Amitav Ghosh - The Glass Palace

Dolly leant over the gunwale, shading her eyes. Matthew looked very distinguished, with a thick frosting of grey around his head. Elsa had grown a little matronly since their last meeting, but in a regal and quite imposing way. Timmy was standing beside her, tall for his age and as thin as a string bean. Alison was there too, wearing a schoolgirl’s frock, her hair braided into long pigtails. She was an unusual-looking girl, Dolly thought, her face an arresting blend of elements taken from both her parents: she had Matthew’s cheekbones and Elsa’s eyes; his silky hair and her upright carriage. It was clear that she would grow into a real beauty one day.

Matthew came on board and escorted them off the ship. They were all to spend the night in Georgetown and he had booked rooms in a hotel. Uma was due to arrive the next day and they were to drive to Morningside together. Matthew had brought two cars and a chauffeur: they were waiting at Butterworth, on the mainland.

The next morning, after breakfast, they walked together to the port, all seven of them. At the pier, they found themselves caught in a noisy throng. A large number of people had already gathered there, most of them Indians. Many were armed with flowers and garlands. At the head of this crowd stood two flamboyant and colourful figures, one a saffron-robed sadhu and the other a Sikh Giani, with a flowing beard and bushy white eyebrows. Neel, burly and assertive beyond his twenty years, pushed his way into the crowd to find out what the fuss was about. He came back looking puzzled.

‘I asked them what they were doing here and they said: we’ve come to greet Uma Dey.’

‘Do you think they mean our own Uma?’ Dolly said incredulously, to Elsa.

‘Yes, of course. There can’t be two Uma Deys on the same ship.’

Then the ship came into view and a cheer erupted from the crowd: ‘ Uma Dey zindabad, zindabad— long live, long live, Uma Dey.’ This was followed by other shouts and slogans, all in Hindustani: ‘ Inquilab zindabad ’ and ‘ halla bol, halla bol! ’ When the ship docked the crowd’s leaders went swarming up the gangplank, with garlands and marigolds. Then Uma appeared, at the head of the gangplank, and was met by a wild outburst of cheering: ‘ Uma Dey zindabad, zindabad! ’ For a while there was complete confusion.

Watching from the far end of the pier, Dolly could tell that Uma had been taken by surprise: she was evidently unprepared for the reception that had been accorded her and didn’t quite know how to respond. She was scanning the crowd, as though she were looking for someone in particular. Dolly raised an arm and waved. The gesture caught Uma’s eye and she waved back worriedly, sketching a gesture of helplessness. Dolly made a sign to reassure her — don’t worry, we’ll wait.

Then Uma was ushered down the gangplank and garlanded again. Several people made speeches while everyone stood sweating under the hot sun. Dolly tried hard to concentrate on what was being said, but her eyes kept straying back to her friend. She saw that Uma had grown gaunt and her eyes had retreated into deep hollows, as though in protest against a hectic and uncertain life. But at the same time, there was a new assurance about the way she carried herself. It was clear that she was accustomed to being listened to and when it was her turn to speak, Dolly noticed, with dawning awe, that Uma seemed to know exactly what to say and how to handle the crowd.

Then, abruptly, the speeches were over, and Uma was pushing her way through the crowd. Suddenly, she was standing in front of Dolly, her arms thrown open: such a long time! such a long time! They laughed and hugged and held on to each other while the children looked quizzically on, standing a little apart.

‘How well you look, Elsa! And your daughter — she’s a beauty!’

‘You look well too, Uma.’

Uma laughed. ‘You don’t have to lie to me. I look twice my age. .’

Dolly broke in, jogging her friend’s arm: ‘Who are these people, Uma? We were so surprised. .’

‘They belong to a group I’ve been working with,’ Uma said quickly. ‘A group called the Indian Independence League. I hadn’t told them I was coming here, but I suppose the word got out. .’

‘But what do they want, Uma? Why were they here?’

‘I’ll tell you later.’ Uma took hold of Dolly’s hand and stuck an arm through Elsa’s. ‘There’s so much to talk about and I don’t want to run out of time.’

In the afternoon they took the ferry to Butterworth where Matthew’s cars were waiting at the port, one of them longer than any that Dolly had ever seen, almost the size of a railway carriage. This was a Duesenberg Model J Tourster, Matthew explained. It had a hydraulic braking system and a 6.9 litre, straight-8 engine. It had chain-driven overhead camshafts and could do up to 90 m.p.h. in second gear. In top gear it could cruise at 116.

Matthew was keen to show the Duesenberg off to Neel and Dinu so they rode with him, along with Timmy and Alison. Dolly and Elsa followed more sedately, in the car that Matthew had given Elsa for her fiftieth birthday — a magnificent tan-and-gold Isotta-Fraschini Tipo 8A Berlina Transformabile with power-assisted brakes. The coachwork was by Castagna and the upholstery was of Florentine leather.

The Isotta-Fraschini headed north with the sun dipping low over the Andaman Sea and by the time they reached Sungei Pattani, it was almost dark. They began to climb the slopes of Gunung Jerai with the Isotta-Fraschini’s headlights shining into a fog of dust. Passing under the estate’s arched gateway they went speeding up a red, dirt track. Then the car turned a corner, and a mansion appeared ahead, springing dramatically out of the slope, with lamps blazing through its windows and doorways. A rounded turret formed the fulcrum of the house. Built around this were wide, sweeping verandas and a roof that curved gently upwards, in the Chinese style.

‘Morningside House,’ announced Elsa.

Dolly was dazzled. In the inky darkness, it looked as though an unreal brightness were pouring out of the house; that the light was welling up from some interior source of illumination, spilling out of the mountain on which it stood.

‘It’s magnificent, Elsa,’ Uma said. ‘There’s no other word for it. I think it’s possibly the most beautiful house I’ve ever seen. .’

Inside, the house was aglow with the rich warmth of polished wood. On their way down to dinner, both Dolly and Uma went astray in the long corridors, distracted by the many fine details of the interior: the floor was of intricate parquetry, and the walls were panelled with rich, fine-grained woods. Elsa came up to look for them and found them tapping the banister of the great stairway that wound through the centre of the house.

‘How beautiful this is.’

‘Do you like it?’ Elsa’s face lit up with pleasure. ‘When we were building Morningside, Matthew said one day: Everything I have, I owe to trees of one kind or another — teak, rubber. And I thought to myself, why that’s it: Morningside will be a monument to wood! I made Rajkumar send me the best teak from Burma; I sent people to the Celebes and Sumatra. You’ll notice that each room has wood of a different kind. .’

Elsa led them downstairs and ushered them into the dining room, which was very large, with a long, polished hardwood table running down the middle. The walls were lined with knitted bamboo and the lights that hung from the ceiling were set inside glowing nests of rattan. As they stepped in, Saya John rose from the table and came up to Dolly and Uma, walking slowly, with the help of a cane: he seemed smaller than before, and more gnome-like as though his body had shrunk in proportion to his head.