Servant Class

I was too young to understand, old enough only to be puzzled. I was like raw rice being brought to the boil. Once cooked, rice can never return to raw. In my native language there are different words for raw rice and cooked rice. That’s how it was with me. When I became old enough to understand, my world changed forever.
My mother and I slept in a dingy room at the back of the house, past the dining room, at the end of a veranda where the cement was cracked here and chipped there, next to a lavatory we were not allowed to use. The woman my mother called mistress insisted we use the spider-infested outhouse close to the back fence. But one day, in danger of becoming an erupting upside-down volcano, I was forced to use the forbidden lavatory. No mess, I was six years old, but I earned disgust and a scolding from mistress. And she threatened my mother with dismissal if it happened again.
After her morning and lunchtime duties, my mother and I ate our lunch and enjoyed some free time. We’d talk, or she’d teach me to read and write and do sums. Once, I laughed out loud, and mistress sent one of her children to tell us to be quiet because she had a splitting headache.

When my mother fell ill, Sema Baby practised cricket in the shed that leant against the outside wall of our room. My mother winced every time the ball, in a sock dangling at the end of string tied to an overhead wooden beam, slammed into the metal roof. I wanted to ask Sema Baby to stop, but my mother wouldn’t allow me.

Sema baby was Mistress’s oldest son. She had four other children. I was allowed to use their names as long as I added Baby at the end. Even though they were all older than me. We all loved sugar, but it was only Sema Baby who ate it straight from the sugar bowl, spoonful after spoonful, and not even bothering to wipe his spoon. When mistress demanded to know why there was so little sugar in the bowl that was full yesterday, and also why the sugar was so sticky, Sema Baby shrugged and said, ‘Must be the servant boy’. I wasn’t sure whom he was referring to until Mistress turned her dagger eyes on me and I felt like a rabbit about to be shot. Fortunately Pat Baby pointed at Sema Baby, and mistress’s dagger eyes returned to him. Sema Baby knew I’d seen him do it, and he also seemed to know that I wouldn’t accuse him in front of mistress. He was right. And it was one more thing that puzzled me. Anyway, Sema Baby and Pat Baby came to blows, and mistress forgot about the sugar.

I didn’t know what ‘servant boy’ meant. I knew almost no English at the time. My mother refused to tell me. It was then I began to suspect there was a lot she wasn’t telling me. I became more observant and more thoughtful, and I asked more questions. My mother patiently answered them, but I could tell what she said was far from the whole truth.

For instance, when I asked her why we were living there and not in our village, she replied that grown-ups like her had to work to support their families, and there was no work for her in the village, so she had to come to the city to find a job. The job she was doing gave her somewhere to live and the food we ate. From her pay she was able to save a little to take back to the village. I understood all of that, but it didn’t explain everything, and my mother could see that what she said hadn’t wiped off my puzzled expression. Her kind face seemed to be hiding something ugly which she didn’t want me to know. I continued to look earnestly at her, and she said, ‘There are things you don’t need to know now. Enjoy your life, don’t spoil it by wanting to know everything. You will find out one day.’

And not long after, I did. Like everyone else in the house, maybe everyone on our street, I loved cricket. And when a cricket match began in the front garden, Sema Baby called out to me. I ran out joyfully and spent the entire morning doing nothing other than retrieving the ball from neighbours’ gardens. And being the only one doing it. And being scolded when I took too long. I thought my contribution entitled me to a batting turn. But when I asked, the boys laughed. One boy who didn’t laugh, tall, skinny, and hunched, said in my language, ‘You are a coolie, didn’t you know that you idiot?’ My mother returned from the market at that moment.

While cooking lunch for the mistress and her family, washing dishes after they had eaten, and while we ate our lunch, she was silent, refusing to even look at me, let alone talk to me. After she put our plates away, she sat on her mat beside me and said, ‘What do you think that boy meant?’

‘Which boy?’

‘The one that looks like a praying mantis.’

‘You heard him?’

‘Yes.’

‘That I’m a coolie boy.’

‘How do you feel about that?’

‘He also called me an idiot.’

‘You are not an idiot.’

‘But am I a coolie boy?’

‘Only if it helps you understand the world better.’

After thinking about it for days, I had to admit it did. Then my mother gave me something else to think about. ‘Remember, understanding the world doesn’t mean the world speaks the truth about you.’

That cheered me up. A little.