Flame Tree Road (42 page)

When she was released from hospital, Chaya had nowhere to go. Branded as a Muslim’s whore, she was an outcast, so Biren brought her home. Buri Kaki took over Chaya’s care with bristling energy. She nursed and bathed her, wrapped her in old worn quilts and fed her little bits of rice, and cooed words of encouragement when Chaya found it difficult to swallow. When Chaya wept at night, Biren heard soft shushing sounds and the crooning of a child’s lullaby in Buri Kaki’s cracked old voice.

Silchar

2nd February 1905

I remember, on my first steamer journey to Calcutta with Willis Duff, I spent long hours with a young deckhand learning to tie different marine knots. Looking back, I suspect Willis probably hoped this challenging activity would take my mind off missing home, and he was right. Sometimes Willis and I would have a competition to see who could tie the knots the fastest. I still remember the names of the knots and how to tie them: Sailor’s Hitch, Stevedore Knot, Rosendahl Bend. This knowledge has served me well.

When we were newly married, I tried to impress Maya with my knot tying by demonstrating on her hair. The knots in her hair kept slipping out, but I still made a royal mess and she spent a long time sitting at her dressing table combing the tangles out. I relive these tender moments now that she is gone.

The knots in my life are more complicated now and not so easy to untangle. You could say I am caught in a Rosendahl Bend—an interlocking knot that pulls both ways. Sometimes I feel stretched to the breaking point.

The two priorities in my life are Moni and the criminal court case I am now involved in. The case has turned out to be more complicated than I ever imagined. It takes up months of my time because I have to be in Calcutta for all the hearings and to file the paperwork. When I return to Assam I try to spend as much time as I can with Moni.

I still have not been able to bring her back to Silchar with me. I have tried everything. I took back her old toys, I showed her Maya’s photograph, Maya’s shawl, comb and other items, hoping to trigger memories and reestablish the connection between us, but Moni is a blank wall. She has withdrawn into a tight hard shell. She does not connect to me as her father. For that matter, she does not connect to anybody, not even Sabitri anymore.

On one of my recent trips to Calcutta, I discussed Moni’s condition with Ram. Ram is now a leading researcher in the newly emerging field of mental illness. He said Moni’s case sounded as if she was suffering from a serious mental disorder, with a possible genetic link. This led me to ask around Maya’s family and I was shocked to learn about the history of mental illness on her mother’s side. Maya’s aunt—her mother’s own sister—suffered from depression and ultimately committed suicide. One of her uncles—her mother’s first cousin—was pathologically insane and kept locked up for most of his life. There are other cases of minor aberrations among family members. Moni’s symptoms are not identical, but I am convinced her disorder is genetic.

What frustrates me is nobody in Jatin Nandi’s family seems to think so. Moni’s solitary nature and God obsession leads them to believe she is on the verge of sainthood. They even encourage her delusional behavior. It is abhorrent and completely unacceptable. It is obvious to me the child is seriously disturbed but I am at a loss to pinpoint what exactly is wrong with her or know what to do about it.

She is growing up in front of my eyes, and each time I see her she has drifted a little farther away. I can’t seem to reach her anymore or connect with her in any way. Except for the first few fleeting years of her life, I don’t believe she was ever mine.

Calcutta

2nd June 1912

Precious Mitra,

Your accomplishments I wear like a rose in my heart. Your
didi
I am sure is looking down today to see her little sister, the brightest star in the family, as you graduate with honors with your teaching certificate. The whole world is at your feet, and a great destiny awaits you. My blessings and love are always with you.

I have been gone for long stretches to Calcutta. The complicated criminal case I am involved in has been dragging on and keeps getting moved from one court to the other, but I will not rest until all the culprits have been punished for their heinous crime. The supreme court’s final hearing date has been set for four months from now. We have gathered affidavits from several witnesses and collected a strong body of evidence, which will work in our favor. I have full faith in our judicial process and I expect a fair trial. I will not rest until all eleven accused have been sent to jail.

Chaya, the victim, who you met on your last visit, is now fully recovered, physically at least. As for the wounds inside, only time will tell. She has taken over the running of my household, now that Buri Kaki has been safely retired to her village where she can boss over her great-and great-great-grandchildren. She is the grand matriarch of three generations, and commands over her clan with vim and vigor. Hats off to the old lady! I owe Buri Kaki my gratitude in more ways than one. She hand raised my Maya and she has seen me through my most difficult days.

I am grateful to you for keeping me in touch with Moni. My biggest regret is I have seen so little of her in the past few years, as I was in Calcutta most of the time. I have spared no effort in reaching out to her in every way possible, and to my sorrow, my only child will have nothing to do with me. Why the change came about, I may never know. I blamed myself initially, then I wondered if it was the trauma of her mother’s death or maybe the environment she was put in, but I suspect more than a minor aberration and that she may be seriously and pathologically impaired.

A religious inclination is one thing, but the compulsive behavior she exhibits is deeply disturbing, as are her peculiar dietary habits. The last time I went to see her, she remained in the
puja
room for five hours and then emerged dazed and incommunicado. We did not exchange a single word, which in effect made my trip to see her rather pointless. But I will not give up. I will try till my dying day to win her trust and love. I once saw in her child eyes her love for me, her Baba. How can I ever forget the way she used to hold out her hands to me? Those are the memories that keep me going. Perhaps one day she will know of the love I have always held in my heart for her. She is not only my child, but she is the one link I have to my Maya and I cannot let that go.

Maya’s memory is ever stirring in my soul. I have never told this to anyone, Mitra, but I will share this with you. The first time I saw your sister was when she passed by me on a boat, floating, delicate as the petal of a flame tree flower. I will always remember the pensive look on her face. I wondered with some jealousy back then if she was thinking about another man. I had not yet won her heart—for that matter we had not even met—but from the moment I set eyes on her I longed for her. But she was never mine to keep, and my Moni may not be, either. I can only love them with all my heart and let them go. All true love belongs to a greater universe. I am simply grateful they passed through my world and enhanced it for me.

To you, my little sister-in-law, who threw a plum at my horse and walked between my Maya and me for a little while, I send my deepest affection and love.

Yours,

Dada (Biren Roy)

Silchar

12th May 1915

It’s a miracle!

The top half of the Russian
Matryoshka
doll that was lost for thirteen years has been found! Chaya discovered the doll inside Maya’s sari trunk when she cleaned out our old bedroom yesterday. The bedroom has remained unoccupied since the day my Maya died. I cannot bear to go in there. Her memory is still too strong.

Chaya went into the room on her own. The memory of her
didi
is something she likes to dwell on and pay homage to. She treats the old bedroom like a shrine. Chaya opened the windows, dusted and aired it out. She took all Maya’s saris from her cupboard and the items from the dressing table and packed them inside the old trunk.

The trunk came with Maya the day she entered this house as my new bride. It contained her trousseau of beautiful heirloom silks, most of which she never wore, preferring instead the ordinary hand-loom cottons from the weavers’ village. The fresh cotton saris made her look like a spring leaf, a flower petal or a newly emerged pearl according to the color she selected. She was simple as she was beautiful, my Maya.

How that Russian doll got inside her old sari trunk I will never know. I suspect it was our little Moni’s doing. She was an inquisitive little squirrel, our daughter. She took things from here and there and hid them in unexpected places. I once found a foot of my English dress socks pushed into a marigold pot out in the garden.

How on earth had that small child opened the heavy trunk and put the doll inside? I shudder to think what would have happened if the lid had fallen on her tiny fingers. She was only three after all. A bold and curious child she was, unafraid of the world back then.

I remember the day I returned home from Russia and gave her the doll. Each time I opened up one doll to reveal another inside, Moni gave a squeal and clapped her hands. To add to the drama, I made a small “whooshing” sound. When we got to the very last doll—the tiny baby one—she looked at me with mournful eyes, and held up her empty hands and said,
“Nai, nai!”
No more. I put the dolls back, nesting them one inside the other, but as soon as I was done, she took all the dolls apart and threw a minor tantrum till I repeated the whole act complete with the sound effects. When she insisted on doing the same thing, over and over, it got very tiresome, so I hid the doll away. The next time I opened the doll I found the mother doll was missing her head.

I used the bottom half of the mother doll to store the paper pins on my desk. After a while I forgot all about it. All the dolls eventually got dismantled or lost except the bottom half of the mother doll that remained on my desk. Here we are, thirteen years later, and Chaya finds the matching half. And voilà! The two pieces fit perfectly and now we now have a complete mother doll.

But Maya and Moni are both gone.

Looking at the doll made me feel very emotional. I thought of all the mismatched and lost pieces of my life that can never come together again. The doll triggered memories of happier times. Suddenly I felt the need to write down my feelings for Moni. I sat and wrote her a letter. I told her of the times we would go down to the river, where she would pick strings of river kelp and chase behind herons with her small pattering feet. I told her of the
shiuli
flowers we gathered around Durga Puja time to place around her mother’s hair. Of the duck feathers she brought home that Buri Kaki stuck into a ball of wheat dough and shaped into a bird for her. They were mostly small everyday memories. Because I had held her for such a short time, those memories are very intense and sweet. I relived them one by one and I thanked her for them. I folded the letter into an origami paper crane like I used to make for her when she was small and put the letter inside the mother doll. I will give this to her. It does not matter if she reads my letter or not. The important thing is I have bared my soul and said what I needed to say to my child.

Silchar

16th May 1915

I went to see Moni yesterday. She did not smile or even appear to listen when I told her the story of the doll. She is fifteen years old now, almost a woman, but she is thin, underdeveloped and pale. Her eyes are a hard green like bottle glass and devoid of any expression. I have concluded there is nothing basically wrong with her intelligence; in some ways I would say she is above average. She still spends most of her time in religious rituals but now her interests include political thought, and she has been reading a lot of communist literature lately. I was relieved to see her interests have expanded beyond religion. It does not really matter if I agree with her political views or not, I simply see this as another avenue to communicate with her.

I was a little concerned when I learned she has joined a communist group and attends their meetings. My biggest worry is that she is young and mentally unsound and somebody could take advantage of her.

When I asked her about the group she lashed out and accused me of being a spy for the British government—I don’t know where she got that idea. She claimed her group members were true patriots fighting for the freedom of our country, unlike her own father, who pandered to our foreign leaders. Then she got up and stormed out of the room, leaving me wounded and close to tears. As I got up to leave, I noticed she had taken the Russian doll that was lying on the table beside her.

Dhaka

12th November 1915

Dear Dada,

I don’t know how to reach you. Chaya was uncertain about the date of your return from Calcutta. I write to you with disturbing news. Moni has run away.