by Gay Courter
My grandfather, Ephraim, was the first Jewish physician in Calcutta. He won the confidence of maharajahs, British generals, the kings of commerce, and others who traveled far to entrust themselves to his care. Not only those with the rupees to pay his fees were healed by him. Paupers, who had been refused admittance to the city hospital, would find their way to his clinic and plead for a cure. Throughout my life I have met people who felt they owed me a service to pay back a debt of gratitude to my grandfather.
If another woman complained about her match, Flora, who was delighted by Ephraim, would claim, “If you accept a marriage joyfully, everything will be right.” She had no patience for women who believed a natural incompatibility could exist. “With acceptance, the bonds will tighten. Pull together, not apart.”
In spite of their happiness with each other, good fortune did not visit my grandparents during the early years of their union. The Raymonds' first child, a son, died two weeks after birth. The following year Flora had a stillbirth. Ten months later, Luna was born. There were other pregnancies—nobody knows how many—but no further issue.
Luna was an enchanting newborn. “Your mother was tiny and frail,” Nani boasted. “She had the most extraordinary wide-set eyes, a perfectly shaped bow of a mouth, and skin the color of fresh cream.”
“Did I look like her?”
“Only the eyes. Your skin was darker, your mouth thinner. And of course you weighed almost twice as much.”
At first I was disheartened to learn of the charms she possessed and I lacked. Eventually I was to be grateful I was so little like my mother.
Luna continued to be delicate of frame and constitution. Artists captured the child's fragile beauty in a series of portraits that hung in the Raymonds' parlor. One by one they depicted dark hair framing milk-white skin and enormous oval eyes fringed with long, feline lashes. Her nose and chin were like finely chiseled ivory. Always tiny for her age, she was dressed in clothes to match her mother's, taking on the aura of a miniature adult.
Since both parents had the benefit of education, they began Luna's studies in Hebrew at the age of five. Luna learned her alphabet, mastered simple sums, and made progress for several years. After becoming literate in English around the age of ten, though, her interest waned.
When my grandmother realized I was almost seven, and other than having learned the rudiments of reading by listening to my mother's stories, I had never been given any proper schooling, she took on the task of educating me, as she had her daughter. After a discussion with Grandfather, she decided I should not begin my studies in Arabic or Hebrew—as they had—but would learn English first. I studied harder than she expected, and learned rapidly.
“You are a much better scholar than your mother ever was,” Nani said to encourage me.
As Luna approached puberty, both parents worried that the custom of marrying a daughter while she was in her early teens might cause Luna difficulties, since her skeleton was narrow. When she was fifteen— two years past the age when most girls were betrothed—inquiries for a husband were made through their Baghdadi connections. Ephraim was keen on having another physician as a son-in-law. Luna's dowry would surpass even Flora's, so there were many candidates from whom to choose.
Their daughter had other ideas. She had several friends with whom she met at the synagogue for supervised social activities, and the girl she most admired was Bellore Sassoon. Bellore was a year older, a head taller, a third heavier, and more outspoken and daring than the diffident Luna. The youngest of a family of six, Bellore was the only daughter. Fascinated by this gregarious, hardy family, Luna spent many a day with Bellore at the Sassoon mansion on Kyd Street.
Bellore's great-grandfather, Sheikh Sason ben Saleh, gave her a superior lineage to Luna's descent from Shalom Cohen. For centuries the Sassoons had prospered in Baghdad. The clan's chieftain had worn gold raiment for appearances at the pasha's palace. As he made his way through the streets for a royal audience, peasants would bow to him and his retinue. However, the status, security, and glamour of that family's station vanished under the rule of the cruel Daud Pasha.
Sheikh Sason was born in 1750. Following his forefathers, he became the pasha's civil head of the Jewish community, or nasi, in 1778. For thirty-eight years he collected taxes from his community, while guarding both their secular and spiritual welfare. He married and bore seven sons. The oldest died in a plague. His second son, David, was expected to become nasi when his father retired. Learning that Daud Pasha did not want another Jewish nasi, David Sassoon respectfully declined the hereditary appointment, then was arrested along with his wife's brother, who was strangled. Sheikh Sason rushed to the palace to plead for his son's life. The pasha agreed that if the sheikh would pay a huge ransom, David would be freed—as long as he agreed to leave Baghdad for Basra. Thus began David's wanderings that led him to Bombay, where he opened a countinghouse in 1832.
He arrived in India at the dawn of a boom. He and his family prospered. Moses, his youngest son, moved to Calcutta—fast becoming the commercial hub of the Indian subcontinent—and set up a branch of the business in that port city. There he discovered the most profitable commodity in which to trade: opium.
Arab merchants had introduced opium to the Chinese as a remedy for everything from stomach troubles to leprosy. Later, Portuguese sailors cultivated a taste for what they called yang yien, or foreign smoke, among the mandarins. When the British East India Company exported far more silk and tea—which had to be paid for in silver—with less than equal value in Indian cotton or British woolens to sell back to the Chinese, the trade imbalance became problematic. The solution—selling opium to the Chinese—leveled this deficit, eventually tilting the equation in the company's favor.
Compact compared with most crops, opium was almost as dear as precious metals in price per weight. Packed in tidy chests, it shipped easily. Once processed, it was not perishable. Its customers were loyal and. constant. Best of all, the demand for opium escalated year after year. The ownership of the opium lands was deeded to the British government of India, who leased the cultivation rights to local farmers. The harvested crop was then auctioned by the government to the merchants, who speculated on the price and accepted the hazards of shipping and trading a substance the Chinese people craved, but their lords did not wish them to consume, even though trading in opium was entirely lawful as far as the British were concerned.
One of the first Jews to become active in what he came to call “the flower trade,” Moses Sassoon established the practice of boycotting auctions when the prices were too steep, thus depressing the market. When the value had fallen to his satisfaction, he would turn around and buy up the harvest. His sons followed him into the business and made solid marriages with girls from the Baghdadi community. For his youngest, Benjamin, he was looking for an alliance with one of the Jewish families who had settled in Hong Kong in the 1840's, right after the Treaty of Nanking created the British colony, so he could better control that end of the transactions.
Neither Moses Sassoon nor Ephraim Raymond expected either of their children would have romantic ambitions of their own.
“Luna startled us when she announced she wanted to marry Benu Sassoon,” Nani told me, enjoying the excuse to talk about my mother.
“What would have happened if you had refused her?” I recall asking.
“There would have been some wailing, but Luna would have accepted the decision of her elders, as your grandfather and I had done. Either father—Luna's or Benu's—would have been well within his rights to dismiss the matter and order obedience.”
Fortunately for my parents, Moses Sassoon saw advantages to an alliance with Luna Raymond.
“Let me tell you something about Moses Sassoon.” Nani strained to keep a neutral tone. “He was the poor relation of that family. In Bombay he would have been at the bottom of the ladder. Only by making his way in Calcutta could he distinguish himself. With such a large family and that daughter to marry off in style, ther
e was not much left for his youngest son. With the Raymond dowry as a base, however, Benu could have a palace to match the richest of the Bombay Sassoons.”
“Was Mama truly in love with Papa?” I ventured the question as though I were testing the temperature of bathwater.
“She was in love with the idea of your father. The one she adored was Bellore, who represented everything she wanted to be: taller, healthier, stronger, older, wiser, and the sister of five handsome boys.”
I mulled this over. “So a marriage with Bellore's brother was a way of showing her love for Bellore.”
“Yes, that's partially it. Also, Luna did not show an interest in any of the Sassoon men until after the announcement of Bellore's engagement. When she heard the news, Luna cried for days.”
“Why? Was she jealous?”
“She thought she was losing the attention of her dearest friend. That's when she told me she wanted to get married too. I tried to explain that Bellore was sixteen—a very grown-up sixteen—and was more than ready for marriage, whereas she was physically a child.”
“Why did she pick Benu?”
“He was a striking young man. And he had been kind to her.”
“She fell in love with him, didn't she?” I asked, searching for confirmation that my parents' union had been tinged with the glow of true love.
“Yes, Dinah, I believe she felt a deep attraction for him.”
“Did my father feel as strongly about her?”
“Your mother was an appealing young woman.”
A complicated process of negotiations was set in motion when Luna and Benu made their wishes known. First, the alliance with the Baghdadi medical student had to be severed. Next, an agreement had to be negotiated. Grandfather Raymond had not the business acumen of a Sassoon, who knew this father would pay any price to indulge his daughter.
“Your Nana made only one condition: the marriage would not take place until after Luna's seventeenth birthday. We agreed that immature children must not marry. Boys must be ready for responsibility; girls must be strong enough to carry and tend babies.”
“Cousin Sarah was married last month, and she's only thirteen,” I said, referring to Reuben Sassoon's oldest daughter.
“A practice born of ignorance—and fear.”
“What are they afraid of?”
Nani sucked in her lower lip, a sign that she was weighing her words. I knew she would speak the truth, but perhaps not all of it. “They are afraid the best matches will be gone if they wait too long.”
I returned to the subject of my mother. “So Grandfather Moses agreed to what my mother and father wanted.”
“We were presented with no arguments, only a list of demands that included building the house in Theatre Road to the Sassoons' specifications.”
During the long engagement, both fathers agreed that Benu might undertake the first of his journeys to escort the opium to China. There he hoped to establish the trust of the Chinese middlemen who controlled the retail market. Also, with the young lovers separated by half a continent, they could not be the subjects of the gossip that would surely ensue by permitting children to have a say in their marriage.
The wedding took place the day after Luna's seventeenth birthday.
“Were they happy together?” I asked Nani.
Her answer was guarded. “No more, no less than any newlyweds until Benu's father sent him back to China.”
“Didn't Mama mind?”
“She wept, she carried on, but what could she do? By then, of course, she was expecting you.”
Contrary to her parents' fearful expectations, Luna maintained robust health during her pregnancy, but my birth was a long, protracted nightmare. Nobody told me about it directly, but over the years I overheard murmurings about how she had suffered. “Such an enormous baby for such a slender woman! At least my babies were small and I had the hips to carry them easily,” I heard Aunt Bellore brag.
I learned how my grandfather had agonized over how to help his daughter. Unable to withstand her screams and prayers to die rather than go on, he had dosed her with opium drops. Even afterward, during her long period of recuperation, he had continued to medicate her so she could sleep while her lacerations healed.
“Did she return to Theatre Road?”
“Of course. The Sassoons said a child should be raised in the home of the father and a wife must follow her husband's family's wishes. A Baghdadi girl does not run to her parents when she is unhappy.”
“I thought Dadi Sassoon died before I was born and Dada Sassoon followed when I was a baby. Couldn't she have returned to you then?”
“She did not enjoy living alone or managing a large home, but we told her she had her duties.” Nani sighed. “That was our mistake. There is a fine line between doing what is right and doing what looks right. If your grandfather or I had known the consequences . . .”
“Was it a mistake to let Mama and Papa have their way?” I asked. “Who can know? We even might have made that same match for her if Ephraim hadn't wanted to bring another doctor to Calcutta. But my belief that arranged marriages are, if not superior, then at least as workable, was strengthened by Luna's experiences. What did she understand? How could she choose? She loved Bellore, she was impressed with the Sassoon name, she wanted to be married because Bellore was. At least her father and I might have selected someone who better understood her nature.”
The arrest of Nissim Sadka for my mother's murder gave a provocative focus to every conversation. Even if I were nearby, voices would merely lower, not cease. Alternating between fear and a hunger to know more, I pieced together snippets from various sources and in the process learned that in order to cajole an adult into telling a child about a forbidden subject, the child must follow this rule: never ask a direct question.
I began my probe with my grandmother. Sitting at the parlor table doing my schoolwork, I had completed a page of difficult sums when I mustered the courage to mention the unmentionable. “I don't think Uncle Nissim is a bad man.” His name rolled off my tongue like a bitter root.
Nani, who had been embroidering a cushion, put down her needle. “The authorities think he is.”
“Mama liked him.”
“He may have pretended to be kind, but some believe he hurt your mother.”
“No, he did not.”
Nani paled. “Why do you say that?”
“He liked Mama. And he liked me too.”
“Sometimes friends become angry with each other.”
“Uncle Nissim once shouted at Mama, but that doesn't mean that—”
“No, of course not, but sometimes if a man drinks too much or overindulges with . . . well, never mind. When did they argue?”
“I don't remember.”
“He came to visit often, didn't he?”
“Yes, every few days.”
“Did he have supper in your mother's room?”
“Sometimes.”
“Is that where they argued?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know what they talked about?”
“No. I only heard loud voices.”
“Did he strike your mother?”
“No!”
“He stayed until after you had gone to bed, didn't he?”
“Sometimes.”
“Did he visit with friends, other men or women, or alone?”
“Mostly alone.”
At so young an age I would not have questioned my mother's propriety. When her husband was away, the downstairs rooms were rarely used and she often entertained instead in the dark coolness of my father's bedroom. I had sensed a logic to this. When my father was home, we were a more social family. The public rooms were suffused with light, music, conversation. The Sassoon relatives came and went freely. Mama wore elegant gowns, organized feasts. When my father was away, she withdrew upstairs and her friends visited her there. Besides, how could anything have been amiss when the servants were about? Except during the coolest weather, the blind punkah-wal
lah fanned her while she had guests, while she ate, even while she slept.
Frequent visitors included her best friend, Aunt Bellore, her three daughters, and members of their social set and their children. In the hot weather, mattresses covered with thick layers of carpets would be laid out on the upstairs veranda. During the day Jonah and I might frolic there. After sunset Mama would sit outside alone or with her companions laughing and trading short breaths from the hookah.
Nani's dark opinion of Mama's favorite companion altered my perception of Mama's activities. Indeed, I would soon learn Nissim Sadka was a rather unsavory character with questionable associates. Sadka, whose father had once been in service to the King of Oudh, was the lifelong friend of another Jew, Moosa Chachuk, who was rumored to have provided services as an assassin against the enemies of the King of Oudh. Chachuk had degenerated into a pitied alcoholic who lived near the Radha Bazaar in rooms for brethren down on their luck. Moosa, and several other men in similarly reduced circumstances, worked for Nissim as carpenters. A few days after Sadka's arrest, Chachuk was also incarcerated, as he was thought to be either an accessory or the one who committed the crime.
Only a month before the murder, Sadka had made a visit to Grandfather's clinic. Dr. Hyam repeated the story many times in the following weeks, then again in the courtroom. I recall him relating it to Aunt Bellore's husband in the Raymonds' garden a few days after the first arrest.
“This man Sadka asked for me before consulting-room hours. Apparently one of his Hindu workmen had sustained a nasty wound to his hand the week before, and Sadka said the poor man was terrified that he might lose several fingers. I told Sadka to bring the fellow around immediately, for the whole arm could be lost to gangrene if he delayed. Nobody ever appeared.”