Washerwoman's Dream

by Hilarie Lindsay

  She looked at Karum Bux, who was sitting opposite her. She had fancied he was avoiding her, but couldn’t be sure because men and women occupied separate quarters for much of the time. And though they shared a room at night, she was often half asleep when he came in, and he was always gone in the morning when she woke.

  She turned her attention back to her host, who was addressing her. ‘I have spoken to your husband, Hadjana. I have told him I have an important task for you. I worry about our people in your country. We need them to carry the faith down through the generations … it is too easy to be led astray … If you would undertake the task of guiding them I will give you written authority so that you may act on my behalf.’

  He stopped speaking as a servant padded in with a tea tray, waiting until she and her husband had been served. ‘Your husband does not object.’

  Winifred looked across at Karum Bux. He did not meet her gaze and she wondered whether he was angry but unwilling to protest for fear of offending their host, who obviously did not think it improper that a woman should exercise authority. His wife was an independent woman, a woman who had been educated and was used to giving orders, a woman who had been brought up not to be subservient to men. Winifred thought it might have something to do with money and the power that comes with it. In Lahore, where she had stayed with her husband’s people, the wives had to cover their faces when they left the house. The begum was different. She was one of the ruling class.

  Now Winifred was being offered a position of power that would elevate her above the Moslem men in the small community in ghantown. When Maulana handed her a document bearing his signature and the great seal of the Khalifat she took it gladly.

  Before they said farewell he held her right hand in his and kissed it, then placed it on his head and heart and said warmly, ‘Write to me. I will be eager for news. When you return to India you must come and visit. You will always be welcome.’

  * * *

  The family arrived back in Australia at the end of July 1927 and Winifred found that the news of her exploits had travelled ahead of her. When the ship docked, two women from the Theosophical Society in Adelaide came aboard. They introduced themselves as Mrs Yates and Miss Radcliffe who worked as volunteers for the Society. They brought Winifred an invitation to speak at their next Sunday evening meeting.

  ‘I have never heard of the Theosophical Society,’ Winifred said.

  ‘But you have come from India.’

  ‘In Lahore I stayed with my husband’s people and did not go anywhere until it was time to leave for Mecca. And when I returned I stayed at the Khalifat headquarters, but only for a few days before we caught the ship home.’

  ‘It is India that interests our members,’ Mrs Yates said. ‘The Theosophical Society is based on the universal brotherhood of man. It began in New York, but now the world president, Annie Besant, lives in India. She has become active in the fight for Home Rule and was sent to gaol by the British. Like Gandhi she has become a figurehead in the fight.’

  ‘I have met Gandhi,’ Winifred said.

  ‘Then you will have much to tell us,’ Miss Radcliffe said and held out a bunch of daffodils. ‘From my garden.’

  As Winifred took the flowers their bittersweet perfume rose up to meet her and memories came flooding back. She saw her mother standing on the wharf clutching a bunch of daffodils, saw them scattered on the gangplank as her mother ran from the ship. It seemed so long ago. She remembered how her mother had always put her down as if she was of no account. Now she marvelled at how her life had expanded; she had met King Ibn Saud, talked with Gandhi and now she was being invited to speak and her opinion was being sought.

  ‘May we expect you on Sunday?’ Winifred nodded, and Mrs Yates rose. ‘You have no idea how much your visit will mean to our members.’

  Just then Winifred looked up. Karum Bux was standing in the doorway, scowling. The women moved towards the door. ‘We must not detain you further. You must be tired. We look forward to your visit.’ They bowed to Karum Bux and he moved to one side. Winifred could hear their light footsteps clattering as they walked along the wooden passageway, and then they were gone.

  She looked at her husband, who had come into the room. ‘I have been asked to speak about India. Will you come to the meeting with me?’

  ‘I do not have time to waste in Adelaide. I have business to attend to in Oodnadatta. You can do as you please.’

  His tone was brusque and Winifred was tired. When she replied her voice was sharp. ‘Very well then, I’ll stay on my own with the children and come up later.’

  Karum Bux saw her and the children settled in the tenements alongside the mosque and caught the next train to Oodnadatta, leaving her a little money for food and their train fare.

  Left alone, after her first elation wore off, Winifred became apprehensive. She had never spoken in public before and her best dress was still her grey silk suit. It was shabby after the sea voyages to and from India and the weeks of being crushed in her suitcase, and her shoes were down at heel too. The only alternative was to wear the shalwar kameez she had worn to Mecca. Remembering how the women who had met her at the wharf had looked in their smartly cut suits, cloche hats and kid gloves, she realised that wearing Indian dress would be out of place. But she did not have enough money to buy new clothes.

  She washed her dress and borrowed an iron to press it, then polished her shoes until they shone. She washed and ironed the children’s clothes so that they looked neat, and asked one of the men at the mosque to trim their hair. Her one extravagance was a box of face powder, which she bought on the way to the Victoria Markets to buy some fruit and vegetables.

  She became increasingly agitated as it got closer to the day when she had to present herself at the hall. She found herself snapping at the children and hitting out at them for the slightest misdemeanour, so that they looked at her askance and escaped into the grounds of the mosque as often as they could. On the Sunday morning Yusef said, ‘I don’t want to come to the meeting. It’ll be boring. The mullah said I can stay at the mosque and play.’

  ‘You’ll do as you’re told or I’ll give you a good thrashing.’ He was almost as tall as she was and she hadn’t beaten him for a long while but she was beside herself, wishing she had gone straight home to Oodnadatta, thinking that it would have been different if Ali had been alive. He would have been proud of her. Not like Karum Bux, who was always angry.

  Then Rhamat complained of a stomach ache. He was cured by the sight and smell of the castor oil bottle which she waved under his nose. ‘I’ll give you a dose of this. That’ll fix you, young man.’

  Her threats had the desired effect and the boys were subdued. She sent them to play in the garden of the mosque once they were dressed, and promised to buy them a pie floater and a glass of ginger beer if they behaved themselves at the meeting.

  She kept Pansy with her, as she didn’t want her clothes to get soiled. The child was wearing a little dress with frills at the hemline and neck, which Winifred had made from scraps of red silk, and her long dark hair was tied back with a matching ribbon. ‘You look so pretty,’ said her mother, hugging her. ‘Like one of the red poppies we saw growing in the sugarcane in India.’

  They walked from Gilbert Street along Gillies Street to the hall where they were met by the president, Mrs Parry, who told Winifred she was a scientist. There were over one hundred people present, including children, and Winifred’s children were whisked away to join them.

  She had expected the meeting to begin with prayers, thinking it was a religious meeting. But there were no prayers, no preacher, no form of worship. Some of the members had brought their music and she was surprised when someone started to sing ‘Roses are Flowering in Picardy’, followed by a duet, ‘Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes.’

  It was so informal and friendly, like a party, that Winifred forgot her nerves, until she was seated beside the president on the platform, with more than one hundred pairs of eyes turned towards her
. She listened as the president introduced her, telling of her trip to Mecca, then she had to stand and face the audience. Her hands felt clammy, her pulse was racing and she could think of nothing to say, until she met the eyes of a woman who was looking at her with a sardonic expression on her face.

  She hesitated and then, looking straight at the woman, said, ‘If you were only half as nervous as I am you would understand. I have never spoken in public before and am only the wife of an Indian camel-man, and yet I have had an extraordinary adventure, an adventure in which I was invited to stay at the palace of the leader of the Moslem religion in India. He has made me the secretary of the Khalifat in Australia, with a task to ensure that the Moslem children adhere to the faith. It is a great honour. You see, the men are often away from home for months on end. It falls to their wives, many of whom are Aboriginal and know nothing of Islam, to teach the children.’ And she held up the parchment with the red seal. ‘Here is the document signed by the Khalifat leader himself.’

  An hour later she was still speaking, feeling perfectly at ease, aware her audience was listening intently, until Mrs Parry leaned over and handed her a note that read, ‘It’s time to stop.’

  The applause was deafening as she sat down and Winifred had a sense of triumph. People crowded around to congratulate her and shower her with questions, until Miss Radcliffe took her by the arm and led her to where supper was laid out. The children were already there with a glass of milk, but they were impatient. Rhamat tugged at her dress, ‘What about our pie and peas?’

  ‘I haven’t forgotten,’ Winifred said. ‘But this is important. We can always walk down to the station tomorrow when the pie stall is open.’

  ‘Promise?’ Rhamat was gazing into her eyes and she laughed and ruffled his hair.

  ‘Promise. Tomorrow we’ll have a floater for lunch and I’ll take you to the zoo. Now drink up your milk and if you ask nicely I’m sure you can have another biscuit.’

  Winifred sipped her tea and nibbled a biscuit, watching Mrs Parry and Miss Radcliffe whispering together, until Mrs Parry turned to her. ‘Mrs Karum Bux, can you come back again next week? We’ll put a notice in the paper. You have no idea how much your visit has meant to us. India is a world away and yet so much is happening there. You are like a breath of fresh air. Can you wear something Indian?’

  Winifred nodded. She would stay in Adelaide a week longer. There was nothing to return to, except to get the children into school. It occurred to her that Karum Bux might be waiting but she dismissed the thought from her mind. She no longer cared how he felt.

  The following Sunday Winifred dressed carefully in her white shalwar kameez with her white silk chador over her head. She secured it with the silver crescent Karum Bux had given her, and wore the silver snake bangle on her arm. She could smell the perfume of the attar of roses which had impregnated the silk and she was transported back to Mecca.

  The audience was just as enthusiastic after her talk and this time Elizabeth Leigh, a reporter from the Register, was in the audience. Later she invited Winifred to her office to talk. When Winifred returned to Oodnadatta she had a commission to write an account of her trip to Mecca.

  PART FIVE

  25

  THE INVITATION

  BY THE TIME THE FIRST episode of ‘Arabian Days’ was published on 27 November 1928, under the pen name of Winifred the Washerwoman, Winifred had been home five months and her marriage to Karum Bux had ended. He had not remained in Oodnadatta to meet her or reopened his shop, but had gone to Alice Springs. It had fallen to Goolam to break the news that the marriage was over. He called to see her one morning, his huge bulk filling her doorway, almost shutting out the light. She invited him into the small kitchen and pulled out a chair at the kitchen table. He sat down and enquired about her health and that of the children, watching as she threw some chips into the fuel stove to bring the kettle to the boil and made the tea.

  She took a loaf of bread out of the bread crock, cut off two thick slices, then lifted the tin of melon and lemon jam from the dish of water it stood in to keep the ants out and spooned a generous quantity on the bread, which she placed on an enamel plate in front of him.

  ‘I’m sorry there aren’t any scones. If I’d known you were coming they would have been hot from the oven.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with good bread.’ He said and ate noisily, wiped a few crumbs off his beard, gulped down the scalding black tea and accepted a refill. When he had finished he pushed the mug to one side and sat regarding her gravely. ‘Karum Bux has told me you have a letter from the Khalifat, giving you authority over the camel-men.’

  Winifred rose and went into the small bedroom partitioned off by a hessian curtain, and returned holding the letter which she handed to him. He studied it closely, screwing up his eyes, running his finger over the embossed seal, then put it on the table. ‘Hadjana, this is an honour. And I am sure the Khalifat leader is a great and wise man. But we are simple camel-men. Bombay is far away. This letter has no meaning here. You must forget about it. In our community women do not have authority over men. I am the appointed leader. It is I who say the prayers as I slaughter the meat, and give the blessing on Juma.’

  He handed the letter back to her and she folded it and put it in her apron pocket, knowing that what he said was true. The letter had no meaning here. She was certain that Maulana would never be called on to slaughter the meat for the Moslem community. He was an educated man. Many of the people she was dealing with here were from villages where the Khalifat was unknown. Ghantown was like an Indian village, except that their huts were made of iron instead of mud. She rose and replenished the teapot, filling Goolam’s mug for the third time.

  He sipped his tea, looking at her over the rim of the mug. ‘But that is not why I have come. I have a message from your husband.’

  ‘He has divorced me. Is that what you have come to tell me?’ she asked, cradling the teapot, feeling the heat between her palms.

  ‘No. He has not divorced you, though he finds you difficult because you lack obedience. He said you shamed him on the hadj, but he is willing to forget. He is getting his affairs in order so that he can return to India. He has offered to take you and the children, on one condition — you will remain in Lahore with his family and behave like a good Moslem wife.’

  ‘And my boys? Will they be educated?’

  ‘As far as possible. But in a village most men work to help support their family. Your sons would be expected to do the same, as soon as they are old enough.’

  ‘And my daughter?’

  He glanced at Pansy who had come running in the door with a bird’s feather in her hand. ‘She is fair of face. As soon as she is of marriageable age your husband and his brothers will seek out an eligible young man from a good family. She will be well looked after.’

  ‘And if I do not agree?’

  ‘Your husband will divorce you and return to India alone.’

  She could see a look of surprise in his eyes when she said, ‘I think that will be for the best. You promised me three hundred pounds a year, and that my boys would be sent to college in India. But none of that has happened. I don’t want my sons to work as field labourers for a few rupees a day. And I don’t want my daughter given away to the highest bidder like a prize heifer. I married Karum Bux to give my children a father. I allowed myself to be persuaded, even though I still loved Ali. In the few years Karum Bux and I have been married I have never stopped loving Ali. I still dream about him.’ Her voice broke, she could feel tears starting. She fought to hold them back. She rose and carried the dirty mugs to the washing-up dish, rinsed them in hot water and dried them and put them on the shelf over the stove.

  Then she turned to face him. ‘As for money, we will manage.’ She pointed to a small portable typewriter on the corner of the kitchen table. She had brought it back from Adelaide. ‘I have a contract to write the story of the hadj as a serial for the Register. I will be well paid. And when I have finished that sto
ry I will think of another. I do not need Karum Bux. He does not love me and I do not love him. He took me to Mecca, for that I am grateful. Will you tell him?’

  Her face was flushed and she wondered if she had been too outspoken. But there was no antagonism on Goolam’s face. ‘I am glad, Hadjana, for your sake, that things are working out. I will give your husband your message. He is a good man and was only thinking of your welfare.’

  Winifred wiped the table with the dishcloth and put the teapot at the back of the stove. She felt ashamed of her outburst but she had spoken the truth. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘You did your best. But there is more to life than a husband and a home. If there is no love there can be no happiness.’

  Without answering, Goolam rose. His expression was troubled as he looked at her. He placed his right hand on his forehead and bowed. ‘Salaam, Hadjana,’ he said, and walked out the door.

  Winifred watched him striding down the dirt track, the dust whirling around his sandalled feet, his turbaned head erect. He did not look back and the thought crossed her mind that once the camel-men went there would be no reason to keep the mosque open. Ghantown, with its bore drain, its camel yards, the date palms that shaded the tin huts and the herd of goats that wandered up and down the lane foraging for food would be deserted. She and her children might end up here alone. She thought that she would not stay long. As soon as she could afford it she would buy herself a house somewhere else.

  She washed Pansy’s hands and feet and put her to bed behind the hessian curtain, then went to bring in the washing, standing by the line until the boys came running down the lane, calling out, ‘We’re hungry. What’s for tea?’