Waiting for the Monsoon (55 page)

No, no. You're supposed to invite them.

Who?

The rains.

He picked up the bucket and placed it on the crumbling pillar at the bottom of the stone steps leading to the front door.

Entice them.

He placed the second bucket on the opposite pillar. The architect had designed the pillars to bear statues, but the statues had never materialized.

And on the steps
.

Charlotte remembered parties from the past, when a red runner was laid out on the stairs and there were two servants in blue tunics and gold-coloured berets on each step. They held plumes that flanked the approaching guests. Charlotte and Madan positioned their buckets with precision.

Yes!
she heard Madan exclaim.

He ran back to the shed. There was an enormous clatter, and he emerged covered in dust and carrying another stack of pails, which they set out beside the path alongside the driveway, where torches had burned.

We're going to need more buckets
, she thought, infected by his enthusiasm. More signs to line the desiccated borders, and coax the rain to break loose.

HEMA HEADED UP
the hill, lugging two heavy jerry cans. He was pleased that he'd managed to buy water for the same price as yesterday, now that prices were going up almost by the hour.

From a distance, he saw the memsahib and the
darzi
running around with buckets. A huge smile appeared on his face, and the hill, which he had so often cursed, suddenly seemed as straight as an arrow. He himself hadn't dared to ask the memsahib, since he knew that she abhorred Indian superstitions, but the
darzi
had! Five years before, when the monsoon had been equally slow in coming, theirs was the only house in the neighbourhood where there were no buckets standing outside. The entire population of Rampur had been convinced that that was the reason the drought lasted a whole week longer.

Charlotte, who saw Hema carrying the heavy jerry cans, got the impression that he was upset. But she hadn't taken any of his pans or bowls. She saw him duck into the kitchen and feared that any minute he would emerge in a grouchy mood. Instead, he reappeared with the pile of pans and the two bright green plastic buckets, which he then began to place in a large circle around the kitchen.

She had no idea where he had found them all, and was amazed that there were so many objects in the house that could be used to collect water. But an hour later they were everywhere you looked: plastic and earthenware bowls, serviceable and leaky buckets, all the pots (including Hema's favourite pan and the deep-fat fryer basket no one else was allowed to touch), all the serving dishes and vases from the salon that hadn't been sold, plastic containers that had held plants, the fruit bowl, two watering cans (which were given a place of honour on either side of the door, like trophies), a cracked aquarium, a soap dish, a set of wine glasses positioned in a circle around the apple tree, a chalice that no one had ever seen before, ashtrays, jam jars, cans intended for old nails, a container for Dutch rusks that had been empty for months, a collection of rusty coal scuttles that had never been used, an aluminium mortar, a red wastepaper basket with an embroidered cover, the orange tub where the
mali
stored his herbicides, and his wheelbarrow, a colander lined with a piece of plastic, the feeding trough of a goat that had once lived on the property, the garbage cans that stood at the bottom of the path, the ash bucket without the ash, all the cups and saucers and mugs (including the one with Mickey Mouse on it), the beaker without a handle that Charlotte used for her toothbrush, a series of shot glasses that no junk dealer was interested in, a cracked toilet bowl . . . Charlotte had her doubts about the latter, but Hema and Madan figured the more the better. So she put the teapot, which had been glued back together, smack in front of the door.

They had just paused to catch their breath when Issy came out of the house — still complaining, and dragging behind her the cables she'd been fooling around with all evening.

“What on earth are you guys doing?”

“We've put all the buckets outside.”

“Why?”

Confronted by her English niece, Charlotte suddenly felt quite foolish for allowing herself to be tempted by that idiotic Indian superstition. She began to redden.

“To entice the rain!” cried Hema.

Issy nodded quite seriously as she surveyed the colourful jumble of receptacles. She ran back into the house and returned with her grandfather's chamber pot. “He's wearing a diaper anyway,” she said, when she saw the startled faces.

IT WAS ON
the same day the violent rain and wind burgeoned into a cyclone, raging across the Krishna River delta, swallowing up villages and settlements, sweeping people along on a wave of churning water, destroying harvests, killing or carrying off ten thousand people, and making three and a half million homeless that, for the first time in his life, Madan found a home.

The tiny room is only big enough for two small tables; at one of them Mister Patel is working on his dissertation on native urban plants, and at the other Madan is using a third-hand Singer sewing machine that he was able to buy with the help of Mister Patel. On the shelf, next to the piles of books belonging to Mister Patel, there is a small box of thread, and when the door is open, there is just room enough on the floor to lay out a garment or cut fabric. Madan sweeps the floor three times a day and Mister Patel does the cooking. Although it falls far short of Dr. Krishna Kumar's atelier, to Madan it is the most beautiful workplace he has ever known.

The two men are completely absorbed in their work. Mister Patel enjoys the whirring sound of the sewing machine in the background, which calls up all manner of new insights, while Madan listens contentedly to the mutterings and sighs that accompany Mister Patel's writing, and that transport him into worlds he has never visited before. In the evening they shove the tables and stools against the wall, one on top of the other, roll out the sleeping mats, and lie down underneath, as close to one another as they were in prison.

This sheltered domesticity is in sharp contrast to the situation outside. The number of people drifting around without a place to sleep is growing by the day. All over the city, men and women sleep against buildings or among the carts on the street. They are searching for work, something to eat, and their missing loved ones. They have lost all their possessions, and some are barely clothed. Mister Patel's upstairs neighbour, widow Sethi, feels lonely and useless now that her last daughter has left to get married. She has decided to donate all of her late husband's clothes, her own leftovers, and everything left behind by her children to the homeless.

The sound of feet on the stairs is audible in Mister Patel's room. The long line of people extends from widow Sethi's front door, down the steps, past Mister Patel's door, and onto the street, right up to the baker on the corner. Everyone waits patiently.

Above their heads, the wooden floor creaks: the house has never had this many visitors at once. Mister Patel's sighs also sound different. When there's a knock at the door, he grumbles under his breath. He was just immersed in a difficult paragraph dealing with the pollen tube that leads from the grain of pollen through the pistel to the seed bud in the ovary, and he does not want to be disturbed. “Oh, Mister Patel, I'm so sorry to bother you, but it's an emergency! If I understood correctly, you have a tailor staying with you?” says widow Sethi. She is not as young as she used to be, and she's puffing slightly.

“This is my son. He's an excellent tailor,” says Mister Patel, and shows her his new shirt.

“Oh! Your son! I didn't know!” Her shrill voice fills the room. “Could he possibly help me with these trousers?”

Madan gets up and goes over to where Mister Patel is standing.

“He doesn't look at all like you.” She sees a deep wrinkle appear in Mister Patel's forehead, and she hastily adds, “But actually my Sarika doesn't look like me either.”

Madan takes the trousers from her hand. Mister Patel sighs.

“I've pinned them — they're way too big — but the pins are so sharp and of course I don't want to prick anyone. As if those poor people don't have enough trouble as it is.”

Madan motions that he's going upstairs with her. He hands her the pants, picks up his sewing machine, and ushers her gently out the door.

“Thank you, son,” whispers Mister Patel, and returns to his books.

The stairs are populated by half-naked men, women, and children. Most of them are just sitting and staring in front of them; some have their eyes closed but are not asleep. Madan and widow Sethi have to crawl over them to get to the top floor.

The room is twice as large as Mister Patel's and a hundred times fuller. There are cupboards and cabinets overflowing with clothes and linens, and an array of baubles, idols, and other treasures. On and around the bed lies a display of the clothes she wants to give away. And in the corner that serves as a kitchen, there's such an assortment of plates and cups that it resembles a second-hand shop. In the middle of the room stands a shy young man wearing nothing but a torn piece of cloth around his hips. The man, who was a fisherman, has lost his family, his hut, and his boat, because his wife went to the market to sell the catch instead of him. He stands with his head bent. Madan sees at a glance that the trousers won't fit him, and points to the one table in the room, which is piled high with indefinable female garments.

“Does all that have to be moved?” sighs widow Sethi.

Madan nods. She begins by shoving the junk under her bed, where there's scarcely any room left. Madan observes the fisherman. It was not that long ago that Madan himself was living on the street and had nothing. Now he's holding his pride and joy, a Singer sewing machine, in his hands. With great care, he places it on the table. The widow hands him a stool and flops down on the pile of clothes on her bed. The fisherman is still staring at his bare feet. Madan removes the pins, turns the trousers inside out, and places them under the foot of the sewing machine.

“It's so sad, isn't it?” she says. “All these poor people who have nothing, absolutely nothing left. Look at this boy, a strong young man. . . . Suddenly he's lost everything, and when you're half-naked, it's not easy to find work, so that you're forced to beg. And then the line of people waiting at the door, I can't send them away while we've had wind and rain, but not the floods, I mean, and the waves, there was a leak, but that's nothing compared to what's happened to them. . . . I hope that you won't, I mean . . . er . . . you won't . . .”

Madan looks up inquiringly.

“You'll do it for nothing, won't you?”

Madan nods and returns to his work.

A little later he hands the trousers to the fisherman. He looks at him expectantly, and widow Sethi turns her head away. The moment he pulls the pants up over his hips something happens. The man, who until then had stood shyly, head bowed, is suddenly a powerful young fellow who radiates energy. Even the grief that was etched in his features has softened. Widow Sethi blinks, and a smile appears on Madan's face.

“And now a shirt,” she says with conviction, although a minute ago she decided to allow each person only one piece of clothing. She pulls out a white shirt that her husband always wore to the office.

Madan motions to the man to turn around, and looks at the shape of his shoulders and neck. Then he turns the shirt inside out and alters several seams.

When the man puts on the shirt, he looks like a hero in a film. Widow Sethi suddenly regrets that her youngest daughter has already been married off, for if she had met this young man earlier, he would certainly have been a suitable candidate. She doesn't want to let the fisherman go, and only after a cup of tea and repeated invitations to come by sometime does she finally allow the next person in line to enter.

The woman who walks into the room is painfully thin, with straight hair that hangs half over her eyes. She tells widow Sethi that she's lost her entire family, even her great-grandfather, and that all around the spot where her house stood there were bodies floating in the water. The bodies were so blue and swollen that they were unrecognizable, so she and other survivors from her village tried to cremate the bodies. The fire wouldn't catch because the wood was too wet, and in the end they tapped diesel fuel from a washed-up truck and doused the bodies.

Shocked, Madan listens to her monotone voice. She speaks without a trace of emotion, as if she were reciting a lesson. Widow Sethi has tears in her eyes, and she pulls one of her wedding saris out of the cabinet: a magnificent yellow silk, with gold embroidery. The matching blouse is too large for the woman's emaciated body, but Madan takes it in. He also shortens the sari and makes a hairband for her from the leftover material.

They hear the murmurs of admiration as she goes down the stairs. Widow Sethi hopes the fisherman is not too far away, since they would make a lovely couple. She calls the next person in line. It's another fisherman, who lost not only his entire family, his boat, and his house, but also all of his front teeth.

“Oh, Madame,” he lisps, “can you make me just as handsome?”

Widow Sethi fears that not even the most elegant of her husband's suits would be enough to fulfill his request, but Madan bends over his machine and continues to sew.

The fisherman with no front teeth is pleased as punch with his new outfit. After his departure an atmosphere of unrest develops. It is rumoured that there are not enough clothes to go around, and that only people who have lost their entire family are eligible. Toward the end of the line, someone mentions that the benefactress is not only giving away clothes, but also filling their pockets with money. The people in line begin to push and shove. A young widow uses her elbows to work her way up one step, and two brothers who owned a small shipyard push a rival shipbuilder in the same situation straight off the stairs. He is thrown against a shy young woman who has never been touched by a man. She begins to scream, which leads the other people in line to conclude that the handouts have come to a halt. Those at the very end of the line believe that is not only the benefactress putting money in the pockets, but also has promised them a job. The crowd of people on the street has swelled, and all of them are determined to get into the house. On the stairs, children are trampled underfoot or held high above the jumble of people. Widow Sethi tries to calm them, but when the next man leaves the house looking like a film star, the waiting mass squeezes past the widow and into the house, where they pounce upon the clothes and scour the cabinets in the hope of laying their hands on one or more garments.