The Sleeping Dictionary (55 page)

“Everything has changed,” the constable said. “Rice kitchens in the city are closed. The government has made feeding camps outside of Calcutta.”

At his words, an image flashed into my mind; the work camps that the Nazis had built for Jewish captives. Not here, in India—I couldn’t stand it. Shakily, I said, “This is the residence of Mr. Simon Lewes. You cannot send away his guests without his permission.”

“Guests!” the constable said mockingly. “This vermin?”

“I want your name.” My breath came in short bursts because the constables carried lathis, and the soldiers had guns. I knew they could hit me just as they’d hit the female students blocking streets as part of Quit India. But the constable and his men turned away and joined the soldiers herding people like goats into the lorries’ open beds.

I couldn’t stop them. But maybe someone else could. I hurried inside to the library and went into Mr. Lewes’s desk, where I knew he kept the governor’s letter stating we would receive a free rice allotment to dispense as we liked. But that letter was gone, as was almost everything that should have been in the drawer. Mr. Lewes must have taken his papers to keep on working at the Club. He would not be there at midday, so I rang the office to speak with his secretary, Mr. Branston.

“Is Mr. Lewes there?” I asked, my breath coming so fast that I could barely get the words out.

There was an intake of breath, and Mr. Branston said, “Madam, who are you?”

“Miss Mukherjee. I’m his library clerk, calling on urgent business.” In a few sentences, I explained about the rice kitchen being shut down and the peasants being forcibly taken away. If I couldn’t reach Mr. Lewes, I needed to reach someone in Government House who knew about the established feeding program we had.

“Mr. Lewes is in Delhi,” Mr. Branston said. “So there’s really nothing I can do—and no, I don’t think you should speak to the governor’s office about it, because it was Lord Rutherford who authorized the kitchen, and now Mr. Casey is in charge.”

Mr. Casey, who Mr. Lewes had said was too disconnected and made poor decisions about everything. Branston was right; the governor wouldn’t help any more than he had.

Only five minutes had passed, but the scene in the garden was worse. The constables were beating the last stragglers into the third lorry, although I saw a number of boys and girls running away from them and down the street. I was briefly cheered by this before realizing that these fleeing children would lose their families, just as I’d lost mine.

For me, approaching the remaining lorry was hard. I had to fight back the terrible old memory of the Brahmin-saheb with his cart packed full of tied-up children. I reached up my hand to the Smiler, who was no longer smiling. In a choked voice I called, “You will have rice where they take you. Hold on to your children. Hold on, don’t let them go!”

“Ma, don’t let them take us!” someone called to me.

“I tried, but I can’t—”

Another voice implored, “Ma, stop them!”

But I could not. The driver put the first lorry in gear, and the people who had been standing inside the lorry beds fell against each other. The vehicle rolled on, followed by its companions.

Somehow I stumbled back to the garden, barely able to see through my tears. Shombhu and Jatin were still picking up the pots that spilled onto the grass. Everywhere clods of grass had been kicked up, and the gate was hanging off its hinge.

“Terrible people, those so-called police!” Jatin took the broken gate in his hands. “If the saheb were here, it never would have happened!”

“You’re right,” I said, wiping my hand across my eyes. “But not everyone will miss the peasants. It’s been a lot of work for Manik, and the neighbors hated it.”

“Didi, please! Don’t cry so. Go rest yourself.”

I shook my head, because I imagined the lorries would take the quickest way out of the city and dump the peasants in a remote spot. Or would they pack them into a prison, perhaps sending them somewhere like the Andamans?

“Please take a rest, Didi,” Jatin repeated. I looked into his eyes, which were also tearful, and something unspoken passed between us. I had grown to love the boy like a brother; the little one I had never gotten to care for. I pulled Jatin to me for an instant, and he hugged me back, understanding.

I went upstairs and bathed, desperate to get off the dust and sweat and memory of my failure. I brushed my teeth and put on a nightdress because I knew I would be unable to eat.

Night couldn’t come fast enough to put an end to the wretched day. I lay on my bed, watching the sun move across the ceiling, making shadows that bounced as the fan blades passed around. I wondered if what had happened to us had also happened at other rice kitchens, and if Mr. Weatherington had anything to do with the shutdown.

Tortured by my circling worries, I could not sleep. The tall clock in the downstairs hall chimed midnight, and then one o’clock. At two thirty I went downstairs to make myself a cup of tea. By the light of the lamp I carried with me, the kitchen seemed so large and bare at night. As I stood waiting for the kettle to boil, I heard a creaking at the front door.

Initially, I was frightened; my next feeling was rage with myself for having neglected to bar the door, which was my duty when Mr. Lewes was away. I turned off the stove quickly and went to the kitchen door with a cast iron pan in one hand and a meat cleaver in the other.
Obviously it was a clever thief to strike when both Mr. Lewes and the reverend were away. But he did not know how strong I could become when it was needed. I breathed deeply, preparing myself for the fight.

The burglar dropped something with a heavy thump. Then he began walking toward the kitchen, where I belatedly realized my lamp might have attracted him. Not wanting to wait for his attack, I gave a deathlike cry and sprang forward with my weapons.

“Kamala!” Mr. Lewes had snapped on the light and was staring aghast at me.

“Oh! I’m sorry, sir!” I was still shaking, although I understood the danger I’d feared was gone. What remained was the strangeness of his coming home so suddenly, and of not knowing what might happen next. I repeated, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you would come tonight.”

“My train was delayed. And while I was waiting in the lounge, I heard that Casey ordered the rice kitchens to close. Did it happen already?” Mr. Lewes looked at my face and said, “I’m the sorry one. Sorry I couldn’t tell you first—”

“The people did not want to go.” I slid the knife back into its block. “The soldiers hit the peasants who protested. It was just like . . .” I was about to say,
Just like the street protest in Kharagpur,
when I remembered he shouldn’t know that I’d witnessed that. “Do you think Mr. Weatherington inspired the governor to shut things down?”

“I doubt it.” Mr. Lewes sighed, and I noticed that his tie was askew and collar open; he looked hot and thoroughly rumpled. “The governor’s been saying that the peasants are not Calcuttans; they don’t have housing or jobs in the city, and never will. He claims that they have created a massive instability. So he finally acted on it.”

“Taking people against their will is kidnapping. It’s like what Hitler is doing to the Jews of Europe—”

“These camps in Bengal are for feeding, not killing.”

As Mr. Lewes leaned against the counter, looking sadly at me, I suppressed the urge to run my hand along his cheek, where the evening stubble I’d never seen before had grown. Instead, I asked, “Has
the governor said whether our peasants will have to remain in these feeding camps?”

“My friend said the plan is for them to be freed when the rice harvesting is under way and they’re nourished and strong enough to return home. It might be only a few months.”

“You make it sound almost humane, but I can’t bear it.” Tears were starting at the corners of my eyes. “The peasants were torn away from here, and I’ll never see them again. Everyone always leaves. Even you—”

As I wept, I saw the army lorry, but now it was loaded with all those who had vanished out of my life: my beloved family; sweet, laughing Bidushi; and brave Supriya. And curled up in a basket was the one I’d been stupid enough to give away: Kabita.

Suddenly, I felt arms around me: banyan branches, big and strong. “I left because I was confused—but I won’t do it again.” Mr. Lewes’s voice came softly in my ear. “Kamala, I wasn’t sure how you felt. I will not leave you again.”

I could have pulled away as I’d done twice before. If I had said,
Sir, let me go
, he would have stepped back. But his fingers were stroking my tangled hair, sending shocks into my head and down my spine. I could inhale his essence mixed with tobacco and gin—except that no alcohol was on his breath this time. He was under the influence of nothing but his own emotion.

At Rose Villa, I always turned my head as such moments approached. But that was not what I did tonight. Tonight, as his mouth closed over mine, I kissed him back, opening my mouth so he could taste the neem and cardamom mixed with my longing. And with gentle fingers, I reached out to touch the warmth of his skin.

CHAPTER

35

TRAITOR:
1. One who betrays any person that trusts him, or any duty entrusted to him; a betrayer.

—
Oxford English Dictionary
, Vol. 11, 1933

I
stretched awake, feeling the gentle rolling air from the ceiling fan play across my skin. The room was quieter than usual, with only birdsong coming through the window instead of the usual street noise.
Why is it so cool?
I wondered, pulling the cover up over myself. The sheet felt different, too: fine and soft. My eyes opened to reveal that I was not tucked in my own small bed, but in Mr. Lewes’s spacious bedroom on the first floor.

With a rush, everything came back: how he had come home in the middle of the night; how I had cried; how we had kissed each other endlessly in the kitchen until we went together in his room. I remembered how in his room, lit only by the small lamp, he had unfastened my nightdress, and I stood before him in just my skin.

I had not expected this to happen. For so long in my life, this
part of the human experience had been almost forgotten.
No,
I corrected myself. During my years at Rose Villa, I had never traveled to such a country of affection and sensation, all of it mixed up so I could not tell one from the other. I hadn’t ever believed that sex could be more than a game of pretending or that a man would take time and care with his caresses. But having felt the climbing rush and the explosion, and the sweet comfort of lying together for hours, I finally understood.

The bathroom door opened and Mr. Lewes emerged, still tying his dressing gown. His smile began with his eyes and stretched all the way to his clean-shaven jaw. “You slept late today. Tut, tut.”

“That was not my intention, sir.” I could not help but beam back at him, because I would never again worry that Mr. Lewes would be upset over anything I did.

“Last night you called me Simon. It sounds so much sweeter to my ear.” He came back to his grand bed, lifting the mosquito net to slide in beside me. I said his name tentatively, then said it again, laughing, as he rolled on top of me.

“Twenty-one steps,” he said into my neck.

“What, sir—I mean Simon?”

“Twenty-one steps is the distance between my bedroom door across the drawing room and into the hall and up the stairs to your room. Several times over the last years, I have found myself standing upstairs. And then I counted how long I could bear to stand outside your closed door.”

I pulled myself up on my elbows and looked at him in surprise. “I never knew you were upstairs. I always felt so safe!” If he had ever done it in my first few years in service, I would have shot out of the house the next morning and never come back.

“I only went up when you were outside of the house, and I was dreaming of you,” Simon said. “I thought this kind of thing must never happen, because you were my employee, because I could never jeopardize things and make you run away. I told myself that what I loved
about you was your intelligence, your keen sense of organization, your sensitivity to all who live in the world. Nothing else.”

“Sir, that is—” I had been about to say,
that is the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me,
but was interrupted by a crisp knock at the door. It could only have been Shombhu with the bed tea.

“How does he know you’re home?” I whispered.

“It must have been the suitcases I left by the door!” Simon whispered back. “We’ve been caught. I don’t see any way around it.”

Knowing that he was right, I suppressed my urge to dive under the covers. But what would Shombhu think of me? For five years, I’d lived in the house and conducted myself as properly as a schoolteacher. And now, I’d thrown propriety to the wind.

“Saheb? Are you feeling fine?” Shombhu was desperately rattling the doorknob as if his locked-in employer was in danger. “Saheb, did you not request tea for half nine as usual?”

“I’ll speak to him,” I said. I’d already decided the next minutes were crucial, in terms of how the staff would react to the situation and treat me. Because of what I’d done, I might never recover their respect; but I could try. Without hesitation I called out in Bengali, “Thank you for coming so promptly, but please go back to the kitchen and bring a cup for me as well.”