The suite’s bed was one of its most luxurious features: a canopied four-poster, it was so placed that Bahram could look out at the harbour through the cabin’s windows. He was thus able to appreciate, as never before, how quickly Singapore was changing.
The Tivendale boatyard was situated at the mouth of the Singapore River, between the port’s inner harbour, which was in the estuary, and the outer anchorage, which was in the bay beyond. Being anchored between the two, the Anahita’s stern tended to swing with the flow of the tides: when it faced outwards, hundreds of bumboats and tongkang lighters would come into view, swarming around the ships anchored in the bay. On their way back to shore the boats would sometimes pass so close to the Anahita that Bahram would hear the voices of the Chulia boatmen talking, shouting and singing in Tamil, Telegu and Oriya. When the Anahita’s stern came about, a panoramic view of newly built godowns and bankshalls would appear in front of him. Sometimes the Anahita would sweep so far around that he would even be able to look upriver towards Boat Quay, where the smaller ‘country boats’ discharged their goods and passengers.
The activity was unending, the boat traffic constant, and in watching it Bahram began to began to understand why several businessmen of his acquaintance had recently bought or rented godowns and daftars in Singapore: it seemed very likely that the new settlement would soon overtake Malacca in commercial importance. This evoked mixed emotions in Bahram: he had a suspicion that this British-built settlement would not be an easy-going place like the Malacca of old, where Malays, Chinese, Gujaratis and Arabs had lived elbow to elbow with the descendants of the old Portuguese and Dutch families. Singapore had been so designed as to set the ‘white town’ carefully apart from the rest of the settlement, with the Chinese, Malays and Indians each being assigned their own neighbourhoods – or ‘ghettoes’ as some people called them.
What would become of this odd new town? The one thing that was for sure was that it would be a good place for buying and selling: the reports Vico brought back from his forays ashore confirmed that bazars and markets were springing up all around the settlement – Vico’s particular favourite was a weekly open-air mela where people came from near and afar to sell and exchange old clothes.
From Vico’s accounts, as from his observations of the traffic on the river, it was clear to Bahram that Singapore was rapidly evolving into one of the principal waystations of the Indian Ocean: this was why he was not greatly surprised to learn that an old friend of his, Zadig Karabedian, was in the city – Vico had run into him as he was walking down Commercial Street.
Arre Vico! said Bahram. Why didn’t you bring Zadig Bey back with you?
He was going somewhere, patrao. He said he would come as soon as possible.
What’s he doing in Singapore?
He’s on his way to Canton, patrao.
Oh? Bahram sat up eagerly. Has he booked a passage already?
Don’t know, patrao.
Vico, you have to go and find him, said Bahram. Tell him he has to travel with us, on the Anahita. I won’t take no for an answer. Tell him to come aboard as soon as possible. Go na, jaldi!
Zadig Karabedian was one of Bahram’s few true intimates. They had met twenty-three years before, in Canton. Zadig was a watchmaker by trade and travelled often to various ports in the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea, to sell clocks, watches, music-boxes and other mechanical devices – known collectively as ‘sing-songs’, these articles were in great demand in Canton.
Although Zadig was Armenian by origin, his family had been settled for centuries in Egypt, where they lived in the old Christian and Jewish quarter of Cairo. Legend had it that one of Zadig’s ancestors had been sold to the Sultan of Egypt as a boy: after rising in the Mamelouk ranks he had arranged to bring some of his relatives to Cairo where they had prospered as craftsmen, tax collectors and businessmen. Since then they had developed close business connections with Aden, Basra, Colombo, Bombay and several ports in the Far East, including Canton.
Zadig, even more than other members of his clan, was an inveterate traveller, and was fluent in many languages, including Hindusthani. He had a great talent also for something that Bahram liked to call khabar-dari – keeping up with the news – and it was partly because of this that their paths had crossed in Canton.
The year was 1815, and the first reports of the French defeat at Waterloo had reached southern China in late November. The news was received with great relief by most of the European community. Many merchants who had delayed their return to Europe because of the war, now changed their minds and decided to make their way back; this caused all kinds of disruption, not the least of which was a shortage in bills of exchange. Because of the greatly increased demand it became especially hard to obtain bills that were payable in India: all of a sudden Bahram found himself faced with the prospect of having to travel to England in order to realize his profits for the season.
To Bahram this was no great disappointment: he had never been to Europe before and the prospect of travelling there was exciting beyond measure – but on trying to obtain a berth, he discovered that westward passages were in critically short supply. It was then that a Parsi friend put him in touch with Zadig Karabedian.
Being an avid student of Continental politics, Zadig had foreseen the outcome of the Hundred-Days War and had even found a way to profit from it. It so happened that he too was travelling to England, and having guessed that there would be a great demand for westbound passages that season, he had reserved the other bunk in his cabin, in the expectation of making it over to a travelling companion, someone who would be both congenial and willing to pay a substantial dastoori. After some hard but amicable bargaining, he and Bahram were able to settle on mutually satisfactory terms and they boarded the Hon’ble Company Ship Cuffnells at Macau on 7 December 1815.
Zadig was tall, with a long, thin neck, and a face that had the look of being permanently frost-bitten because of the webbing of cracks that radiated outwards from the twin spots of colour on his bright, pink cheeks. Once under weigh, Bahram and Zadig found themselves spending most of their time in each other’s company: their cabin was deep in the vessel’s bowels, and to escape the stench of the bilges the two traders spent as much time as they could on deck, leaning over the rails and talking, with the wind in their faces. They were both in their mid-thirties and they discovered, to their great surprise, that they had more in common than would seem reasonable for two men who had grown up continents apart. Like Bahram, Zadig had risen in the world as a result of an unequal marriage – in his case he had been chosen to marry the widowed daughter of a wealthy family that was related to his own. He too knew what it was to be regarded as a poor relative by his in-laws.
One day as they were leaning over to watch the Cuffnells’ frothing bow-wave, Zadig said: When you are away from home, living in China – how do you deal with… with your bodily necessities?
Bahram was never at ease discussing such things and he began to stutter: Kya?… what do you mean?
There is nothing shameful in this, you know, said Zadig; it is not just the jism that has its needs but also the rooh, the soul – and a man who feels himself to be alone in his own home, does he not have a right to seek companionship elsewhere?
Would you call it a right? said Bahram.
Right or not, I don’t mind telling you that I – like many others who must travel constantly – have a second family, in Colombo. My ‘wife’ there is a Ceylonese burgher and although the family I have had with her is not mine by law, it is as dear to me as the one that bears my name.
Bahram looked at him quickly before dropping his eyes. It is very hard, isn’t it?
There was something in his tone that made Zadig pause. So you have someone too?