Flame Tree Road. Shona Patel

had attended college in Dhaka, was the most educated man in the village, even more educated than the schoolmaster himself. To send Biren home with a handwritten note for his father and expect an answer the following day was all very odd. Biren wondered what the note was about.

      “Did I do something wrong, Mastermoshai?” he said anxiously. “Please do not report me to my father.”

      The weasel-faced schoolmaster looked mildly amused. “Why, mia? Do you have something to confess?”

      Biren shook his head. He looked so worried the schoolmaster felt sorry for him.

      “This is another matter,” he said shortly. “It has nothing to do with you. Run along now and remember to bring back the answer from your father tomorrow. This is urgent.”

      * * *

      Biren hopped from one foot to the other as he waited for Father to come home. He desperately wanted to go and meet his boat at the riverbank, but it was too far for Nitin to walk, so Biren had to be content to wait at their usual place down the road. Father was running late. Biren walked up and down while Nitin squatted by the side of the road and pushed ants around with a stick.

      “One ant has died, Dada,” Nitin lamented with a woebegone face. “Shall we bury it?” Biren ignored him and gave a small shout when he saw his father turn the corner of the bamboo grove. Now he could see why his father was running late. Shamol held a big bunch of pink and white lilies, the stems wrapped in the pages of an old ledger and tied with a piece of jute string.

      “A present for your lovely mother,” Shamol said. “I asked the boatman to stop at the backwaters today. Every day I pass these beautiful lilies and I always forget to bring a small knife to cut the stems. Today I made the boatman do a detour and take me there.”

      Biren was not interested in the lilies. “Baba, Mastermoshai sent an urgent note for you. Here it is.” Biren waved the note under his father’s nose. “He said you must read it at once. He needs an answer by tomorrow.”

      Shamol glanced briefly at the note. “I see,” he said vaguely. “Hold on to it. I will read it after my tea.”

      Biren pulled at his shirtsleeve. “But this is most urgent, Baba. You have to read it now!”

      Shamol gave him an amused look. “Is anything going to change between now and when I take my tea? I don’t think so. In any case your mastermoshai needs the answer by tomorrow. So what’s the hurry?” He stopped and turned to see Nitin trying to catch up. “Why have you left your brother behind? Why are his hands so dirty? Hold him by the hand. I can’t because of these flowers.”

      Biren gave a noisy sigh, ran back and pulled Nitin by the hand.

      “So what do you think the note is about?” he asked, sounding elaborately casual. He jerked Nitin’s hand to hurry him along but it only made him stumble. Nitin gave an indignant howl.

      “Careful,” reprimanded his father. He lifted the lilies to his nose and inhaled deeply. “Smell these. They are heavenly.”

      “I want to smell!” cried little Nitin.

      Shamol bent down and held the lilies under Nitin’s nose. He grinned when Nitin closed his eyes, gave a dreamy sigh and went “aah” in a fitting imitation of Shibani.

      Biren twisted a toe in the dirt. There was little he could do to hurry his father and Nitin along. He fingered the note in his pocket and the back of his neck prickled with impatience.

      Finally on reaching home, the lily blossoms settled in a brass bowl and his father settled in the courtyard with a cup of tea, it was time to bring out the note again. Biren peered over his father’s shoulder trying to decipher the schoolmaster’s tiny, pristine Bengali script. The letter was full of big words.

      “What is it, Baba?” he asked. “What is it? Tell me, quickly.”

      “I see. It appears the new boy is your school needs private tuition. Why, is there a new boy in your school who is struggling with his studies? His name is Samir Deb.”

      Biren shrugged. Samir Deb’s academic challenges were of little interest to him.

      “Who needs tuition?” said Shibani, coming out of the kitchen. She handed her husband a rice crepe with coconut filling. “Try this patishapta. I made them today.”

      “Samir Deb. The new boy in Biren’s class. The child is falling behind in his studies. His family wants to send him to study in Calcutta. The schoolmaster has recommended me to give him private tuition. I wonder why your mastermoshai does not give the child private tuition himself?”

      “Because he is afraid,” Biren blurted out. He remembered how the belligerent ladies had cowed down the poor schoolmaster.

      “Afraid?” said Shamol, puzzled. “Afraid of what? I don’t understand.”

      “His mother is very...” Biren tried to think of the right word. “Ferocious.”

      “Well, I am not worried about his ferocious mother. The problem is I get home too late. I don’t have the time to go to the child’s house but I can tutor him if they send him to our basha.”

      Biren looked at his father in horror. “But he cannot come to our basha, Baba!” he cried.

      “And why not?” said his father, mildly surprised.

      Biren wanted to say, Because he wears knee-length socks and cries like a girl. Because he is too rich and we are too poor, because my friends will laugh and everybody will think he is my friend. But all he could say was, “Because he rides in a palanquin.”

      “Why, that’s rather fine,” said his father.

      “Like a girl,” Biren added, to drive home the point. “Only girls ride in palanquins.”

      “I wouldn’t mind riding a palanquin,” said Shibani.

      “Someday, my darling,” said his father, “and I will decorate it with sweet-scented lilies for you.” He gave Shibani a long tender look that made her toss her hair back in a girlish way.

      Biren tugged his father’s hand. “Baba, what are you going to do?”

      “I can offer to teach him at the same time I teach you two. They don’t have to pay me any money for that.”

      “But they are rich,” said Biren. “Very rich. He brings new pencils and erasers to school every day.”

      Shamol Roy looked at his son sadly. He wished he could buy his wife a palanquin, but she had to be content with a few lilies instead. Here was his boy hankering for a new pencil and all he could afford were the pencil stubs discarded at the office. Biren, dexterous for an eight-year-old, used a razor blade to pare both ends to get maximum usage out of them.

      Biren was quick to catch his father’s sadness. “But I like the small pencils much better,” he said brightly. “They are easier to carry around in my pocket and if I lose one I don’t feel so bad because I have many more. Also, you want to know one more thing? Carrying long sharpened pencils in your pocket is very dangerous. If you fall down and get poked in your eye you can become blind. Then you won’t be able to go to school, or read, or...or...even fly a kite. So what’s the use?”

      Shamol Roy smiled at his son, the diplomat. Biren was wily with his words, but more important he was a thoughtful, compassionate child. “Bring me one of your pencils,” he said. “Let me write a reply to your mastermoshai.”

      “They will pay you lots of good money for the tuition, Baba.” Biren jumped up, dizzy with the vision of new pencils and erasers. Why, they might even be able to afford one of those mechanical pencil sharpeners.

      “They may offer to pay me,” said his father. “But I don’t need to accept it.”

      “But why not?” Biren was crestfallen. “Samir’s family has lots of money.”

      “That