‘They not take you to doctor?’
‘I could have asked for a doctor, but nobody respects the doctor nirvan. You get anaesthesia and medicine. You’re not risking your life.’
Lee asked more questions.
‘My mother brought me here to 007 and gave me to the tai. I was seven or eight. I don’t remember much about her or my life before I came. I don’t want to remember.’
‘Best. Forget is best.’
‘Why remember and make yourself sad?’
‘Why remember when anyway you memory wrong, all wrong.’
‘Yes, yes, best to forget.’
‘What I said.’
*
He took her to Chowpatty for milkshakes at Rajasthan Lassi or a pista kulfi at Cream Center and a sandwich on the beach. It was December, the time of year he liked best. He said, This Bombay? Only nice two month of year, December and January, rest of time it no place for human being. To clinch the argument he nodded at the scene around them. It was a weekday but the beach was crowded: men ambled aimlessly and stray dogs lay curled under the trees. Here and there lamps burned where vendors sold peanuts, sugared tamarind and coconut-oil head massages. A small boy lay buried in the sand. Only his hands and head were visible. Beside him was a handkerchief with a pitiful collection of coins. The boy’s eyes were closed and he was muttering. Mr Lee planted his walking stick in the sand and watched the lights on the near horizon, a wavy line smudged silver and blue, strung with spray. There was a yellow moon in the sky, like the half-shut eye of a giant bird of prey, and there were no stars to be seen, not a single one, not anywhere. Where have the stars gone, he thought. How will the ships navigate without stars? And then he remembered that the stars were dead, long dead, and the light they shed was not to be trusted, was false, if not an outright lie, and in any case was inadequate, unequal to its task, which was to illuminate the evil that men did. He thought he saw a junk that was at least a hundred yards long, with nine masts and immense sails and attended by a flotilla of smaller boats — supply ships, water tankers, transports for cavalry horses, and fast-moving patrol boats. He knew the junk and its master. In the dusk the big ship’s lights on the water were violet on violet and he thought if he waited long enough one of the small boats would come to fetch him. The ship was a long way from home but seemed in good shape, sitting solidly in the water, so close he could see the rigging. It is the eunuch admiral Zheng He, he told Dimple, the great Chinese Muslim navigator, and he’s come to take me home. Then he heard drums, jungle drums, and he thought of witch doctors and the image of the great junk faded to violet mist. He heard the sound of surf and he heard someone speaking or cursing in Hindi. Your mother’s cunt, the voice said. Or the voice was saying someone’s name, Marky Chu. Lee told Dimple he was sick. He had a grating in his throat and he didn’t want to go to a hospital because there was no point, he knew what it was. He said he needed opium for its pain-killing properties, just as she did. He had a list of aches and pains. It was a bond between them, the itemizing of pain. In pain, he said, as if it were a country. As if he were saying, I am in Spain.
*
He said he’d teach her the important things, starting with the most important thing of all, the correct way to make tea and rice, so the tea wasn’t overbrewed and the rice wasn’t overcooked. He said: You want make food forget Indian way. Indian’s system is like American system, everything overdone. They have no subtle. He sent her to buy octopus. She brought the tentacles home in a bag of ice and cut them into thin slices, at a sharp angle. She put the sliced octopus in a saucepan with ginger and green onions and added a black bean paste. He told her to touch the octopus to the flame and serve. But she let the dish cook for a good five minutes until the flesh was tough and rubbery. You overdid, he told her. Old Chinese saying, you don’t need take off your pant to fart. This is how he talks, she thought. He makes pronouncements, as if each thing he says is the final word on the subject. He talks in proverbs. There’s nothing I can say in reply.
Lee taught her how to make pipes because he was finding it difficult to do even this. Soon he would become a feeble old man and he’d need help to eat and shit. He would end up in a hospital, he said, at the mercy of Indians. He wanted to pass on his expertise, such as it was, while he was still able. He told her the most important thing was to take your time; that the making of the pipe should take longer than the smoking of it; that hurry went against the meaning of opium. ‘Patience,’ he said. ‘Be patient. You not patient, you no good.’ He taught her posture, how to recline so her head was at the same height as her right shoulder. He told her to close her eyes for a few minutes before she picked up the pipe and to bow to the lamp when she lit it first thing in the morning. She thought: Only, this is a chandu khana and we are smoking opium. We’re not praying, we’re getting high. But she followed his instructions and began the day with a few minutes of silence, the pipe resting across her lap.
He taught her some Chinese. Ho leng ah, and ha tho, so she could haggle with the vendors at the Chinese shop where she went to buy vegetables and fish. She told him that the Hindi for how much, kitna, sounded a little like the Cantonese, kay dow cheen ah, especially if you said it fast. It made him angry. There was no similarity between the two languages, he said, none at all. She was being stupid.
He taught her how to curse, comprehensive terms of abuse that wished disaster on descendants and forefathers alike, phrases as thorough and devastating as Chinese martial arts. ‘Repeat after me,’ he said, enunciating the words very slowly and much too loud. ‘Dew lay low mow chow hai siu fun hum ka chaan.’ He taught her the intonation, the staccato monosyllables, the plosives that detonated in the mouth. He taught her the proper pronunciation of dew, the Cantonese for fuck, telling her to stretch the vowel. He encouraged her to employ variations.
‘Enjoy sound of word. Is only way to say correctly.’
And he repeated the phrase, chanted it, because he was having such a good time with this.
‘One question,’ Dimple said.
Mr Lee took a cigarette out of a pack and considered it. He was rationing himself, taking his time instead of lighting up right away. They heard muffled explosions, four in a row, and he froze, then half a dozen louder bangs went off.
He lit up and said, ‘Nothing, only firecracker for their festival. Indian are crazy.’
They were in the courtyard, sitting in the sunshine, Dimple wearing Mr Lee’s straw gardening hat. She was protecting her complexion, a phrase she’d learned from Stardust magazine. Mr Lee put his cigarette out to cough. He spoke around his hack: ‘Wha-a-at question?’
‘Why am I learning to swear in Cantonese? Who will I swear at in Bombay? Nobody will understand.’
‘Best. If they don’t understand, you can curse as much you want, like I use to.’
He’s taking his leave, she thought. He’s absenting himself.
Book Two The Story of the Pipe
Chapter One In Spain with Mr Lee
He’s absenting himself in stages. He’s making it easier for me, she thought. He’s teaching me how to be alone. His cough had become constant. The smoke made it better, but only for a time. He spent entire days in his bunk, dreaming and coughing. She heard the scrape in his throat, a private, deeply intimate sound, and it embarrassed her. She heard the bray of it and it reminded her of the people she knew, all of whom carried the sound deep in their chests, from where it would someday emerge. She shook her head to dislodge it but the cough or its echo stayed with her all day.