Read Online Teatime for the Firefly by Shona Patel - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Shona Patel
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Mysteriously obtuse, no names mentioned anywhere. Inside was a folded note.
Dear Layla,
I came across this book of Tagore’s poems and thought of you. Please accept this small gift as a remembrance of our talks together.
Manik
I could envision him scrawling across the page, the nib of his fountain pen catching slightly on the rough fibers of the handmade paper. Was it a coincidence that the bookmark had been on that particular page? Of course not! I chided myself. He was just a friend, nothing more. Yet what if...? Tiny tendrils of hope pushed through my brain.
That night I slept with the book and Manik’s handkerchief under my pillow. I had the strangest dream. Manik Deb was standing in a lily pond among the reeds and shaking out the pages of the silk-covered book. Hundreds of fireflies fell out into the water. They spun around in dizzy circles, sizzling like cumin seeds in hot oil before their lights extinguished one by one. At the far end of the pond, on the opposite bank I could see a small girl stretching out her thin arms toward him. “Look at me, Dada, I can fly!” she cried in a chirping voice. But Manik did not see or hear her. He just continued opening the pages of the book and releasing the fireflies.
It was then that I woke up.
* * *
It is hard to describe the emotional turmoil I went through in the weeks that followed. I felt hopelessly conflicted. There was so much I wanted to believe and so much I dared not. A streak of guilt coursed through my mind every time I thought about Manik Deb. Our society was bound by unwritten rules and I had overstepped an invisible line. Accepting a gift of love poems from another woman’s fiancé was as illicit as being kissed. Yet it was deliciously arousing and I felt hopelessly drawn.
I could have brushed off Manik’s gesture, put the book on my shelf and gone on with my life. Yet I clung to it like my last, slim, red-and-gold hope on earth. I caressed the silk cover, kissed the long pen strokes of his inscription. I savored every poem and swelled with the cadence of the lines and felt irresistibly connected to the heart where it was coming from. I knew it was the poet and not Manik who wrote the words but I wanted desperately to believe otherwise. Those were strangely melded days where I floated in limbo, an outsider to the world around me, a firefly baffled by daylight.
CHAPTER 8
Finally the rains abated. The sky gathered her dark, voluminous skirts and swept over the Himalayas into Tibet, leaving behind a drizzle like a sprinkling of fairy dust. Life returned to normal.
The ground was rich and moist. The earth turned a shrill and noisy green, vibrant as a parrot. The evenings felt lighter now, and on some days there was a lilt of autumn in the air. A river breeze flitted through the house, suffusing rooms with the scent of jasmine. Dadamoshai resumed his writing on the veranda.
It was late afternoon and I was reading in my room when I heard an unfamiliar voice calling out a greeting on the veranda. I parted the curtains a crack. My heart skipped a beat when I saw it was Mr. Sen, Kona’s father. He was not a regular visitor to our house.
Mr. Sen was a portly, round-shouldered man, dressed traditionally in a white dhoti and a handwoven brown waistcoat over his long starched cotton shirt. His face was black and shiny as a plum. He had oily hair, bright, beady eyes and a neatly trimmed mustache over a small mouth that was pulled tight as a purse string. His small plump hands were weighted down with an array of auspicious gemstone rings—coral, tigereye, topaz—each promising some aspect of health or wealth to its wearer.
Dadamoshai was in the middle of his writing, and I could see he was distracted with a thought half strung across his brain. As usual, he looked like a preoccupied sage, surrounded by his books and papers, his snow-white hair unkempt, his glasses askew on his nose. He was barefoot, his worn wooden clogs undoubtedly lost somewhere under
Dear Layla,
I came across this book of Tagore’s poems and thought of you. Please accept this small gift as a remembrance of our talks together.
Manik
I could envision him scrawling across the page, the nib of his fountain pen catching slightly on the rough fibers of the handmade paper. Was it a coincidence that the bookmark had been on that particular page? Of course not! I chided myself. He was just a friend, nothing more. Yet what if...? Tiny tendrils of hope pushed through my brain.
That night I slept with the book and Manik’s handkerchief under my pillow. I had the strangest dream. Manik Deb was standing in a lily pond among the reeds and shaking out the pages of the silk-covered book. Hundreds of fireflies fell out into the water. They spun around in dizzy circles, sizzling like cumin seeds in hot oil before their lights extinguished one by one. At the far end of the pond, on the opposite bank I could see a small girl stretching out her thin arms toward him. “Look at me, Dada, I can fly!” she cried in a chirping voice. But Manik did not see or hear her. He just continued opening the pages of the book and releasing the fireflies.
It was then that I woke up.
* * *
It is hard to describe the emotional turmoil I went through in the weeks that followed. I felt hopelessly conflicted. There was so much I wanted to believe and so much I dared not. A streak of guilt coursed through my mind every time I thought about Manik Deb. Our society was bound by unwritten rules and I had overstepped an invisible line. Accepting a gift of love poems from another woman’s fiancé was as illicit as being kissed. Yet it was deliciously arousing and I felt hopelessly drawn.
I could have brushed off Manik’s gesture, put the book on my shelf and gone on with my life. Yet I clung to it like my last, slim, red-and-gold hope on earth. I caressed the silk cover, kissed the long pen strokes of his inscription. I savored every poem and swelled with the cadence of the lines and felt irresistibly connected to the heart where it was coming from. I knew it was the poet and not Manik who wrote the words but I wanted desperately to believe otherwise. Those were strangely melded days where I floated in limbo, an outsider to the world around me, a firefly baffled by daylight.
CHAPTER 8
Finally the rains abated. The sky gathered her dark, voluminous skirts and swept over the Himalayas into Tibet, leaving behind a drizzle like a sprinkling of fairy dust. Life returned to normal.
The ground was rich and moist. The earth turned a shrill and noisy green, vibrant as a parrot. The evenings felt lighter now, and on some days there was a lilt of autumn in the air. A river breeze flitted through the house, suffusing rooms with the scent of jasmine. Dadamoshai resumed his writing on the veranda.
It was late afternoon and I was reading in my room when I heard an unfamiliar voice calling out a greeting on the veranda. I parted the curtains a crack. My heart skipped a beat when I saw it was Mr. Sen, Kona’s father. He was not a regular visitor to our house.
Mr. Sen was a portly, round-shouldered man, dressed traditionally in a white dhoti and a handwoven brown waistcoat over his long starched cotton shirt. His face was black and shiny as a plum. He had oily hair, bright, beady eyes and a neatly trimmed mustache over a small mouth that was pulled tight as a purse string. His small plump hands were weighted down with an array of auspicious gemstone rings—coral, tigereye, topaz—each promising some aspect of health or wealth to its wearer.
Dadamoshai was in the middle of his writing, and I could see he was distracted with a thought half strung across his brain. As usual, he looked like a preoccupied sage, surrounded by his books and papers, his snow-white hair unkempt, his glasses askew on his nose. He was barefoot, his worn wooden clogs undoubtedly lost somewhere under
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