Flame Tree Road. Shona Patel

mill office on his way to his cousin’s house.

      He found a clean sheet of paper, uncapped his fountain pen and began to write.

      * * *

      Biren had just got back from school when Kanai brought news that Shamol was not coming home that evening. Biren’s heart gave a little jump. That meant no homework. It was the perfect day to go fishing with Kanai.

      After some persuasion, Kanai agreed to take him. It was a gloomy afternoon, and by the time they arrived at the backwaters, the clouds had deepened to purple-black like an angry bruise across the sky. A sly wind flicked the water and pushed the boat toward the reedy marsh, where it was difficult to cast the line because the wind blew it in the wrong direction. After an hour on the wobbling boat Kanai said they should go home. Biren was deeply disappointed.

      Shibani was sitting on the bed, hemming the bottom border of a leaf-green sari. She wore an old turmeric-stained blouse and petticoat and her head, wrapped in a cotton towel, looked like a giant breadbasket. Biren had never seen his mother so slovenly. In the evenings she was usually dressed in fresh clothes with flowers in her hair. Then he remembered his father was not coming home that day.

      Nitin hung upside down off the edge of the bed, swinging his hands. Shibani kept her foot firmly pressed on his bottom to make sure he did not slide off.

      “I was worried about you,” she said. “Today is not a good day to be out in the open water. Kanai should have more sense than to take you.”

      “We hardly got any time to fish,” grumbled Biren. “There were many other boats still out in the river, but Kanai made me come home.”

      “Did you catch a big chital fish, Dada?” Nitin righted himself. His hair, long and straight, hung down like river reeds over his eyes.

      Biren shook his head.

      Shibani cut the thread with her teeth. “Go and wash your hands and face,” she said. “I want you to take these saris to Apumashi’s house before it starts raining. Come back immediately. Your grandmother is not feeling well. We are going to eat dinner and go to bed early tonight. I have to wash my hair in the morning.”

      * * *

      That night Shibani dreamed of a snake.

      She could not see it, but she felt it twisted around her throat in thick damp coils, choking her breath. When she tried to scream, the coils tightened. She woke up drenched in sweat to find her long oily hair freed from the towel wrapped around her neck. Her hand crept instinctively to Shamol’s side of the bed and a small sadness fluttered in her heart when she touched his empty pillow. She lay in bed and thought of him. She hoped he would get some sleep that night. Shamol’s cousins were a big noisy family with several ill-behaved children who ran rumpus over the house. Would he miss her? She smiled. Of course he would. Her husband was a deeply romantic and sentimental man.

      Shibani’s heart swelled with gratitude when she thought of him. He was such a caring husband and a good father. Shamol discerned unique qualities in each child and wove them into their self-confidence. She remembered a phase Nitin had gone through when he’d wanted to dress up in girl clothes and play with dolls all the time. Shamol had never once tried to dissuade him or make him feel it was wrong. “The child is only acting out his imagination,” he’d explained to Shibani. “He will grow out of it.” And sure enough, Nitin soon had.

      Samir in the meantime had turned around and called Nitin a sissy. He’d done it in a mean-spirited way and Biren had been quick to lash out in defense of his young brother. “You are the sissy,” Biren had shot back. “Imagine a grown-up boy like you riding in a palanquin!”

      Shamol, who had overheard their quarrel, had quickly diffused it by telling the boys about the brave Scottish Highlanders in their wool-pleated kilts and Roman emperors who wore togas. He’d gone on to talk about Japanese emperors and brave Samurai warriors who were borne aloft on palanquins because of their exalted status. At the end Shamol had had all three boys keen to wear kilts and togas and ride in palanquins.

      Shibani’s fingers caressed her husband’s pillow, remembering. She slipped her small supple hand under it and found a sprig of dried jasmine from the garland of her hair. Her sweet husband must have tucked it there. Breathing in the scent, she drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

      * * *

      An inky darkness had fallen outside by the time Shamol finished his letter. The rain had ceased and the candles, now reduced to shapeless gobs, spluttered in their pools of wax. Outside the door the jackals howled in a lonely chorus. Shamol quickly folded the letter, gathered together his things and picked up the ledger and keys from the table. Then he blew out the candles one by one. As he stepped off the platform, the keys slipped from his hand and fell with a clatter to the floor. He bent down and felt for them in the dark and bumped up against what he thought was the leg of the table. But it was hard and muscular and writhed against his upper arm. Too late, he realized it was a snake. He jerked back his hand and heard a loud spitting hiss followed by a needling stab on his right wrist. Shamol’s knees buckled; he grabbed the table to steady himself and slowly crumpled to the floor. A milky film floated before his eyes, his tongue twisted to the roof of his mouth and ribbons of white froth dribbled down his chin. The last thing Shamol Roy felt was a tremendous crushing pain in his chest and the sensation of being sucked underwater.

      Twenty minutes later, he lay dead in the jute godown, surrounded by the rats and the filth. His hand clutched his pocket that held the six pencil stubs wrapped in a blotting paper he had planned on taking home for his son.

CHAPTER

       13

      The disheveled man waiting for Biren in the headmaster’s office looked vaguely familiar. His hair was uncombed and he was still in his night pajamas. It finally dawned on Biren he was their neighbor, Apu’s husband, a man he had probably seen five times in his life and never spoken to even once.

      “Mr. Bhowmik will take you home,” said the headmaster, fiddling with a bunch of papers on his desk. He did not explain why. From the look on their faces, Biren knew something was wrong. It must be something to do with his granny, he thought. Maybe she had died. Old people died quickly and suddenly after all. Like Kanai’s granny. Kanai said one day she was chewing betel nuts on the front steps and chatting with the neighbors and the next day she was gone.

      On the boat ride back home the man turned his face away toward the jute fields and made no attempt at conversation. He was not one to talk much, from what Biren remembered. If Granny had died, why hadn’t his father come to get him? It was not like Father to send a stranger in his place.

      Maybe he could trick Apu’s husband into conversation.

      “I wonder if it will rain tonight,” Biren remarked, peering up at the clouds. “This changing weather is terrible. It is making us all sick. My granny had a high fever last night. She was terribly unwell.”

      The man coughed and gave a brief nod but did not say anything. The silence was getting sticky. The boat rowed past the backwaters.

      “I went fishing out to the backwaters yesterday,” Biren said brightly. “Kanai the fisherman caught a big chital fish a few days ago. Fifteen kilos, imagine!” Biren cast a sly glance to see if the man was impressed, but he just crossed his arms over his chest. “But it was hopeless for me,” Biren continued. “I did not even catch a two-inch pooty fish! It is this rough weather, you know. When it gets too windy, the fish go down too deep and don’t bite. It was a good thing we decided to come home...” His last few words dribbled off. His pitcher of conversation was running dry.

      Finally, as the boat pulled up to Momati Ghat, the man cleared his throat. “You will stay at our house today,” he said. Biren was startled to hear his voice. It was low and throaty.