by Amitav Ghosh
It was when she was dropping the langot over him that her eyes were drawn, despite herself, to focus on his nakedness – somehow, even as she was cleaning him, she had managed not to take it in. She had never before, in a state of consciousness, been so close to this part of a man’s body and now she found herself staring, both in fear and curiosity, seeing again that image of herself on her wedding night. As if of its own accord, her hand snaked out and laid itself down, and she felt, to her amazement, the softness of mere flesh: but then, as she grew accustomed to his breathing, she became aware of a faint stirring and swelling, and suddenly it was as if she were waking to a reality in which her family and her village were looking over her shoulder, watching as she sat with her hand resting intimately upon the most untouchable part of this man. Recoiling, she went quickly back into the field, where she hid herself among the poppies and waited as she had before.
After what seemed like a long time, Kalua rose slowly to his feet and looked around himself, as if in surprise. Then, knotting his langot around his loins, he staggered away, with a look of such confusion that Deeti was certain – or almost – that he had been totally unconscious of her presence.
Two years had passed since then, but far from fading, the events of that night had attained a guilty vividness in her memory. Often, as she lay beside her opium-dazed husband, her mind would revisit the scene, sharpening the details and refreshing certain particulars – all of this without her permission and despite her every effort to steer her thoughts in other directions. Her discomfort would have been greater still if she had believed that Kalua had access to the same images and recollections – but she had, as yet, seen no sign that he remembered anything from that night. Still, a nagging doubt remained, and since then she had always taken good care to avoid his eyes, shrouding her face in her sari whenever he was near.
So it was with some apprehension that Deeti observed Kalua now, from the shelter of her faded sari: the folds of fabric betrayed nothing of the concentration with which she watched for his response to her presence. She knew that if his eyes or his face were to betray any knowledge, any recollection, of her part in the events of that night, then she would have no option but to turn on her heel and walk away: the awkwardness would be too great to ignore, for not only was there the question of what the landlords had tried to do to him – the shame of which might well destroy a man if he knew that it had been witnessed – but there was also the shamelessness of her own curiosity, if that was indeed all it was.
To Deeti’s relief, the sight of her seemed to kindle no spark in Kalua’s dull eyes. His massive chest was clothed in a discoloured, sleeveless vest, and around his waist he was wearing his usual dirty cotton langot – out of the folds of which his oxen were now picking bits of straw, grass and fodder while he stood in front of his shack, shifting his weight between his pillar-like legs.
Ka bhailé? What’s happening? he said at last in his hoarse, unmindful way, and she felt sure now that if he’d ever had any memory of that night, his slow, simple mind had long since lost track of it.
Ey-ré Kalua, she said, that man of mine is unwell at the factory; he has to be brought home.
He gave this some thought, cocking his head, and then nodded: All right; I’ll bring him back.
Gaining confidence, she took out the package she had prepared and held it up in her hand: But this is all I can give you in payment, Kalua – don’t expect anything more.
He stared at it: What is it?
Afeem, Kalua, she said briskly. At this time of year, what else do people have in their houses?
He began lumbering towards her, so she placed the package on the ground and stepped quickly back, clutching her daughter to her side: in the full light of day, it was unthinkable that any kind of contact should occur between herself and Kalua, even that which might result from the passing of an inert object. But she kept careful watch, as he picked up the leaf-wrapped package and sniffed its contents; it occurred to her to wonder, fleetingly, whether he, too, was an opiumeater – but she dismissed the thought instantly. What did it matter what his habits were? He was a stranger, not a husband. Yet, she felt oddly glad when, instead of putting the opium away for his own use, he broke the lump in two and fed the halves to his oxen. The animals chewed contentedly as he tied them to his yoke, and when the cart had drawn abreast of her, she climbed in with her daughter and sat facing backwards, with her legs dangling over the edge. And so they made their way towards Ghazipur, sitting at either end of the cart’s bamboo platform, so far apart that not even the loosest of tongues could find a word to say, by way of scandal or reproach.
On that very afternoon, five hundred miles to the east of Ghazipur, Azad Naskar – known universally by his nickname, Jodu – was also preparing to embark on the journey that would bring him athwart the bows of the Ibis and into Deeti’s shrine. Earlier that day, Jodu had buried his mother in the village of Naskarpara, using one of his last coins to pay a molla-shaheb to read the Qur’an over her freshly dug grave. The village was some fifteen miles from Calcutta, in a featureless stretch of mud and mangrove, on the edge of the Sundarbans. It was little more than a huddle of huts, clustered around the tomb of the Sufi fakir who had converted the inhabitants to Islam a generation or two before. If not for the fakir’s dargah the village might well have melted back into the mud, its inhabitants not being the kind of people to tarry long in one place: most of them earned their living by wandering on the water, working as boatmen, ferry-wallahs and fishermen. But they were humble folk, and few among them possessed the ambition or impetuosity to aspire to jobs on ocean-going ships – and of that small number, none had ever aspired more ardently to a lascar’s livelihood than Jodu. He would have been long gone from the village if not for his mother’s health, their family circumstances being such that in his absence, she was sure to have suffered complete neglect. Through the duration of her illness, he had tended to his mother in a fashion that was both impatient and affectionate, doing what little he could to provide some comfort in her last days: now, he had one final errand to perform on her behalf, after which he would be free to seek out the ghat-serangs who recruited lascars for deep-water ships.
Jodu, too, was a boatman’s son, and he was, by his own reckoning, no longer a boy, his chin having become suddenly so fecund in its crop of hair as to require a weekly visit to the barber. But the changes in his physique were so recent and so volcanic that he had yet to grow accustomed to them: it was as if his body were a smoking crater that had just risen from the ocean and was still waiting to be explored. Across his left eyebrow, the legacy of a childhood mishap, there was a deep gash where the skin showed through, with the result that when seen from a distance, he seemed to have three eyebrows instead of two. This disfigurement, if it could be called that, provided an odd highlight to his appearance, and years later, when it came time for him to enter Deeti’s shrine, it was this feature that was to determine her sketch of him: three gently angled slashes in an oval.
Jodu’s boat, inherited years before from his father, was a clumsy affair, a dinghy made from hollowed-out logs and bound together with hemp ropes: within hours of his mother’s burial, Jodu had loaded it with his few remaining possessions and was ready to leave for Calcutta. With the current behind him, it did not take long to cover the distance to the mouth of the canal that led to the city’s docks: this narrow waterway, recently excavated by an enterprising English engineer, was known as Mr Tolly’s Nullah, and for the privilege of entering it, Jodu had to hand the last of his coins to the keeper of its tollhouse. The narrow canal was busy, as always, and Jodu took a couple of hours to make his way through the city, past the Kalighat temple and the grim walls of Alipore Jail. Emerging into the busy waterway of the Hooghly, he found himself suddenly in the midst of a great multitude of vessels – crowded sampans and agile almadias, towering brigantines and tiny baulias, swift carracks and wobbly woolocks; Adeni buggalows with rakish lateen sails and Andhra bulkats with many-tiered decks. In ste
ering through this press of traffic, there was no avoiding an occasional scrape or bump and for each of these he was roundly shouted out by serangs and tindals, coksens and bosmans; an irritable bhandari threw a bucket of slop at him and a lewd seacunny taunted him with suggestive gestures of his fist. Jodu responded by imitating the familiar shouts of sea officers – ‘What cheer ho? Avast!’ – and left the lascars gaping at the fluency of his mimicry.
After a year spent in rural seclusion, it made his spirits soar to hear these harbour-front voices again, with their outpourings of obscenity and abuse, taunts and invitations – and to watch the lascars swinging through the ringeen made his own hands grow restless for the feel of rope. As for the nearby shore, his gaze kept straying from the godowns and bankshalls of Kidderpore, to the twisting lanes of Watgunge where the women sat on the steps of their kothis, painting their faces in preparation for the night. What would they say to him now, those women who’d laughed and turned him away because of his youth?
Beyond Mr Kyd’s shipyard, the traffic on the water thinned a little, and Jodu had no difficulty in pulling up to the embankment at Bhutghat. This part of the city lay directly opposite the Royal Botanical Gardens, on the far side of the Hooghly, and the ghat was much used by the Gardens’ staff. Jodu knew that one of their boats would pull up here sooner or later, and sure enough, one such appeared within the hour, carrying a young English assistant curator. The lungi-clad coksen at the helm was well-known to Jodu, and once the sahib had stepped off, he pushed his own boat closer.
The coksen recognized him at once: Arré Jodu na? Isn’t that you – Jodu Naskar?
Jodu made his salams: Salam, khalaji. Yes, it’s me.
But where have you been? the coksen asked. Where’s your mother? It’s more than a year since you left the Gardens. Everyone’s been wondering . . .
We went back to the village, khalaji, said Jodu. My mother didn’t want to stay on after our sahib died.
I heard, said the coksen. And there was some talk that she was ill?
Jodu nodded, lowering his head: She died last night, khalaji.
Allah’r rahem! The coksen shut his eyes and muttered: God’s mercy on her.
Bismillah . . . Jodu murmured the prayer after him and then added: Listen, khalaji – it’s for my mother that I’m here: before she died she told me to be sure to find Lambert-sahib’s daughter – Miss Paulette.
Of course, said the coksen. That girl was like a daughter to your mother: no ayah ever gave a child as much love as she did.
. . . But do you know where Paulette-missy is? It’s more than a year since I last saw her.
The coksen nodded and raised a hand to point downriver: She lives not far from here. After her father died she was taken in by a rich English family. To find her, you’ll have to go to Garden Reach. Ask for the mansion of Burnham-sahib: in the garden there’s a chabutra with a green roof. You’ll know it the moment you see it.
Jodu was delighted to have achieved his end with such little effort. Khoda-hafej khálaji! Waving his thanks, he pulled his oar from the mud and gave it a vigorous heave. As he was pulling away, he heard the coksen talking excitedly to the men around him: Do you see that boy’s dinghy? Miss Paulette – the daughter of Lambert-sahib, the Frenchman – she was born in it: in that very boat . . .
Jodu had heard the story so many times, told by so many people, that it was almost as if he had witnessed the events himself. It was his kismat, his mother had always said, that accounted for the strange turn in their family’s fate – if she hadn’t gone home to her own village for Jodu’s birth, it was certain that their lives would never have embraced Paulette.
It had happened soon after Jodu was born: his boatman father had come in his dinghy to fetch his wife and child from her parents’ home, where she had gone for the delivery. They were on the Hooghly River when a brisk, squally wind had started to blow. With the day nearing its end, Jodu’s father had decided that he would not risk crossing the river at that time: it would be safer to spend the night by the shore and make another attempt the next morning. Keeping to the bank, the boat had arrived eventually at the brickbound embankment of the Royal Botanical Gardens: what better resting-place could there be than this fine ghat? Here, with the boat safely moored, they had eaten their evening meal and settled in to wait out the night.
They had not been long asleep when they were woken by a clamour of voices. A lantern had appeared, bringing with it the face of a white man: the sahib had thrust his face under their boat’s thatched hood and uttered many words of frantic gibberish. It was clear he was very worried about something, so they were not surprised when one of his servants intervened to explain that there was a dire emergency; the sahib’s pregnant wife was in great pain and in desperate need of a white doctor; there were none to be had on this side of the river, so she had to be taken to Calcutta, on the other bank.
Jodu’s father had protested that his boat was too small to attempt a crossing, with no moon above, and the water churning beneath shifting winds. Far better that the sahib take a big bora or a budgerow – some boat with a large crew and many oars; surely there were some such at the Botanical Gardens?
So there were, came the answer; the Garden did indeed have a small fleet of its own. But as luck would have it, none of those boats were available that night: the head curator had commandeered them all, in order to take a party of his friends to the annual Ball of the Calcutta Exchange. The dinghy was the only boat presently moored at the ghat: if they refused to go, two lives would be lost – the mother’s as well as the child’s.
Having herself recently suffered the pains of childbirth, Jodu’s mother was touched by the evident distress of the sahib and his mem: she added her voice to theirs, pleading with her husband to accept the commission. But he continued to shake his head, relenting only after the handing over of a coin, a silver tical worth more than the value of the dinghy itself. With this unrefusable inducement the bargain was sealed and the Frenchwoman was carried on board, in her litter.
One look at the pregnant woman’s face was enough to know that she was in great pain: they cast off at once, steering towards Calcutta’s Babughat. Even though it was windy and dark, there was no difficulty in setting a course because the lights of the Calcutta Exchange had been especially illuminated for the annual Ball and were clearly visible across the river. But the winds grew stronger and the water rougher as they pulled away from the shore; soon the boat was being buffeted with such violence that it became difficult to hold the litter still. As the rolling and tossing increased, the memsahib’s condition grew steadily worse until suddenly, right in midstream, her waters broke and she went into the throes of a premature labour.
They turned back at once, but the shore was a long way off. The sahib’s attention was now focused on comforting his wife and he could be of no help in the delivery: it was Jodu’s mother who bit through the cord and wiped the blood from the girl’s tiny body. Leaving her own child, Jodu, to lie naked in the boat’s bilges, she took his blanket, wrapped the girl in it, and held her close to her dying mother. The child’s face was the last sight the memsahib’s eyes beheld: she bled to death before they could return to the Botanical Gardens.
The sahib, distraught and grieving, was in no position to deal with a screaming infant: he was greatly relieved when Jodu’s mother quietened the baby by putting her to her breast. On their return, he made another request – could the boatman and his family stay on until an ayah or wet-nurse could be engaged?
What could they say but yes? The truth was that Jodu’s mother would have found it hard to part from the girl after that first night: she had opened her heart to the baby the moment she held her to her breast. From that day on, it was as if she had not one child but two: Jodu, her son, and her daughter Putli – ‘doll’ – which was her way of domesticating the girl’s name. As for Paulette, in the confusion of tongues that was to characterize her upbringing, her nurse became Tantima – ‘aunt-mother’.
This w
as how Jodu’s mother entered the employment of Pierre Lambert, who had but recently come to India to serve as the assistant curator of Calcutta’s Botanical Gardens. The understanding was that she would stay only until a replacement could be found – but somehow no one else ever was. Without anything ever being formally arranged, Jodu’s mother became Paulette’s wet-nurse, and the two children spent their infancy lying head-to-head in her arms. Such objections as Jodu’s father might have had disappeared when the assistant curator bought him a new and much better boat, a bauliya: he soon went off to live in Naskarpara, leaving behind his wife and child, but taking his new vessel with him. From that time on, Jodu and his mother saw him but rarely, usually at the beginning of the month, around the time when she was paid; with the money he took from her, he married again and sired a great number of children. Jodu saw these half-siblings twice a year, during the ’Id festivals, when he was made to pay reluctant visits to Naskarpara. But the village was never home to him in the way of the Lambert bungalow, where he reigned as Miss Paulette’s favoured playmate and mock-consort.
As for Paulette, the first language she learnt was Bengali, and the first solid food she ate was a rice-and-dal khichri cooked by Jodu’s mother. In the matter of clothing she far preferred saris to pinafores – for shoes she had no patience at all, choosing, rather, to roam the Gardens in bare feet, like Jodu. Through the early years of their childhood they were all but inseparable, for she would neither sleep nor eat unless Jodu was present in her room. There were several other children in the bungalow’s quarters, but only Jodu was allowed free access to the main house and its bedrooms. At an early age, Jodu came to understand that this was because his mother’s relationship with her employer was special, in a way that required her to remain with him until late at night. But neither he nor Putli ever referred to this matter, accepting it as one of the many unusual circumstances of their peculiar household – for Jodu and his mother were not the only ones to be cut off from their own kind; Paulette and her father were perhaps even more so. Rarely, if ever, did white men or women visit their bungalow, and the Lamberts took no part in the busy whirl of Calcutta’s English society. When the Frenchman ventured across the river, it was only for what he liked to call ‘busy-ness’: other than that he was wholly preoccupied with his plants and his books.
