A Different Sky, page 12
As soon as he could the next morning Raj hurried to Krishna’s room, pushing his way up the stairs against a stream of descending tenants. He found Leila crouched down on her haunches, sweeping the tenement room with a broom of soft twigs. He looked for some change in her face, but found none. Krishna had already left for the schoolroom. The remains of his breakfast stood on the floor beside the rolled up rush mat upon which they had slept the night before. The now withered garlands were heaped in a corner, their scent stale and lingering. Raj was overcome by embarrassment for all that must have taken place in this room the night before. He had brought some sweetmeats with him, and placed them beside Leila as she crouched silently before him, head bowed and covered as always.
‘How will I cook him a meal? There is no pan. Until now he is buying his food outside, at the food stalls on the road.’ She lifted her head, her eyes upon Raj, wide and anxious. The sari slipped and although she immediately pulled it back in place he saw in the tendrils of escaped hair and the line of her cheek the extent of her vulnerability.
‘We will go shopping,’ Raj laughed in relief. Already he sensed that Leila had given her trust to Krishna; everything would be all right.
She had had some notion of what might happen on her wedding night. Married women gossiped in the village, in the fields animals lived a randy life, but when it was done she found shame was the greatest trauma, even though it was quickly over. Much of the night she had lain awake, staring at her sleeping husband. A street light shone through the window and revealed not only the stealthy movement of cockroaches and the scurry of mice, but also the profile of Krishna’s face. Afterwards, he had smiled down at her and had gently pushed the hair off her brow. You are now my wife, he told her. She said nothing, wet and sore between her legs. The only thought that came to her was that he had opened his life to include her, much as a fish opens its mouth to breathe in water, instinctively and without premeditation; she had begun to cry. Then, dawn was breaking and she knew she must rise and bathe and make her husband the cup of tea he would expect upon waking.
After taking Leila to purchase pulses and vegetables and then some pans to cook them in, Raj returned to open Manikam’s Cloth Shop. It had been decided between them that Leila would cook a meal in the tenement’s communal kitchen, and then bring some lunch for him to the shop. Later, as he ate and she squatted apprehensively before him waiting for an opinion on the quality of the food, he felt grateful that she was here. Life would be different from now on, not only for Krishna but also for himself.
‘You are speaking and writing so many languages,’ Leila spoke suddenly in a conversational tone, and he stared at her in surprise between mouthfuls of food.
‘I am learning the Japanese language,’ he boasted and was rewarded by a widening of Leila’s eyes as he explained his new life as a ship chandler. ‘I need this language for my work. I am mixing now with Japanese people.’
‘What is this work?’ Leila asked, looking up at him with the same admiration he remembered in her face as a child.
‘Now, besides Manikam’s Cloth Shop, I am selling things to Japanese ships when they arrive in port – fresh food, rice, cooking oil, rope, nails; many things. It is because of Krishna that I am doing all these things. Your husband will give you education, just as he gave education to me,’ Raj informed his sister and Leila nodded, her face brightening.
‘Already he has told me this,’ Leila said in a low voice, her mind astir with excitement.
Later that evening Raj made his way once more to Krishna’s room. As he climbed the stairs the smell of food came to him from the common kitchen in the tenement, and his mouth began to water. When he entered the room, Krishna was sitting cross-legged on the floor behind a low desk. He waved brightly as Raj entered, and lifted a loosely bound sheaf of papers in his hands.
‘See, I have a copy at last of Subhas Chandra Bose’s new book, written while he was in prison. It was smuggled here from India. This is a first draft, but already it is in circulation. This is a dangerous book to be seen with in India and many risks have been taken in getting it to us here. I will speak about it this evening,’ Krishna said, returning to the papers on his desk, anxious to finish the notes for his lecture that evening at the Indian Youth League. Raj knew this talk would be like all Krishna’s talks, a fiery and fanatical advocacy of the need for Home Rule in India.
With Leila bustling about the room, a plant in a tin can on a window ledge, a string bag of vegetables in a corner and Krishna’s shirts hanging from a bamboo pole at the window, the place had already acquired the look of a home. Leila served a meal of rice and vegetables on banana leaves, and they ate with relish. When they were finished they rinsed their hands in the basin of water she offered. Then Krishna gathered up his papers and, with Raj behind him, made his way down the narrow staircase and out into the street for the short walk to Race Course Road.
They walked in companionable silence, Krishna taking long strides and Raj, who was a head shorter and of wider girth, hurrying to keep up. Soon they turned off Serangoon Road and walked towards the small bungalow that housed the Indian Youth League, a social club whose activities centred mostly on sport and the education of young Indians. It had a growing list of members and a comfortable lounge with an eclectic assortment of tables and chairs. There was also a library with biographies of Indian leaders, books on Hinduism and on other aspects of Indian life. Krishna’s scholarship and commitment to Indian causes was valued at the League, as were the regular talks he gave on Indian history and culture. As they approached the club the young members smoking on the veranda outside straightened up with respect, stubbing out their cigarettes and greeting Krishna. Chairs had been arranged in the library and although there was a seat for the speaker, Krishna preferred to stand before his audience who were already settling expectantly.
The organisers of the Youth League, a committee of elders and wealthy businessmen from the Indian community, although dimly aware of Krishna’s radical background, did not fully comprehend his true mission in life. They were grateful, for his regular talks on Indian history and politics were so well attended that extra chairs must often be hastily found. Yet, although the evening might be advertised as a lecture on Indian history, world history, Indian philosophy or any other of the topics Krishna spoke on, his slant on each subject was narrow. His mind was focused on the freeing of India from British rule. Of world history Krishna chose only to discuss the history of revolution. Similarly, in Indian history he picked out the tales of famous Indian revolutionary zealots, Velu Thampi, Tipu Sultan and the Rani of Jhansi, or he might talk about the Indian Mutiny or the unscrupulous doings of the rascal Robert Clive, hailed as a hero in his home country, but whose ruthless rape of India was impossible to catalogue. Philosophy for Krishna was always Marx and Lenin, Subhas Chandra Bose and Mahatma Gandhi.
‘When an older generation of leaders have failed, youth have the responsibility of reconstructing society. We must prepare to defend India’s pride and glory. We must end British rule. We must prepare to shed our blood, and sacrifice our lives if necessary for the independence of our motherland.’ Krishna’s voice began to rise, and the words flowed powerfully from him.
Raj was always fascinated to watch the transformation in the schoolteacher as he talked. Krishna appeared a self-effacing man and his lectures began in a mild enough manner, yet within minutes he was transformed into a fiery preacher. Men sat forward on their seats and sucked their lips in concentration whenever the schoolteacher spoke.
Raj looked about the room at the rapt and attentive faces and knew, with some sense of disappointment, that he could not share the enthusiasm around him. Listening to his new brother-in-law, Raj was aware all too clearly of the gulf between himself and the idealistic Krishna. He thought of the great men Krishna admired, Einstein, Bose, Marx and so many others, men of revolution and reinvention. Idealists though they were, Raj viewed these men not as dreamers like Krishna but as pragmatists. In their special worlds each had known that opportunity must be seized. So it was also with Raj. Through the schoolteacher he had entered a world in which men would lay down their lives for an idea. Yet commitment of this nature appeared insubstantial to Raj; practicality was the only realistic way forward in life. He knew already that money was what he wanted, and it was not of great consequence to him in what political circumstances he lived as long as he was able to acquire it.
10
HOWARD HAD NOW BEEN working more than a year at the Harbour Board, at an office in an old godown near Collyer Quay. Aunty May had a friend whose husband worked at the Harbour Board, and through him an opening there had been found for Howard.
‘You’ll have a good future at the Harbour Board,’ Rose forecast. A job at the Harbour Board was not without status, and many Eurasian men aspired to such work. Once he finished his probationary period he was promised a rise in position to Assistant Traffic Supervisor, and this pleased her further.
‘It always helps to see your way up the ladder. You’ll do well, just like your father,’ Rose told him.
Howard swallowed his disappointment. He was not happy at the prospect of a life at the Harbour Board but did not want to disappoint his mother.
‘Many men would envy you such a job. You should be proud; the King trusts us Eurasians to run the colony above all the other races here,’ Rose said, impatient with his lack of enthusiasm.
‘There is the Public Service Examination. That would open the way to a higher level of employment,’ Rose suggested at last, unable to watch her son’s crumbling hope, knowing his dream of further education after finishing school.
From then on each evening Howard sat at the writing table before the open doors of the balcony adjoining his room, hunched over books on economics and accounting; determined. He slept briefly but woke most nights to his own restlessness and turmoil. The residue of strange dreams washed around within him and fragments of memory slid away before he could grasp them. Often, waking like this, he put on the light and went back to his books in the dark and silent house, focused on his hopes.
Much to his mother’s amusement he began to read the The Straits Times, which was delivered to Belvedere each day for the benefit of the lodgers. It was not a newspaper for local people, being read almost exclusively by the European community, but Howard now absorbed the pages with concentration, hoping to glean new knowledge. For the last few weeks a debate had raged in its correspondence column on the rights of the local-born communities, and Howard had followed it with growing awareness. He noticed that none of the letter writers appeared to be local people. This omission, and the fact that the issues blithely discussed were written about by those who would never have to deal with them, filled him with anger. Until then, he realised, he had never considered that he might have rights under a colonial government, but had accepted his mother’s reverence of all things British as the only valid perception.
At times, as he worked each night at his table, he wondered with trepidation if perhaps he was studying too hard, was too intent upon the future and all he felt bound to achieve. Everything was against him, and if he did not succeed, how would he cope? Nothing was more important to him now than breaking with the past. He did not want to be like his father who had grown tired of deferring to highhanded young Englishmen twenty years his junior whose expertise in matters of the Asiatic Petroleum Company was inferior to his own. Deep down Charlie Burns had always hoped that with his European colouring he could transcend the inflexible landscape of race that rooted him to his place. He could not accept that as a local person, merit meant little before colonial superiority. His death while at work had been unobtrusive. For some time after he died he had sat at his desk listing gradually to one side, before it was noticed that something was wrong. To Howard now it seemed the final dismissal that, even as the life seeped from his body, his father should sit on at his desk, ignored. He felt he understood the anger his father had lived with, and that now, more and more, seemed to sit upon his own shoulders.
Although part of his day at the Harbour Board was given to paperwork at a desk, Howard was also required to go on to the ships, to learn the work of the quay and the management of labour. His office was situated at the dock and was subject to the constant comings and goings of ships in the harbour. All vessels arriving and sailing must be listed along with their tonnage and details of cargo and crew. The unloading of cargo must also be checked and supervised, each ship examined and repairs arranged, sick crew must be dispatched to hospitals and ship chandlers summoned to replenish supplies. Timings must be confirmed and complaints investigated.
Howard was part of the boarding team that examined and counted cargo and stores and processed the crew of each vessel under a Senior Boarding Officer. The office was no different from any other in the colony where a regiment of Eurasian men, and a few educated Chinese or Indians with a good command of English, worked under the order of a European. John Calthrop accompanied his men to the ship, but always returned as soon as he could to the coolness of the office. His thinning hair revealed a patch of reddened skull that, like his face, became quickly inflamed in the sun. Howard soon came to welcome any time away from Mr Calthrop who sat sweating sullenly at his desk all day, barking out orders and delivering reprimands. His blue eyes, sad and cold as chips of ice, roved the room like a vindictive schoolmaster seeking someone to thrash.
‘Bloody heat,’ he said many times a day, using the words like a curse, wiping his damp red neck with his handkerchief. Or, ‘When I next go on home leave, God be praised, it will be the blessed winter.’ From further comments it was clear that Calthrop was an unhappy man, whose father and grandfather before him had met early deaths in India.
‘Do you lot ever think of the sacrifices Englishmen have made to bring you a civilised life, to make you part of the Empire? Bloody heat, insanitary conditions, dead children, dead wives, tuberculosis . . .’ Calthrop never finished the list of inconveniences life in the tropics could bring. In different circumstances Howard might have sympathised with the man and his fate as an empire builder. As it was, he took care to avoid him.
From the beginning Calthrop’s eye had settled upon Howard and he picked on him for one small thing or another. An elderly clerk, Teddy de Souza, whose desk was near Howard’s, soon put his finger on the problem: Howard was the only one in the office studying for the Public Service Examination, and such ambition in a local man Calthrop found presumptuous.
‘It irks him. You’re too bright, boy,’ Teddy de Souza told him with a nervous grin. He had worked all his life at the Harbour Board in a clerical capacity, struggling hard for each small promotion. ‘Don’t get stuck here like me. Do something with your life, but for the moment try not to anger Mr Calthrop. He has been overlooked for promotion and that I believe is his trouble,’ Teddy warned.
The relationship with Calthrop was not helped when the following week The Straits Times, to Howard’s shock and horror, printed a letter he had written on an impulse, entering the debate on the rights of the local-born in the correspondence column. One long letter, written he was sure by someone local like himself, had challenged all the previous letter writers and set Howard off on a trail of thought he had never pursued before.
The future of the peoples of Malaya depends upon the complete cohesion and co-operation between local-born communities . . . there must be a Federation of Local-born Communities covering the whole of British Malaya. The aim of local administrators in bringing a decentralised scheme into being is to divide Malaya into different political compartments, preventing cohesion and co-operation between them, damning the hopes of the people for a government of the people for the people of Malaya. It remains to be seen if the administrators can get away with it. There are thousands of local-born men and women who will rise up to recognition if they can only have an outlet for their activities.
It was all put so succinctly that Howard wondered why he had never thought about such things before. Soon, his mind was charged with new ideas and he could not rest until he wrote them down. To his surprise the words had flowed easily. Old memories floated up, things he had all but forgotten: the Englishman in the lavatory of the Great World and the wounded Chief Inspector in the riot at Kreta Ayer, whom he had so fervently wished dead. He remembered the cracking of shots and the bleeding bodies under straw mats in the road. As he recalled these things, his anger grew; it surprised him to find that unknown to himself strange seeds of thought had germinated deep within him. He looked down at the letter in his hand and was amazed at what he had written.
The dream of the local British administrator is that of a Malaya where European British subjects can continue with their princely salaries, special allowances and great residences . . .
Not all letter writers signed their own name but Howard had seen no reason not to do so, had given no thought to the consequences, just pushed the letter into an envelope and sent it off, never thinking it would be published. He had just needed to get the words out of himself and never thought of who might see them. It was Teddy de Souza who brought a copy of The Straits Times into the office and read the letter aloud during lunch break, the men crowding about him, peering over his shoulder: ‘. . . local-born races are denied the right of advancement to the highest posts and influential positions or equal remuneration with Europeans for the same work . . . condemned to economic and political stagnation’. Teddy broke off and the men about him murmured in embarrassment. Later Teddy took Howard aside, the newspaper folded neatly now in his hand, his thin face wrinkled with perplexity.
