by Amitav Ghosh
‘What else is she doing exactly?’
‘Political things mainly, I think,’ Elsa said. ‘She talked about meetings and speeches and some magazine that she’s writing for.’
‘Oh?’ Dolly was still thinking about this when Elsa pointed ahead. ‘Look—the estate. That’s where it starts.’
They were climbing steeply, driving along a dirt road that was flanked on both sides by dense forest. Looking ahead, Dolly saw a wide gateway, with a sign that arched across the road. There were three words inscribed on the sign, in enormous gold lettering; Dolly read them out aloud, rolling them over her tongue: ‘Morningside Rubber Estate.’
‘Elsa named it,’ Matthew said.
‘When I was a child,’ Elsa explained, ‘I used to live near a park called Morningside. I always liked the name.’
At the gate, there was a sudden rent in the tangled curtain of greenery that covered the mountainside: ahead, stretching away as far as the eye could see, there were orderly rows of saplings, all of them exactly alike, all of them spaced with precise, geometrical regularity. The car went over a low rise and a valley appeared ahead, a shallow basin, cupped in the palm of a curved ridge. The basin had been cleared of trees and there was an open space in the middle. Grouped around this space were two ramshackle tin-roofed buildings, little more than huts.
‘These were meant to be the estate’s offices,’ Elsa said apologetically. ‘But we’re living in them for the time being. It’s very basic I’m afraid—which is why we need to build ourselves a habitable place.’
They settled in and later in the day, Elsa took Dolly for a walk through the rubber trees. Each tree had a diagonal slash across its trunk, with a halved coconut shell cupped underneath. Elsa swirled her forefinger through one of these cups, and dug out a hardened crescent of latex. ‘They call these cup-lumps,’ Elsa said, handing the latex to Dolly. Dolly raised the spongy grey lump to her nose: the smell was sour and faintly rancid. She dropped it back into the coconut-shell cup.
‘Tappers will come by to collect the lumps in the morning,’ Elsa said. ‘Not a drop of this stuff can be wasted.’
They headed through the rubber trees, walking uphill, facing the cloud-capped peak of Gunung Jerai. The ground underfoot had a soft, cushioned feel, because of the carpet of dead leaves shed by the trees. The slope ahead was scored with the shadows of thousands of trunks, all exactly parallel, like scratches scored by a machine. It was like being in a wilderness, but yet not. Dolly had visited Huay Zedi several times and had come to love the electric stillness of the jungle. But this was like neither city nor farm nor forest: there was something eerie about its uniformity; about the fact that such sameness could be imposed upon a landscape of such natural exuberance. She remembered how startled she’d been when the car crossed from the heady profusion of the jungle into the ordered geometry of the plantation. ‘It’s like stepping into a labyrinth,’ she said to Elsa.
‘Yes.’ said Elsa. ‘And you’d be amazed how easy it is to lose your way.’
They entered a large clearing and Elsa came to a stop. ‘This,’ she said, ‘is where Morningside House is going to be.’
Turning around, Dolly saw that the spot offered spectacular views on every side. To the west the mountain sloped gently into the reddening sunset sea; to the north rose the forested peak of Gunung Jerai, looking directly down on them.
‘It’s a wonderful spot,’ Dolly said. But even as she was saying the words it struck her that she would not have wanted to live there, under the scowling gaze of the mountain, in a house that was marooned in a tree-filled maze.
‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’ Elsa said. ‘But you should have seen what it looked like before it was cleared.’
She’d been horrified, she said, when she first came out to Gunung Jerai. The place was beautiful beyond imagining, but it was jungle—dense, towering, tangled, impassable jungle. Matthew had led her a little way in, on foot, and it was like walking up a carpeted nave, with the tops of the trees meeting far above, forming an endless, fan-vaulted ceiling. It was hard, almost impossible, to imagine that these slopes could be laid bare, made habitable.
Once the clearing of the forest started, Matthew had moved out to the land and built himself a small cabin, where the estate office now stood. She had lived away from him in a rented house, in Penang. She would have preferred to be with Matthew, but he wouldn’t let her stay. It was too dangerous, he said, like a battlefield, with the jungle fighting back every inch of the way. For a while Saya John had stayed with Matthew too, but then he’d fallen ill, and had had to move to Penang. Even though the plantation was his own idea, he’d had no conception of what would be involved in laying it out.
Several months went by before Elsa had been allowed to visit the location again and she understood then why Matthew had tried to keep her away. The hillside looked as though it had been racked by a series of disasters: huge stretches of land were covered with ashes and blackened stumps. Matthew was thin and coughed incessantly. She caught a glimpse of the workers’ shacks—tiny hovels, with roofs made of branches and leaves. They were all Indians, from the south: Matthew had learnt to speak their language—Tamil—but she couldn’t understand a word they said. She’d looked into the mud-walled hut where they went to be treated when they fell ill: the squalor was unimaginable, the floors covered with filth. She’d wanted to stay and work as a nurse, but Matthew had refused to let her remain. She’d had to go back to Penang.
But when she next returned, the transformation was again so great as to appear miraculous. The last time around she had felt as though she were entering a plague site; now the sensation was of walking into a freshly laid garden. The ashes had been washed away by the rain, the blackened tree-stumps had been removed and the first saplings of rubber had begun to grow.
For the first time, Matthew had allowed her to stay over, in his cabin. At daybreak she’d looked out of the window and seen the morning pouring down the side of the mountain, lying on their land like a sheet of gold.
‘That was when I told Matthew,’ Elsa said, ‘that there could only ever be one name for this place: Morningside.’
Later, back where they were staying, Elsa showed Dolly her sketches for Morningside House. She wanted it to look like the grand Long Island houses of her memory; it was to have a turret-like tower, steep gables and a veranda that went all the way around, to take advantage of the spectacular views. The one Eastern touch was to be the roof, which would be red, with carved, upcurling eaves.
While the women were poring over the sketches, Saya John was going through the newspaper that he had bought at the railway station: it was the previous day’s edition of the Straits Times, published from Singapore. Suddenly he glanced up and beckoned to Matthew and Rajkumar, from across the room.
‘Look at this,’ he said.
Folding the paper in half, he showed them a report about the assassination of the Grand Duke Ferdinand in Sarajevo.
Rajkumar and Matthew read through the first couple of paragraphs and then looked at each other and shrugged.
‘ “Sarajevo”?’ said Rajkumar. ‘Where’s that?’
‘A long way away.’ Matthew laughed.
No more than anyone else in the world, did either of them have any inkling that the killing in Sarajevo would spark a world war. Nor did they know that rubber would be a vital strategic material in this conflict: that in Germany the discarding of articles made of rubber would become an offence punishable by law; that submarines would be sent overseas to smuggle rubber; that the commodity would come to be valued more than ever before, increasing their wealth beyond their most extravagant dreams.
sixteen
Even when Neel and Dinu were very young, it was evident that they each took after a single parent. Neel looked very much like Rajkumar: he was big and robust, more Indian than Burmese in build and colouring. Dinu, on the other hand, had his mother’s delicate features as well as her ivory complexion and fine-boned slimness of build.
Every year, around December, Dolly and Rajkumar took the boys to Huay Zedi. Doh Say and Naw Da had returned to their old village some years before. The expansion of their business had made Doh Say a wealthy man, and he owned several houses in and around the village: one of these was earmarked for Dolly and Rajkumar’s annual visits. It seemed to Dolly that the boys enjoyed these trips, especially Neel, who had been befriended by one of Doh Say’s sons, a sturdy thoughtful boy by the name of Raymond. Dolly, too, looked forward to these annual visits: since her trip to Morningside she had begun sketching again, and would spend hours by Huay Zedi’s stream, with her sketchbook open on her lap and Dinu playing nearby.
One year, while they were at Huay Zedi, Dinu fell suddenly ill. Dolly and Rajkumar were not particularly alarmed. Dinu was prone to bouts of sickness and it was a rare week when he was entirely free of colds, coughs and fevers. But Dinu was also gifted with an innate resilience that made him actively combat his ill health, and his fevers rarely lasted for more than a day or two at a time. Knowing how well he fought off his fevers, Dolly and Rajkumar were certain that he would recover quickly. They decided to remain at Huay Zedi.
The house they were staying in was very much like a teak camp’s tai, standing some six feet off the ground on massive timber posts. It was set at a slight remove from the rest of the village, a little distance up the thickly forested slope that served as a backdrop for the village. The jungle rose like a cliff behind the tai, skirting it on three sides. Just visible from the balcony was Huay Zedi’s pebbled stream and the soaring bamboo steeple of its church.
As in all tais, the rooms were arranged in a row, one leading into another. Because of Dinu’s illness, Dolly decided to change their usual sleeping arrangements. She took the child into her bed for the night, and dispatched Rajkumar to one of the inner rooms. With Dinu sleeping beside her, Dolly drifted into a dream. She saw herself lifting up her mosquito net, climbing out of bed and going to sit in a chair on the balcony. The tai was in darkness but the night was alive with cicadas and fireflies. Two doors away she could hear Rajkumar breathing heavily in his sleep. She saw herself sitting awhile in the chair and then, after some time had passed, someone spoke, in a voice that was well known to her: it was Thebaw. He was saying something to her with great urgency. As so often in dreams, she could not tell the words apart, but she understood exactly what he was trying to communicate.
She screamed.
Rajkumar stumbled out with a candle and found her sitting in a chair, on the veranda, rocking back and forth, hugging herself with shaking arms.
‘What’s happened?’
‘We have to leave,’ she said. ‘We have to get Dinu to a hospital in Rangoon.’
‘Why?’
‘Don’t ask me now. I’ll tell you later.’
They left Huay Zedi while it was still dark. Doh Say provided them with two ox-carts and escorted them personally to Pyinmana. They arrived in Rangoon late the next night. Dinu was taken immediately to hospital.
After a long examination, the doctors took Dolly and Rajkumar aside. The boy had polio, they said; but for Dolly’s promptness in bringing him to hospital, they might well have lost the child.
‘I knew I had to bring him,’ said Dolly.
‘How did you know?’
‘I was told.’
‘By whom?’
‘It doesn’t matter. What matters is that we came.’
Dolly stayed the night in hospital and next morning, a nurse brought her breakfast on a tray. ‘Did you hear, ma’am?’ the nurse said. ‘The old King is dead. He died in India.’
The breakfast tray slipped from Dolly’s lap. ‘When did it happen?’ she asked the nurse.
‘Let’s see . . .’ The nurse counted off the dates on her fingers. ‘I think it must have happened the night before you came.’
It was Dolly’s old charge, the Second Princess, who took the blame for the King’s death. One bright December day in 1916, she eloped with a Burmese commoner and hid herself in the Residency. This was the beginning of the end.
By this time much had changed in Ratnagiri. The First Princess had had her baby, a girl (this was an event that Dolly had missed by only a few weeks). The child was nicknamed Baisu, Fatty, and to everyone’s surprise, she had quickly become a favourite of the Queen’s.
Soon after the birth of the child, the District Administration had discovered itself to be in possession of monies sufficient to build the King his long promised palace. A mansion had appeared on the hillside that faced the Residency. It came complete with a durbar hall, a gallery, outhouses, running water and a garage to accommodate the two cars that had recently been provided for the King and Queen (one a Ford, the other a De Dion). All of Ratnagiri turned out to celebrate the move. Cheering crowds lined the roads as the Royal Family drove out of Outram House for the last time. But as with all moves, the new place was quickly discovered to possess certain drawbacks. Its upkeep was found to require a small army: twenty-seven gatekeepers, ten peons, six hazurdaars and innumerable other attendants, cleaners, sweepers and ayahs— a total of one hundred and sixty-one in all. In addition, there were now more visitors from Burma and many more hangers-on. How to feed them? How to provide for them? Without Dolly no one knew how to manage.
And then, one morning the Second Princess disappeared. Enquiries revealed she had run away with a young man and taken refuge in the Residency. The King gave Sawant a note to take to his daughter, asking her to return to the palace. Standing at a window, he trained his binoculars on the De Dion as it made its journey across the hill. When the car turned around to come back he saw that his daughter was not in it. The binoculars dropped from his hands. He fell to the floor, clutching his left arm. The doctor arrived within the hour and pronounced him to have suffered a heart attack. Ten days later the King died.
The Queen let it be known that the Second Princess would never again be permitted to enter her presence.
And the funeral, Dolly, the First Princess wrote in the first of several clandestine letters. It was such a sad and miserable affair that Her Majesty flatly refused to attend. The Government was represented by a mere Deputy Collector! You would have wept to see it. No one could believe that this was the funeral of Burma’s last King! We wanted the coffin stored in such a way that we could transport the remains to Burma some day. But when the authorities learnt of this they had the coffin forcibly removed from us. They are afraid that the King’s body might become a rallying point in Burma! They built a monument on his grave, almost overnight, to make it impossible for us ever to take him back! You should have been here with us, Dolly. We all missed you, even Her Majesty, though of course she could not say so, since it was she who forbade us ever to utter your name.
Through the duration of Dinu’s convalescence, Dolly never once left the premises of the hospital. She and Dinu had a room to themselves—large and sunny and filled with flowers. From the window they could see the majestic, shining hti of the Shwe Dagon. Rajkumar did everything in his power to ensure their comfort. U Ba Kyaw drove over at mealtimes, bringing fresh-cooked food in an enormous brass tiffin-carrier. The hospital was prevailed upon to relax its rules. Friends dropped by at all times of day and Rajkumar and Neel stayed late into the evenings, leaving only when it was time for Dinu to go to bed.
Dinu endured his month-long stay in hospital with exemplary stoicism, earning accolades from the staff. Although he had partially lost the use of his right leg, the doctors promised that he would recover to the point where a slight limp would be the only lasting trace of his illness.
On their return home, after Dinu’s discharge, Dolly tried hard to revert to her normal domestic routines. She put Dinu into a room of his own, under the care of an ayah. For the first few days, he made no complaint. Then, late one night, Dolly woke suddenly, at the touch of his breath on her face. Her son was standing beside her, propped up on the edge of the bed. He had left his ayah snoring in his room, and crawled down the corridor, dragging his right leg behi
nd him. Dolly took him into her bed, hugging his bony body to her chest, breathing in the soft, rain-washed smell of his hair. She slept better that night than she had at any time in the last several weeks.
During the day, as Dinu began trying to walk again, Dolly hovered over him, darting to move stools and tables out of his way. Watching him as he struggled to regain his mobility, Dolly began to marvel at her son’s tenacity and resilience—at the strength of will that made him pick himself up, time and time again, until he was able to hobble just a step or two farther than before. But she could see also that this daily struggle was changing him. He was more withdrawn than she remembered, and seemed years older in maturity and self-possession. With his father and brother he was unresponsive and cold, as though he were self-consciously discouraging their attempts to include him in their exuberant games.
Dolly’s absorption in Dinu’s convalescence became so complete as to claim the entirety of her mind. She thought less and less about her circle of friends and the round of activities that had occupied her before—the gatherings, the tea-parties, the picnics. When occasionally a friend or an acquaintance dropped by, there were awkward silences: she would feign interest in their stories, without contributing a word of her own. When they asked what she did with her time, she found it hard to explain. So small was the span by which Dinu’s successes were measured—an extra step or two at a time, a couple more inches—that it was impossible to communicate either the joy or the crestfallen emptiness that attended upon the passing of each day. Her friends would nod politely as they listened to her explanations and when they left she knew that it would be a long time before she saw them again. The odd thing was that far from feeling any regret, she was glad.
One weekend, Rajkumar said: ‘You haven’t been out in months.’ He had a horse running for the Governor’s Cup, at the Rangoon Turf Club: he insisted that she go with him to the races.
