Amitav Ghosh - Flood of Fire

In the midst of all this, Zachary had forgotten about his letter to Paulette. It was Baboo Nob Kissin who reminded him: ‘And the letter for Miss Lambert? Better to give now since I will weigh anchors early tomorrow.’

‘Here it is,’ said Zachary, handing it over. ‘Please give it to Miss Lambert with my compliments.’

‘Do not fear, dear sir; it will arrive with blessings-message.’

‘And have a good voyage, Baboo.’

‘You too, Master Zikri — the Hind will come to Calcutta soon. It will not be long before we are reunited in China.’

‘I guess. Goodbye, Baboo.’

After the carriage had rolled away, Zachary turned to the boy and raised an eyebrow: ‘What the hell am I going to do with you, kid-mutt?’

With a cheerful smile the boy said: ‘Don’t worry, sir. There will be no problem.’

Surprised by his fluency Zachary said: ‘Say, kid-mutt — where’d you learn English?’

The boy answered without hesitation: ‘My father was a khid-matgar in an English house, sir; they taught us.’

‘Did a good job too. You’d better take your things inside.’

Now again the boy surprised Zachary, because he seemed to know exactly where to go.

‘Hey, kid-mutt — you ever been on this boat before?’

‘Why no, sir,’ said Raju quickly. ‘Never. But I have been on other budgerows.’

Zachary was glad to hear this. ‘Good. So you’ll be able to look after yourself then?’

‘Yes I will, sir. Please don’t worry about me. I will manage.’

The boy was as good as his word. Zachary saw no more of him till the next morning, when he went up to the budgerow’s upper deck to watch the Ibis setting off for China, with a steam-tug towing her downriver.

Raju was already there and they both waved as the Ibis sailed by.

Afterwards Zachary noticed that Raju had a paper kite in his hands.

‘Hey, where’d you find that, kid-mutt?’

‘It was in my cabin, sir,’ said the boy. ‘Someone had hidden it under the bunk.’

*

Within a day of leaving Bombay, the Hind ran into choppy weather. Many of the passengers were prostrated by sea-sickness but Shireen was an exception. On Rosa’s advice she chewed on a piece of fresh ginger and experienced no discomfort. The next day, heeding Rosa again, she changed into ‘English’ clothes. In practical terms the difference was not as great as she had been led to expect — but yes, she had to admit that her plain-cut black dress was indeed a little easier to manage than her sari had been. She was able to take several turns around the deck and the air was so exhilarating that she was loath to go back inside. After that, whenever the sun was up and the ship was not pitching too wildly she would step outside to pace the deck. She loved the feel of the wind in her hair and the touch of spindrift on her face.

The coast of northern Ceylon appeared off the Hind’ s port bow after five days at sea. No sooner had the island been sighted than a strange fear took hold of Shireen: she began to wonder whether Zadig Bey would indeed join the ship as he had promised. There were no grounds for this concern — Vico had assured her that Zadig Bey was a man of his word — but somehow Shireen persuaded herself that something would go wrong and he wouldn’t appear.

When Colombo was sighted she hurried up to the quarter-deck, hoping to get a glimpse of the city. But a disappointment was in store: it turned out that Colombo, for all its fame as a port, did not have a proper harbour; ships had to anchor at a roadstead, well out to sea. That was where they were provisioned and unloaded, by flotillas of bumboats, bandar-craft and lighters.

All that Shireen could see of the city was a distant smudge, and this too fuelled her anxiety. She stayed on deck, scanning the waters, examining every bandar-boat that approached the ship — and it was not till she spotted Zadig Bey, sitting in the prow of a lighter, that her fears were finally set at rest.

Now Shireen became anxious about what people would think if they knew that her rendezvous with Zadig had been pre-arranged. She retreated quickly to her stateroom and did not emerge again until later in the day. When she ran into Zadig she feigned surprise, and to her great relief he responded in kind: ‘Is that you, Bibiji? How amazing! What a coincidence!’

Later, when they were taking a turn around the maindeck, she thanked him for humouring her but he shrugged her words off with a laugh. ‘I assure you, Bibiji — I was not pretending. My surprise was real.’

‘But why?’ she said. ‘You knew I would be on this ship, didn’t you?’

‘Well frankly, I wasn’t sure you would go through with it, Bibiji,’ said Zadig. ‘And besides I didn’t expect to find you looking so much at home here — walking around without a veil, dressed like a memsahib and smiling at everyone.’

She blushed and quickly changed the subject, asking him if he had received any more news from China.

‘Yes, Bibiji,’ said Zadig with a smile. ‘I had written to a friend of mine in Macau, asking him to find a place for you to rent. I received a letter from him a few days ago: you will be glad to know that he has found a nice house for you, in the centre of town.’

‘Really? And who is this friend?’

‘His name is Robin Chinnery, Bibiji.’

‘Does he live in Macau?’

‘He used to, but of late he has been helping some botanist friends with their nursery, at Hong Kong.’

After that, when the Hind set sail again, Shireen and Zadig began to take their walks together, on deck. One day Zadig said: ‘Do you know, Bibiji, this is how your late husband and I became friends? We used to walk together on the deck of a ship, the Cuffnells . Bahram-bhai loved to promenade on deck.’

Shireen had no inkling of this. It seemed unfair to her that Zadig should know so much about her husband and her family when she knew next to nothing about him.

‘Tell me about Colombo, Zadig Bey,’ she said. ‘Are your children there too? Your family?’

Zadig fell in step beside her, with his hands clasped behind his back. ‘Yes, Bibiji, my son and daughter live in Colombo too. They are both married, with children of their own — they are all I have by way of family.’

A few more steps brought them to the starboard deck-rails where they stopped to look towards the horizon. Then Zadig cleared his throat awkwardly: ‘Actually, Bibiji … what I said is not true. In Egypt, where I was born, I have another family … and other children.’

For a moment Shireen thought she had misheard. ‘Another family? I don’t understand. Do you mean you had been married before?’

‘Yes, Bibiji — but it’s not so simple.’

‘Then?’

‘Bibiji — what happened is this. I was married off very young, to my cousin. The marriage was arranged within the family, mainly for reasons of business. It did not work out very well, although my wife and I had two sons and a daughter. I was always travelling, because of my work — and it happened that while passing through Colombo once I met Hilda. She was a widow, a Catholic. I began to spend more time in Colombo, and then my son was born.’

Shireen gasped, and her hand flew to her mouth. ‘So this woman in Colombo — she was not your wife …?’

‘She was my common-law wife, Bibiji. But in time it was she who became the woman to whom I felt I was really married.’

‘And your real wife? What became of her? Was she … abandoned?’

‘No, Bibiji!’ Zadig protested. ‘It wasn’t like that. In Cairo we lived in the midst of many relatives, in the family compound — just as you do in Bombay. My wife was not alone — and I settled most of my property on her, and on our children. She was well looked after.’