The Sleeping Dictionary Read Online Free PDF

tear.
    “Boudi just told you: someone will. We have provided a ride to you; that is our duty.” The grandfather’s voice was as rough as the crows that had wakened me that first hellish morning, and I imagined that he might become tired of me and let me go overboard like the horrible debris around us.
    I began an apology. “Forgive me, please. I am so grateful that you saved me—”
    “Quiet!” the old man snapped.
    I said naught until the next morning, when we touched land.

CHAPTER
    3

How many of us have sighed for a drink of clean water, not boiled, from a clean well, removed from drains, from a clean bucket in which hands have not been washed surreptitiously, from a clean cup which has been already wiped on a clean towel (not previously used for toilet purposes), and cleaned previously in clean water, in which lurk no germs of disease!
—Margaret Beahm Denning, Mosaics from India , 1902
    M y eyes were dry and tired, but I kept them open as the father and grandfather climbed down into the shallows to bring the boat to land. The waters were filled with discarded logs, boards, and tires. A family of five paddled in on a simple wooden board; on closer inspection, I saw on that board a child my size lying motionless and covered with flies. Dead; but they had not let the child go.
    During my journey, I had seen so many floating deathbeds and I had hoped for all of them that they would come to land and havecremation. Hindus who weren’t cremated would have their souls trapped between worlds, a fate that Thakurma told me was worse than anything. Now I had to bear the thought of my own family wandering eternally, because I had been unable to send them on to better lives.
    On the walk that ran near the sea, I could see all manner of folk: wild-haired beggars, laborers, constables in crisp uniforms and hard topees, and gaunt holy men clothed in saffron robes. Later, I would know India’s greatest city like the back of my hand; but at that moment in my young life, the sight of this seaside town called Digha was as impressive as Calcutta and Delhi and Bombay put together and topped with silver leaf. For what I saw on the path along the water’s edge was food! Cauldrons of boiling chai, snack stands selling crispy delights, and piles of fruit and vegetables abounded. Everywhere was nourishment, the luxury I had been without.
    First onto shore was the grandfather, who took the hand offered to him by a young man standing on the dock. Then the father went up, and the mother helped the grandmother be lifted to safety. The boys were lifted off, then the mother, and then I pulled myself up to the dock.
    “I’ve been told there are several wells very close,” the father said to all of us. “I’ll bring water.”
    “But what is there to carry the water in?” the grandmother grumbled.
    “We have one jug,” the mother said, showing the container she had carried off the boat with her. “Let’s all walk together and drink what little bit is left. Then we will have good fresh water from the well.”
    “She cannot drink from our jug,” the grandfather said, jabbing his chin toward me. “We have not come so far only to ruin ourselves.”
    “Yes,” said the father. “We have done what we can for the girl. It is time to let her make her own way.”
    I was confused, because they had taken me in the boat without question; but everything was different now. How had they guessedthat I was low caste? At the same time I pondered this, I was also thinking about how to get a cup. The chai-wallah’s customers tossed their used clay cups to the ground; it was possible I might be able to take one that hadn’t broken.
    The line at the well was long, full of the town’s regular residents and, of course, all the refugees. Nearby, in front of a tall stucco building the likes of which I’d never seen, there was a veranda shaded by an awning, and sitting at a great wooden table, surveying the scene, were two Ingrej men in suits, talking