Amitav Ghosh - Flood of Fire

Go on, I said, tell me more …

I think now that it was kismat that sent me to that prison, said Jodu, and I’ll tell you why. One of our fellow prisoners, a Muslim, was a man of some influence.

Sometimes, on ‘Id and other special days, he would bribe the prison officials and they’d allow imams from the local mosques to visit us. I don’t know if you are aware of this, but in Guangzhou there is a very famous mosque and maqbara — the tomb of Shaikh Abu Waqqas, an uncle of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him.

Here Jodu stopped to point to a tower in the distance: its tip was just visible above the city walls.

Do you see that minar there? he said. It belongs to the Huaisheng mosque, built by Shaikh Abu Waqqas himself. People say it is one of the oldest mosques in the world. Pilgrims come from far and away to visit the mosque and the maqbara, from places as distant as Cairo and Medina. Sometimes the imam of the Huaisheng mosque would come to the prison to lead our prayers. One day, during Ramazan, he brought a foreign pilgrim along to see us. The pilgrim was a shaikh from somewhere near Aden, in the Hadramaut. He was a small man, very simple in appearance; his name was Shaikh Musa al-Adani, and we learnt later that he was a merchant who had travelled everywhere — all around Arabia, Africa, Persia and Hindustan; he had visited Bombay, Madras and Delhi, and had lived for two years in Kolkata. But I knew none of this then so you can imagine how astonished I was when he spoke to me in Bangla and told me that he knew me, and that it was because of me that he had come to visit the prison! I was amazed; I said: That’s impossible; I’ve never met you, never seen you, never heard of you. The shaikh told me then that he had seen me in his dreams; he had had a vision of a young lascar from Bengal, who was a Muslim in name but had yet to understand the truths of the Holy Book. This angered me and I cried: What do you mean? Why are you insulting me? And he smiled and asked if it wasn’t true, what he had said? This made me still angrier and I told him he knew nothing about me and had no right to speak to me like that. He smiled and told me that I would soon understand the meaning of his words.

A few days later I got into an argument with one of the prison guards. He accused me of stealing something and came to hit me. I side-stepped and the guard fell down and hurt himself. He accused me of attacking him and the matter became quite serious: I was removed to the part of the prison where condemned men are kept. The guards told me that I too would be executed and I believed them — I had no reason not to.

Here Jodu stopped pacing and put his hand on my neck.

Neel-da, he said, do you know how they execute people here? They tie them to a chair and strangle them. I saw twenty or thirty men being strangled in that way. I thought that I too would be killed like that. You can imagine my state of mind; how afraid I was. But then a strange thing happened. It was the day after Bakri-Id. One of the guards was a Muslim: he took me aside and told me that he had paid a visit to the Abu Waqqas maqbara the day before; Shaikh Musa had given him a gift for me — a tabeez that he had removed from his own arm.

Here Jodu pulled back the sleeve of his tunic to show me the amulet: it is made of brass and is fastened just above the elbow of his right arm.

I tied it on, Jodu continued, and when I went to sleep that night I had a dream in which I saw myself on the Yoom al-Qiamah — the Day of Judgement — trying to answer for myself. Suddenly I realized that the fear that had taken hold of me was not of death itself, but of what would happen afterwards, when I would have to face the moment of judgement. And then, as I lay trembling on my mat, for the first time in my life I felt the true fear of God. I understood that even though I had gone through the motions of being a Muslim, my heart had forever been filled with filth; my whole life had been steeped in shame and sin. I had been brought up in a house of sin; a house in which my own mother was the kept woman of an unbeliever, Mr Lambert; a house in which his daughter, Paulette, and I were allowed to run around like wild creatures, with no thought of religion, or even of hiding our shame from each other.

Through all this Jodu’s tone was of testimony; it was as if he had temporarily stepped outside his skin and were watching himself from afar.

In a way I was like an animal, he said. My heart was ruled by lust and I thought of nothing but fornication, and of seducing women — this is how I had brought my fate upon myself, during the voyage of the Ibis . All of this became clear to me, and once I had understood it, my fear of death evaporated — no, you could say I longed for death, because I felt that whatever punishment was given to me would be well-deserved.

Now Jodu’s voice fell to a lower pitch.

It was then, he said, that I submitted to the teachings of the Prophet and became a true Muslim. I was ready to die — I had no more fear of it. But strangely, a few days after my conversion — for that was what it was — I was removed from the cell of the condemned men and sent back to join my lascar crewmates.

Here Jodu paused to draw a deep breath; his voice was calmer now: it was as if a fever had flowed out of him with his torrent of words. I sensed that behind the disclosures there lay a need not only to confide but also to persuade: it was important to Jodu to convey to me the significance of his transformation, the full extent of which could only be apparent to those who had known him before.

You mentioned Paulette, I said quietly. Do you know that she too is in these parts?

The blood ebbed from Jodu’s face as he turned to look at me: Putli? he said. Here? What do you mean?

I told him that Paulette was at Hong Kong, with an English plant-collector — a friend of her father’s who had more or less adopted her as his daughter.

Jodu was pleased to hear about her good fortune. I’m glad for her, he said. It wasn’t her fault that she was brought up as a kaafir …

This made me smile. I said: I’m a kaafir too, you know.

Jodu laughed: Yes, I know you were born a kaafir — but you don’t have to remain one forever.

I could only laugh.

Kaafir I am, I said, and kaafir I will remain. But let me ask you this. The Chinese are kaafirs too, and as you know they may soon be at war with England. That is why they are outfitting this ship they want you to work on, the Cambridge . If you accept you may find yourself fighting for the Chinese kaafirs. Could you bring yourself to do this, my friend, with a whole heart?

Jodu’s smile grew wider. But why not? he said. Both sides are kaafirs: one worships idols and animals, like you Hindus do, and the other worships flag and machines. Of the two I would far prefer to fight for the Chinese.

Really? I said. Why?

It turned out that this was something that Jodu and his fellow Muslims had talked about at length in the prison at Nanhae. The prisoners from Muslim lands — Johore, Aceh and Java — had told the others about how the Europeans had taken control of their countries and how they wanted to grab still more.

The Chinese are the only ones who can resist the firinghees, said Jodu. The shaikh has told us that in a conflict between the Chinese and the Europeans it is the duty of Muslims to take the side of the Chinese.

The smouldering intensity in Jodu’s eyes removed whatever doubts I may have had of his sincerity. I told him that the Chinese were unsure of his loyalties; they thought it possible that he and his friends might go over to the British.

He laughed and said they need have no concern on this score. If they wanted he and the other lascars would be glad to to swear an oath at the maqbara of Shaikh Abu Waqqas.