Sea Of Poppies Part 12

What happened? said Ca.s.sem-meah. Did he fall on deck?

The steward stopped to brush a hand across his eyes. No; the wind took him - carried him away like a kite.

The lascars exchanged glances, and Simba Cader shook his head despondently: Nothing good will come from staying on this boat: I can feel it, in my elbow.

We could vanish, said Rajoo hopefully. The ship's going into dry dock tomorrow. By the time it comes back, we could all be gone.

Now, suddenly, Serang Ali took command, in a voice that was low but authoritative. No, he said. If we desert, they'll blame Zikri Malum. He's come a long way with us - look at him: anyone can see he's on his way to making good. No other malum's ever shared our bread and salt. We can only gain by keeping faith with him: it may be hard for a while, but in the end it'll be to our good.

Here, sensing himself to be at odds with the others, the serang glanced around the circle, as if in search of someone who would join him in affirming allegiance to the malum.

Jodu was the first to respond. Zikri Malum helped me, he said, and I'm in his debt; I'll stay even if no one else does.

Once Jodu had committed himself, many others said they'd steer the same course - but Jodu knew that it was he who'd steadied the tiller, and Serang Ali acknowledged as much by giving him a nod.

That was when Jodu knew that he was no longer a dandi-wala; he was a real lascar now, a.s.sured of his place in the crew.

Eleven.

The migrants had been on the Ganga only a few days when the monsoons came sweeping up the river and deluged them with a thunderous downpour. They greeted the rains with cries of grat.i.tude for the preceding few days had been searingly hot, especially in the crowded hold. Now, with powerful winds filling its single, tattered sail, the ungainly pulwar began to make good time, despite having to tack continually between the banks. When the winds died and the showers stopped, the vessel would make use of its complement of twenty long-handled oars, the manpower being supplied by the migrants themselves. The oarsmen were rotated every hour or so and the overseers were careful to ensure that every man served his proper turn. While under weigh, only the oarsmen, the crew and the overseers were allowed on deck - everyone else was expected to remain in the hold below, where the migrants were quartered.

The hold ran the length of the vessel, and had no compartments or internal divisions: it was like a floating storage shed, with a ceiling so low that a grown man could not stand upright in it for fear of hurting his head. The hold's windows, of which there were several, were usually kept shut for fear of thieves, thugs and river-dacoits; after the rains came down they were almost permanently sealed, so that very little light penetrated inside, even when the clouds cleared.

The first time Deeti looked into the hold, she had felt as though she were about to tumble into a well: all she could see, through the veil of her ghungta, were the whites of a great many eyes, shining in the darkness as they looked up and blinked into the light. She went down the ladder with great deliberation, being careful to keep her face veiled. When her eyes had grown accustomed to the gloom, she saw that she had descended into the middle of a packed a.s.sembly: several dozen men were gathered around her, some squatting on their haunches, some lying curled on mats, and some sitting with their backs against the hull. A ghungta seemed but a paltry shield against the a.s.sault of so many curious eyes, and she was quick to seek shelter behind Kalua.

The women's section of the hold lay well forward, in a curtained alcove between the bows: Kalua led the way there, clearing a path through the press of bodies. When they reached the alcove, Deeti came to an abrupt halt and her hand shook as she reached for the curtain. Don't go far, she whispered nervously in Kalua's ear. Stay close by - who knows what these women are like?

Theekba - don't worry, I'll be nearby, he said, ushering her through.

Deeti had expected the women's part of the hold to be just as crowded as the men's, but on stepping past the curtain, she found only a half-dozen figures inside, veiled by their ghungtas. Some of the women were lying sprawled on the floor planks, but on Deeti's entry they moved up to make room for her; she lowered herself slowly to her haunches, taking care to keep her face covered. With everyone squatting and every face covered, there followed a sizing-up that was as awkward and inconclusive as the examination of a new bride by her husband's neighbours. At first no one spoke, but then a sudden gust of wind caused the pulwar to lurch, and the women found themselves tumbling and spilling over each other. Amidst the groans and giggles, Deeti's ghungta slipped from her face, and when she had righted herself, she found that she was looking at a woman with a wide mouth from which a lone tooth protruded like a tilted gravestone. Her name, Deeti would discover later, was Heeru, and she was given to fits of forgetfulness during which she would sit gazing vacantly at her fingernails. It would not take Deeti long to learn that Heeru was the most harmless of women, but at that first meeting, she was more than a little disconcerted by the directness of her curiosity.

Who are you? Heeru demanded. Tohar nam pata batav tani? If you don't identify yourself, how will we know who you are?

As the newcomer, Deeti knew that she would have to account for herself before she could expect the same of the others. It was on her lips to identify herself as Kabutri-ki-ma - the name by which she had been known ever since her daughter's birth - when it occurred to her that if she was to prevent her husband's kinsmen from learning of her whereabouts, both she and Kalua would have to use names other than those by which they were generally known. What then was to be her name? Her proper, given name was the first to come to mind, and since it had never been used by anyone, it was as good as any. Aditi, she said softly, I am Aditi.

No sooner had she said it than it became real: this was who she was - Aditi, a woman who had been granted, by a whim of the G.o.ds, the boon of living her life again. Yes, she said, raising her voice a little, so that Kalua could hear her. I am Aditi, wife of Madhu.

The significance of a married woman using her own name was not lost on the others. Heeru's eyes grew clouded with pity: she too had been a mother once and her name was, properly speaking, Heeru-ki-ma. Although her child had died a while ago, through a cruel irony of abbreviation, his name had lived on in his mother. Heeru clicked her tongue sadly as she mulled over Deeti's plight: So your lap is empty then? No children?

No, said Deeti.

Miscarriages? The question was asked by a thin, shrewd-looking woman, with streaks of grey in her hair: this was Sarju, Deeti would discover later, the oldest among the women. Back in her village, near Ara, she had been a dai, a midwife, but a mistake in the delivery of a thakur's son had caused her to be driven from her home. On her lap lay a large cloth bundle, over which her hands were protectively clasped, as if to safeguard a treasure.

That day on the pulwar, Deeti did not have the presence of mind to think of a proper answer when the midwife repeated her question: Miscarriages? stillborn? how did you lose the little ones?

Deeti said nothing, but her silence was suggestive enough to elicit an outburst of sympathy: Never mind ... you are young and strong ... your lap will soon be filled ...

In the midst of this, one of the others edged closer, a teenaged girl with long-lashed, trusting eyes: the mound of her chin, Deeti noticed, bore an embellishment that perfectly complemented the oval shape of her face - a tattoo of three tiny dots, arrayed in an arrowhead pattern.

e tohran jat kaun ha? the girl asked eagerly. And your caste?

I am ...

Once again, just as she was about to provide an accustomed answer, Deeti's tongue tripped on the word that came first to her lips: the name of her caste was as intimate a part of herself as the memory of her daughter's face - but now it seemed as if that too were a part of a past life, when she had been someone else. She began again, hesitantly: We, my jora and I ...

Confronted with the prospect of cutting herself loose from her moorings in the world, Deeti's breath ran out. She stopped to suck in a deep draught of air before starting again: ... We, my husband and I, we are Chamars ...

At this, the girl gave a squeal and threw her arm delightedly around Deeti's waist.

You too? said Deeti.

No, said the girl. I'm from the Mussahars, but that makes us like sisters, doesn't it?

Yes, said Deeti smiling, we could be sisters - except that you're so young you should be my niece.

This delighted the girl: That's right, she cried, you can be bhauji hamar - my sister-in-law.

This exchange annoyed some of the other women, who began to scold the girl: What's wrong with you, Munia? How does all that matter any more? We're all sisters now, aren't we?

Yes, that's right, said Munia, with a nod - but under the cover of her sari, she gave Deeti's hand a little squeeze as if to affirm a special and secret bond.

'Neel Rattan Halder, the time has come ...'

No sooner had Mr Justice Kendalbushe begun his concluding address than he had to start pounding his gavel, for a disturbance broke out in the courtroom when it came to be noted that the judge had omitted the defendant's t.i.tle. After order had been restored, the judge began again, fixing his eyes directly upon Neel, who was stationed below the podium, in a dock.

'Neel Rattan Halder,' said the judge, 'the time has come to bring these proceedings to a close. Having given due consideration to all the evidence brought before this court, the jury has found you guilty, so it now becomes my painful duty to pa.s.s upon you the sentence of the law for forgery. Lest you be unaware of the seriousness of your offence, let me explain that under English law your offence is a crime of the utmost gravity and was until recently considered a capital crime.'

Here the judge broke off and spoke directly to Neel: 'Do you understand what that means? It means that forgery was a hanging offence - a measure which played no small part in ensuring Britain's present prosperity and in conferring upon her the stewardship of the world's commerce. And if this crime proved difficult to deter in a country such as England, then it is only to be expected that it will be very much more so in a land such as this, which has only recently been opened to the benefits of civilization.'

Right then, through the muted patter of a monsoon shower, Neel's ears caught the faint echo of a vendor's voice, hawking sweetmeats somewhere in the distance: Joynagorer moa ... At the sound of that faraway call, his mouth filled with the remembered taste of a crisp, smoky sweetness as the judge went on to observe that since it was said, and rightly, that a parent who failed to chasten a child was thereby guilty of shirking the responsibilities of guardianship, then might it not also be said, in the same spirit, that in the affairs of men, there was a similar obligation, imposed by the Almighty himself, on those whom he had chosen to burden with the welfare of such races as were still in the infancy of civilization? Could it not equally be said that the nations that had been appointed to this divine mission would be guilty of neglecting their sacred trust, were they to be insufficiently rigorous in the chastis.e.m.e.nt of such peoples as were incapable of the proper conduct of their own affairs?

'The temptation that afflicts those who bear the burden of governance,' said the judge, 'is ever that of indulgence, the power of paternal feeling being such as to make every parent partake of the suffering of his wards and offspring. Yet, painful as it is, duty requires us sometimes to set aside our natural affections in the proper dispensation of justice ...'

From his place in the dock, all that Neel could see of Mr Justice Kendalbushe was the top half of his face, which was, of course, framed by a heavy white wig. He noticed that every time the judge shook his head, for emphasis, a little cloud of dust seemed to rise from the powdered curls, to hang suspended above like a halo. Neel knew something of the significance of haloes, having seen a few reproductions of Italian paintings, and it occurred to him to wonder, momentarily, whether the effect was intentional or not. But these speculations were cut short by the sound of his own name.

'Neel Rattan Halder,' rasped the judge's voice. 'It has been established beyond a doubt that you repeatedly forged the signature of one of this city's most respectable merchants, Mr Benjamin Brightwell Burnham, with the intention of wilfully defrauding a great number of your own dependants, friends and a.s.sociates, people who had honoured you with their trust because of their regard for your family and because of the blameless reputation of your father, the late Raja Ram Rattan Halder of Raskhali, of whom it could well be said that the only reproach ever to attach to his name is that of having fathered as infamous a criminal as yourself. I ask you, Neel Rattan Halder, to reflect that if an offence such as yours merits punishment in an ordinary man, then how much more loudly does it call for reproof when the person who commits it is one in affluent circ.u.mstances, a man in the first rank of native society, whose sole intention is to increase his wealth at the expense of his fellows? How is society to judge a forger who is also a man of education, enjoying all the comforts that affluence can bestow, whose property is so extensive as to exalt him greatly above his compatriots, who is considered a superior being, almost a deity, among his own kind? How dark an aspect does the conduct of such a man a.s.sume when for the sake of some petty increase to his coffers, he commits a crime that may bring ruin to his own kinsmen, dependants and inferiors? Would it not be the duty of this court to deal with such a man in exemplary fashion, not just in strict observance of the law, but also to discharge that sacred trust that charges us to instruct the natives of this land in the laws and usages that govern the conduct of civilized nations?'

As the voice droned on, it seemed to Neel that the judge's words too were turning into dust so that they could join the white cloud that was circling above the wig. Neel's schooling in English had been at once so thorough and so heavily weighted towards the study of texts that he found it easier, even now, to follow the spoken language by converting it into script, in his head. One of the effects of this operation was that it also robbed the language of its immediacy, rendering its words comfortingly abstract, as distant from his own circ.u.mstances as were the waves of Windermere and the cobblestones of Canterbury. So it seemed to him now, as the words came pouring from the judge's mouth, that he was listening to the sound of pebbles tinkling in some faraway well.

'Neel Rattan Halder,' said the judge, brandishing a sheaf of papers, 'it appears that despite the waywardness and depravity of your nature, you do not lack for adherents and supporters, for this court has received several pet.i.tions in your favour, some of them signed by the most respectable natives and even by a few Englishmen. This court is also in receipt of an opinion, offered by pandits and munshis who are learned in the laws of your religion: they hold that it is not lawful to punish a man of your caste and station as others are punished. In addition, the jury has taken the extraordinary and unusual step of commending you to the merciful consideration of the court.'

With a gesture of dismissal the judge allowed the papers to slip from his hand. 'Let it be noted that there is nothing this court values more than a recommendation from a jury, for they understand the habits of the people and may be aware of mitigating circ.u.mstances that have escaped the attention of the judge. You may be a.s.sured that I have subjected every submission placed before me to the most serious scrutiny, in the hope of discovering therein some reasonable grounds for diverting from the straight path of justice. I confess to you that my efforts have been in vain: in none of these pet.i.tions, commendations and opinions, have I been able to discover any grounds whatsoever for mitigation. Consider, Neel Rattan Halder, the view, offered by the learned pandits of your religion, that a man of your station ought to be exempted from certain forms of punishment because these penalties might also be visited on your innocent wife and child by causing them to lose caste. I freely acknowledge the necessity of accommodating the law to the religious uses of the natives, so far as it can be done in a manner consistent with justice. But we see no merit whatsoever in the contention that men of high caste should suffer a less severe punishment than any other person; such a principle has never been recognized nor ever will be recognized in English law, the very foundation of which lies in the belief that all are equal who appear before it ...'

There was something about this that seemed so absurd to Neel that he had to drop his head for fear of betraying a smile: for if his presence in the dock proved anything at all, it was surely the opposite of the principle of equality so forcefully enunciated by the judge? In the course of his trial it had become almost laughably obvious to Neel that in this system of justice it was the English themselves - Mr Burnham and his ilk - who were exempt from the law as it applied to others: it was they who had become the world's new Brahmins.

But now there was a sudden deepening in the hush of the court, and Neel raised his eyes to find the judge glaring directly at him again: 'Neel Rattan Halder, the pet.i.tion submitted in your favour implores us to mitigate your sentence on the grounds that you have been a person of wealth, that your young and innocent family will lose caste and be shunned and ostracized by their kinsmen. As to the latter, I have too great a regard for the native character to believe that your kin would be guided by so erroneous a principle, but in any event, this consideration cannot be permitted to have a bearing on our reading of the law. As to your wealth and your position in society, in our view these serve only to aggravate your offence in our eyes. In p.r.o.nouncing your sentence I have a stark choice: I can choose either to let the law take its course without partiality, or I can choose to establish, as a legal principle, that there exists in India a set of persons who are ent.i.tled to commit crimes without punishment.'

And so there does, thought Neel, and you are one of them and I am not.

'Being unwilling to add further to your distress,' said the judge, 'it is sufficient to say that none of the applications made on your behalf have suggested a single proper ground for altering the course of the law. Recent precedent, in England as well as in this country, has established forgery to be a felony for which the forfeiture of property is an inadequate penalty: it carries the additional sanction of transportation beyond the seas for a term to be determined by the court. It is in keeping with these precedents that this court p.r.o.nounces its sentence, which is that all your properties are to be seized and sold, to make good your debts, and that you yourself are to be transported to the penal settlement on the Mauritius Islands for a period of no less than seven years. So let it be recorded on this, the twentieth day of July, in the year of Our Lord, 1838 ...'

Soon, by virtue of his prodigious strength, Kalua became the most valued oarsman on the pulwar and he alone, among all the migrants, was allowed to take turns whenever the weather permitted. The privilege pleased him greatly, the strain of rowing being more than amply compensated by the rewards of being on deck, where he could watch the rain-freshened countryside going by. The names of the settlements on the banks made a great impression on him - Patna, Bakhtiyarpur, Teghra - and it became a game with him to compute the number of strokes that separated the next from the last. Occasionally, when some storied town or city came into view, Kalua would go down to let Deeti know: Barauni! Munger! The women's enclosure boasted more than its fair share of windows, being endowed with two, one on either bow. With each of Kalua's reports, Deeti and the others would prise the shutters briefly open to gaze upon the settlements as they approached.

Every day at sunset, the pulwar would stop for the night. Where the banks were dangerously unpeopled, it would drop anchor at midstream, but if they happened to be in the vicinity of some populous town, like Patna, Munger or Bhagalpur, then the boatmen would attach their moorings directly to the sh.o.r.e. The greatest treat of all was when the pulwar pulled up to the ghats of some busy town or river port: in the intervals between showers of rain the women would sit on deck, watching the townsfolk and laughing at the evermore-outlandish accents in which they spoke.

When the pulwar was under weigh, the women were permitted on deck only for the serving of the midday meal: at all other times, they were kept in seclusion, in their curtained enclosure between the bows. To spend three weeks in that small, dark and airless s.p.a.ce should have been, by rights, an experience of near-unbearable tedium. Yet, strangely, it was anything but that: no two hours were the same and no two days alike. The close proximity, the dimness of the light, and the pounding drumbeat of the rain outside, created an atmosphere of urgent intimacy among the women; because they were all strangers to each other, everything that was said sounded new and surprising; even the most mundane of discussions could take unexpected twists and turns. It was astonishing, for example, to discover that in making mango-achar, some were accustomed to using fallen fruit while others would use none that were not freshly picked; no less was it surprising to learn that Heeru included heeng among the pickling spices and that Sarju omitted so essential an ingredient as kalonji. Each woman had always practised her own method in the belief that none other could possibly exist: it was bewildering at first, then funny, then exciting, to discover that the recipes varied with every household, family and village, and that each was considered unquestionable by its adherents. So absorbing was this subject that it kept them occupied from Ghoga to Pirpainti: and if so trivial a thing could generate so much talk, then what of such pressing matters as money and the marital bed?

As for stories, there was no end to them: two of the women, Ratna and Champa, were sisters, married to a pair of brothers whose lands were contracted to the opium factory and could no longer support them; rather than starve, they had decided to indenture themselves together - whatever happened in the future, they would at least have the consolation of a shared fate. Dookhanee was another married woman, travelling with her husband: having long endured the oppressions of a violently abusive mother-in-law, she considered it fortunate that her husband had joined in her escape.

Deeti, too, felt no constraint in speaking of the past, for she had already imagined, in fulsome detail, a history in which she had been Kalua's wife since the age of twelve, living with him and his cattle in his roadside bier. And if called upon to account for the decision to cross the Black Water, she would blame it all on the jealousies of the pehlwans and strongmen of Benares, who, unable to beat her husband in combat, had contrived to have him driven from the district.

To some of the stories, they returned again and again: the tale of Heeru's separation from her husband, for example, was told so many times that they all felt as though they had lived through it themselves. It had happened the previous year, at the start of the cold season, during the great cattle mela of Sonepur. Heeru had lost her firstborn and only child the month before and her husband had persuaded her that if she was ever to bear another son, she would need to do a puja at the temple of Hariharnath, during the fair.

Heeru knew, of course, that a great many people went to the mela, but she was not prepared for the mult.i.tudes that were a.s.sembled on the sand-flats of Sonepur: the dust raised by their feet was so thick as to make a moon of the midday sun, and as for cattle and other animals, there were so many that it seemed as if the river's banks would collapse under their weight. It took them a whole day to make their way to the gates of the temple and while they were waiting to enter, an elephant, brought there by a zemindar, ran suddenly amuck, scattering the crowd. Heeru and her husband ran in opposite directions, and afterwards, when she knew herself to be lost, she fell prey to one of her bouts of distracted forgetfulness. For hours she sat on the sand, staring at her fingernails, and when at last she bethought herself to go looking for her man, he was nowhere to be found: it was like searching for a grain of rice in an avalanche of sand. After two days of fruitless wandering, Heeru decided to make her way back to her village - but this was no easy matter for there was a distance of sixty kos to be covered, and that, too, through a stretch of country that was preyed upon by ruthless dacoits and murderous Thugs: for a woman to embark on that journey alone was to invite murder, or worse. She got as far as Revelganj and decided to wait until she encountered relatives or acquaintances who might agree to take her with them. Several months pa.s.sed during which she sustained herself by begging, washing clothes and carting dust at a saltpetre mine. Then one day she saw someone she knew, a neighbour from the village; she rushed towards him, in delight, but when he recognized her, he fled, as if from a ghost. At length, when she managed to catch up with him, he told her that her husband had given her up for dead and married again; his new wife was already pregnant.

At first Heeru was determined to go back and reclaim her place in her home - but then she began to wonder. Why had her husband taken her to Sonepur in the first place? Had he perhaps intended to abandon her all along, seizing any opportunity that arose? Certainly he had berated and beaten her often enough in the past: what would he do if she returned to him now?

And as luck would have it, just as she was mulling over these questions, a pulwar, filled with migrants, drew up to the ghat ...

Munia's story was apparently the simplest of all: when questioned about her presence on the pulwar, she would say that she was on her way to join her two brothers, who had both left for Mareech some years before. If asked why she wasn't married she would say that there was no one at home to find a husband for her, both her parents having recently died. Deeti guessed that this was not all there was to this tale, but she was careful not to pry: she knew that when the time was right, Munia would tell of her own accord - wasn't she, Deeti, the girl's surrogate bhauji, the sister-in-law that everyone dreamed of, friend, protector and confidante? Wasn't it to her that Munia always came when some overly forward man flirted or teased or tried to entice her into a.s.signations? She knew that Deeti would put those men in their places by reporting her tales to Kalua: Look at that filthy luchha over there, making eyes at Munia. He thinks he can tease and provoke and do all kinds of chherkani just because she's young and pretty. Go and set him right; tell him aisan mat kara - don't you dare do it again, or you'll find your liver on the wrong side of your belly.

Kalua would go lumbering over and ask, in his polite way: Khul ke bataibo - tell me truthfully, were you bothering that girl? Could you tell me why?

This was usually enough to put an end to the trouble for to be asked such a question by someone of Kalua's size was not to the taste of most.

It was after one such episode that Munia poured her story into Deeti's ear: it was about a man from Ghazipur, a pykari agent from the opium factory. While visiting their village, he had seen her working at the harvest and had made it his business to pa.s.s that way again and again. He had brought her trinkets and baubles and told her that he was besotted with her - and she, trusting and open-hearted as she was, had believed everything he said. They had started meeting secretly, in the poppy fields, during festivals and weddings, when the whole village was distracted. She had enjoyed the secrecy and the romance and even the fondling, until the night when he forced himself on her: after that, for fear of public exposure, she had continued to do his bidding. When she became pregnant, she a.s.sumed her family would cast her out or have her killed, but miraculously, her parents had stood by her, despite the ostracism of their community. But they were people of desperately straitened circ.u.mstances - so much so that they had had to sell two of their sons into indenture, just to make ends meet. When Munia's child was eighteen months old, they had decided to take the baby to the agent's house - not to threaten or blackmail, but just to show him that he had given them another mouth to feed. He heard them out patiently and then sent them back, saying he would provide all the help that was needed. A few days later some men had stolen up to their dwelling, in the dead of night, and set it on fire. It so happened that it was Munia's time of the month, so she was sleeping away from the others, out in the fields: she had watched the hut burn down, killing her mother, her father and her child. After that, to remain in the district would have been to court death: she had set off to look for the duffadar's pulwar, just as her brothers had done, before her.

Oh you foolish, dung-brained girl! said Deeti. How could you let him touch you ... ?

You won't understand, Munia sighed. I was mad for him; when you feel like that, there's nothing you won't do. Even if it happens again, I'll be helpless, I know.

What are you saying, you silly girl? Deeti cried. How can you talk like that? After all you've been through, you must make sure it never happens again.

Never again? Munia's mood changed suddenly, in a way that made Deeti despair of her. She giggled, covering her mouth with her hand. Would you stop eating rice, she said, because you broke a tooth once, on a kanker? But how would you live ... ?

Shh! Thoroughly scandalized, Deeti began to scold: Be quiet, Munia! Have a thought for yourself. How can you prattle so loosely? Don't you know what would happen if the others found out?

Why would I tell them? said Munia, making a face. I only told you because you're my bhauji. To the others I won't say a thing: they talk too much anyway ...

It was true that conversation rarely flagged amongst the women - and when it did they had only to p.r.i.c.k up their ears to listen to the tales that were being told on the other side of the curtain, among the men. Thus they learnt the story of the quarrelsome Jhugroo, whose enemies had contrived to ship him away by bundling him into the pulwar while drunk; of Cullookhan, the sepoy, who had returned to his village after completing his military service, but only to find that he could no longer bear to be at home; of Rugoo, the dhobi who had sickened of washing clothes, and Gobin, the potter, who had lost the use of his thumb.

Sometimes, when the pulwar stopped for the night, new recruits would come on board, usually in ones and twos, but occasionally in small bands of a dozen or more. At Sahibganj, where the river turned southwards, there were forty men waiting - hillsmen from the plateaus of Jharkhand. They had names like Ecka and Turkuk and Nukhoo Nack, and they brought with them stories of a land in revolt against its new rulers, of villages put to flames by the white man's troops.

Soon after this, the pulwar crossed an invisible boundary, taking them into a watery, rain-drowned land where the people spoke an incomprehensible tongue: now, when the barge stopped for the night, they could no longer understand what the spectators were saying, for their jeers and taunts were in Bengali. To add to the migrants' growing unease, the landscape changed: the flat, fertile, populous plains yielded to swamps and marshes; the river turned brackish, so that its water could no longer be drunk; every day the water rose and fell, covering and uncovering vast banks of mud; the sh.o.r.es were blanketed in dense, tangled greenery, of a kind that was neither shrub nor tree, but seemed to grow out of the river's bed, on roots that were like stilts: of a night, they would hear tigers roaring in the forest, and feel the pulwar shudder, as crocodiles lashed it with their tails.

Up to this point, the migrants had avoided the subject of the Black Water - there was no point, after all, in dwelling on the dangers that lay ahead. But now, as they sweated in the steamy heat of the jungle, their fears and apprehensions bubbled over. The pulwar became a cauldron of rumours: it began to be whispered that their rations on the Black Water ship would consist of beef and pork; those who refused to eat would be whipped senseless and the meats would be thrust down their throats. On reaching Mareech, they would be forced to convert to Christianity; they would be made to consume all kinds of forbidden foods, from the sea and the jungle; should they happen to die, their bodies would be ploughed into the soil, like manure, for there was no provision for cremation on that island. The most frightening of the rumours was centred upon the question of why the white men were so insistent on procuring the young and the juvenile, rather than those who were wise, knowing, and rich in experience: it was because they were after an oil that was to be found only in the human brain - the coveted mimiai-ka-tel, which was known to be most plentiful among people who had recently reached maturity. The method employed in extracting this substance was to hang the victims upside down, by their ankles, with small holes bored into their skulls: this allowed the oil to drip slowly into a pan.

So much credence did this rumour acc.u.mulate that when at last Calcutta was sighted, there was a great outburst of sorrow in the hold: looking back now, it seemed as if the journey down the Ganga had given the migrants their last taste of life before the onset of a slow and painful death.

On the morning of the tumasher, Paulette rose to find that her anxious fingernails had raised an alarming crop of weals on her face during the night. The sight brought tears of vexation to her eyes, and she was tempted to send a chit to Mrs Burnham, claiming that she was ill and could not leave her bed - but instead, presently, she instructed the ab-dars to fill the tub in the goozle-connah. For once she was glad to avail herself of Mrs Burnham's cushy-girls, allowing them to pluck her arms and champo her hair. But the question of what she was to wear had still to be faced, and in addressing it, Paulette found herself yet again on the brink of tears: this was a matter that she had never worried about before and she was at a loss to understand why it should concern her now. What did it matter that Mr Reid was coming? For all she knew, he would scarcely notice her presence. And yet, when she tried on one of Mrs Burnham's hand-me-downs, she found herself examining the rich but stern-looking gown with unaccustomedly critical eyes: she could not face the thought of going down to the tumasher dressed like a marmot in mourning. But what else could she do? To buy a new dress was beyond her capabilities, not just because she had no money, but also because she could not trust her own taste in memsahib fashion.

With no other recourse, Paulette sought help from Annabel, who was wise beyond her years in some things. Sure enough, the girl was a great source of support, and hit upon the expedient of using bits of one of her own chikan-worked dooputties, to brighten the pelerine collar of Paulette's black silk gown. But Annabel's aid did not come without a price. 'Why, look at you, Puggly - you're flapping about like a t.i.tler!' she said. 'I've never seen you worry about your jumma before. It's not because of a chuckeroo, is it?'

'Why no,' said Paulette quickly. 'Of course not! It is only that I feel I should not let down your family at such an important evenment.'

Annabel was not taken in. 'You're trying to bundo someone, aren't you?' she said with her wicked smile. 'Who is it? Do I know him?'

'Oh Annabel! It is nothing like that,' cried Paulette.

But Annabel was not easily silenced, and later that day, when she saw Paulette coming down the stairs, fully outfitted, she uttered a squeal of admiration: 'Tip-top, Paulette - shahbash! They'll be showering choomers on you before the night's out.'

'Really Annabel - how you do exagere!' Hitching up her skirts, Paulette bolted away, glad to see that there was no one within earshot except a pa.s.sing chobdar, two hurrying farrashes, three mussack-laden beasties, two chisel-wielding mysteries, and a team of flower-bearing malis. She would have been mortified if Mrs Burnham had overheard her, but fortunately the BeeBee was still at her toilette.

At the front of the Burnham house, adjoining the portico, lay a reception room that Mrs Burnham laughingly referred to as her shishmull, because of the great quant.i.ty of gilt-framed Venetian mirrors that hung on its walls: it was here that guests were usually received and seated before the serving of dinner. Although grand enough, this room was by no means the largest in the house, and when all its chandeliers and sconces were ablaze the shishmull offered very few dark or quiet corners - which was something of a nuisance for Paulette, whose princ.i.p.al expedient, in dealing with the Burnham burrakhanas, was to make herself as inconspicuous as possible. In the shishmull, by dint of experimentation, she had found that her purpose was best served by retiring to a corner where a single, straight-backed chair stood in isolation against an unmirrored patch of wall: here she had succeeded in sitting out the preliminary phases of many an evening without attracting the attention of anyone other than the khidmutgars who were serving iced simkin and sherbet. It was to this corner therefore that she made her way, but tonight her customary refuge did not shelter her for long: she had just accepted a cold tumlet of tart-sweet tamarind sherbet when she heard Mrs Burnham calling out her name. 'Oh Paulette! Where have you been chupowing yourself? I've been looking everywhere for you: Captain Chillingworth has a question.'

'For me, Madame?' said Paulette in alarm, rising to her feet.

'Yes indeed - and here he is.' Mrs Burnham took a half-step aside, bringing Paulette face-to-face with the Captain.

'Captain Chillingworth, may I present Mademoiselle Paulette Lambert?'

Mrs Burnham was gone almost as soon as she had said the words, and Paulette was now alone with the Captain who was breathing rather heavily as he bowed.

'... Honoured, Miss Lambert.'

His voice was low, she noticed, and it had the crunching sound of conkers rattling beneath the wheel of a carriage. Even if he had not been so visibly short of wind, it would have been clear at a glance that he was not in the best of health: the colour of his face was a mottled red, and his figure seemed oddly bloated. Like his body, his face seemed to sag upon a frame that had once been large, square and confident of its power; its lines drooped in apparent exhaustion - the fleshy jowls, the watery eyes and the deep dark pouches beneath them. When he raised his hat, his head was revealed to be almost completely bald, except for a tattered ring of hair that hung down from its edges, like a fringe of peeling bark.

Mopping the sweat from his face, the Captain said: 'I noticed a row of lataniers on the drive. I'm told they were your doing, Miss Lambert.'

'That is true, sir,' Paulette replied, 'it was indeed I who planted them. But they are still so small! I am surprised you noticed them.'

'Pretty plants, latanias,' he said. 'Don't see them much in these parts.'

'I have a great fondness for them,' said Paulette, 'especially the Latania commersonii.'

'Oh?' said the Captain. 'May I ask why?'

Paulette was embarra.s.sed now, and she looked down at her shoes. 'The plant was identified, you see, by Philippe and Jeanne Commerson.'

'And who, pray, were they?'

'My grand-uncle and grand-aunt. They were botanists, both of them and lived many years in the Mauritius.'