Amitav Ghosh - Flood of Fire

‘Is he coming tomorrow?’ cried Shireen. ‘So soon?’

‘Yes, Bibiji,’ said Zadig, on a note of finality. ‘He will be here tomorrow morning; of course you need not meet with him, if you don’t wish to.’

Shireen passed a restless night and in the morning, when she saw Zadig on the quarter-deck, she was unable to conceal her misgivings: ‘Zadig Bey, I don’t know if it’s well-advised to meet with Freddie. What good can possibly come of it? I am beginning to feel that I made a mistake. I should not have set out to look for the boy just to indulge my curiosity.’

Zadig shook his head. ‘No, Bibiji. That is not why you have sought him out — it’s because only you can give this boy peace of mind. Only you can give him a sense of having a place in his father’s world. Very few women would have the courage to do what you are about to do, Bibiji. You must not flinch now.’

Shireen’s hands rose to her fluttering heart. ‘Oh but I’m afraid, Zadig Bey!’

‘Bibiji, you don’t have to go through with it if you don’t want to,’ said Zadig. ‘Why don’t you wait and see? I will say nothing to him until you give me a sign.’

So it was arranged between them that Shireen would watch from a distance while Zadig welcomed Freddie on board.

When Freddie’s lighter pulled up Zadig went down to the maindeck while Shireen hid herself in a corner above, on the quarterdeck. From the shelter of the balustrade she kept watch, veiled by a shawl, as Freddie stepped off the side-ladder and boarded the Hind .

He was trim in figure and of medium height, dressed in shabby European clothes: a fraying linen suit and a wide-brimmed hat. The sun was at such an angle that Shireen could not get a good look at his face, which was shaded by the hat. But then, as Zadig was leading him across the deck, they happened to run into Zachary, with whom Zadig had become acquainted in the course of the voyage. He stopped now to make introductions: ‘Mr Reid, this is my godson — Mr Freddie Lee.’

‘I am glad to meet you, Mr Lee,’ Shireen heard Zachary say as he stuck out his hand.

‘And I too, Mr Reid,’ Freddie responded. Looking a little flustered he took off his hat and held it to his chest; only now was Shireen able to get a proper look at his face.

He was skeletally thin, with sunken cheeks, hollow eyes and an unclipped beard — but none of this surprised Shireen. What startled her was that the cast of his countenance seemed completely Chinese, so much so that at first it seemed impossible that he could be Bahram’s son.

But then, as she looked on from above, Shireen slowly began to revise her first impression: the more she looked at Freddie’s face the more she saw echoes of Bahram’s — in his dark, heavy eyebrows, his full lips, and most of all, in his fine nose, with its hint of a curve. Then Freddie happened to smile — ‘You have never been in Singapore, eh Mr Reid? I would be glad to show you around, lah!’ — and for an instant it was as though she were looking at a long-ago version of Bahram himself. It amazed her now that she could have doubted for a minute that the boy was her husband’s son.

When Zadig’s eyes flickered in her direction she gave him a nod and went hurrying down to the passengers’ salon.

To her relief the salon was empty. She seated herself on a settee, facing the door, and removed the veil from her face.

Freddie entered the salon ahead of Zadig and, to Shireen’s astonishment, when their eyes met he gave her a smile and a nod, as if to say that he recognized her and knew who she was.

‘Freddie,’ said Zadig. ‘I want to introduce you to someone—’

Freddie cut him short. ‘There is no need, lah. I know who she is.’

Summoning a smile, Shireen patted the space beside her, on the settee.

‘Please … won’t you sit down?’

When he’d sat down, hat in hand, she pronounced his name experimentally — ‘Freddie’ — and extended her hand towards him. If he had put out his hand too she would perhaps have shaken it, but he didn’t, so her hand strayed towards his face and her fingertips skimmed over his eyebrows, touching his nose and chin — and suddenly it was as if Bahram had come alive and was sitting beside her. Her eyes flooded over and she pulled Freddie towards her so that his forehead sank on to her shoulder: she could tell that he too was sobbing now, just as she was.

When she looked at him again, his eyes were red and there was a kind of wildness in them: it was as if the curtains of adulthood had parted to give her a glimpse of a deep well of suffering that went back to his boyhood.

‘I’ve been waiting for you, lah,’ he said, almost on a note of accusation. ‘I was thinking when you would come, eh?’

‘But how could you know that I would come?’

He smiled. ‘Because my father tells me, ne? He always say you will come, before month of Hungry Ghosts.’

Here, seeing that Shireen had gone pale, Zadig signalled to Freddie to say no more. But Shireen would not let him stop. ‘Go on. Please. What else does your father say?’

A few minutes passed before Freddie spoke again. ‘He say that I must go with you. I must burn offerings for him and my mother, at his grave in Hong Kong.’

*

Zachary’s first impressions of Singapore were disappointing: from a distance the settlement had the appearance of a clearing in the jungle. Nor did it improve greatly on closer inspection: Boat Quay, where he had disembarked from the lighter that had brought him over from the Hind , was a muddy mess, and he had to scramble across a teetering bamboo jetty to get to the shore.

Yet, even though the port looked more like a fishing-village than a town, there was nothing sleepy about it. Stepping off the jetty, he was swept along by a crowd to an open crossroads that went by the name of Commercial Square. It was lined with saloons, shipchandling establishments, shops, brokerages, barbershops and the like.

Spotting a sign with ‘tiffin’ on it, Zachary went in and ordered some tea and mutton patties. While waiting to be served he picked up a copy of a paper that had been left behind by another customer. The paper was called the Singapore Chronicle and Zachary’s eyes went straight to a column that began: ‘In some quarters of this town, the retail price of a chest of the best Bengal opium has risen to 850 Spanish dollars.’

Zachary sat back, stunned. He had been led to expect that chests would fetch seven hundred dollars if he was lucky: this was a windfall!

Wolfing down his patties and draining his tea, he stepped outside, into the sunshine, and looked at the square with new eyes. How was it possible that a ramshackle place like this could pay such steep prices? It defied belief.

A touch on his elbow woke him from his reverie.

‘Good day, Mr Reid!’

Turning with a start, Zachary found himself face to face with the man he had met yesterday on the deck of the Hind — he could not immediately remember his name. He was dressed as he had been the day before, in a light linen suit.

‘Freddie Lee,’ said the man, extending his hand.

‘Hello, Mr Lee!’ said Zachary, giving his hand a shake. ‘Nice surprise to run into you here.’

‘Why surprise?’ said Freddie gruffly. ‘Singapore is a small place, ne? You have seen the town?’

‘No,’ said Zachary. ‘This is my first time ashore.’

‘Come — I show you around,’ said Freddie. ‘Small place; will not take long.’

Some instinct stirred within Zachary, making him hesitate. But then Freddie added: ‘Don’t worry, lah — you and I, soon we will be shipmates.’

‘Really? You’ll be travelling on the Hind ?’

‘Yes. My godfather, Mr Karabedian, he invite me share his cabin. I will go with all of you to China, lah.’