A Sahib's Daughter (8 page)

Didi had little privacy when the children were home from school. They were full of curiosity about her. She took her meals squatting on a low stool in the dingy kitchen, holding her plate in one hand while she ate with the other. The children sat beside her, watching her eat with their mouths watering. She made the food look so delicious. She ate with her fingers, deftly rolling the rice into little balls, popping them into her mouth followed by a quick bite into a green chili. She never scattered salt over her food but put it in a heap on one side of the plate. Occasionally, she fed morsels of rice into their open, bird-like mouths. Ramona would have been horrified had she known.

Samira spotted Didi on the swing in the back garden one afternoon when she was supposed to be taking a nap. Jetha was pushing the swing, and they were both laughing. There was something familiar about the way he touched her that disturbed Samira although she did not understand why. Jetha had a wife and two daughters. She knew because Ramona gave him Samira’s old clothes.

Samira had learned to keep her thoughts and observations to herself because she always got into trouble if she divulged them to anybody. Mark could not be trusted to keep a secret. Ramona would scold Samira and tell her to mind her own business. Charles would let her speak and say, “Yes, dear. Now run along.” It was obvious that he hadn’t listened to a word she said.

“What did you do, Samira?” Mark called through the locked door of the box room. When they were naughty they were struck with a hairbrush or a hanger, whichever was handiest. But when they were really bad, Daddy dragged them, kicking and screaming to the dark, scary box room and laid them on one of the shelves. Then the door would be locked.

“N…n…othing,” sobbed Samira, “I don’t know what I did.”

Mark understood. It was sometimes hard to fathom adults. It was no use appealing to Mummy. She always took Daddy’s side. Nor to Didi, either. She just whispered to them to be good children and scuttled away to the back verandah lest she incur the Sahib’s and Memsahib’s wrath.

Mark had been in the box room and knew its horrors. He was close to tears.

“Shall I get Mummy?” he asked. “Don’t cry, Sammy.”

Ramona suddenly appeared and swooped down on him.

“Leave her alone! Go to Didi, Mark Theodore!” she said.

But for once he was brave, like the soldier he so wanted to be.

“Let her out! Let her out!” he shouted, his heart aching for his sister. He glared at his mother with tears in his eyes, ready to take off in case Daddy appeared, and he was locked up as well.

Ramona opened the box room door and released the sobbing Samira. Her face was blotchy with tears. “Go wash your face and brush your hair,” she said. “It’s time for lunch.” Samira ran to the bathroom and looked at her red eyes in the mirror. The tepid water from the tap soothed her skin as she rinsed her face, but inside her a feeling of resentment festered.

The Chalsa Polo Club was comprised of a large, square building, six grass tennis courts, a children’s playground and a small lawn. It had a white, corrugated tin roof like most of the planters’ bungalows. When it rained, the sound of the rain on the roof was deafening. And during the monsoons, it rained almost every day. The compound was straddled by a nine-hole golf course, bordered by the Murti River. It was years since polo had been played on what was now the first fairway.

The club was accessed through a low verandah that jutted out onto the lawn. Inside the clubhouse was a ballroom with a stage, card room, two squash courts, a billiard room, library and bar. Over the years, the ballroom floor echoed with the patter of children’s feet, the sound of chairs dragged across it on movie nights and the reverberation of dancing feet. A portrait of Queen Elizabeth took pride of place over the mantelpiece, and pictures of other royals were displayed under the glass tops of the cocktail tables. An ancient piano cowered in a corner, its ivory keys yellowed and split with age and decades of pounding fingers. Within its secret recesses reposed sweet memories of melodies from long ago.

Like most planter households, the Clarkes looked forward to “club days.” They travelled in the cantankerous Ford V8, laden with two sets of golf clubs, changes of clothes and the sandwich and cake tins containing their tea. As they drove, Mark was singing his version of a Hindi film song in a thin, high-pitched voice that rose in a wailing crescendo.

“Dil katta dekho, Dil katta dekho,

Oh Dilly Walla, Oh Dilly Walla.”

Higher and higher he went, repeating the words over and over, assured of a captive audience.

“Shut up! You’re singing it all wrong,” said Samira, holding her hands over her ears.

“Why don’t you sing ‘Muffin Man’?” suggested Charles.

“Or ‘Ten Green Bottles’?” said Ramona.

“Or not sing at all!” Samira cried.

Mark burst into tears.

“I don’t want to sing those old songs. I just want to sing ‘Dill katta dekho,” he howled.

“Okay, darling, you just sing whatever you want to sing,” Ramona said, for the sake of peace. So the singing resumed for the rest of the trip, with no one daring to comment.

All the children adored Uncle Anil. Any time he visited, he brought them Cadbury’s Fruit and Nut Chocolate bars. The children were excited because they had been invited to his house for Chinese food. They didn’t get invited out to dinner often. Samira wore a yellow dress that stuck out all around her and asked Didi to put her hair up in a pony tail.

“Not too high in the back, though,” she instructed. Didi brushed the tangles out of her hair. “Wait! Stop!” cried Samira. She spoke in Hindi. “I saw a curl! Didi, I saw a curl in my hair, and you brushed it away!”

“No, baba. There was no curl.”

Nor would there ever be. Her hair was straight and glossy down her back, too sleek and stubborn for even a hint of a curl. She didn’t see how it swung as she moved and how it gleamed in the sunlight. All she knew was that her hair had no curl and was too slippery to withstand pretty ribbons, grips or bows.

Anil swung them high in the air when they arrived at his bungalow.

“Again!” squealed Mark. “Again, Uncle Anil.”

“Sammy! What a pretty yellow frock!” he stood back in mock amazement.

“But look, Uncle Anil, my petticoat’s even prettier.” She lifted her frock in front to show him.

“Really, Samira! Put your dress down. That’s not ladylike,” Ramona said, crossly.

A lady they’d never met hurried down the steps to meet them. Charles and Ramona shook hands with her, and Anil said to the children,

“Say hello to Aunty Sheila.”

“But where is Aunty Gita?” asked Mark in bewilderment. “I wanted to see Aunty Gita.”

There was an awkward silence. Anil cleared his throat awkwardly.

“Aunty Gita went away, now Aunty Sheila lives here.”

“Run along and play, children,” said Charles.

It was dark, and they couldn’t go outside. There was nothing for her and Mark to do while the grown-ups had their drinks in the drawing room. They drank their orange squash in the verandah, and Samira excused herself to go to the bathroom. She loved to see other people’s bathrooms and how she looked in their mirrors. She did not like the way she looked tonight, and the pony tail hurt her head. It was too tight. She untied the yellow ribbon Didi had tied on so tightly it made her eyes bulge, and pulled off the band underneath. That felt much better. But she still wasn’t comfortable. Her can-can petticoat was prickly and scratched her legs. It was very pretty with layers of white lace and little satin bows but very uncomfortable, nevertheless. She slipped it off and stepped out of it, rubbing her legs in relief.

Just then, Ramona called them to dinner, and she ran to the dining room to join the adults. In the car on the way home, Mark persisted in wanting to know why Uncle Anil had a new Aunty.

“But why did Aunty Gita go away?” he wanted to know. “I liked Aunty Gita.”

“Yes, you’ve established that,” said Charles. “May I ask why, exactly?”

“Well, she had….” he hesitated, blushing.

“She had what?” Ramona prompted.

“Big bosoms!” cried Samira triumphantly, smirking at Mark.

“No! Stop it.” He was embarrassed at being caught out.

“Mummy, tell her to shut up!” He glared at his sister.

“He said shut up!” cried Samira.

“Samira, behave. Mark, you know you’re not allowed to say ‘shut up.’ And Gita left because she had to go somewhere else,” said Ramona.

“Mummy, you won’t ever have to go somewhere else, will you?” he asked, anxiously.

“No, darling, I never will ever go anywhere else,” she promised.

In the morning, the telephone rang just as they were finishing breakfast.

“Sheila Memsahib,” Jetha announced.

“I’ll get it,” said Ramona.

“Hello, Sheila. Yes. This is Ramona.” She spoke into the phone. “Thanks so much for a lovely dinner. Oh? Really, she is so careless!”

Sheila informed her that Samira had left her can-can petticoat and her yellow ribbon in the guest bathroom.

“I also wanted to let you know that I’m leaving Anil,” Sheila said. “I’m going back to Calcutta on the next flight.”

Charles groaned when Ramona told him.

“Oh, no! We all know what that means. There’s going to be yet another ‘Aunty’ for us to explain to Mark!”

Samira’s bedroom was the dressing room off Mark’s room. Although it was much smaller than Mark’s and not really a bedroom at all, she was happy with it because she had been allowed to choose the lilac paint and peacock bedspread. The children’s rooms led off the drawing room so when there were parties, the sound of laughing and dancing kept them awake.

Recently, however, Samira found herself unable to sleep because of Charles’ shouting. It would start about an hour after she had gone to bed. She would hide her head under the covers, blocking her ears. Why was he shouting at Mother? How could he go on and on like that? What could she have done that was so terrible? Samira would scrutinize her parents the following morning. Ramona seemed calm and unruffled. Charles was his normal self. It was most baffling and went on for many weeks until one night the shouting woke Mark.

Without hesitating, he jumped out of bed and opened the drawing room door. From her bedroom, Samira could see him go in. The shouting instantly stopped. She jumped out of bed and followed him, in curiosity and fear. Ramona and Charles were sitting with their drinks, unperturbed.