Sea of Poppies

by Amitav Ghosh

  The Halders of Raskhali were one of the oldest and most noted landed families of Bengal, and their boat was among the most luxurious to be seen on the river: the vessel was a brigantine-rigged pinnace-budgerow – an Anglicized version of the humbler Bengali bajra. A double-masted houseboat of capacious dimensions, the budgerow’s hull was painted blue and grey, to match the Raskhali estate’s livery, and the family’s emblem – the stylized head of a tiger – was emblazoned on its prow and its sail. The main deck had six large staterooms, with Venetian windows and jillmilled blinds; it also boasted a grand, glittering reception chamber, a sheeshmahal, panelled with mirrors and fragments of crystals: used only on formal occasions, this cabin was large enough to stage dances and other entertainments. Although sumptuous meals were often served on the budgerow, the preparation of food was not permitted anywhere on the vessel. Though not Brahmins, the Halders were orthodox Hindus, zealous in the observance of upper-caste taboos and in following the usages of their class: to them, the defilements associated with the preparation of food were anathema. When at sail, the Halder budgerow always towed another, smaller boat in its wake, a pulwar; this second vessel served not only as a kitchen-tender, but also as a floating barracks for the small army of piyadas, paiks and other retainers who were always in attendance on the zemindar.

  The top deck of the budgerow was an open gallery, ringed by a waist-high deck rail: it was a tradition among the Raskhali zemindars to use this space for flying kites. The sport was much beloved of the Halder menfolk, and as with other such favoured pursuits – for example, music and the cultivation of roses – they had added nuances and subtleties that elevated the flying of kites from a mere amusement to a form of connoisseurship. While common people cared only for how high their kites soared and how well they ‘fought’ with others, what mattered most to the Halders was the pattern of a kite’s flight and whether or not it matched the precise shade and mood of the wind. Generations of landed leisure had allowed them to develop their own terminology for this aspect of the elements: in their vocabulary, a strong, steady breeze was ‘neel’, blue; a violent nor’easter was purple, and a listless puff was yellow.

  The squalls that brought the Ibis to Hooghly Point were of none of these colours: they were winds of a kind which the Halders were accustomed to speak of as ‘suqlat’ – a shade of scarlet that they associated with sudden reversals of fortune. The Rajas of Raskhali were famously a line that put great trust in omens – and in this, as in most other matters, Neel Rattan Halder was a devout upholder of inherited traditions: for over a year now, he had been pursued by bad news, and the sudden arrival of the Ibis, along with the changeable colour of the wind, seemed to him to be sure indications of a turn in his luck.

  The present zemindar was himself named after the noblest of winds, the steady, blue breeze (years later, when it was time for him to enter Deeti’s shrine, it was by a few strokes of this colour that she would make his likeness). Neel had but recently come into the title, having inherited it upon his father’s death two years before: he was in his late twenties, and although well past his first youth, he retained the frail, etiolated frame of the sickly child he had once been. His long, thin-boned face had the pallor that comes from always being shielded from the full glare of the sun; in his limbs, too, there was a length and leanness that suggested the sinuosity of a shade-seeking plant. His complexion was such that his lips formed a sunburst of red on his face, their colour being highlighted by the thin moustache that bordered his mouth.

  Like others of his ilk, Neel had been betrothed at birth to the daughter of another prominent landowning family; the marriage had been solemnized when he was twelve, but had resulted in only one living child – Neel’s eight-year-old heir presumptive, Raj Rattan. Even more than others of their line, this boy delighted in the sport of kite-flying: it was at his insistence that Neel had ventured up to the budgerow’s uppermost deck on the afternoon when the Ibis dropped anchor at the Narrows.

  It was the shipowner’s flag, on the mainmast of the Ibis, that caught the zemindar’s attention: he knew the chequered pennant almost as well as the emblem of his own estate, his family’s fortunes having long been dependent on the firm founded by Benjamin Burnham. Neel knew, at a glance, that the Ibis was a new acquisition: the terraces of his main residence in Calcutta, the Raskhali Rajbari, commanded an excellent view of the Hooghly River and he was familiar with most vessels that came regularly to the city. He was well aware that the Burnham fleet consisted mainly of locally made ‘country boats’; of late he had noticed a few sleek American-built clipper-ships on the river, but he knew that none of them belonged to the Burnhams – the flags on their masts were of Jardine & Matheson, a rival firm. But the Ibis was no country boat: although not in the best of trim, it was evident that she was of excellent craftsmanship – such a vessel was not to be cheaply acquired. Neel’s curiosity was piqued, for it seemed possible that the schooner’s arrival might presage a reversal in his own fortunes.

  Without unloosing his kite-string, Neel summoned his personal bearer, a tall, turbaned Benarasi called Parimal. Take a dinghy and row over to that ship, he said. Ask the serangs who the ship belongs to and how many officers are on board.

  Huzoor.

  With a gesture of acknowledgement, Parimal retreated down the ladder and soon afterwards, a slim paunchway pulled away from the Raskhali budgerow to nudge up alongside the Ibis. A scant half-hour later, Parimal returned to report that the ship belonged to Burnham-sahib, of Calcutta.

  How many officers on board? Neel inquired.

  Of hat-wearing topi-walas there are just two, said Parimal.

  And who are they – the two sahibs?

  One of them is a Mr Reid, from Number-Two-England, said Parimal. The other is a pilot from Calcutta, Doughty-sahib. Huzoor may remember him: in the old days he often used to come to the Raskhali Rajbari. He sends his salams.

  Neel nodded, although he had no memory of the pilot. Handing his kite-string to a servant, he gestured to Parimal to follow him down to his stateroom, on the lower deck. There, after sharpening a quill, he picked up a sheet of paper, wrote a few lines and ran a handful of sand across the page. When the ink was dry, he handed the letter to Parimal. Here, he said, take this to the ship and deliver it personally to Doughty-sahib. Tell him the Raja is pleased to invite Mr Reid and himself to dine on the Raskhali budgerow. Come back quickly and let me know what they say.

  Huzoor.

  Parimal bowed again, and retreated backwards into the gangway, leaving Neel still seated at his desk. It was there that Elokeshi found him, a short while later, when she swept into the stateroom in a swirl of anklets and attar: he was sitting in a chair, his fingers steepled, lost in thought. With a gurgle of laughter, she clapped her hands over his eyes and cried: There you are – always alone! Wicked! Dushtu! Never any time for your Elokeshi.

  Peeling her hands off his eyes, Neel turned to smile at her. Among the connoisseurs of Calcutta, Elokeshi was not considered a great beauty: her face was too round, the bridge of her nose too flat, and her lips too puffy to be pleasing to the conventional eye. Her hair, long, black and flowing, was her great asset, and she liked to wear it over her shoulders, with no bindings other than a few gold tassels. But it was not so much her looks as her spirit that had drawn Neel to her, the cast of her mind being as effervescent as his own was sombre: although many years his senior, and well versed in the ways of the world, her manner was as giggly and flirtatious as it had been when she’d first attracted notice as a dancer of sublimely light-footed tukras and tihais.

  Now, flinging herself on the large four-poster bed in the centre of the stateroom, she parted her scarves and dupattas so that her pouting lips were laid bare, while the rest of her face remained covered. Ten days on this lumbering boat, she moaned, all alone, with nothing to do, and not once do you so much as look at me.

  All alone – and what about them? Neel laughed and inclined his head in the direction of the doorway, where three girls wer
e sitting crouched, watching their mistress.

  Oh them . . . but they’re just my little kanchanis!

  Elokeshi giggled, covering her mouth: she was a creature of the city, addicted to the crowded bazars of Calcutta, and she had insisted on bringing along an entourage to keep her company on this unaccustomed expedition into the countryside; the three girls were at once maids, disciples and apprentices, indispensable to the refinement of her arts. Now, at a gesture from their mistress’s forefinger, the girls withdrew, shutting the door behind them. But even in retreat they did not stray far from their mistress: in order to prevent interruptions, they sat in a huddle in the gangway outside, rising from time to time to steal glances through the chinks in a jillmilled ventilation panel on the teakwood door.

  Once the door was shut, Elokeshi divested herself of one of her long dupattas and floated it over Neel’s head, snaring him in the cloth and pulling him to the bed. Come to me now, she said, pouting, you’ve been at that desk long enough. When Neel went to lie beside her, she pushed him back against a bank of pillows. Now tell me, she said, on the undulating note that was her voice of complaint: Why did you bring me all this way with you – so far from the city? You still haven’t explained properly.

  Amused by her affectation of naïveté, Neel smiled: In the seven years you’ve been with me, you’d never once seen Raskhali. Isn’t it natural that I should want you to see my zemindary?

  Just to see it? She tossed her head in a gesture of challenge, miming a dancer’s enactment of the role of injured lover. Is that all?

  What else? He rubbed a lock of her hair between his fingertips. Wasn’t it enough to see the place? Didn’t you like what you saw?

  Of course I liked it, said Elokeshi; it was grand beyond anything I could imagine. Her gaze drifted away, as if in search of his colon-naded riverside mansion with its gardens and orchards. She whispered: So many people, so much land! It made me think: I’m such a small part of your life.

  He put his hand under her chin and turned her face towards him. What’s the matter, Elokeshi? Tell me. What’s on your mind?

  I don’t know how to tell you . . .

  Now her fingers began to unbutton the ivory studs that ran slantwise across the chest of his kurta. She murmured: Do you know what my kanchanis said when they saw how large your zemindary was? They said: Elokeshi-di, you should ask the Raja for some land – don’t you need a place where your relatives can live? After all, you need some security for your old age.

  Neel groaned in annoyance: Those girls of yours are always making trouble. I wish you would turn them out of your house.

  They just look after me – that’s all. Her fingers strayed into his chest hair, busying themselves in making tiny braids, as she whispered: There’s nothing wrong with a raja giving land to the girls in his keep. Your father used to do it all the time. People say his women had only to ask to get whatever they wanted: shawls, jewellery, jobs for their relatives . . .

  Yes, said Neel, with a wry smile: And those relatives would go on receiving salaries, even when they were caught embezzling from the estate.

  You see, she said, running her fingertips over his lips. He was a man who knew the value of love.

  Not like me – I know, he said. It was true that Neel’s own style of living was, for a scion of the Halder family, almost frugal: he managed to get by with a single two-horse carriage and made do with a modest wing of the family mansion. Much less a voluptuary than his father, he had no mistress other than Elokeshi – but on her, he lavished his affections without stint, his relationship with his wife having never progressed beyond the conventional performance of his husbandly duties.

  Don’t you see, Elokeshi? Neel said, with a touch of sadness. To live like my father did costs money – more money than our estates could possibly provide.

  Elokeshi was suddenly alert, her eyes keen with interest. What do you mean? Everyone always said your father was one of the richest men in the city.

  Neel stiffened. Elokeshi – a pond needn’t be deep to bear a lotus.

  Elokeshi snatched back her hand and sat up. What are you trying to say? she demanded. Explain to me.

  Neel knew he had said too much already, so he smiled and slipped his hand under her choli: It’s nothing, Elokeshi.

  There were times when he longed to tell her about the problems his father had left him with, but he knew her well enough to be aware that she would probably start making other arrangements if she learnt of the full extent of his difficulties. It was not that she was avaricious: on the contrary, for all her affectations, he knew that she had a strong sense of responsibility towards those who were dependent on her – just as Neel did himself. He regretted having let slip his words about his father, for it was premature to give her cause for alarm.

  Let it be, Elokeshi. What does it matter?

  No, tell me about it, said Elokeshi, pushing him back against the pillows. A well-wisher in Calcutta had warned her of financial trouble in the Raskhali zemindary: she had paid no heed at the time, but she sensed now that something was really awry and that she might have to re-examine her options.

  Tell me, Elokeshi asked again: You’ve been so preoccupied these last few months – what’s on your mind?

  It’s nothing you should worry about, Neel said – and it was certainly true, that no matter what happened, he would see to it that she was provided for: You and your girls and your house are all safe . . .

  He was cut short by the voice of his bearer, Parimal, which suddenly made itself heard in the gangway, arguing furiously with the three girls: he was demanding to be let in, and they were adamantly holding him at bay.

  Hastily pulling a sheet over Elokeshi, Neel called out to the girls: Let him in.

  Parimal stepped in, keeping his eyes carefully averted from Elokeshi’s covered form. Addressing Neel, he said: Huzoor, the sahibs on the ship said they would gladly come. They will be here soon after sunset.

  Good, said Neel. But you’ll have to take care of the bandobast, Parimal: I want the sahibs to be entertained as they would have been in my father’s day.

  This startled Parimal, who had never known his master to make such a request. But huzoor, how? he said: In such a short time? And with what?

  We have simkin and lál-sharáb, don’t we? Neel said. You know what needs to be done.

  Elokeshi waited for the door to close before throwing off the covers. What’s all this? she asked: Who’s coming tonight? What’s been arranged?

  Neel laughed and pulled her head to his shoulder. You ask so many questions – báp-ré-báp! Enough for now . . .

  The unexpected dinner invitation from the budgerow started Mr Doughty off on a journey of garrulous reminiscence. ‘Oh my boy!’ said the pilot to Zachary, as they stood leaning on the deck rail. ‘The old Raja of Raskhali: I could tell you a story or two about him – Rascally-Roger I used to call him!’ He laughed, thumping the deck with his cane. ‘Now there was a lordly nigger if ever you saw one! Best kind of native – kept himself busy with his shrub and his nautch-girls and his tumashers. Wasn’t a man in town who could put on a burra-khana like he did. Sheeshmull blazing with shammers and candles. Paltans of bearers and khidmutgars. Demijohns of French loll-shrub and carboys of iced simkin. And the karibat! In the old days the Rascally bobachee-connah was the best in the city. No fear of pishpash and cobbily-mash at the Rascally table. The dumbpokes and pillaus were good enough, but we old hands, we’d wait for the curry of cockup and the chitchky of pollock-saug. Oh he set a rankin table I can tell you – and mind you, supper was just the start: the real tumasher came later, in the nautch-connah. Now there was another chuckmuck sight for you! Rows of cursies for the sahibs and mems to sit on. Sittringies and tuckiers for the natives. The baboos puffing at their hubble-bubbles and the sahibs lighting their Sumatra buncuses. Cunchunees whirling and ticky-taw boys beating their tobblers. Oh, that old loocher knew how to put on a nautch all right! He was a sly little shaytan too, the Rascally-Roger: if he saw you e
yeing one of the pootlies, he’d send around a khidmutgar, bobbing and bowing, the picture of innocence. People would think you’d eaten one too many jellybees and needed to be shown to the cacatorium. But instead of the totteeconnah, off you’d go to a little hidden cumra, there to puckrow your dashy. Not a memsahib present any the wiser – and there you were, with your gobbler in a cunchunee’s nether-whiskers, getting yourself a nice little taste of a blackberry-bush.’ He breathed a nostalgic sigh. ‘Oh they were grand old goll-mauls, those Rascally burrakhanas! No better place to get your tatters tickled.’

  Zachary nodded, as if no word of this had escaped him. ‘I take it you know him well then, Mr Doughty – our host of this evening?’

  ‘Not him, so much as his father. This young fellow’s no more like the old man than stink-wood is like mahogany.’ The pilot grunted in disapproval. ‘See, if there’s one thing I can’t abide it’s a bookish native: his father was a man who knew how to keep his jibb where it belonged – wouldn’t have been seen dead with a book. But this little chuckeroo gives himself all kinds of airs – a right strut-noddy if ever I saw one. It’s not as if he’s real nobility, mind: the Rascallys call themselves Rogers, but they’re just Ryes with an honorary title – bucksheesh for loyalty to the Crown.’

  Mr Doughty snorted contemptuously. ‘These days it takes no more than an acre or two for a Baboo to style himself a More-Roger. And the way this one jaws on, you’d think he’s the Padshaw of Persia. Wait till you hear the barnshoot bucking in English – like a bandar reading aloud from The Times.’ He chuckled gleefully, twirling the knob of his cane. ‘Now that’ll be something else to look forward to this evening, apart from the chitchky – a spot of bandar-baiting.’