The Sleeping Dictionary

by Sujata Massey

  Another left turn, and I was back to the relative calm of shattered, looted Chowringhee. I was shaking, for I could not forget the man’s shocked eyes as he faced me through the windshield. And I’d felt a bumping under the tires that I knew was his body and maybe someone else’s too. Everywhere I looked I saw deceased: some of them women, judging from the ruined lengths of saris. And I’d seen a woman running among the rioters with a lathi in hand; she was as bloodthirsty as the rest.

  Finally I entered College Street. Burned trams leaned drunkenly off the College Street track and the bookstalls were in flames or smoldering. All the stories and histories and poems inside their wooden walls were gone; the words so carefully set down for posterity meant nothing against mass violence. It was better that Tagore had passed away in peace five years earlier; these events would have been more than he could bear.

  I maneuvered into the Sens’ small street and parked in front of the business next door, Khan Typewriters, which was neither looted nor burned. Dutta Publishers, on the other side of the Sens, had its door kicked in. The windows were smashed at Chowdhury Teas, and I imagined the shop’s valuables had been taken. On this street, it appeared that only Hindus had been attacked.

  The metal grille was locked across the Sens’ front door and window. This must have protected them from the fate suffered by their Hindu neighbors who hadn’t had one. I thought it did not seem as if anybody had gained entrance. I walked around to the small window where I’d once called for admittance and saw a wooden board was nailed over it. Not much safety at all, I thought, as I called for someone to open the door to me. Either they weren’t answering, or they’d already gone. They weren’t dead; no, I said to myself, they couldn’t be.

  I had traveled through so much, and now I could not reach them! The impossibility of the situation made me want to scream, but I knew not to call attention to myself. As a few thick raindrops began falling, I looked up and recognized the Sens’ flat roofline. And this gave me an idea.

  If I could reach their roof, I might gain entrance through the roof’s trapdoor and down the little staircase that went into their house. But to reach the bookbindery’s roof, I would need passage through another nearby house onto its roof. I did not know of any neighbors except the Nazims, who had come for tea once while I was there.

  I ran down the street and knocked at the Nazims’ door. A curtain shifted as someone from inside peered out.

  “I am a friend trying to help the Sens. Will you let me in to explain?” I faced the window as I spoke, but the curtain dropped back in place. I waited a while longer, but nobody opened the door.

  Belatedly, I realized that I should not remain so visible. I walked off, thinking of another way I could reach the Sens’ roof and finally got it: Dutta Publishing. The door was gone, so I could walk straight in and presumably get to the top, if the upstairs was not locked.

  Wary that looters might still be inside, I tiptoed into the building. To my relief, it was quiet and empty. I took the stairway but stopped short at the first floor. Two men were sprawled across the floor; they had been eviscerated. So much blood had flowed that it stained the floor and books that had fallen around them. The sight was frightening; I put a hand on the wall to steady myself because I felt faint. When I’d collected myself, I stepped over their bodies and continued up.

  The trapdoor in the low ceiling at the end of the stairs was simple to unlatch. Then I was up on the flat roof, and it was a short walk along the row of houses to the roof I recognized from Mrs. Sen’s red-bordered saris still hanging on the washing line. Red like the blood that smeared the edge of my sari as I’d walked over the corpses in Dutta Publishing.

  The trapdoor into the Sen house was locked. Using the notched edge of the van key, I struck at the hinge until it broke. The trapdoor fell open, but in the next instant I faced the long, slim barrel of a rifle. I almost fell backward, I was so terrified.

  “Don’t move!” Supriya shouted and clicked the trigger into position.

  “It’s only me. Kamala!”

  Abruptly the gun lowered. I saw that Supriya was dressed in her INA khaki uniform, jacket to jodhpurs. Her eyes were red and her face was drawn.

  “Did the British let you keep the gun?” I asked. She could have shot me so easily; this knowledge made me shake.

  “Of course not!” Supriya snapped. “It was borrowed from the Strength Brigade years ago. Come inside. Everyone’s safe.”

  On the second floor, Mrs. Sen was peering around the corner of a doorway, holding a squirming Nishan against her wide body.

  “Why did you come?” Mrs. Sen’s hair was half down, and her face was wet with tears. “The goondas will certainly come back and finish us.”

  “Mashima, don’t worry,” I said, putting my arms around her. “I brought the Red Cross van. We will drive like the wind back to Middleton Street. I know the safe way.”

  “Your driver—what faith is he?” Mrs. Sen whispered. “Some of the rickshaw and taxi drivers are driving people straight to those who will kill them!”

  “I am driving you myself. Have you organized your valuables?”

  “We each have a suitcase, but—” Mrs. Sen broke off. “You are driving? You?”

  “Women drive in the army, Ma,” Supriya chided while showing me into her room where a small line of suitcases stood. She shot me a grin and said, “I’m so glad you have a way out of this place for us.”

  Sounding injured, Mrs. Sen told me, “We asked the Nazims to hide us, but they said they could not. After all these years of knowing each other—sharing food, and our daughters helping their children with studies.”

  “Everyone is trying to save his own skin,” I said sadly. “Where is Masho?”

  “He is gathering the most important books,” Supriya said. “I asked him to keep watch but he said after the books are together. Oh, what now?” Supriya had turned away from me and was staring through a slat in the shutter covering her bedroom window. A group of about ten young men had surrounded the Red Cross van.

  “Oh, no.” My heart began to thud as I watched them try to get in through the driver’s door. Finding it locked, they smashed the side window to pull out all the medicines. Walking around the van’s outside, one man methodically removed the mirrors while another worked on the tires. How stupid I felt for parking the van where it could be seen. I had let down the Sens, and we would die together: not for the freedom of India, but as victims of our countrymen.

  As quickly as the van had been emptied, the men backed away from it. A teenage boy was tilting a can over it. Petrol. He threw a match.

  “No,” I cried into Supriya’s shoulder as the van burst into flames. And to my horror, I saw men using it like a kind of fire pit, taking broken pieces of furniture, setting them alight, and then running back to throw this lit tinder into certain houses.

  “Oh, we must help the Duttas!” Supriya cried.

  “They’re already dead,” I told her. “I came up through their building, and I saw them.”

  “Ramesh-uncle and Chetan. Oh, God!” Now Supriya pressed an arm across her face.

  “Dutta Publishing is where we should go,” I said, pulling her arm down so she could see the emotion on my face. “Their killing and looting is completed, so nobody will think to go back inside or to burn them out. And I left their roof door unlatched.”

  Supriya pressed her lips together, looking uncertain. “If we leave our place, it will surely be looted. Baba and I decided I should defend us with the rifle. I only have a few bullets, but I am a good shot.”

  But there were so many men on the street, she could not possibly defend against every one of them. I made my case and got her to agree to let me bring the valuables up to the roof.

  Nishan was glad to get out of his mother’s grasp to help with this project. I left him working and went to find Mr. Sen, who was inside the office.

  He shook a finger at me and said, “You should not have come, Kamala. If you saw the way those goondas just explode
d a Red Cross van, you would understand the risk.”

  I could not admit that I’d been the one who’d been thoughtless enough to leave the van in front. Instead, I said that we were bringing valuables to the roof, and asked if there was anything I could carry from his office.

  “Yes!” His expression relaxed slightly. “I was working on some very important folios for the Asiatic Library.”

  “I mean things of your family’s: money, bank books, important documents. The library will understand that its books should not come before your family’s life.”

  “But they are hand-painted poems from the time of Emperor Akbar! This is an irreplaceable part of India’s history. We must protect it with our lives because without it—” As Masho spoke, thick tears coursed down his wrinkled cheeks.

  I knew what he was thinking. Without India’s history, we would not remember what we once had been; we would become shells of beings like the savages outside. I understood that Mr. Sen loved books the way that I did; for him, these ancient books were a form of human life.

  “Masho, I will be very careful with the folios. Please come.”

  Nishan came bounding down the steps. “The men are coming back down the street, and they have torches. Guess who is with them? Our darwan, Ali! He must have told them that we are hiding inside.”

  “Give me the folio,” I said to Mr. Sen, who appeared to have gone numb. His fingers shook as he handed me a cracked red cover with a bundle of papers inside. I spied a burlap bag in the corner, wrapped it around the book, and followed him and Nishan upstairs just as the men bashed through the front door’s grille.

  CHAPTER

  47

  Calcutta has earned a bad repute of late. It has seen too many wild demonstrations during the past few months. If that evil reputation is sustained for sometime longer it will cease to be a city of palaces; it will become a city of the dead.

  —Mahatma Gandhi, Harijan, August 24, 1946

  As we reached the roof, Supriya shifted into commander mode, ordering us to creep low along with the suitcases toward the Dutta Publishing building. I should have been relieved that we were finally on our way, but a nauseous feeling settled in the pit of my stomach. So many men were massed below us, working on the grille; any one of them could look up and notice us. I told Supriya that instead of moving, we might be safer lying flat in the roof’s center behind the washing line still draped with saris until they’d gone.

  “If we linger, I could shoot one of them,” Supriya mused. “That could scatter the crowd—”

  “Or show them exactly where we are!” I retorted. “Tell everyone to lie down.”

  “No, you must listen to me,” Supriya whispered emphatically. “There can only be one commander.”

  “Daughters, do not argue,” Mrs. Sen interjected; she was lying awkwardly on her belly. “Let’s do as Kamala says and hide behind the washing. Then we can follow Supriya’s guidance to the next place.”

  The way she’d included me as a daughter reminded me of Sonali. I’d heard her in-laws’ fine house was in the predominantly Muslim area near Nakhoda Mosque. I whispered to Supriya, “Have you heard from your sister?”

  “Fortunately, they all went to a wedding in Sindh,” Supriya answered. “She will be worrying, when she hears about this.”

  “Ruksana lives near Park Circus,” I said. “They have many Muslim neighbors. I suppose it’s unlikely they will be targeted.”

  “But there are Hindus nearby. I worry for them.” Supriya fiddled with her rifle and muttered, “There’s something you should know; in case I die today and you survive.”

  “Don’t talk such nonsense!” I began.

  “Pankaj is in Delhi for the INA trials. Before leaving he asked me to marry him, but I didn’t know how to answer. Now I have made my decision. Will you please tell him that I would have done it?”

  A shiver ran through me at her words. How ironic that the man who’d almost married Bidushi had decided on Supriya. But I could understand why. The two had always had a comfortable, teasing relationship; and he was very proud of her for serving with the INA. And I was sure that his mother also approved of Calcutta’s political darling.

  “Didi? What do you think?” Supriya’s eyes were focused on me.

  “Pankaj will be yours, if you want him,” I said. At least I’d never confessed my long-ago crush or the anger I’d held against him for his cavalier treatment of my emotions. If I had told all to her, her loyalty to me might have kept her from the man she’d always secretly wanted.

  “His mother already spoke to my parents. Ma and Baba are a little worried that he wants me for the wrong reason—the political advantage. You see, he plans to run for Parliament after Independence,” Supriya said. “But I don’t care about his ambition. There is not another man in Calcutta like him.”

  “Yes, you’re right about that,” I agreed. Marrying an INA heroine would be like gold for Pankaj. But he admired her, too. I hoped the marriage would be a happy one. While I honestly wished her happiness, I was very glad not to be in her position.

  “You are talking of romance, when death is stalking! Daughters, don’t be foolish,” Mrs. Sen hissed from the other side, letting us know she hadn’t missed a word.

  “All right, Ma. Watch this.” And then Supriya was sliding forward like a lizard toward the roof’s edge. She sighted along the rifle and pulled the trigger. The resulting blast was strong enough that I clapped my hands over my ears while her mother and Nishan screamed.

  “They’re running!” Supriya rose into a crouch and shot again at the retreating group. I joined her at the edge to see one man wailing and holding his arm; the other lay motionless. But there was no time to feel victory, because thick flames were licking their way up the Sens’ storefront.

  “We must go over to the Dutta building,” I shouted at the Sen parents, who were still lying behind the washing line. “Get up.”

  Supriya, Nishan, and I led with the suitcases and folios. Mrs. Sen was too weakened by fear to carry anything, so her husband was consumed by supporting her, step by step toward the side of the roof. There was about a three-foot gap between the roofs. The jump had not bothered me, but this time, as I approached the edge and looked down, the three-story drop was dizzying. I tossed the suitcase hard to the other side; then I tucked my sari higher at the waist, ran a few steps toward the edge and leaped. I fell forward as I landed on the Duttas’ roof, with the Akbar-period folio clutched securely against my chest. Supriya coached Nishan to follow, and he leaped with a squeal of excitement and was caught safely by me. Then Supriya threw the remaining suitcases and leaped herself.

  I looked back to the other roof and saw the Sen parents standing at the edge. Mrs. Sen was crying as she looked past the rain gutters at the faraway street. With a wave of her hand, she indicated for him to go forward; she would remain. And now it was raining in earnest, though I doubted that it was enough to kill the fire.

  “Ma, come on! There is no time to waste!” Supriya called. She was busy hauling suitcases toward the Duttas’ trapdoor.

  “I won’t make it,” her mother called back. “Go on yourself.”

  “Take Nishan down,” I advised Supriya. “Don’t look at them on the first floor. I’ll help your mother.”

  “Not yet. I’ll help her first,” Supriya said.

  For some reason, my knees had become weak; I had to steady myself before I jumped back to the Sens’ building. I landed shakily but righted myself and smiled encouragingly at Supriya’s mother as Supriya bounded over to join me. “See, Mashima, it’s not hard,” I said. “Your husband can pull you across with him! And Supriya can catch you on the other roof.”

  Mrs. Sen vehemently shook her head. “I have not jumped since I was a schoolgirl. I’ll make him fall if he holds my hand—”

  Her words were drowned out by the roar of motors below. I looked down and saw an army lorry had arrived. If only the army had arrived earlier, there would never have been a fire. But then I saw, pulling up
behind, a massive fire engine. I felt faint, as if I were dreaming. Father McRae’s angels had come together and saved us.

  “Don’t go anywhere,” I said to the Sens, who were still teetering at the divide between the buildings. “Come look!”

  The firemen jumped out, aiming the hose at the Sens’ doorway, while others doused the burning Red Cross van with buckets of water. At the same time, soldiers ran down from the lorry bed and rushed into the Duttas’ building, calling for them to come out.

  Just one worker remained outside: a European in civilian clothes who kept circling the van as the firemen lashed it with water. When the flames had faded, the man looked inside the van; he came out coughing and sat down on the curb, putting his head in hands. I did not know any Europeans at the Red Cross who looked like this fellow; but I recognized the slump of his shoulders. It was Simon.

  “We’re here!” I called down to him, my heart swelling with the realization that he’d loved me enough to find me. But the noise of the fire hoses drowned out my voice. Simon hadn’t heard; he was dejectedly standing up and turning away from the van. He wiped his hand across his eyes, and I guessed he thought that I’d been killed.

  “Look up! We’re here!” I shouted in English and then in Bengali; finally a soldier looked and gave a loud cry. What a sight we must have been: one woman in a bedraggled white sari and another dressed in an INA uniform. Behind us, Mr. and Mrs. Sen clapped and cheered.

  “Captain Supriya!” one fireman called in excitement and another echoed his cry.

  With all the commotion, Simon finally looked our way. I was too far to see his face, but I knew he recognized me because he held up his arms outstretched toward me. The embrace I had longed for earlier in the morning was finally almost mine.