Flame Tree Road. Shona Patel

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 girl,” she lamented to Apu. What puzzled him was Apu wanted boys and Shibani wanted girls. They each wanted what the other had. The fishermen on the other hand were unanimously in favor of boys. Daughters were viewed as a curse, it seemed.

      Kanai flicked the butt of his bidi into the sand and sighed. “I go to the temple every morning to pray my wife has a son this time.”

      “I have three daughters!” grumbled Dadu. “I had to sell my cow to get the last one married off. Marrying off daughters will pick you clean, like a crow to a fishbone. I would be in the poorhouse if my son had not brought in a dowry. By God’s mercy, all four children are married and settled now.”

      Biren shaded his eyes toward the far horizon and jumped to his feet. “Oh, look!” he cried. “The jute steamer is coming!”

      As so it was. A black dot had just popped up on the horizon. Its square form distinguished it as a flatbed river barge designed to carry bales of jute, tea chests and other cargo.

      Biren dusted off his shorts and took off flying down the crooked path toward the riverbank. A small brown mongrel with a curled-up tail chased after him, yipping excitedly.

      As the steamer drew closer, Biren saw a pink-faced Englishman sitting on a chair bolted to the deck. The man had one knee crossed over the other and was smoking a curved pipe, looking as if he was relaxing in his own living room. He surveyed the tumbled countryside, the cracked and pitted riverbank and meek-eyed cows huddled in slices of shade. When the man turned his head, he caught sight of the magnificent flame tree by the tea shop and stood up to get a better view. He failed to notice the small boy who waved at him from the riverbank. The steamer passed by smoothly, leaving the water hyacinths swirling in its wake.

      Kanai spat on the ground. “Go, go, mia, run, run, run,” he muttered. “Chase after the belayti, wave to him, bow to him, lick his shoes. He will never acknowledge you. To him you do not even exist. The sooner you get that into your foolish head, the better it will be for you.”

CHAPTER

       7

      The river breeze teased Shamol Roy awake one night. He propped up on his elbow to gaze tenderly at his sleeping wife. Shibani lay on her side, her hands tucked under her cheek. Her lips were parted,