Of Marriageable Age (20 page)

'Run!' Saroj yelled, and Trixie ran, squeezing past Baba and down the stairs and out of the house.

Standing there, paralysed for the moment, Saroj felt the impending eruption. When Trixie ran, her instinct was to run too, and she tried to slip between Baba and the open doorway and fly down the stairs behind Trixie, but Baba grabbed her arm. Anger spilled out of his eyes. His arm raised to hit her. This time she would not let him.

This time she fought back.

She writhed like a mad thing, kicked his shins, hit him with her free fist. She yelled her own hatred into his face, cursed him with the dirtiest words she had ever heard. Baba, unaccustomed to reaction, could do no more than hold her at a distance as she kicked and wriggled. He pushed her forwards into the room, tried to get his arms around her to hold her still, but that was his mistake because it placed his arm before her face and she dug her teeth into his flesh and bit with all the might and with all the hatred she could muster. Baba cried out in pain and let go. Saroj almost fell down the stairs, out of the front door, into the street and into Trixie's arms.

She was hysterical with laughter.

'I bit him, Trixie! I really did! I bit him, good and hard!'

'What will he do to you?'

Trixie's eyes were opened wide, her brow creased with concern.

'What'll he do? Why, what do I care? Let him do what he likes. What can he do? He'll have those tooth marks a long time.'

It was one thing, though, to declare open warfare on Baba in an impulsive outburst of rage; quite another to re-enter the house and actually face the dragon. Saroj was a sensible girl, not normally given to eruptions of emotion. Euphoric triumph at her bravado lasted but an instant. Trixie's words sank in and she woke up to bitter reality.

Far from having won the battle with Baba, she'd put a load of fresh ammunition into his hands.

'Go home. Quick,' she whispered to Trixie, who leaped onto her bike and sailed off as if a pack of hounds was behind her. Saroj looked up at the windows. No Baba watching. She slipped between the hibiscus bush and the palings and curled up to wait for Ganesh. Her heart throbbed so loudly she could hear it. Baba's revenge, she knew, would not be of the volcano-erupting sort. It would be of the key-turning-slowly-in-the-lock variety.

She was right. Biting Baba only proved to him that she was too hot to handle.

Baba did not strike her this time. Instead, he brought forward the wedding date.

She was to be married the moment she turned fourteen, the minimum marriageable age for girls.

I
NDRANI REFUSED
to wear the sari Trixie had touched. Baba sent a telegram to Calcutta, asking for a new one to be rushed over by express air-mail. The exquisite peacock-and-roses sari was still perfectly usable, though polluted by an African hand. Saroj's punishment was to wear that sari on her own wedding day.

‘Oh Ghosh!’ said Ganesh when he heard.

14

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

SAVITRI

Madras, 1923

G
OPAL DID NOT TAKE
his babysitting role very seriously, and was not with them the day the king cobra came. He was a dreamy, sensitive lad of thirteen and, not accustomed to Mr Baldwin's unorthodox methods, preferred to sit by himself in the school room or in the rose arbour, reading, for Gopal was not only clever, he was ambitious. One day he would write the Great Indian Modern Novel. In English. He already had a title for it:
Ocean of Tears.

What good fortune, this babysitting for Savitri! For babysitting was the only way to escape the government school, where the standards were low and the teachers indifferent. This job would open doors for him. It was a matter of influence. The Lindsays had influence. Learning with their private English tutor was the best way to get ahead, and Gopal knew he was fortunate indeed.

Of his brothers he was the only one who felt fortunate. Natesan and Narayan couldn't care less about the English, and Mani still boiled with rage at the insult of David's birth, when Mrs Lindsay had stolen his mother. As simply as that, and without a by-your- leave. He had adored his mother, and that
Ingresi
woman simply said,
come,
and Amma had obeyed, leaving him, Mani, behind.

Mani, eleven at the time, was the eldest and could reason. Why should the English lady simply say:
do this
, or
come,
or
go,
and Amma obey? And why should the English lady have the power to disrupt a whole family and never even spare a thought for this disruption? A family of four boys, a girl, and a husband, left without a mother and a wife. It was atrocious, and Mani, had been appalled at such imperiousness! But the English were like that; they snapped their fingers and you had to run, and that was it.

That was when
Thatha
and Patti moved in, who till now had lived with their eldest son in the north. Patti had managed the family well, but she was exhausted after raising thirteen children of her own and burying four, and when Amma, no more needed in the big house, returned to the family, Patti had quietly and simply taken her leave, and died.

T
HATHA
SAT
on the east verandah where he lived during the summer months, and gathered the girl Savitri into his mind. The time was coming, he knew. The body, this earthly frame, was growing weak and he would have to release it soon.

Thatha
wore only a loincloth and a sacred thread, and an upper cloth across his shoulders. His skin was dark and spotted with age, hanging in leathery folds on his brittle frame. His head was shaved at every full moon and at these times was as shiny as a round brass pot.
Thatha,
permanently fixtured, it seemed, on his ragged mat on the east
tinnai,
the front verandah, surrounded himself with the objects of his trade: bottles containing strange milky liniments, vessels wrapped in rags containing pieces of bark and roots, seeds and dried leaves, pills and ointments and pungent herbs. None of the bottles, jars and boxes had labels.
Thatha
knew what each was for, and when someone came with a problem all he had to do was reach out and his hand would find the right remedy.

Not so many people came these days. They preferred the medicines of the English, even if they had to pay huge sums for these. Nobody had faith any more. Only the little girl Savitri, and upon her
Thatha
fixed his hopes and gathered her into his mind.

His youngest son, who was cook for the
sahibs,
had long forgotten the trade, though he too had once learned the secrets of healing. He also had once been taught that cooking and healing, food and medicine, are two sides of the same coin; that one cannot cook and nourish the body without understanding the balances of the body and how to correct them when they are out of joint.
Thatha
himself knew those secrets, handed down through the family for generations; when his father had been cook in the kitchen of the Maharaja of Mysore many had come to him with their ailments, even the Maharani herself, and he had healed them, and
Thatha
had watched and learned.

Two of his sons, his eldest and his youngest, had become cooks after him, but both had eschewed the other side, the healing; neither had inherited the Gift, and not one of his children carried the Sign. The eldest son now worked in the Hotel Ashok in Bombay, and the youngest son here in Madras.
Thatha
had worked and raised his family in Madras, then moved to Bombay to live with Madanlal till summoned back to Madras, and now he understood why Destiny had ordained this move. It was because of the girl Savitri.

She was only a girl but she had the Gift. And she had the Sign; the tiny round mole behind her right ear. He,
Thatha,
had it too, and his father and great-uncle. When it was time
Thatha
would activate the Gift with his blessing. Now she was receiving instructions, but instructions were not enough. You had to have the Gift. You had to have the Sign. You had to have the Hands. Savitri had them all.

Thatha
had one day taken the hands of the girl Savitri in his own and had felt it then: the flow of power — the power to absorb through the one hand, to bestow through the other. To absorb ill, which was nothing but obstruction, coming from the mind, and bestow blessing so the illness could not return and take root again. The girl had it. The flow. The Gift. It lay dormant within her, which meant she could not yet use it consciously. For that she needed Initiation and only he,
Thatha,
could give that, passing along the Gift just as he himself had received it from his father before him. This time, one generation would be skipped, and it would pass to the female line. But that was of no account. Because the Gift came from the Great Spirit which was neither male nor female, but contained the essence of both.

The girl Savitri would receive the Gift, and pass it on to her own children or grandchildren, and so it would not die out. Never. The Gift would always find a way. It was self-perpetuating.
Thatha
smiled to himself and belched. That daughter-in-law of his, Iyer's wife, she was a good cook. But what is cooking if you did not have the Gift?
Thatha
gathered the little girl Savitri into his mind and held her there in silence.

S
AVITRI HAD BEEN LEARNING
with Mr Baldwin for six months when finally the letter came. Iyer took the letter to Mrs Lindsay and humbly begged permission to remove Savitri from schooling.

'Cooky! But no, I cannot allow that! Why, she is making such progress... Mr Baldwin says so, and besides, David would be all alone! Why on earth?'

Savitri said only, 'The mistress begs for an explanation, Appa.'

Iyer played with the paper between his fingers. He handed it to Mrs Lindsay, who only gave it an impatient glance and handed it back, saying, 'It's in Tamil. What is it about?'

'It's about my daughter's marriage, madam,' said Savitri.

'Which daughter? You only have one daughter!' Savitri translated these words for her father and he replied respectfully.

'That is correct. I am speaking of my daughter Savitri,' translated Savitri.

Savitri herself was not present at the conversation. Only her body was. She herself had withdrawn from her thought-body so as not to become entangled in the words she spoke. They had nothing to do with her. She spoke words without thinking what she was speaking. When Mrs Lindsay spoke Savitri turned her words to Tamil, and when her father spoke she turned his words to English. She was a mere vessel of translation through which language flowed back and forth.

'You don't mean Savitri's marriage!'

'She is my only daughter, madam.'

'But for heaven's sake, Cooky, she's only seven! She's a child! You can't marry her off yet! And she's so bright in school, you can't ...' Mrs Lindsay launched into a long speech and Iyer and Savitri heard her out, their faces blank, till she had no more words, Savitri faithfully converting all into Tamil. Then Iyer said, and Savitri repeated, in English:

'My brother Madanlal has found a suitable boy for her in Bombay. He is a cook in the Ashok Lodge. My brother says he is very eligible, despite his clubfoot. Savitri is to go to Bombay to live in my brother's household, until she is of marriageable age, and then she will marry the boy.’

'Yes, but if he is a cook he can't be a boy any more! How old is this fellow?'

'He is twenty-two, madam. A very suitable age, for he will be twenty-eight when they marry. When my daughter is fourteen she will become his legally married wife. But for now she will live in my brother's household.'

It was very important to establish this difference: that it was not to be a child wedding, which would be illegal, but a
betrothal
, an agreement to marry.

'It is only a betrothal. But she shall go to Bombay with my eldest son Mani.'

'If it's only a betrothal why must she go to Bombay now? Why can't she go when she's older, old enough to marry?'

'The boy does not speak English or Tamil. My daughter must go to Bombay so that she can learn his languages Marathi and Hindi,' said Savitri earnestly.

'But, Cooky, no. I cannot allow this. And why Bombay, of all places? Surely there are suitable men in Madras?'

'We have tried to find a husband in Madras but without success. The girl has been polluted by your son.' Savitri said this without once blinking, looking up into Mrs Lindsay's eyes as if begging to be excused.

'Polluted? What on earth do you mean?'

'She has been mixing with him, touching him.'

'Oh, but, for heaven's sake, Cooky, they're just children! They play children's games!'

'It is said in Madras the daughter of Iyer the cook has been polluted by the
sahib
boy. Therefore she must be married away from Madras.' Savitri spoke the words, her own sentence, without the least trace of emotion. They were Appa's words. But her heart understood and was all turmoil, and her thought-body now returned and began to heave and surge in rebellion. And yet she brought forth Appa's arguments as if they were her own, and argued with Mrs Lindsay even while she longed to throw herself at her mistress's feet and beg her for refuge, from Appa, from her brother, her uncle, the clubfoot cook, Bombay, her culture, her land, her people.

T
HAT NIGHT
S
AVITRI
came to David's window again, and this time the moon was full.

'They have a husband for me, David! I am to go to Bombay next week!'

'But you promised to marry no-one else but me!'

'But Mani is taking me to Bombay! What can I do?'

'You could run away!'

'Where would I live?'

'With me, of course!'

But Savitri shook her head vigorously and tears stung her eyes, and she wiped them away with her shawl.

'Your mother would not allow it, David. I am only a servant.'