Sea of Poppies: A Novel (The Ibis Trilogy)

by Amitav Ghosh

  ‘Where’re ye’lookin, Jack-gagger?’

  The sting of a rope-end, biting into his calves, brought Neel suddenly back to the moment. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Crowle.’

  ‘Sir to you, pillicock.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Neel pronounced the words slowly, cautioning himself to keep a hold on his tongue.

  Draining his mug, the mate held it out to the subedar, who filled it from a bottle. The mate took another sip, watching the convicts over the rim of the mug. ‘Jack-gagger – ye’re a ready one with the red-rag. Let’s hear it: do y’know why we called yer up on deck?’

  ‘No, sir,’ said Neel.

  ‘Here’s the gaff then,’ said Mr Crowle. ‘Me and my good friend Subby-dar Muffin-mug, we was coguing our noses with a nipperkin of the boosey and he says to me: Jackin-ape and Jack-gagger are as topping a pair of pals as I’se ever seen. So I says to him, I says, never saw a brace of jail-birds who wouldn’t turn on each other. And he says to me: not these two. So I says: Muffin-mug, what’ll you bet me that I can talk one o’em into pumping ship on t’other? And blow me if he doesn’t show me a quartereen! So there’s the nub of it, Jack: ye’re here to settle our bet.’

  ‘What’s the wager, sir?’ said Neel.

  ‘That one o’yer is a-going to empty the Jordan on t’other.’

  ‘The Jordan, sir?’

  ‘Jordan’s greek for piss-dale, Jack,’ said the mate impatiently. ‘I’m betting one o’yer is going to squeeze his taters on t’other’s phizz. So there y’have it. No blows or beating, mind: nothing but suasion. Yer a-going to do it o’yer own will or not at all.’

  ‘I see, sir.’

  ‘So what do y’make of me chances, Jack-gagger?’

  Neel tried to think of himself urinating on Ah Fatt, for the entertainment of these two men, and his stomach turned. But he knew he would have to pick his words carefully if he was not to provoke the mate. He produced an inoffensive mumble: ‘I’d say the odds are not good, sir.’

  ‘Cocky, in’e?’ The mate turned to flash a smile at the subedar. ‘Won’t do it, Jack?’

  ‘Don’t want to, sir.’

  ‘Sure o’y’self, are ye, quoddie?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Neel.

  ‘What if you go first?’ said the mate. ‘Spray his clock with yer pecnoster and ye’re done and dry. How’s tha’for a bargain? Give yer pal a wetting and that’s that. What’d y’say, Jack-gagger? Roll the dibbs?’

  Short of having a knife held to his throat, Neel knew that he would not be able to do it. ‘Not me, sir, no.’

  ‘Won’t do it?’

  ‘Not of my will, sir, no.’

  ‘And yer pal here?’ said the mate. ‘What o’him?’

  Suddenly the deck tilted, and Ah Fatt, always the steadier of the two, grabbed hold of Neel’s elbow to keep him from falling. On other days, this might well have earned them swipes of Bhyro Singh’s lathi, but today, as if in deference to some grander design, the subedar let it pass.

  ‘Sure yer pal won’t neither?’ said the mate.

  Neel glanced at Ah Fatt, who was looking stoically at his feet: strange to think, that having known each other for only a few weeks, the two of them – pitiful pair of convicts and transportees that they were – already possessed something that could excite the envy of men whose power over them was absolute. Could it be that there was something genuinely rare in such a bond as theirs, something that could provoke others to exert their ingenuity in order to test its limits? If that were so, then he, Neel, was no less curious on that score than they.

  ‘If y’won’t play along, Jack-gagger, I’ll have to take my chances with yer pal.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Go ahead.’

  Mr Crowle laughed, and just then a foaming mop of spindrift washed over the fo’c’sle-deck, so that for an instant his teeth sparkled in the phosphorescent glow. ‘Let’s hear it, Jack-gagger, do y’know why yer pal was quodded?’

  ‘Robbery, sir, as far as I know.’

  ‘That’s all he’s told yer?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Di’n’t tell you he was a gull-choker, did’e now?’

  ‘Don’t follow, sir.’

  ‘Robbed a nest of devil-scolders, he did.’ The first mate shot a glance at Ah Fatt. ‘In’it true, Jackin-apes? Cabbaged the Mission House that took you in and fed you?’

  Now, as Neel turned to look at him, Ah Fatt mumbled: ‘Sir. Is true I join Mission House in Canton. But was not for rice. Is because I want to travel West.’

  ‘West?’

  ‘To India, sir,’ said Ah Fatt, shifting his feet. ‘I want to travel and I hear Mission House send Chinese churchmen to college, in Bengal. So I join and they send to Mission College in Serampore. But I did not like. Could see nothing, could not leave. Only study and pray. Like prison.’

  The mate guffawed: ‘Is’t true then? Y’stole the print off their machines? Beat a round dozen of them Amen-curlers half to death? While they were printing Bibles at that? And all for a penn’orth of elevation?’

  Ah Fatt hung his head and made no answer, so Mr Crowle prompted him again: ‘Go on then – let’s hear it. Is it true or not that ye’did it ’cause of yer yinyan for the black mud?’

  ‘For opium, sir,’ said Ah Fatt hoarsely, ‘man can do anything.’

  ‘Anything?’ The mate reached inside his shirt and produced a paper-wrapped ball of black gum, no larger than a thumbnail. ‘So what’d ye’ do for this then, Jackin-ape?’

  Ah Fatt was standing so close that Neel could feel his friend’s body going suddenly rigid. He turned to look and saw that his jaw muscles had seized up and his eyes had turned feverishly bright.

  ‘Let’s hear it then, Jackin-ape,’ said the mate, twirling the ball between his fingertips. ‘What would y’give for this?’

  Ah Fatt’s chains began to rattle softly, as if in response to the trembling of his body. ‘What you want, sir? I have nothing.’

  ‘Oh ye’ve got something right enough,’ said the mate cheerfully. ‘Ye’ve got a bellyful of the pale ale. Just a matter of where y’want to pu’it.’

  Neel nudged Ah Fatt with his elbow: ‘Don’t listen – it’s just a trick . . .’

  ‘Stow yer jawin tackle, Jack-gagger.’

  With a swipe of his boots, the mate kicked Neel’s feet out from under, so that he fell heavily on the tilted deck, rolling headfirst against the bulwark. With his hands and feet bound, he could not do much more than flop around like an upturned beetle. With a great effort he managed to turn away from the bulwark, towards Ah Fatt, and was just in time to see his friend fumbling with the strings of his pyjamas.

  ‘Ah Fatt, no!’

  ‘Don’t y’mind him, Jackin-ape,’ said the mate. ‘Y’do what ye’re doin and don’t be in no bleedin hurry. He’s yer pal, in’e? He can wait for a taste o’yer brew.’

  Ah Fatt was swallowing convulsively now and his fingers were trembling so much that he could not pick apart the knot in his drawstrings. In a fury of impatience, he sucked in his stomach and pushed his pyjamas down to his knees. Then, with shaking, unsteady hands he took hold of his penis and pointed it at Neel, who was lying curled at his feet.

  ‘Go on then!’ urged the mate. ‘Do it, Jackin-ape. Never let yer prick or yer purse fail ye, as the cockqueans say.’

  Closing his eyes, Ah Fatt turned his face to the sky and squeezed out a thin trickle of urine over Neel.

  ‘That’s the barber, Jackin-ape!’ cried the mate, slapping his thigh triumphantly. ‘Won me my wager, y’did.’ He extended his hand towards the subedar, who duly placed a coin in it while muttering a word of congratulation: ‘Mubarak malum-sahib!’

  In the meanwhile, with his pyjamas still undone, Ah Fatt had fallen to his knees and was inching towards the mate, his hands cupped like a begging-bowl: ‘Sir? For me?’

  The mate gave him a nod. ‘Ye’ve earned yer reward, Jackin-ape, no doubt about it, and ye’re going to get it too. This here mud is good ak-barry: has to be eaten whole. Open yer gobbler and
I’ll chise it to yer.’

  Leaning forwards, Ah Fatt opened his mouth, trembling in anticipation, and the mate flicked the ball of gum out of the paper so that it dropped straight on to his tongue. Ah Fatt’s mouth closed and he chewed once. Then suddenly he began to spit and cough, shaking his head as if to rid it of something unspeakably vile.

  The sight raised howls of laughter from the mate and the subedar.

  ‘Good day’s work, Jackin-ape! There’s a lesson in how to use a sprat to catch a mackerel. Gave yer mate a taste o’yer piss and earned y’self a gobful of goatshit to boot!’

  Twenty-one

  The wedding began in the morning, after the first meal of the day. The hold was divided in two, one part being designated the groom’s and the other being allotted to the bride. Everybody chose a side and Kalua was picked to be the head of the bridal family: it was he who led the team that went over to the groom’s half of the dabusa for the tilak ceremony, where the engagement was solemnly sealed with a reddening of foreheads.

  The women had thought that they’d easily outdo the men in the matter of music, but a rude shock awaited them: it turned out that the groom’s team included a group of Ahir singers, and when they began to perform, it became clear that the women would be hard put to compete.

  . . . uthlé há chháti ke jobanwá

  piyá ké khélawna ré hoi. . .

  . . . her budding breasts are ready

  to be her lover’s toys . . .

  Worse still, it turned out that one of the Ahirs was also a dancer, and knew how to do women’s parts, having been trained as a dancing-launda back home. Despite the lack of proper costumes, make-up and accompaniment, he was persuaded to rise to his feet. A small space was cleared for him, in the centre of the deck, and even though he could scarcely stand without hitting his head, he performed so well that the women knew they would have to come up with something special if they were not to be put to shame.

  Deeti, as the Bhauji who had organized the wedding, could not allow herself to be bested. When it was time for the midday meal, she gathered the women together and made them hang back in the dabusa. Come now, she said. What are we going to do? We have to think of something, or Heeru won’t be able to hold up her head.

  It was a withered piece of turmeric, from Sarju’s bundle, that gave the bride’s side a means of saving face: this root, so common on land, seemed as precious as ambergris now that they were at sea. Fortunately there was just about enough of it to produce a sufficient quantity of paste for the anointing of both bride and groom. But how was the turmeric to be ground, with neither stone nor mortar available? A way was found, eventually, involving the rear ends of two lotas. The effort and ingenuity that went into the grinding added an extra touch of brightness to the ceremony of yellowing, drawing chuckles even from the gloomiest of the girmitiyas.

  What with the laughter and the singing, time went by so fast that everyone was amazed when the hatch was thrown open again, for the evening meal: it was hard to believe that it was already dark. The sight of the full moon, hanging upon the horizon with a great red halo around it, produced an awed hush among the migrants when they came on deck. No one had ever seen a moon so large or so strangely coloured: it was almost as if this were some other lunar body than that which lit the plains of Bihar. Even the wind, which had been blowing strongly through the day, seemed to be refreshed by the brightness of the light, for it picked up another knot or two, deepening the swells that were rolling towards the schooner from the eastern horizon. With the light and the waves coming from the same direction, the sea took on a furrowed appearance that reminded Deeti of the fields around Ghazipur at the time of year when the winter’s crop was budding into bloom: then, too, if you looked out at night, you would see deep, dark channels in the fields, separating the endless rows of bright, moonlit blossoms – just like the red-flecked lines of foam that sat gleaming upon the dark troughs of the waves.

  The schooner’s masts were thesam-thes and the vessel was yawing steeply, with sharp saccades of her sails, leaning to leeward as she rode up the swells, and then easing off as she plunged into the troughs: it was as if she were dancing to the music of the wind, which rose in pitch as the vessel leant to leeward, and fell when she righted her keel.

  Even though Deeti had grown accustomed to the motion of the ship, today she could not stay on her feet. For fear of tumbling overboard, she pulled Kalua down to squat on the deck-planks, and wedged herself between him and the solid bulwark beneath the deck rail. Whether it was because of the excitement of the wedding, or the moonlight, or the motion of the ship, she was never to know, but it was just then that she felt, for the first time, an unmistakable movement in her womb. Here! Under cover of the bulwark’s shadow, she took Kalua’s hand and placed it on her belly: Do you feel it?

  She saw the flash of his teeth in the darkness and knew he was smiling: Yes, yes, it’s the little one, kicking.

  No, she said, not kicking – rolling, like the ship.

  How strange it was to feel the presence of a body inside her, lurching in time to her own movements: it was as if her belly were the sea, and the child a vessel, sailing towards its own destiny.

  Deeti turned to Kalua and whispered: Tonight it’s like we too are being married again.

  Why? said Kalua. Wasn’t the first time good enough? When you found the flowers for the garlands and strung them together with your own hair?

  But we didn’t do the seven circles, she answered. There was no wood and no fire.

  No fire? he said. But didn’t we make our own?

  Deeti blushed and pulled him to his feet: Chall, na. It’s time to get back to Heeru’s wedding.

  The two convicts were sitting in the gloom of the chokey, silently picking oakum, when the door opened to admit the large, lamp-lit face of Baboo Nob Kissin.

  The long-contemplated visit had not been easy to organize: only with the greatest reluctance had Subedar Bhyro Singh agreed to Baboo Nob Kissin’s proposed ‘tour of inspection’, and on giving his assent, had imposed the condition that two of his silahdars would accompany the gomusta to the chokey and be present at the entrance all the while that he was inside. Having agreed to the arrangement, Baboo Nob Kissin had gone to great pains to prepare for the occasion. For his costume, he had chosen a saffron-coloured alkhalla, a robe voluminous enough to be suitable for male and female devotees alike. Hidden under the flowing folds of this garment, in a strip of cloth that was tied around his chest, was the small hoard of edible treats that he had gathered over the last few days – a couple of pomegranates, four hard-boiled eggs, a few crusty parathas and a lump of jaggery.

  This contrivance served its purpose well enough at the start, and Baboo Nob Kissin was able to cross the main deck at a stately pace, walking in a manner that was not undignified, although perhaps a little top-heavy. But when he came to the entrance of the chokey, the matter took quite another turn: it was not easy for a man of his girth to pass through a low, narrow doorway, and in the process of bending and wriggling, some of the gifts seemed to acquire a life of their own, with the result that the gomusta had to use both his hands to hold his heaving bosom in place. Since the two silahdars were waiting at the door, he could not let go of his burden even after he had made his way in: sitting cross-legged in the tiny cell, he was forced into a posture like that of a wet-nurse cupping a pair of sore and milk-heavy breasts.

  Neel and Ah Fatt stared at this weighty apparition in astonished silence. The convicts had yet to recover from their run-in with Mr Crowle: although the incident on the fo’c’sle deck had lasted no more than a few minutes, it had hit them with the force of a flash flood, sweeping away the fragile scaffolding of their friendship and leaving a residue that consisted not just of shame and humiliation, but also of a profound dejection. Once again, as through their time at Alipore Jail, they had fallen into an uncommunicative silence. The habit had taken hold so quickly that Neel could not now think of a word to say as he sat staring at Baboo Nob Kissin
across a heap of unpicked oakum.

  ‘To check up the premises, I have come.’

  Baboo Nob Kissin made this announcement very loudly, and in English, so as to cast the visit in a properly official light. ‘As such, all irregularities will be spotted out.’

  The speechless convicts made no reply, so the gomusta seized the opportunity to subject their foul-smelling surroundings to a close scrutiny by the flickering light of his lamp. His attention was immediately arrested by the toilet balty and for a few moments his spiritual quest was interrupted by a more earthly interest.

  ‘In this utensil you are passing urine and doing latrine?’

  For the first time in a long while, Neel and Ah Fatt exchanged glances. ‘Yes,’ said Neel. ‘That is correct.’

  The gomusta’s protuberant eyes grew still larger as he contemplated the implications of this. ‘So both are present during purging?’

  ‘Alas,’ said Neel, ‘we have no choice in the matter.’

  The gomusta shuddered to think of what this would do to bowels as sensitive as his own. ‘So stoppages must be extremely rigorous and frequent?’

  Neel shrugged. ‘We endure our lot as best we can.’

  The gomusta frowned as he looked around the chokey. ‘By Jove!’ he said. ‘Spaces are so scanty here, I do not know how you can refrain to make your ends meet.’

  This met with no response and nor did the gomusta require any. He realized now, as he sniffed the air, that Ma Taramony’s presence was struggling to reassert itself – for only the nose of a mother, surely, could transform the odour of her child’s ordure to an almost-pleasing fragrance? As if to confirm the urgency of his inner being’s claim for attention, a pomegranate leapt from its hiding-place and came to rest atop the pile of oakum. The gomusta peered outside in alarm, and was relieved to see that the two silahdars were chatting with each other and had not noticed the fruit’s sudden jump.