Flame Tree Road

A small, tidy man, fastidious by nature, Shamol Roy sat on an elevated wooden pallet with four bowls of water placed under each foot to discourage the creatures from crawling up. There was little he could do, however, about the rotting smell that pervaded the godown; it came from the jute stalks that had been submerged in stagnant water to ret so that the useful fibers could be pulled out and dried for use.

The sun was already deeply slanted in the sky when he caught the ferry home. A sweet river breeze caressed his face and a great flock of cranes crossed overhead to roost in the marsh. The boatman sang a soulful river ballad accompanied by the beat of the oar as it broke the water into pleats of gold. As the boat turned the fork in the river, the flame tree of Momati Ghat first appeared like a gash on the horizon and blazed into full glory as the boat pulled up to shore. The tea shop was closed and a mongoose scrabbled among the broken terra-cotta cups. It streaked off into the undergrowth at the sound of his approaching footfalls.

As Shamol Roy walked down the crooked path to his basha, his heart skipped to see his pretty wife dressed in a fresh sari with jasmine twisted in her hair. His two little boys, scrubbed and clean with their hair combed, ran up to meet him. They each held a hand and walked him back to the house. Biren was bright with chatter about his first fallen tooth, which he rattled in a matchbox, while little Nitin toddled along sucking his thumb.

Shibani went inside the house to prepare his tea. She never waited to greet him at close quarters, knowing well that Shamol was embarrassed by his disheveled appearance and the smell that came off his clothes. The boys didn’t mind. For them it was the smell of their father coming home. In the bedroom Shamol Roy found a set of clean home clothes laid out on the bed: a chequered lungi, cotton vest and his wooden clogs on the floor.

He picked up the brass lota from the kitchen steps and headed down to the well, where he washed down the smell of the workday from his skin and hair. Only after he had changed into fresh clothes did he begin to feel human again.

He sat in the courtyard, a tumbler of hot tea warming his hands, a happy man.

“So how was school today?” he asked Biren.

“We had English lessons, and the new boy spelled elephant starting with an L.” Biren rolled his eyes as if to say, What an idiot.

Shamol Roy feigned ignorance. “Oh, elephant is spelled with an L, is it not?”

“Baba!”

“Then what is it?”

Biren mouthed E and his tongue poked through the gap in his teeth, reminding him of his recent toothless status. He opened the matchbox and looked momentarily stricken when he couldn’t see his tooth, but there it was in the far corner.

“So what should I do with the tooth?” he asked his father.

Shamol Roy looked at the sweet, solemn face of his son. “Let me see, now,” he said gently, pulling down Biren’s bottom lip. “It’s the bottom tooth, isn’t it? Then you must throw it on the roof of the house and ask a sparrow to get you a new tooth.”

“But how can I do that, Baba?” Biren cried. “I’m not tall enough. I can’t throw it over the roof. Then the sparrow won’t get me a new tooth.”

“I’ll lift you up. You’ll throw it over the roof, don’t worry.”

Nitin plucked at Shamol’s sleeve.

Shamol turned to address him. “Yes, what is it, Nitin mia?”

Nitin pulled down his lip to display his own pearly whites.

“Now, let me see. Good, good, you have all your teeth. No need to throw your tooth over the roof. You don’t need any new teeth right now.”

Shibani emerged from the kitchen with a ripe papaya on a brass plate. Next to it was a dark knife with a white sharpened edge.

“The first papaya of the season,” she announced, setting it down. “Perfectly tree ripened. Will you cut it for us, please?”

“But of course, my queen.”

The boys settled down to watch. They never got tired of watching their father cut a papaya because he did it with such ceremonial style. Shamol Roy held the papaya in both hands, turned it over and pressed down with his thumbs to examine its ripeness. He then picked up the knife, and with clean easy swipes peeled away the skin in even strips. The bright orange fruit was laid bare and the juice dripped onto the brass tray. Then came the sublime moment, the lengthwise cutting open of the papaya. The boys leaned over and gasped to see the translucent seeds nesting like shiny black pearls in the hollowed chamber. The seed and the fiber were scraped away and discarded on an old newspaper. Nitin amused himself by pressing down on the seeds and making them slip around like tadpoles. The peeled fruit was segmented into long, even slices. The boys were given a slice each and the rest disappeared into the kitchen.

No matter how wilted and crushed Shamol Roy looked at the end of the day in his foul-smelling clothes and the jute fibers trapped in his hair, he became God in the eyes of his sons when he peeled a papaya. They were convinced no other person in the world could peel a papaya as beautifully and expertly as their own father did.

CHAPTER

5

Eight-year-old Samir Deb came to the Tamarind Tree Village School wearing knife-edged pleated shorts, knee-length socks and real leather shoes. If that was not impressive enough, there were two brand-new pencils, one red and the other blue, sticking out in a flashy manner from his shirt pocket.

The pencils were immediately confiscated by the young schoolmaster, who probably fancied them as much as the other boys. Pencils and paper were a luxury, after all, erasers coveted and rare and a mechanical pencil sharpener considered a technological marvel. The boys were given slates and chalks to use in class that remained in the school. To take a piece of chalk home, they had to steal it. No wonder Samir Deb with his new pencils created such a sensation.

Samir said he was born in Calcutta. He also claimed he had been to London—twice—and seen Big Ben. Since nobody in the village school knew who this Big Ben was, the boys nicknamed him Big Beng. Big Frog. He was rather froggy looking, as well, with his flabby face and thin legs; Samir Deb was odd in every way. To begin with, he arrived in a tasseled palanquin carried by four burly men instead of by boat like the other village children. During recess he tried to join the boys in their rough play and pleaded with them in a high girlish voice. When he got pushed, he fell down, scuffed his knees and cried. Sammy’s humiliation was complete when he received a sharp rap on his knuckles from the schoolmaster after he was caught passing a wooden top from one boy to another in class. By the time he had climbed into the palanquin and left for home, he was convulsing in hiccupping sobs, and his knee-length socks had collapsed around his ankles.

* * *

The next day there was pandemonium in school. A brood of belligerent women in shiny saris and oversize nose rings rushed into the schoolmaster’s tiny office and cornered him against the wall.

“Why did you beat him so?” cried a pitcher-shaped woman with gold bracelets up to her elbow. She had a pale froggy face that looked like Samir’s, and was most likely his mother. “The poor child is completely traumatized. He cried all night. He would not eat, he would not sleep. Today he was terrified of coming to school.”

“My goodness.” The schoolmaster stared from one angry face to the other. “I hardly beat him at all. I just gave him a small tap on his knuckles because he was misbehaving in class. How else is the child going to learn a lesson?”

“You hit him with a stick.” The woman pointed to Samir’s knees, which looked ghastly thanks to the red Mercurochrome that had been applied to the scrape. “Look at his knees. The poor child can hardly walk.”

“I did nothing to his knees, excuse me,” said the schoolmaster indignantly.

“In our family we believe in kindness and love,” said a gray-haired woman who was probably Samir’s grandmother. She glared at the young schoolmaster severely. “You had no business to beat the child.”

“I repeat, I did not beat the child,” said the schoolmaster in a tired voice.

“But you just admitted you took a ruler to his hands. I want to make sure this never happens again,” said the pitcher-shaped mother in a stern voice. “This darling boy has never heard a harsh word in his life. It is unthinkable that anybody should beat and punish him.”

“So how do you suppose he is going to learn what is right from wrong?” demanded the schoolmaster.

“He will learn by watching others,” said the grandmother. “By following their example. May I please make a suggestion?”

“Go ahead,” said the schoolmaster in a resigned voice. Through a gap in the wall of female forms he spied the curious faces of his students looking in through the window. He clapped his hands abruptly to disperse them, and Samir’s mother, interpreting his action as a sign of mockery, flew into a sudden rage.

“Do you know who my husband is?” she shrieked. “He is Dhiren Deb. My husband is supplier of all the goods in the Victoria Jute Mills co-op store. My husband will ask the jute mill owners to stop all funding to this school if you do not pay attention, do you understand?”

“I am listening,” said the schoolmaster, a little taken aback.

“All we are suggesting,” the grandmother said in a soothing voice, “is the next time Samir needs to be disciplined, just take the ruler and beat the child next to him. If Samir sees the other child suffering, he will be frightened and behave himself.”

The schoolmaster was incredulous. “Beat some other innocent child who has not done anything wrong instead of the real culprit? How does that even make any sense?”

“Just try it,” said the granny, nodding wisely. “We know it works. Samir gets very frightened when he sees somebody else being punished. At home we just beat the servant boy and Samir immediately behaves himself. Now, don’t get us wrong. We want the child to be disciplined and grow up to be a fine boy. Just don’t beat our little darling is all we are saying.”

* * *

Samir quickly figured out some friendships were negotiable. He could join in a game by giving the leader a pencil. But most games involved a lot of push and shove, and he was deathly afraid of getting hurt, so he just stood on the sidelines and cheered the players on in his high girlish voice. Sometimes he was generous for no reason at all. He played treasure hunt and left coveted items in secret places so that they could be “stolen.” He even left his leather shoes under the tamarind tree and watched secretly to see who would steal them.

The one person Sammy wanted most to be friends with was the brilliant and smooth-talking Biren Roy. But Biren Roy avoided him. He and his three friends walked around with their hands in their pockets avoiding the riffraff. In class, Biren Roy asked such intelligent questions that he made the schoolmaster nervous.

Samir learned that Biren Roy lived in another village and went home every day in a small boat with a one-eyed boatman. He also came to grudgingly accept that there was no hope in the world of ever calling him a friend.

CHAPTER

6

Some days after school, Biren loitered at the tea shop on Momati Ghat. It would be around closing time in the early afternoon with a few fishermen smoking their last bidis. Sold as singles in the tea shop, the bidis were lit with a slow-burning coir rope hung from a bamboo pole. The fishermen who idled at the tea shop were the ones who had returned without a sizable catch. There was no fish to spoil in their baskets and no need to rush to the market. Those were also the ones who told the tallest stories.

Kanai, the one-eyed fisherman, waggled his foot and sucked the smoke from his bidi through a closed fist.

“I saw the petni again last night,” he said, narrowing his single eye.

“Saw it or heard it?” asked Biren. He had heard fearful stories from the fisherman about the faceless ghost of Momati Ghat with backward-facing feet who wailed in the voice of a child.

Kanai glared at him. “I saw it. I may have one eye but I am not blind.”

“What did the petni look like?” Biren asked.

“It was white,” said Kanai. “Completely white from head to toe.”

“Was it a boy or a girl?”

“What kind of question is that? A petni is a petni. It is neither a boy nor a girl.”

“If you are talking about the creature that is hanging around the ghat late at night, that is no petni, Kanai,” said the ancient fisherman they called Dadu. Grandfather. He had a foamy white beard and the skin on his face was cracked and creased like river mud. “That is one of the cursed ones.”

“Who is cursed?” asked Biren. He tapped a dimple in the soft ground with a twig and watched a tiny sand beetle pop out and take a swipe before sliding back into a whirlpool of sand.

“Widows,” said the old fisherman. “They are the most wretched creatures on earth. A widow is even more dangerous than a petni because it can appear in the daytime and spit on the happiness of others.”

Biren shuddered. “I hope I never see one,” he said.

“You’ve seen them, mia. They are everywhere,” said Kanai. “There’s one that begs under the banyan tree near the temple. Surely you’ve seen that one?”

“Oh, that one.” Biren sighed with relief. “That is only Charulata. She is harmless. We talk to her all the time. Baba said she is a poor woman whose husband died when she was only thirteen. A mango tree fell and cut her husband in half, poor thing.”

Kanai spit on the ground. “She must be badly cursed, then.”

“That is not true,” retorted Biren indignantly. He flung his stick in a wide arc across the riverbed. “My baba says only ignorant people believe in curses and bad luck.”

“Just listen to this pooty fish and his big-big talk!” scoffed a diminutive fisherman nicknamed Chickpea.

“Your father is a good man, mia, but too much education is his undoing,” said Dadu, the old fisherman. “Education leads a man astray. He becomes bewildered and loses touch with his roots.”

Kanai took a deep pull of his bidi and waggled his foot. “Because your father works with the belaytis in the jute mill he has too much big-big ideas.” He turned to the others. “Do you know his father tried to tell me the earth is round? I told him I have rowed all the rivers, but I haven’t fallen off the edge yet, have I?”

The others laughed.

Of course the earth is round, Biren thought indignantly. But he did not know how to convince the fishermen.

Tilok, the tea shop man, stuck his head out of the shack and banged a spoon on his brass kettle. “Who wants more tea?” he shouted. “Today is the last day for free tea! No more free tea from tomorrow. Tomorrow you pay.”

Biren looked puzzled. “Why is he giving free tea?”

“Don’t you know?” said Chickpea. “Tilok had twin baby boys yesterday. He should be giving everybody free tea for two weeks.” He cupped his hand and yelled, “Do you hear that, Tilok? We demand free tea for two weeks.”

“Trying to make me a pauper, are you?” Tilok laughed. He burst into song as he poured the tea in thin frothing streams into a line of terra-cotta cups.

“Just listen to him—he is such a happy man.” Kanai chuckled. “Now, if he had twin daughters, he would be singing a dirge.”

Biren pushed his toe into the sand, thinking. His mother envied Apu for having girls. She made cloth dolls for Ruby and Ratna. She dressed baby Ratna in tiny saris and put flowers in her hair. “I wish I had a little girl,” she lamented to Apu. What puzzled him was Apu wanted boys and Shibani wanted girls. They each wanted what the other had. The fishermen on the other hand were unanimously in favor of boys. Daughters were viewed as a curse, it seemed.

Kanai flicked the butt of his bidi into the sand and sighed. “I go to the temple every morning to pray my wife has a son this time.”

“I have three daughters!” grumbled Dadu. “I had to sell my cow to get the last one married off. Marrying off daughters will pick you clean, like a crow to a fishbone. I would be in the poorhouse if my son had not brought in a dowry. By God’s mercy, all four children are married and settled now.”

Biren shaded his eyes toward the far horizon and jumped to his feet. “Oh, look!” he cried. “The jute steamer is coming!”

As so it was. A black dot had just popped up on the horizon. Its square form distinguished it as a flatbed river barge designed to carry bales of jute, tea chests and other cargo.

Biren dusted off his shorts and took off flying down the crooked path toward the riverbank. A small brown mongrel with a curled-up tail chased after him, yipping excitedly.

As the steamer drew closer, Biren saw a pink-faced Englishman sitting on a chair bolted to the deck. The man had one knee crossed over the other and was smoking a curved pipe, looking as if he was relaxing in his own living room. He surveyed the tumbled countryside, the cracked and pitted riverbank and meek-eyed cows huddled in slices of shade. When the man turned his head, he caught sight of the magnificent flame tree by the tea shop and stood up to get a better view. He failed to notice the small boy who waved at him from the riverbank. The steamer passed by smoothly, leaving the water hyacinths swirling in its wake.

Kanai spat on the ground. “Go, go, mia, run, run, run,” he muttered. “Chase after the belayti, wave to him, bow to him, lick his shoes. He will never acknowledge you. To him you do not even exist. The sooner you get that into your foolish head, the better it will be for you.”

CHAPTER

7

The river breeze teased Shamol Roy awake one night. He propped up on his elbow to gaze tenderly at his sleeping wife. Shibani lay on her side, her hands tucked under her cheek. Her lips were parted, and in the yellow light of the moon her skin glowed a satiny gold. Shamol traced her nose and lips with his finger.

“Precious pearl, sweet beloved, queen of my heart,” he murmured in her ear. “Do you hear the river calling?”

Shibani’s eyes fluttered open. Her smile gleamed in the dark. “Oh,” she gasped. “Shall we go?”

“If you wish, my beloved.”

They tiptoed out of the basha in their old cotton nightclothes and house slippers. The front door closed softly behind them and they ran giggling down the road, holding hands. Free from the cares of parenthood and family, they were like children again.

Shamol and Shibani had little opportunity to demonstrate their affections for each other during the day. Trapped in their roles of husband and wife, father and mother, son and daughter-in-law, a certain decorum was expected of them. Even in their early married days, and despite their yearning, intimacy had not come easy. The door to their bedroom had to be left ajar to allow Grandfather access to the bathroom, and nature called often and at random for the old man. Shamol and Shibani took to slipping out of the house and going down to the river, where under the flame tree, and calmed by the sound of water, they’d discovered each other for the first time.

* * *

The river sky floated with a thousand stars and a lemony moon sailed in their midst. Sirius, the Dog Star, the brightest of them all, was a twinkling jewel on Orion’s belt. People whispered the Dog Star had mysterious occult powers. It caused men to weaken and women to become aroused, they said.

Shamol took Shibani’s face in his hands and kissed her until every star was pulled down from the sky. When he looked into her eyes they sparkled brighter than the heavens.

He led her to the flame tree and drew her down beside him. They leaned against the trunk, their arms around each other, and looked up at the sky.

“Oh, I forgot,” said Shamol. He fumbled in his kurta pocket and drew out a small paper-wrapped object. He pushed it into her hand. “I have something for you.”

“What is it?”

“Open it. It’s butterscotch toffee from Scotland. Willis Duff, the new engineer at the jute mill, gave it to me.”

Shibani unwrapped the toffee and took a tiny bite. “My, it is quite delicious. Here, try a bit.”

“No, no, you eat it. I only had one so I kept it for you. Every time I get something, I give it to the boys. Sometimes I feel bad—I never bring anything for you.”

She squeezed his hand. “You bring me fresh jasmine garlands wrapped with your heart. What more can a girl ask for?”

The caressing tone of her voice made his nerves tingle.

Overcome by bashfulness, he squinted at the glittering sky. “Look, there’s Sirius, the Dog Star. Do you see it?”

“It’s the brightest star in the sky,” murmured Shibani. “See how it sparkles. Maybe it’s winking.”

“Everything pales beside you, my darling.”

Shamol pushed Shibani’s hair aside to kiss the nape of her neck. “Do you remember our first time?” he said softly. His tongue tasted the salt of her skin. “Here, under this tree?”

Shibani leaned her cheek against his hand. Of course she remembered, and wasn’t Biren the result? Anything could happen on a night when the stars begged to be plucked from the sky.

The same thought must have crossed Shamol’s mind. “Little wonder our Biren has a keen interest in astronomy,” he said. “He was excited to learn that Sirius is used by mariners to navigate the Pacific. When I told him Sirius has a small companion star known as the ‘pup,’ Biren said, ‘That’s like me and Nitin. I am Sirius and Nitin is the pup. I will show him the way.’ Then he asked me completely out of the blue, ‘Is Sirius really very serious, Baba? Does he not talk very much?’”

Shibani erupted in a bubble of laughter. “He says the funniest things, really!”

“When I explained Sirius was named after the Egyptian god and has nothing to do with the English word, he listened carefully. He has an excellent memory, our son—he remembers everything.” He sighed and was silent. Somewhere on the riverbank a night bird called. “You know, Shibani, if I had my way, I would send Biren to an English school. I have always believed a correct English education is the passport to the bigger world. The bigger world is where our sons belong.”

“The English school must be very expensive, don’t you think?” Shibani asked.

“Not necessarily. Some English missionary schools are free. It is not easy to get admission, that’s all. I heard our jute mill is affiliated with a famous institution in Calcutta.”

“Maybe you should talk to Owen McIntosh about it. Your boss likes you. There’s no harm in asking him, is there?”

“That’s true,” Shamol agreed. “Tell me, beloved, would you feel very sad if the boys were sent away to a boarding school?”

Shibani shook her head. “I only want the best for them.”

“I do, too.” Shamol sighed. “But even if the boys got admission, my biggest hurdle will be to convince my family. They all firmly believe the only agenda of missionary schools is to convert Indian students to Christianity by offering them free education.”

They were silent, each with their own thoughts, for a while.

On the far horizon, tiny pinpricks of light appeared on the river. The melancholy strains of the Bhatiyali fisherman’s song slipped in and out of the breeze.

“Look!” Shibani cried, sitting up. “It’s the otter fishermen!”

They watched as the night fishermen from the mangrove village floated by in their bamboo houseboats. The glow of their lamps threw a broken sparkle on the water, and the dark, shiny heads of their trained otters bobbed up and down, their wet, gleaming forms tumbling in the boat’s wake. The otters herded the fish into the waiting nets and when the net was lifted into the boat it was full of flashing silver.