Ishvar suggested moving the Singers to the front room which was much brighter.
“Not possible. The machines will be seen from the street, and the landlord will make trouble. It is against the law to have a factory in the flat, even if it is only two sewing-machines. Already he harasses me for other reasons.”
This the tailors understood. They too knew about landlords and harassment. Through the morning they worked steadily, with rumbling bellies, anticipating the midday break. They had eaten nothing since waking.
“Double tea for me today,” said Omprakash. “And a butter-bun to dip.”
“Pay attention to your machine,” said Ishvar. “You will end up with double fingers instead of double tea.” They both kept checking the clock. At the hour of deliverance, their feet left the treadles and sought out their sandals.
“Don’t go now,” said Dina. “This job is urgent, and you were late this morning. The manager will be very angry if the dresses are delayed.” She was worried about the due date — what if they came late again tomorrow? Be firm, be strict, she reminded herself.
Ishvar hesitated; his nephew would not take the suggestion kindly. His inquiring glance confirmed it, colliding with an angry glare.
“Let’s go,” muttered Omprakash without looking at Dina. “I’m hungry.”
“Your nephew is always hungry,” she said to Ishvar. “Has he got worms?”
“No no, Om is all right.”
Dina was not convinced. The suspicion had crawled into her mind during the first week. Apart from Omprakash’s skinniness and his constant complaints about headaches and hunger, she frequently spied his fingers relieving an itch in his fundament; and that, she felt, was evidence as conclusive as any.
“You should take him to doctor for checkup. He is so thin — a walking advertisement for Wimco Matches.”
“No no, he is all right. And who has money for doctor?”
“Work hard and there will be plenty. Finish this job quickly,” she coaxed. “The sooner I deliver it, the sooner you have your money.”
“Five minutes for tea won’t make a difference,” snapped Omprakash.
“Your five always become thirty-five. Listen, I will make tea for you later. Special deluxe tea, not the overbrewed, bitter poison you get at the corner. But first finish the work. That way, everybody will be happy — you, me, the manager.”
“Okay,” Ishvar gave in, shaking off his sandals and resuming his place. The cast-iron treadle, warmed all morning by his feet, had not had time to cool.
With the two Singers racing again, Omprakash’s angry whispers darted their way through the hammering needles to his uncle’s ear. “You always let her bully us. I don’t know what the matter is with you. Let me do the talking from now on.”
Ishvar nodded mollifyingly. It embarrassed him to argue with Om or scold him within Dina’s earshot.
At two o’clock, when the noise of the machines was making her temples throb, Dina decided to deliver what had been completed. She was annoyed with herself. Pleading and bribing with tea was not a good example of a strict boss. It would take more practice, she concluded, to get used to bullying them.
From under the worktable she retrieved the transparent plastic sheet and brown paper in which the bolts of cloth had arrived from Au Revoir. Remembering Shirin Aunty’s advice, she wasted nothing. The little snippets of fabric continued to accumulate in great quantities. Enough, she thought, to make sanitary pads for a conventful of nuns. The larger scraps were collecting in a separate pile. She was not yet sure how to use these — for a quilt, perhaps.
She packaged the finished dresses and got her purse ready. To put in an appearance a day ahead of the deadline would impress Mrs. Gupta.
Then, keeping in mind Omprakash’s inquisitiveness, she padlocked the door from outside, just in case he decided to follow her.
Sore-bottomed and bleary-eyed, the tailors adjourned to the front room. After the morning-long hardness of wooden stools, the old sofa was sweet luxury despite its broken springs, and the pleasure keener because it was stolen. The stiff posture of their profession melted from their bones as they sank into the cushions. Raising their bare feet to the teapoy, they pulled out a packet of Ganesh Beedis and lit up, sucking greedily at the smoke. A torn-off segment of the beedi wrapper served as ashtray.
Omprakash scratched his head and examined the dandruff harvested by his fingertips. With the inch-long nails of his pinkies he cleaned under the others, flicking the oily accretions to the floor. He would not have admitted he was bored — by wasting time he was outsmarting Dina Dalai. If she thought she could drive them like a pair of dumb oxen harnessed to her plough, she was mistaken. He still had his manhood, he thought bitterly, though his uncle sometimes behaved otherwise.
Ishvar let his nephew idle away the hour. The rock of hunger lay heavy in both their hollow bellies. He watched amusedly as Omprakash squirmed and snuggled in the cushions, determined to pilfer maximum pleasure from Dina Dalai’s sofa. He meditatively fingered the cheek that kept half his smile imprisoned in frozen flesh.
Laughing, yawning, stretching, they smoked away the time, temporary kings of the broken sofa, masters of the tiny flat, when their illicit leisure was invaded by a battering at the front door.
“I know you are in there!” shouted the visitor. “This padlock on the door does not fool me!”
The tailors froze. The pounding continued. “Paying the rent means nothing! We know what goes on behind the padlock! You and your illegal business will be thrown out on the street!”
The tailors understood — it had to do with the landlord. But what was this about a padlock? The banging at the door ceased. “Quick, on the floor!” whispered Ishvar, in case the door-banger decided to look through the window.
Something fell through the mail slot, then there was silence. They waited a few moments before venturing to the door. A large envelope addressed to Mrs. Rustom Dalai lay on the floor. Ishvar turned the latch. The door moved half an inch and hit the outside hasp, confirming the padlock’s presence.
“She locked us in,” fumed Omprakash. “That woman. What does she think?”
“Must be a reason for it. Don’t get upset.”
“Let’s open her letter.”
Ishvar snatched it from his hand and put it aside. They tried to get comfortable again on the cushions, lighting up new beedis, but the intrusion had soured the pleasure. The sofa’s sagging comforts hardened into lumps of discontent. Stray threads clinging to their clothes reminded them of the work waiting in the back room. The clock displayed its baleful warning: she would soon be home. Soon, all of this prohibited behaviour would have to cease.
“She cheats us,” grumbled Omprakash. “We should sew directly for the export company. Why does she have to be in the middle?” His lips made small, careful movements that became words, his smouldering beedi hanging in uneasy equilibrium at one corner of his mouth.
Ishvar smiled indulgently. The insolence of the dangling beedi was aimed, lethal as a toy gun, at Dina Dalai. “Soon as it’s time for her to come, your face looks like you ate a sour lime.”
He continued, his tone more serious, “She is in the middle because we have no shop. She lets us sew here, she brings the clothes, she gets the orders from the company. And besides, with piecework we have more independence — ”
“Leave it, yaar. She treats us like slaves, and you talk of independence. Making money from our sweat without a single stitch from her fingers. Look at her house. With electricity, water, everything. And what do we have? A stinking shack in the slum. We’ll never collect enough to go back to our village.”