Flame Tree Road. Shona Patel

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