The Sleeping Dictionary Read online

  “Tell him what you think.”

  “I don’t know what to think! You have always given the ideas and sentences for me to write.”

  “Bidushi, try it for once.” As I spoke, I resolved not to write the entire reply letter. We could consult an expert together, and Bidushi would pen her own thoughts after learning something.

  The opportunity to ask Abbas-chacha arrived by chance. Miss Richmond became interested in the great poet Rabindranath Tagore’s writings, and she requested that I go into town to buy his latest Bengali publication and later translate it. I was delighted at my first trip to the town, to see a real bookstore and who knew what else. And the best part was that if I found the right book to bring back, Miss Richmond would teach me how to use her handsome typewriter for the translations.

  Miss Rachael didn’t like the plan, and when I asked her for a fraction of the stipend she’d been keeping for me since I’d started working, she refused. I was disappointed not to have a little spending money for myself, but I was glad at least to be going.

  The following Saturday afternoon, Abbas-chacha brought the tonga up to the school’s portico for our journey. Bidushi climbed straight up to the backseat without waiting for assistance. There, she bounced happily and urged me to join her. After an initial startled look, Abbas nodded his assent.

  “Uncle, what do you think about the British giving us self-rule?” I started the interview once we were off school grounds.

  “Hush!” Abbas scolded from the front bench. “Do not disturb the young mem. She comes from a jamidar family—they like the British.”

  “But I want to know about it,” Bidushi said. “Gandhiji is certainly trying for India to get dominion status. He was invited to England to talk about it at a roundtable, wasn’t he?”

  “There were no congressmen or Indian nationalists there to support him, just Indian royals who like what the British do for them,” Abbas said. “He was speaking into the wind; nobody agreed.”

  “But how can change ever come, then?” I asked.

  “Change won’t be made in the halls of English Parliament by Englishmen and Indian nawabs—but here, by us. Remember Gandhiji’s march down to the sea to rake salt?” Abbas turned around to look soberly at the two of us. “That was something important.”

  “I thought salt only came from shops?” Bidushi sounded puzzled.

  “No Indians are allowed to collect or sell salt,” Abbas called back to us loudly over the sound of the moving horse hooves. “The British have a monopoly on it. Gandhi was put in prison for picking up a piece of natural salt, and many of the people who went with him were beaten to death by the police. You girls weren’t here at the time, but our cook, Lalit, stopped cooking with salt out of sympathy. The food he makes for the teachers and students is so mild anyway that nobody complained right away. But then Burra-mem realized, and Lalit had to put it back in.”

  Bidushi sighed. “Burra-mem stops everything, doesn’t she? And Gandhiji’s salt walk didn’t work, if we’re still not free.”

  Abbas turned around to look at us soberly. “Because it became public, the British were embarrassed. Read the newspapers. Now they talk about wanting to treat us honorably.”

  “But it’s like school, isn’t it? If a teacher gets embarrassed, she only make things harder on the student.”

  “If that is what you feel, it’s how you must write.” I was pleased by Bidushi’s independent thinking. “Pankaj will be interested.”

  Abbas turned back and stayed out of conversation the rest of the trip; I did not know if it was because he had decided to stop talking about politics or that he had heard me speaking the name of a man. Years ago, Abbas had taught me that the rule of Lockwood School was for servants to be quiet; in my relationship with Bidushi, I certainly had broken that.

  Abbas brought his horses to rest in the shade of some trees and pointed to the direction of the main bazar. It was easy to find the poetry book at a bookstall; there were several annas left over, which I tucked into the pocket of my work dress to bring back to Miss Richmond. Bidushi was elated to be walking through a real bazar and bought us both snacks of crunchy phuchka from a street hawker. As we approached a sari shop, she licked the last of the tamarind-water dressing from her fingers and said, “I think you need something new to wear.”

  I laughed lightly to cover up the sadness I felt. “When Miss Rachael thinks the same, she will take out something for me from the charity donations.”

  “But you are so tall now that your dress is indecent. You should be wearing a proper sari.”

  “What about you?” I gestured toward her boxy Lockwood uniform that hung to midcalf.

  “I must wear this because I am a Lockwood girl. But you have freedom. Come, Didi. I shall buy you a sari and blouse set. I should have given something like this to you last Durga Puja anyway.”

  Bidushi had learned bargaining skills at her mother’s knee; something I watched with fascination in the sari shop. She bought two saris and extra material that the shop’s tailor would make into blouses and petticoats. Although they were ordinary hand-loomed cottons, one sari was a pretty light green color, with yellow threads shot through it, and the other as pink as bougainvillea, a color that Bidushi thought suited my skin.

  “I cannot work in such fine saris,” I said, looking in fear at the yards of fabric fanned out before us. The khadi saris Thakurma had woven for my mother and me had been much shorter in length and always a dull beige-brown color.

  “Fine saris are always silk. These are not,” Bidushi said. “Let me show you another way to wrap. You must make the pleats fall just this way.”

  “How do you know so much?” I asked her, as she worked around my body, shooing the shop assistants out of the way. The thickly tucked fabric felt uncomfortable at my waist, and I felt as though the pallu hanging over my shoulder could slip at any moment.

  “My mother always had me fix her sari pleats. She would be happy to see you looking like this. Now you look like a smart young teacher at an Indian school.”

  A teacher! I was almost fifteen, but I supposed with my height and figure I might have looked a bit older. What a pleasure teaching would be; but to do that required not just finishing school through the twelfth standard but also an advanced degree. Two things I’d never have.

  Outside the shop, the bright sun was blinding. As we walked back toward where Abbas was waiting, a group of people moved in front of us. A mean-looking man walked straight up, demanding that we give him the shopping bag filled with cloth that we had purchased. My stomach cramped with fear, but I knew I’d have to defend us both.

  “Go away, dacoit!” I shouted, hoping others on the street would notice and come to our aid. But nobody did and the man with red eyes and an angry scowl still was reaching for the bag. In a trembling voice I said, “Shame, shame, to bother girls! Where is your honor?”

  “Nobody should shop at Atul Ganguly’s shop until he stops carrying foreign cloth,” the man retorted. “Indians pay taxes on the silks and chiffons and so on from England and Japan. Your memsaheb is selfish to think of herself and not the country.”

  “This cloth is not foreign,” Bidushi protested before I could defend her. “It is simple cotton woven by people living in Dhonekhali.”

  “Is that so? Let me look.” A woman with the group came forward now and grabbed the bag from my hands. I watched helplessly as she shook each one of my folded saris. The fear I’d felt was turning to horror at the thought of my wonderful gift from Bidushi being stolen away.

  “Please don’t!” I cried.

  “It is not khadi, that is for certain,” the woman said, looking critically at the cotton’s weave.

  “That’s true, but it is still cotton grown and spun in Bengal.” Bidushi snatched back the saris. “It is for my friend, since she would rather not wear any more English clothing.”

  The woman and man looked at me in the ragged old dress; in their eyes, I had been just the servant, not worthy of notice. Bidushi�
��s arm was around me firmly like a sister’s. How much I loved her at this moment, for her bravery against these grown strangers. And then Abbas ran up, shouting at the people to let the little girls go and save their action for real villains. In moments, he had hustled us and the package of saris back onto the tonga.

  “Who were those dacoits? And why can they move freely about town?” Bidushi demanded as Abbas hit the horse with his crop.

  “They are not criminals; they are members of the Congress Party.” Abbas explained that the political party boycotted cloth made outside of India, and we had walked straight into one of their protests. He added sternly, “You were not supposed to go about everywhere, just to the bookshop.”

  “Yes, Chacha. I’m sorry,” I apologized. Abbas was my friend: I didn’t think he would tell on us, but I hated his thinking I had disobeyed.

  “I understand not buying English salt, but clothing is necessary, and how can we tell where it is from? It is only lucky the tailor mentioned the name of the village.” Bidushi seemed very cross now that the danger was past.

  I also was angry about the way the strangers had reached in and soiled my fresh new saris with their touch. I would wash them, but I didn’t know if I could erase the taint the activists had made on my first free afternoon in town.

  Dear Pankaj-da,

  May I call you by the name of older brother? It might seem funny or impertinent, but I don’t know that I can ever adjust to the English custom of using first names. This is how the English girls refer to each other, and my goodness, what names they have: Amelia and Anne and Emily and Mary. Always so similar and plain! I wonder if their names have deep meanings like ours do. Living with my name, which means knowledge, has been quite a cross to bear, but fortunately my marks are improving. Writing to you in Bengali is a true pleasure, as it is not supposed to be spoken aloud.

  You asked what I thought about Gandhiji’s promises of our freedom earned eventually. I sometimes think mistake upon mistake has been made in our freedom struggle, even by one as great as he. I am intrigued by the other nationalist who speaks boldly of confrontation rather than waiting for the British to pronounce their terms. I am referring to Mr. Subhas Chandra Bose, also known as Netaji. I wonder if you ever saw him when you were living in Calcutta, which is also his home, although he has spent many years in prison. I heard that he was released to recuperate in Austria last year and since then has been slowly traveling through Europe, telling many kings and prime ministers of India’s right to freedom. The newspapers do not give exact details on his words, but if you have heard anything about Mr. Bose’s statements, I would be most pleased to learn.

  I remain your true and admiring friend,

  Bidushi

  Despite my desire that Bidushi write her own letters, this one was again written by me. She had pleaded that I help her, just one more time. I had thought of telling about what the Congress protesters had done in Midnapore, but I could not figure out a way to describe the incident without mentioning my role in the outing, which would only confuse things.

  Two days later, the tailor’s boy bicycled to school with the package of stitched blouses and petticoats. Bidushi was eager to see me wearing them, but there was no time for changing dress in the middle of the day. So I took the package with gratitude, and the next day slipped into the new blouse and petticoat. Then I wrapped the sari the way Bidushi had taught. Jyoti-ma gave me some pins to help keep the sari in place and said that I looked very nice.

  “What nonsense is this?” Miss Rachael shouted when I arrived at the kitchen to get bed tea for the teachers. “Where is your dress? And how did you get that sari?”

  “This was given to me,” I said, straightening my back. “Because I am a woman, I must wear longer lengths for modesty.”

  “You are impudent!” Rachael shook a finger at me. “Only I can decide what you wear. Answer my question: From where did you steal the sari?”

  “It’s a gift from a young memsaheb.” I felt smug, because I knew she could not cross a student.

  “I can guess which one: Mukherjee-memsaheb, who seems to have forgotten everything about caste. Give that sari to me for safekeeping and wear your old dress.”

  “The dress is gone.”

  “What do you mean?” She had moved so close that there was nowhere to step back.

  “The dress was fraying badly. I gave it to Jyoti-ma, and it has already been cut for rags that she needed.” I kept my voice steady, despite the quaking inside.

  “Without permission? You have defiled school property.” Her breath, a poisonous mixture of mustard and garlic, made me wince. “I will tell Miss Richmond what you did on your trip to town.”

  I relived the scolding in my mind as I slogged through delivering tea and all my other morning jobs. Miss Rachael’s words had worked their poison; now I felt shy and awkward. In class, I could hear whisperings from the girls about Sarah Going to a Party and Green Parrot Girl and so on. I had turned from Cinderella the scullery maid to a young lady in a ball gown, with too many wicked stepsisters nearby.

  “It’s not too fancy,” Bidushi whispered from her desk next to mine. “Don’t feel badly. They are only jealous that you can wear a pretty color when they are buttoned into their ugly uniforms.”

  After class, Miss Richmond called for me to wait. When the girls were all gone from the room, she asked in a serious-sounding voice if I’d used her money to buy the new clothing.

  At these words, I was so shocked that for a moment I forgot my English. In a faltering voice, I said, “No, Miss Richmond. It was a gift from Miss Bidushi. I gave the leftover annas to you Saturday evening.”

  “All of them?” she asked quietly. “Miss Rachael said she thought you two girls spent a suspicious amount of money.”

  It must have been Miss Rachael who’d persuaded Miss Richmond into thinking me dishonest. Sweat broke out under the fine new cotton as I scrambled to think of how to save myself. Then I remembered. I went to Bidushi’s desk, where I’d last placed the book, and put it in her hands.

  “Memsaheb, inside the front pages is a small paper the merchant gave me, which has the price of the book listed, so you can be certain of the change. As for the saris, they cost a bit over five rupees, and Miss Mukherjee paid with her own pocket money. It is possible she still has such a paper from the tailor shop—what is it called, the recept?”

  “Receipt.” She pronounced it clearly, and I remembered it from my mind’s dictionary, spelled almost like deceit. Which was what she thought of me.

  “Yes, here it is,” Miss Richmond said after she’d opened the book. “All clear. I’m sorry for the misunderstanding, Sarah.” Her white face had pinkened, as if she felt badly. “However, Miss Rachael is quite hot over the situation and would prefer you not to continue helping Bidushi in my classroom. I told her that it will only be for a few more months’ time, but still—”

  “Why only a few months?” I was utterly puzzled, for Bidushi was a year and a half from taking the Senior Cambridge examinations.

  “I’m disappointed about Bidushi’s leaving, too, but I understand a traditional wedding is being planned for the autumn.” Miss Richmond paused, then added, “You are so close. I thought she’d told you.”

  I was so upset that I could not respond other than to bob my head and hurry away, lest she see the tears that were starting. The rest of the day I thought, How could she? How could Bidushi not have mentioned that this would be her last term at Lockwood? If she left, I would never again run through the trees with my companion, or sit at a desk beside her like a real student. I would be out of Miss Richmond’s bright universe and back in the small, mean world ruled by Miss Rachael.

  “WHY SUCH A heavy face?” Bidushi asked when we met in the uncultivated forest just past Lockwood’s manicured gardens, the only place private enough to speak Bengali without being caught. We had to watch for snakes, and the insects were fierce, but this seemed a small price to pay for being away from the rest of Lockwood’s population
.

  “I know the saris were a good-bye present,” I said, watching my friend’s eyes widen in surprise. “Don’t think that they can make up for your leaving.”

  Bidushi spoke fast, her words tripping over each other. “I didn’t do it for that reason. I gave them to you because I love you. But it is true that I have to go.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I cried. “The teachers know, but not me!”

  “It pains me to leave you!” Bidushi put her soft, fair arms around me. “You know that I could not have borne this school without your help. It would have killed me.”

  “But you shouldn’t leave,” I said, trying a new tactic. “Pankaj wants you to take the Senior Cambridge examinations. He will not marry an uneducated wife.”

  “It was Pankaj who wanted me sooner,” Bidushi said quietly. “I did not show you the letter that came before the last one because I knew it would make you sad. He said that he had passed the London bar examination and thought the best way to celebrate was by beginning our life together.”

  He was in love because of the letters I’d written to him. My very best efforts had hastened the future for Bidushi—the future that I had longed not to come. I was suddenly filled with despair, knowing that I’d braided an escape rope for my princess but not for myself.

  “Didi, I can’t bear to leave you!” Bidushi said. There were tears in her eyes, too: real tears of love and sadness. Suddenly, I felt guilty, because I did not want her to suffer.

  “Don’t cry,” I said, laying my own damp cheek against hers, which smelled of the sweet dormitory soap. I would make the most of every last minute; that was all I could do.

  “I cannot have a happy wedding knowing that my dear friend is in misery,” Bidushi wept on.

  “Won’t you take me?” I whispered, remembering the happy ending of A Little Princess, where poor Becky is invited to become Sara’s personal attendant. “You said there were many servants in Pankaj’s house. They will want you to have your own ayah. Why not me?”