Kyá-ré? the other Parsis would laugh; fine fellow you are, Barry – letting your bastard grow up like a boat-boy. For your daughters you're building mansions on Queensway – nothing for this bugger? True he's not one of us, but there's something there, no? Can't just turn your back on him…
This was unjust, for it was patent for all to see, Parsis and others alike, that Barry was an indulgent and ambitious father, who had every intention of providing his only son with the wherewithal to set himself up as a gentleman of good standing: the boy was to be erudite, active and urbane, as handy with rod and gun as with book and pen; a Man who spouted Manliness like a whale exhales spray. If schools refused to accept the illegitimate son of a boatwoman, then he would hire special tutors, to teach him reading and penmanship, in Chinese and English – that way, he could always make a career for himself as a linkister, translating between the Fanquis and their hosts. There were many such in Canton, but most were utterly incompetent; the boy could easily learn to outdo them all and might even make a name for himself.
To find tutors who were willing to teach in a Dan kitchen-boat was no easy matter, but through Chunqua's good offices, some were found. Ah Fatt took readily to his lessons and every year when his father returned to Canton for the season, the records of his progress grew longer and longer, the calligraphy ever more stylish. Every year, Barry would bring extravagant gifts from Bombay, to thank his comprador for keeping an eye on the progress of the boy's education; every year Chunqua in turn would reciprocate with a present of his own, usually a book for the boy.
In Ah Fatt's thirteenth year, the present was a fine edition of that famous and beloved tale, Journey to the West.
Barry was much enthused when the name was translated for him: 'It'll do him good to read about Europe and America. Some day I will send him on a visit.'
Not without some embarrassment, Chunqua explained that the West in question was somewhat nearer at hand; in fact it was intended to be none other than Mr Moddie's very own homeland – Hindusthan, or Jambudvipa as it was called in the old books.
'Oh?' Although no longer so enthusiastic, Barry gave the boy his present anyway, little knowing that he would soon regret this offhand decision. Later, he came to be convinced that it was this book that was responsible for the fancies that entered Ah Fatt's head: 'Want to go West…'
Every time the boy saw him, he would plead to visit his father's homeland. But this was the one indulgence Barry could not grant: to think of letting the boy sail to Bombay on one of his father-in-law's ships; to imagine him walking down the gangplank, into a crowd of waiting relatives; to conceive of presenting his mother-in-law, his wife, his daughters, with fleshly evidence of his other life, in Canton, which they knew of only as a provenance for finely embroidered silks, pretty fans and torrents of silver – none of these notions could be entertained for more than a moment; why, it would be like unloosing an army of termites on the parqueted floors of his Churchgate mansion. The other Parsis in Canton might know about the boy, but he knew he could trust them to be discreet back home: after all, he, Barry, was not the only one to lapse from bach-elordom during these long months of exile. And even if a whisper or two were to reach his hometown, he knew people would ignore them so long as the evidence was kept safely hidden from view. If, on the other hand, he were to bring the boy back, for people to see with their own eyes, then a great flame of scandal would erupt from the doors of the fire-temple, to light a conflagration that would ultimately consume his lucrative living.
No, Freddy, listen to me, he said to Ah Fatt. This 'West' you've got in your head is just something that was made up in a silly old book. Later, when you're grown up, I'll send you to the real West – to France or America or England, some place where people are civilized. When you get there you'll be able to set yourself up as a prince or a foxhunting man. But don't think of Hindusthan; forget about it. It's the one place that's not good for you.
'And he was right,' said Ah Fatt. 'Was not good for me.'
'Why? What did you do?'
'Robbery. Did robbery.'
'When? Where?'
Ah Fatt rolled away, burying his face. 'Nother time,' he said, in a muffled voice. 'Not now.'
The turbulence of the open sea had a calamitous effect on Baboo Nob Kissin's processes of digestion and many days passed before he was able to make his way from the midships-cabin to the main deck. But when at last he stepped into the open air and felt the moisture of the sea on his face, he understood that all those days of dizziness, diarrhoea and vomiting were the necessary period of suffering that precedes a moment of illumination: for he had only to look at the spindrift that was flying off the schooner's bows to know that the Ibis was not a ship like any other; in her inward reality she was a vehicle of transformation, travelling through the mists of illusion towards the elusive, ever-receding landfall that was Truth.
Nowhere was this transformation more evident than in himself, for the presence of Taramony was so palpable within him now that his outer body felt increasingly like the spent wrappings of a cocoon, destined soon to fall away from the new being that was gestating within. Every day offered some fresh sign of the growing fullness of the womanly presence inside him – for example, his mounting revulsion at the coarseness of the maistries and silahdars with whom he had perforce to live: when he heard them speaking of breasts and buttocks, it was as if his own body were being discussed and derided; at times, his need to veil himself was so intense that he would pull a sheet over his head. His maternal stirrings too had now grown so exigent that he could not walk across the main deck without lingering awhile over that part of it which lay above the convicts' cell.
This proclivity earned him many earfuls of galis from the lascars, and several angry tirades from Serang Ali: 'What for you standi here likee cock-a-roach? Bugger too muchi foolo – nevva hit any use.'
Mr Crowle was even more direct: 'Pander, y'spigot-sucking gobble-prick! With all the wide welkin around us, why d'ye always have to be beating the booby right here? I tell yer, Pander, I see yer here again and I'm going to splice a cuntline to yer arse.'
To these assaults on his dignity the gomusta tried always to respond with queenly self-possession. 'Sir, I must deplore to your fulsome remarks. There is no need to pass dirty-dirty comments. Why all the time you are giving dagger-looks and criticizing? Only I have come to take air and refresh. If you are busy you need not bestow undue attention.'