‘Did it come to Canton?’
‘No,’ said Ah Fatt. ‘Big ships can-na come to Canton – just like they can-na come up this river. Too shallow. They must anchor at Huang-pu – Whampoa in English. Many boats go up and down so I know about ship: I know has set record for season – seventeen days from Bombay to Canton. When Father come, I say: take me, take me to your ship, and he turn red, shake head. He afraid if he take me then ship will carry news back to Bombay. Elder Wife will find out about me and there will be trouble. Ship not his, he tell me; belong to father-in-law and brothers-in-law. He like paid servant and must be careful. But this mean nothing to me; I do not care. I tell him I want to go, or I will shame him. I will go Whampoa myself. So then he says, yes, he will take. But he sends me with Vico, his purser – does not go himself. Vico shows me ship, tell me stories. And it is like I saw in my head – a palace, better even than mandarin-boat. You cannot believe till you see…’
He broke off to point to the Anahita’s raised quarter-deck, which was lit by the glow of a binnacle lamp. ‘Look, near stern – third mast, what do you call it?’
‘The mizzen-mast?’
‘Yes. That mast like tree. Around its roots, on quarter-deck, there is carved bench, where people can sit. Grandfather built like that, to be like banyan tree in village. Vico tell me that. Afterward, when I see Anahita, always I think that my bench…’
Again now the cook interrupted, placing bowls of steaming rice on the plank, along with the rest of the chicken, prepared in a half-dozen different ways. The smells were tantalizing, but Neel was so absorbed in Ah Fatt’s recollections that he paid no mind to the food.
‘Did you go back to the ship again?’
‘No – did not go, but saw many times. At Lintin Island.’
‘Did you go there to see your father?’
‘No. Father never in Lintin.’ Seeing the puzzlement in Neel’s eyes, he said: ‘Look-see here, I show you…’
Using his chopsticks, Ah Fatt expertly dismantled a piece of chicken and picked out the wishbone. Laying it on the plank, he pointed to the yawning jaws: ‘This like mouth of Pearl River, which lead to Canton.’ Then, picking some grains of rice from his bowl he scattered them across the gap with his chopsticks. ‘These like islands – have many here, like teeth rising from sea. Teeth very useful to pirates. Also to foreign merchants, like Father. Because foreign ship cannot bring opium to Canton. Forbidden. So they pretend they do not bring to China. They go here’ – his chopsticks moved to point to a grain of rice that lay halfway between the jaws of the wishbone – ‘to Lintin Island. There they sell opium. When price is settled, dealer send out boat, quick boat, with thirty oar – “fast-crab”.’ Ah Fatt laughed, and his chopsticks flashed as he flipped the wishbone into the water. ‘That how I go to Lintin – in “fast-crab”.’
‘Why? What were you doing there?’
‘What you think? Buying opium.’
‘For whom?’
‘My boss – he big opium-seller, have many fast-crab, many leng work for him, many hing-dai. We are one big gaa and he is our Daaih-go-daai, Big-Brother-Big, for our family. We call him Dai Lou. He Canton man, but he travel everywhere – even to London. He stay there long time and then he come back to start business, in Macau. He have many like me to work for him; he like to hire my kind.’
‘What do you mean your kind?’
‘Jaahp-jung-jai – ‘mixed-kind-boy’.’ Ah Fatt laughed. ‘Many like that along Pearl River – in Macau, Whampoa, Guangzhou. In any port, any place where man can buy woman, there is many yeh-jai and ‘West-ocean-child’. They too must eat and live. Dai Lou give us work, treat us well. For long time he like real Elder Brother to me. But then we have trouble. That why I have to leave Canton, run away. Can-na go back.’
‘What happened?’
‘Dai Lou, he have woman. Not wife but… how do you say?’
‘Concubine?’
‘Yes. Concubine. She very beautiful. Her name Adelina.’
‘Was she European?’
‘No. Adelie also ‘salt-prawn-food’, like me: she also half Cheeni, half Achha.’
‘Achha? What do you mean by that?’
‘“Achha” – that what Canton-yan call you people. You Hindusthanis – there you all “Achha” ’.
‘But “achha” just means “good”. Or “all right”.’
Ah Fatt laughed: ‘Is opposite in Gwong-jou-talk. Ah-chaa mean ‘bad man’. So you are Achha to me and Aa-chaa to them.’
Neel laughed too. ‘So your Adelie was half Achha? Where was she from?’
‘Her mother from Goa, but live in Macau. Her father Chinese, from Canton. Adelie very beautiful; she also like smoke opium. When Dai Lou travel, he tell me to look after. Sometime she ask me bite the cloud with her. We both half-Achha, but never seen India. We talk about India, about her mother, my father. And then…’
‘You became lovers?’
‘Yes. We both become din-din-dak-dak. Crazy.’
‘And your boss found out?’
Ah Fatt nodded.
‘What did he do?’
‘What do you think?’ Ah Fatt shrugged. ‘Just like country have laws, gaa have rules. I know Dai Lou try to kill me so I hide with mother. Then I hear hing-dai come for me, so I run away. Go to Macau, and pretend to be Christian. Hide in seminary. Then they send me to Serampore, in Bengal.’
‘And Adelie?’
Ah Fatt looked into his eyes and then pointed his chopsticks at the muddy waters of the river.
‘She killed herself?’
He answered with a barely perceptible nod.
‘But that’s all in the past, Ah Fatt: don’t you ever feel like going back to Canton now?’
‘No. Can-na go back, even though Mother is there. Dai Lou have eyes everywhere. Can-na go back.’
‘But what about your father then? Why don’t you go to see him?’
‘No!’ Ah Fatt slammed his cup on the table. ‘No. Don’t want see Father.’
‘Why?’
‘Last time I see him, I ask him to take to India. I want go away. Away from Chin-gwok, away from Canton. I know if I stay, something happen with me and Adelie. And I know also, Dai Lou can find out and then he can do anything – to her and me. So I go to Father one day. I ask him to take to India, on Anahita. But he say: No, no, Freddy, cannot go. Impossible. After that I angry too. Very angry. I never see Father again.’
Despite the vehemence of Ah Fatt’s tone, Neel could sense that the ship’s influence on his friend was strengthening, its magnetic field growing steadily more powerful. ‘Listen, Ah Fatt,’ he said. ‘Whatever may have happened between you and your father is in the past. Maybe he’s changed: don’t you think you should find out if he is on board the ship?’
‘No need find out,’ said Ah Fatt. ‘I know. He is there. I know he is there.’
‘How?’
‘See flag? With columns? Is only up when Father there.’
‘Then why don’t you send him a message?’
‘No.’ The word came out of Ah Fatt’s mouth like a small explosion. ‘No. Don’t want.’
Looking up, Neel saw that Ah Fatt’s face, which had shown very little emotion so far, had suddenly crumpled into a stricken mask. But almost immediately Ah Fatt straightened his shoulders and shook his head, as if to clear it. Then, swilling back a shot of liquor, he said: ‘Mister Neel, you make me talk too much. Now no more talk. We go sleep.’
‘Where?’
‘Here. In this boat. Lady say we can stay here.’
Four
For the journey from Mauritius to southern China Fitcher chose to follow the shortest route, which was by way of Java Head, with a stop for re-provisioning at Anger, the port that faced the perpetually smoking cone of Krakatoa from across the Sunda Straits.