by Threes Anna
“Thank you, doctor,” she whispers. Then she walks back down the long corridor, out of the hospital, and into the warm tropical night.
1995 Rampur ~~~
“DID YOU CALL, MA’AM?”
Charlotte was standing in the music room. “I’d like you to move the table from the darzi’s workplace into this room.” She pointed to the middle of the room, directly under the revolving fan.
“But the darzi is working, ma’am.”
“This is going to be the darzi’s workroom.”
“Here?”
“Yes, here.”
Hema looked at his employer despairingly.
“But, ma’am, he is a darzi.”
“Yes?”
“An ordinary darzi.”
“I remember quite clearly that when my husband was still alive we often visited Maharaja Man Singh. The property of the maharaja was gigantic. There were stables with Arabian horses, English and Italian gardens, fountains, four large gates, and a driveway ten kilometres long, which he once had covered with oriental carpets. The maharaja had the largest continuous hunting grounds in India, and all over his palace there were tigers and elephants on the wall. He also had a ballroom and a large library, and he was very well read. And in the middle of his palace the maharaja had a special room where the darzi worked.”
“In the palace?” Hema looked at her in disbelief.
“Yes, in the palace.”
Hema wanted to protest. His prediction that the darzi would ultimately seize power had come true. Memsahib, who after the disaster with the tenants had never again allowed strangers into the house, was now determined to give the darzi the music room, so that the awful man could pull a cord, and a bell in the kitchen would ring: MUSIC ROOM. No matter what happened, he resolved that he would not respond to any summons that came from the music room.
“The floor needs cleaning, and the walls have to be washed down. I’ll take care of Father today.”
There isn’t enough time to mop the floor, thought Hema to himself. Who would do the shopping and the laundry? And who’s going to cook, make tea, and all the rest? He had always accepted his lot in life and performed his duties to the satisfaction of everyone, himself included. He was shocked by his own defiant reaction and immediately feared that he had contracted the same malady as the general. He placed a finger on the tip of his nose. He had seen how the doctor asked the general to perform that manoeuvre, and that he was never able to do so. His finger went straight to his nose, landing on the very tip. He heaved a sigh of relief.
“Is there something wrong?”
“No, memsahib. I’ll do the floor tomorrow.”
“I’d rather you did it today.”
And again a wave of anger boiled up inside him. He was struggling to contain himself when suddenly the electricity went off again. This was immediately followed by a loud thud above their heads. He turned and raced up the stairs.
She didn’t understand it herself. She had been standing in the middle of the music room when she noticed that there was a loose wire hanging from the lamp. It occurred to her that it might have something to do with the fact that the electricity regularly conked out. Hema had knocked and walked into the room, and when she opened her mouth she’d said things that she was positive she never intended to say. No matter what she did, the words continued to pour out. She had waged a battle with herself, inside her head, but the sentences paid absolutely no attention to her. They brushed her aside politely as the words tumbled out of her mouth at full speed. It had been years since she had last thought of the maharaja, and the tailor who had made her first evening gown had never crossed her mind again. But suddenly there they were, like a swarm of homicidal starlings scouring her lawn for unsuspecting victims. She heard Hema enter the nursery, and soon everything was quiet again. What must he think of her? She knew he was very sensitive about his status, and she had no desire to anger him. He had served them faithfully for so many years that she had gradually come to regard him as a member of their little family — except for the fact that he was a servant and slept in the kitchen, while they were the people he served. But it was true that the tailor’s room had been centrally located inside the palace of Maharaja Man Singh, and that people were constantly coming in and going out. There was always someone who needed him, and the tailor’s servant and his errand boy were constantly at work. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea to have the darzi work in the music room. It was much cleaner than the area next to the kitchen, and the wife of Nikhil Nair was right when she said that fabric was quick to take on food odours. It had become clear to her that he had to go, and yet here she came up with one reason after another to keep him. The power wasn’t back on yet. She heard Hema lock the door upstairs. She would tell him that she’d been mistaken and that the darzi would be leaving soon. She’d ask him if he knew of a house where there was an extra workplace, since she was aware that the personnel liked nothing better than exchanging the latest gossip. She was standing in the dark doorway of the music room, and she saw Hema coming down the steps. He had a slight limp and he paused at every other step, heaving a small sigh.
“Ma’am!” He started when he saw her standing there.
“I want you to mop this room now.”
MADAN STARED OUT the window. There were no shutters in the servants’ quarters, and it was incredibly hot, but the heat had never bothered him. He glanced at the jasmine bush under his window and saw that his nocturnal watering was beginning to bear fruit. The leaves, which not long ago were dry and withered, had regained some of their former vitality. He reached out and broke off a twig. He scratched the surface of the bark and then smelled it. The scent had returned.
1955 Bombay ~~~
MADAN IS ABOUT to jump up and run after Mister Patel when he sees a boy with a shiny black face coming down the stairs.
“Hello,” the boy says.
Madan stares in amazement at the boy, who is covered in oil. He’s the same height as Madan. There’s oil running down his face, which he keeps wiping with the back of his hand. Madan offers the boy the piece of cloth that Mister Patel has just thrust into his hand, but the boy waves it away. He says admiringly, “Mister Chandran made it himself. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” The boy points to the fabric with a grubby forefinger. “Do you get to unpick it?” There’s a touch of envy in his voice.
Madan doesn’t see why the boy should be envious of someone who’s allowed to unpick a piece of cloth. He shrugs.
“The white threads are the warp and the red ones are called the weft. You have do it very carefully, you know.”
Do you work here, too? Madan croaks unintelligibly.
The boy gives him a long look, wrinkling his brow. Then he leans forward and says to the weaver underneath the stairs, “He can’t talk.”
The man mutters something and Madan looks at the cloth in his hand. It’s nothing special. Just an ordinary piece of cloth, in a red and white diamond pattern.
“Are you coming?” The boy turns and heads back up the stairs, leaving an oily footprint on each step.
Madan casts one last longing glance down the hall in the direction of the gate, but Mister Patel is well and truly gone. So he follows the boy up the stairs. Gradually the smell of oil and iron becomes sharper and the sound of whirring machines grows louder.
DISAPPOINTED, MISTER PATEL walks out of the bookstore. He held Genetic Metamorphosis in Single-Celled Organisms in his hands, and he knew immediately that it was his book. But the man at the counter refused to give it back to him, even after he recounted in detail all he had been through. The man had even retorted that it was the best story he’d heard but he wasn’t a philanthropist. If Mister Patel really wanted the book, he could buy it, just like anyone else.
As he passes the small gate leading to the weaving mill, disappointment gives way to guilt. He should never have
deserted Madan. As he walks down the long, dark corridor, his footsteps sound hollow on the cement floor. Chandan Chandran is still sitting at his loom, but the little boy Patel took under his wing during those long months is nowhere to be seen. If it weren’t for the disappointment at not getting his book back, the pressure put on him by his nephew, his sleepless nights, in addition to the worry about the house that has been stolen from him and the money that was not returned after the five months he spent in prison unjustly, he would no doubt have gone back and inquired about young Madan. But now, for the first time in his life, Mister Patel is overcome by a sense of rage, because Madan has disappeared. He leaves the building in indignation and resolves on the spot to return to his birthplace, Hyderabad.
THE ENTIRE TOP floor is filled with looms. They are made not of wood, like those in the studios and workplaces along the street, but of iron, and they are powered by small motors. The exhaust fumes disappear through pipes in the ceiling.
“I’m the oiler,” the boy says with pride.
Madan gazes in fascination at the rumbling, chugging semi-automatic machines with their taut threads, where men are throwing the shuttles back and forth, and at the roll of fabric that emerges at the other end. Never in his whole life has he seen so many machines in action. On one of them he sees the red and white fabric. He points to it and the boy nods enthusiastically. His words are lost in the loud clanging produced by the machines. Overwhelmed by the sounds and movements of all those iron rods and bars, he follows the boy. They pass a wall containing hundreds of spools of thread, in more colours than he thought possible.
In a corner next to a ladder, they stop, and the boy motions to Madan to follow him to the floor above. Upstairs he pushes open a hatch. Madan climbs into the opening. He is aware of a pungent, spicy odour. The small, poorly lit room has no doors or windows, and the rattle and clang of the machines is muted. Along the walls there are shelves with tin cans and boxes, small wooden crates, and bags and bottles filled with various unidentifiable substances. The smell of oil and iron has disappeared, replaced by an aroma he has never smelled before and cannot identify. The room is so permeated with odours that he’s suddenly dizzy and has to sit down. Cautiously, he takes a breath. The air stings the sensitive lining of his nose. In prison he often tried not to breathe, especially when he was behind the curtain, but now he does the opposite. He cannot get enough of the intoxicating sensation in his head and the tingling in his nose. “Hey!” he hears the boy call. “Come down!” Madan could have spent hours sitting there, sniffing those smells, but the boy slams his hand down on the ladder, urging Madan to hurry. As he comes down the steps, Madan is so overwhelmed by the multitude of scents that he has to hang on to the railing.
“And don’t let on to the boss that I showed you his room, okay?” the boy says.
Madan shakes his head, wondering how he was presumed to convey his thoughts to the boss.
1995 Rampur ~~~
HEMA SWORE TO himself as he mopped the music room, and when the bucket tipped over, he almost burst into tears.
Charlotte knew she ought to go downstairs to reassure him, and to cancel her plan while it was still possible to do so. But her legs refused to move, and when she tried to lift her right leg with both hands and put it down next to the bed, it was so heavy it wouldn’t budge. She fell back onto the pillows and, without thinking, picked up the wooden box, took out a cigarette, and lit it. She realized after she had inhaled and began to cough that the cigarette was actually lit. The ritual of “smoking” a cigarette from the little box enabled her to think more clearly, but that had suddenly been destroyed. Her thoughts shot off in all directions, and her normally relaxed contemplation became impossible. Even gazing at the statue of Ganesh could not calm her nerves. She took another draw on the cigarette. It was so very long ago since she’d last smoked . . .
She was not disturbed by the fact that the cigarette tasted good to her. It seemed to be part of all the strange things that were happening. While everyone around her was waiting and longing for the monsoon, she said things she never meant to say, did things she didn’t mean to do, and read thoughts she didn’t want to read. And she knew for certain that all that had nothing to do with the extreme heat.
MADAN PROTESTED WHEN Hema informed him that from then on he would be working in the music room. When it came to blocking his thoughts, he had no faith in the thickness of the ceiling and floor between him and Charlotte. The more he protested, the more adamant Hema became. Again and again he stressed that those were memsahib’s wishes, and that she knew a maharaja whose tailor lived in the middle of the palace. He added haughtily that he was glad he wasn’t the butler there.
Madan placed his sewing machine on the table, which Hema had positioned in the middle of the room. He didn’t know where to begin. He looked around the room, then reluctantly sat down and started fiddling with the wheel. The needle shot up and then down again. In front of him lay a pile of fabric, and beside him his scissors and the tiny bottle of lubricant. He picked up the bottle and absently started oiling his machine. Suddenly, he heard footsteps above his head. He stopped and cast a worried glance in the direction of the ceiling. He listened to the sound of footsteps that went in the direction of the window and then back to the middle of the room. His glance shifted toward the dark spots on the wall where paintings must have hung. He went on oiling his machine. Above, he heard a door open and close. The hand holding the bottle shot out and a small puddle of oil formed around the presser foot. Startled, he looked around for a cloth to mop up the mess, but he saw nothing but the costly fabrics belonging to the members of the Rampur Ladies Club. He opened the cabinet, but the shelves were empty except for several photo albums wrapped in plastic. Someone was coming down the stairs, and that made him even more nervous. He raised his leg and used the inside seam of his trousers to wipe away the oil. Then he quickly sat down at the machine, and, taking the topmost length of fabric from the pile, he began sewing at the spot where the needle came down. When the sound of footsteps grew faint, he stopped, looked at the fabric, heaved a sigh, and began unpicking the useless seam.
1966 Rampur ~~~
THERE ARE NO rickshaws or taxis waiting in front of the hospital. She doesn’t realize that it’s already well past midnight and that her father’s operation lasted more than twelve hours. She waits for a while and then decides to walk. Guided by the light of the stars and the odd street lantern, she walks away from the city centre of Rampur. Their house is on the other side of town. She’s not used to walking alone. She always has a coolie with her to carry the groceries, or the bobajee, who’s better at bargaining at the market.
Except for a snoring dog and a sleeping goat, there’s not another living soul on the street. The unrest of the day has made way for a serene hush.
She pauses in front of St. Stephen’s Chapel. It’s too dark to distinguish the cemetery behind the church. Let Papa live, she prays, directing her words to the steeple. Charlotte never prays. Not since her last year at boarding school, where she had to go to church every Sunday, year in, year out, and always said her daily prayers. None of her pleas for help were ever answered. After Peter died, she renounced prayer for good. Let him live, please.
Perhaps it’s the nocturnal calm, or the dark of the night, but the nauseating anxiety that gripped her at the hospital seems to be ebbing away. It’s as if she has entered a kind of vacuum. The concern for her father’s life fades away, and her feet seem to leave the ground. The fact that she is on her way home is of no importance. She is no longer walking, but dancing, her arms spread slightly, like elfin wings.
Only then does she hear the music, so gentle and rarified that it seems part of the starry sky, millions of light years away. She turns into an unfamiliar alley and sees a house whose doors are wide open and welcoming. She steps inside a room filled with cigarette smoke. There are people sitting on the floor. The music that enticed her here is just as fr
agile and ethereal as it was a moment ago, when she first became aware of it, but now the sounds are richer and fuller. In the middle of the room, on a small, raised platform surrounded by lighted candles, there are three Indian musicians: one is playing the tabla drum, one is seated behind a kind of xylophone, and in the middle there’s a zither player. No one in the audience seems to be surprised by her entrance, and despite the fact that her blond hair and fair skin contrast starkly with the outward appearance of the other people in the room, she senses that she is welcome. She sits down on a cushion that someone has shoved in her direction and closes her eyes. The celestial tones take possession of her, and all the events of the day are forgotten.
The zither player starts to sing. Charlotte opens her eyes, and by the light of the candles she sees the man’s face. The song has a nasal tone, and it is full of unintelligible words. She cannot take her eyes off the singer. She watches his long fingers as they glide over the strings, his black-rimmed eyes, his mouth, singing about a world she’s never experienced before.
SHE HASN’T SEEN anyone get up or heard anyone leave, but when the musicians stop playing, only a handful of people are left in the room, which was packed when she first arrived. The final notes fade away. People begin to talk quietly. The musicians get up and put away their instruments. The panic that had faded away begins to force itself upon her from all four corners of the room. Closing her eyes doesn’t help: where a moment ago there was light, there is now darkness. Her breathing accelerates. She wipes away the traces of tears on her cheeks, tears that brought some relief. She gets up and walks over to the singer. He looks at her and she looks back. Each step in his direction is a step away from the world she comes from. She knows that if she keeps walking, everything will change. She does not hesitate.
The room is empty except for Charlotte and the zither player; they are sitting next to each other in silence. One last candle is still burning. He offers her a cigarette. She hasn’t smoked in years, but she takes it. He gives her a light. The brief touch of his hand goes through her like an electric shock. She shudders. He lights a cigarette himself. She inhales the pungent tobacco smoke. A wave of dizziness sweeps over her, and when it fades away, she takes another drag. There are no memories, only longing.