Sea of Poppies: A Novel (The Ibis Trilogy)

by Amitav Ghosh

  ‘So there you are: that’s the jadoo of the colonies. A boy who’s crawled up through the hawse-holes can become as grand a sahib as any twice-born Company man. Every door in Calcutta thrown open. Burra-khanas at Government House. Choti hazri at Fort William. No BeeBee so great as to be durwauza-bund when he comes calling. His personal shoke might be for Low-Church evangelism, but you can be sure the Bishop always has a pew waiting for him. And to seal it all, Miss Catherine Bradshaw for a wife – about as pucka a memsahib as ever there was, a brigadier’s daughter.’

  The qualities that had made Ben Burnham into a merchant-nabob were amply in evidence during his tour of the Ibis: he examined the vessel from stem to stern, even descending to the keelson and mounting the jib-boom, noting everything that merited attention, either by way of praise or blame.

  ‘And how does she sail, Mr Reid?’

  ‘Oh she’s a fine old barkey, sir,’ said Zachary. ‘Swims like a swan and steers like a shark.’

  Mr Burnham smiled in appreciation of Zachary’s enthusiasm. ‘Good.’

  Only when his inspection was over did the shipowner listen to Zachary’s narrative of the disastrous voyage from Baltimore, questioning him carefully on the details while thumbing through the ship’s log. At the end of the cross-examination, he pronounced himself satisfied and clapped Zachary on the back: ‘Shahbash! You bore up very well, under the circumstances.’

  Such reservations as Mr Burnham had concerned chiefly the lascar crew and its leader: ‘That old Mug of a serang: what makes you think he can be trusted?’

  ‘Mug, sir?’ said Zachary, knitting his brows.

  ‘That’s what they call the Arakanese in these parts,’ said Burnham. ‘The very word strikes terror into the natives of the coast. Fearsome bunch the Mugs – pirates to a man, they say.’

  ‘Serang Ali? A pirate?’ Zachary smiled to think of his own initial response to the serang and how absurd it seemed in retrospect. ‘He may look a bit of a Tartar, sir, but he’s no more a pirate than I am: if he was, he’d have made off with the Ibis long before we dropped anchor. Certainly I couldn’t have stopped him.’

  Burnham directed his piercing gaze directly into Zachary’s eyes. ‘You’ll vouch for him, will you?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘All right then. But I’d still keep a weather eye on him, if I were you.’ Closing the ship’s log, Mr Burnham turned his attention to the correspondence that had accumulated over the course of the voyage. M. d’Epinay’s letter from Mauritius seemed particularly to catch his interest, especially after Zachary reported the planter’s parting words about his sugar-cane rotting in the fields and his desperate need for coolies.

  Scratching his chin, Mr Burnham said, ‘What do you say, Reid? Would you be inclined to head back to the Mauritius Islands soon?’

  ‘Me, sir?’ Zachary had thought that he would be spending several months ashore, refitting the Ibis, and was hard put to respond to this sudden change of plan. Seeing him hesitate, the shipowner added an explanation: ‘The Ibis won’t be carrying opium on her first voyage, Reid. The Chinese have been making trouble on that score and until such time as they can be made to understand the benefits of Free Trade, I’m not going to send any more shipments to Canton. Till then, this vessel is going to do just the kind of work she was intended for.’

  The suggestion startled Zachary: ‘D’you mean to use her as a slaver, sir? But have not your English laws outlawed that trade?’

  ‘That is true,’ Mr Burnham nodded. ‘Yes indeed they have, Reid. It’s sad but true that there are many who’ll stop at nothing to halt the march of human freedom.’

  ‘Freedom, sir?’ said Zachary, wondering if he had misheard.

  His doubts were quickly put at rest. ‘Freedom, yes, exactly,’ said Mr Burnham. ‘Isn’t that what the mastery of the white man means for the lesser races? As I see it, Reid, the Africa trade was the greatest exercise in freedom since God led the children of Israel out of Egypt. Consider, Reid, the situation of a so-called slave in the Carolinas – is he not more free than his brethren in Africa, groaning under the rule of some dark tyrant?’

  Zachary tugged his ear-lobe. ‘Well sir, if slavery is freedom then I’m glad I don’t have to make a meal of it. Whips and chains are not much to my taste.’

  ‘Oh come now, Reid!’ said Mr Burnham. ‘The march to the shining city is never without pain, is it? Didn’t the Israelites suffer in the desert?’

  Reluctant to enter into an argument with his new employer, Zachary mumbled: ‘Well sir, I guess . . .’

  This was not good enough for Mr Burnham, who quizzed him with a smile. ‘I thought you were a pucka kind of chap, Reid,’ he said. ‘And here you are carrying on like one of those Reformer fellows.’

  ‘Am I, sir?’ said Zachary quickly. ‘I didn’t mean to.’

  ‘Thought not,’ said Mr Burnham. ‘Lucky thing that particular disease hasn’t taken hold in your parts yet. Last bastion of liberty, I always say – slavery’ll be safe in America for a while yet. Where else could I have found a vessel like this, so perfectly suited for its cargo?’

  ‘Do you mean slaves, sir?’

  Mr Burnham winced. ‘Why no, Reid. Not slaves – coolies. Have you not heard it said that when God closes one door he opens another? When the doors of freedom were closed to the African, the Lord opened them to a tribe that was yet more needful of it – the Asiatick.’

  Zachary chewed his lip: it was not his place, he decided, to interrogate his employer about his business; better to concentrate on practical matters. ‘Will you be wishing to refurbish the ’tween-deck then, sir?’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Mr Burnham. ‘A hold that was designed to carry slaves will serve just as well to carry coolies and convicts. Do you not think? We’ll put in a couple of heads and piss-dales, so the darkies needn’t always be fouling themselves. That should keep the inspectors happy.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Mr Burnham ran a finger through his beard. ‘Yes, I think Mr Chillingworth will thoroughly approve.’

  ‘Mr Chillingworth, sir?’ said Zachary. ‘Is he to be the ship’s master?’

  ‘I see you’ve heard of him.’ Mr Burnham’s face turned sombre. ‘Yes – this is to be his last voyage, Reid, and I would like it to be a pleasant one. He has suffered some reverses lately and is not in the best of health. He will have Mr Crowle as his first mate – an excellent sailor but a man of somewhat uncertain temper, it must be said. I would be glad to have a sound kind of fellow on board, as second mate. What do you say, Reid? Are you of a mind to sign up again?’

  This corresponded so closely to Zachary’s hopes that his heart leapt: ‘Did you say second mate, sir?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Mr Burnham, and then, as if to settle the matter, he added: ‘Should be an easy sail: get under weigh after the monsoons and be back in six weeks. My subedar will be on board with a platoon of guards and overseers. He’s had a lot of experience in this line of work: you won’t hear a murmur from the thugs – he knows how to keep them shipshape. And if all goes well, you should be back just in time to join us on our Chinese junket.’

  ‘I beg your pardon, sir?’

  Mr Burnham slung an arm around Zachary’s shoulders. ‘I’m telling you this in confidence, Reid, so hold it close to your chest. The word is that London is putting together an expedition to take on the Celestials. I’d like the Ibis to be a part of it – and you too for that matter. What’d you say, Reid? Are you up for it?’

  ‘You can count on me, sir,’ said Zachary fervently. ‘Won’t find me wanting, not where it’s a matter of effort.’

  ‘Good man!’ said Mr Burnham, clapping him on the back. ‘And the Ibis? Do you think she’d be useful in a scrap? How many guns does she have?’

  ‘Six nine-pounders, sir,’ said Zachary. ‘But we could add a bigger gun on a swivel mount.’

  ‘Excellent!’ said Mr Burnham. ‘I like your spirit, Reid. Don’t mind telling you: I could use a pucka young chap like you in my f
irm. If you give a good account of yourself, you’ll have your own command by and by.’

  Neel lay on his back, watching the light as it rippled across the polished wood of the cabin’s ceiling: the blinds on the window filtered the sun’s reflection in such a way that he could almost imagine himself to be under the river’s surface, with Elokeshi by his side. When he turned to look at her, the illusion seemed even more real, for her half-unclothed body was bathed in a glow that swirled and shimmered exactly like flowing water.

  Neel loved these intervals of quiet in their love-making, when she lay dozing beside him. Even when motionless, she seemed to be frozen in dance: her mastery of movement seemed not to be bounded by any limits, being equally evident in stillness and in motion, onstage and in bed. As a performer she was famed for her ability to outwit the quickest tabla-players: in bed, her improvisations created similar pleasures and surprises. The suppleness of her body was such that when he lay on her, mouth to mouth, she could curl her legs around him so as to hold his head steady between the soles of her feet; or when the mood took her, she could arch her back so as to lever him upwards, holding him suspended on the muscular curve of her belly. And it was with a dancer’s practised sense of rhythm that she would pace their lovemaking, so that he was only dimly aware of the cycles of beats that governed their changes of tempo: and the moment of release, too, was always utterly unpredictable yet totally predetermined, as if a mounting, quickening tál were reaching the climactic stillness of its final beat.

  But even more than the love-making, he liked these moments afterwards, when she lay spent on the bed, like a dancer after a dizzying tihai, with her sari and her dupattas scattered around her, their loops and knots passing over and around her torso and her limbs. There was never time, in the urgent preliminaries to the first love-making, to properly undress: his own six-yard-long dhoti would wind itself through her nine-yard sari, forming patterns that were even more intricate than the interleaving of their limbs; only afterwards was there the leisure to savour the pleasures of a slowly conjured nakedness. Like many dancers, Elokeshi had a fine voice and could sing exquisite thumris: as she hummed, Neel would unwrap the garments from her limbs, lingering over each part of her body as his fingers bared them to his eyes and his lips: her powerful, arched ankles, with their tinkling silver anklets, her sinuous thighs, with their corded muscles, the downy softness of her mound, the gentle curve of her belly and the upswell of her breasts. And then, when every shred of clothing had been peeled away from both their bodies, they would start again, on their second bout of love-making, long, languid and lasting.

  Today Neel had barely started to disentangle Elokeshi’s limbs from the knotted cocoon of her clothing, when there was an untimely interruption in the form of a second altercation in the gangway outside the door: once again, the three girls were holding Parimal back from bringing news to his master.

  Let him come in, Neel snapped in annoyance. He pulled a dupatta over Elokeshi, as the door was opening, but made no move to reattach his own disarranged clothing. Parimal had been his personal bearer and dresser since he was of an age to walk; he had bathed him and clothed him through the years of his childhood; on the day of Neel’s wedding, it was he who had prepared the twelve-year-old boy for his first night with his bride, instructing him in what had to be done: there was no aspect of Neel’s person that was unfamiliar to Parimal.

  Forgive me, huzoor, Parimal said as he stepped inside. But I thought you should know: Burra-Burnham-sahib has arrived here. He is on the ship right now. If the other sahibs are coming to dinner, then what about him?

  The news took Neel by surprise, but after a moment’s thought, he nodded: You’re right – yes, he must be invited too. Neel pointed to a gown-like garment hanging on a peg: Bring me my choga.

  Parimal fetched the choga and held it open while Neel stepped out of bed and slipped his arms into its sleeves. Wait outside, Neel said: I’m going to write another note for you to deliver to the ship.

  When Parimal had left the room, Elokeshi threw off her covers. What’s happened? she said, sleepily blinking her eyes.

  Nothing, said Neel. I just have to write a note. Stay where you are. It won’t take long.

  Neel dipped his quill in an inkpot and scrawled a few words, but only to change his mind and start again. His hands became a little unsteady as he wrote out a line expressing his pleasure at the prospect of welcoming Mr Benjamin Burnham on the Raskhali budgerow. He stopped, took a deep breath and added: ‘Your arrival is indeed a happy coincidence, and it would have pleased my father, the late Raja, who was, as you know, a great believer in signs and omens . . .’

  Some twenty-five years before, when his trading house was still in its infancy, Mr Benjamin Burnham had come to see the old Raja with an eye to leasing one of his properties as an office: he needed a Dufter but was short on capital, he said, and would have to defer the payment of the rent. Unbeknownst to Mr Burnham, while he was presenting his case, a white mouse had appeared under his chair – hidden from the trader, but perfectly visible to the zemindar, it sat still until the Englishman had had his say. A mouse being the familiar of Ganesh-thakur, god of opportunities and remover of obstacles, the old zemindar had taken the visitation to be an indication of divine will: not only had he allowed Mr Burnham to defer his rent for a year, he had also imposed the condition that the Raskhali estate be allowed to invest in the fledgling agency – the Raja was a shrewd judge of people, and in Benjamin Burnham he had recognized a coming man. Of what the Englishman’s business would consist, the Raja made no inquiry: he was a zemindar after all, not a bania in a bazar, sitting cross-legged on a countertop.

  It was on decisions like these that the Halders had built their fortunes over the last century and a half. In the era of the Mughals, they had ingratiated themselves with the dynasty’s representatives; at the time of the East India Company’s arrival, they had extended a wary welcome to the newcomers; when the British went to war against the Muslim rulers of Bengal, they had lent money to one side and sepoys to the other, waiting to see which would prevail. After the British proved victorious, they had proved as adept at the learning of English as they had previously been in the acquisition of Persian and Urdu. When it was to their advantage, they were glad to shape their lives to the world of the English; yet they were vigilant always to prevent too deep an intersection between the two circles. The inner determinations of the white mercantile community, and its private accountings of profit and opportunity, they continued to regard with aristocratic contempt – and never more so than where it concerned men like Benjamin Burnham, whom they knew to have been born into the commercial classes. The transactions of investing money with him and accepting the returns represented no challenge to their standing; but to display an interest in where the profits came from and how they had been accumulated would have been well below their place. The old Raja knew nothing more about Mr Burnham than that he was a shipowner, and there he was content to let the matter rest. Each year, from the time of their first meeting onwards, the zemindar gave a sum of money to Mr Burnham to augment the consignments of his agency: every year he got back a much larger sum. He would laughingly refer to these payments as his tribute from the ‘Faghfoor of Maha-chin’ – the Emperor of Greater China.

  That his money was accepted by the Englishman was the Raja’s singular fortune – for in eastern India, opium was the exclusive monopoly of the British, produced and packaged entirely under the supervision of the East India Company; except for a small group of Parsis, few native-born Indians had access to the trade or its profits. As a result, when it came to be known that the Halders of Raskhali had entered into a partnership with an English trader, a great number of friends, relatives and creditors had begged to be allowed to share in the family’s good fortune. By dint of much pleading and cajolery they persuaded the old zemindar to add their money to the sums that he annually deposited with Mr Burnham: for this privilege they were content to pay the Halder estate a ten-per-cent d
asturi on the profits; so great were the returns that this commission seemed perfectly reasonable. Little did they know of the perils of the consignment trade and how the risks were borne by those who provided the capital. Year after year, with British and American traders growing ever more skilled in evading Chinese laws, the market for opium expanded, and the Raja and his associates made handsome profits on their investments.

  But money, if not mastered, can bring ruin as well as riches, and for the Halders the new stream of wealth was to prove more a curse than a blessing. As a family, their experience lay in the managing of kings and courts, peasants and dependants: although rich in land and property, they had never possessed much by way of coinage; what there was of it, they disdained to handle themselves, preferring to entrust it to a legion of agents, gomustas and poor relatives. When the old zemindar’s coffers began to swell, he tried to convert his silver into immovable wealth of the kind he best understood – land, houses, elephants, horses, carriages and, of course, a budgerow more splendid than any other craft then sailing on the river. But with the new properties there came a great number of dependants who had all to be fed and maintained; much of the new land proved to be uncultivable, and the new houses quickly became an additional drain since the Raja would not suffer them to be rented. Learning of the zemindar’s new source of wealth, his mistresses – of whom he had exactly as many as there were days in the week, so as to be able to spend each night in a different bed – grew more exigent, vying with each other in asking for gifts, baubles, houses, and jobs for their relatives. Always a doting lover, the old zemindar gave in to most of their demands, with the result that his debts increased until all the silver Mr Burnham earned for him was being channelled directly to his creditors. Having no more capital of his own to give to Mr Burnham, the Raja came increasingly to depend on the commissions paid by those who entrusted him to be their go-between: this being the case, he had also to expand the circle of investors, signing a great many promissory notes – or hundees as they were known in the bazar.