Philip Hensher - The Mulberry Empire

‘I do not understand your question, Mr Masson,’ Das said. He picked his nose meditatively and examined the contents before flicking it at the floor. ‘I have no need or desire to travel, as you well know, I am sure.’

‘Indeed, indeed,’ Masson said. He persevered. ‘In a hypothetical situation, however, if you were obliged to travel, and the only means of support you had was the sale of what goods you could carry, what would you take with you to sell?’

‘Ah,’ Das said, now having got the point. ‘Like my friend, earlier this week, in flight from his own shadow and selling his worldly goods at a highly disadvantageous rate, I can assure you.’

‘Disadvantageous to him, Mr Das.’

‘Indeed, indeed,’ Das said. He had a disconcerting habit of taking up Masson’s expressions and repeating them, a minute or two later. You could see the quick boy he must have been. ‘Well, I am sure you are aware that this is a simple matter of working out the relationship between value and bulk.’

The conversation ran its course; they agreed on silver, as being most easily disguised and most universally valued. ‘But why,’ said Das, ‘why, my friend, this sudden interest?’

It was time for Masson to go. He consigned the Persian dish to the cupboard where he stored his things, saying a silent goodbye to it, and thanked Das for the chai. He left the knife with Das. The heat and damp were insufferable, and, returning to the barracks, Masson lengthened his journey by remaining in the shade. Anyone watching him might have thought there was some superstition which directed his route, like a child leaping the cracks in the pavement. Certainly he drew the attention of the Calcutta streets; the red-toothed men squatting on their haunches chewing paan and spitting consumptively followed him with their incurious eyes. They wondered at this peeled-raw man, ugly and gawky, shrinking into the darker side of the street, hugging the wall like a conspirator, looking down, hiding something.

Masson was hiding something, as it happened. It was his plan for escape. It had seemed audacious, impossible, but now Das, with his idle conversation, had found something for him. Until now, Masson had seen no way to be in the East, where he wanted to be, other than by the way he had chosen. The surety that he could only find the East he had dreamt of by remaining where he was, serving the Company at the Company’s request, all at once left him.

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