by Amitav Ghosh
If not for my escort, I would gladly have wandered for hours among the pathways – but Ah-med would not let me stray from his heels. He led me directly to a ‘hill’ that was topped by what seemed to be a pavilion, built of some unearthly material, translucent in appearance and mauve in colour. Only on approaching closer did I realize that the pavilion was actually an enormous wisteria bush, supported by a kind of pergola. The flowers hung down in thick clusters, emanating a sweet, heady odour; set out in the dappled shade beneath were some chairs, teapoys and a couple of long divans. On one of the couches lay Mr Chan, dressed in his customary gown.
I thought at first that he was asleep, but when I stepped beneath the wisteria he opened his eyes and sat up.
‘Holloa there, Mr Chinnery: are you well?’
The voice no longer came as a surprise, although it was, as ever, strangely at odds with the setting. ‘Yes, Mr Chan,’ said I. ‘And you?’
‘Oh can’t complain, can’t complain,’ he muttered, like some rheumatic old pensioner. ‘And the painting?’
‘I have it here.’
I had brought the canvas still stretched upon its wooden frame: I propped it on a chair and placed it in front of him.
The moment of unveiling commissions to clients is always fraught with worry: you find yourself anxiously scanning their faces in an effort to gauge their response; you hope to see some indication of their feelings, a softening of the eyes perhaps, or a smile. No such signs were visible on Mr Chan’s countenance; for an instant I thought I saw a slight sharpening in his gaze, and then he nodded and motioned to me to seat myself on the other couch. When I had done so he clapped his hands and a couple of minutes later a servant appeared, to lay a covered tray on the table beside him. Removing the cover, Mr Chan picked up a cloth pouch and handed it over: ‘Your fee, Mr Chinnery.’
Abrupt though this was, I was hugely relieved to find that my work had passed muster. ‘Why thank you, sir,’ I said, with unfeigned gratitude (for I will not conceal from you, Puggly dear, that in the last few weeks I have sometimes found myself just a little short).
‘Good,’ said he, ‘and now that I have my painting and you have your fee, perhaps you would like to share a pipe with me?’
It was only now I realized that the tray which had been presented to Mr Chan contained also a pipe, a needle, a lamp, and a small ivory box. The function of these objects was not unfamiliar to me for I have seen their like often enough in my Uncle’s house. I was well aware also that to share an occasional pipe of opium with a guest is considered a courtesy by many Chinese. I could think of no reason to decline – and yet I was not so bold as to throw all caution to the winds. When Mr Chan handed me the pipe I took only a small draught, expecting that it would sting the throat in the same way as tobacco. But it was quite different: the smoke was as unctuous and heavy as an expensive oil, and just as silkily smooth. No less of a surprise was the swiftness of its effect. Within an instant, or so it seemed, I was floating away, into the canopy of wisteria.
I have heard it said that opium is unpredictable in its effects: although it makes most people torpid and silent, there are also some who become uncharacteristically loquacious under its influence. The truth of this was immediately demonstrated to me – for even as my own tongue grew heavy, Mr Chan seemed to become more communicative. I do not exactly know how it happened but suddenly he was talking to me about his journey to England, three decades before.
I listened to Mr Chan with my eyes closed, but not a word escaped me – except that after a while it was as if I were not listening at all, but actually seeing his narrative unfold before my eyes. Such are the miraculous powers of the drug that it was as if I had become a fifteen-year-old gardener called Ah Fey: there I was, on the deck of an East India Company ship, a lone Chinese boy, travelling westwards through the oceans, towards England.
My plant cases are as precious to me as life itself: I water them by day and sleep beside them at night; and when the weather grows hot, I build little huts over them, with my own sparse clothing; when we are beset by tempests and storms I shield them with my own body. At every turn the other crewmen do their best to thwart me. Some are lascars and some are English seamen, and they are often at each other’s throats: the one matter in which they are united is their hatred of me – to them I am little better than a monkey. When we cross the equator I submit tamely to their rituals – dunkings and daubings – but suddenly I find myself pinioned and spreadeagled on the deck. Then I hear a scraping sound: they are shearing off my queue with an unsharpened knife. I struggle at first, but then I realize that I am only making the pain worse; I lie still and let them finish – but I take note of who they are, and afterwards I plan my revenge. The ring-leader is a burly foretopman – late one night, during the dogwatch, when everyone is half-asleep, I make my way up to his foot-rope and scrape it thin. Two days later, in the midst of a gale, the rope snaps and he is lost at sea …
I arrive at Kew bringing with me more Chinese plants than anyone has succeeded in transporting before. These are plants that I myself have obtained for Mr Kerr in Canton: he has no more idea of where to find them than he has of buying opium – in all things I am his pander and procurer. But the successful delivery of the plants is attributed not to me but to Mr Kerr; I am but the monkey who travelled with them.
I say nothing: I have grown almost mute; months have passed since I was able to make myself properly understood. The foreman whose house I live in hands out daily beatings to his own children and I am not exempted from his floggings; the food is a vile pap and I am never free of hunger. In my eyes, Kew is not a garden but an untended wilderness. One night I break into a greenhouse and uproot some shrubs – I half hope to be caught, and I am. I am sent to live with a clergyman who I come to hate even more than the gardeners; one night, while he lies slumped over his brandywine, I help myself to the contents of his purse and make my escape. I walk towards Greenwich, guided by the lights of the fairground; for the first time in months I am able to disappear into a crowd. Under a tent people are dancing; I slip inside unseen and somehow I am drawn into the dance; the people who pull me in are of a kind familiar to me – barrow-pushers and pedlars, costermongers and gypsies. They show no surprise at having me in their midst; at dawn I cross the Thames with them and it is as if I were going from Honam to Guangzhou. In the rookeries of East London everything is familiar: the close-packed hovels, the bare feet, the barrows, the ordure on the streets, the smell of roasting chestnuts, the toffs in their sedan chairs, the nippers running wild: it is as if, after travelling all the way around the world, I had found my way home …
What a journey!
Is it not amazing, Puggly dear, that whenever we begin to congratulate ourselves on the breadth of our knowledge of the world, we discover that there are multitudes of people, in every corner of the earth, who have seen vastly more than we can ever hope to?
I do not know whether it was because of the narcotic effects of the opium or the enchantment of Mr Chan’s narrative, but I was positively crushed when it came time for me to leave. Mr Chan walked me back to the sampan, and before I knew it I was back at Markwick’s Hotel. It was as if weeks, or months, had gone by since I left – yet there was still plenty of daylight outside. My head was spinning and I was about to lie down when my eyes strayed to my desk, to alight upon Charlie’s note. I woke to my senses in a panic, recalling the projected expedition to the cemetery on French Island.
Had Charlie left already? Was he lingering in wait for me? Pausing only to splash some water on my face, I ran to his lodgings in the American Hong. And there, to my astonishment, I learnt that he had yet to return from the meeting of that morning! I was told that he had gone, with Mr Wetmore, the President of the Chamber of Commerce, to deliver a letter to the merchants of the Co-Hong; they had been admitted into the Consoo House several hours before and had not been seen since.
You can scarcely imagine, my dear Pagla-hawa, the alarm that was sowed in me by these repor
ts. For what purpose could my friend have been so long detained? Was he under arrest? And if so, for what offence?
I went at once to the Consoo House but arrived there only to find the gates firmly locked: no one could tell me anything except that the delegates were still inside.
Oh! What a day!
I came back to my room fully expecting to return to the Consoo House an hour later – but evidently the drug had yet to release its grip on me for I fell fast asleep.
On waking this morning I went at once to Charlie’s lodgings and was told that he had been released from the Consoo House late in the night and had gone straight to Mr Wetmore’s house. He had returned to his rooms only at dawn, completely exhausted; he had yet to awake.
So envision if you will, Puggly dear, my state as I write this: my head is in such a whirl that I have omitted to give you a very important piece of news …
… but wait, I hear a knock …
*
The Club was as full that evening as Bahram had ever seen it. Since morning everyone had been waiting to hear, from Mr Wetmore’s own mouth, the tale of the delegation’s extended confinement at the Consoo House. Now, the better part of a day having gone by without a word, a large number of curious members had converged upon the Chamber, fully expecting that Mr Wetmore would emerge from his self-imposed seclusion in time for his accustomed glass of negus.
But that hour came and went and there was no sign of Mr Wetmore or any of the other delegates: all that was learnt of him was that he had been closeted with Mr Fearon through much of the night and most of the day.
This piece of news did nothing to sweeten Mr Slade’s humour. With a quiver of his jowls he issued one of his cryptic pronouncements: ‘Well, if our Achilles is to sulk in his tent, I suppose he cannot be without his Patroclus.’
‘ “Patroclus”?’ Bahram frowned in puzzlement. ‘What is “Patroclus”? Some new kind of medicine, is it?’
‘I suppose some would call it that.’
‘But what about Charlie King?’ said Bahram. ‘Why is he absent? Is he taking Patroclus also?’
‘That possibility’, said Mr Slade gravely, ‘cannot be dismissed, certainly. Ab ore maiori discit arare minor.’
‘Baap-re!What does that mean, John?’
‘“From the older ox the younger learns to plough.” ’
‘My goodness!’ said Bahram. ‘It is unbelievable! Time is running away and they are busy ploughing and all? How much longer before the Commissioner’s ultimatum expires?’
‘Two more days,’ said Mr Slade. ‘But you cannot expect such considerations to weigh with them – Bulgarians are famously heedless of time, you know.’
Dinner was served and removed, and there was still no news of Mr Wetmore or any of the other delegates. After lingering a little over a glass of port, Bahram decided it was time to retire.
It was early yet, so the others were surprised when he made to rise.
‘To bed so soon, Barry?’
‘You’re not keeping country hours nowadays, are you?’
Bahram was already on his feet and he answered with a bow. ‘I am sorry, gentlemen, but today I must end up early. Tomorrow is my community’s most important festival – we call it Navroze. It is our New Year, so I must be up at dawn.’ He smiled as he looked around the table. ‘Of course there will also be a burra-khana. You are most welcome to join us – lunch will be served at noon, in my house.’
Mr Burnham and Mr Slade exchanged glances. ‘Thank you, Barry,’ said Mr Burnham, shifting uneasily in his seat. ‘But for myself I must confess I have no taste for heathenish festivities – and besides we wouldn’t want to get in your way.’
Bahram laughed. ‘Good night, gentleman – and remember, if you change your minds, you are most welcome.’
‘Good night.’
On returning to the Achha Hong, Bahram went immediately to bed. Rising at dawn the next day he lit some incense and made a fumigatory round of his house. Back in his bedroom he set energetically to work, wiping and tidying his altar: from his earliest childhood he had been taught that Navroze was a day for cleansing and cleanliness – the day when the dark shadow of Ahriman was driven from the farthest corners of the house. Even though he knew that his would be only a token effort, the feel of the duster in his hands brought back many warm memories of Navrozes past.
After an hour of cleaning, when he had worked himself into a sweat, he rang for hot water and took a long bath; then, summoning the valet-duty khidmatgar, he changed into the new clothes his family had sent from Bombay.
For breakfast Mesto had made some of his favourite Parsi dishes: a meltingly soft akoori of eggs; crisp bhakra; stuffed dar-ni-pori pastries, with a filling of sweetened lentils; hard-boiled eggs; a fillet of fried pomfret; khaman-na-larva dumplings, bursting with sweetened coconut; and sweet ravo – semolina cooked in milk and ghee.
On other days Bahram would have lingered over the meal, but today there was too much to be done. As the doyen of the community, he had invited every Parsi in Canton to assemble in his house. A large, empty storeroom on the ground floor had already been cleaned and prepared for the ceremony, but before the guests came he would have to put together a proper Navroze altar.
Vico! Where is that lace tablecloth?
Here, patrão – I’ve got it already.
Scarcely had the altar been put in place, complete with the sés tray, bearing rosewater, betel-nuts, rice, sugar, flowers, a sandalwood fire and a picture of the Prophet Zarathustra, than the first guests began to arrive. Bahram stood by the door, greeting each of them in turn, with an embrace and a hearty Sal Mubarak!
One of the guests was from a priestly family, and in deference to his lineage, Bahram had asked him to lead the prayers and preside over the Jashan. He discharged his duties unexpectedly well, pronouncing the ancient language so clearly that even Bahram, who was by no means well-versed in scriptural matters, was able to follow some of the verses: … zad shekasteh baad ahreman … – ‘May Ahriman be smitten and defeated …’
As far back as Bahram could remember this passage had had an extraordinary effect on him, conjuring up more vividly than any other, the conflict between Good and Evil. Today the dread and awe inspired by those words was so powerful that he began to tremble: he closed his eyes and it was as if his head, his whole body, were afire with the flames of that struggle. His knees went weak and he had to hold on to the back of a chair to prevent himself from falling. Somehow he managed to hold himself upright for the rest of the ceremony, and when it ended he wasted no time in ushering the company into the formal dining room, which had been especially opened up and decorated for the occasion.
At this point, the company was joined by Zadig, who had celebrated Navroze in the Achha Hong many times before. Comforted by his friend’s familiar presence Bahram seated him to his right and served him Mesto’s offerings with his own hands: fish of several kinds, crisply fried and steamed in a wrapping of leaves; jardalu ma gosht, mutton cooked with apricots; kid in a creamy almond sauce; goor per eeda – eggs on mutton marrow; cutlets of many kinds, some frilly with tomato gravy and some made of lamb brains, crisp on the outside and meltingly soft within; kebabs of prawn and rice-flour rotis; khaheragi pulao with dried fruit, nuts and saffron – and much else. All through the meal wine, red and white, flowed freely, and at the end, Mesto served cakes, custards and sweet pancakes with coconut. He had even succeeded in obtaining some yogurt, from the Tibetans across the river – he served the dahi with sugar and spices, layered with a fine dusting of powdered nutmeg and cinnamon.
Afterwards, when everyone had left, Zadig stayed on, for a tumbler of chai in the daftar.
What a feast, Bahram-bhai! One of the best I’ve had under your roof – you could have fed an army!
The compliment, following as it did on the strangely mixed emotions of the day, threw Bahram into a mood of reflection. His eyes wandered to the small portrait of his mother that hung on his wall.
You know, Zadig Bey, he
mused, when I was a little boy there were times when all there was in our house was a few rotlis made from bajra. We had so little money that when my mother cooked rice, she would even make us drink the ‘pagé’ – the water in which it was cooked. Often we would eat the rice only with raw onions and chillies, and perhaps a little methioo, which is a kind of mango pickle. Once or twice a month we would share a few pieces of dried fish and that we would consider a feast. And now …
Bahram broke off to look around his daftar: I wish my mother could have seen all this, Zadig Bey. I wonder what she would have said.
Zadig looked at him with a teasing smile: And what would she have said, Bahram-bhai, if she’d known that it had all come from opium?
Although the question had been asked in a jocular way, Bahram was stung; a sharp retort rose to his lips, but he bit it back. He lowered his tumbler of chai and answered in a steady voice: I’ll tell you what she would have said, Zadig Bey: she would have said that a lotus cannot bloom unless its roots are planted in the mud. She would have understood that opium is not important in itself: it is just mud – it is what grows out of it that is important.
And what will grow out of it, Bahram-bhai?
Bahram calmly returned his friend’s gaze: The future, Zadig Bey he said; that’s what will grow out of it. If things go well and I am able to make a profit on my investments I’ll be able to forge a new way ahead – for myself, and maybe for all of us.
What way? What are you talking about?
Don’t you see, Zadig Bey? We are living in a world not of our own making. If we refuse to take advantage of the few opportunities that are open to us, we will not be able to keep up. In the end we will be driven out of business. I saw the start of this with my father-in-law and I won’t let it happen to me.
What do you mean, Bahram-bhai? What happened to your father-in-law?
Bahram took a sip of his chai. I’ll tell you a story, Zadig Bey, he said. It is about the Anahita. You’ve seen how beautifully the ship is built? Let me tell you why my late father-in-law took so much care over this vessel. For years he had been building ships for the English – for the East India Company and for the Royal Navy. Five frigates he built, and three ships of the line and any number of smaller vessels. He could build them better and cheaper in Bombay than they could in Portsmouth and Liverpool – and with all the latest technical improvements too. And when the shipbuilders of England realized this, what do you think happened? They talk of Free Trade when it suits them – but they made sure that the rules were changed so that the Company and the Royal Navy could no longer order ships from us. Then they created new laws which made it much more expensive to use India-built ships in the overseas trade. My father-in-law was among the first to understand what was happening. He knew that under these conditions the Bombay ship-building trade would not survive for long. That is why he wanted the Anahita to be the best and the most beautiful ship he had ever built. He used to say to me in those days: Bahram, you see what is happening to our shipyards? The same thing will happen also to all our other trades and crafts. We have to find alternatives or it is just a matter of time before we are driven out of business.
