The Sleeping Dictionary

by Sujata Massey

  Why would I look at a gentleman? I wanted to ask but was interrupted by the sound of a car door slamming outside. Lucky slid off the bed and went to look out the window. Through the opening, I saw an English policeman with a fat red face. Panic filled my head and my clean, perfumed body broke into a sweat. They’d caught me.

  “I must go!” I was already calculating how quickly I could get my bundle repacked and run down the staircase and through the back garden to the lane behind it. There would be no chance to thank Mummy and the others. No chance to do anything but run.

  “What is this? Why are you afraid?” Lucky grabbed my hands in hers and wouldn’t let go.

  I felt my breath come in short bursts, as if I were already running. “The policeman—please don’t tell him I was here—”

  “He’s not here for you; I swear on everything I own.” Lucky dropped my hands. “Lots of nice people are frightened of the police. Just tell me.”

  I should not have said anything, but Lucky’s face was so sympathetic that I confessed that I’d worked at a school where my student friend had died, and the police suspected I’d stolen her necklace. Lucky’s painted eyes grew large during the story, and when I was finished, she gave me a tight embrace.

  “I shall not tell a soul, but I promise again that Chief Howard is no danger to you or any of us. He’s head of the Kharagpur police and is Bonnie’s good friend,” Lucky said.

  “Her friend?” I asked incredulously.

  “Very much so!” Her happy smile was back. “Let’s go to her room and tell her he’s arrived.”

  CHIEF HOWARD WAS the first man I observed arriving at Rose Villa that day. Several more followed him during the hours from noon to three o’clock. Mummy’s girls ran up and down the stairway to meet these friends who, from the sound of it, were mostly English or Anglo-Indian. As I sat on Bonnie’s bed, trying to read the film magazines the girls had lent me, I found myself distracted by the laughter and chatter below. Why were these men visiting in the middle of the day? After four o’clock came a relaxed period when the girls washed, dressed freshly, and had a big tea, and then: more visitors all night long. I went to bed in Bonnie’s room by myself, just as I’d done the night before, but this time I hardly slept.

  The next morning, when I found Bonnie sleeping next to me, I drank my bed tea and waited for her to awaken. When she did, my questions were ready. Who were these visitors, and why were so many of them English?

  Bonnie looked at me through half-open eyes that still had traces of mascara around the edges. She said, “You’ll meet them soon enough. I’d like to take you into town today. We can run a few errands and go to see Bombshell.”

  After breakfast, Bonnie had me dress in European clothes: a blouse with fluttering sleeves and a skirt that left entire lower halves of my legs exposed. I was both excited and embarrassed to see myself in such a foreign costume. She wanted me to wear her high-heeled pumps, but I fell out of them so much that she relented and gave me a pair of glittery chappals left over from the girl who had once shared her room. They fit better than anything else she’d offered.

  I had not seen much of the town, so I was eager to go with Bonnie into the bustling Gole Bazar. To my surprise, Bonnie was not interested in any of the shops but went into a building she called a bank. The outside of it was guarded by chowkidars who wore high, stiff turbans and carried rifles with bayonets. Inside was a vast room tiled in black-and-white marble. A counter of polished wood lined one wall, and there were brass grilles separating the Anglo-Indian gentlemen who worked behind them from the queued customers.

  “Today is a big deposit.” Bonnie’s expression was bright as she showed me the packet of rupees inside her purse. She explained that the bank would store her money safely so thieves could not take it. She was depositing one hundred rupees, wiring twenty to her family in Cuttack, and keeping ten for the next week’s fun. I wondered what job she had that paid so much, but first I wanted to understand her vocabulary. Fun was an English word I had not heard, and when I asked for an explanation, Bonnie laughed and said it meant movies, restaurants, and clothes. She told me that part of the money she was putting in the bank included a fifty-rupee fee Mummy had given her for bringing me to Rose Villa. If I decided to stay at Rose Villa, that payment would be doubled. Why would someone pay for a girl to bring a friend home? I wondered, but these rich people were the strangest I’d ever known.

  “Soon you’ll have your money,” Bonnie said after we’d left the bank. She didn’t know that I’d lost every rupee I’d earned through Miss Rachael’s keeping it. To have money in a guarded bank seemed better than keeping it with a person.

  “I asked Mummy if I could please do some work in the house, but she hasn’t given me anything,” I said. “Maybe she’s still deciding.”

  After a pause, Bonnie said, “Nobody will give you the work. You must choose it.”

  “Tell me about the work you do. Maybe I could apply for a similar position?”

  Bonnie’s eyebrows arched high, and she seemed about to say something, then smilingly shook her head. “Let’s not think of work now. We have a picture to see!”

  At the Aurora Cinema, she bought my ticket and suggested we first visit the ladies’ lounge. After we’d done our business in the stalls, we washed our hands at sinks next to each other. Bonnie unsnapped her pink velvet purse and gave me a vial of oil to use for my hands while she repainted her mouth.

  “Your hands are not good,” she said, looking critically at the quick rub I gave to my palms. “Did anyone tell you?”

  “The beautician did. My hands are like this because I’ve done some housework.” I still was being careful with Bonnie; Lakshmi was a safer confessor for me because she was Indian.

  Bonnie was still looking worriedly at my hands as we left the ladies’ lounge. “Mummy requires hands to be softer. And how are your feet?”

  I’d gone barefoot my whole life until a few days ago, so my feet were as tough as a water buffalo’s hooves. I thought all of Bonnie’s concerns were quite strange, but I did not question them because I was more interested in the grand auditorium we had entered, with a stage before us covered with the widest, longest red curtains I’d ever seen. And then the curtains parted, the lights dimmed, and the screen became bright, first with words and then moving figures. In minutes, I had forgotten about Kharagpur and was transported into the world of California film stars and their elegant houses filled with mirrors and chandeliers and even small fluffy dogs. How unbelievable and gorgeous it was—but no more so than my new life at Rose Villa.

  AT THE PICTURE’S end, I emerged, blinking at the bright light and the India I had almost forgotten. Bonnie sang a phrase from a film song in such a clear, high voice that everyone looked. I noticed the attention she was drawing, but she did not mind. It was as if she wanted to be Jean Harlow! A thin, dark man who looked to be the age of my grandfather ran us all the way back in his rickshaw. Bonnie counted out three annas for him and, when he complained, gave him one more. She was generous, with a heart as big as her voice.

  As we came into Rose Villa, the chowkidar rushed toward Bonnie with concern on his face. “Miller-saheb was here but is now gone. He said he will return in an hour’s time to see you.”

  “Damn!” Bonnie’s red lips drew into a pout. “I’m going to have to hurry. Well, Pam, you’d better come up and give me a hand getting ready.”

  I was pleased to be of some help after Bonnie’s kindness to me. I followed her up to her room and picked up the clothes she tossed on the floor when she went in to bathe. I expected Bonnie to wear undergarments similar to what the older Lockwood students wore: brassieres and camiknickers and petticoats and thick pants that reached almost from the rib cage to midthigh. Instead, she had thrown off a suspender belt with stockings, a brassiere, and very small pants, all of which she exchanged for a new set in the startling color of black.

  “Take the red dress from the almirah—here’s the key,” she said to me.

  I turne
d the key, the door swung open and I found a V-necked red dress in a slippery silk I’d learned was called crepe de chine: the silk of China. I was stroking it with pleasure when a shouting voice below made both of us look up.

  “Do us a favor and find out what’s going on,” Bonnie mumbled, her mouth full of hairpins.

  “But Mummy said I shouldn’t be seen!”

  “It’s only a lady shouting; I want to know who. Take the back stairs, and if you peep from the landing, nobody will see. Go on, then!” She waved me off, and I tiptoed down the back stairway, trying to keep the wood from creaking. As I crouched on the landing, I could see that the shouting woman was a middle-aged Anglo-Indian woman wearing a plain dress. Mummy was facing her, with her back to me; this meant I wouldn’t be seen. I settled down to watch.

  Mummy was saying in a friendly voice, “I don’t know who you are talking about, Mrs.—”

  “Robinson.” The visitor interrupted angrily. “Leonard was here again last night; I know from the foul smell he brought home. You mustn’t let him in. We have three children and another one coming. I can barely pay the bills, yet here he is, throwing away his packet.”

  Mummy stretched her bejeweled fingers toward Mrs. Robinson’s shoulder, but the lady flinched dramatically. Mummy took back her hand. “Mrs. Robinson, I wish I knew your husband to speak to him, but I don’t. Kharagpur has many restaurants and taverns and clubs. Perhaps one of the cheap places round the railway station might be better.”

  “You’re lying.” Mrs. Robinson’s screech was like a teakettle on the boil. “I’ve heard Leonard call out the name Doris in his sleep, and I know there’s a girl by that name here. And don’t you insult the Kharagpur railways. It’s a better business than your horshop!”

  I drew back in the darkness, stunned by the insults the visiting lady was shooting like Ravana’s evil arrows. Horshop. What did it mean?

  “That is too much, Mrs. Robinson.” Mummy’s voice was as strict as Miss Jamison’s. She called out for the chowkidar who came and wrestled Mrs. Robinson out the door; all the while she kept screaming bloody murder. Then there was a banging of the door and a momentary calm. I waited breathlessly in my secret perch until the chowkidar returned.

  “She’s in a rickshaw,” the chowkidar said, between gasps of breath. “I gave him five annas to take her home.”

  “And you think you deserve to be reimbursed?” Mummy asked in her mouse squeak. “Let this be a lesson. If you ever again admit a wife, I’ll have your head!”

  I melted back up the stairs and narrated everything about the fight to Bonnie.

  “Must have been Leonard’s missus.” Bonnie stood up, smoothing the dress over her flat stomach. “He’s a conductor with the Bengal Nagpur Railway. He comes about every two weeks and spends almost his entire pay.”

  “But Mummy said to the lady that he never came here!”

  “What else could she do? The important thing was to get the ugly bat out before she saw anyone. Lots of railway men come here.”

  “But why do they come?” I asked, the deepening mystery of the situation overcoming my natural shyness. “Why must I stay upstairs, knowing nothing?”

  Bonnie snorted and said, “By now, anyone with sense would know.”

  Because I didn’t belong, I didn’t know. Feeling dejected, I dropped my gaze. Then recalling Lucky’s advice, I brought up my head and said, “Yes, I am new to this world. I can’t know anything unless you tell me.”

  “Really?” Bonnie laughed lightly, and with a wave of her hand, indicated I should follow her. She rapped lightly on Lucky and Sakina’s bedroom door. Lucky answered; she had her petticoat and blouse on, but nothing more. Looking alarmed, she asked, “Don’t tell me someone’s already here for me!”

  “Not to worry yet, dear. Who is in the Lotus Suite?”

  Lucky shrugged a slim shoulder. “Natty and a chap from the cantonment, I think.”

  “Ooh!” Bonnie knelt down and rolled back the flowered carpet on the center of the bedroom floor. Bonnie put a finger to her lips and looked at me with a clear warning. Then she removed a short length of wooden flooring and motioned for me to come behind her. The spying hole was close to a fan set in the ceiling of the bedroom below. The fans whirled continuously, obscuring the view. But I could see part of a very large bed that had its sheets tossed about. I could see a man’s back—thick and fair, with some blotches. On either side of the back were bare, golden limbs. They must have been Natty’s legs, because it was Natty’s throaty voice I heard, calling the man pet names.

  I blinked and pulled back, my head spinning from my first sighting of—I could not say what it was, for it was too shocking. I looked behind me and saw Bonnie and Lucky shaking with silent laughter. They were not surprised at all; they did not think it was immoral. Suddenly, I realized that this was what they all did. They were behaving as wives; the men must be paying them for it. No wonder Mrs. Robinson was enraged! It wasn’t horshop she had said—but whore shop. Was this Bonnie’s work—the job I’d innocently asked her about applying for?

  “Bonnie-memsaheb? You are wanted for singing downstairs.” Premlata’s soft voice came from the second-story hall.

  Bonnie replaced the wooden piece and rolled back the carpet, then was gone in a whoosh of silk to finish dressing.

  “At least it pays well.” Lucky was sorting through her jewelry box, pulling out necklaces hung with colorful crystals. “When I was at the temple, I had to do the very same thing, but there was no money paid to me, and I could never refuse anyone. At Rose Villa, bad men aren’t allowed back, and we have Dr. DeCruz to keep us from getting sick, and Chief Howard protects us from all other trouble.”

  “But I can’t do that!” I could barely look a male in the face to say hello; how could I be naked with one? And it was not just the doing of it that seemed incomprehensible; it was the embarrassment over something so immoral. That kind of touching was for married people. In my family’s small hut, with so many children and grandparents about, I had never caught a whiff of such business going on between my parents. It was a wonder they’d had the privacy to conceive my little brother. And if Pankaj ever learned I’d descended to such behavior, he would burn every one of my letters.

  “The men will be pleased that you don’t know anything. You must behave that way for a long time.” Lucky pulled out a purple silk sari with elaborate gold zari designs. “This is perfect for tonight; some of my customers like to pretend they’ve got their own temple maiden. They want you to wave incense around their heads and touch their feet: such poor, mixed-up blokes.”

  They weren’t the ones who were mixed up, I thought. It was wrong for the girls to behave as if they were married to these strangers. Yet my friends did not cry about it; in fact, Bonnie had been proud to put so much money in the bank, and I had envied every one of her rupees. I still did.

  I realized now that it was good that my family members were dead; they would never know the shame I’d brought to all of them by entering this house of sin. I remembered Miss Rachael mocking me, saying that an unknown girl could do only one job. As much as I’d hated her, she’d predicted the weakness that would bring me, a poor, stupid monkey, into the tigers’ cage.

  CHAPTER

  11

  Neither mother nor daughter nor wife are you,

  O celestial Urvashi!

  In no home do you light the lamp,

  when Evening on the pasture alights,

  wearily holding her golden skirt.

  With halting steps, with throbbing breast and downcast eyes,

  to no bridal bed you smiling shyly go in silent midnight.

  Unabashed are you, and like the rising dawn, Unveiled.

  —Rabindranath Tagore, “Urvashi,” 1895

  You are a sweet girl, Pamela. And you have the potential to earn more than any of the other girls who are here with me now. Can you guess why?”

  From my chair in the parlor across from Mummy, I shook my head. It was ten o’clock the following
morning. My eyes were red and tender from weeping almost all night as I debated whether to vanish from the immoral house before dawn broke. I had stayed only because I was afraid to walk in the night and could not imagine where I would go with the few paise I had left.

  Mummy looked at me and began ticking her fingers. “Your English accent is better than anyone’s, it’s true. And you’re quite pretty for a medium-complected Indian. But there’s a third thing that you have—actually, that I hope you still have—that I must confirm.”

  The only item of value I’d brought with me was the book of Tagore poetry, but what could that have to do with anything? No, it couldn’t be that. Lucky might have told her about the ruby necklace; Mummy might believe I had it and want it for herself.

  “You’re stiff with fear, darling.” Mummy settled herself more comfortably on the settee and patted the space next to her. “Have you never been to a physician?”

  I said that I’d been treated by a doctor once, a good Scotsman who’d saved me from cholera. I didn’t mention that I’d begged him to let me stay at his clinic as a worker, and that he’d refused. If that had happened, I would not be sitting here, facing such a horrible decision about how to live.

  Mummy’s breezy voice broke into my regretful thoughts. “All the girls see Dr. DeCruz. After he confirms your innocence and freedom from infection, I will be able to publicize your debut.” Mummy explained that if I accepted her offer, I would spend the next month or two learning to dress and make myself up. After becoming presentable, I would be allowed to sit with the girls in the downstairs reception rooms.

  “Come, I’ll show you.” Taking me by the elbow, Mummy brought me on a tour. The first room, still littered with empty glasses and dirty ashtrays, had soft sofas and lounge chairs and an upright piano. It was for Englishmen and had plenty of English books in the cases, too.