St John's Fire

Fields ruffled with the wading of laborers under the closing day. Sweat filled brows as poppies filled baskets. Far off the shore, red waters carried vessels from the lowlight horizon to the port of Calcutta. Resting among the ship’s berths, a still St John Rivers played memories of England he’d held. And those he could not shrug.
St John took no advantage of the plenty space he’d afforded himself with his initial purchase of a companion cabin. He lay as coldly as the space beside him, and his mind became as absent once he slept.
Arriving with daybreak, St John joined fellow shipmates outside for orientation and begin a briefing with a voice which crisped through the air.
“On behalf of the Church Mission Society, I welcome you to Calcutta. Our joint effort with the East Indian Company, who has been so generous as to help finance our station here, will see us carry through the work of God.”
A procedural applause followed from the monochrome palette of uniforms. Each cloak and gown did their best to show ignorance of the blanketing heat. With a steely ignorance above all others’, St John continued his address.
“This land is strange to us. It is strange to God. It is our purpose to correct this.”



Shortly thereafter, carriages arrived to carry businessmen to Chowringhee and missionaries alike to the mission established just outside of town. Acres upon acres, ant-like servants toiled the fields. A content St John absorbed the view from his carriage window, and added to his pleasure was his speaking with quartermaster Charles Frederickson.
“How tirelessly they work. It is the light of God which gives them vigor.” St John concluded.
“The taskmasters do an excellent job instilling them with it.” agreed Charles.
“I shall only hope for such fervor from the mission.”
“Oh, you may come to expect it.”
“I’m afraid I do not understand.”
“We have many newcomers stationed now who became widowers following trade disagreements.”
“And they are accepting of their vocation?”
“They’ve labor experience;” Charles began “rice fields, prior to their razing.”
“Razing?” pressed St John.
“For our poppy fields, of course. We need no supply of rice here; we get more than enough of it from China.”
St John smiled learnedly “And of their commitment?”
“Dear St John, our great God’s glory saved them from heathen practices through which many would have been sentenced to join their partners at their funeral pyres.” Frederickson’s words gave St John paleness.
“To cast themselves into the pits of hell... such barbarism should perish all doubts of our work here.”
He withdrew a hard, dark journal with pen and pocket inkpot. “I shall make note of this for my prayers,” St John began to scratch, unperturbed by the Caravan’s rumbling across Chitpur road. Taking in prideful breath, he fixed himself a smile.
“But it is such happy news, to be gifting them with fulfilling work and the comfort of mourning.”



On the yet unpaved grounds of the mission was waiting a field of Hindu widows, heads looking downward to the bags at their naked feet. St John made his inspection amid a soft hum of sobs.
Some of the younger girls glanced up at him, for he was a man of impressive features: radiant blonde hair, eyes of the ocean and a forlorn kindness in his frame of elegance. He was, also seemingly, a man of humility, and made it a point not to indulge in vanities they’d seen before. It gave him ill to see this vanity in himself and especially in others who’d not taken to modesty.
“Hair untied... Indecent gowns... Gold.” Disappointed words assessed the women. Raving black manes clung to shoulders flaunted in salwars and shaadi as if to occasion. Smooth cream skin dared bare itself in the rich drapery of hair and silk. Sun-gleamed hoops nestled in the looseness of nostrils and lobes, coin belts slung around the fat of their hips. St John wiped his bothered brow in an about turn and he inquired as to the contents of a woman’s basket.
“We were told to bring all we could with us”, explained one woman, humbly offering her basket.
“Indeed. You’ll be parting with it all the same. You have by the afternoon to relinquish your possessions and jewellery.” St John rifled through the contents, spilling out salads of bejewelled chains onto the weeds of the camp’s British dirt. Therein lay also a book St John recognized from his studies as a Hindu holy book and the women recognized a hideous, saddening disdain in his face.
“We shall have a bonfire to commemorate the passing of this wickedness tonight. God has sent you on your way.” He spoke his truest words. “Please hand over your Vedas to the maids who will come round.” St John promptly turned away to make arrangements with mission staff.



In his office, St John worked steadfast, marking away documents until news of commotion was called to his attention. He was diligent in his resolution of disputes and desires, empowered as he was by God and granted the request to be spoken with. The widows had arranged for a representative to speak with St John. The bearer of trusts and hopes entered, her outline unspoiled by her Hindu dress and backlit in soft dusk.


St John pretended to notice merely her presence alone.
“Rest assured you won’t have to be wearing that come tomorrow morning when your
uniforms arri-”
“I am not here to talk about these things, but other things. Holy things.”
“Wonderful, we’ll be having our first sermon tomorrow afternoon. Best to get things to a quick start, of course.”
“We are unhappy. We miss our husbands. We do not want to be without our books, they help us remember them.”
“Your husbands are dead. You may mourn them as you like as you pray in the love of God.”
“You are not married? You could not speak so cruel if you were.”
“Cruel!” St John tasted the word sourly. “What a wicked girl you are to speak with such contempt of me, how disagreeable! I have denied myself the luxury of marriage and its trifles. My path is joined by the love of God. The very God who has saved you!”
“Saved? Traded. One god for another, and a difference of caste to one of class. “


St John collected himself and took the utmost of his brand of sympathy toward her. “I understand,” he claimed “you are not a Christian girl yet and are in need of time. You did not have the privilege of being touched by God, raised as you were in the Indian lands. I shall give you, widows, this time, during which you shall learn the wondrous love of God and accept Him as your master. I cannot express how pained I am that you would have caught only glimpses of God’s greatness up until now. Rest assured, please, that you will have the fullest of Christian teachings cleansing your uneducated minds and your impudent hearts.”

The unblinking woman could only dip her head as she made to part backwards out the door.

“Oh, and-” St John stopped her.

“...please inform the others of your punishment for the unrest you’ve caused among the staff. As an act of spiritual enrichment you are to build the pyre yourselves. Thank you.”

The woman’s coal eyes stared in a moment of loss, and her body followed the slow turn of her head outside.

“Will you speak with them?” He tested.

“Yes.

I will speak with them.”



In the night, St John saw the widows working busily at the pyre with the vigor he saw on the fields. His head shook with a triumphant nod, observing their embrace of humility. How well they cooperated and how large a pyre they’d built, dedicated as drones to serve a queen, and how he admired the sight. The fire was started and the women gathered round, feeding the flames of purity with Vedas. How well things did turn out, and how well God had rewarded his perseverance!
His head shook again with the call to sleep and he retired for the night.


Ashes glittered
Under new morning
The blaze had snuffed
The widows with it.