And yet, what exactly was this business? The strange thing was that despite all the time he spent with Bahram and all the letters he wrote for him, Neel had only a hazy idea of how his enterprise functioned. That most of his profits came from opium was clear enough, but exactly how much of it he traded, who he sold it to and where it went – all this was a mystery to Neel, for Bahram’s letters rarely made any reference to such matters. Could it be that unbeknownst to Neel, there were certain code words in the letters? Or could it be that he filled in some details in his own hand, in Gujarati, on the margins of the sheets that Neel handed to him? Or was it that certain letters were written for him by his other daftardars, men who were better acquainted with the functioning of the business? The last seemed the likeliest possibility, but somehow Neel was not persuaded of it: it seemed to him, rather, that all of Bahram’s employees – with the possible exception of Vico – knew only as much as they needed to and no more. Bahram’s daftardars were like the parts of a watch, each doing what was required of him but unaware of the functioning of the whole: only the Seth himself knew how the ensemble was put together, and for what purpose. And nor was this an accident: it was rather a function of some inborn skill that enabled him to manage his subordinates in such a way that they each worked efficiently within their own spheres while he alone was responsible for the whole.
This too made Neel think back on his own experience of presiding over a daftar, and it was only now that he understood exactly how bad he had been at the job: most of his employees had known more about his affairs than he had himself, and all his attempts to curry favour with them had had exactly the opposite effect. This realization, in turn, engendered an appreciation of Bahram’s talents that soon developed into a kind of exasperated admiration: there was no denying that the Seth was often maddening to work for, with all his little peccadilloes and eccentricities; yet there could be no doubt that he was a businessman of exeptional ability and vision: indeed it seemed quite likely to Neel that Bahram was, in his own sphere, a kind of genius.
It was evident too that Ah Fatt had been right to describe Bahram as a man who was widely liked, even loved. From his employees he commanded an almost fanatical loyalty, not only because he was a generous paymaster and fair in his dealings, but also because there was something in his manner that conveyed to them that he did not consider himself to be above, or better, than anyone on his staff. It was as if they knew that despite his wealth and his love of luxury, the Seth remained at heart a village boy, reared in poverty: his irritability was regarded as more endearing than offensive, and his occasional outbursts and dumbcowings were treated like vagaries of the weather and were never taken personally.
Nor was Bahram’s popularity restricted to the Accha Hong: writing notes of acceptance was another of Neel’s duties so he knew very well how much the Seth was in demand at the enclave’s gatherings.
The intensity of Fanqui-town’s social whirl was a source of constant amazement to Neeclass="underline" that a place so small, and inhabited by such a peculiar assortment of sojourners, should have a social life at all seemed incredible to him, let alone one of such intensity. Astonishing, too, that all this activity was generated by such a paltry number of participants – for the foreign traders and their Chinese counterparts, counted together, added up to no more than a few hundred men (but then, as Vico once pointed out to Neel, these buggers were, after all, some of the world’s richest men; ‘and over here, they are all squeezed together, with hardly room to turn around. No families, nothing to do – they have to make their own fun, no? When no wife there is at home, who thinks of sitting down at his own table? And what kind of falto will go to bed early when there is no one who will scold?’).
Nor was it only the Seths and tai-pans and big merchants who knew how to enjoy themselves: while the heads of houses were at their banquets, their employees too, would throw parties of their own, in which food and drink flowed just as freely as at the tables of their bosses (and were indeed often obtained from the same kitchens and parlours). Afterwards, they would stroll around the waterfront, comparing the merits of the entertainments that were on offer in the various hongs – and it was not unusual for them to conclude that they had contrived to entertain themselves with far greater success than their supposed superiors.
Vico’s connections in Fanqui-town were no less impressive than Bahram’s: he knew people in every factory and was often out till the small hours of the morning. His love of food and liquor were legendary in the Achha Hong and no one liked to boast about it more than he himself: he was one of those men whose pretensions consist only of exaggerating the grossness of their own instincts and appetites; to listen to him was to imagine that he liked nothing better than to spend his days in bed, eating, drinking, farting and fornicating.
So consistent was his description of this fictional self that it took Neel a while to understand that Vico was, in some ways, the opposite of what he pretended to be: industrious, energetic, a faithful husband and a devout Catholic. That he was also a man of many resources, endowed with all kinds of unexpected affiliations, was made apparent only through throwaway remarks and references – for example to his connection with Father Gonsalo Garcia, the East Indian missionary who had been crucified near Nagasaki, in Japan, along with a number of other Catholics, including five other members of the Franciscan order. The martyr had been beatified by Pope Urban VIII and in his birthplace he was already venerated as a soon-to-be saint: as it happened, this was none other than Vico’s own village – Bassein, near Bombay – and his was one of several local families who were reputed to be distantly related to the family of the venerable friar.
Because of their network of co-religionists, in rural China, members of the Catholic missionary orders were often extremely well informed about what was happening in the country: some of them occasionally visited Canton, to tend to the needs of the Catholics of the foreign enclave, and despite their reputation for secrecy, they were not impervious to the magic of Vico’s charmed connections.
Vico’s connections were often useful to Neel too, for apart from note- and letter-writing, the most important part of his job was khabar-dari – news-gathering. Through his first few weeks in Canton, Neel despaired of being able to cater to the Seth’s insatiable appetite for news. Knowing no one in the city, and possessing no sources of news other than the Canton Register and the Chinese Repository he was reduced to scouring old issues in the hope of finding something of interest to report. Of the two publications, the Repository was the more scholarly, the bulk of it being dedicated to long articles on subjects like the habits of scaly anteaters and witchcraft among the Malays. Such matters were of no interest to Bahram: he had as much scorn for abstractions as for useless facts.
‘Don’t want any bloody professory, understood, munshiji? News, news, news, that’s all. No bloody “hereuntos” and “thereunders”: just the khabar. Samjoed?’
The Canton Register was both newsy and polemical, and was therefore of more interest to Bahram, especially because the editor, John Slade, was also a regular at the Chamber of Commerce. But this meant that he was often aware of the Register’s contents even before they saw print.
‘Munshiji,’ the Seth would snap irritatedly, ‘why you are telling me all this stale news? If I ask for milk will you give me curds?’
Sometimes, taking pity on Neel, Vico would hand over things that he knew would be of interest to the Seth. It was thus that Neel was able to announce one morning: Sethji, I have something you will want to hear.