River of Smoke

by Amitav Ghosh

  But no, said I, to Ah-med’s evident disappointment. As if in revenge, he pointed to a spot in the distance. ‘Lookee that side,’ he cried; ‘that place cuttee head! Cuttee head!’

  Whatever could he be talking about? It took me a minute or two to understand that he was pointing to the public execution grounds, which are also situated on the river.

  I confess I was transfixed. Zadig Bey has told me about the grounds: on execution days many people, including fanquis, go there to watch – some factories have even been known to organize boat parties! It seems utterly revolting, does it not? But of course hundreds of people go to watch the hangings in Calcutta, and I know the same is true also of London and many other cities – so one cannot pretend to be shocked that it happens here too. But since I, for one, have no taste for such things, I had promised myself I would stay away – yet now that it was in sight I must admit I gaped in fascination.

  It is a narrow stretch of open ground, right by the river, so you can see it all quite clearly from a boat. Instead of a gallows there are other devices and contraptions – for example a kind of chair, to which men are tied before their heads are lopped off. There is even an apparatus that looks like a cross, but it is actually used for strangling people: the condemned man is tied, with his arms outspread, and then a cord is pulled tight around his neck.

  Although it was a good distance away, I thought I discerned a corpse hanging upon one of those crosses. It made me feel quite faint – but now that I have seen it I do not regret it at all: I knew at once that this too must figure somewhere on my scroll and for a long while afterwards I could think of nothing but how to paint it.

  Thus was I preoccupied when Ah-med announced that we had come to Fa-Tee. I had expected this to be an area of open gardens extending down to the waterside but it was nothing of the kind; the shore was pierced by a multitude of muddy creeks and channels, not unlike those we see around Calcutta, and on the banks were many trees that we see also in Bengal: banyans, bodhis and silk-cottons. We turned into a creek and from time to time we passed large, fortress-like compounds, where nothing was visible beyond the walls except, on occasion, a few tiled roofs. Then we came to a jetty around which were moored many boats of different kinds – sampans, scows, lanteas and even a large brightly painted pleasure-boat.

  Beyond lay a compound not unlike those we had passed on the way. The wall that ran around it was tall, grey, and so forbidding in appearance that you would think you had come to a prison or an arsenal. So little did this place accord with my conception of a nursery that I thought at first there had been some mistake. But when Ah-med led me to the entrance it became clear that I had indeed arrived at the right destination – for hanging beside the gate was a sign with a few English words inscribed above the Chinese lettering: ‘Pearl River Nursery’.

  Ah-med took me inside and showed me to a bench; then after taking my card, he vanished through a small doorway at the back. There were many gardeners and nurserymen around me but they were busy with their work and paid me no attention. I found myself at liberty to look around at leisure.

  The nursery is contained within a large, rectangular courtyard and is enclosed on all sides by a wall. Although blank and featureless on the outside, the inner surfaces of the walls are elaborately ornamented with tiles and geometrical designs. The floor too is covered with tiles, from end to end: not a single patch of unpaved soil is anywhere to be seen. Every plant in the place – and there must be thousands – grows in a pot: never will you see so many pots of so many different designs, gathered in one place – shallow saucers, rounded bowls with fluted lips, enormous vat-like urns planted with plum trees; porcelain tubs as brilliantly coloured as the flowers that bloom within them.

  Pots, pots, pots – that is all you see at the outset. But then, as your eye grows more accustomed to the surroundings, you notice that the containers have been skilfully grouped to create an impression of a landscape, complete with winding paths, grassy meadows, wooded hills and dense forests. You see also that these natural features are endlessly mutable: you notice here a freshly-made grove; you see over there a grassland that was perhaps an orchard until recently. It becomes clear then that the courtyard can be reconfigured with the passing of the seasons, or perhaps even to suit the daily moods of its custodians.

  It is indeed a marvellously ingenious way of organizing a nursery!

  As I was wandering around, taking all this in, I came to the door through which Ah-med had exited a short while before. I discovered now that this door had a tiny peephole, cunningly hidden behind a small shutter. Putting my eye to the shutter I saw a rush-covered marshland and a path winding through it. At the other end of the path lies another walled compound, far larger than the nursery – it has the look of a citadel.

  While I was standing there, with my eye to the hole, the gates of this fortress suddenly swung open. They stayed open long enough for some ten or eleven men to step out, and during this time I was afforded a glimpse of the interior: I could not see much but I had the impression of a luxuriant garden, with pavilions and waterways. Then the gate swung shut again and the group of men began to walk towards the nursery. One man was walking slightly ahead of the others, with his hands clasped behind his back: from the deferential way in which the others were hanging back, it was clear that this was the ‘Boss-man’, Lynchong.

  He has, it must be said, an arresting face, and having been afforded the opportunity I did not neglect to make a close study of it.

  You may think it odd Puggly dear, that I should say this of a China-man, but I swear to you, Puggly dear, it is true: Lynchong looks like one of those Renaissance cardinals whose portraits the Italian Masters were so often made to paint! The similarities in clothing are obvious enough – the cap, the gown, the jewellery – but the resemblance extends also to the beak-like nose; the fleshy jowls; the piercingly sharp eyes, hidden behind heavy lids – here, in other words, is a face filled with cleverness and corruption, cruelty and concupiscence.

  I stepped away from the door just soon enough to avoid being detected. By the time it opened I had moved to a distance that allowed me to pretend that I had been browsing amongst the pots all the while.

  Lynchong was alone, except for Ah-med: the others – khidmatgars, peons, lathiyals or whatever they were – had been left to cool their heels outside. He stood observing me for a minute or two, with a look of keen appraisal, and I was just about to chin-chin him, in pidgin, when he spoke his first words to me – and I promise you, Puggly dear, if the ground beneath my feet had turned to water I could not have been more surprised. For what he said was: ‘How’re you going on there, Mr Chinnery?’ – and the pronunciation was as you would expect of someone who had spent years wandering the streets of London!

  I managed to summon the presence of mind to say: ‘Very well, sir. And you?’

  ‘Oh you know how it is,’ he said, ‘up and down, like the weather yardarm.’

  Ah-med, in the meanwhile, had produced two chairs: Lynchong took one of them and assigned me to the other. Hardly had I absorbed my surprise at his earlier sallies than he began to speak again.

  He was glad to meet me, he said; his name was Chan Liang, but I could call him Lynchong, or Mr Chan or whatever I wished: he was not partikler about this matter. And then, like a busy man of affairs, he turned with no further ado to the matter at hand: ‘I’m told you have something to show me.’

  ‘So I do,’ I said and proceeded to hand him the picture of the camellias.

  The heavy-lidded eyes flickered as he looked at it, and an odd expression passed over his face. He tapped the picture with a fingernail that was at least two inches long.

  ‘Where’d you get this?’ he demanded to know and I told him it belonged to a friend who had asked me to make inquiries on his behalf. ‘Why?’ said he, in the same brusque way. I did not particularly care to be spoken to in that tone, so I told him it was because my friends wished to acquire a specimen for a botanical collection.

&nb
sp; What would they pay? he asked me now, and I told him their intention was to propose an exchange, for they had with them an extensive collection of botanical novelties from the Americas.

  Now a glitter came into his eyes, and his long fingernails began to scratch his palm as if to soothe the itch of acquisition. ‘What plants do they have? Have you brought any with you?’

  No, said I. The plants were on board a ship that was anchored offshore, near Hong Kong.

  ‘That’s not much good to me, is it now? How’m I to know if they’re worth an exchange? These camellias, they’re monstrous rare they are – only to be found in the endermost places. I’m not one to trust to the figaries of chance, Mr Chinnery: I need to see the wares on offer.’

  What was to be done now? I was at a loss for a moment and then an idea came into my head. I said: ‘Why sir, my friends could send me pictures to show you; one of them is a talented illustrator.’

  He thought about this for a moment and then said yes, this would be all right, as long as I could show him the pictures soon – for it would take a while to have the golden camellias transported to Canton from the mountains where they grew.

  ‘I will write immediately, sir,’ I promised. ‘I do not doubt that I will have some pictures to show within the week.’

  He had begun to fidget busily now, so I thought the interview was at an end and made as if to rise. But he stopped me by extending one of his long fingernails. ‘Let me ask you something, Mr Chinnery,’ he said. ‘This friend of yours – the one who owns that picture – is it possible that his name is Penrose? I forget his Christian name but I think they called him “Fitcher”.’

  Can you imagine my surprise, Puggly dear? I promise you, through the duration of our conversation I had not once uttered Mr Penrose’s name: how was it possible then that this man should know about the ownership of a picture that had travelled halfway around the world?

  But he undeniably did.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ I said. ‘The owner is indeed Mr Penrose.’

  ‘I remember him well – has a face like a pox-doctor, don’t he, old Fitcher Penrose?’

  ‘So you know him, sir?’

  ‘That I do,’ came the answer. ‘And he knows me too. When you write to him please tell him Ah Fey sends his most respectful salaams. He’ll know how the beer got in the bottle.’

  So there you have it, Puggly dear: this was not the first time that Lynchong, or Mr Chan, or whatever you wish to call him was seeing Mr Penrose’s camellia picture: for he is none other than Ah Fey, the gardener who accompanied William Kerr’s collection to London!

  Perhaps, my dear Lady Pugglesbridge, you will understand now why I am consumed with curiosity about this man. So take pity on me and send me pictures of your best plants as soon as you possibly can: I cannot wait to renew my acquaintance with Mr Chan.

  *

  As with a strictly run joint family, the rhythms of Bahram’s establishment were unvarying and unnegotiable. This was why Neel was knocked momentarily off-tempo when Vico, who was the orchestrator of this intricate symphony, announced that he was going to be away for a few days.

  ‘You will have to manage Patrão while I’m gone,’ said the Purser, with a big grin. ‘Don’t be gubbrowed; you can do it.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To Anahita, just for some work only.’

  ‘But isn’t she anchored off the outer islands?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Vico, picking up his bag. ‘I will have to hire bunder-boat from Amunghoy or Chuen-pee.’

  Only in Vico’s absence did Neel begin to appreciate the importance of the purser’s role in the running of Bahram’s affairs. As the head of the firm the Seth was more an admiral than a captain, with his eyes turned to the far horizon and his attention focused upon long-term strategies. It was Vico who skippered the flagship and no sooner was his steadying hand lifted from the helm than the vessel began to lose its trim: the ‘mess’ – a smoky but well-heated part of the kitchen, where the two dozen members of the staff took their meals – was no longer properly cleaned, and food stopped appearing at the accustomed times; the lamps in the corridors became sooty and the kussabs neglected to light them at the usual hours; the khidmatgars and peons took to mudlarking in the grog-kennels of Hog Lane, often returning so late that they could not get up in time to prepare the daftar, in the prescribed fashion. This was a matter in which Bahram had been very strict in the past, but now he seemed neither to notice nor care that his instructions were being disregarded. It was as if a giant pair of dice had been cast up in the air – everyone, from the Seth to the lowliest topas, seemed to be holding their breath as they waited for the spinning cubes of ivory to come back to earth.

  Yet, not a word was said, in Neel’s hearing at least, about the precise nature of the task that had taken Vico to the Anahita. The rest of the staff were a close-knit team and although of disparate communities and backgrounds, they all hailed from the hinterlands of Bombay: as an outsider from the east – and one who had jumped rank to boot – Neel knew that he was the subject of some suspicion and had to be careful about how he comported himself. He asked no untoward questions and when matters of business were being discussed in languages unknown to him – Gujarati, Marathi, Kachhi and Konkani – he did his best not to appear unduly curious. But he did not neglect to listen attentively, and he soon came to the conclusion that his colleagues knew no more about Vico’s mission than he did; if they were on edge it was not because they were aware of the purser’s assignment: rather, it was because they had learnt, through long habit, to attune themselves to their employer’s moods – and there wasn’t a soul in No. 1 Fungtai Hong who did not know that the Seth’s state of mind had been, of late, strangely precarious.

  One sign of this was that he had stopped going out in the evening: every day, as the sun dipped towards White Swan Lake, Bahram would ask Neel what invitations he had accepted and after the list had been read out – and lists indeed they were, for it was not unusual for a reception to be followed by a rout and then a late whist-supper – he would ponder the matter for a minute or two before brusquely dismissing it.

  Send out chits with the lantern-wallah, tell them I’m …

  ‘Indisposed?’

  Anything you like.

  As the days dragged on, with no news being received from Vico, it became clear to everyone that the Seth’s nerves were fraying ever thinner under the strain. His fidgeting became increasingly agitated and he took to venting his impatience indiscriminately, on whoever happened to be at hand – which was, more often than not, his unfortunate munshi.

  News of these eruptions would spread quickly through the Achha Hong, and for a while afterwards everyone would act as though they were performing a collective penance, walking on tiptoe and speaking in English.

  The two shroffs were always the first to offer their condolences:

  ‘… what to do? Sethji is like that only …’

  ‘… in life agonies and sufferings are always there …’

  ‘… pray God and bear up the burden …’

  One morning, while Bahram was toying with his breakfast, Neel began to read out an excerpt of an imperial edict, issued in Beijing: ‘ “The Controller of the Board has reported that the habit of smoking is on the increase even though the Viceroys and Governors of every Province have been authorized to conduct raids and make seizures of Opium. Alas the mandarins are careless and manage matters unskilfully. If they have seized any Opium it is only a miserably small quantity and I fear they are not all upright …” ’

  What is this? snapped Bahram.

  Sethji, it is a hookum-nama issued by the Son of Heaven, in the capital: a translation has been published in the last issue of the Register.

  Pushing aside his unemptied plate, Bahram rose from the table: Go on, munshiji. Let me hear the rest.

  ‘ “After this the Viceroys and Governors of every province must sternly and distinctly demand that their people obey the commands; and they must also orde
r their civilian and military officers to vigorously search all traitorous merchants who are engaged in the traffic of Opium. And all people who keep Opium shops in the Cities must be apprehended and brought before the Tribunals.” ’

  Glancing up from his notes, Neel saw that on rising from the breakfast table Bahram had done something that was very rare for him – he had seated himself at his desk.

  ‘Why you have stopped?’ said Bahram. ‘Carry on: what else does Emperor say?’

  ‘ “The Viceroys and Governors of every Province must exert themselves to eradicate the evil by the very roots; a single person must not be allowed to slip through the net of the law; if they dare to wink at, or conceal, or lose opportunities of apprehending, or other evils of that sort, then they will be punished by a new law, and further their sons and grandsons will not be allowed to appear at the examinations. If, on the other hand, the district Mandarins show intelligence and ability in conducting this business they will be promoted according to the new law. Let this be promulgated through every Province for the information of all people. Respect this!” ’

  Here Neel was interrupted by a curious grinding noise, like the gnashing of teeth. Looking up in surprise, he saw that the sound was emanating not from Bahram’s mouth, but rather from his hands – he had positioned his carved inkstone in front of him and was furiously kneading his long-neglected inkstick. Whether this was to give release to his agitation or to calm himself, Neel could not decide, and a moment later the inkstone, unsteadied by the increasing violence of Seth’s motions, went hurtling off the desk. A jet of black ink flew up, drenching the Seth’s immaculate choga and splashing all over his papers.