by Amitav Ghosh
Only now did I discover how fortunate I was in having an Amanuensis like Zadig Bey: he has studied the city closely and is familiar with all its landmarks. He had brought a spyglass with him and he pointed the sights out to me, one by one. The first, as I remember, was the mandir that marks the founding of the city – which happened, he said, at about the same time as Rome! And as with Rome, it is said that the gods had a hand in Canton’s birth: five Devas are said to have descended from the heavens to mark a spot on the bank of the river: the immortals were mounted on rams, each with a stalk of grain in its mouth; these they gave to the people on the shore with the blessing: ‘May Hunger Never Visit Your Markets’.
I must admit that the strange tale, and the sight of the forbidden city, lying outspread at my feet, had a powerful effect upon me. More than ever it made me conscious of my Alien-ness, of the distance between myself and this city. I remembered the galees those apprentices had hurled at me and it struck me that perhaps they had only been telling the truth: perhaps it was indeed an unforgivable intrusion for one such as myself to seek to impose his presence upon a place that is so singular, so ancient, so completely an outgrowth of its own soil.
But Zadig Bey would have none of it: the true surprise of Canton, he said, is that its streets and lanes are strewn with reminders of the presence of Aliens. ‘Why,’ he said, ‘even the city’s guardian deity is a foreigner – an Achha in fact!’
‘Impossible!’ I cried, but he insisted that it was so and to back it up he pointed his spyglass in the direction of a mandir nearby: it was the temple of the goddess Kuan-yin, who is said to have been a bhikkuni from Hindusthan, a Buddhist nun who chose not to become a Bodhisattva, as she might have done, so she could tend to the common people.
Is it not stupefying, Puggly dear, to think that Canton’s tutelary spirit may have been a woman who had once worn a sari?
Scarcely had I recovered from the surprise of this when Zadig Bey pointed his spyglass in the direction of another temple, far away: Buddhists from Hindusthan had lived there for centuries, he said, the most famous of them being a Kashmiri monk called Dharamyasa.
Nor is this all! Down by the river stands a temple that was founded by the most famous of Buddhist missionaries – the Bodhidharma, who had come to Canton from southern India and was perhaps a native of Madras!
And that too was not the end of it: Zadig Bey’s finger rose again to point to another roof, which belonged, he said, to a mosque – one of the oldest in the whole world, having been built in the lifetime of the Prophet Mohammad himself! It is a most remarkable structure, no different, in outward appearance, from a Chinese temple – all except for the minaret, which is like that of any dargah in Bengal!
But how is it possible, I said, that people from Hindusthan and Arabia and Persia were able to build monasteries and mosques in a city that is forbidden to foreigners?
It was then that I learnt it has not always been thus: there was a time, said Zadig Bey, when hundreds of thousands of Achhas, Arabs, Persians and Africans had lived in Canton. Back in the time of the Tang dynasty (they of the marvellous horses and paintings!): the emperors had invited foreigners to settle in Canton, along with their wives and children and servants. They were allowed their own courts and places of worship and were permitted to come and go as they pleased. Amongst the Arabs the city was so famous, said Zadig Bey, that it was known by a word that meant ‘Olive’ – Zaitoon. Even Marco Polo had visited it, he said; in fact he had probably stood where I was standing at that very moment!
Not content with these revelations Zadig Bey produced another, still more surprising.
Why, he asked me, do you know how the Pearl River got its name?
No, I said, so then he pointed his spyglass at an island in the river, not far from the foreign enclave: it is but a small outcrop of rock, with some crumbling ruins on it. Fanquis speak of it as ‘the Dutch folly’.
‘But the Chinese have another name for it,’ said Zadig Bey. ‘They call it Pearl Island. It’s said that there was nothing there until a jewel merchant from across the sea (whether he was an Arab or an Armenian or a Hindusthani, no one knows) but wherever he was from he was clumsier than a jewel merchant ought to be – he dropped the best of his pearls in the river. Now you’ve seen how muddy that water is? How quickly things disappear? Most things maybe, but not that pearl. It lay at the bottom, glowing like a lantern and slowly growing larger until it grew into an island. And from then on that waterway, which is properly spoken of as the “West River”, became famous as the Choo Kiang or “Pearl River”.’
You will understand how dumbfounded I was.
‘I cannot credit it, Zadig Bey,’ I cried. ‘Surely you do not expect me to believe that the Pearl River may owe its name to an Achha?’
He answered with a nod. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It is quite likely.’
‘So what happened then?’ I asked. ‘Why did they go away? The Arabs, the Persians and the Achhas?’
‘It is a familiar story,’ said Zadig Bey. ‘The Tang went into decline and people became discontented. There was hunger and unrest, and as is common at such times, the troublemakers looked to place the blame on the foreigners. One day a rebel army stormed into the city and killed them all – men, women and children, over a hundred thousand of them were slaughtered, in a great river of blood. The memory of it was so bitter and lingered so long, that for centuries afterwards no visitors would venture here from overseas.’ Here he paused, with a proud smile. ‘But when the foreigners did return it was my own people who were in the lead.’
‘Armenians?’ said I, and he nodded: ‘Yes. Some came overland from Lhasa, where a large Armenian community has existed since late Roman times. Some came by sea, through Persia and Hindusthan. By the fourteenth century there were hundreds of them living here in Canton. One of them, a woman, even built an Armenian church.’
‘Inside the walled city?’
‘Possibly. But this was almost five hundred years ago, you understand. The walls were not where they are now.’
‘But it was still possible, was it, for foreigners to venture inside the city?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Zadig Bey, ‘it was only about a hundred years ago that foreigners were banned from entering the city.’
Now once again he pointed his spyglass at the Dutch Folly. ‘When the Netherlanders first came to Canton,’ he said, ‘they needed a place to set up warehouses, just as the Portuguese had done in Macau. They were given that little island, so then they asked if they could build a hospital there, to treat their sick sailors. This was impossible to object to, so the Chinese said go ahead, and the Dutchmen began to bring ashore a great number of tubs and barrels – filled, they said, with provisions and building materials. But the tubs were strangely heavy and one of them got loose; it broke into splinters and out rolled a cannon! “How can sickman eat gun?” they were asked and of course they had no answer. Evidently, under the guise of setting up a hospital, the Dutchmen were busy building a fort! And even after the deception was discovered the Chinese did not attack or molest them. Instead they used the tactic that has since become their favourite weapon against the Europeans: a boycott. They stopped people from sending supplies, so the Dutch ran out of provisions and had to abandon the island. From then on the Chinese knew the Europeans would stop at nothing to seize their land – and one thing you have to say about the Chinese is that unlike others in the East they are a practical people. When faced with a problem they try to find a solution. And that over there was their answer: Fanqui-town. It was built not because the Chinese wished to keep all aliens at bay, but because the Europeans gave them every reason for suspicion.’
You cannot imagine, Puggly dear, what a tonic effect these discoveries had on me.
Canton appeared to me in an entirely new light: surely, if only I could see Jacqua, I thought, surely I would be able to explain that I was not one of those fanquis who come with cannon, but rather one of those who have been drawn here by Art – by paintings and po
rcelain, as in the times of the Tang?
Happily these explanations proved unnecessary. For who should knock on my door the next day but Jacqua himself? He had bandages on his arm, tied by the bone-setter, but that did not prevent him from greeting me with a fond Embrace!
You can imagine, I am sure, how glad I was when I discovered that Jacqua had not for a moment thought to link me with the vile men who had set upon him in the Maidan: indeed, when he heard of the recriminations that had been heaped upon me by his colleagues, he was shocked. He reproached them so forcibly that they had made me a painting by way of apology – a view of the Maidan with Jacqua and I, strolling arm-in-arm! It is not perhaps a masterpiece, yet nothing I have ever owned has been so precious to me!
And so, my sweet rose of Pugglesbury, everything is well again: my Friend has been restored to me, my blue-devils have been banished, and I am so Happy I do not know how I shall ever bring myself to leave this place …
And do not imagine for a moment, my dear Puggly, that I have forgotten about your camellias – I have not! The moment the river is opened again I shall make another foray in the direction of Fa-Tee.
Oh, and I cannot send this off without mention of the incident you described in your last letter (your little squabble with the Redruth’s cook). You must not take it too much to heart, dear: it was not at all wrong of you to tell him that the galley smelled like a crêperie! The fault was entirely his for taking offence. I suspect the fellow has no French and did not understand that you were merely complimenting him on his pancakes. If he was upset it was probably because he thought (quite wrongly, of course) that you were comparing his kitchen to a tottee-connah (sometimes vulgarly spoken of in English as a ‘crappery’).
Really, dear, I would have loved to see the cook’s face when you told him that you liked nothing better than the smell of fresh crêpes, warming in the pan. I am sure the Redruth has never seen its like!
*
Although Bahram was deeply attached to his faith, he was not fervently religious; nor did the practical considerations of his busy life allow him to be as meticulous in his observances as he would have liked. He was always careful, however, to keep a copy of the Khordeh Avesta beside his bed and he was never without a sadra and a kasti. When in Bombay he often accompanied Shireenbai on her daily visits to the Fire Temple and when Mullah Feroze delivered his homilies he made every effort to be in attendance. While in Canton, he tended personally to the altar in his bedroom, daily lighting incense under the portrait of the Prophet, regularly changing the flowers and fruit that lay under it and making sure that the wick of the divo was always lit. But most of all he tried, in his own acknowledgedly fallible way, to keep in mind the guiding principles that had been instilled in him in childhood –Humata, Hukhta, Hvarshta – ‘good thoughts, good words and good deeds’.
In his easy-going, yet respectful, approach to religion Bahram was not unusual amongst his peers; where he did differ from them was in a certain lack of credulity – in his circle of merchants he was one of the few who never sought the guidance of augurers, astrologers, fortune-tellers and the like. If he was an exception in this, it was mostly because he had always placed more trust in his own intelligence and foresight than in the divinations of kismet-doctors.
But now, as the chill of December turned into the numbing cold of January, he began to doubt, as never before, his ability to look ahead. Everywhere he turned there was confusion; every day there was a new pronouncement or edict to add to the uncertainty.
Sometimes, at night, when the fog came swirling in from the river, he would look out of his bedroom window and imagine that he was seeing Allow, down in the Maidan: the figure would appear to wave in the direction of his window, beckoning with his finger, signalling to Bahram to follow him to the water. In some part of his mind, Bahram knew his eyes were playing tricks on him – and yet, in that other part of him that had now become prey to all kinds of fears and fancies, Allow seemed always to be waiting in the shadows. Even in his head he could not bear to pronounce his names: Ho Lao-kin, Allow – the syllables, in their various iterations, had taken on the character of mantras that could summon the dead.
But no matter how hard he tried to expel them from his head, the echoes of those names kept making themselves heard.
One morning, at breakfast, the munshi said: Sethji, Mr Slade has written a long piece; he has strongly criticized Captain Elliott.
What for?
He is incensed that Captain Elliott openly spoke against the smuggling of opium on the river.
Read it out munshiji.
‘ “The clear inference of Captain Elliott’s words is that he, and the English government, while they reprobate the smuggling of opium on the river, approve and encourage smuggling outside the river and on the coasts of China. To smuggle a hundred chests outside the Bogue is neither an offence nor a degradation; but to smuggle one chest or a few balls inside is both! Admirable consistency in the principles of government and public men! Admirable consistency in political and commercial morality! And how will Captain Elliott explain these orders of the English to the local government without implicating the whole of the opium trade in the question?” ’
Here the munshi stopped to glance at Bahram. Shall I go on, Sethji?
Yes. Go on.
‘ “We have just heard that Captain Elliott has dispatched a petition to the Governor of Canton through the Hong merchants. He has thus betrayed the property and disgraced the character of British subjects to this lying, corrupt and unjust government. It is reported indeed that he has petitioned the Governor to place him in command of a Chinese cruiser in order that he may, in person, expel the British-owned boats from the river. This proceeding appears to us very likely a felony injurious to the Queen’s prerogative, being the offence of serving a foreign prince without permission.
‘ “By custom, as is well known, virtually all the Chinese laws were suspended in the case of foreigners, except in capital offences. Let then the Chinese enjoy their opium pipes and the Emperor and his magnates proceed in their cruel and indefensible policy of sacrificing human life for the mere indulgence of a luxurious and debilitating habit until ‘the spears and lances arise to avenge the misrule’ of the dynasty.” ’
Now the munshi looked up again.
Sethji, he has mentioned you too.
Me? Bahram pushed his plate aside and rose quickly from the table. What does he say?
“We never expected to see a superintendent of British trade lackeying the heels of the Governor of Canton, proffering his services against those whom by his office he is bound at least to endeavour to protect. When Captain Elliott has distinguished himself in the service of the mandarins, the next duty His Excellency will impose on him will probably be to deport Messrs Dent, Jardine and Moddie.” ’
What was that? said Bahram. Did Mr Slade say ‘deport’?
Ji, Sethji. That is what Mr Slade has written. He implies that the execution of Ho Lao-kin was a signal …
Stop! Bahram clapped his hands to his ears. Munshiji – bas!
Yes, Sethji, of course.
Bahram glanced at his hands and saw that they were trembling slightly. To give himself time to recover, he dismissed the munshi.
You may go to your room, munshiji, he said. I will call you when I need you.
Ji, Sethji.
When the door had closed, Bahram walked over to the window and looked down at the Maidan. Of late it was less crowded than it had been and some of the men who came there did not seem to belong: they were not like the loiterers of old; they seemed alert and vigilant, as though they were keeping watch on the residents.
Now, as he stood by the window, Bahram had the impression that several pairs of eyes had turned to look in his direction. Had they been posted there to watch him? Or was it all in his head?
The worst of it was that it was impossible to know.
His gaze strayed towards the pole where the American flag had once hung. It had not been hoisted agai
n since the day of the riots; nor had any of the other flags. Their absence had changed the appearance of the enclave, denuding it of some essential element of colour. The bare flagpoles were like reminders of that day – that morning when the gibbet was set up and the chair was carried in with …
The fellow’s name was almost on his tongue when he bit it back: it was as if his mouth had been soiled by something unclean and alien: feeling the need to wash it out he crossed the corridor and opened the door of his bedroom. In keeping with Parsi custom, the doorway was garlanded with a toran – a beaded drapery that had been given to him by his mother at the time of his marriage. The toran had travelled with him on all his trips to China and over the years it had become a link with his past, a personal good-luck charm.
Bahram was about to step inside when he saw that the toran had slipped from its place, above the lintel, and had somehow become entangled in the door jamb. As he was trying to pull it free, the frail old threads broke and a shower of beads rained down on him. Bahram recoiled, in shock, mumbling under his breath: Dadar thamari madad … Help me, Almighty God.
Falling on his knees he began to pick up the tiny pieces of glass, digging them out of the cracks in the wooden floor and slipping them into the chest pocket of his choga.
One of the peons came to help. Sethji, let me do it …
