The Wedding Drums

by Marilyn Rodwell

  ‘Men only?’

  ‘No, no! “Men” as in all mankind. All human beings. You and me. Only if we believe in Him and are baptised in the water – thoroughly washed from our sins in the water from head to toe. None of the sprinkling on the forehead. Yes, in the sea or a river.’

  Amina stared, bemused.

  Mr Clifford gave a long sigh. ‘Yes, well you won’t tell anybody about what I just told you, will you, girl? Especially no one from school. As for your friend who is lying to her husband, what can I say? Unless you know the circumstances, you cannot give advice. But we shouldn’t lie, as a basic principle.’ He scratched his head. ‘Although a lie here and there does slip out now and again. But we mustn’t hurt people with our lies. And we must pray for forgiveness. That is a divine command. Lies are abhorrent to the Lord. But how do you know that your friend is not just trying to save her own life? If her lie isn’t hurting anyone else, maybe she might be excused. I can’t judge unless I know the full background. One thing about you, Amina Banderjee – you surely do test my intellect!’

  ‘So, are you baptised?’ the girl asked, slightly confused.

  ‘I said you surely test me! That’s an example. Well that is the dilemma, isn’t it. I am Catholic, but one day – soon, I hope – something or someone will be sent to me. Maybe a John the Baptist.’ He laughed. ‘Till then, I try to live the best I can. But be careful how you judge your friend, because you will be judged with that same yardstick, by the good Lord Himself when He returns to judge us all. Matthew 7:13. Remember that you might have a plank in your own eye whilst you are trying to remove a speck of dust from your friend’s eye. You see? First take the plank out of your own eye so you can see the exact nature of the speck in your friend’s eye.’

  ‘I think I understand what you mean, sir.’

  Amina left Mr Clifford with a lot to think about. Once again, she felt as if she had eaten a very large meal. She passed Sumati’s father’s house, but could see no one from the road. When she got home she offered to help with the evening meal, but was too late.

  ‘I feel useless,’ she said to her mother. ‘I have to do things too – not just learn things and talk about them. It’s better to do than to talk. I want to feel worthwhile.’

  Devinia looked at her and smiled. ‘My mother and me, we used to do things,’ she reminisced, ‘but we read the Ramayana and the Bhagavad Gita too. And talked – a lot. You see, the more you read – and listen too, the more you have in your head to talk about, so the more good things you can say. And the more you do, the more useful you can be. So, do all – read, listen, talk, and do things. Then you have a better understanding for yourself, and so you are better off to help others.’

  ‘Ma, you’re more clever than you think!’

  ‘That so?’ Devinia said. A tear built up in her eye. ‘I’m proud of you.’

  FORTY-TWO

  Sumati began walking, but before long a sharp pain stabbed the side of her belly, forcing her to stop and sit down on a fallen tree. She wished she had said yes to the offer of a ride on the cart. She realised she had to get home fast, so she got up and continued doggedly.

  At the house, she was greeted by her father shouting angrily. ‘Look at the state of you!’ he bellowed from the kitchen. ‘When you going to stop making me worry about you? Where have you been?’

  A cold wind blew right through the yard and the house.

  ‘It’s Ma,’ Sumati said, sounding relieved. ‘That cold wind – it’s Ma.’

  ‘You walked all the way to the cemetery in your condition?’ Roopchand yelled, even more agitated. ‘Are you out of your mind? You never had any sense!’

  ‘It’s time,’ Sumati whispered. ‘My time is come, Pa.’

  Roopchand sprang into action. His anger forgotten, he moved fast, hurrying her to the bedroom. ‘Lie down and stay there,’ he said. ‘Kesh is not home, so I will have to go and fetch Elsie myself. If I find your brother, I’ll send him straight home.’

  ‘Stay,’ Sumati pleaded. Then: ‘No, go! Get somebody!’

  After he left, she hobbled down to the kitchen to get a bucket of water, but dropped the full enamel bucket against the tin barrel. Ramona came running from next door.

  ‘What’s happened?’ the girl asked.

  ‘Nothing, nothing,’ Sumati said, almost in a whisper.

  Ramona stood looking at Sumati, now bent double in pain, water dripping down her legs.

  ‘You’d better go inside,’ her friend said. ‘I’ll go and find Ma.’

  ‘No, just help me, will you? Please, Ramona.’

  Worriedly, Ramona held Sumati’s hand, led her into the house and helped her onto the bed. A cold wind blew straight into the bedroom. The cupboard door flew open and the towels dropped out.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Ramona asked, alarmed. She picked up the towels and shoved them back in the cupboard, but they fell out again and landed on the bed.

  ‘Ramona, you are going to have to help me, or get somebody,’ Sumati groaned through waves of pain. ‘My baby is coming. Hand me a towel and go and fetch some water from outside.’

  Sumati grabbed the towel and bit down on it hard between her teeth. Ramona, meanwhile, hurried out. ‘I’m going to get someone,’ the girl said.

  Sumati’s room grew colder, but her face poured perspiration. She lay on the bed, waiting, writhing as each contraction gripped her and twisted from the inside. Sumati called out but no one came. Then she heard something.

  ‘Ma, is that you?’ she implored. ‘I’m in trouble, Ma. I miss you. Take me with you, please. I’m begging you.’

  The wind died down but the air in the room grew cool. Sumati stopped overheating, and her heart rate slowed down. Her breathing became shallower and shallower until it could no longer be heard. Her eyes closed, and Sumati went silent.

  That evening, Amina was in turmoil, unable to get her mind to rest. The disagreement with Sumati was upsetting. Sumati didn’t seem to realise that her don’t-care ways hurt others. Without her mother, Amina knew she herself would struggle, but Sumati always pretended to shrug off her pain and appear jolly. People reacted to her negatively, as if to bring her down to earth. Amina loved Sumati, and realised they needed each other. Besides, this was not time to abandon her best friend – her blood-bond sister.

  She desperately wanted to share her discovery with Sumati: a discovery that was helping her to see life more clearly. It was wonderful to feel free of reincarnation and the burden of misspent past lives that were destined to punish her in the future, forever, over and over again. Never knowing whose wrongdoings she was paying for – because she could never remember who she had been in a past life. Sadly, her arranged marriage came from this place of unknown traditions. There was no shortage of stories of girls who had reacted by committing suicide. Sumati had run away before she got to that state, which had kept her alive.

  Amina admired Mr Clifford because he knew how to explain these things; he was free to think and believe what made most sense to him. She respected him for always answering her with chapter and verse from the Bible, and wanted to share that with Sumati.

  She snuggled in bed with Wuthering Heights, but was unable to concentrate on the long sentences. Besides, Heathcliff was becoming annoying. Suddenly a cold wind blew through the cracks in her window, just like it had the night of Sumati’s mother’s wake, and Amina sat bolt upright when she heard the flapping of wings. Bats? She leapt out of bed and was heading down the stairs when Etwar came running in.

  ‘Something’s going on at Sumati’s house,’ he gasped. ‘I’m sure I heard somebody screaming. And Ramona is running up and down the road, panicking because she can’t find her mother. Have you seen Meena?’

  ‘Sumati?’ Amina rushed past him. ‘Tell Ma where I’ve gone!’

  Amina pelted down the road, barefoot, as fast as she could, and raced into Sumati’s yard. Her heart was thumping hard and she began to panic, and started to pray to the God she had never really prayed to before. ‘The God
of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and Mr Clifford. Father of Jesus, Mary and the Jewish people, please hear me! I will do anything – anything. I’ll give up everything I want and follow You. Just don’t take her. I can feel that she’s going . . . ’

  Amina got into the house and pushed through the bedroom door. She couldn’t believe her eyes. Sumati lay on the bed, sweating, but over her hung a frosty haze. The dying girl’s eyes were rolling around and her face was red and dripping.

  ‘Tell me what to do!’ Amina pleaded.

  ‘Help.’

  ‘I don’t know how.’ Amina was panicking.

  But Sumati wasn’t replying. Her eyes had closed, and her cries of agony ceased.

  The news spread and people had gathered in the yard, unable to get into the house since the door seemed to be locked from the inside. Some left when it got dark and the screaming from inside had stopped. The air around the house seemed Arctic. They talked about breaking down the door, but Meena said that somebody had gone inside. They heard Roopchand had left to fetch Elsie, the midwife. But it was a good two hours before he returned with her.

  ‘I tried to get in,’ Meena told them. ‘But the door was jammed.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Roopchand said. ‘Elsie is here now.’

  ‘You could make yuhself useful,’ Elsie said in her high-pitched childlike voice. ‘Boil some water. Plenty hot water. And make sure de bucket clean, eh? Wash it out first.’

  Elsie was the descendant of African slaves. She had learnt her trade from her mother and grandmother, who told her that she would always be in work and never starve if she delivered babies for a living. They were right. Elsie was the only midwife in the village.

  Strangely, Roopchand was able to push open the door easily enough. Elsie followed him into the bedroom but neither of them had anticipated the shock awaiting them.

  ‘Oh God!’ Elsie cried. ‘I think we too late.’

  Roopchand collapsed and fell to the floor just where he stood.

  Sumati was lying on the bed. Her eyes were closed and her lips pale. She was covered from neck to toe with a pink blanket, and her thick hair was spread around her head like rays of sun. Next to Sumati, on either side, lay two small babies. Amina was in there, with glistening cheeks, and bloodstained up her arms and over her clothes. Her eyes were red and watery. She stood over Sumati, wiping her face with a cloth, but the girl wasn’t responding.

  ‘I did everything I could,’ Amina said, looking at Elsie. ‘I managed to get the babies alive. The afterbirths are in the bucket. I didn’t know what else to do.’

  ‘Sometimes there’s nothing else you can do,’ Elsie said, matter-of-factly. ‘I seen this happen before, when the mother very young and not able to push out two of them. It hard on the body. She must be given up.’

  This startled Amina, while Roopchand began howling.

  ‘No, Sumati!’ Amina shouted. ‘Come back! You cannot go, not now, not after all you’ve been through. And what about me? I need you to wake up!’

  Something began moving. It was the babies, kicking the blanket. One began to whimper, and the other began to bawl. Then they were both bawling. Then something strange happened. Sumati’s hand moved towards one, from under the blanket, then the other hand reached the head of the second baby. Amina gasped.

  ‘Come, Roopchand,’ she said. ‘Look it’s your daughter and your grandchildren.’

  Roopchand rose from his slump and stood over the bed.

  ‘I did think she was just sleeping,’ Elsie said, stepping forward. ‘I seen dis before, where de modder jest stop like if she dead. Is tiredness in the body.’ The midwife beamed a huge smile, her crowded teeth sparkling white. She felt Sumati’s forehead. ‘But she body’s cold,’ she said. ‘Somebody bring a cup a water. Milk if you have it.’

  Elsie held Sumati up in bed while Roopchand fed her the warm milk. Amina fussed around, clearing up the mess of bloody towels and sheets she’d used while helping Sumati during her ordeal of giving birth. Sumati squinted, staring at Amina, half-smiling. Amina thought of the story she had read in Mr Clifford’s Christian Bible, of a young girl who had just risen from the dead. She smiled at Sumati. ‘Jairus’s daughter,’ she said. ‘I will tell you that story later.’

  Sumati opened her mouth to speak, but did not have the strength. With her eyes, she beckoned Amina. ‘You saved my life,’ she whispered. ‘I can never pay you back.’

  ‘There are important things I want to share with you,’ Amina said. ‘Pay me back by listening to them when we have time together. But more than anything else, you’ve already given me what I wanted. I wanted you to live. I prayed to Mr Clifford’s God. Really hard. I promised my life for yours. You won’t understand.’ Amina’s tears flowed down her red cheeks. ‘Look at these beautiful little babies.’ Amina collapsed helplessly into a blubbering mess. ‘I’ve been so selfish,’ she wept. ‘I’ve been a stupid child. I could never do what you just did.’

  Sumati took Amina’s hand. ‘And do you think I could do what you just did? Could a “stupid child” save me and my babies? I owe you my life, girl. Look what you gave me. Now you have three of us to cope with. Double trouble. One for me, and one for you.’

  ‘For me?’ Amina breathed.

  Elsie picked up the smaller baby, wrapped it in a pillowcase and placed it in the crook of Amina’s arm. ‘You feed this one.’ The midwife then picked up the bigger child, wrapped it in another pillowcase and handed it to Sumati. ‘Take this one,’ she commanded. ‘The boy. He will suck hard and pull down the milk.’

  When Elsie turned around, Amina was still only cradling the baby. ‘Start,’ Elsie urged. ‘She small but she will suck.’ Amina wasn’t sure she had heard right the first time. She stared, shocked. People were still in the room, chattering, but no one noticed. ‘It will take longer,’ Elsie continued, ‘but your milk will come down in the end. And if it don’t, de mother will feed she in any case.’

  ‘I can’t do that,’ Amina protested. ‘Sumati can do both together.’

  ‘She giving one of them to you,’ Elsie said, patiently. ‘Don’t think you can’t do it. How you think I have milk myself and I never make a baby? Give me, I’ll show you.’ The midwife was already unbuttoning her bodice front.

  Amina’s eyes opened wide. ‘I never knew that could happen. But both babies need her. She is their mother. She didn’t mean for me to really take one home. They’re her children, not puppies.’ She stood up, walked over to Sumati, and handed her the tiny baby girl.

  ‘She needs feeding after,’ Amina said. ‘She’s sucking her fist already.’

  Elsie tutted and busied herself with the cleaning and wiping down of the bed frame and the floor while Sumati fed both babies, lying one side, then the next. ‘You girls nowadays,’ she muttered, ‘you don’t know nothing.’

  ‘I can’t believe you came,’ Sumati was telling Amina.

  ‘I don’t know what made me come. I felt like something was pulling me. At first I felt like it was your mother’s spirit. But then I prayed hard to the Christian God to save you. And how did I know to pull the cords that were attached to the babies? It’s a miracle.’

  ‘Nothing will separate us – I know that now,’ Sumati said tenderly. ‘We are like the two sides of the same coin. Same, but different.’

  ‘Yes, the same coin. I realised that some time ago, but I’m stubborn, while you’re not. You follow your heart and your soul. And I follow my head and those who advise me.’

  ‘I’ll just go out and cook something for Sumati,’ Roopchand intervened. ‘You girls need to talk.’

  ‘Nah! Nah!’ The women around began to argue with him about who was going to cook, and who was going to fetch what food from their own homes.

  ‘Listen,’ one of them whispered. ‘Is she the Banderjee girl, the jeweller’s daughter who brought those babies in the world? With the house locked from the inside?’

  ‘There’s a jewel inside the girl,’ another nodded.

  ‘It’s looking so,’ Ro
opchand said proudly. ‘She saved my daughter and my grandchildren,’ he said as he gazed, beaming at the group on the bed.

  ‘But how old is she?’

  ‘She is the one who caught typhoid and was the only child in the village to get better from it. And did you know she died and came back on the same day she turned twelve? The jeweller’s daughter. Her mother is Devinia. That child is Amina Banderjee.’

  ‘Like Lakshmi Mata herself. A goddess. Bless you, child. This house is blessed.’ They looked at the girl in awe, almost afraid to speak to her directly.

  Within half an hour, Roopchand’s household had gone from being cujart, an outcast, to becoming the favourite Granville family, all because of Amina’s good deed that day. The place was no longer under a curse. The village women began kneading flour, cutting up vegetables and grinding masala. Within an hour, they had made roti and vegetable talkarie for at least twenty people, to be washed down by a large pot of cocoa tea. They presented a plate to Amina first, to honour her like the goddess they now believed she was. Or at least sent by one.

  That night, Amina remained in the room for a long time, keeping watch over Sumati as she slept, admiring the babies, and picking them up when they cried. Elsie, too, had remained: she was snoring, wrapped up in a blanket on the floor. Outside the open window, the sky was black and lit up with diamond pinpricks glinting down over the village. It occurred to Amina that someone should send a message to Baljit, Sumati’s husband. She wondered what the arrangement was between Sumati and him about her return home, and whether he would be frantic with worry.

  There was a call outside, and Amina went to the window. It was her mother. ‘I hear she had the child, and you helped. Why didn’t you call me?’

  ‘Twins, Ma,’ Amina whispered.

  ‘And Sumati . . . is she all right?’