‘Haih-bo?’ Compton laughed. ‘I will feed you salt when I see you next Neel.’
‘No need,’ said Neel smiling. ‘I have eaten your salt already.’
Compton smiled and bowed.
Joi-gin Ah Neel. Joi-gin Compton. Joi-gin.
*
It was not till later that night, after all his things had been packed, that Neel opened the envelope Compton had given him. He read the Commissioner’s letter to Queen Victoria several times, and then reached for a page of his unfinished Chrestomathy. Turning it over, on impulse, he translated a few passages into Bengali.
‘The Way of Heaven is fairness to all; it does not suffer us to harm others in order to benefit ourselves. Men are alike in this all the world over: that they cherish life and hate what endangers life. Your country lies twenty thousand leagues away; but the Way of Heaven holds good for you as for us, and your instincts are not different from ours; for nowhere are there men so blind as not to distinguish between what brings life and what brings death, between what brings profit and what does harm.
‘Our Heavenly Court treats all within the Four Seas as one great family; the goodness of our great Emperor is like Heaven, that covers all things. There is no region so wild or so remote that he does not cherish and tend it. Ever since the port of Canton was first opened, trade has flourished. For some hundred and twenty or thirty years the natives of the place have enjoyed peaceful and profitable relations with the ships that come from abroad.
‘But there is a class of evil foreigner that makes opium and brings it for sale, tempting fools to destroy themselves, merely in order to reap profit. Formerly the number of opium smokers was small; but now the vice has spread far and wide and the poison has penetrated deeper and deeper. For this reason we have decided to inflict very severe penalties on opium-dealers and opium-smokers, in order to put a stop for ever to the propagation of this vice.
‘It appears that this poisonous article is manufactured by certain devilish persons in places subject to your own rule. It is not of course either made or sold at your bidding, nor do all the countries you rule produce it, but only certain of them. We have heard that England forbids the smoking of opium within its dominions with the utmost rigour. This means you are aware of how harmful it is. Since the injury it causes has been averted from England, is it not wrong to send it to another nation? How can these opium-sellers bear to bring to our people an article which does them so much harm for an ever-grasping gain? Suppose those of another nation should go to England and induce its people to buy and smoke the drug – it would be right that You, Honoured Sovereign, should hate and abhor them. Hitherto we have heard that You, Honoured Sovereign, whose heart is full of benevolence, would not do to others that which you would not others should do to yourself. Better than to forbid the smoking of opium then would be to forbid the sale of it and, better still, to prohibit the production of it, which is the only way of cleansing the contamination at its source. So long as you do not take it upon yourselves to forbid the opium but continue to make it and tempt the people of China to buy it, you will be showing yourselves careful of your own lives, but careless of the lives of other people, indifferent in your greed for gain to the harm you do to others. Such conduct is repugnant to human feeling and at variance with the Way of Heaven.’
*
Whether by design or not, it happened that the chop-boats that carried the last foreigners to the Bogue followed a route that took them past the field where the surrendered opium was being destroyed. Had Bahram known beforehand, he would have closed the window of his cabin, but the sight was upon him before he could shut his eyes: hundreds of men were swarming over the compound, carrying crates and upending them into a tank.
He did not need to be told what they were doing: he had spent half a lifetime ferrying those familiar mangowood crates across the seas; even at that distance they were easy to recognize. Looking at them now, he remembered the storm in the Bay of Bengal and how he had endangered his life for those precious crates; he remembered the months of effort it had taken to assemble that enormous consignment and the hopes he had invested in it. Even though he would have liked to be spared the sight of their destruction he could not tear his eyes away from the men who were standing waist-deep in the tank, stamping upon the opium: it was as if his own body were being trod upon until it melted into the water and flowed into the river – like the dark sludge that was spilling from the sluices.
His throat, head and chest began to ache with the craving for a pipe – but it was impossible to light one here, in sight of his own staff. He would have to wait till he reached the Anahita. He lay down and began to count the hours.
It was past midnight when he was finally alone in the Owners’ Suite. He opened the window and locked the door before making himself a pipe. His fingers were trembling feverishly as he drank in the smoke. Within a few seconds his hands became steadier and his knotted muscles began to relax.
The night was hot and stilclass="underline" he had already taken off his angarkha, but his kasti and sadra were also drenched in sweat now. He took them off and lay bare-bodied on his bed, wearing nothing but a pair of pyjamas.
Through the window he could see the outlines of the desolate ridges and headlands of Hong Kong, looming above the ship, silhouetted against a brightly moonlit sky. The waters around the Anahita were crowded with ships and many small boats were paddling about. He could hear the splash of oars and the voices of boat-girls, raised in laughter and complaint. Their sound was very familiar, like echoes from the past; he was not in the least surprised when he heard his name being called: ‘Mister Barry! Mister Barry!’
He went to the window and saw that a sampan had pulled up, under the overhang of the Anahita’s stern. There was a boy in the back, leaning against the yuloh; he was wearing a conical sun hat so his face was in darkness. But Bahram could hear him clearly, even though he was speaking in a whisper, so as not to alert the ship’s crew: ‘Come, Mister Barry. Come. She waiting you – waiting you inside.’ He pointed to the sampan’s covered hull.
The window of the Owners’ Suite had been built, Bahram knew, to serve also as an escape hatch, in case of fire or other emergencies. Underneath was a glass-fronted box with a rope ladder. Bahram took the ladder out, attached the grapnels to the sill, and dropped it over the side. When the boy had taken hold of the bottom rung, Bahram swung his pyjama-clad leg over the sill and began to descend. He went down very carefully, rung by rung, watching every step.
‘Come, Mister Barry. Ha-loy!’
The sampan was under his feet now, so he let go of the ladder and pushed it away.
The boy was pointing at the sampan’s covered cabin: ‘There, Mister Barry. She wait you there.’
Bahram crept under the bamboo matting and immediately a hand brushed against his bare chest. He recognized at once the feel of the rough, callused fingers.
‘Chi-mei?’ He heard her giggle, and stretched his arms into the darkness. ‘Chi-mei! Come!’
Afterwards, as so often before, they crawled out on the prow. Lying flat on their bellies they looked at the moon’s image, shimmering in the water. It was shining so brightly that her face too was illuminated by its reflected glow: she seemed to be looking up from under the water’s surface, smiling at him, beckoning with a finger.
‘Come, Mister Barry. Come. Ha-loy!’
He smiled. ‘Yes, Chi-mei, I’m coming. It’s time now.’
The water was so warm that it was as if they were still on the boat, lying in each other’s arms.
*
The dangling rope ladder caught Paulette’s attention early in the morning, soon after she had made her daily climb up the slopes of the island, to the plot of land Fitcher had rented for his plants.