Flame Tree Road (12 page)

With that, she turned around and vanished in a whisper of white, leaving her ominous words hanging like a shroud over the stunned family.

CHAPTER

18

Willis Duff, the twenty-two-year-old assistant engineer of Victoria Jute Mills, felt dreadfully inadequate about his wardrobe. After living three years in the small jute mill town, he had sacrificed fashion for the white ducks and bush shirt he wore to work every day. Now he was going to Calcutta on his furlough and his clothes looked hopelessly avuncular. Willis had looked forward to the Calcutta trip with feverish anticipation. He had saved up a nice bundle of pay and dreamed of cocktail luncheons at the Great Eastern with the pretty ladies of Calcutta who would hopefully grant him a kiss or two.

Any spare moment he could find, Willis sat at his office desk and browsed the mail-order catalog that had arrived from Cuthbarton and Fink, fine gentleman clothiers of Calcutta. He was just earmarking a page for white pique bow ties when his boss, Owen McIntosh, summoned him to his office.

“Duff, I have a job for you,” he said.

Willis Duff’s heart sank. Was his furlough going to be canceled?

“There is a young Bengali boy I want to send with you to Calcutta. Do you recall the godown clerk, Shamol Roy, who died from a cobra bite some months ago?”

Willis nodded. “Yes, sir.”

He remembered the fine upright young man in his spotless white Indian clothes that looked out of place in that dank and filthy godown. Willis had felt sorry for the man and given him his last butterscotch toffee.

“This boy is Roy’s son,” Owen continued. “Your job is to take the lad and deliver him to the representative of Saint John’s Mission. The priest will meet you both at the steamer docks. He will be carrying documents for the boy. You will need him to sign the documents when you release the boy.”

Willis was so relieved to hear his furlough was not going to be canceled that his face broke into a grin. “That should be no problem at all, sir. No problem at all.”

Owen McIntosh looked at him grimly. “I want you to take this assignment very seriously, Duff. I am entrusting this lad to your care. He is a plucky little fellow, very intelligent. I suspect he has never left the village before, so he is likely to be nervous and upset. Be gentle with him, will you? Don’t leave him alone in the cabin and go off drinking with lascars on the riverboat. I am more than a little worried about the lad, to tell you the truth. He was very attached to his father. I want to make sure he is all right.”

“Of course, sir. I fully understand. Please rest assured.”

Owen’s cryptic words had a sobering effect on Willis. He had indeed toyed with the idea of wild drinking and gambling on the riverboat with the captain and crew, but now he would have to be careful.

* * *

Willis Duff had only to take one look at Biren Roy to feel his heart melt. An orphan himself, he could well understand the terror and uncertainty he saw in the young boy’s eyes as he stood clutching his uncle’s hand at the steamer ghat. The wee lad looked small and lost in his new travel clothes—an oversize pair of matching sky-blue shorts and shirt that flopped on his skinny frame. His only luggage was a cloth bag worn on a long sling that hung past his knees.

“Traveling light, are we?” Willis joked. Seeing the blank look on both their faces, he tried again, speaking more slowly. “Is that all the luggage you have? Only one small bag?”

“Yes,” said the uncle. “Biren is carrying two sets of clothes. The school said not to bring anything else. They will provide everything—uniform, books, toiletries, even pocket money.”

“I dare say they’ll throw in some whiskey, as well.” Willis winked at Biren, who shied behind his uncle.

“No whiskey, no whiskey,” said the uncle uneasily. “This is a strict Christian institution.” The boy peeped out and gave Willis an impish smile.
Intelligent little fellow
, Willis thought. The uncle on the other hand looked as though he would not have understood a joke even if it jumped up and bit him you-know-where.

“Quite so, quite so,” Willis agreed. He turned to Biren. “Say, Biren, do you know how to play fish?”

Biren’s face brightened. “Can you catch fish from the steamer boat?” he said, momentarily forgetting his shyness.

“Not that kind of fish.” Willis laughed, delighted to hear the boy speak English. He had worried how they were going to communicate. “This fish is a card game. I can teach you how to play it, if you like. But you know what? We may not even have time to play card games. Have you ever traveled by steamer down the big delta to the sea?”

Biren shook his head.

“Oh, you’re in for an adventure, wee man! We will be sailing around the Bay of Bengal, then all the way up the Hoogly River to Calcutta.” As he talked, Willis drew a map on the riverbank with the toe of his canvas boot. “There is so much to see! We will pass through mangrove forests. I am taking my binoculars so we can do some animal watching. You will see gharial crocodiles—you know, the small fish-eating variety with pointy teeth and a funny lump on their nose? Plenty of river otters and monkeys and, who knows, maybe even a Bengal tiger. We will have a cracking time, I guarantee you.”

“What time will the steamer depart?” asked the uncle.

“Oh, I reckon it will be sundown by the time we set sail. We have to wait for the tide to come in. However, there is no need for you to wait here so long, Mr. Roy. Please do not worry about Biren. I will take good care of him. Also, I will be in Calcutta for the next six weeks and I will visit him in the school and make sure he’s doing all right and bring back news for you.”

“Shall I leave, then?” Uncle asked Biren in Bengali.

Biren nodded and turned his face away.

Willis held out his hand to Biren. “All right, wee mannie, let us go take a look at our cabin and settle you in. We can play a game of fish or two out on the deck, what do you say...aye?”

* * *

The riverboat captain was a tall bearded Serang dressed in an embroidered waistcoat and turban. He had under him a contracted crew of lascars who manned the decks. They were strong island people with dazzling teeth and a jaunty walk. Besides the lascars, there were the
mistris
who shoveled coal and worked in the dark bowels of the engine room as well as cooks, sweepers and other menials who stayed out of sight. The Serang and lascars were natural sailors with the river in their blood. They knew how to feel the pulse of the tide and maneuver the flat-bottomed hull of the steamer through narrow channels and waterways without grounding it on a shoal or sandbank.

Tired after a long and confusing day and lulled by the gently bobbing boat, Biren dropped off to sleep on a long chair on the deck. He woke up bewildered and disoriented when the steamer gave a sudden lurch and, with a great big hum of its engines, moved forward. Darkness had fallen all around. Biren peered over the railing. Everything looked very far down from the top deck. The riverbank slid by, past the blur of lighted tea shops and chickpea hawkers with their flaming torches. They moved into a dark patch of countryside dotted with swaying lanterns of villagers heading home. The river breeze, moist and balmy, whipped through the deck as the engine picked up speed. The steamer gave a steamy-sounding hoot that dissolved into the rhythmic
chug-swish, chug-swish
of paddles turning water.

“Ship ahoy!” Willis Duff shouted, pulling himself by the railing to the top deck. “We’re off! Hurrah!”

Biren stood there silently. He held the railings of the deck tightly, his knuckles white, his face turned toward the shore.

“Are you all right, my wee man?” Willis asked kindly. He put an arm around the boy’s shoulders and was surprised to find them shaking. He bent down to peer at boy’s face and was aghast to see it streaked with tears.

“There, there,” he said, squatting down, suddenly at a loss for words. He pulled out a white handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to Biren. “Wipe your face. There, there, you are a big boy now, aren’t you? Going to boarding school, in Calcutta and all. Dinna cry, laddie. It will be all right, I promise. I know exactly how you feel, believe me.”

Biren clung to the rails and continued to sob uncontrollably. He wailed with such heartbreaking sorrow that Willis began to worry. How was he going to manage the wee lad? He would fall sick at this rate. Not knowing what else to do, he held the boy and patted his back, but said nothing.

What Willis did not know was the steamer had just passed Momati Ghat. Biren could make out the dim outline of the tea shop and the shape of the flame tree against the darkened sky. Underneath the tree was a circle of small
diya
lamps and in the center was the figure of a woman dressed in white. She lifted a
diya
and held it up high in a blessing as the steamer sailed past.

That would be the last image of his mother Biren would carry in his mind as he embarked upon his brave journey into the unknown world.

CHAPTER

19

Located on the banks of the Hoogly River, Saint John’s Mission covered one hundred and forty-five sprawling acres, enclosed by a moss-covered wall and tall iron gates with the letters
SJM
welded to the center in large metal cutouts. The Catholic school for boys, with five hundred students ranging in ages eight to sixteen, occupied the front end of the property. There was also a seminary for student priests that looked out toward the river next to a small, steepled church with a mossy bell tower. Several whitewashed buildings nestled in shaded mango groves interlinked by walkways lined with leafy neem trees that gave a dappled shade. Every now and then, a white-cassocked priest sailed out on a bicycle from one clump of trees to disappear into another.

Center stage were the administrative offices and a domed assembly hall built in a typical neoclassical style with a circular colonnade and a prominent cornice. Engraved on the frieze above, decorated with swags and ribbons of laurel, was the mission’s motto:
Fungar Vice Cotis
. Be as a whetstone for others to be sharpened upon.

Biren was left to wait on a bench outside the principal’s office on the second floor. On the facing wall was a framed picture of the Virgin Mary with melancholy eyes holding a strawberry-pink baby Jesus. The
clip-clip-clippity-clip
sound of a typewriter came through the open doorway of the next room, followed by a ratcheting slide and a
pling
. The sound stopped, a chair scraped and a young Indian priest came out of the room with a file in his hand. He had shiny, dark skin and wore open-toed sandals underneath his cassock. He lifted his eyebrows, smiled at Biren and glanced quickly inside the principal’s empty office before swishing off down the corridor. A deathly quiet descended, broken only by the sound of a solitary sparrow chirping on the parapet.

A faint bell sounded far away. Biren peered over the top of the windowsill and saw a small boy with a hand bell run across the playground and disappear around the corner of a building. Seconds later a frightful din ensued. Chairs scraped, desks slammed and there were whoops and yells as hundreds of students poured out of several buildings at the same time. They were all dressed identically in gray-and-white uniforms, and Biren watched openmouthed as they pushed, shoved, loitered or hurried from one classroom to another. Three minutes later, they were all inside. Then, miraculously, abrupt silence. Again the only sound came from the same solitary sparrow chirping outside the window.

It was uncanny. How was it even possible for several hundred students to all become quiet at the same time? It sounded like the noisy transfer of glass marbles from one tin can to another: a sudden burst of noise, followed by pin-drop silence. How different it was from his village school. The schoolmaster would have to rap the edge of his desk with his ruler several times and scream, “Quiiiet! Quiiiet!” in a nasal shriek while the boys continued to chatter and misbehave. One or two of them would invariably get their ears twisted before they settled down.

Biren had yet to learn that discipline was an inner mechanism that grew out of a structured and regulated life. It could never be enforced from the outside.