The Sleeping Dictionary (50 page)

—Rumer Godden,
Bengal Journey
, 1945

T
he Japanese bombings of December 1942 and January of 1943 didn’t create too much visible damage, but they left a giant crater that no one could ignore: fear. Thousands of Calcuttans fled the city for their old family villages in the countryside. Choton, Manik’s
kitchen assistant, defected, as did Mr. Lewes’s chauffeur, Farouk. It took me two weeks before I managed to hire a reliable driver, Sarjit Singh, but I could not find a kitchen assistant for Manik. He said he would rather use Jatin, who was eager to learn cooking.

With the household down one person, Mr. Lewes seemed all the more present. Often, I felt his gaze, but I pretended not to notice. He had not come physically close to me again; and he was much less talkative. Perhaps he was reminding himself it was wrong to feel what he did, or he had developed some suspicions about my behavior.

One afternoon in February, he pointed out a package addressed to me in the hall. I knew right away it was from Bijoy Ganguly, but I took pains to casually open it in front of him, showing him that the book I’d ordered for myself had finally arrived. He never saw the Bengali letter tucked snugly in the book’s center, requesting a meeting the next day.

Reverend McRae was also very observant of my actions. One evening at dinner, he commented, “Miss Mukherjee, are you not in charge of the menus?”

“Yes. Is there something you would like me to request for tomorrow?”

“No. I was wondering how is it that you buy our rice. I haven’t seen you carry as much as a turnip when you come home from your jaunts.”

Reverend McRae’s room overlooked the street, so of course he could see me. I had not thought of it before, but he must have noticed me returning from Sen Bookbindery and my other excursions.

“The rice vendor comes by cart, and he drops it off to all his customers on this road,” said Mr. Lewes, cutting into a slice of roast chicken. “It’s an efficiency that Kamala established for our household.”

“My friend from the Scottish church in Dacca says there are some shortages of rice this year. Was the crop poor?”

Mr. Lewes finished chewing and said, “There was slightly less rain this past monsoon, but the rice crop certainly wasn’t ruined. What are you hearing, Reverend?”

“That there are serious rice shortages,” the reverend said. “Apparently each village in the countryside has a man who controls the price, and the prices are rising out of reach of many peasants.”

“The luckiest peasants in those circumstances are the ones allowed to grow and keep a bit of that rice for themselves!” I said, remembering my father’s situation.

“But the landowners are demanding more rice from the poor peasants because government needs it for the soldiers. That is hard, isn’t it?” the reverend said in his soft burr.

“It’s necessary.” Mr. Lewes’s voice was defensive. “Since the Japanese took Burma, India is the only source for rice for all our soldiers in the Asian theater. It’s being stockpiled for their safety.”

“But what of the Indians? There are many more of us than the soldiers,” I said as Reverend McRae nodded in agreement.

“The rice shortage is only in Bengal, not nationwide,” Mr. Lewes answered, but he looked uncomfortable under both our gazes.

Reverend McRae’s comments had made me curious. On my next outing to Hogg Market, I spoke to the various men seated amid huge sacks of rice. They seemed relaxed, but the prices they quoted were much higher than what I saw on our twice-monthly rice bill. When I returned home, I went into the kitchen, where Manik was making chapattis, and asked whether our rice seller’s price had risen.

“Much higher: thirty-two rupees a maund. Because of those thievish rice merchants, rice costs almost twice what we paid in January.” Manik slapped the dough hard against the board. “That is why I’m not buying rice these days, just using our stores. We will buy again when the price returns to proper level.”

“Manik, I know you are being careful with Mr. Lewes’s money, but you must keep buying rice,” I countered. “As the days pass, it may become even more expensive.”

He frowned and said, “If I buy this week, the bill will be very high. You and the saheb will scold.”

Trying to sound reassuring, I said, “I will only praise you to Mr. Lewes for your caution. And to save money, we don’t really need to eat white rice; we can take brown.”

Manik sucked in his breath. “But only peasants eat such rough rice. Burra-saheb and the Reverend-saheb cannot!”

Soon I learned that brown rice now cost the same as white, but was more available. I cringed at the high price but knew we were fortunate that Mr. Lewes’s ICS salary and Reverend McRae’s stipend were enough to cover it and the rest of our usual expenses. Indian city workers who regularly received rice as part of their weekly pay were only getting half their usual allotment. Prisoners had still less; but Mashima told me a group of friends was bringing Pankaj, Lata, and the other jailed activists home-cooked food to supplement the meager prison fare.

And as the reverend said, peasants had no rice at all.

“Bodies are rotting in fields and ditches.” Reverend McRae’s voice was sober as he narrated the story about his recent foray into East Bengal. “When I asked my driver if there was a disease running through the place, he said, ‘It is called the hunger.’ ”

Manik had made a pillau that evening: brown rice baked with cinnamon and cloves and flecked with morsels of chicken, red pepper, and potato. It was delicious, but I lost my appetite. All this rice we had, when so many people had none.

“The peasants were all walking in the same direction as my car,” Reverend McRae said. “That is, toward the city. Their hope is they can find rice there.”

The next day, when I was walking in Little Russell Street, I noticed an old woman huddled against the curb with a child, close to the corn roaster’s stand. The woman’s body was so thin I could see the outline of her bones, and her eyes were sunk into her skull as horribly as a ghoul’s. I would have thought she were dead, if her hand hadn’t
slowly moved to touch the thin naked child, who, from the length of her tangled reddish hair, must have been a girl.

I asked the corn-wallah how long the grandmother and granddaughter had been lying in front of his stand.

“They are mother and child,” the vendor corrected me. “They came from the countryside a day ago and could not move any farther. At the end of the street, there are three more people like them.”

“I shall buy some of your corn to give her,” I said, reaching into my purse.

“They cannot eat ordinary food. Their stomachs became so small they can only digest phan.”

He was talking about the starchy water that was left over from boiling rice. It had been served to patients at the mission hospital where I’d once stayed. I said, “In a hospital, they can get phan and the care they need.”

He shook his head. “Strong ones find their way to hospitals, but this pair has given up. It’s too late.”

“Which hospitals will take refugees?” With a flash of pain, I remembered how I’d been turned away in Kharagpur.

“Almost all of them these days: but the hospitals are full.”

“I will make sure they get in. Somewhere.” I cast a last look at them and went off along Gorachand Road, passing more lying in misery, and some obviously dead bodies covered with flies. A cart piled with bodies rolled past me and stopped next to one of these corpses. A pair of men came down and slid a cloth underneath the body to lift it up into the cart. They were as fast as if they were hauling sacks of grain. A rush of sorrow came up from my belly, choking me. The City of Palaces was turning into the City of the Dead.

A waifish woman walked beside me, begging for phan. Recognizing her accent as that of the Midnapore region, I told her to come with me to the hospital, for perhaps there she could get a serving. As we walked, I thought that if I’d stayed in the countryside with Kabita, the two of us would have starved.

We waited a long time to gain admission through the door. Inside, a sea of people lay on the floors. It took some time to get the attention of a Bengali nurse who appeared close to tears from the chaos around her. I spoke about the mother and child in Little Russell Street as well as the woman beside me.

“We cannot take this woman, nor the others you mention,” the nurse said. “Try another hospital.”

“But you will serve tomorrow?” I persisted.

“Don’t come back.” Underneath the anger in her voice, I caught a whiff of desperation. “There is not even enough for the patients we have.”

I led the woman to another hospital, which didn’t let us in, and then we caught a tram to Entally and visited the hospital there. The peasant woman was given phan but she wasn’t allowed to stay. I related to the nurse in charge the location of the exhausted mother and child. She said that the Calcutta Municipal Corporation would send an ambulance, but by this point I was uncertain it would happen.

Before leaving, the Midnapore woman I’d brought bent to touch my feet. I accepted her thanks but quickly turned away, not wanting her to see the tears in my eyes. I had done so little. And now there was a tremor inside me, thinking of what she had said about the shortages near Midnapore. Was Kabita starving? Her parents had known my address for almost two years, but I had never heard anything from them, not even as the money and gifts I sent Kabita continued. I did not expect thanks, but I longed for a word of their health and well-being.

I had only enough money left in my purse to afford passage in a crowded bus that took me as far as Chowringhee. From there I hurried back to the puffed-corn vendor. A legless man occupied the spot where the woman and child had huddled. I stepped away from the whine of his accordion playing to ask the corn-wallah if the ambulance had come.

“No. But the corpse cart did.” He shoveled more corn into his pan as he spoke.
“The fellows took them along with all the other poor souls going down to the ghat for burning.”

“But they weren’t dead.” I swallowed hard, unable to believe it.

“If not already dead, they were hours away from it. You saw their condition. They had no chance.” He shoveled and shoveled, not looking up, but I’d seen his face and knew he was hiding tears.

THAT NIGHT I dreamed of the starved woman and girl turning from flesh and bones to flame to ash. At three in the morning, I went downstairs to the library and found a book about a nineteenth-century Indian famine. Feeling desperate, I read until I could stand no more, then put my head down on the blotter and slept.

“Kamala, what on earth?”

I awoke to find Mr. Lewes’s hand lightly tapping my shoulder.

“Sorry. Is it morning?” I looked up at him, realizing how much my head hurt. I was struck with a longing for him to run his hand up from my shoulder through my hair, pressing away that pain.

“Where were you yesterday evening? I was quite worried.” Awkwardly, he took his hand away.

“I returned around nine yesterday and told Manik I wasn’t hungry.” I decided to say what was in my heart. “Sir, I must take leave for a few days.”

Mr. Lewes settled down on the other side of the partners desk. “Of course. But may I ask you why?”

“The famine is so terrible. I must find out if some family members are all right.”

“I thought your parents and siblings were deceased?” As he spoke, his brows drew together in concern.

I hesitated, then said, “These are not immediate family, but I still care very much for them. They stay in Midnapore.”

“I see.” Mr. Lewes was silent for a moment. “Would you like to
telephone them first, to make sure they are in? You can also find out what’s helpful to bring.”

I shook my head. “They don’t have a telephone; I’ll just go.”

“Take some of our rice with you. Midnapore’s not far; Sarjit can drive you.”

I did not want anyone coming who could carry tales about where I’d been and what had happened. Trying to smile, I said, “That’s very kind, but there is no need to take your car when I can ride a train.”

“There’s nothing to be thanked for. We British are the ones who made India’s famine.” And with that, he walked away quite fast; but not so fast I couldn’t see him wipe his hand across his eyes.