Amitav Ghosh - Sea of Poppies

Suddenly Captain Chillingworth bristled. 'Sorry?' His voice was emphatic enough to startle everyone. 'Why, no: I am not sorry in the least. I have seen enough of such things in my time; I can well do without another round of butchery.'

'Butchery?' The judge blinked in surprise. 'But Captain Chillingworth, I am sure there will be no more killing than is strictly necessary. There is always a price, is there not, for doing good?'

'"Good", sir?' said Captain Chillingworth, struggling to pull himself upright in his chair. 'I am not sure whose good you mean, theirs or ours? Though why I should include myself in your number I cannot think – heaven knows that very little good has come to me from my doings.'

Two bright spots of colour rose to the judge's cheeks as he absorbed this. 'Why, Captain,' he said sharply. 'You do credit neither to yourself nor to us. Is it your implication that no good will come of this expedition?'

'Oh it will, sir; there's no denying that.' Captain Chillingworth's words emerged very slowly, as if they had been pulled up from a deep well of bitterness. 'I am sure it will do a great deal of good for some of us. But I doubt I'll be of that number, or that many Chinamen will. The truth is, sir, that men do what their power permits them to do. We are no different from the Pharaohs or the Mongols: the difference is only that when we kill people we feel compelled to pretend that it is for some higher cause. It is this pretence of virtue, I promise you, that will never be forgiven by history.'

Here Mr Burnham intervened by placing his glass forcefully on the table. 'Well, gentlemen! We can't keep the ladies waiting till we've solved every problem in the world; it's time we joined them.'

An outburst of relieved laughter broke the awkwardness, and the men rose to their feet and began to file out. Zachary was the last through the door, and he stepped out to find the host waiting for him. 'You see, Reid,' Mr Burnham whispered, placing an arm around his shoulder; 'you see why I'm worried about the Captain's judgement? Much will depend on you, Reid.'

Zachary could not help being flattered. 'Thank you, sir,' he said. 'You can trust me to do my best.'

Mrs Doughty's eyes twinkled as she looked at Paulette, over the rim of her cup. 'Well, my dear!' she said. 'You've certainly worked a bit of jadoo tonight.'

'I pray your pardonne, Madame?'

'Oh, don't think you can play the gull with me!' cried Mrs Doughty, wagging a finger. 'I'm sure you noticed, didn't you?'

'Noticed what, Madame? I do not follow.'

'Didn't you dekko? How he wouldn't touch his ortolans and hardly tasted the foogath? Such a waste! Asked ever so many questions too.'

'Who, Madame?' said Paulette. 'Of whom do you speak?'

'Why, Justice Kendalbushe, of course: you've certainly scored quite a hit there! Couldn't take his eyes off you.'

'Justice Kendalbushe!' cried Paulette in alarm. 'Did I do something wrong Madame?'

'No, you silly bandar,' said Mrs Doughty, tweaking her ear. 'Not at all. But I'm sure you noticed, didn't you, how he jawaub'd the dumbpoke and sniffed at the peacock? It's always a sign, I say, when a man won't eat. I can tell you, dear, he was all a-chafe every time you turned to talk to Mr Reid!' She went prattling on, leaving Paulette ever more convinced that the judge had spotted her using the wrong fork or an inappropriate knife, and was sure to report the solecism to Mrs Burnham.

To make things worse, when the door opened to admit the men, the judge headed straight over to Paulette and Mrs Doughty and proceeded to deliver a homily on the subject of gluttony. Paulette pretended to listen although all her senses were focused on Zachary's unseen presence, somewhere behind her. But between Mrs Doughty and the Captain, there was no getting away until the evening was all but over. It was only when the guests were taking their leave that Paulette was able to speak with Zachary again. Despite her efforts to remain collected, she found herself saying, with much greater vehemence than she had intended: 'You will look after him, won't you – my Jodu?'

To her surprise, he answered with an intensity that seemed to match her own. 'You can be sure I will,' he said. 'And should there be anything else I can do, Miss Lambert, you need only ask.'

'You must be careful, Mr Reid,' said Paulette, playfully. 'With a name like Zikri you may be held to your word.'

'And gladly too, Miss,' said Zachary. 'You can call on me for sure.'

Paulette was touched by the sincerity of his tone. 'Oh Mr Reid!' she cried. 'You have already done too much.'

'What have I done?' he said. 'I've done nothing, Miss Lambert.'

'You have kept my secret,' she whispered. 'Perhaps you cannot conceive what that means in this world I live in? Look around you, Mr Reid: do you see anyone here who would for a moment believe that a memsahib could think of a native – a servant – as a brother? No: the worst possible imputations would be ascribed.'

'Not by me, Miss Lambert,' said Zachary. 'You can be sure of that.'

'Really?' she said, looking him full in the eyes. 'It does not seem uncroyable to you that a bond so intimate and yet so innocent should exist between a white girl and a boy of another race?'

'Not at all, Miss Lambert – why, I myself…' Zachary suddenly began to cough into his fist, cutting himself short. 'I assure you, Miss Lambert, I know of many, much stranger things.'

Paulette sensed that he had something to add, but now there was a sudden interruption, caused by a thunderous detonation. In the awkward silence that followed, nobody glanced in the direction of Mr Doughty, who was examining the knob of his cane with an air of pretended nonchalance. It fell to Mrs Doughty to make an attempt to retrieve the situation. 'Ah!' she cried, clapping her hands cheerily together. 'The wind is rising and we must make sail. Anchors aweigh! We must be off!'

Many days passed with no word being received about when exactly Neel was to be moved to the jail at Alipore, where convicts were usually sent to await transportation. In the mean-while, although he was allowed to remain in his former apartment at Lalbazar, the change in his circumstances was made evident to him in dozens of different ways. No longer was he allowed visitors at all times, and days went by when he met with no one at all; the constables who stood guard at his door no longer exerted themselves to provide him with diversions; their manner, once obsequious, now became gruff and surly; at night they took to chaining his doors and he was not allowed to leave his rooms without shackles on his wrists. No longer was he waited on by his own servants, and when he complained of an accumulation of dust in his rooms, the constable on guard answered by asking if he would like to be brought a jharu, so he could do the job for himself. If it were not for the mockery in the man's voice, Neel might have said yes, but instead he shook his head: It's just a few days more, isn't it?

Yes, said the guard, with a guffaw of laughter. And after that you'll be off to your in-laws' palace, in Alipore. You'll be nicely looked after over there – nothing to worry about.

For a short while more, Neel's food continued to come from the Raskhali palace, but then, abruptly, it stopped. Instead, he was handed a wooden basin, a tapori of the kind that was used to serve all the lock-up's inmates: looking under the lid he saw that it contained a gruel-like mixture of dal and coarse rice. 'What's this?' he asked the constable, and was answered by nothing more than a negligent shrug.

He took the basin inside, placed it on the floor and walked away, resolving to ignore it. But in a while hunger drove him back and he seated himself cross-legged beside the basin and removed the lid. The contents had congealed into a grey slop and the smell made him gag, but he forced himself to scoop up a few grains with his fingertips. As he was raising his hand to his lips, it occurred to him that this was the first time in all his years that he had ever eaten something that was prepared by hands of unknown caste. Perhaps it was this thought, or perhaps it was just the smell of the food – it happened, at any rate, that he was assailed by a nausea so powerful that he could not bring his fingers to his mouth. The intensity of his body's resistance amazed him: for the fact was that he did not believe in caste, or so at least he had said, many, many times, to his friends and anyone else who would listen. If, in answer, they accused him of having become too tãsh , overly Westernized, his retort was always to say, no, his allegiance was to the Buddha, the Mahavira, Shri Chaitanya, Kabir and many others such – all of whom had battled against the boundaries of caste with as much determination as any European revolutionary. Neel had always taken pride in laying claim to this lineage of egalitarianism, all the more so since it was his prerogative to sit on a Raja's guddee: but why, then, had he never before eaten anything prepared by an unknown hand? He could think of no answer other than ease of habit: because he had always done what was expected of him; because the legion of people who controlled his daily existence had seen to it that it happened in that way and no other. He had thought of his everyday routines as a performance, a duty and nothing more; one of the many little enactments that were required by the demands of a social existence, by samsara – none of it was meant to be real; it was just an illusion, no more than a matter of playing a part in the great charade of conducting a householder's life. And yet there was nothing unreal about the nausea that had seized him now; it was not an illusion that his body was convulsed by a sensation of ghrina , a stomach-clenching revulsion that made him recoil from the wooden container in front of him.