The Sleeping Dictionary

by Sujata Massey

  As if she’d noticed how longingly I’d looked at the books, Mummy said, “A long while ago, Englishmen had quite a funny name for us: sleeping dictionaries.”

  I had always loved the word dictionary; it spoke both of answers and endless possibilities. But this was a strange-sounding book. I looked at her inquiringly.

  “When the first Englishmen sailed over with East India Company, they didn’t know a word of any Indian language. How could they progress?” She raised her pencil-thin eyebrows as if expecting an answer, but I had none. “What saved them were women: local girls who became their mistresses, all the while teaching language and good manners so the fellows could speak to the nawabs and get what they wanted. My granny always said that pretty girls built British India through many sleepless nights of hard work!” This she finished with a smirk.

  I bit my lip, thinking of all Pankaj and I had written to each other about the unfairness of British rule. How terrible that Indian women helped the enemy succeed. And it angered me that these men had mocked them by using the name of the most important book in my life.

  “You can bite your lip the first time you meet a man!” Mummy interjected, interrupting my thoughts. “But not constantly. Come, there’s more to see.”

  Another parlor was for Anglo-Indians, decorated similarly but with a Victrola for playing records instead of the piano. The last parlor had a highly polished swing, sitting beds spread with fresh sheets, and a platform with Indian musical instruments. This room was intended for my race only. Mummy said that, historically, the British would not visit brothels where Indian men went because of suspicion of communicable disease. But I imagined the divisions were also because each group disliked the other and thus could not bear to sit together. I guessed that Pankaj would never enter such a place, no matter how fine the furnishings; it was outside his moral code. There was no danger of his coming here and discovering me, but I hated the thought of losing myself to customers, instead of waiting for him.

  Mummy pledged that she would show me to everyone. It would only help raise my price. After enough suitable offers were placed, she would accept the highest bidder. She promised that I would not be hurt and that the money I would earn from the debut night would be more than most of her girls earned in a month. She would take only half, as was her custom. Room and board would be deducted from my portion, but I could bank the remainder or have her keep it in her bedroom lockbox.

  “Most of our girls like the convenience of having their cash in-house; but it is up to you to decide later.” I felt her eyes on me, as if she knew how much I wanted the money. “I ask you to stay on with us for a full month after your debut. The first time you are with a man is not a good indicator of what things will be like. It always gets better.”

  To walk in front of men I didn’t know. To be given to whoever paid the most. To have my most private place made public. All of it laid out so crassly made me feel like fainting. Again, I thought of Pankaj waiting in Calcutta, alone with his heartbreak. In a small voice, I said, “You once said that I could leave.”

  “Of course you may still leave!” Mummy’s posture straightened. “Go on your way! Your old clothes have been washed, and you are welcome to take them and whatever else you have upstairs. But what are your choices, Pamela? If you fall into the hands of ruffians, you will find yourself in a situation much worse than this, and for that you’ll receive a few annas and no shortage of abuse.”

  So many times I should have died already: first in the great tidal wave, next from cholera, and then in custody of the police. All of these horrors I had managed to escape through my own actions. Rose Barker was right. I had to put away my schoolgirl dreams about Pankaj Bandopadhyay to accept the only work for which I was qualified.

  Mummy’s tiger eyes were looking at me sadly; there were even tears blurring their black rims. I did not believe these tears, but I understood that she was offering me my best chance to prosper and never fear a night without shelter. And despite the shame I felt about such business, I had never eaten so well before—or been able to wash myself so comfortably—or sleep between soft sheets at night, surrounded by friends.

  I told myself I was not the same person anymore. The happy peasant girl called Pom had been washed away in a flood, and the servant girl Sarah had vanished before the police had come. Who was left? Pamela, the girl everyone thought was pretty and well spoken. Pamela could earn packets of money to keep in the bank: money that could take her wherever she wanted to go.

  As I said yes in a low voice to Mummy, I knew that I did not miss being Sarah. But in my heart, I still cried for Pom.

  AFTER THAT CONVERSATION, things happened quickly. It started with a visit from Dr. DeCruz. The experience was even more humiliating than I had expected: lying on a bed in one of the suites while he poked at me with metal things, looking at the secret place I had never even seen for myself. The doctor said that I would be subject to such physical examinations from him twice monthly.

  “That, of course, is nothing compared to regulations of days of old.” He elaborated that, in the past, prostitutes with symptoms who were working at the official British military brothels were forcibly kept in a place called a lock hospital. But his modern medicines could cure almost anything; he said I should never hide painful symptoms or delayed menses. He also showed me gruesome pictures of men’s private parts, which he explained showed symptoms of various diseases. If I were wise, I would avoid anyone showing such signs and inform Mummy.

  Dr. DeCruz looked as Indian as I did, but his name meant that he’d had a Portuguese ancestor, someone who had probably done to an Indian woman what Mummy’s Ingrej customers were doing today. There was a cross inside his bag, and I guessed he might be Catholic. I wondered whether it was wrong for someone of his faith to perform such assistance to Rose Villa. I asked Bonnie about this, and she reminded me that prostitution was legal in India and the doctor was obliged to serve the needs of the British just like everyone else.

  The following day a seamstress came to measure me, and while I stood in Bonnie’s bedroom, half dressed and shivering, she, Lucky, and Mummy discussed a series of costumes to be made. There would be pink, yellow, and white nightgowns trimmed with lace, a pretend school uniform, various saris, and a dancing girl’s costume with a tiny blouse and full, low-waisted skirt. English dresses were cut for me as well, but I would not be allowed to wear them until I could walk properly in high heels, which I now practiced for an hour daily, making circles around the small veranda and along the garden paths. Everything was happening in a way that made it possible for me to think only of clothes and grooming and advertising, not of the upcoming act that would change me forever.

  Mummy sat at the desk in the parlor, chewing a pencil while she struggled to write an advertisement that would run in the Kharagpur and Calcutta papers. Exotic Indian Rosebud has joined the bevvie of beautys in Khargpur. For details about debut, write to Box 247 or telephone KH912. She showed it to me, and despite my misgivings about the whole business, I felt compelled to correct her spelling.

  Bonnie and Lucky taught me about French letters, lambskin sheaths that I practiced rolling over bananas until the girls deemed me proficient. I couldn’t imagine anything the size of a fruit fitting into me; when I expressed my worries, they both laughed. But then Lucky became serious and warned that some customers would attempt to convince me against using French letters, and I would need to stand firm.

  “You have noticed there are no children here,” Lucky said. “Hearing babies cry and children chatter reminds men of their own brats at home, so they aren’t allowed. If your belly swells, you cannot stay here. And then there’s disease, of course. The soldiers especially can shoot diseases inside you!”

  “Lucky, stop! Pam already saw Dr. DeCruz’s pictures. You will be fine,” Bonnie said to me. “Just remember that the French letters are kept in the ebony box on top of each nightstand. You don’t even have to open a drawer to get one.”

  Learning my way aroun
d the lovers’ suites was another task. The beds were larger, and the nightstands next to them were filled with various accessories the girls took giggling pains to explain. And the thing about it was, for my first time—actually, the first dozen times—I was to behave as if I knew about none of these sticks and scarves and feathers; to behave with modesty and fear, as would befit a virgin. I nodded, thinking to myself that surely I would never be bold enough to use the things.

  One week turned into two, and inquiries about me kept coming. Every evening, I was dressed in the schoolgirl uniform, with my hair oiled and plaited, but with bare legs disappearing into Bonnie’s treacherous high-heeled pumps. Carrying a copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, I would come down the stairs when summoned to the parlor.

  This was the hardest part, for it meant facing men who were mostly English: the most terrifying individuals I could imagine. Blue-eyed devils, I remembered the children saying to one another in Johlpur. I was supposed to face these devils as they drank whiskey and looked me over with bad purposes in mind. My dreams of discussing great books with Pankaj had faded, just as the sun had set outside the villa’s shuttered windows.

  The only way I could calm my breathing was when Bonnie was with me. Sometimes, while we awaited being chosen, Bonnie sang film songs while one of the gents played the piano. Her encouragement, whether it was a wink, an arm around my shoulders, or kind compliments, kept me from fleeing. Her singing cheered me into thinking we were playing roles in the cinema—that this was only pretend.

  “Our Pamela once attended one of the finest boarding schools in Darjeeling, and her nature is friendly and intelligent,” Mummy would say. “Darling, won’t you read from Mr. D. H. Lawrence’s brilliant book to us? It is so provocative.”

  And I would read until Mummy would say something like, “Up to bed, now, darling, it’s time for you to get your rest. You have a very big event coming up, whenever the right man comes to gently-gently teach you the ways of the world. . . .”

  I would stand up and clumsily drop my book to the floor, resulting in one or two men in the room having the chance to watch me bend over for it. At least I couldn’t see their faces: that was the only saving grace of this humiliating exposure.

  Each night, more men came, and the telephone rang with inquiries as far as Calcutta. Mummy ran a second announcement, saying that bids on the Exotic Indian Rosebud would close in five days’ time. My official age had dropped from fifteen to just fourteen; but my lineage had escalated. Mummy claimed that I was the daughter of the concubine of a nawab who had sponsored my schooling until a terrible stroke had felled him. The Englishmen nodded and smiled at the story, showing their narrow yellow teeth. One man even boasted that he’d been to dinner at the same nawab’s palace. For Englishmen, image and self-importance were everything; even when talking to a brothel owner.

  “What should my last name be?” I pondered aloud to Lucky one sunny September morning when we rode a rickshaw into the Gole Bazar. Lucky was on leave, as everyone politely termed the seven-day abstinence for menstruation. Because she had the time, she’d been tasked with picking up the July 1935 Photoplay downtown and to bringing me to a cobbler to order my first pair of proper high-heeled shoes.

  “That’s right; to have a bank account you need a surname. The girls with bank accounts use the name Barker—” Lucky broke off because her attention had been taken by the banging and shouting sounds from a nearby street.

  As we’d walked from where the rickshaw-wallah dropped us toward the shops, I heard a dull roar coming from somewhere, but I had not paid mind until now, when the sound was close enough to distinguish as male voices. As their shouts grew close, Lucky pulled me into the doorway of a newsagent, and this made me nervous, too. The shop’s grille door was pulled down to the ground, even though it was already noon. Lucky rattled the grille, calling for someone to open it. A small middle-aged man wearing a wrinkled shirt and dhoti grudgingly came to lift the grille open but closed it quickly after we had entered.

  “You should buy something after what I did for you.” The man’s eyes raked us, as I’d learned was always the case when men recognized us. Rose Villa girls did not look like ordinary Kharagpur women, which meant that boys as young as eight and very old men, too, looked boldly and made vile noises.

  “Of course. Thank you, Lahiri-babu,” Lucky said, giving him a cheeky smile that was all empty promise. Through the bars of the window, we watched the throng of men, dressed in white with matching Congress caps just like the people who had challenged Bidushi and me outside the sari shop.

  “Are they Congress Party?” I asked the news-wallah, who was staring out the grille along with us.

  “Yes, they are, and do you see the green-and-white flags? That is for the Muslim League. They are together with the Congress Party in political protest as they have done before. A few years ago there was a terrible event at Hijli Detention Camp. At the time, some prisoners were cheering because they had just heard that an English judge had been killed: one who had given a death sentence to a freedom fighter.”

  “I have heard very little about it; tell me more, please,” I said, remembering hearing some vague mention of a prison massacre in one of Pankaj’s letters.

  “The jailers at Hijli were so angry about the rejoicing prisoners that they shot into the cell and killed two men and injured many others. Most people were afraid to protest that year, but today it seems different.” The clerk looked out the window, and his expression seemed almost proud.

  “It’s better that Natty and Bonnie and Doris are still at home,” Lakshmi murmured in my ear.

  I nodded, thinking it could be dangerous for English-looking girls to be in town at such a time. With my eyes, I continued to follow the stream of marchers. Not all wore Congress caps; some wore high Sikh turbans or small crocheted Muslim caps. But most were Hindus with tika marks smeared on their foreheads showing they had worshipped before joining the procession. Their signs bobbed up and down: REMEMBER THE FALLEN HEROES. FOR OUR MOTHER COUNTRY, WE STAND READY TO DIE. Even more forceful than these words were the faces bearing expressions somewhere between elation and violence.

  “They’re not going to bother Indian merchants,” Mr. Lahiri said, as if he’d noticed my staring at the lathi carriers. “I’ve been hanging a Congress flag for several days.”

  “Where will those people go with their lathis?” Lucky asked wonderingly. “They might smash something to pieces: hopefully, not the cinema or the bank!”

  “They may be going to the Masonic temple.”

  Lucky and I exchanged glances. We had never been inside the place that had nothing to do with worship. It was the seat of the society of Masons who were all English, many of them part of the railway administration. Indians surrounding their precious building would make them feel trapped, the way I had been when the floodwaters rose up around the tree.

  “We should see for ourselves. Look, lots of others are following,” I said, noticing some townspeople emerging from their houses to join the wake of the procession.

  “Of course we can’t go—it’s dangerous.” Lucky was busy paging through the Photoplay. “Lahiri-babu, I will buy this magazine. Thank you so very much for giving us shelter.”

  “Let’s just go a little bit farther,” I said to Lucky once we’d stepped outside. I felt like a tremendous happening was afoot, and I felt like I wanted to see a little bit more. I’d never seen Indians standing up to the British; the idea of it gave me a thrill.

  “Okay, just a bit,” she agreed, her expression dubious. We joined hands to keep from being forced apart. We moved with the crowd into the larger street, passing the bank that was indeed shuttered, its entrance guarded not by one guard but by a line of two dozen guards wearing khaki uniforms and small, round black hats, carrying lathis and rifles. The marchers now appeared to be about three hundred strong. A few dozen police holding guns lined the borders of the street. For the first time, I felt a quiver.

  “Go home now. This is your final warn
ing!” A tall officer spoke into a metal cone. A chill ran through me. But a corresponding roar came from the people surging toward the police, pelting them with sandals and rocks. Then, at the first rifle shot, the shouting turned to screams. Now the police had dissolved into the crowd and were hitting the men and boys with lathis. I heard the sound of wood breaking bone, more shots and screams, wails and bellows of anger from all sides. My stomach clenched as I realized this would not be the spectacle I’d hoped for but a dangerous melee.

  Lucky pulled my hand so hard I could not ignore it. I finally understood that if we stayed, we would be hurt. As we hurried against the procession’s tide, I saw police heading for us. One constable raised his lathi overhead; but his companion shouted something that made him put it down.

  “Run home to Mummy, girls. Not the place for you!” the second policeman said to us, with a kind of half leer. My cheeks burned with embarrassment. Too many people could tell our background without our saying a word. I was ashamed of this and also for not being as brave as the people who wouldn’t run and were suffering the consequence. I could never be the kind of freedom fighter that Pankaj had written about.

  Five minutes later, we had found a rickshaw on the outskirts and were on our way back to Rose Villa.

  “I’m not going shopping with you again,” Lucky said in a shaking voice. “My new magazine’s torn, I lost a heel, and if that English policeman says something about us to Chief Howard or Mummy, we will be ruined. Mummy wants no conflict with the British whatsoever.”

  Lucky warned me not to say anything at tea about what happened, so I didn’t. We just passed around the Photoplay magazine. By the next day, however, the riot was public knowledge. The servants reported that in the downtown section, one man died and three dozen people, including women and children, had severe injuries. I knew that we were fortunate to have escaped when we did, but I still felt like a coward.