The Japanese Wife PDF by Kunal Basu

## The Japanese Wife _By Kunal Basu_ 'It's an improbable and hauntingly beautiful love story, almost surreal in its innocence. And I immediately knew that this was the film I had to make.' - Aparna Sen ### Chapter 1 She sent him kites. They came in a trim balsa wood box - light as paper, but lar...

## The Japanese Wife _By Kunal Basu_ 'It's an improbable and hauntingly beautiful love story, almost surreal in its innocence. And I immediately knew that this was the film I had to make.' - Aparna Sen ### Chapter 1 She sent him kites. They came in a trim balsa wood box - light as paper, but large. At Canning's harbour, postmen admired the alien markings on its wrapper. 'From where?' asked a new recruit. The experienced ones smiled. Like a giant street sign, it rode on a cycle rickshaw, the hooting puller struggling to clear its delicate edges from the snarl of the dock. Then, it sat on the ferry, all tidy and proper, held by a proud mailman. It crossed the Matla without spilling a drop on its canvas-brown cover neatly tied with black cord. Chattering kids formed a circle around it; peasants gawked over their drooping shoulders; even the bearded sadhu abandoned contemplation of waves for a quick glance. It was a safe passage, barring a few jabs from little grimy fingers checking the box for what was inside. At Shonai, the landing was tricky - the swollen river had drowned the island's meagre jetty. Men formed a human chain on the slippery bank and the box passed from one pair of outstretched arms to another, pausing briefly at each transfer. When it reached the dry shore, an eager crowd cleared its way to yet another rickshaw. From there it moved smoothly through village paths lined with the swaying tamarind and neem, ignored by sleeping dogs, trailed by more children, creaking slightly at uneven bends. His aunt received the box like a returning bride. Waiting with neighbours in front of their yellow-and-white home, the only one in cement and brick, she let the younger women welcome it indoors to his room. There, it sat all afternoon in the cone of a shadow, listening to the purr of mating cats, in the company of an unmade bed and a dresser full of knick-knacks, facing a painting of a rising sun over a flaming volcano. Entering the room, Snehamoy closed the door behind him, feeling faint from the heat and the day's excitement. Fellow teachers arriving late had informed him of a certain box that bore his name - in English, along with markings in an alien alphabet - making its way over the Matla. Finishing his lecture, he had announced a snap test in arithmetic, giving him time to think. Exactly at four, after the bell had rung announcing the end of the school day, he had mounted his cycle and made his way back through the rustling trees. Once inside, he stood facing the box propped up by his bed like a timid visitor, then started unwrapping the canvas-brown cover just as impatiently as he had opened his wife's first letter from Japan, twenty years ago, similarly marked with two alphabets. They called him by many names - Snehamoy Chakrabarti, a teacher at Shonai's secondary school. The first two syllables, Sne...ha, standing for 'affection' in Bangla were reserved for his aunt, the young widow who had raised him after both his parents had drowned in the Matla. 'Sneha...!' she called him from her kitchen, just as she would when he was young, going around the village looking for the truant boy. Just as before, he came to her running, urged by a growling stomach. To others, he was known more formally by his profession – Mastermoshai - teacher, a master in solving the unsolvable, a BSc in mathematics from a college in faraway Calcutta. Behind his back they called him Japani - the Japanese; scrawled the letters with chalk on the blackboard, or called out from dark groves as he went pedalling through the village. Even the visiting school inspector on reaching their island would ask to be shown the house of a certain Mastermoshai - the one with the Japanese wife. That he had married secretly, was well known ever since his return from Calcutta at the end of his studies – the only one among the lot of villagers to have a foreign wife. A secret marriage that was now open; as normal as letters; as ordinary as his aunt's daily stories about her beloved Bou - the daughter-in-law. Ordinary, except for the arrival of kites. For twenty years he had opened a great variety of mail – book boxes smelling of sweet glue, cartons marked 'fragile' holding Hokusai prints, a silk sack filled with mountain cherries, scarves rolled tight like children's pillows in thick parchment wraps, cards and letters exuding perfume, and rustling sheaves of washi. And they came over the Matla in dusty mailbags, jostling with peasants. Except the one at the very beginning. The first, as he often recalled, was simple, almost bare. Yet, in many ways it was the most charming, the unexpected, his first brush with the other kind, native or foreign. ....Dear Snehamoy, it read, I was waiting for your letter. Yes, I shall be your penfriend. The meaning of my name is 'gift.' It was signed Miyage. He found it brief, but revealing. For the next few months he wrote brief letters to his penfriend, spending more time revising his English than the calculus that came naturally. Having made the first move, discovering her address in a magazine, he felt shy unlike his city friends all too willing to show off. He wrote about his college, his aunt, and the river. When she wrote about her own river, Nakanokuchi, the words flowed. He told her of his anger towards Matla - for flooding their village and devouring his parents; of its treacherous churns; the stink of floating carcasses. He wrote of its months of contentment following the monsoon all swollen and calm - reflecting the bamboo groves like ageing spears; of his passion for gazing at idle boats dotting the mudflats and the yearly pageantry of fishermen celebrating the gift of the river. He confided his strange excitement, lying on the banks and listening to the lapping waves, as if they were the endearments of his long lost mother. She sent him a print of a marooned village, asked, how do you pronounce Snehamoy? He wrote her the trick of rounding the tongue to whistle, then combining the 's' and the 'n' in a soft hiss. Preparing to graduate, he wrote less frequently for a few months. When he sat down next, it was to inform her of both his decision to take up a teaching post at their village school, and his aunt's keen interest in arranging a match for him with a friend's daughter. For three years in the city, he had wormed inside his cocoon - the comfort of mathematical problems and their solutions, the bimonthly trips to see his aunt, regular visits to the post office to have his letters weighed, and waiting for the postman to deliver Miyage's replies at the college hostel. Fellow students pulled his leg, called him the bumpkin. Someone spied on him, stole his letters and announced the village boy's adventure. ...Dear Miyage, I am lonely here... he read aloud from Snehamoy's unfinished letter. My aunt brought this girl over last time I went. She was shy... His friends demanded an explanation. What business did he have hiding Miyage from them? What did Miyage mean anyway? One of them threw him the unsolvable problem - would he marry the village belle or the Japani? In her next letter, she was strikingly different, almost a stranger. After the usual beginning, she changed the colour of her ink and wrote in piquant blue... now, Snehamoy, I must tell you something important. I would like to offer myself to you as your bride. Please tell your aunt I will make a good wife. If you accept, we'll be married. More than anything, he sensed a relief - from the anxiety of having to take the next step, departing from his routine. In his single-most courageous act, he lifted his pen and accepted Miyage's proposal, spending the next month agonizing over the likely encounter with his aunt. She had taken it lightly at first - the penfriendship, the pen-marriage - chiding Snehamoy for neglecting his health, till she saw in his eyes the resolve of the Matla. 'Miyage...what does it mean? She had asked, breaking her vow of silence. Recently married, Snehamoy told his aunt about the shy beginning, the courtship, the proposal - told her everything. 'When will the two of you meet?' It hadn't occurred to either, he had confessed, to discuss the prospect of a meeting. Sitting on his bed, he heard his aunt's footsteps. She saw him lost in his thoughts before the recently arrived box. 'What did she send you this time?' she asked with the assurance of a confidant. 'Kites.' As in old sayings, arrivals came in pairs. Waking to unfamiliar sounds, Snehamoy found a boy skipping rope in their courtyard. He heard more than the usual bustle from their kitchen - straining from his bed, he caught sight of a younger form huddled beside his aunt, shrouded by the oven's smoke. Who is she? he thought, turning over in his mind the few visitors who came to their island braving the infamous Matla. More than casual visitors, there seemed a certain permanence about them, the child ducking in and out of the rooms with ease, as if he had been born there. He heard the boy call out to him.... 'Kaku!' Uncle...? Sitting up on his bed, Snehamoy fumbled with his glasses and caught a pair of eyes inspecting him from the kitchen. In a flash he knew who she was – the shy girl her aunt had chosen for him twenty years ago. In a hushed tone, his aunt gave him the full story over lunch. The girl had been married off soon after Snehamoy's refusal and lived in a nearby village till tragedy struck not long ago. Suddenly widowed, she had left with her son, unable to put up with her unfriendly in-laws. Snehamoy listened silently as his aunt described their misfortune. 'She'll be safe here,' he heard her say. Plus, you could raise the boy as your own, just as I raised you.' Seeing him frown, she scolded him, 'You can't shirk your duties, Sneha... life means more than simply writing letters.' As he cycled to school, Snehamoy began composing his letter. How would he break the news to Miyage? It was one thing to inform her of the sudden arrival of distant relatives, quite another to announce the return of his once would-be bride. It was she, Snehamoy was certain, the prospect of their marriage, that had prompted Miyage's proposal to him. What would his wife do now? He felt confused. Distracted by his thoughts in the classroom, he made a rare mistake before his students and left hurriedly. Back on his cycle, he started pedalling north towards the river's bend, leaving behind the village pond buzzing with bathers. He passed peasant women returning from fields with huge stacks of hay, and rung his bell in greeting. Bullock-carts piled high with rice sacks made him stop briefly, but soon he rode past the familiar mudflats towards the river. As always, he brought his woes to the river, and as always, it cleared the slate for him. Certainly, it was no stranger to her letters or his. Over the past twenty years he had consulted it at every critical bend. During her depression after her mother's death, he had read aloud Miyage's dark and brooding letters tinged with self-pity. And the river had spoken, lending him words to console her. He had written to her in agony when their village had suddenly erupted, flames of hatred scorching the peasants' huts. Gazing at burnt logs from funeral pyres, he had scribbled...wait for me...in the end P'll come to you floating down this river... Here, he had discovered his true love for his wife; the urge of a lonely letter writer had given way to a lasting bond. Like a married man, he had grown used to coming home to her, to her things - the gifts she sent him regularly; he waited for her letters as if he was waiting for her to return from her daily visit to the market. In his personal portrait gallery - one that lay in a weathered file at his bedside – she smiled in a series of gently ageing faces. He greyed with her, advised her on her health. She prompted him to mind his savings and the loans he was eligible for but never took out. During monsoons, she'd remind him to wear socks over his slippers to avoid the bloodsucking leech. With the assured status of a Bou, she scolded him for neglecting his aunt - not taking her to see a doctor for her recurring malaria. He wrote about the bazaar women with gaudy made-up faces, who loitered around at night and gestured lewdly at passers by. He could hear his wife giggle, teasing him.. go to them Snehamoy, I know you would like to! Don't come back to me, I can live without the... They fought over periods of silence, blaming each other, then blaming the lot of postmen. He could swear he saw her waiting for him one evening by Matla's shores, as he came pedalling blindly down the muddy road after a rare evening with mohua - the local brew. In twenty married years they hadn't met even once. Yet to Snehamoy it had mattered little. Even others, including his aunt, had ceased to notice Miyage's absence over time. Every now and then, it'd come up - a visit to Japan. They had toyed with the idea, then postponed it like a vacation. Too expensive, he wrote; let's see, she wrote back; we really mustn't, who'd care for my aunt? Maybe you could come to Shonai for just a short while; how short? Let's see... 'When will she come?' His aunt would ask in the beginning. 'You must see your wife....she must live in her husband's home. Letters won't make babies you know!' Their meeting, hovering on the horizon, had always seemed as an extra, nice to have but not essential. Having weathered the storm of gossip and snigger, he felt confident of their marriage. He knew he had Miyage as securely as any man did his wilfully wedded wife, even if she didn't sit by his side on the banks of the Matla. His mind returned to the widow and her child, and he saw the solution instantly - to wait a few days before writing to Miyage. After all, mother and son could still be just visiting. Despite his aunt's designs, the two might in the end return to her in-laws to live out their troubles. Then, he'd write and tell his wife, make her jealous. Like an ageing couple they could chuckle over the threat of indiscretion just passed. As he returned home from the river, he felt light, almost lightheaded. Stopping briefly at the market, he bought an exercise book for the boy and a ripe melon for his aunt. A cool wind blew through the latticed boughs of the tamarind, and he cleared his throat anticipating the yearly touch of cold. Entering his room, he closed the door behind him. Both windows were shut, and it seemed warm and cheerful inside. Something almost imperceptible had changed. Snehamoy looked carefully from one corner of the room to the other, till he was assured of everything being in its place. Except, someone had tidied it all up - emptied the spilling ashtray, straightened his desk, drawn curtains over the windows, swept the floor, removed the kite-box, and hung a picture - Miyage's portrait in black and white - on the wall facing the bed. He gaped at his orderly surroundings, then grabbed the picture and wrenched it off its hook. ... Only the dead must hang on the walls not the living...his heart froze for his dear wife. The boy found the kites hidden in a dark passage of the house. Unable to lift the box, he pushed it along its narrow edge till it landed on the floor with a thud. Snehamoy helped him take out the kites, lifting each delicately by its staff, and spread them out on the courtyard. The women came out of the kitchen and exclaimed. 'When will you fly them, Kaku?' 'Fly?' The idea hadn't occurred to him, but seemed to appeal to everyone. 'Your Kaku doesn't know how to string a kite let alone fly it! You'll have to call your friends over,' his aunt got the ball rolling. The widow smiled in approval. They fixed the day of celebration for Biswakarma - the god of machines - to be their kite-flying day. But first, they'd have to be ready with rolls of line to fly the kites, lines sharpened with a coating of finely ground glass to cut those of their rivals. A suitable field must be found, one with a good view of the horizon and free of trees to prevent the lines getting tangled up in the branches. Their hearts pounded at the thought of a kite-fight. Like a sensible teacher, Snehamoy sat the boy down with his exercise book. If each kite takes five hundred feet of line to fly, how many feet would twenty kites take?' The boy frowned. 'Only five hundred feet for each kite! What if they get tangled with others during a fight and keep circling away needing more and more?' The two spent a whole afternoon asking neighbours for empty glass bottles. Snehamoy's aunt smashed them in her kitchen, then ground the shards in a pestle, pricking her thumb in the process. Glue was added to the glass granules, and a touch of vermilion dye to have the lines stand out against the blue sky and the clouds. After returning from school, Snehamoy joined the boy in stringing lines from one end of their courtyard to another. Then, like seasoned workers, they wrapped their palms in soft cotton cloth, took lavish dips in the pail of abrasive and went from one end of a line to the other, carefully applying a uniform layer over it. In the end, they sat back in the kitchen and admired the brilliant maze turning their courtyard into a field of red pepper. For days, pedalling to and from school, Snehamoy heard the village buzzing with the impending kite-fight. Rival groups of boys formed teams and were spurred on by a shopkeeper who was offering his Indian kites free to anyone willing to brave the foreign invasion. Yet, on the day of the grand contest, as the first of the Japanese kites came out of the box and heaved by its fliers went up over the school building, there was a pall of silence. It was a giant Baromon, devil-faced, crushing the helmet of a samurai warrior between its awesome teeth. Scarlet and ochre, it hung still, face up, refused to be cowed by the stiff breeze. Brahmin! The spectators renamed it after the mythical Brahmin of Mahabharata, the one who had devoured his own share of warriors. Standing in a circle with the boys, Snehamoy strung the kites, gaze fixed on the sky. Like characters in a play, they made their appearance one by one. The jaunty Tsugaru whirred like an airplane through a clever loop fixed on its back. The crowd went into a roar over the kabuki faces – bald men with comical sideburns; and delicate ladies - their hair tied up in fancy buns. They floated in the sky, like stained glass windows lit by the afternoon sun. A sudden calm drew giggles as the bows dropped and the faces turned circles. 'There goes Mastermoshai's wife...!' Someone sniggered. By then the lines were crossing and tangling up the kites, with a steady stream of taunts spurring on the flyers. Just when Snehamoy thought they had emptied the kite-box, the boy reached inside and scooped out more. Instantly, the field buzzed with humming and whistling kites shaped as cicadas, gnats, dragonflies, dancing carps, even a few ugly clams. It felt like a carnival and drew the crowd's applause. Snehamoy saw his aunt and the widow watching the show, both enthralled. He felt proud of Miyage's kites and handed out the last - a Nagasaki fighter - simple in appearance but agile. Then the local fighter came out from behind the clouds, one with a long shimmering tail. For a brief moment, the Indian and the Japanese eyed each other from respective corners of the horizon. As the sparring started, they zipped in towards each other like low-flying combat planes. The blue Nagasaki, with the sky as its cover, had a natural advantage; the homegrown red had the crowd behind it. By then the light was falling, and all other kites had been pulled down, their lines rolled back, leaving the sky wide open for the final show. In a clear field, intentions were plain. The Nagasaki tried a deceptive loop - coming in from above and dipping over the other to set a trap. Reading the plan just in time, its rival wriggled out managing to avoid contact. The crowd, exhausted by the day's excitement, cheered and groaned in turn. Snehamoy sat down on the grass, the boy holding on to his arm nervously. Like a seasoned warrior, the red climbed down from the clouds, almost touching the roofs of the village huts. Then in a majestic move, it reversed its course and rose, cutting through the line of its enemy in one clean sweep, ending up, once again, as a speck in the sky. Bhookata....! Gone! The Nagasaki took a dip, its line sagging, and floated away. A group of boys chased after it, carrying long sticks like fishing rods. It flew past the school and over the paddy fields in gently rolling waves, then crossed the mudflats and floated over the Matla. For a brief moment it stood paralysed in mid-river, before taking the final plunge. Returning home, Snehamoy felt elated. He sensed a special bond with the boy - his kite-flying partner. The whole episode seemed preordained – beginning with the arrival of the box, the hectic pace in their courtyard, and the afternoon's finale as if his wife had planned it all from far away. Sitting on his bed, he watched the acrobatics of fireflies through the window, reminding him of the kites. He smiled. Before falling asleep, he glanced at a largish envelope on his table. Holding it up against the lamp he could see folds of a smaller envelope within it bearing his name, from Miyage. The aftermath filled him with guilt. He had planned to take the boy to school with him the next day, but the letter upset his plan. Munching on his breakfast of tea and ricepuffs, he opened the envelope and read along casually, until the ink suddenly changed colour to a soot black....now Snehamoy, I must tell you something important. My doctor says I am sick, very sick. He has asked me to leave my job and go to live with my brother's family in Shirone. I think I will be fine soon. You mustn't worry. I am sending you my will in a closed envelope. You may read it when I am no more... His first reaction was to sit down to reply. Then, sensing the occasion, he paced his room. Dressing quickly, he left for the school, alone on his cycle. As he passed under the tamarind drooping with yellow blossom, he made up his mind. The time had come, he thought, to take leave from his school, the leave he had postponed for years, just to be able to spend it all at once when he visited Japan. Now he must devote as much time as possible to his sick wife. He felt a responsibility that went beyond regular letter-writing or exchanging gifts, rather a need to be in constant communion with Miyage. And, he'd have to spend hours with his friend - the village homeopath - describing his wife's symptoms to receive a proper diagnosis, advise Miyage every step of the way till she was fully cured. In her adversity, their adversity, he found a strength that surprised him as he sprinted on his cycle through the narrow lanes. At the end of the day, as news of his wife's sickness and his leave spread from the school to their neighborhood, he found his aunt and the boy's mother waiting for him outside their yellow-and-white home. They received him silently, then his aunt asked, 'Will you be going away now...?' He shook his head. 'Will she come to live here then?' He shook his head again. 'Then why...?' She sighed, unable to decipher her nephew's motive, and turned to enter the kitchen, At least you'll have more time for the boy now.' Increasingly, Snehamoy spent his days at his desk, writing to Miyage and simply thinking of her. His next great occupation was indeed the boy - his arithmetic and his questions. 'Where is Japan?' the boy asked one day. Answering that was simple. Then, 'Why did you marry her?' he asked, pointing to the geisha doll on his desk. Is she a fairy? Will she send me gifts too? I want to marry her,' he declared, shutting his book after homework. On another occasion, he alarmed Snehamoy... 'My mother wants us to go away from here.' The widow, though, had started to take charge of their household. Every morning she waited outside his door till he left for a walk around the village. Then she'd set about with pail and broom, rearranging everything in his room - capping his pen, recovering his lost slippers from under the bed. In deference to Snehamoy's wishes, she had left Miyage's portrait alone, the rusty nail sticking out of the whitewashed wall as a reminder. In his quiet way he had started adjusting to her presence as well - he didn't mind her curry that tasted saltier than his aunt's, or the bowl of warm water she had the boy deliver to his room for his morning shave; even took to her quaint chants for Lakshmi - the household goddess – at dusk before their shrine. Are widows allowed to worship Lakshmi?' He asked his aunt. 'Well, this is her home, isn't it?' his aunt retorted. Nothing wrong with her prayers then...' The boy started calling his aunt Dida - Granny. Yet, try as he may, he couldn't see the widow as a little sister in distress, seeking her brother's shelter like Miyage. He noticed a growing distance between himself and his aunt - his confidant. She seemed less interested in his reports on Miyage's health. Are you sure she takes your advice seriously? What makes you think she cares for your homeopathy? They must have better medicines than us in Japan...much better...' At times she even refused to discuss the matter with Snehamoy. 'You shouldn't worry, her brother is taking care of her now.' Only the boy shared his worries, running to his room with Miyage's letters delivered by the postman and waiting patiently by the door as he finished reading. 'She is better now,' he'd lie, smiling kindly at his anxious face. A month into the monsoon, his aunt came to his room and sat down on the bed after he had finished helping the boy with homework. She told him about the widow's plan to pawn her gold to pay for her son's thread ceremony. It would be an expensive affair, his aunt told Snehamoy, with offerings to the priests and a lavish feast for the neighbours. He listened with interest. Busy with his pupil's arithmetic, he had overlooked other rites of passage. 'You must go with her to Canning, Sneha...it's risky for a woman to go all alone to these places...' Not out of resentment but inertia, he tried to extricate himself: 'But the river is now in spate. Wouldn't it be better to wait a few months?? 'The priests want it to be now.' 'Couldn't we offer her the money....?' 'Would you?' His aunt gave him a strange look. His fears were unfounded. Riding the ferry on their way to Canning, he felt he was returning to his college in Calcutta after a trip home. Nostalgia for those brief years held sway as they passed villages at the edge of flooding. He ignored the disappearing mangroves on the banks, the submerged jetties, and flood warnings posted on the ferry terminals on their way in. Hunched over the railings, he scarcely noticed a huddled form beside him, clutching a suitcase, eyes fixed on the heaving floors of the boat. At the harbour, he helped her off with her suitcase. Unfurling their umbrellas, they stepped carefully over puddles along the slippery bank. As they passed by the market, the smell of dried fish and rotting vegetables made them screw up their noses. He eyed the melons, piled high like cannonballs, stopped briefly to stock up on cigarettes, ignoring the urgent calls of a sickly woman sitting by a heap of scarlet eggplant.... 'Buy cheap before it goes to rot!' Threat of the river had seeped into wet bones bunched inside a shed with a corrugated roof that passed for the harbour's main market. He waited for her to catch up, then let her lead the way as they entered lanes with shops full of dull metal and flamboyantly coloured items for household shrines. She stopped to check the price of a copper lamp, the kind with five lotus-shaped heads. He waited as she bargained for a box of sandalwood incense. Following a definite plan, she took him past rows of dazzling finery and confectioners selling rock-sugar candies he remembered stealing from his aunt's cupboard when he was young. Instinctively, he reached to pay as she chose a black stone Shiva. Then, she made him wait outside a beaten doorway, and went in with her suitcase. Snehamoy felt hungry. And yet, he sensed a comfort that he hadn't quite expected from the journey or his companion. He found her shy, but confident with a knack for the practical. She has suffered, he thought, and felt guilty at not having offered to pay for the boy's ceremony. Holding her Shiva and a basket of lotus, he sensed the vast gap between their lives, as well as the bond that had sprung from sleeping under the same roof. As he sat before the pawnshop, he resolved to break the ice, ask her why she wished to leave their home with the boy. She seemed relieved as she came out, smiled at him and asked if he was hungry. Then they walked through the drizzle and returned to the banks to the hovels serving rice and the day's catch. Sitting across a narrow wooden table, they ate silently. He watched her bent on her meal – wondered what she had looked like twenty years ago. All he remembered was her shyness and the same averted look, except when she glanced at his empty plate and deftly flicked over a piece of fried eggplant, as if she knew that Snehamoy was still hungry. He held her arm over slippery tracks at the dock, and sat with the crowd at the back of the ferry. The Matla seemed strangely calm. He recognized the postman on the ferry, without his mailbag. He smiled at Snehamoy. For the most part he sat gazing at the widening horizon as they approached the Bay of Bengal. This time he was aware of her by his side, swaying with the ferry. What did she think of his choice? He wondered. How had she felt being rejected? What did she think of him now...? He went over their similarities – both separated from their loved ones – she from a dead husband, and he from...then stopped himself quickly. His was still a letter away. He thought about her gesture over lunch. Ready for conversation, several times he cleared his throat, searching for words. He felt he didn't need to know anything about her, that nothing about him was unknown to this shy woman. The boy came to meet them at Sagar, yelling against the breeze.... No letter for you today, Kaku!' Snehamoy woke that night to a different sound - sobs coming from the far end of the courtyard. Fumbling with his glasses, he lit a cigarette. Passing the sleeping boy on his mat, he crossed the kitchen, stopping to check his aunt's deep snoring behind the closed door. He found the widow huddled on her bed - just as on the ferry - looking out at the dark night and the fireflies, dancing like kites. In his single-most impulsive act, he reached out and touched her face streaming with tears, then held her sobbing form firmly against his own. I must tell you, Miyage, of what happened last night....he started to write, each time unable to continue. Waking at a ghastly dawn, foggy and damp, he sat motionless at his desk. He felt bound to write and tell Miyage, as he had always, about everything. Even in her illness, she must be informed; as his wife, she had a right to know. He knew she would be distraught. Worse, she could see this as the end, as his way of dealing with her sickness, his escape. You can take up with the widow now, Snehamoy...she must be as lonely as you are... He could imagine her reply; hear the self-pity seeping between the lines. But he feared that there wouldn't be a reply to his confession, that his wife could end their marriage just as easily as she had started it - silence replacing the strokes of her pen. His aunt's words haunted him....how would you know if something happened to her? Who'd inform you if she.... He'd know of her death only when her letters stopped. And he feared that her letters would stop once he wrote to her about himself and the widow, that he'd never know any more how Miyage was, if indeed she was alive. Yet, his compulsion was stronger than his fear. Without the truth, his letter would be worthless he thought, just as without the letters their twenty years as a couple would amount to nothing. Deep within himself he reasoned for her...what good is a man who isn't loyal? Why shouldn't she fly away from him like the kites? After he had dispatched the boy to the post office with his letter for Miyage, Snehamoy paced his room with the small envelope that had come on the day of the kite-fight. Holding Miyage's will, he was convinced this was her last unread letter to him, that no more would come riding over the Matla, delivered by the smiling postman. Dead or alive, here were her final words. With trembling fingers, he peeled its edges and taking out the sheets, spread them over the table. Then, he started to read...my dear Snehamoy, she had written in crimson.....when you set your eyes on this, I will be no more... The storm struck Shonai with a venom, erasing the boundary of tamarind and neem. As usual, it blew off the hay from peasants' huts and damaged the school building. Fortunately, the ferry had stopped plying and docked at a safe harbour. It returned in autumn when the river was full but calm. In the lull of winter, the only passage of significance was the untimely death of Snehamoy Chakrabarti, the mathematics teacher at the secondary school, from the killer mosquitoes that spread a wider havoc than the river. Besides friends and neighbours who knew him well, the whole village mourned his loss - the orphaned boy who had studied in the city but returned. The teacher who seldom erred before his students. Words weren't enough to console his poor aunt. At her request, the headmaster had written to Snehamoy's wife who lived far away informing her of the terrible loss. Then she came head shaven, wearing the white of a Hindu widow. At Canning, she boarded the ferry. Sitting upright, looking out towards the horizon, her alien features drew attention. Reaching Shonai, she crossed the muddy path over the banks, called for a rickshaw, and asked to be taken to the house of the teacher, the one with the Japanese wife.