Goddess of Fire

by Bharti Kirchner

  The mere mention of Tariq turned my stomach. But I wouldn’t let him stop me from pursuing what I had in mind.

  “I can’t help but think about my mother,” I said to Sal. “She must be having a difficult time believing I’m dead. I’d like to send her a message.”

  “That might not be easy. Although we have an efficient postal system here and our couriers, dak runners, go all over, carrying dispatches to and from the Factory, we servants aren’t allowed to use that service. You can well imagine what Tariq will do, can’t you? Besides, the couriers charge a fortune. They need money for the passage and their job is dangerous. They could be attacked by a tiger or a robber. No, Maria, much as I would like to …”

  “You have a family, you said.”

  “Oh, yes. Whenever I manage to get time off, I visit my parents. I’m blessed with three sisters. One is your age and the other two are older.”

  “Then perhaps you understand,” I said.

  He hesitated for a while, then reconsidered his stand. “Alright, I’ll speak with Abidur who’s a friend, but …”

  I slipped my hands inside my sari, and fingered the perspiration-drenched, ‘five-formed’ pendant on a gold chain set with rubies, pearls, diamonds, emeralds, and lapis lazuli. My husband’s kin had snatched all the jewelry bequeathed to me by my mother, aunts, and grandmother, save for a pendant that had remained hidden under my sari. Now I unfastened the gold chain, took it off my neck, and held it in my hand. The pendant seized the brilliant light of the day and shone like a mini-ature sun.

  “Tell Abidur to show this to my mother,” I said to Sal in a broken voice. “She’ll know I’m still alive. He can then sell it and share the money with you.”

  “In the name of Allah! This is pure gold. Are you sure you want to part with it?”

  I nodded, gazing longingly at the ornament, the only memento of home in my possession.

  Sal closed his fingers reluctantly around the pendant and pocketed it. “Please don’t speak a word about this to anyone. If Tariq hears about this, then we’ll both lose our jobs.”

  Sal was about to turn when I stopped him. “Where is Job sahib?” I asked, even as I felt my cheeks flush.

  “He’s gone to the Royal Palace.” I listened intently as Sal described Job sahib’s daily life. The sahib had become a close ally of Nawab Haider Ali. The Dutch and the French, the sahib’s competitors, also wanted the Nawab’s ear. However, the sahib, who was always thinking how he could further the interests of the Company and would go any distance for that, had won. He often accompanied the Nawab on his hunting expeditions, mounting a royal elephant to go bird-shooting or tiger hunting. In the evening, they drank spirits and played cards. Sal looked me full in the face. “You won’t see him much, if at all.”

  I cast my gaze to the ground. “But … on the boat …”

  Sal gave a smile of derision. “You didn’t catch everything. I overheard the sahib ordering Tariq to take good care of you in his absence. You’ll have adequate food, shelter, and clothing.”

  “I thought I’d see the sahib once in a while.”

  “Don’t count on it. Tariq, who is our supervisor, monopolizes the sahib, so he’ll always be more powerful than us. If he sees you as a threat, he’ll make your life miserable.” Sal paused. “My dear behen, there’s something else I must warn you about. Job sahib can’t take a local woman as a companion, at least within this compound. That’s a strict order from the Council of Directors—no mixing of colors, no getting close with the kala—the dark people.” Sal explained that the Council of Directors sat in Surat and oversaw all English Factories in our land. “They’re cruel authoritarians. Even Job sahib, who’s a member of the Council, can’t break a rule set by it. He cannot consort with you.”

  A sigh escaped me, but I managed to keep still. “I was a high-caste girl in my village. People looked up to me. They praised me for my light skin tone.”

  “Here you belong to the dark race and you’re thought to be inferior.”

  “But Job sahib said he’d protect me.”

  “He’ll soon be too busy for that, behen. A boatful of young, fair, and unmarried English ladies will be landing here soon.” Sal talked of pale-skinned, pink-cheeked, and well-polished women arriving in Cossimbazar, smiling and flouncing in their fine gowns, hoping to catch a sahib’s eye. Job sahib was the most eligible bachelor. “The boat is jokingly called the ‘Fishing Fleet’. The sahibs are all waiting for it.”

  Dust and grime covered my body and shaved head. My homespun sari was stained, my face beaded with perspiration.

  “There’ll be a lovely young lady who will soon steal Job Charnock’s heart.” Sal said.

  FOUR

  A day rolled by.

  At night, lying on my meager bed, the quilt wrapped around me, my eyes closed, I heard the noise of someone pushing through the door. A thief? A drunkard? A wild beast? Shuddering, I made an attempt to rise, only to be thrown back on the bed when a heavy body landed on top of me. In the pitch blackness, I couldn’t make out the intruder’s face. He reeked of alcohol. I tried to shout for help, but his hand pressed down hard on my mouth, nearly crushing my jawbone. I made an attempt to push him away, but I was no match for him in size or strength. With his free hand, he began to work up my thighs.

  Although I had no weapon in my possession, my hand was free. I picked up the wick lamp lying next to the bed. It had been extinguished only a few minutes ago, so the oil was still hot even though the amount was negligible. Sensing my chance, I threw the hot oil in the face of my molester. He screamed and cursed in English.

  A sahib!

  He lurched to his feet and stumbled out the door, crying out in pain.

  I rose to my feet, my heart thumping, and shut the door quickly, securing it with a piece of log, even though I wasn’t sure it would prevent another incident of this kind. My mind buzzed, trying to address a stream of disturbing questions: Which sahib was it? What if he returned? I lay down again, pulling the quilt over me and making a resolve to leave this place as soon as possible. After only a few minutes of sleep, I woke with a start. No intruders this time, only a dog groaning. The night was cool, but my body was soaked with perspiration.

  I rose before dawn and walked to the river ghat. Although my shoulders ached from lack of sleep, my mind began to work. With Job sahib out of reach, to whom should I relate last night’s incident? What if the attacker returned?

  I climbed down the steps to the water, still fully clothed, and waded in up to my chest, the tepid water bubbling about me. Ladling water with both hands and rinsing my face, I tried to wipe out of my mind the horror of last night. Not long ago, I used to descend the graying ghat steps of my village into the divine stream which always purified me. Giggling, I would swallow sweet-tasting, life-sustaining water, my face warmed by the sun. My mother would stand on the top step of the ghat and watch me play. I’d assumed those days of laughing, shouting, singing, and bathing would go on forever. But they hadn’t.

  My sari dripping wet and clinging to my body, I wandered toward a shack situated by the palm grove, used for the changing of clothes. I had no other clothes to change into, but I was happy for the privacy in which to dry my body.

  I heard voices speaking English and looked around.

  Hidden by palm fronds, two of our sahibs were talking with a local man. Clad in a chintz robe, a strand of pearls around his neck, he had a well-fed appearance and eyes that glinted with greed. Add to that the gold belt around his waist, and I knew for sure that he belonged to the wealthy merchant class. From the way the three men huddled together, the concentration on their faces dissolving into sneaky glances, I suspected they were up to some mischief. What if they spotted me? I could be severely punished for being a witness to a clandestine activity. I dried my body quickly. The morning wind warm against my face, I strove to walk past the group unnoticed, but one of the sahibs turned, spotted me, and gave me a disdainful sidelong glance. Keeping my head down, I headed toward the Facto
ry.

  I slipped into the kitchen, a spacious room crammed with cooking vessels, brass utensils, silverware, and several earthen stoves—chulahs—placed directly on the ground. Part of a low worktable was crammed with guavas, mangoes, pineapples, and a stack of cut sugar canes, the remainder piled high with freshly harvested herbs and other edible greens. A sweet scent emanated from the fruits, a pungent one from the herbs, and they mingled with the smoky odor from the chulah.

  The four khansamas were already busy building the fire, rinsing the rice, grinding the wheat berries, and sorting through the herbs. They scarcely raised their eyes to me but continued chatting amongst themselves in brotherly closeness. I stood alone, the only female in the room, baldheaded and shrinking, my stomach fluttering.

  The size of this kitchen, not to mention that of this entire trading post, unnerved me. How I wished I could sail back to my village and be amongst the members of my family, loved and known within the coziness of a small hut.

  Hearing the sound of a greeting, I came back to the present. The oldest cook, he introduced himself as Idris, pointed to a pile of leafy greens on the work table. “You’re to chop these, Maria.” Short, sturdy, and gray-haired, he had a burnt-copper complexion. His mouth turned rigid as he added, “Tariq didn’t like it that you were late.”

  O, Lord Shiva! What punishment would befall me now? I picked up the knife and minced the greens furiously. The male cooks, continued chatting amongst themselves.

  Finally, when I couldn’t bear the loneliness any longer, I asked in a voice that rose above the chatter in the room; I asked no one in particular, “So how do you like working for the English East India Company?”

  No one replied. Didn’t I deserve an answer? Well, I’d wait until the right moment came and insert myself into the conversation. Soon enough, the men began to babble amongst themselves, this time about the sahibs: who gave the most bakhshish, who drank the most alcohol, who smelled the worst, who had the foulest temper. My ears pricked up. Would these men reveal the molester among the sahibs?

  Instead, I learned that the English East India Company was here to grab as many commodities as it could—opium, what they called their “dream drug”, silk, cotton, black pepper, nutmeg, and vegetable dyes—to sell them at a profit in England. They would do so in exchange of gold and silver, much in demand in our land.

  Detecting a gap in the conversation, I gave an account of what I’d seen this morning at the shore.

  Idris raised his eyes to me. “Be careful,” he said, lowering his voice to a whisper. “You might be accused of eavesdropping. You could even be shot dead.”

  “They were speaking English,” I said quietly. “I didn’t understand a word of it.”

  “Well, what she saw isn’t unusual,” another man said. He had wild curly hair, bronze skin, and keen eyes. “I am Jas,” he said to me softly as he scrubbed a pot. “The sahibs have a strong personal motive for leaving their ‘dear old England,’ and coming to this ‘dreadful, boring post’. They’re here to fill their pockets. Believe it or not, the Factors have private businesses of their own on the side. Those bastards were haggling with the local merchants. They buy huge amounts of goods for a few coins and ship them to London on their own. Oh, the profit they make by robbing the local weavers, dyers, metal workers, and shopkeepers.”

  “Does Job sahib …?”

  Before I could finish my question, Bir jumped in. He was thin-bodied, amiable, high-spirited, younger than the other three, and handsome. “I know it on good authority that Job sahib doesn’t engage in such practice. They jokingly call him ‘Honest Mr. Charnock’ behind his back, those traitors to the Company. It’s a pity he knows all about the smuggling, stealing and poaching of local merchants that goes on, but he still insists he can work through it all to make the Company prosper. He trusts people too much, especially his own. That’s his weakness and I think that’ll be his downfall.”

  “Our idealistic leader is cheating himself,” Idris scoffed as he rinsed a pot. “I was cleaning his chamber when I saw a leather-bound diary sitting on his desk and managed to browse a page. Although I read some English, I couldn’t follow all of it. There was something like: ‘Even though I am the Officer-in-Chief, the Company pays me a pittance and I resent that. Twenty pounds a year might be a fortune for the lowly people here, but a joke for someone from England, someone of my caliber, someone who serves the Crown.’” Idris shook his head in disgust, picked up another pot, and began rinsing it.

  “Haughty, isn’t he?” Pratap, muscular and quick-moving, his skin like polished mahogany, sorted through a pile of fresh herbs. “He has a mean spirit that occasionally comes out. The other day he exploded when I was late bringing him his hookah. He was stumbling all over the room, drunk.”

  My fingers loosened their grip on the knife. I’d seen Job sahib’s eyes fill with righteous anger at the priest on the cremation site. I’d detected arrogance in his manner and seen condescension in his gaze when speaking with people of my village. But to treat a servant poorly? I didn’t expect that of him. The diary, however, interested me. I wasn’t allowed in the sahib’s chamber, only Idris and Tariq were. Although I didn’t read English, I wanted to grasp what he wrote in his unguarded moments.

  “Oh, maybe the sahib is feeling pressured,” I said, trying to help figure out Job sahib and secure my position here.

  “Of course he’s feeling the pressure,” Idris said. “This Factory is his life, but it’s losing money, and he has to pay heavy taxes to the Nawab for trading rights.”

  “Job sahib is a bit aloof,” Pratap said. “He dresses like us, not like the rest of his clan. He says he prefers lighter clothing because it keeps him cool. The other Factors respect him, but they don’t identify with him. They think he’s not as English as they are. I heard this from the keeper of a punch house.”

  “A punch house? What’s that?”

  “Curious, aren’t we?” Pratap said, stacking a set of clean pots. “Punch—five. The drink they serve in a punch house is made of five ingredients: arrack or palm wine, lime juice, sugar, water, and nutmeg; strong, strong stuff. It has a mixture of tastes, sweet, sour, and bitter. After work the sahibs meet in the punch house by the river and take glass after glass of this drink. The keeper catches some of their drunken chatter. Job sahib doesn’t go there too often. He says drinking parties don’t interest him. The other sahibs play at cards, gab, and sometimes get into a fight.”

  Idris turned to me. “But they don’t fight inside this compound. You’re safe here.”

  “Are you sure I am safe here?” Trembling, I gave an account of the intruder in my room the night before.

  “This should not happen,” Idris said emphatically. “I’ll ask Tariq to install a heavier door in your room. And we’ll check to see which one of the—”

  “Suppose we find out,” Pratap interrupted, “what can we do? We’re the servile class, we can’t complain, we can’t accuse anyone.”

  “Will you check this beef stew, Maria?” Idris pointed to a pot simmering on the hearth, a white veil of scented steam escaping into the air.

  “I can’t, I’m a Brahmin. We don’t go near beef.”

  “Forget how you were raised,” Idris said. “You’ll have to leave those caste rules behind to work for the English.”

  I bent down and smelled the stew. It nauseated me; it also made me realize what I would have to sacrifice in order to survive. Once again, I wanted to leave, go someplace miles away from here.

  “Well, the stew needs to be simmered longer.” I tried hard not to wrinkle my nose in distaste. “I can tell by the color of the sauce and the raw smell.”

  In the next several hours, I stirred the pots, sped up and down the kitchen to pick up this spice and that, all morning and through the afternoon, feeling feverish from the pace. Then, after all the dishes had been prepared, I swept and mopped the floor till it gleamed. Despite the fear, fatigue, and even disgust that had crept inside me, I felt a certain sweetness swell
inside, as though I was somewhat in control of my life.

  The supper bell rang, but I didn’t follow the sound. As a woman, I could do the menial tasks but wasn’t considered fit to serve the sahibs. Frowning, I let my annoyance known to Idris.

  “It’s a custom of the Mughal Court; we must follow it.” According to him, the regional Nawab employed ten male food servers, each one assigned to hover over a member of the royal family.

  I thought the real cause lay elsewhere. Tariq, who saw me as a threat, didn’t want me to be visible. Discomfort was a lump in my throat; I swallowed it.

  The khansamas, dressed in white muslin uniforms and colorful head-dresses, arranged fully loaded silver platters on trays. Led by Idris, they entered the dining hall. I stole a peek from behind a curtain. About twenty sahibs streamed into the hall and arranged themselves around a large, rectangular table. The air throbbed with the aroma of spices.

  I noticed a hazel-eyed man with auburn-hair, a round body, and a patch on his forehead. “Who is that sahib, with the patch?” I whispered to Bir who was on his way back to the kitchen.

  “Francis sahib. He burned himself on the fumes of his hookah pipe last night.”

  “No! I believe he was burned when I threw hot lamp oil into his face last night.”

  Bir regarded me in surprise, but then his face changed. “Well, I guess we know how he spent his evening, don’t we?” His laughter was sour.

  How could a Factor get away with abusing a servant girl? The chair at the head of the table remained empty. Job sahib wasn’t present. “Where’s the Chief?” I asked Bir.

  “Oh, he’s still at the Nawab’s Palace. But the Second and the Third Factors are present. Notice how the sahibs sit—according to their rank and seniority. You can tell who’s more important than whom. Francis sahib sits farthest from the head of the table; he’s the least powerful.”

  And yet he could barge into my room at night with the intention of violating me. If he was the lowliest man at this table, I was lower still. He could hurt me and get away with it.