Sea of Poppies

by Amitav Ghosh

  And what indeed would become of Malati and Raj? Where would they go? His wife’s family home, where her brothers now lived, was not a grand residence, like the Raskhali Rajbari, but it was certainly large enough to accommodate her. But now that she had irretrievably lost caste, along with her husband, there could be no question of her seeking shelter there; if her brothers took her in, their own sons and daughters would never be able to find spouses of their own station. Malati was too proud, he knew, to put her brothers in the situation of having to turn her away.

  Neel began to pound upon his chained door. He kept at it until it was opened by a guard. He needed to send a message to his family, he told the constable; some arrangement had to be made to take a letter; he would insist until it was done.

  Insist? sneered the constable, waggling his head in derision, and who did he think he was, some kind of raja?

  But word must have percolated through, because later in the day, he heard a key turning in the lock. At that hour of the afternoon the sound could only herald a visitor, so he went eagerly to the door, expecting to find Parimal on the threshold – or perhaps one of his gomustas or daftardars. But when the doors swung open, it was to reveal his wife and son, standing outside.

  You? He could scarcely bring himself to speak.

  Yes. Malati was wearing a red-bordered cotton sari, and although her head was covered, the garment was not draped in such a way as to veil her face.

  You’ve come like this? Neel moved quickly to one side, so she could step out of public view. To a place where everyone can see you?

  Malati tossed her head, so that her sari dropped to her shoulders baring her hair. How does it matter any more? she said quietly. We are no different now from anyone on the street.

  He began to chew his lip, in concern. But the shame, he said. Are you sure you will be able to bear it?

  Me? she said matter-of-factly. What’s it to me? It wasn’t for my own sake that I kept purdah – it was because you and your family wanted it. And it means nothing now: we have nothing to preserve and nothing to lose.

  Now Raj’s arm came snaking around Neel’s waist, as the boy buried his face in his father’s midriff. Looking down at his head, it seemed to Neel that his son had shrunk somehow – or was it just that he could not remember ever seeing him in a coarse cotton vest and knee-length dhoti?

  Our kites . . . are they . . . ? He had been trying to keep his tone light and his voice punished him by dying in his throat.

  I threw them all in the river, said the boy.

  We’ve given away most of our things, Malati added quickly. Tucking in her sari, she took the jharu from the corner where the guard had left it and set to sweeping the floor. We’ve kept only what we can take with us.

  Take where? said Neel. Where are you thinking to go?

  It’s all been arranged, she said, sweeping busily. You shouldn’t worry.

  But I must know, he insisted. Where are you going? You have to tell me.

  To Parimal’s place.

  Parimal’s place? Neel repeated the words after her, in bewilderment: he had never thought of Parimal as having a home of his own, other than his quarters in the Rajbari.

  But where is Parimal’s place?

  Not far from the city, she said. I didn’t know of it either, till he told me. He bought some land, years ago, with money saved from his earnings. He’s going to give us a corner of it.

  Neel sank helplessly on to his string bed, holding his son by the shoulders. He could feel the dampness of Raj’s tears on his skin now, soaking through his tunic, and he pulled the boy closer, sinking his chin into his thick black hair. Then his own face began to smart and he realized that his eyes had welled up with a substance that was as corrosive as acid, tinged with the bitter gall of his betrayals of his wife and child, and with the bile that came from knowing that he had spent all his years as a somnambulist, walking through his days as if his life mattered no more than a bit-part in a play written by someone else.

  Malati put away the jharu and came to sit beside him. We’ll be all right, she said insistently. Don’t worry about us; we’ll manage. It’s you who must be strong. For our sakes, if not your own, you have to stay alive: I could not bear to be a widow, not after all this.

  As her words sank in, his tears dried on his cheeks and he spread out his arms to pull his wife and son to his chest. Listen to me, he said: I will stay alive. I make you this promise: I will. And when these seven years are over, I will return and I will take you both away from this accursed land and we will start new lives in some other place. That is all I ask of you: do not doubt that I will come back, for I will.

  The tumasher for Captain Chillingworth, with all its fuss and goll-maul, was not long in the past when Paulette received yet another summons to the Burra BeeBee’s bedchamber. The call came shortly after Mr Burnham’s departure for his Dufter, and the wheels of his carriage were still crackling on the conkers of Bethel’s drive when a khidmutgar knocked on Paulette’s door to deliver the summons. This was not an hour of day which often found Mrs Burnham fully awakened from her nightly dose of laudanum, so it seemed only natural to assume that the call was of especial urgency, prompted by an unannounced church tiffin or some other unexpected entertainment. But on being admitted to the BeeBee’s bedchamber it became apparent to Paulette that this was an occasion truly without precedent – for not only was Mrs Burnham fully awake, she was actually on her feet, skipping prettily around the room, throwing open the shutters.

  ‘Oh Puggly!’ she cried, as Paulette stepped in. ‘Pray, where have you been, dear?’

  ‘But Madame,’ said Paulette. ‘I came all-a-sweet, as soon as I was told.’

  ‘Really, dear?’ said the BeeBee. ‘It seems like I’ve been waiting an age. I thought for sure you were off to bake a brinjaul.’

  ‘Oh, but Madame!’ protested Paulette. ‘It is not the bonne hour.’

  ‘No, dear,’ Mrs Burnham agreed. ‘It would never do to be warming the coorsy when there’s kubber like this to be heard.’

  ‘News?’ said Paulette. ‘There is some news?’

  ‘Why yes, so there is; but we must sit on the cot, Puggly dear,’ said Mrs Burnham. ‘It’s not the kind of thing you want to be gupping about on your feet.’ Taking Paulette by the hand, the BeeBee led her across the room and cleared a place for the two of them at the edge of her bed.

  ‘But what is it that has arrived, Madame?’ said Paulette, in rising alarm. ‘Nothing bad, I hope?’

  ‘Good heavens, no!’ said Mrs Burnham. ‘It’s the best possible news, dear.’

  Mrs Burnham’s voice was so warm and her blue eyes so filled with fellow-feeling, that Paulette became a little apprehensive. Something was amiss, she knew: could it be that the BeeBee, with her uncanny powers of divination, had somehow uncovered the most pressing of her secrets? ‘Oh Madame,’ she blurted out, ‘it is not about . . . ?’

  ‘Mr Kendalbushe?’ Mrs Burnham prompted her delightedly. ‘Why, how did you know?’

  Robbed of her breath, Paulette could only repeat, stupefied: ‘Mr Kendalbushe?’

  ‘You sly little shaytan!’ said the BeeBee, slapping her wrist. ‘Did you guess or did someone tell you?’

  ‘Neither, Madame. I you assure, I do not know . . .’

  ‘Or was it just a case,’ continued the BeeBee archly, ‘of two hearts chiming together, like gantas in a clock-tower?’

  ‘Oh Madame,’ cried Paulette, in distress. ‘It is nothing like that.’

  ‘Well then I can’t imagine how you knew,’ declared the BeeBee, fanning herself with her nightcap. ‘As for myself, a talipot in a gale could not be knocked over as easily as I was when Mr Burnham told me this morning.’

  ‘Told you what, Madame?’

  ‘About his meeting with the judge,’ said Mrs Burnham. ‘You see, Puggly, they had dinner at the Bengal Club yesterday, and after they’d bucked about this and that, Mr Kendalbushe asked if he might broach a rather delicate matter. Now, as you know, dear,
Mr Burnham holds Mr Kendalbushe in the highest esteem so of course he said yes. And would you like to hazard a guess, Puggly dear, about what this matter was?’

  ‘A point of law?’

  ‘No, dear,’ said Mrs Burnham, ‘far more delicate than that: what he wanted to ask was whether you, dear Puggly, might look favourably upon his suit.’

  ‘Suit?’ said Paulette, in confusion. ‘But Madame, I cannot say. I have no memory of his costume.’

  ‘Not that kind of suit, you gudda,’ said Mrs Burnham, with a good-natured laugh. ‘Suit of marriage is what he meant. Don’t you samjo, Puggly? He’s planning to propose to you.’

  ‘To me?’ cried Paulette in horror. ‘But Madame! Why?’

  ‘Because, my dear,’ said Mrs Burnham with a good-natured laugh, ‘he is most greatly impressed by your simple manners and your modesty. You have quite won his heart. Can you imagine, dear, what a prodigious stroke of kismet it will be for you to bag Mr Kendalbushe? He’s a nabob in his own right – made a mountain of mohurs out of the China trade. Ever since he lost his wife every larkin in town’s been trying to bundo him. I can tell you, dear, there’s a paltan of mems who’d give their last anna to be in your jooties.’

  ‘But with so many splendid memsahibs vying for him, Madame,’ said Paulette, ‘why would he choose so poor a creature as myself?’

  ‘He is evidently very impressed by your willingness to improve yourself, dear,’ said the BeeBee. ‘Mr Burnham has told him that you are the most willing pupil he has ever had. And as you know, dear, Mr Burnham and the judge are completely of a mind in these things.’

  ‘But Madame,’ said Paulette, who could no longer control her trembling lip, ‘surely there are many who know the Scriptures far better than I? I am but the merest novice.’

  ‘But my dear!’ laughed Mrs Burnham. ‘That’s exactly why you have won his regard – because you’re a clean slate and willing to learn.’

  ‘Oh Madame,’ moaned Paulette, wringing her hands, ‘surely you are pleasanting. It is not kind.’

  The BeeBee was surprised by Paulette’s distress. ‘Oh Puggly!’ she said. ‘Are you not glad of the judge’s interest? It is a great triumph, I assure you. Mr Burnham approves most heartily and has assured Mr Kendalbushe that he will do everything in his power to sway you. The two of them have even agreed to share the burden of your instruction for a while.’

  ‘Mr Kendalbushe is too kind,’ said Paulette, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. ‘And so is Mr Burnham. I am greatly honoured, Madame – yet I must confess that my sentiments are not the same as those of Mr Kendalbushe.’

  At this, Mrs Burnham frowned and sat upright. ‘Sentiments, my dear Puggly,’ she said sternly, ‘are for dhobis and dashies. We mems can’t let that kind of thing get in the way! No, dear, let me tell you – you’re lucky to have a judge in your sights and you mustn’t let your bunduk waver. This is about as fine a shikar as a girl in your situation could possibly hope for.’

  ‘Oh Madame,’ said Paulette, weeping freely now, ‘but are not the things of this world mere dross when weighed against love?’

  ‘Love?’ said Mrs Burnham, in mounting astonishment. ‘What on earth are you bucking about? My dear Puggly, with your prospects, you can’t be letting your shokes run away with you. I know the judge is not as young as he might be, but he’s certainly not past giving you a butcha or two before he slips into his dotage. And after that, dear, why, there’s nothing a mem needs that can’t be cured by a long bath and a couple of cushy-girls. Believe me, Puggly, there’s a lot to be said for men of that age. No badmashee at all hours of the night, for one thing. I can tell you, dear, there’s nothing more annoying than to be puckrowed just when you’re looking forward to a sip of laudanum and a nice long sleep.’

  ‘But Madame,’ said Paulette, miserably, ‘do you not feel it would be penible to spend one’s life thus?’

  ‘That’s the best part of it, dear,’ said Mrs Burnham cheerfully. ‘You won’t have to. He’s no chuckeroo after all, and I doubt he is long for this world. And just imagine – after the dear, sainted man is gone you’ll be able to swan off to Paris with his cuzzanah and before you know it, some impoverished duke or marquis will come begging for your hand.’

  ‘But Madame,’ said Paulette, sobbing, ‘what will be my profit from this, if my youth is forfeit and I have wasted the love that is in my heart?’

  ‘But Puggly dear,’ protested the BeeBee. ‘You could learn to love the judge, could you not?’

  ‘But one cannot learn to love, Madame,’ Paulette protested. ‘Surely it is more like a coup de foudre – how do you say in English – like being shot by his bolt?’

  ‘Shot by his bolt!’ Mrs Burnham clapped her hands over her scandalized ears. ‘Puggly! You really must watch what you say.’

  ‘But is it not true, Madame?’

  ‘I’m sure I wouldn’t know.’ Her suspicions awakened, Mrs Burnham turned to rest her chin on her hand and directed a long, searching glance at Paulette. ‘Pray tell me, dear Puggly – there isn’t someone else, is there?’

  Paulette was in a panic now, knowing that she had given away more than she should have. But denial was futile too, she knew, for to tell a direct lie to someone as shrewd as Mrs Burnham was merely to double the risks of detection. So instead she hung her head, in silence, and lowered her streaming eyes.

  ‘I knew it!’ said the BeeBee triumphantly. ‘It’s that American, isn’t it – Hezekiah or Zebediah or whatever? But you’re out of your mind, Puggly! It would never serve. You’re too poor to throw yourself away on a sailor, no matter how handsome or well-spoken. A young seaman – why, that’s the worst kismet any woman could wish for, even worse than a wordy-wallah! They’re gone when you need them, they never have a dam’s worth of silver to call their own, and they’re dead before the children are out of their langoots. With a classy for a husband, you’d have to find a job as a harry-maid just to get by! I don’t think it would suit you at all, dear, cleaning up other people’s cabobs and emptying their dawk-dubbers. No, dear, it can’t be allowed, I won’t hear of it . . .’

  Suddenly, as her suspicions deepened, the BeeBee cut herself short and clamped her hands on her mouth. ‘Oh! dear, dear Puggly – tell me – you haven’t . . . ? . . . you haven’t . . . No! Tell me it isn’t so!’

  ‘What, Madame?’ said Paulette, in puzzlement.

  The BeeBee’s voice sank to a whisper. ‘You haven’t compromised yourself, Puggly dear, have you? No. I will not credit it.’

  ‘Compromise, Madame?’ Paulette proudly raised her chin and squared her shoulders. ‘In matters of the heart, Madame, I do not believe that half-measures and compromises are possible. Does not love demand that we give our all?’

  ‘Puggly . . . !’ Mrs Burnham gasped, fanning herself with a pillow. ‘Oh my dear! Oh heavens! Tell me, dear Puggly: I must know the worst.’ She swallowed faintly and clutched her fluttering bosom: ‘. . . is there? . . . no surely there isn’t! . . . no . . . Lud! . . .’

  ‘Yes, Madame?’ said Paulette.

  ‘Puggly, tell me the truth, I conjure you: there isn’t a rootie in the choola, is there?’

  ‘Why, Madame . . .’

  Paulette was a little surprised to see Mrs Burnham making such a to-do about a matter she usually touched upon so lightly – but she was glad, too, to have the conversation turned in this new direction, since it presented a good opportunity for escape. Hugging her stomach, she made a moaning sound: ‘Madame, you are prefectly right: I am indeed a little foireuse today.’

  ‘Oh dear, dear Puggly!’ The BeeBee dabbed her streaming eyes and gave Paulette a pitying hug. ‘Of course you’re furious! Those budzat sailors! With all their udlee-budlee, you’d think they’d leave the larkins alone! My lips are sealed, of course – no one will learn of it from me. But Puggly dear, don’t you see? For your own sake, you must marry Mr Kendalbushe at once! There is no time to waste!’

  ‘No indeed, Madame, there is not!’ Just as Mrs Burnham was reaching for
her laudanum, Paulette leapt to her feet and ran to the door. ‘Forgive me, Madame, I must away. The coorsy will not wait.’

  The word ‘Calcutta’ had no sooner been uttered than every window in the girmitiyas’ pulwar flew open. In the men’s section, with its greater press of numbers, there was a good deal of jostling and pushing and not everyone was able to find a desirable vantage point; the women were luckier – with two windows to share between them, they were all able to look at the shorefront as the city approached.

  On the journey downriver, the pulwar had stopped at so many large and populous towns – Patna, Bhagalpur, Munger – that urban vistas were no longer a novelty. Yet, even the most worldly of the girmitiyas was caught unawares by the spectacle that unfolded around them now: the ghats, buildings and shipyards that lined the Hooghly were so numerous, so crowded and of such a size that the migrants fell into a silence that was in equal measure awestruck and appalled. How was it possible that people could live in the midst of such congestion and so much filth, with no fields or greenery anywhere in sight; such folk were surely another species of being?

  As they drew closer to the docks, the river traffic thickened and the pulwar was soon surrounded by a forest of masts, spars and sails. In this company, the pulwar seemed a paltry vessel, but Deeti was suddenly filled with affection for it: in the midst of so much that was unfamiliar and intimidating, it seemed like a great ark of comfort. Like everyone else, she too had often been impatient for this stage of the journey to end – but now it was with deepening dread that she listened to the duffadar and the sirdars as they made preparations for the migrants’ disembarkation.

  Silently, the women collected their belongings and crept out of their enclosure; Ratna, Champa and Dookhanee hurried off to join their husbands, but Deeti, having appointed herself the guardian of the single women, gathered Munia, Sarju and Heeru around her and took them along to wait with Kalua. Soon the sirdars came down to let the migrants know that from here they would be taken to their camp in hired rowboats, ten or twelve at a time. The women were the first to be called on to make the switch; along with their spouses, they emerged on deck to find a rowboat waiting beside the pulwar.