by Meira Chand
Rishi had wandered off to inspect the other paintings and now sat on a bench in the middle of the room, reading the catalogue, waiting to go on to the Vermeers. As Amita made her way slowly around the remaining pictures, she noticed an American family wandering through the tall narrow rooms in tandem with them. Two sandy-haired and freckled children, a boy and a girl of perhaps ten and twelve years old, were lissom reflections of their parents and moved quietly at their side. The father stopped before each picture, explaining it to the children, who did not carry audio guides.
Amita sighed as she observed them, feeling a hollow space open up within her, a space that life should have filled, and had not. Eventually, she joined Rishi on a bench in the middle of the room as he read the catalogue and listened to his audio guide. The American family were still absorbed in the pictures and Amita followed their progress, unable to ignore them, yet unsure why she felt so drawn to them, except that they seemed to be all that a family should be. Their world appeared far from the rough-edged, intractable shape of her own life, and Amita felt solitariness twist within her.
She had never actively looked for a husband, never desired marriage or children as a life purpose, as her peers all seemed to do. Yet now, with Rishi companionably beside her, she wondered if she had made a mistake, if this was how marriage might taste, wandering together through the rain and the autumnal slush of fallen leaves beside the canal, sharing all they had shared that day, not only the close proximity of an umbrella but the warmth of shared interests, deciding where and what they would eat, waiting discreetly for each other whenever a bathroom was needed. The family she now studied so intently would probably take them as husband and wife.
If she were married to Rishi, Amita found herself wondering, which of them would their unborn children resemble? Would Rishi guide and tutor them in the same intelligent way that the father in the gallery was doing? Even as these nebulous thoughts formed in her mind, the absurdness of her fantasy reared up before her, along with vivid images of Parvati and Rishi’s children. As she thrust away her toxic musings, anger and sadness rushed through her. She had made her choices and must live by them.
In the hotel, their rooms were only a few doors apart. Rishi had promised to give her a copy of his paper, and on the last day of the conference they walked upstairs together at the end of the evening, for her to collect it from him. Amita drank only socially and usually not much, but after several glasses of wine at the farewell dinner the world appeared pleasurably expanded, lightness filled her head. Rishi opened the door and she followed him into his room. The curtains were not drawn and rain beat against the window, a flash of lightning slit open the sky illuminating the darkness. He did not switch on the light but turned to her in that moment. She made no effort to resist, even when she felt the softness of the bed beneath her, but folded him into herself, eager, voracious, already locked into the blackness of desire, a darkness she knew too well. She thought fleetingly of Parvati, but the image was too distant to prevail. Her body was already intent on its own perverse path, and even as he filled her she knew this was what she wanted, what she had waited for, and even if life denied her many things she would not deny herself this.
In the morning she awoke in her own bed, and only vaguely recalled the stumbled return to her room. Struggling into consciousness, she was flooded by the horror of what she had done and the knowledge that nothing would make it go away. Yet, even as guilt consumed her, her mind threw up complex rationalisations. What she had done she had done for herself; Rishi was no more than the vehicle she needed. She was not in love with him. Love or infatuation would mean she trespassed into Parvati’s domain, and this she had not done. There was no emotional involvement, but she was unsure if this made what she had done any better or worse.
She clung to these thoughts as she forced herself to get up, to shower and dress, to face the prospect of seeing Rishi again at breakfast. It was a one-off thing, she comforted herself, it would not happen again. When she came down to breakfast she found Rishi had already left on an early flight to Frankfurt, where he was to present another paper. His departure filled her with such relief that her hands trembled and she could not hold her coffee steady. Sitting alone at a small table, her fingers clasping the hot cup, relief flooding through her at Rishi’s absence, there was already an unreality about the incident. It was something to be left behind in the distant city she was about to depart, and nothing to do with her day-to-day life.
12
SINGAPORE, 1942–1943
Singapore was now renamed Syonan-to, Light of the South in Japanese. The word was strange in everyone’s mouth. Living conditions in the city were chaotic. There was so little food it was rumoured people were eating grass, rats, snakes; decomposing bodies on the road were a common sight. Yet mynah birds still settled on the sprouting green stump of the jacaranda, hoping for the crumbs Sita once fed them. Now there were no leftovers, they ate every last morsel themselves. The birds would survive, she thought, war did not lessen the worms in the ground or the number of grubs in a tree, cicadas still shrieked in the foliage and crickets strummed in the undergrowth. Life continued in this other dimension, while in the humdrum element she occupied, everything had stopped.
Since the Japanese had entered the town, the streets were deserted. The monsoon rain fell in sheets, flooding roads with muddy rivers through which those who dared to venture out must wade. The odd cart trundled along; figures hurried beneath the five-foot-way, always watching for soldiers. The Japanese army tore down the first-aid tent on the grassy expanse of Farrer Park and sent its patients home. Japanese soldiers were everywhere.
Like every other woman, Sita stayed out of sight. Families were hiding their daughters in cupboards, the fear of rape was so strong. Chinese women blackened their faces with mud or soot to appear as ugly as possible. Sita’s bare arms were thin as twigs, the flesh gained after her marriage was now whittled away. She was always hungry, everyone was; food and its daily acquisition occupied them all, and sitting alone for long stretches of the day, boredom was now as great a torment as hunger.
Slowly the situation improved and within three months of the surrender, life became more normal, some shops reopened under Japanese licence, some doctors and dentists returned to work, some buses reappeared on the roads. Change was also felt in other ways. At the Ramakrishna Mission, Swami Bhaswarananda was abruptly dismissed by the Japanese military, and instructed to return overland to India. The crowd of homeless people who occupied the mission’s empty classrooms was relentlessly driven out. The mission was to be turned into a Japanese language school.
Shiva, along with everyone else, had been forced to hand in his radio to the authorities for ‘fixing’. No foreign news station could now be heard, which meant no balanced news of the war and its progress could be gleaned. Japanese English language broadcasts only reported unending Japanese military successes and there was no way to know if this information was true. Shiva found a job with a military construction unit, recruiting and supervising men to repair the bombed and ramshackle British army camps. There was little transport to these camps, and often Shiva was forced to walk long distances to check on the progress of work on broken fences, and bombed roofs and barracks. He was a tall gaunt figure, ribs visible, the soft pouch of his cheeks now reduced to hard bone.
Things were not good for Dev either. Krishnaswami and Sons, like all other shops and businesses, had been closed to await a trading licence from the Japanese authorities. Dev had also found a job with a Japanese building contractor, and was gone for days at a time to distant parts of the island on construction projects, often sleeping in the makeshift dormitories erected on site, returning exhausted and covered in dust and dirt. He came home only intermittently, and Sita saw little of him.
Shiva had been out all day since first light, and Sita waited for the sound of his foot on the stair. At last she heard him returning, a heavy bumping sound accompanying each step. As he threw open the door the night carried i
n a cloud of mosquitoes and moths and a stench of drains. Shiva stood before her, breathing hard from his climb, clutching a parcel the size of a small child that was wrapped in filthy sacking. He thrust the package towards her, with an apprehensive smile.
It was difficult to guess what the hard angular shape might be, and her heart beat with excitement as she pulled off the last of the wrapping. Shiva stood beside her while she gazed down upon an old wall clock with a long brass pendulum.
‘I found it in the black market. I gave a man books in exchange, the plays of Shakespeare in leather binding. Now you will learn to tell the time.’
By the slight tremble in Shiva’s voice she knew it had not been easy for him to part with his books. A rush of tenderness filled her as she gazed at her husband; no one had ever given her a gift before. If Shiva had asked her what she wanted, she would not have known what to choose. Now, this wondrous thing, commanding time and ordering the day was before her, no gift could have been more perfect.
At her feet the round glass face of the old clock reflected the light. Shiva stooped to pull the machine upright, opening the glass door to the pendulum and giving the metal prongs a slight push. Immediately, the clock came to life. Sita listened to the metallic tick of its heart, and watched the rhythmic swing of the metal weights, unable to explain the joy surging through her. Soon Shiva found nails and a hammer and a strong hook, and fixed the heavy clock securely upon the wall. As he stepped off the stool he turned to her and she saw the new energy in his face, and knew something had happened.
‘The camps I am repairing are to be used for the Indian POWs the British Army handed over to the Japanese military at the time of the surrender. The Japanese are forming these men into a new army that will free India from colonial rule. It is to be called the Indian National Army. With the help of the Japanese, it will invade India, and liberate it. Already today I saw Indian POW soldiers entering the new camp.’
Sita nodded, still gazing at her clock, that was now preparing to strike the hour. A laboured grinding began deep within the belly of the instrument, and soon it coughed out some surly clangs. Sita clapped her hands in pleasure. The clock’s light ticking would be forever near her, breaking the solitude of her day. Perhaps she too would now move forward like the hands of the clock, regardless of what lay ahead.
‘Did you hear what I said? An Indian army is being formed. It will free India from British rule,’ Shiva repeated impatiently.
Months passed, the year changed and life under the Japanese became a wary routine. Soldiers were seen when least expected, and their arbitrary behaviour filled everyone with fear. Each day after Shiva left for work, and if the area was free of any military presence, Sita walked to the top of the alley where, at the junction with Norris Road beside the Ramakrishna Mission, the pot-bellied Vishwanathan had returned with his coconut stall. A relative of Vishwanathan’s, an old Tamil woman with the deeply lined face of a polished walnut had now joined him, selling the fresh produce she and her husband grew on an allotment near Kranji. Sita bought two small aubergines and an onion from Savitri, and a coconut from Vishwanathan.
‘At least in this war, if nothing else, the trees continue to give us coconuts.’ Vishwanathan laughed, his fleshy face perspiring in the heat, as he handed Sita the nut he always kept for her.
When she returned home, she poured the coconut milk into a tall glass for Shiva to drink later. Chopping the white flesh of the coconut finely, she stirred it into the chopped fried onion and aubergine with a spoonful of the precious spices she hoarded, and cooked it slowly on the primus stove. It was better than anything she had tasted in days, but when Shiva returned in the evening he ate quickly and without comment, preoccupied, his eyes overly bright, as if he had a fever. At last he told her his news.
‘Yesterday Subhas Chandra Bose arrived in Singapore. He has come to take command of the Indian National Army. The Japanese asked Hitler to send him to us. Our Netaji arrived yesterday in Singapore! Can you believe it! The route from the airport to town was lined with our people, all waving flags of welcome. I heard him speak yesterday at the Cathay Building. Thousands and thousands of people were there. Those of us who had tickets were inside the building, but hundreds more stood outside to hear Netaji accept command of the Indian National Army. It was the most wonderful day.’ His thin face blazed with excitement.
During the months of the Occupation, the Indian National Army had been firmly established as a force, and Shiva avidly followed its growth and news. Yet within months of its formation, the army collapsed, beset by problems of leadership.
‘They say the Indian National Army will begin recruiting civilians. When they do that, I am going to join.’
Sita drew a quick breath, knowing in that moment that her life was changing, that Shiva’s gaze was already now fixed on a world beyond the life they lived in their small room. Remembering how his parents had died, she knew this was what he had waited for, and that nothing could stop him joining the new Indian army when the time came.
‘When I join I will come back every few days to see you. And of course, Dev will be here with you,’ he promised, seeing the expression on his wife’s face, and the effect his news had upon her.
Sita nodded silently, knowing protest was of little use. Looking down at the food on the banana leaf before her, at the aubergine cooked so carefully and with such expectation, she knew she could not eat it now.
Soon, the call Shiva waited for came, and he immediately began packing his few belongings, anxious to start his new life. Sita watched him piling books on top of a clean lungi, shirt and vest, pushing everything into an old cloth bag. Soon it was done, and he swung the bag up onto his shoulder. At the open door he turned, silhouetted against the bright morning light, a dark shape on the luminous threshold of a world waiting to absorb him.
‘The training is only for a short period. The camp is nearby, at Newton Circus; I will be back soon,’ he assured her before he disappeared, clattering down the spiral stair.
She listened to his steps getting fainter, then the sound of the gate closing behind him as he let himself into the alley. Behind her the clock began a metallic whirring, preparing to spit out its hoarse chimes. She listened to it strike as she shut the door and turned back to the empty room.
The next morning Sita returned to her usual routine, stepping out into the alley to make her way to Vishwanathan’s stall for a coconut and whatever vegetable Savitri had saved for her. As she walked up the alley she noticed the strip of grassy land behind the Ramakrishna Mission was now stacked with long bamboo canes of the kind used for scaffolding. Turning the corner into Norris Road, she saw that the Mission building was undergoing repairs before opening as a Japanese language school, its façade already shrouded in a trellis of bamboo. Half-naked Tamil labourers clambered up and down the flimsy scaffolding, agile as primates, metal bowls of cement balanced easily on their heads, their dark limbs a stark contrast to the pale walls they industriously whitewashed. The Chinese coolies who would previously have done this work had fled the town as the Japanese arrived, and Tamil labourers now monopolised all such jobs. There was the loud scrape of spades as they mixed cement under the direction of an Indian supervisor. As Sita paused to watch, the sudden sound of Japanese voices startled her. A military truck drew up noisily before the Ramakrishna Mission and five or six Japanese soldiers jumped out.
‘Get down, sister.’ Vishwanathan shouted as Sita approached, gesturing her to the safety of his stall. As Sita ran forward, Savitri reached out to grasp her arm, pulling her down under the stall, where she crouched unseen behind a pile of fresh coconuts.
‘No one can see us here.’ Savitri whispered.
Her deep-set eyes had the knowing gleam of a friendly reptile as she peered into the road around the coconuts. Pressed close to the bony warmth of Savitri’s body, the dusty scent of her worn cotton sari filling her nose, Sita was suddenly reminded of old Maneka at the bhajanashram.
The soldiers had no interest
in Vishwanathan’s stall. They strode across the road to the Ramakrishna Mission waving their bayonets, ordering the labourers off the scaffolding with loud guttural commands. The workers’ supervisor, a short burly Tamil, dared to voice a polite protest and was slapped in the face and pushed to the ground for his trouble. As soon as the Japanese appeared, passersby disappeared, and the street was suddenly empty. The workers were now climbing down off the scaffolding to huddle fearfully together beside their abandoned shovels and cement. The soldiers, short men in puttees, dusty uniforms and peaked caps, strode about, herding the labourers closer together with blows from the butts of their rifles. Naked except for filthy loincloths and ragged turbans, mute with fear, the men watched as one of their group who had tried to flee through an open window was beaten until he bled.
The soldiers shouted incomprehensible orders, pushing and prodding the labourers until the men were forced to shuffle forward, stumbling over each other in terrified confusion, a burst of further blows moving them slowly towards the junction of Serangoon Road. They passed so close to Vishwanathan’s stall that Sita could see the burnish of sweat on their naked torsos, the floury dust of cement clinging to their arms, and the whites of their terrified eyes. Powerless beneath the relentless blows, the men were as trapped as the goats driven regularly along this same road to the slaughterhouse. Eventually, they turned the corner onto Serangoon Road with its traffic of trundling carts, rickshaws and bicycles, and were lost from sight.