Teatime for the Firefly. Shona Patel

he looked at me curiously. He was a disconcertingly attractive man in a poetic kind of way, with long, finger-raked hair and dark and steady eyes behind black-framed glasses. A slow smile wavered and tugged at the corners of his mouth.

      When I saw what he was holding in his cupped hands, I realized I had misjudged his piety. It was a baby crow.

      “Do you live in the Rai Bahadur’s house?” he asked pleasantly. He spoke impeccable Bengali, with no trace of a foreign accent. I figured he must be an Indian who probably lived abroad.

      “Yes,” I said.

      The man was obviously unschooled in the nuances of our society, because he stared at me candidly with none of the calculated deference and awkwardness of Indian men. I could feel my ears burning.

      The crow chick struggled feebly in his hand. It stretched out a scrawny neck and opened its yellow-rimmed beak, exposing a pink, diamond-shaped mouth. It was bald except for a light gray fuzz over the top of its head. Its blue eyelids stretched gossamer thin over yet unopened eyes.

      “We have a displaced youngster,” the man said, glancing at the chick. “Any idea what kind of bird this is?”

      “It’s a baby crow,” I replied, marveling how gently he held the tiny creature. It had nodded off to sleep, resting its yellow beak against his thumb. He had nicely shaped fingernails, I noticed.

      I pointed up at the branches. “There’s a nest up that mango tree.”

      He was not looking at the tree, but at my hand. “What’s that?” he asked suddenly.

      “Where?” I jerked back my hand and saw I had traces of the white rice paste still ringed around my fingernails. “Oh,” I said, curling my fingers into a ball, “that’s...that’s just from the alpana decoration I was doing at the school.”

      “Are you related to the Rai Bahadur?”

      “He is my grandfather.”

      “Is this the famous English girls’ school everybody is talking about? What is the special occasion?”

      “Today is the grand opening,” I said. “A Russian dignitary is coming to cut the ribbon.”

      “Boris Ivanov?” he asked.

      I stared at him. “How did you know?”

      “There are not many Russians floating around this tiny town in Assam, are there? I happen to be well acquainted with Ivanov.”

      I wanted to ask more, but refrained.

      He tilted his head, squinting up at the branches, then pushed his sliding glasses back up his nose with his arm. The chick woke up with a sharp cheep that startled us both. “Ah, I see the nest. Maybe I should try and put this little fellow back,” he said.

      “You are going to climb the mango tree?” I asked a little incredulously. The man looked too civilized to climb trees. His shirt was too white and he wore city shoes.

      “It looks easy enough.” He looked up and down the branches as though he was calculating his foothold. He grinned suddenly, a deep crease softening the side of his face. “If I fall, you can laugh and tell all your friends.”

      I had no friends, but I did not tell him that.

      “There’s not much point, really.” I hesitated, wondering how I was going to say this without sounding too heartless. “You see, this is very common. Baby crows get pushed out of that nest every year by...” I moved closer to the tree, shaded my eyes and looked up, then gestured him over. “See that other chick? Stand right where I am standing. Can you see it?”

      We were standing so close his shirtsleeve brushed my arm. I could smell the starch mingled with faint sweat and a hint of tobacco. My head reeled slightly.

      He tilted his head. “Ah yes, I see the sibling,” he said.

      “That’s not a sibling—it’s a baby koel.”

      His face drew a blank.

      “The Indian cuckoo. Don’t you know anything about koels?”

      “I am afraid not,” he said, looking bemused. “But I beg to be educated. Before that, I need to put our friend down someplace. I am getting rather tired of holding him.” He looked around, then walked over to the garden wall and set the baby crow down on the ground. It belly-waddled into a shady patch and stretched out its scrawny neck, cheeping plaintively.

      I was about to speak when a cloud broke open and a sheet of golden rain shimmered down. We both hurried under the mango tree. There we were all huddled cozily together—the man, the chick and me.

      A cycle rickshaw clattered down the road. It was fat Mrs. Ghosh, squeezed in among baskets and bundles, on her way home from the fish market. She looked at us curiously, her eyes bulging slightly, perhaps wondering to herself: Am I seeing things? Is that the Rai Bahadur’s granddaughter with a young man under the mango tree? This was going to be big news, I could tell, because everybody in town knew that the Rai Bahadur’s granddaughter avoided the opposite sex like a Hindu avoids beef.

      The cloud passed and the sun winked back and I hurried out from under the tree. To cover up my embarrassment, I launched into an involved lecture on the nesting habits of koels and crows.

      “The koel, or Indian cuckoo, is a brood parasite,” I said. “A bird that lays its egg in the nest of another. Like that crow’s nest up there.” I pointed upward with my right hand and then, remembering my dirty fingernails, switched to my left hand. “See how sturdy the nest is? Crows are really clever engineers. They pick the perfect intersections of branches and build the nest with strong twigs. They live in that same nest for years and years.”

      “Are their marriages as stable as their nests?” The man winked, teasing me. “Do they last as long?”

      “That...that I don’t know,” I said, twisting the end of my sari. I wished he would not look at me like that.

      “I am only teasing you. Oh, please go on.”

      I took a deep breath and tried to collect myself. “The koel is a genetically aggressive bird. When it hatches, it pushes the baby crows out from the nest, eats voraciously and becomes big and strong. Then it flies off singing into the trees. The poor crows are so baffled.”

      The man smiled as he pushed around a pebble with the toe of his shoe. He wore nicely polished brown shoes of expensive leather with small, diamond-shaped, pinpricked patterns.

      “And what do the koels do, having shamelessly foisted their offspring onto another?” he asked, quirking an eyebrow.

      “Ah, koels are very romantic birds,” I said. “They sing and flirt in flowering branches all summer long, with not a care in the world.”

      “How irresponsible!”

      “Well, it depends how you look at it,” I said, watching him carefully. “Koels sing and bring joy to the whole world. In some ways they serve a greater good, don’t you think? And getting the crows to raise their chicks is actually quite brilliant.”

      “How is that?” he asked, looking at me curiously.

      “Well, not all creatures are cut out for domesticity. Some make better parents than others. The chick grows up to be healthy and independent. In many ways, the koels are giving their offspring the best shot at life.”

      “That’s an interesting theory,” he said thoughtfully.

      He sighed and turned his attention to the baby crow. It lay completely still, breathing laboriously, its flaccid belly distended to one side, beak slightly open. He squatted down and nudged it gently with his forefinger. The chick struggled feebly, opened its mouth and uttered a tiny cheep.

      “It’s still alive,” he said dispassionately. “So what do you suggest we do? We can’t just leave it here to die, can we?”

      I shrugged. “It’s the cat’s lunch.”