by Sharon Maas
Never, Saroj swore. She'd cut it off, before then; or kill herself, depending on her mood.
The sari was in the puja room, a windowless little room which must once have been used as a walk-in closet just off the master bedroom. It was dark in there, but a little eternal flame burned still and smokeless from the spout of a small brass lamp on the shrine. The lamp itself was of brass so highly polished that it glimmered gold beneath the flame. In the darkness you could see the aura of blue-rimmed light surrounding it in a perfect halo.
Saroj wasn't superstitious, but even for her, and against her will — this room was holy. You could actually feel the holiness in every intaken breath, with the lingering perfume of that morning's incense mingled with the faint scent of rose and jasmine from the blossoms on the shrine, the sacred ashes from the little brass bowl and the oil from the little brass lamp. You could feel holiness in the way time stood still when the girls entered: time, and even thoughts, absorbed by the power of the dawn mantras Ma sang here daily, even before she went down to sweep under the house.
Guilt rose up in Saroj once more. She knew from years of experience what kind of thoughts you were supposed to think here, but Trixie didn't. I shouldn't have brought her, she said to herself, and glanced uneasily at her friend. She could see the whites of her eyes in the half-light, and the irreverent curiosity in them as she looked around, taking in the pictures of Shiva and Ganesh and Saraswati on the walls, the soapstone lingam and the black statue of Nataraj dancing, the rosary of rudrakshra beads on the shrine, and Ma's sword. She'd be having the wrong kind of thoughts, gross, worldly, curious, unholy thoughts, and she'd leave them here all sticky and heavy when she left, and Baba would know she'd been here, and when Baba the bloodhound came sniffing in he would…
Saroj didn't dare think further but quickly focused on the task at hand, kneeled down on the straw mat, opened the clasp of the heavy sandalwood chest next to the shrine, and beckoned Trixie to kneel beside her. But Trixie's hands reached out and picked up the statue of Nataraj and turned it around so she could inspect it, and she said, 'What's this supposed to be? One of your Hindu gods?' flippant as can be, so Saroj answered just as flippantly, 'That's Nataraj.'
'And who's that little guy under his feet?'
'Oh, I think that's supposed to be the ego or whatever. You'd have to ask Ma, I don't know all these myths and stuff.' She took the Nataraj from Trixie and replaced it firmly. She saw Trixie's hands wandering towards the Ganesh but before she could pick it up Saroj said quickly, 'Look, Trixie, the sari!'
And she raised the lid of Ma's chest.
Ma had brought this chest from India when she came to British Guiana to marry Baba. It was full of secret things. Saroj had inspected it many times when Ma was at the Purushottama Temple. Most of it was filled with wooden boxes containing little glass bottles, and those glass bottles containing all sorts of powders, little pills, herbs, dried flowers and all sorts of mysterious things. They were Ma's medicines. They rested on a wad of folded cotton, faded blue and slightly torn. It might have been an old folded sari but Saroj never unfolded it to make sure because she never wanted to waste time. Ma usually spent an age at the Purushottama Temple but you never could tell.
Beneath this folded cloth were some books which, arranged side by side, formed the chest's bottom layer. There was an ancient book of English poetry, called The Swallow Book of Verse, and another book of poems by some Indian poet called Tagore, and a book in some Indian script Saroj couldn't read, and an English autobiography of Gandhi.
There was a little gold cross on a gold chain in The Swallow Book of Verse, like a bookmark, which surprised Saroj because Ma wasn't a Christian. So why did she keep a cross? This was just another of Ma's little secrets — the secrets of a suppressed Hindu housewife who, not having much of a life, built her own from household banalities, symbols, artefacts, curiosities found in the Stabroek Market or brought from India centuries ago.
The chest itself was carved all over with the most wondrous figures, peacocks and gods and goddesses and flowers and trees, each tiny leaf in meticulous relief, three-dimensional scenes on all four sides and on the curved lid. Saroj's earliest memories were of tracing the labyrinth of branches, vines and snakes with a chubby forefinger in the semi-darkness, of delving with her toddler's mind into that wooden sand-coloured world, while Ma sat on the mat beside her, working her sruti-box with one hand, eyes closed in rapture as she sang for Shiva, her ardent voice sinking and rising and held by the full round single sruti note. Now Trixie, too, reached out to touch the carvings.
'It's so beautiful!' she whispered, and the awe in her voice consoled Saroj for whatever sin she might be committing.
'Yes,' she agreed, and opened the box.
The sari now lay on top of all Ma's secrets. A flat red square the size of a lady's handkerchief, protected from the medicine boxes by a folded bedspread. It was of a silk so sheer, so fine, so exquisite, that even folded it was not much thicker than a child's finger. Saroj lifted it and held it up tenderly. It felt as fragile, light and frail as a living baby bird, so slippery it felt alive, sliding across her little hands so that she had to cup her palms to stop it from slipping down to the floor.
Trixie's mesmerised gasp gave her deep satisfaction; she wanted her to see more, to wonder more.
'It's too dark in here, you can't see the colour properly,' Saroj whispered. 'Come, I'll show you in the light. The colour's the thing.'
'Are you sure?' There was worry in Trixie's voice, but already Saroj was on her knees, on her feet, walking to the door, across to the bed, holding the sari carefully and fixing it with her thumbs, placing it carefully on the white sheet where it shone in a pool of sunlight, in a thousand iridescent shades of red: carmine, and ruby, cerise, and blood.
'Red!' Trixie sounded shocked. 'I thought it would be white. You didn't say it was red!'
'Blood-red!' Saroj agreed.
'No, ruby-red! Look how it shines, like it has jewels in it!' Trixie slid a finger under a layer of silk and raised it slightly so that it caught a ray of sunlight and a breath of breeze, making it shimmer with liquid softness.
'It's Indrani's lifeblood,' Saroj insisted. 'She's giving her life away. That's why she has to get married wrapped in blood.'
'Don't say that!' Trixie raised her voice, horrified, but Saroj just laughed.
'But you should see the border,' she continued. 'That's the most incredible thing.'
Because, despite the biting sarcasm so carefully cultivated, turning everything into a joke the way Ganesh did, Saroj couldn't help it: the whole business of Indrani's wedding and the tradition out of which it arose alternately fascinated and appalled her, made her sick to her stomach, made her heart race and her own blood tingle.
The Ghosh boy came to mind. They'd send for a sari like this for her. They'd powder and perfume her and rub her with sandal-wood paste and turmeric and whatever, and draw henna pictures on the palms of her hand, and place jewels on her body, and wrap it with a sari, like this one. The sari symbolised the horror of it all — and yet it was so beautiful!
Now Saroj wanted to show it off, to get a few more ahs and ohs from Trixie, who had all the things denied Saroj, who led the life she wanted for herself, and to pay her back for being here, now, in faded frayed shorts and a tie-dyed T-shirt, looking American and casual and modern, with her black hair clipped so short it hugged her head in a tight cap like a boy's. Trixie and Saroj had exactly the same colour skin: dark chocolate. They had laid their arms together to see if one of them was lighter, but they were both the same shade. Exactly the same. And they were both tall and slim, Trixie a bit taller. They both had full lips, Trixie's a bit thicker, and huge black eyes, Saroj's a bit huger and blacker. But all similarities ended with their hair. Trixie's was African and as short as possible, Saroj's Indian and as long as possible. Trixie's crinkly, Saroj's straight.
What a glorious thing was this sari! Saroj couldn't help but feel its spell.
She clappe
d back one of the folds, and then a second, and a third, so that the sari now lay in two sleek square yards on the bed, the magnificent border revealed. Peacocks and roses; that was the pattern. The border was six inches wide, peacocks woven into the sari's blood with a cobweb-fine golden thread, in and out, depicting in minute detail and intricate artwork the eye of each spread tail, every tiny petal of every rose and rose-leaf, every tiniest feather, peacocks dancing among the roses, their heads held high and proud, their tails wide open to full circles, wheeling along the sari's edge.
'Wow!' said Trixie, and Saroj quickly clapped the sari together, some inner sensibility deeply offended. Trixie was so crude! Couldn't she feel that you can't say 'Wow!' to a magic like this!
'Do you know how to put on a sari?' Trixie asked.
'You mean wrap a sari,' Saroj corrected, putting deep dignity and authority into her voice. "Course I do!'
Indrani had been wearing saris for a couple of years now, ever since she got her first period. Saroj had been there when Ma taught her to wrap one, and she'd always watched, fascinated in spite of herself, whenever Indrani got dressed for special occasions; she'd seen her, and she'd seen Ma, wrap a sari a thousand times. There was nothing to it. It was in Saroj's blood, you could say.
Longing shone in Trixie's eyes.
'Saroj, you think . .
Saroj knew instantly what Trixie was thinking; their eyes met and they smiled in unison. Saroj unfolded the sari again and inspected it. Actually, there wouldn't be much of a problem, folding it back the way it was. It was creased along the folds, all she'd have to do was follow the creases. Ma would never know. It wouldn't take long. She'd be in and out in an instant. Just this once, to have Trixie envy her the way she envied Trixie, for something she could never do and never be: an Indian lady in a magnificent blood-red sari.
'Sure. But I have to wear a petticoat and a sari-blouse. I'll have to borrow those from Indrani.'
'But will it fit you?'
'Saris don't come in sizes, just in lengths,' Saroj said knowledgeably, though she couldn't be quite certain. But anyway, Indrani was thin and not all that much taller than her. 'Wait a sec.'
She flitted out the door and was back in a trice, clutching a crisp white petticoat and a blue sari-blouse. 'These won't match the sari of course, but it doesn't matter, it's just to show you how it looks.'
She stripped down to her underwear, put on the midriff blouse and buttoned it up, stepped into the cotton petticoat, wiggled into it and tied the drawstring tightly at the waist; it was three inches too long so she pulled up that much overlap and bunched it into the waistband.
The secret was to feel confident. Trying to look as if she'd been doing this every day of her life, she held up the sari by its upper edge and let it fall open to its full magnificence; so smooth, so light, so slippery, a delight to the touch; she held it against the petticoat where it swung gently as she confidently tucked in a corner; then, as she'd seen Ma and Indrani do, she grasped the rest of the sari in her left hand, and, holding the end in place, wrapped it once around her hips. She reached for it behind her back and there she made her first mistake. She hadn't counted on it being so very slippery, so very long. She missed some of the slack and yards of blood-red silk flowed gracefully to the floor to form a limpid pool around her feet.
She clucked her teeth in annoyance and bent to pick it up, but in doing so the tucked-in end untucked itself and that, too, fell to the floor.
'I'd better start from the beginning,' she said, a little nervous this time.
'Can I help?' asked Trixie, sitting on the bed and watching.
'No, no, sometimes that happens,' Saroj lied. Indrani and Ma had never dropped a sari, at least not while she was watching, and picking it up she found that the next problem would be getting hold of the whole long thing along one edge while it slithered and snaked around, billowing gently in all directions.
'Close the windows, will you, that breeze isn't helping much,' she said irritably, and Trixie sprang to her feet and closed all four sash windows so that a deathly silence and stillness descended on the room, all the better for Saroj's concentration.
Saroj struggled with the sari for an age. She managed to get it all bunched up into one hand and tuck it into the petticoat again and wrap it once around her waist, and breathed a sigh of relief. Now for the fun part. She flung a long loose train nonchalantly across one shoulder and tried to weave the remaining yards of loose fabric in and out between her fingers for the pleats, the way Ma did it, so expertly, deftly, this being the most important skill in wrapping a sari, but invariably it slid away, like a live thing evading capture. In the breezeless room, gathering heat from the sun's glare through glass, she broke into a sweat and knew it was time to stop.
'I can't!' she said miserably. She looked up at Trixie in an admission of defeat. 'It's no good.'
'It's all right, Saroj,' Trixie said comfortingly, jumping up again. 'But we'd better fold that thing up so that no-one sees we've been at it.'
'Okay, can you help? Look, you hold this end and I'll take the other and then we hold it between us like a sheet, see, and then we fold it . . .'
So they began folding it, and this time it was Trixie who broke into a sweat because the sari really came alive this time, slithering out of alignment every time they got it right so they kept having to start from the beginning. Saroj had her back to the door so it was Trixie who first saw Baba.
She froze. Saroj saw the horror in her eyes and swung around, expecting the worst, and there he was.
That face. The very same face. That face distorted by ugliness, the face he had worn when he had wrenched her from Wayne, a face filled with disgust. Baba took one step towards Trixie.
'Run!' Saroj yelled, and Trixie ran, squeezing past Baba and down the stairs and out of the house.
Standing there, paralysed for the moment, Saroj felt the impending eruption. When Trixie ran, her instinct was to run too, and she tried to slip between Baba and the open doorway and fly down the stairs behind Trixie, but Baba grabbed her arm. Anger spilled out of his eyes. His arm raised to hit her. This time she would not let him.
This time she fought back.
She writhed like a mad thing, kicked his shins, hit him with her free fist. She yelled her own hatred into his face, cursed him with the dirtiest words she had ever heard. Baba, unaccustomed to reaction, could do no more than hold her at a distance as she kicked and wriggled. He pushed her forwards into the room, tried to get his arms around her to hold her still, but that was his mistake because it placed his arm before her face and she dug her teeth into his flesh and bit with all the might and with all the hatred she could muster. Baba cried out in pain and let go. Saroj almost fell down the stairs, out of the front door, into the street and into Trixie's arms.
She was hysterical with laughter.
'I bit him, Trixie! I really did! I bit him, good and hard!'
'What will he do to you?'
Trixie's eyes were opened wide, her brow creased with concern.
'What'll he do? Why, what do I care? Let him do what he likes. What can he do? He'll have those tooth marks a long time.'
It was one thing, though, to declare open warfare on Baba in an impulsive outburst of rage; quite another to re-enter the house and actually face the dragon. Saroj was a sensible girl, not normally given to eruptions of emotion. Euphoric triumph at her bravado lasted but an instant. Trixie's words sank in and she woke up to bitter reality.
Far from having won the battle with Baba, she'd put a load of fresh ammunition into his hands.
'Go home. Quick,' she whispered to Trixie, who leaped onto her bike and sailed off as if a pack of hounds was behind her. Saroj looked up at the windows. No Baba watching. She slipped between the hibiscus bush and the palings and curled up to wait for Ganesh. Her heart throbbed so loudly she could hear it. Baba's revenge, she knew, would not be of the volcano-erupting sort. It would be of the key-turning-slowly-in-the-lock variety.
She was r
ight. Biting Baba only proved to him that she was too hot to handle.
Baba did not strike her this time. Instead, he brought forward the wedding date.
She was to be married the moment she turned fourteen, the minimum marriageable age for girls.
Indrani refused to wear the sari Trixie had touched. Baba sent a telegram to Calcutta, asking for a new one to be rushed over by express air-mail. The exquisite peacock-and-roses sari was still perfectly usable, though polluted by an African hand. Saroj's punishment was to wear that sari on her own wedding day.
‘Oh Ghosh!’ said Ganesh when he heard.
14
Chapter Fourteen
Savitri
Madras, 1923
Gopal did not take his babysitting role very seriously, and was not with them the day the king cobra came. He was a dreamy, sensitive lad of thirteen and, not accustomed to Mr Baldwin's unorthodox methods, preferred to sit by himself in the school room or in the rose arbour, reading, for Gopal was not only clever, he was ambitious. One day he would write the Great Indian Modern Novel. In English. He already had a title for it: Ocean of Tears.