Read Online Flame Tree Road by Shona Patel - Free Book Online

looked like a giant breadbasket. Biren had never seen his mother so slovenly. In the evenings she was usually dressed in fresh clothes with flowers in her hair. Then he remembered his father was not coming home that day.
    Nitin hung upside down off the edge of the bed, swinging his hands. Shibani kept her foot firmly pressed on his bottom to make sure he did not slide off.
    “I was worried about you,” she said. “Today is not a good day to be out in the open water. Kanai should have more sense than to take you.”
    “We hardly got any time to fish,” grumbled Biren. “There were many other boats still out in the river, but Kanai made me come home.”
    “Did you catch a big chital fish, Dada?” Nitin righted himself. His hair, long and straight, hung down like river reeds over his eyes.
    Biren shook his head.
    Shibani cut the thread with her teeth. “Go and wash your hands and face,” she said. “I want you to take these saris to Apumashi’s house before it starts raining. Come back immediately. Your grandmother is not feeling well. We are going to eat dinner and go to bed early tonight. I have to wash my hair in the morning.”
    * * *
    That night Shibani dreamed of a snake.
    She could not see it, but she felt it twisted around her throat in thick damp coils, choking her breath. When she tried to scream, the coils tightened. She woke up drenched in sweat to find her long oily hair freed from the towel wrapped around her neck. Her hand crept instinctively to Shamol’s side of the bed and a small sadness fluttered in her heart when she touched his empty pillow. She lay in bed and thought of him. She hoped he would get some sleep that night. Shamol’s cousins were a big noisy family with several ill-behaved children who ran rumpus over the house. Would he miss her? She smiled. Of course he would. Her husband was a deeply romantic and sentimental man.
    Shibani’s heart swelled with gratitude when she thought of him. He was such a caring husband and a good father. Shamol discerned unique qualities in each child and wove them into their self-confidence. She remembered a phase Nitin had gone through when he’d wanted to dress up in girl clothes and play with dolls all the time. Shamol had never once tried to dissuade him or make him feel it was wrong. “The child is only acting out his imagination,” he’d explained to Shibani. “He will grow out of it.” And sure enough, Nitin soon had.
    Samir in the meantime had turned around and called Nitin a sissy. He’d done it in a mean-spirited way and Biren had been quick to lash out in defense of his young brother. “ You are the sissy,” Biren had shot back. “Imagine a grown-up boy like you riding in a palanquin!”
    Shamol, who had overheard their quarrel, had quickly diffused it by telling the boys about the brave Scottish Highlanders in their wool-pleated kilts and Roman emperors who wore togas. He’d gone on to talk about Japanese emperors and brave Samurai warriors who were borne aloft on palanquins because of their exalted status. At the end Shamol had had all three boys keen to wear kilts and togas and ride in palanquins.
    Shibani’s fingers caressed her husband’s pillow, remembering. She slipped her small supple hand under it and found a sprig of dried jasmine from the garland of her hair. Her sweet husband must have tucked it there. Breathing in the scent, she drifted off into a dreamless sleep.
    * * *
    An inky darkness had fallen outside by the time Shamol finished his letter. The rain had ceased and the candles, now reduced to shapeless gobs, spluttered in their pools of wax. Outside the door the jackals howled in a lonely chorus. Shamol quickly folded the letter, gathered together his things and picked up the ledger and keys from the table. Then he blew out the candles one by one. As he stepped off the platform, the keys slipped from his hand and fell with a clatter to the floor. He bent down and felt for them in the dark and bumped up against what