Of Marriageable Age

by Sharon Maas

  Still his father taught him to put himself last.

  One thing was certain: Nat certainly brought luck to Gauri Ma. Somehow Nat had always noticed Gauri Ma, sitting in the first court of the temple near the Parvati tank, holding out her stumps to him and his father. Gauri Ma had leprosy. She didn't have feet, just two clumps at the end of her legs, wrapped in rags, and her wrists were bent curiously forwards, so that they formed two hooks, in which Gauri Ma, though she had no fingers, could manage to hold things by pressing the stumps of her hands to close the hooks.

  Although she was a grown woman Gauri Ma was as thin and slight as a girl of twelve. Her skin hung on her little bones like a loose sack of thin, soft, black leather, and the ragged piece of cloth she wrapped around herself as a sari barely covered her lower parts. Like all the poorer women of the region she wore no upper clothing, but simply draped the shawl of her cloth across her sagging breasts and over her left shoulder. Nat noticed Gauri Ma the very first day she came to the temple, because of the lovely way she smiled at him, a smile much too wide for the little wizened face and much too joyful for the ragged piece of misery that she was, and showing a haphazard array of teeth reddened by chewing paan. That first day Nat, walking through the temple with his father, was stopped by just this smile. He stood in front of Gauri Ma (he didn't of course know her name), clamped the bunch of little bananas he had bought for the Mother gently under his arm, and greeted her with a smile of his own, the palms of his hands together, then pulled at his father's lungi.

  'I'm going to give her something!' he said to his father. Doctor usually did not give anything to the beggars; or if he did, he gave to all. He would change about thirty rupees into one-rupee coins and distribute them among the beggars. He said he had to do it this way, because the moment they saw you giving to one beggar, they would swarm around you and follow you into the temple as far as they could go, calling out behind you, so it was better to give to none, or all. So Nat's words were very extraordinary, but this did not occur to him until he had spoken them, and realised that they had no one-rupee coins to give to all the beggars.

  But the words were spoken, and words once spoken could not be withdrawn, and since Nat knew his father had no one-rupee coins he knew he'd have to give something of his own, so he took the bunch of bananas from under his arm, which were gold-yellow with not a trace of green, bulging with ripeness but not yet overripe, perfectly unblemished and as fit an offering to the Goddess Parvati as anything to be found in Town, and held it out to Gauri Ma, and she took it with her hooks and her smile widened all the more.

  'Thank you, oh thank you,' she said, and touched it to her forehead several times, bowing her head in gratitude, and smiling her lovely smile which made Nat want to cry.

  And from that day, whenever Nat saw Gauri Ma in the temple grounds, he would stop and smile and exchange a greeting with her. Sometimes he gave her a coin, but secretly, so no other beggar could see, and sometimes a banana, till all the other beggars came to recognise that Gauri Ma belonged to Nat and she to him, and they no longer minded when she and she alone received her offering from him. He was her tamby, her little golden-handed brother.

  For many years they were friends, and then, when Nat was fourteen, Gauri Ma got married, to a leper like herself but with a dirty beard, whose hand-stumps often oozed pus, whereas Gauri Ma's stumps were dean and dry and covered with scarred skin. Doctor told Gauri Ma's husband to come to the clinic to get his stumps bandaged, but he said it was too far to walk, so one day Doctor came with his doctor's case and told Gauri Ma's husband to follow him into the outer-outer-outermost court of the temple, to that strip of land all around the temple where trees grew and cows grazed and people attended to their excretions and dogs ate it up, and took him to a clean place under a jacaranda tree, and cleaned the wound and dressed it in a fresh white bandage. Nat did not much like Gauri Ma's husband but he supposed it was nice for her to have a companion, and Doctor told him that if she did not have a man to protect her, the other leper men would attack her at night and trouble her and steal the money she had begged that day. So it was good that Gauri Ma got married.

  Soon after Gauri Ma got married Nat was on his way home from Town, riding his bicycle along the dusty road, when he saw Gauri Ma walking along the side of the road. Of course, Gauri Ma could not walk properly, it was more a limping, hobbling sort of movement. Nevertheless she had covered much ground by the time Nat saw her. He recognised her from behind, not only because of her gait but because of the dirty-purple sari she always wore, and as he drew up alongside her he pulled the bicycle brakes and swung to the ground. Nat was now a very stately young man, towering over Gauri Ma's little bent body. They greeted each other with the accustomed affection, but then Gauri Ma said something about her foot and when Nat looked down he was appalled. Both feet were now open at the front. Where till now there had been healthy — healthy for a leper — skin covering the end of the stump, there was only a purulent, bubbling ball of flesh. Gauri Ma said she was on her way to Doctor's surgery, so Nat helped her to sit on the bicycle's carrier and brought her home.

  Since his father was away on the Triumph visiting a patient in the next village he cleaned the wound himself and bandaged it, the way he had seen his father do it; and where he had been disgusted at the sight of his father touching the sick flesh, even though he had been wearing thin rubber gloves, for some reason Nat felt not the least disgust.

  Nat went into the room he still shared with his father and brought back a pair of his own leather chappals, which he buckled to Gauri Ma's feet. They were much too big, but the straps passed around her ankles and held them on, and they would offer a protection and so keep the bandage clean for a while.

  While he was treating her Nat had the feeling that something was worrying Gauri Ma, so he said to her, 'Ma, you have still another problem? How is your husband?'

  'Oh, no, tamby, I am extremely fortunate, Lord Shiva is most kind to my husband and myself, yet still . . .'

  Nat probed some more and then Gauri Ma poured out her story: the other lepers, ever since the day that Doctor had treated her husband, had taken an intensive dislike to the couple and refused to allow them to share their common lodgings, which was an old ruined hut not far from the temple, where till now they had all gathered at night after the temple closed its gates. There had never been any problem, apart from the usual squabbles, but now they had all ganged up and pushed Gauri Ma and her husband away, and they had not yet found another place to stay, so they were sleeping on the corners of streets, but the people in the houses would kick them or hit them with brooms or throw water on them and make them move on, because it was inauspicious to have a leper sleeping outside your door.

  That evening Nat spoke to his father. Doctor decided to buy a small plot of land between their village and Town, and to build a hut on it for Gauri Ma and her husband to live in. True, they would have to walk somewhat to get to the temple to beg each day, and back home in the evening, but nobody could ever chase them away, for the property would be Doctor's. And this is what they did. Two days later the hut was standing and Gauri Ma and her husband moved in.

  Nat removed Gauri Ma's bandages and found the wound perfectly healed. People heard of this. Soon it became known that Nat had a Golden Hand for healing. Nat had recently been helping his father more and more in the surgery, but now the villagers liked Nat to touch them, or to give them their medicines, to place his hand on the heads of their babies, because they noticed that when he did so, wounds healed faster and infections disappeared sooner, and that Nat brought luck.

  16

  Chapter Sixteen

  Saroj

  Georgetown, 1964

  Baba had only two interests in life: Indian culture and his family. It was his sacred duty to protect them both. He was the custodian of all that was high and noble and pure, ordained, by the Higher, to contain and to preserve them from evil. Both were under siege. Modern society was evil. It could not be allowed to infiltrate t
he stronghold of culture, or his family

  It was imperative to marry off his daughters well. It is the sacred duty of every Hindu father, and Deodat took this duty seriously. He had succeeded — more or less. He had had to compromise, it is true, for there were not enough Brahmins to go round in the colony, and hardly a pedigree was pure. He had done the best he could within this limitation, and God would forgive him the rest. But preserving a family and a culture from evil was an uphill struggle and took a toll on his soul.

  By the time Saroj was thirteen Baba was like the dried-out skeleton of a tree on a dark winter's day. He had forgotten how to smile, and how to laugh. He stalked round the house like a dark shadow shrouded in white, looking for transgressions, punishing the wrongdoer, and falling back into that cold dormancy.

  His children dared not giggle or play in his presence. Every afternoon a pall, a grey sadness like mist would fall over the house when he walked in the door. In all their doings they'd listen for his car, scuttle at his coming when the downstairs door opened, like young puppies running from the whip of a cruel master, tails between their legs. He would disappear into his office adjoining the living room and all would be still for the rest of the day, for they dared not utter a squeak, and they dared not leave the house. There was something almost reptilian about the way he would slink around the house, leaving his study silently to check on them, then slink back to his work. Saroj might sit in the gallery, sunk in a library book — reading was her only solace, her only refuge, and she devoured books like a hungry dog gulps down fresh meat — and feel his cold eyes resting on her. She would wait, eyes fixed on a single word, convinced of her knowledge of being watched, and then look up to meet that insidious stare. Their eyes would lock across the room; Baba would nod, satisfied, and slink away.

  The Ghosh boy wasn't perfect, but he was the best Baba could do, and he was as pleased as he could be within the narrow mental space he had allotted to pleasure. Now that his family was taken care of it was time to devote himself to the greater cause, the insulation of Indian — Hindu — culture.

  Here, too, as in the case of his daughter's marriage, Baba had been forced to compromise. On first arriving in British Guiana, Baba had been aghast to find that caste differentiations did not exist in the Indian diaspora. Indians had been thrown together for generations, had survived and flourished as one distinct group, holding together for strength and companionship. There were Hindu Indians and Muslim Indians, even a few Christian Indians, but Indians were Indians and none were low and none were high.

  He had been loudspoken in his objections, and eager to bring about those reforms which would restore his people to their origins — in other words, reinstate a caste system. But that was impossible. Hindus had been mixing castes for generations — he might as well try to unscramble an egg. Acceptance of the odious circumstances and compromise was forced upon him; it was either that, or return to India. His great-uncles had deceived him in several matters in calling him here, but in one thing they were right: here he could be a big fish in a small pond, and his influence within that pond could be enormous. He chose to stay. And having made that decision, he saw new possibilities. He could make his own rules; his own reforms.

  Caste distinguishes between the pure and the impure, the sublime and the base, and only when the low exists can the high know itself as high. Very well then. High and low would exist again, and he, Deodat Roy, would model this new society according to his own insights and dictates. In India trouble was brewing between Hindus and Muslims, but to reject Muslims would be self-destructive, for Muslims were needed for the vote which would place Indians, all Indians, at the top. It was quite clear who had to be below.

  After all, there were Africans.

  It was Baba who first coined the slogan Aphan Jhat, Vote For Your Own; it was Baba who went among the Indians preaching separate development. It was Baba who brought about those first successes at the polls: the winning of the 1957 election and the 1961 election, merely because an Indian ran against an African and Indians outnumbered Africans.

  Baba was becoming a big fish. He had found a new breed of pariahs — Africans. Africans were the natural opposite of Indians — according to Baba. Indians represented spirit sublime, the summit of human evolution. Africans were at the nether end of that evolution. And they played right into his hands.

  For Africans flatly refused to accept Indian leadership. Over the years their rebellion and insurrection swelled and finally erupted. For Baba it was soon clear: Africans were not only the natural opposite, they were also the enemy. Africans were resentful of Indian prosperity, progress and political leadership. Africans would bring down the legally elected Indian leader, and if they couldn't do it by legal means then it would be illegal, by violence. Africans were setting fire to Indian businesses; Africans were striking, rioting and looting.

  And Baba's good friend and supposed ally Cheddi Jagan wasn't any help.

  'Cheddi can't control those Africans!' raged Baba. 'The differences are inherent! Africans and Indians can never work together, never live together! He's selling the rights of the Indians,' said Baba to everyone who would listen, first within the family, later to close Indian acquaintances.

  'Africans lack the qualities to build a nation,' he said 'They should either go back to Africa or be quiet and take the Indian lead! Where are all the great ancient cultures? In the East! India! Arabia! China! Not in Africa! That's a historical fact!'

  Baba broadcast these words for the whole Indian world to hear, words others didn't even dare to think; and didn't care whom he offended. Baba wanted to introduce a sort of caste system in the colony. Caste, said Baba, was a natural fact of life.

  'Some races are born with a higher spirit, born to lead, others are born low, capable of menial tasks!' shouted Baba at weddings and wakes and birthday parties. 'God has ordained that Africans should be society's feet! Just as a human body has a head and feet, so the body of society has a head and feet! The feet are just as important as the head! Without the feet the head is useless! Without the head the feet are useless! Indians are the natural head of this society, Africans the feet! But the feet should not try to be the head!'

  Baba had the instinct not to say these things in public, at least not yet, but he practised his speeches on his family. Many an evening they sat around the dining table, eyes fixed on him, petrified into silence while he hammered on the table. Three children and a silent little lady were not much of an audience, but these were just trial runs: Baba knew that one day he'd have other, more worthy listeners. Occasionally, about once a month, he brought one of the uncles home from work, a few willingly, others obviously unwillingly, squirming in their seats in embarrassment.

  Outside the Roy home, the world was exploding with violence. Baba's call of Aphan Jhat had borne fruit; Indians, being in the majority, had again won an election. Africans voted African and lost. Both sides plunged into a hell-pit of mutual hate. Trade unionists and the sugar-workers shook their fists in rage, politicians screamed at each other in Parliament, and the sabre-rattling on both sides of the racial divide led to an eighty-day general strike which crippled the country and brought it to a virtual standstill.

  Indians began to fear for their lives.

  In the year 1964, the year Saroj turned thirteen, the year the plans were laid for her marriage to the Ghosh boy, the year of her own private coming-of-age, the violence came to a head.

  Early that year, an Indian woman called Koswilla was run over by a tractor at Leonora estate; her body was cut into two. The tractor was driven by an African, who was charged with the death of the woman, but acquitted by an African jury at the Assizes. Indians seethed. Africans laughed.

  The home of an Indian in Third Alley was set on fire, turning the whole street into a flaming inferno. African gangs roamed about setting more fires, looting businesses and terrorising the Indians as they tried to escape. They beat the men on the streets, tore away the clothes of women and girls and raped them in publ
ic.

  In November of that year an African gang grabbed an eighteen-year old Indian girl on her way home from a political meeting. They threw her to the ground and stripped off her clothes. Two mounted policemen, Africans, looked on in interest, doing nothing.

  Indians feared to go out onto the street. They were attacked, robbed, mutilated, killed, raped by Africans, and even in their homes they were not safe. All this was just fuel on the fire of Baba's rage. He hired two watchmen to protect his house, one by day and one by night. He promised to put up a fire escape around the house.

  Georgetown burned. And Africans, said Baba, had made this hell.

  The British government sent in the navy.

  In December 1964 new elections were held under proportional representation. Though the Indian leader, Cheddi Jagan, received the most votes he lost the election to a coalition government. Forbes Burnham, an African, took up the reins of government. It was a slap in Baba's face. He railed against the British government and the CIA, both of whom, he shouted, had plotted to bring down the Indian leader, suspecting him of Communism.

  No-one was surprised when Baba left Jagan's PPP in disgust and announced the forming of the All-Indian Party for Progress, under his own leadership. Immediately all the Roys joined, for after all, which businessman, Indian or not, wants to join a Communist party, even one led by an Indian? So Baba's AIPP was a collecting bowl for those wealthier Indians disillusioned with Jagan's Marxist politics, but willing, if necessary, to form a coalition government with Jagan to keep Indians in power. Jagan could concentrate on the masses, the Indian sugar workers and rice farmers, keep them happy with his Marxist slogans. The elite — Hindus and Muslims alike of high standing — should follow Baba.