Flame Tree Road

by Shona Patel

  “I saw Chaya,” he told Maya when she returned. “She was with that Yosef.”

  Maya frowned. “That is taking a big risk,” she said. “She should not be seen in public with him. Somebody from their village might report them to her father.”

  “Hopefully nobody will see them,” said Biren. “There are thousands of people here.” He looked at Moni, whose dress was completely drenched. Her teeth chattered. “Did you bring something warm for her, a shawl or something?”

  “I did not think of it,” Maya said. “It was so hot during the day.”

  “I think we should go home. Otherwise, she will catch a cold.”

  On the rickshaw ride back home Moni nodded off on Biren’s lap, clutching a twirling paper turbine in her hand. They passed a dark patch with the fireflies winking in the bamboo grove. He slipped his arm around Maya’s shoulders and kissed her cheek. How sweet it was to feel the softness of her skin, to smell the smoke and incense in her hair. He was so lucky. He thought of Chaya and her young lover. It would be cruel if fate were to deny them a life together.

  CHAPTER

  56

  On the final day of Durga Puja, a big noisy procession passed by Biren’s house on their way to the river for the immersion ceremony. First came the four dhaakis beating their barrel-shaped drums, followed by the dancing crowds, then the goddess herself carried aloft on long bamboo poles on the shoulders of a dozen swarthy men.

  Biren picked up Moni and followed them to the river. One by one the devotees touched the feet of the deity, and many were tearful as they bid the beautiful goddess farewell. Moni struggled and kicked to be set down. Finally the goddess was lowered gently into the river, where she submerged bit by bit with all her finery, until only her lovely face with the big staring eyes remained. Then even that disappeared as she sank slowly under the water. A great pall of gloom descended on the crowd as they watched the marigold garlands and flowers swirl away with the river current. Biren turned to pick up Moni and didn’t see her. He felt a stab of panic, but thank God, there she was a short distance away, bending down to touch a small green coconut.

  He rushed over, swooped her up in his arms and shook her. “Don’t ever leave Baba’s side, do you hear me?” he shouted.

  The roughness of his voice surprised her and her face began to pucker. Moni looked flushed, her eyes feverish. Biren felt her forehead; it was unnaturally warm.

  He rushed her back to the house and was surprised to find Maya lying in bed.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Don’t you feel well?”

  “I think I caught a cold,” she said. Her voice sounded clogged and stuffy.

  “This maiyya has one, too,” he said, setting Moni down on the bed. She crawled under her mother’s blanket. “She has been coughing since you hosed her down at the fair yesterday.”

  Maya pushed back Moni’s hair and kissed her forehead.

  “I think we all need rest,” she said. “Five days of nonstop excitement is just too much.”

  “The whole town will be ill now.” Biren sighed. “The post–Durga Puja collapse. This happens every year. None of the babus will come to work tomorrow, just you see.”

  “Please eat your dinner. I don’t want any,” Maya said. She looked at Moni fast asleep beside her and gently pried her thumb from her mouth. “I don’t think she will eat anything, either.”

  Biren leaned over and felt Maya’s forehead. “I hope you are not running a fever,” he said anxiously, looking into her eyes. He felt her feet. “Why are your feet so cold? Shall I put on my socks for you?”

  “No, no, I am all right, please. I just need to rest,” she said.

  He smoothed back her hair. “Yes, you must rest,” he said, “because we leave for Calcutta a month from now. You and Moni must be fit for the journey.” He tucked an extra shawl around them both. “I will be in my study. Call me if you need anything,” he said. He went out and closed the door softly behind him.

  * * *

  A few days later Moni recovered, but Maya was still running a low fever. She lost her appetite, had the night chills, tossed and turned and woke up looking gray and tired. Her skin lost its luster and her hair hung lank and stringy. Alarmed at her rapid deterioration, Biren called the doctor.

  Dr. Ghosh was an old friend of Jatin Nandi’s. A kindly man given to pleasantries, he had seen Maya since she was a little girl. He said the fever was a virus, which would run its natural course. He pulled down Maya’s eyelids, declared her anemic and prescribed a diet of ripe mashed banana, almonds soaked in milk and beetroot juice in small quantities, several times a day.

  “Egg yolk, liver and spinach are all iron-rich foods,” he added.

  “But she is not eating at all,” Biren complained, looking at Maya sitting up in bed. Her tea on the side table had turned cold.

  “I will prescribe a tonic,” said Dr. Ghosh, folding his stethoscope and placing it inside his medical valise. “It will help her regain her appetite.”

  Biren walked the doctor to the gate. “Will she be well enough to travel?” he asked. “I have steamer tickets booked for Calcutta a month from today.”

  “With plenty of rest and her new diet she should be fine,” said the doctor. “Please pick up the medicine from my clinic this evening. My compounder babu will have it ready for you. She should take it three times a day before her meals. Rest assured, she will be well.”

  * * *

  Biren monitored Maya’s diet diligently. He cajoled her to eat raw egg yolk mixed with honey, and small pieces of toast with the liver pâté that Regina Thompson had sent after hearing about Maya’s anemia. Nothing seemed to work. Some days she looked better, but it was always followed by a relapse. There was just one week left before their journey and Maya still had not recovered.

  Biren was in a quandary. He had a critical meeting with the executive council of the governor-general to present his final proposal for the education program. It had been set up a whole year in advance, and Reginald Thompson had used all his connections and pulled the right strings to get Biren this appointment. The plan was for Moni and Maya to spend a few days in Chandanagore with Nitin’s family while Biren took care of business in Calcutta, after which they would all enjoy the Christmas lights in the city before returning home.

  Maya was certainly not fit to travel, and he worried about leaving her in Silchar. When he voiced his concerns, she was adamant.

  “No!” she cried, clutching his hand. “You must go. This opportunity may never come again. Reginald Thompson went through a lot of trouble to secure this meeting with McCauley for you.”

  “But how can I leave you in this state, Maya?” Biren spoke in a choked voice. He took her hand in his own. How limp it felt, her fingers so cold. He rubbed her hand between his own, wishing he could pass some of his strength on to her. Maya was a shadow of her former self. Her gray-green eyes looked enormous in her small face. “Let’s give it till the end of the week, then we can decide,” he said.

  “You must go to Calcutta,” she said firmly, pulling her hand away. “I won’t have it any other way. You are not going to cancel your trip because of me.” Some of that old fire was back in her eyes. She struggled to sit up. Biren adjusted the pillow behind her back and helped her.

  “How can I leave you here with Buri Kaki? She is getting very old and forgetful. I cannot rely on her to give you your medicine. If your father were still in Silchar, it would have been different. You could have stayed with him. I don’t care what you say but I am not comfortable leaving you alone here with the child. I would be worried all the time.”

  “Tell me,” she said, clutching his arm, “how long have you waited for this meeting? Years and years, yes? All those trips to Calcutta, all those preliminary meetings. And now you want to cancel the final meeting just because I have a little fever? It’s a virus. It will pas
s. Now, if I promise to eat that raw egg, liver paste and whatever else Dr. Ghosh has asked me to eat, will you go?”

  Biren did not answer. He got up and paced around the room.

  “All right,” Maya continued, “let’s add dates to my menu. I will eat dates! Are you listening? You know how I hate dates, but yes, I will eat them, if you agree to go. Oh...” She sank back, closing her eyes, exhausted. “What is the use of talking to you? I don’t think you are even listening.”

  “I am listening, Maya, I am listening.”

  “Do you know something?” she said suddenly. “You are being very unfair to me.”

  “Unfair to you?” Biren said, startled. “How?”

  “Because if you miss this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, I will have the guilt sitting on my head for the rest of my life. I will blame myself for dashing your dreams. And it’s not just your dreams. What about the dreams of all the young girls waiting to go to school? How can you do this to them? You are putting a heavy burden on me, really, you are. This is not fair.”

  “What is not fair is that you are emotionally blackmailing,” said Biren. “And who is to say this opportunity won’t come again? The meeting will just have to be rescheduled. I will send a telegram to McCauley saying my wife is serious...”

  “Serious?” Maya’s voice rose an octave. “Dr. Ghosh himself said the fever is just a virus. The virus has to run its course. Some viruses take a little more time than others.”

  “It has already been three weeks, Maya. I have not seen any signs of improvement. I cannot leave you in this condition. There are no neighbors nearby. If the doctor has to be called in the night, who will go? Please be sensible. I don’t want any arguments about this.”

  Maya closed her eyes and turned her head wearily to the side. She was silent but he could tell her brain was ticking.

  “Listen to me,” she said suddenly. Her face brightened. “I just got an idea. Why don’t you drop us both off at Baba’s village in Sylhet? I have not seen my cousins in a long time.” She grew animated. “Yes! Yes! I can manage the boat ride to Sylhet, no problem. At Baba’s house we will be well cared for. We have such a big joint family. There are aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews and nieces. Moni will enjoy herself. Also, that way you won’t be worried about us.” She tugged his hand. “It is a grand idea, don’t you agree?”

  Biren remained silent, still reluctant to entertain the thought of going to Calcutta without Maya. There was so much that he had wanted to show her: the bookstores, Chowringhee dazzling with Christmas lights, the green expanse of Fort William, the seaside at Digha. He pictured little Moni playing in the sand, collecting seashells, and Maya with the sea breeze whipping through her hair.

  “What do you think? Tell me,” Maya insisted. “I want to go and see how Baba is doing. It’s been six months. He is getting old. I was so busy with the weavers I did not have time to go to Sylhet to see him. I don’t want Moni to forget her grandfather. Also, also...” She tugged his hand urgently. “Mitra is coming home from Dhaka for her school holidays. She has been longing to see Moni.”

  “Let me give it some thought,” said Biren reluctantly. “If you don’t improve in the next few days, I don’t think you should do the boat journey to Sylhet.”

  “I will improve,” she said. She grabbed his hand and placed it on her forehead. “See, feel my head. No fever. Gone! Really, I feel so much better already. I’ll tell you what—I will even eat that horrible English liver paste that Regina Thompson sent, if you like.” She made a funny face, hoping to make him smile, but Biren turned and walked out of the room with a leaden heart.

  * * *

  The following Tuesday they took the boat to Sylhet. Dawn was just breaking and Kanai rowed them across the flat gray river over which a pale fog hung in folds like a shroud. The shrubs along the banks were soft and blurred, looking like hunched widows in mourning. Kanai sang a soulful Bhatiyali dirge of a broken-winged crane trapped in a fishing net. The crane’s mate circled the sky crying for help, and finally plucked out his feathers one by one to make a wreath for his mate as she lay dying.

  CHAPTER

  57

  Calcutta was bedecked for the holiday season. Colorful buntings and crepe streamers decorated Chowringhee, and the horses pulling the tongas wore festive plumes and jingled with Christmas bells. Every fortnight the big ocean liners brought shiploads of visitors from the cold shores of foreign lands, a majority of them eligible women, on the lookout for a husband. Pale and seasick, they sailed up the forked mouth of the Bay of Bengal and followed the mighty Hoogly River that led to the port city of Calcutta. They gasped to see the gargantuan Howrah Bridge that straddled the river like an iron centipede and the gleaming imperial city beyond with its temples and churches, its white domed buildings and tall minarets. Perhaps just as jaw-dropping was the unlikely sight of hundreds of loincloth-clad bathers who crowded the wide steps of the bathing ghats, while dozens of others ducked their heads in the turgid water, scrubbing themselves with shivering frenzy, deeply preoccupied with their morning ablutions.

  This was the party season, with back-to-back galas at the Imperial Hotel, Fort William and the exclusive European clubs that dotted the city. Rankin and Company on Lindsay Street, dressmakers to the elite, were burdened with orders to create the latest Western-style dresses with an Indian twist using rich brocades and shot-spun silks that shimmered like liquid gemstones.

  The colonial world of Calcutta was exotic and just a wee bit naughty. Bending a few rules was, after all, the norm. It was with this quickening of pulse and heightened sense of anticipation that the foreign visitors entered the city.

  * * *

  Biren Roy had learned a long time ago that it took a good set of clothes and the right English accent to gain acceptance into British social circles. Lineage counted, too, but thankfully the colonial bosses were still confused about the vagaries of Indian royalty. Chances were if you dressed right and talked right, your family was probably rich and of noble descent. Educated Indian men had soft hands and indolent ways. They reclined on silk tasseled bolsters and spoke English with the right public-school accent. Biren not only spoke the Queen’s English, he had the oratorical delivery to match, and that cut ice with the people in high places.

  George McCauley, the secretary of education, had invited Biren to lunch at the Royal Bengal Club. Never was there a more snobbish institution in colonial India than the Royal Bengal Club. It ranked in exclusivity among the top gentlemen’s clubs of London: the Athenaeum and the Reform Club.

  This was a critical meeting and Biren was not taking any chances. All formal paperwork had been reviewed, cleared of red tape and approved at various levels of government, and the lunch was going to be the final handshake.

  Biren made an appointment with the gentlemen’s barber for a proper shave and haircut. As he reclined in the red padded leather chair and closed his eyes for a luxurious lathering, he remembered the old village barber who’d sat on the street corner of the fish market with his rock-hard bar of shaving soap and cutthroat razors laid out on a rag. For the cost of a shave the barber had thrown in a haircut for an extra anna. The haircut had been finished off with a vigorous finger-drum head massage that made one want to yelp and swoon at the same time. The gentleman barbers of Calcutta who tended to the delicate pink scalps of foreigners were, of course, more humane.

  Next, Biren took a tonga to Cuthbarton and Fink. He had an appointment to be fitted for a new set of clothes: an iron-gray morning coat in the latest cutaway style, with a waistcoat to match, and contrasting pin-striped trousers with turned-up cuffs. Next door at Allan Davis and Company he bought a pair of patent leather shoes and, after some deliberation, a slim ivory-handled cane.

  It felt marvelous to walk down Chowringhee Road in his fine new clothes breathing the scent of his professionally twirled, sweet-smelling moustache. There was a new swagger i
n his step, and he already felt a sense of accomplishment. His only wish was that Maya could be beside him. He imagined her dressed in one of her beautiful Tanchoi silks, a fresh gardenia in her hair.

  The crowds parted for him, and an armless, legless beggar, lumped inside his broken cart, let out a raucous wail as he walked by. At the entrance of Hogg Market, he stepped aside for two European ladies and they walked past giving Biren slanted looks. He felt a pang, remembering his beautiful Maya. There was no woman in Calcutta who could even remotely compare to her. He made up his mind that as soon as his business was done in the city, he would catch the first steamer back home. No matter what time he reached Silchar, he planned to drop off his luggage and take a boat to Sylhet, and hopefully he would be with his precious Maya and Moni that very same evening.

  * * *

  George McCauley looked at his watch. He had another half an hour before his lunch meeting with Biren Roy—enough time to grab a couple of gin and tonics. What a morning! The two-hour meeting with the executive committee had wrung him dry. Every proposal he had put up for consideration had been shot down. The education department that he headed was the most neglected orphan child among government departments. Literacy for the Indian masses was hardly a priority in colonial India, where the main thrust was on trade and business.

  There was one proposal, however, that had miraculously been given the green signal. The paperwork for the Female Literacy and Upliftment Project had sat on McCauley’s desk for years, and it had taken the bullying presence of Reginald Thompson, the district commissioner of Silchar, to bring it to his attention and push it through the executive committee. The project was elaborate and the funds requested raised quite a few eyebrows among committee members.