Of Marriageable Age (4 page)

The caterpillars pulled their houses around on their backs. The caterpillars' houses were mud-brown ugly things made of twigs and pieces of dried leaves and sticky threads. If you touched the caterpillar it pulled its house over its head and disappeared inside it. Some caterpillars never came back out again. They turned into nothing. The ugly twig houses hung deserted from the leaves. If you squeezed them they were full of air. But they weren't nothing. The caterpillars had turned into butterflies inside, Ma said, and pointed to the kaleidoscope butterflies fluttering through the garden. 'Ugly things can be beautiful inside,' Ma told Saroj. 'The outside doesn't count. It's the inside that's real.'

S
AROJ CHASED
the butterflies all through the back garden. 'Don't chase them,' Ma said. 'Just stand still, and if you're lucky one might alight on your shoulder. See…’

And she stood as still as a statue, holding up one hand, and a big blue beautiful butterfly landed on her finger. Ma lowered her hand and leaned over to show Saroj the butterfly. Saroj held out her finger but the butterfly flew away. Saroj stood stock still so the butterfly would land on her but it didn't.

'You
want
it too much,' Ma said smiling. 'You have to be still inside as well as outside. Your thoughts are still chasing him and he's scared of you. But if you melt away he will come.'

A
T THE CENTRE
of that house, at the centre of Saroj's life, was Ma. Ma filled the world and made it good. The house smelled good when Ma was inside it.
You
felt good. Nobody else could make you feel good like Ma. Indrani was silly because she wouldn't play with Saroj. Ganesh was loud and Baba said he was bumptious. Bumptious came from bum. Ganesh slid down the banisters on his bum. Sometimes when Baba's back was turned Ganesh pulled down his pants and pointed his bum at Baba, and made Saroj giggle. Bum was a dirty word. If you showed your bum you were bumptious. Saroj wanted to be bumptious too, but Baba would be cross. Baba was cross at most everything. When Baba came home from work you had to be quiet. Saroj didn't like Baba too much, because he was rude to Parvati. Ma said you shouldn't be rude but Baba was rude, even to nice people like Parvati.

Parvati always left before Baba came home but one day he was early and said, 'What's that woman doing here? I told you I don't want her around any more. Saroj is too old for a nanny.'

Baba didn't like Parvati because he said she spoiled Saroj. Saroj felt terrible when he said that. Spoiled things were terrible. Spoiled rice on the compost heap had blue mould on it. Spoiled eggs stank. Spoiled mangoes were slimy and disgusting. She looked at her face in the mirror and there was no blue mould and nothing slimy and disgusting. She sniffed at her armpits but they smelled of Johnson's baby powder and that smelled good. She made an ugly face at the mirror. And then she showed her bum to the mirror, pretending it was Baba. Saroj liked most everything except Baba.

Parvati had long black silky hair and took Saroj to the Sea Wall where you could gaze into For-Ever and think about things that had no end. Parvati took Saroj wading in the sea water. She showed her the crabs edging sideways out of their holes, and rushing in again. She showed Saroj how to fly a kite.

Next to Ma, Saroj loved Parvati best in the world. Indrani always teased Saroj about Parvati. 'Baby, baby,' sang Indrani. 'Baby has a nanny!' She stuck her nose in the air. 'I never had a nanny, nor Ganesh. Only babies have nannies. You always had a nanny, so you're a silly little baby!'

B
ALWANT
U
NCLE CAME
to take Saroj's photo. It was her fifth birthday. Every time Indrani, Ganesh or Saroj had a birthday Balwant Uncle came to take a photo of the whole family. Saroj wanted Parvati to be in the photo too, but Ma said Parvati couldn't come to her party or be in the photo because Baba wouldn't like it. Baba was cross with Ganesh because he stuck out his tongue just when Balwant Uncle took the photo. So he didn't get any cake. The photos were all stuck in an album, and sometimes Ma sat Saroj on her lap and showed her the photos. She wasn't in any of the first photos, because Ma said she hadn't been born yet. Some of the pictures were taken at the beach. Ma said that beach was in Trinidad, because Ganesh used to have his birthday in Trinidad. Saroj was born in Trinidad, said Ma. But they never went to Trinidad any more, which wasn't fair. The beach looked nice, because the sea was blue, not like the ocean, which was brown. 'Why don't we go to the beach any more, Ma?' asked Saroj. But Ma only shook her head.

W
HEN
S
AROJ WAS
six Jagan became King. Several uncles had come to dinner. There was Basdeo Uncle and Rajpaul Uncle, Basdeo Uncle waving a pamphlet at Rajpaul Uncle and jabbing the air with his forefinger. Three more uncles, Vijay Uncle, Arjun Uncle and Bolanauth Uncle, sat on the shiny red sofa, laughing at some joke Balwant Uncle had just told, opposite Baba in the armchair. Baba was glowering. He didn't like the uncles to tell jokes, but Balwant Uncle was full of jokes, so Saroj liked him best of all the uncles.

Saroj was helping Ma and Indrani clear away the table. All the uncles and aunties had come for dinner, but the aunties had returned home early, leaving the uncles to an evening among themselves, because this was an important day. Saroj had felt Importance swelling in the house all day, all prickly and exciting.

The drone of the radio announcer's voice crackled. Suddenly, Baba said, 'Sssh! Now it's coming!' and all the uncles jumped to their feet if they were sitting, stopped their talk in mid-sentence, and huddled around the radio, Bolanauth Uncle fiddling with the knob and the radio voice growing louder. And then they all gave a shout of triumph, the uncles and Baba crying out,
'Jai! Jai! Jai!’,
waving their fists, hugging each other, slapping each other on the back.

'What happened?' Saroj asked Ma, but Ma just shrugged her shoulders and disappeared into the kitchen. Saroj pulled at Ganesh's sleeve. 'What happened?' she begged. Ganesh was two years older than Saroj and already a young man. Ganesh knew the secrets of the uncles.

'We won the election!' cried Ganesh. His eyes were burning with a fire that Saroj didn't understand. What was an election? And how come we won it? Would there be some sort of a prize, like when you did something good at school or at the May Day fair, when somebody won the raffle?

'No, no prize, Sarojinibalojini,' said Ganesh patiently. Ganesh always took time to explain things. He bent over and talked to her as if they were the same size, the same age. He stroked the hair from her face and said, 'It just means we Indians were running against the Africans, and we won.'

'Oh, you mean a race…Why didn't we go and watch it then, instead of listening on the radio? It's much more fun…'

'Yes, Saroj, a bit like a race, only the Africans weren't really running against the Indians, they just wanted to get voted, and —'

'What are you telling that child, Ganesh?' Saroj looked up into Baba's frowning face, the cross face he'd been wearing more and more these days. Ganesh jumped to his feet. Though for Saroj he was tall he still hardly reached Baba's waist and they both stood looking up as if to a high white tower. Saroj knew they had done something wrong but she didn't know what.

'I'm telling her about the election, Baba,' Ganesh looked down at his feet as he spoke, twisting the end of his
kurta
.

'And what do you know about the elections, heh? What do you know? Do you know anything? Anything at all?'

'Baba, you said if Jagan wins the election then Indians are going to rule!'

'Yes! And you know what that means! That means this is a big day for us Indians! A big day! It's the dawn of a whole new era, what have I been telling you all along, Balwant, it's a matter of pure arithmetic... Indians outnumber Africans and as long as Hindus and Muslims stick together and vote together as one we will rule and keep those uppity Africans in their place — the country is going to the dogs I tell you, but God is on our side and I'm telling you…'

Saroj heard the words without understanding them, but she felt the rising anger behind them, and the words scared her.
Marxism. Leninism. Communism. Moscow. Imperialism. Colonialism.
Saroj fixed her eyes in fascination on Baba's face, which had taken on a coppery red colour, his eyes blazing and snapping. She could feel his passion like the swelling of a volcano, something indefinable, boiling hot and simmering just below the surface. He jabbed the air with his forefinger; his voice became a loud staccato bark. Balwant Uncle stayed cool and calm, trying to pacify him, his hands stroking the air, whereas the other uncles just stood around, listening, not interrupting. Baba's vehemence grew with every word he spoke.

She looked at Ganesh with helpless, frightened eyes. He took her by the hand and laughed to dispel her anxiety, and led her from the kitchen where Ma stood before a spitting saucepan, clapping
puris,
her back to them.

'Don't worry about Baba, Saroj,' Ganesh reassured Saroj. 'Look, here's a
puri;
you can take it in your fingers, it's not hot. You know, its just politics, it's a game grown-ups like to play, like we lil' children play with toys.'

N
EXT DOOR
, in a lovely green-and-white wooden mansion, all louvre windows and verandahs, lived the Camerons. Mr Cameron was very black. He was an African, Ma said, and Africans were black and had very curly hair. Mr Cameron's wife was very pretty, Saroj called her Betty Auntie and she was black too, but not as black as Mr Cameron. The Camerons had an enormous garden, a tangle of trees, bushes and shrubs. Betty Auntie didn't know much about gardening, not like Ma. A man called Hussein came once a week with a load of horse-droppings in a donkey cart and dug around for an hour, but still Betty Auntie's garden was wild. To Saroj it looked exciting.

Sometimes Ma and Betty Auntie chatted over the palings, talking about gardens and cooking and children. The Camerons had three children younger than Saroj. The eldest was a boy called Wayne, who was only four. Saroj discovered Wayne through the white palings that separated their gardens. She discovered the one loose paling in the fence, pushed it aside, and squeezed through to join him.

After that Saroj often went over to play with Wayne. Neither Betty Auntie nor Ma minded when they played together. Betty Auntie was really nice. She would offer them soursop juice and pine tarts and tamarind balls, guava-jelly sandwiches and ice cold Milo. But Wayne never came over to play with her. Saroj asked Ma if Wayne could come but Ma said no. She said Saroj should only go to play with Wayne when Baba wasn't home, and she should never tell Baba that she played with Wayne, and never mention Betty Auntie either. Somehow Saroj had known that, even before Ma told her. She knew what would make Baba cross. She knew you had to keep some things secret from Baba.

Betty Auntie played hide and seek with Saroj, Wayne, and her two little girls; told them stories, sang songs with them. Betty Auntie was more fun than Ma. She was even more fun than Parvati. Even when Ma was at the Purushottama Temple, and Parvati was alone with Saroj, Saroj went through the fence to play with Wayne. Wayne was more fun than Cousin Soona, who Baba said should be her friend. Cousin Soona wasn't really a friend, because she was a cousin. Wayne was her only friend. Even at school she didn't have any friends, because the children she played with there weren't allowed to come home to visit her, and she wasn't allowed to go to anyone’s homes either. Baba said so. Baba only allowed her to visit relatives. Cousin Soona was silly.

One afternoon Betty Auntie blew up the sides of a plastic pool and placed it on the grassy level land beneath the star-apple tree, stuck the end of the hose in it, turned on the garden tap, and filled the pool with water.

'You can have it to yourselves for an hour,' she said to Saroj and Wayne in her smiley voice, 'but when Caroline and Alison wake up I'm going to bring them out and then you have to share!'

They nodded and looked at each other with shining eyes. Betty Auntie helped them undress till they were both in their underpants, and next minute they were splashing and screaming in the cool water. Wayne turned on the tap and chased Saroj through the trees as far as the underbrush would let him, she screaming in delight as she ran to escape the jet of water, he calling out dire warnings. The garden was a bedlam of screams, yells and war-cries and it took an age before Saroj made out the blood-chilling call coming from beyond the fence.

'Sarojini! Come here at once!'

In a trice silence laid its death-cloak over Saroj and Wayne. They stood as if turned to stone. Saroj didn't dare look at Baba but she felt his eyes eating into her and heard him say once more in a voice that filled her with icy emptiness, 'Sarojini. Pick up your dress and come here at once.'

Betty Auntie cried, ‘Mr Roy, Mr Roy…’ but Baba ignored her, which was rude. Saroj did as she was told. Baba gripped her hair and forced her to walk before him, up the back steps, through the kitchen, into his study which overlooked the Cameron garden. He picked up the cane and whisked it three times through the air. Its quick sharp whistle made her blood curdle.

He whipped her to a rhythm. 'Never — play — with — the — negroes. Never — play — with — the — negroes. Never — play…' He whipped the words into her skin and into her flesh, into her blood. She screamed enough to bring down all of heaven, but nobody heard. Where were Indrani and Ganesh? Where was Ma? Where was Parvati? Why didn't they rescue her?

And through the screams she saw his face. It was so ugly. So ugly she retched and threw up the remains of Betty Auntie's tamarind balls and curdled Milo all over herself and Baba, who ignored the mess and lashed on and on and on…

When he had had enough he marched her up to the bathroom, pushed her into the shower, washed her down, dried her with a few agonising rubs of a towel and pulled a clean loose nightdress roughly over her head. He frog-marched her to her own bedroom, pulled out the chair at her desk, opened a drawer, pulled out an exercise book, rummaged in another drawer for a pencil, and then wrote on the first page of the exercise book:
I must never play with negroes.