The Sleeping Dictionary Read online

  I promised myself that I would attend only part of the meeting. And even though there was risk of being late to the Villa, my desire to learn more about Pankaj’s plight outweighed all of it.

  AT THREE O’CLOCK Wednesday, I took a short tonga ride to the school on the Indian side of town. The roads here were rough and full of litter, and I felt the people’s eyes on me, as if they knew my Rose Villa background—despite the fact that I’d worn my plainest sari and no jewelry at all.

  I had tried seeking work here long ago. This time, I went in with a large throng of men and some women toward a main auditorium. Most of the males attending wore white Congress caps, and I remembered the long ago time in Midnapore when Bidushi and I got on the wrong side of Congress protesters. Self-consciously, I touched the sari that I was wearing, hoping it was woven in India. At Rose Villa, nobody thought about such things.

  The event was slightly late beginning. The local party leader who quieted the lively crowd with waving hands said that the Andamans report would be given immediately. He said the Andamans prisoners had forwarded a petition to the viceroy, asking to be repatriated to India. The viceroy had not yet responded, and as a result, the prisoners had begun a hunger strike. A ripple of concern seemed to go through the crowd, especially when the organizer said that all the leaders of the Congress Party, and even Rabindranath Tagore, had cautioned the prisoners not to put themselves in such a dangerous position.

  “How many have died?” The question was called from the crowd.

  “A handful since July 25; but more are sure to go,” answered the Congress spokesman with a long face. “The last time there was a hunger strike at that prison, back in 1931, the guards did force-feeding. And that in itself is quite harmful.”

  It was now the end of August. How could the men still be alive? Did Pankaj welcome death because he longed to be with Bidushi? This thought dogged me as the speaker went on, talking of how prisoners in jails throughout India were striking in sympathy. I would starve myself if it would bring Pankaj back to India, but who would pay notice to the sympathy strike of a prostitute who continued to lie down for Englishmen and take their money? I wanted to leave Rose Villa badly, but I had nobody to turn to who would accept me. As the proverb went, I’d made my own bed and had to lie in it.

  GLOOM SURROUNDED ME like a thin cloak as I returned to Rose Villa after the meeting. I had little time to freshen myself upon arrival and decided to wear a dress instead of a sari. I would use my English voice and wear an English costume, for I wanted to share nothing of who I was with my customers that evening. Stoically, I powdered my face peach and painted my lips a garish coral color. I wanted to look ugly, not to be chosen too many times.

  “You don’t look the same,” Lucky said, coming into my bedroom around six.

  I slammed the cosmetics box closed. “Why not? Mummy says we should vary our appearance.”

  “They don’t come for cheap tarts—that’s why we can’t wear red saris or chew paan.” She frowned at the ill-fitting floral chiffon I wore. “I haven’t seen that frock before.”

  “It’s one of Bonnie’s old dresses. She was throwing it away.”

  “For good reason! Not that necklace; take this one.” She placed a heavy circlet of artificial diamonds around my neck, in place of the faux topaz I’d selected. “What’s wrong, Pamela? What are you thinking?”

  “Nothing,” I said sullenly. And it was true. I was so distracted by my worries over Pankaj and the Andamans prisoners that I hadn’t taken note that the Taster had arrived early and been waiting since five in the Chrysanthemum Suite’s red-sheeted bed; Mummy suddenly realized and rushed upstairs to tell me. This time, I had neglected to cover myself with spices and fine lingerie; and there was no time for it. As Mummy pushed me toward the suite, scolding me all the way, I wondered if he would be disappointed or merely glad to get on with his evening meal. I could smell the food he’d brought even before opening the door.

  “Good evening, my saheb.” I crouched to touch his feet as usual. When I came up, he pulled me close. His nose moved over my face, and then my shoulder.

  “What is this?” he said abruptly. “You didn’t prepare for me.”

  I thought of saying that the scents were so mysterious and faint that they had to be smelled most carefully. But the thought of him behaving like a street dog, sniffing and licking, made me want to deter him as long as I could. So I gave an automatic smile that felt like a spasm.

  “I bathed, Saheb. Would you like to as well?” I extended my hand toward the attached bathroom, which he customarily used after he was through.

  Suddenly, his manner stiffened. “What did you say? Do you think I stink?”

  Pressing my lips together, I shook my head. Of course he reeked. Some men washed up before they arrived, but he didn’t. The Taster smelled of meat and all the things he ate, and of sweat and the evils of his prison. And tonight, as he pulled me against him, I inhaled the harsh rye that Mummy kept downstairs.

  “Speak, girl!” But before I could think of a better answer, he raised his fist and delivered a blow that smashed my lips open. I was stunned, both with pain and fear. The violence had happened so fast, I hadn’t seen it coming and had no chance to turn my head. Now my lips were bloody and my tongue smarted. I saw my smudged coral lipstick on his palm as he brought it back to strike me again.

  “You don’t smell,” I gasped out, but he hit me anyway, and then he pushed me down on the bed and was tearing the flowered dress. Now I cursed myself for wearing something so simple; for I had no intention of being taken roughly in a house that prided itself on its genteel nature. At Rose Villa there were to be no beatings by men, Mummy always said coyly, implying that the reverse was acceptable.

  “Sir, you mustn’t!” I shouted for the sake of anyone who might hear me in the corridor. But my next call for help was cut off, for he had filled my mouth with a greasy piece of mutton that had come out of his suit pocket.

  I could not get my hands anywhere near my face without his hitting me, and I could not even speak without fear of choking. So I lay still as he raped me, for that was what it was this time. And the worst of it was, he had moved into me so fast I had not been able to bring out a French letter out of the box for my own protection.

  “You will get your—just deserts!” The Taster panted hard as he pumped. It seemed that the liquor he’d consumed made it hard for him to perform. As he fell soft I hoped he would give up the whole business, but he made a growling sound and kept on, slapping at me each time I tried to free myself. If only it were the Lotus Suite, where the others might see through the ceiling spy hole; surely they would rescue me. But we were inside the Chrysanthemum Suite at the far end of the hall, a hellish room decorated with scarlet-colored lights and bed coverings, and on them, my blood.

  At last he reached his goal and rolled off me. I spit out the foul piece of meat and wept with pain. The horror of what had happened filled me; I could not go to my imaginary cupboard for rescue. I’d been locked out.

  The Taster stood and began to dress. Burping, he said, “No tip for you tonight.”

  I lay still until he stormed out, slamming the door behind him. Natty was leaning against the wall when I slipped outside, still shaking, a few minutes later. She looked at me with cold eyes: as if she knew but did not care.

  “Did you hear him hurting me?” I said, my throat catching.

  “I heard something.” Her pretty lips pressed outward into a smirk.

  “Why didn’t you help me?”

  Her eyes glinted at me. “If you take on a big customer like the Taster, you’ve got to handle him right. I tried to tell you that last year.”

  Now I understood Natty: she had nursed this resentment, all the time, for his dropping her in favor of me. Despite his loathsome practices and what I’d had to suffer.

  “He’s yours once more,” I spat, tasting blood in my mouth. Then I went up to my room to bathe, cleaning every bit he had invaded. As I brushed my teeth, I stared
at my face in the mirror above the sink. I did not look like the girl who had arrived at the brothel two years earlier. I had become her ghost.

  THE NEXT MORNING, everyone agreed that the Taster had misbehaved and should not come back to the house for a while, but Mummy said that too much liquor was the real villain of the story. If I had been at the house on time, he would not have drunk so much rye-and-water. Then, as I expected, Mummy asked where I had been yesterday that I’d come back so late.

  “At a film. But, Mummy, I’m hurting down there,” I said, too embarrassed to use any of the silly words the others did. “Dr. DeCruz should examine me before I work again.”

  “I can take you before lunch,” said Bonnie comfortingly.

  “Not so fast,” Mummy said. “I’ll give two days off—if it’s still hurting, then go. But don’t divert me from my questions. You came back late, in a tonga from the Indian side of town.”

  So Mummy had been watching for me that evening. I shivered, knowing that more anger was unavoidable. I said, “Indians do see films, as well.”

  “And what did you see? Surely not Devdas again?” Her voice was acidic, because she had disapproved of how much Lucky and I had enjoyed this Bengali-language film about a romantic young couple hindered by their caste difference. “Or did you actually go to a certain political meeting? There was a paper about it left in your wastebasket.”

  “There was a newsreel at the meeting,” I said, flustered that she’d caught me so easily.

  In a hard voice, Mummy said, “You’re not mixing in Congress politics, are you?”

  “I’m not mixing anything,” I answered defiantly. “I just went for the film.”

  “The Congress Party and their war for independence will be the death of India. Don’t you understand what it means?” Mummy’s cheeks flushed red, despite their dusting with white powder. “I have no papers. I can’t get passage to England and neither can Natt and Bonnie and Doris. If Indians take over, they could close my villa!”

  “Mummy, don’t be upset,” Bonnie soothed. “Nobody will ever close this place. Remember how well you’ve been able to attract new clients through the railways. There’s always new money coming.”

  “If India is taken over by natives, the Anglo-Indian railwaymen will be sent packing.” Mummy’s mouth seemed to pinch inward as she spoke. “It will be a blacks-only railway, and all the trains will crash or be late! The hell if I’ll have those types in Rose Villa!”

  CHAPTER

  14

  CHEERIO: A parting exclamation of encouragement; “good-bye”; also quasi-adj: cheery.

  —A Supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary, Vol. 2, 1933

  Politics were not good for me.

  The more I thought about Pankaj’s and Netaji’s words, the less I could bear my life at Rose Villa. Freedom, dignity, unity were what was called for—and there I was, lying down for the enemy. Prostitution was more than a physical humiliation; it was becoming mental torture. And although I did not smoke hashish like Sakina or drink like Natty, my low spirits placed me among their lot.

  The hunger strike had spread to prisons all over India; Gandhiji gave speeches and Rabindranath Tagore wrote letters about the Andamans, making the starving prisoners international news. It became too much of a black spot on the face of India’s government, and in September, what everyone longed for came true: the viceroy directed the prison superintendent at Port Blair to begin releasing its political inmates.

  The news relieved me, but I still felt empty. Yes, Pankaj had survived and would go back to his lawyer’s life in Calcutta, but I had not yet departed my despicable profession. The only escape I had within Rose Villa were the shelves of old books in each parlor. One afternoon, when I was dusting mildew off the spine of a tattered Rudyard Kipling volume, Mummy came in. I was both irritated and worried, because I hadn’t yet groomed myself for the evening; and surely she would notice.

  “I have always wondered: How did you build such a marvelous book collection?” I said in the hopes of distracting her.

  Mummy grimaced at the book in my hand, as if she thought it was rubbish. “My father left trunks of books with my ma before returning to England. She always said, if only he’d left his papers in the trunk, too. If I had his birth certificate—if only!—then I could prove myself and get a British passport. And then—oh, to be in England with all the luxuries!”

  “Did your ma read them all?” I asked, to avoid hearing another one of her fantasy tales about the easy life that lay ahead for her in Devon or Brighton.

  She laughed, her face creasing like a fractured pink-and-brown plate. “Oh, no. My mum couldn’t read because she wasn’t sent to school. I was the first one, and that was only until I was eleven. I once tried reading some of those stories when I was sick in bed, but they’re dreadful. Anyway, the books aren’t for us but for the customers. Every now and then a man is too shy or has some reason not to go upstairs. So the books can amuse him while his friends are having their fun.”

  “That’s why I’m keeping these books clean. I don’t think a gentleman would be impressed with our house if his fingers touched mildew.”

  “I don’t worry about the men, Pamela. I worry about you. After all—you are my favorite.”

  I looked up at this with surprise, for I had always thought Bonnie was Mummy’s special one. Her words could not be genuine.

  “Pamela, you are among my top earners, but since the monsoon, your numbers are down. I have noticed that your new customers do not choose you again, and you are coming up with all sorts of reasons to be on leave. Why are your periods so long suddenly? You are only hurting yourself.”

  “I don’t know why they don’t want me as much. I’ll try harder.” I could not address her second point. I was lying about my menses because they had stopped altogether. It was not something I wanted to dwell on. I knew that all my customers had used French letters—except the Taster, the time he’d raped me.

  I told myself that nothing was wrong; that it was just the mental tension. Or, if I truly were with child, the baby would slip out of me while still unformed. As frightening as the situation was, I could not bring myself to consult anyone for help. The girls couldn’t keep a secret; and Mummy controlled so much of my life that I could only imagine how enraged she’d be.

  I’d thought the doctor would find out, but Dr. DeCruz examined me the first two months without noticing anything amiss, and this spurred me to go on with the pretense. When he went for a long holiday to the hills, this bought me even more time. I went to the halal butcher and bought animal blood that I added to my cloths in the bathroom soaking pail so Premlata would not think anything out of the ordinary, during the time I went on leave. In the back of my mind, I knew that what I was doing was senseless; that if I really were carrying, my belly would give me away. But I would rather put things off than face them. A baby would mean the end to everything: my dreams of going to school and maybe seeing Pankaj again.

  “I am not quite well,” I said to Mummy, as we stood together in the parlor. “Perhaps if I did something different to help you for a while: writing advertisements, organizing all the books in the parlors—”

  Mummy interrupted me. “No more books. You’ve turned lazy and fat, and that’s not what the English want. I must see an uptick in your numbers or your days here will end. Thik hai?”

  “Thik,” I answered her question with a gloomy It’s fine. I worked harder to pretend pleasure, and customer satisfaction slowly returned. But as she said, I was getting bigger, and that was a new danger. Instead of going to my scheduled appointment with Dr. DeCruz, who’d returned in October, I sent word to his nurse that I was having a heavy period and would reschedule. And to camouflage my physical changes, I began to wear silk caftans and elaborate necklaces to draw attention to my face, which was always heavily made up.

  “Your looks are changing,” Bonnie said, and from her expression, I could tell this was not a compliment.

  ONE WARM SUNDAY morning I la
zed downstairs with Bonnie, savoring the brief coolness of the veranda as we drank our tea. Right away the two of us split up our copy of Amrita Bazar Patrika, a Calcutta newspaper published in English that I liked better than the Statesman. Bonnie was reading the fashion and entertainment page, and I had the first section with world news. I wondered what would come first: a European war or my baby. Both were ominous events that I sensed were unstoppable.

  The sound of a tonga caught both Bonnie’s and my attention. The mynah birds that had been chattering overhead cut themselves off, too. Customers usually went to church services on Sunday morning, not coming till the afternoon.

  Bonnie groaned. “All I can say is, he’d better be very rich or handsome.”

  I glanced at my watch. I’d bought it recently, a slim Japanese bracelet style that thrilled me each time I checked it. It had been a dent in my savings, but I knew I’d need a watch in order to get to school on time, when I finally began work on my teaching certificate. The time read half eight, which was too early for any client.

  “If this is the infamous Rose Villa, you must be the morning roses!” A strangely accented male voice jolted the quiet of the garden veranda.

  As the man came into view, I closed my silk wrapper tightly. I was shocked that a sunburned white man in rough clothing as dusty as a laborer’s had found his way to the back garden without being stopped by anyone.

  “Sir, you are out of order,” I protested, disliking the leisurely way the tall, red-haired man was looking both Bonnie and me up and down. Bonnie made a quick gesture spreading her fingers on the table. He’s mine, it said.

  Premlata came running out to the veranda. “The darwan was sleeping, Memsaheb, but he will come soon!”

  Although she’d spoken in Bengali, the man seemed to understand her concern. He slung a heavy satchel off his shoulder and stuck out a hand. “No worries, eh? My name is Bernie. Bernie Mulkins.”