Cracking India (33 page)

She has never let me down yet. I have more faith in her investigative capacities than I have in Mother's and Electric-aunt's sorties.

The mystery of the women in the courtyard deepens. At night we hear them wailing, their cries verging on the inhuman. Sometimes I can't tell where the cries are coming from. From the women—or from the house next door infiltrated by our invisible neighbors.

There is a great deal of activity by day: of trucks going to and from the tin gates sealing the courtyard; of women shouting; but no hint of the turmoil and suffering that erupts at night.

And closer, and as upsetting, the caged voices of our parents fighting in their bedroom. Mother crying, wheedling. Father's terse, brash, indecipherable sentences. Terrifying thumps. I know they quarrel mostly about money. But there are other things they fight about that are not clear to me. Sometimes I hear Mother say, “No, Jana; I won't let you go! I won't let you go to her!” Sounds of a scuffle. Father goes anyway. Where does he go in the middle of the night? To whom? Why... when Mother loves him so? Although Father has never raised his hands to us, one day I surprise Mother at her bath and see the bruises on her body.

And at dawn the insistent roar of the zoo lion tracking me to whatever point of the world I cannot hide from him in my nightmares.

It gets so that I cannot sleep. Adi is asleep within moments, but I lie with my eyes open, staring at the shadows that have begun to haunt my room. The twenty-foot-high ceiling recedes and the pale light that blurs the ventilators creeps in, assuming the angry shapes of swirling phantom babies, of gaping wounds forming deformed crescents—and of Masseur's slender, skillful fingers searching the nightroom for Ayah.

And when I do fall asleep the slogans of the mobs reverberate
in my dreams, pierced by women's wails and shrieks—and I awaken screaming for Ayah.

Mother rushes to my side and bends over me. In the faint glow from the night-light I see her hand sweep my body as she symbolically catches mischievous spirits and banishes them with a loud snap of her fingers. At the same time she blows on me, making a frightening noise like moaning winds: Whooooo! whoooooo! The sound is eerie enough to banish any presence: natural or supernatural. She places a six-inch iron nail, blessed by the Parsee mystic Mobed Ibera, the disciple of Dastur Kookadaru, under my mattress to ward off fear.

Sometimes Mother lies beside me, her touch as fresh and soothing as daylight, and tells me the old story of the little mouse with seven tails. Mother has wisely changed the ending. “And then there was only one tail left,” she says, “and the little mousey came home laughing: ‘Ha, ha, ha, ha!' ” Mother's artificial laugh bounces off the walls so heartily that it dispels fear and I, too, laugh. “And the little mousey said,” says my mother, “ ‘Mummy, mummy, no one teased me. They said, ”Little mousey with one tail. Nicey mousey with one tail!” ' ”

I have outgrown the story—but the intimacy it recalls lulls the doubts and fears in my growing mind.

Mother asks Hamida to sleep on a mat in our room. Hamida squats by my bed and we talk in whispers till I fall asleep.

One cold night I am awakened by a hideous wail. My teeth chattering, I sit up. I must have just dozed off, because Hamida is still sitting by my bed.

“Shush,” she says. “Go to sleep... It's just some woman.”

I lie down and Hamida patiently strokes my arm.

“Why do they wail and scream at night?” I ask.

It is not a subject I have broached till now, mindful of Hamida's sensibilities.

“Poor fate-smitten woman,” says Hamida, sighing. “What can a sorrowing woman do but wail?”

“Who are those women?” I ask.

“God knows,” says Hamida. “Go to sleep... there is nothing we can do... She'll be all right in the morning.”

My heart is wrung with pity and horror. I want to leap out of my bed and soothe the wailing woman and slay her tormentors. I've seen Ayah carried away—and it had less to do with fate than with the will of men.

“Did you cry?” I ask Hamida.

“Who doesn't? We're all fate-smitten ... ”

“I mean, when you were there?”

Her hand on my leg goes still.

“I saw you before you came to us, you know. I saw you in the jail next door.” I speak as gently as I know how.

“What nonsense you talk... ”

“I looked down at you from a hole in the roof. You couldn't see me—but! I saw you. I recognized you straightaway when you were talking to Mother about the job... But I didn't tell her!”

After a pause, breathing heavily in the dark, Hamida says, “Your mother knows I was there.”

The woman in the jail has stopped wailing. It is so quiet—as it must be at the beginning of time.

“Why were you in jail?” I ask at last.

“It isn't a jail, Lenny baby... It's a camp for fallen women.”

“What are fallen women?”

“Hai!
The questions you ask! Your mother won't like such talk... Now keep quiet... ”

“Are you a fallen woman?”

“Hai
, my fate!” moans Hamida, suddenly slapping her forehead. She rocks on her heels and makes a crazy keening noise, sucking and expelling the air between her teeth.

“What's the matter? Don't do that... please don't do that,” I whisper, leaning over to touch her.

“If your mother finds out this is how you talk, she'll throw me out!
Hai
, my fate!”

Again she slaps her forehead and makes that strangling nasal noise.

“I won't tell her... I promise! Stop it. Please don't do that!”

I get out of bed and press her face into my chest. I rock her, and Hamida's tears soak right through my flannel nightgown.

I won't mention her fall ever again. I can't bear to hurt her: I'd rather bite my tongue than cause pain to her grief-wounded eye.

But this resolve, too, goes the way of all resolutions.

“What's a fallen woman?” I ask Godmother.

“A woman who falls off an airplane.”

Godmother can be like that sometimes. Exasperating. She can't help it.

“Wouldn't she break her head and die?” I say patiently.

“Maybe.”

“But Hamida didn't break her head ... She says she's a fallen woman.”

“Oh?” Godmother's expression changes.

As I tell her of my conversation with Hamida, Slavesister loiters about the room. She pretends to arrange papers on the desk. The letters and papers are already sorted out and neatly stacked. Although she has her back to me, I can tell her ears are switched on.

“Hamida was kidnapped by the Sikhs,” says Godmother seriously. On serious matters I can always trust her to level with me. “She was taken away to Amritsar. Once that happens, sometimes, the husband—or his family—won't take her back.”

“Why? It isn't her fault she was kidnapped!”

“Some folk feel that way—they can't stand their women being touched by other men.”

It's monstrously unfair: but Godmother's tone is accepting. I think of what Himat-Ali-alias-Hari once told me when I reached to lift a tiny sparrow that had tumbled from its nest on our veranda.

“Let it be,” he'd stopped me. “The mother will take care of it. If our hands touch it, the other sparrows will peck it to death.”

“Even the mother?” I asked.

“Even the mother!” he'd said.

It doesn't make sense—but if that's how it is, it is.

“That's why your mummy tells you to stay with Hamida all
the time—or with us,” says Slavesister unctuously. “When your mother tells you something, it's for your own good.”

There she goes again: butting in and making serious matters trivial.

“Her mother's not here,” says Godmother. “It won't do you any good buttering her up in her absence.”

“And I'm not married either! It doesn't matter if I'm kidnapped,” I speak up.

“Oh yes? And who'll marry you then? It'll be hard enough finding someone for you as it is.”

“Mummy says: my husband will search the world with a candle to find me!”

“Poor fellow... He won't know you the way we do, will he? Your husband will clutch his head in his hands and weep!”

“Cousin wants to marry me!” I'm surprised how smug I feel saying it. I don't think I particularly want to marry Cousin—but though he has not actually asked me to, I think he has implied it. It's a comforting thought. If only as a last resort.

“He hasn't seen any girls besides our Lame Lenny, Three For a Penny. Wait till he sees the world!” says Mini Aunty.

What an asinine thing to say about my worldly Cousin! Even Godmother suppresses a smile.

“Kindly go about your business,” she tells her sister. “And stop messing with those papers! As it is, I can't find anything when I want it.”

 

“What is the matter with you?” Cousin asks.

“Nothing.”

I'm feeling despondent. When something upsets me this much I find it impossible to talk. It used not to be so. I wonder: am I growing up? At least I've stopped babbling all my thoughts.

This idiocy of bottled-up emotions can't be a symptom of growing up, surely! More likely I'm reverting to infancy the way old people do. I feel so sorry for myself—and for Cousin—and for all the senile, lame and hurt people and fallen women—and the
condition of the world—in which countries can be broken, people slaughtered and cities burned—that I burst into tears. I feel I will never stop crying.

“Is your stomach hurting?” Cousin asks cautiously, afraid of a rebuff.

I'm grateful that he has stayed his ground at least and not gone tearing off on some pretext to avoid my irrational outburst.

“No.” I shake my head. “I'm not hurting.”

And then, of its own accord, my mouth blurts, “No one will marry me. I limp!” Almost at once I feel less aggrieved.

“But I'll marry you,” volunteers my gallant cousin.

I search his face through my tears. Thank God, he doesn't sound the least martyred. I couldn't bear it. He looks fond and sincere. I find it hard to recall my multitudinous anguishes of a moment before. I even feel a little foolish. And alarmed—lest I irrevocably commit myself to Cousin.

“A slight limp is attractive,” says Cousin, solemn and authoritative.

“Oh yes?” I say, airing my doubt.

“I like the way it makes your bottom wiggle.” He waves two fingers back and forth.

I twist strenuously and, tugging my short dress taut across my buttocks, peer down. There is very little bottom to see.

“When you grow up, you'll have a much bigger bottom,” asserts my solicitous and perceptive cousin. “It will look very attractive, then ... ,” he says somewhat uncertainly.

My deepening skepticism has infected him too.

“I read a story,” he continues gravely, “in which the heroine limped. Her one leg was shorter. She didn't even have a pretty face. But her limp was so sexy, everybody wanted to marry her!”

I don't care for Cousin's secondhand consolations. In any case, I don't want him harping on my limp.

“Colonel Bharucha says I'll stop limping by the time I grow up.”

“A pity,” says Cousin. “I find it attractive.”

“I can always keep it, if you like,” I say politely, and further guarding my options, I add: “Let's see how I feel about marrying you when I grow up.”

“Do you find me attractive?” Cousin suddenly asks, gazing compellingly into my eyes.

“Yes,” I say courteously, and avert my eyes.

“How attractive?” Cousin is insistent. “Do you think you could love me passionately? Die for me?”

I reflect a moment. Cousin certainly does not arouse in me the rapture Masseur aroused in Ayah ... I recall the bewildering longings the look on Masseur's face stirred in me when he looked at Ayah ... And other stirrings ...

“I don't find you that attractive,” I say truthfully.

“I suppose you're too young,” says Cousin. “You haven't known passion.”

I open my eyes wide and look demurely at Cousin, and let it pass.

But Cousin can't: “Do you find anyone more attractive than me?”

“Yes,” I say, “I think I found Masseur more attractive ... ”

I surprise myself. Mouthing the words articulates my feelings and reveals myself to me.

“But he was old!” says Cousin, equally surprised.

I suddenly feel shy and Cousin looks unutterably defeated. I think my sudden shyness convinces him of my wayward heart more than any protestations would.