The Sleeping Dictionary Read online

He agreed easily, but I felt his eyes following me until I had reached a thickly forested section. I moved into the dense grove, stepping as soundlessly as I could until I found a very large tree with a good covering of leaves. I climbed up, for by now I knew the trees were friends. This one would hide me, I was sure.

  After some minutes, the saheb ran with his driver through the trees, shouting threats of what they would do if I didn’t come forth. Up in the tree, I was shaking so hard I feared rustling the leaves. The saheb was not good; he was an evil being. If I had not seen the tied-up children, I would be with them.

  The saheb could spot me if he lifted his head. I tried to still my shaking, and my mind sent pleas to the birds to stop their chattering. But he did not look high; he passed under the tree and spent a long time angrily pulling apart branches. Eventually, the driver told him time was short, so he left. Through a gap in the tree’s leaves, I saw the saheb push the covering tightly around the living cargo and then mount the tonga bench. When the driver whipped the horses to go forward, I finally released my breath.

  It has been many years since I saw those children in the cart. Now I wish I’d done something, perhaps run to find a constable and tell him about the saheb. But in those days, I’d been a low-caste young girl without a voice. Nobody would have believed me.

  I crept through the alleys, keeping my eyes open for constables or anyone else who could apprehend me. I turned a corner and saw a family of miserable waifs huddled in a doorway. As terrifying as the saheb’s temple plan was, I could not picture living without a home among the lost souls. I wandered into another alley, vacant except for a large pack of mangy dogs surrounding a stamping, wild-eyed water buffalo that had been left tied to a hook. What a pretty beast she was, with big soft eyes that were set with fear. The dogs would kill her; this she seemed to know.

  I felt her fear as if it were my own, but I knew the dogs were not as terrible a foe as the saheb. Even though dogs had sharp teeth, they couldn’t speak lies, and they had no hands to catch children or pay money to people to help him. Then I had an idea so daring that it frightened me. Instead of walking on, I could beat away the dogs and take the water buffalo for my own.

  To take someone else’s water buffalo was stealing. There was no doubt about this, and stealing was a sin. However, to take the poor beast from the dogs was also protecting it. I had not done anything for the children in the cart. But if I saved this buffalo, she would be joyful, and she could carry me away and feed me her good milk.

  I passed a bush, breaking off a long branch that I waved in front of me while I shouted in a deep boy’s voice, as if the water buffalo belonged to me. The dogs formed an ominous circle around me and barked all the while I unhitched the water buffalo. The biggest one snapped at my leg. I hit him roundly with the branch and made such a terrifying roar that he fell back. He kept up an angry bark until the water buffalo and I had rounded the corner and I found a barrel to step up on to mount her.

  She waited patiently and gave a slight sigh when I was on top. She seemed happy I’d taken her. That moment, I decided we were to be friends, and she needed a name. I decided to call her Mala, a name that meant garland, for I intended to weave a garland of flowers for her neck when we were in the countryside.

  The road out of Digha was simple to follow. My spirits rose at the occasional glimpses of a blue river, which meant drinking water and fish to catch. Then rain returned, so it was a great deal harder to proceed. It was evening when we finally reached the river’s edge. Mala dropped her head and drank. Hiding from the saheb, I had lost my cup, so I used half of a broken coconut shell from a nearby grove to scoop up and drink the cold water that tasted of grit.

  The moon rose as I brought Mala to graze on weeds and looked around for something for myself. Close to the water’s edge, I came upon some snails. Just as I’d done at home, I smashed the shells and pulled them out. There was no cooking fire, so I ate them as they were.

  So this was how one day passed, and another. Each morning I milked Mala, squirting her milk into one coconut shell half, drinking it, and then filling it up again with more of her milk. I got the idea that if only I had a pail, I could make a living as a milkmaid; so I kept my eye out for anyone who might have one to give me, in exchange for free milk for some time. All these ideas I spoke aloud to Mala, just as I told her about my family: how I loved them and the terrible guilt I felt for going away and leaving them to the flood. As I spoke, I sensed that Mala was treading more slowly, as if she needed a good rest or food and water.

  We plodded along, passing by fields of maize and mustard greens. I saw a peddler and called out to him, asking him if he had a milk pail. But he said all his containers were sold because of the cyclone that had struck the coast. And he said I should go home, that it was not safe for a girl to be riding about on an animal that looked as if it might collapse any minute.

  I kicked Mala’s sides a bit harder to see if she might move faster for me. There were sharp pains in my stomach, no doubt from hunger, and my head was throbbing. At the river again for supper, I watered Mala and gave her ferns, which I ate, too, along with the few snails I found. I remembered the garland I’d promised to make her, but I was too tired.

  Mala chewed up the ferns happily, so I thought she would do well when we set off again. But in my position atop her jouncing back, my stomach was becoming unsettled, and I was struck by unusual thirst. I dismounted and scooped some river water into a shell for drinking, but that only made me feel worse.

  On the damp earth, I crouched weakly while everything inside me rushed out. And then, as I struggled to stand, I felt a second rush of sickness, and I knew I’d shamed myself. With supreme effort, I raised my head and saw Mala slowly ambling alone toward the river.

  Don’t leave me, I begged her silently. If she did, there would be only vultures to take my body away. I lay where I was, because my legs weren’t working anymore. After a while, though, I felt Mala nuzzling my back. Using every last bit of strength, I tugged until she lowered herself to the ground; and then I clung to her until she arose. I could guess from her flaring nostrils that she smelled my sickly odor. But she was a good friend and carried me until I slept with terrible dreams.

  I was in the boat with the family again, but this time the grandfather pushed me over the side into the contaminated sea. I came up gasping for air and swam all the way to a cool green pool. There I saw Thakurma’s familiar rough khadi sari trailing in the water, but when I reached out, I was wound in it so tightly I knew I would drown. Against my grandmother’s pleas for me to remain, I struggled upward until hands reached down to grab me. And then I was no longer in water but lying on something hard that felt like the back of a cart. I had no strength to run away. All I could do was roll back and forth in agony, knowing that my brief fantasy of a free life was lost.

  BOOK TWO

  MIDNAPORE

  Summer 1930–Summer 1935

  There was a bird in a cage of gold,

  another free in the woods.

  One knoweth not what whim of God

  Brought the two together of a day.

  ‘O, my friend in the cage,’ said the bird in the woods,

  ‘Let’s fly away to the woods.’

  ‘Let us live quietly in the cage,’

  rejoined the bird in the cage.

  Rabindranath Tagore, “Two Birds,” (“Dui Pakhi”), 1894

  CHAPTER

  4

  MEMSAHIB, S. This singular example of a hybrid term is the usual respectful designation of a European married lady in the Bengal Presidency; the first portion representing ma’am. Madam Sahib is used at Bombay; Doresani (see DORAY) in Madras. (See also BURRA BEEBEE.)

  —Sir Henry Yule and Arthur Coke Burnell, Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, 1886

  I floated between two worlds: the alluring, cool pond where my family swam and the hard, hot cart. Leaning over the cart was a colorless woman with a huge hat and all around me were childre
n who had been turned into boxes. Then I was in the water again and saw my sisters and brother swimming by, their hair spreading around them like the petals of lotus flowers. Thakurma and Dadu floated past on their backs, their homespun clothing drifting downward. Ma was closest, treading water beside me, beseeching me to open my mouth and drink, and when I did, the water tasted cold and sweet, as if it came from our clay jug at home. But my father was swimming away and calling the others to join him. I begged him to come back for me, but my father turned once to look with loving eyes, and then he swam on.

  Bright light pierced the water, and I awoke. I lay on a cot covered with white cloth. A European stood over me; his head was bare and sun mottled, with a small amount of reddish fur around the sides. The man shook at a short glass stick, held it close to his gold-rimmed spectacles, and then put it underneath my arm. My arm was not free but had a long soft tube going into it; the whole thing was attached to a bag of liquid that hung on a metal stand. The man had caught me and was giving me poison!

  Then two Indian women came to the Ingrej demon’s side. They wore peaked caps and pale blue cotton dresses with long sleeves and high necks. I was so caught up in staring at them that the glass stick fell out. Both ladies exclaimed. The stout, sterner one tucked the stick back in place, telling me firmly not to let it move again. Then the thin one said that I’d been found near the river ten miles away, sick with cholera. I was brought to them by a man who’d found me hanging upside down on a wandering bull.

  “My water buffalo! Where is she?” I felt worse at the thought of this loss.

  “The man who rescued you, Abbas-chacha, tied her to the side of his tonga and brought her back to the school where he works.” The thin lady stroked my forehead. “They will care for the animal there until you can return with it to your family. They must be worried.”

  “No, they aren’t worried. They are dead.” Overhead, a giant fan whirled, moving air that smelled like medicine. If only the fan could move away all that had happened, send me back on a gentle wind to my family.

  The white man joined the conversation, speaking in his own language to the nurses and then to me in slow, peculiar-sounding Bengali. I learned that his name was Dr. Andrews and the stout lady was called Nurse Das and the more sympathetic one was Nurse Gopal. Dr. Andrews listened to what the nurses told him about me and then said he thought my family members were victims of a tidal wave that had swept southern Bengal.

  Over the next few days, I took only water and cooked egg whites until Dr. Andrews deemed me strong enough for boiled milk, rice, and dal, which tasted like a feast, just as the clean cot I lay on felt like a goddess’s cradle. I slept for a long time each night, and when I awoke, I talked with the other patients who were interested in conversation. I was intent on not thinking about what had happened to me and what I’d lost.

  After five days, I was walking and had become, as Nurse Das said, a healthy girl needing occupation. Dr. Andrews must have noticed, too, for I was told he wished to speak with me in his office. As I waited, standing just inside the door, my attention went to his desk, which held a very thick book with many pages. I had seen him looking at it before, and now that I was alone, my fingers itched to open its leather cover and turn the pages.

  “Hello, Child,” he said from behind me. This was what he called me and every other young person, because there were so many of us in the hospital.

  “Hello, Doctor-saheb.” I ducked my head in respect, hoping that I’d not been called in because I’d done something wrong.

  “You are looking at Dr. Osler’s book,” he said, nodding toward the large book at the table. “It’s the doctors’ bible.”

  I had heard that word before but wasn’t quite sure what it was. “Is it your holy book?”

  “Almost.” A half smile stretched his faded face. “The book describes illnesses and their treatments, for instance, the cholera Asiatica that you caught. If I did not have this book to turn to, I would not know all the different ways to help.”

  The doctor was now speaking a mix of Bengali and English that was hard for me to entirely understand, but I listened carefully, nodding all the while.

  “The nurses say you cannot read or write.”

  “That is true, but I want to learn.” Perhaps because I spoke so much to everyone and had learned a few English words, he might have expected more from me. This made me ashamed.

  “I wish that for you, too, but what can be done? The collector from your locality says your village was destroyed. Your family has not reappeared anywhere. I cannot send you back.” As he spoke, he looked at the small board the nurses often carried. “It was suggested by Nurse Das that you be placed in a family seeking a bride. I don’t like child marriage. However, you have no skills to earn a living.”

  How ignorant this doctor was: not knowing that children younger than me pulled weeds and herded cows. “If I have a tin pail, I can sell my water buffalo’s milk. Then nobody needs to care for me.”

  “The water buffalo is currently stabled at the Lockwood School. But even if you had her, the countryside is not a safe place for a child to stay alone.”

  “May I work here?” The tremble in my voice was real, for I was afraid of leaving the place that had brought me back to life. Despite its strong smells and the anguished cries of patients, it felt like a second home.

  “We require education for our nurses and even their assistants.” He paused. “Perhaps that school would take you as a servant.”

  There it was: that word, school. I’d heard it a lifetime ago from the jamidarni’s pink lips, a promise of something I never thought I could have. I looked at the book on the doctor’s desk. If I was in a school, I could learn to read books. To be like Nurse Gopal, who always had a novel in her pocket, or the Princess.

  “Would you go?” the doctor asked.

  “Mala is still there? Alive?” I knew Ingrej ate cows, which meant there was a chance they ate water buffalos, too. I could not bear to arrive and find her gone.

  He looked at me sternly. “Of course she is, but you must not use her to run away. If you do, Miss Jamison will be so angry she may never again help our patients. She is the headmistress and regularly brings us supplies. We are very grateful.”

  “Yes, Doctor-saheb,” I said, though I was suddenly uneasy. A white devil woman had loomed over my feverish dreams. Would Miss Jamison look like her?

  I’D ARRIVED AT the Keshiari Mission Hospital in a bedraggled scrap of a khadi sari, but I left in an English frock. The garment came from one of the boxes of donated clothes that had been packed closely around me in the tonga. The frock Nurse Gopal chose reached almost to my ankles, which she said was good because I would grow into it. It was a faded blue color like the midday sky, and some of the buttons for closing up the back were gone. I knew not to complain, but I did not like the idea of anyone seeing my skin.

  Knickers were also provided by the Lockwood School charity. I was quite puzzled until Nurse Gopal explained the thigh-covering pants were to be worn under the frock and not shown to anybody. I was to wash them each night. As she helped me into my garments, she grumbled about the missing buttons. She vanished for a minute, then came back with a needle and two buttons. They were not the same color as the ones on the frock, but they were the right size for closing the gap that had left part of my back bare.

  “I won’t ever be able to put on this dress without you,” I mumbled as she began working on the back of my dress. “I wish I could stay.”

  Nurse Gopal turned me around so I could see her gentle expression. She said, “Pom, you are very lucky! For Doctor-saheb to convince the school to take you as a servant was a great thing for him to do. And Miss Jamison’s school is the finest in the area.”

  “But her face . . .” When Miss Jamison had arrived an hour earlier, I recognized the wide solar topee with a mosquito-netting veil. When she removed it, I saw a long pale face wrinkled like old fruit. She was the being from my nightmare. After she looked me over with strang
e green eyes, she said something to the doctor that I didn’t understand, but it sounded unfriendly.

  “She looks that way because she is a serious woman. She rules over many teachers, and she teaches religion, too.” Nurse Gopal finished securing one button and started on the next.

  “Oh! Is she a priest?” I had wondered about the plain beige dress that went down to the bottoms of her thick calves.

  “No. The Ingrej will call her headmistress, but you will call her Burra-memsaheb.” Nurse Gopal’s words came fast, and her hold on my dress tightened. “She is the leader of the school. If you are obedient and work hard, they may keep you for quite some time. It is a blessing.”

  “Please don’t leave me!” I said, sensing from the nurse’s fast stitching that I would soon be properly dressed and gone.

  She snapped off the thread, knotted it, and turned me around. “I must. I am needed on the ward.”

  As Nurse Gopal hurried off, I saw that two buttons were gone from her apron’s waistband: the buttons she had given up for me. I knew I should call out thanks, but I was afraid that if I opened my mouth, I would weep. So I stayed silent instead.

  I NEVER HAD sat next to a man other than my father, so I was anxious when the driver called Abbas indicated I should join him on the front driver’s bench of the tonga. The burra-memsaheb, Miss Jamison, was already comfortably settled behind us on her own seat that had a cushion. Overhead, a cloth awning shielded her from sun and rain.

  “Indians stay together, Ingrej in the back. It is the way, Beti,” Abbas said in Bengali. I climbed up, trying not to look at Nurse Gopal standing outside watching after me, lest I cry. I found that Abbas had placed three brass tiffin boxes between us, making a small sort of barrier. He told me it was my job to keep these boxes safe. I was glad to have something to do and kept my hands on them.

  Abbas was about my baba’s age, but a little bit plump. He wore a long cotton kurta that strained against his belly, pajama trousers of the same color, and a small crocheted cap. I knew that this clothing meant he was Muslim, another reason I should not have been sitting beside him. But the nurses had told me that he saved my life, and he had already called me daughter.