Waiting for the Monsoon Page 14

  “Oh, here you are! Are you coming? It’s already started.”

  “I’m coming. As soon as I change the baby’s diaper.”

  “Can’t the ayah take care of that crybaby?”

  “The celebrations are for everyone, including her.”

  “Oh, that’s very sweet of you.”

  1952 Bombay ~~~

  “WHAT’S TAKING YOU so long, you little rat? Put the pants on.” Ram Khan looks down at Madan from his rickety lean-to in a side street of the bazaar. Madan doesn’t have to be told twice and quickly pulls on the blue pants. “Here.” His grumpy boss hands him a shirt. The collar has to be repaired. The boy is astounded but takes the plaid shirt, which is much too big for him, and starts to put it on. “Hey, I don’t want your filthy arms in those sleeves,” the man barks. “And I don’t want blood all over that shirt. You’re going to have to work: you bought a pair of pants from me and you’re going to pay for them. Did you think I was the mosque or something? I can barely keep my own head above water, and I’m not planning on taking on yours as well!” Madan looks at the shirt. He has no idea what he is supposed to do with it. “Unpick it,” Ram Khan snarls impatiently, “there, on the collar. Can’t you see there’s a false seam that has to be undone? You ought to be able to manage that, even with those runny eyes of yours.”

  Madan looks at the shirt. He doesn’t see anything strange about it, except that the collar is torn. So he sticks his finger into the hole and pulls, making the tear even larger.

  “Not like that, nincompoop!” Ram Khan jumps up from behind his sewing machine, smacks the boy, and snatches the shirt from his hands. “I have to repair the hole, dummy, can’t you see that?” He takes hold of the collar and shoves it into the boy’s face. A calloused finger with a torn nail points to the faulty seam. “I’m talking about that thread. That’s the one that has to be pulled out.” He shoves the shirt back into Madan’s hands. “Here’s a straight pin: now unpick the seam. And don’t get any blood on it or I’ll give you a thrashing.”

  Holding the shirt away from his body so he doesn’t soil it, Madan carefully inserts the pin under the thread and pulls.

  Ram Khan watches in fascination as Madan’s tiny fingers scrupulously unpick the thread. Suddenly there’s a sparkle in Ram’s eyes. If his card buddies could have seen him at that moment, they would have been astonished by his ingenuity. In a single fluid movement, the tailor sweeps the pile of garments off the crate and drapes them over his stool. Then he overturns the wooden crate and opens it. It’s full of old rags, pieces of lace, shoulder pads, and bags of buttons. From behind the crate he produces a burlap bag, into which he stuffs the sewing materials. He upends the crate, so that the opening is on the side and the lid forms a door. Then he takes the pile of garments from his stool and puts them on top of the crate. Madan, who needs all his powers of concentration to remove the thread neatly, doesn’t even look up. Finally, with a sigh, the tailor places the burlap bag on top of the pile of clothes. His ramshackle shelter seems even fuller than before, as if any minute the whole thing might suddenly become detached from the wall.

  Peering through his spectacles, Ram examines the collar and sees that the crooked seam has totally disappeared. “Next time give your paws a better wash.” He puts the shirt on the sewing machine.

  Madan looks up at him hopefully. He is hungry.

  “Don’t think one piddling chore is enough to pay for your pants. Besides, you still owe me for the tea and the use of the washhouse.”

  Madan looks at him in alarm.

  “It’s your choice: either pay me for everything now, or work it off.”

  Madan opens his mouth; nothing comes out but a shrill throat-clearing sound.

  “Oh, no! A mute!”

  Madan shakes his head and gives it another try, but all he can produce is the same hoarse sound.

  Ram Khan sighs: Why does all his luck have to be bad? The other stall holders in the bazaar have errand boys. When he finally finds someone who’ll work for nothing, the kid turns out to be an idiot. Madan pulls at his sleeve. For a second it looks like the tailor is about to give him a clout on the head, but then he sees that the boy is pointing to the pile and smiling up at him.

  “So you want to work. And it’s a good thing, too, since it doesn’t look like you’ve got any money.” Ram Khan, who’s never had a servant before, immediately feels more important. He points to the crate. “That’s your patch.”

  Madan peers into the crate: if he pulls up his legs, he can just fit inside.

  “When I call, you come. And when I don’t need you, you keep the door closed.”

  Madan, who has spent so many long, sleepless nights alone on the street, cannot imagine a better spot. He immediately crawls into the crate.

  Ram Khan watches him in amazement. He had expected resistance, and even thought he might have to give the boy a whack first. “And don’t come out until I tell you to,” he repeats. Then he closes the door.

  Madan immediately pushes the rickety door open again. Before Ram Khan has a chance to explode in anger, he points to the small pan that is still standing on the floor behind the stool.

  “Okay, go stuff yourself.”

  Madan grabs the pan and takes it with him into the crate. Then he shuts the door.

  It feels good inside the small, dark space. Vague noises from outside penetrate the walls. He holds the pan between his knees. He can’t see what he’s eating: the sparse light that comes through the crack in the door isn’t enough to distinguish anything. Not that that bothers him. He eats — or rather devours — the entire contents of the pan. It’s gone all too quickly. He could polish off another pan, but he knows he’ll have to wait until the boss gives him some more. He licks the pan clean. Then he pulls up his knees, puts the pan between his feet, and waits. He doesn’t know exactly what he’s waiting for, but he’s sure the man would be angry if he opened the door. Madan doesn’t even want to leave the crate. He’s happy to be sitting where it’s safe and no one can see him. He hears and feels the sewing machine in action. The plank on which the tiny store rests sways gently to the rhythm of the pedals. He hears someone greet his boss. Peering through the tiny crack, he sees a pair of feet in worn-out sandals. The voices are discussing the cricket game that’s due to start that morning in Madras.

  Everything has changed so quickly. Not long ago he awakened in the arms of the white woman, who kissed him. He had been in pain and she smiled at him and cuddled him. She put the chain around his neck, the chain that was made of real gold, according to Samar, and then called out that he was bleeding. She smelled like jasmine. His first thought was that he was in a garden full of flowers. The pain wasn’t actually part of that. He remembers his sister, in her blue coat, and he still cannot understand why she hadn’t stayed with him. Why did she go away? The wound under his chin has started to bleed again. He presses his hand against his neck and listens to the monotone voice of his boss. Slowly he falls asleep.

  “Hey, mukka!” The door is yanked open and the boss pulls him out of the crate. “I don’t pay you to sleep all day!” He thrusts a broom into his hands and says, “Sweep!”

  Madan, still in the middle of a dream, squeezes his eyes shut against the sunlight. “My whole store,” Ram Khan says, and he grabs his stool and disappears around the corner.

  “I’ve taken him on,” Ram Khan says to the other card players, with something like pride in his voice.

  “Who?” grunted the man who’d warned him never to give a rat sugar, and who was now trying to keep his mind on the game.

  “That kid.”

  “Oh.”

  “He’s got good eyes and skinny fingers.”

  “Gotcha.” The man throws down his cards and triumphantly rakes in the pile.

  Ram Khan looks at his cards in dismay.

  “That’ll teach you to c
ut the crap,” says the winner.

  “Another round?” asks Ram.

  When Ram Khan returns to his shop he sees Madan sitting on the edge of the plank. He cannot believe his eyes. The tiny construction wedged between the kitchenware shop and the coppersmith seems to have undergone a transformation. Not only is the floor clean, but the sewing machine gleams. The boy looks up at him, his face beaming.

  “Finally got yourself a boy?” the coppersmith asks.

  “Only if he works hard, otherwise he’s out of here,” replies Ram Khan, hiding his surprise.

  “I’ll take him off your hands,” says the coppersmith.

  “He belongs to me.” Ram Khan picks up the bottle that Madan has been carrying around with him for days. “Here, go fill it up.”

  Madan takes his bottle over to the bucket, by then almost empty, and carefully pours the last bit of dirty water into the bottle.

  When he returns, the boss lets down a kind of metal shutter in front of the store. Holding up the lower part, he says, “Make it snappy, I haven’t got all day. Inside with you, and don’t forget your bottle.”

  Madan crawls between his boss’s feet and back into the shop. Ram Khan slams down the shutter. In the crate it’s pitch black. He hears the boss attach two padlocks on the outside before walking away without a word.

  1995 Rampur ~~~

  “WHAT I DON’T understand,” said the wife of Nikhil Nair as she bit into her biscuit, “is why she never remarried. She was still attractive when she became a widow.”

  “She’s still attractive now,” said the wife of Ajay Karapiet, adding a dash of milk to her tea.

  “Yes, but not as pretty as she was when she was young. Shall I turn the air conditioner up a notch?”

  “No, turn it down. I’m cold.”

  The wife of Nikhil Nair got up and turned the knob next to the door. “She used to be quite desirable, when she was young.”

  “I don’t agree with you there. She’s still quite attractive.”

  “Because she’s white.”

  “I don’t consider all white women good-looking, but there’s something about Charlotte Bridgwater. . . . She has a kind of translucence, and she’s just as distinguished as her father.” The wife of Ajay Karapiet took a sip of her tea, and then added some more milk.

  “You shouldn’t put so much milk in your tea. It’s not good for you.”

  “What do you mean? Drinking milk makes your teeth white. Just look at Charlotte.”

  “She drinks her tea boiled with milk, just like her personnel.”

  “Not the English way, like we do?” said the wife of Nikhil Nair. “How do you know?”

  “I heard it from my cook,” said the wife of Nikhil Nair.

  “But that means that she takes milk in her tea, too.”

  “That’s what I’m telling you . . . boiled! That way it doesn’t have any effect on your teeth.”

  “Well, if you ask me, it doesn’t make any difference whether it’s boiled or not. Drinking milk strengthens your teeth. That’s what my father always said, and he heard it from the general. They were on the tennis committee together.”

  “You don’t have to drag General Bridgwater into it.”

  “I wonder how things are working out with the new darzi in the house?”

  “Isn’t the man a bit strange?”

  “Well, there is something about him . . .”

  “What’s the matter with you today? All of a sudden you think everyone is attractive and special. Are you in love or something?”

  The wife of Ajay Karapiet blushed. “No, of course not.”

  “That’s all right then. I don’t like women who hang their dirty laundry out in public.”

  “I have a washing machine.”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  “Well, what do you mean?”

  “I’m just saying that I want nothing to do with women who . . . well, you know what I mean. Like Brinda.”

  The wife of Ajay Karapiet put her hands over her mouth. “I would never do anything like that.”

  “No, I know you wouldn’t.” She held out the plate of biscuits, but her friend shook her head. As always, she took a second one herself.

  “And what if Priya Singh had a lover? She’s also been a widow for fifteen years.”

  “Priya Singh?” The wife of Nikhil Nair almost choked on her biscuit and began to cough. “Good gracious, she’s asleep most of the time. How could she have a lover?”

  “Charlotte Bridgwater was twenty-three when she lost her husband,” remarked the wife of Ajay Karapiet, in a melancholy voice.

  “Yes, that’s what I mean: it’s strange that she never remarried.”

  “There are no more Englishmen around.”

  “She could marry one of us.”

  “One of us?”

  “Well, why not? Don’t give me that anti-colonial stuff. Your great-great-grandfather was an Englishman married to a Bengalese woman, and the grandfather of Alok Nath the goldsmith was Scottish and his wife was from Orissa.”

  “Yes, but they were men.”

  ~~~

  CHARLOTTE TURNED ON the radio to catch the news.

  This morning a courier with Sheppard’s Stockbrokers was held up by a man waving a knife in Nicholas Lane in London. The attacker, who was wearing a dark tweed overcoat and cap, grabbed the briefcase, and escaped on foot. The attack is the biggest street robbery ever carried out. The briefcase contained close to three hundred bearer cheques, with a total value of 292 million pounds.

  Charlotte heaved a sigh. With that much money she could install air conditioning in the entire house. “A seismographic team from Japan,” the BBC newsreader continued, “has announced at a congress in São Paulo that they have developed a device which makes it possible to —”

  She switched off the radio and tried to concentrate on the book she was reading. Every time she got to the end of a page, she realized that she hadn’t actually been reading. She blamed the suffocating heat, which became more intense with each passing day. The wind and the grey clouds that usually announced the monsoon were nowhere to be seen, and even the crows were sluggish. Only the cuckoo and the tailor seemed oblivious to the heat. She anchored her reading glasses more firmly on her nose, slid closer to the light, and started over again at the top of the page. If Peter were still alive, it suddenly occurred to her, where would we be living now? Would we have gone to England? Cold, grey England, where the sun never shone, suddenly seemed like a paradise on earth. Then everything would have been different. Everything! She shook her head, in an effort to banish such thoughts. The ruby has to go to the jeweller’s, I shouldn’t keep it here in the house much longer, it has to be appraised by several different jewellers, and I have to pay Sita. She tried to go back to her book, but her thoughts kept interfering. The money I gave Hema this morning to pay the shopkeeper . . . wasn’t it on the high side? Maybe he’s trying to pocket the extra money when he does the shopping, like the cook used to do? She turned the radio back on, in an effort to calm her thoughts before they ran away with her again. That would mean another sleepless night. Her favourite classical music programme had come on. She put her hands in her lap and listened. I should never have sold the grand piano. How could I have been so stupid? It was the only thing that made life here bearable. Can I buy a piano with the money I get for the ruby? A really old one, maybe? Unconsciously she began to move her fingers in her lap.

  She had played that same piece so often. The lamp over her head sputtered briefly and then everything went out. The heat, which had been held at bay by the ceiling fan, descended on her like thick jelly. She found the matches she always had at the ready and lit a candle. Is Hema back already or should I go and throw the switch myself? The fact that the switch was in the kitchen made her hesitate, but the
n she remembered last month. She jumped to her feet and headed for the kitchen.

  HE WAS SITTING at the sewing machine, by the light of a candle. The gold brocade glittered between his fingers. A pale pink gown hung from the ceiling, swaying gently on its cord. Charlotte shone her flashlight into the meter closet while she looked, watching the figure bent over the table. There’s something about him. Something I’ve never seen before. His face, the way he stands. Or is it his scent? She sniffed gently. Shocked at her own thoughts, she quickly bent over the fuse box. She saw at a glance that the problem had nothing to do with the fuse, and guessed that there was a power failure in the neighbourhood. That meant they would have to wait until the local government official came and threw the switch at the bottom of the hill. In this heat, it could take hours. And yet she didn’t move from the spot in front of the fuse box. Her eyes returned to the man in the adjoining room. She saw how he held the length of cloth up to the candlelight and examined the intricate floral pattern woven into the material. He gave the fabric a gentle shake and spread it out on the table in front of him. Then he ran the tip of his index finger over the fabric. What is he looking for? she asked herself.