Of Marriageable Age (25 page)

'He's coming! He's coming!' Like the whispering of trees brushed by a breeze, the guests whispered to one another in excitement. The chattering died down and there came a discordant outburst of the
shehnais
, wild and passionate, drowning the rumble of drums. The outburst was as short as it was passionate. The drums were nearer now, two streets away at most.

The bridegroom's coming!
Did Indrani, in her upstairs bedroom, hear it? Was the hair on the nape of her neck standing on end, as Saroj's was? Does she have goosebumps; is she sweating in anxiety, like me?
Oh Lord, this is what will happen to me! That Ghosh boy!

The
shehnais
again. No longer than one minute, wild, tuneless, brassy; and then the drums. And then the
shehnais.
And the drums. Nearer and nearer came the bridegroom's party.
Shehnais
and drums. Just around the corner now. Soon they'd be in sight! The whispering grew louder, the rustling of saris and palpable excitement increasing with the jostling forward towards the gate to see the bridegroom when he came. Ganesh at Saroj's side, Ma at the other… the crowd pushing forward behind Saroj…
Do you see him? Is he coming?
The crowd surged, pushing Saroj to the forefront with Ganesh. Baba was somewhere behind, struggling through the uncles and cousins.

'There he is! There he is!'

The bridegroom's party rounded the corner and everyone gasped and clapped in joy. The bridegroom! Dressed in white, and a little boy behind him, and the white horse clopping forward patiently. Men in white dancing to the drums, flinging themselves around in ecstasy; and now the terrible
shehnais
again, that frenzied fervent explosion of strident brass, and then the drums, louder than ever. Pushing and jostling on the bridge. Guests swarming out into the street, no longer whispering but laughing, clapping, dancing themselves in their excitement, heaving forward to welcome the newcomers. Bridegroom's party and bride's joining, mixing, merging. The horse, now in the midst of the surging throng, over the bridge and into the yard, and then the little boy lifted down and the bridegroom swinging himself to the ground, to be swallowed by the crowd. Saroj felt dizzy; sick.

'Are you okay, Saroj?' Ganesh whispered behind her, as from a great distance.

'I think she's going to faint! Ma, help her, hold her!'

Ganesh's arm firm around her as he forged back through the crowd to the front door, opened it, and half carried, half pushed her up the stairs.

'You'd better lie down,' he said. His voice was matter-of-fact. Solid. A brother. Not a bridegroom.

The living room was filled with aunties who'd been watching through the window. Some of them saw Saroj supported by Ganesh and cried out, Saroj? What's the matter, girl? You all right? Ganesh quickly nodded and signalled to them to be quiet and pushed her up the second flight of stairs to the bedrooms. Ganesh carried her to the bed. She fell back into the pillows.

Ganesh brought her a cold washcloth and a glass of water. He smiled and stroked her forehead, made sure she could be left alone, and slipped off down the stairs to the ceremony. The moment he was gone she stood up, went into the bathroom, and vomited. She returned to her bed, where she stayed throughout the wedding, trying to close her ears and her mind to the familiar chants of the priests as Indrani married a stranger. The next time she heard those sounds would be at her own wedding. In less than a year, if Baba had his way. She pressed her hands over her ears, pressed the sounds and the thoughts and the fears away into an airtight corner of her mind. It couldn’t happen.
It wouldn’t.

N
OT KNOWING
how to fight the fact of her marriage Saroj simply ignored it. She sealed the threat of it away in an air-tight corner of her mind. She refused even to think about it. When that bridge came she would cross it.

The joys of being thirteen were too pressing, demanding her attention, and she had Trixie at her side, only too willing to initiate her. Saroj let Trixie make her over into that most flippant, indecorous, impertinent and footloose of human beings, the Modern Teenage Girl.

Saroj had been practising freedom for two months now. Baba, once having resolved to marry her off at fourteen, washed his hands of her and her wicked ways, and anyway, he was so involved with his All-Indian Party he was hardly ever home. When he was, he didn't notice that a red Hercules bicycle, Trixie's old one now that she'd been given a white Moulton for her fourteenth birthday, stood in the bicycle shed next to Ganesh's.

'
D
O THEY FIT
?'

Saroj wiggled her bottom one more time and pulled Trixie's Wranglers up over her hips. She had to breathe in to close the zip; though they wore the same size Trixie was decidedly straighter than Saroj, and these jeans were too tight around the curve of her bottom, and the waistline too loose.

'Your figure!' sighed Trixie. 'What I'd give for a figure like yours, and you're only thirteen! You look more like fifteen!'

There wasn't a trace of envy in her voice. There never was. Trixie could ramble on for hours about Saroj's face, eyes, hair, hips, waistline, legs. She'd swoon with admiration, she'd wish they were hers, but without even a shadow of resentment. And now that she had her to herself, was responsible for her make-over, she positively overflowed with wonder. Saroj was like a favourite doll for her to dress up.

'Here, try this. It might be a bit tight around your breasts,' she giggled. Certain words, like
bosom
and
breasts,
made her giggle and she used them as often as possible. 'I wish I had your bosom. You're so lucky. Mine hasn't even begun to grow. Would you lend me a bra? I'd wear it and stuff it with sponges. I'm too embarrassed to buy one myself. Did your Ma buy yours for you? How do you measure for one? Let me see — turn around . . .'

Saroj had barely managed to button up the front of a skimpy midriff blouse. These things were all the rage that year, but Trixie's was too tight around her budding breasts. She felt she would burst out of it, though there wasn't all that much of her to burst. She turned around, looking at herself critically in Trixie's wardrobe mirror.

'Fantastic! Oh God, Saroj, you look great! Like Venus! Here, let me see your hair...'

She quickly parted Saroj's hair, brushed it over her shoulders, tied knots halfway down the two thick strands. She stood back to admire her work. 'Wonderful! Venus in blue jeans! If your Baba could see you now he'd fall down dead!'

'I wish he would,' Saroj said, and frowned at the three inches of bare skin between jeans and blouse. It was the same with a sari, of course, but with a sari you covered your chest with cloth and you never showed your belly-button. Saroj felt half-naked. Too provocative.

'Don't you have a shirt or something I could wear on top?'

'Pity.' But Trixie rummaged in her closet and brought forth a long, pale-blue cotton shirt scattered with tiny white flowers. Saroj slipped into it. Trixie tied it at the waist, stepped back again, and clapped.

'Saroj, we have to go out. I have to show you to the world. I can't keep you to myself a minute longer.'

The house, now that Indrani was married, was usually empty in the afternoons. Ma spent more and more time at the temple, whereas Gan, in the manner of boys, was everywhere and nowhere.

The moment school's last bell rang Saroj was out on the road with Trixie. At last she was doing the things normal girls did. Hanging around at Booker's snack bar, guzzling ice cream sodas, hanging out at Geddes Grant record store, huddling into a booth with Trixie, clicking their fingers and singing along to the latest hit booming at them through the earphones. Wandering through Fogarty's Dry Goods fingering the bales of cloth, discussing styles and dress lengths. Saroj was, for the first time in her life, having fun.

But Ma knew. Ma behaved as if it were the most normal thing in the world for Saroj to come home, tear off her school uniform, yell, 'I'm off, Ma!' and disappear on her bike, with or without Ganesh, tearing around the corner after Trixie, hair flying out behind her in long black strips, laughing in abandonment, swerving in and out between the donkey carts drifting up and down the Georgetown streets loaded with coconuts or palm leaves or wooden planks or bricks.

Saroj learned to ride a bicycle and play ping-pong. She and Trixie stacked records on Trixie's record-player and turned the volume up to deafening and opened the windows wide to share their joy with the whole street, and danced like wild things let loose. They went to Brown Betty's and ate Fudgicles, Popsickles and Chicken-in-the-Rough. They saw Cliff Richard in
Summer Holiday
, and the Beatles in
A Hard Day's Night
. Saroj rode Vitane. Betty Grant invited them to her swimming pool and Julie Sue-a-Quan and Ramona Goveia joined them there, and that's where Saroj went every Thursday for two months, and by the end of that time she could swim. She grew daring. She stayed out later and later, going to night parties and returning on the stroke of nine, since Baba now rarely came home before ten.

See, Baba, no hands! See, feet up on the handlebars! See, my skirt tucked into my panties, my legs are bare! See, that old chequered dress lying on the floor and I'm in Trixie's shorts, I'm running in the surf, I'm dancing to the Beatles! See, Baba, just see! I'm riding Vitane!

She learned to joke and banter and tease and laugh, and to listen when they talked of the most marvellous of earthly delights, the one thing that was still ahead, that one most forbidden thing:
boys.
Falling in love. All the girls were in love. It was expected of them. It was expected of
her.

I'm at the Van Sertimas' swimming pool, Baba, and I'm wearing Trixie's other swimsuit, my
skin
is showing! And there are BOYS here, living boys! Boys, boys seeing me half-naked, seeing my golden-brown glistening wet skin, watching me with a roguish gleam in their eyes, stealing touches, smiling at me, offering to teach me to swim, their hands holding my belly under water, laughing in affection at my helpless splashing...
boys whispering into my ear, passing me secret notes, appearing out of nowhere from round a corner and riding their bikes alongside mine, chattering and grinning and showing off, Derek and Leo
and Steve and Sandy, riding past our house, Baba, and waving secretly, blowing kisses up to me in the tower. Black boys, even!

T
RIXIE FELL MADLY
, irrevocably in love with Ganesh. The first time she met him was the day that he came to pick up Saroj at her home. Trixie, up till then so garrulous, did not speak a word but just stared at him with moist puppy-dog eyes, and ever since then she was consistently struck dumb by his presence. It was a thing they giggled at when alone; but once Trixie cried: 'I love him, Saroj, I really do. But he never even sees me. I'm just a little girl to him. He'll never marry me.'

'Trixie, for goodness' sake. You're
fourteen.
There are hundreds of things to do before you marry.'

'No there aren't. All I want is to love and be loved back and marry and have children. I'll never be happy otherwise.'

Saroj could only shake her head in exasperation.

T
RIXIE WAS NOT
the only one obsessed with marriage. They all were. The girls had but one topic of conversation: catching a boy. All they did centred on the primping of their bodies to this end. They made themselves into boy-bait; they learned to bat their eyes, to walk, to talk, to dance, to smile, to live and move and have their beings all with that one central goal, the catching of a good boy. All their dreams ended with Saroj's worst nightmare: marriage. Everything they did, what they wore, how they spoke, where they went, all had that one aim: to catch a husband.

Observing these girls Saroj learned several lessons. The fishing rules in the search for prospective husbands were almost exactly the same as those among the Indians. The girls looked at family and social standing and family's income first, and then at looks: lightness of skin and straightness of hair and thickness of lips and nose.

They assessed the boy, and then they fell in love.

There was no way you'd find one of these girls falling in love with a black roadworker's son. Not even if he won the Guiana Scholarship. Not even if he wrote poetry to match Wordsworth or played a Mozart symphony backwards or discovered a new planet. Background and blood was everything.

Wasn't that the way Baba had chosen this Ghosh boy? The goal was the same: to make a good catch, to separate good from bad quality, the salmon from the minnows. There was only one difference between Saroj and her girlfriends: they had to catch their salmon themselves. Baba had caught Saroj's for her.

Saroj already had that one prize they all coveted: a husband, signed, sealed and awaiting delivery. And she lacked the guts to say, when the time came:
Return to Sender.

I
F THE GIRLS
were fishing for salmon the boys were out to pick orchids, and it was Saroj's hard luck to be one. Once the initial euphoria of knowing she was desirable wore off she wished it gone. They wouldn't leave her alone. She could ride her Hercules down the street minding her own business and there they'd be, sailing round the corner on their own bikes and riding up beside her, grinning inanely. They'd show off by riding their bikes without hands, zig-zaging through the traffic, turning and grinning to see if she was goggle-eyed with amazement. They boasted about the motorbike their daddy was buying them for their sixteenth birthday.

All of them were going to get the biggest, fastest, loudest motorbike available. They dreamed of motorbike racing, while others had already begun to dream of the cars awaiting them in the not too distant future. They all wanted to be pilots when they grew up. If they ever did grow up. At parties their eyes gleamed with greed and they were all hands.

When Saroj danced with them their fingers dropped from her waist to her bottom and she had to reach behind and slap their wrists to get them to behave. They put their hands into her hair and sighed in ecstasy. They maneuvered their lips near to hers and nibbled the air. When she turned her head away they followed with theirs. They reeked; they plastered themselves with hair-oil, deodorant and cologne. Old Spice was out; shirts were soaked through with Brut and perspiration.