Amitav Ghosh - Flood of Fire

Best of all were the nights. The bed was itself like an embrace, soft and yielding, and the solitude and quiet were an even greater luxury. Nourished by the fine food and peaceful surroundings his imagination grew so vigorously concupiscent that it took no effort to summon Paulette out of the shadows and into his bed — and the pleasures of his trysts with her were so intense that he often sampled them several times in one night.

One morning, while working on the foredeck, Zachary heard Annabel’s voice, calling from the shore: ‘Holloa there!’

He raised a finger to his cap. ‘Hello, Miss Annabel.’

‘I came to say goodbye — I’m leaving for Hazaribagh today.’

‘Well, I wish you a safe and pleasant journey, Miss Annabel.’

‘Thank you.’

She took a step closer. ‘Tell me, Mr Mystery,’ she said, ‘you knew Paulette, didn’t you?’

‘So I did.’

‘Do you think you may see her again soon?’ ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I hope so.’

‘If you do, please tell her I said hello, won’t you? I do miss her so.’

‘So do I, Miss Annabel.’

She nodded. ‘I’d better be off now. Mama doesn’t like me to talk to you.’

‘Why not?’

‘She says it isn’t decent for a girl to talk to mysteries.’

He laughed. ‘Well, you’d better run then. Goodbye.’

‘Goodbye.’

Annabel and Mrs Burnham left later that day and for a fortnight afterwards the Burnham mansion was silent and dark. Then suddenly the lights went on again and Zachary knew that Mrs Burnham had returned. A week later there was an explosion of activity around the house; khidmatgars, chokras, malis and ghaskatas went swarming over the grounds, stringing up lanterns and putting out chairs. One of the chokras told Zachary that a big burra-khana was to be held at the house to celebrate the Beebee’s birthday.

In the evening a great number of gharries and coaches rolled up the driveway and the sound of voices and laughter wafted across the lawns until late into the night. Zachary sequestered himself in his stateroom and was careful to stay out of sight.

The next day, at suppertime, the khidmatgars brought over a lavish spread of leftovers as well as a few bottles of beer. Along with the food and drink they also delivered a small parcel. It was accompanied by an envelope that had Zachary’s name written on it, in a steeply sloping scrawl.

This was the first communication Zachary had received since his last encounter with Mrs Burnham: he opened the envelope with deep trepidation, not knowing what to expect. To his surprise the tone of the note was not just pleasant but almost cordial:

August 30, 1839

Dear Mr Reid

I trust you have settled in comfortably and are making progress with the refurbishment. If you need anything I hope you will not hesitate to let the khidmatgars know.

Since Man does not live by bread alone you are no doubt in need of some improving Literature to relieve your solitude. I have thus taken the liberty of sending you two books. I hope you will find them of interest.

Yours &c.

C. Burnham

It was clear now that he had been granted a reprieve! With a groan of relief, Zachary deposited the note and parcel on the teapoy that stood beside his bed. Then he celebrated by opening a bottle of beer and proceeded to eat a hearty meal. Afterwards he went up to the deck above and summoned Paulette to sit beside him, under the stars. Her presence was so palpable that it made him long for the pleasures of his bed; he went hurrying back to his stateroom and tore off his clothes. Wasting no time, he parted the mosquito net and slipped between the sheets, pausing only to snatch up one of the stained and crusted doo-rags that lay strewn around the bed.

He was about to snuff out the candle when his eyes fell on the parcel that Mrs Burnham had sent him. Reaching over to the teapoy, he tore off the parcel’s paper covering: inside were two books, of just the sort that he would have expected to receive from Mrs Burnham. One was a biography of a long-dead missionary and the other was a collection of sermons, by a Reverend someone-or-the-other.

The books looked dull and Zachary was in no mood to read anyway: but just as he was about to put them away a little pamphlet tumbled out of one of them and fell on his chest. Picking it up, Zachary glanced at the cover. Printed on it, in bold, screaming letters, were the words:

ONANIA; OR THE HEINOUS SIN OF SELF-POLLUTION.

The title made him sit bolt upright: he wasn’t quite sure what the words meant but their very sound was enough to cause alarm.

Opening the pamphlet at random he came to a paragraph that had been heavily underlined.

Self-pollution is that unnatural practice by which Persons of either Sex, may defile their own Bodies, without the Assistance of others, whilst yielding to filthy Imaginations, they endeavour to imitate and procure to themselves that Sensation, which God has order’d to attend the carnal Commerce of the two Sexes, for the Continuance of our Species.

His eyes returned, as if hypnotized, to the words ‘filthy imaginations’. A chill of shame went through him and he quickly turned the page, but only to arrive at another underlined passage:

… the Crime in itself is monstrous and unnatural; in its Practice filthy and odious to Extremity; its Guilt is crying, and its Consequences ruinous; It destroys conjugal Affection, perverts natural Inclination, and tends to extinguish the Hopes of Posterity.

He turned feverishly to another page:

In Men as well as Boys, the very first Attempt of it has often occasion’d a Phymosis in some, and a Paraphymosis in others; I shall not explain these terms any further, let it suffice that they are Accidents which are very painful and troublesome, and may continue to be tormenting for some time, if not bring on Ulcers and other worse Symptoms. The frequent Use of this Pollution; likewise causes Stranguries, Priapisms and other disorders of the Penis and Testes but especially Gonorrhoeas, more difficult to be Cur’d than thosecontracted from Women …

Zachary’s hands began to shake and the pamphlet dropped from his fingers. Reaching down, he pulled open his drawers and began to examine himself, looking for evidence of ulcers, stranguries and phymosises. What exactly they were he didn’t know, but amongst the wiry hairs of his pubes and in the wrinkled folds of the sac below, there was no shortage of troubling manifestations — pimples, white-heads, creases, and swollen veins that he had never noticed before.

When had they appeared and what did they portend? He could not think and was grateful only that he could see no signs of incipient priapism. This was a disease he had often heard discussed among sailors: their name for it was ‘fouling the fiddle-block’, and he had heard it said that it could lead to terrible damage, sometimes even causing the head of the organ to erupt, like a boil or pustule. He could not imagine a more dreadful affliction.

And then a thought occurred to him that was even more frightful than the spectre of disease: what if the pamphlet’s arrival was not an accident? What if Mrs Burnham had deliberately stuck it in the book, knowing that it would find its way into his hands?

No, that was impossible surely? It was beyond his imagining that she would even know of the existence of such a book, let alone possess a familiarity with the matters that were addressed in it. Surely a woman like her, a memsahib of tender sensibility, the most sheltered of Burra Beebees, would not allow her eyes to dwell on a booklet of this sort? And even if she had, surely — surely? — she would not have considered sending the pamphlet to a man whom she hardly knew at all?