River of Smoke

by Amitav Ghosh

  Bahram was momentarily tempted to accept Allow’s offer. But his instincts told him that this was merely a ploy to wheedle him into a deal – and besides he wasn’t in the right state of mind to deal with the memories and associations the boat was sure to evoke.

  ‘No, Allow,’ said Bahram. ‘No can go. Have got boat already; lantern-boy have gone get.’

  And here, providentially, Apu returned, having secured a boat, so Bahram was able to make his escape without another word.

  *

  The banquet of that night was to be held in a pavilion with tall windows and a roof that had the profile of a bird in flight. It overlooked a lotus pond that was illuminated by paper lanterns that glowed like dozens of little moons.

  At one end of the pavilion there was a stage where seated musicians were playing on stringed instruments; occupying the centre were several tables, each surrounded by chairs. The furniture was all covered with scarlet tapestries, and an array of tiny dishes and bowls had been laid out on each table: they contained almond milk, roasted nuts, dried and candied fruit, watermelon seeds and oranges, cut into sections. Each place was set with a battery of dishes and implements – porcelain saucers, spoons, and drinking cups; toothpicks, wrapped in red-and-white paper; and of course ivory chopsticks, resting upon ebony stands.

  Punhyqua belonged to a family that had old and deep connections with the merchants of Bombay: once, when the firm was being subjected to a severe ‘squeeze’ by a mandarin, a group of Parsis had advanced him a loan on generous terms: without this assistance the house might not have survived. Punhyqua had never forgotten this and Parsis were always treated with special respect at his table: tonight, as on other occasions in the past, Bahram was placed in the seat of honour, to the left of the host.

  The meal began with a round of toasting during which the drinking-cups were filled and refilled several times with warm rice wine. Then the first set of plates was set upon the table and Punhyqua began to describe each of the dishes in turn: here were some ‘ears of stone’, much loved by monks; they were made from a kind of fish, and were cooked with black vinegar and mushrooms; that tangled heap over there was a mound of crisp-fried shellfish; this quivering lump was a flavoured jelly made from the hooves of deer; those tidbits there were called ‘Japanese leather’ and had to be macerated for days before they could be eaten; here was a bowl of succulent roasted caterpillars, of a kind to be found only in sugarcane fields.

  ‘Barry you like-no-like ah?’

  ‘Too muchi like! Hou-sihk! Hou-sihk!’

  Unlike some of the other foreigners at the table, Bahram did not hesitate to taste any of these dishes: he liked to say of himself that he had no prejudices in regard to ingredients and cared only about flavours and tastes. He was glad to pronounce that to an unbiased palate such as his, there could be no doubt of which was the best of these dishes – the plump, cane-sweetened caterpillars.

  Then came the fashionable new pottage known as ‘Buddha Jumps over the Wall’: it was a Fujianese delicacy and had been prepared by a chef who had been specially brought in for that purpose. It had taken two days to prepare and included some thirty condiments – crisp shoots of bamboo and slippery sea-cucumbers; chewy tendons of pork and juicy sea scallops; taro root and abalone; fish-lips and mushrooms – a symphony of carefully harmonized contrasts of texture and taste, it was reputed to have lured many a monk into breaking his vows.

  After this there was a brief lull, during which several toasts were drunk. By now the atmosphere of camaraderie had grown warm enough that Bahram felt free at last to lean over to Punhyqua. ‘Is tooroo that new mandarin come to Canton soon-soon? One Lin … Lin …’

  He could not remember the name but it didn’t matter: it was clear from Punhyqua’s reaction that he knew exactly who he was talking about. The tycoon’s eyes widened and he lowered his voice to a whisper: ‘Who tolo? That-piece news what-place you hear?’

  Bahram made a vague gesture. ‘Some fellow tolo. Is tooroo maski?’

  Punhyqua’s eyes wandered around the table, taking in the other guests. Then he shook his head ever so slightly. ‘Not now. Later we talkee. In quiet place.’

  Bahram nodded and returned his attention to the food. Another set of dishes had appeared now, containing rolls of sharks’ fin and squares of steamed fish; candied birds’ nests and chopped goose livers; fried sparrow heads and crisp frogs’ legs; morsels of porcupine, served with green turtle fat, and parcels of fish gizzards wrapped in seaweed – and each preparation, miraculously, was more delicious than the last. Savouring the sublime tastes, Bahram fell into a kind of reverie, from which he stirred only to nod every time a server came to ask: ‘Wanchi grubbee?’

  After two hours of continuous banqueting the diners were given a brief respite in which to prepare themselves for the delicacies that were yet to come. While the other guests went off to recover from the last thirty courses Bahram stayed in his seat, having been detained by a discreet tap from one of Punhyqua’s inch-long fingernails.

  Presently, when it became possible to leave the table unobserved, Punhyqua pushed his chair back and led Bahram out of the hall and over a bridge to a little island that was topped by an octagonal pavilion. Stepping inside, he motioned to Bahram to seat himself on a stone bench, while he crossed over to a similar one on the other side of the pavilion. Then, holding up his hands he clapped them lightly and almost instantly a linkister appeared: stepping discreetly to Punhyqua’s side he stood in the shadows, effacing himself so completely that nothing remained of him but his voice.

  Wah keuih ji … said Punhyqua, and the linkister began to translate: ‘My master ask: from who you hear new mandarin come to Canton?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter.’ Bahram shrugged. ‘But it is true?’

  ‘He say: surprise you hear so soon. No one know for sure anything, except that Emperor has called Governor of Hukwang province to Beijing: his name Lin Zexu …’

  Although he was not personally acquainted with Lin Zexu, said Punhyqua, he knew a good deal about him for he too was from Fujian province. He came from a family that was poor but highly respected, having produced many reputed officials and statesmen. Lin was himself a brilliant scholar, and had passed his Civil Service examinations with distinction at an unusually early age. Rising quickly through the ranks of officialdom, he had earned a reputation for exceptional ability and integrity: not only was he known to be incorruptible, he was one of the few men in the realm who was unafraid of expressing opinions that ran contrary to the views of the Court. Whenever there was a serious problem – a flood, an uprising of disaffected peasants, a breach in some essential dike – it was to Lin that the government turned. Thus it happened that while still in his forties Lin Zexu had been appointed to one of the most coveted posts in the country: the governorship of Kiangsi province. It was there, apparently, that he had had his first encounter with British opium smugglers.

  ‘Mr Moddie remember a ship call Lord Amherst?’

  ‘Yes,’ Bahram nodded. ‘I remember.’

  Bahram recalled the affair of the Lord Amherst with exceptional clarity because he had himself been involved in it, in a small way. It had happened six years ago: the Lord Amherst was one of many British ships to be sent to forage along the northern coast of China, in the hope of finding new ports through which to funnel opium and other foreign goods into the country. The British had long chafed against the constraints that were imposed upon them by the Chinese authorities, and of these none was felt to be more restrictive than the rule that compelled foreign traders to limit their activities to Canton: the thinking was that if only some means could be found of circumventing this regulation then the volume of trade could be vastly expanded.

  The Lord Amherst’s mission was thus to try to establish links with people who might be inclined to subvert Chinese laws and regulations. It was a risky task, but the potential for profit was very great; the merchants who succeeded in entering these new, virgin markets were sure to earn enormous rewards. By v
irtue of his standing in the community, Bahram was one of the few non-British merchants to be invited to invest in the venture, and since such an opportunity could not be allowed to go begging he had added fifty crates to the Lord Amherst’s cargo.

  But the mission had not gone well. Hit by bad weather, the Lord Amherst had been forced to take shelter in a Chinese port. When asked by the local authorities what their ship was doing so far north, the officers had said that they had been blown off course while sailing from Calcutta to Japan; a perfectly reasonable answer, except that they happened to be carrying pamphlets, printed in Chinese, that left little doubt of their actual intention. The officers had also taken the prudent precaution of lying about the ship’s name, so that in the event of a protest from the government the East India Company would be able to deny ownership – but this too had not turned out too well, for somehow the Chinese officials, in their usual bothersome way, had succeeded in ascertaining the facts.

  Here Punhyqua broke in and addressed Bahram directly. ‘That-time Lin Zexu, he Governor Kiangsi. He savvy allo this-thing. Maybe he thinkee, English-fellow speakee too muchi lie, allo time.’

  Bahram laughed. ‘Is tooroo,’ he said. ‘England-fellow speakee plenty lie. But he just like us: he likee cash.’

  In any event, the matter of the Lord Amherst had evidently made a deep impression on Lin Zexu. On taking up his next post, in Hukwang, he had launched a massive campaign to eradicate opium – and being the man he was, his efforts had met with far greater success than any before. Indeed he had become such an expert on opium-trafficking that he was one of the select few to be asked to submit reports on opium to the Son of Heaven – and his memorial on the subject had proved to be the most comprehensive ever written.

  Now, once again, Punhyqua leant forward. ‘Mr Moddie, Lin Zexu, he savvy allo,’ he said. ‘Allo, allo. He have got too muchi spy. He sabbi how cargo come, who bringee, where it go. Allo he savvy. If he come Governor Canton too muchi bad day for trade.’

  ‘But nothing has been decided yet, no?’

  ‘No. Not yet,’ said the linkister. ‘But Emperor meet Governor Lin many time already. He give him permission ride horse in Beijing. Is big sign. People say, Emperor has told that he cannot face shadow of ancestor until opium business is rooted from China.’

  ‘But others have tried before, no?’ said Bahram. ‘Even the present Governor is trying: raids, executions, searches – all the time we hear. But still it goes on.’

  Punhyqua leant forward again and tapped Bahram’s knee with a fingernail. ‘Governor Lin not like other mandarin,’ he said. ‘If he come to Canton, too muchi trouble Mr Moddie. If cargo have got, better sell now, jaldi chop-chop.’

  *

  ‘Why,’ said Fitcher, scratching his chin, ‘it must be Billy Kerr they were speaking of.’

  Paulette looked up from Robin’s letter. ‘But sir, surely the man who introduced the world to the Tiger Lily and the Chinese Juniper and Christmas Camellia was not a smoker of opium?’

  ‘Oh he had his share of troubles, did poor Billy Kerr …’

  Kerr had been in China a couple of years already when Fitcher met him for the first time, in Canton, in the winter of 1806. He was in his mid-twenties then, a little younger than Fitcher: a tall, strapping Scotsman, he had more energy and ambition than he could put to good use. He had arrived in Canton bearing the gaudy title of ‘Royal Gardener’ but only to find that it carried no weight in the British Factory, which was as starchy in its own way as a manor house. A gardener was, after all, just a servant and was expected to comport himself as such, remaining below stairs and refraining from intruding upon his superiors.

  It was true certainly that Billy had been born with dirt beneath his fingernails – his father had been a gardener before him, and probably his grandfather too. But Billy was a sharp, hard-working fellow who had applied himself to his books and his botany with a mind to bettering himself. His position in the British Factory didn’t jibe with his idea of his own consequence and he was a little bit forward at times: as a result, instead of finding a place at the high table, he was fed a steady diet of snubs and slights. Nor did it help that his salary, which, at a hundred English pounds a year, would have been perfectly adequate elsewhere, was a trifling sum in Canton: Billy could not even afford to pay for his own washing.

  ‘Billy was a forthy fellow, prickly as a hedgy-boar.’

  One summer he had run off to the Philippines, in defiance of Sir Joseph’s instructions. Unfortunately for him the voyage had turned into a disaster: the collection he had put together in Manila was destroyed by a typhoon, on the way back to China.

  Billy took it hard: the journey was but a few months behind him when Fitcher arrived in Canton. Fitcher could see that he had been greatly affected: one sign of it was that he had moved out of the British Factory, cutting himself off from his compatriots. A Chinese merchant had granted him the use of a plot of land, near Fa-Tee, and he had built himself a little shack there. Fitcher had visited him once and so far as he could tell, Kerr’s existence was one of hermitlike solitude. His ‘house’ consisted of a single room, surrounded by clusters of saplings and rows of experimental plant-beds. His only companion was the boy he had hired to help with his garden, Ah Fey: he was some thirteen or fourteen years old at that time, and by dint of his service with Kerr, he already spoke fluent English.

  ‘Is that the same Ah Fey who brought the camellia picture to England?’

  ‘Yes. The very one.’

  Although Ah Fey had successfully discharged his mission, his departure from Canton was not without a price for Kerr: deprived of his only companion he had become more isolated than ever. When Fitcher saw him next he was in a poor state: his skeletally thin frame and haunted eyes were clear signs that he was in an advanced stage of addiction. Desperately eager to be on his way, he had left Canton within a couple of days of Fitcher’s arrival. Fitcher was never to see him again: he died of a fever shortly after his arrival in Colombo.

  ‘And what of Ah Fey?’

  ‘Ah, that’s a strange story now …’

  On returning to England, three years later, Fitcher had learnt that Ah Fey’s time at Kew had not been a happy one: he had quarrelled with the foremen and fought with the family he was living with. A local clergyman had taken the little savage into his house, in the hope of saving his soul by awakening him to the Lord. In return, Ah Fey had burgled his house and disappeared.

  For many years after that, reports were heard that Ah Fey had changed his name and was living in the slums of East London, pushing a costermonger’s barrow.

  ‘Did you ever see him yourself?’

  ‘No,’ said Fitcher. ‘Last I heard of him, he was working his way back to China, on a ship. But that was a long time ago now – over twenty years if memory serves me right.’

  *

  By the time all eighty-eight courses of the banquet had been served and the last toasts drunk, the diners’ wine-cups had been filled and refilled so many times that there was scarcely a guest present who was entirely steady on his feet. It remained only to thank the host and say the final chin-chins: then Bahram headed back towards the estate’s landing jetty with some of his English and American friends. They strolled down to the water arm-in-arm, with dozens of lantern-bearers lighting their way, and it was agreed by all that the warmth and conviviality of the night had been such as to place it among the finest banquets of all.

  On reaching the jetty there was one last burst of leave-taking and then they parted. As the others headed off in their skiffs and wherries, Bahram looked around for his own boat and found, to his annoyance, that it was nowhere to be seen. The surrounding shores were thickly wooded and with nightfall, a fog had begun to rise off the creek. Not much was visible from the jetty and after waiting a few minutes, Bahram went back to the shore and walked a little way along the banks to see if his boatman had perhaps fallen asleep in some quiet mooring spot. His investigations took him first in one direction and then another, but to
no avail, and on returning to the jetty, he found it still deserted and wreathed in wisps of fog: the other guests were all gone and the lantern-bearers were on their way back to the estate – their lights could be seen, bobbing up and down on their poles, a long way off.

  What was he to do now? This was a place where there were no boats for hire, and no passers-by to ask for help. He was about to turn around, to follow the lantern-bearers back to Punhyqua’s estate, when he heard, to his great relief, a distant tinkling, like the sound of a boat’s bell. It seemed to be coming up the creek, making its way slowly through the fog: the boatman must have wandered off and got lost somewhere; what he needed was a proper dumbcowing, something that would make him forget his mother’s name for a while. As he stood waiting, Bahram began to dredge from his memory every Cantonese obscenity he had ever heard, stringing them together for the tirade that he would unleash when the fellow arrived.

  But the boat which presently appeared was not the one that had brought him there: it was brightly illuminated, by a constellation of paper lanterns, and its outlines could be seen, through the fog, as it approached the jetty: its stern was carved to look like a gigantic fishtail, rising out of the water in an elegant curve.

  Astounded, Bahram stared at the apparition, wondering whether it might not be part of some sort of wine-induced hallucination. Then he heard a voice calling across the water: ‘Mister Barry! Mister Barry!’

  It was Allow again: the bahenchod must have paid off the boatman and sent him away, so that he might have another opportunity to obtain a deal. That was clear enough – what was less plain was how he had known that he, Bahram, would be here, on this out-of-the-way jetty? Why had the lantern-bearers, usually so solicitous, slipped away so quickly? Could it be that Allow had some informer amongst Punhyqua’s people?

  Or was it just the wine that was inspiring these visions of plots and conspiracies?

  No matter, he was where he was – standing on a jetty in some jungly place – so it was no use getting too prickly. And the truth was that whether out of sheer relief, or because of the warming effects of the wine, he was very glad to see the boat, and Allow too. But of course, it wouldn’t do to betray this, so he cleared his throat and let loose in Cantonese: Diu neih Allow! Diu neih louh mou! Diu neih louh mou laahn faa hai!