Of Marriageable Age

by Sharon Maas

  As a matter of fact, Nat was distracted. Seriously distracted. Nat had discovered Girls.

  Nat had grown up with village girls. When they were very young they played alongside the boys and it seemed there was not much difference, but the older they grew the more it became clear that there was a very major difference; that girls were a species apart, slowly fading out of sight and into a world of their own where boys were not admitted, into a world of women where men were not permitted.

  In fact, there was a very precise moment when a girl became part of this secret female world. She simply disappeared into her home for several days, and then that same girl who till now had run and jumped and played on the streets like a half-child but helped her mother with housework and child-care like a half-woman, re-appeared. And she no longer wore her long gathered skirt and little waist-length blouse and shawl, but a sari; and she sat enthroned in womanly silence, garlanded in jasmine and rose, and men, fathers of sons, prospective sons-in-law, came to appraise her and talk to her father about weddings and dowries, and now it was said of her: she is of marriageable age. And from now on she lived in a secret, intimate, feminine world and only one man would ever be permitted to enter that world and to know her: her future husband.

  In Bangalore, Nat met girls of quite another species. Armaclare College was for boys only, but Nat was popular. He arrived a country bumpkin, but learned quickly; his agreeable temperament, his charm and his good manners easily found him friends. His schoolmates invited him home for the weekends. He became a welcome guest at their stately homes, where he met their sisters and female cousins, not to mention their mothers and aunts. He was their pet; their darling; they pitied him for his worldly ignorance (growing up in a village! as a peasant!), admired him for his wheat-coloured skin, and spoiled him silly.

  Most important of all, he met the Bannerji girls.

  The Bannerjis were devout Hindus, but Western-oriented. Their eldest son Govind was in Nat's form, a day-boy, heir to a stupendous fortune in the emerging computer industry, who had several sisters all of whom Nat had the pleasure of meeting the first time he went to their magnificent bungalow in a cool green and flowery Bangalore suburb.

  Five sisters, two elder, three younger — one still a child, but with a sublime promise shining in her eyes — each one prettier than the next! Each one with skin as soft and lush as a rose petal, dark long eyes containing secret upon secret, the soft silk of their saris flowing like water around their slender, supple forms.

  And these girls, for all their perfection, did not keep themselves apart as did the village girls. They talked, laughed, argued with him, joined him in easy banter, played tennis with him, and wrapped him gently around their little fingers. They had all been to England several times and possessed a sophistication and worldly knowledge that dwarfed him. They also possessed a quality beyond intelligence: a gleam of wisdom lit their eyes, and they looked into his in a way the village girls never had, seeing all, exposing his soul, daring him to approach their femininity, to lay down the prickly armour that separated them from him, laughing at him for his shyness, beckoning him on even while their purity held him at bay. His instinct was to bow before them. To prostrate himself. As if only in laying down the flawed, coarse dominance of manhood he could melt into and know the immaculate bliss and greatness of the feminine, denied him as penance for that very coarseness. They were Goddesses.

  Nat's mind hovered constantly before the image of perfect femininity. No wonder he could not get a grasp on logarithms.

  During their last year at Armaclare College, Govind married a girl he had been betrothed to for years, and Nat was invited to the wedding, held in the plush Royal Continental Hotel. The bride was of the same unapproachable beauty as Govind's sisters. She kept her eyes lowered throughout the ceremony and when Nat was introduced to her later she graced him with the barest of glances from beneath long sweeping black lashes. Yet in that one slight glance was a spark that again made Nat ache to know Woman and her inner secrets, to pace the holy fire with such a bride, his cloth tied to her sari, rounding it seven times, uttering their sacred vows, entering the union that would lead to highest, blissful Love.

  Govind would be leaving India around the same time as Nat. He was going to America, to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His wife would be staying here in Bangalore and attending the Musical Academy, for she was gifted in the veena, the traditional instrument of South India. After the wedding ceremony she gave a short performance on this instrument, sitting on a rich carpet before the hundreds of guests and letting a rippling river of music flow out of the tiny hands that barely seemed to touch the strings over which her fingers danced. Tears of deep emotion wet Nat's cheeks, and he envied Govind with all his heart, for this bride with the power to open such depths. When he next returned home he asked his father if he himself could not possibly be married before he left for England. He asked his father to find a bride for him.

  Doctor looked at him with surprise and mirth in his eyes.

  'You want to marry already, Nat?'

  'Why already? Many of my friends are already married. I'm about the only boy in my form who isn't at least engaged.'

  'Even the English boys?'

  'Well, no, not them. But I'm an Indian, Dad, and we have different customs.'

  'Yes. The English boys will probably wait a few years, and then marry a girl of their own choice. I thought that would be the way you'd be doing it.'

  'But . . .' Nat wanted to repeat that he was an Indian, but then he remembered that his father was, strictly speaking, an Englishman, a sahib.

  'Which way is better, Dad?'

  'Which way do you think is better?'

  'Well . . . the Indian way is certainly easier. I mean, I wouldn't know how to go about finding a girl and persuading her to marry me. What if she likes someone else better? What if her parents disagree? What if . . .'

  'Once you get to England you'll find most of these problems dissolving and you'll probably wonder how you could ever have wanted anything else, Nat. Because you'll actually realise it's not so hard to fall in love with a nice girl. Nothing easier, in fact. It's finding the right girl to love that'll be hard. Your hormones will probably have a lot to say about that and they might make some bad mistakes. That's a risk we'll just have to take.'

  'So why don't we do it the Indian way? Govind's wife . . .'

  'You were quite taken with her, eh? You'd like a girl like that?' Nat nodded, not looking at his father.

  'Anyone particular in mind?'

  Nat, encouraged and all at once hopeful, let the faces of the four elder Bannerji girls pass before his mind's eye. In particular he saw their eyes, each carrying a different message. Pramela's eyes laughed, and seemed to mock him, playing with him, yet hinting at depths he could not fathom. Sundari was gentle and warm-hearted and spoke not with her lips but with her eyes, which were liquid with eloquence. Ramani could talk the hind leg off a donkey. In her eyes shone the light of intelligence. Radha kept her eyes modestly lowered but, once you got a fleeting glimpse into them, they drew you into a place too secret for words…

  Each one was — he searched his mind for a comparison — an orchid, a rare, unique being radiating a mystique that foiled his fumbling senses, whom you could never possess but only adore, if you were lucky enough to win her. Each one contained in herself a wondrous, special universe he could spend a lifetime discovering. He'd be happy to marry any one of them. He was ready and poised to love any one of them, to make any one of them the focus of his life. Any one of them could help him find his wholeness. True, Sundari and Pramela were already married and Ramani would be married in a year; that was irrelevant. He could have married any one of them. They were all fascinating. In fact, he had never met a girl who was not, in some way, fascinating. Femininity itself fascinated.

  'I don't mind,' said Nat. 'Whoever you think best . . .'

  Doctor roared with laughter. 'Nat, I've managed to make an honest-to-goodness Indian o
ut of you. I just wonder how long you'll stay that way, once you cross the great divide . . . No Nat, I'm not going to choose a wife for you. Sorry, I just can't do it, I won't. I'm still too much of an Englishman. The Indian way is fine for Indians, might even be fine for you. But I want you to have a choice. If, after you've had the choice and can't find a suitable girl, you still want me to choose for you, then fine. But you have to remember: a Hindu family like the Bannerjis won't take you as a son-in-law. A Muslim family will want you to convert first. A Sikh? A Parsi? They all have their prejudices, their customs, and the parents will want you to adapt. And they certainly won't send their daughter to me, to keep for you till you return! I'd advise you to look for a lovely English rose when you get to London. And wait till you've finished your studies. Marriage would distract you too much.'

  'But I want to marry now,' Nat objected. 'I can't wait . . .'

  And the years ahead of him, stuck inside his coarse maleness when there was so much to discover, when there was this great need for Woman, this great ache for her . . . it seemed a hurdle too high for him to take.

  He arrived at Heathrow with the intention of finding a suitable girl and marrying her as soon as possible. A bride full of secrets waiting to be uncovered.

  19

  Chapter Nineteen

  Saroj

  Georgetown, 1964

  'Saroj! Saroj, the bridegroom is coming, come to the gate!' said Ma, just behind Saroj's shoulder. 'Oh, and Ganesh, I was looking for you, you should be waiting too, to receive the bridegroom...'

  Ma led Saroj away. She was reluctant to go. The bridegroom's coming…

  A shudder passed through her at the words. The bridegroom. This man, chosen by Baba, approved by Ma, whom Indrani had never seen, riding toward the house now on a white horse to claim his bride…

  Saroj could hear the distant drums as the bridegroom's procession, several streets away, made its slow way forward. It was a quaint tradition, brought by Baba from India, and practised only by Roys, having long died out among other Indians. But Baba had revived the custom among his own; so whenever you saw a bridegroom on a decorated white horse with a little nephew sitting behind him for fertility, and men playing drums and shehnais dancing around him, you knew it was a Roy wedding; that somewhere, a bride waited in trepidation, just as Indrani waited now in an upstairs room, surrounded by aunts and great-aunts fussing around her, adjusting her sari, painting her hands, scenting her hair, re-arranging her jewellery as if she were a paper doll to be decorated, and chatting all the while like a gaggle of geese. Saroj broke into a sweat.

  'He's coming! He's coming!' Like the whispering of trees brushed by a breeze, the guests whispered to one another in excitement. The chattering died down and there came a discordant outburst of the shehnais, wild and passionate, drowning the rumble of drums. The outburst was as short as it was passionate. The drums were nearer now, two streets away at most.

  The bridegroom's coming! Did Indrani, in her upstairs bedroom, hear it? Was the hair on the nape of her neck standing on end, as Saroj's was? Does she have goosebumps; is she sweating in anxiety, like me? Oh Lord, this is what will happen to me! That Ghosh boy!

  The shehnais again. No longer than one minute, wild, tuneless, brassy; and then the drums. And then the shehnais. And the drums. Nearer and nearer came the bridegroom's party. Shehnais and drums. Just around the corner now. Soon they'd be in sight! The whispering grew louder, the rustling of saris and palpable excitement increasing with the jostling forward towards the gate to see the bridegroom when he came. Ganesh at Saroj's side, Ma at the other… the crowd pushing forward behind Saroj… Do you see him? Is he coming? The crowd surged, pushing Saroj to the forefront with Ganesh. Baba was somewhere behind, struggling through the uncles and cousins.

  'There he is! There he is!'

  The bridegroom's party rounded the corner and everyone gasped and clapped in joy. The bridegroom! Dressed in white, and a little boy behind him, and the white horse clopping forward patiently. Men in white dancing to the drums, flinging themselves around in ecstasy; and now the terrible shehnais again, that frenzied fervent explosion of strident brass, and then the drums, louder than ever. Pushing and jostling on the bridge. Guests swarming out into the street, no longer whispering but laughing, clapping, dancing themselves in their excitement, heaving forward to welcome the newcomers. Bridegroom's party and bride's joining, mixing, merging. The horse, now in the midst of the surging throng, over the bridge and into the yard, and then the little boy lifted down and the bridegroom swinging himself to the ground, to be swallowed by the crowd. Saroj felt dizzy; sick.

  'Are you okay, Saroj?' Ganesh whispered behind her, as from a great distance.

  'I think she's going to faint! Ma, help her, hold her!'

  Ganesh's arm firm around her as he forged back through the crowd to the front door, opened it, and half carried, half pushed her up the stairs.

  'You'd better lie down,' he said. His voice was matter-of-fact. Solid. A brother. Not a bridegroom.

  The living room was filled with aunties who'd been watching through the window. Some of them saw Saroj supported by Ganesh and cried out, Saroj? What's the matter, girl? You all right? Ganesh quickly nodded and signalled to them to be quiet and pushed her up the second flight of stairs to the bedrooms. Ganesh carried her to the bed. She fell back into the pillows.

  Ganesh brought her a cold washcloth and a glass of water. He smiled and stroked her forehead, made sure she could be left alone, and slipped off down the stairs to the ceremony. The moment he was gone she stood up, went into the bathroom, and vomited. She returned to her bed, where she stayed throughout the wedding, trying to close her ears and her mind to the familiar chants of the priests as Indrani married a stranger. The next time she heard those sounds would be at her own wedding. In less than a year, if Baba had his way. She pressed her hands over her ears, pressed the sounds and the thoughts and the fears away into an airtight corner of her mind. It couldn’t happen. It wouldn’t.

  Not knowing how to fight the fact of her marriage Saroj simply ignored it. She sealed the threat of it away in an air-tight corner of her mind. She refused even to think about it. When that bridge came she would cross it.

  The joys of being thirteen were too pressing, demanding her attention, and she had Trixie at her side, only too willing to initiate her. Saroj let Trixie make her over into that most flippant, indecorous, impertinent and footloose of human beings, the Modern Teenage Girl.

  Saroj had been practising freedom for two months now. Baba, once having resolved to marry her off at fourteen, washed his hands of her and her wicked ways, and anyway, he was so involved with his All-Indian Party he was hardly ever home. When he was, he didn't notice that a red Hercules bicycle, Trixie's old one now that she'd been given a white Moulton for her fourteenth birthday, stood in the bicycle shed next to Ganesh's.

  'Do they fit?'

  Saroj wiggled her bottom one more time and pulled Trixie's Wranglers up over her hips. She had to breathe in to close the zip; though they wore the same size Trixie was decidedly straighter than Saroj, and these jeans were too tight around the curve of her bottom, and the waistline too loose.

  'Your figure!' sighed Trixie. 'What I'd give for a figure like yours, and you're only thirteen! You look more like fifteen!'

  There wasn't a trace of envy in her voice. There never was. Trixie could ramble on for hours about Saroj's face, eyes, hair, hips, waistline, legs. She'd swoon with admiration, she'd wish they were hers, but without even a shadow of resentment. And now that she had her to herself, was responsible for her make-over, she positively overflowed with wonder. Saroj was like a favourite doll for her to dress up.

  'Here, try this. It might be a bit tight around your breasts,' she giggled. Certain words, like bosom and breasts, made her giggle and she used them as often as possible. 'I wish I had your bosom. You're so lucky. Mine hasn't even begun to grow. Would you lend me a bra? I'd wear it and stuff it with sponges. I'm too embarrassed to buy
one myself. Did your Ma buy yours for you? How do you measure for one? Let me see — turn around . . .'

  Saroj had barely managed to button up the front of a skimpy midriff blouse. These things were all the rage that year, but Trixie's was too tight around her budding breasts. She felt she would burst out of it, though there wasn't all that much of her to burst. She turned around, looking at herself critically in Trixie's wardrobe mirror.

  'Fantastic! Oh God, Saroj, you look great! Like Venus! Here, let me see your hair...'

  She quickly parted Saroj's hair, brushed it over her shoulders, tied knots halfway down the two thick strands. She stood back to admire her work. 'Wonderful! Venus in blue jeans! If your Baba could see you now he'd fall down dead!'

  'I wish he would,' Saroj said, and frowned at the three inches of bare skin between jeans and blouse. It was the same with a sari, of course, but with a sari you covered your chest with cloth and you never showed your belly-button. Saroj felt half-naked. Too provocative.

  'Don't you have a shirt or something I could wear on top?'

  'Pity.' But Trixie rummaged in her closet and brought forth a long, pale-blue cotton shirt scattered with tiny white flowers. Saroj slipped into it. Trixie tied it at the waist, stepped back again, and clapped.

  'Saroj, we have to go out. I have to show you to the world. I can't keep you to myself a minute longer.'

  The house, now that Indrani was married, was usually empty in the afternoons. Ma spent more and more time at the temple, whereas Gan, in the manner of boys, was everywhere and nowhere.