Flowers in the Blood (7 page)

“Will it be today?”

“I do not think there is much doubt in the matter, so it should be over rather quickly.”

“That's good,” I said, since I dreaded too many more hours of sitting quietly.

“Very good,” he replied, though his meaning was far different from mine.

As we approached the municipal buildings, I dared ask the question that most weighed on my mind. “Papa, what will they do to them?”

“In the Bible it says, 'Eye for an eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.' “

A horrid image of extractions of teeth and eyes, of amputations—like the ones my grandfather performed for the lepers—nauseated me. “Will they cut off their hands and pull out their teeth?”

My father smiled crookedly, but spoke in a dignified voice. “No, they will lose the privilege of their lives.”

“The men in the robes, the judges, will one of them kill them?”

“No, another official will do it.”

“Oh!” I thought I had it now. The men with the heavy maces would beat the criminals. One or two blows should do it. Wanting confirmation, I asked, “How?”

He hugged me close.

“With the mace?”

My father's grin widened. “No, the gallows. They shall hang by their necks until they are dead.”

 

Even without the transcript of the chief justice's summation, I can recall portions of his lengthy speech—it lasted almost four hours— because he enunciated so slowly, so carefully for the jurors, even I could follow what he was saying.

He spoke of the necessity not to rush to simple conclusions in so complex a case. “I urge the jury to exercise caution in accepting the story created by the advocate-general, who has neatly developed a line of thinking that leads to the conclusion that these men collaborated to murder Luna Sassoon. Whilst this may be the very case, not all evidence follows in agreement. There are many controversial items to consider.”

He went on to list the areas he felt the prosecution had introduced weakly: “. . . Mr. Sadka was at the Sassoon house that evening, but there is no certainty that it was he who returned to that place or he who made a final departure in the early-morning hours. . . . There is no proof to support that the dagger introduced as evidence was ever in the possession of the accused. Even the servant claims there was no one present when he found it and cleaned it.”

A flurry of gasps rolled across the audience, visibly annoying the older judge. On my left, my father's spine stiffened; on my right, Nani's arm began to vibrate. My grandfather's lips twitched.

“With regard to the chloroform . . .” My attention was riveted when I again heard that familiar word. “. . . Even if you were to consider there is some evidence the prisoners were anxious to acquire it, there is no positive connection with the murder, since there is no proof the chloroform vial, which was not found near the body, was used on Luna Sassoon.”

“But—” I started to say. Aunt Bellore reached forward and put her finger over my mouth. Still determined to speak up, I rose to my feet. My grandfather pushed me down. Stunned into obedience, I muttered, “But the smell on my mother matched the doctor's vial. I'm sure of it. Why doesn't anyone care about what I have to say?”

Angrily I sat back and listened as the younger judge spoke about a mysterious third man who had been identified by witnesses to have been with Sadka that evening and was definitely not Chachuk. At last the chief justice concluded his remarks. “Gentlemen of the jury, I must caution you in accepting the evidence of native witnesses. Most of the witnesses for the prosecution have been of the servant class, whose ignorance and loose ideas as to time—as well as the necessity for adhering to facts and circumstances as they actually occur—invest their testimony with a tenuous character. Further, one of these witnesses, the punkah-wallah, is blind, and we have no diagnosis as to which other faculties may be impaired.”

When the summation concluded, the men of the jury left the room. As Papa turned around to confer with his brothers, their voices were muted, but their tone was outraged. Why had the younger judge twisted the facts in favor of the criminals? Why had he discredited the testimony of his trusted servants? How could he discount the bloody dagger, the ladder, the chloroform?

“Could someone have paid him off?” Uncle Saul whispered hoarsely.

Aunt Bellore's husband was aghast. “Bribe a judge?”

“The decision hasn't been made,” Uncle Reuben reminded in a conciliatory tone.

Since almost everyone else had dispersed outside, I walked around the perimeter of the courtroom. I was thirsty and wondered how much longer this would continue.

In less than half an hour the jury members walked back into the room. The tableau of men, guards, and prisoners rearranged themselves rapidly.

“See!” Aunt Bellore announced as the family took their seats. “Their guilt was irrefutable.”

As I fastened my gaze on the prisoners' box, I felt a peculiar shudder in my chest. “Eye for eye . . .” The men would be dead soon. Under the earth with dirt in their eyes. Like Mama. Sadka and Chachuk stared straight ahead.

“Not guilty,” said a soft voice.

“Not guilty!” reverberated in the audience, “They won't die?” I asked. No one responded.

My grandmother swooned, but I barely noticed it as my grandfather shot up from his seat. Straight and tall, without a tremble in his hand or a warble in his voice, he shouted, “Impossible! How could this be so?”

Dr. Hyam raised his arms to restrain his mentor, but Grandfather Ephraim pushed him away with such force that Dr. Hyam twisted his foot and fell beside his seat. Grandfather Ephraim stepped over him and made his way to the platform, where a policeman halted him. I could not believe how sturdy, how healthy Grandfather—in the potency of his fury—appeared. He marched to the table where the stunned advocate-general stood and pounded his fist.

“An outrage! How could this be? Where is justice?”

Dr. Hyam finally caught up to him, and the prosecutor and the doctor assisted Grandfather out of the court.

I turned to the men in the box. Moosa Chachuk had fallen and was being braced by a guard. Nissim Sadka was shaking so violently he had to clutch the rails for support. I thought an odd transference had just taken place: the weak had been given the strength of the murderer; the murderer had been blighted with the disease of his victim's parent.

“Now they won't die, will they?” I asked my aunt.

“Of course they will die, everyone does.”

“Not for this, for what they did—”

“No,” she gagged.

“But Papa said they would hang.”

“Well, they won't!” Noticing her face had turned purple, I tugged on her arm and her breath returned. She composed herself and pulled me along with her.

“They will suffer,” I said as cruelly as I could. In the aisle of the noisy chamber, she could not hear me. She led me outside. This was a mistake, because Moosa Chachuk already was at the curb, getting into his barrister's closed landau. “Where is he going?” I shouted above the throng.

“Wherever he wishes, Dinah. He is a free man.”

“Not fair!” I screamed.

“You should never have been brought here!” she seethed, and spun around to see who was watching this spectacle.

I twisted away from her and began to run toward the street. She caught me and yanked me back so roughly my arm burned. My eyes burst with tears of pain and confusion.

“There's nothing you or anyone else can do about it. At least it is finally over,” she pronounced in a tone that was too accepting for my taste.

“It is not fair—to Mama,” I sputtered.

“Your mother was a part of this, I'm sorry to say.”

“Then it's your fault too.”

“What?” Aunt Bellore stared at me as though I were crazed.

“If it weren't for you, my mother would have married the Baghdadi doctor and had a different life.”

As her grimace furrowed her firm high brow, she looked repulsive. “Dinah, we must get you home.” She tightened her grip on my shoulder while furiously searching for her family.

“Stop him!” I screamed toward Chachuk's carriage, now stalled by the mob. “Make him come back!”

“Hush. Don't shout. There is nothing we can—”

“I can! I can do it.” I pulled away and went rushing to where the second carriage, with Sadka inside, was driving off. The startled driver jerked on the reins as I flew in front of the horse. A bystander tugged me to safety. Struggling, I looked up. Sadka's simian face leered from the window. “Make him stop,” I sobbed to the stranger.

“Where is your father?” she asked.

I looked around. The crowd of onlookers was multiplying, and nobody familiar could be recognized in the crush. Everyone's eyes focused on me.

“At least she doesn't have her mother's face,” I heard someone say.

“Have you looked closely at the eyes?” commented another.

“In any case, she's not a beauty, but even if she was, who would have her now?”

“Poor child, poor little girl.”

“What will become of her?”

“The family is ruined.”

Aunt Bellore whisked me to her. “Don't mind what people are saying, Dinah.”

For the first time I felt soiled, dirty. I wanted to hide myself away.

“Bellore! Here!” a voice called from a carriage as it drew closer.

My aunt lifted me into the open gharry, where Dr. Hyam was riding with my grandparents. She rushed for the next, which held her husband and my father. We drove off as rapidly as possible through the crowd that had spilled onto the streets.

I turned back and looked at the High Court Building. In the rising dust, the spire seemed to vibrate like strings on a harp.

The core of my resentment burst like a rotten mango. “Not fair . . . not fair . . . not fair ...” I muttered in rhythm with the beat of the horses' hooves. If only they had listened to me! I knew more than they did about the shutters, the chloroform. Everyone in that courtroom had made an error in not paying attention to me. Somehow I would get back at all of them—especially Nissim Sadka—I vowed.

No doubt most people in the crowd that day felt justice had not been served. Nevertheless, few concerned themselves with the matter for more than several minutes. If they remembered anything, they may have heard my protests ringing in the air. Others who have been wronged must have felt as passionately as I did that day. Many a child must have had romantic hopes of being able to right the injustices of the adult world. However, few would have the opportunity to carry out the retribution that I would be offered many years later.

 4 

 

W
hereas I directed the barbs of my hate toward Sadka and Chachuk, my father's revulsion took a different turn. The next afternoon I awoke from a nap with a start to sounds of bumping, scraping, banging. The shutters! “Yali! Yali!” I screamed in terror.

I could hear the slap of her sandals in the corridor. As she rushed into the room, her violet sari flew out behind her like dragonfly wings. She took me in her arms and stroked my hair. “Hush, Dinah-baba. You will see them soon.”

She must have thought I was upset because my grandparents had packed and left the house that morning.

“You will come to us as often as you like,” Nani had said as she kissed me on the doorstep.

“In fact, you shall see us the day after tomorrow at services and then return home to spend the Sabbath with us,” Grandfather said with hardly a stutter. He had declined since his impressive recovery the day before, yet he seemed far better than he had in more than a year.

The memory of their departure faded, replaced by the feel of Yali wiping my tears with the edge of her sari. She kept her cool hand on my brow until I calmed. Then Jonah poked his head in the door, dragging his favorite toy—an elephant on wooden wheels—behind him. Was that the sound I had heard?

Yali shooed him away and washed my hands and face. Selima brought in tea and set it out on the table in my room. I could hear the creaking wheels of Jonah's toy as he ran down the halls and called, “Jonah, come have tea with me.”

Grinning broadly, he pushed the elephant in front of him with his foot until the toy grazed my leg. “Akbar wants a biscuit.”

“Very well, Akbar, you may have mine.” I broke off a piece, pretended to feed the elephant, then popped it into Jonah's nearby mouth.

He took the seat beside mine and fingered the border on the cloth. The design was of elephants linked trunk to tail. Jonah named them. “Akbar, Zakbar, Flakbar, Nackbar, Hackbar . . .” He giggled.

I was about to join his game when I heard the bumping noise again, I rushed to the door in time to see the durwan and the mali carrying Mama's chaise down the staircase. I followed them to the downstairs terrace, watching as they crossed the garden to a pile beside the far wall. Logs had been stacked in a neat pyre, like the
ghats
on the riverbank where the Hindus cremated their dead. On top was mounded the entire contents of my father's bedroom: the platform bed, the mattresses and coverings, the poles that supported the mosquito netting, the marble table that had held flowers and books. I watched, horrified, as the chaise was positioned precariously on top. No!

I ran upstairs and threw open the bedroom door. Discovering only a few pieces of paper and cloth scattered about in the empty room, I looked back in the hallway. Outside my mother's dressing-room door, clothing and books were accumulating. Where was Papa? His dressing-room door was closed. I tried the handle, but it was locked. I banged on it. “Papa! Papa!” There was no response. Jonah came up behind me and joined in the noisemaking. “Papa, Papa, Papa!” he called cheerily.

The door opened. “Hello, children,” Papa said in a smooth voice. He was dressed as he had been for the courtroom the day before. In fact, his clothing was so rumpled, he must not have changed. He stumbled backward and caught himself on the wall. His face was blotched with ruddy patches, his nose swollen and red, his lips oddly blanched.

“Do you know what they are doing?” I asked, knowing full well the servants must have acted under his orders.

“Yes, Dinah, it is for the best—a fresh start . . .”he mumbled.

“No!” I sobbed as I tried to think of some way to deter him. I pictured
Lorna Doone
in flames. “Not her books—” I choked.

His jaw clenched. His high Sassoon forehead rippled. For a moment his oblong face looked like a skull. “Books?” he said as though he was coming out of a daze. “Yes, you like books, don't you? Is that what this is about? You would like to have the books.”

I had not thought this through, but it seemed wise to salvage whatever I might. I glanced into my mother's disheveled dressing room next door. “Please, Papa.” My mind raced. What else? “And the dressing-table set and—”

He cut me off. “Take whatever you like, as long as it stays out of my sight.” He shooed invisible flies from his face. “I never wish to see anything that once belonged to . . .” He could not say the name. Then he spied my mother's inlaid hookah. Picking it up, he muttered fiercely, “Except this.”

I did not use the door between the dressing rooms, but went out into the corridor and began to carry books to my room. The durwan followed and helped me layer them under my bed, ten high, five deep. When that area was filled, I had rescued most of them. Mama's clothing already had been removed from the shelves. I grabbed an empty hat box and swept her silver dresser set into it, hurrying in case my father changed his mind. Yali came in and saw what I was doing. From the drawers I salvaged two ivory combs, a leather pocket toilet case, an ebony traveling set, her collection of atomizers, three beaded chatelaine purses, embroidered silk handkerchiefs, pompadour combs, silk and ivory fans, neck ruffs, spools of fancy ribbon, hairpins, a box of buttons, two pairs of evening gloves. All were treasures to me.

While I was busy, I noticed Yali removing several long flat jewelry boxes. “What are you doing?”

“Taking these for safekeeping.”

“Not to burn?”

“No, no. Never!”

I returned to my task. After stowing as much as I could, I went out on the upstairs veranda in time to see Mama's dressing-room furniture— her daybed, her wooden bookcases with the glass windows, her tufted parlor chair, even her dressing table with its dainty French legs, drawers with brass handles, and oval mirror that tilted—being added to the pyre. This last, unruly item caused the tower to shift. The dressing table slipped to the ground, shattering the glass. The mali replaced it at a lower level, then with the coarse broom he used on the paths swept the shards under the firewood.

The servants milled around, waiting. The durwan watched the house expectantly. I sank to the floor of the porch so they would not see me as I peered through the railing. Father's bearer arrived and said a few words to the mali. He nodded and poured an oily substance made from clarified butter, called
ghee
, over everything. The servants looked up at the house again, waiting. At a signal, the mali lit the mound of Mama's earthly possessions. An enormous flame arched skyward. Soon the dusking sky was riddled with billowing smoke.

A moment later the durwan rushed forward and, threw an object into the inferno. Its distinctive curve caught my attention. The hookah! I fixed my eyes on the sparks as they flew upward around the glowing torso-shaped metal. If only the monsoon rains would come and drench everything! But that could not happen, not in December. Sparks fly upward; rains fall downward. The contrasting images—and the finality of each—preoccupied me as I watched.

“What shall we do, Dinah?”

I jumped up from my hiding position. The whole while, Papa had been nearby on the other side of the veranda. He must have been the one who signaled for the conflagration to commence. I turned away from him.

“Dinah!” He opened his arms to me.

There was a loud whooshing sound. A long tongue of fire shot up to the sky, crackled like lightning, and was followed by a crunch and a tumble as some of the furniture shifted as it was engulfed. For a few seconds the hot light formed an outline around the delicate curved legs of Mama's dressing table. Some combination of smoke and firelight gave the spectral illusion of a human form staring into the broken glass. My stomach contracted as the vision was sucked away by a burst of wind. The fire, devouring its delicacies, burned on hotter, redder, almost bloody.

Hearing my father muttering, I thought at first he was saying “Dinah” —but no, it was “Luna . . . Luna ...”

Unanswered questions flickered like sparks in the firelight, glowing momentarily, then turning to crumbling ash. Why had Papa left us alone for so long, causing Mama to invite the wrong sort of friend into our house? Why had the men who had murdered her been set free? Why was Mama now being blamed for everything? Why had Papa stopped loving her because she was gone, and why had he punished me by sending my grandparents away?

Feeling his hand on my shoulder, I pushed him away and backed into a cobweb in the corner. As I madly brushed the sticky fibers from my arms, my bitterness burned white as the coals forming on the firebed. He leaned against the rail, his chin sagging, his mouth agape. The spots on his face had enlarged into blistering blotches. His upper lip twitched. “What shall become of us?” he asked, his voice trembling.

Ever since the murder, I had held the elusive hope that when my father came home, he would somehow stitch the seams of our life back together and make our family whole again. This husk of a man was not about to perform any such miracle.

“Now who shall take care of us?” he asked, looking up to the acrid cloud that hovered over our garden.

I thought: From now on I shall have to take care of myself. Then I turned from the silhouette almost obliterated by smoke and abandoned him.

 

The next day, I remained in my room. Papa did not interfere, for which I was both grateful and resentful. The day after that, I ventured as far as the nursery sitting room to play with my brothers, but I would not go downstairs for meals, even when told I was invited to dine with my father. On the third day, he came to my room. When I did not respond to his knock, he let himself in.

“Dinah, will you come for a walk with me?”

I kept reading the first of Mama's books that seemed meant for a child—
Alice in Wonderland.

“Is that a good book?” He came closer and looked over my shoulder at the illustration. “What a funny rabbit!” he said in a forced voice. “Dinah!” He stroked the top of my head. I shot up and away from him. Holding the book in front of me like a shield, I backed against the far wall. He rubbed the bump on the side of his nose and waited. I felt powerful, as if invisible claws extended from me into his heart. His chest convulsed, and he left. Good! I thought, vowing never to talk to him again. Why, then, did I feel more bereft than victorious?

He did not approach me for the rest of the week, not even to take me to the synagogue on Saturday morning. The following Monday, renovations began on the upper story of the house. The veranda was to be extended, his dressing-room partitions taken down to make a new bedroom for himself, and a larger room carved for me from my mother's old bedroom. The corner room was shuttered, bolted, locked.

I found the bustling activity a diversion in my self-imposed exile. Workmen scurried around, not caring if I crouched to watch.

Papa came into the nursery and announced, “I have decided that Selima and the boys should stay at Aunt Bellore's until the work is completed.”

“Am I going too?” I had spoken against my will. He had tricked me!

“No.” His jaw clenched, frightening me.

Was this a punishment for my muteness? I must have looked as crestfallen as I felt.

“You don't wish, to stay here with me?”

“I would like to go with Jonah and Asher.”

“That will not be possible.”

“Couldn't I go to my grandparents' house for a visit?”

He crossed the room and sat on my bed. “No, Dinah. You mustn't bother them.”

“They
want
me.” I stared at him accusingly—an expression I had perfected. Unexpectedly his face softened. This was more like the kind father of my memories, the father whose lips seemed to smile in repose.

“I have a better plan.” He waited a few beats. “I need to do some traveling. Would you like to come with me upriver to Patna?”

“No, thank you,” I said politely to ward off the scary face.

“Why ever not?”

How could I trust this man who had been absent so much of my life? The moment he had returned, everything had gone wrong at the trial, with my grandparents, and then the final insult, the destruction of my mother's possessions. What might he do if I displeased him someday?

He gave me a fair chance to respond, then looked at me with a sleepy half-lidded expression. “Perhaps you will change your mind.”

I forced my lips to remain immobile.

“All right, Dinah, I will leave now, but if you decide you might like to come with me—”

“I won't change my mind!”

“If that is so, you will be the first woman on earth to be so steadfast.” His head tipped back, then flung forward like a rag doll's, and the noise was meant as a laugh, but it sounded more like a wooden wheel arguing with the road.

The next week dragged by unmercifully, until a Sabbath visit with my grandparents. My grandfather did not leave his bed and his power of speech was diminished to a few grunts. My grandmother, on the other hand, was attentive to me. When I told her about my father's offer, I expected she would side with me.

Instead she said, “You must do as he says. He means well.”