"Sea of Poppies" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ghosh Amitav)

PART II. River

Eight

Once the Ibis had been berthed, Zachary and Serang Ali opened the account books and paid the crew their accumulated addlings. Many of the lascars disappeared immediately into the gullies of Kidderpore, with their copper and silver coins carefully hidden in the folds of their clothing. Some would never see the Ibis again, but some were back in a matter of days, having been robbed or cheated, or having squandered their earnings in toddyshacks and knockingdens – or having discovered, simply, that life ashore was far more attractive when you were at sea than when your feet were a-trip on the slick turf of lubber-land.

It would be some time yet before the Ibis could be accommodated at the Lustignac dry docks in Kidderpore, where she was to be repaired and refurbished. During the time she was moored in the river, only a skeleton crew remained on board, along with Zachary and Serang Ali. Although shrunken in size, the crew continued to function much as at sea, being divided into two pors, or watches, each of which was headed by a tindal; as at sea, each por was on deck for four hours at a stretch, except during the chhota-pors, which were the two-hour dogwatches of dawn and dusk. The safety of port came at the price of an increased risk of pilferage and theft, so there was no slackening in the vigilance required of the por; nor was there any easing in the pace of work on board, for there were inventories to be made, inspections to be completed and most of all, a great deal of cleaning to be done. Serang Ali made no secret of his view that a sailor who would send his ship untended to the dry dock was worse than the worst shorebound scum, worse than a ma-chowdering pimp.

Gali was one domain of the Laskari tongue in which no one could outdo the serang: in no small measure was it because of the fluency of his swearing that Jodu held him in unbounded respect. It was a matter of great disappointment to him that his regard was entirely unreciprocated.

Jodu knew well enough that freshwater-jacks like himself were held in contempt by ocean-going lascars: often, while rowing past some towering three-master, he had looked up to see a grinning seacunny or kussab shouting taunts, calling him a stick-man – a dandi-wálá – and spinning out insults about the uses to which sticks could be put. For taunts and jibes, Jodu was well-prepared and would even have been glad of, but the serang would allow no familiarities between him and the other lascars: indeed he lost no opportunity to make it clear that he had taken Jodu into the crew against his will and would prefer to see him gone. If he had to be put up with, at Zachary's insistence, then it would only be as a topas, the lowliest of lascars – a sweeper, to scrub piss-dales, clean heads, wash utensils, scour the decks and the like. To make things as unpleasant as possible, he even made Jodu saw his jharu in half: the shorter the broom, he said, the cleaner the work – this way you'll be so close to the droppings you'll know what the tatti was made of when it went in the mouth. On the serang's right foot, there was a single, carefully tended toenail, a half-inch in length and filed to a sharp point. When Jodu was on all fours, scouring the deck, the serang would sometimes steal up to kick him: Chal sálá! You think it hurts to be spiked in the stern? Be glad it's not a cannon up your gundeck.

During his first weeks on the Ibis, the serang would not allow Jodu to go below for any reason other than to clean the heads: even at night, he had to sleep on deck. This was a problem only when it rained, which didn't happen often – at other times, Jodu was by no means the only hand to be looking for the 'softest plank on deck'. It was thus that he was befriended by Roger Cecil David, known as Rajoo-launder to his shipmates. Tall and thin, Rajoo had the upright mien of a tent-pole, and a complexion that almost matched the tarry tint of the schooner's masts. Having been raised in a succession of Christian missions, he liked to wear shirts and trowsers, and was often to be seen in a cloth cap – not for him the lungis and bandhnas of the other lascars. These were ambitious tastes for a ship-launder, and they earned him much derision – not least because his garments were patched together from scraps of sailcloth. The joke about him, in short, was that he was the schooner's third dol – a human mizzen-mast – and his forays into the ringeen were often accompanied by much hilarity, with the foretopmen vying with each other to make cracks at his expense. The possibilities of suggestion here were very rich, for unlike sailors elsewhere, lascars often spoke of their ships in the masculine, referring to the vessels' masts as their manhood – the word for which was much the same as the commonly used term for 'ship's-boy', with but a syllable removed.

… lundto yahã, par launda kahã…?

… here's the prick, but where's the pricker…?

… lowering his canvas…

… waiting for a blow…

Rajoo, for his part, would have been overjoyed to give up his place among the foretopmen – not only because of their jokes, but also because he had no head for heights and was always queasy while aloft. It was his fond ambition to move off the yards, into some position such as mess-boy, steward, or cook, where his feet would be firmly planted on deck. Since Jodu, on the other hand, wanted nothing more than to be up on the foremast with the trikat-wale, they quickly decided to put their heads together, to make the exchange come about.

It was Rajoo who took Jodu through the cramped companionway that led to the fo'c'sle, where the lascars' hammocks were hung. The lascars' word for this space was faná, or hood, as in the outspread crown of a cobra – for if a ship were to be thought of as a sinuous, living creature, then the head was the exact part to which the fana would correspond, being tucked between the bows, below the main deck and above the cutwater, just aft of the fang of the bowsprit. Although he had never before set foot on the exalted precincts of an ocean-going vessel, Jodu was familiar with the word fana, and had often wondered what it would be like to live and sleep inside the skull of the great living creature that was a ship. To be a fana-wala – a fo'c'sleman of the hood – and to live above the taliyamar, forging through the oceans, was the stuff of his dreams: but in the sight that met his eyes now, as he entered the fana, there was nothing of wonder, and certainly no trace of the fabled jewels of a cobra's crown. The fana was airless, hot and dark, with no source of lighting except a single oil-lamp hanging on a hook; in the glow of the sputtering flame, it seemed to Jodu that he had tumbled into some musty cave that was densely festooned with cobwebs – for everywhere he looked there was a webbing of hammocks, hanging in double rows, suspended between wooden beams. The cramped, shallow space had the form of an elliptical triangle, with sides that curved inwards to meet at the bows. In height, it was not quite as tall as a full-grown man, yet the hammocks were hung one above another, no more than sixteen regulation inches apart, so that every man's nose was inches away from a solid barrier: either the ceiling or an arse. Strange to think that these hanging beds were called 'jhulis', as if they were swings, like those given to brides or infants; to hear the word said was to imagine yourself being rocked gently to sleep by a ship's motion – but to see them strung up in front of you, like nets in a pond, was to know that your dreaming hours would be spent squirming like a trapped fish, fighting for space to breathe.

Jodu could not resist climbing into one of the jhulis – but only to leap out again when he caught a noseful of its odour, which consisted not just of the stench of bodies, but of the accumulated smell of sleep itself, compounded of the reek of unwashed bedding, hair-oil, soot, and several months'-worth of dribbles, trickles, leaks, spurts and farts. As luck would have it, the next job to which he was set was that of scrubbing and washing the hammocks: so thoroughly were the jhulis steeped in soot and grime that it seemed to Jodu that not all the water of the Ganga would clean them of the sweat and sin of their former occupants. And when at last the job seemed done, the serang clipped him on the ear, and made him start all over again: Call that clean, do you, you tatter-arsed plugtail of a launder? Many a backslit is cleaner than this.

With his nose in the grime, Jodu yearned to leap up into the ringeen, to be with the trikat-wale, chatting in the crosstrees – not for nothing did lascars call that lofty chair a 'kursi', for that was where they went when they chose to lounge at ease, cooled by the breeze. How wasted was this privilege on Rajoo-launder, who never made use of it – and yet for him, Jodu, to so much as glance aloft was to risk a stinging blow from the serang's foot. To think of all the years he'd spent learning to tell one mast from another, one sail from the next – the kalmí from the dráwal, the dastúr from the sawái – all that effort and knowledge wasted while he squatted by the scuppers, washing a fana-ful of jhulis.

Unpleasant though it was, the task had one fortunate consequence: with the fana emptied of its jhulis, all its occupants now had to sleep on the main deck. This was no great trial, for the weather was growing ever hotter, in anticipation of the coming monsoons, and it was better to be out in the open, even if it meant sleeping on wood. What was more, the fresh air seemed to have the effect of loosening everyone's tongue, and the lascars often gossiped late into the night as they lay under the stars.

Serang Ali never joined in these sessions: along with the steward, the silmagoor, the seacunnies, and a few others, he had his quarters not in the fana but the deckhouse. But the serang kept himself aloof, even from the other inhabitants of the deckhouse. This was only partly because he was, by nature, a crusty and unforgiving disciplinarian (no shortcoming in the eyes of the lascars, none of whom liked to serve with serangs who were excessively familiar or played at favourites): the serang stood apart also because of his origins, which were obscure even to those who had served with him longest. But this again was not unusual, for many of the lascars were itinerants and vagrants, who did not care to speak too much about their past; some didn't even know where their origins lay, having been sold off as children to the ghat-serangs who supplied lascars to ocean-going vessels. These riverside crimps cared nothing about who their recruits were and where they came from; all hands were the same to them, and their gangs would kidnap naked urchins from the streets and bearded sadhus from ashrams; they would pay brothel-keepers to drug their clients and thugs to lie in wait for unwary pilgrims.

Yet, varied as they were, most of the lascars on the Ibis knew themselves to be from one part or another of the subcontinent. The serang was one of the few exceptions: if asked, he would always say that he was a Muslim from the Arakan, a Rohingya, but there were those who claimed that he had served his launder-hood with a Chinese crew. That he was fluent in Chinese was soon common knowledge, and was regarded as a blessing, for it meant that often, of an evening, the serang would take himself off to the Chinese quarters of Calcutta 's docklands, leaving the lascars free to make merry on board.

At times when both Serang Ali and Zachary were gone the Ibis was a vessel transformed: someone would be sent aloft to watch for their return, and someone else would be dispatched to fetch a pitcher or two of arrack or doasta; then the whole lashkar would gather, on deck or in the fana, to sing, drink and pass around a few chillums. If there was no ganja at hand, they would burn a few shavings of sailcloth, which was, after all, made from the same plant that had given canvas its name and provided something of a cannabis savour.

The two tindals – Babloo-tindal and Mamdoo-tindal – had served together since their launder-hood: they were as devoted as a pair of nesting cranes although they were from places far apart, one being a Cooringhee Hindu and the other a Shia Muslim from Lucknow. Babloo-tindal, whose face was pitted with the scars of a childhood duel with smallpox, had a quick pair of hands and a knack for beating out rhythms on the backs of metal pots and khwanchas; Mamdoo-tindal was tall and lissom and when the mood was on him he would doff his lungi and banyan and change into a sari, choli and dupatta; with kohl in his eyes and brass rings dangling from his ears, he would assume his other identity, which was that of a silver-heeled dancer who went by the name of Ghaseeti-begum. This character had a complicated life of her own, strewn with heart-breaking flirtations, sparkling exchanges of wit and many besetting sorrows – but it was for her dancing that Ghaseeti-begum was best known, and her performances in the fana were such that few among the crew ever felt the need to visit a shoreside nautchery: why pay on land for what was free on board?

Sometimes, the lascars would gather between the bows to listen to the stories of the greybeards. There was the steward, Cornelius Pinto: a grey-haired Catholic from Goa, he claimed to have been around the world twice, sailing in every kind of ship, with every kind of sailor – including Finns, who were known to be the warlocks and wizards of the sea, capable of conjuring up winds with a whistle. There was Cassem-meah, who, as a young man, had gone to London as a shipowner's dress-boy, and had spent six months living in the Cheapside boarding house where lascars were lodged: his tales of the taverns set everyone afire for those shores. There was Sunker, a wizened man-boy of indeterminate age, with bandy legs and the sad face of a chained monkey: he had been born into a family of high-caste landlords, he claimed, but a vengeful servant had kidnapped him and sold him to a ghat-serang. Then there was Simba Cader, of Zanzibar, who was deaf in one ear: he was the oldest of all of them, and claimed to have lost his eardrum while serving on an English man-o'-war; when primed with a few swallows of doasta, he would tell of the terrible battle in which his eardrums had been punctured by a cannon-blast. He would speak of it as if it had really happened, with hundreds of ships unloosing cannonades at each other – but the lascars were too wise to give any credence to these entertaining tales: for who could be so foolish as to believe that some great battle had really been fought at a place called 'Three-fruit-house' – Tri-phal-ghar?

Dearly would Jodu have liked to be fully of this contingent, to be assigned to a watch and to find a place on the yardarms aloft – but Serang Ali would have none of it, and on the only occasion when Jodu mentioned his ambition, he was answered with a kick in the buttocks: This is the only part of you that's going to be up on that mast, with the laddu in your scuppers.

It was Steward Pinto, who had seen everything there was to be seen on a ship, who gave Jodu an inkling of why the serang had taken against him. It's because of the young memsahib, said the steward. The Serang-ji has plans for the malum and he's afraid that she's going to lead him off course.

What plans?

Who knows? But this much is for sure, he doesn't want anything to get in the malum's way, least of all a girl.

A few days later, almost as if to confirm the steward's suggestion, Jodu was summoned to the capstan for a talk with Zikri Malum. The malum seemed somewhat ill at ease, and it was in a rather gruff voice that he asked: 'You know Miss Lambert well, boy?'

Drawing on his limited supply of hookums, Jodu answered: 'Fore and aft, sir!'

This appeared to offend the malum, who responded sharply: 'Hey there! Is that any way to talk about a lady?'

'Sorry, sir. Hard-a-weather!'

Since this was going nowhere, the malum decided, to Jodu's horror, to call upon Serang Ali to translate. Squirming under the serang's narrow-eyed gaze, Jodu veered sharp about, providing laconic answers to the malum's questions, doing all he could to suggest that he knew Miss Lambert hardly at all, having merely been a servant in her father's house.

He breathed a sigh of relief when Serang Ali turned away from him to report to the mate: 'Launder say father-blongi-she go hebbin. That bugger do too muchi tree-pijjin. Allo time pickin plant. Inside pocket hab no cash. After he go hebbin cow-chilo catchi number-two-father, Mr Burnham. Now she too muchi happy inside. Eat big-big rice. Better Malum Zikri forgetting she. How can learn sailor-pijjin, allo time thinking ladies-ladies? More better keep busy with laund'ry till marriage time.'

The malum took unexpected umbrage at this. 'Hell and scissors, Serang Ali!' he cried, springing to his feet. 'Don you never think of nothin but knob-knockin and gamahoochie?'

The malum went stalking off, in exasperation, and as soon as he was out of sight, the serang dealt Jodu's ear a vicious little clip: Trying to hitch him to a bride, are you? I'll see you dead first, you little holemonger…

When told of this encounter, the steward shook his head in puzzlement. The way the serang carries on, he said, you'd think he was trying to save the malum for a daughter of his own.

Both Deeti and Kalua knew that their best chance of escape lay in travelling downriver, on the Ganga, in the hope of reaching a town or city where they would be able to disappear into a crowd: some place such as Patna perhaps, or even Calcutta. Although Patna was by far the nearer of the two cities, it was still a good ten days' journey away, and to cover the distance by road would be to risk being recognized: news of their flight was sure to have spread by this time, and in the event of capture, they knew they could expect no mercy, even from their own kin. Caution demanded that they keep to the water, continuing their journey on Kalua's makeshift raft for as long as it was able to bear their weight. Fortunately, there was enough driftwood on the riverbank to buttress the bamboos, and plenty of rushes from which to fashion lengths of rope; after spending a day on repairing and reinforcing the flimsy craft, they set off again, floating eastwards on the river.

Two days later they were within sight of the dwelling where Kabutri was now living with the family of Deeti's absent brother. Once having spotted the house, it was impossible for Deeti to proceed any further without making an attempt to meet her daughter. She knew that a meeting with Kabutri would be, at best, a brief, stolen encounter, requiring much stealth and patience, but being familiar with the terrain, she was confident of being able to stay hidden until she found her alone.

Deeti's childhood home – now inhabited by her brother's family – was a straw-thatched dwelling that overlooked a confluence where the Ganga was joined by a lesser river, the Karamnasa. As witnessed by its name – 'destroyer of karma' – this tributary of the holy river had an unfortunate reputation: it was said that the touch of its water could erase a lifetime of hard-earned merit. The two rivers – the holy Ganga and its karma-negating tributary – were equidistant from Deeti's old home, and she knew that the women of the household preferred to go to the more auspicious of the two when they needed to bathe or fetch water. It was on the shores of the Ganga that she chose to wait, leaving Kalua a mile upriver with the raft.

There were many outcrops of rock along the shore and Deeti had no trouble in finding a place of concealment. Her vantage point commanded a good view of both rivers, and her long vigil afforded her plenty of time to reflect on the stories that were told of the Karamnasa and of the taint it could cast upon the souls of the dead. The landscape on the rivers' shores had changed a great deal since Deeti's childhood and looking around now, it seemed to her that the Karamnasa's influence had spilled over its banks, spreading its blight far beyond the lands that drew upon its waters: the opium harvest having been recently completed, the plants had been left to wither in the fields, so that the countryside was blanketed with the parched remnants. Except for the foliage of a few mango and jackfruit trees, nowhere was there anything green to relieve the eye. This, she knew, was what her own fields looked like, and were she at home today, she would have been asking herself what she would eat in the months ahead: where were the vegetables, the grains? She had only to look around to know that here, as in the village she had left, everyone's land was in hock to the agents of the opium factory: every farmer had been served with a contract, the fulfilling of which left them with no option but to strew their land with poppies. And now, with the harvest over and little grain at home, they would have to plunge still deeper into debt to feed their families. It was as if the poppy had become the carrier of the Karamnasa's malign taint.

The first day afforded two sightings of Kabutri, but on both occasions Deeti was forced to keep to her concealment because the girl was accompanied by her cousins. But to have seen her at all was ample reward: it seemed a miracle to Deeti that her daughter had changed so little, in a period of time in which she herself had stepped between life and death and back again.

With nightfall, Deeti retraced her steps to the raft, where she found Kalua kindling a fire, for their evening meal. At the time of her escape, Deeti had been wearing only one ornament, a silver nose-ring: the rest of her jewellery Chandan Singh had been careful to remove before leading her to the pyre. But this remaining trinket had proved invaluable, for Deeti had been able to barter it, at a riverside hamlet, for some satua – a flour made from roasted gram, a reliable and nutritious staple of all travellers and pilgrims. Every evening Kalua would light a fire and Deeti would knead and cook a sufficient number of rotis to see them through the day. With the Ganga close at hand, they had so far lacked for neither food nor water.

At dawn Deeti retraced her steps to her hiding-place, and the day passed without offering another glimpse of Kabutri. It was not till sunset, the day after, that Deeti spotted her daughter, walking alone to the Ganga, with an earthen pitcher balanced on her waist. Deeti kept to the shadows as the girl waded into the water and only after she'd made sure that her daughter was unaccompanied, did she follow her in. So as not to startle her, she whispered a familiar prayer: Jai Ganga Mayya ki…

This was unwise, for Kabutri recognized her voice at once: she turned around and on seeing her mother behind her, let go of her pitcher and gave a terrified shriek. Then she lost consciousness and fell sidewise into the water. The pitcher was swept away by the current, and so too would Kabutri have been, if Deeti had not thrown herself into the water and taken hold of the end of her sari. The water was only waist-deep, so Deeti was able to get her hands under the girl's arms to drag her to the shore. Once on the sand, she picked her up, slung her over her shoulder and carried her to a sheltered hollow between two shoals of sand.

Ei Kabutri… ei beti… meri ján! Cradling her daughter in her lap, Deeti kissed her face until her eyelids began to flicker. But when the girl's eyes opened, Deeti saw that they were dilated with fear.

Who are you? Kabutri cried. Are you a ghost? What do you want with me?

Kabutri! Deeti said sharply. Dekh mori suratiya – look at my face. It's me – your mother: don't you see me?

But how can it be? They said you were gone, dead. Kabutri reached up to touch her mother's face, running her fingertips over her eyes and lips: Can it really be you? Is it possible?

Deeti hugged her daughter still closer. Yes, it's me, it's me, Kabutri; I'm not dead; I'm here: look. What else did they tell you about me?

That you died before the cremation pyre could be lit; they said a woman like you could not become a sati; that the heavens would not allow it – they said your corpse was taken by the water.

Deeti began to nod, as if in assent: it was best that this be the version that was believed; so long as she was thought to be dead, no one would set out in search of her; she, Kabutri, must never say anything that might suggest otherwise, never let slip a word about this meeting…

But what really happened? said the girl. How did you get away?

Deeti had prepared a carefully considered explanation for her daughter: she would say nothing, she had decided, about Chandan Singh's behaviour and Kabutri's true paternity; nor would she speak about the man the girl had known as her father: all she would tell her was that she, Deeti, had been drugged, in an attempt at immolation, and had been rescued while still unconscious.

But how? By whom?

The evasions that Deeti had invented for Kabutri's benefit slipped her mind; with her daughter's head in her lap, she could not bring herself to practise a wilful deception. Abruptly she said: My escape was Kalua's doing. Woh hi bacháwela - It was he who saved me.

Kalua bacháwela? Kalua saved you?

Was it outrage or disbelief that she heard in Kabutri's voice? Already prey to many kinds of guilt, Deeti began to tremble, in anticipation of her daughter's verdict on her flight with Kalua. But when the girl continued, it was in a tone, not of anger, but of eager curiosity: Is he with you now? Where will you go?

Far away from here; to a city.

A city! Kabutri flung a beseeching arm around Deeti's waist. I want to go too; take me with you; to a city.

Deeti had never wanted to yield to her daughter as much as she did now. But her parental instincts dictated otherwise: How can I take you, beti? Saré jindagi aisé bhatkátela? To wander all your life? Like me?

Yes; like you.

No, Deeti shook her head; no matter how fiercely her heart longed to take her daughter along, she knew she must resist: she had no idea of where her next meal would come from, far less where she might be next week or next month. At least with her aunt and her cousins the girl would be looked after; it was best that she stay there until…

… Until the time is right, Kabutri – and when it is I will be back for you. Do you think I don't want you with me? Do you think so? Do you know what it will mean for me to leave you here? Do you know, Kabutri? Do you know?

Kabutri fell silent and when she spoke again it was to say something that Deeti would never forget.

And when you come back, will you bring me bangles? Hamré khátir churi lelaiya?

Weary though he was of the world, Baboo Nob Kissin realized that he would have to endure it for a while yet. His best hope of finding a place on the Ibis was to be sent out as the ship's supercargo, and the job was unlikely to come his way, he knew, if he gave the appearance of having lost interest in his work. And this too he knew, that if Mr Burnham were to have the least suspicion that there was some heathenish intent behind his seeking of the post of supercargo, then that would put an abrupt end to the matter. So for the time being, Baboo Nob Kissin decided, it was imperative that he apply himself to his duties and display as few signs as possible of the momentous transformations that were taking place within him. This was no easy task, for no matter how closely he tried to keep to his accustomed routines, he was ever more conscious that everything had changed and that he was seeing the world in new, unexpected ways.

There were times when insights passed before his eyes with blinding suddenness. One day while travelling in a boat, up Tolly's Nullah, his eye fell upon a wooden shack, on a stretch of mangrove-covered wasteland; it was just a primitive thatch-covered bamboo platform, but it stood in the shade of a luxuriant kewra tree, and its very simplicity put the gomusta in mind of those sylvan retreats where the great sages and rishis of the past were said to have sat in meditation.

It so happened that just that morning Baboo Nob Kissin Pander had received a chit from Ramsaran-ji, the recruiter: he was still deep in the hinterland, the duffadar wrote, but he expected to arrive in Calcutta in a month's time with a large party of indentured workers, men and women. The news had added a note of urgency to the gomusta's many worries: where were these migrants to be accommodated when they arrived? One month was so little time to provide for so many people.

In the past, duffadars like Ramsaran-ji had usually kept their recruits in their own homes until they were shipped out. But this practice had proved unsatisfactory for several reasons: for one, it plunged the would-be migrants into city life, exposing them to all kinds of rumours and temptations. In a place like Calcutta there was never any lack of people to prey upon simple-minded rustics, and in years past, many recruits had run away because of stories told by trouble-makers; some had found other employment in the city and some had gone straight back to their villages. A few duffadars had tried to keep their recruits indoors by locking them in – but only to be faced with riots, fires and break-outs. The city's unhealthy climate was yet another problem, for every year a good number of migrants perished of communicable diseases. From an investor's point of view, each dead, escaped and incapacitated recruit represented a serious loss, and it was increasingly clear that if something wasn't done about the problem, the business would cease to be profitable.

It was the answer to this question that appeared before his eyes that day: a camp had to be built, right here, on the shore of Tolly 's Nullah. As if in a dream, Baboo Nob Kissin saw a cluster of huts, standing there, like the dormitories of an ashram; the premises would have a well, for drinking water, a ghat for bathing, a few trees for shelter, and a paved space where the inmates' food would be cooked and eaten. At the heart of the complex there would be a temple, a small one, to mark the beginning of the journey to Mareech: he could already envision its spire, thrusting through the wreathed smoke of the cremation ghat; he could imagine the migrants, standing clustered at its threshold, gathering together to say their last prayers on their native soil; it would be their parting memory of sacred Jambudwipa, before they were cast out upon the Black Water. They would speak of it to their children and their children's children, who would return to it over generations, to remember and recall their ancestors.

Lalbazar Jail lay upon Calcutta 's crowded centre like a gargantuan fist, holding the city's heart clenched in its grasp. The severity of the jail's exterior was deceptive, however, for behind its massive red-brick façade lay a haphazard warren of courtyards, corridors, offices, barracks and tope-khanas for the storage of weaponry. Prison cells were only a small part of this enormous complex, for despite its name, Lalbazar was not really a centre of incarceration but rather a lock-up where prisoners were held while under trial. Being also the administrative headquarters of the city's constabulary, it was a busy, bustling place, constantly enlivened by the comings and goings of officers and peons, prisoners and darogas, vendors and hurkarus.

Neel's quarters were in the administrative wing of the jail, well removed from the areas where other, less fortunate, prisoners were detained. Two sets of ground-floor offices had been cleared out for him, creating a comfortable apartment with a bedroom, a receiving room, and a small pantry. Neel was also allowed the privilege of having a servant with him during the day, to clean his rooms and serve his meals; as for food and water, everything he ate and drank came from his own kitchens – for his jailers could scarcely permit it to be said that they had obliged the Raja of Raskhali to lose caste even before his case was brought to court. At night the doors of Neel's apartment were lightly guarded, by constables who treated him with the greatest deference; if sleep eluded him, these sentries would keep him entertained with games of dice, cards and pachcheesi. During the day Neel was allowed as many visitors as he wished and the zemindary's gomustas and mootsuddies came so often that he had little difficulty in prosecuting the estate's business from the confines of the jail.

Although grateful for all these concessions, the privilege that mattered most to Neel was one that could not be publicly mentioned: it was the right to use the clean and well-lit outhouse that was reserved for officers. Neel had been brought up to regard his body and its functions with a fastidiousness that bordered almost on the occult: this was largely the doing of his mother, for whom bodily defilement was a preoccupation that permitted neither peace nor rest. Although a quiet, gentle and loving woman in some ways, the usages of her caste and class were, for her, not just a set of rules and observances, but the very core of her being. Neglected by her husband, and living sequestered within a gloomy wing of the palace, she had devoted her considerable intelligence to the creation of fantastically elaborate rituals of cleanliness and purification: it was not enough that she wash her hands for a full half-hour, before and after every meal – she had also to make sure that the vessel from which the water was poured was properly cleaned, as also the bucket in which it had been fetched from the well; and so on. Her most potent fears centred upon the men and women who emptied the palace's outhouses and disposed of its sewage: these sweepers and cleaners of night-soil she regarded with such loathing that staying out of their way became one of her besetting preoccupations. As for the sweepers' tools – jharus made from palm-leaf bristles – neither sword nor serpent inspired a deeper unease in her than these objects, the sight of which could haunt her for days. These fears and anxieties created a way of life that was too unnatural to be long sustained and she died when Neel was only twelve years old, leaving him a legacy of extreme fastidiousness in regard to his own person. So it was that for Neel, no aspect of his captivity held greater terror than the thought of sharing a shit-hole with dozens of common prisoners.

To get to the officers' outhouse, Neel had to pass through several corridors and courtyards, some of which afforded glimpses of the jail's other inmates – often they seemed to be fighting for light and air, with their noses pressed against the bars, like trapped rats. These sightings of the hardships suffered by other prisoners gave Neel a keen sense of the consideration that he himself had been afforded: it was clear that the British authorities were intent on reassuring the public that the Raja of Raskhali was being treated with the utmost fairness. So slight indeed were the inconveniences of Neel's imprisonment at Lalbazar that he could almost have imagined himself to be on holiday, were it not for the ban on visits from women and children. Yet even this was no great loss, since Neel would not, in any case, have permitted his wife or son to defile themselves by entering the jail. Elokeshi, on the other hand, he would have been glad to receive, but there had been no news of her since the time of Neel's arrest: it was thought that she had slipped out of the city, to avoid being questioned by the police. Neel could not rightfully complain about so well-judged an absence.

The ease of his incarceration was such that Neel was hard put to take his legal difficulties very seriously. His relatives among Calcutta 's gentry had told him that his was to be a show-trial, intended to persuade the public of the even-handedness of British justice: he was sure to be acquitted, or let off lightly, with some token punishment. They were insistent in assuring him that he had no cause for anxiety: great efforts were being mounted on his behalf by many prominent citizens, they said; everyone in his circle of acquaintance was extending their reach as far as they possibly could: between all of them they would almost certainly be able to move some important levers, maybe even in the Governor-General's Council. In any event, it was unthinkable that a member of their class would be treated as a common criminal.

Neel's lawyer, too, was cautiously optimistic: a small fidgety man, Mr Rowbotham had the bristling pugnacity of one of those hirsute terriers that could sometimes be seen in the Maidan, straining upon a memsahib's leash. Generously eyebrowed and lavishly whiskered, almost nothing was visible of his face except for a pair of bright, black eyes and a nose that was of the shape and colour of a ripe litchi.

Having reviewed Neel's brief, Mr Rowbotham offered his first opinion. 'Let me tell you, dear Raja,' he said bluntly. 'There's not a jury on earth that would acquit you – far less one that consists mainly of English traders and colonists.'

This came as a shock to Neel. 'But Mr Rowbotham,' he said. 'Are you suggesting that I may be found guilty?'

'I will not deceive you, my dear Raja,' said Mr Rowbotham. 'I think it very possible that such a verdict will be returned. But there's no reason to despair. As I see it, it's the sentence that concerns us, not the verdict. For all you know, you could get away with a fine and a few forfeitures. If I remember right there was a similar case recently when the penalty consisted of nothing more than a fine and a sentence of public ridicule: the culprit was led around Kidderpore sitting backwards on a donkey!'

Neel's mouth fell open and he uttered an appalled whisper: 'Mr Rowbotham, could such a fate befall the Raja of Raskhali?'

The lawyer's eyes twinkled: 'And what if it did, dear Raja? It isn't the worst that could happen, is it? Would it not be worse if all your properties were to be seized?'

'Not at all,' said Neel promptly. 'Nothing could be worse than such a loss of face. By comparison, it would be better even to be rid of my encumbrances. At least I would then be free to live in a garret and write poetry – like your admirable Mr Chatterton.'

At this, the attorney's ample eyebrows knitted themselves into a puzzled tangle. 'Mr Chatterjee, did you say?' he asked in surprise. 'Do you mean my head clerk? But I assure you, dear Raja, he does not live in a garret – and as for his poetry, why this is the first I've heard of it…'