Flowers in the Blood (11 page)

“I became worried because I knew your father would not be late for the seder,” he explained. He and his eldest son had ridden out by horseback and had become even more alarmed when they found my palanquin in the road.

“Papa is missing!” I sobbed.

“No, he is with my son David. The thugs left him only a mile from Monghyr.”

“What is a thug?”

“They belong to the
thuggee
sect of religious criminals who are devotees of the goddess Kali. Posing as traders or pilgrims, they have been known to join wayfarers they intended to rob or—” He caught himself and did not explain that thugs almost always killed their victims, usually by strangulation with a knotted silk handkerchief.

“Is Papa all right?” I asked impatiently.

“He was hit with one blow and his satchel was robbed, but once he was free, he was able to walk toward town for help.”

As the gomastah began babbling about the miracle of being spared by a thug, Mr. Joseph hushed him quickly, saying, “These men only wanted coins or valuables, and they got what they required.”

After the gomastah's wife had bound my arm to my chest so it would not shake as we rode, one of her servants, a boy my size, brought over something swaddled in his arms. He unwrapped a cotton binding to reveal pointed ears and soft, trusting eyes.
“Shareef,”
he said, touching the animal's velvet black nose. “If s gentle.” Holding it tightly, he lifted its arms to reveal a transparent membrane and grasping feet. It was a flying squirrel.

I dared to stroke its soft fur and was thrilled that it did not squirm away from me.

“For you,” the boy said as he placed the bundle in my arms.

“Dhanyabad,”
I gasped in thanks. “I shall call him Shareef.” I beamed up at Mr. Joseph, who seemed anxious to be on his way.

The gomastah's wife bent to me and whispered, “You please tell your honored father what we have done for you tonight so he will look upon us with kindness.”

I nodded. She lifted me and my furry treasure into the saddle in front of Mr. Joseph. I waved farewell with my good arm.

When we arrived at the Joseph house, my father came out to greet me. His head was swathed in a bandage, his eyes bloodshot and blackened. “Dinah! Thank God you are safe!”

“The gomastah took care of me and his wife fixed my broken arm,” I blurted in a burst of prompted loyalty. “And look what they gave me!” I held out Shareef for his approval.

“What is this?”

“A flying squirrel.” I showed him the folded skin that stretched out to form its wings.

He shrank back.

“It is ever so quiet. Say I may keep it!”

My father's gaze met that of Mr. Joseph. The latter shrugged as if to say it would be impossible to deny me anything after what had happened. “I suppose so.”

“I'll take good care of him, I promise.”

As Yali took the animal from me, Papa folded me in his arms. “Come, now. You must wash up and get ready.”

“For what, Papa?”

“It is Passover, remember?”

Even though it was late, the Josephs escorted us to the table, and the seder, the ancient celebration of deliverance from bondage, commenced.

In between the familiar courses there was hushed talk of what had happened.

“I bet they were surprised when they realized they had attacked a Sassoon,” Mr. Joseph whispered.

“I think that was the point,” my father replied. “They never meant to harm either of us. They were merely protecting the gomastah.”

“How is that possible? There was not enough time to instigate a plan. You yourself said it happened less than an hour after you had words with the gomastah.”

“The gomastah must have known the moment I selected out those four balls for testing that he was doomed. The boiling, refining, and smoking process took several hours. That gave him plenty of time.”

The men nodded sagely at each other. The incident was part of the cost of their trade.

The lesson in panic, deceit, and retribution had been well-learned. I have never discovered—nor, so many years after, has it been possible to ferret out the answer—whether or not the gomastah's opium was boycotted that year or afterward. Somehow, though, I believe it was not.

 7 

 

B
y the time we entered Calcutta—this time by rail—I had accumulated only sixty-four names for the Ganges.

“I need forty-four more.”

“Which is your favorite?”

“Bhinna-brahmanda-darpini
, taking pride in the broken egg of Brahma.”

“That is wonderful,” Papa said, laughing.

“Now, how shall I get the rest?”

“Keep asking. Keep listening,” was all he would say. He turned away, only slightly, but I remember feeling a chill come between us that I had not sensed since I had questioned him too closely about my mother.

Suddenly I did not want the trip to end. I moved closer to him on the seat and laid my head on his arm. Did I imagine him stiffen? Was this how it was going to be from now on?

Despite my sadness, the last minutes of our closest moments together drew to a close as, three months after the start of the journey, my father and I emerged into the chaos of Calcutta's Howrah Station. I was taller, browner, and in many other ways a changed child from the frightened, angry daughter who had walked up the
Lord Bentinck's
gangplank. The station's waiting rooms and platforms were smothered with humans engaged in every activity from sleeping to cooking to eating to wandering about in random patterns. Abdul organized a file of porters to carry cases of opium samples and our personal effects. The most precious souvenir, tiny Shareef, never left my side. The Josephs' sweeper had made him a home in a basket with a tight lid, which I insisted on carrying myself. Yali went ahead to locate a rickshaw for Papa and me. Once outside, I caught sight of Howrah Bridge, where a mass of men and merchandise in bullock-carts, buffalo-carts, gharries, rickshaws, and palanquins jolted over the humps where the pontoon sections were joined.

Soon my world would be narrowed to the houses in the Jewish districts bounded to the north by the old Jewish quarter around the synagogues—near my grandparents' house on Lower Chitpur Street— and the mansions of the Sassoons and the wealthier merchants who had established themselves along the opulent streets south of Park Street and east of Chowringhee Road. I didn't care. I was home.

The servants went to open Theatre Road while Papa and I were welcomed at Kyd Street.

“How dark you are,” Aunt Bellore exclaimed. “Doesn't your father know about bonnets or topees?” She looked sternly at her brother. “How tall you've grown! You must be a head above Sultana already.” She thumped Shareef's basket. “Let the bearer take that.”

I grasped it tightly.

“What do you have in there?”

I looked at Papa with beseeching eyes.

“Leave her be. It is only a pet she received from a friend.”

“Bizzoonah!”
Aunt Bellore cried, using a superstitious oath. “It may carry the evil eye into this house.”

“I did not know my sister adhered to the ways of the ignorant ones,” he replied scornfully.

“I won't have a filthy animal in the house!”

“Bellore, please, after everything—”

“She cannot always have her way.”

“Just this once,” my father pleaded. “We'll be here only a few hours.”

Bellore thrust her bosom forward and padded away angrily.

I ran off to the nursery, where I showed my brothers and cousins what was in my basket.

“Does he really fly?” asked Cousin Abigail.

“Not like a bird.” I demonstrated by setting him on the top of the pole that held up her mosquito netting. Shareef glided halfway across the room and landed at my feet.

Jonah rushed behind him to see if he would fly up. “Don't scare him,” I admonished. “He can't flap his wings, he just uses them like a sail.” I picked up my pet and stroked him until the thumping in his breast diminished.

“Let me hold him,” Cousin Sultana demanded. She plucked him from me and nestled him in her lap. “What does he eat?”

“Berries and nuts . . . insects too, but only if they are alive.”

“Ugh!” Sultana and Lulu made faces. Abigail brought over a red grape and tried to shove it in his mouth. Shareef sniffed, but did not eat it. She kept pushing it until it burst and the flying squirrel began to lick it off her finger.

“He bit me!” she shrieked, causing her ayah to come running.

Seeing the finger dripping with the sticky grape juice, her ayah sent for Aunt Bellore.

“He will have to go,” my aunt said when she saw Shareef quaking in his basket. “Your father has no sense allowing you to have an animal that carries diseases.”

“He didn't bite Abigail.” I looked pleadingly up at my father, who stood in the doorway surveying the scene.

In response, he came forward to examine Abigail's finger. “She's fine.”

Aunt Bellore shook her head. “Benu, you should not indulge the girl.”

Papa grinned conspiratorially at me and my fear for my new pet vanished.

It seemed his benevolence was extended the next day as well, when he permitted me to spend the afternoon at my grandparents' home. I was dismayed to see Nana had deteriorated. He barely spoke, and he hardly seemed to understand the tales I told him.

“Did you do your lessons?” Nani asked as we sat under the banyan tree in the small garden.

“Yes, Nani. I finished my books the first month.”

“Now, what are we going to do to keep that mind of yours occupied?” she asked, passing me a dish filled with jelebis.

“Papa said I might go to a real school.”

For a moment she looked doubtful. At that time there were no Jewish schools in Calcutta, although learned men in the community gave religious instruction to children, mostly boys. There were many British schools, but only a few Jewish families allowed their sons to attend these. “I'll see what I can find,” she promised.

I can't recall spending more than a few minutes with my father in the subsequent days. He would rush off to his Clive Street offices or to visit friends, with no more, than a brief farewell. Fortunately, the second week after my return, I was permitted to join the classes of Mrs. Hanover, a Christian missionary who had managed to attract more than a hundred students from the Jewish community by promising not to inculcate them with Christian beliefs. I found the lessons ridiculously simple, but enjoyed the companionship of the other children. Still, I was bereft that my father never returned home before I was put to bed. I was expected to take most meals with my brothers in the nursery and follow the same routine as before our journey together, but I resented having to eat with the babies. Even worse was having to sleep alone.

One evening, while my father was dressing for dinner, I sat in his chair, examining his collection of stiff collars. “Where are you going?” I asked petulantly.

“To your Uncle Reuben's house. It's his birthday.”

“Why can't I come?”

“There will be no children.”

“There were no children in Patna or Monghyr or—”

“That's enough, Dinah.” He stared at me with a coldness I had not seen in many months.

I ran to my room, closed my door, made certain the tattie mats covered the windows securely, and let Shareef out of his basket. I lay down on my bed and allowed the flying squirrel to walk over me. Shareef crouched by my pillow and, licked the tears that streamed down my face. What had I done wrong? Why didn't he like me anymore?

Yali tiptoed in to check on me. “What is the matter, Dinah-baba?”

I turned my back to her.

“Tell me,” she pleaded with her soft doe eyes.

“Why doesn't Papa want me around?”

“He does want you here. Why else would we be living in this house?” she replied simplistically.

“He is never home.”

“He goes to the office, he sees his family, his friends.”

“But in Patna—” I sniffed.

“That was different. A man needs to be with other men and women.”

And women! Patna! I remembered the woman in his bed. Was that what this was about?

My tears flowed even harder. “I wish we could go away again. Then he wouldn't need anyone else.”

“Don't talk nonsense,” she said in a distressed voice. “You are his little girl. Nothing can change that.”

“Then why, when he is home, does he prefer to be alone?”

“A man needs to rest after work. You'll see, in a few weeks everyone will have their holiday and everything will be sorted out.” Yali's tone was more wistful than convincing, but I tried to believe her.

Then, as if to prove her wrong, the first week of June my father left us at Kyd Street while he went off to Darjeeling to escape the heat. “Why won't you take us with you?” I had asked, since many families went to that hill station for the hottest months of the year.

“You would not want to miss school, would you?”

“We have a long break.”

“The boys are too young.”

“I could go with you.”

“No, Dinah. This is a trip I must take alone.”

I knew it was senseless to argue. He did not care how I felt. If he did—even the slightest bit—he would have made better arrangements than forcing me to stay with Aunt Bellore. I don't think she wanted me any more than I wanted to be with her, but she did her duty grudgingly. She had told my father that I could not bring Shareef to her house, but somehow he prevailed. The only condition was that I was expected to shut him up in the bathroom at night. On my third night, though, I awoke with a start. My darling Shareef was licking my face. I wrapped him in an end of the mosquito net and let him sleep with me the rest of the night. In the morning Yali showed me how he had broken a pane of glass in the bathroom, escaped into the garden, and back through the open window of my bedroom.

“How clever!” I said.

All the same, the pane had been broken, and Aunt Bellore surmised what had happened. The next afternoon I returned from the schoolroom to find Shareef's basket empty.

“Where is Shareef?” I sobbed.

Bellore shrugged her shoulders. “You can't expect he'd want to be cooped up forever. He must have escaped again.”

I searched the house. There was no evidence of a broken window or open shutter, but he never returned. I knew that my aunt had taken him away, and I vowed I would never forgive her.

The summer heat in Mrs. Hanover's schoolroom was gruesome, even with the four punkah-wallahs, who worked ceaselessly. Still, I liked going, if only as a respite from Aunt Bellore's austere rules for my behavior, which varied from the ones her daughters were given. When I complained, all she would say was, “Somebody has to control you, and since your father shows no interest in the matter, the task has, unhappily for us both, been left to me.”

Fortunately, Mrs. Hanover had taken an interest in me and was having me write short essays and do more challenging sums. If I finished my work early, she would give me a Bible verse to copy out in my neatest hand, and then illustrate.

Mrs. Hanover looked for verses that might have meaning to me. “You know about Passover, don't you, Dinah?”

“Yes, we had a seder in Monghyr.”

“Good, then work on this one.” She handed me the Bible, open to St. John, Chapter Six.

I read aloud, “ 'And the Passover, a feast of the Jews, was nigh.' “ After I had absorbed the idea of the story of feeding loaves and fishes to five thousand strong, I spent the rest of the afternoon drawing an elaborate picture of a crowd scene—with the people in saris and dhotis eating Indian breads and large fishes. Mrs. Hanover was extremely pleased.

Aunt Bellore was not.

Reading the verse, she became so furious she crumpled it. “Why won't your father ever listen? How many times have I told him that Mrs. Hanover is only trying to poison your mind?” Her huge bosom heaved up and down. “You may not go back to that school.”

“But Papa said—”

As an afterthought, she smoothed out my work to save as proof. “Once he sees this, he will understand I acted in his best interests.”

I knew better than to argue with my aunt. I let my anger simmer for two days, waiting for the second Sabbath of the month. I was allowed to visit my grandparents every second and fourth weekend. Nani had made the original arrangements with Mrs. Hanover. She would stand behind me.

“I hate Aunt Bellore!” I announced moments after the Lanyado carriage deposited me at Lower Chitpur Road.

“I see,” Nani said as she led me in to visit with my grandfather. She placed her finger over her mouth to warn me not to show my temper to him. I kissed him and accepted his tremulous pat before she led me away.

“So, you are unhappy at Kyd Street.”

“Yes. Aunt Bellore is cruel to me. She does not permit me to do anything I wish.”

“I am certain she has reasons for her rules.”

“Her reason is to be mean to me. Besides, if it were not for . . .” I caught an idea forming. “Nani, you always said that Mama and Bellore were good friends and that Mama wanted Benu because she wanted to remain close to Bellore and the other Sassoons.”

Her eyes shifted warily. “Yes, that’s right.”

“But Aunt Bellore was engaged to marry when my mother got the idea that she wanted to marry too.”

Nani nodded cautiously. I sensed her considering how to explain the nuances of what adults thought and felt.

“When Mama married Bellore's brother, she made a better match, didn't she?”

“Your Uncle Samuel Lanyado is a fine man.”

“Not as rich as the Sassoons.”

“No.”

“And Aunt Bellore's match was arranged for her, while Mama picked Papa.” My voice rose feverishly. “Aunt Bellore must always have wondered if Mama was happier than she was. She was jealous!”

“That is enough, Dinah.”

I was prancing maniacally around the room, oblivious of Nani's disapproval. “The whole time, Aunt Bellore only pretended to be my mother's friend. All the while, she disliked my mother for taking away her brother, for having more money, for marrying into a more important family. Why, Mama even had me first.”

“I hardly think—”

“I am right, Nani, I know I am. It explains why Aunt Bellore is so awful to me and why she will not permit me to return to Mrs. Hanover's school.”

“What? When did this come about?”

“I haven't been since Tuesday.”