Amitav Ghosh - Flood of Fire

Then Mr Chan said: ‘We’re almost ready now, Mr Reid. When I roast the opium again it will catch fire. The smoke will last for one or two seconds. You must be prepared — you must blow out your breath, emptying your chest so you can draw in all the smoke. When the opium begins to burn I will put it on the dragon’s eye’ — he pointed to the tiny hole in the pipe’s octagonal cup — ‘and you must draw hard.’

Handing the pipe to Zachary, he plunged the pellet of opium into the flame again. Suddenly it caught fire, and he cried out: ‘Ready?’

‘Yes.’

Zachary had already emptied the air from his chest: when the flaming pellet was placed on the ‘dragon’s eye’ he inhaled deeply, filling his lungs with the smoke. Its consistency was almost that of a liquid, dense, oily and intensely perfumed; it poured into his body like a flood, coursing through his veins and swamping his head.

‘You see, Mr Reid? The power that moves the world is inside you now. Lie back. Let it run through you.’

As he leant back against the cushions Zachary suddenly became aware of his pulse — except that it wasn’t beating only in his wrist or his neck. It was as if his whole body were pulsating; the drumming of his heart was so powerful that he could feel his blood surging into his capillaries. The sensation was so strong that he looked down at his forearm and saw that his skin had changed colour. It was flushed and red, as if every pore had been awoken and irradiated.

He looked up at the ceiling and suddenly it was as if his eyes had become more sensitive, his gaze more powerful. He could see minute cracks in the wood; his hearing too seemed to have become more acute and the lapping of water was loud in his ears. He closed his eyes, luxuriating in the feeling of weightlessness, allowing the smoke to carry him away, as if on a tide.

Now it was Mr Chan’s turn with the pipe. After he had finished, he laid it on the table and leant back against a bolster. ‘Do you know why I have a yen for the smoke, Mr Reid? It is because I am a gardener by profession. I love flowers — and this smoke is the essence of the kingdom of flowers.’

His voice drifted away.

In a while Zachary became aware that Mr Chan had left the cabin and that he was alone with the girl. Now, for the first time, she raised her head and looked directly at him, with a slight smile on her lips. Zachary stared, unable to tear his eyes from her face: there was something familiar about her — he couldn’t figure out what it was so he stretched out his arm and ran his fingertips over her face. Suddenly the answer came to him: she bore an uncanny resemblance to Mrs Burnham. Even the touch of her hands, as they roamed over his body and under his robe, was like hers; even more so was the feel of her limbs against his own.

When he clasped her in his arms the likeness seemed to grow more and more pronounced, making him hungrier and hungrier; it was as if he were making love to Mrs Burnham herself — so much so that at the end he even mumbled her name aloud. But no sooner had it left his lips than he was stricken with guilt; he turned away, mortified, alarming the girl, who seemed to think that it was a rebuke of some kind.

‘No, no,’ he said, to reassure her. ‘It’s not you; it’s me.’

He could tell, though, that she hadn’t understood. At a loss to explain, he took hold of her hand and gave himself a mock slap, as a punishment. The blow was very light, yet his skin, still irradiated by the smoke, began to tingle; his whole face was aglow. The feeling was pleasureable yet strange — precisely because the pleasure came from the sensation of being punished, of expiating a burden of guilt.

He did it again, a little harder, and it felt even better. Now she seemed to understand what he wanted and began to slap him playfully, not just on his face but also on his naked back and buttocks — and the pleasure was so intense that he knew that if he did not stop he would be compelled to start all over again, with another pipe.

The thought sobered him so he gave her a smile and said: ‘I must go now — it’s time for me to leave.’

When she fetched him his clothes he reached into the pocket of his trowsers and took out a handful of coins. But she would not take them; she shook her head and bowed herself out.

As he was putting on his jacket a door opened and Mr Chan stepped in: suddenly an uneasy thought entered Zachary’s mind: was it possible that he had been watching all this while?

But he could see no hint of it in Mr Chan’s manner which was once again brisk and businesslike. ‘Well, Mr Reid,’ he said, ‘I trust you enjoyed the visit. I hope it will be the beginning of a long partnership.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ Zachary mumbled. ‘I hope so too.’

‘Oh I am sure we will deal very well together,’ said Mr Chan, pumping Zachary’s hand. ‘I have been doing business with Mr Burnham for a long time, and I must say you remind me very much of him. The two of you are very much alike.’

‘Thank you, Mr Chan. It is kind of you to say so.’

*

For Zhong Lou-si and his circle the Battle of the Barrier was a defeat on many counts. Even though they had watched the fighting with their own eyes they were unable to persuade Commissioner Lin of the truth of what they had seen. An army commander got to the Commissioner first and convinced him that the battle had resulted in a great victory for their side — that the British had been put to flight, with many casualties. The prefect of the district that bordered Macau corroborated these misleading reports, as did some other officials. Those who tried to tell the Commissioner the truth, like Zhong Lou-si, were vastly outnumbered and outranked.

The result was that the Commissioner accepted the military commanders’ fictitious version of the Macau battle and his dispatches to the Emperor reflected these falsehoods.

If Lin Zexu can be deceived like this, said Compton despairingly, then what chance is there that the truth will ever reach the Forbidden City?

But soon enough it became clear that the Emperor could not be shielded from the realities of what was happening along the coast.

The Macau battle was still fresh in memory when it was learnt in Guangzhou that a squadron of British ships had sailed right up to the mouth of the Bai River, very close to Beijing. With the capital under immediate threat, the governor of that province, a very senior mandarin by the name of Qishan, had agreed to receive the letter that Captain Elliot had been trying to deliver to the Emperor for the last several weeks.

And the contents of this letter were even more shocking than anyone had previously imagined: along with many other demands the British had asked for a sum of six million Spanish dollars in compensation for the opium that Commissioner Lin had confiscated the year before. In addition they had demanded that an island be ceded to them, as a trading base.

The strangest part of it was that the British accepted no blame for their crimes: they made no acknowledgement of their smuggling, their repeated provocations, or their refusal to abide by Chinese laws on Chinese soil. Instead they placed the blame entirely on Commissioner Lin, accusing him of criminal conduct and unlawful seizures. It was as if the firepower of their ships had given the British the right to dictate that night was day.

Such was the pressure on the Commissioner that he composed a long letter to the Emperor, trying to account for his errors and failures. While acknowledging that he had made some mistakes, he pointed out that he had followed the Emperor’s express instructions in all his actions. He also placed much blame on the merchants of Guangzhou, who, he said, had colluded and conspired with the British at every step.