Sea of Poppies

by Amitav Ghosh

  Jodu was more worldly than his playmate, and it did not escape him that Paulette and her father were at odds with the other white sahibs: he had heard it said that the Lamberts were from a country that was often at war with England, and at first it was to this that he attributed their apartness. But later, when his shared secrets with Putli deepened in import, he came to understand that this was not the only difference between the Lamberts and the English. He learnt that the reason why Pierre Lambert had left his country was that he had been involved, in his youth, in a revolt against his king; that he was shunned by respectable English society because he had publicly denied the existence of God and the sanctity of marriage. None of this mattered in the least to the boy – if such opinions served to insulate their household against other sahibs then he could only be glad of them.

  But it was neither age nor sahibdom, but a much subtler intrusion that loosened the bonds between the children: at a certain moment Putli began to read, and then there was not enough time in the day for anything else. Jodu, on the other hand, lost interest in letters as soon as he learnt to decipher them; his own inclinations had always drawn him towards the water. He laid claim to his father’s old boat – Putli’s birthplace – and by the age of ten had become adept enough in its use, not just to serve as a boatman for the Lamberts but also to accompany them when they travelled in search of specimens.

  Odd as their household was, its arrangements seemed so secure, permanent and satisfying that none of them were prepared for the disasters that followed on Pierre Lambert’s unexpected death. He perished of a fever before he could set his affairs in order; shortly after his passing, it was discovered that he had accumulated substantial debts in furthering his researches – his mysterious ‘busy-ness’ trips to Calcutta were revealed to have consisted of surreptitious visits to moneylenders in Kidderpore. It was then too that Jodu and his mother paid the price of their privileged association with the assistant curator. The resentments and jealousies of the other servants and employees were quickly made manifest in angry accusations of deathbed theft. The hostility became so acute that Jodu and his mother were forced to slip away, in their boat. Left with no other option, they returned to Naskarpara, where they were given grudging refuge by their step-family. But years of comfortable bungalowliving had left Jodu’s mother unfit for the privations of village life. The irreversible decline of her health started within a few weeks of their arrival and did not end until her death.

  Altogether, Jodu had spent fourteen months in Naskarpara: in that time he had neither seen Paulette nor received any word from her. On her deathbed his mother had thought often of her old charge and had begged Jodu to meet with Putli one last time, so that she would know, at least, how much her old ayah had missed her in the last days of her life. Jodu, for his part, had long been aware that he and his erstwhile playmate would one day be reclaimed by their separate worlds and he would have been content to leave it at that: if not for his mother, he would not have set out to look for Paulette. But now that he knew he was nearing the place where she lived, he found himself growing both eager and apprehensive: Would Putli agree to meet him, or would she have him turned out by the servants? If he could but see her face to face, there’d be so much to talk about, so much to tell. Looking ahead, downriver, he spotted a little pavilion with a green roof and quickened his pace.

  Four

  Heading into Ghazipur, in Kalua’s ox-cart, Deeti felt strangely light in spirit, despite the grim nature of her errand: it was as if she knew, in her heart, that this was the last time she would be travelling that road with her daughter, and was determined to make the best of it.

  The cart was slow in making its way through the warren of lanes and bazars that lay at the heart of the town, but once the road curved towards the riverfront, the congestion eased a little and the surroundings became more gracious. Deeti and Kabutri rarely had occasion to come into town, and they stared in fascination at the walls of the Chehel Satoon, a forty-pillared palace built by a nobleman of Persian ancestry, in imitation of a monument in Isfahan. A short while later they passed a still-greater wonder, a structure of Grecian inspiration, with fluted columns and a soaring dome; this was the mausoleum of Lord Cornwallis, of Yorktown fame, who had died in Ghazipur thirty-three years before: as the ox-cart rumbled past, Deeti showed Kabutri the statue of the English Laat-Sahib. Then, suddenly, as the cart was trundling around a curve in the road, Kalua clicked his tongue, to rein in the oxen. Jolted by the abrupt change of pace, Deeti and Kabutri swivelled around to look ahead – and their smiles died on their lips.

  The road was filled with people, a hundred strong or more; hemmed in by a ring of stick-bearing guards, this crowd was trudging wearily in the direction of the river. Bundles of belongings sat balanced on their heads and shoulders, and brass pots hung suspended from their elbows. It was clear that they had already marched a great distance, for their dhotis, langots and vests were stained with the dust of the road. The sight of the marchers evoked both pity and fear in the local people; some of the spectators clucked their tongues in sympathy but a few urchins and old women threw pebbles into the crowd, as if to ward off an unsavoury influence. Through all this, despite their exhaustion, the marchers seemed strangely unbowed, even defiant, and some threw the pebbles right back at the spectators: their bravado was no less disturbing to the spectators than their evident destitution.

  Who are they, Ma? Kabutri asked, in a low whisper.

  I don’t know – prisoners maybe?

  No, said Kalua immediately, pointing to the presence of a few women and children among the marchers. They were still speculating when one of the guards stopped the cart and told Kalua that their leader and duffadar, Ramsaran-ji, had hurt his foot, and would need to be driven to the nearby river-ghat. The duffadar appeared as the guard was speaking, and Deeti and Kabutri were quick to make room for him: he was an imposing man, tall and fullbellied, dressed in immaculate white, with leather shoes. He carried a heavy stick in one hand and wore a huge dome of a turban on his head.

  At first they were too frightened to speak and it was Ramsaran-ji who broke the silence: Where’ve you come from? he said to Kalua. Kahwãa se áwela?

  From a nearby village, malik; parosé ka gaõ se áwat baní.

  Deeti and Kabutri had been straining their ears, and when they heard the duffadar speaking their own Bhojpuri tongue, they edged towards him, so as to be able to overhear all that was said.

  At length, Kalua plucked up the courage to ask: Malik, who are these people who are marching?

  They are girmitiyas, said Ramsaran-ji, and at the sound of that word Deeti uttered an audible gasp – for suddenly she understood. It was a few years now since the rumours had begun to circulate in the villages around Ghazipur: although she had never seen a girmitiya before, she had heard them being spoken of. They were so called because, in exchange for money, their names were entered on ‘girmits’ – agreements written on pieces of paper. The silver that was paid for them went to their families, and they were taken away, never to be seen again: they vanished, as if into the netherworld.

  Where are they going, malik? said Kalua, in a hushed voice, as if he were speaking of the living dead.

  A boat will take them to Patna and then to Calcutta, said the guard. And from there they’ll go to a place called Mareech.

  Unable to restrain herself any longer, Deeti joined in the conversation, asking, from the shelter of her sari’s ghungta: Where is this Mareech? Is it near Dilli?

  Ramsaran-ji laughed. No, he said scornfully. It’s an island in the sea – like Lanka, but farther away.

  The mention of Lanka, with its evocation of Ravana and his demon-legions, made Deeti flinch. How was it possible that the marchers could stay on their feet, knowing what lay ahead? She tried to imagine what it would be like to be in their place, to know that you were forever an outcaste; to know that you would never again enter your father’s house; that you would never throw your arms around your mother; never eat a
meal with your sisters and brothers; never feel the cleansing touch of the Ganga. And to know also that for the rest of your days you would eke out a living on some wild, demon-plagued island?

  Deeti shivered. And how will they get to that place? she asked Ramsaran-ji.

  A ship will be waiting for them at Calcutta, said the duffadar, a jaház, much larger than any you’ve ever seen: with many masts and sails; a ship large enough to hold hundreds of people . . .

  Hái Rám! So that was what it was? Deeti clapped a hand over her mouth as she recalled the ship she had seen while standing in the Ganga. But why had the apparition been visited upon her, Deeti, who had nothing to do with these people? What could it possibly mean?

  Kabutri was quick to guess what was on her mother’s mind. She said: Wasn’t that the kind of ship you saw? The one like a bird? Strange that it showed itself to you.

  Don’t say that! Deeti cried, throwing her arms around the girl. A tremor of dread went through her and she hugged her daughter to her chest.

  Moments after Mr Doughty had announced his arrival, Benjamin Burnham’s boots landed on the deck of the Ibis with a weighty thud: the shipowner’s fawn breeches and dark jacket were dusty after the journey from Calcutta, and his knee-length riding boots were flecked with mud – but the ride had clearly invigorated him, for there was no trace of fatigue on his glowing face.

  Benjamin Burnham was a man of imposing height and stately girth, with a full curly beard that cloaked the upper half of his chest like a plate of glossy chainmail. A few years short of fifty, his step had not lost the bounce of youth and his eyes still had the brilliant, well-focused sparkle that comes from never looking in any direction other than ahead. The skin of his face was leathery and deeply tanned, a legacy of many years of energetic activity in the sun. Now, standing erect on deck, he hooked his thumb in the lapel of his jacket and ran a quizzical eye over the schooner’s crew before stepping aside with Mr Doughty. The two men conferred for a while and then Mr Burnham went up to Zachary and extended a hand. ‘Mr Reid?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Zachary stepped up to shake his hand.

  The shipowner looked him up and down, in approval. ‘Doughty says for a rank griffin, you’re a pucka sort of chap.’

  ‘I hope he’s right, sir,’ said Zachary, uncertainly.

  The shipowner smiled, baring a set of large, sparkling teeth. ‘Well, do you feel up to giving me a tour of my new vessel?’

  In Benjamin Burnham’s bearing there was that special kind of authority that suggests an upbringing of wealth and privilege – but this was misleading, Zachary knew, for the shipowner was a tradesman’s son and prided himself on being a self-made man. Over the last two days, courtesy of Mr Doughty, Zachary had learnt a great deal about the ‘Burra Sahib’: he knew, for example, that for all his familiarity with Asia, Benjamin Burnham was not ‘countryborn’ – ‘that’s to say he’s not like those of us sahibs who drew our first breath in the East.’ He was the son of a Liverpool timber merchant, but had spent no more than a scant ten years ‘at home’ – ‘and that means Blatty, my boy, not just any damned place you happen to be living in.’

  As a child, the pilot said, young Ben was a ‘right shaytan’: a brawler, trouble-maker and general hurremzad who was clearly destined for a lifetime’s journey through penitentiaries and houses of correction: it was to save him from his kismet that his family had shipped him out as a ‘guinea-pig’ – ‘that’s what you called a cabinboy on an Indiaman in the old days – because they were everyone’s to step on and do with as they willed.’

  But even the discipline of an East India Company tea-wagon had proved insufficient to tame the lad: ‘A quartermaster lured the boy into the ship’s store with a mind to trying a bit of udlee-budlee. But chota as he was, young Benjamin didn’t lack for bawhawdery – set upon the old launderbuzz with a belaying-pin and beat him with such a will that his life-line was all but unrove.’

  For his own safety Benjamin Burnham was sent off the ship at its next port of call, which happened to be the British penal colony of Port Blair, on the Andaman Islands. ‘Best thing that could happen to a wild young chuckeroo: nothing like a jail-connah to tame a junglee.’ At Port Blair, Ben Burnham found employment with the prison’s chaplain: here, under a regime that was both punitive and forgiving, he acquired faith as well as an education. ‘Oh those preachers have hard hands, my boy; they’ll put the Lord’s Word in your mouth even if they have to knock out your teeth to do it.’ When sufficiently reformed, the boy drifted Atlantic-wards and spent some time on a blackbirder, sailing between America, Africa and England. Then, at the age of nineteen he found himself sailing China-wards on a ship that was carrying a well-known Protestant missionary. The accidental acquaintance between Ben Burnham and the English Reverend was to strengthen and deepen into a lasting friendship. ‘That’s how it goes in those parts,’ said the pilot. ‘Canton is a place where you get to know your friends. The Chinamen keep the Fanqui-devils penned inside the foreign factories, outside the town walls. No Fanqui can leave their little strip of shore; can’t pass the city gates. Nowhere to go; no place to walk, no course to ride. Even to take a little hong-boat out on the river, you have to get an official chop. No mems allowed; nothing to do but listen to your shroffs counting their taels. Man can get as lonely as a butcher on banyan-day. There’s some who just can’t take it and have to be sent home. There’s some who go down to Hog Lane, to puckrow a buy-em-dear or get must on shamshoo wine. But not Ben Burnham: when he wasn’t selling opium, he was with the missionaries. More often than not you’d find him at the American factory – the Yankees were more to his taste than his Company colleagues, being more churchy-like.’

  Through the Reverend’s influence, Benjamin Burnham found a position as a clerk with the trading firm of Magniac & Co., the predecessors of Jardine & Matheson, and from then on, as with every other foreigner involved in the China trade, his time was divided between the two poles of the Pearl River Delta – Canton and Macao, eighty miles apart. Only the winter trading-season was spent in Canton: for the rest of the year the traders lived in Macao, where the Company maintained an extensive network of godowns, bankshalls and factories.

  ‘Ben Burnham did his time, offloading opium from receivingships, but he wasn’t the kind of man who could be happy on another man’s payroll, drawing a monthly tuncaw: he wanted to be a nabob in his own right, with his own seat at the Calcutta opium auction.’ As with many another Fanqui merchant in Canton, Burnham’s church connections were a great help, since several missionaries had close connections with opium traders. In 1817, the year the East India Company gave him his articles of indenture as a free merchant, an opportunity presented itself in the form of a team of Chinese converts who had to be escorted to the Baptist Mission College in Serampore, in Bengal. ‘And what better man to bring them in than Ben Burnham? Before you know it, he’s in Calcutta, looking for a dufter – and what’s more he finds one too. The good old Roger of Rascally gives him a set of chabees to a house on the Strand!’

  Burnham’s intention in moving to Calcutta was to position himself to bid in the opium auctions of the East India Company: yet it was not the China trade that provided him with his first financial coup; this came, rather, from his boyhood training in another branch of the British Empire’s commerce. ‘In the good old days people used to say there were only two things to be exported from Calcutta: thugs and drugs – or opium and coolies as some would have it.’

  Benjamin Burnham’s first successful bid was for the transportation of convicts. Calcutta was then the principal conduit through which Indian prisoners were shipped to the British Empire’s network of island prisons – Penang, Bencoolen, Port Blair and Mauritius. Like a great stream of silt, thousands of Pindaris, Thugs, dacoits, rebels, head-hunters and hooligans were carried away by the muddy waters of the Hooghly to be dispersed around the Indian Ocean, in the various island jails where the British incarcerated their enemies.

  To find a kippage for a convict ship wa
s no easy matter, for many a seaman would heave sharp about at the prospect of signing on to a vessel with a cargo of cutthroats. ‘In his hour of need, Burnham broached his business by calling upon a friend from his chocolateering days, one Charles Chillingworth, a ship’s master of whom it would come to be said that there was no better manganizer at large on the ocean – not a single slave, convict or coolie had ever escaped his custody and lived to gup about it.’ With Chillingworth’s help, Benjamin Burnham seived a fortune from the tide of transportees that was flowing out of Calcutta, and this inflow of capital allowed him to enter the China trade on an even bigger scale than he had envisaged: soon he was running a sizeable fleet of his own ships. By his early thirties, he had formed a partnership with two of his brothers, and the firm had become a leading trading house, with agents and dufters in such cities as Bombay, Singapore, Aden, Canton, Macao, London and Boston.