Flame Tree Road

by Shona Patel

  Estelle filled the teakettle and put it on the stove. On the small kitchen table was the gift tea caddy that James had sent from India. It was fashioned out of polished wood with an exquisite enamel inlay of lotus motifs. Estelle ran her fingers over the design, admiring the beautiful workmanship. Inside the brass-hinged box was a foil-wrapped packet of tea. She found an empty canister in the kitchen cabinet and emptied the tea into it. A heady smell filled the air, and she stood there with her eyes closed, inhaling deeply.

  While she waited for the water to boil, Estelle pulled out the letter, smoothed it on the kitchen table and began to read.

  Calcutta

  17th March 1900

  Dear Sis,

  I hope you enjoy the Assam tea. This is second-flush orthodox, a top-quality tea from our company’s gardens in Assam. Jardine Henley, our company, owns nineteen tea estates in the Assam Valley. Recently I had the pleasure of visiting the Chulsa Tea Estate in the Mariani district, where I picked up this tea. I look forward to my garden visits. That is the most rewarding part of my job, although I can’t say life in Calcutta is ever dull.

  Bridgette is growing up quickly. She will turn two in another month. I wish you could see her, sister. She has red hair and quite a little temper. Aha! I wonder who she reminds me of?

  I did make inquiries about Biren Roy, since you asked. He is married and has a child. From what I hear, he is very well respected. Biren has established the first all-girls school with government funding in Silchar. Many of the townspeople are against it and they keep trying to shut it down. But he is a force to contend with, I would imagine.

  I am grateful to you for looking after Mother and Father, and I sometimes feel guilty for leaving you with the responsibility. Hopefully I can make it all up to you.

  Your brother,

  James

  Estelle folded the letter back into its well-worn creases and slipped it into her skirt pocket. She smiled, remembering how adamant Biren had been about not getting married. It must have taken an exceptional woman to get him to change his mind. She imagined his child to have dark eyes and curly hair just like him.

  They had lost touch around six years ago after she volunteered as a nurse for the Red Cross and left for South Africa. She was gone for a year and half and returned when she got the news Daddy had suffered a heart attack. Now she lived at home and took care of him and led the quiet life of a writer. Estelle often wondered about Biren, which had prompted her to ask James to find out about him. Now knowing he was married and settled, she would not attempt to renew contact with him. It looked as though they had both found their own paths in life after all.

  CHAPTER

  52

  Moni was a delicate child with a poor digestion. She cried often and refused to go to bed unless she could hold a fistful of Maya’s hair, which she played with and pressed against her tiny cheek. Only then would her eyelids flutter like tiny butterflies as she drifted off to sleep.

  She liked to go down to the river. On summer evenings when a strong river breeze drifted through the house, she would get restless. “Wa!” she would demand, and point in the direction of the river.

  Biren put her on his shoulders and took her down to the water’s edge. He sat on his haunches and pointed out to her the stealthy blue-gray heron hiding among the clumps of vegetation looking like a piece of driftwood.

  “Shh, look!” he whispered as the heron’s long neck darted out and its javelin-like beak speared a large frog. The heron threw back its neck and swallowed the frog with jerky movements, the lump pulsing its way down its throat.

  Moni looked at him with big puzzled eyes. “Oh?” she asked.

  He showed her the small silver fish caught in tidal pools, and stood around as she poked sticks in the mud and drummed her little feet, creating small splashes that seemed to amuse and delight her.

  One day a solitary figure approached them. It was a tantric holy man, his bare body covered in ash, his dreadlocks gathered into an enormous pile at the top of his head. He walked as if he was in a trance. His bloodshot eyes, fierce and staring, were fixated at a point just above the horizon.

  As he passed, he lifted his hand. “Take heed, brother,” he said in a low, throaty voice. “Keep that child away from water. It is waiting to claim her.”

  Biren quickly snatched Moni into his arms.

  The man walked by like a shadow. Even the river breezes stilled as he passed. He became a shimmering haze swallowed up by the sky. Moni screamed and struggled. When he set her down, the first thing she did was to grab a handful of filthy river mud and stuff it into her mouth.

  “Moni. No!” Biren cried, grabbing her hand. She broke into a wail and struggled as he tried to clean her mouth out with the end of his shirt. He carried her screaming all the way home.

  Maya was sitting on the plantation chair on the veranda reading. She stood up when she heard the screams coming from down the road.

  “What happened?” she called. “Did she hurt herself?”

  Moni was twisting and writhing in Biren’s arms. Her head hung down and she kicked her legs against his stomach, emitting an awful scream.

  “I’ll take her,” said Maya. “Shh, baby,” she said softly, wiping Moni’s eyes with the end of her sari and pushing back her damp hair. “Shh. Everything is all right. Shh.”

  Moni lay limp in her arms. Her screams subsided into hiccupping sobs. She leaned over and tried to grab the end of Maya’s long braid. Maya gave it to her, and she rested her cheek against Maya’s scented hair and closed her eyes. Maya took her inside.

  Later Biren walked into the bedroom to find his wife and child asleep, side by side, Maya with a book open beside her. He touched Maya’s shoulder and she opened her beautiful eyes, smiled and gently pried her hair out of the baby’s fingers. They both tiptoed out of the room, closing the door behind them.

  “At last,” she whispered. “Peace and quiet.”

  They drank their tea sitting on the veranda, Biren with his feet propped up on the railing, Maya with her legs folded like a lotus. On soft dusky evenings like these Biren’s heart was so laden with thankfulness that he did not have much to say.

  Maya tried to detangle her hair with her fingers. “Eesh,” she said. “The end of my braid is all ratty. I tried giving her my Kashmiri shawl instead, the black one with the long tassels, but she would not have it.”

  Biren stroked her cheek with the back of his finger. “I wish I could help,” he murmured. “I would grow my hair if I could. I would do anything for you, Maya.”

  “Then you’d look like a holy man.” She laughed. “And I would have to do puja to you.”

  Biren remembered the tantrik. He sat up and debated whether to tell Maya about the strange encounter. Perhaps there was no need. It would unnecessarily worry her. There was something eerie about how the man had appeared out of nowhere, said his ominous words and vanished like a mirage. Biren quickly dismissed it from his mind.

  Maya twisted her hair into a bun, the bangles on her wrist jingling softly.

  “I don’t know what to do about the weavers,” she said. “If I don’t go to the village, everything comes to a standstill. If I take Moni with me she is a distraction. She runs around everywhere, touches everything, and it’s impossible to get any work done.”

  “Can’t you leave her with Buri Kaki here at home?”

  Maya shook her head. “I am gone for four to five hours. She won’t stay with Buri Kaki so long.” She sighed. “I will just have to take her along, I suppose. I worry about her on the long boat ride, too. You have to really keep a close watch on her. She wants to lean over the edge and play with the water.”

  Biren remembered the chilling words of the tantrik: Keep that child away from water. It is waiting to claim her.

  He sat up quickly and turned toward her. “Maya, please pr
omise you won’t take the child on the boat,” he beseeched. “Promise me, please.”

  She looked at him, startled. “Why?” She laughed. “Don’t you trust me to keep an eye on her?” She threaded her fingers through his and leaned her soft cheek against his hand. “Don’t worry,” she reassured him. “I am very careful.”

  Biren reached for his cigarettes. The clock in the hallway chimed eight o’clock. He rolled the tobacco in the cigarette paper, struck a match and smoked quietly, thinking. He would have to find a way to dissuade Maya from taking Moni on the boat.

  “Can’t the weavers come to the house?” he said finally. “You work mostly with Chaya and the head weaver, Yosef, right? Ask the two of them to come here instead.” He leaned forward. “I think it’s a brilliant idea. I wonder why we never thought of it before. Tell them to bring the Calcutta buyers with them. You can use the empty guest room to store the saris, samples or whatever. Make the guest room into your workspace. What do you think?”

  “It is rather a good idea,” admitted Maya. “Let me see if they agree. I will send word through the boatman to the weavers’ village and ask Yosef to come and meet me. I don’t know if Chaya will be allowed out of the village on her own. Her father is the head tanthi. He is very strict with her. Did you ever meet him?”

  Biren stubbed out his cigarette. “No, I don’t think so.”

  “He’s a hard man. There is a certain cruelty about him, which I find disturbing. I see Chaya’s mother with bruises on her face and arms. I think he beats her. Of course, she denies it when I ask her. Chaya’s father wants Chaya to get married to a tanthi’s son of the same caste from another village. I don’t even know if he suspects Chaya is in love with Yosef.”

  “Is she in love with him?”

  Maya laughed softly. “Have you ever seen them together? That man can’t keep his eyes off her. She admitted she has feelings for him, as well. She swore me to secrecy. Her father would kill her if he found out.”

  “I don’t understand why they can’t get married. Maybe her father will come around,” said Biren.

  Maya shook her head. “There is no hope of that,” she said. “Yosef is Muslim and Chaya is Hindu—it’s as simple as that.”

  “‘And ne’er the twain shall meet,’” added Biren. “Even though they are both weavers and live in the same village. They probably played together as children. Such a shame, really.”

  “What would you have done if I were Muslim?” she joked, giving him a playful nudge.

  He lifted her hand to his lips. “I would have married you, Maya, no matter what. I would have even converted to Islam, Christianity—anything—if I had to. Religion means very little to me. I think organized religion is a perversion in God’s name. It evolves out of fear and greed and makes people inhuman and mindless.

  “Conversion is easy,” he continued. “I was more worried our horoscopes would not match. There was not a thing I could have done about that, and that would have been it. I hate to say this, but your granny’s death got that last hurdle out of the way. I don’t know how else we could have gotten married.”

  “Did you not think I had a mind of my own?” she asked softly. “Did you think I would have accepted it without saying a word?”

  “It sounded as if your granny had the last say in the matter,” said Biren. “She was quite formidable. Even your father could not stand up to her.”

  “You don’t have much faith in me, do you?”

  “All right, then, you tell me. What would you have done if the marriage proposal was called off because our horoscopes didn’t match?”

  “I would have defied Granny and married you. There are no two ways about it. Surely you know that? I have gone against my granny’s wishes many times. She did not want me to work in the weavers’ village, but I did. She did not want me to raise Mitra, but I did...”

  Biren marveled at her: so soft-spoken and gentle, yet so strong and wise. And to think she had been ready to go against her family to marry him, and he had done all that worrying for nothing!

  “See, I have told you my secrets. Now you have to tell me some of yours,” she said.

  There were so many things he had not told her because she had never asked. She did not know about the hardship of his days in England, nor of Estelle. How much was even necessary for him to share? But Biren knew that every secret is a cell of darkness. They became the shadows of the heart where no love can enter. A man can become his own prisoner and never be able to give truly of himself. And Biren longed to be free.

  “How much do you want to know?” he asked.

  “As much as you care to tell me,” she said.

  Just then Buri Kaki came to announce dinner was ready.

  “Leave it covered on the dining table, Buri Kaki, and go to sleep,” said Maya. She smiled at Biren. “Dinner can never be more important than matters of the heart. It can wait. So tell me.”

  They sat on the sofa because he needed to hold her close.

  “There was this English girl, Estelle.” He waited for her to stiffen but she sat quietly, her head against his shoulder, waiting for him to continue.

  And deep into the night he talked. Biren told her everything in his heart that day, and from the trusting way her fingers entwined in his own, he knew she would understand. When he finished, he wondered if she had fallen asleep, but the soft flutter of her eyelash against his arm told him she was listening. His heart was clear except for one cell of darkness. For some reason he could not bring himself to talk about the tantrik he had met that day, and that patch of darkness remained in his heart, hidden to all, even to himself.

  CHAPTER

  53

  Silchar

  3rd May 1903

  Dear brother Nitin,

  I am happy to hear Ma is recovering from her pneumonia. It is a great comfort for me to know that she is with her doctor son and can avail of the best medical attention. Imagine if she was back in Sylhet? We would both be so worried.

  The foundation for the new school building is coming along, but there is still paperwork and legalities to complete, a charter to be drawn up. The British government will match all foreign donations, so my trips abroad have been well worthwhile.

  My only regret is being gone from home for such long stretches of time. Every time I return I find Moni has grown a few inches and has learned a new word or two. I wish I had been there the moment she first uttered them. I love to see the surprise on her face when she finds her tongue can twist itself into a word her brain is trying to say. She repeats the new word constantly and is filled with wonder. These are the moments I cherish. Right now her favorite English word is peppa (paper), which she demands constantly and seems to take great pleasure in tearing to pieces. I tried to give her an old newspaper but she stamps her tiny feet and points to my desk and demands a fresh sheet. I held her hand and tried to make her write but she banged my fountain pen, and now the nib of my prized Parker I had since my college days is bent. Maya says I am trying to make her write before she can talk. Which I suspect is true. Most of all I want Moni to love books, like her mother does.

  Biren paused in his writing to look through the open door of his study, where he could see Maya reading at the dining table. She was bathed in a pool of light from the hurricane lamp, chin in hand, her head fallen on one arm, her hair shimmering to the side. She was wearing a sky-blue kimono patterned with pink cherry blossoms that Biren had picked up for her on his trip to Japan. The soft fabric draped over her shoulders and hugged the gentle curve of her breasts. He felt a rush of desire imagining her naked body beneath the silk, then sighed knowing this moment was not his to claim. She was lost in the pages of Pride and Prejudice, a beautiful emerald-green volume with a gold patterned spine and grainy cream-colored pages. So impatient was she with the story that her finger was already stroking the top of the next page to be t
urned. Just watching her excited him, but he would wait. Unlike Maya, he was a morning person and he usually retired to bed well before she did. Most days Maya read late into the night, always sitting at the dining table, a habit she’d had since she was a child. When she came to bed, she was satiated with words but bold with desire. She would slip into bed and tempt him awake with her warm sandalwood-scented skin, and he loved her for it. The very anticipation of loving her gave him a thrill.

  He turned back to finish Nitin’s letter.

  I received word from the Imperial Bookstore on College Street that the book of Emily Dickinson love poems I ordered for Maya has arrived and has been kept on hold. Would you be so kind as to pick it up for me and keep it with you? It has already been paid for. My worry is that by the time I next go to Calcutta, the book will be lost in the jumble of the store. This has happened once or twice before.

  I may have mentioned to you in my last letter that Jatin Nandi, my father-in-law, has decided to move back to his ancestral home in Sylhet. At long last Mitra’s admission to the New Horizon Academy in Dhaka has come through, and she will study in one of the finest English academies of India. The wonderful thing about this revolutionary school is the education is directed at fostering independence and self-reliance in the girls. The schools in Silchar are still very rudimentary, and Mitra is growing up to be a bright, intelligent young girl and she is ready to be more academically challenged.

  Maya, as you can imagine, is very sad her family is moving away from us but she understands it is for the best. Her father’s health is frail and he suffered another fall from a blackout recently. In his old age he wants to live in his village basha and be cared for by the members of his joint family.

  It has been decided Buri Kaki will come and live with us. She is too old to move anywhere, and besides, her son and his family live here. Her son is a good-for-nothing with a bad gambling habit and sponges off his old mother, but she is blind to his faults. Well, I am happy she will stay with us because she will be a comfort to Maya, who she raised since the day she was born.