Amitav Ghosh - Flood of Fire

Kesri understood that Mr Mee was seething inside, not just because he had lost the missy-mem but also because he had been humiliated in the eyes of his fellow officers. Knowing how hotheaded his butcha was, Kesri feared that an explosion was inevitable — and it wasn’t long before it happened. One night a steward ran over to tell Kesri that Mr Mee had been involved in a drunken quarrel in the officers’ mess: he had overheard another officer gossiping about him, in the worst kind of language, and had challenged him to a duel.

Kesri was fully in sympathy with his butcha on this: to be called ‘bastard’ and ‘swine’ in a joking way was one thing; but every soldier knew that words like haramzada and soowar-ka-baccha , when used in earnest, had to be answered in blood — only a coward would fail to defend his izzat. This way at least there would be a resolution of some kind — and whatever happened, it was better than shedding solitary tears for an unattainable woman.

The onething Kesri regretted was that the duel was to be fought with pistols: had swords been the chosen weapon he would have had no doubt that his butcha would win. Not that Mr Mee was a bad shot — but with guns luck always played a large part, especially if the gunman was overwrought, as Mr Mee would probably be.

Sure enough, Mr Mee was in a state of wild-eyed agitation when he returned to his room. Anticipating this, Kesri had already made preparations. He handed him a glass and told him to drink the contents: he would sleep well and his hand would be steady when he woke up.

‘What’s in it?’ said Mr Mee.

‘Sharbat — with afeem.’

Nothing was said between them about the duel and nor was it necessary. After Mr Mee had drunk the sharbat, Kesri fetched his pistols and wrapped them in a velvet cloth. He took them to his hut and spent several hours cleaning and oiling them. Then, as was the custom before a battle, he took the pistols to the regimental temple, laid them at the foot of the deity and had them blessed by the purohit. In the morning, after handing over the guns, he dipped the tip of his little finger in a pot of vermilion and placed a tika high up on his butcha’s temple. Mr Mee did not object, although he made sure that the tika was well hidden by his hair.

When the time came, and Mr Mee’s seconds arrived to take him to the field, Kesri was glad to see that his butcha was perfectly calm, even cheerful. It was Kesri who was fearful now, much more so than he would have been had he himself been stepping into the field. His hands trembled as he went to join the throng of spectators who had gathered at a discreet distance.

Duelling between officers was not uncommon, even though the high command disapproved of the practice. Kesri had watched duels before, but this time, when the signal to fire was called out, he closed his eyes. Only when the men around him began to pound him on his back did he know that his butcha had won — and in the best possible way, not by killing his opponent but by felling him with a flesh wound.

In some ways the duel had a palliative effect on Mr Mee, restoring his sense of honour and draining him of some of his rage and grief. But he was to feel the repercussions of that episode for years afterwards: it meant that promotions were always slow to come his way, despite his qualities as an officer.

His entanglement with the general’s daughter was also to have a lasting effect on his personal life: Kesri did not doubt that it was the principal reason why his butcha had never married. He had thought that once the general-sahib’s daughter was safely out of reach Mr Mee would begin to run after some other missy or memsahib. But nothing like that came to pass. When on the march, Mr Mee would sometimes patronize Gulabi’s girls; while in a cantonment he would occasionally visit its military brothel when he was in need of a little chivarleying, as he put it. But he showed no signs of wanting to find himself a wife, which was not unusual in itself, since many of the British officers put off marriage till they were in their forties — but Kesri knew that Mr Mee’s was no ordinary bachelorhood: he was still haunted by the lost missy. Kesri knew this because he was with Mr Mee once when he suffered a chest wound in a skirmish: later, when the medical orderlies were trying to get his jacket off, a small package had fallen out of the inner pocket. Kesri knew at a glance that it contained the missy’s letter: evidently Mr Mee had taken it into battle, wearing it next to his heart.

Since then a lingering bitterness had slowly crept into Captain Mee’s life. The light-hearted exuberance of his youth had been replaced by resignation and resentment. The one thing that seemed to sustain him now was his bond with the sepoys.

It saddened Kesri to think how different his butcha’s life and career might have been if not for that unfortunate entanglement with the missy-mem. But none of this was ever spoken of between them, not even during the long journey from Rangpur to Calcutta when they talked more as friends than as officer and sepoy. Of course Captain Mee did not neglect to ask after Kesri’s wife and children — and had the captain been married Kesri would have done the same. But that was different: the family of a married man was safe ground — this other thing was not.

On the last day of the journey, Captain Mee said: ‘So, havildar, what will you do when we return from this expedition? Do you think you’ll put in for your pension and go back to your family?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Then Captain Mee made a disclosure that was not entirely unexpected. ‘Well, havildar, I wouldn’t be surprised if I put my papers in myself,’ he said. ‘I don’t know that the Pacheesi has been any better for me than it’s been for you.’

*

After his second tryst with Mrs Burnham, Zachary’s burden of contrition became far less oppressive: it wasn’t that guilt ceased to weigh on him — it was just that his eagerness to return to the boudoir made him less mindful of it.

But the next visit did not come about as soon as he would have liked: there was a long, almost unendurable, wait before he heard from Mrs Burnham again. A full fortnight passed before the next message arrived, hidden inside a weighty tome of sermons: it consisted of a single cryptic marking, on a scrap of paper — 12th . The reference was clearly to a date, one that happened to be two days away.

In preparation for the assignation, Zachary made a careful study of the routines of the chowkidars and durwans who guarded the compound; he learnt to listen for their footsteps and tracked the glow of their lanterns. When the night of the 12th came he evaded the gatekeepers with ease: this part wasn’t difficult, he told Mrs Burnham; he had figured out how to navigate the grounds without the watchmen being any the wiser.

His certainty on this score buttressed Mrs Burnham’s confidence and they began to meet more often. Instead of exchanging messages, they would settle on a date at the time of parting. No longer did they care whether the servants were away or not; it was always in the small hours of the night that Zachary stole over to the mansion anyway, and at that time the grounds were usually deserted. As his familiarity with the grounds increased, he learnt to make good use of every scrap of cover, including the wintry mists that often rolled in from the river, at night.

In no way did the increased frequency of their meetings diminish Zachary’s appetite for them: each assignation was a fresh adventure; every visit seemed to conjure up a new woman — one who was so unlike the Mrs Burnham of the past that he would not have imagined that she existed if their connection had not taken this unforeseen turn. Yet he knew also that there was nothing accidental about what had happened between them: it had come about because his body had sensed something that was beyond the grasp of his conscious mind — that hidden within the Beebee of Bethel’s steely shell there existed another, quite fantastical and capricious creature; a woman who was endlessly inventive, not just with her body but also with her words.