The Sleeping Dictionary (20 page)

“Do us a favor and find out what’s going on,” Bonnie mumbled, her mouth full of hairpins.

“But Mummy said I shouldn’t be seen!”

“It’s only a lady shouting; I want to know who. Take the back stairs, and if you peep from the landing, nobody will see. Go on, then!” She waved me off, and I tiptoed down the back stairway, trying to keep the wood from creaking. As I crouched on the landing, I could see that the shouting woman was a middle-aged Anglo-Indian woman wearing a plain dress. Mummy was facing her, with her back to me; this meant I wouldn’t be seen. I settled down to watch.

Mummy was saying in a friendly voice, “I don’t know who you are talking about, Mrs.—”

“Robinson.” The visitor interrupted angrily. “Leonard was here again last night; I know from the foul smell he brought home. You mustn’t let him in. We have three children and another one coming. I can barely pay the bills, yet here he is, throwing away his packet.”

Mummy stretched her bejeweled fingers toward Mrs. Robinson’s shoulder, but the lady flinched dramatically. Mummy took back her hand. “Mrs. Robinson, I wish I knew your husband to speak to him, but I don’t. Kharagpur has many restaurants and taverns and clubs.
Perhaps one of the cheap places round the railway station might be better.”

“You’re lying.” Mrs. Robinson’s screech was like a teakettle on the boil. “I’ve heard Leonard call out the name Doris in his sleep, and I know there’s a girl by that name here. And don’t you insult the Kharagpur railways. It’s a better business than your horshop!”

I drew back in the darkness, stunned by the insults the visiting lady was shooting like Ravana’s evil arrows. Horshop. What did it mean?

“That is too much, Mrs. Robinson.” Mummy’s voice was as strict as Miss Jamison’s. She called out for the chowkidar who came and wrestled Mrs. Robinson out the door; all the while she kept screaming bloody murder. Then there was a banging of the door and a momentary calm. I waited breathlessly in my secret perch until the chowkidar returned.

“She’s in a rickshaw,” the chowkidar said, between gasps of breath. “I gave him five annas to take her home.”

“And you think you deserve to be reimbursed?” Mummy asked in her mouse squeak. “Let this be a lesson. If you ever again admit a wife, I’ll have your head!”

I melted back up the stairs and narrated everything about the fight to Bonnie.

“Must have been Leonard’s missus.” Bonnie stood up, smoothing the dress over her flat stomach. “He’s a conductor with the Bengal Nagpur Railway. He comes about every two weeks and spends almost his entire pay.”

“But Mummy said to the lady that he never came here!”

“What else could she do? The important thing was to get the ugly bat out before she saw anyone. Lots of railway men come here.”

“But why do they come?” I asked, the deepening mystery of the situation overcoming my natural shyness. “Why must I stay upstairs, knowing nothing?”

Bonnie snorted and said, “By now, anyone with sense would know.”

Because I didn’t belong, I didn’t know
. Feeling dejected, I dropped
my gaze. Then recalling Lucky’s advice, I brought up my head and said, “Yes, I am new to this world. I can’t know anything unless you tell me.”

“Really?” Bonnie laughed lightly, and with a wave of her hand, indicated I should follow her. She rapped lightly on Lucky and Sakina’s bedroom door. Lucky answered; she had her petticoat and blouse on, but nothing more. Looking alarmed, she asked, “Don’t tell me someone’s already here for me!”

“Not to worry yet, dear. Who is in the Lotus Suite?”

Lucky shrugged a slim shoulder. “Natty and a chap from the cantonment, I think.”

“Ooh!” Bonnie knelt down and rolled back the flowered carpet on the center of the bedroom floor. Bonnie put a finger to her lips and looked at me with a clear warning. Then she removed a short length of wooden flooring and motioned for me to come behind her. The spying hole was close to a fan set in the ceiling of the bedroom below. The fans whirled continuously, obscuring the view. But I could see part of a very large bed that had its sheets tossed about. I could see a man’s back—thick and fair, with some blotches. On either side of the back were bare, golden limbs. They must have been Natty’s legs, because it was Natty’s throaty voice I heard, calling the man pet names.

I blinked and pulled back, my head spinning from my first sighting of—I could not say what it was, for it was too shocking. I looked behind me and saw Bonnie and Lucky shaking with silent laughter. They were not surprised at all; they did not think it was immoral. Suddenly, I realized that this was what they all did. They were behaving as wives; the men must be paying them for it. No wonder Mrs. Robinson was enraged! It wasn’t horshop she had said—but
whore shop.
Was this Bonnie’s work—the job I’d innocently asked her about applying for?

“Bonnie-memsaheb? You are wanted for singing downstairs.” Premlata’s soft voice came from the second-story hall.

Bonnie replaced the wooden piece and rolled back the carpet, then was gone in a whoosh of silk to finish dressing.

“At least it pays well.” Lucky was sorting through her jewelry box, pulling out necklaces hung with colorful crystals. “When I was at the temple, I had to do the very same thing, but there was no money paid to me, and I could never refuse anyone. At Rose Villa, bad men aren’t allowed back, and we have Dr. DeCruz to keep us from getting sick, and Chief Howard protects us from all other trouble.”

“But I can’t do that!” I could barely look a male in the face to say hello; how could I be naked with one? And it was not just the doing of it that seemed incomprehensible; it was the embarrassment over something so immoral. That kind of touching was for married people. In my family’s small hut, with so many children and grandparents about, I had never caught a whiff of such business going on between my parents. It was a wonder they’d had the privacy to conceive my little brother. And if Pankaj ever learned I’d descended to such behavior, he would burn every one of my letters.

“The men will be pleased that you don’t know anything. You must behave that way for a long time.” Lucky pulled out a purple silk sari with elaborate gold zari designs. “This is perfect for tonight; some of my customers like to pretend they’ve got their own temple maiden. They want you to wave incense around their heads and touch their feet: such poor, mixed-up blokes.”

They weren’t the ones who were mixed up, I thought. It was wrong for the girls to behave as if they were married to these strangers. Yet my friends did not cry about it; in fact, Bonnie had been proud to put so much money in the bank, and I had envied every one of her rupees. I still did.

I realized now that it was good that my family members were dead; they would never know the shame I’d brought to all of them by entering this house of sin. I remembered Miss Rachael mocking me, saying that an unknown girl could do only one job. As much as I’d hated her, she’d predicted the weakness that would bring me, a poor, stupid monkey, into the tigers’ cage.

CHAPTER

11

Neither mother nor daughter nor wife are you,

O celestial Urvashi!

In no home do you light the lamp,

when Evening on the pasture alights,

wearily holding her golden skirt.

With halting steps, with throbbing breast and downcast eyes,

to no bridal bed you smiling shyly go in silent midnight.

Unabashed are you, and like the rising dawn, Unveiled.

—Rabindranath Tagore, “Urvashi,” 1895

Y
ou are a sweet girl, Pamela. And you have the potential to earn more than any of the other girls who are here with me now. Can you guess why?”

From my chair in the parlor across from Mummy, I shook my head. It was ten o’clock the following morning. My eyes were red and tender from weeping almost all night as I debated whether to vanish from the immoral house before dawn broke. I had stayed only because
I was afraid to walk in the night and could not imagine where I would go with the few paise I had left.

Mummy looked at me and began ticking her fingers. “Your English accent is better than anyone’s, it’s true. And you’re quite pretty for a medium-complected Indian. But there’s a third thing that you have—actually, that I
hope
you still have—that I must confirm.”

The only item of value I’d brought with me was the book of Tagore poetry, but what could that have to do with anything? No, it couldn’t be that. Lucky might have told her about the ruby necklace; Mummy might believe I had it and want it for herself.

“You’re stiff with fear, darling.” Mummy settled herself more comfortably on the settee and patted the space next to her. “Have you never been to a physician?”

I said that I’d been treated by a doctor once, a good Scotsman who’d saved me from cholera. I didn’t mention that I’d begged him to let me stay at his clinic as a worker, and that he’d refused. If that had happened, I would not be sitting here, facing such a horrible decision about how to live.

Mummy’s breezy voice broke into my regretful thoughts. “All the girls see Dr. DeCruz. After he confirms your innocence and freedom from infection, I will be able to publicize your debut.” Mummy explained that if I accepted her offer, I would spend the next month or two learning to dress and make myself up. After becoming presentable, I would be allowed to sit with the girls in the downstairs reception rooms.

“Come, I’ll show you.” Taking me by the elbow, Mummy brought me on a tour. The first room, still littered with empty glasses and dirty ashtrays, had soft sofas and lounge chairs and an upright piano. It was for Englishmen and had plenty of English books in the cases, too.

As if she’d noticed how longingly I’d looked at the books, Mummy said, “A long while ago, Englishmen had quite a funny name for us:
sleeping dictionaries.
”

I had always loved the word
dictionary
; it spoke both of answers
and endless possibilities. But this was a strange-sounding book. I looked at her inquiringly.

“When the first Englishmen sailed over with East India Company, they didn’t know a word of any Indian language. How could they progress?” She raised her pencil-thin eyebrows as if expecting an answer, but I had none. “What saved them were women: local girls who became their mistresses, all the while teaching language and good manners so the fellows could speak to the nawabs and get what they wanted. My granny always said that pretty girls built British India through many sleepless nights of hard work!” This she finished with a smirk.

I bit my lip, thinking of all Pankaj and I had written to each other about the unfairness of British rule. How terrible that Indian women helped the enemy succeed. And it angered me that these men had mocked them by using the name of the most important book in my life.

“You can bite your lip the first time you meet a man!” Mummy interjected, interrupting my thoughts. “But not constantly. Come, there’s more to see.”

Another parlor was for Anglo-Indians, decorated similarly but with a Victrola for playing records instead of the piano. The last parlor had a highly polished swing, sitting beds spread with fresh sheets, and a platform with Indian musical instruments. This room was intended for my race only. Mummy said that, historically, the British would not visit brothels where Indian men went because of suspicion of communicable disease. But I imagined the divisions were also because each group disliked the other and thus could not bear to sit together. I guessed that Pankaj would never enter such a place, no matter how fine the furnishings; it was outside his moral code. There was no danger of his coming here and discovering me, but I hated the thought of losing myself to customers, instead of waiting for him.

Mummy pledged that she would show me to everyone. It would
only help raise my price. After enough suitable offers were placed, she would accept the highest bidder. She promised that I would not be hurt and that the money I would earn from the debut night would be more than most of her girls earned in a month. She would take only half, as was her custom. Room and board would be deducted from my portion, but I could bank the remainder or have her keep it in her bedroom lockbox.

“Most of our girls like the convenience of having their cash in-house; but it is up to you to decide later.” I felt her eyes on me, as if she knew how much I wanted the money. “I ask you to stay on with us for a full month after your debut. The first time you are with a man is not a good indicator of what things will be like. It always gets better.”

To walk in front of men I didn’t know. To be given to whoever paid the most. To have my most private place made public. All of it laid out so crassly made me feel like fainting. Again, I thought of Pankaj waiting in Calcutta, alone with his heartbreak. In a small voice, I said, “You once said that I could leave.”

“Of course you may still leave!” Mummy’s posture straightened. “Go on your way! Your old clothes have been washed, and you are welcome to take them and whatever else you have upstairs. But what are your choices, Pamela? If you fall into the hands of ruffians, you will find yourself in a situation much worse than this, and for that you’ll receive a few annas and no shortage of abuse.”