The Sleeping Dictionary (42 page)

He was covering up for what had happened; yet I was unwilling to play along with his lie. Stiffly, I replied that I didn’t sew dresses; that was a job for a darzi.

“Honestly!” Nancy Graham buttoned up her tight bodice, which had not torn at all. “How can you let your servants snoop and talk
back when they’re caught? We once had a girl like that one, and I sacked her.”

“That’s enough, Nancy.” Mr. Lewes’s voice was curt. Nancy had slid off the desk. Putting her hands on her hips, she gave Mr. Lewes a film heroine’s long look. Then she swept out of the room, jabbing her elbow hard against me.

“She was about to have me strung up and quartered! Thank God you finally arrived.” Mr. Lewes pulled a pack of cigarettes from his breast pocket.

“I wish you wouldn’t smoke in here; it’s terrible for the collection,” I snapped.

“I suppose you’re right.” He put the pack back in his pocket. “You are always looking out for me, aren’t you?”

Then Mr. Lewes walked right up to me and looked down into my face. I felt a strange current. It was the way the air felt just before the monsoon broke. As he bent down toward my mouth, I realized that he was going to kiss me. I had the oddest temptation to see what this kiss would feel like, but then I stepped back fast and put my hand over my mouth. He stepped back, too.

My head was spinning. I had to do something to break the tension. “You were speaking as if you don’t like Miss Graham.”

“Her name was not on the list I gave you. She came with friends.” Mr. Lewes’s face was flushed. “What you saw was an ambush.”

I murmured that it was all right, although I was still upset. After one gin-lime, I felt as if I’d gone mad. How many drinks had my employer taken that he was moved to almost kiss me?

Dimly, I heard another voice.

“May I join, sir?”

A short, plump Indian man wearing a dinner suit was hesitating at the door. He was regarding me in the same skeptical manner in which I’d looked at Nancy Graham. Overcome by embarrassment. I longed to shout out to him in Bengali that Mr. Lewes was only my employer and nothing at all had happened.

“Pal-babu. I am very happy to see you.” Mr. Lewes sounded relieved by the interruption. “Where is your wife? I hear she’s keen on books.”

“Mrs. Pal could not attend, but she will be interested to hear about the library decoration and especially the menu. It is much superior to the typical British affair. Tell me, was it catered by one of the Park Street restaurants?”

“Oh, no. I’ve got a good Oriya cook and an even better personal assistant who concocted the menu. Come, you must meet her. This is Miss Kamala Mukherjee.”

I made namaskar with my hands to Mr. Pal, who did the same. But his dubious expression didn’t change.

“Kamala, won’t you check with Shombhu about whether enough champagne is opened? I thought the drinks table looked a bit miserly when I last stopped by.”

Outside the room, I put my hands to my burning cheeks. I could not bear returning to the crowded dining and drawing rooms, so I slipped upstairs to my bathroom to splash water on my face. While closing the taps, I heard the rumble of voices below me in the library. Mr. Lewes and Mr. Pal were still there. What were they talking about?

I shut off the bathroom’s light, pried up the broken tile, and lay on the floor, placing my left eye over the narrow crack that opened through the library ceiling. I couldn’t see, but I could hear.

“Two thousand, maybe more,” Mr. Pal was saying in a low voice. “The papers will give the correct number tomorrow.”

“Was it peaceful?”

“As much as you could expect, in such a situation. There were some arrests, and truthfully, sir, those protesters were emotional but not at all violent or riotous. Heavy rain likely kept the worst actors away.”

Protesters. They might have been talking about a Forward Bloc rally Supriya and Sonali had mentioned happening today. I’d been invited but was too busy to go.

“Is the poet involved?” Mr. Lewes asked.

“No. He’s said to be very upset about the situation, though, and may come up with some kind of written statement.”

“That’s all we need.” Mr. Lewes sighed heavily and asked, “What about the Communists?”

“I made the list you asked for. It’s not as long as I would have liked.” Mr. Pal chuckled. “Spotting the various faces in such a throng was quite difficult.”

“Thanks,” Mr. Lewes said, and I could hear the soft sound of a paper unfolding. I had thought he might read from it, but he was silent. At the end he said, “How and when will you next report?”

“Friday next . . . shall we meet in the upstairs bar at the Calcutta Club around seven?”

“I shall be there. But if there’s nothing new to say, leave a message with my office canceling.”

“It is done.”

“Very well, Mr. Pal. And I’m going to unlock the library now, in case anyone’s waiting outside. Do have something more to eat before you leave.”

“I shall rejoin the group as you wish, sir—but don’t think I’ve stopped working! My ear is always to the ground!” The edge of Mr. Pal’s body crossed my spy hole, and I heard Mr. Lewes unlock the door.

My employer bent over the desk. He pulled a key from his pocket and opened the middle drawer. He slid an envelope inside and relocked the drawer. And then he disappeared from my view, although I heard the library door opening and his voice calling to people to come inside and see the best folios.

CHAPTER

26

DECEIVE:
To ensnare; to take unawares by craft or guile; to overcome, overreach, or get the better of by trickery; to beguile or betray into mischief or sin; to mislead.

—
Oxford English Dictionary
, Vol. 3, 1933

D
on’t tell on the men.

Bonnie had said it to me when I was fifteen, when the police chief had frightened us with his pretend snake. Englishmen in India could behave with impunity. And we were supposed to allow it. Mr. Lewes was a terrible man. When he’d stood closely to me in the library, I’d been seized by a brief, dangerous fever. But now I felt rage at myself for this lapse and for misreading the intentions of a man who’d stop at nothing to suppress freedom. With his polite requests for my companionship at dinner, Mr. Lewes had manipulated me to gather information. What I’d fed him was allowing his government to keep India under its heavy elephant feet forever.

That night, I longed to break into his desk, find the list, and
destroy it. But the rational part of me said to wait. If the list of people seen at the rally vanished, Mr. Lewes might suspect me. I needed only to get into the desk, check the list, and communicate the names to Pankaj.

The next morning, I was in the library at the usual time, dressed to work. I tried wiggling a letter opener in the lock, but it did not work. I put that away and was industriously sorting through a stack of books when Mr. Lewes stumbled in an hour later than usual, still wearing his dressing gown. His face was drawn, and he held a bag of ice against his head with one hand and a cup of tea in the other.

“A good morning to you, sir!” I turned away, thinking he deserved this.

“Not really. I feel like someone threw a
Gazetteer
at my head,” he grumbled.

I did not comment, just kept working with my back to him. I wondered if his keys were in his pocket. If I were still a Rose Villa girl, I would go to him and slip my hands into his pocket while I kissed him; I imagined he would like it. But I had come through that hell pledging never to use any of the sordid skills I had learned.

Mr. Lewes sat down at the desk, putting his teacup on the blotter soiled by so many cocktail glasses the night before. “Is that homespun cotton you’re wearing?”

“Yes. It’s called khadi,” I said, pulling the pallu a bit higher over my shoulder to keep my bosom fully covered. “It’s all the fashion these days.”

“I rather prefer what you wore yesterday evening.” Mr. Lewes yawned. “Actually, I haven’t thanked you properly for all you did. Except for a few misbehaving guests and my overimbibing, I think it was a good night.”

“People enjoyed it,” I said, thinking,
everyone except for me.
I had worked so hard to organize it, but then nobody had spoken to me because I was obviously in Mr. Lewes’s employ.

“This really is the only tolerable room in the house,” Mr. Lewes
said, moving the ice from one side of his head to the other. “The humidity never ceases, even this early.”

I couldn’t stand having him near, not with what I now understood about his character. Coolly, I said, “I’d rather you didn’t breakfast in here, as I’m still cleaning up yesterday evening’s mess.”

He sighed. “I may begin taking breakfast in the garden.”

But there is no table in the garden, nor proper chairs on which to dine,
I was about to say. And then I had a brilliant idea.

“If you’d like to dine outside, you must have a table and chairs built of a wood like teak that can withstand rain. Jatin can carry out the lounge chairs when you have your drink, but it is not suitable for breakfast or dinner.”

“I don’t know if I could,” he said. “Mr. Rowley wants to know about anything I intend changing in public spaces. He was rather miffed about the air-conditioning work going on.”

“It’s because he lives downstairs and had to suffer the noise of all the workers putting in the air conditioner. You should have invited him to the party to improve relations.”

“I did try, but he doesn’t care for mixed parties.” At my blank expression, Mr. Lewes added, “That is, parties with more than European guests. I’m sorry, Kamala, but some of my colleagues seem to think it’s still the days of the East India Company.”

I stopped sorting books and delivered a cool look. “Really? But in those days, apparently the company men at least took the effort to learn the local language.”

Mr. Lewes stretched back in his chair. “Not because they were studious; it was because every fellow had his own sleeping dictionary.”

“What kind of dictionary did you say?” I asked, although I remembered full well what Rose Barker had told me.

“Sorry.
Sleeping dictionary
was a term used for”—Mr. Lewes hesitated a moment—“their paramours. Every evening, underneath their mosquito nets, company officers learned Bengali and Hindustani from their lady friends.”

“How practical,” I said crisply. “As you know, you have a modern English-Bengali dictionary to help you, should you like to learn something; but I think not.”

Mr. Lewes put down his ice pack. “Kamala, I am sorry if you still believe I didn’t like your Christmas present!”

“You have no reason to learn Bengali. Why should you?” I said, thinking,
Not when you have Mr. Pal to spy for you and me to translate Indian opinions.

“I’m dismal at speaking languages. I studied French and Latin, of course, but when I see the Indian alphabets I just—slow down mentally. I feel like a child.” He shook his head, and this made him wince and put the ice on his head again. “Your gift made me feel wretched because you don’t spend enough on your own clothing and so on. I wish you’d buy more saris like the one you wore yesterday. You should take yourself shopping next week; I won’t have as much for you to do because I’m going to Delhi on temporary duty.”

“Oh, that’s quite a long trip. What is it you will do there, sir?”

“Meetings. Writing. Perhaps a polo game with some old friends.” Again, he yawned.

“Well, I hope you have a relaxing trip. And I am very glad we spoke about the garden furniture. I will know not to bother Mr. Chun about it.”

Mr. Lewes passed a hand over his eyes. “Actually, why don’t you just go ahead with it? That Infernal Rowley’s not my landlord. And go ahead. You may order whatever table and some chairs you think right.”

MR. LEWES LEFT on Monday morning. I could not stop smiling as I waved him off, because my subterfuge was about to get under way. After giving Manik orders to simplify our menus to ordinary Bengali vegetarian cooking, I hurried off to Bow Bazar. In this old commercial district, the twisting lanes were packed with interesting small shops
owned by Chinese and Nepali and other foreign merchants; I could have browsed for hours but concentrated on finding Mr. Chun’s furniture shop, where I had not visited for some time. Mr. Chun recognized me with pleasure and offered me a cup of delicious oolong tea. As we sat down on blindingly polished rosewood chairs, I mentioned that I needed a minor repair to the library.