Teatime for the Firefly (4 page)

CHAPTER 4

Boris Ivanov left for Calcutta, and Manik Deb continued to come by to visit with Dadamoshai, often stopping on his way to the Sens’ house. They seemed to resonate on many levels and enjoyed talking to each other. He always sat on the same cane chair, the one with the defective leg. He skewed it a little to one side, facing the jasmine trellis, and lounged deep in the cushions, stretching his long legs past the coffee table. He dominated the floor space easily, as if it was his to occupy and own. He smoked constantly, lighting cigarettes with quick, easy strikes of his match, tilting his head back sharply to inhale. I noticed he had changed brands, downgrading from the fine English Dunhill cigarettes to Simla, an Indian brand. He had been in India for six weeks now.

Once he showed up wearing Indian clothes—a long white kurta and loose slacks—looking elegant and princely. Was he becoming more Indian? I wondered. Whatever the reason, it suited him well. The starched cotton was creased around his sleeves and hung gracefully on his long frame. He did not wear an undershirt, and the dark hairs of his chest bled through the thin fabric. Wearing traditional Indian clothes defined him as a Thinking Indian. It was the dress code of the intelligentsia. Patriotism was at a fever pitch in our country and recent political events had sparked a heated debate among intellectuals.

All over India people were deeply caught up in the current events of the day. The world was at war, and Bengal was in the throes of a devastating famine, but what worsened the catastrophe was a heartless and diabolical British policy of war.

The Japanese had inflicted a crushing defeat on British forces in Singapore and were threatening to invade Burma, one of the strongholds of the British Empire, which bordered Assam in India. In a desperate and shocking attempt to stall the enemy, the British employed the merciless “scorched earth” policy. They destroyed crops, dwellings, infrastructure and communications—anything to inconvenience the enemy from encroaching into India. This was done with total disregard for human life. The effect was widespread, the horror unspeakable. Millions died of starvation.

Educated Indians like Manik and Dadamoshai, normally staunch supporters of the British, were outraged and disillusioned beyond belief. It brought to glaring light the self-interest of colonial rule in India. There were agitations and uprisings all over the country.

“We need our independence more than ever now,” Manik said, “but there is so much divisiveness among our leaders. Their ideologies are poles apart. On one hand, we have the followers of Gandhi touting nonviolence. On the other hand, militant leaders like Netaji are brandishing guns and conspiring with Hitler to overthrow the British by force. As for the millions who are dying like flies as a result of this famine, do you think they care a fig for freedom? All they want is their next bowl of rice.”

“Our leaders are like rushes and reeds,” lamented Dadamoshai. “They will scatter to the winds if they cannot come together to be woven into something useful.”

“That’s Rumi, isn’t it? What you just quoted?”

“Yes. Jelaluddin Rumi. Sixteenth-century Persian mystic. Very wise man.”

Manik was exceptionally well-read, I discovered. I felt hopelessly conflicted when I thought of him. He seemed so intelligent and progressive, and yet he was not resisting a traditional old-fashioned arranged marriage. It had to be about the money, I concluded. Kona Sen would bring a substantial dowry, which made Manik Deb, for all his enlightened talk, a typical money-minded Indian male. I needed to find a reason to hate him, just so I would not feel so bad about him marrying Kona Sen.

My reverie was shattered when Dadamoshai called out to me from the veranda.

“Layla! Where are you?” he shouted in his booming voice.

I was so startled that my breath caught in my throat. I scrambled off the bed, straightened my sari, smoothed my hair and went out to the veranda.

Manik was sitting in his usual chair, about to light one of his perpetual cigarettes. He looked up at me as I came in, sat up a little straighter and smiled. My throat was dry, and I must have looked a little panicked, thanks to my guilty thoughts.

“Layla, there you are. Have a seat,” Dadamoshai said amiably, pushing the newspaper off the sofa and patting the cushion with the blue elephants next to him. “We were just talking about you.”

“Me?” I asked incredulously.

“Yes, Manik Deb wants to know your opinion. Manik, do you want to explain why we need Layla’s input on this one?” Dadamoshai tented his fingers and waited with eager anticipation, as if he was about to enjoy the opera.

Manik leaned back in his chair and stretched his legs across the floor, leaving just three inches of space between his toe and mine. I quickly tucked away my feet and worried a piece of wicker on the armrest of the sofa.

“Layla, your grandfather and I were talking about the changing roles of women in society.” Manik paused to see if I was listening. “Well, we were wondering if our society is ready for the change. Are we ahead of our time?”

“Why do you ask me?”

“Why not?” said Manik. “You are a bright young woman, well-read, well-bred and getting ready to conquer the world.”

The roots of my hair felt hot and I could feel my ears redden.

Nothing intelligent came to my mind. I pulled a sliver of wicker from the ratty old armrest and curled it into a small ball between my fingers. I uncurled the ball and curled it again. I looked up.

He was watching me as he tapped his unlit cigarette on the arm of the chair. I realized both he and Dadamoshai were waiting for my pearls of wisdom. There were none forthcoming. My head was empty except for Manik Deb floating inside like a trapped balloon. Suddenly I felt uncontrollably crabby.

“What does Kona say?” I blurted out before I could stop myself. I immediately felt like biting my tongue off. Oh, God! What a faux pas. I was talking of his fiancée as though we were bosom buddies.

“Who? Oh, Konica.” He looked startled, just for a moment. “Well, I never thought of asking her,” he added, looking vaguely uncomfortable.

I don’t know what got into me then—whether it was my nervousness, embarrassment, awkwardness or what—but once I got started, my tongue just took off. “Well, you should
ask
her, then. She is going to be your wife, you know.” I sounded unflatteringly shrill. “Or maybe it does not matter. Kona must be delighted to marry a civil officer, and anxious to boss around servants and have lots of children.” I staggered under the avalanche of my own words and felt sick to my stomach.

Manik’s eyes popped slightly; his mouth fell open. He did not look very attractive, I noted with satisfaction. He recovered quickly enough, though.

“Well, Layla, don’t you want to marry a civil officer, boss around servants and have lots of children, too? Is that not every woman’s dream?” Did I detect a hint of sarcasm in his voice? I could not be sure.

I took a deep breath. I realized this conversation had gone seriously off track and wandered into a dingy and suspicious neighborhood. I felt disgusted with myself.

“You did not answer my question,” Manik said softly.

“Which was?” I had lost the thread of the conversation. I recalled only my embarrassment at blurting out things I should not have.

“What
do
you want to do with your life, Layla?”

I watched a dragonfly settle on a dry twig on the jasmine trellis. Its wings quivered slightly, catching a small rainbow of light. What did I want to do with my life? Suddenly I was not so sure anymore.

“I want to do good for the world,” I said, hoping to sound noble and intelligent, but sounding more like a charity nun. “I don’t think I was ever
meant
to marry, or to have any children,” I added a little hesitantly. To my dismay, my voice broke. I quickly gathered my emotions. “I would really like to help other women...to carry on Dadamoshai’s work.”

“You will be a great asset to the Rai Bahadur,” Manik said. “Careful, though, some nice young man does not come along and make you change your mind. That would indeed be a serious loss to womankind.” He smiled like an imp.

“Oh, Layla is a very determined young woman!” piped in Dadamoshai. He looked at me gently and reached out to push back a strand of hair from my face. “She has made up her mind. Where would one find a man good enough for her, anyway? Most young fellows these days are duffers.”

Manik tapped open his matchbox, but then changed his mind. He put the cigarette back in the pack, pushed back his chair and stood up. He was suddenly very serious.

“Duty calls.” He tilted his head toward Kona’s house, looking resigned. “I am expected for dinner.”

Dadamoshai and I walked with him to the porch. I hated to see him go.

“Wait!” I said. I lifted my hand to tug his shirtsleeve, and then jerked it back. I felt reckless and out of control.

“Yes?” Manik’s hands were in his pockets. He leaned back, looking at me curiously, his eyebrows slightly arched.

“You never told me what
you
think about women’s education, and how it might change society,” I said.

I needed to hear it for myself. I had to know Manik Deb was a typical Indian man, a blatant hypocrite. That way I could put him away, once and for all, like a shoe that looked good but did not fit.

Manik leaned back on the balcony railing and tapped out a cigarette from his pack, lighting it in his cupped palm. He tilted his head back and blew a perfect smoke ring into the air. I noticed a small shaving nick on his chin. I wanted to touch it. He was so close. Again I was embarrassed by my thoughts. I watched the smoke curl from his nose.

His eyes tightened thoughtfully. “Every human being should have the right to choose,” he said. “I don’t think women have a choice in our society.”

I was stunned. Why, he sounded exactly like Dadamoshai!

“For that matter,” Manik continued, “I don’t think men have much of a choice, either. We are pigeonholed by social expectations, but society is more forgiving toward men. Think of it—an unmarried man is a bachelor, and he is eligible till his dying day, but an unmarried woman...well, she becomes a seed pumpkin.”

A seed pumpkin
:
the only pumpkin left in the patch.
That was what our society called spinsters. Was Manik Deb calling
me
a seed pumpkin? But I had no need to worry.

“Unless, of course, she is Layla,” he said, smiling down at me. “You see, Layla, you can have anything you want in the world. You are no flotsam drifting with the tide. You are making choices for yourself and that is enviable. Not many of us have that luxury.”

“It’s funny,” I said, feeling a burst of joy for no earthly reason at all. “And here I thought you were a very traditional man with stereotypical views.”

“What made you think I was so typical?” Manik looked surprised and puzzled.

“You were educated abroad and are going into the civil service, for one. That’s typical for most educated, upper-class Indians, and...” I paused, hesitating.

“And I am having an arranged marriage?” He took the words right out of my mouth. “I think I understand what you are saying.”

I had not meant it to sound so crass.

Manik glanced at his watch and quickly stubbed out his cigarette. “Which reminds me it is getting awfully late. You have no idea how terrified I am of my future mother-in-law.”

I stood there with Dadamoshai on the porch stairs and watched Manik Deb walk away. In my heart there was a small, sad feeling as though I was missing the last train going someplace mysterious and wonderful.

CHAPTER 5

That summer I got to know Manik Deb. Those premonsoon evenings are etched in my mind in the melancholy strokes of an aching heart. Knowing that he could never be mine was, in a way, my release. Gone was the need to impress him with my wit and intelligence. I was free to slip into a more natural version of myself. We became friends. But despite the pleasant evenings we spent together, I was always aware of a wistful sadness that floated softly in the dregs of my being.

Sometimes our talks on the veranda carried on late into the evening, and Dadamoshai would excuse himself and retire to his room. Left by ourselves, we often talked about books and authors: Tolstoy, Tagore and Dostoevsky. In all our times alone, never once did Manik overstep his boundaries as a guest in my grandfather’s house. He made no untoward advances. He was always polite, interested and attentive—the impeccable guest.

On our last day together, Manik stayed almost until dinnertime. He would be leaving for Calcutta the next day. The monsoons were heavy in the air, the stillness of the evening hanging in dense folds around us. We sat in silence absorbing the faint sounds that penetrated the quiet: the small tinkling of a prayer bell, the bark of a faraway dog. A shaft of light fell sharply across Manik’s face. It hid his eyes but illuminated his chin and mouth. He looked poetic and thoughtful. The tall areca palms rustled with the approaching storm. Lightning whipped the distant sky, and thunder pealed across the dark river.

The BBC news from my grandfather’s radio wafted through the waving curtains of the living room. Winston Churchill’s strident voice came on the air:

“Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war....”

His voice faded out with the weak transmission, and then burst into clarity.

“Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, this was their finest hour.”

The news ended with “God Save the King.” Then the dulcet notes of a popular wartime song about the white cliffs of Dover trickled out to the veranda.

How strange, I thought to myself. This was the first time I was hearing popular English music play on my grandfather’s radio. He usually switched the radio off after the news.

“Vera Lynn,” murmured Manik softly. “What a magnificent voice. Do you listen to Western music, Layla?”

“I listen to Western classical mostly,” I replied. “Dadamoshai has quite a collection of Russian and German composers.”

“There is something I have wanted to ask you,” said Manik. “How did both your parents die?”

I was not surprised he had heard about my parents. He must have thought it odd that I lived with Dadamoshai and not with my mother and father.

“My father was a freedom fighter. He died in the Cellular Jail.”

“In the Andaman Islands? Is this the same notorious Cellular Jail where they hanged political prisoners?”

“Yes.”

I did not tell him I had heard that political prisoners were not only hanged in the gallows there, they were sometimes tied to cannons and blown up. The British meted harsh punishments when it came to political dissenters.

“Have you heard about the Chittagong armory raid?” I asked.

“Oh yes. A famous guerrilla movement in the ’30s, was it not? To overthrow the British? It was led by a schoolmaster, I believe.”

“That’s right. My father was a revolutionary in that movement. He was captured and hanged.”

“And your mother? I know women fighters played a big role in that uprising.”

“My mother...” I hesitated, because I had never shared this with anyone before. “My mother drowned. In a lily pond. She killed herself.”

I have a photo of my parents and me, taken when I was about a year old, just before my father was captured and exiled to the Andaman Islands. The faded sepia image shows a thin man with fiery eyes seated on a straight-backed chair in what appears to be a courtyard, with a chicken pecking in the background. Next to him stands my mother, frail and taut. She is wearing a plain-bordered sari and old-fashioned blouse with sleeves up to the elbow. Her arms are crossed over her chest; her eyes are naked and staring, a quiet desperation lurking in their depths. By then she was already lost to the world.

Another song was playing on the radio now by the same singer. It was a sentimental love song presented in a slow caressing style. The singer’s voice trembled with heartbreak as she expressed the unbearable sorrow of parting with her lover. It got me right in the gut.

My face was hidden in the shadows, but Manik must have sensed my tears because he reached into his kurta
pocket and fished out a clean white handkerchief, which he offered me across the coffee table. He did not try to touch my hand or say anything. In the dark, I tucked the handkerchief under the cushion of the sofa. I never gave it back to him. We both sat quietly till the song ended and the plaintive strains of the orchestra faded, followed by nine hollow strokes from the pendulum clock that echoed in the hallway.

Manik leaned forward and stubbed out his cigarette. He still had not said a word. I choked back a lump in my throat, thinking:
This is our last time together. The next time I see him, he will be a married man, belonging to another.

“Let me go and find Dadamoshai,” I said, dashing inside the house. In the dark passageway, I hastily wiped off my tears. Dadamoshai was nowhere to be found. Chaya said he had gone to the neighbor’s house to borrow a newspaper.

I returned to the veranda feeling more composed. “Dadamoshai’s gone out, but he’ll be back any minute. Do you want to wait?” I said, hoping to buy a few extra minutes. “I am sure he would like to say goodbye.”

“I am running terribly late, Layla,” Manik said, getting to his feet. “Please thank the Rai Bahadur for all his kindness and tell him I will write from Calcutta, will you?”

“Of course.”

We stood together awkwardly under the porch as we said our goodbyes. I watched a rain beetle dash itself on the naked lightbulb with a tiny ting, then spin in dizzy circles on the floor. I was about to turn and walk back into the house when Manik did something unexpected: he reached out and brushed his fingertips lightly across my cheek. It was a fleeting gesture, a butterfly’s caress.

“Lay
-la
...” He breathed my name with such tenderness that it trembled in the air between us.

Then he simply turned around and walked away, while my heart quietly broke, the pieces scattering like petals on the gentle night breeze.