by Amitav Ghosh
‘The children’—here they were, standing in front of her: a day had gone by and she had not said a single word to any of them. In San Francisco, before boarding, she’d gone into a shop to buy presents and had ended up wandering off in the direction of the baby clothes and rattles and silver cups. It was with a jolt that she’d recalled that ‘the children’ were almost adults now—that Neel was twenty or thereabouts, that Dinu and Alison were sixteen and Timmy just two years younger. It occurred to her that if she’d had children of her own, they would have been of the same age, they would all have been friends—the canvas of a lifetime’s connections would have acquired the patina of another generation. But that was not to be, and now, listening to her friends’ children as they bantered in the shorthand of their youth, Uma felt oddly shy: trying to think of things to say to them, she realised that she had no idea what they did with their time, the things they thought about, the books they read.
She felt herself slipping into a silence that would become, she knew, irremediable if it were allowed to persist. So, because she was the kind of person she was, she did exactly what she would have done at a political meeting: rising to her feet, she called them to order: ‘I have something to say, so please listen. I feel I must talk to each of you on your own, or I’ll never know what to say to any of you . . .’
Their eyes widened as they turned to look at her. She thought to herself: what have I done? I’ve scared them off; I’ve lost them for ever. But then, as the meaning of what she’d said dawned on them, they began to smile; she had the impression that no adult had ever spoken to them like this before; no grown-up had ever thought to seek them out for their company.
‘All right then, Alison, let’s go for a walk.’
From then on, it was easy: they seemed to want to show her round the estate, to go with her for walks. They called her ‘Auntie’ and this was oddly pleasing too. Soon they were not just ‘the children’ any more; each was someone she could recognise: Timmy was the confident one, who knew exactly what he intended to do: he wanted to go to America, to study, just as Matthew had, and then he wanted to go into business, on his own. Neel was a blunter and softer version of Rajkumar: she could see his father in him, quite clearly, but overlaid by a generation of wealth and comfort. Alison was a bit of an enigma, sometimes quiet and moody, but on occasion, wildly exuberant, full of laughter and sharp, intelligent conversation.
Dinu was the only one who left Uma feeling at a complete loss. Every time she tried to talk to him he seemed sullen, dour, and such observations as he occasionally had to offer were usually tart to the point of sourness. When he spoke, it was in odd staccato bursts, swallowing half his words and shooting out the rest: a manner of speech that made her afraid of saying anything, for fear that she might appear to be interrupting him. It was only when Dinu had a camera in his hands that he seemed to relax a little: but of course it was impossible to talk to someone who had no mind for anything but his viewfinder.
One morning, Alison said to Uma, ‘There’s something I want to show you. Can I take you for a drive?’
‘By all means.’
Dinu was well within earshot and the invitation was extended in such a way as clearly to include him. But Alison’s offer seemed to cast the boy into an agony of shyness. He began to back away, making a great show of dragging his right foot behind him.
‘Dinu, won’t you come with us?’ Alison said.
‘I don’t know . . .’ He went pale and began to mumble in confusion.
Uma was watching him closely and she knew suddenly that the boy was secretly infatuated with Alison. She was tempted to smile. Nothing would come of it, she could tell: they were as different as could be, he a creature of the shadows, she an animal that craved the spotlight. He would spend his life nurturing unuttered yearnings. Uma was tempted to grip him by the shoulders, to shake him awake.
‘Come on, Dinu,’ she ordered in a sharp, peremptory voice. ‘Don’t be a child.’
‘Yes, do come,’ Alison said brightly. ‘I think you’ll enjoy it.’
‘Can I bring my camera?’
‘Of course.’
They went down the sweeping, mahogany staircase, out into the gravelled driveway where a small, cherry-red roadster stood parked under the porch. The car was a 6-litre Paige Daytona, a three-seater, with a single rear seat that pulled out like a drawer, resting on the running board. Alison pulled the rear seat out for Dinu and then clicked open the passenger door for Uma.
‘Alison!’ Uma’s voice rose in surprise. ‘Does your father let you drive his cars?’
Alison grinned. ‘Only this one,’ she said. ‘He won’t hear of us driving the Duesie or the Isotta.’ She gunned the engine and the car rocketed forward, shooting a shower of pebbles back into the porch.
‘Alison!’ Uma cried, clinging to her door. ‘You’re going far too fast.’
‘This isn’t half as fast as I’d like to go.’ Alison laughed and tossed her head. The wind caught her hair and carried it out behind her, like a sail. Roaring through the gate at the bottom of the garden, they plunged abruptly into the hushed gloom of the plantation, with slender, long-leafed trees arching high above them on either side. The trees were ranged in lines that stretched as far as the eye could follow, dwindling into long, straight tunnels: the effect was giddying as they flashed past, thousands upon thousands of them. It was like staring at stripes on a fast-moving screen: Uma felt herself growing dizzy and had to lower her eyes.
Suddenly the trees ended and a small shantytown appeared, with rows of shacks lining the road—hutches of brick and mortar, sheltered under steepled sheets of tin. The shacks were exactly similar in design and yet each was defiantly distinctive in appearance: some were neat, with little curtains fluttering at their front windows, while others were hovels, with pyramids of filth piled at their doors.
‘The coolie lines,’ said Alison, slowing briefly. In a moment they were past and then the car picked up speed again. Once again, a tunnel of arched tree trunks closed around them, and they disappeared into a tube of kaleidoscopic lines.
The road ended at a stream. A ribbon of water was flowing down the face of a tilted sheet of rock, its surface braided with tiny ripples. On the far side, the mountain climbed steeply upwards, blanketed in a dense tangle of forest. Alison ran the car into a sheltered clearing and snapped her door open.
‘The estate ends here,’ she said. ‘Now we have to walk.’
Taking Uma’s hand, Alison helped her pick her way slowly over the stream. On the other side was a path that led directly into the jungle, heading up the slope of Gunung Jerai. The climb was steep and Uma soon ran out of breath.
‘Do we have a long way to go?’ she called ahead to Alison.
‘No. We’re almost there.’
‘Where?’
Suddenly Dinu came up to stand beside her. ‘Look.’
Following the direction of his pointing finger, Uma glanced up. Through a tangle of vines and bamboo, she caught a glimpse of a line of red masonry. ‘Why,’ she said, ‘it appears to be a ruin of some kind.’
Dinu went ahead, hurrying in excitement after Alison. Uma caught up with them at a spot where the slope levelled out into a flat, rocky ledge. Directly ahead of her were two cenotaph-like structures, placed on square plinths: walled chambers of simple design, each with a doorway that led into a small enclosure. Their stone walls were mossy with age and their roofs had caved in.
‘I was hoping you’d be able to tell us what they are, Auntie Uma.’
‘Why me?’
‘Well your father was an archaeologist, wasn’t he?’
‘Yes but . . .’ Uma shook her head slowly. ‘I didn’t learn much from him.’
The sight was as evocative as any she’d ever seen: the crumbling red stone juxtaposed against the tangled greenery of the jungle, with the mountain rising serenely above, a halo of cloud around its peak. Dinu was absorbed in photographing the ruins, moving round the structures as fast as his foot would le
t him. Uma felt a sudden pang of envy: if I were his age, this would have taken hold of me too, it would have changed my life; I would have come back here again and again; I wouldn’t rest until I’d had my fill of it; I’d want to dig them up and take them with me . . .
‘Auntie Uma,’ Dinu called to her, across the clearing, ‘what are they—these ruins?’
She ran the edge of her thumb over the spongy stone. ‘I think these were what my father used to call chandis,’ she said softly. ‘Shrines.’
‘What sort of shrine?’ said Dinu. ‘Who built them?’
‘I’d say they’re either Hindu or Buddhist shrines.’ She threw up her hands, in frustration at her own ignorance. ‘I wish I could tell you more.’
‘Do you think they’re old?’ Dinu said.
‘Yes,’ said Uma. ‘I’m sure of that. Just look how weathered the stone is. I would say these chandis are very old indeed.’
‘I knew they were old,’ Alison said triumphantly. ‘I knew it. Daddy doesn’t believe me. He says nothing here can be old because there was only jungle when he first came.’
Dinu turned to Alison, in his abrupt way: ‘And how did you find this place?’
‘My father sometimes takes us shooting in the jungle,’ Alison said. ‘One day we stumbled upon this place.’ She took Dinu’s hand. ‘Let me show you something,’ she said. ‘Come.’
She led him into the larger of the two structures. Stopping at the plinth, she pointed to an image on a pedestal, a weathered Ganesh, carved in moss-covered stone.
‘We found the image lying on the floor,’ said Alison, ‘and we put it back—it seemed to belong there.’
Uma caught a glimpse of Dinu and Alison, standing framed in the ruined doorway, next to each other. They looked very young, more children than adolescents. ‘Give me your camera,’ she called out to Dinu. ‘I’ll take a picture of the two of you together.’
She took the Brownie from him and stepped back, with her eye to the viewfinder. It gave her a start to see them framed together. Suddenly she understood why people arranged marriages for their children: it was a way of shaping the future to the past, of cementing one’s ties to one’s memories and to one’s friends. Dinu and Alison—if only they were better suited to each other; how wonderful it might be, the bringing together of so many stories. Then she recollected what she was supposed to be doing and was annoyed with herself for thinking about things that were none of her business. She clicked the shutter and handed the camera back to Dinu.
The day began very early at the plantation. Every morning, well before dawn, Uma was woken by Matthew’s footsteps, going down the grand staircase and out to his car. From her window she would see his headlamps streaking down the slope, in the pre-dawn darkness, heading in the direction of the estate office.
One day she said to Matthew: ‘Where do you go, so early in the morning?’
‘To Muster.’
‘What’s that?’
‘We have an assembly ground near the estate office. The tappers come there in the morning and the contractors give them their jobs for the day.’
She was intrigued by the jargon: muster, contractors, tappers. ‘Can I come?’
‘Certainly.’
The next morning Uma drove down to the office with Matthew, along shortcuts that went corkscrewing down the slope. Scores of tappers were converging in front of the plantation’s tin-roofed offices by the light of blazing kerosene lamps: they were all Indians, mainly Tamils; the women were dressed in saris and the men in sarongs.
The ceremony that followed was part military parade and part school assembly. It was presided over by the estate’s manager, Mr Trimble, a portly Eurasian. The tappers fell into straight lines, facing a tall flagpole that stood at the far corner of the assembly ground. Mr Trimble hoisted the Union Jack and then stood at attention beneath the flagpole, saluting stiffly, with two rows of Indian overseers lining up behind him—these were the ‘conductors’.
Mr Trimble kept attentive watch as the conductors took attendance. His manner varied between that of a strict headmaster and a snappish sergeant. Occasionally he would dart into the ranks, with his rattan cane tucked under his arm. For some of the tappers he had a smile and a quick word of encouragement; with others, he made a great show of losing his temper, gesticulating and pouring out obscenities, in Tamil and English, singling out the object of his wrath with the tip of his pointing cane: ‘You dog of a coolie, keep your black face up and look at me when I’m talking to you . . .’
Uma was disturbed by this spectacle: she had the feeling of watching something archaic, a manner of life that she had believed to be fortunately extinct. In the car Matthew asked what she had thought of ‘Muster’ and she had difficulty in keeping her voice under control.
‘I don’t know what to say, Matthew. It was like watching something that no longer existed: I was put in mind of the American South before the Civil War, of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.’
‘Oh, come on, aren’t you exaggerating a bit? Our tappers are well fed and well looked after. And they’re a lot better off than they would be if they were back where they came from.’
‘Isn’t that what masters have always said about slaves?’
Matthew raised his voice. ‘They’re not slaves, Uma.’
‘No, of course not.’ Uma reached out to touch his arm, in apology. ‘No. But did you see the terror on their faces when that man—the manager—shouted at them?’
‘He’s just doing his job, Uma. It’s a very hard job and he does it very well. It’s no easy thing to run a plantation you know. To look at, it’s all very green and beautiful—sort of like a forest. But actually it’s a vast machine, made of wood and flesh. And at every turn, every little piece of this machine is resisting you, fighting you, waiting for you to give in.’
He brought the car to a sudden halt. ‘Let me show you something.’ Opening his door, he led the way into a stand of rubber. ‘Come. Over here.’
It was first light now and dawn was descending on the peak of Gunung Jerai. This was the one time of day when the mountain’s heights were always visible, unclouded by the haze that rose later from the heated plain. On the slopes above them, the jungle was coming slowly to life, with flocks of birds rising from the forest canopy, and unseen troops of monkeys sailing through the treetops, leaving wakes of tossing leaves.
Under the rubber trees, there was a slow dripping of dew. Matthew leant against a tree trunk and pointed up. ‘Look at this tree,’ he said, ‘and look at the others around it. Wouldn’t you say they’re all exactly the same?’
‘Yes,’ Uma nodded, ‘it struck me the other day: even their limbs branch off at the same height, and in exactly the same way.’
‘And so they should. An enormous amount of human ingenuity has been invested in making these trees exactly similar. They’re called clones, you know, and scientists have been working on them for years. Most of our trees are of a clonal variety called Avros—developed by the Dutch in Sumatra in the twenties. We pay a lot of money to make sure that we get reliable clonal seed. But let me show you something.’
He pointed into a coconut-shell cup that was fastened in the tree’s trunk, beneath a long, spiral slash in the bark. ‘See how much latex this tree has produced overnight? The cup is half full, which is about right. If you walked down this row of trees, you’d find that most of them had yielded roughly the same amount of latex. But now look over here.’
He led the way to another tree. ‘Look at this cup.’
Uma looked in and saw that the cup he was pointing to was almost empty. She asked: ‘Is something wrong with this tree then?’
‘Not that I can tell,’ Matthew said. ‘It looks all right—no different from the others. Think of all the human effort that has gone into making it the same as the rest. And yet . . .’— he pointed into the almost-empty cup—‘. . . there you are.’
‘So what do you think the matter is?’
‘Botanists will tell you one thing and geologists will t
ell you another and soil specialists will tell you something else again. But if you ask me, the truth is quite simple.’
‘What is it?’
‘It’s fighting back.’
Uma gave an astonished laugh. ‘You can’t really believe that.’
‘I planted this tree, Uma. I’ve heard what all the experts say. But the tappers know better. They have a saying, you know—“every rubber tree in Malaya was paid for with an Indian life”. They know that there are trees that won’t do what the others do, and that’s what they say—this one is fighting back.’
Through the surrounding tree trunks, the plantation’s offices were visible in the distance, on the slope below. Matthew pointed to them, making a sweeping gesture with his hand.
‘This is my little empire, Uma. I made it. I took it from the jungle and moulded it into what I wanted it to be. Now that it’s mine I take good care of it. There’s law, there’s order, everything is well run. Looking at it, you would think everything here is tame, domesticated, that all the parts have been fitted carefully together. But it’s when you try to make the whole machine work that you discover that every bit of it is fighting back. It has nothing to do with me or with rights and wrongs: I could make this the best-run little kingdom in the world and it would still fight back.’
‘And what’s the reason for that?’
‘It’s nature: the nature that made these trees and the nature that made us.’
‘So are you saying then . . .’ Uma began to laugh, ‘that some of your trees are rebels by instinct?’
‘Not in so many words.’
‘But, Matthew,’ Uma laughed again, ‘what on earth are you going to do if your tappers decide to take a lesson from your trees?’
Now it was Matthew’s turn to laugh. ‘Let’s hope it never comes to that.’
Unable to sleep past daybreak, Uma began to go for long walks in the rubber groves. It was years now since she had risen this early: dawn was a discovery. There were days when teams of rubber tappers would loom suddenly out of the golden early morning mist, with tendrils of fog clinging to their saris and sarongs. They would pass within inches of her, oblivious of her presence, utterly absorbed in keeping pace with each other, their scythe-like knives glinting in the half-light as they peeled slivers of bark from the tree trunks.