost my sandal. I bent to catch it, and this created a jam. Amid complaints and shoves, I managed to clamber aboard and make my way to a third-class compartment with a tiny gap wide enough for me to sit.

An Anglo-Indian man wearing a dark blue suit decorated with brass buttons strode into the compartment as if he did not feel the fierce movement of the train. The many conversations that had filled the compartment were now replaced by shouts from wife to husband for their tickets to give Conductor-saheb. He tore my ticket and placed part of it in his satchel before giving the remainder to me.

After the conductor left, people relaxed and opened tiffin boxes of food and flasks of tea. Bananas were peeled and given out to children. The smell of chapattis and parathas made my stomach rumble, because I had not eaten since midday. A Muslim woman feeding her family gave me a paratha: I thanked her with the Urdu word,
shukria
, and devoured the flaky, spicy bread. As the paratha filled my stomach, my fears lessened slightly. Finally, I was on my way to the City of Palaces. I would find good work—ideally a teaching job like Miss Richmond’s, but teaching Indian girls or boys, of course. And one day—if I made something of myself—I would see Pankaj again and let him know me for who I’d become. And if he had never married, the story could end happily, perhaps as romantically as that of Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester, who had weak eyesight, just like my beloved Pankaj.

The sun went down quickly, and it was harder to see outside the train, except for dots of light that I guessed came from huts with lamps lit inside. After some time, these glowing huts became more frequent, and then many lights shone from overhead as the train slowed and stopped between two very long cement platforms. I was surprised how fast we’d reached Calcutta.

As many passengers stood and groped at the luggage racks for
their possessions, I slipped out the doorway. Looking at the platform, I was stunned to see so many Anglo-Indians and Europeans. There were plenty of Indians, too: travelers, friends, and relatives greeting new arrivals, porters, and groups of beggars. What a large city; I felt lost already.

As I disembarked, a one-armed wraith clutching a baby to her hip came right up to my face and called out bibiji, the polite address for a Muslim gentlewoman. I tried to ignore her, but it was impossible; the tears in her rheumy eyes and the sickly baby made me feel sorry. Here was someone worse off than I, and I remembered what Ma said we must always do for lost souls. Reaching into my bundle, I withdrew a paisa that she clutched to her forehead as she murmured a blessing.

“Thank you, bibiji. And do not go with those bad porter men!” the woman said as I glanced about, trying to decide where to go. “I will find a trustworthy rickshaw driver for you.”

“No, I’m staying in the ladies’ lounge tonight,” I said, remembering Hafeeza and Abbas’s instructions. “You see, I’ve only just arrived here in Calcutta, and I know nothing about the neighborhoods.”

“Calcutta?” She laughed, revealing a mouth with only a few diseased teeth left. “This is not Calcutta.”

“What?” It felt as if all parts of my body had jumped into my stomach—hands and feet included. I was not just shocked but horrified I’d made such a mistake.

“Bibiji was on the train from Midnapore, isn’t it? People change here for another train to Calcutta. The train just leaving on the other side is Calcutta Mail, bound for Howrah Station. This is Kharagpur; the Ingrej cannot pronounce, so they say Khargpur.”

I fought against my paralysis and turned, intent on reaching the train she mentioned, but the doors were now latched, and a uniformed man on the platform blew a whistle. The train’s wheels turned, and a horn blew. In no time, the train pulled away from the platform with a few daring men racing up to cling to the doorway. I could not race to catch it in my difficult sandals. There was enough space on the
platform for me to clearly see the sign hanging from the station’s roof that said
KHARAGPUR
.

“But this is not the place I should be!” My shock was turning to panic.

“What? Kharagpur is a
good
place,” the beggar-granny said, jouncing her baby. “Here is the longest railway platform in India and, they say, maybe the world!”

I shook my head. This was not the City of Palaces, where I could vanish into safety and a new life. Instead, it was an unknown place in which anything could happen. Already I saw a pair of young, oily-looking men appraising me, a young woman alone with no relatives to greet her.

“Don’t cry. Tell the ticket-wallah about your troubles. I will show you his office.”

THE RAILWAY’S TICKETING manager was Anglo-Indian, just like the train conductor. But he was not as jovial as the fellow on the train. His mouth turned down as I stumbled through my explanation of the ticket I’d bought in Midnapore. When he asked to see my receipt, I tore my bundle apart, but could not find it. Dimly, I remembered the scrap of paper I’d used to wipe my fingers after eating the paratha. I did not have it anymore; likely it had fallen to the train compartment’s filthy floor.

The cost of a new third-class ticket was far greater than the amount of rupees I had left over from Abbas and Hafeeza. Feeling like death, I left the ticket window and found that the beggar-granny was still waiting. She had an idea that I should beg alongside her in some rags she would provide. Within a few days I would have enough money earned for the Calcutta ticket; she swore it on her granddaughter’s head.

“It’s kind of you, but I can’t do that. I’m going to be a teacher. I’ll
start looking for work tomorrow morning.” My words were braver than I felt. But I could not think of any alternative.

The granny sighed and thrust at me a scrap of a ticket she’d found on the platform earlier that day. It would allow admission to the ladies’ lounge, which only documented passengers could use. I was touched by her generosity, but once inside the lounge, I realized staying overnight would be very unpleasant. On a wooden bench in a hot, smelly room, I found a spot to squeeze in amid many women and children who’d settled in to wait for their connecting trains. I was tired but could not sleep, my thoughts flashing between the losses of Bidushi and Pankaj, my humiliating expulsion from Lockwood, and the terrifying future.

When dawn arrived, I could bear the bench no longer. I went into the horrifying lavatory and used it all the while trying not to breathe. Then I removed the sweat-drenched salwar kameez. The fine sari I’d worn over it was not too badly wrinkled, so I rearranged it in the draped fashion Bidushi had taught and put on my own green blouse and petticoat underneath. Dressed like this, it would be easier to find work and survive.

After I’d splashed water on my face and combed and braided my hair, I went out to the platform. Here, the beggar-granny reappeared. She brought me a cup of tea at no cost and recited a list of the names of Kharagpur’s various schools that she had gathered from her rickshaw-driving friends. There were so many school names that I left the station feeling hopeful. I would become a teacher in this strange city. But no matter how many schools I visited, very few of their tall iron gates parted. Of the two schools that did, my lack of diploma and references sent me straight out again. Each time I walked away from a school, I felt the eyes not only of the curious children and the stern chowkidars but also of others from my past. I could feel Miss Rachael reminding me that I’d overstepped and Miss Jamison telling me I was bound for hell. I even sensed Thakurma’s reproach. If I had stayed with my family, I would not be in such trouble.