Waiting for the Monsoon Read Free Page B

opens it, shoves her inside, closes the door, and turns the key. Charlotte hears the bedroom door open and shut. She sits there, surrounded by her mother’s sweet-scented clothes. She starts to cry. Sita, please wake up and let me out. I’m afraid.
1935 Rampur ~~~
    AT THE BOTTOM of the stairs stands a chest. It’s been there for weeks. No one dares touch it, since Major Victor Bridgwater is away and the chest arrived the very day that Mathilda delivered her first son. She has been able to leave her room the last few days, but she hasn’t given orders for the trunk to be moved. Although the unwieldy wooden object is sitting smack in the middle of the hall, no one has complained. For the first few days the servants would sneak a look at the object on their way upstairs with clean nappies and hot compresses, curious about the seals and stamps on the cover and convinced that it must have something to do with the newborn baby. But ever since Charlotte told Sita, the nursemaid to whom she confides everything, that it contained a machine that can take over their work, everyone is afraid of the trunk.
    The old butler, bearing a large teapot on a silver tray, sees one of the sweepers shoot past the trunk at a considerable speed. “Stop!” he orders.
    The mehtarani , a young woman in a colourless sari, gives him a guilty look.
    â€œWhy haven’t you swept the dust from the trunk?”
    â€œBut, sir,” the woman whispers, “then he’ll break loose!”
    â€œWho?”
    â€œThe iron beast, sir.”
    Although he would never admit it, the butler is also afraid of what’s in the trunk. He heard it from the bobajee , who had heard it from his masalchee ,who talked to a coolie who’s acquainted with a friend of the coolie of the principal official at the post office: the trunk contains a machine that can walk and talk. The coolie saw how the official opened the trunk to verify that it contained exactly what the customs papers said it contained. He recounted how his boss had uttered a cry and slammed the lid of the trunk down, after which he ordered it to be transferred as quickly as possible to the general, who is actually only a major.
    â€œThere’s dust on the chest. Memsahib is going to complain.”
    â€œI have three small children,” the mehtarani wailed. “The youngest is not even weaned.”
    â€œIf you don’t dust the chest, you can leave.”
    â€œI’ve worked for the general for five years, and I’ve never forgotten a single corner. I even sweep under the low cabinets every morning, and on the day my father was cremated I came to sweep and also the day after I had my last baby. How many of the other sweepers can say that?”
    â€œDust the chest.”
    â€œIt’ll be my death, sir,” she blubbered. “Can’t we do it together?”
    â€œI don’t sweep. Butlers never sweep.”
    â€œBut please, sir, couldn’t you stand very close to me while I do it?”
    â€œMemsahib just called. I have to go upstairs.”
    The mehtarani begins to sniffle, wringing the broom made of dried grass between her hands.
    â€œAnd don’t break the broom.”
    â€œWhat’s going on?” Mathilda looks over the balustrade at the two servants standing next to the chest.
    â€œNothing, memsahib, nothing.”
    â€œI thought I heard someone crying.”
    The butler, a middle-aged man who previously worked for other English army families, has been with the Bridgwaters for the past six months. He looks up. “No, memsahib. There’s nothing wrong.”
    The mehtarani runs from the hall with her head down; the butler smoothes the pleats of his uniform.
    â€œOh, that’s all right then. You know I can’t abide the sound of crying.” Mathilda turns to go back into the nursery, where Sita is changing the baby’s diaper, but before she enters the room, she calls out, “And will you see