In the urgency of the moment, this seemed self-evident to Nob Kissin Baboo: heaving himself tremulously to his feet, the gomusta made a grab at the fastened collar of Zachary's shirt.
Startled as he was by the gomusta's lunge, Zachary was quick enough to slap his hand away. 'What you gettin up to?' he cried in disgust. 'You crazy or somethin?'
Chastened, the gomusta dropped his hands. 'Nothing, sir,' he said, 'just only searching to see if kunth is blue.'
'If what is what?' Raising his fists, Zachary squared his shoulders. 'You cussin me now?'
The gomusta shrank back in dread, amazed at the dexterity with which the Guise had assumed the Warrior's stance. 'Please sir – no offence. Myself only Burnham-sahib's accountant. Good-name is Baboo Nob Kissin Pander.'
'And what're you doin here, on the quarter-deck?'
'Burra sahib has sent to get ship's papers from your kind self. Logs, crew manifests, all-type papers are required for insurance purposes.'
'Wait here,' said Zachary gruffly, slipping back into his cuddy. He had prepared the papers already, so it took no more than a moment to fetch them. 'Here they are.'
'Thank you, sir.'
Zachary was disconcerted to note that the gomusta was still examining his throat with all the intensity of a professional strangler. 'You'd best be on your way, Pander,' he said curtly. 'I've got other business to take care of now.'
In the gloom of the dabusa, Jodu and Paulette were holding each other tight, as they so often had in their childhood, except that they had never then had to reach around the stiff, crackling barrier of a dress like the one she was now wearing.
He scratched the rim of her bonnet with a fingernaiclass="underline" You look so different…
He had half-expected that she wouldn't understand, that she had lost her Bengali since he'd seen her last. But when she answered it was in the same language: You think I look different? she said. But it's you who's changed. Where were you all this while?
I was in the village, he said. With Ma. She was very sick.
She gave a start of surprise: Oh? And how is Tantima now?
He buried his face in her shoulder and she felt a tremor running up the sinews of his back. Suddenly alarmed, she pulled his nearly naked body still closer, trying to warm him with her arms. His loincloth was still wet and she could feel the dampness seeping through the folds of her dress. Jodu! she said. What's happened? Is Tantima all right? Tell me.
She died, said Jodu through his clenched teeth. Two nights ago…
She died! Now Paulette lowered her head too, so that they each had their noses buried in the other's neck. I can't believe it, she whispered, wiping her eyes on his skin.
She was thinking of you to the last, said Jodu, sniffing. You were always…
He was cut short by a cough and the clearing of a throat.
Paulette felt Jodu stiffen even before the sound of the intrusion reached her ears. Pulling free of his arms, she spun around and found herself face-to-face with a sharp-eyed, curly-haired young man in a faded yellow shirt.
Zachary too was taken utterly by surprise, but he was the first to recover. 'Hullo there, Miss,' he said, sticking out a hand. 'I'm Zachary Reid, the second mate.'
'I'm Paulette Lambert,' she managed to say, as she was shaking his hand. Then in a rush of confusion, she added: 'I witnessed the mishap from the rivage, and I came to see what had happened to the unfortunate victim. I was much concerned about his fate…'
'So I see,' said Zachary drily.
Now, looking into Zachary's eyes, Paulette's mind brimmed over with wild imaginings of what he must think of her, and of what Mr Burnham would do when he learnt that his memsahib-in-the-making had been discovered in an embrace with a native boatman. A stream of exonerating lies tumbled through her head: that she had fainted because of the stench of the 'tween-deck, that she had stumbled in the darkness: but none of these would be as convincing, she knew, as to say that Jodu had assaulted her and taken her unawares – and that she could never do.
But oddly, Zachary did not seem to be disposed to make much of what he had seen: far from giving vent to an explosion of sahibish outrage, he was going quietly about the errand that had brought him to the 'tween-deck, which was to hand Jodu a set of clothes – a shirt and a pair of canvas trowsers.
After Jodu had stepped away to change, it was Zachary who broke the awkward silence: 'I take it you're acquainted with this gawpus of a boatman?'
Faced with this, Paulette could not bring herself to mouth any of the fictions that were bubbling in her head. 'Mr Reid,' she said, 'you were no doubt shocked to find me in an embracement of such intimacy with a native. But I assure you there is nothing compromising. I am able to explicate all.'
'Not necessary,' said Zachary.
'But yes indeed, I must explain,' she said. 'If for no other reason, then only to show you the depth of my gratitude for your saving of him. You see, Jodu, who you rescued, is the son of the woman who brought me up. Our growing was together; he is like my brother. It was as a sister that I was holding him, for he has suffered a great loss. He is the only family I have in this world. All this will seem strange to you no doubt…'
'Not at all,' he said, shaking his head. 'Miss Lambert, I know very well how such a connection might arise.'
She noticed that there was a tremor in his voice, as if to indicate that her story had touched a chord in him. She laid a hand on his arm. 'But please,' she said guiltily, 'you must not speak of it to others. There are some, you know, who might look askance upon the chouteries of a memsahib and a boatman.'
'I'm good with secrets, Miss Lambert,' he said. 'I won't blow the gaff on you. You can be sure of that.'
Paulette heard a footfall behind her and turned away to find Jodu standing there, dressed in a blue sailor's banyan and a pair of old canvas trowsers. This was the first time Paulette had ever seen him in anything but lungis and gamchhas, vests and chadars – and because she was looking at him anew she saw also how much he had changed since she had seen him last: he had grown leaner, taller, stronger, and she could see in his face the shadow of what he had almost become, a man, and thus necessarily a stranger: this was deeply unsettling, for she could not imagine that she would ever know anyone as well as she had known Jodu. In other circumstances, she would have started at once to tease him, with the peculiar savagery they had always reserved for each other, when either of them had shown signs of taking too long a step outside the boundaries of their intimate universe: what a setting-to they would have had, a fierce bout of baiting and mockery that would have ended in slaps and scratches – but here, constrained by Zachary's presence, all she could do was give him a smile and a nod.