Sea of Poppies

by Amitav Ghosh

  ‘It’s beautiful.’ On the inner side of the cover, Zachary noticed, there was a name, engraved in small letters. He read it out loud: ‘“Adam T. Danby”. Who was that? Did you know him, Serang Ali?’

  The serang hesitated for a moment and then shook his head: ‘No. No, sabbi. Bought clock in pawnshop, in Cape Town. Now blongi Zikri Malum’s.’

  ‘I can’t take this from you, Serang Ali.’

  ‘Is all right, Zikri Malum,’ said the serang with one of his rare smiles. ‘Is all right.’

  Zachary was touched. ‘Thank you, Serang Ali. Ain nobody never gave me nothin like this before.’ He stood in front of the mirror, watch in hand, hat on head, and burst into laughter. ‘Hey! They’ll make me Mayor, for sure.’

  Serang Ali nodded: ‘Malum Zikri one big piece pukka sahib now. Allo propa. If planter-bugger coming catch, must do dumbcow.’

  ‘Dumbcow?’ said Zachary. ‘What you talkin bout?’

  ‘Must too muchi shout: planter-bugger, you go barnshoot sister. I one-piece pukka sahib, no can catch. You takee pistol in pocket; if bugger try shanghai, shoot in he face.’

  Zachary pocketed a pistol and went nervously ashore – but almost from the moment he stepped on the quay he found himself being treated with unaccustomed deference. He went to a stable to hire a horse, and the French owner bowed and addressed him as ‘milord’ and couldn’t do enough to please him. He rode out with a groom running behind him, to point the way.

  The town was small, just a few blocks of houses that faded away into a jumble of shacks, shanties and other hut-houses; beyond, the path wound through dense patches of forest and towering, tangled thickets of sugar-cane. The surrounding hills and crags were of strange, twisted shapes; they sat upon the plains like a bestiary of gargantuan animals that had been frozen in the act of trying to escape from the grip of the earth. From time to time, passing between fields of sugar-cane, he would come upon gangs of men who would put down their scythes to stare at him: the overseers would bow, raising their whips deferentially to their hats while the workers gazed in expressionless silence, making him glad of the weapon in his pocket. The plantation house came into view while he was still a long way off, through an avenue of trees with peeling, honey-coloured bark. He had expected a mansion, like those in the plantations of Delaware and Maryland, but in this house there were no grand pillars or gabled windows: it was a one-storeyed wood-framed bungalow, skirted by a deep veranda. The owner, Monsieur d’Epinay, was sitting on the veranda in his drawers and suspenders – Zachary thought nothing of this, and was taken aback when his host apologized for his state of undress, explaining, in halting English, that he had not expected to receive a gentleman at this time of day. Leaving his guest to be waited on by an African maidservant, M. d’Epinay went inside and emerged a half-hour later, fully dressed, and regaled Zachary with a meal of many courses, accompanied by fine wines.

  It was with some reluctance that Zachary checked his watch and announced that it was time for him to leave. As they were walking out of the house, M. d’Epinay handed him a letter that was to be delivered to Mr Benjamin Burnham, in Calcutta.

  ‘My canes are rotting in the field, Mr Reid,’ said the planter. ‘Tell Mr Burnham that I need men. Now that we may no longer have slaves in Mauritius, I must have coolies, or I am doomed. Put in a word for me, will you not?’

  With his farewell handshake, M. d’Epinay offered a word of warning. ‘Be careful, Mr Reid; keep your eyes open. The mountains around are filled with marrons and desperadoes and escaped slaves. A gentleman on his own must be careful. Make sure your gun is never far from your hands.’

  Zachary trotted away from the plantation with a grin on his face and the word ‘gentleman’ ringing in his ears: there were clearly many advantages to being branded with this label – and more of these became apparent when he arrived at the dockside quarter of Port Louis. With nightfall, the narrow lanes around the Lascar Bazar had come alive with women, and the sight of Zachary, in his paletot and hat, had a galvanic effect on them: clothes became the newest addition to his list of praiseworthy things. Thanks to their magic, he, Zachary Reid, so often disregarded by the whores of Fell’s Point, now had women hanging off his arms and elbows: he had their fingers in his hair, their hips pressing against his own, and their hands toying playfully with the horn buttons of his broadcloth trowsers. One of them, who called herself Madagascar Rose, was as pretty a girl as he had ever seen, with flowers behind her ears and painted red lips: dearly would he have loved, after ten months on a ship, to be dragged behind her door, to stick his nose between her jasmined breasts and to run his tongue over her vanilla lips – but suddenly there was Serang Ali, in his sarong, blocking the lane, his thin acquiline face compressed into a dagger of disapproval. At the sight of him, the Rose of Madagascar wilted and was gone.

  ‘Malum Zikri no hab got dam brain inside?’ demanded the serang, arms akimbo. ‘Hab got water topside, in he head? What for wanchi flower-girl? He not big pukka sahib now?’

  Zachary was in no mood for a lecture. ‘Get knotted, Serang Ali! Can’t nobody turn a sailor from a snatchwarren.’

  ‘Why for Malum Zikri wanchi pay for jiggy-pijjin?’ said the serang. ‘Oc-to-puss no have see? Is too muchi happy fish.’

  This had Zachary foundering. ‘Octopus?’ he said. ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘No hab see?’ said Serang Ali. ‘Mistoh Oc-toh-puss eight hand hab got. Make heself too muchi happy inside. Allo time smile. Why Malum not so-fashion do? Ten finger no hab got?’

  It wasn’t long before Zachary threw up his hands in resignation and allowed himself to be led away. All the way back to the ship, Serang Ali kept brushing dust off his clothes, fixing his cravat, straightening his hair. It was as if he had acquired a claim on him, in having aided in his transformation into a sahib; no matter how much Zachary cursed and slapped his hands, he would not stop: it was as if he had become an image of gentility, equipped with all that it took to find success in the world. It dawned on him that this was why Serang Ali had been so determined to keep him from bedding the girls in the bazar – his matings, too, would have to be arranged and supervised. Or so he thought.

  The skipper, still ailing, was now desperate to get to Calcutta and wanted to weigh anchor as soon as possible. But when told of this, Serang Ali disagreed: ‘Cap’tin-bugger plenty sick,’ he said. ‘If no catchi dokto, he makee die. Go topside too muchee quick.’

  Zachary was ready to fetch a doctor, but the Captain would not let him. ‘Not goin’t’a have no shagbag of a leech fingerin me taffrail. Nothing wrong with me. Just the running scoots. I’ll be better the minute we make sail.’

  The next day the breeze freshened and the Ibis duly stood out to sea. The skipper managed to stagger out to the quarter-deck and declared himself to be all a-taunto but Serang Ali was of another opinion: ‘Captin catchi Cop’ral-Forbes. Look-see – he tongue go black. Better Malum Zikri keep far from Captin.’ Later, he handed Zachary a foul-smelling decoction of roots and herbs. ‘Malum drinki he: no catchi sick. Cop’ral-Forbes – he one piece nasty bugger.’ On the serang’s advice Zachary also made a change of diet, switching from the usual sailor’s menu of lobscouse, dandyfunk and chokedog to a lascar fare of karibat and kedgeree – spicy skillygales of rice, lentils and pickles, mixed on occasion with little bits of fish, fresh or dry. The tongue-searing tastes were difficult to get used to at first, but Zachary could tell the spices were doing him good, scouring his insides, and he soon grew to like the unfamiliar flavours.

  Twelve days later, just as Serang Ali had predicted, the Captain was dead. This time there was no bidding for the dead man’s effects: they were thrown overboard and the stateroom was washed and left open, to be cauterized by the salt air.

  When the body was tipped into the sea it was Zachary who read from the Bible. He did it in a voice that was sonorous enough to earn a compliment from Serang Ali: ‘Malum Zikri number-one joss-pijjin bugger. Church-song why no sing?’

&nb
sp; ‘No can do,’ said Zachary. ‘Ain could never sing.’

  ‘Nebba mind,’ said Serang Ali. ‘One-piece song-bugger hab got.’ He beckoned to a tall, spidery ship’s-boy called Rajoo. ‘This launder blongi one-time Mission-boy. Joss-man hab learn him one-piece saam.’

  ‘Psalm?’ said Zachary, in surprise. ‘Which one?’

  As if in answer, the young lascar began to sing: ‘ “Why do the heathen so furiously rage together . . . ?”’

  In case the meaning of this had escaped Zachary, the serang considerately provided a translation. ‘That mean,’ he whispered into Zachary’s ear, ‘for what heathen-bugger makee so muchi bobbery? Other works no hab got?’

  Zachary sighed: ‘Guess that just about sums it all up.’

  By the time the Ibis dropped anchor at the mouth of the Hooghly River, eleven months had passed since her departure from Baltimore, and the only remaining members of the schooner’s original complement were Zachary and Crabbie, the vessel’s ginger cat.

  With Calcutta just two or three days away, Zachary would have been only too glad to get under weigh immediately. Several days went by while the fretful crew waited for a pilot to arrive. Zachary was asleep in his cabin, dressed in nothing but a sarong, when Serang Ali came to tell him that a bunder-boat had pulled alongside.

  ‘Misto Dumbcow hab come.’

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Pilot. He too muchi dumbcowing,’ said the serang. ‘Listen.’

  Cocking his head, Zachary caught the echo of a voice booming down the gangway: ‘Damn my eyes if I ever saw such a caffle of barnshooting badmashes! A chowdering of your chutes is what you budzats need. What do you think you’re doing, toying with your tatters and luffing your laurels while I stand here in the sun?’

  Pulling on an undershirt and trowsers, Zachary stepped out to see a stout, irate Englishman pounding the deck with a Malacca cane. He was dressed in an extravagantly old-fashioned way, with his shirt-collar up on high, a coat that was cut away in the skirts, and a Belcher fogle around his waist. His face, with its bacony hue, its mutton-chop whiskers, beefy cheeks and liverish lips, looked as if it could have been assembled upon a butcher’s counter. Behind him stood a small knot of porters and lascars, bearing an assortment of bowlas, portmanteaus and other baggage.

  ‘Do none of you halalcores have any wit at all?’ The veins stood out on the pilot’s forehead as he shouted at the unbudging crew: ‘Where’s the mate? Has he been given the kubber that my bunder-boat has lagowed? Don’t just stand there: jaw! Hop to it, before I give your ganders a taste of my lattee. Have you saying your bysmelas before you know it.’

  ‘I do apologize, sir,’ said Zachary, stepping forward. ‘I’m sorry you had to wait.’

  The pilot’s eyes narrowed in disapproval as they took in Zachary’s dishevelled clothes and bare feet. ‘Caulk my dead lights, man!’ he said. ‘You’ve certainly let yourself go, haven’t you? Won’t do when you’re the only sahib on board – not if you don’t want to be borak-poked by your darkies.’

  ‘Sorry, sir . . . just a bit discombobb’d.’ Zachary stuck out his hand. ‘I’m the second mate, Zachary Reid.’

  ‘And I’m James Doughty,’ said the newcomer, giving Zachary’s hand a grudging shake. ‘Formerly of the Bengal River Pilot Service; currently bespoke arkati and turnee for Burnham Bros. The Burra Sahib – Ben Burnham, that is – asked me to take charge of the ship.’ He waved airily at the lascar who was standing behind the wheel. ‘That’s my seacunny over there; knows exactly what to do – could take you up the Burrempooter with his eyes closed. What’d you say we leave the steering to that badmash and find ourselves a drop of loll-shrub?’

  ‘Loll-shrub?’ Zachary scratched his chin. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Doughty, but I don’t know what that is.’

  ‘Claret, my boy,’ the pilot said airily. ‘Wouldn’t happen to have a drop on board, would you? If not, a brandy-pawnee will do just as well.’

  Two

  Two days later, Deeti and her daughter were eating their midday meal when Chandan Singh stopped his ox-cart at their door. Kabutri-ki-má! he shouted. Listen: Hukam Singh has passed out, at the factory. They said you should go there and bring him home.

  With that he gave his reins a snap and drove off hurriedly, impatient for his meal and his afternoon sleep: it was typical of him to offer no help.

  A chill crept up Deeti’s neck as she absorbed this: it was not that the news itself was totally unexpected – her husband had been ailing for some time and his collapse did not come entirely as a surprise. Rather, her foreboding sprang from a certainty that this turn of events was somehow connected with the ship she had seen; it was as if the very wind that was bearing it towards her had blown a draught up her spine.

  Ma? said Kabutri. What shall we do? How will we bring him home?

  We have to find Kalua and his ox-cart, Deeti said. Chal; come, let’s go.

  The hamlet of the Chamars, where Kalua lived, was a short walk away and he was sure to be home at this hour of the afternoon. The problem was that he would probably expect to be paid and she was hard put to think of something to offer him: she had no grain or fruit to spare, and as for money, there was not a dam’s worth of cowrie-shells in the house. Having run through the alternatives, she realized that she had no option but to delve into the carved wooden chest in which her husband kept his supply of opium: the box was nominally locked, but Deeti knew where to find the key. On opening the lid, she was relieved to find inside several lumps of hard akbari opium, as well as a sizeable piece of soft chandu opium, still wrapped in poppy petals. Deciding on the hard opium, she cut off a lump the size of her thumbnail, and folded it into one of the wrappers she had made that morning. With the package tucked into the waist of her sari, she set off in the direction of Ghazipur, with Kabutri running ahead, skipping along the embankments that divided the poppy fields.

  The sun was past its zenith now and a haze was dancing over the flowers, in the warmth of the afternoon. Deeti drew the ghungta of her sari over her face, but the old cotton, cheap and thin to begin with, was now so worn that she could see right through it: the faded fabric blurred the outlines of everything in view, tinting the edges of the plump poppy pods with a faintly crimson halo. As her steps lengthened, she saw that on some nearby fields, the crop was well in advance of her own: some of her neighbours had already nicked their pods and the white ooze of the sap could be seen congealing around the parallel incisions of the nukha. The sweet, heady odour of the bleeding pods had drawn swarms of insects, and the air was buzzing with bees, grasshoppers and wasps; many would get stuck in the ooze and tomorrow, when the sap turned colour, their bodies would merge into the black gum, becoming a welcome addition to the weight of the harvest. The sap seemed to have a pacifying effect even on the butterflies, which flapped their wings in oddly erratic patterns, as though they could not remember how to fly. One of these landed on the back of Kabutri’s hand and would not take wing until it was thrown up in the air.

  See how it’s lost in dreams? Deeti said. That means the harvest will be good this year. Maybe we’ll even be able to fix our roof.

  She stopped to glance in the direction of their hut, which was just visible in the distance: it looked like a tiny raft, floating upon a river of poppies. The hut’s roof was urgently in need of repairs, but in this age of flowers, thatch was not easy to come by: in the old days, the fields would be heavy with wheat in the winter, and after the spring harvest, the straw would be used to repair the damage of the year before. But now, with the sahibs forcing everyone to grow poppy, no one had thatch to spare – it had to be bought at the market, from people who lived in faraway villages, and the expense was such that people put off their repairs as long as they possibly could.

  When Deeti was her daughter’s age, things were different: poppies had been a luxury then, grown in small clusters between the fields that bore the main winter crops – wheat, masoor dal and vegetables. Her mother would send some of her poppy seeds to the oil-press, an
d the rest she would keep for the house, some for replanting, and some to cook with meat and vegetables. As for the sap, it was sieved of impurities and left to dry, until the sun turned it into hard akbari afeem; at that time, no one thought of producing the wet, treacly chandu opium that was made and packaged in the English factory, to be sent across the sea in boats.

  In the old days, farmers would keep a little of their home-made opium for their families, to be used during illnesses, or at harvests and weddings; the rest they would sell to the local nobility, or to pykari merchants from Patna. Back then, a few clumps of poppy were enough to provide for a household’s needs, leaving a little over, to be sold: no one was inclined to plant more because of all the work it took to grow poppies – fifteen ploughings of the land and every remaining clod to be broken by hand, with a dantoli; fences and bunds to be built; purchases of manure and constant watering; and after all that, the frenzy of the harvest, each bulb having to be individually nicked, drained and scraped. Such punishment was bearable when you had a patch or two of poppies – but what sane person would want to multiply these labours when there were better, more useful crops to grow, like wheat, dal, vegetables? But those toothsome winter crops were steadily shrinking in acreage: now the factory’s appetite for opium seemed never to be sated. Come the cold weather, the English sahibs would allow little else to be planted; their agents would go from home to home, forcing cash advances on the farmers, making them sign asámi contracts. It was impossible to say no to them: if you refused they would leave their silver hidden in your house, or throw it through a window. It was no use telling the white magistrate that you hadn’t accepted the money and your thumbprint was forged: he earned commissions on the opium and would never let you off. And, at the end of it, your earnings would come to no more than three-and-a-half sicca rupees, just about enough to pay off your advance.