Flame Tree Road

It was a ghost—the petni that Kanai spoke about!

Biren thought he would suffocate with fear. He was about to step backward when the man turned his head around and looked at him. The face was dull and white, flat as the moon with bloodshot eyes.

Biren stifled a scream, stumbled through the bushes and ran back toward the house. He flung himself down on his bed and lay there. His teeth chattered uncontrollably, his fingers dug into his palms; every muscle in his body was contorted with fear.

That pale, flat face with its red eyes kept floating into his mind. He had no doubt the creature in the woodshed was his mother. She had stretched out her hand and he’d recognized her plaintive voice as she called his name.

But what had happened to her?

* * *

He drifted off into a fitful sleep. Random choppy images swirled through his brain. He saw himself in a large field. The ground was strewn with damp white lilies and tiny pencils with broken points. There were so many broken pencils that they looked like scattered peanuts. Biren was bending down to examine the pencils when he heard something that sounded like the drone of bees in the distance. He looked up to see a crowd approaching. They were faceless, hairless people, neither men nor women, all dressed in white, moving toward him in a serpentine wave. As they drew closer, their hum turned into a mournful wail that looped over and over in a mounting crescendo. They trampled over the delicate lilies and left behind a brown, slimy waste. They headed toward the fish market and Biren followed them.

Next he found himself in the fish market with his father. Biren reached for his father’s hand but came up with a fistful of coarse, white cloth. He panicked. Where was Baba? None of the people around him had any faces. To his relief, he saw the chicken man. Biren knew he could wait safely at the chicken stall and his father would surely find him. The chicken man acknowledged him with a friendly nod. He was in the middle of telling his customer the story of a man who contacted rabies after being bitten by a chital fish. Biren listened idly, thinking one did not get rabies from a fish bite. But he didn’t want to spoil the chicken man’s story. The chicken man stroked the beautiful black rooster on his lap as he spoke. The rooster’s yellow eyes were closed and it looked like it would purr like a cat. Its blissful expression reminded Biren of his mother’s face when Apu gave her a head massage.

The chicken man finished his story. He took a puff of his bidi and, with the bidi still dangling between his lips, he placed both his hands around the rooster’s neck and broke it with a single, sharp twist. Then he held the bird down until its wings stopped flailing. Biren felt bile rise in his throat as he watched the chicken man chop off the rooster’s head, pluck the feathers, gut its entrails and tear out a small pink heart that was still pulsing. After splashing water from a bucket to wash off the blood, he shoved the heart, liver and gizzard back inside the chicken, trussed up the bird in a banana leaf and put it in the man’s cloth shopping bag. Then the chicken man counted his money, shoved it under his mat, rocked back on his haunches and smoked the rest of his bidi. Every time he drew in the smoke, he narrowed his eyes.

Biren woke up clammy with sweat and lay in bed thinking. That was what had happened to his mother. In the same way the rooster was changed from a bright-eyed bird to three pounds of meat and bone in a banana leaf, his mother was stripped of her long hair, her colorful sari, her bright laugh and the kohl in her eyes. Dehumanized, she was just meat and bones wrapped in a white piece of cloth. She had become one of those cursed ones: a widow.

CHAPTER

16

Biren returned to the woodshed again that night. Shibani was expecting him. She pressed her cheek to the wall and touched a finger to his through a gap in the wooden slats.

“You came back, my son,” she whispered. “I think of you and Nitin all the time.”

“What happened to you, Ma?” Biren cried in a broken voice. “Who did this to you? What happened to your hair?”

Shibani touched her bald head. “Oh, I must look a sight, don’t I?” she said ruefully. “I have not seen myself, which is just as well. This is what being a widow is all about, mia.”

“Did they cut all your hair off?”

She nodded. “The priest shaved it.”

“Why?”

Shibani gazed at her son’s soft, troubled eyes. “It is the custom, mia. That is what they do to widows so they can never marry again.”

“Why did they lock you here? Who gives you food?”

She sighed. “This is my mourning period. I must be kept in isolation. Even when that is over, things will be very different. I want you and Nitin to prepare yourselves. You will not see much of me after I come back into the house. I will no longer be a part of the family. I have to cook my own food now. Eat alone and only once a day. I can never touch meat or fish or eat spicy food or even drink a cup of tea.”

“What about chili tamarind?” asked Biren. He had not meant it to be funny, but he was relieved to see her old crooked smile.

She looked away. “No chili tamarind,” she said softly.

“When will Apumashi come to—” he was about to say “oil your hair” but stopped himself “—see you?”

She sighed. “I will not be allowed to socialize with anyone. A widow is a cursed being. Married women with children and happy families like your Apumashi are not allowed to come near us. They fear our bad luck may rub off on them. My friendship with Apu is over, I’m afraid.”

It was inconceivable! They were best friends; they told each other all their secrets. Had they not promised to live next door to each other forever? They had even planned to get their children married to one another, so that they could live together as one big happy family.

Biren was beginning to feel desperate. His words came out in a rush. “What if...if I marry Ruby? What if Nitin marries Ratna? Then you will both be in-laws. You have to be friends.”

Shibani regarded her son tenderly. His sweet, hopeful face, the feverish plea in his eyes. A tear coursed down his cheek. Biren dismissed it with a careless flick. Seeing this adultlike gesture broke her heart. Her sweet baby boy was growing up in front of her eyes.

Biren’s chin trembled. “I will marry Ruby,” he declared with manly determination.

Shibani was touched and amused at the same time. “Oh, you really want to marry Ruby, then?” She suppressed a smile. “So you think it is a good idea, after all, do you?”

“No, but...”

“I want you to listen to me, son,” Shibani said firmly. “Your father...” Her eyes filled with tears, but she controlled herself. “Your father and I did not bring you up to do things against your will. Marrying Ruby is childish talk. That is not the answer and that is not going to solve the problem. You must take care of your brother. Only you can explain things to him. Just do the best you can. Be there for him. I cannot be there for you both any longer. My life is over. Yours has just begun.”

Biren’s thin veneer of adulthood cracked and he broke down with a cry. “Why do you say that, Ma?” He sobbed. “Why do you say your life is over? Are you going to die?”

“Shush, mia,” she whispered, touching his cheek with the tip of her finger. How she wished she could cradle him in her arms and wipe those clumped eyelashes with the end of her sari. “Of course I am not going to die. This is no time to cry. I am just trying to prepare you for what lies ahead. I will be here, but I will no longer be a part of your life. A widow does not have a position in the family. I will remain in the background and you may not see much of me, but I want you both to remember me—not the way I have become, but the way I used to be. You can come and see me when you wish, but you must promise not to do so out of sorrow or guilt. Come and see me when you have good tidings and we will rejoice together. I may be cursed as a widow, but I have been blessed as a wife and mother, and nobody can take that from me.”

Through the slit in the wood, all Biren could see were her eyes. They burned with the unnatural brightness of anger at the injustice of it all.

His mother may be trapped, Biren decided, but he was not. It would be up to him to set her free.

He did not go straight back to bed. Rather, he sat on the kitchen steps by the pot of holy basil and hugged his knees, thinking. A big moon sailed high in the sky, weaving in and out of the clouds, sometimes bright, other times clumped and patchy. Biren’s thoughts churned deep and dark into his soul, trying to find glimmers of meaning through his sorrow. Surely there was something he could do.

His throat caught in a strangled sob. What would his father do if he saw what had become of Ma? Surely he would do something? But Baba was dead. He was no longer there to protect her. Biren sat up a little straighter. He had a young brother to take care of. Nitin would grow up and have his own life, but what would happen to his mother? Would she become destitute like Charulata and be forced to beg under the banyan tree?

He thought of Charulata. She had given him his name and painted it in the patterns of hopes and dreams. She must have seen in him the seed of a warrior. Baba said a warrior did not follow the dictates of others but his own conscience. Biren’s conscience told him the treatment of widows was inhuman and unjust and it should be condemned. He would fight for them.

It was on that premonsoon night, in the moonlit courtyard of his village home, that eight-year-old Biren Roy watched the purpose of his life unfold. It came to him in the parting of the clouds and the full brilliant light of the moon, an uncommon zeal that would guide his journey forward.

CHAPTER

17

Owen J. McIntosh

Proprietor

Victoria Jute Mills

20th July 1880

Dear Mr. Anirban Roy,

Please accept my sincere condolences for the untimely and tragic death of your son Shamol Roy. Shamol Roy was an exemplary human being of great integrity and impeccable courtesy. He was also my most promising employee, and had the potential to go far in his career. I feel privileged to have known this young man. I saw him as a devoted husband and father and admired his honorable commitment to his family.

I would like to reassure you, Victoria Jute Mills is deeply committed to ensure your family is financially compensated in every way. To that effect, you will continue to receive Shamol Roy’s full monthly salary for the next sixteen years—by which time he would have reached the retirement age of fifty—and this includes any bonuses he may be entitled to. After that, his widow will continue to receive a monthly pension until the time of her death.

Mr. Prabhu Mallick, our mill manager, will explain to you in detail the pension scheme and other compensations available to Shamol Roy’s widow. You can also personally contact me if there is any other way I can be of further assistance.

Besides general compensation, I would like to put forward a separate proposal, which I hope you will take into serious consideration. This pertains to the education of Shamol Roy’s sons. I am well aware how committed he was toward the education of his children. I have from him a letter expressing his wishes to admit them to an English school, and to that end I am willing to personally sponsor their schooling in Calcutta. Victoria Jute Mills is affiliated with one of the best schools for boys in India: the Saint John’s Mission. The school offers full boarding, excellent teachers and is noted for its high scholastic record. Many of Saint John’s students go on to study in Oxford and Cambridge on full merit scholarships. Since admission to Saint John’s requires the signature of a British legal guardian, I am willing to offer my services to that effect.

It is my understanding that Shamol Roy would have wanted the best possible education for his sons. I would like to assuage any concerns you may have about the Christian/religious orientation of this institution. Although Catholic missionaries run Saint John’s, it is not mandatory for students to convert to Christianity. I can get a written statement to that effect if you wish. I leave it to Prabhu Mallick to explain the details. One thing to keep in mind is the school session begins in September, which leaves us only six weeks. I will need your answer in the next few days to ensure the older boy’s placement for this academic year. The younger child will have to wait until he is eight before he can be admitted.

I would appreciate your answer at the earliest.

Very truly yours,

Owen McIntosh

“It is completely out of the question,” Biren’s uncle exploded. “These Christian schools, all they care about is religious conversion. They bribe us poor Indians with education and the promise of opportunity and betterment. They are destroying our culture and killing our religion. These belaytis will do anything to control our country.”

“But the letter said conversion to Christianity was not compulsory,” said Grandpa. “Think of the opportunity. The boys will get a good education. It will give them a head start in life. Nobody gave us this chance.”

“But it is an English education,” argued the uncle. “English education gives Indian students false hopes. They will never be on the same rung as a white man. The belaytis dangle the carrot, then they take it away. What is wrong with the village school? Biren can continue to attend the school and pass his matriculation. After matriculation he will be old enough to go to work. He can easily get a job in the jute mill. As it is, he has already impressed McIntosh. Who knows, he may even give Biren an equal or better paying job than Shamol. After that it will be up to Biren to prove himself and move up the ladder.”

“Shamol would not like that,” said the grandma, wiping away a tear. “He always said he wanted his sons to get a better education, to go further than he did. He never wanted the boys to work in the jute mill. There is no future there. Shamol was so brilliant in his studies, but he had to give everything up and go to work to support our family, because you...you...” She sighed. “You are ill.”

“Ill, my left foot!” exploded Grandpa in a fit of rage. “You are bone lazy, that’s what you are. Too high and mighty for any job. So many jobs have come your way but you turn them down because nothing is good enough for your highness. Even if you did a part-time job—which you know very well you are capable of doing—it would have eased Shamol’s burden. He would have had time to pursue his own studies. Shamol was the brilliant one and look at the kind of job he did! Did he once complain? Now you are trying to deprive his children of an opportunity he has paid for with his life. What is wrong with you? Now, you stop all your addabaaj under the banyan and get some kind of a job. It’s high time.”

“Baba, please calm down,” pleaded the older daughter-in-law. “We all want the best for Biren and Nitin. I just don’t think Shamol would have wanted to send his children so far away from home, considering the current circumstances. We think the children should stay close to their mother and be a comfort...”

She froze and her hand crept up to her mouth.

Shibani stood in the doorway with her shaven head and her white borderless sari. Her face was waxen, her eyes cold and dead. She rarely showed herself in public and, when she did, her presence was chilling.

“You really think so?” Shibani said in a soft voice. “You really think my two sons are a comfort to me, sister-in-law?” she repeated, her voice turning hard and cold like marble. “Then, why are they kept away from me? Why are they never allowed to come close to me? Why can I not cook for my own boys, feed them with my hand, comb their hair like a mother should? Because my curse will contaminate their young lives, is it?”

Nobody said a word.

“My children have already been taken away from me,” Shibani continued. “Do they even see me as the mother they once knew? Look at me!” She spat out the words. “Just look at me, will you? Is this the girl you brought into this house as your daughter-in-law? Is this the woman who gave birth to your two grandsons? Is this the way God wanted me to be, or is this your doing? You tell me.” Her eyes, brittle with anger, snapped from one face to another. She exhaled sharply and, as she did, the flat look returned. It drifted over her eyes like scum, covering a splash in a pond. “I lost my beloved husband to snakebite, but I will not lose my sons to ignorance.” Her voice was deadly. “I, as their mother, may not have a say in their future, but remember this—if you don’t let my sons go, I will hang myself. The only reason I am keeping myself alive is to protect my sons, to see their future is not marred.” She looked at her brother-in-law without blinking. “If you stop them from going to this school, you will have a widow’s death on your hands, brother. And this family will be doubly cursed. Remember that.”

With that, she turned around and vanished in a whisper of white, leaving her ominous words hanging like a shroud over the stunned family.

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