River of Smoke

by Amitav Ghosh

  The boat was manned by a round-faced younger woman and a couple who looked as though they might have been her grandparents: they seemed to have finished for the day, and the older man was reclining on a mat when Ah Fatt shouted a few words across the gangplank. Whether these were greetings or questions, Neel could not tell, but their effect, in any event, was magical, instantly transforming the somnolent boat: the older couple broke into welcoming smiles while the younger woman beckoned energetically as she answered Ah Fatt.

  ‘What is she saying?’

  ‘She say Uncle and Aunt go to sleep now, but she happy make food.’

  The warmth of the welcome seemed all the more surpising to Neel because both he and Ah Fatt looked like penniless vagabonds, in their threadbare pyjamas and soiled tunics, with their bundles slung over their shoulders. ‘What did you say to them?’ he asked. ‘Why do they seem so happy to see you?’

  ‘Spoke in boat language,’ said Ah Fatt, in his laconic way. ‘They understood. Never mind. Time to eat rice. And drink. We drink Canton-grog.’

  The kitchen-boat was of a curious shape: it looked as though its mid-section had been carved out, leaving it with a raised stem and stern. At the rear was a wooden ‘house’ with a heavy door, and at the other end, between the bows, there was a thatch-covered area with open sides: this was where customers ate, sitting around a couple of raised planks that served as tables. The carved-out mid-section was where the cooking was done: the cook had only to rise to her feet to put the food upon the ‘tables’.

  After they had seated themselves, Ah Fatt leant into the well of the kitchen space and had a brief exchange with the young woman. The conversation ended with him pointing to the roof of the ‘house’, where clusters of live chickens dangled upside down, trussed by their feet. The woman reached up and picked a chicken off the roof, plucking it from its covey as though it were a fruit on a vine. There was a brief squawking and flapping and then the bird, now headless but still trussed, was dropped over the side of the boat, to flap its wings in the river. Slowly the sound died away and a minute later bits of offal went into a fish-basket that was suspended beside the boat, producing a boiling, thrashing noise. There followed the hissing of hot oil, and soon a dish of fried liver, gizzards and intestines appeared before them.

  The tastes were so vivid that Neel dispensed with chopsticks and fell upon the food with his hands. Yet Ah Fatt, despite having declared himself to be hungry, seemed hardly to notice the dish – no sooner had he finished talking to the cook than his eyes and his attention returned to the jibless vessel across the river.

  ‘Why do you keep staring at that ship, Ah Fatt?’ Neel said at last. ‘What’s so special about it?’

  Ah Fatt shook his head as though he had been woken from a trance. ‘If I tell, you not believe me.’

  ‘Tell me anyway.’

  ‘That ship belong … my family. My father.’ Ah Fatt gave a hoot of laughter.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Only that. It belong my father family.’

  A fiery, sour-smelling liquor had appeared before them now, and Ah Fatt poured some into a small white cup. Then he took a sip and laughed, in the way he sometimes did when he was embarrassed or uneasy. Whether this was a sign of seriousness or frivolity, Neel could not tell, for with Ah Fatt the outward manifestations of inner states were not as they were with other people: in the few months that he had known him, Neel had discovered that where Ah Fatt was concerned, bouts of apparently childlike silliness could sometimes be symptoms of seething anger, while a spell of brooding silence could betoken nothing more portentous than a fit of drowsiness.

  Now despite the laughter, Neel could sense that Ah Fatt was not joking, or at least, not entirely: between him and the ship across the river there was some powerful but conflicted connection, some link that he was trying to resist.

  ‘What’s the ship’s name then?’ he said, on a note of challenge, half-hoping that Ah Fatt would not know the answer.

  The reply came back without a missed breath: ‘Name: Anahita. In Father’s religion, that the name of the goddess of water. Like our A-Ma. Before, had statue in front, of goddess. It was – what do you call it – ?’

  ‘… the figurehead?’

  ‘Figurehead. Gone now. Family will be sad. Especially Grandfather, who built ship.’

  ‘ “Grandfather”?’ said Neel. ‘On your father’s side, you mean?’

  ‘No,’ said Ah Fatt. ‘On side of Father’s Elder Wife. Seth Rustamjee Mistrie: famous shipbuilder of Bombay …’

  He was interupted by the cook, who stood up to hand over a dish of browned chicken feet. Ah Fatt picked out a piece and offered it to her with his chopsticks, and after a few moments of laughter and joking, she allowed him to slip it between her teeth. Then she slapped his hand away, with a giggle, and he turned back to Neel.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, his eyes shining. ‘Long time see no woman. No chance do jaahk.’ He laughed and poured more liquor into their cups. ‘Only see you. Two of us, feet tied like chickens.’ He pointed at the trussed birds on the boat’s roof and laughed again.

  Neel nodded: ‘It’s true.’

  Through their time at sea they had been so closely bound and confined that it was impossible to move or turn except in tandem. Neel had never spent so much time with another human being, in such close proximity, never before experienced such extended intimacy with another physical presence – and yet now, as often before, he had the feeling that he knew nothing at all about Ah Fatt.

  ‘Do you mean to tell me,’ said Neel, ‘that you’re related to Seth Rustamjee Mistrie?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ah Fatt. ‘Through Father. His Elder Wife is Seth’s daughter. For a long time even I did not know …’

  Ah Fatt was almost at the end of his boyhood when he found out that he had connections, relatives, in faraway Bombay. As a child he had been told that he was an orphan, that his mother and father had died when he was a newborn, and that he was being brought up by his widowed Eldest Aunt – his Yee Ma. This was the story that was told to everyone who knew them, on the Canton waterfront and in Fanqui-town. There was nothing about Ah Fatt’s looks to betray his paternity, not even his complexion, a sun-weathered tint being not uncommon among boat-people. Growing up, he did not think of his family as being different from the others around him, except in one respect, which was that they had a rich benefactor, ‘Uncle Barry’, a ‘White-Hat-Alien’ from India, who happened to be his godfather, his ‘kai-yeh’. Uncle Barry had been his father’s employer, he was told; after his parents’ death he had felt a great obligation to their orphaned child; this was why he gave Yee Ma money for his upkeep, and brought presents for him from India, and paid for his teachers and tutors.

  Yee Ma did not encourage Uncle Barry’s ambitions for the boy: nor did she approve of spending so much money on such things. To arrange schooling for a boat-child was no easy matter and Uncle Barry had to pay generously to organize it: he wanted the boy to be literate in Classical Chinese as well as schoolroom English; he wanted him to grow up ‘respectable’, to become a gentil-man, who would be able to move easily with the merchants of Fanqui-town, impressing them with his sporting talents as well as his knowledge. Yee Ma could not see the point of all this: she would have preferred that Uncle Barry give her the money and leave the boy alone. What use was calligraphy to him when boat-people were banned by law from sitting for the Civil Service examinations? What was he to do with boxing and riding lessons when boat-people were barred even from building houses ashore? She wanted him to grow up like any boat-child, learning to fish and sail and handle boats.

  Yet, in her dreams, if not in her waking state, Yee Ma must have accepted that he was not really a boat-child for she often had nightmares in which the boy was attacked by a dragon-fish – a sturgeon. As a result she would not let him in the water.

  Like other boat-children Ah Fatt grew up with a bell attached to his ankle, so his family could always keep track of him; like them he had to si
t in a barrel when the boat was moving; like them, he had a wooden board tied to his back, so that he would float if he fell in. But the other children lost their boards and bells when they were two or three – Ah Fatt’s stayed on till long afterwards, making him a target of mockery. On the Canton waterfront little boys would earn money by diving in the river to amuse the Aliens, fishing out the coins and trinkets they threw in the water. Ah Fatt too wanted to do these things, to swim with the boat-children, to dive and earn coins – but to him alone, these things were strictly forbidden because of the spectre of the lurking dragon-fish.

  But Yee Ma must have known also that it would be impossible to keep a child of the seui-seung-yan from the water.

  ‘From time they – we – are little, we float …’

  Ah Fatt broke off as bowls appeared before them, with balls of minced chicken swimming in a clear broth: using his chopsticks, he pointed at one of the bobbing morsels. ‘Like that we learn to swim. The pun-tei – the land-people – they mock us and say we have fins instead of feet. Me too, I learn to swim, when Yee Ma is not there; sometimes I also go to dive for coins with others. Then one day she find out, and she pull me from the water. Beat me, shaming in front of everyone. So much shame, I think I throw myself in the river, and if dragon-fish comes, that also good. I think: she doing this because I have no parents. I think: if I her child, she not beat like this. I think: better run away. I make plans, I speak with beggar-men, but Older Sister find out. Then she tell me everything: that Yee Ma not aunt, but Mother. That ‘Uncle Barry’ not kai-yeh, but Father. I could not ask Mother because I know she beat Older Sister for telling me. I wait until Uncle Barry come next time, and when alone, I ask: Is true you are Father, and Yee Ma is Mother? At first he say, no, not true. But I ask again, and again, and then he begin to cry and admit everything. He say, yes, all true; he Father and he have other family in Bombay.’

  Ah Fatt fell silent and gestured to Neel to pick up his cup. After they had drained their liquor Neel too was silent for a bit. It was only after Ah Fatt had filled the cups again that he said quietly: ‘It must have been a shock? To find out about all this? In that way?’

  ‘Shock? Yes. Maybe.’ Ah Fatt’s voice was flat and emotionless. ‘At first I just want to know. Know about Bombay. About Elder Wife. About sisters. You can think how strange for me all this. When I small, we live in boat like this one; we also poor people, like these. Just poor boat-people, sometime no food, we eat wind. Then one day I hear my father hou-gwai, rich man, rich White-Hat Devil. Now I think I know why my mother beat me – I not real China-yan, I her secret shame, but still she need me, because of money Father give. But does not matter now. Have got another family. I want know all about it. I ask Father, but he say nothing. Does not like to speak of it. He tells about Malacca and Colombo and London, but not Bombay. I read in books that “Western Island” – India – have gold and magic and I want to go – I want fly there like Monkey King. But this in my head – my feet in kitchen-boat, where I live. So when I hear of Father’s ship, Anahita, I am mad to see it.’

  ‘Did it come to Canton?’

  ‘No,’ said Ah Fatt. ‘Big ships can-na come to Canton – just like they can-na come up this river. Too shallow. They must anchor at Huang-pu – Whampoa in English. Many boats go up and down so I know about ship: I know has set record for season – seventeen days from Bombay to Canton. When Father come, I say: take me, take me to your ship, and he turn red, shake head. He afraid if he take me then ship will carry news back to Bombay. Elder Wife will find out about me and there will be trouble. Ship not his, he tell me; belong to father-in-law and brothers-in-law. He like paid servant and must be careful. But this mean nothing to me; I do not care. I tell him I want to go, or I will shame him. I will go Whampoa myself. So then he says, yes, he will take. But he sends me with Vico, his purser – does not go himself. Vico shows me ship, tell me stories. And it is like I saw in my head – a palace, better even than mandarin-boat. You cannot believe till you see …’

  He broke off to point to the Anahita’s raised quarter-deck, which was lit by the glow of a binnacle lamp. ‘Look, near stern – third mast, what do you call it?’

  ‘The mizzen-mast?’

  ‘Yes. That mast like tree. Around its roots, on quarter-deck, there is carved bench, where people can sit. Grandfather built like that, to be like banyan tree in village. Vico tell me that. Afterward, when I see Anahita, always I think that my bench …’

  Again now the cook interrupted, placing bowls of steaming rice on the plank, along with the rest of the chicken, prepared in a half-dozen different ways. The smells were tantalizing, but Neel was so absorbed in Ah Fatt’s recollections that he paid no mind to the food.

  ‘Did you go back to the ship again?’

  ‘No – did not go, but saw many times. At Lintin Island.’

  ‘Did you go there to see your father?’

  ‘No. Father never in Lintin.’ Seeing the puzzlement in Neel’s eyes, he said: ‘Look-see here, I show you …’

  Using his chopsticks, Ah Fatt expertly dismantled a piece of chicken and picked out the wishbone. Laying it on the plank, he pointed to the yawning jaws: ‘This like mouth of Pearl River, which lead to Canton.’ Then, picking some grains of rice from his bowl he scattered them across the gap with his chopsticks. ‘These like islands – have many here, like teeth rising from sea. Teeth very useful to pirates. Also to foreign merchants, like Father. Because foreign ship cannot bring opium to Canton. Forbidden. So they pretend they do not bring to China. They go here’ – his chopsticks moved to point to a grain of rice that lay halfway between the jaws of the wishbone – ‘to Lintin Island. There they sell opium. When price is settled, dealer send out boat, quick boat, with thirty oar – “fast-crab”.’ Ah Fatt laughed, and his chopsticks flashed as he flipped the wishbone into the water. ‘That how I go to Lintin – in “fast-crab”.’

  ‘Why? What were you doing there?’

  ‘What you think? Buying opium.’

  ‘For whom?’

  ‘My boss – he big opium-seller, have many fast-crab, many leng work for him, many hing-dai. We are one big gaa and he is our Daaih-go-daai, Big-Brother-Big, for our family. We call him Dai Lou. He Canton man, but he travel everywhere – even to London. He stay there long time and then he come back to start business, in Macau. He have many like me to work for him; he like to hire my kind.’

  ‘What do you mean your kind?’

  ‘Jaahp-júng-jai – ‘mixed-kind-boy’.’ Ah Fatt laughed. ‘Many like that along Pearl River – in Macau, Whampoa, Guangzhou. In any port, any place where man can buy woman, there is many yeh-jai and ‘West-ocean-child’. They too must eat and live. Dai Lou give us work, treat us well. For long time he like real Elder Brother to me. But then we have trouble. That why I have to leave Canton, run away. Can-na go back.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Dai Lou, he have woman. Not wife but … how do you say?’

  ‘Concubine?’

  ‘Yes. Concubine. She very beautiful. Her name Adelina.’

  ‘Was she European?’

  ‘No. Adelie also ‘salt-prawn-food’, like me: she also half Cheeni, half Achha.’

  ‘Achha? What do you mean by that?’

  ‘“Achha” – that what Canton-yan call you people. You Hindusthanis – there you all “Achha” ’.

  ‘But “achha” just means “good”. Or “all right”.’

  Ah Fatt laughed: ‘Is opposite in Gwong-jou-talk. Ah-chaa mean ‘bad man’. So you are Achha to me and Aa-chaa to them.’

  Neel laughed too. ‘So your Adelie was half Achha? Where was she from?’

  ‘Her mother from Goa, but live in Macau. Her father Chinese, from Canton. Adelie very beautiful; she also like smoke opium. When Dai Lou travel, he tell me to look after. Sometime she ask me bite the cloud with her. We both half-Achha, but never seen India. We talk about India, about her mother, my father. And then …’

  ‘You became lovers?’

 
‘Yes. We both become din-din-dak-dak. Crazy.’

  ‘And your boss found out?’

  Ah Fatt nodded.

  ‘What did he do?’

  ‘What do you think?’ Ah Fatt shrugged. ‘Just like country have laws, gaa have rules. I know Dai Lou try to kill me so I hide with mother. Then I hear hing-dai come for me, so I run away. Go to Macau, and pretend to be Christian. Hide in seminary. Then they send me to Serampore, in Bengal.’

  ‘And Adelie?’

  Ah Fatt looked into his eyes and then pointed his chopsticks at the muddy waters of the river.

  ‘She killed herself?’

  He answered with a barely perceptible nod.

  ‘But that’s all in the past, Ah Fatt: don’t you ever feel like going back to Canton now?’

  ‘No. Can-na go back, even though Mother is there. Dai Lou have eyes everywhere. Can-na go back.’

  ‘But what about your father then? Why don’t you go to see him?’

  ‘No!’ Ah Fatt slammed his cup on the table. ‘No. Don’t want see Father.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Last time I see him, I ask him to take to India. I want go away. Away from Chin-gwok, away from Canton. I know if I stay, something happen with me and Adelie. And I know also, Dai Lou can find out and then he can do anything – to her and me. So I go to Father one day. I ask him to take to India, on Anahita. But he say: No, no, Freddy, cannot go. Impossible. After that I angry too. Very angry. I never see Father again.’

  Despite the vehemence of Ah Fatt’s tone, Neel could sense that the ship’s influence on his friend was strengthening, its magnetic field growing steadily more powerful. ‘Listen, Ah Fatt,’ he said. ‘Whatever may have happened between you and your father is in the past. Maybe he’s changed: don’t you think you should find out if he is on board the ship?’

  ‘No need find out,’ said Ah Fatt. ‘I know. He is there. I know he is there.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘See flag? With columns? Is only up when Father there.’

  ‘Then why don’t you send him a message?’