Flowers in the Blood (44 page)

By the time the boat came to a rude jetty, the sun had baked my arms and head. Dizzy, I stumbled ashore and followed Edwin into a narrow lane blocked by a barricade of horns. An odoriferous flock of rams, goats, even oxen swarmed to greet us. Mosquitoes circled ravenously about my ankles.

Edwin noted my slow progress. “It isn't far now.”

As we rounded another corner, the brightness and color of Cochin faded into the dun of ancient plaster. A few shafts of light spilled down a street so constricted two carts could not pass each other. A long row of three-story buildings made an enclave unto itself. The narrow windows of the stone houses, like those designed to retain heat in a colder country, gave the impression the inhabitants had something to hide.

In front of almost every doorway, bronze-tinged women sat on stools, sewing and gossiping while children played. Several of them had legs the size of tree trunks. At our approach the chattering stopped. Edwin waited for me to catch up and took my hand. To each woman he gave a small bow, greeted her in an unfamiliar tongue, and said something that included my name. Each woman rose and bowed to me. I nodded quickly and moved on., Esther Salem lingered at each doorway as she accepted the comments from her neighbors with a satisfied smile on her lips.

Just before the bottom of the dead-end street, Edwin indicated a building with a Dutch-style clock tower. There were Hebrew, Roman, and Indian numerals on the dial of the clock. “That is Paradesi Synagogue, where we worship. It was built in 1568,” he said proudly.

Compared to the splendid temples of Calcutta, it was a disappointment, but I said nothing.

Another woman with grossly distended legs braced herself against the wall of a gabled house across the street. “Welcome home, Edwin,” she said, kissing him.

“Thank you, Aunt Reema.”

“And this must be Dinah.” She reached up and patted my cheek before I had time to recoil. “What a beauty,” she gasped to Edwin.

“Yes, isn't she?” he gloated.

We waited in front of a dingy house with a large Star of David on the door. “Well, aren't we going to go inside?” Esther Salem asked when she arrived, panting.

Edwin kissed his fingers and touched the mezuzah before opening the latch. The thick wooden door grated against the tile floor with a teeth-jarring screech. His mother stepped forward, followed by his lame aunt, who had to hold on to the walls to remain upright. Then Edwin placed his arm around my shoulder and guided me into my new home.

30

 

O
h, Dinah-baba,” Yali wailed, “you cannot stay in this place!” She surveyed the small second-floor room that Edwin and I would share. One slender bed was draped with torn mosquito netting. Although the walls were freshly whitewashed and the floor matting new, it was less pretentious than Yali's quarters at Theatre Road. “What would your father say?”

I stepped into the hall and peered into Esther Salem's room. “I suppose she will offer us the larger bed,” I replied, my voice more tremulous than I would have liked.

“She will not,” Yali said with a finality that surprised me.

“Then Edwin will provide something else,” I responded hopefully.

“I will provide what, my darling?” Edwin asked from the top of the steps, where he was directing the coolies to stack my belongings.

I gestured to the dark furniture in his mother's room. “Are we supposed to sleep here?” I pointed to his old bed. “Or there?”

He placed his arms around my waist and hugged me to him. “We could fit anywhere.”

Yali turned her head.

“Edwin!” I pulled away, but his clasp tightened.

“Dinah will sleep in the room of your mother,” Yali said with as much authority as Zilpah would have mustered.

Edwin cocked his head to see if he had understood her Hindustani correctly. “Yes, a splendid idea.” He grinned like a schoolboy as he reflected on how this could be done.

“She won't like it,” I whispered.

“She will follow what I say in the matter,” he said in a testy voice I had not heard before.

How would the three of us live in such a tiny house? I wondered as I wandered around my new home. Downstairs there were three rooms: a modest living room, the size of the smallest parlor at Theatre Road, a dining room, and a pantry combined with a kitchen. The furniture was of bulky teakwood carved with flowers, birds, and animals in what I learned was the Indo-Portuguese style. Over the camelback sofa was a portrait of Mrs. Salem's father, a heavy-jowled man.

On the second floor were the two bedrooms, one primitive bath, and a sitting room under the gable that faced the street. Two sulky servants lived in a small godown at the far end of the courtyard garden.

“Where will our servants live?”

“We did not expect them,” Esther Salem replied irritably. “Arrangements are being made for Hanif to board with neighbors. Yali will have the attic bedroom where Hanna stayed as a child.”

“Isn't it hot up there?” I asked.

“It was not too hot for my daughter,” she retorted.

Esther Salem moved into her son's room without a word of protest, but her groans and sighs of the next few weeks were ample reminders of how inconvenienced she felt.

 

The first morning I awakened to a tapping on the window.

“The shutters! Close the shutters!” I cried in terror.

“Hush, there are no shutters.”

“What is that sound?”

“Look, darling.” He showed me the window, which had several wires pulled taut along the top of its frame. Wooden balls suspended from the wires trembled in the wind.

“Is that a decoration?”

“No, a practical way to keep the crows from flying into the room. We use swaying balls to confuse them.” He stroked my back. “Poor darling, do you feel better now?”

“I suppose so,” I said, kissing him to blot the dark sensations.

His hand flew up. “What's this?” he asked with alarm.

I looked down at my skin. Welts had appeared over my whole body. “I've been bitten. Insects adore me.”

“How clever they are.” He kissed a bump between my breasts. Then he pointed at a gap in the mosquito netting. “I didn't fasten my side tightly enough.”

“Do you think I could get sick from so many bites?”

“Dinah, really. You've lived in India all your life.”

“Never in Cochin. What if I become sick . . . like your aunt?”

“That's unlikely.”

“What is wrong with her and those other women with those huge legs?”

“It's called 'Cochin leg' here, but its medical name is elephantiasis because of the way it swells the extremities.”

“How do you catch it?”

“Some think it hereditary, or it might be acquired from impure water.”

“Not insects?”

“Who knows for certain?”

“Is there no medical treatment?”

“Nothing that cures it permanently.”

I shuddered.

“Now, don't worry yourself,” he said, and blotted my concern with kisses.

“What shall we do?”

“About what?”

“How shall we spend our days?”

“We do not have to decide everything the first morning. First things first.”

“What comes first?”

“We must get married,” he replied. “Cochin style. And then we shall see about the rest.”

After breakfast, we were summoned to his mother's bedside. “The trip exhausted me, and one never can sleep well in a new bed.” Edwin didn't comment. “I shall require help to arrange the ceremony.”

“When shall it be, Mother?”

“Next Tuesday. Reema will attend to everything.”

“Shouldn't Dinah have a say?”

“What could she know about our traditions?” She lay back on her pillow and stared at the mosaic images with Hebrew inscriptions on the ceiling.

“I will be happy to follow your mother's wishes . . .” I said sincerely, then added a tag, “. . . in this matter.”

I saw her mouth twitch.

“What is it, Mother?” Edwin asked as impatience crept into his voice.

“I would prefer Dinah to call me Mother too.”

Edwin looked at me with a hopeful expression. My stomach churned, but I did not want to disappoint him. “Of course I will . . .” He mouthed the word, but I balked at having her replace my mother in any way. Steeling myself, I said the word “Mother,” then hurriedly added, “Esther. Is there anything else?”

“Could Yali attend me for a few days? Just until I feel better?”

I looked away in case she could read my selfish thoughts. “Of course, Mother Esther.”

That afternoon Edwin took me for a walk around Jew Town. “Cochin's Jewish quarter was established shortly after the Dutch conquest in 1661, but the first Jewish settlement in this region was actually down the coast at Cranganore.”

“Oh? How long ago was that?” I asked.

“If you can believe the tales I heard in childhood, the first Jewish merchants were members of Solomon's Phoenician fleet almost three thousand years ago. Others believe we arrived at the time of the Babylonian captivity. At any rate, we know the group was well established when the King of Cranganore granted the Jews possession of Anjuvannam—the village mentioned in the copper plaques in the synagogue across from our house.”

“What are those?”

“I'll show you them on our way home. The point is, the king gave Joseph Rabban, head of a Jewish family, hereditary ownership of this territory and we have thrived here ever since. To my knowledge, the only time the Jews were treated miserably in India was under the Portuguese conquistadors.”

We had made our way down to the end of the street and were standing in front of an ancient building that looked like a square fortress. After Edwin tapped the gate, a durwan appeared and let us in. “Would you like to see the palace?”

I followed Edwin inside a dank entryway, wondering if I would ever accustom myself to the smell of moldy decay that permeated this ancient section of town.

“The rajahs of Cochin and Travancore always protected their Jewish citizens. That is why the Jews of Cochin settled close to the palace. Ah, here we are.” He pointed to a long flat wall painted with tapestrylike frescoes of entwined nude forms. “What do you think of that?” He slipped his arm around my waist and rested his hand on my hip.

I supported my weight against him as I took in the dizzying sight of animals and humans intermingling in sexual encounters. Smooth female flanks, furry haunches, protruding horns, moistened lips, drooling muzzles, arched backs, tumescent organs, swelling breasts, gaping legs, groping arms, rosy nipples, pleasured smiles, and lustful sneers competed for space on the wall.

“Edwin!” I gasped.

“Aren't they superb?” he said under his breath. “The frescoes are scenes from the
Ramayana.
They were painted with vegetable colors about two hundred years ago. Isn't it extraordinary how they have retained so much of their brilliance?”

“But—”

He pivoted so he could kiss me on the lips.

The sound of footsteps broke us apart. We followed the durwan down a back staircase to a courtyard, where, hand in hand, we paused to admire several ornate palanquins, which Edwin explained were still used on state occasions by the Maharajah of Travancore.

“I went to school with his son.”

“Which school?”

“La Martinière in Lucknow.”

“How long were you there?”

“Two years.”

“There is so much I do not know about you yet.”

Stepping into a dark passageway, he took my hand and pressed it to the bulge alongside his inner thigh. “You know everything important.”

The next doorway led to the synagogue. Edwin explained, “These buildings share a common wall.” As we passed through the vestibule and into a bright hall hung with silver lamps, he continued more somberly, “From darkness to light.”

In contrast to the grim palace next door, the room's milky walls gleamed in the sunlight. Unexpected touches of color caught my eye: green doors painted with flowers, red and gold trim around the tabernacle, and hand-painted blue-and-white Chinese floor tiles. Edwin slipped off his shoes, and I followed his lead, for the willow-patterned tiles were too beautiful to scuff.

He half-opened a silk curtain to reveal Torah scrolls and a golden crown. “This is our Ark of the Covenant.” Pointing to the scrolls bedecked with tiaras set with gems, he went on, “One of the maharajahs of Travancore gave them to us.” He opened the curtain farther to show me the most important relic. “Here are the copper plates I told you about. They are the oldest records of Indian Jewry, recording the privileges which usually were reserved for princes, but: extended to the Jews.”

I stared at the crude Tamil inscriptions. “What does it say?”

“It specifies the rights given to the Jews 'so long as the world and moon exist.' “

“What are they?”

“There were seventy-two gifts, including the rights to collect tolls on boats and carts, the revenue from and title of Anjuvannam, the lamp of the day, a white cloth spread in front of your path, a palanquin, a parasol, a drum, a trumpet, a gateway, a garland, among others.”

“I can understand the part about tolls and revenues, but why the rest?”

“Some were symbolic, some had military implications. If you allowed people you did not trust to build a defensive barrier like a gateway, for instance, rebellion was more difficult.” He gave me one of his most glorious smiles. “We flaunt our privileges on ceremonial occasions. You'll understand more after our wedding.”

As we left the synagogue, I was reluctant to cross the street and return to the closed walls of his mother's home. “Could we walk on for a while longer?”

In the twilight, we watched fishing boats gliding out from the fingers of canals and converging in the palm of the harbor. On a pier built out from the shore, fishermen wearing conical straw hats were working a large triangular net suspended on poles. “Those are the Chinese nets.”

I watched as a primitive arrangement of pulleys raised and lowered this ungainly contraption. “How can they lift those huge boulders?”

He pointed to the counterweights. “It balances perfectly. Like a child's seesaw.”

“How clever, but they don't seem to be catching many for all that work.”

“They rarely land more than a couple of fish at one time, yet thousands of men make their living at it.” He clasped my hand. “We should go back.”

The sound of water lapping against the seawall filled me with an undefined longing. “Not yet—” My voice caught.

“What is it?”

“Couldn't we find a house to live in—a place just for us?”

“You cannot be happy in my mother's house.” It was a statement, not a question.

“I always wanted a home of my own, and we have the means to find something very nice.”

“I don't want to spend your dowry.”

“My father wanted me—wanted us—to be comfortable.”

Edwin hung his head. “I should never have expected you to live in Cochin.”

“I am willing to live in Cochin, Edwin. I just don't like your mother's small house.” My voice rose to a tense pitch that humiliated me. I took a breath and whispered, “There is no rush to make a change. I only wanted to tell you my thoughts.”

Edwin stared out across the water, even though the blackness which had swiftly descended in the tropical evening prevented his eyes from focusing on any particular view.

“Edwin . . .”

He did not respond.

“Edwin, let's go home.”

We walked back at the fast, clipped pace he set. What had I done? When we were almost at the end of the street, I said, “Edwin, I didn't mean to upset you.”

He took my hand in his and gave it a squeeze. My heart leapt in appreciation for the reprieve and kept beating at that faster pace for a long while into the evening.