The Sleeping Dictionary

by Sujata Massey

  He would not get his newborn baby. I would not have the love of my daughter. The marriage I’d run to, because I wanted to follow my heart, would never result in a family. It would not be a happily ever after. All this I thought about as we lay back-to-back, instead of in each other’s arms.

  CHAPTER

  43

  REVELATION: 1. The disclosure or communication of knowledge to man by a divine or supernatural agency.

  —Oxford English Dictionary, Vol. 8, 1933

  I went back to Chandernagore the next week with the hope that Kabita had softened. But Mother Superior said she refused to see me, even though she was being punished for the rudeness of it. I asked the nun to please release her from detainment and returned to Calcutta feeling sad yet still determined to keep visiting until my daughter’s anger faded. It was a wretched holiday. But for every Friday that I made sweets and traveled to her school, I had another rejection. And in between each visit were six long days in Calcutta, a city besieged by its own unhappiness.

  1946 brought the long-awaited trials for the Indian National Army. The British had decided not to press charges against soldiers who’d joined, but to bring to trial a few INA officers whose actions were considered treasonous against the Government of India or who’d committed war crimes. The first officer to face charges, Abdul Rashid, was sentenced to seven years’ labor for physical atrocities against his own troops. Students in Calcutta reacted to the decision by rioting, which led to a violent police counterreaction. A day after the Calcutta riots Bengal’s Chief Minister H. S. Suhrawardy gave a powerful speech about injustice. His audience became so inflamed that they rushed straight at the police cordons and more blood flowed. It did not matter what Mr. Rashid had done to the soldiers under him; it mattered only that he was Indian and that those who had convicted him were British.

  The morning after the second riot, I sat at the dining table having breakfast and reading the papers with Simon. At the end of my translation of the article about the events, Simon sighed heavily.

  “What are you thinking, darling?” I asked.

  “That I don’t believe in happy endings anymore.”

  “Certainly not after reading something like that,” I said. “And to think there are still two trials left to go.”

  Jatin walked in with a silver tray holding two more pieces of toast, each browned to our individual tastes. He smiled as I took mine and waited for Simon to take one; but Simon pushed his plate away. Jatin looked at the uneaten eggs on the plate in consternation.

  “Go,” Simon said to him; unusually short, I thought. When Jatin had departed, Simon turned his tense gaze on me. “You were out of town last Friday. Where were you?”

  It wasn’t like him to question my activities. Keeping my eyes on the newspaper, as if the articles were very fascinating, I said, “Last Friday? The orphans’ home, as usual. Why?”

  “Think again.” Simon pulled the newspaper from me. “You never work there on Fridays.”

  Now I looked into his face; from the intensity of his eyes, I could tell that he knew. Simon said, “You were seen at Howrah Station last Friday afternoon. One of our agents followed you again to Chandernagore, the place you’ve visited the last five Fridays.”

  “You spied on me?” I was suddenly cold.

  “It was Weatherington’s operation. He gave me the report.” Simon steepled his fingers and looked at me over the top. “Never my idea; but it was worth it to have the truth at last.”

  It was so very quiet in the dining room. No noise from the kitchen, garden, or street. It felt as if the world had stopped and all that existed was the blood pounding in my head. I began, “There are orphans in Chandernagore.”

  Simon held up a hand, stilling me. “As you know, Chandernagore is still French territory, outside the reach of our government and police. Radicals hide there. You are always seen carrying a tiffin box to Chandernagore and back; obviously there’s something else inside.”

  “It’s just food—Manik can tell you, he washes it each time. I don’t know how you can look me in the face and accuse me of such nonsense!” Despite the confident words, I felt my stomach churn.

  Simon looked at me steadily. “I know about the second desk key you carry; I found it on the key ring, that time I helped you with the rice kitchen. That’s why I went away. I needed time to collect myself.”

  I’d given him the key ring so he could go into a kitchen cabinet; and then, after he’d left to stay at his club, I’d found he had cleaned out his desk. He had taken the papers to protect them from me. Slowly, I said, “I remember that day. I thought you went away because you were afraid of the emotion you felt.”

  “Emotion brought me back,” he said, his eyes shining as if they were on the brink of tears. “I was helpless in my feelings for you. You fell into my arms when I returned; you said that you loved me. I told myself this meant my fears were wrong. But bad memories keep surfacing. You knew that I’d written the governor’s letters. And you’ve always been frank about your political feelings.”

  I was silent for a minute, realizing there was no way the story could come out well. “I’m sorry, Simon. I have looked inside your desk, but not for several years. And things have changed. India’s becoming free. There’s no need to punish freedom fighters.”

  Simon shook his head. “You’re lying to me about Chandernagore, so how can I believe anything you say is genuine?”

  “I don’t know how to convince you—”

  “Bring forth witnesses from this so-called orphans’ home in Chandernagore. Not just for last week, but all the weeks beforehand. They’ll make sworn statements before a judge. And they’ll consent to official interviews.”

  I would not sacrifice my daughter to being questioned by him and Mr. Weatherington; to have her life upset by British investigators. Kabita might tell them that I’d given her away—that she was my out-of-wedlock daughter, putting the final ugly brushstrokes on Simon’s ghastly picture of me. Stiffly, I said, “I visited that town for a reason entirely unrelated to politics. But I really can’t talk about it.”

  “I gave you a good job, then my heart and all my worldly possessions. Wasn’t that enough?” Simon exhaled hard. “Why would you steal secrets from me? Who took your information, the Nazis or Japanese?”

  “Neither, and please listen to me!” I reached out to touch his hands, but he jerked them away. “Don’t let Wilbur Weatherington kill our marriage. It is his thoughts you are mouthing, not your own. You are angry now, of course, but the moment will pass.”

  “Really, Kamala?” His voice was mocking. “Just as you’ve changed from spying to loving at a snap of the fingers?”

  “It wasn’t just me changing,” I said. “It was you. You became a good man. You started seeing India as a country with people deserving the right to own the food they grew on land that they’d lived on for thousands of years. And you were so clever and kind that I fell in love with you. I had not expected it to happen, but it did.”

  Simon stood up from the table. Looking down at me, he said, “Well, I don’t care about India anymore, except to get away from it—and from you.”

  CHAPTER

  44

  Even though you like me not, as I have heard you don’t, On you I shall ever hang Like an iron chain fastened to your feet.

  You are the captive wretch whom my prisoner I have made by

  Tying my heart to yours with a knot no one can undo.

  —Rabindranath Tagore, “Rahu’s Love,” 1884

  February passed into March; the winter rice crop had been harvested and the famine had officially ended. Beneath my chappals I could feel the earth warming, readying itself for the summer heat. But Simon and I lived in our own Antarctica.

  Simon moved into the second bedroom, the one where he had once hoped his offspring would sleep. He was off at his clubs again morning and night. Clearly, he didn’t want to be near me at any time of the day. And what hurt all the more was that by losing my husband, I realized
how terribly much I did love him. I was not lingering in Middleton Mansions because I had no choice; it was because I wanted to win him back. I’d lost hope for Kabita, who had never loved me in the first place. I was not willing to lose him, too.

  When Reverend McRae returned from his travels, he noticed Simon’s absence at the dinner table. I could not possibly tell him the whole story, so instead gave the partial truth: that Simon’s feelings were not the same as when we’d married. I also confided that I’d noticed a sea ticket order left in the library—one-way passage in Simon’s name.

  “One way, and for just one person?” Reverend McRae’s forehead lines wrinkled even more deeply. “Did you tell him you would not go to England?”

  “No, I didn’t say that. I would prefer to stay in my country, especially with Independence coming, but I do not want our marriage to end! But maybe I shouldn’t be surprised by the ticket; over the centuries plenty of Englishmen have repatriated without their Indian wives,” I said, recalling what Bonnie and Rose had told me about their own fathers leaving.

  I expected Reverend McRae to probe what might have been said between us to cause such a rift, but he did not. He moved the conversation on to different topics: the current political climate and how the homes for indigent elderly and young orphans were faring. Before he went upstairs, he said, “I should know better than to offer advice, but I have just one thing to say. If you are going to be on your own, you must prepare to work. It’s a very good antidote to sorrow as well.”

  It seemed the minister was suggesting that I needed to provide financially for myself, because Simon was preparing to divorce me. This was depressing information, because Reverend McRae was closer to understanding the human condition than anyone I knew. Yet he had spoken of an antidote. How I liked the sound of that word, which I’d learned many years ago meant remedy. Using references from my volunteer work, I was hired as a health assistant by the Calcutta Red Cross. My salary was modest—just fifty rupees a month—but I had a full-time position traveling daily with a doctor or nurse to slums throughout the city. Those who I served called me Nurse: another erroneous name that hardly mattered. What was important was having something to do that reminded me of what Dr. Andrews, Nurse Gopal, and Nurse Das had done for me years ago at the Keshiari Mission. Now other people’s problems took precedence over my own. I worked five long days a week and did not try to see Kabita on the weekends because now I knew Weatherington was watching me; I couldn’t risk his forcing a confrontation at the school.

  When monsoon came, the days I spent with the Red Cross became chaotic. Cholera and dysentery were spreading, and too many of the roads were flooded to get to those who were stricken. Most of my working hours were spent sitting in the Red Cross van next to Ishan, the young driver who searched in vain for passage into the slums. Often I told him where to go, because after eight years in the city, I knew the roads well. I remembered the pleasures of driving during my short honeymoon, but neither Ishan nor Doctor Haq thought it safe for me to take a turn.

  In the evenings, I returned home to wash and eat dinner with the reverend, if he was free. Simon stayed out until late and upon returning, always sat on the veranda with a drink and his cigarettes, for he had returned to his old habit of smoking, and we no longer shared reading together. If the rain had ceased, I would sit a few steps down from him in the garden, surrounded by the fragrance of night-blooming jasmine, with my diary on my lap. I had begun to write in the diary, although I could not bear to describe any present events. Instead, I escaped back to my days in Johlpur, with the rain drumming on the tin roof of the hut I shared with my family. At evening’s end, I went to my room and cut out the pages I’d written to put them in an envelope addressed to Kabita at her school. She could not understand the woman I was now, but I hoped she might feel kinship with the girl from long ago.

  In July, the Calcutta Post Office went on strike, cutting our city off from the rest of the world. Reverend McRae went on a relief trip to Burma, making life all the lonelier. Simon had received his Buick back from the army, none worse for the wear, and had hired a new driver, Ahmed, by himself, although I had managed all the staff hiring in the past. I didn’t particularly like Ahmed, or the fact Simon was using him for long drives in the evening, when he might otherwise have spent time with me. Still, I wrote. I stamped and dropped the letters into pillar-boxes until the boxes were so full they could no longer take anything. Then I stopped writing, for I could not bear the risk of Simon finding anything.

  At least the newspapers were still being published and delivered to us daily. They came in the hands of Kantu, the same messenger who had grown from a young sprite to a mature eighteen years. Somehow, he had learned to read in this time, and it always heartened me, though I did not always agree with his opinions.

  “Bad articles in this one today!” Kantu grumbled, handing me Amrita Bazar Patrika at the doorway. “Check your copy of the Star, Memsaheb. The writers are better.”

  The planning for independence was going full swing, with a projected handover early in the next year, 1947. Kantu did not want Mr. Nehru to be in charge of the first Indian government; he thought Muslims would be shortchanged. But his mood improved when Mr. Suhrawardy, the Bengal home minister, declared that on August 16 a strike day would be held to protest inequitable treatment of Muslims.

  Direct Action Day was immediately a hot topic. Bengal’s former home minister, Mr. Nazimuddin, proclaimed there were many ways the Muslim League could cause trouble. In return, the Congress Party leader, M. N. Roy, warned his followers that Direct Action Day would certainly mean violence and to prepare for it.

  Rumors about what might happen spread through the public. Manik said he’d heard Muslims were rushing to metalsmiths in order to buy long knives and sharpen the ones they already owned. And one day, when I was riding with the Red Cross, I saw a group of Hindu men struggling with a heavy bag. Out rolled what looked like a grenade. It was caught up so quickly I thought I must have been imagining it; for how could ordinary citizens have military weapons? It couldn’t be. I would not allow myself to think Hindus were preparing their own attack. I told myself it was all for show; nothing would really happen, because the police had stopped so many INA riots with force. The same quick response would stop violence before it started.

  On the afternoon of August 15, a line of military lorries carrying soldiers left town. I sat inside the Red Cross van next to Dr. Haq, one of my favorite doctors in the organization. But today he was frustrated, for we could not cross the intersection due to the long column of military vehicles crawling along the Barrackpore Trunk Road. Eventually our driver, Ishan, stepped out. He returned saying that the army regiment had received orders to evacuate to Barrackpore.

  “Why would the military leave town on the eve of Direct Action Day?” I asked uneasily.

  “Hundreds of police were injured during the INA riots last fall and winter,” Dr. Haq reminded me. “The government is sending the soldiers away for their own protection. And the British are worried that if they deny Mr. Suhrawardy his holiday, there could be another anti-European backlash.”

  “But it’s our army. They’re supposed to keep us safe!” I watched the exiting line of lorries with dismay.

  “That is the kind of story what we’ve been told all our lives, but this is clearly the government wanting to keep out of an Indian matter.”

  “I did not know you were so cynical, Dr. Haq,” I said, my eyes moving from the long procession of trucks to the slightly built man sitting beside me.

  “I am much older than you. I lived through the Hindu-Muslim riots in 1919 and 1925, and those were quite terrible.” He sighed. “Now the question is, how we will we manage to work tomorrow? There is no doubt we will be needed.”

  CHAPTER

  45

  DANGEROUS ATMOSPHERE CREATED BY LEAGUE GOVERNMENT

  By 31 to 13 votes the Bengal Council on Thursday rejected an adjournment motion which sought to discuss the Bengal Government’s dec
laration of August 16 as a public holiday. Mr. Haridas Mazumdar (Hindu Mahasaba), who moved the motion, said that he failed to understand why offices, workshops, and banks would be closed, and why those people of the province who did not subscribe to the creed of the Muslim League would be made to join in the hartal of the 16th forcibly.

  —Amrita Bazar Patrika, Friday, August 16, 1946

  At ten in the morning, the English language newspapers lay flat and unopened on the dining table, evidence that Simon had not read them. I hoped he hadn’t gone to work on the strike day, but I didn’t know his plans anymore. This made me lonelier than ever, but at least I could ask the staff his whereabouts. Ahmed was still sitting in the car parked in the drive. He said Simon had walked to Lord Sinha Lane and had said he wouldn’t need his services that day.

  “Burra-saheb said I could use the car for my errands as I wished today. Memsaheb staying home because of the Direct Action holiday?” The young driver smiled ingratiatingly at me.

  “What is the errand? No shops will be open.”

  “Actually, the rally at Ochterlony. I have never seen Minister Suhrawardy speak. I would very much like it.” Ahmed twisted his driver’s cap in his hands as he spoke.

  I knew he was being honest with me. Many Muslims would want to hear the speech. And if I made Ahmed stay in on a government-granted holiday, he would bear a serious grudge against me. Feeling resigned, I asked him about the speech’s timing.

  “Three o’clock, Memsaheb, but I am most grateful to leave at noon, to get a close position.”

  “You may go, but I don’t know why you want the car. Ochterlony Monument is inside the Maidan.”

  “If I walk, angry Hindus might catch me.” He looked pointedly at the dot of red kumkum I always wore in the center of my forehead. “They are setting up road barricades to keep Muslims away.”