The Sleeping Dictionary (32 page)

How much Calcutta means to India and the European domination of the Empire can never be conceived by those who are unfamiliar with the city and its unusual importance; who know not the many matters in which she leads opinion in India; who are ignorant of her abounding trade and commerce; who have neglected to study their history upon the conquest of India, with special reference to the part Bengal played; and who have never visited her for sufficient time to realize why so much of India’s prosperity depends upon the financial, commercial, and traffic organisations of the city. Calcutta, in fact, although no longer the capital, is undoubtedly the Indian City which not only attracts greater attention than any other in every way, but is regarded as the first British city of the East.

—Travel in India, or City, Shrine and Sea-Beach: Antiquities, Health Resorts and Places of Interest on the Bengal-Nagpur Railway,
1916

CHAPTER

18

Calcutta to those who know the place will always be a city of happy memories, not only by reasons of friends and associations but because of its many natural beauties. Not the least of it are sunsets over the Hooghly, lighting up the sky beyond the smoke of the mills in a gorgeous radiance . . .

—
Travel in India, or City, Shrine and Sea-Beach: Antiquities, Health Resorts and Places of Interest on the Bengal-Nagpur Railway
, 1916

T
he city was loud but could not drown out Kabita’s cry. It rose above the voices of the touts and the train horns.
You left me
, the cry said.
You are the worst kind of woman on this earth.

But Kabita would never be rented to beggars. She would have a real mother and father. Her life wouldn’t be marked by sin and starvation but affection and learning. She would have everything I’d once had and more. I told these things to the wind, to carry back to my child in Midnapore.

WHILE I WAS sure of her future, I was less so about my own in Calcutta. Howrah Railway Station was steamy hot and full of people hurrying at top speed. With my heavy suitcase, I felt awkward and slow, especially since I had no idea where to go. But seeing clearly would help.

In the privacy of a toilet stall in the ladies’ lounge, I abandoned the burka. From the top layer of my trunk, I took out one of the European dresses I’d had at Rose Villa, for I had decided to try my luck at passing for Anglo-Indian. I took the idea from Rudyard Kipling’s novel
Kim
; its central character, Kimball O’Hara, was a sunburned English boy who pretended to be Indian so he could live freely. I’d do just the reverse, using my fluent English and knowledge of English habits. I hoped this might land me a proper job typing papers, selling jewelry, or answering telephones: the jobs enjoyed by the young lady characters in American and English films.

Outside Howrah was a confusing jam of rickshaws, trams, tongas, and cars. I boarded a tram headed for Chitpore Road, an area I remembered from newspaper advertisements as known for reasonable but respectable hotels. Unfortunately, I was the only woman dressed in European clothing on the packed tram: a regrettable decision. The entire trip was an exercise in trying to get men to stop nudging my bosom or rubbing against my legs: something I couldn’t refuse at Rose Villa but was bent on never allowing to happen again. Quite deliberately, I dropped my suitcase on the bare feet of a man who had grabbed at me and later swung it hard against a couple of pinchers when I disembarked.

A few curses followed me, but the unpleasantness faded as I took in the spectacle of Chitpore Road, a seemingly endless thoroughfare packed with shops selling more things than I ever dreamed
existed. And it was not all under roofs: at the road’s edge, armies of perfume sellers, brass merchants, tailors, and vendors sold wares. Cobblers strolled with their tools hanging from long poles across the shoulders—as did the peddlers, who sang out the quality of their leather and nails.

With so many colorful distractions, it was hard to catch each one of the hotels. I looked carefully at the posted tariffs before choosing a narrow brick building where I saw an Anglo-Indian gentleman leaving and an Indian couple with two children going in.

The receptionist was an older Anglo-Indian gentleman called Mr. Jones. After he’d finished registering the Indian family, he turned to me. The rate for a single room was two rupees per night; I could afford it, but not for very long. On the register, I described myself as Camilla Smith, daughter of Jonathan Smith, Bombay. I had decided on Camilla in a snap moment for its being close to Pamela, but not quite the same; and Smith because it was a way I could still feel linked to Kabita.

My room on the second floor was small and hot, with a narrow iron bedstead and a moth-eaten blanket. In the corner was a cracked porcelain sink with a tap that eked out a trickle of brown water. I opened the window for air, and instantly, the room filled with the racket of the road below. But the pillow and sheets were clean, and there was no taint of the brothel about it.

Nobody would smell anything of my past, I vowed as I washed my face and looped my hair into a chignon. If I intended to easily pass for Anglo-Indian, I would need to cut it into one of the shoulder-length, curling styles that were popular that year. But at least I had real silk stockings and heeled pumps and a clutch purse into which I tucked the Positions Available section from the
Statesman
. It appeared that there were many good clerical jobs on a street called Esplanade. I drank some water from the sink and decided there were still enough hours of light to look for work.

I went downstairs and asked Mr. Jones how to reach the
business district called Esplanade. He recommended that I take the tram. After my bus experience, I spent some more of the money Lucky had given me to ride inside the second-class car. I pulled the bell when my seatmate, a kindly Anglo-Indian lady, advised me it was close to the Chowringhee-Esplanade crossing. I walked the wrong way at first, but then a shoeshine boy corrected me. And finally, I was standing on the world-famous shopping street.

It was impossible not to gawk at the rows of magnificent British office buildings, so tall, elegant, and white. Many had designs carved into them: wreaths and flowers and angels. The famous names I’d seen in newspaper advertisements were here, in stucco or brick: Hall & Anderson, the Army & Navy Stores, Whiteaway Laidlaw, and Chippers Shoes. The thresholds of these institutions were guarded by stony-faced chowkidars who stepped aside for Europeans but questioned anyone else wanting entry. A thought sparked that I could become a saleswoman at Whiteaway Laidlaw, but when I approached the chowkidar, he told me to move on.

This curt dismissal was repeated by the chowkidars overseeing the shipping office I visited, as well as the travel agency and the accounting firm, all of which had advertised their needs. I did not look Anglo-Indian enough, I realized with dismay. Over and over I heard:
No Indians. Position filled. Send a letter. Go away.

Calcutta could not be conquered on the first day, I told myself. Back on Chitpore Road, I bought an omelette wrapped in a warm paratha from a street vendor. I’d eaten nothing since leaving Kharagpur. I would be grateful for the free breakfast at the hotel the next morning. It was twilight by the time I was back inside the hotel, and I lingered by the reception area to study last Sunday’s copies of the
Statesman
and
Amrita Bazar Patrika
for other jobs that might still be open.

A position for a Eurasian or domiciled European file clerk at the Writers’ Building caught my attention. It would be exciting to work for a writer, English or Indian—and maybe one day, if I worked hard,
I could rise up from filing to writing. Miss Richmond had liked my translations; perhaps this was something I could offer, as well as filing.

When I asked Mr. Jones if he’d heard of the Writers’ Building, his thick eyebrows rose. “The Writers’ Building is where the sahebs make their administration. It is so large you cannot miss it: a redbrick building with hundreds going inside and out.”

“Make administration” was not something I understood entirely, but I nodded because I did not want to appear ignorant. Mr. Jones said the building was in a place called Dalhousie Square near the Great Eastern Hotel. How grand it all sounded. I hoped I was not shooting too high.

IN THE EARLY morning, the first thing I saw against the window was my bundled daughter. I gasped before realizing that the heap of cloth in the window was the dress I’d washed the night before and hung to dry. The winds had knocked it down so it collapsed on the sill in a mound that looked like Kabita’s sling. And I remembered that she was no longer with me.

My darling baby: How was she? Had she had her morning milk, was her wet nappy changed, and was Hafeeza or Abbas holding her? Tears came to my eyes, but I stifled the emotion that rose in my throat. It would not do to cry. I should not disturb the others still sleeping in rooms around me.

The dress that had dropped from the window was still damp and wrinkled, so I chose another one I’d brought, a pink-flowered dress that was a bit spangly. I used my nail scissors to cut off the gold bits. I devoured the hotel’s breakfast of tea and buns and then went outside into bright and busy Chitpore Road to find a letter-writing man with a typewriter. When I told him what I wanted, he laughed.

“From the way you speak, Memsaheb, I can imagine you can write a very good letter in English yourself. You do not need my services.”

I had never been called Memsaheb before; it made me feel wary that he would charge me more than the illiterate. Resignedly, I dictated to him a letter from Mrs. Theodora Markham regarding Miss Camilla Smith. I worried that he might challenge the letter’s topic, but in the end, I was the only one protesting. He had made three spelling errors; I could not show such a letter to anyone. After a brief argument, he allowed me to sit down at the typewriter and do it myself. This spectacle brought about all kinds of laughter from passersby, and he was aggrieved enough to charge me eight annas, double what I’d heard him asking from a previous customer.

It hurt to pay that much, but after my experiences in Esplanade, I knew the benefit of having a typed paper to show the chowkidars guarding the Writers’ Building. I also managed to use the letter writer’s fountain pen to make a grand signature befitting the fictitious bank director’s wife, who had employed me as her personal assistant for two years and was very sorry she could not take me to England with her.

I thought the letter was strong. But when I presented it at the Writers’ Building, two chowkidars denied me entrance for want of an appointment. I left to the sounds of laughter and commentary about my English dress and legs. But I resolved not to give up, since I’d tailored the letter specifically to this job, for which there really was an opening. All I needed was to enter the building from another point.

Casually, I strolled around the corner and saw the back of the grand building. Halfway along the ground-floor windows, I saw an office with a desk near the window and nobody inside. I’d climbed so many trees in my girlhood; this would be simple, if only I could find the first foothold.