River of Smoke

Three

For many years Bahram had regarded the fledgling township of Singapore as a junglee joke.

In the old days, when sailing through the Straits, Bahram had made a point of stopping not at Singapore but at Malacca, which was one of his favourite cities: he liked the location, the severe Dutch buildings, the Chinese temples, the whitewashed Portuguese church, the Arab souq, and the galis where the long-settled Gujarati families lived – and food-lover that he was, he had also developed a great partiality for the banquets that were served in the houses of the city’s Peranakan merchants.

In those days Singapore was just one of many forested islands, clogging the tip of the straits. On its southern side, at the mouth of the river, there was a small Malay kampung: ships would sometimes drop anchor nearby and send their longboats over for fresh water and provisions. But the island’s jungles were notorious for their tigers, crocodiles, and venomous snakes; no one lingered any longer than was necessary.

When the British chose that unpromising location for a new township, Bahram, like many others, had assumed that the settlement would soon be reclaimed by the forest: why would anyone choose to stop here when Malacca was just a day’s sail away? Yet, as the years went by, despite his personal preference for Malacca, Bahram had been forced to yield, with increasing frequency, to his ship’s officers, who claimed that the port facilities were better in Singapore – Mr Tivendale’s conveniently situated boatyard was especially to their liking: they frequently cited it as the best in the region.

It was to this boatyard that the Anahita made her way after the storm: although she had lost her jib-boom and her figurehead, her other masts were intact and she was able to cover the distance in less than a week. Because of the lingering effects of the raw opium he had ingested, Bahram was unable to stir from his bed through this part of the voyage. For several days afterwards he suffered from opium-induced nausea: the attacks were more intense than anything he had ever experienced before, worse than his worst bouts of sea-sickness. Once or twice every hour his stomach would be knotted by spasms that made him feel as if his body were trying to eject his guts by pushing them out through his mouth. These seizures were so enfeebling that at times he could not turn on his side without Vico’s help.

When the Anahita reached Singapore Bahram was still too weak to leave his bedroom; he chose to remain on board while the ship was being repaired and refurbished. This was no great trial, for the comforts offered by Mr Dutronquoy’s hotel, the only respectable hostelry in town, were far exceeded by those of his own surroundings. The Owners’ Suite on the Anahita was perhaps the most luxurious to be found outside a royal yacht: apart from a bedroom it also included a salon, a study, a bathroom and a water-closet. Here, as in many other parts of the Anahita, the bulkheads were decorated with motifs from ancient Persian and Assyrian art, carved in relief upon the wooden panels: there were grooved columns like those of Persepolis and Pasargadae; there were bearded spear-carriers, standing stiffly in profile; there were winged farohars and leaping horses. In one corner of the cabin there was a large mahogany desk, and in another, a small altar, with a gilt-framed picture of the Prophet Zarathustra.

The suite’s bed was one of its most luxurious features: a canopied four-poster, it was so placed that Bahram could look out at the harbour through the cabin’s windows. He was thus able to appreciate, as never before, how quickly Singapore was changing.

The Tivendale boatyard was situated at the mouth of the Singapore River, between the port’s inner harbour, which was in the estuary, and the outer anchorage, which was in the bay beyond. Being anchored between the two, the Anahita’s stern tended to swing with the flow of the tides: when it faced outwards, hundreds of bumboats and tongkang lighters would come into view, swarming around the ships anchored in the bay. On their way back to shore the boats would sometimes pass so close to the Anahita that Bahram would hear the voices of the Chulia boatmen talking, shouting and singing in Tamil, Telegu and Oriya. When the Anahita’s stern came about, a panoramic view of newly built godowns and bankshalls would appear in front of him. Sometimes the Anahita would sweep so far around that he would even be able to look upriver towards Boat Quay, where the smaller ‘country boats’ discharged their goods and passengers.

The activity was unending, the boat traffic constant, and in watching it Bahram began to began to understand why several businessmen of his acquaintance had recently bought or rented godowns and daftars in Singapore: it seemed very likely that the new settlement would soon overtake Malacca in commercial importance. This evoked mixed emotions in Bahram: he had a suspicion that this British-built settlement would not be an easy-going place like the Malacca of old, where Malays, Chinese, Gujaratis and Arabs had lived elbow to elbow with the descendants of the old Portuguese and Dutch families. Singapore had been so designed as to set the ‘white town’ carefully apart from the rest of the settlement, with the Chinese, Malays and Indians each being assigned their own neighbourhoods – or ‘ghettoes’ as some people called them.

What would become of this odd new town? The one thing that was for sure was that it would be a good place for buying and selling: the reports Vico brought back from his forays ashore confirmed that bazars and markets were springing up all around the settlement – Vico’s particular favourite was a weekly open-air mela where people came from near and afar to sell and exchange old clothes.

From Vico’s accounts, as from his observations of the traffic on the river, it was clear to Bahram that Singapore was rapidly evolving into one of the principal waystations of the Indian Ocean: this was why he was not greatly surprised to learn that an old friend of his, Zadig Karabedian, was in the city – Vico had run into him as he was walking down Commercial Street.

Arre Vico! said Bahram. Why didn’t you bring Zadig Bey back with you?

He was going somewhere, patrao. He said he would come as soon as possible.

What’s he doing in Singapore?

He’s on his way to Canton, patrao.

Oh? Bahram sat up eagerly. Has he booked a passage already?

Don’t know, patrao.

Vico, you have to go and find him, said Bahram. Tell him he has to travel with us, on the Anahita. I won’t take no for an answer. Tell him to come aboard as soon as possible. Go na, jaldi!

Zadig Karabedian was one of Bahram’s few true intimates. They had met twenty-three years before, in Canton. Zadig was a watchmaker by trade and travelled often to various ports in the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea, to sell clocks, watches, music-boxes and other mechanical devices – known collectively as ‘sing-songs’, these articles were in great demand in Canton.

Although Zadig was Armenian by origin, his family had been settled for centuries in Egypt, where they lived in the old Christian and Jewish quarter of Cairo. Legend had it that one of Zadig’s ancestors had been sold to the Sultan of Egypt as a boy: after rising in the Mamelouk ranks he had arranged to bring some of his relatives to Cairo where they had prospered as craftsmen, tax collectors and businessmen. Since then they had developed close business connections with Aden, Basra, Colombo, Bombay and several ports in the Far East, including Canton.

Zadig, even more than other members of his clan, was an inveterate traveller, and was fluent in many languages, including Hindusthani. He had a great talent also for something that Bahram liked to call khabar-dari – keeping up with the news – and it was partly because of this that their paths had crossed in Canton.

The year was 1815, and the first reports of the French defeat at Waterloo had reached southern China in late November. The news was received with great relief by most of the European community. Many merchants who had delayed their return to Europe because of the war, now changed their minds and decided to make their way back; this caused all kinds of disruption, not the least of which was a shortage in bills of exchange. Because of the greatly increased demand it became especially hard to obtain bills that were payable in India: all of a sudden Bahram found himself faced with the prospect of having to travel to England in order to realize his profits for the season.

To Bahram this was no great disappointment: he had never been to Europe before and the prospect of travelling there was exciting beyond measure – but on trying to obtain a berth, he discovered that westward passages were in critically short supply. It was then that a Parsi friend put him in touch with Zadig Karabedian.

Being an avid student of Continental politics, Zadig had foreseen the outcome of the Hundred-Days War and had even found a way to profit from it. It so happened that he too was travelling to England, and having guessed that there would be a great demand for westbound passages that season, he had reserved the other bunk in his cabin, in the expectation of making it over to a travelling companion, someone who would be both congenial and willing to pay a substantial dastoori. After some hard but amicable bargaining, he and Bahram were able to settle on mutually satisfactory terms and they boarded the Hon’ble Company Ship Cuffnells at Macau on 7 December 1815.

Zadig was tall, with a long, thin neck, and a face that had the look of being permanently frost-bitten because of the webbing of cracks that radiated outwards from the twin spots of colour on his bright, pink cheeks. Once under weigh, Bahram and Zadig found themselves spending most of their time in each other’s company: their cabin was deep in the vessel’s bowels, and to escape the stench of the bilges the two traders spent as much time as they could on deck, leaning over the rails and talking, with the wind in their faces. They were both in their mid-thirties and they discovered, to their great surprise, that they had more in common than would seem reasonable for two men who had grown up continents apart. Like Bahram, Zadig had risen in the world as a result of an unequal marriage – in his case he had been chosen to marry the widowed daughter of a wealthy family that was related to his own. He too knew what it was to be regarded as a poor relative by his in-laws.

One day as they were leaning over to watch the Cuffnells’ frothing bow-wave, Zadig said: When you are away from home, living in China – how do you deal with… with your bodily necessities?

Bahram was never at ease discussing such things and he began to stutter: Kya?… what do you mean?

There is nothing shameful in this, you know, said Zadig; it is not just the jism that has its needs but also the rooh, the soul – and a man who feels himself to be alone in his own home, does he not have a right to seek companionship elsewhere?

Would you call it a right? said Bahram.

Right or not, I don’t mind telling you that I – like many others who must travel constantly – have a second family, in Colombo. My ‘wife’ there is a Ceylonese burgher and although the family I have had with her is not mine by law, it is as dear to me as the one that bears my name.

Bahram looked at him quickly before dropping his eyes. It is very hard, isn’t it?

There was something in his tone that made Zadig pause. So you have someone too?

With his head lowered, Bahram nodded.

Is she Chinese?

Yes.

Is she what they call a ‘sing-song girl’ – a professional?

No! said Bahram vehemently. No. When I met her she was a washerwoman, a widow. She was living on a boat, with her mother and daughter; they made their living by taking in laundry from the residents of the foreign enclave…

Bahram had never talked about this with anyone: to speak of it was such a release that having started he could not stop.

Her name was Chi-mei, he told Zadig, and he, Bahram, was a newcomer to Canton when he met her; as the youngest member of the Parsi contingent he was often asked to run errands for the big Sethjis; sometimes he would even be sent to the waterfront to inquire after their laundry. That was how he first came across Chi-mei; she was scrubbing clothes in the flat stern of her boat. A scarf was tightly tied over her hair, but a few ringlets had escaped their bindings and lay curled on her forehead. Her face was pert and lively, with glinting black eyes, and cheeks that glowed like polished apples. They locked eyes briefly and then she quickly turned her face away. But later, when he was about to head back to the factory he glanced at her over his shoulder and caught her looking in his direction again.

When he was back in his room, her face kept coming back to him. This was not the first time that Bahram had been plagued by fantasies about the girls who worked on the waterfront – but this time his longings had a keener edge than ever before. Something about the way she had looked at him had lodged in his mind and kept pulling him back towards her sampan. He began to visit the laundry-boats on invented errands and it happened a couple of times that he saw her blush and look away on catching sight of him: this was his only way of knowing that she had come to recognize him.

He noticed that her sampan seemed to have only two other occupants, an old woman and a little girl: there were never any men around. He was obscurely encouraged by this, and finding her alone one day he seized his chance: ‘You name blongi what-thing?’

She blushed: ‘Li Shiu-je. Mistoh name blongi what-thing ah?’

It wasn’t till later that he understood that she’d told him to call her ‘Miss Li’: at that moment it was enough to know that she was fluent in Fanqui-town’s idiom.

‘Me Barry. Barry Moddie.’

She rolled this around her tongue. ‘Mister Barry?’

‘Yes.’

‘Mister Barry blongi Pak-taw-gwai?’

Bahram knew this phrase: it meant ‘White-Hat-Ghost’ and was used to refer to Parsis because many of them wore white turbans. He smiled: ‘Yes.’

She gave him a shy nod and slipped away into the sampan’s cabin.

Already then, he knew that there was something special about her. The boat-women of Canton were utterly unlike their land-bound sisters: their feet were unbound and often bare, and there was nothing demure in their demeanour: they rowed boats, hawked goods, and went about their work with just as much gusto, if not more, than their menfolk. In monetary matters they were often unashamedly grasping, and newcomers like Bahram were always warned to be careful when dealing with them.

Unlike some of the other washerwomen Chi-mei never asked for cumshaws or bakshish. She bargained vigorously for her dues but was content to leave it at that. Bahram tried to overpay her once, pushing a few extra pieces of copper into her hands. She counted it carefully then came running after him. ‘Mister Barry! Give too muchi cash. Here, this piece catchi.’

He tried to give it back but this only made her angry. She pointed to the gaudy flower-boats that were moored nearby. ‘That-piece boat sing-song girlie have got. Mister Barry can catchi.’

‘Mister Barry no wanchi sing-song girlie.’

She shrugged, dropped the coins in his palm and walked away.

He was a little shamefaced when he saw her next and this seemed to amuse her. After the washing had been handed over, she whispered: ‘Mister Barry? Catchi, no-catchi, sing-song girl?’

‘No catchi,’ he said. And then gathering his courage together, he said: ‘Mister Barry no wanchi sing-song girl. Wanchi Li Shiu-je.’

‘Wai-ah!’ she laughed. ‘Mister Barry talkee bad-thing la! Li Shiu-je no blongi sing-song girl ah.’

The strange diction of pidgin was still new to Bahram, and it added an inexplicable erotic charge to these exchanges: he would wake up and find himself talking to her, trying to explain his life: ‘Mister Barry one-piece wife have got; two-piece girl-chilo also have got…’

When he next went to pick up some clothes he found a way of inquiring into her marital status. Pretending that the bundle was too heavy for him, he said: ‘Li Shiu-je have husband-fellow? If have, he can carry maybe.’

Her face clouded over. ‘No have got. Husband-fellow have makee die. In sea. One year pass.’

‘Oh? Mister Barry too muchi sad inside.’

Soon after that Bahram also suffered a bereavement. He received a letter from his mother telling him that his youngest sister had died, in Gujarat. She had been ill for months but they had thought it best not to inform him since he was so far away and would worry to no good effect. But now that the unthinkable had happened there was no reason why he should not know.

Bahram had doted on this sister and he became so distraught that he could not bring himself to share the news with any of the other Parsis in Canton. He retreated into his cubicle and neglected the duties he was expected to perform for the senior members of the Bombay contingent. One day he was berated by a senior Seth for not having paid proper attention to the washing. At the end of the tirade the Seth handed him a torn turban-cloth.

Look – this is all your fault; see what has happened!

Bahram was in no state of mind to argue with the Seth: he walked out of the factory and headed for Chi-mei’s sampan. It was after nightfall but he found his way to the sampan without difficulty. For some reason she was alone.

‘Mister Barry, chin-chin. What thing wanchi?’

‘Li Shiu-je have done too muchi bad thing.’

‘Hai-ah! What thing have done ah?’

‘Have cuttee cloth.’

‘What-place cloth have cuttee ah? Mister Barry can show?’

‘Can. Can.’

The only lamp in the sampan was inside the cabin: it was a cramped, low space, but there were so few possessions in it that it did not feel crowded. Sitting crouched under the hooped roof, Bahram unfolded the fabric, looking for the part that was torn. The turban-cloth was many yards long, and soon it was all over them, tangled around their arms.

Profanities began to pour from Bahram’s mouth – bahnchod! madarchod! – and suddenly she caught hold of his arms.

‘Stop, stop, Mister Barry. Stop.’ Raising a fold of the fabric, she wiped something off his face.

‘Mister Barry trouble have got? Blongi sad inside?’

His throat was dry but he managed to say: ‘Yes. Too muchi sad. Sister have makee die.’

She was sitting close to him, with her shoulders half turned in his direction. He dropped his head on the curve of her neck and to his astonishment she did not push him away. Instead she began to stroke his back with one hand.

Never before had he taken so much comfort in being touched: desire and love-making were nowhere in his thoughts; what he felt above all was gratitude.

Soon it became clear that she had come to some kind of decision in regard to him. She whispered in his ear, telling him he could not stay now, because her mother and daughter would be back in a few minutes. But she would send him word soon, through a messenger: ‘He boy-chilo – my relative. He name blongi Allow.’

Two days later Bahram felt a tug on the hem of his choga. He turned around to find a little boy standing behind him. A drop of mucus hung pearl-like beneath his nose, and he was wearing a dirty tunic and ragged pyjamas. He looked like any of the urchins who wandered around the Foreign Enclave, begging for coins and offering to run errands.

‘Name blongi Allow?’

The boy nodded and began to walk towards the waterfront. He had a tripping gait and seemed often to be on the point of falling over on his face: his walk was so distinctive Bahram had no trouble keeping sight of him in the dark. They came to a sampan that had no lights burning inside. Allow gestured to Bahram to climb in and he clambered over the foredeck. Chi-mei was waiting in the darkened cabin. She motioned to him to be silent and they sat quietly next to each other while Allow undid the moorings and rowed the sampan upriver, towards White Swan Lake. Only then did she unroll a mat.

‘Come, Mister Barry.’

He had never been with any woman other than his wife: to almost the same degree that he was assured and combative in his business dealings, he was shy and reticent in all matters intimate or personal. His previous undressings had been solemn and silent; here Chi-mei kept giggling as she helped him take off his turban, slip off his choga and untie his pyjamas. When she tried to pull off his sacred waist-strings he whispered: ‘This piece thread blongi joss-pidgin thing. No can take off.’

She uttered a yelp of a laugh. ‘Waa! Joss-pidgin thread also have got?’

‘Have. Have.’

‘White Hat Devil have too muchi big cloth.’

‘White Hat Devil have nother-piece thingi too muchi big.’

The cramped space, the hard edges of the timbers, the rocking of the sampan and the smell of dried fish that percolated up from the bilges created an almost delirious urgency. Love-making with Shireenbai was a clinical affair and their bodies seemed hardly to touch except where necessity demanded. Bahram was utterly unprepared for the sweat, the stickiness, the slippages and mistaken gropings, the sudden fart that burst from her when he least expected it.

Afterwards, when they were lying in each other’s arms, they heard the sound of fireworks and thrust their heads out of the covering. Something was being celebrated in a lakeside village and rockets were arcing through the sky. The blazes of colour above were so brilliantly mirrored upon the dark surface of the water that the sampan seemed to be suspended within a glowing sphere of light.

When the boat turned shorewards, Bahram was not in the least surprised to hear her say: ‘Now Mister Barry give cumshaw. Lob-pidgin have makee do. Eat chicken must pay. Mister Barry must give daaih-big cumshaw.’

For half an hour they bickered over how much money he would part with – and the bargaining was sweeter than any love-talk could possibly have been. It was the language he knew best, the language he used all day, and he was able to say much more with it than he could have with endearments. In the end he gladly gave her everything he had.

When he was about to go ashore she said: ‘Mister Barry must give Allow cumshaw also.’

Bahram’s pockets were empty, and he laughed. ‘No more cash have got. Later can give Allow cumshaw.’

The boy had followed him back to his lodgings, and Bahram, in a fit of generosity, had rewarded him with a gift that had brought a beaming smile to his face: he had given him half a cake of Malwa opium and told him to sell it immediately. ‘Buy shoes, buy clothes, eat rice. Dak mh dak aa?’

Dak! Mh-goi-saai! The boy had run off with a delighted grin on his face.

After that Bahram and Chi-mei had begun to meet regularly, once or twice a week. These ‘lob-pidgin’ sessions were always arranged through the boy, Allow. Bahram would see him running around the enclave, with the other lads, and all it took was a raised eyebrow, a glance. He would go to the waterfront in the evening and there she would be, in the sampan.

From the first Bahram tried to be generous, even extravagant, with her. At the end of that season, before leaving for Bombay, he asked her what she wanted and when she said she needed a bigger boat he gladly agreed to pay for it. When he returned at the start of the next season he came laden with gifts. At the end of each sojourn he made sure that she had enough for herself and her family – her daughter and mother – to live on until his next visit. Not for a moment did it occur to him to wonder whether she took other lovers when he was away: his trust in her was absolute and she never gave him any cause to doubt her faithfulness.

In March 1815, a few days before Bahram’s departure for Bombay, Chi-mei took his hand and put it on her stomach: ‘Look-see here, Mister Barry.’

‘Chilo?’

‘Chilo.’

He felt just as joyful as he had when he learnt of Shireenbai’s pregnancies: his only concern was that she might try to abort the baby. To make it easier, he paid for her to leave Canton and go downriver, so that it would be possible for her to tell people that the baby had been given to her to adopt.

Such was his excitement about the child that he only spent four months in Bombay that year, returning to China at the end of the monsoons. On reaching Macau, instead of waiting for a passage-boat to take him upriver he hired a ‘fast-crab’ to whisk him to Canton through the back-channels of the Pearl River delta.

And there was the baby, swaddled so as to leave the genitals proudly exposed: when she put the child in his arms he had hugged him so tight that a warm jet had shot out of the boy’s tiny gu-gu, wetting his face and dripping off his beard.

He laughed. ‘He name what-thing?’

‘Leong Fatt.’

‘No.’ Bahram shook his head. ‘He name blongi Framjee.’ They had bickered amicably for a while without reaching an agreement.

This had happened only three months before Bahram met Zadig. The exchange was still fresh in his mind when he was telling his new-found friend the story. When he came to the end he began to laugh and Zadig chuckled too: So what is the boy’s name?

She calls him Ah Fatt. I call him Freddy.

Is he your only son?

Yes.

Zadig gave him a congratulatory pat. Mabrook!

Thank you. And how many children have you had with your other wife?

Two. A boy and a girl: Aleena and Sargis.

Zadig became pensive as he said the names. Resting his elbow on the deck rail, he put his chin on his fist: Tell me, Bahram-bhai, do you ever think of leaving your family – your legal family – so that you can live with your other family: Chi-mei I mean, and the child she’s given you?

The question shocked Bahram. No, he said. Never. I could never think of it. Why? Is it something you’ve considered?

Yes I have, said Zadig. I think of it often, to tell you the truth. They have no one but me – and my other family, in Cairo, they have everything. As the years go on, I find it harder and harder to be away from those who really need me. It wrings my heart to be away from them.

The gravity of his tone surprised Bahram; he could not imagine that a responsible man of business would seriously contemplate breaking his ties with his family and his community: in his own world such a step would, he knew, bring not only social disgrace but also financial ruin. It amazed him that an apparently sound man, a husband and a father, would even admit to entertaining such a schoolboyish notion.

You know what they say, Zadig Bey, he said in a teasing tone. No sensible man will let his lathi rule his head.

It isn’t that, said Zadig.

So what is it then? Is it a matter of – what do they call it – ishq? ‘Love’?

Call it ishq, call it hubb, call it pyar, call it what you will. It’s in my heart. Isn’t it the same for you?

Bahram thought about this for a bit and then shook his head. No, he said. For me and Chi-mei it’s not love. We call it ‘lob-pidgin’ and I like it better that way. The other thing – I wouldn’t know how to say it to her. Nor could she say it to me. When you don’t have a word for it how can you know if you feel it?

Zadig gave him one of his long, appraising glances.

I feel sad for you, my friend, he said. In the end, you know, that is all there is.

All there is? Bahram burst out laughing. Why you’re mad, Zadig Bey! You’re making a joke, no?

No. I am not, Bahram-bhai.

Well then, Zadig Bey, said Bahram lightly. If that’s what you think then you’ll have to leave your first wife, won’t you?

Zadig sighed. Yes, he said. Some day that is what I will have to do.

Neither then nor afterwards had Bahram believed that Zadig would actually do it – but so he had, a few years later. He had settled a large sum of money on his other family, in Cairo, and had bought a spacious house in the Fort area in Colombo. Bahram had visited him there soon after: his mistress was a matronly woman of Dutch descent and so far as he could tell, their children were happy, healthy and well brought up.

The following year Bahram had taken Zadig to meet Chi-mei and Freddy, in Canton. Chi-mei had served them a fine meal and Freddy, who was a toddler then, had charmed Zadig. After that Zadig had made it his practice to visit them every time he travelled to China. On his return to Colombo he would often send Bahram news about them.

It was through one of these letters that Bahram had learnt of Freddy’s disappearance and Chi-mei’s death.

*

In the end it was the Redruth that settled the matter for Paulette – the brig cast a spell that put an end to whatever doubts she may have had about Fitcher’s offer.

If ships could be built in the image of their owners, then there would be no question about whom this one belonged to – she was like an extension of Fitcher’s very being. Like Fitcher, the Redruth was lean and angular, with sharply upcurved lines – her bowsprit even had a way of ‘twitchering and shaking’ that was strangely reminiscent of her owner’s brow. Even the sound of the wind, blowing through the Redruth’s rigging, seemed different from that of any other vessel: if ships could speak, then the Redruth, Paulette imagined, would express herself in a voice that recalled Fitcher’s broad accent and whistling vowels.

But it wasn’t any of this that set the Redruth apart from every other sailing vessel: it was the greenery on her decks. Plants were not of course an uncommon sight on sailships: most carried a few, either for nutrition, or decoration, or merely because a touch of green was always a welcome sight on the high seas. But the Redruth’s stock of flora extended far beyond the usual half-dozen pots: her decks were stacked also with a great number of ‘Wardian cases’. These were a new invention: glass-fronted boxes with adjustable sides, they were, in effect, miniature greenhouses. They had revolutionized the business of transporting plants across the seas, making it much easier and safer; the Redruth had scores of them on board, securely tied down with cables and ropes.

The greenest part of the ship was the quarter-deck: here stacked along the deck rails, and around the base of the mizzen-mast, were rows of pots and cases. To provide additional protection for the plants, Fitcher had designed an ingenious arrangement of movable awnings; these could be adjusted, as desired, to provide shade, sunlight, and protection from rough weather. When there was rain, the awnings turned into water-traps: with so many plants on board, the Redruth needed more fresh water than other ships, and Fitcher was loath to let a single drop go waste.

The Redruth also had its own, unique procedures for dealing with waste: refuse from its galleys was not indiscriminately emptied overboard; everything that might serve as plant nutrition was carefully separated from the remains of the salted meats that were the mainstay of the crew’s diet. Tea leaves, coffee grounds, rice, bits of old biscuit and hardtack – all this was dumped in an enormous barrel that was suspended over the stern. This container was covered with a tight-fitting, waterproof lid, but on hot, windless days the smell of decomposing matter was sometimes strong enough to elicit protests from nearby vessels.

Inevitably, what with the green of the plants and the glare of the glass-fronted cases, the Redruth presented an appearance that was much-mocked by bystanders: it was not uncommon for harbour-fronters to ask whether she was one of those famous ‘asylum ships’ that were reputed to be carrying lunatics to faraway islands. But in fact the brig, like her owner, was eccentric only in appearance: it quickly became evident to Paulette that there was nothing at all fanciful about the Redruth; on the contrary, every element of her functioning was determined by the twin motives of thrift and profit. Her consignments of greenery, for instance, required no significant outlay of capital, no tying-up of finances, and yet the returns they offered were potentially astronomical. But at the same time her goods were such as to be proof against both pilferage and piracy, their true value being unknown to all but a few.

Nor was there anything at all haphazard about the Redruth’s cargo. All her plants had been hand-picked by Fitcher himself: most were from the Americas and had only recently been introduced to Europe and were thus unlikely yet to have reached China. Amongst this assemblage of flora were antirrhinums, lobelias and georginas, introduced from Mexico by Alexander von Humboldt; also from Mexico were the ‘Mexcian Orange’ and a beautiful new fuchsia; from the American Northwest there was Gaultheria shallon, a plant both ornamental and medicinal, and a magnificent new conifer, both introduced by David Douglas – Fitcher was certain that the latter species would appeal especially to the pine-loving Chinese. Shrubs were not neglected either: the flowering currant, in particular, was a species for which Fitcher had very high hopes. This one plant, he told Paulette, had repaid all the costs of Mr Douglas’s first American expedition – luckily, no one had yet thought of introducing it to China.

Fitcher’s intention was to exchange these American plants for Chinese species that had not yet been introduced to the West. The idea seemed ingenious and original to Paulette, but Fitcher adamantly denied its authorship. ‘Have ee ever heard of Father d’Incarville?’

After a little thought, Paulette said: ‘Is he perhaps the one after whom the Incarvillea are named? With the beautiful trumpet flowers?’

‘That’s the one,’ said Fitcher.

D’Incarville was a Jesuit, said Fitcher, who spent several years at the court of the Emperor, in Peking. As with other foreigners his movements were severely restricted and he was not allowed to collect plants outside the city; nor was he allowed to visit the royal gardens. Seeking to change this, he conceived the idea of proposing a botanical exchange: he wrote home to France asking for European flowers, and his correspondents sent him tulips, cornflowers and columbines. But none of those caught the Emperor’s fancy – he chose instead a humble touch-me-not.

‘If that, then why not what we’ve got here on the Redruth?’

The Redruth’s functioning thus profoundly belied her appearance, for she was the creation neither of a crazed scientist nor a deluded dreamer. She was actually something much plainer: the handiwork of a diligent nurseryman – not a man who was a speculative thinker, but rather a practical solver of problems, someone who looked upon Nature as an assortment of puzzles, many of which, if properly resolved, could provide rich sources of profit.

This cast of mind was completely novel to Paulette. To her father, who had taught her what she knew of botany, the love of Nature had been a kind of religion, a form of spiritual striving: he had believed that in trying to comprehend the inner vitality of each species, human beings could transcend the mundane world and its artificial divisions. If botany was the Scripture of this religion, then horticulture was its form of worship: tending a garden was, for Pierre Lambert, no mere matter of planting seeds and pruning branches – it was a spiritual discipline, a means of communicating with forms of life that were necessarily mute and could be understood only through a careful study of their own modes of expression – the languages of efflorescence, growth and decay: only thus, he had taught Paulette, could human beings apprehend the vital energies that constitute the Spirit of the Earth.

Fitcher’s way of looking at the world could not have been more different: yet, it seemed to Paulette that in some strange way, he was more a part of the natural order than her father had ever been. Like a gnarled old tree, growing upon a stony slope, Fitcher was unshakeable in his determination to extract a living from the world: this was how he had grown rich, and it was also why his riches meant very little to him; he had no use for luxuries, and his wealth was a source not of comfort, but of anxiety – it was a burden, like the sacks of cabbages that had to be hoarded in the cellar for seasons of scarcity.

When she came to know him better, Paulette understood that Fitcher’s ideas and attitudes were outgrowths of his upbringing. The son of a Cornish greengrocer, he had been born into a wind-pierced cottage on the outskirts of Falmouth, within sight of the sea. His father was once a sailor on a ‘fruit-schooner’ – one of those swift, sleek vessels that linked the orchards of the Mediterranean to the markets of Britain – but an accident, and a crippled right arm, had forced him to alter his mode of livelihood: he had taken to hawking fruits and vegetables, some of which he obtained from his former shipmates. There were five Penrose children and the family’s circumstances being what they were, they could only intermittently attend school: when the boys were not helping their father, they were expected to earn a few pennies by working in nearby farms and gardens. It was thus that young Fitcher came to the attention of the parish doctor, who happened to be, in his spare time, a keen amateur naturalist: noticing that the boy had a way with plants, he introduced him to botanizing and lent him books. Thus was inculcated an appetite for self-improvement that served the boy well when he, in turn, was hired as a crewman by the captain of a fruit-schooner. He quickly acquired a knack for tending to the schooner’s delicate Mediterranean cargoes – oranges, plums, persimmons, apricots, lemons and figs. As with most other merchant ships, fruit-schooners permitted each seaman to carry a certain amount of cargo on his personal account, to trade for his own profit. When the weather was suitable, Fitcher would make use of his quota to ship saplings, fruit trees and garden plants, some of which fetched good prices when the schooner visited London.

The habits of that time had stayed with Fitcher and had been crucial to the building of his fortune. It had taken him many years of patient application to build the Penrose nurseries into a major force in the world of British horticulture and to remove himself from the helm, even if temporarily, had not been easy. But as a purveyor of exotic flora, Fitcher was all too well aware that the business of gardening, even more than most, demanded ceaseless innovation – partly because the time it took for a new flower to go from sublime rarity to vulgar weed was growing steadily shorter; and partly because the market was crowded with increasingly aggressive competitors. Among Penrose amp; Sons’ many rivals, perhaps the most formidable was the Veitch nursery, in nearby Devon: tireless in seeking out new wares, the Veitches would often help to fund exploratory voyages and expeditions. Fitcher too had helped to finance the travels of several would-be collectors, but never with satisfactory results: some of these wanderers had vanished with his money; some had lost their minds or died frightful deaths; and of those who returned, few had brought back anything of value. One such, a promising young Cornishman, had kept his best finds for himself, but only to sell them to the Veitches later – a betrayal that was all the more painful to Fitcher because his Devonshire rivals were not even true West Country people but transplanted Scotsmen.

These experiences had convinced Fitcher that he would do a better job himself, and probably at a lesser cost: he had, after all, personally collected many of his nursery’s most successful offerings, in southern China, and that too at a time when he was inexperienced and starved of resources. He knew he would be able to accomplish a great deal more if he returned to China in a vessel of his own – but such a journey would require at least two or three years, and could not be undertaken until his familial responsibilities had been properly discharged. He had married late, and his wife had died an untimely death, leaving him with three children – twin boys, and a girl who was much younger than her brothers. To fob his children off on relatives was inconceivable to Fitcher; and to contract a marriage of convenience, for the purpose of providing his offspring with a caregiver, was even more so. So he had accepted, reluctantly, that his plans would have to be put in abeyance until his sons were of an age to take over the running of the business. In the interim he had made careful preparations for the voyage, even designing and commissioning the Redruth, which was named after his wife’s birthplace.

The Penrose boys were capable young men, with good heads for business, and plenty of common sense besides. In listening to Fitcher, Paulette came to understand that the only cause for disappointment the boys had ever given him was that neither of them had any interest in botany or natural history: to them plants were no different from doorknobs, or sausages, or any other object that could be sold for a price on the market.

Of the Penrose children Ellen was the only one to inherit Fitcher’s interest in the natural world. This was just one of the reasons why she was particularly dear to her father (she was also, Fitcher confided, the very image of her mother, Catherine, of whom it had often been said that ‘her face was her best limb’). Although not robust in constitution, Ellen had been insistent on claiming a place in the Redruth. When Fitcher tried to dissuade her, by listing the dangers of a long voyage, she had countered by citing the career of Maria Merian, the legendary botanical illustrator who had travelled from Holland to South America at the age of fifty-two – and there was little Fitcher could say in response, for it was he who had encouraged Ellen’s botanical interests by gifting her reproductions of Merian’s paintings of the flowers and insects of Surinam.

Ellen had showed herself to be, in her quiet way, just as tenacious and determined as Fitcher himself. In the end Fitcher had been forced to relent: one of the Redruth’s cabins had been refurbished for Ellen’s use and the brig had set sail in the spring, with a crew of eighteen, and a weighty cargo of plants and equipment. With favouring winds, the Redruth had made good time to the Canary Islands, where the wild flowers on the slopes had delighted Ellen. She had insisted on going ashore to climb a hill – and it was there, probably, that she had contracted the fever that was to reveal itself several days later, when the brig was well out to sea. Nothing in Fitcher’s pharmacopeia could mitigate this illness and Ellen had died when the Redruth was but a day from the island of St Helena. Fitcher had buried her in a hillside graveyard that was carpeted with bellflowers and lobelias.

When Fitcher led Paulette to the locked door of Ellen’s cabin, she understood, without having to be told, that many weeks had passed since anyone had stepped into it.

‘It’s eers now Miss Paulette. In the trunks ee’ll find some clothes of Ellen’s too: eer welcome to them if they’re of any use t’ee.’

With that Fitcher shut the door, leaving her to settle in.

The cabin was neither large nor lavish, but it had a snug little bunk and a desk. It was provided moreover with all the facilities that a lone young woman would need to be comfortable amidst a shipful of men: a water-closet and porcelain basin for instance, as also a copper tub that was attached ingeniously to the ceiling, with rivets.

Beside the bunk was a bookcase, and its contents gave Paulette some idea of the kind of person that Ellen Penrose had been: there was a much-thumbed Bible, a life of John Wesley, a Methodist hymnal and several other books of a devotional nature. Apart from these there was also a small collection of botanical works, including a book of Maria Merian’s illustrations. But of fiction and verse there was not a single volume: it was easy to see that Ellen Penrose had been no more inclined to romance and poesy than was her father.

This impression was reinforced by the clothes that Paulette found in the trunks: they were plain and sensible, with a minimum of frills, lace and other fripperies. The collars of the dresses were high, with not an inch of neck exposed, and the colours were severe, black being the predominant hue. When she tried one on, Paulette saw that it had been cut for someone who had a fuller figure than herself – but there was a sewing box in one of the trunks and she had no trouble in making the necessary adjustments.

Still, it was not without some hesitation that Paulette prepared to appear before Fitcher in his daughter’s clothes. But Fitcher paid no attention to her changed appearance: he was tending to an ailing Douglas fir and all he said was: ‘Get eerself a pair of shears.’

It wasn’t till a few days later that he remarked off-handedly: ‘Ellen would’ve been happy ee know, to see her clothes being put to good use.’

Paulette was caught off-guard. ‘Well sir… I don’t know how to thank you… for everything…’

A catch in her throat prevented her from saying any more and she was glad of it, for even these few words of gratitude were enough to cast Fitcher into spasms of embarrassment. His face turned bright red and he began to mutter under his breath: ‘Can’t be in the glumps now Miss Paulette; not when there’s a job to be done.’

It took only a day or two for Paulette to feel completely at home on the Redruth: the crewmen were so glad to be relieved of their plant-tending duties that they accorded her an even warmer welcome than their employer. Having quickly found her place on the brig, Paulette’s chief concern in the days before the Redruth left Port Louis, was for Zachary. But this too was allayed to some degree after a fortuitous encounter, on the harbour front, with Baboo Nob Kissin Pander: he told her that Zachary was still in custody, awaiting transhipment to Calcutta, where he was to be questioned in relation to the incidents on the Ibis:

‘No need to worry, Miss Lambert – Mr Reid will be fine. Captain Chillingworth is having big soft-corners for him. He will provide supporting testimony and case will be collared out. I am also there. I will keep weather-eye.’

This greatly reassured Paulette. ‘Please tell him, Baboo Nob Kissin, that I am well, and have been most fortunate. I have met a famous gardener, Mr Penrose. He is some kind of archimillionaire and is travelling to China to collect plants. He has asked me to be his assistant.’

‘So you are going to China is it? I pray god you may have safe journey.’

‘You too, Baboo Nob Kissin. And please tell Zachary that I hope to see him soon, wherever I am…’

*

For Neel and Ah Fatt, the journey to Singapore was exceptionally slow: the Bugis schooner they had boarded at Great Nicobar was on its way back from the Hajj, and was obliged to make many stops along the Sumatran coast, to drop off the pilgrims. As a result the trip was prolonged by several days. They reached Singapore at low tide, so the schooner had to drop anchor in the outer harbour. Instead of waiting for the tides to change, the passengers pooled their coins together to hire a Chulia lighter to take them upriver to Boat Quay.

The mouth of the river was clogged with vessels – proas, sampans, junks, lorchas and dhows. In this ragtag flotilla of sea-and river-craft one vessel stood out: a medium-sized three-master of superb craftsmanship. She was anchored off the river mouth and was so positioned that the lighter had to pass close by her starboard beam. The ship’s chiselled lines and rakish profile seemed to call special attention to the damage she had suffered; through the bandaging of nets that swathed her prow the evidence of her injury was clearly visible: there was a huge cavity where her jib-boom and figurehead should have been.

Many heads turned to stare at the decapitated ship and Neel noticed that Ah Fatt, in particular, was mesmerized by the sight of the damaged vessel – he gazed at it so fixedly that his knuckles turned white on the gunwales.

By the time they reached Boat Quay it was dark. They crossed the river, intending to seek out one of the many doss-houses where lascars, coolies and other working men could rent some floor space for a couple of coppers. But then Ah Fatt changed his mind. Walking along the embankment, he said ‘Hungry! Come, we find kitchen-boat.’

Kitchen fires were burning on many of the small boats that lined the shore, and on several of them groups of people – mainly Chinese men – could be seen eating and drinking. Ah Fatt stopped to appraise each in turn but none seemed to satisfy him. After walking on for a bit he came suddenly to a halt and gestured to Neel to follow him across a gangplank: his decision was made without hesitation, although on what basis Neel could not tell, for this boat seemed, if anything, somewhat darker and less frequented than the others.

‘Why this one? How is it any different?’

‘Never mind. Come.’

The boat was manned by a round-faced younger woman and a couple who looked as though they might have been her grandparents: they seemed to have finished for the day, and the older man was reclining on a mat when Ah Fatt shouted a few words across the gangplank. Whether these were greetings or questions, Neel could not tell, but their effect, in any event, was magical, instantly transforming the somnolent boat: the older couple broke into welcoming smiles while the younger woman beckoned energetically as she answered Ah Fatt.

‘What is she saying?’

‘She say Uncle and Aunt go to sleep now, but she happy make food.’

The warmth of the welcome seemed all the more surpising to Neel because both he and Ah Fatt looked like penniless vagabonds, in their threadbare pyjamas and soiled tunics, with their bundles slung over their shoulders. ‘What did you say to them?’ he asked. ‘Why do they seem so happy to see you?’

‘Spoke in boat language,’ said Ah Fatt, in his laconic way. ‘They understood. Never mind. Time to eat rice. And drink. We drink Canton-grog.’

The kitchen-boat was of a curious shape: it looked as though its mid-section had been carved out, leaving it with a raised stem and stern. At the rear was a wooden ‘house’ with a heavy door, and at the other end, between the bows, there was a thatch-covered area with open sides: this was where customers ate, sitting around a couple of raised planks that served as tables. The carved-out mid-section was where the cooking was done: the cook had only to rise to her feet to put the food upon the ‘tables’.

After they had seated themselves, Ah Fatt leant into the well of the kitchen space and had a brief exchange with the young woman. The conversation ended with him pointing to the roof of the ‘house’, where clusters of live chickens dangled upside down, trussed by their feet. The woman reached up and picked a chicken off the roof, plucking it from its covey as though it were a fruit on a vine. There was a brief squawking and flapping and then the bird, now headless but still trussed, was dropped over the side of the boat, to flap its wings in the river. Slowly the sound died away and a minute later bits of offal went into a fish-basket that was suspended beside the boat, producing a boiling, thrashing noise. There followed the hissing of hot oil, and soon a dish of fried liver, gizzards and intestines appeared before them.

The tastes were so vivid that Neel dispensed with chopsticks and fell upon the food with his hands. Yet Ah Fatt, despite having declared himself to be hungry, seemed hardly to notice the dish – no sooner had he finished talking to the cook than his eyes and his attention returned to the jibless vessel across the river.

‘Why do you keep staring at that ship, Ah Fatt?’ Neel said at last. ‘What’s so special about it?’

Ah Fatt shook his head as though he had been woken from a trance. ‘If I tell, you not believe me.’

‘Tell me anyway.’

‘That ship belong… my family. My father.’ Ah Fatt gave a hoot of laughter.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Only that. It belong my father family.’

A fiery, sour-smelling liquor had appeared before them now, and Ah Fatt poured some into a small white cup. Then he took a sip and laughed, in the way he sometimes did when he was embarrassed or uneasy. Whether this was a sign of seriousness or frivolity, Neel could not tell, for with Ah Fatt the outward manifestations of inner states were not as they were with other people: in the few months that he had known him, Neel had discovered that where Ah Fatt was concerned, bouts of apparently childlike silliness could sometimes be symptoms of seething anger, while a spell of brooding silence could betoken nothing more portentous than a fit of drowsiness.

Now despite the laughter, Neel could sense that Ah Fatt was not joking, or at least, not entirely: between him and the ship across the river there was some powerful but conflicted connection, some link that he was trying to resist.

‘What’s the ship’s name then?’ he said, on a note of challenge, half-hoping that Ah Fatt would not know the answer.

The reply came back without a missed breath: ‘Name: Anahita. In Father’s religion, that the name of the goddess of water. Like our A-Ma. Before, had statue in front, of goddess. It was – what do you call it -?’

‘… the figurehead?’

‘Figurehead. Gone now. Family will be sad. Especially Grandfather, who built ship.’

‘ “Grandfather”?’ said Neel. ‘On your father’s side, you mean?’

‘No,’ said Ah Fatt. ‘On side of Father’s Elder Wife. Seth Rustamjee Mistrie: famous shipbuilder of Bombay…’

He was interupted by the cook, who stood up to hand over a dish of browned chicken feet. Ah Fatt picked out a piece and offered it to her with his chopsticks, and after a few moments of laughter and joking, she allowed him to slip it between her teeth. Then she slapped his hand away, with a giggle, and he turned back to Neel.

‘Sorry,’ he said, his eyes shining. ‘Long time see no woman. No chance do jaahk.’ He laughed and poured more liquor into their cups. ‘Only see you. Two of us, feet tied like chickens.’ He pointed at the trussed birds on the boat’s roof and laughed again.

Neel nodded: ‘It’s true.’

Through their time at sea they had been so closely bound and confined that it was impossible to move or turn except in tandem. Neel had never spent so much time with another human being, in such close proximity, never before experienced such extended intimacy with another physical presence – and yet now, as often before, he had the feeling that he knew nothing at all about Ah Fatt.

‘Do you mean to tell me,’ said Neel, ‘that you’re related to Seth Rustamjee Mistrie?’

‘Yes,’ said Ah Fatt. ‘Through Father. His Elder Wife is Seth’s daughter. For a long time even I did not know…’

Ah Fatt was almost at the end of his boyhood when he found out that he had connections, relatives, in faraway Bombay. As a child he had been told that he was an orphan, that his mother and father had died when he was a newborn, and that he was being brought up by his widowed Eldest Aunt – his Yee Ma. This was the story that was told to everyone who knew them, on the Canton waterfront and in Fanqui-town. There was nothing about Ah Fatt’s looks to betray his paternity, not even his complexion, a sun-weathered tint being not uncommon among boat-people. Growing up, he did not think of his family as being different from the others around him, except in one respect, which was that they had a rich benefactor, ‘Uncle Barry’, a ‘White-Hat-Alien’ from India, who happened to be his godfather, his ‘kai-yeh’. Uncle Barry had been his father’s employer, he was told; after his parents’ death he had felt a great obligation to their orphaned child; this was why he gave Yee Ma money for his upkeep, and brought presents for him from India, and paid for his teachers and tutors.

Yee Ma did not encourage Uncle Barry’s ambitions for the boy: nor did she approve of spending so much money on such things. To arrange schooling for a boat-child was no easy matter and Uncle Barry had to pay generously to organize it: he wanted the boy to be literate in Classical Chinese as well as schoolroom English; he wanted him to grow up ‘respectable’, to become a gentil-man, who would be able to move easily with the merchants of Fanqui-town, impressing them with his sporting talents as well as his knowledge. Yee Ma could not see the point of all this: she would have preferred that Uncle Barry give her the money and leave the boy alone. What use was calligraphy to him when boat-people were banned by law from sitting for the Civil Service examinations? What was he to do with boxing and riding lessons when boat-people were barred even from building houses ashore? She wanted him to grow up like any boat-child, learning to fish and sail and handle boats.

Yet, in her dreams, if not in her waking state, Yee Ma must have accepted that he was not really a boat-child for she often had nightmares in which the boy was attacked by a dragon-fish – a sturgeon. As a result she would not let him in the water.

Like other boat-children Ah Fatt grew up with a bell attached to his ankle, so his family could always keep track of him; like them he had to sit in a barrel when the boat was moving; like them, he had a wooden board tied to his back, so that he would float if he fell in. But the other children lost their boards and bells when they were two or three – Ah Fatt’s stayed on till long afterwards, making him a target of mockery. On the Canton waterfront little boys would earn money by diving in the river to amuse the Aliens, fishing out the coins and trinkets they threw in the water. Ah Fatt too wanted to do these things, to swim with the boat-children, to dive and earn coins – but to him alone, these things were strictly forbidden because of the spectre of the lurking dragon-fish.

But Yee Ma must have known also that it would be impossible to keep a child of the seui-seung-yan from the water.

‘From time they – we – are little, we float…’

Ah Fatt broke off as bowls appeared before them, with balls of minced chicken swimming in a clear broth: using his chopsticks, he pointed at one of the bobbing morsels. ‘Like that we learn to swim. The pun-tei – the land-people – they mock us and say we have fins instead of feet. Me too, I learn to swim, when Yee Ma is not there; sometimes I also go to dive for coins with others. Then one day she find out, and she pull me from the water. Beat me, shaming in front of everyone. So much shame, I think I throw myself in the river, and if dragon-fish comes, that also good. I think: she doing this because I have no parents. I think: if I her child, she not beat like this. I think: better run away. I make plans, I speak with beggar-men, but Older Sister find out. Then she tell me everything: that Yee Ma not aunt, but Mother. That ‘Uncle Barry’ not kai-yeh, but Father. I could not ask Mother because I know she beat Older Sister for telling me. I wait until Uncle Barry come next time, and when alone, I ask: Is true you are Father, and Yee Ma is Mother? At first he say, no, not true. But I ask again, and again, and then he begin to cry and admit everything. He say, yes, all true; he Father and he have other family in Bombay.’

Ah Fatt fell silent and gestured to Neel to pick up his cup. After they had drained their liquor Neel too was silent for a bit. It was only after Ah Fatt had filled the cups again that he said quietly: ‘It must have been a shock? To find out about all this? In that way?’

‘Shock? Yes. Maybe.’ Ah Fatt’s voice was flat and emotionless. ‘At first I just want to know. Know about Bombay. About Elder Wife. About sisters. You can think how strange for me all this. When I small, we live in boat like this one; we also poor people, like these. Just poor boat-people, sometime no food, we eat wind. Then one day I hear my father hou-gwai, rich man, rich White-Hat Devil. Now I think I know why my mother beat me – I not real China-yan, I her secret shame, but still she need me, because of money Father give. But does not matter now. Have got another family. I want know all about it. I ask Father, but he say nothing. Does not like to speak of it. He tells about Malacca and Colombo and London, but not Bombay. I read in books that “Western Island” – India – have gold and magic and I want to go – I want fly there like Monkey King. But this in my head – my feet in kitchen-boat, where I live. So when I hear of Father’s ship, Anahita, I am mad to see it.’

‘Did it come to Canton?’

‘No,’ said Ah Fatt. ‘Big ships can-na come to Canton – just like they can-na come up this river. Too shallow. They must anchor at Huang-pu – Whampoa in English. Many boats go up and down so I know about ship: I know has set record for season – seventeen days from Bombay to Canton. When Father come, I say: take me, take me to your ship, and he turn red, shake head. He afraid if he take me then ship will carry news back to Bombay. Elder Wife will find out about me and there will be trouble. Ship not his, he tell me; belong to father-in-law and brothers-in-law. He like paid servant and must be careful. But this mean nothing to me; I do not care. I tell him I want to go, or I will shame him. I will go Whampoa myself. So then he says, yes, he will take. But he sends me with Vico, his purser – does not go himself. Vico shows me ship, tell me stories. And it is like I saw in my head – a palace, better even than mandarin-boat. You cannot believe till you see…’

He broke off to point to the Anahita’s raised quarter-deck, which was lit by the glow of a binnacle lamp. ‘Look, near stern – third mast, what do you call it?’

‘The mizzen-mast?’

‘Yes. That mast like tree. Around its roots, on quarter-deck, there is carved bench, where people can sit. Grandfather built like that, to be like banyan tree in village. Vico tell me that. Afterward, when I see Anahita, always I think that my bench…’

Again now the cook interrupted, placing bowls of steaming rice on the plank, along with the rest of the chicken, prepared in a half-dozen different ways. The smells were tantalizing, but Neel was so absorbed in Ah Fatt’s recollections that he paid no mind to the food.

‘Did you go back to the ship again?’

‘No – did not go, but saw many times. At Lintin Island.’

‘Did you go there to see your father?’

‘No. Father never in Lintin.’ Seeing the puzzlement in Neel’s eyes, he said: ‘Look-see here, I show you…’

Using his chopsticks, Ah Fatt expertly dismantled a piece of chicken and picked out the wishbone. Laying it on the plank, he pointed to the yawning jaws: ‘This like mouth of Pearl River, which lead to Canton.’ Then, picking some grains of rice from his bowl he scattered them across the gap with his chopsticks. ‘These like islands – have many here, like teeth rising from sea. Teeth very useful to pirates. Also to foreign merchants, like Father. Because foreign ship cannot bring opium to Canton. Forbidden. So they pretend they do not bring to China. They go here’ – his chopsticks moved to point to a grain of rice that lay halfway between the jaws of the wishbone – ‘to Lintin Island. There they sell opium. When price is settled, dealer send out boat, quick boat, with thirty oar – “fast-crab”.’ Ah Fatt laughed, and his chopsticks flashed as he flipped the wishbone into the water. ‘That how I go to Lintin – in “fast-crab”.’

‘Why? What were you doing there?’

‘What you think? Buying opium.’

‘For whom?’

‘My boss – he big opium-seller, have many fast-crab, many leng work for him, many hing-dai. We are one big gaa and he is our Daaih-go-daai, Big-Brother-Big, for our family. We call him Dai Lou. He Canton man, but he travel everywhere – even to London. He stay there long time and then he come back to start business, in Macau. He have many like me to work for him; he like to hire my kind.’

‘What do you mean your kind?’

‘Jaahp-jung-jai – ‘mixed-kind-boy’.’ Ah Fatt laughed. ‘Many like that along Pearl River – in Macau, Whampoa, Guangzhou. In any port, any place where man can buy woman, there is many yeh-jai and ‘West-ocean-child’. They too must eat and live. Dai Lou give us work, treat us well. For long time he like real Elder Brother to me. But then we have trouble. That why I have to leave Canton, run away. Can-na go back.’

‘What happened?’

‘Dai Lou, he have woman. Not wife but… how do you say?’

‘Concubine?’

‘Yes. Concubine. She very beautiful. Her name Adelina.’

‘Was she European?’

‘No. Adelie also ‘salt-prawn-food’, like me: she also half Cheeni, half Achha.’

‘Achha? What do you mean by that?’

‘“Achha” – that what Canton-yan call you people. You Hindusthanis – there you all “Achha” ’.

‘But “achha” just means “good”. Or “all right”.’

Ah Fatt laughed: ‘Is opposite in Gwong-jou-talk. Ah-chaa mean ‘bad man’. So you are Achha to me and Aa-chaa to them.’

Neel laughed too. ‘So your Adelie was half Achha? Where was she from?’

‘Her mother from Goa, but live in Macau. Her father Chinese, from Canton. Adelie very beautiful; she also like smoke opium. When Dai Lou travel, he tell me to look after. Sometime she ask me bite the cloud with her. We both half-Achha, but never seen India. We talk about India, about her mother, my father. And then…’

‘You became lovers?’

‘Yes. We both become din-din-dak-dak. Crazy.’

‘And your boss found out?’

Ah Fatt nodded.

‘What did he do?’

‘What do you think?’ Ah Fatt shrugged. ‘Just like country have laws, gaa have rules. I know Dai Lou try to kill me so I hide with mother. Then I hear hing-dai come for me, so I run away. Go to Macau, and pretend to be Christian. Hide in seminary. Then they send me to Serampore, in Bengal.’

‘And Adelie?’

Ah Fatt looked into his eyes and then pointed his chopsticks at the muddy waters of the river.

‘She killed herself?’

He answered with a barely perceptible nod.

‘But that’s all in the past, Ah Fatt: don’t you ever feel like going back to Canton now?’

‘No. Can-na go back, even though Mother is there. Dai Lou have eyes everywhere. Can-na go back.’

‘But what about your father then? Why don’t you go to see him?’

‘No!’ Ah Fatt slammed his cup on the table. ‘No. Don’t want see Father.’

‘Why?’

‘Last time I see him, I ask him to take to India. I want go away. Away from Chin-gwok, away from Canton. I know if I stay, something happen with me and Adelie. And I know also, Dai Lou can find out and then he can do anything – to her and me. So I go to Father one day. I ask him to take to India, on Anahita. But he say: No, no, Freddy, cannot go. Impossible. After that I angry too. Very angry. I never see Father again.’

Despite the vehemence of Ah Fatt’s tone, Neel could sense that the ship’s influence on his friend was strengthening, its magnetic field growing steadily more powerful. ‘Listen, Ah Fatt,’ he said. ‘Whatever may have happened between you and your father is in the past. Maybe he’s changed: don’t you think you should find out if he is on board the ship?’

‘No need find out,’ said Ah Fatt. ‘I know. He is there. I know he is there.’

‘How?’

‘See flag? With columns? Is only up when Father there.’

‘Then why don’t you send him a message?’

‘No.’ The word came out of Ah Fatt’s mouth like a small explosion. ‘No. Don’t want.’

Looking up, Neel saw that Ah Fatt’s face, which had shown very little emotion so far, had suddenly crumpled into a stricken mask. But almost immediately Ah Fatt straightened his shoulders and shook his head, as if to clear it. Then, swilling back a shot of liquor, he said: ‘Mister Neel, you make me talk too much. Now no more talk. We go sleep.’

‘Where?’

‘Here. In this boat. Lady say we can stay here.’