The Sleeping Dictionary

by Sujata Massey

  I was mulling over the book’s difficult ending when Premlata rapped on the door to tell me that Mummy wished to see me. I was only half dressed in my blouse and petticoat, so I quickly wrapped myself in a sari and went out to the veranda, where she sat with her accounting book.

  “A special customer whom you haven’t met will arrive this evening.” Mummy gave me her most insincere smile. “He’s called Mr. David Abernathy and is the acting superintendent at the Hijli Detention Camp. His favorite girl here is Natty, but as you know, she is on leave.”

  “Yes, I heard.” I was thinking of the name Hijli. Last fall, the newsagent had told Lucky and me about the slaughter of prisoners there who’d made the mistake of celebrating an Englishman’s death. Perhaps Mr. Abernathy had shot one of them himself. I felt even more querulous about this unknown man than I had Chief Howard. “He telephoned that he will be arriving later this evening, so I’m giving him to you,” Mummy said. “He does not like to sit in the parlor with others but goes directly to the room. You will meet him there wearing only some good lingerie. And scent is very important. What kinds of perfumes do you have?”

  “Just sandalwood and jasmine. Mummy, what about Doris or Bonnie—wouldn’t an Anglo-Indian girl suit him better?” I was loath to be anywhere near a prison officer.

  “Not in this case. He’s been with Natty a very long time, and if he finds he prefers one of the others, well, there will be a catfight the likes we’ve never had. You’re not in that group and”—here she lowered her voice—“he’s a bit different, in his tastes. He requires special patience. You’ve got that in spades, and really, my dear, you have no choice in the matter.”

  NATTY’S MONTHLY MADE her not only idle but also cross, demanding sweets from the kitchen and back massages from Premlata. I found the girl curled up in bed with a hot-water bottle and Vanity Fair. I told her Mummy was assigning me to Mr. Abernathy and begged her to explain what was different about him. Natty rolled her eyes and said, “Prepare yourself for a very long, boring night with the Taster. God help you if you’re ticklish.”

  “The Taster?” I asked, feeling confused.

  “Just listen.” In vulgar terms, Natty told me how Mr. Abernathy’s pattern was to spend upward of an hour laying out food on her body and then eating it with his hands and mouth. He would rarely desire sexual congress—just this ritual. I should know it was coming if he brought any restaurant packages or tiffin boxes.

  “Of course he’s fat,” Natty drawled. “That’s why I call him the Taster. I imagine he’s dining morning, noon, and night—and at all points in between! Imagine, coming into town to see a girl and not being able to stop chewing one’s cud for a bloody minute!”

  “What kind of food does he eat?” I could bear a lot but not to be treated like a plate on which hot, oily food was dropped.

  “Restaurant food: usually Indian and Chinese. One time he brought English food from his canteen. Beef.” From the look in her eyes, I knew she was trying to terrify me, so I thanked her for the information and left.

  There was scant time before his arrival, so I quickly slipped down to the kitchen. I resolved that I was going to do this well. I’d satisfy the man, earn my money, and keep Natty from mocking me for failure.

  When the Taster arrived an hour later, I was on the side of the bed wearing violet silk camiknickers. I rose, and without even looking at him, bent forward to respectfully touch his feet; but he caught my hands in his, pulling me to stand just inches away from him. He was big, but to my relief, not as grossly heavy as I’d expected. But he’d brought two tiffin boxes.

  “What’s this?” he raised my hands to his nose.

  “Cardamom. Good evening, sir. My name is Pamela.” From underneath my lashes, I judged him to be somewhere in his forties. He had likely been in India twenty years or more.

  “Of course, I’ve heard of you. Highest virgin price paid in Khargpur since Natty.” He inhaled my hands again. “So what do they have you doing, working the kitchen? You smell like that pudding. What do you call it in Hindustani?”

  “Kheer,” I replied, my heart thumping at the gamble I’d taken. “Sir, I hear you enjoy a feast, so I prepared one for you.”

  “Where?”

  “It is invisible!” I said, turning my head so he could bring his mouth to my neck and discover the smell and taste of fennel seed. As he undressed me, he found it all: the cloves inside the bend of my elbow, the turmeric on my shoulders, the saffron paste that tipped my breasts.

  When I’d sprinkled some parts of my body with spices, I’d hoped to distract the Taster enough that he wouldn’t put any of his own smelly food on me. And as I lay passively, letting him taste the hills and plains of my body, it did seem that he’d forgotten about his tiffin boxes.

  The Taster was excited, groaning his guesses of the various spices. Privately, I thought that his endurance—or rather, the muscular ability of his lips and tongue—was astonishing. Nothing that Natty had said prepared me for how invasive and disturbing this was. I had thought that by choosing the spices, I’d feel like I was in control; but I wasn’t. It was time to take a fantasy trip somewhere else, so I told myself the touch was nothing, that one day, there would be no more men like Chief Howard and Mr. Abernathy with their oddities and perversions; they’d be gone from India, because the freedom fighters would get out of jail and fight them to the death. And I’d help them all I could by telling them the men’s names, the weapons they carried on their persons, and the days they came regularly to Rose Villa and could be easily surprised.

  But my thoughts were not enough to change anything. And it was my bad fortune that I had intrigued the Taster so much that he decided not to go back to Natty. At first, I was surprised that she minded so much, but she didn’t like being shown up, and she was missing the income. To hurt me, Natty played little tricks to show Mummy I wasn’t a good worker. It wasn’t the case, for I now had a faithful group of about ten gentlemen who were likely to book in advance. It was my almost-English accent and the other language I’d learned of physical deception: making parts of my body rigid, and other parts tremble and quake, as if what these men were doing was as pleasurable for me as it was for them. These talents were almost eliminating my need to compete against the other girls in the downstairs parlors and ensured my savings’ growth. I hoped to have enough saved in ten months to escape the life and perhaps enroll myself in a school somewhere, to complete my education and even take the Cambridge examinations that were needed to become a teacher. I could not think that Pankaj would ever accept me, given what had happened at Rose Villa; but at least I could make myself anew.

  This was the only thing I was sure of: my ability to make money. Love and lust were other matters. What continued to surprise me, as the months continued, was how different the man’s and woman’s experiences were. The men all seemed to enjoy themselves very much. Yet I shared none of the excitement in my flesh or mind, and, in fact, there were still occasions that intercourse hurt like daggers, and I would beg Mummy to let me off the rest of the night so I would be comfortable enough to work the following day. Mummy didn’t like it but acquiesced because she did not want to lose multiple days of income from me.

  Those few nights that I took leave felt like paradise. If I didn’t have something from the bookshop, I’d drop into one of the empty parlors, take a book, and vanish upstairs. It was interesting how many books in the English language had been written about fallen young women: Clarissa, Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Fanny Hill. I was the only one who liked these books; the others preferred film and celebrity magazines, or anything about film or fashion in the Calcutta newspapers.

  Their annoying habit of cutting out photographs and adverts forced me to rise early to read the entire newspaper before it was cut to pieces. Those days, the news pages were full of a so-called German Problem—something nobody in the house really understood. I had not heard talk of it among the Indian Army officers in the parlor at Rose Villa, so one evening, I decided to ask the T
aster as we’d finished and he was sitting up with pillows behind his back, eating a real beef dinner off a tray.

  “There will be war here in India before Europe.” He spoke while still chewing. “There are too many rabble-rousers in India these days, with the meetings and processions and nonsense.”

  I wasn’t satisfied with the answer, so I said, “How could there really be a war here? Indians have no arms to use.”

  “Of course they do. The bandits who attack the wealthy jamidars in the countryside steal arms from their treasuries or enough money to buy arms easily on the black market. The prisons are full of thieves.”

  “How do guns reach the black market?” I asked. One day, I would use this information; I was sure of it.

  “They’re brought by the crooked native constables, of course, reporting a gun broken or lost—you can’t trust anyone.” He stretched one monstrous hand to grip me under the sheets. “Ah, here’s a fine black market! What is inside?”

  I shifted away, laughing as if it were a game. I’d already served him once; I didn’t want to again, especially with him in the midst of a beef dinner.

  “But why are you asking, my little morsel?” he persisted playfully. “Are you thinking of picking me off?”

  “Oh, no, sir,” I lied. “Then I would be too lonely. Won’t you tell me that funny story again—the one about eating the Christmas pudding all by yourself when you were young?”

  “Only if you’ll play the Christmas pudding.”

  MR. ABERNATHY HAD been talking about Indians hitting the English; but in the Statesman newspaper I read later that spring, I saw an article about Calcutta boys throwing stones at the police. All of them had been dragged out of their homes later that evening, thrashed, and thrown in prison. Their lawyer was pleading that the wrong boys had been wrongly arrested as all named parties were reportedly in school at the time of the attack. And when I saw the lawyer’s name, my stomach quaked, for his name was Pankaj Bandopadhyay, Esquire.

  Pankaj must have joined his father’s practice—and how exciting that he managed to practice law in the area of nationalism, which had been his earliest wish! If Bidushi could have known that Pankaj was well and working in politics, she would have been pleased. I wondered if he had married; for it had been almost a year since Bidushi’s death. For some reason, I hoped that he had not. But if he had married—and, in time, had a daughter—maybe I could be her teacher. Then I could fulfill my promise to Bidushi to watch over him.

  NOW I HAD a personal motivation for getting the day’s newspaper before anyone else: to find any mention of Pankaj and his important work. I had Premlata bring it with my bed tea, so nobody was awake to witness my tears when I read that he’d lost the students’ case. This was a travesty; still, I was convinced that he would keep on with his important work. As 1936 turned to 1937, he defended many people charged with sedition and civil unrest; only about a quarter resulted in acquittal, which did not surprise me any longer. And then, suddenly, Pankaj’s name was not in the paper as pleader, but defendant.

  Calcutta, February 10, 1937. Bijoy Ganguly and Pankaj Bandopadhyay face sentencing today on charges of propaganda, libel, and inciting civil unrest. Mr. Bandopadhyay had represented Mr. Ganguly as a pro bono client until the latter was arrested earlier this week. Calcutta police say Mr. Bandopadhyay knowingly paid for the printing of a Bengali pamphlet designed to incite public unrest regarding the case. The pamphlets were recovered by Calcutta police at Bandopadhyay’s Ballygunge residence. Police are also charging Mr. Ganguly for making false statements about maltreatment by the Calcutta police.

  I was very upset about the situation, but I thought the girls would laugh at me if they knew I secretly loved a Calcutta intellectual. So I privately kept watching the papers until, one morning, I saw the verdict. Pankaj received a sentence of two years, and Bijoy three, at the Port Blair prison in the Andaman Islands, a small colony a thousand miles off Bengal’s coast.

  It would have been hard enough if Pankaj were sent to Mr. Abernathy’s nearby jail, Hijli. But the high-security prison nicknamed “Black Water” was considered to be a far worse place. Originally created after the 1857 mutiny for the confinement of incorrigible Indians, the prisoners today were almost all Bengali freedom fighters kept in solitary confinement. There were rumors of polluted water, very little or rotten food, flogging, force-feeding, and other cruelties. But nobody knew for certain, because the prisoners could not be visited by anyone. If someone died in the Andamans, any excuse could be made by the prison officials. No one would know the truth.

  CHAPTER

  13

  JEOPARDY: . . . 2. A position in a game, undertaking, etc. in which the chances of winning and losing hang in the balance . . .

  —Oxford English Dictionary, Vol. 5, 1933

  On her deathbed, Bidushi had requested that I take care of Pankaj, that I always ensure he was well. Nothing I’d said or done that wretched day at Lockwood School had helped him through her loss, and my inability to reach Calcutta had prevented me from doing anything that might have kept him from his court troubles. My Princess would have died another death to know her beloved was in prison.

  This knowledge of how I’d failed both Pankaj and Bidushi—the only ones whom I’d become close to after losing my family—tore me apart. I wrote him one heartfelt letter, and then another, in an envelope marked with his name and Port Blair Prison, the Andamans. But each time I went to drop a letter in the postbox, I changed my mind. I didn’t know if prisoners would be given letters, and even if they could receive mail, why would he want to learn what I had become? He would certainly be insulted to hear from a prostitute. He should never know that the literary voice he’d once adored was now crying with false ecstasy to all kinds of bad men. So I didn’t mail the letters but tore them into tiny pieces, and then stopped writing altogether.

  I TURNED SEVENTEEN in June 1937, when it was very hot and we were all waiting for rain. The ceiling fans whirled at top speed, blowing out the candles on the cake that was served to me at tea. After we ate, I opened the many small gifts the Roses had given: useful things like cosmetics, stockings, French letters, and skin cream. I was genuinely touched; I’d never had such gifts. For a moment, my thoughts turned to my first days at Rose Villa, when I had been so excited and thrilled by the friendship and luxuries offered unsparingly.

  That afternoon, Lucky and Bonnie treated me to a matinee showing of a musical comedy with Deanna Durbin called Three Smart Girls that made me laugh very hard and forget my worries about Pankaj for a few hours. But as I came out, I thought about how I’d once thought myself very clever, but really had been more foolish than anyone I’d ever met. At Rose Villa, we separated to bathe and dress and then came down for the evening’s work. The girls drifted away from the main parlor, leaving me as the sole choice for a handsome young first-time customer, an army sergeant transferring between regions with a layover in Kharagpur. I knew my friends had meant this to be a favor, but when the man disrobed and I had a good look, I recognized the weeping rash from Dr. DeCruz’s photographs. I was so sickened that I did not have to feign the nausea that made me run from the suite.

  Mummy was annoyed by my abrupt dismissal of a new client, suspecting it was due to the lazy sleepiness that stemmed from two champagne cocktails I’d had during my birthday tea. She ultimately sent in Sakina, who was too fogged from opium to complain about anything. Sakina had used her mouth over a French letter but still developed such ugly blisters that she was put on leave for a month. Feeling guilty, I asked Sakina if she was angry with me, but she said that I had not made her do it; Mummy had.

  The experience with the sergeant confirmed my belief that the younger, better-looking men posed the highest risk to our health. Bonnie and Natty and Doris could not understand my pessimism, for all three of them harbored dreams that handsome army men would enter Rose Villa, fall madly in love, and whisk them away to become mistresses of their very own households. Bonnie’s own mother had been set up with her o
wn small garden house and two servants to tend to her. But the soldier had shifted back to England; and with the money gone, the household had dissolved. Still, Bonnie held to her dream of a European knight walking into Rose Villa, falling in love with her, and leaving with her by his side. This was why she sang so much in the evenings beside the piano, as if she were really just a film star playing the role of a singing and dancing girl until she found her husband.

  I also dreamed of leaving Rose Villa, but I knew nobody would ever take me away but myself. If only Mummy didn’t charge me so much for food and shelter. I’d calculated that it would be another few months before I had enough money saved to buy passage to Calcutta and cover school fees, housing, and food. But where would I stay—and which school would accept me? I had no inkling. Still, I set a goal that by the time that Pankaj was out of prison, I would be free from my own shackles.

  ON A STEAMY afternoon in late August, I went to the bazar to exchange some books for new ones. The rains were intermittent that day, making walking only a slightly dampening experience, and I noticed small papers littering the path that ran along the doorstep. I knew these papers were usually political-party messages, but this one had extra large lettering that caught my eye. A public meeting was being called to discuss the situation of the Andamans prisoners. It would be held at 4 p.m. in two days’ time at a local school.

  A slow, pleasant warmth spread through me as I read the notice more carefully. At this meeting, I could learn more about the prison conditions and any movement toward the prisoners’ release. The late-afternoon timing was unfortunate because customers arrived from five-thirty on, which meant I was supposed to be dressed and ready in the parlor by five fifteen.