Flowers in the Blood (3 page)

“Hello, Dinah,” Uncle Samuel called out brightly when he saw me.

“Where's your grandfather?” Aunt Bellore asked brusquely.

“In the consulting room.”

She pushed by me and made for the door, Uncle Samuel puffing behind. I ran after her and blocked the path. “He's been—”

“Dinah, let us pass,” my aunt barked sternly.

Nobody had spoken to me in anything but a solicitous tone since the day of my mother's murder. Stung into silence, I fell behind as Aunt Bellore blustered her way forward. The door between the anteroom and the procedure room was slightly ajar. She pushed it open with her foot. Grandfather's sweeper, a white-bearded Hindu, was scrubbing the floor. Neatly laid out on a cloth on the table was the day's gruesome harvest: one leg, one hand, one arm. Aunt Bellore's screams brought Dr. Hyam running from the office.

I hid behind the door and listened until the commotion passed, then made my way as close as I dared, to listen.

“. . . so he's been arrested . . . they're still looking for the other . . . I thought you would want to know . . . the evidence in his rooms . . . the rubber shoe . . . chloroform vials ...” were some of the phrases I caught before scurrying back to the courtyard.

Yali gave me my supper with the boys, saying the adults could not be disturbed. Nani did not come in to see me until I was in bed. Her face, which had softened somewhat since the ordeal of the funeral, was again a map streaked by long lines leading in every direction. Her hug was short, tense, and she almost flew from the room.

Disturbed, I could not sleep and begged Yali to tell me what was wrong.

“Are they going to send me away?”

“No, no.”

“Are we going back to Theatre Road?”

“No, no.”

“What is happening, then?”

Yali twisted the hem of her sari and looked away as she whispered, “Do you remember a friend of your mother's, the sahib Mr. Sadka?”

“Uncle Nissim?”

She grimaced. “He's not your true uncle.”

“Are you certain?”

“He was merely a friend of your mother's.”

“And mine. He brought me sweets and toys.”

“No.”

“But he did!”

“He was not a real friend.”

“Mama liked him. She was always happy to see him.”

“She was mistaken. He is a wicked man.”

“Why do you say that?”

Yali sat on my bed and attempted to drape my mother's robe over my shoulders. I brushed it away. “No! I don't want it.”

Yali refolded it and sat down on her mat. “You sleep now, Dinah.”

“No!”

“Shall I stay?”

“Yes!”

I clenched my teeth and stared at the poles from which the mosquito-netting tent hung over my bed. Something inside me twisted and crushed me painfully. I must have cried out, for Yali appeared beside me, stroking my shoulders. Barely noticing her, I lay still as images of Mama and Uncle Nissim flashed before me: quick glances, a light touch on the hand, lying together side by side on the veranda cushions passing the mouthpiece of a gurgling water pipe, called a
hookah
, between them, Uncle Nissim's long, drooping lashes, his protuberant lower lip mimicking a bulbul, Mother dancing in front of him in a diaphanous gown, him clapping in response. I remembered joining in, linking hands in a circle, and recalled how out of place I had felt because they were in step with each other, but out of step with me. That memory was jolted by others: a grim expression in Uncle Nissim's black velvet eyes, a slammed door, loud voices, a broken glass. They had argued. Most people did. Even so, how could a man who had been so gentle, so funny, have harmed my mother? No, Uncle Nissim could never have done that! It was someone else. Someone had made a mistake. There had to be another answer.

From that moment I developed a precocious curiosity about the crime.

 2 

 

A
daughter learns her mother in sequence as the years pass. At each stage there are revelations, mysteries revealed. But what of the child who loses her mother before the age of reason? That child learns as I did—from others. I had few memories of our early years together, but these I began to gather and store as if in preparation for the long winter of life without a maternal guardian.

Luna's mother, Flora, was a direct descendant of Shalom Aaron Cohen, who came from Aleppo, Syria, arriving in Calcutta in 1798. He is considered the founder of the city's Jewish community. Soon thereafter Jewish settlers began to flood into Calcutta, the majority emigrating from Baghdad in order to flee the harsh rule of Daud Pasha in the early 1800's. India, a land of many religions, welcomed the Jews. Here they could live in perfect freedom; here their traditions could be preserved. Flora had been promised to Ephraim Rahamin (who later anglicized his last name to Raymond) through intermediary contracts in Baghdad. Her father, Obadiah Cohen, had been a gem dealer to the
nawabs
of Oudh, as had been his father, Shalom. Obadiah was said to have been a charming man who loved to weave stories and entertain—a skill that made him popular with the princes of northern India. Once he received a gift of priceless pearls, and the most valuable were set into a pearl ring, which my grandmother gave, along with many matching pieces, to Luna on her wedding day.

Obadiah was one of the first Jews to build a mansion in the elegant Park Street district—as fine as any in this “City of Palaces.” To maintain his family's scholarly tradition, Obadiah insisted tutors from Baghdad educate his children. Determined to raise the Jewish community to new standards, he wanted to establish a Jewish clinic. His daughter's dowry was astounding, as was Obadiah's offer to construct not only a home for the couple but also whatever medical facility the young man desired. Thus he was able to entice a medical student from Baghdad to come out to India.

My grandfather, Ephraim, was the first Jewish physician in Calcutta. He won the confidence of maharajahs, British generals, the kings of commerce, and others who traveled far to entrust themselves to his care. Not only those with the rupees to pay his fees were healed by him. Paupers, who had been refused admittance to the city hospital, would find their way to his clinic and plead for a cure. Throughout my life I have met people who felt they owed me a service to pay back a debt of gratitude to my grandfather.

If another woman complained about her match, Flora, who was delighted by Ephraim, would claim, “If you accept a marriage joyfully, everything will be right.” She had no patience for women who believed a natural incompatibility could exist. “With acceptance, the bonds will tighten. Pull together, not apart.”

In spite of their happiness with each other, good fortune did not visit my grandparents during the early years of their union. The Raymonds' first child, a son, died two weeks after birth. The following year Flora had a stillbirth. Ten months later, Luna was born. There were other pregnancies—nobody knows how many—but no further issue.

Luna was an enchanting newborn. “Your mother was tiny and frail,” Nani boasted. “She had the most extraordinary wide-set eyes, a perfectly shaped bow of a mouth, and skin the color of fresh cream.”

“Did I look like her?”

“Only the eyes. Your skin was darker, your mouth thinner. And of course you weighed almost twice as much.”

At first I was disheartened to learn of the charms she possessed and I lacked. Eventually I was to be grateful I was so little like my mother.

Luna continued to be delicate of frame and constitution. Artists captured the child's fragile beauty in a series of portraits that hung in the Raymonds' parlor. One by one they depicted dark hair framing milk-white skin and enormous oval eyes fringed with long, feline lashes. Her nose and chin were like finely chiseled ivory. Always tiny for her age, she was dressed in clothes to match her mother's, taking on the aura of a miniature adult.

Since both parents had the benefit of education, they began Luna's studies in Hebrew at the age of five. Luna learned her alphabet, mastered simple sums, and made progress for several years. After becoming literate in English around the age of ten, though, her interest waned.

When my grandmother realized I was almost seven, and other than having learned the rudiments of reading by listening to my mother's stories, I had never been given any proper schooling, she took on the task of educating me, as she had her daughter. After a discussion with Grandfather, she decided I should not begin my studies in Arabic or Hebrew—as they had—but would learn English first. I studied harder than she expected, and learned rapidly.

“You are a much better scholar than your mother ever was,” Nani said to encourage me.

As Luna approached puberty, both parents worried that the custom of marrying a daughter while she was in her early teens might cause Luna difficulties, since her skeleton was narrow. When she was fifteen— two years past the age when most girls were betrothed—inquiries for a husband were made through their Baghdadi connections. Ephraim was keen on having another physician as a son-in-law. Luna's dowry would surpass even Flora's, so there were many candidates from whom to choose.

Their daughter had other ideas. She had several friends with whom she met at the synagogue for supervised social activities, and the girl she most admired was Bellore Sassoon. Bellore was a year older, a head taller, a third heavier, and more outspoken and daring than the diffident Luna. The youngest of a family of six, Bellore was the only daughter. Fascinated by this gregarious, hardy family, Luna spent many a day with Bellore at the Sassoon mansion on Kyd Street.

Bellore's great-grandfather, Sheikh Sason ben Saleh, gave her a superior lineage to Luna's descent from Shalom Cohen. For centuries the Sassoons had prospered in Baghdad. The clan's chieftain had worn gold raiment for appearances at the pasha's palace. As he made his way through the streets for a royal audience, peasants would bow to him and his retinue. However, the status, security, and glamour of that family's station vanished under the rule of the cruel Daud Pasha.

Sheikh Sason was born in 1750. Following his forefathers, he became the pasha's civil head of the Jewish community, or
nasi
, in 1778. For thirty-eight years he collected taxes from his community, while guarding both their secular and spiritual welfare. He married and bore seven sons. The oldest died in a plague. His second son, David, was expected to become nasi when his father retired. Learning that Daud Pasha did not want another Jewish nasi, David Sassoon respectfully declined the hereditary appointment, then was arrested along with his wife's brother, who was strangled. Sheikh Sason rushed to the palace to plead for his son's life. The pasha agreed that if the sheikh would pay a huge ransom, David would be freed—as long as he agreed to leave Baghdad for Basra. Thus began David's wanderings that led him to Bombay, where he opened a countinghouse in 1832.

He arrived in India at the dawn of a boom. He and his family prospered. Moses, his youngest son, moved to Calcutta—fast becoming the commercial hub of the Indian subcontinent—and set up a branch of the business in that port city. There he discovered the most profitable commodity in which to trade: opium.

Arab merchants had introduced opium to the Chinese as a remedy for everything from stomach troubles to leprosy. Later, Portuguese sailors cultivated a taste for what they called
yang yien
, or foreign smoke, among the mandarins. When the British East India Company exported far more silk and tea—which had to be paid for in silver—with less than equal value in Indian cotton or British woolens to sell back to the Chinese, the trade imbalance became problematic. The solution—selling opium to the Chinese—leveled this deficit, eventually tilting the equation in the company's favor.

Compact compared with most crops, opium was almost as dear as precious metals in price per weight. Packed in tidy chests, it shipped easily. Once processed, it was not perishable. Its customers were loyal and. constant. Best of all, the demand for opium escalated year after year. The ownership of the opium lands was deeded to the British government of India, who leased the cultivation rights to local farmers. The harvested crop was then auctioned by the government to the merchants, who speculated on the price and accepted the hazards of shipping and trading a substance the Chinese people craved, but their lords did not wish them to consume, even though trading in opium was entirely lawful as far as the British were concerned.

One of the first Jews to become active in what he came to call “the flower trade,” Moses Sassoon established the practice of boycotting auctions when the prices were too steep, thus depressing the market. When the value had fallen to his satisfaction, he would turn around and buy up the harvest. His sons followed him into the business and made solid marriages with girls from the Baghdadi community. For his youngest, Benjamin, he was looking for an alliance with one of the Jewish families who had settled in Hong Kong in the 1840's, right after the Treaty of Nanking created the British colony, so he could better control that end of the transactions.

Neither Moses Sassoon nor Ephraim Raymond expected either of their children would have romantic ambitions of their own.

“Luna startled us when she announced she wanted to marry Benu Sassoon,” Nani told me, enjoying the excuse to talk about my mother.

“What would have happened if you had refused her?” I recall asking.

“There would have been some wailing, but Luna would have accepted the decision of her elders, as your grandfather and I had done. Either father—Luna's or Benu's—would have been well within his rights to dismiss the matter and order obedience.”

Fortunately for my parents, Moses Sassoon saw advantages to an alliance with Luna Raymond.

“Let me tell you something about Moses Sassoon.” Nani strained to keep a neutral tone. “He was the poor relation of that family. In Bombay he would have been at the bottom of the ladder. Only by making his way in Calcutta could he distinguish himself. With such a large family and that daughter to marry off in style, there was not much left for his youngest son. With the Raymond dowry as a base, however, Benu could have a palace to match the richest of the Bombay Sassoons.”

“Was Mama truly in love with Papa?” I ventured the question as though I were testing the temperature of bathwater.

“She was in love with the idea of your father. The one she adored was Bellore, who represented everything she wanted to be: taller, healthier, stronger, older, wiser, and the sister of five handsome boys.”

I mulled this over. “So a marriage with Bellore's brother was a way of showing her love for Bellore.”

“Yes, that's partially it. Also, Luna did not show an interest in any of the Sassoon men until after the announcement of Bellore's engagement. When she heard the news, Luna cried for days.”

“Why? Was she jealous?”

“She thought she was losing the attention of her dearest friend. That's when she told me she wanted to get married too. I tried to explain that Bellore was sixteen—a very grown-up sixteen—and was more than ready for marriage, whereas she was physically a child.”

“Why did she pick Benu?”

“He was a striking young man. And he had been kind to her.”

“She fell in love with him, didn't she?” I asked, searching for confirmation that my parents' union had been tinged with the glow of true love.

“Yes, Dinah, I believe she felt a deep attraction for him.”

“Did my father feel as strongly about her?”

“Your mother was an appealing young woman.”

A complicated process of negotiations was set in motion when Luna and Benu made their wishes known. First, the alliance with the Baghdadi medical student had to be severed. Next, an agreement had to be negotiated. Grandfather Raymond had not the business acumen of a Sassoon, who knew this father would pay any price to indulge his daughter.

“Your Nana made only one condition: the marriage would not take place until after Luna's seventeenth birthday. We agreed that immature children must not marry. Boys must be ready for responsibility; girls must be strong enough to carry and tend babies.”

“Cousin Sarah was married last month, and she's only thirteen,” I said, referring to Reuben Sassoon's oldest daughter.

“A practice born of ignorance—and fear.”

“What are they afraid of?”

Nani sucked in her lower lip, a sign that she was weighing her words. I knew she would speak the truth, but perhaps not all of it. “They are afraid the best matches will be gone if they wait too long.”

I returned to the subject of my mother. “So Grandfather Moses agreed to what my mother and father wanted.”

“We were presented with no arguments, only a list of demands that included building the house in Theatre Road to the Sassoons' specifications.”

During the long engagement, both fathers agreed that Benu might undertake the first of his journeys to escort the opium to China. There he hoped to establish the trust of the Chinese middlemen who controlled the retail market. Also, with the young lovers separated by half a continent, they could not be the subjects of the gossip that would surely ensue by permitting children to have a say in their marriage.

The wedding took place the day after Luna's seventeenth birthday.

“Were they happy together?” I asked Nani.

Her answer was guarded. “No more, no less than any newlyweds until Benu's father sent him back to China.”

“Didn't Mama mind?”

“She wept, she carried on, but what could she do? By then, of course, she was expecting you.”

Contrary to her parents' fearful expectations, Luna maintained robust health during her pregnancy, but my birth was a long, protracted nightmare. Nobody told me about it directly, but over the years I overheard murmurings about how she had suffered. “Such an enormous baby for such a slender woman! At least my babies were small and I had the hips to carry them easily,” I heard Aunt Bellore brag.