The Sleeping Dictionary Read online

  “Another cart comes through in a while.” One of the workers stretched his lips into a grin that made me feel sick. “You can ride on it with us.”

  It would have been fine to ride home alongside Baba. But if Ma or Thakurma heard from anyone that I’d ridden on a cart with strange men, some of whom were Muslim, I would surely be beaten. I didn’t hesitate in my quick reply. “No, Uncle. It is not far. I will walk.”

  The trip home was downhill, so it did seem faster. My feet moved so quickly I hardly felt the thorns. I opened my mouth wide, tasting the cool, fresh rain. I was not on the beach; but I was still enjoying the rain. Then I passed the papaya orchard, and from a slight rise, I was able to glimpse the thatched roofs of Johlpur and the great sea beyond. Several cars had parked on the beach, and many tiny figures ran along the sandy beachfront, arms outstretched to the massive dark cloud. As I lingered, I thought I heard some people shouting.

  A great wave was rolling in: a wave so tall, so long and thick that it resembled a wall. The highest walls I knew were the stucco ones that surrounded the jamidar’s estate; this wall of water was much higher, and it bore down on the beach as I had never seen.

  Everyone on the sand was running, but the wave was closing in fast. Then it rushed right over them, sweeping away the land beneath. Where was the shore? I stared hard, but all I could see now was endless water with small black specks floating.

  The rain continued to fall in great cold sheets that stung. Without having seen the people reappear, I turned away and continued into the jungle. In the darkening evening, everything seemed foreign. The ground’s stones and nettles were covered with water high enough to touch my ankles, and I could not see through the trees to where I was going.

  I did not let myself worry, for the path home was quick. Everyone would be waiting at the hut. I would tell them about the strange sight at the beach while Ma cleaned my cuts with mustard oil. But as I descended into the jungle’s end, everything seemed to dissolve into a giant puddle. My walking slowed, and the puddle rose to my knees. There were floods in Johlpur every year, for at least some of the rainy season—but always in the low areas and along the village road. I couldn’t remember anyone talking about floods entering the jungle.

  Just a bit farther was a tall, sturdy date palm, with enough branches to get a foothold. I pushed my way through the water that had risen to my waist and pulled myself up the tree. I was attempting something I had heard my grandfather talk about doing once when he was a young man, to survive a very bad storm. I climbed as high as felt sturdy and unfurled half of my sari to tie myself into the embrace of the tree. I felt warm for a moment, remembering the way Ma tied Bhai against her body. My little brother would be frightened by this change of weather; thinking about Bhai’s fears took away my own. I remembered the papayas I’d tied in my sari and ate the first one.

  I had no idea about the passing of time, for it had become dark and the rain never stopped. Despite this, I slept fitfully. When I awoke for good, the sky was a soft purple color, and the crows were crying. I couldn’t make out a break between sky and water, just an endless purple-blue. Eventually, the rain slowed to a drizzle, and the sun appeared.

  I struggled to identify the clearing where our settlement of huts should have been, but it wasn’t there. All that stretched ahead was brackish water that grew steadily clearer and bluer as it met with the sea. My memory returned to the wave I’d seen, so strange and high that it might have sprung from one of Thakurma’s religious stories. The water moved slowly, carrying things past the tree where I had climbed up. Trees, branches, and roofs. Goats and donkeys and water buffalos. Even the jamidar’s silver Vauxhall, which lay sideways as it floated past.

  Dead people were also part of the tide. At first I did not want to look at them, but then I knew I had to, for with every one I didn’t recognize, it meant that my family might be safe. By then I was crying, silent heaving sobs, because if the sound were audible, it would mean my mourning was real. I knew the wave had taken away the people on the beach. I knew, too, the water must have swept over the place where our hut was. But maybe not; I held fast to my belief that if I were patient, Baba would find me.

  The rains came and went all day, bending the branch that had become my savior. Then the night came. I fell into a strange sort of waking dream, where every sound I heard was Baba’s firm, reassuring footstep; although I understood, in my heart, there could be no sound of walking when all the earth was covered with water.

  The next morning followed the same pattern as the one before: a purple sky growing paler, then sunlight, with monkeys and crows chattering. I ate the second papaya and watched more bodies float in the water. The outside of my sari had dried into a stiff, dirty shell, but drops of water remained inside some folds. I unwound the cloth and sucked it, trying to ignore the tastes of earth and salt. Then the torture began: tree ants climbed my legs and arms and bit me in places that I couldn’t reach. I tried talking to them, explaining that I did not want to be in their home and begging them to leave me in peace. How tired my arms and legs were, but if I lost hold, I would drop to the water. I was a good swimmer, but there was no land to reach; I would be lost.

  Hours later, I thought a miracle had arrived: a fishing dinghy loaded with living people. I called down to them as they approached, but the men paddled on without a glance. I hadn’t wept since the night before, but now I did. Twice more boats passed slowly, all of them overloaded with people and animals. I called to them each time with the small, rough voice I had left. Look! I’m here! Save me, please. How thirsty I was. I feared I might wither up where I was, like a dry leaf on a tree.

  Then, late in the day, I spied a small fishing boat occupied by what looked like a single family: two grandparents, a man and a woman of middle age, and two young boys. The boys were pointing at some animal swimming in the water and laughing as if it were an ordinary day.

  I shouted louder than I had before, and the brothers stopped laughing and looked. I could tell the children had not yet seen me. Quickly I pulled off my sari and, holding one end, flung it out like a flag. Now the children pointed at the dirty, cream-colored cloth, and to my joy, the father changed course and rowed toward me.

  As the boat approached, I wrapped my sari and descended the tree that had saved me: a difficult operation because my limbs had not moved for so long. But I finally reached the water and swam the short distance to the boat. The boys’ father held out an oar that I caught.

  “Thank you,” I whispered. “Thank you very much.”

  “Good that you can swim,” said the father, and he gave me a small smile that made me feel safe.

  “Girl, where is your family?” asked the wizened old man who was likely the family grandfather.

  “I don’t know!” I said, as I clambered aboard. “We lived in Johlpur, but it is gone.”

  “We’re from Komba. Our place is gone, too,” the younger boy said, sounding almost excited.

  “A terribly big wave swallowed the beach,” I said as the boat moved along, passing thick mangrove forests on one side and open sea on the other. It was a landscape I knew well, but seemed alien with so many of the mangroves uprooted and leaning crazily.

  “Not a wave. It was Goddess Kali’s doing,” the grandfather said in a stern way.

  “We can’t give you food or drink, as there is not even enough for ourselves,” the thin grandmother told me. “But it is a sin not to help. We will take you to shore. From there you can find your people.”

  “But her family is gone,” the father said.

  “On land someone will help her.” The boys’ mother spoke quietly. The water had stained her white sari gray, but I could still see the thin red border. She was well-off to have a sari woven in a mill.

  “Who will help?” I asked, for I was starting to understand that my old life might be over. A new wetness trickled down my cheek, and my thirsty tongue crept out to catch the salty tear.

  “Boudi just told you: someone will. We have provide
d a ride to you; that is our duty.” The grandfather’s voice was as rough as the crows that had wakened me that first hellish morning, and I imagined that he might become tired of me and let me go overboard like the horrible debris around us.

  I began an apology. “Forgive me, please. I am so grateful that you saved me—”

  “Quiet!” the old man snapped.

  I said naught until the next morning, when we touched land.

  CHAPTER

  3

  How many of us have sighed for a drink of clean water, not boiled, from a clean well, removed from drains, from a clean bucket in which hands have not been washed surreptitiously, from a clean cup which has been already wiped on a clean towel (not previously used for toilet purposes), and cleaned previously in clean water, in which lurk no germs of disease!

  —Margaret Beahm Denning, Mosaics from India, 1902

  My eyes were dry and tired, but I kept them open as the father and grandfather climbed down into the shallows to bring the boat to land. The waters were filled with discarded logs, boards, and tires. A family of five paddled in on a simple wooden board; on closer inspection, I saw on that board a child my size lying motionless and covered with flies. Dead; but they had not let the child go.

  During my journey, I had seen so many floating deathbeds and I had hoped for all of them that they would come to land and have cremation. Hindus who weren’t cremated would have their souls trapped between worlds, a fate that Thakurma told me was worse than anything. Now I had to bear the thought of my own family wandering eternally, because I had been unable to send them on to better lives.

  On the walk that ran near the sea, I could see all manner of folk: wild-haired beggars, laborers, constables in crisp uniforms and hard topees, and gaunt holy men clothed in saffron robes. Later, I would know India’s greatest city like the back of my hand; but at that moment in my young life, the sight of this seaside town called Digha was as impressive as Calcutta and Delhi and Bombay put together and topped with silver leaf. For what I saw on the path along the water’s edge was food! Cauldrons of boiling chai, snack stands selling crispy delights, and piles of fruit and vegetables abounded. Everywhere was nourishment, the luxury I had been without.

  First onto shore was the grandfather, who took the hand offered to him by a young man standing on the dock. Then the father went up, and the mother helped the grandmother be lifted to safety. The boys were lifted off, then the mother, and then I pulled myself up to the dock.

  “I’ve been told there are several wells very close,” the father said to all of us. “I’ll bring water.”

  “But what is there to carry the water in?” the grandmother grumbled.

  “We have one jug,” the mother said, showing the container she had carried off the boat with her. “Let’s all walk together and drink what little bit is left. Then we will have good fresh water from the well.”

  “She cannot drink from our jug,” the grandfather said, jabbing his chin toward me. “We have not come so far only to ruin ourselves.”

  “Yes,” said the father. “We have done what we can for the girl. It is time to let her make her own way.”

  I was confused, because they had taken me in the boat without question; but everything was different now. How had they guessed that I was low caste? At the same time I pondered this, I was also thinking about how to get a cup. The chai-wallah’s customers tossed their used clay cups to the ground; it was possible I might be able to take one that hadn’t broken.

  The line at the well was long, full of the town’s regular residents and, of course, all the refugees. Nearby, in front of a tall stucco building the likes of which I’d never seen, there was a veranda shaded by an awning, and sitting at a great wooden table, surveying the scene, were two Ingrej men in suits, talking to each other in their sharp-sounding, funny language.

  I’d never seen an Englishman except for the Collector, and that was not close. Now, I could see the veins in one man’s head and the extreme fairness of his skin. A child in Johlpur had been born with skin as white as rice, hair of red, and eyes a curious shade of green. Thakurma said that a demon had taken up inside him, and I wondered now if these white-skinned men were also demons.

  As I fearfully looked away, my attention turned to a tea drinker who was finishing his cup of tea. Excitedly I darted forth and caught it in midair. Some people laughed, but the boys’ father shouted so loudly that my fingers slipped, and the cup smashed to the ground.

  “Don’t steal!” the father chided.

  “Forgive me,” I whispered in my dry-throated, painful new voice, aware of the brothers greedily drinking down the water from the jug the mother had filled since she’d finished in the well line.

  “The child can have this!” A deep, warm voice spoke from somewhere behind me. I turned to discover a man in a clean, finely woven kurta and dhoti. His light skin was closely shaven and bore a trace of saffron in the center of his forehead, the sign that he was a Hindu who had recently been blessed. From his unrumpled appearance, I knew he could not have come on a boat but must have lived in the town.

  “Babu, she is not our daughter. We know nothing about her caste. She will contaminate your well.” The grandfather seemed to puff up as he spoke.

  “I have drawn the water myself, so there is no danger.” The man made a sign of blessing toward the father. “Surely you will be rewarded for taking care of an orphan.”

  Was he a priest? I wondered. The conversation between the gentleman and the boys’ father ran along as merrily as the sound of good sweet water sloshing into urns and jugs and pails, water so close to me yet unattainable. Something in my head seemed to explode, and then my hands were cold, for the gentleman had put a cup full of water into my hands.

  “Drink,” he said, and I remembered what Ma had once explained, that even though Brahmins only ate food or drink prepared by their own kind, they could give others nourishment, as this man had decided to do for me.

  There are few sensations I remember more strongly than the feeling of drinking water after almost three days without it. It was pleasure mixed with agony, because my throat had become sore with dryness. The water rushed through my arid throat to my belly. Such delicious, lovely water; but the Brahmin was cautioning me to drink slowly, for taking water too fast would make me sick.

  “There will be more water where we are going. Food, too. Keep hold of your cup.” Then the stranger told the father that he would like to bring me to a temple in the next province, Orissa. Normally, very few girls were selected to become temple servants; because of the floods, the priests were generously opening doors.

  Johlpur was so small we had only roadside shrines for the various gods. I had heard about temples but had never been to one and certainly hadn’t known children could live inside. But the saheb was saying that girls were given food and clothing and grew up to dance and give prayers to Jagannath, a reincarnation of Lord Shiva. The saheb had been commanded by the priests to bring orphan girls coming into Digha to their temple.

  As he spoke, I saw the mother’s dry lips relax from their tight line. She bent to look into my face and said, “Surely it was Lord Shiva’s doing that we came to this well just when the good saheb was arriving. You must thank him for his kindness. Go on, touch his feet.”

  I did so, and then the saheb gave some coins to the father, who at first protested but finally accepted the money, raising it to his forehead in gratitude. All around us people stared and pointed their fingers, asking why they could not also receive money from the saheb.

  It was a struggle for me to be bold enough to speak, but I was truly desperate. I said, “But, Saheb, if I stay in a temple, my parents will never find me!”

  “If they are alive, they will surely come to the temple to pray! Many people travel to worship at Jagannath Temple. You will see.” Then the saheb wrapped his strong hand around my wrist and led me away from the father, mother, and the rest of them.

  This had happened so quickly that I was frightened, b
ut my rapid heartbeat slowed when he brought me to a food stall. Hungry people were lined up three-deep, but he shouldered his way to the front and had the vendor fill a banana leaf with rice and dal and greens. I followed his directions to take time eating. As food filled my belly, I felt sleepy with contentment. I put away my uneasiness about the man’s shifting gaze, because in truth he had been the kindest stranger I’d ever met. I could imagine Thakurma telling me to show thanks properly.

  The saheb still had more for me: sweet jelebis that he bought on the next street. Now he did not need to hold my wrist. I followed him into a quiet area near some trees where he’d left his cart. There was a seat in front for the driver and, behind that, a shaded compartment where I guessed that the saheb and I would sit. As he discussed something with the driver, I roamed a few steps backward, for I was seeking a place to relieve myself. As I passed the back of the cart, I noticed the cloth cover moving as if something were alive beneath it. I heard a strange, strangled sort of noise, and peering into the gap between the cart’s side and the cloth, I saw an eye. I moved the cloth very slightly and saw the face of a girl about my age and near her, another girl’s face smeared with vomit. A rough rope tied the two girls together; and as I lifted the cloth farther, I saw more girls and a few boys all lying together, connected by ropes and with cloths tied over their mouths.

  Time seemed to pass slowly, but in hindsight, I know that I made up my mind about what to do in just a few seconds. I walked away from the cart, pretending I’d not noticed anything, and when the saheb looked at me with his false friendly face, I begged him to allow me to relieve myself behind the tall trees bordering the road.