Teatime For The Firefly. Shona Patel

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СКАЧАТЬ just Layla,” said my grandfather dryly, “listening quietly as usual. Of late, Layla has a growing interest in the tea industry. I found one of my books in her room.”

      I squirmed. “It’s a very interesting...history,” I muttered vaguely.

      “I agree,” said Amrat Singh. “It’s fascinating. Many Assam tea planters are ex-army men, you know, from the First World War. So it is only natural that they rejoin British forces in this hour of need. I dread to think what will happen if Assam falls to the Japanese.”

      Was Manik going off to war? I wondered. It sounded risky enough living with leopards and elephants in Aynakhal; then to march off to fight the Japanese with a bunch of Naga headhunters and armed with a blunderbuss that misfired sounded like suicide. I wanted to ask more about the tea planters and their involvement in the Japanese invasion, but Dadamoshai had smelled a rat and I did not want to draw any more attention to myself. So I excused myself quietly and went to my room.

      * * *

      As it transpired, the British allied forces defeated the Japanese only miles before they reached Dimapur. It was a precarious win. The colonial power teetered dangerously, only to upright itself in the end. Crushed and depleted, the Japanese Army crawled back over the border through Burma, thousands of Japanese soldiers dropping like flies along the way.

      The news of the British victory came on a glittering spring morning. It was a beautiful jackal wedding day. A visible sigh of relief went through our town. The farmers came out with their dhola drums and pepa flutes and Assamese youth danced with abandon in the rice fields. Storekeepers threw open their shutters, dusted shelves and played cinema songs on their radios. The fish market reopened and rickshaws honked bulb horns and plied the red dirt roads carrying fat ladies with their shopping baskets. The Gulmohor trees on Rai Bahadur Road showered down blossoms and even the koels sang sweetly among the branches.

      * * *

      Aynakhal T.E.

      30th May, 1944 2:45 a.m.

      Dear Layla,

      I am up at an unearthly hour, as you can see. The dryer in the factory broke down and I have been up all night battling with the mechanics to get it working again. Production got backed up. The leaf plucked today (and we are talking about 200 kilos of our best leaf of the season) has to be processed within six hours to avoid spoilage, so there was major tension until we got it running again. I probably went through half a bottle of whiskey and two packs of cigarettes.

      We are in the middle of the second flush plucking season, the premium crop yield of the year, and we cannot miss a single cycle. The bushes plucked today will be ready to be plucked again five days from now. The sections are rotated. Tea grows at a furious rate this time of the year and Larry and I are kept on our toes to make sure the plucking schedules tie in with the factory production. The factory runs round the clock this time of the year.

      Mr. McIntyre, our boss, is a legendary tea planter. Army man, brutal disciplinarian. Tea is very much a hands-on job and a good General Manager can make all the difference. Much as I grumble I am lucky to be learning from the best. There is so much to learn about tea growing and tea processing—I am not sure if I will pick it all up in one lifetime.

      It’s difficult to sleep now, knowing I have to be up in a few hours, so here I am sitting on my veranda writing to you. I just got the night chowkidar to make me a cup of tea. It is almost dawn.

      I just reread your letter. I guess I forgot to explain who Jamina is. She is Alasdair’s “Old Party”—OP as they are called in tea circles. In other words, his concubine or “kept woman.” Jamina used to be a common prostitute, till Alasdair took her under his wing. They seem to be quite compatible. She is a simple Bangladeshi woman, very shy. Unfortunately the tea crowd ostracizes her.

      Alasdair is another story. He is quite an enigma. You will hardly believe this, but he is of royal blood. Alasdair is the direct descendant of Scottish nobility and the Earl of Carruthers. He is the only living heir to the Carruthers land and title. And here he is a tea planter hiding away in the jungles of Assam with Jamina. I suspect he is running away. His obligations make him claustrophobic. I can empathize with that.

      I should try and get an hour of sleep at least. Tomorrow is another hellish day. I can’t wait for club night, Monday. I am getting to be an excellent bridge player.

      Yours,

      Manik

      Manik’s letters came fast and furious. He wrote at least once a week, sometimes twice. His letters always arrived in a square, blue envelope, addressed to me in his elegant hand. The y of my name dipped flamboyantly as if doing a curtsy.

      I devoured his letters from end to end, and then reread them slowly in private. I loved the flowing lines of his blue fountain pen. I dwelled on the curve of each stroke, the way he stretched his T’s across the word, the impatient dots of his i’s that flew in tiny bird shapes ahead of the letter. He had the most exquisite penmanship I had ever seen. Whenever his letter arrived, my stomach fluttered with butterflies and my mind floated like a brilliant scarf over my everyday reality.

      Often his letters would smell faintly of tobacco. Once he enclosed a serrated tea leaf and another time the waxy petals of a camellia flower, satiny brown and smooth as a baby’s skin.

      I kept his letters hidden under my mattress, where they formed guilty bumps that disturbed my sleep. Chaya was my coconspirator. She intercepted Manik’s letters before the mail got to Dadamoshai’s desk and put them under my pillow. She never asked any questions.

      I was not sure what Dadamoshai would have to say about our alliance. Manik was still formally engaged to another woman. There were dos and don’ts in our society. I was secretly writing to another woman’s fiancé, and no matter how platonic our letters, there was something improper about the exchange. I was torn by the complicity of the act. Sometimes my guilt bled through the thin fabric of my deceit—a dark telltale stain, spreading for the whole world to see. But there was no turning back. I simply did not have the power or the will.

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