The Sleeping Dictionary (26 page)

I lay still until he stormed out, slamming the door behind him. Natty was leaning against the wall when I slipped outside, still shaking, a few minutes later. She looked at me with cold eyes: as if she knew but did not care.

“Did you hear him hurting me?” I said, my throat catching.

“I heard something.” Her pretty lips pressed outward into a smirk.

“Why didn’t you help me?”

Her eyes glinted at me. “If you take on a big customer like the Taster, you’ve got to handle him right. I tried to tell you that last year.”

Now I understood Natty: she had nursed this resentment, all the time, for his dropping her in favor of me. Despite his loathsome practices and what I’d had to suffer.

“He’s yours once more,” I spat, tasting blood in my mouth. Then I went up to my room to bathe, cleaning every bit he had invaded. As I brushed my teeth, I stared at my face in the mirror above the sink. I did not look like the girl who had arrived at the brothel two years earlier. I had become her ghost.

THE NEXT MORNING, everyone agreed that the Taster had misbehaved and should not come back to the house for a while, but Mummy said that too much liquor was the real villain of the story. If I had been at the house on time, he would not have drunk so much rye-and-water. Then, as I expected, Mummy asked where I had been yesterday that I’d come back so late.

“At a film. But, Mummy, I’m hurting down there,” I said, too embarrassed to use any of the silly words the others did. “Dr. DeCruz should examine me before I work again.”

“I can take you before lunch,” said Bonnie comfortingly.

“Not so fast,” Mummy said. “I’ll give two days off—if it’s still
hurting, then go. But don’t divert me from my questions. You came back late, in a tonga from the Indian side of town.”

So Mummy had been watching for me that evening. I shivered, knowing that more anger was unavoidable. I said, “Indians do see films, as well.”

“And what did you see? Surely not
Devdas
again
?
” Her voice was acidic, because she had disapproved of how much Lucky and I had enjoyed this Bengali-language film about a romantic young couple hindered by their caste difference. “Or did you actually go to a certain political meeting? There was a paper about it left in your wastebasket.”

“There was a newsreel at the meeting,” I said, flustered that she’d caught me so easily.

In a hard voice, Mummy said, “You’re not mixing in Congress politics, are you?”

“I’m not mixing anything,” I answered defiantly. “I just went for the film.”

“The Congress Party and their war for independence will be the death of India. Don’t you understand what it means?” Mummy’s cheeks flushed red, despite their dusting with white powder. “I have no papers. I can’t get passage to England and neither can Natt and Bonnie and Doris. If Indians take over, they could close my villa!”

“Mummy, don’t be upset,” Bonnie soothed. “Nobody will ever close this place. Remember how well you’ve been able to attract new clients through the railways. There’s always new money coming.”

“If India is taken over by natives, the Anglo-Indian railwaymen will be sent packing.” Mummy’s mouth seemed to pinch inward as she spoke. “It will be a blacks-only railway, and all the trains will crash or be late! The hell if I’ll have those types in Rose Villa!”

CHAPTER

14

CHEERIO:
A parting exclamation of encouragement; “good-bye”; also quasi-adj: cheery.

—
A Supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary
, Vol. 2, 1933

P
olitics were not good for me.

The more I thought about Pankaj’s and Netaji’s words, the less I could bear my life at Rose Villa. Freedom, dignity, unity were what was called for—and there I was, lying down for the enemy. Prostitution was more than a physical humiliation; it was becoming mental torture. And although I did not smoke hashish like Sakina or drink like Natty, my low spirits placed me among their lot.

The hunger strike had spread to prisons all over India; Gandhiji gave speeches and Rabindranath Tagore wrote letters about the Andamans, making the starving prisoners international news. It became too much of a black spot on the face of India’s government, and in September, what everyone longed for came true: the viceroy directed the prison superintendent at Port Blair to begin releasing its political inmates.

The news relieved me, but I still felt empty. Yes, Pankaj had survived and would go back to his lawyer’s life in Calcutta, but I had not yet departed my despicable profession. The only escape I had within Rose Villa were the shelves of old books in each parlor. One afternoon, when I was dusting mildew off the spine of a tattered Rudyard Kipling volume, Mummy came in. I was both irritated and worried, because I hadn’t yet groomed myself for the evening; and surely she would notice.

“I have always wondered: How did you build such a marvelous book collection?” I said in the hopes of distracting her.

Mummy grimaced at the book in my hand, as if she thought it was rubbish. “My father left trunks of books with my ma before returning to England. She always said, if only he’d left his papers in the trunk, too. If I had his birth certificate—if only!—then I could prove myself and get a British passport. And then—oh, to be in England with all the luxuries!”

“Did your ma read them all?” I asked, to avoid hearing another one of her fantasy tales about the easy life that lay ahead for her in Devon or Brighton.

She laughed, her face creasing like a fractured pink-and-brown plate. “Oh, no. My mum couldn’t read because she wasn’t sent to school. I was the first one, and that was only until I was eleven. I once tried reading some of those stories when I was sick in bed, but they’re dreadful. Anyway, the books aren’t for us but for the customers. Every now and then a man is too shy or has some reason not to go upstairs. So the books can amuse him while his friends are having their fun.”

“That’s why I’m keeping these books clean. I don’t think a gentleman would be impressed with our house if his fingers touched mildew.”

“I don’t worry about the men, Pamela. I worry about you. After all—you are my favorite.”

I looked up at this with surprise, for I had always thought Bonnie was Mummy’s special one. Her words could not be genuine.

“Pamela, you are among my top earners, but since the monsoon, your numbers are down. I have noticed that your new customers do not choose you again, and you are coming up with all sorts of reasons to be on leave. Why are your periods so long suddenly? You are only hurting yourself.”

“I don’t know why they don’t want me as much. I’ll try harder.” I could not address her second point. I was lying about my menses because they had stopped altogether. It was not something I wanted to dwell on. I knew that all my customers had used French letters—except the Taster, the time he’d raped me.

I told myself that nothing was wrong; that it was just the mental tension. Or, if I truly were with child, the baby would slip out of me while still unformed. As frightening as the situation was, I could not bring myself to consult anyone for help. The girls couldn’t keep a secret; and Mummy controlled so much of my life that I could only imagine how enraged she’d be.

I’d thought the doctor would find out, but Dr. DeCruz examined me the first two months without noticing anything amiss, and this spurred me to go on with the pretense. When he went for a long holiday to the hills, this bought me even more time. I went to the halal butcher and bought animal blood that I added to my cloths in the bathroom soaking pail so Premlata would not think anything out of the ordinary, during the time I went on leave. In the back of my mind, I knew that what I was doing was senseless; that if I really were carrying, my belly would give me away. But I would rather put things off than face them. A baby would mean the end to everything: my dreams of going to school and maybe seeing Pankaj again.

“I am not quite well,” I said to Mummy, as we stood together in the parlor. “Perhaps if I did something different to help you for a while: writing advertisements, organizing all the books in the parlors—”

Mummy interrupted me. “No more books. You’ve turned lazy and fat, and that’s not what the English want. I must see an uptick in your numbers or your days here will end.
Thik hai?
”

“
Thik
,” I answered her question with a gloomy
It’s fine.
I worked harder to pretend pleasure, and customer satisfaction slowly returned. But as she said, I was getting bigger, and that was a new danger. Instead of going to my scheduled appointment with Dr. DeCruz, who’d returned in October, I sent word to his nurse that I was having a heavy period and would reschedule. And to camouflage my physical changes, I began to wear silk caftans and elaborate necklaces to draw attention to my face, which was always heavily made up.

“Your looks are changing,” Bonnie said, and from her expression, I could tell this was not a compliment.

ONE WARM SUNDAY morning I lazed downstairs with Bonnie, savoring the brief coolness of the veranda as we drank our tea. Right away the two of us split up our copy of
Amrita Bazar Patrika
, a Calcutta newspaper published in English that I liked better than the
Statesman
. Bonnie was reading the fashion and entertainment page, and I had the first section with world news. I wondered what would come first: a European war or my baby. Both were ominous events that I sensed were unstoppable.

The sound of a tonga caught both Bonnie’s and my attention. The mynah birds that had been chattering overhead cut themselves off, too. Customers usually went to church services on Sunday morning, not coming till the afternoon.

Bonnie groaned. “All I can say is, he’d better be very rich or handsome.”

I glanced at my watch. I’d bought it recently, a slim Japanese bracelet style that thrilled me each time I checked it. It had been a dent in my savings, but I knew I’d need a watch in order to get to school on time, when I finally began work on my teaching certificate. The time read half eight, which was too early for any client.

“If this is the infamous Rose Villa, you must be the morning roses!” A
strangely accented male voice jolted the quiet of the garden veranda.

As the man came into view, I closed my silk wrapper tightly. I was shocked that a sunburned white man in rough clothing as dusty as a laborer’s had found his way to the back garden without being stopped by anyone.

“Sir, you are out of order,” I protested, disliking the leisurely way the tall, red-haired man was looking both Bonnie and me up and down. Bonnie made a quick gesture spreading her fingers on the table.
He’s mine,
it said.

Premlata came running out to the veranda. “The darwan was sleeping, Memsaheb, but he will come soon!”

Although she’d spoken in Bengali, the man seemed to understand her concern. He slung a heavy satchel off his shoulder and stuck out a hand. “No worries, eh? My name is Bernie. Bernie Mulkins.”

“Are you a Yank?” Bonnie asked, smiling up at him as if he were a film star. I could not understand why, but her woman’s intuition must have told her something.