Flame Tree Road (27 page)

“Good morning, good morning,” huffed Griffiths. “What was that dreadful racket downstairs?”

“That is what we are here to talk about,” said Thomson grimly. He pinned Biren with a stern eye. “You need to be briefed on protocol, Roy. This office does not deal with the cabbage problems of the masses. I do not care who these people are, but they cannot rush into this office and turn it into a fish market. Is that clear?”

He turned to Griffiths. “Have you briefed Roy on the water gypsy problem? You have sat on this case for months and made zero progress.”

“I...” began Griffiths, only to be silenced by another brassy
trring
of Thompson’s desk bell.

He waved them both away. “Kindly take Roy to your office and give him the files. I don’t wish to discuss this any further.”

Perplexed, Biren followed Griffiths out of the office. What shocked him was the military-like hierarchy in the office. Rank was everything. The senior officers were all ex-army men, which explained their bossy behavior. Still, this would take some getting used to.

“Sorry, old chap,” muttered Griffiths. “I should have warned you. Thompson is always in a rotten mood when he gets back from Calcutta. His has a terrible time dealing with the politics in head office. He is a good sort, really. Just stay out of his way when he’s in a bad mood.”

“What is this water gypsy problem he was talking about?” Biren asked.

“Ah.” Griffiths grinned. “That’s the albatross hanging around my neck. Now we’re handing it to you because we don’t know how to deal with it.”

“What makes you think I am more capable than you are?”

“Thompson seems to think so. That is why he hired you in the first place. Let’s just say, you are Indian and you have a much better chance of gauging situations and eliciting information than we have. We both noticed how comfortable you were talking to the boatmen, and then you were comfortable talking to us, as well. That is rare. The locals clam up around us. Just think about it—if they trust you with their cabbage problems, chances are they will tell you other things.” He pointed to a door with
A. W. Wells
engraved on a brass plaque. “Here is my office. It still has the name of my predecessor. Fellow died from malaria two years ago.”

Griffiths’s office had lumpy files sitting on both chairs across from his desk. “Throw those on the floor, will you? Have a seat.”

Biren lifted the files. “Hold on,” Griffiths said, “pass me that one—the one with the blue paper sticking out. That’s right, that’s the one I need. All right, let’s see. Water gypsy problem.”

Biren glanced at the file as he handed it to Griffiths.
Bede/Water Gypsy
was written on the spine.

“The
bedes
are boat people. Nomads,” said Biren. “I guess you can call them water gypsies.”

“Oh, so you know about them?”

“Yes, they are common around these parts. They dabble in herbal medicine and magic healing. I have never known the
bedes
to cause any problem. They usually keep to themselves.”

“Wait a moment, I’m trying to find the details.” Griffiths tipped his chair back and seesawed against the wall. Biren noticed the lime had chipped away where the chair bumped against it. Griffiths flipped quickly through the pages of the file. He grimaced, stretching out his chin, and stuck a pencil down the inside of his shirt collar to scratch his neck. “Damn prickly heat is killing me,” he grumbled. “I could hardly sleep last night.”

“Try a neem paste,” suggested Biren. “It’s a home remedy.”

Griffiths peered over the top of the file. “What is neem paste? I’ve never heard of it.”

“Neem is the
margosa
plant. It’s very common.” Biren pointed at the feathery branches outside the window behind him. “That’s a neem tree. It grows everywhere. My mother used to make a paste with water and apply it to the prickly heat. You will get instant relief.”

“Really? I must remember to ask the office peon to pick me some leaves.” He turned his attention back to the file and tapped a kettledrum beat on the page with his pencil. “All right, here we are. Like you say, we have never had a problem with the water gypsies, but lately there have been several altercations between them and the weavers’ village. We need to find out exactly what is going on. Which is where you come in.”

“Have you asked around the weavers’ village?”

Griffiths snorted. “You think they are going to tell us? They don’t want government interference. When the police show up, both sides clam up. As soon as the police leave we have another flare-up.”

Griffiths snapped the file shut, swung his chair upright and handed the file to Biren. “All yours with my blessings. The police reports are all inside. You can talk to the police inspector, but I suspect he won’t be able to tell you anything more than what’s already in here.”

Biren took the file reluctantly. “So how do you suggest I go about this?” he asked, feeling suddenly inadequate.

Griffiths shrugged. “I haven’t the slightest clue. Be creative. This is your chance to play detective. Get on the inside and see what is going on. You have advantages we do not have. If you solve this problem, you will be Thomson’s blue-eyed boy and he will do anything for you.”

Biren flipped listlessly through the file. It was full of carbon-stained copies of reports with scribbled notations. He thought to himself if he had only known the petty nature of this job he might have declined Thompson’s offer. But maybe it was too early to tell.

Griffiths cracked his knuckles. “Cheer up, old chap. There are nice perks in this job. Like trips to Calcutta and stays at the Imperial Hotel. The ladies of Calcutta are quite lovely. You’ll have a very good time, I assure you.”

“Well, thank you,” said Biren. “I have to earn my feather first.” He walked to the doorway, turned and waved the file. “I’ll take a look at this.”

“Oh, Roy!” Griffiths called. “Tell my peon the name of those leaves for prickly heat, will you? I want to take some home and get my bearer to make the paste. I think I will pack up early today. I am totally wasted. It was club night yesterday. I must have gone to bed at 3:00 a.m.”

CHAPTER

41

Biren found himself in a peculiar predicament. His high-profile job as a government officer set him apart from the Indian community. None of the other Indians had moved above their
babu
clerical status. He was the only one who lived in the European section of town and rode a horse, all of which garnered a great deal of unwanted attention. The Sylhetis at first gloated to see one of their own moved up the ranks. Everybody claimed to be a “cousin” or “uncle.” But when they found he would not do them any favors, the tables quickly turned against him and Biren was viewed as a snob.

“Who does he thinks he is?” they grumbled. “With his fancy mustache, riding a horse and wearing big-big boots. He acts like he is a
belayti
. Why, he is just a Bengali village boy and he should have more respect for his elders. When I go back to Sylhet I am going to complain about him to his uncle.”

Biren finally understood why the challenges of the job had overwhelmed Griffiths. It was enough to overwhelm anybody, not just a foreigner. There were several ethnic groups living in close proximity to one another, with their own religious and cultural differences, caste issues and language barriers. One had to be an insider to grasp what was really going on. To win the trust of the different communities he would have to be careful not to take sides—especially that of his own people.

He gave his peon boy strict instructions. “I don’t want to see anybody in the office. No uncle, no cousin, not even my own father or mother, understand? If somebody wants to see me, ask him to leave a note. Tell them I am busy.”

“These people are too
faltu
to be your relatives, sir,” scoffed the peon boy, who had started cultivating some high and mighty airs of his own. “Only this morning a poor fisherman with one eye came here asking to see you. He said he was your brother. I told the scoundrel to get lost. Otherwise, I would beat him with a stick.”

Biren, who was absently flipping through a file, sat up.
“One-eyed fisherman? Where did he go?”

“He went back to the river,” said the peon boy, startled at Biren’s reaction.

Biren sighed. He had been to the river several times looking for Kanai. The other boatmen knew of Kanai but said he never stayed in one place for long. He moved from village to village, ferrying people and cargo. Sometimes he was spotted far north, fifty miles from town.

“If the one-eyed fisherman comes again you must tell me,” said Biren, adding, “Of course, that’s highly unlikely now that you chased him off with your stick, but keep an eye out for him. I need to talk to him urgently.”

The peon, imagining his boss to be of charitable nature, piped up, “There is also a man with only one leg who stands outside the...”

Biren cut him short. “No, no, nobody else. Only this one-eyed fisherman,” he said, waving him away.

* * *

It was just as well Kanai had not taken off on one of his sojourns, because Biren found him a few hours later sitting alone in the riverside tea shop. Kanai was now a wisp of man, hunched and beaten with none of the youthful cockiness Biren remembered so well.

Biren cantered up on his horse and called out his name. Kanai looked up with fear and dread. There was no recognition in his eyes and Biren realized, only too late, riding a horse and dressed in Western clothes, he must have looked like an officer of the law. Even after he identified himself, Kanai cowered and acted as if Biren was about to strike him for something he had not done.

“Will you take me for a ride in your boat, Kanai?” Biren pleaded. “It will be like old times. If you wait for me here, I will return this horse and come back.”

Half an hour later, dressed in an inconspicuous
lungi
and shirt, Biren walked down to the river to meet Kanai’s boat. It felt comforting to blend in. As a local, you could observe life much more closely.

They drifted out on the river. Under the open sky and with the familiar oar in his hands, Kanai finally relaxed.

They rowed past a cluster of waterfront villages pungent with the smell of drying fish. Naked children with ebony skin splashed in the water, and women sat on their haunches scrubbing clothes on slabs of river rock. Then the villages became fewer and farther between, and they passed a giant bog with dead tree branches sticking out like petrified hands. In the far distance gray spirals of smoke twisted above the treetops from the cremation grounds.

Bit by bit Kanai told Biren his tragic story. He had lost all the members of his family in the floods and the cholera epidemic: his parents, his young wife and two children. His village was full of ghosts, he said, and he could no longer bear to live there. He had abandoned the house where his family had lived for three generations, packed his meager belongings in his small boat and taken to the open water. He had been at the mercy of the river tides ever since.

As Kanai related his story, his single eye welled with tears that coursed down one side of his face. Biren could feel his sorrow, the endless drifting with no shore to call his own. He understood for the first time the true heartbreak behind the Bhatiyali boatman’s songs. Wandering the open waters alone, the boatman was constantly reminded about the fragility of life. His song was a call for God’s mercy.

“Why did death spare me?” Kanai wept. “What good am I to anyone?”

“You are plenty good to me,” Biren said gently. “Kanai, you are the only person who knows the real me. All people see is my fancy clothes, my horse and my
belayti
job. But you knew me when I was a village lad. You took me fishing to the backwaters. I sat with you under the old flame tree and listened to your stories. You told me about river ghosts and devil’s mud that swallowed a water buffalo whole, do you remember?”

Kanai gave a wry smile. “Yes,
mia
, I remember.”

“I, too, am alone, Kanai,” Biren said softly. “I don’t belong anywhere. You are the only person from my past. You connect me to myself and I need you.”

“If you say so,
mia
.”

They came to a fork in the river. Kanai pointed to the left. “That is the Damaru River. It separates the living from the dead. We boatmen avoid that stretch. All the outcasts—Doms,
tantriks
, water gypsies, lepers—live on that side.”

They passed the gypsy settlement of moored boats and threadbare tents pegged in the river mud. Two bare-bodied men sat on logs prying open oysters, surrounded by clamorous crows. One of the men looked like a dreamlike creature from a water world—a merman, if there ever was one. His long hair hung down his bronze back like river kelp. A muscle in his upper arm flexed as he twisted open each oyster before he tossed it into a pile. He looked up as their boat passed, his eyes the color of wild honey.

“These people are the
bedes
. The river is in their blood,” Kanai said. “They dive for seed pearls and sell them in town. Some of them get quite rich but they are still considered outcasts.”