Alone, Bibiji?
Yes, what did I say? Alone.
They withdrew and she gestured to Vico to sit but he shook his head.
How did it happen, Vico? she said. Tell me everything.
It was an accident, Bibiji, said Vico. Sadly, it happened on the Seth’s ship, which he loved so much. The Anahita was anchored near an island called Hong Kong, not far from Macau. We had just boarded that day, having come down from Canton. The rest of us went to bed early but Sethji stayed up. He must have been walking on the deck. It was dark and he probably tripped and fell overboard.
She was listening carefully, watching him as he spoke. She knew, from previous bereavements, that she was presently in the grip of a kind of detachment that would not last long: soon she would be overwhelmed by emotion and her mind would be clouded for days. Now, while she was still able to think clearly, she wanted to understand exactly what had happened.
He was walking on the Anahita?
Yes, Bibiji.
Shireen frowned; she had known the Anahita intimately since the day her keel was laid, in her father’s shipyard: it was she who had named her, after the Zoroastrian angel of the waters, and it was she too who had overseen the craftsmen who had sculpted the figurehead and decorated the interior. If Sethji was walking, he must have been up on the quarter-deck, no?
Vico nodded. Yes, Bibiji. It must have been the quarter-deck. That’s where he usually walked.
But if he fell from the quarter-deck, said Shireen, surely someone would have heard him? Wasn’t there a lascar on watch? Were there no other ships nearby?
Yes, Bibiji, there were many ships nearby. But no one heard anything.
So where was he found?
On Hong Kong island, Bibiji. His body washed up on the beach.
Was there a ceremony? A funeral? What did you do?
Toying with his hat, Vico said: We held a funeral, Bibiji. Many other Parsis were in the area; one of them was a dustoor and he performed the last rites. Sethji’s friend Mr Zadig Karabedian also happened to be around. He delivered the eulogy. We buried him in Hong Kong.
Why Hong Kong? said Shireen sharply. Isn’t there a Parsi cemetery in Macau? Why didn’t you bury him there?
Macau was impossible, Bibiji, said Vico. There was trouble on the mainland at the time. The British representative, Captain Elliott, had issued an order asking all British subjects to stay away from Macau. That was why the Anahita was anchored at Hong Kong Bay. When Seth Bahram died, we had no choice but to bury him in Hong Kong. You can ask Mr Karabedian — he is coming to Bombay soon and will come to see you.
Shireen could feel the grief beginning to well up inside her now. She sat down.
Where did you place the grave? she asked. Is it properly marked?
Yes, Bibiji. There aren’t many people on Hong Kong island and the interior is very pretty. The grave is in a beautiful valley. The spot was found by Seth Bahram’s new munshi.
Absently Shireen said: I didn’t know my husband had hired a new munshi.
Yes, Bibiji. The old munshi died last year when we were on our way to Canton, so Seth Bahram hired a new secretary — a well-educated Bengali.
Did he come back to Bombay with you? said Shireen. Can you bring him to see me?
No, Bibiji; he didn’t come back with us. He wanted to stay on in China and was offered a job in Canton, by an American merchant. So far as I know he’s still there.
June 10, 1839
Foreign enclave
Canton
My one regret in starting this journal is that I did not think of it earlier. If only I had embarked on it last year, when I first came to Canton with Seth Bahram! To have some notes to consult would have been helpful when I was trying to write about the events that led to the opium crisis in March this year.
Anyway, I have learnt my lesson and won’t make that mistake again. Indeed so eager was I to start my journal-keeping that I pulled out my notebook as soon as I stepped on the junk that brought me from Macau to Canton. But it was a mistake: many people crowded around to see what I was doing, so I thought the better of it. I realized also that it would not be wise to write in English, as I had intended — better to do it in Bangla; it is less likely to be deciphered if the journal should fall into the wrong hands.
I am writing now in my new lodgings, in Canton’s American Hong, which is where Mr Coolidge, my new employer, has taken an apartment. He does not live in the lavish style of Seth Bahram; his staff have been relegated to a servants’ dormitory at the back of the Hong. But we manage well enough and even though the accommodation is rudimentary I must confess that I am overjoyed to be back in Canton’s foreign enclave — that unique little outpost that we used to call Fanqui-town!
It is strange perhaps, to say this about a place where cries of ‘Gwailo!’, Haak-gwal! and ‘Achhal’ are a constant reminder of one’s alienness — but nonetheless, it is true that stepping ashore at Canton was like a homecoming for me. Maybe it was only because I was so relieved to be gone from Hong Kong Bay, with its fleet of English merchant ships. Of late a forest of Union Jacks has sprouted there — and I must admit that a weight lifted from my shoulders when they disappeared from view: I can never be comfortable around the British flag. My breath seemed to flow more freely as the boat carried me deeper into China. Only when I stepped off the ferry, at the foreign enclave, did I feel that I was at last safe from Britannia’s all-seeing eye and all-grasping hand.
Yesterday afternoon, I went to visit my old haunts in Fanqui-town. It was startling to see how much the atmosphere here has changed in the short time that I’ve been away. Of the foreigners, only the Americans remain, and the shuttered windows of the empty factories are a constant reminder that things are not as they were before the opium crisis.
The British Factory is particularly striking in its desolation. It is strange indeed to see this building, once the busiest and grandest establishment in Fanqui-town, all locked and shuttered, its verandas empty. Even the hands of the clock on the chapel tower have ceased to move. They are joined together at the twelve o’clock mark, as if in prayer.
Also empty are the two factories that were occupied by the Parsi seths of Bombay — the Chung-wa and the Fungtai. I lingered awhile near the Fungtai: how could I not, when it is so filled with memories? I had thought that by this time Seth Bahram’s house would have been rented out to someone else — but no: the window of his daftar remains shuttered and a doorman stands guard at the Hong’s entrance. At the cost of a couple of cash-coins I was allowed to slip in and wander around.
The rooms are much as they were when we left, except that a thin film of dust has collected on the floors and the furniture. It gave me an eerie feeling to hear my footsteps echoing through empty corridors — in my memories that house is always crowded with people, redolent of the smell of masalas, wafting up from the kitchen. Most of all it is filled with the spirit of Seth Bahram — I felt his absence very keenly and could not resist going up to the second floor, to look into the daftar where I had spent so many long hours with him, transcribing letters and taking dictation. Here too things are as they were at the time of our departure: the large rock the Seth had been gifted by his compradore is still in its place, as is his ornately carved desk. Even his armchair has not moved: it remains beside the window, as it was during the Seth’s last weeks in Canton. In that darkened, shadow-filled room, it was almost as if he were there himself, half-reclining, smoking opium and staring at the Maidan — as though he were looking for phantoms, as Vico once said.