Waiting for the Monsoon (46 page)

I'm going to get back to work.

I didn't mean to say that you're the tailor.

I know.

I didn't mean it like that.

I know.

It just came out.

I know.

“Well . . . ?” The girl looked at her aunt.

“What?”

“The WC.”

Charlotte showed her the door to the guest room. The girl pattered off, now clearly desperate, and shut the door behind her. Charlotte turned toward the music room, but that door had also closed. She wanted to go after him, hear him say out loud that that night had not been a dream, but the closed door told her: DON'T.

HEMA CAME OUT
of the kitchen building. He was carrying a tray with the tea. It was later than usual because he'd had to filter the water, which was full of sand. But he was in no hurry. He hoped that when he entered the house everything would be back to normal. Walking up the path to the side door, he saw a bright yellow rucksack leaning against the house. He hadn't heard or seen anyone. He wondered whether it contained yet another selection of accessories that each of the ladies of Rampur hoped would make her outfit just that bit more attractive or unusual than those of the others. He pushed the door open with his foot, as he always did: the worn spot at the bottom of the door was clearly visible.

Although the lengths of fabric had disappeared, he knew that he hadn't dreamt the whole thing. There were candle stubs all over the place and blobs of melted candle wax on the marble floor and the stairs. He sighed. It had been a short night for him, too. Unable to get back to sleep, he had started to worry about how best to dispose of the remains of the nocturnal festivities.

He was about to go upstairs when he heard memsahib call out to him from the drawing room.

She was holding the photo that had stood on the mantelpiece for years.

“We have a guest!”

“A guest?”

“My niece from England is here!”

“Your niece?”

“My brother's daughter.”

“Here?”

She pointed to the little girl in the photo, who had braids and was holding an enormous ice lolly. Hema had looked at it countless times because it was such a sweet, comical photo.

Suddenly he started fussing around. “Where is she?”

“In the guest room, freshening up. She'll be down in a little while.”

“I'll go get some more cups,” he said, and hurried off. At the back of the kitchen cabinet there was a lovely little cup — he would get it for her.

“Not yet?” he asked when he came back with the teacup, which was decorated with a dancing Mickey Mouse. “Maybe she's fallen asleep.”

“You can pour my tea,” said Charlotte, she was very thirsty, “and take a cup in to the
darzi
.”

Hema did not feel like bringing the
darzi
a cup of tea, and he went on putting the cups and saucers on the table, along with the sugar pot that memsahib never used but that he always brought with him, and then he polished the spoons once more on his apron. He heard unfamiliar footsteps in the hall. He picked up the teapot and turned around respectfully. The white woman who walked in was just as naked as the women in the photos in the magazine he bought once when he was far away from Rampur. Long strands of wet hair hung alongside her neck, and she was wearing a mini shirt and an even tinier pair of knickers. Her shirt was wet due to the water dripping from her hair, and he could see her nipples through the fabric. He saw her navel, too, and her long white legs. The teapot fell to the floor with a crash, and the hot water spread in all directions. Hema called out that they mustn't panic, that he was going to fetch some cloths, that they should be careful not to step on the shards and the spilt tea because they might hurt themselves. His heart was pounding like mad. Was this the little girl with the pigtails?

“Auntie, thanks for running the bath for me, it was just what I needed after such a long trip!”

MADAN IS SEVENTEEN
years old when he rings the doorbell at the house of Dr. Krishna Kumar. There is nothing to indicate that there is a doctor living at this address. It's an ordinary house with a bell. As he withdraws his finger, the door flies open.

“So you're Mukka? I'm Dr. Krishna Kumar.” A bald man wearing glasses with thick lenses is looking at him with a friendly smile.

Madan begins to beam. From the moment he got off the train, he's been nervous. How is he supposed to explain to the doctor that he wants to be able to talk, that Chandan Chandran sent him, that he's never been to a doctor, and that he has no money?

The man, who had obtained a doctorate with a dissertation on a problem related to the textile industry, holds the door open for him. “From what I hear, you have a feel for it.”

Madan has no idea what the man is talking about, but he follows him into a large room, filled with dark antique furniture, where it smells of mothballs and beeswax.

“Is that all you have with you?” the doctor asks.

Madan nods.

Dr. Krishna Kumar takes a small box from one of the overcrowded cabinets. “If it turns out you're really worth it, as my respected colleague has assured me, then I'll pay you well. He knows that I only accept the best of the best. He told me on the telephone that you know all about fabrics and thread, you're a quick learner, and in your whole life you've never once talked nonsense.” He laughs heartily at his own joke.

Madan laughs, too, although he has no idea what thread has to do with medical science.

The doctor opens the box and takes out a shiny sewing-machine bobbin. “This is your bobbin. As long as you work for me, I don't want you to use any other bobbin than this one. And I don't want you to use more thread than you need. That means that when you wind up your spool, you'll have to make an exact estimate of the amount of thread you'll need for the entire garment. Is that clear?” The doctor looks at him sternly, and then he starts to laugh again. “I'm not saying this because I'm a penny pincher, but because I demand precision and craftsmanship.” He hands the spool to Madan. “I'll take you on for a week on trial, without pay. I know you have a lot to learn, but a week is long enough for me to see if my esteemed colleague was right.”

MADAN IS SITTING
on a stool in the middle of a room, with a bobbin in his hand. He is dejected. In front of him is a large, black treadle sewing machine, painted with graceful letters, and in a corner of the room there's a sleeping mat. What he would really like to do is simply leave, now that he knows for sure that Dr. Krishna Kumar is not a real doctor. But because boss Chandran gave him the special letter, complete with address, and also telephoned, Madan does not leave. Perhaps another doctor will come by, or maybe Krishna Kumar has a brother who's a doctor? Or a cousin?

On top of the sewing machine lies a length of black silk, along with a spool of white thread and a pair of scissors. No one has entered the room after a quarter of an hour, and his feet unconsciously begin to experiment with the treadle. The machine is very much like the one that Ram Khan had, except that it's newer and looks nicer. The room also reminds him of the crate he was kept in, especially since Dr. Krishna Kumar locked the door on his way out. Madan is disappointed and he doesn't understand why he has to sit here, but he's glad there's no one around to ask him questions or give him orders. He watches the sewing machine needle go up and down, faster and faster, depending on how hard he pushes down on the foot pedal. He picks up the silk cloth and slides it under the presser foot. The material moves forward, driven by the foot. But since there's no thread in the bobbin, this does not produce a line of stitching.

It is the combination of Ram Khan's flood of abuse while he was threading his machine and Subhash's eternal chatter about machines and mechanisms when all he wanted to do was sleep that prompts Madan to wind the white thread onto the bobbin, open the slide plate, and try to work the spool into the hole underneath. He makes several attempts, but it isn't until his foot accidentally comes down on the pedal and the needle shoots upward that the spool drops into its slot. He looks up with a sense of satisfaction, but there's no one there to see his triumph. Again he thinks about the doctor who isn't a doctor at all and he begins to suspect that a real doctor will never come. With a jerk he pulls the fine thread from under the foot, something he often had to do for the far-sighted Ram Khan. Although he has no direct experience, he knows that with this machine it is possible to make something truly beautiful. He unfolds the length of silk. It's not large, but he knows that it is expensive material. He doesn't touch the scissors. He only wants to feel how the machine sews. He wants to see how the needle goes through the material and forms a straight line with the thread. Again he places the material under the presser foot and then lowers it. Using a treadle sewing machine requires a certain amount of skill, that much is clear to him. The thread has formed loops and what a moment ago was a pristine length of silk has become shoddy work by a third-rate tailor. With a dexterity born of practice, Madan carefully unpicks the thread and starts all over. As he slides the piece of silk under the presser foot for the fifth time, he realizes that he must keep up the speed, and that the wheel, which is driven by the movement of his foot, must not be allowed to stutter, but must continue at a constant pace. His first evenly stitched white line appears on the black silk beneath his fingers. And again he looks up from his work with a sense of pride, only to realize that no one is watching. His stomach growls: he's had nothing to eat since the evening before. He sews another line and another. The lines become straighter and his stitches more even. When the spool is empty, he winds it up again and goes on sewing, one line after the other. In the beginning, the lines sometimes wander slightly, but gradually they become straighter and straighter. After a while, he rotates the material a quarter turn and goes on stitching lines. Although he hasn't planned it, he has produced an exact copy of the black and white checkered material that the daughter of Chandan Chandran was wearing.

It must be evening by now, although no daylight enters the room. The growling of his stomach has abated, along with the sense of hunger. Madan strokes the blocked material in his lap. The tingling in his abdomen, which disappeared when he got on the train, has returned. It is as if his fingertips can feel the girl's skin through the fabric, the curve of her throat, the dimple in her neck. He knows that Chandan Chandran has long since arranged a marriage partner for her, and for his other children. And yet he cannot forget her. The girl has awakened something in him that refuses to go back to sleep. He feels how the swelling increases, under the piece of cloth. His breathing accelerates. He's afraid to touch the cloth. He doesn't even want to look at it, for fear the agitation that has taken possession of him will be visible to others. Why won't it go away? Why does his willy refuse to listen to his pleas? Madan is afraid to move, hoping that the unwelcome guest will retreat and disappear into the shadows. But the organ in question has its own rules: it remains erect, and proudly lifts the checkered cloth. He knows that the only solution is to take it in his hands and release its charge. But the thought that any minute Dr. Krishna Kumar could open the door and witness the act leaves him without the will.

You have to help me. You always come up with a solution. Think of something. Something I can do. I can't get her out of my head. I didn't intend to make the cloth like that. It just happened. I wasn't thinking about her. I was watching the needle, which pierced the cloth, over and over. It was as if I was piercing something myself, as if there was something that I was penetrating. I couldn't stop it. I had to penetrate it. Pushing the needle through the cloth. I wanted to make a line. A sharp line, and I wanted it more and more. I wasn't thinking of her. Honest. It wasn't until the pattern was finished that I saw it. It happened without my wanting it to happen. As if she'd cast a spell on me. That's not possible, Abbas, is it? She can't have done something to me that will never go away? Tell me that it'll go away, that I won't always be the way I am now. I want to be ordinary again. I can't stand it that each time I think about her, everything in me changes. If the doctor suddenly walks in, he mustn't see me like this. No one must see me like this. It's bad enough that Subhash caught me. People already think I'm strange. I know they talk about me and point at me. It's only when I'm very, very quiet that I'm allowed to exist. I don't want this feeling in my belly. It scares me. I want to be ordinary, just like everyone else. I wish I could speak.

The piece of cloth on his lap has descended. Madan hears the door open. It would have suited him better if it had remained closed. He hasn't finished his talk with Abbas. His prayers have only just begun.

“He wasn't exaggerating,” Dr. Krishna Kumar crows, as he snatches the cloth from Madan's lap. He takes it over to the lamp and pushes his glasses farther up his nose. Carefully he studies the work. “For you, I won't even need a week.” He walks out of the room with the material in his hand, leaving the door open.

Madan shuts the door and crawls onto the sleeping mat in the corner. He closes his eyes and tries to continue his prayers, but he doesn't know what to say, except that he wishes the bald man with the glasses were a real doctor.

EVERY MORNING AT
six o'clock Dr. Krishna Kumar comes into the atelier and inquires whether Madan has slept well. Every morning for five years. And every morning Madan nods his head, even when he's lain awake for hours, battling his dreams and frustrations. He lives in a tiny room behind the courtyard and works together with fourteen other tailors in Dr. Krishna Kumar's large atelier. He has his own cutting table, which stands in a corner of the room. There are patterns hanging on the wall, everything from a simple
salwar kameez
to a complicated fitted mantle with pockets and a stand-up collar. In the beginning, before the others got there in the morning, the doctor would lay out a length of cloth and indicate with a piece of chalk where Madan was to cut. But now he does that himself. The doctor has taught him how to cut velvet, how to sew a sleeve and attach a facing. From the very first day, the doctor realized that Madan had a special talent when it came to cloth, but it was a surprise that he also had a talent for transforming cloth into clothing. Month after month the doctor devised increasingly difficult assignments, as if he were setting traps for him.