Sea of Poppies

Rising to her feet, Paulette took the list from him and began to examine it under the glowing, sunlit penumbra of her ghungta.

'It is crew-list for Ibis from two years ago. Look at Mr Reid's good-name and you will see. Cent-per-cent change is there.'

As if mesmerized, Paulette's eyes ran back and forth along the line until they came to the word 'Black' scribbled beside Zachary's name. Suddenly so much that had seemed odd, or inexplicable, made perfect sense – his apparently intuitive sympathy for her circumstances, his unquestioning acceptance of her sisterly relationship with Jodu…

'It is a miracle, no? Nobody can deny.'

'Indeed, Baboo Nob Kissin. You are right.'

She saw now how miraculously wrong she had been in some of her judgements of him: if there was anyone on the Ibis who could match her in the multiplicity of her selves, then it was none other than Zachary. It was as if some divine authority had sent a messenger to let her know that her soul was twinned with his.

There was nothing now to stop her from revealing herself to him – and yet the mere thought of it made her cringe in fear. What if he assumed that she had chased him on to the Ibis? What else indeed could he assume? What would she do if he laughed at her for humiliating herself? She could not bear to think of it.

She lifted her head to look at the sea, rushing by, and a glimmer of memory flashed through her head: she remembered a day, several years ago, when Jodu had found her crying over a novel. Taking the book out of her hands, he had flipped through it in puzzlement, even shaking it by the spine, almost as if he were expecting to dislodge a needle or a thorn – some sharp object that might account for her tears. Finding nothing, he said at last – it's the story, is it, that's turned on the flow? – and on this being confirmed, he had demanded a full recounting of the tale. So she'd told him the story of Paul and Virginie, growing up in exile on an island, where an innocent childhood attachment had grown into an abiding passion, but only to be sundered when Virginie was sent back to France. The last part of the book was Paulette's favourite, and she'd described at length the novel's tragic conclusion, in which Virginie is killed in a shipwreck, just as she is about to be reunited with her beloved. To her outrage, Jodu had greeted the melancholy tale with guffaws of laughter, telling her that only a fool would cry over this skein of weepy nonsense. She had shouted at him, telling him that it was he who was the fool, and a weakling too, because he would never have the courage to follow the dictates of his heart.

How was it that no one had ever told her that it was not love itself, but its treacherous gatekeepers which made the greatest demands on your courage: the panic of acknowledging it; the terror of declaring it; the fear of being rebuffed? Why had no one told her that love's twin was not hate but cowardice? If she had learnt this earlier she would have known the truth of why she had gone to such lengths to stay hidden from Zachary. And yet, even knowing this, she could not summon the courage to do what she knew she must – at least not yet.

*

It was late in the night, shortly after the fifth bell of the midnight watch, that Zachary spotted Serang Ali on the fo'c'sle-deck: he was alone and he seemed to be deep in thought, looking eastwards, at the moonlit horizon. All through the day, Zachary had had the feeling that the serang was avoiding him, so he lost no time now in stepping up to stand beside him at the rail.

Serang Ali was clearly startled to see him: 'Malum Zikri!'

'Can you spare a moment, Serang Ali?'

'Can, can. Malum, what-thing wanchi?'

Zachary took out the watch Serang Ali had given him and held it in his palm. 'Listen, Serang Ali, it's time you told me the truth about this timmyknocky here.'

Serang Ali gave the ends of his drooping moustache a puzzled tug. 'What Malum Zikri mean? No sabbi.'

Zachary opened the watch's cover. 'Time's come to cut playing the fool, Serang Ali. I know you been putting me on about Adam Danby. I know who he was.'

Serang Ali's eyes went from the watch to Zachary's face and he gave a shrug, as if to indicate that he was weary of pretence and dissimulation. 'How? Who tell?'

'That don matter none: what counts is I know. What I don't know is what you had in mind for me. Were you planning on teaching me Danby's tricks?'

Serang Ali shook his head and spat a mouthful of betel-juice over the deck rail. 'No true, Malum Zikri,' he said in a low, insistent voice. 'You cannot believe all what the buggers say. Malum Aadam, he blongi like son for Serang Ali – he my daughter husband. Now he hab makee die. Also daughter and all they chilo. Serang Ali 'lone now. When I look-see Malum Zikri, my eyes hab done see Malum Aadam. Both two same-same for me. Zikri Malum like son also.'

'Son?' said Zachary. 'Is that what you'd do for your son? Turn him to crime? Piracy?'

'Crime, Malum Zikri?' Serang Ali's eyes flashed. 'Smuggling opium not blongi crime? Running slave-ship blongi better'n pi-ra-cy?'

'So you admit it then?' said Zachary. 'That's what you had in mind for me – to do a Danby for you?'

'No!' said Serang Ali, slapping the deck rail. 'Want only Zikri Malum do good for he-self. 'Come officer. Maybe Cap'ting. All thing Malum Aadam can not 'come.'

The Serang's body seemed to wilt as he was speaking, so that he looked suddenly older, and somehow strangely forlorn. Despite himself, Zachary's voice softened. 'Lookit, Serang Ali,' he said. 'You been plenty freehanded with me, can't deny it. Last thing I want is to turn you in. So let's just settle this between us. Let's agree that when we put into Port Louis, you'll light out. That way we can just forget any of this happened.'

Serang Ali's shoulders sagged as he answered. 'Can do – Serang Ali so can do.'

Zachary took a last look at the watch before handing it over. 'Here – this belongs in your poke, not mine. You better keep it.'

Serang Ali sketched a salam as he knotted the watch into the waist of his lungi.

Zachary stepped away but only to come back again. 'Look, Serang Ali,' he said. 'Believe me, I'm cut down 'bout it ending like this between us. Sometimes I just wish you'd'a left me alone and never come anigh. Maybe things would'a been different then. But it was you as showed me that what I do counts for more than where I was born. And if I'm to care bout my work, then I need to live by its rules. Else it wouldn't be worth doing. You see the sense of that?'

'See.' Serang Ali nodded. 'Can see.'

Zachary was about to step away again when Serang Ali stopped him. 'Malum Zikri – one thing.'

'What?' Zachary turned to find Serang Ali pointing ahead, in a south-easterly direction.