Flame Tree Road (38 page)

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 in 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.

More disconcerting was the fact that Thompson had appointed a young Indian named Biren Roy to spearhead the project. McCauley knew from experience that most proposals looked grand on paper, but getting the bullock cart to its destination was the main challenge in India. Also, to hand a plum position reserved exclusively for Europeans to an Indian—Oxbridge educated or no—was unprecedented in government circles.

Yet Roy came highly recommended, and McCauley was curious to meet the young man before he gave his final stamp of approval. There was also a slightly crafty motive for inviting him to lunch at the Royal Bengal Club. McCauley wanted to see how the young Indian would fare in the rarified European ambience of the Royal Bengal Club, with its insider etiquette, formal dress code and fine dining. Hopefully, it would send a message to the young upstart to stay on his side of the turf. A bit of intimidation was not necessarily a bad thing.

McCauley was just finishing his second drink when the bearer arrived with a chit to say Biren Roy was waiting for him at the reception.

At first McCauley didn’t see him, or perhaps he was expecting someone a little different.

“Mr. McCauley, sir?” said a tall, handsome young man holding out his hand. His grip was firm, his eyes steady.

“Ah, Biren Roy, how do you do,” said McCauley, appraising him. The fellow was a dapper dresser. McCauley was suddenly conscious of a spot of egg yolk on his tie from breakfast that morning. He had been running late for the committee meeting and not had time to change.

He led the way toward the tall-ceilinged dining hall, where they were seated at a corner table. McCauley observed the young man closely during lunch. Biren Roy had the most impeccable manners. What he had envisioned as a short business lunch turned into the most enlightening afternoon. Roy was well versed in both Indian and Western ways, and he was a persuasive talker. His vision was clear and he had carefully planned out the steps toward achieving the goals.

By the time they retired for coffee to the smoking room, McCauley was firmly convinced Thompson had picked the right man for the job.

“Your funds have been sanctioned for the next three years for both the Teachers’ Training Institute and the flagship school,” McCauley said, filling his pipe. “You have the full cooperation of my department and, if you need to, please feel free to contact me directly.”

“Perhaps you would care to visit Silchar sometime to see how the project is progressing?” said Biren. “It will be my pleasure to show you around, sir.”

“Yes, I would like that,” said McCauley. “I have always wanted to visit the Silchar Polo Club. It’s the first polo club in the world, I believe. Talking of which, would you like to be my guest at the races tomorrow? It’s the Viceroy Cup challenge at the Royal Calcutta Turf Club.”

“Thank you, but I must catch the steamer back to Silchar this evening. My wife is not very well, sir.”

“Then, I should not detain you any further,” said McCauley. He stood up and held out his hand. “I hope your wife gets better. It was indeed a pleasure meeting you, Roy, and good luck!”

CHAPTER

58

Biren arrived home in Silchar to find Buri Kaki hobbling up and down the veranda, muttering to herself. She tailed him into the study, wringing her hands. At first he thought she was worked up about Maya and Moni. With him being gone as well, she must have been lonely in the big, empty house. However, he quickly gathered that something had happened to agitate her. According to Buri Kaki, three rough-looking men had come twice to the house looking for him.

“Rough looking? What do you mean rough looking?” he asked.

Buri Kaki said they had red-red eyes and looked like ugly demons.
Asuras.

Biren frowned. “What did they want?” he asked.

“They did not say, Jamai-babu,” said Buri Kaki. “They just wanted to know when you would come back.”

Biren was puzzled. What would three “ugly demons” want with him?

“What did you tell them?” he said.