by Sharon Maas
Saroj heard the words without understanding them, but she felt the rising anger behind them, and the words scared her. Marxism. Leninism. Communism. Moscow. Imperialism. Colonialism. Saroj fixed her eyes in fascination on Baba's face, which had taken on a coppery red colour, his eyes blazing and snapping. She could feel his passion like the swelling of a volcano, something indefinable, boiling hot and simmering just below the surface. He jabbed the air with his forefinger; his voice became a loud staccato bark. Balwant Uncle stayed cool and calm, trying to pacify him, his hands stroking the air, whereas the other uncles just stood around, listening, not interrupting. Baba's vehemence grew with every word he spoke.
She looked at Ganesh with helpless, frightened eyes. He took her by the hand and laughed to dispel her anxiety, and led her from the kitchen where Ma stood before a spitting saucepan, clapping puris, her back to them.
'Don't worry about Baba, Saroj,' Ganesh reassured Saroj. 'Look, here's a puri; you can take it in your fingers, it's not hot. You know, its just politics, it's a game grown-ups like to play, like we lil' children play with toys.'
Next door, in a lovely green-and-white wooden mansion, all louvre windows and verandahs, lived the Camerons. Mr Cameron was very black. He was an African, Ma said, and Africans were black and had very curly hair. Mr Cameron's wife was very pretty, Saroj called her Betty Auntie and she was black too, but not as black as Mr Cameron. The Camerons had an enormous garden, a tangle of trees, bushes and shrubs. Betty Auntie didn't know much about gardening, not like Ma. A man called Hussein came once a week with a load of horse-droppings in a donkey cart and dug around for an hour, but still Betty Auntie's garden was wild. To Saroj it looked exciting.
Sometimes Ma and Betty Auntie chatted over the palings, talking about gardens and cooking and children. The Camerons had three children younger than Saroj. The eldest was a boy called Wayne, who was only four. Saroj discovered Wayne through the white palings that separated their gardens. She discovered the one loose paling in the fence, pushed it aside, and squeezed through to join him.
After that Saroj often went over to play with Wayne. Neither Betty Auntie nor Ma minded when they played together. Betty Auntie was really nice. She would offer them soursop juice and pine tarts and tamarind balls, guava-jelly sandwiches and ice cold Milo. But Wayne never came over to play with her. Saroj asked Ma if Wayne could come but Ma said no. She said Saroj should only go to play with Wayne when Baba wasn't home, and she should never tell Baba that she played with Wayne, and never mention Betty Auntie either. Somehow Saroj had known that, even before Ma told her. She knew what would make Baba cross. She knew you had to keep some things secret from Baba.
Betty Auntie played hide and seek with Saroj, Wayne, and her two little girls; told them stories, sang songs with them. Betty Auntie was more fun than Ma. She was even more fun than Parvati. Even when Ma was at the Purushottama Temple, and Parvati was alone with Saroj, Saroj went through the fence to play with Wayne. Wayne was more fun than Cousin Soona, who Baba said should be her friend. Cousin Soona wasn't really a friend, because she was a cousin. Wayne was her only friend. Even at school she didn't have any friends, because the children she played with there weren't allowed to come home to visit her, and she wasn't allowed to go to anyone’s homes either. Baba said so. Baba only allowed her to visit relatives. Cousin Soona was silly.
One afternoon Betty Auntie blew up the sides of a plastic pool and placed it on the grassy level land beneath the star-apple tree, stuck the end of the hose in it, turned on the garden tap, and filled the pool with water.
'You can have it to yourselves for an hour,' she said to Saroj and Wayne in her smiley voice, 'but when Caroline and Alison wake up I'm going to bring them out and then you have to share!'
They nodded and looked at each other with shining eyes. Betty Auntie helped them undress till they were both in their underpants, and next minute they were splashing and screaming in the cool water. Wayne turned on the tap and chased Saroj through the trees as far as the underbrush would let him, she screaming in delight as she ran to escape the jet of water, he calling out dire warnings. The garden was a bedlam of screams, yells and war-cries and it took an age before Saroj made out the blood-chilling call coming from beyond the fence.
'Sarojini! Come here at once!'
In a trice silence laid its death-cloak over Saroj and Wayne. They stood as if turned to stone. Saroj didn't dare look at Baba but she felt his eyes eating into her and heard him say once more in a voice that filled her with icy emptiness, 'Sarojini. Pick up your dress and come here at once.'
Betty Auntie cried, ‘Mr Roy, Mr Roy…’ but Baba ignored her, which was rude. Saroj did as she was told. Baba gripped her hair and forced her to walk before him, up the back steps, through the kitchen, into his study which overlooked the Cameron garden. He picked up the cane and whisked it three times through the air. Its quick sharp whistle made her blood curdle.
He whipped her to a rhythm. 'Never — play — with — the — negroes. Never — play — with — the — negroes. Never — play…' He whipped the words into her skin and into her flesh, into her blood. She screamed enough to bring down all of heaven, but nobody heard. Where were Indrani and Ganesh? Where was Ma? Where was Parvati? Why didn't they rescue her?
And through the screams she saw his face. It was so ugly. So ugly she retched and threw up the remains of Betty Auntie's tamarind balls and curdled Milo all over herself and Baba, who ignored the mess and lashed on and on and on…
When he had had enough he marched her up to the bathroom, pushed her into the shower, washed her down, dried her with a few agonising rubs of a towel and pulled a clean loose nightdress roughly over her head. He frog-marched her to her own bedroom, pulled out the chair at her desk, opened a drawer, pulled out an exercise book, rummaged in another drawer for a pencil, and then wrote on the first page of the exercise book: I must never play with negroes.
'You will fill this book. I want you to write on every single line. You are not to eat or rest before you are finished.'
That was how Ma found Saroj when she came home before sundown. Bent over an open page and carefully pencilling in the words Baba had given her, cheeks wet with tears. She felt Ma's hand on her head and looked up and more tears rushed out, a torrent of them. She heaved with sobs.
Ma lifted her from the chair and carried her to the bed. She took off her nightdress and turned her on her tummy so she could inspect the wounds. She disappeared into her own room and into the puja room. Or maybe she would bring the sword and go and kill Baba. That was what Saroj wanted most.
When Ma returned she was mixing something in a cup. It was one of her special potions, Saroj knew. With fingers as light and soft as a feather Ma smoothed a cool paste all over the wounds, and Saroj lay there and let healing sink through her. When Ma was finished she sat the child up and wrapped a sheet loosely around her, took her on her lap and held her, not saying a word, taking care not to touch her wounds. Saroj tried to speak.
'I have to write some more!'
'No. It is over. All finished, Saroj.'
Saroj thought then it was all finished with Baba and rejoiced because they'd go away and leave Baba forever. But Ma didn't mean that. She only meant the punishment was over, and that Baba would not strike her again, which he didn't. But Saroj really hated Baba now. A few weeks later the Camerons moved out. Saroj never spoke to Wayne or any of them again. Baba sent Parvati away forever, because she had allowed Saroj to play with Wayne. Saroj never saw Parvati again, either. She hated Baba for that most of all.
Ma was making dhal puris, flinging them into the air, clapping them as they fell light as feathers like flakes of layered silk across her palms. They smelled of warm ghee and soft dough baking and aromatic spices, so tender they'd melt in the mouth.
'Ma,' Saroj began, tugging at the skirt of Ma's sari.
Ma looked down and smiled. Her hands were white with flour up to the elbows. 'Yes, sweetheart?'
'Why's negro bad?'
Ma's brow creased but her smile remained. Her hands went on working as she spoke.
'Don't believe that, dear. Don't ever believe that. Nobody's bad just because of the way they look. It's what's inside a person that counts.'
'But, Ma, what's inside a person? When people look different are they different inside, too?'
Ma didn't answer, she was looking at her hands now, kneading a ball of dough. Saroj thought she had forgotten her and so she said, 'Ma?'
Ma turned her eyes back to Saroj. 'I'll show you in a moment, dear. I'll just finish making these.'
Saroj watched the stack of dhal puris grow into a flat round tower and then Ma said she was finished and covered them with a cloth and washed her hands. Then she opened the cupboard where she kept her spare jars and bottles and took out six jars and placed them on the kitchen counter.
'Do you see these jars, Saroj? Are they all the same?'
Saroj shook her head. 'No, Ma.' The glasses were all different. There was a short flat one and a tall thin one and a medium-sized one, and other shapes in between. Some were different colours: green or brown or clear.
'All right. Now, just imagine these jars are people. People with different shapes of bodies and colours of skin. Can you do that?' Saroj nodded. 'Right. Well, now the bodies are empty. But look…’ Ma picked up a big glass jug, filled it at the tap and poured water into all the jars.
'See, Saroj? Now all the glasses are filled. All the bodies are alive! They have what we call a spirit. Now, is that spirit the same in all the glasses, or different?'
'It's the same, Ma. So people are —'
But Ma broke in. 'Now, can you run into the pantry and get the tin where I keep my dyes? You know it, don't you?'
Saroj was back even before Ma had finished speaking. Ma opened the tin and picked up one of the tiny bottles of powdered dye. It was cherry-coloured. Ma held the bottle over one of the jars and tipped a little of the powder into the water. Immediately, the water turned pink-red. Ma returned the cap to the bottle and picked up another one. The water turned lime-green. She did that six times and each time the water turned a different colour so that in the end Ma had six different shaped jars of six different colours.
'So, Saroj, now you answer me. Are these people here all the same inside, or are they all different?'
Saroj took her time before answering. She puckered her brow and thought hard. Finally she said, 'Well, Ma, really they're all the same but the colours make them different.'
'Yes, but what is more real, the sameness or the differences?'
Saroj thought hard again. Then she said: 'The sameness, Ma. Because the sameness holds up the differences. The differences are only the powders you put in.'
'Exactly. So think of all these people as having a spirit which is the same in each one, and yet each one is also different — that is because each person has a different personality. A personality is made up of thoughts, and everyone has different kinds of thoughts. Some have loving thoughts, some have angry thoughts, some have sad thoughts, some have mean thoughts. Most people have jumbles of thoughts — but everybody's thoughts are different, and so everybody is different. Different outside and different inside. And they see those differences in each other and they squabble and fight, because everyone thinks the way he is, is right. But if they could see through the differences to the oneness beyond, linking them all, then…’
'Then what, Ma?'
'Then we would all be so wise, Saroj, and so happy!'
Ma told Saroj it was wrong to hate. She said you should love all people, even Baba, even when he wouldn't let her play with Wayne and when he sent Parvati away. Every evening Ma ushered the three children into the puja room, and while they watched with folded hands she'd hold an incense stick into the tiny eternal flame till it flickered alight and a thin tendril of pungent sweet smoke rose to the ceiling. She'd gently wave the incense before the lingam, then gesture for them all to sit; she'd place the sruti box between her crossed legs and pour out her heart in song to her Lord, and they, huddled around her on the straw mat, would sing too.
Singing seemed to unseal Ma's lips. She'd tell them stories of the great heroes and heroines of Indian myths and legends, Arjuna and Karna, Rama and Hanuman, Sita and Draupadi, men and women of the warrior caste who feared neither pain nor death and never flinched in danger. She told them a great secret, the secret of immunity from pain. Go behind the thought-body, Ma said. Enter the silence of spirit where there is no pain...
Indrani listened with only one ear. She was the eldest, the sweet, obedient one. Ganesh listened with ears all agog, drinking in every word.
At first, Saroj too had listened with both ears. But then Baba had done things for which she could not forgive him. He whipped her when she played with Wayne, and made those nice Camerons move out. He sent Parvati away. He tore her from the people she loved, and so she made up her mind to hate him. Baba was evil, a wicked demon, worse than Ravana or any of the Rakshasas, and there was no Krishna or Arjuna or Rama to conquer him.
So while Ma told her stories of love and bravery Saroj brooded on Baba, and a little seed of ire surfaced in her heart. She watched this seed, and it sprouted. She nourished it a little, and it grew. He hurt me, she said to herself. One day when I'm big I will hurt him back.
3
Chapter Three
Savitri
Madras, India. 1921
She was the cook's daughter, his youngest and dearest child, the apple of his eye, the spark to his funeral pyre. That long hot summer she was six years old, her hair falling over her shoulders in two thick black plaits fastened with bits of thread and twists of jasmine, and she was thin and brown and lithe and in spite of the long loose skirts that fell to her ankles, wild as a boy. She loved David, and always would.
Iyer the cook and his wife Nirmala knew of her love, and watched it with mixed feelings. It is not a good thing when servants and masters play together, and was not Savitri David's servant? If they themselves were servants, wasn't their daughter the master's son's servant? How could she be friends with the young master? It was not proper. But friends they were, and who were Iyer and Nirmala to forbid what the young master wished, and what Master and Mistress allowed?
So Savitri had the run of the house and the garden. She was not like a girl at all. She climbed trees and she played cricket, she could hit a mango with a sling-shot stone as well as David, and their laughter rivalled the birdsong in all of Oleander Gardens. When she climbed trees she tucked her skirt and petticoat between her legs and stuck the hem into the waistband, and when she played cricket she lifted her skirts and showed her knees, and she never wore the anklets she was supposed to wear. She was a most indecorous little girl. Her parents were helpless, for when they reminded her to keep her skirts down she looked at them with big innocent eyes and nodded and promised, but somehow she always forgot.
There were other children, but none like these two. Savitri's four brothers, Mani, Gopal, Natesan and Narayan, kept to their own quarters, and so did the other servants' children. The Iyers lived at the back gate that opened onto Old Market Street, which was as busy and loud as any other street in Madras. The Lindsay property, Fairwinds, ended in the row of seven servants' houses, each of which had a gate opening on to the street. From Old Market Street the row of little houses was just that, a row of houses, and no passer-by could tell that each house had a back gate opening onto paradise.
The back drive divided the servants' quarters into two areas. On one side were the Iyers — a little grander, a little apart from the others, for they were Brahmins — Muthu the gardener with family, Kannan the dhobi with family, and Pandian the driver with family. On the other side lived the sweeper Kuppusamy with family, Shakoor the night-watchman with family, and Khan, unmarried. Khan was the Admiral's wheelchair-pusher. The Admiral's male nurse, the Christian Joseph, lived in the house with the sahibs. And no-one entered paradise who did not work there, certainly not the children — except Savitri.
&nbs
p; The front drive led into Atkinson Avenue, a wide, quiet street lined with jacarandas, where now and again the occasional pith-helmeted sahib in white drills cycled straight-backed to the Club, or two memsahibs strolled along the pavement, exchanging gossip and news of Home, or an ayah pushed a pram. In fact, ayahs were the only Indians to be seen on Atkinson Avenue — except of course the proud drivers of those black, hearse-like vehicles that sailed majestically down the middle of the street, and the watchmen dozing at the gates, and, every afternoon at three, Savitri.
It was a long walk from the house to Atkinson Avenue, a long sandy driveway winding through towering bougainvillea passageways, behind palms and a veritable wood of flames-of-the-forest and jacarandas. Near Vijayan's house the driveway calmed down and became more docile, lined with red, pink and yellow hibiscus bushes, a few oleanders and frangipanis, and bordered by canna lilies. Singh and his family lived in a pretty little whitewashed cottage next to the front gate. It had marigolds and jasmine bushes in the front garden and papaya trees clustered in the back around the well, and even if Singh was not on duty his cheery wife would be washing clothes in the back and Vijayan's dogs barked at you, but not at Savitri, for they loved her and ran up, wagging their tails and yapping when she came, leaping up at her, rolling in the sand so she could rub their bellies. She wasn't supposed to touch dogs, for they were unclean; but she did so because she loved them and they knew it.
If you turned left into Atkinson Avenue, and walked for five minutes past the Wyndham-Jones estate to the brilliant red half-circle where the flame-of-the-forest reached over the hibiscus hedge and cast its blossoms to the pavement, and crossed the avenue right there, you'd find a little path between the Todd and the Pennington properties. And if you walked down this path — though Savitri never walked, she skipped, she danced, she ran backwards alongside David and sang for him — for another ten minutes, you came to the beach, and the Indian Ocean, and you could bathe.