style="font-size:15px;"> Shamol pushed Shibani’s hair aside to kiss the nape of her neck. “Do you remember our first time?” he said softly. His tongue tasted the salt of her skin. “Here, under this tree?”
Shibani leaned her cheek against his hand. Of course she remembered, and wasn’t Biren the result? Anything could happen on a night when the stars begged to be plucked from the sky.
The same thought must have crossed Shamol’s mind. “Little wonder our Biren has a keen interest in astronomy,” he said. “He was excited to learn that Sirius is used by mariners to navigate the Pacific. When I told him Sirius has a small companion star known as the ‘pup,’ Biren said, ‘That’s like me and Nitin. I am Sirius and Nitin is the pup. I will show him the way.’ Then he asked me completely out of the blue, ‘Is Sirius really very serious, Baba? Does he not talk very much?’”
Shibani erupted in a bubble of laughter. “He says the funniest things, really!”
“When I explained Sirius was named after the Egyptian god and has nothing to do with the English word, he listened carefully. He has an excellent memory, our son—he remembers everything.” He sighed and was silent. Somewhere on the riverbank a night bird called. “You know, Shibani, if I had my way, I would send Biren to an English school. I have always believed a correct English education is the passport to the bigger world. The bigger world is where our sons belong.”
“The English school must be very expensive, don’t you think?” Shibani asked.
“Not necessarily. Some English missionary schools are free. It is not easy to get admission, that’s all. I heard our jute mill is affiliated with a famous institution in Calcutta.”
“Maybe you should talk to Owen McIntosh about it. Your boss likes you. There’s no harm in asking him, is there?”
“That’s true,” Shamol agreed. “Tell me, beloved, would you feel very sad if the boys were sent away to a boarding school?”
Shibani shook her head. “I only want the best for them.”
“I do, too.” Shamol sighed. “But even if the boys got admission, my biggest hurdle will be to convince my family. They all firmly believe the only agenda of missionary schools is to convert Indian students to Christianity by offering them free education.”
They were silent, each with their own thoughts, for a while.
On the far horizon, tiny pinpricks of light appeared on the river. The melancholy strains of the Bhatiyali fisherman’s song slipped in and out of the breeze.
“Look!” Shibani cried, sitting up. “It’s the otter fishermen!”
They watched as the night fishermen from the mangrove village floated by in their bamboo houseboats. The glow of their lamps threw a broken sparkle on the water, and the dark, shiny heads of their trained otters bobbed up and down, their wet, gleaming forms tumbling in the boat’s wake. The otters herded the fish into the waiting nets and when the net was lifted into the boat it was full of flashing silver.
“How clever the fishermen are, don’t you think?” mused Shibani. “They just float along singing songs and the otters do all the hard work for them.”
“It is not as simple as it looks, beloved,” said Shamol. “It has taken generations to perfect this technique. Otter fishing is an ancient tradition passed down from father to son. The otters are bred in captivity. They would never survive in the wild. It is a symbiotic relationship between man and beast. But all these old traditions are dying out, aren’t they? More and more fishermen leave the village to find work in the city. Soon the memory of the otter fisherman will remain only in song. Then that, too, will be forgotten.” He got to his feet and held out his hand to Shibani to help her up. “Come, my queen, we must go back.”
They walked back to the basha, hand in hand, fingers entwined like teenagers.
“There is so much I wish for our two boys,” said Shamol. “I want them to be curious and have faith in their own ideas. I want them to know the wonder of books but also learn from the river and the sky.”
Shibani hugged his arm tightly. “The most important thing is they have you for their father,” she said in her honeyed voice. “You have given them everything. Now it’s up to them.”
Biren looked forward to Tuesday all week. It was market day—the only day he had time alone with Father. Since Nitin had come along, Biren was forced to share Shamol with his brother. Nitin demanded constant attention. If Father stood up, Nitin wanted to be carried. If Father sat down, Nitin climbed onto his lap. Nitin interrupted important conversations by touching Shamol’s cheek and, once having got his father’s attention, he smiled his foolish smile and went back to sucking his thumb. Father judiciously divided his time equally among family members, the same way he divided a papaya. Mother had an unfair advantage because she and Father shared the same bed and they could talk all night long. The last sound Biren heard as he drifted off to sleep was their whispered conversation.
Thank God for Tuesday. It made up for the shortfalls of the week. The fish market was too far for Nitin to walk, which was just as well, although leaving the house in his presence normally provoked a monstrous howl. The only option was to slip out undetected in the wee hours, a conspiracy that made Biren feel grown up and in league with the adults.
The bamboo grove was still dark and hushed as father and son made their way to the fish market. Shamol carried his umbrella looped over his arm and Biren skipped along swinging two empty jute bags, one in each hand.
“You don’t need an umbrella today, Baba,” Biren chirped. “Look—” he swung his bag in a big joyful arc at the sky “—there is not a single cloud in the sky.”
“I know, mia,” Shamol replied. “My umbrella is broken. I am taking it to the market to be repaired. I don’t want to be caught without it when the rains come.”
The road opened out to an expanse of the river-sky, above which a feeble sun struggled to rise. The tea shop was still shuttered. Underneath the flame tree a baul minstrel sat cross-legged on a carpet of fallen blossoms, lost in his meditation. In his bright orange robe, he looked like a fallen petal himself.
A herd of cows bumped and shuffled across the riverbed toward the grazing ground. They were rounded up by a ragged lad with a neem toothpick stuck between his teeth.
At the ghat, the river ferry had just pulled up to disgorge a crowd of villagers. Vendors with earthen pots on bamboo poles slung across their shoulders pushed past women with large baskets on their heads and tiny babies on their backs. They skirted around an old man who shuffled slowly, dragging a monstrous elephant-size foot, the skin over it knobbed and lumpy like a custard apple.
Biren was about to swivel around to take another look when Shamol cleared his throat. “There’s no need to stare at him, mia,” he said softly.
“What wrong with his foot, Baba?” Biren asked, trotting to keep up with his father. “Why is it so big?”
“The
