Flame Tree Road

by Shona Patel

  “What about chili tamarind?”

  “You remember the chili tamarind!” Shibani laughed with her crooked teeth. “It’s funny, but both Apu and I lost our taste for chili tamarind. It was our girlish craving for sour things at that time, I think. Now we just drink a lot of tea.”

  “This tea is very good,” said Biren. He took a sip. “Better than I remembered.” The tea at the basha always had a hint of pleasant wood smoke boiled into the water.

  “This is a very special tea your friend Samir sent through his servant. You cannot buy it in the market. Samir’s family now handles the transportation for all the British tea companies of Calcutta, and Samir gets a nice quota for himself. You must go and see him immediately. He is impatiently waiting for you. His servant came here several times to find out if you had arrived.” Shibani gave him a naughty smile. “They want to know when to send the palanquin for you.”

  “I wonder if he still rides a palanquin!” Biren laughed. “It wouldn’t surprise me. I also want to go and say hello to Mr. Owen McIntosh at the jute mill sometime.”

  “Mr. Owen is no longer there, mia. He retired a year ago. There is a young man by the name of Willis Duff in his place. He knows you. Last year when they sent me your baba’s bonus money, Willis Duff wrote a nice note and asked about you.”

  “Yes, I remember him well. Duff was the young officer who accompanied me to boarding school on my first journey by steamer. He was very good to me,” said Biren, thinking about young Willis with his kind blue eyes and curly red hair. Their acquaintance seemed like such a long time ago.

  Shibani had taken charge of her life. She managed the money for the household and ran the kitchen. Uncle was sober only for a few hours in a day, it seemed. Biren was greatly heartened to see traces of the old mother he remembered from his early childhood with her easy laugh and teasing ways. Despite her gray hair and failing eyesight, Shibani’s skin and eyes were clear and she seemed to be in excellent health.

  He looked at his mother fondly and thought she was like a tree sprouting its first tender buds after a long hard winter.

  CHAPTER

  36

  Sammy Deb’s family basha was where his joint family had lived for several generations. There were so many members in his household that Biren never quite figured out how they were all related. What was once a single-unit house had grown wings in every direction until it had become a sprawling mess of an establishment with several courtyards and wells—almost a minivillage in itself, all under one roof. The dominant feature was a sour plum tree, so unwieldy and overburdened with fruit that it had collapsed like a benign and overweight matriarch on the roof of the kitchen, and threatened to bring everything down. There were no plans to cut down the tree because it was a blessed tree, planted by a benevolent ancestor, and the good fortunes of the Deb family were attributed to it. However, to be on the safe side, the family constructed a new kitchen, and the old kitchen with its dangerously sagging roof became a relic of old times.

  Biren arrived at Sammy’s house to find the tree still standing. However, acid from the sour plums had eaten through the thatch until the bare bones of the rafters showed, yet the roof structure, miraculously, was still holding. A few goats now occupied the old kitchen, munching happily on vegetable peelings, oblivious to their impending doom.

  As usual, the house was pell-mell with people, all of them looking vaguely alike with their pale faces and soft stomachs. A miscellaneous relative directed Biren to Sammy’s new house. It was a pukka house with a neglected English-style rose garden full of anthills. Biren found Sammy in the living room, reclining on two sausage-shaped bolsters, smoking a hookah and getting his toes tweaked by a minion.

  “Goodness gracious, Biren!” he cried, the hookah dropping from his mouth. He struggled to his feet, ruddy and obese. “When did you get here, old chap? You look marvelous!” He slapped him on the back, grinning widely with paan-stained teeth.

  “Quickly, get boudi,” he ordered the minion, “and tell her my best friend from England has come.” The man scurried off and Sammy cupped his hand and yelled behind his retreating back, “And bring tea. Tea!”

  “So, you old so-and-so. Come to get married, have we? Always following in my footsteps, eh?” He laughed uproariously, holding his wobbling stomach.

  Before Biren could answer, a plump woman with a sweet face rushed in. She covered her hair with her sari and bent down to touch Biren’s feet.

  “Please, no,” he said hastily, taking a step back.

  “This is Uma,” Sammy said, then turned to her. “My friend Biren Roy from England. Where are the children? Bring the children. Make sure their faces are clean.” Facing Biren once again, he said, “So tell me, how’s the Old Country? How’s our femme fatale Estelle Lovelace?”

  “She’s well,” Biren said.

  “Find yourself a nice country girl, I say, and settle down, for God’s sake. All the village belles will be lining up to marry you now.”

  A tiny girl toddled into the room wearing a new dress, followed by Uma carrying a male infant who, seeing Sammy, immediately stretched out two chubby arms toward him. The baby’s eyes were lined with kohl, and there was a black dot marked on the side of his head to ward off the evil eye.

  Sammy took the baby in his arms. “One, two, buckle my shoe!” he cried, tossing the child in the air, making him break into a cackling laugh. The little girl pulled at the silk tassels on the bolster and stared at Biren with big eyes. Seeing her father distracted, her hands crept toward the hookah while Uma watched her husband with a soft, dimpled smile.

  “Here, go to your uncle Biren,” Sammy said, thrusting the baby into Biren’s arms. The smile on the baby’s face faded. He looked at Biren bewildered, and his face began to pucker as he mustered his forces for a colossal howl.

  Biren jiggled him awkwardly. The howl became an ear-piercing shriek, and he hastily handed the baby back to his mother.

  “Gouri! Where did you go?” Sammy swiveled around. “No, no, don’t touch the hookah.” He gave her an encouraging prod. “Gouri can sing ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.’ And she will sing for Uncle Biren. Ready? One. Two. Three. Twin-kle, twin-kle lit-tle... Now, what’s the matter?”

  The girl scrunched her face and sniffled. She, too, looked as if she was about to break into a howl like her baby brother.

  “Oh-hoh,” said Sammy, exasperated. “Take them both away, Uma. Let me talk to my friend. Now, where is the tea?”

  Uma whispered something.

  “Send him for the sweets, but you can bring them later. For now tea will do. We will need several rounds. I am seeing my friend after a very long time.” He turned to Biren. “Stay for lunch. Uma is an excellent cook.” Without waiting for his reply, he called after Uma, “He is staying for lunch. Make something special, will you?” He settled himself back on the settee. “Care for some hookah?”

  “I have my cigarettes,” Biren said. He looked around and located a brass frog ashtray on the windowsill. A child’s beaded necklace was stuffed inside it.

  “Old habits die hard,” said Sammy as he watched Biren roll his cigarette. “I switched to hookah. I have other bad habits, I’m afraid—paan and the occasional pinch of snuff. In England you pick up good habits, in India you lose them.” He waved the mouthpiece of his hookah. “Vice and virtue, all the same. But you were the eloquent one. How I envied you. So what are your plans?”

  “First thing is I need a job,” said Biren. “I made some inquiries into civil service positions while I was in Calcutta but it may take a while.”

  “If it was just a question of a job, you know you can always work for our family. But I know you are quite ambitious. You may want to check out Silchar besides Calcutta. There are plenty of good jobs there with the British government, thanks to the growth of the tea industry. Did you try the tea I sent you?”

 
“Yes, it was very good. The best tea I’ve had, really.”

  “Remind me to give you some more,” said Sammy. “The tea industry in Assam is booming. There is a big British population settled in Silchar and they have beautiful colonial-style bungalows, gymkhana clubs and a nice leisurely lifestyle. So unlike the hurry-scurry of Calcutta, if you ask me.”

  “Ma was saying your family now has something to do with the tea industry, is that right?” asked Biren.

  “That’s our main business now. We have our head office in Silchar. Our family handles the transportation requirements of all the tea gardens in the Surma Valley. We own several flatbed barges and we move tea, machinery and supplies between Silchar and Calcutta. If it had not been for my Uma and the children, I would live in Silchar. Uma wants to be close to her parents, and the children are happier in a joint family, so here we are.”

  “You seemed to happily settle down.”

  “Oh, yes, oh, yes, it a good life. My brother Diju was a fool to stay back in England. Who wants to live in that cold morbid country? At least you did not make the same mistake.”

  Sylhet

  17th April 1894

  Uncle disappears for long stretches. I suspect he goes to the opium den. When he is around he is dazed and incommunicado. He is thin as a rake. Ma has taken charge. She is doing exceptionally well. Nobody really needs me here. I should be in Calcutta looking for a job. This listless waiting is causing a great deal of angst in me. Every morning I wake up filled with a toxic dread that spreads through my body. I lie in bed and ask myself, what am I doing here? I feel as if I have one foot stretched forward and the other one stuck in the mud. The monotony of village life is enough to drive me mad.

  The morning hours creep intolerably. Lunch takes up one half of the afternoon, siesta the other. Evenings are spent drinking tea and in idle chitchat. Come dusk, conch horns sound deep and hollow, prayer bells tinkle in every house and the air smells of sandalwood incense. This time of the day brings back memories of Baba coming home from work. Even after all these years his memory is painfully sharp and clear.

  Sylhet

  19th April 1894

  It has become the sacrosanct duty of every woman in the village to get me married. The fact that I am jobless is inconsequential. I am considered highly eligible because I am foreign educated and I have bright prospects. The fact that the bright prospects have not materialized is again inconsequential. Marriage proposals are flooding in. Invariably I come home to find a stranger waiting to meet me with an overeager smile and a box of sweets, and I know right away why he is here. It makes me want to turn around and run back to England.

  Letters from Estelle arrived like a breath of fresh air. Even the paper she wrote on felt cool and crisp and carried the delicate scent of her citrus perfume. Once she enclosed a kingfisher feather of periwinkle blue, another time a pressed yellow burnet rose.

  Daddy has a new puppy, she wrote. Her name is Annie. She is a cocker spaniel, the same as Josie but with none of Josie’s ladylike ways. Annie soiled the Persian carpet, broke the porcelain milkmaid figurine on the coffee table and chewed a hole in Mummy’s silk cushion all in a single day.

  Dear Estelle! The joy and mischief in her voice made Biren smile.

  Bertie gave up the theater and left for South Africa to work in a rubber plantation. Why, how or where, nobody knows or seems to care. How very typical of Bertie, don’t you think?

  I now spend most of my time in London. I joined my friend Isadora to volunteer at the House of Mercy, a charitable institution patronized by our prime minister dedicated to the rescue and rehabilitation of fallen women. The choice of my cause makes Mummy cringe, but Daddy is supportive as always.

  Estelle at least was putting her energy toward meaningful work, Biren thought, which was more that he could say for himself.

  Sylhet

  20th April 1894

  I went to the temple hoping to see Charulata. The priest told me she died a year ago. At first people thought she was peacefully asleep under the banyan tree, and only when the monkeys started making a curious howling sound did they realize she was dead. “Lying there like a small brown leaf,” the priest said. Charulata was given a pauper’s funeral and nobody attended her cremation. Her bundle of books, feather brushes and packets of rice paste were burned along with her body. The ground under the banyan tree had to be purified with holy water.

  I came away from the temple deeply saddened. What a waste of human life. Charulata was so pure, so timeless in her wisdom, like the old banyan tree. Surely she deserved to be remembered. I felt the urge to write about her. I sat and penned a three-part essay called “The Banyan Tree Widow.” I will send this onward to Samaresh for the Bengal Star.

  Sylhet

  21st April 1894

  I have not heard from Samaresh ever since he wrote to say his uncle, the judge, had passed away. Samaresh’s cousins have taken over the family law firm and it seems he does not get along with them. This has dealt me a blow on the job front. I need a job. Any job. My choices are limited because doing any job is not an option in India. I wonder what people would say if they only knew of the different kinds of menial work I did back in England? Most of what I did would be classified low-caste work. I even dug graves for a while! In India that alone would put me in the class of the untouchables. I would be disowned.

  I took a boat ride to the jute mill to meet Willis Duff but again I was in for a disappointment. He has gone to Scotland on furlough. I did not leave my name because I did not want to draw attention to myself as the son of Shamol Roy. The office staff thought I was a foreigner and treated me as such. On the boat ride back home I remembered Baba. How many times he must have taken the same journey. I felt saddened to think he had to sacrifice his own dreams just to put rice in our stomachs. He died so we could have the opportunity he never had, but now it feels like I am wasting precious time.

  I have taken up meditation. The old baul sitting under the flame tree guided me in the practice. I found it very hard to concentrate at first but slowly the restlessness is coming under control.

  The tea shop now has a new owner. Tilok, the old owner, perished in the cholera epidemic, as did most others in his village. I learned Tilok’s wife and one of the twin boys died, as well. Many of the fishermen of my childhood, including Chickpea and the ancient one they called Dadu, are all gone. Kanai became half-crazed with grief and wandered away in his boat, and has not been seen since. Most of the fishermen who gather at the tea shop now are unknown to me.

  When the fishing boats come in I watch the fishermen unload their catch. Most days it is paltry pickings: bony fish, a crab or two. I find it hard to believe these same fishermen traverse the vast waterways leading out to the open sea but they have no yearning to venture beyond. They do not challenge their fate; there is no restlessness of spirit, no hunger of the soul. Is unquestioning acceptance the secret to contentment? I wonder.

  CHAPTER

  37

  Sammy’s generosity knew no bounds, and invitations arrived back-to-back. Every second day the manservant would show up at Biren’s house with an invitation to lunch, tea or dinner—it hardly mattered which. Breakfast, thankfully, was exempt because Sammy was a notoriously late riser. After a slothful morning of drinking tea and mindless ambling around the anthill-ridden rose garden in his pajamas, Sammy indulged in a leisurely oil bath and head massage, by which time lunch was served. There was always some delicacy on the menu: sweet river prawns stewed in coconut milk, fish steamed with stone ground mustard or elo-jhelo, a sticky teatime snack made of twisted sugar dough. Sammy ordered Uma to pile up Biren’s plate and watched Biren eat while a manservant stood and fanned them with a palm frond.

  Despite the smothering love, or perhaps because of it, Biren began to feel claustrophobic. To avoid Sammy’s endless invitations he started staying away from home, espec
ially around mealtimes. He took long solitary walks by the river and sat on the bank and watched the brown mass of water push forward like a great, sluggish beast. The river never stood still. It was always going somewhere, carrying clumps of vegetation, floating driftwood and often curious objects all bumping and bobbing along. If he watched closely, he sometimes saw a muscular surge of water that hinted of a hidden force below. India was like the river, he thought. It looked as though things were not moving but an invisible current was directing the flow. Yet Biren felt as if he was trapped in an eddy, swirling in circles, cut off from the main stream.

  Biren’s river walks took him farther and farther from home. One day he found himself in a village of potters. Here nobody knew who he was and Biren gratefully accepted his anonymity. They called him the Belayti. Even though Biren dressed in Indian clothes, he still looked like a foreigner.

  He watched, mesmerized, as the potters shaped mounds of river clay on hand-operated wheels into elegant vessels with scalloped rims. After being sun dried, the pots were loaded in a hay-covered pit and fired after a puja blessing ceremony conducted by the village priest. A single bad firing could ruin a whole week’s work after all. After being fired, the pots were hand burnished to rich terra-cotta gold. Twice a month they were packed in straw and loaded on a flatbed river barge that came laden with cargoes of pineapple and coconut from other villages, and shipped off to be sold in the markets of Dhaka.

  Every member of the potter’s family had a specific role. Women and children gathered the clay from the riverbank in baskets and brought them to the village. The clay was dried, then pounded with sticks and sifted through a bamboo sieve into fine dust, which was then soaked in a clay pit. Younger able-bodied men used their muscle power to knead it to a soft doughlike consistency. Finally, the senior male potters operated the wheel and shaped the pots.