Sunday, September 24, 2006

Nagusami / 34

Mary, of course, was not her real name. She told her real name once, to a visiting missionary, and Ebenezer beat her for it and the missionary forgot the name.

Mary shouldn’t be talking. Mary ought to be scrubbing the floor, sorting the rice, cooking chapatti over the kerosene fire.

At night Mary coughed, an awful cough that shook the house. She’d been dying in her village when Ebenezer came huffing and puffing down the bicycle path because his old Ambassador car couldn’t squeeze through.

Mary, the village tomato lady, was taken to Hyderabad and in return it was only fair that she should serve Ebenezer in his kitchen and in his bed.

Mary did talk however and even learned a little English from the visiting missionaries and hearing Ebenezer talk to the charity money men.

Of course she made some mistakes. For example, she never learned that hungry and angry were two separate words. If you were ‘hangry’ she immediately brought dhal and chapattis.

This particular mistake proved never to be an obstacle.

She said, “You like me. I like you. You no like me. I no like you.”

She even taught a little of her language to the visiting missionary who couldn’t be expected to remember. One night on the roof of the house in Hyderabad where she was prisoner she lifted her hands to the full moon and instructed,

Chan-dha Ma-ma Ra-vay!

Moon Mother, Come!

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