Amitav Ghosh - The Glass Palace

‘But that’s monstrous,’ Uma cried.

‘Not at all.’ The Collector’s eyes narrowed. ‘It’s merely judicious. Do you think Burma would be well served by political trouble? Do you think this man Raha would have been able to get rich if Thebaw were still ruling? Why, if it were not for the British, the Burmese would probably have risen up against these Indian businessmen and driven them out like sheep.’

Uma knew she would not be able to best the Collector in an argument. She lowered her voice and placed a hand on his arm.

‘You know,’ she said, ‘it’s not for the King’s sake, or even my uncle’s that I’m asking you this.’

‘Then why?’

Uma hesitated.

‘Tell me.’

‘It’s because of Dolly.’

‘Dolly?’

‘She’s lived here all her life, as a virtual prisoner, and she can’t imagine anything other than the life she has. But she’ll have to leave Outram House some day, and where is she to go? She’s forgotten about Burma and I think she needs to talk to people who can remind her of it.’

‘Dolly can go back to Burma whenever she wants.’

‘But she doesn’t have any family in Burma and she doesn’t know anyone there. That’s exactly why she needs to meet people who live there.’

The Collector fell silent and Uma sensed that he was beginning to relent. ‘It’s such a small thing,’ she prompted. ‘I’m sure there’s a solution.’

‘All right then,’ he said at last, on a note of exasperation. ‘Since it means so much to you I suppose there is one thing I could do.’

‘What?’

‘I could invite this Raha here as my personal guest. I could say he’s a relative by marriage. And then, if he were to pay a visit to Outram House, it would be just a private visit— nothing official

‘I’d be so glad. .’

The very next morning a telegram was dispatched to Uma’s uncle in Rangoon, to tell him that his friend, Mr Raha, was welcome to visit Ratnagiri; he would be received as the Collector’s personal guest.

Within moments of the steamer’s arrival, word went out along the waterfront that there was a rich prince on board, one Rajkumar, a foreigner who was very free with his money. An uproar ensued: coolies and porters laid siege to the gangplank; idlers drifted in from the shaded shoreline and gathered on the beach.

Rajkumar was still asleep in his cabin when the steamer docked. It was U Ba Kyaw who woke him. It was Rajkumar’s practice to bring a number of his people with him, when he was travelling abroad. This was his way of protecting himself from the pitfalls of his new circumstances. This particular journey had induced apprehensions of a novel kind and as a result his retinue was even larger than usual. Along with a stenographer and an accountant he had also brought U Ba Kyaw, his most trusted employee.

Rajkumar sent U Ba Kyaw ahead to distract the crowd and then slipped quickly off the steamer. There were two carriages waiting at the far end of the jetty: one was from the Residency. The Collector was out of town that morning, but he had left careful instructions on how the visitor was to be received. Kanhoji was to drive him to the Dak Bungalow where he was to stay. In the evening he was to dine at the Residency.

The other carriage at the jetty was the Outram House phaeton. Along with Kanhoji, Sawant was leaning on a rail, watching the uproar on the jetty. Both men were taken by surprise when Rajkumar was pointed out to them. Of all the party he looked the least likely to be the man whom Kanhoji had been sent to meet.

After dropping Rajkumar at the Dak Bungalow, Kanhoji headed back to the Residency to give Uma a full account of the uproar at the jetty. His report was unsparingly detailed: he told Uma about the half-chewed cheroot in Rajkumar’s mouth, the dishevelled untidiness of his attire, his crumpled longyi, his greasy vest and his uncombed hair. Uma was left with a sense of lingering unease. Was it prudent to invite someone like this to dinner? What exactly did he eat?

In a striking departure from custom, the Collector had entrusted the organising of the evening’s meal to Uma. Usually it was he who oversaw the Residency’s entertaining. Although otherwise uninterested in domestic matters, he was very particular about his dinner parties: he liked to examine the table and the place settings personally, tweaking the flowers and pointing out the plates and glasses that needed another round of polishing. It was to him that the servants went for their instructions on what to serve and which dinner service to use.

That morning when the khansama came to enquire about the menu, Uma had been taken by surprise. Thinking quickly, she told him to serve exactly what he had served the week before, when the Director of Public Education came to dinner. She remembered shepherd’s pie and fried fish and blancmange.

‘I want all of that tonight,’ she’d told the cook, ‘ekdum woh hi cheez .’ Then, on an impulse she wrote a note to the Anglo-Indian Superintendent of Police, Mr Wright, asking him to come to dinner, with his wife. She had already asked Mr Justice Naidu and Mrs Naidu — an elderly couple, unfailingly pleasant, undemanding. And of course Dolly was to come too: that had been arranged long before.

As evening approached, Uma tried to recall everything the Collector did before a dinner party. For once, she told herself, she would be a good memsahib. She went to the dining room and fussed with the plates and forks and flowers. But when the Collector came home, she discovered that she might as well have spared herself the effort. The Collector was plainly unimpressed. After stepping into the dining room to inspect her handiwork, he emerged with an unspoken rebuke on his face.

‘The fish-knives weren’t in the proper place,’ he said. ‘And there was dust on the wine glasses. .’ He made her go back to rearrange everything. ‘I’ll come back again later to check.’

Waiting for the guests to arrive, Uma sat by a window, her hands folded in her lap like a chastened schoolgirl. Perhaps it was a mistake, this dinner party, inviting Dolly to meet this stranger. Perhaps even her own presence here was a mistake. This was a thought that had never occurred to her before, but its chill shadow lengthened quickly in her mind. Was this what they called a premonition?

‘Madame. .’

It was the Naidus, grey-haired, tall, brimming with soft-voiced goodwill. ‘How nice. .’ And then in came the Wrights, with Dolly following a few minutes later.

Rajkumar was the last to arrive. Rising to greet him, Uma found that her first impressions were unexpectedly favourable. Looking over her folded hands, she noted that he had gone to some trouble to dress neatly and plainly, in ‘English’ clothes: a sober black suit, a carefully knotted tie. His pumps were polished to a fine sheen and in his hands he was carrying a malacca cane with a handle of delicately carved jade. He looked much older than she’d expected: his face was weathered with hard use and his lips were heavy and richly coloured, very red against his dark skin. Along the line of his jaw there was a fold of flesh that hinted at jowls to come. He was far from good-looking, but there was something arresting about him, a massiveness of construction, allied with an unlikely mobility of expression — as though life had been breathed into a wall of slate.

Glancing over her shoulder, Uma spotted Dolly sitting half-hidden behind the scrolled arm of a chaise-longue. She was wearing a mauve htamein and an aingyi of white silk. A lily glowed like a light against the black sheen of her hair.