The Glass Palace Read Free

.’
    â€˜What things?’
    â€˜Never mind.’
    â€˜Where did he learn to speak Hindustani?’
    â€˜Abroad, but not in India . . . he’s from somewhere in Malaya. Malacca I think. You should ask him.’
    â€˜What’s his name?’
    â€˜It doesn’t matter. You will call him Saya, just as I do.’
    â€˜Just Saya?’
    â€˜Saya John.’ She turned on him in exasperation. ‘That’s what we all call him. If you want to know any more, ask him yourself.’
    Reaching into her cold cooking fire, she drew out a handful of ash and threw it at Rajkumar. ‘Who said you could sit here talking all morning, you half-wit kalaa? Now you get busy with your work.’
    There was no sign of Saya John that night or the next.
    â€˜Ma Cho,’ said Rajkumar, ‘what’s happened to your teacher? Why hasn’t he come again?’
    Ma Cho was sitting at her fire, frying baya-gyaw. Peering into the hot oil, she said shortly, ‘He’s away.’
    â€˜Where?’
    â€˜In the jungle . . .’
    â€˜The jungle? Why?’
    â€˜He’s a contractor. He delivers supplies to teak camps. He’s away most of the time.’ Suddenly the ladle dropped from her grasp and she buried her face in her hands.
    Hesitantly Rajkumar went to her side. ‘Why are you crying, Ma Cho?’ He ran a hand over her head in an awkward gesture of sympathy. ‘Do you want to marry him?’
    She reached for the folds of his frayed longyi and dabbed at her tears with the bunched cloth. ‘His wife died a year or two ago. She was Chinese, from Singapore. He has a son, a little boy. He says he’ll never marry again.’
    â€˜Maybe he’ll change his mind.’
    She pushed him away with one of her sudden gestures of exasperation. ‘You don’t understand, you thick-headed kalaa. He’s a Christian. Every time he comes to visit me, he has to go to his church next morning to pray and ask forgiveness. Do you think I would want to marry a man like that?’ She snatched her ladle off the ground and shook it at him. ‘Now you get back to work or I’ll fry your black face in hot oil . . .’
    A few days later Saya John was back. Once again he greetedRajkumar in his broken Hindustani: ‘ Kaisa hai? Sub kuchh theek-thaak? ’
    Rajkumar fetched him a bowl of noodles and stood watching as he ate. ‘Saya,’ he asked at last, in Burmese, ‘how did you learn to speak an Indian language?’
    Saya John looked up at him and smiled. ‘I learnt as a child,’ he said, ‘for I am, like you, an orphan, a foundling. I was brought up by Catholic priests, in a town called Malacca. These men were from everywhere—Portugal, Macao, Goa. They gave me my name—John Martins, which was not what it has become. They used to call me João, but I changed this later to John. They spoke many many languages, those priests, and from the Goans I learnt a few Indian words. When I was old enough to work I went to Singapore, where I was for a while an orderly in a military hospital. The soldiers there were mainly Indians and they asked me this very question: how is it that you, who look Chinese and carry a Christian name, can speak our language? When I told them how this had come about, they would laugh and say, you are a dhobi ka kutta— a washerman’s dog— na ghar ka na ghat ka— you don’t belong anywhere, either by the water or on land, and I’d say, yes, that is exactly what I am.’ He laughed, with an infectious hilarity, and Rajkumar joined in.
    One day Saya John brought his son to the stall. The boy’s name was Matthew and he was seven, a handsome, bright-eyed child, with an air of precocious self-possession. He had just arrived from Singapore, where he lived with his mother’s family and studied at a well-known missionary school. A couple of times each year, Saya John arranged for him to come