Flame Tree Road

by Shona Patel

  He smiled, remembering something Maya had once told him. As soon as she was born, Buri Kaki had taken over her care with a bossy ferociousness that overruled any feeble ideas of child rearing Maya’s own mother might have had. Maya had only been days old when she was laid across Buri Kaki’s knees and her body kneaded with a small ball of wheat dough and turmeric dipped in almond oil. Around and around the ball traveled over her tiny body. This was followed by a brisk session of baby gymnastics where her tiny limbs were flexed energetically, left and right, up and down. Finally she was bathed with big whooshes of water and rocked to sleep on a patchwork quilt of old saris to “Dol-dol-doloni,” a village nursery rhyme sung by Buri Kaki in a loud cracked voice.

  As a result of Buri Kaki’s loving care, Maya grew up with naturally creamy skin and lustrous hair that no beauty product could ever match. Thanks to all the buffing and polishing with the wheat dough ball, her body was almost completely hairless, her limbs supple and strong.

  “Did she do the same for Mitra?” Biren had asked, burying his nose in her arm and inhaling the scent he so adored.

  Maya had shaken her head. “Ma died soon after Mitra was born and we were all too distraught to do anything. When Buri Kaki was finally ready to malish-palish Mitra, she was too old and she managed to slip out of her grasp and run away, and poor Buri Kaki was too old to chase behind her.”

  Biren ended the letter, sealed the envelope and wrote the address. Before he retired to bed he sat back to gaze one last time at his lovely Maya. And there she sat, his beautiful wife, draped in soft silk, bathed in golden lamplight, floating on the wings of a story.

  CHAPTER

  54

  There is definitely some hanky-panky going on between those two, Biren decided. He was home early from work, and through the window of his study he had a clear view of Chaya and the head weaver, Yosef, as they waited on the veranda for Maya. Maya had gone to her father’s house to help him with some last-minute packing and she was expected home soon.

  Chaya and Yosef had their backs turned toward him as they leaned against the veranda railing looking out toward the river. Biren could not help but notice the way their bodies tilted toward each other like tented cards. Yosef turned to say something to Chaya, and even from his profile, Biren could see the unfiltered longing, while Chaya looked askance with a certain coyness that belied her delight at his attention. When he tilted his head toward her, Biren noticed a pearl stud glowing in the lobe of his left ear. Yosef was a virile young man with seductive eyes, well aware of the power he had over Chaya. He whispered something in her ear at which she gave a kittenish flutter and tried to move away, but he pulled her to him by the waist. With a look of mock exasperation, she disengaged his arm, but she did not move away and they remained, side by side, hips touching. Her coquettish rebuff looked more like a covert invitation.

  Biren watched them, amused. Whenever he saw them in public, they always acted indifferent toward each other. Yosef even sometimes behaved in a callous manner and talked to Chaya with certain brusqueness.

  Obviously they did not suspect anyone was watching them; Biren was usually at work during this time of the day after all. He wondered how far their relationship had developed. From their body language, he could tell they had been intimate. Having learned now that Chaya’s father had arranged her marriage elsewhere, he knew they were treading on risky ground.

  Biren decided to announce his presence. He slipped out of the study door, walked lightly to the kitchen and called out loudly to Buri Kaki for tea, then made his way noisily down the passage, looking as if he was coming from the direction of the bedroom. When he emerged on the veranda he found Yosef waiting at the bottom of the stairs, arms folded, looking out at the river, and Chaya standing at the far end of the veranda gazing at her fingernails. They looked like two perfect strangers, waiting, who had little to do with each other.

  “Is didi still not back?” Biren inquired pleasantly. “Have you both been waiting long?”

  Yosef acted startled. He folded his hands together respectfully in greeting. “I just got here five minutes ago, Dada,” he said. “As for this one—” he tipped his head in a disdainful manner toward Chaya “—I don’t know when she came.”

  “Have you had tea?” Biren asked. “Ask Buri Kaki to make you some. I am going out but wait here. Your didi will be home any moment now.”

  As he left them, he suppressed a smile. The little crooks. They are fine actors, for sure. But how long could their combustible passion be kept under wraps? They had come dangerously close to getting caught.

  * * *

  “Did you know this?” Biren asked Maya when they were alone later that evening. He had just finished telling her what he had witnessed between Chaya and Yosef.

  “I suspected something,” she said slowly. “But from what you are telling me, it sounds as if this has gone quite far. She will be in a lot of trouble if her father finds out.”

  “He is bound to find out,” said Biren. “I don’t think they can help themselves. They won’t be able to keep this a secret for long.”

  Maya looked at him. “Do you have any idea what that means? Chaya is the head tanti’s daughter. She comes from a proud line of weavers who marry strictly within their community. Yosef is only hired help—a karigar. Besides, he is a Muslim and belongs to a lower class of people. If she has anything to do with him she will disgrace her family and the entire community.”

  “Maybe you can talk to her father when the time comes. Explain things nicely to him. They are, after all, two young people in love, and they should be allowed to get married.”

  Maya’s gold bangles jingled as she lifted her arms to twist her unwinding hair back into a bun. He glimpsed her bare midriff and the half-moon sweat stains in the armpits of her red sari blouse, all of which Biren found devastatingly sensual.

  “It’s not so simple,” she said. “There is nothing I can do or say that will make her father think differently. Besides, I am a woman. It’s all right for me to help the weavers sell their saris, but I can’t expect to talk to Chaya’s father about matters concerning his family. He’d be outraged! Why, if I were in that position, the first thing I’d tell him is to stop beating his wife. He’s a very arrogant man. Everybody in the village fears him.”

  “Well, if it’s a question of someone talking to him man-to-man, then maybe I can talk to him. I will tell him the times are changing and that his daughter should be allowed to choose the man she wants to marry.”

  Maya stared at him in disbelief. “Did you just hear what you said? You want to talk to him man-to-man. You want to tell him times are changing...” She stood up abruptly and tucked the end of her sari into her waistband. The jeweled key chain with the silver bells jingled furiously. She spoke quietly, fiercely. Gone was the husky sweetness. “Do you know why I asked you to stop coming to the village?”

  “Why?” said Biren, taken aback. “I thought it was because I was getting in your way and you wanted to focus on your work. Was that not the reason?”

  She shook her head so vehemently that her hair came tumbling down. “No, no, of course not! The reason was because Chaya told me her father did not like you to come.”

  Biren sat up. “Now what did I do? Why, I don’t even know the man!”

  “You may not know him, but he knows you,” said Maya. “Everybody knows you. You work for the British government. You are not just a babu in an office following orders of a white man—you are giving orders, making decisions, changing certain laws that affect the community. Don’t you see this? They see you as an outsider—a traitor. The British are flooding the Indian market with factory-made cloth, as you know—from Manchester, from Lancashire. This material is so cheap traditional weavers cannot compete with the factory prices. As a result they are losing their livelihood, and the entire community is in a danger of being wiped out. Weaving is the only s
kill they have ever known. It’s the only way they have ever earned their living for generations, so you can imagine how threatened they feel. Thankfully, we have found new markets to sell their saris in Calcutta. Chaya’s father has no qualms about using me to further the interests of their community, but when we got married and you came into the picture, it became complicated. So...” She paused, looking exhausted. “Do you see where I am going with this conversation?”

  “What you are saying is I am not the right person to talk to Chaya’s father, because he has already made up his mind I am a traitor. What about the fact that I am trying to establish a free school for girls like his daughter, so that they can get an education, become financially independent and hopefully lead useful lives, and—” he wagged a finger at her “—in the case of Chaya, be empowered to marry the man of her choice. What about that?”

  “That makes it even worse!” exclaimed Maya. “Don’t you see? You now become the foreign influence that is tearing Indian society apart. That makes you doubly dangerous.”

  Biren threw up his hands. “I give up, then,” he said. “I refuse to deal with such moronic donkey people.”

  Maya laughed, her eyes dancing. “The best thing we can hope for, for both their sakes, is this is a youthful infatuation and it will pass. Maybe once Chaya gets married and moves away to another village, she will forget about Yosef.”

  Biren remembered the slant-eyed coquettish look Chaya had given Yosef, the intimate way their bodies had touched. Yosef was unmistakably her lover.

  “I don’t think so,” he said quietly. “Something tells me they have gone too far. I don’t think there is any turning back.”

  CHAPTER

  55

  Silchar

  30th September 1904

  Dear brother Nitin,

  Thank you for collecting the books from the Imperial Bookstore and leaving them with Samaresh. I am sorry we did not get to meet this time. I had to rush back to Silchar, as there are pressing matters I have to attend to at the office. Griffiths is being transferred to Calcutta and we are still waiting for his replacement.

  My trip to Russia was exhausting, to say the least. I try to avoid the cold weather for travel to that part of the world, but the cultural summit where I was presenting my paper happened to be at this time of the year. I must say the cold of Moscow is horrific. Boris Ivanov, my dear friend, lent me a long wool coat, large enough to contain two of me. You remember what a big man he is, don’t you? Still, I was very thankful for it.

  Moni is growing up quickly. I got her a set of traditional Russian Matryoshka dolls—five dolls, each nesting inside the other. She quickly dismantled them all and now the mother doll is missing her head. We searched high and low to no avail, so I am using the bottom half of the doll here on my desk to hold my paper pins while we look for the top.

  Now an update on the weavers’ program. Maya has written to Bela, I believe, in detail about it. I think it will work out very well if Bela can handle the marketing and sales in Calcutta. Her family owned a sari business, after all, and Bela will have the right connections. The middlemen who come to the weavers’ village are actually selling the saris to the same wholesale merchants in Calcutta. If we cut out the middlemen, the extra profits can go directly back to the weavers. Maya now conducts the entire operation from the house. Her assistant and the head weaver come there every week and it is far more efficient this way. I must end for now.

  My love to you all.

  Affectionately yours,

  Dada

  Biren woke one early October morning to find the coral jasmine tree had shed its blossoms in the night. They lay on the ground like a white carpet, the petals curled and wet with dew. He went back inside and picked up two-year-old Moni, still curled in sleep next to her mother, bundled her up in a shawl and took her outside.

  “Look at all the flowers, Moni,” he said, picking up a white blossom and twirling the pinwheel shape by its orange stem. “Do you see? They are called shiuli flowers. Can you say shiuli, Moni? See, so many flowers on the ground.”

  Moni reached out a tiny hand to take the flower. With her face half-buried in his shoulder she looked at it with one eye and tried to twirl it like he did. The orange stem stained her fingers. She flung the flower to the ground and showed her stained fingers to Biren.

  “Chee-chee,” she said.

  He kissed her open palm and rubbed it against his unshaven chin. “Do you know, Moni, Durga Puja will soon be here? The drums will beat dhaka-dak, and Durga-ma will come riding a big lion and we will all get new clothes, sweets, toys.” He pushed the hair back from her eyes and bounced her on his shoulder. “It will be fun-fun-fun.”

  The word toys and fun seemed to wake Moni up. She took her thumb out of her mouth and stretched her hand toward the blossoms, opening and closing her palm.

  “Doh?” she said in a sleepy, cracked voice.

  “Yes, excellent idea,” said Biren. He squatted down and formed the folds of his shawl into a small hammock. “Let’s pick some shiuli flowers for your ma, shall we? When she wakes up she will be so happy to see all the flowers on her pillow.”

  They gathered the shawl full of flowers and went back inside the house. In the dim light of the bedroom Maya was still asleep, her breathing soft and peaceful. They spread the delicate blossoms on her pillow around her hair. The fresh, dewy scent made her stir, but before she could open her eyes, they tiptoed out of the room. Outside the door, unable to contain her excitement, Moni let out a loud squeal.

  * * *

  The flowering of the coral jasmine was indeed the beginning of the festive season. The starry white flowers bloomed at dusk and scented the cool night, and by dawn the fragrant blossoms lay like a fluffy carpet on the ground.

  Something happened to the air this time of the year: it became charged with Durga Puja fever. The very anticipation of five days of nonstop festivities made people walk on lighter feet, greet one another with smiles and small children wake up in the morning with shining eyes and jump up and down on their beds.

  A large bamboo structure—the pandal—was being erected in a football field in the middle of town. Domed like a giant beehive, it had a raised platform to display the magnificent goddess Durga. Every day villagers arrived in boats to help with the construction. The weavers worked tirelessly to create a gorgeous multihued fabric backdrop that was pleated and fanned out like a peacock’s tail. Skilled artisans worked late into the night to carve and press elaborate molded forms of sholapith, a white spongy cork-like material, into elaborate shapes. Every day the hubbub at the pandal attracted a jostling crowd: office shirkers, nameless gawkers, bright-eyed tots, beggars and cows descended to check on the progress, while chai and chickpea sellers walked around calling out their wares in singsong voices.

  The feverish excitement of Durga Puja was so catching it even permeated the somber offices of the British government. The belayti bosses loosened their shirt collars and ambled off to the polo club for long gin lunches, after which they rarely came back to work, which left the babus to chat animatedly all day long without doing a spot of work.

  The day following the waxing of the moon, the goddess Durga arrived in all her splendid glory to the sound of earsplitting drums. Made of molded clay and festooned in red and gold, she had blazing eyes and streaming black hair that cascaded down to her ankles. Seated atop a fearsome lion, she towered over four lesser deities, and in each of her ten hands she held a different weapon of war. Her long trident was plunged into the side of a monstrous buffalo, from whose body emerged an ugly demon. The goddess Durga symbolized the powerful force of good defeating evil. The magnitude of her beauty evoked in all who gazed upon her a feeling of awe and primal love. Even though Durga Puja was a Hindu festival, the entire population of the town—Hindu, Muslim and Christian—were agog with excitement.

  The Bengali Puja As
sociation hosted a free lunch for the entire community on all five days. Maya, fresh from her bath, wearing a crisp new sari with jasmine garlands in her hair, left the house early to help with the floral decorations at the pandal. The holy food, which was cooked in large vats by Brahmins, was offered first to the gods, and then ladled out on banana leaves to the masses.

  All morning, Biren lazed around the house in his pajamas drinking tea. At noon he bathed and changed into a traditional pleated dhoti and kurta of raw silk, while Buri Kaki dressed Moni in one of her fancy new frocks and fussed with the ribbons in her hair before they headed out to the puja pandal. The sound of the dhaak was earsplitting, to which was added the mournful lowing of conch horns interspersed with the melodious Vedic chant of the priest. Biren lifted Moni up on his shoulders so she could watch the dhanachi dancers, who twirled like dervishes holding earthen pots of burning camphor and coconut husk in trails of thick, scented smoke.

  A pathway was cleared for Reginald Thompson as he arrived to see the festivities. He was accompanied by his tall, pale wife—coincidentally called Regina—their two little daughters and their ayah. The older girl, Enid, wore colorful Indian bangles on both her hands, which she admired from time to time by moving them up and down her wrists. Reginald Thomson almost did not recognize Biren in his Indian clothes. His face softened to see little Moni perched on Biren’s shoulders.

  “Hello, little one,” he said kindly.

  “What a pretty dress,” said Regina, touching Moni’s cheek lightly. Moni shrank back and stared with big round eyes from one pink face to other.

  Behind the puja pandal, a village fair was in full swing. Festoons, balloons, toys and cotton candy left children breathless and the adults glassy-eyed. Moni ate pink cotton candy and rode a creaky Ferris wheel with Biren, while Maya, unwilling to be drawn into such foolishness, waited. All the frolicking ended when Moni gushed up fluorescent pink vomit all over her pretty dress. Maya rushed her off to a tea stall to find water for an emergency cleanup while Biren waited and smoked a cigarette. He saw a familiar face in the crowd. It was Chaya from the weavers’ village wearing a leaf-green sari with a garland of marigold around her hair. She was with Yosef, who pulled her by the hand. She lurched along laughing and they disappeared into the crowd.