Sea of Poppies

by Amitav Ghosh

  Paulette hesitated before giving her a quick nod. Yes, Bhauji, but don’t ask me about it. I can’t talk.

  Deeti gave her a shrewdly appraising glance. All right, Pugli: I won’t ask what’s going on. But tell me this: you think it’s possible that my jora could get away alive? Before tomorrow?

  Who can tell, Bhauji? said Paulette. All I can say is that there’s a chance.

  Hé Rám! Deeti took hold Paulette’s cheeks and shook them, in gratitude. Oh Pugli, I knew I could trust you.

  Don’t say that, Bhauji! Paulette cried. Don’t say anything yet. So much could go wrong. Let’s not doom it from the start.

  There was more to this protest, Deeti guessed, than mere superstition: she could feel the girl’s nervousness in the tautness of her cheeks. She brought her head closer to her ear.

  Tell me, Pugli, she said, are you going to have a part in it too – whatever it is that’s going to happen?

  Again Paulette hesitated before blurting out, in a whisper: A very small part, Bhauji. But an essential one, or so I’m told. And I’m worried that things may go wrong.

  Deeti rubbed her cheeks to warm them. I’ll be praying for you, Pugli . . .

  A little after four, shortly after the start of the first dogwatch of the afternoon, Captain Chillingworth came on deck again, looking pale and feverish, and hugging an old-fashioned boat-cloak to his chest. As he emerged from the companionway, his eyes went straight to the stooped, drooping figure that was tethered to the mainmast. He turned a glance of inquiry on the first mate, who answered with a grim laugh: ‘The nigger’s alive all right; kill that ziggerboo ten times over and he wouldn’t be dead.’

  The Captain nodded, and began to shuffle to the windward side of the quarter-deck, with his head lowered and his shoulders bunched. The wind was blowing hard and steady from the east, throwing white-capped combers against the schooner’s side. In deference to the weather the Captain headed not to his usual place, at the junction of the bulwark and the fife-rail, but to the protective shelter of the after-shrouds. On reaching the shrouds, he turned to look eastwards where dark scuds of cloud had tumbled together to form a dense, steel-grey mass. ‘Storm-breeders if ever I saw them,’ muttered the Captain. ‘How bad do you think it’s going to be, Mr Crowle?’

  ‘Nothing to sweat about, sir,’ said the first mate. ‘Just a few scurries and sneezers. Blow itself out by dawn.’

  The Captain leant back to look up at the masts, which were now bare of all canvas except for the staysails and foresails. ‘None the less, gentlemen,’ he said, ‘we’ll have her hove-to and snugged down; best to ride out the weather under a storm-staysail. No need to take any risks.’

  Neither of the mates wanted to be the first to give their assent to such an excess of caution. ‘Can’t see as it’s necessary, sir,’ said Mr Crowle at last, reluctantly.

  ‘You’ll do it all the same,’ said the Captain. ‘Or do I have to remain on deck to see it done?’

  ‘Don’t y’worry sir,’ said Mr Crowle quickly. ‘I’ll see to it.’

  ‘Good,’ said the Captain. ‘I’ll leave it to you then. And as for myself, I’m more than a little a-weather, I must confess. I would be grateful if I could be spared any interruptions tonight.’

  That day the girmitiyas were not allowed on deck for their evening meal. The weather being as bad as it was, they were passed balties of dry rations through the hatch – stale rock-hard rotis and parched gram. Few among them cared what they were served, for none but a handful had the stomach to eat. For most of them, the events of the morning had already faded from the forefront of memory: as the weather grew steadily worse, their attention came to be wholly absorbed by the raging elements. Since all flames and lights were forbidden, they had to sit in darkness as they listened to the waves, pounding against the hull, and the wind, shrieking through the bare masts. The din was enough to confirm everything that anyone had ever thought about the Black Water: it was as if all the demons of hell were fighting to get into the dabusa.

  ‘Miss Lambert, Miss Lambert . . .’

  The whisper, barely audible above the noise, was so faint that Paulette’s ears would not have picked it up, had the name not been her own. She rose to her feet, balanced herself against a beam, and turned to the air duct: all that could be seen was an eye, gleaming behind the slot, but she knew at once who it belonged to. ‘Mr Halder?’

  ‘Yes, Miss Lambert.’

  Paulette went closer to the duct. ‘Is there something you wish to say?’

  ‘Only that I wish you all success for tonight: for your brother’s sake and mine, and indeed for all of us.’

  ‘I will do what I can, Mr Halder.’

  ‘I do not doubt it for a moment, Miss Lambert. If anyone could succeed in this delicate mission it is none other than you. Your brother has told us something of your story and I confess I am amazed. You are a woman of extraordinary talent, Miss Lambert – a genius in a way. Your performance so far has been so fine, so true, as not to be an impersonation at all. I would never have thought my eye, or my ear, could have been thus deceived – and that too, by a firangin, a Frenchwoman.’

  ‘But I am none of those things, Mr Halder,’ protested Paulette. ‘There is nothing untrue about the person who stands here. Is it forbidden for a human being to manifest themselves in many different aspects?’

  ‘Evidently not. I hope very much, Miss Lambert, that we will meet again somewhere, and in happier circumstances.’

  ‘I hope so too, Mr Halder. And when we do, I trust you will call me Paulette – or Putli, as Jodu does. But should you wish to call me Pugli, that too is not an identity that I would disown.’

  ‘And I, Miss Paulette, would ask you to call me Neel – except that if we do meet again, I suspect I will have had to change my name. But until then, in any event, I wish you farewell. And bon courage.’

  And to you too. Bhalo thakben.

  Paulette had no sooner sat down than she was summoned to the air duct by Jodu: Putli, it’s time; you’ve got to change and get ready. Mamdoo-tindal’s going to let you out in a few minutes.

  At midnight, when his watch ended, Zachary changed into a set of dry clothes and fell into his bunk fully dressed – in a blow like this one, there was no knowing when he’d be needed on deck. Apart from the single storm-sail there was not a stitch aloft on the schooner’s masts, but the wind was blowing so hard that the sound of this one square of cloth was like that of a massed chorus of sail. From the violence with which his bunk was pitching under him, Zachary knew, too, that the Ibis was being buffeted by waves of a good twenty feet or more. The swells were no longer surging over the bulwarks, but crashing down from above, like breakers pounding a beach, and when the water ran off the decks, it was with a sucking sound, like surf retreating down a slope of sand.

  Twice, as he lay on his bunk, Zachary had heard an ominous creak, like that of a spar, or a mast, about to give way, and despite his intentions of getting a good rest, his senses were at a fine pitch of alertness, listening for further signs of damage. This was why the first hint of a knock at his door made him sit up. The cabin was dark, for Zachary had put out his lamp before he lay down; as he was tumbling out of his bunk, the schooner rolled to larboard, throwing him against the door: he would have crashed into it, face first, if he hadn’t turned sideways and used his shoulder to soften the impact.

  As the schooner was righting itself, he called out: ‘Who is it?’ Receiving no answer, he pulled the door open.

  Steward Pinto had left a single lamp glowing in the cuddy, and by the light of the dim, flickering flame he saw a lascar standing at the door, with his dripping oilskins draped over his arm. He was a wiry, boyish fellow with a bandanna around his head. Zachary didn’t recognize him, for his face was in shadow.

  ‘Who’re you?’ he said. ‘What’re you doing here?’

  Before Zachary could finish, the schooner listed to starboard, sending both of them stumbling into the cabin. As they were wrestling to regain their footi
ng, the door slammed shut and the deck tilted again. All of a sudden, Zachary found himself lying on his bunk, with the lascar beside him. Then, out of the darkness, a whisper made itself heard that all but froze his blood. ‘Mr Reid . . . Mr Reid . . . please . . .’

  The voice was distantly familiar, but in a way that was profoundly unnerving, in the manner of something so far removed from its proper circumstance that it could only be an unnatural version of itself. Zachary’s voice died in his throat and his skin began to prickle as the whispering continued. ‘Mr Reid, it is I, Paulette Lambert . . .’

  ‘What was that?’ Zachary would not have been in the least surprised if the presence beside him had disappeared or dematerialized – for what else could it be but a conjuration of his own imaginings? – but this possibility was quickly dismissed, for the voice now repeated its earlier claim: ‘Please, Mr Reid . . . believe me, it is I, Paulette Lambert.’

  ‘Impossible!’

  ‘Believe me, Mr Reid,’ the voice continued in the darkness. ‘It is true. I pray you will not be angered, but you should know I have been aboard since the commencement of the voyage – in the ‘tween-deck, among the women.’

  ‘No!’ Zachary pushed himself sideways, moving as far from her as the bunk would allow. ‘I was there when the coolies boarded. I’d’a known.’

  ‘But it is true, Mr Reid. I came aboard with the migrants. It was because of my sari that you did not reconnaisse me.’

  He knew now, from her voice, that it really was Paulette – and it occurred to him that surely he ought to be glad to have her there, beside him. But no more than any other sailor did he care to be boarded in the smoke: he had never liked to be taken by surprise, and he found himself growing embarrassed as he considered how ridiculous he must have looked a minute or two ago.

  ‘Well, Miss Lambert,’ he said, stiffly. ‘If it is you, you’ve certainly succeeded in making quite a dupe of me.’

  ‘Such was not my intention, Mr Reid. I assure you.’

  ‘May I ask,’ he said, trying to recover his lost composure, ‘which one you were – which of the women, that is?’

  ‘Yes, for sure, Mr Reid,’ she said eagerly. ‘You have seen me many times, but perhaps without noticing: I was often on deck, doing the washing.’ The words were no sooner out of her mouth than she sensed that she’d said too much already – but a mounting nervousness made it impossible for her to stop. ‘This very shirt you are wearing now, Mr Reid, I washed it, this and all your . . .’

  ‘. . . dirty linen? Is that what you were going to say?’ Zachary was mortified now, and his cheeks began to burn. ‘Pray tell me, Miss Lambert,’ he said, ‘what was it for, all this trickery and deceit? Just to show me up for a fool?’

  Paulette was stung by the sharpness of his tone. ‘You are much mistaken, Mr Reid,’ she said, ‘if you imagine that you are the cause of my presence on board. Believe me, it was solely for myself that I did what I have done. It was imperatif for me to leave Calcutta – you know full well the reasons. This was my only means of escape and what I did was no different from what my grand-aunt, Madame Commerson, would have done.’

  ‘Your grand-aunt, Miss Lambert?’ said Zachary acidly. ‘Why, you have outdone her by far! Indeed you have proved yourself the equal of any chameleon. You have so perfected the arts of impersonation that I should not doubt they have become the very core of your soul.’

  Paulette could not understand how this encounter, in which she had invested so much hope and emotion, had turned into such an ugly fencing match. But nor was she one to back down in the face of a challenge. Her response sprang from her lips before she could bite it back: ‘Oh, Mr Reid! You allow me more credit than is my due. If I have any equal in impersonation, surely it is none other than yourself?’

  Despite the howling of the wind and the crash of the waves outside, there was a strange stillness in the cabin now. Zachary swallowed once, and then cleared his throat: ‘So you know?’ If his imposture had been announced from the truck of the mainmast, he could not have felt more exposed, more completely a charlatan than he did then.

  ‘Oh forgive me!’ – he could hear her choking on her words – ‘oh, forgive me, I did not mean . . .’

  ‘Nor did I, Miss Lambert, mean to deceive you in the matter of my race. On the few occasions when we were able to speak to each other, I tried to indicate – no, I tried to tell you, believe me.’

  ‘What does it matter, Mr Reid?’ In a belated attempt to make amends, Paulette softened her voice. ‘Are not all appearances deceptive, in the end? Whatever there is within us – whether good, or bad, or neither – its existence will continue uninterrupted, will it not, no matter what the drape of our clothes, or the colour of our skin? What if it is the world that is a duperie, Mr Reid, and we the exceptions to its lies?’

  Zachary shook his head in scorn at what seemed to be merely a feeble attempt at extenuation. ‘I fear, Miss Lambert, that I am too plain a man to understand these subtleties. I must ask you to be more direct. Pray tell me, why have you chosen to reveal yourself now? Why at this time? Surely it was not in order to announce our fellowship in deceit that you sought me out?’

  ‘No, Mr Reid,’ said Paulette. ‘It was for wholly another purpose. And you should know that I have come on behalf of others, our common friends . . .’

  ‘Who, may I ask?’

  ‘Serang Ali, for one.’

  At the sound of that name, Zachary covered his eyes with his hands: if there was anything at that moment that could have made him feel any more humiliated than he did already, it was this mention of the man he had once thought to be his mentor. ‘It is all clear to me now, Miss Lambert,’ he said. ‘I see how you have gained your intelligence in regard to my origins. But tell me, Miss Lambert, was it Serang Ali’s idea, or yours, to use this information for blackmail?’

  ‘Blackmail? Oh for shame, Mr Reid! For shame!’

  The wind was blowing so hard, Baboo Nob Kissin dared not stand upright on the rain-lashed deck: fortunate indeed that he had moved his lodgings from the midships-cabin to the deckhouse – or else the summons to the fana would have required him to cross a much greater length of deck. Even this short distance seemed impossibly long, much too far to negotiate on his feet: instead he made his way forward on all fours, cowering in the shelter of the bulwarks as he crawled slowly towards the fana.

  The hatch that led below was fastened tight against the water, but it opened at the first tap of his knuckles. There was a lamp swinging inside, illuminating the faces of Serang Ali and the lascars, lying in their jhulis, rolling with the motion of the ship, watching him as he made his way to the chokey.

  The gomusta had no eyes for anyone other than the man he was seeking, no thought but for the completion of his errand. Squatting beside the bars, he held the keys out to Neel: here they are, take them, take them; may they help you find your release, your mukti . . .

  But once he had placed the keys in Neel’s palm, he would not let go of his hand. Do you see her now? In my eyes? Ma Taramony? Is she here? Within me?

  When Neel’s head moved, and Baboo Nob Kissin saw that he was nodding, his joy was beyond containment. You’re sure? he said. Sure she’s there now? It is time?

  Yes, said Neel, looking into his eyes, nodding in confirmation. Yes, she is there. I see her – a mother incarnate: her time has come . . .

  The gomusta let go of Neel’s hand and wrapped his arms around himself: now that the last shreds of his former being were to be discarded, he was aware of a strange affection, a tenderness for the body that had so long been his. There was no reason for him to remain here any longer: he made his way back to the main deck and took a step towards the deckhouse. His eyes fell on Kalua, and once again, he lowered himself to all fours, and crawled along the bulwarks. Pulling himself level with the drooping figure, he put an arm around him and held on as a wave surged across the deck, almost sweeping his legs out from under him.

  Wait, he whispered to Kalua. Wait just a little bit longer,
and you too will find your freedom; moksha is at hand for you too . . .

  Now that Taramony’s presence was fully manifest in him, it was as if he had become the key that could unlock the cages that imprisoned everyone, all these beings who were ensnared by the illusory differences of this world. It was the fullness of this insight that carried him, drenched and battered, but ecstatic in the possession of his new self, towards the after-cabins. At Zachary’s door, he paused as he so often had, to listen for a flute, and caught instead the sound of whispering voices.

  It was here, he remembered, in this very place, that the start of his transfiguration had been signalled, by the sound of a flute: everything had come full circle now, everything was as foretold. His hand went to his amulet and he slipped out the piece of paper that lay inside. Hugging it to his chest, he began to turn around and around; the ship was dancing with him too, the deck heaving to the rhythm of his whirling footsteps. Seized by the transcendent, blissful joy of pure ananda, he closed his eyes.

  This was how Mr Crowle found him: turning around and around, with arms raised in the air. ‘Pander, y’fuckin cunt-pensioner . . . !’ He stopped the gomusta’s dance with a slap across the face. Then his eyes went to the sheet of paper which the gomusta, now cowering, was clutching in his hands. ‘What’s this then? Let’s have a look.’

  Sweeping a hand across her eyes, Paulette brushed away a flurry of tears. She could never have imagined that her meeting with Zachary would take such a hostile turn, but now that it had, it was best not to make things worse than they were already. ‘It is no use, Mr Reid,’ she said, rising to her feet. ‘It has clearly been a great meprise for us to speak with each other. I came to tell you that your friends are direly in need of you; I came to speak of my own . . . but it is no use. Everything I say seems only to deepen our misunderstandings. It is best that I leave now.’

  ‘Wait! Miss Lambert!’

  The thought of losing her panicked Zachary. Leaping to his feet, he reached blindly towards the sound of her voice, forgetting, in the darkness, how small his cabin was. Almost as soon as he raised his hand, his fingers brushed against her arm; he made as if to pull away, but his palm would not move; instead, his thumb pushed back the fabric of her shirt. She was close enough that he could hear her breathing; he could even feel the warmth of her exhalations misting on his face. His hand went along her shoulder, to the back of her neck, pausing between her collar and bandanna, to explore the patch of bare skin that had been exposed by her upswept hair. Strange how he had once been appalled by the thought of seeing her as a lascar; strange that he had wanted to keep her forever wrapped in velveteen. For even though he could not actually see her now, the very knowledge of her guise made her seem more desirable than ever, a creature so changeable and elusive as to be impossible to resist: his mouth was suddenly fastened on hers, and her lips were pressed against his.