Upon entering the office, Suzy took an immediate left to the display room, distinguished by a high ceiling and the soft sheen of its polished maple floor. This was where she held seminars for retailers and the public, as well as special events for the press, in her attempts to educate people in tea. Group tastings had proved to be popular. Floor-to-ceiling windows admitted plenty of natural light, though no direct sun, and allowed no shadows. In tea tasting, often called the “art of reading tea,” ample, uniform lighting was essential; perception of color played a significant role.
Suzy eyed the setup. All five tables were laid with crisp white linen, Limoges teacups, gold-plated spoons, strainers, crystal sugar bowls, and a product list. A sideboard set against the east wall held colorful canisters of her company’s premium offerings.
At two, prospective clients, mostly men, began to wander in. The first to arrive were chefs and buyers from several restaurants, most of whom she had already met. One of her consulting efforts involved pairing various dishes with the right blends of tea. Next came four managers from the Country Grocer chain. Suzy shook hands with a controlled exuberance, always maintaining eye contact. If she felt shy as a single woman among a group of mostly married men, she didn’t reveal so.
She looked over to the door just as dark-haired, dark-eyed Ashraf Hamid, owner of Celeste Restaurant, sauntered in. Suzy had yet to try that restaurant, whose name had been popping up lately in newspaper food columns. He reminded her of someone, this man, who was smiling broadly through a set of sparkling teeth. The collar tabs of his navy shirt formed parentheses around his salt-and-pepper beard. Shaking her hand, he asked, “Is Suzy your real name?”
“No, my folks call me Sujata.” Suzy removed her hand from his grip. Practicality and the fact her clients might be put off by a foreign name had prompted her to adopt a Western diminutive. Over time, she had begun to like the short, brisk sound of the new designation. “Suzy’s the Canadian version.”
The manager of an Italian bakery, a six-foot-six giant with red hair and beard, lumbered up and extended a huge paw. “I have to admit I’m a confirmed coffee drinker, signora. Tea tastes weak to me. It’s more a lady’s drink, I suppose.”
“Perhaps you’re using inferior leaves,” Suzy replied. “Or perhaps you’re not preparing it properly.”
Before Red Beard could retort, Suzy asked everyone to take a seat. While chairs creaked against the floor and expectancy rose, she tucked the loose end of her sari around her waist with a businesslike promptness. Standing poised, she issued a formal welcome to all. She explained how she’d been reared on the family-owned tea estate in Darjeeling and how the beverage had become her life’s passion at an early age. Her family didn’t merely produce tea, they offered a way of life. As a teenager she had mastered tea preparation, the first consideration being the water. And so she began her presentation with an emphasis on this important ingredient: water. “Poor water amounts to poor tea.”
“Is that all tea is?” Red Beard said. “Good water?”
“No! Just as important is the freshness and age of the leaves.” Suzy directed everyone’s attention to the sideboard, where representative samples of a dozen bulk teas stood in canisters. The precious leaves—crisp, twisted, and uniformly black, many with golden tips—had been imported from various tea-growing regions of Asia and selected for their unique taste, color, bouquet, and strength. “The younger the leaf, the better the quality.”
Red Beard stroked the wiry hair that jutted from his chin. “You mean I can’t use tea bags?”
“Only if you’re in such a hurry that you can’t help it.” Suzy couldn’t resist boasting that she didn’t sell tea bags. Derogatively referred to by connoisseurs as floor dustings and labeled low grade by manufacturers, the tea found in tea bags yielded a fraction of the flavor of the whole leaves.
The plug-in electric pot whistled. Suzy moved to the sideboard, poured water, and listened to the trickling sound as she brewed six different specialty black teas in as many porcelain pots. A giddy aroma curled up in the air and a hopeful hum spread among the tables. “Steep three to five minutes max. Don’t stew it. And voila, it’s ready!”
She outlined the tasting procedure: Take a small sip and swish the tea liquor around in your mouth. Note the flavor, the strength, and the briskness. Check for color, “nose,” and smoothness. Soon her enthusiastic pupils were expressing their opinions in professional terms such as, “malty,” “bright,” “bracing,” and “clean.”
A tea-tasting episode with Pranab came dashing to her mind. How he said it all in one breath: “This is superfine, tippy, golden, flowery, first-flush Darjeeling.” Then, after tasting several more blends, he would say, “The first tea has a green, immature taste. This second one is more balanced. This third one is very female.” And he would give her an affectionate look.
Seeing Ashraf pucker his mouth after swallowing a pungent Ceylon blend, Suzy slid a steaming pitcher of scalded milk toward him.
He pushed the pitcher aside and raised a disdainful chin. “In my country,” he said, “we drink tea straight. Only children are given tea with milk.”
Irritation percolated through Suzy’s body. Grandma always added milk to even the finest Darjeeling harvest, which is conventionally savored for its lightness, bouquet, and apricot-yellow color. Grandma’s stomach could no longer tolerate the acidity due to her advancing age. She insisted that milk toned down the “bite” of tea.
“Milk is optional,” now Suzy replied, “but I highly recommend it. It gives the tea a fuller taste and masks the bitterness of the tannic acid.”
“What’s wrong with tannic acid?” Ashraf countered. “My grandfather, who lived to be seventy-six, drank black tea even on his deathbed.”
“My grandmother adds milk to her tea. She’s eighty-one and still alive.”
Ashraf clamped his jaw shut, as though suppressing a smile, finally offering weakly, “But you lose the beautiful color.”
Red Beard grabbed the milk pitcher, splashed some milk into his cup, watched the color transformation, and observed, “Personally, I’d rather live to be eighty-one.”
Ashraf lowered his eyes in defeat. Again an image of Pranab rippled before Suzy, how he once provoked interest in her about a natural plant compound, polyphenol, that gave tea its astringency.
As the assemblage happily sniffed, imbibed, and rated the mélange of brews, Suzy began to feel alone and separate. What bond did she have with anybody here? She was merely performing a function. Grandma’s invitation rolled before her mind’s eye. Grandma, who emphasized the “emotional” value of tea: affection and reliability.
Suzy stepped over to the window with a cup of her favorite Darjeeling and traced the curvature of the handle with her fingers. Immediately she linked with the long-gone years. The delicate china reminded her of the fragility of the leaves, fragility of human existence. As taught by her family long ago, she inhaled the rising aroma, or the “breath of tea,” to savor the fruity bouquet and cleanse her system. Finally, she took a sip. A smooth, complex taste, reminiscent of fresh peaches, spread across her palate. The tea nourished her soul, the way even the scantiest rainwater nourishes the roots of a tree.
The tasting over, Jane circulated among the tables, taking the few bulk orders for tea that came in. Suzy hovered in the background, listening to the muted tinkling of spoons and murmurs of conversation, hoping for more sales.
“I didn’t mean any disrespect, sister.” Ashraf signed an order for several boxes of golden-tipped tea. “In Morocco, we argue for fun.”
Suzy relaxed her frown and smiled at him in concurrence. “In India we do the same.” She reminisced how at home she argued with Grandma about the merits of a Ritwik Ghatak film, why India was the world’s largest buyer of gold, or why the country had one of the highest savings rates in the world. The topic was inconsequential; it was the loving openness and good-natured repartee that mattered. Voices rose due to interest and absorption in the subject matter rather tha
n animosity. How Suzy missed that convivial atmosphere. What would life be like if she never saw Grandma again?
Singly, then in twos and threes, the guests rose and took their leave. Ashraf hung back after the others had left, “sistering” her some more. Just before slipping out the door, he gushed, “You must come to my restaurant sometime for dinner. You’ll be my honored guest.”
Suzy mumbled a vague promise, belatedly realizing this extrovert merely wanted to strike up good relations and that this was his playful, if clumsy, approach. It grated on her that she had become bureaucratic and restrained to the point where she had forgotten the old, nonlinear social ways.
Going home that evening, Suzy took a longer route. Somehow she seemed to think well when she was on the move. She drove through the Heritage District, with its rows of remodeled homes, then circled Beacon Hill Park, slowing down to catch a look at the arbutus grove and the ducks floating on the limpid surface of a pond. At the ever-mobbed ice-cream stand a grandmother tried in vain to keep a toddler from painting his cheeks with an ice-cream cone. It all seemed scenic, even idyllic, but distant as a picture postcard in a bulletin board. She didn’t feel intimate with this environment. Even the biggest festivals here didn’t arouse sensation in her the way a simple song of wrens in her family farm did.
She arrived at her apartment building and, after parking her car in the garage, took the elevator to the third floor and let herself into her apartment. Her feelings of vacillation had evaporated. Impatiently she hung her coat on a hanger by the door. Yes, she would attend Grandma’s birthday festivities. She rushed to the computer and selected a sheet of her company’s letterhead stationery in a cream color. It bothered her a little to use the computer for such a personal correspondence, but her handwriting was notoriously illegible. She sat for a few minutes, organizing her thoughts, then began keying in a quick note; composing long letters simply didn’t suit her. After the salutation and elaborate ritual pleasantries, the body of the letter seemed almost a postscript:
I’ll be there by the 28th. It has been far too long.
Your loving granddaughter,
Sujata
She enclosed a recent clipping from the Victoria. Times Colonist about her enterprise (with a picture of her standing in the display room behind a tower of tea boxes) and sealed the envelope.
What a fabulous opportunity to show them all. The nonconformist girl, nobody’s darling, emigrates to the West and becomes an entrepreneur in the best Gupta tradition. She returns to her home transformed—poised, charming, witty, and sophisticated.
They would see that she was Aloka’s equal—at last.
seventeen
Perched on a straight-backed chair in the drawing room, Nina took her morning tea. Her mood leisurely, she envisioned the social gatherings to take place on the occasion of her eighty-first birthday in just over a month. A profusion of red roses, often called blood roses, interspersed with violet orchids in a mass design, would grace every nook. Nina was once poor and hadn’t been able to afford high-priced flowers, so now she indulged in them on the slightest pretext. Relatives and acquaintances would troop into the house, their fine saris rustling; and yes, pants and miniskirts, too (however much Nina disapproved of them). Gold, silver, and precious stones would flash, as would glass and cheap metal trinkets, these being the modern times. Spiked heels would clack on the floors, their heights causing Nina to grimace with distaste. Laughter, murmurings, and cigarette smoke (hopefully not mingled with that of another weed favored by the younger set) would pervade the air. Servants would ferry platters of nonta and mishti, savory and sweet tidbits, to the dining room table, the aromas teasing the senses and inviting intimacy. Friends would abandon their cares in the excitement of a festive occasion and the chance to meet with the lucky “America-returned” people.
Just as Nina tried to picture Aloka, Sujata, and Pranab in the room, all smiling brightly, the maidservant announced the arrival of her friend Tami. Nina had barely collected herself when, adjusting her sari over a mountain of a body, Tami swept in.
“Oh, Tami! So early!” Her morning peacefulness had vanished, but Nina swallowed this small inconvenience out of consideration for their friendship. “Come join me for tea.”
Tami dropped her bulk in a chair, glanced at the tea table, and whispered, “Tea, another time. I have two pieces of news to give you, then I’ll be off.”
A double dose of gossip? Nina, eager to collect the latest tidbits, turned her complete attention to Tami. She gushed about a relative’s arrival from the States for vacation. Such news was always welcome to the residents of this mountain town, who felt isolated from the rest of the state. This relative, it appeared, had brought the usual gifts of cameras and camcorders, and a heap of old Playboy magazines that had proved more popular with the men.
“What’s your other news?”
Tami’s face darkened, she shrank into the chair, her legs did a swinging movement under her sari. “It hurts me to relate this to you. Goddess Kali will never forgive me in this life or the next—”
“What is it?”
Tami squeaked, “Aloka and Pranab have divorced.”
“Ki bolcho?” Nina exclaimed. Are you out of your mind?
“Pranab’s nephew had called from New York yesterday.” Tami bobbed her head up and down for emphasis. “Apparently Pranab’s parents have known for some time that they’d separated. The divorce just became final.”
Nina leaned heavily on her cane as she made an attempt to rise, then flopped back down again. Her mind had pieced together the scintilla of evidence, from Pranab’s silence, to Aloka’s avoidance of any mention of her husband in her recent posts, to her increasingly shorter notes. Still, the verification of her worst misgiving rattled Nina to the bone. She knew what a divorce would do to Aloka. She loosened her grip involuntarily and her cane tumbled onto the ground. She bent unsteadily to retrieve it, stalling for a few moments to compose herself.
“I know how you must feel, Nina.”
Nina inhaled, though she couldn’t absorb much oxygen. “Mostly I feel sorrow for both of them.”
“Sorrow? After all you went through for those two?”
“Ever since their birth, I have been more involved with my two granddaughters than their parents.” Nina stared at the gold-rimmed cup, a Gupta heirloom. She would not be able to finish this cup of tea. “I realize now that a family is not just an investment, but also a checking account. You just have to hope that whatever you put into it today will grow enough to cover what will surely be spent tomorrow. But you know, Tami, I still love them as much as I ever did. I’m anxiously waiting for them to come back. I’ll try to get them back together again.”
“You will?” Tami rose. “Who’s ever heard of a divorced couple getting back together?”
Nina stood up on her own, wished her friend good day. She was glad that Tami had more “gossip errands” to run.
Several hours later, Nina lazed on her lawn chair, her sandals dampened by the wet grass from the morning’s sprinkles. Letters from both her granddaughters had arrived, but hadn’t cheered her as much as she’d hoped. She looked down at the elegant note embossed with Aloka’s monogram on the side table. Normally the girl, with her inherent beauty and grace, came alive in her long letters. She chose the brightest words, strung them together in style, using ellipses so that the reader could take a moment to consider the meaning. Aloka wrote about what she was doing, thinking, hoping, and feeling. She included news, humor, sentiment, and always a little of herself. She would draw a flower in the margin, or a Big Apple street scene. Reading such a letter, Nina felt as though she were walking hand in hand with her beloved granddaughter to explore the byways of New York. This time, Aloka had filled the sleek ivory paper with her exquisite penmanship and had color-coordinated the stamps, but the message was brief, almost like a telegram. It was devoid of any mention of Pranab, and now Nina understood the painful reason why.
She watched the branches of a magnolia t
ree tremble in the light breeze. Her eyes darted to Sujata’s note, short, plain, functional, computer-printed, but more optimistic.
A dreadful thought hiccupped through Nina. Had she hurled a lit match at a tank of petrol by inviting all three back for her birthday? What sorts of damaging liaisons would ensue this time? How could she have been that obtuse? “Petni,” she muttered a curse word to herself. Ugly ghost.
Then again, she observed, after all these years, wouldn’t her granddaughters, presumably more worldly now from having lived abroad, be wiser as well? Time, the sternest teacher. Old grievances might have faded under life’s many tribulations, like pebbles smoothed by a mountain stream.
Her slipper slid off one foot and fell. Nina lurched and steadied herself with the cane, even as she tried to reach for it.
Reenu, the young maidservant, clad in a faded woodblock-print sari, fluttered up the gravelly path on bare feet. She protested sweetly in Bengali, “Please wait, Thakurma.”
Thakurma. Appropriately so. The girl was even younger than her granddaughters. And now Reenu, slender and resilient as a newly sprouted bamboo stalk, leaned forward with a mingling of concern and reverence in her eyes. “Please let me help you.”
Darjeeling Page 12