The Sleeping Dictionary (58 page)

“I brought it down for you, but I don’t recommend it,” Simon said. “I prefer novels with happy endings.”

“I gather that’s a warning.” I took a sip of the tea; it had a strange flavor, but it was good. “What kind of tea is this?”

“It’s not proper Indian tea. There’s a splash of rum in it. We English make it when someone’s tired. And Kamala, just because there are rose petals on this bed, it doesn’t mean we have to. But . . .”

And now I noticed something lying next to my book that had not been there before: a French letter still in its paper covering. The sight of it caused me to catch my breath. Just like that, I was fifteen again and facing a customer.

His eyes went to the nightstand. “It’s a precaution that I should explain. I don’t think you noticed I used one last night—”

“No,” I said, looking straight at him. “I don’t want to touch that thing; I don’t want it near me.”

Simon spoke hesitantly. “It’s about planning . . . planning for when children are conceived—”

“No. Just come to me.” I was certain that I could not fall pregnant, and I knew his health was good. More than anything, I did not want what happened between us to have any relation to my past.

Simon looked at me, and his expression seemed to lighten. He said, “As you wish.”

That night I made love straight from my heart, gripping him, turning him, kissing him in places nice women could not know about. I did what I could to bring him to joyful release, and I did not hide my pleasure when it came to me. Afterward, it felt so quiet, lying next to each other with sweat cooling our bodies and the koel birds calling to each other in the garden below.

I could have moved to pull down the mosquito netting, since dusk had passed, but I did not. I wanted to stop the clock in the hallway from chiming another hour. I always wanted to be in this bed, with this man. I sighed, and he rolled onto his side in order to face me.

“What is it, darling?”

“Not wanting time to pass on,” I confessed. “Staying exactly here with you, in this moment.”

He stretched out a hand to touch my hair. “It can stay like this forever, if you’ll have me.”

“But I do have you. Right here.” I ran my hand over his hip.

“That’s not what I mean. Kamala, I want to marry you.”

I was hot and cold, all at once. This was why he had given in so easily about the French letter; he assumed we would become husband and wife.

“You needn’t be dramatic,” I said, because this proposal had caught me off guard, and I wasn’t sure what to do. “It’s gone on for centuries, these liaisons between English men and Indian women. You’ve read enough books in your library to know that it rarely ends well.”

“You’re wrong about that!” Simon chuckled. “Job Charnock, the founder of Calcutta, married an Indian widow. They brought up five children. Lord Ochterlony had an Indian wife and after she died, another. While I cannot make you first lady of Calcutta, you are already a very important one. You’ll fit in perfectly as my wife, Kamala. If only you’ll have me.”

Simon thought I was a high-born Brahmin with an elite education. I had an accent like his own and could decorate a house, drink alcohol, and discuss books. But I was not anything close to a lady. If he knew, he would not think me marriage material. I told him, “Your examples aren’t realistic. The fact that I lived under your roof for so long, working for you, will make society regard me as your sleeping dictionary.”

“What rot! I don’t need another dictionary in the library, or anywhere else.” Simon took my face in his hands. “You are the most
incredible woman I’ve ever known, in any country. But you must tell me the truth. I don’t want to trap you if marriage is something you don’t want. Perhaps you truly abhor my English soul.”

In the week he’d been away, I had castigated myself for not having allowed his kiss. Now I’d had his kisses and a great deal more. It was up to me to decide whether seizing happiness was worth the risk.

“Kamala,” he said with a catch in his voice. “Answer me. Please.”

Decisions. I had taken the jungle path instead of the main road; it had saved my life. I had signaled to many boats, and finally found one that took me. I had gone with a falsely smiling girl into a terrible house, but finally escaped. I knew that accepting Simon’s proposal would be as twisted as all my other life passages, leading to an outcome I couldn’t assume would be permanent or even happy.

But how I wanted it—wanted him. I paused to take a deep breath, because I knew that if I used the word that was so frightening to me, it could never be retracted. Softly, I said, “No. I don’t abhor your soul, because souls don’t have caste, color, or creed. I want to marry you. I love you so very much. So much that it—”

Hurts,
I would have finished, but he had covered me with his body, and I could no longer speak.

IN THE LIBRARY, I found a worn book about event planning for colonials in 1800s India. Written long before automobiles and refrigeration, it made our era seem magnificently convenient. But organizing a wedding in 1944 wasn’t a simple matter. Because of the war, most Calcutta churches were tightly scheduled with funerals and memorial services. Military weddings were prioritized first. Simon was already a member of Saint Paul’s Cathedral. This should have been enough to secure a date, but it wasn’t.

I suggested that we marry in a court, but Simon was against it.

“It wouldn’t be fitting, not when I’m a member of Saint Paul’s. I’ll
keep trying to find a slot there and you can look into a Hindu temple. There are even more of those around.”

But temples were out of the question for the likes of us. And it seemed that Simon was becoming an outcast within the British establishment. As we were discussing it over drinks one night in the garden, he finally addressed the trouble.

“It’s the rumor mill. Some wags are saying that I made you pregnant. In any case, our living arrangement has become a liability, despite the fact that we have a reverend on the premises. I suppose the groundwork that Weatherington laid is playing a part.”

“What groundwork?” I asked, feeling a sense of dread.

“He sent me a memorandum shortly after he met you at the party—all kinds of nonsense about it being a risk to keep you as an employee.”

“Why? What kind of nonsense?”

“I don’t remember the exact words because I threw the letter away. He wrote something about my head being turned by beauty and taking security risks. He said that a Brahmin’s daughter wouldn’t be allowed to work for an Englishman.” He looked at me. “But, of course, your father’s deceased. You have to work.”

“Yes,” I answered, relieved that Weatherington hadn’t come up with anything more concrete—like my relationship with Pankaj Bandhopadhyay.

“The churchwoman was asking for documentation of your Christian conversion, your parentage, all sorts of nonsense.”

“I see.” I put down my glass, thinking. “I’ll never be able to find that for her. I’ve got an idea, though, of someone who might marry us without causing so much of a fuss. I’m surprised we didn’t think of him before.”

“Reverend McRae?” Simon asked slowly. “It would be wonderful to have him involved. But as you know, I’m not Church of Scotland—”

“Let’s just ask him. He’s so happy about our engagement.”

Later that evening, when Simon and I brought it up over dinner,
the reverend laughingly accepted. He said that he had been sitting on his hands waiting for us to ask him, and he did not care a whit what our faiths were. Without even needing to see the church’s calendar, he offered us a date a few days hence.

“I can hardly believe this tremendous problem has been solved,” Simon said the next morning, as I tied his cravat for him. “Now, of course, comes the reception planning. Tell me, Kamala, how much time will your relatives need in order to organize a trip here for the event?”

I shook my head at him. “You know that my family is deceased. I told you that before.”

“You went to see people last year in Midnapore, remember? I want to meet them.” His eyes looked at me hopefully; I glanced away, ruing his sharp memory, while I concocted something that I hoped would finish his interest in my family background once and for all.

“After I lost my parents and siblings, my paternal uncle could not afford to support me. This meant that I had to leave school before completing examinations, and I came into the workforce. During the height of the famine, as you recall, I visited them. They were well, but they did not invite me in. That’s why one of the reasons that I was sad for a while.”

“They didn’t let you into the home?” Simon’s voice was deadly quiet. “That’s unconscionable. Of course you won’t invite them. But what about Mr. Sen and his family? You always seem happy after returning from their place.”

I shook my head, thinking about how the Sens wouldn’t have me for meals anymore because of Mr. Sen’s anger at my role in Supriya’s defection. “I think I’d prefer a private ceremony. After all, your family won’t be present, either.”

He shrugged. “Only because there’s no sea travel between here and England.”

“I can just imagine what they will think of your marrying an Indian!”
I knew what they’d do: go into mourning or disown him. Perhaps both.

“Oh, but they’re not marrying you. I am.” Simon picked up my left hand and kissed it.

He didn’t sound especially nervous about the repercussions of our marriage, but I was. Indians would call me a traitor for sleeping with an Englishman. They’d say my political beliefs had all been for nothing. And then they might ask one another:
Who is Kamala Mukherjee? She hasn’t attended enough rallies and protests or done anything. Who are her people?

Once again, I’d be cast out of a community. But this time, I would still have a home, with a man I prayed would never know my truth.

CHAPTER

37

Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above, don’t fence me in.

—Cole Porter, “Don’t Fence Me In,” 1934

A
t midday on December 1, I walked down the aisle at Saint Andrew’s Kirk feeling like a horse wearing blinders. It was just the veil, I told myself: a tiny piece of netting that made everything on the outside unclear. Along with the veil, I wore another strange garment lent by a lady the reverend knew: a long ivory wedding dress, its bodice embroidered so heavily that it was impossible to see how my chest was rising and falling with anxiety.

Besides the invisible organist playing in the croft above, there were just ten others in attendance: Reverend McRae, Mr. Lewes’s old friend Mr. Pal and his wife, four of Mr. Lewes’s other friends and Manik, Shombhu, and Jatin. Although it was a small group of witnesses, I feared I’d collapse or, at the very least, make a mistake in the choreographed ceremony or somehow give away my fears about the marriage itself.

“In these difficult times,” the reverend said, “the greatest hope for the world is the bonding of people who are unafraid to love each other, regardless of culture, creed, or origin . . .”

Bonding
: this word cut at me like a knife. I could not tell Simon about Kharagpur or Lockwood or Johlpur. I felt close to him, but would I ever really be, with so many unread chapters in my past?

Reverend McRae’s voice wove back into my consciousness: he had already segued into the vows. I heard the words
love, honor, and obey until death do you part
. Whose turn was it to respond? Simon, so crisp and dignified in a gray morning suit, was looking at me with concern. I realized it was my turn. I’d gone over the vows with both of them before, and I’d seen plenty of English marriages in the cinema. I knew my lines.

“I will.” And as I spoke, I privately vowed that this would be my final life chapter. Lewes would be the last name I’d carry; that despite my fears, I would never run. And so it was done. In less than an hour, I completed the transformation from the fictional Kamala Mukherjee into the genuine Mrs. Simon Alston Lewes.

Once it had happened, I immediately felt better. I was a cheerful, relaxed bride serving tea and cake in the Kirk’s reception hall; and then I changed into a smart blue silk sari, and the two of us departed in a borrowed Morris. Shombhu, Jatin, and Manik threw handfuls of jasmine petals, not rice, because of the rationing.