Teatime for the Firefly (18 page)

But I was completely powerless. The dark churning in my mind would not stop.

CHAPTER 19

I woke up in a panic. What was that noise? Birds. Hundreds of them. Sunlight slanted into the bedroom through the parted curtain. Manik’s side of the bed had not been slept in.
Where was he?
I was still wearing the clothes of the night before, but someone had covered me with a blanket. There was a note on the bedside table.

6:10 a.m.

Dearest wife,

I did not want to wake you. You were sleeping so peacefully. I had a hellish night. The leopard got away. I have to be in the office early. Mr. McIntyre has called an emergency meeting. I will be home for breakfast at eight. You may see some people gathered outside the gate. They are laborers, to welcome you, their new memsahib. It is customary to greet them.

M.

Thank God he was alive! I sank back into the pillow, limp with relief. The time on my watch said six forty-five. I must have just missed him. I wish he had woken me up.

I freshened up and changed. Halua was hovering outside the bedroom door. He stood up stiffly and salaamed when he saw me.

“What time did
Chotasahib
get back?” I asked him in Assamese. The language spoken by the coolies
was a peculiar mixture of several Indian languages, but mostly Assamese and Bengali. They seemed to understand both languages.

“Two hours ago,” he replied. It was just after
murgi-daak
, the first rooster crow of early dawn. So that had to be around 4:30 a.m., he surmised.

It was still dark when
Chotasahib
had returned, Halua said. There were several people with him. The young boy had been taken to hospital. The leopard had torn his leg off and dragged him halfway into the jungle. His injuries were very serious.
Chotasahib
had stayed for a quick cup of tea and rushed off again. He had not slept all night. Halua had been given strict instructions not to disturb me, but stay close at hand, in case I woke up. So here he was at my service, and would I like some tea, memsahib?

Indeed, I would.

“On the veranda, memsahib?”

“Yes.”

The sun had just begun to skirt the treetops. A blue-gray mist hung like a tattered veil over the hills covering the lake. The garden was bursting with birdcalls interspersed with the whoop of monkeys that crashed in the high branches in the forest beyond. Blue jays skimmed the eucalyptus branches in streaks of startling blue.

A throng of people milled around outside the gates. Small children swung on the gate, peering into the bungalow, women sat on their haunches with their baskets on the ground and old men stood leaning on walking sticks.

Halua arrived with the tea tray. The teapot was tucked inside a faded but clean tea cozy. There were two cups, a milk server, small sugar bowl and a tiny tea strainer sitting in its cradle. There were also four round Marie tea biscuits fanned out decoratively on a small floral plate.

“Who are all those people?” I asked him.

Halua looked surprised. “To see you, memsahib.”

“Oh,” I said, remembering Manik’s note. This was quite a crowd. I felt nervous just looking at them. “Well, ask them to come in.”

“No, no, no, memsahib.” Halua clicked his tongue sharply. “Coolie people don’t enter bungalow.”

I was expected to receive them at the gate, it seemed.

With some trepidation, I got up.
The tea can wait
, I thought.
Let’s get this over with.

I walked toward them. A small cheer went up in the crowd. Elders stood solemnly in the front lines; small children and riffraff were pushed to the side. As I came closer, I saw they were all dirt-poor. Most of them had bare feet or wore sole-bare sandals with missing straps, improvised by bits and pieces of rubber and rope. There were lots of missing teeth. They all seemed to be of the same ethnicity, ebony-skinned, flat-nosed with high tribal cheekbones and various tattoos on their arms and faces. The women had horizontal V shapes tattooed in the corners of their eyes that gave them a long-lashed look. They wore prominent nose studs, their ear tips clustered with a succession of tiny rings all the way down to the earlobe. Their hair was oiled, flattened and twisted into tight conical topknots that stuck out like anthills on the sides of their heads. Small children with round, tight bellies stared with big eyes. They wore amulets and magic charms and not much else. Even the sick and the maimed had shown up. There was a one-legged man and an old woman with a goiter the size of a grapefruit. A couple of mangy pariah dogs sat around scratching and yawning. It was quite a menagerie.

Halua swung open the gates, and the crowd started babbling in a language I could not understand. Finally, a wizened old man with dim watery eyes and only two bottom teeth but a great deal of authority held up his hand imperiously to silence the crowd. A young woman with heavy pewter bangles stepped out and put a garland of marigold around my neck. She was followed by another, and yet another. Soon I had four heavy marigold necklaces around my neck. I felt as if I might tip over.

The toothless old man launched off into an elaborate and long-winded speech. It was encouraged by appreciative nods and sounds of accord from the crowd. One curious word kept surfacing—
Mai-Baap
. Literally translated it meant
mother-father
. Halfway through his emotional speech, a small child began to squall and received a stern eye from the old man. The young mother, wearing a bright pink sari, clamped her hand down on the baby’s mouth, and the elder waited impatiently for order to be restored before he continued in his monotonous, singsong voice. I had no idea what he was talking about. I caught an Assamese word here and there but that was all.

Halua translated for me. In effect what the elder was saying was that the honorable and highly respected
Chotasahib
, God be with him, on whose care and protection they all depended, whose bravery was unsurpassed and whose fairness and judgment was acknowledged by all, may the spirits bless and protect him, and may the new memsahib have good health, escape the evil eye and be spared from cholera, influenza, snakebite and malaria, not forgetting rabies, dengue fever and other causes of sickness and death, and may she bear the
Chotasahib
numerous healthy male children.

His speech was received with enthusiastic cheers, the equivalent of “bravo” and “encore,” I imagined. The old man was so exhausted when he finished that he broke into a hacking cough, his face turned purple like an eggplant and he sat down abruptly in the dust. The crowd then turned eagerly toward me and waited for a befitting response.

I thanked them all, and did not know what else to say. Halua relayed back my words in what seemed like an illogically long speech. There were murmurs of approval and nods all around. Then people came forward and to my surprise started laying all kinds of things at my feet: four duck eggs, two guavas, a pumpkin, eggplants, a bunch of green beans, decorative baskets of assorted sizes, bananas, small bags of puffed rice and even a trussed-up, squawking chicken. The gifts kept piling up in lumps and bumps in ever-widening circles until I started feeling like a burdened goddess decked in marigold, rising from a sea of bundles, baskets, squawks and smells.

I told Halua to thank them all but I could not accept these gifts. I got no further because Halua shook his head and clicked his tongue again. It seemed as though I had almost made my second social blunder of the day.

“No, no, memsahib, you must take these gifts. It is the custom.”

Manik had mentioned nothing about gifts in his note. So not knowing what else to do, I thanked them again, which Halua relayed back in yet another elaborate speech. Then I turned and walked back to the house.

I wearily took off the marigold necklaces and sat in the veranda feeling tired and overwhelmed. I poured myself a cup of tea, which thankfully was still hot. The crowd began to disperse. Two small boys got into a scuffle. A mangy dog yelped when it received a kick. The last person to leave was a very short woman who lurked behind the hibiscus hedge. She had a round face and wore a green sari, wrapped in the regular way like town people. Then she, too, finally turned and left.

Halua and Kalua went back and forth, ferrying all the gifts into the kitchen.

I was just pouring my second cup of tea when a man in a khaki uniform sailed up the driveway on a bicycle. He salaamed and handed me a note. It was from Manik.

Layla,

We will have a guest for breakfast.

Please inform kitchen staff.

I will be home at 8:30.

M.

My goodness! The curtness of the note! I was so irked, I just told the man to go without sending a reply. I sat there, fighting tiny ant bites of annoyance. Anyone would think a new husband who had been up all night chasing a man-eating leopard would be running home to spend some private time with his new bride. But oh no. Not Manik Deb. I was obviously not high on his list of priorities.

Our guest turned out to be an oily Indian government officer wearing a tan-colored safari suit. He had shifty eyes and terrible body odor. Manik introduced him as Mr. Sircar, the District Forest Officer in Mariani.

Manik’s eyes were bloodshot; he was filthy and unshaved, and looked as if he had spent the night in the bushes, which was probably close to the truth. He excused himself and went inside to clean up while I kept Mr. Sircar company on the veranda. He was the most obnoxious man I had ever met. Mr. Sircar gave me a mind-numbing account of all the important forest-conservation programs he was managing in the state of Assam. He spoke in an imperious, oratorical voice, his eyes glazed over with self-adoration.

Manik returned looking more human. Breakfast was a tedious affair. Mr. Sircar, having dumped on me his accolades, proceeded to treat me like a sack of potatoes, engaging only Manik in conversation. Why on earth were we entertaining such an odious character? I wondered. I soon found out.

“So, Mr. Sircar, when do you think I can expect the permit?” Manik asked, spreading marmalade on his toast.

Mr. Sircar was wolfing down a monstrous omelet, shoveling it into his mouth with two teaspoons.

“Oh, the permit, you ask, Mr. Deb?” he said, chewing with his mouth open. “I have to use my considerable influence in this matter, you see? Getting a
hukum
from the government to shoot a leopard is no easy matter these days.”

“We are talking about a man-eater, Mr. Sircar, not just any leopard. Two attacks in one month. You saw the state of that child in hospital today. We must put this animal down or we will have a labor riot on our hands.”

“You are talking to a forest expert, Mr. Deb. Wild animals, as you know, will attack when threatened and confronted. One has to prove that this animal is a man-eater first.”

“So, Mr. Sircar, are you saying this eight-year-old boy threatened and confronted the leopard to provoke the attack?” Manik chewed slowly, his eyes veiled.

“The permit is difficult to get is all I am saying. If your English people had not gone around shooting animals randomly and recklessly for sport, this would not have been the case. The government has now become very strict. Very strict. Nowadays they want to see proof that the animal is actually a man-eater before they issue the
hukum
.”

“So I suppose we should just wait for someone to get killed and eaten, then.” Manik was losing his patience, I could tell.

“Let me see what I can do for you,” Mr. Sircar said, getting up from the table. He shot Manik a sly look. “Also please see what
you
can do for me, Mr. Deb, and thank you for the breakfast.” He burped loudly and patted his belly. “I am now
fully
fed up.”

Manik gave me a wink behind Mr. Sircar’s back. “So am I, Mr. Sircar, so am I.”

* * *

“Bastard!” Manik yelled, slapping down his breakfast napkin on the table. “I hate that scumbag. Always playing hard to get. He is not going to budge an inch till we give him a bottle of Scotch.”

“Why don’t you just kill the leopard? Why do you need a permit?” I asked.

“You can kill an animal and claim self-defense, like I was planning to do yesterday. But to track it down in the jungle you need a permit.”

I was suddenly tired of it all. Manik’s ranting and raving, the oily Mr. Sircar and the whole confusing welcome jamboree. And it was not yet midmorning. And here I was all chaste and waiting with my virginity on a silver platter.

But Manik had other things on his mind.

“Mr. McIntyre will
kill
me if I don’t get that permit,” he muttered. “That leopard will be back in the lines and create havoc all over again.”

“And you, Manik Deb, as the brave protector of mankind, will leave your wife and run off toting your gun,” I added tartly.

He quirked an eyebrow. “Oh, we are sizzling a little, are we?”

“What is this
Mai-Baap
thing those folks were talking about this morning? Manik, you did not warn me there would be such a big crowd. There must have been close to a hundred people.”

Manik looked mildly interested. “So, how did the greeting ceremony go?”

“What is
Mai-Baap
?”

He sighed. “Means mother-father. It’s the parental role management has traditionally played in tea administration. The laborers are simple people, trusting like little children. They expect to be taken care of. Fed, clothed, protected from harm. Managers are made to feel omnipotent, invincible. It’s a tall order. But we try not to fail them.”

“How about playing
Mai-Baap
to your wife for a change? Did you for a moment think I might have been frightened all alone here in this big bungalow?”

“You didn’t lose much sleep from what I can tell. You look refreshed and very lovely. I don’t feel too lovely myself, I tell you.” Manik sighed again. He pushed up his glasses on his forehead and rubbed his eyes. “Layla, please try to understand. We have a crisis. If the laborers start a riot because of the damn leopard, the whole tea garden will come to a standstill. I am expected to take care of this because it’s my job. There is not much I can do about that, can I? As my wife, I expect you to be a little understanding. Besides, it’s not like this all the time, you know.” Then he grinned widely. “Hell, I will now have to bribe my own wife to get
my
permit!”