The Sleeping Dictionary (19 page)

I said yes, not knowing the lady would spread warm wax all over my legs and many other parts; in short, painful bursts my hair came off, so I looked as smooth as the others. Rima told me it was the custom of the house for her to visit weekly to groom all the girls, and I should not worry about the cost this time, as Mummy was paying.

Next, the beautician massaged my feet with oil and cut and shaped the toenails; it was almost like what the barber’s wife did in our village, except the beautician painted all the nails with a red lacquer. Then she moved on to my hands. After rubbing them brutally with the same stone she’d used on my feet, she prescribed that I massage every part of my hands, from wrist to fingertips, with almond oil thrice daily.

Lucky-Short-for-Lakshmi—the girl who had been kind the night before—asked if she could teach me something about cosmetics, and with curiosity and anticipation I agreed. I’d seen servant girls at Lockwood line their eyes with ash, but Lucky showed me a black kohl pencil that did the same thing with less mess. Pinkish rouge pressed into a metal case was for the cheeks, and shades of silver and brown powder were for decorating the eyelids. Then there was an array of short fat pens, all colored red or pink or almost purple.

“What is your caste?” Lucky asked while she was using a tiny brush to color my lips. She was gazing only at my mouth, as if that was more important than her question, but I knew this was pretense. If she learned where I came from, she’d have to throw the brush away.

After she’d finished painting my lips, I said, “Nothing. I’m Christian.”

“All Indian Christians were something else before.” She made a kissing gesture at me and then laughed.

I could not smile back. “Why do you ask me this?”

“I watched you last night. You would not look at the servants—you hung your head every time they came to serve you! Everyone is wondering about the new girl. Her English is Mayfair, but where are the Mayfair manners?”

“I’m sorry.” I tried to sound calm, but my insides were quaking.

“I know you are not a Dom,” she said, naming the caste of the people who prepared corpses for cremation. “And I don’t think you are a sweeper. You’re something else: some kind of Sudra.”

I closed my eyes, wishing to be elsewhere. She was right that my people came from Lord Brahma’s lower half. But Baba had told me that legs were the strongest part and that was our gift from Him. I once agreed with this, but after the way I’d worked hard and been treated unfairly at Lockwood, my feelings were different.

“Don’t be frightened.” Lucky fiddled in a jewelry box, pulling out earrings. “I am not highly born. My family is from the thatching caste. My father sold me to a temple when I was seven to bring them the blessing of a son.”

“What happened then?” As I spoke, she put down the earrings and looked up at me with eyes that were no longer merry. “I never saw them again, so I don’t know if a brother was born. And it was very hard at the temple: little food and terrible work. The only good part was learning to dance. When I was fourteen, one of Mummy’s friends came to watch our group perform. I was the one he liked best, so he paid the priests to let him bring me here. I was no longer Lakshmi, but Lucky. This name fits me. I feel lucky.”

“You are lucky to be living here. My father grew rice for a jamidar near the coast.” I decided it sounded more dignified than to say he was a peasant. “I do not dance or have any talents like you, unless you consider speaking English any value.”

Lucky put one hand comfortingly around my shoulders and used the other to raise a hand mirror before me. “Your voice does not match your face, Pammy, but both are quite nice. Remember to never let your eyes run away from another person’s again. The only time to drop your eyes is when you are trying to appear shy for a gentleman. Even then, you must coyly peek through your lashes like this!”

Why would I look at a gentleman?
I wanted to ask but was interrupted by the sound of a car door slamming outside. Lucky slid off the
bed and went to look out the window. Through the opening, I saw an English policeman with a fat red face. Panic filled my head and my clean, perfumed body broke into a sweat. They’d caught me.

“I must go!” I was already calculating how quickly I could get my bundle repacked and run down the staircase and through the back garden to the lane behind it. There would be no chance to thank Mummy and the others. No chance to do anything but run.

“What is this? Why are you afraid?” Lucky grabbed my hands in hers and wouldn’t let go.

I felt my breath come in short bursts, as if I were already running. “The policeman—please don’t tell him I was here—”

“He’s not here for you; I swear on everything I own.” Lucky dropped my hands. “Lots of nice people are frightened of the police. Just tell me.”

I should not have said anything, but Lucky’s face was so sympathetic that I confessed that I’d worked at a school where my student friend had died, and the police suspected I’d stolen her necklace. Lucky’s painted eyes grew large during the story, and when I was finished, she gave me a tight embrace.

“I shall not tell a soul, but I promise again that Chief Howard is no danger to you or any of us. He’s head of the Kharagpur police and is Bonnie’s good friend,” Lucky said.

“Her friend?” I asked incredulously.

“Very much so!” Her happy smile was back. “Let’s go to her room and tell her he’s arrived.”

CHIEF HOWARD WAS the first man I observed arriving at Rose Villa that day. Several more followed him during the hours from noon to three o’clock. Mummy’s girls ran up and down the stairway to meet these friends who, from the sound of it, were mostly English or Anglo-Indian. As I sat on Bonnie’s bed, trying to read the film
magazines the girls had lent me, I found myself distracted by the laughter and chatter below. Why were these men visiting in the middle of the day? After four o’clock came a relaxed period when the girls washed, dressed freshly, and had a big tea, and then: more visitors all night long. I went to bed in Bonnie’s room by myself, just as I’d done the night before, but this time I hardly slept.

The next morning, when I found Bonnie sleeping next to me, I drank my bed tea and waited for her to awaken. When she did, my questions were ready. Who were these visitors, and why were so many of them English?

Bonnie looked at me through half-open eyes that still had traces of mascara around the edges. She said, “You’ll meet them soon enough. I’d like to take you into town today. We can run a few errands and go to see
Bombshell
.”

After breakfast, Bonnie had me dress in European clothes: a blouse with fluttering sleeves and a skirt that left entire lower halves of my legs exposed. I was both excited and embarrassed to see myself in such a foreign costume. She wanted me to wear her high-heeled pumps, but I fell out of them so much that she relented and gave me a pair of glittery chappals left over from the girl who had once shared her room. They fit better than anything else she’d offered.

I had not seen much of the town, so I was eager to go with Bonnie into the bustling Gole Bazar. To my surprise, Bonnie was not interested in any of the shops but went into a building she called a bank. The outside of it was guarded by chowkidars who wore high, stiff turbans and carried rifles with bayonets. Inside was a vast room tiled in black-and-white marble. A counter of polished wood lined one wall, and there were brass grilles separating the Anglo-Indian gentlemen who worked behind them from the queued customers.

“Today is a big deposit.” Bonnie’s expression was bright as she showed me the packet of rupees inside her purse. She explained that the bank would store her money safely so thieves could not take it. She was depositing one hundred rupees, wiring twenty to her family
in Cuttack, and keeping ten for the next week’s fun. I wondered what job she had that paid so much, but first I wanted to understand her vocabulary.
Fun
was an English word I had not heard, and when I asked for an explanation, Bonnie laughed and said it meant movies, restaurants, and clothes. She told me that part of the money she was putting in the bank included a fifty-rupee fee Mummy had given her for bringing me to Rose Villa. If I decided to stay at Rose Villa, that payment would be doubled. Why would someone pay for a girl to bring a friend home? I wondered, but these rich people were the strangest I’d ever known.

“Soon you’ll have your money,” Bonnie said after we’d left the bank. She didn’t know that I’d lost every rupee I’d earned through Miss Rachael’s keeping it. To have money in a guarded bank seemed better than keeping it with a person.

“I asked Mummy if I could please do some work in the house, but she hasn’t given me anything,” I said. “Maybe she’s still deciding.”

After a pause, Bonnie said, “Nobody will
give
you the work. You must choose it.”

“Tell me about the work you do. Maybe I could apply for a similar position?”

Bonnie’s eyebrows arched high, and she seemed about to say something, then smilingly shook her head. “Let’s not think of work now. We have a picture to see!”

At the Aurora Cinema, she bought my ticket and suggested we first visit the ladies’ lounge. After we’d done our business in the stalls, we washed our hands at sinks next to each other. Bonnie unsnapped her pink velvet purse and gave me a vial of oil to use for my hands while she repainted her mouth.

“Your hands are not good,” she said, looking critically at the quick rub I gave to my palms. “Did anyone tell you?”

“The beautician did. My hands are like this because I’ve done some housework.” I still was being careful with Bonnie; Lakshmi was a safer confessor for me because she was Indian.

Bonnie was still looking worriedly at my hands as we left the ladies’ lounge. “Mummy requires hands to be softer. And how are your feet?”

I’d gone barefoot my whole life until a few days ago, so my feet were as tough as a water buffalo’s hooves. I thought all of Bonnie’s concerns were quite strange, but I did not question them because I was more interested in the grand auditorium we had entered, with a stage before us covered with the widest, longest red curtains I’d ever seen. And then the curtains parted, the lights dimmed, and the screen became bright, first with words and then moving figures. In minutes, I had forgotten about Kharagpur and was transported into the world of California film stars and their elegant houses filled with mirrors and chandeliers and even small fluffy dogs. How unbelievable and gorgeous it was—but no more so than my new life at Rose Villa.

AT THE PICTURE’S end, I emerged, blinking at the bright light and the India I had almost forgotten. Bonnie sang a phrase from a film song in such a clear, high voice that everyone looked. I noticed the attention she was drawing, but she did not mind. It was as if she wanted to be Jean Harlow! A thin, dark man who looked to be the age of my grandfather ran us all the way back in his rickshaw. Bonnie counted out three annas for him and, when he complained, gave him one more. She was generous, with a heart as big as her voice.

As we came into Rose Villa, the chowkidar rushed toward Bonnie with concern on his face. “Miller-saheb was here but is now gone. He said he will return in an hour’s time to see you.”

“Damn!” Bonnie’s red lips drew into a pout. “I’m going to have to hurry. Well, Pam, you’d better come up and give me a hand getting ready.”

I was pleased to be of some help after Bonnie’s kindness to me. I followed her up to her room and picked up the clothes she
tossed on the floor when she went in to bathe. I expected Bonnie to wear undergarments similar to what the older Lockwood students wore: brassieres and camiknickers and petticoats and thick pants that reached almost from the rib cage to midthigh. Instead, she had thrown off a suspender belt with stockings, a brassiere, and very small pants, all of which she exchanged for a new set in the startling color of black.

“Take the red dress from the almirah—here’s the key,” she said to me.

I turned the key, the door swung open and I found a V-necked red dress in a slippery silk I’d learned was called crepe de chine: the silk of China. I was stroking it with pleasure when a shouting voice below made both of us look up.