by Meira Chand
‘They say Singapore is a fortress, and the British will quickly defeat the Japanese if they try to attack. But already the Japanese have occupied much of China, already they are marching across Asia, and nobody is able to stop them.’ Shiva held his ear to the radio.
The announcers spoke mostly in English, a language Shiva spoke but Sita did not understand. Occasionally, he remembered to translate the disembodied voice of the broadcaster for Sita.
‘I will also teach you English — then I will not have to translate like this all the time,’ Shiva complained lightheartedly.
Outside, the distant rumble of thunder was heard, and in the stifling heat of the room beads of sweat collected on Shiva’s forehead. Sita stretched to pick up a paper fan, waving it gently before him as he returned his attention to the radio, twiddling the knobs, trying to find a station that might give more news, but receiving instead only a wall of static. At last he gave up the battle with the radio, and stretched out on the floor. The cool breeze from the fan Sita waved over him was a welcome relief, and he glanced up at his wife in approval. He found himself looking forward to her attentions when he returned to the room, and the food she cooked for him. She had a bright and inquiring mind, and her efforts to read and write and the quick progress she had made filled him with satisfaction. As he watched her small hand in the light of the lamp, waving the paper fan tirelessly back and forth for his comfort, he realised with pride that she wholly his creation.
The room was dark now except for the glowing pool of light surrounding the oil lamp. The smell of the burning wick filled Sita’s nose, and Shiva’s voice flowed over her as he talked about the Japanese advance. Although she tried to understand the events unfolding in the world, she could not focus on the things Shiva explained. Her mind kept slipping away, forming the same thought over and over again, like a mantra deep inside her. Make a boy, make a boy, she willed her body, closing her eyes to better project the thought into the depths of herself.
Each day after Shiva had gone to school, she put a fresh flower before the picture of the devi and the dancing figure of the god Shiva, and lighting a stick of incense, bowed her head in prayer. In her metal frame Durga sat as always, perched upon her tiger. The morning sun filled the room, intensifying the vibrant colouring of the picture, giving the tiger new depths. Its tawny stripes and amber eyes, glaring at Sita from a lowered head, blazed with fire. A boy, Sita prayed. Let me make a boy.
With the increasing threat of war and the Japanese advance, air raid practices became compulsory. In the beginning Sita had pinned a thick cloth over the window as the law demanded, but now she did not bother. As they had no electricity and only burned an oil lamp, she did not know what it was they were supposed to black out. Who would see their one small light from so high above? A ripple of fear ran through her, and her heart pulsed as one with the heart of the child. Everything within her was turned inwards around the new life she carried. She thought again about the war that threatened to engulf them. Bombs might drop upon them and their existence end tomorrow, and Shiva would still not know he was a father. Yet, until she was sure she carried a boy, she could not tell him her secret.
10
SINGAPORE, 1941–1942
At first the troubles escalated slowly. As December ended and January began, incendiaries fell upon the city with growing intensity. Sita stared up each night at the wheeling searchlights roaming the great space of the sky. They thrust open the darkness with needles of light and filled her with increasing unease. Sometimes now she could feel the baby turn, a faint flutter against her heart. Each night she prepared to tell Shiva the news the following day, but each day passed into the next and the weeks went on. Each week she resolved to go to Usha to put an end to the torture and to determine, by whatever dark art the woman practised, whether she carried a boy or a girl.
Japanese planes now roared endlessly over the island in perfect formation, like a flock of migrating birds. Shiva watched in fascination as bombs were detached from the underbellies of aircraft to fall earthwards, like streamers taking flight in the wind. In the distance there was the crack of anti-aircraft guns or the thud of the bursting bombs. The Indian area of Serangoon Road did not at first experience the rage of the bombs. This was put down not to luck, but to the fact that India, like Japan, wanted to see an end to colonial rule in Asia, and it was believed that the Japanese military understood this.
‘That is why the pilots are not bombing our Indian area,’ Shiva said, voicing the conviction all Indians now held.
‘Nothing will happen. The Japanese are Asiatics like us Indians; they are helping us to chase the British out of Asia,’ he assured Sita each morning as he left for the Ramakrishna Mission; the school was still open, even though many others had closed down.
The odour of death soon permeated the air. A pall of sulphurous smoke from the oil burning at the Sembawang naval base blackened the sky and made Sita hug her secret closer in new fear. Now, even to voice the existence of the child seemed to expose it to danger. Sita’s slight frame hardly showed the presence of the baby, hidden beneath the drape of her sari. Only Old Usha at school scrutinised her roundly on the days she went in to instruct the five urchins, shaking her head, muttering in disapproval. Each time the class ended, the woman hung back, always with the same advice, staring up at Sita, who stood a head taller than her.
‘Now you are big enough, now I can tell you. If it is a girl, then I can help you get rid of it. Then I will tell you how to get a boy for the next time.’
Sita pushed past the woman, and ran.
As the weeks went by the bombing increased, and soon the Ramakrishna Mission School decided to suspend all lessons. Many families had already evacuated, and the school similarly sent its children to safety in outlying areas.
As February began, the Japanese drew near the island. During air raids the residents of Serangoon Road ran for shelter to the covered colonnade of the five-foot-way fronting the blocks of shophouses. Destruction in other parts of the city soon revealed that these buildings were more of a danger than a refuge, and people made for the open land of Farrer Park and the presumed safety of the racecourse. It was thought that the Japanese would not waste valuable bombs on open land, and nobody used the trenches there, surrounded by sandbags and sodden with rain. The Indian flag was raised boldly upon the grassy expanse of the park, to let Japanese pilots know there were Indian civilians below. A large part of Sita’s life now seemed to be spent running from her home to the park.
The days slid terrifyingly one into another as the bombing continued. Shops had closed, boarded up against looting. Chinese of the coolie class had fled the city to the relative quiet of the rural areas, and labourers were now almost impossible to find. So relentless had the bombing become, and so frequently did the air raid sirens wail, that in the confusion it was difficult to determine if raids was beginning or ending.
At the Ramakrishna Mission the monks remained on the premises, as did the five urchins and Old Usha, who would soon leave to join the other children, now housed in a far corner of the island. Sita continued her lessons with the boys, although around them the school’s rooms now lay empty. Each day she battled with growing exhaustion, her limbs and head aching continuously. It took all her strength to hide how she felt from Shiva. During lessons Usha continued to sit in her corner, staring at Sita.
That day Sita left the school for the short walk home, her limbs heavy, each step an effort to push herself forward. As she crossed the school compound towards the gate, a pain ripped through her with such violence that she gasped aloud. When the spasm subsided she struggled on, but as she neared her home, a further convulsion doubled her up. As it seared through her, the air raid siren began again, and almost immediately she heard the thunder of bombers approaching. As she climbed the spiral stair, her head reeled and a wave of nausea swam through her; the planes droned low over the roof of her home as she pushed the door shut behind her. Then another pain gripped her and, looking down, she
saw blood running over her feet.
Curled up on the floor, she willed the child to stay within her, but already she knew it had leaked away, cell by cell, the very parchment of life seeping from her. The secret she had held so close to her, the words she had not been able to say, spilled from her now in anguish. As she cried out in the empty room she was conscious again of the siren’s shriek. Then, suddenly, the earth shuddered beneath her with the impact of a bomb. Outside, the jacaranda tree buckled and bent, its feathery branches blown wildly about by the blast, before it cracked and fell. The earth shook again and she heard the screams of animals in the nearby slaughterhouse, and then the screams of men. She could not move, and blood flowed from her unstoppably.
Shiva burst through the door with a cry and ran to where Sita lay. He had heard the bomb drop as he left the school, and knew his wife had gone home before him. The missile had hit the slaughterhouse, tearing the limbs off cows and goats, loosening roof tiles and blowing out doors in the buildings on Serangoon Road. Shiva saw the fallen jacaranda outside his house and feared for Sita as he ran. Old Usha hurried behind him, shouting incomprehensibly. As Shiva entered the room he saw Sita curled up on the floor in a pool of blood. Behind him in the doorway Usha sized up the situation and, pushing Shiva out of the way, bent to Sita.
‘She is not dead. Only baby is gone,’ she told Shiva, seeing that he thought his wife was the victim of the bomb, and then she ordered him out of the room.
In the midst of her pain Sita was aware of Usha’s presence, and knew by the firmness of her hands that she had assisted in such situations before. Usha leaned over her, pressing down upon her, and Sita felt her body respond with violent spasms of pain until all the life it had held was gone. The woman pulled the wet bloodied sari off her, and brought a bowl of water to sponge her clean before covering her with a sheet. On the floor a distance away, Sita saw a sodden mass of bloody newspaper, and knew it contained the raw membrane of her child. Usha followed her glance.
‘It is still early. No soul had entered into it yet. Only in the seventh month does a soul enter, before that no ceremonies are required. I will see it is disposed of.’ The woman scooped up the mess, tipping it into the metal bowl that she pushed firmly to one side.
‘It was only a girl, so better it came out early. Next time I will help you get a boy,’ Usha comforted, rising to her feet.
Sita stared at the bowl of bloody newspaper, and for a moment saw that other bowl from so long ago, and the dismembered plait of hair. She began to sob, and knew that a shame similar to the shame she had known on that distant day would take hold of her now.
Then Usha was gone and immediately Shiva was in the room, standing over her, his face distorted by anger.
‘You did this,’ he shouted. ‘Why did you not tell me?’
She was confused and could not answer. Shiva’s voice rose louder with each word.
‘That old witch is known for these things. Women go to her to be rid of a child. Why have you done this?’
Whatever she said in the weeks that followed the miscarriage, Shiva persisted in the conviction that Sita had deliberately got rid of the child. At night he no longer told her stories that opened windows for her into the world, no longer encouraged her writing and reading, no longer enquired about the urchins at school. He ate silently and slept with his back towards her, absenting himself from her life. About them sirens and explosions accelerated, the air was thick with smoke. They ran to Farrer Park less and less, taking their chances wherever they were. Bombs rained down everywhere now, and they were resigned to the possibility of sudden death.
Krishnaswami and Sons remained open but most of its assistants had fled to the suburbs, resulting in a promotion for Dev, along with added responsibility. His hours at the shop increased, but any free time was spent with his sister, sharing a meal and chatting with Shiva.
Often now, on the short-wave radio, they tuned in to Azad Hind, the new Free India radio station that had begun transmitting from Germany. Frequent broadcasts were made from Berlin by an Italian diplomat by the name of Orlando Mazzotta, who spoke passionately of plans to free India from British Rule, his deep melodious voice filling the room.
‘The overthrow of British power in India can, in its last stages, be materially assisted by Japanese foreign policy in the Far East…’
Rumours swirled about the identity of this mysterious diplomat, and it was rumoured he was Subhas Chandra Bose in disguise. Shiva was stirred to a great pitch of excitement each time he heard the man’s voice.
‘It is him, it is Subhas Babu speaking. Everyone recognises his unmistakable voice. He is using this disguise for safety, so that the British will not pursue him.’ Shiva adjusted the knob of the radio as the voice began to fade.
‘This is the time to remind our British rulers that east of the Suez Canal there is a land inhabited by an ancient and cultured people…deprived of their birthright of liberty under the British yoke…’
The deep voice wrapped briefly about them again before it was sucked into a band of crackling static from which it could not be retrieved. Shiva thumped his fist on the desk in frustration.
‘The Japanese are just across the water. Soon the British will be forced to surrender,’ Dev reminded him.
‘The Japanese are Asiatics, like us. I will welcome them,’ Shiva replied, his hand adjusting the knob of the radio, hoping for the return of the mysterious Orlando Mazzotta.
Crouched before the small stove at the other end of the room, Sita heated a pan of spicy tapioca. It was increasingly difficult to find anything to eat other than the ubiquitous tapioca that grew easily on the smallest patch of land. Listening to the conversation, she kept her eyes upon Shiva, hoping he would look up and include her; day after day since the miscarriage, he continued to ignore her.
Much of the room was now taken up with a metal-topped cage, a Morrison type shelter that Swami Bhaswarananda had given them for Sita’s protection. It had open wire netted sides and a mattress in it, and they slept beneath it for shelter each night. Even in that confined space, pushed up close against him, Sita still felt Shiva’s resistance.
In the evenings, when he returned home, Shiva settled cross-legged before his desk and, by the light of the oil lamp, immersed himself silently in his writing, erecting a further wall between them. Depression overwhelmed her, pulling her down into a black well. At night she could not sleep, and by day was listless and without energy. In the evenings she sat quietly in a corner with a pile of mending, a newspaper spread before her or her new English alphabet primer on her lap, practising the letters in an exercise book, determined not to react to Shiva’s cold exclusion of her. Yet all the while she was alert to the scratch of his pen, the echoing croak of bullfrogs in the open drains outside, the whirr of crickets, the distant clank of empty milk churns or the voice of the school janitor gossiping with friends across the road. Worst of all was the nightly wail of mating cats, a noise that had not bothered her before. She knew Shiva heard it too and that the calls, so like the cries of disconsolate babies, awoke in them both an anguish neither could speak about.
She had not told her husband the miscarried child was female, preferring not to admit to the shame of making a girl, but the knowledge moved through her. Her tossing and turning each night worked loose distant memories; she saw the small pinched face of her sister again, before the river consumed her. And she remembered also a woman on the boat that had carried her over the waters to Singapore, a memory that was lodged within her forever, and rose now to fill her mind again.
Dr. Sen had paid extra to secure Sita a berth in the dark and suffocating bowels of the ship, in a cabin with six other women and their children, travelling to join husbands in Penang or Singapore. Male passengers slept above on the open deck, and during the day the women were obliged to join them there. At night the ship heaved and ploughed its way forward, creaking as if it’s very sides would split. In the hot airless space Sita listened to the seasick moans of women and c
hildren, breathed in the odour of oil and brine, the rank stench of bodies and vomit. By day, battered by breezes and the undulating swell of the ocean, travellers sat crushed together without decent facilities, sleeping, defecating and eating their food in a makeshift manner. Day after day the wind whipped Sita’s face and the taste of salt encrusted everything. Pressed into the small space of the deck, enduring the fierce blaze of the sun and the sickening pitch and roll, the women had to queue along with the men for the use of a single stinking toilet. The door would not close securely and the women looked out for each other, standing guard when one of their own was inside.
Before turning into the open sea, the ship made one last stop at an Indian port. Here, further indentured labourers going to work on the rubber plantations in Malaya were taken aboard. The vessel stayed out in deep water and the labourers were rowed out to the ship in small boats. Sita stood with others on the deck, leaning over the rail to watch the proceedings. The sea was choppy and the boats, crammed mostly with men but also a couple of women and two small children, rode high over the waves, rearing and diving. A rope ladder was thrown over the side of the ship as the boats approached, bobbing about beneath the hull. The men went first, one by one, grasping the ladder with difficulty, struggling for each foothold on the swaying rope as they ascended. Soon, all the men were aboard the ship, and only the two women and children were left in the boat, sobbing in terror as they looked up at the ship looming above. With threatening shouts the boatmen drove them towards the dangling rope, while high above spectators peered silently down over the rail of the deck. Two young boys of ten or twelve, with their mother close behind, and all driven by the liquid fear of death climbed quickly aboard, like monkeys swinging determinedly up the rope.
