'What to do, sir?' said the gomusta. 'I do not wish to intrude into your privates, but alas it cannot be helped. Coolies are arriving like anything. As such, registration proceedings must be commenced without delay.'
Turning his head a little, the pilot caught a glimpse of Kalua and the sight prompted him to struggle to his feet. 'Now there's a burra-size budzat if ever I saw one.'
'Yes, sir. Thumping big fellow.'
Muttering under his breath, the pilot lurched unsteadily to one of the desks and threw open a massive, leather-bound register. Dipping a quill, he said to the gomusta: 'Right then, Pander, go ahead. You know the bandobast.'
'Yes, sir. I will supply all necessary informations.' The gomusta inclined his head in Deeti's direction. The woman? he said to Kalua. What's her name?
Her name is Aditi, malik; she is my wife.
'What did he say?' Mr Doughty bellowed, cupping his ear. 'Speak up there.'
'The lady's good-name is reported as Aditi, sir.'
' "Aditty?" ' The tip of Mr Doughty's nib touched down on the register and began to write. 'Aditty it is then. Bloody ooloo name, if you ask me, but if that's what she wants to be called so be it.'
Caste? said the gomusta to Kalua.
We are Chamars, malik.
District?
Ghazipur, malik.
'You bloody bandar of a Baboon,' Mr Doughty broke in. 'You forgot to ask him his name.'
'Sorry, sir. Immediately I will rectify.' Baboo Nob Kissin turned to Kalua: And you: who are you?
Madhu.
'What was that, Pander? What did the brute say?'
As he was about to say the name, Baboo Nob Kissin's tongue tripped on the final dipthong: 'He is Madho, sir.'
'Maddow?'
The gomusta seized upon this. 'Yes, sir, why not? That is extremely apt.'
'And his father's name?'
The question flummoxed Kalua: having stolen his father's name for his own, the only expedient he could think of was to make a switch: His name was Kalua, malik.
This satisfied the gomusta, but not the pilot. 'But how on earth am I to spell it?'
The gomusta scratched his head: 'If I can moot out one proposal, sir, why not do like this? First write C-o-l – just like "coal" no? – then v-e-r. Colver. Like-this like-this we can do.'
The pink tip of the pilot's tongue appeared at the corner of his mouth, as he wrote the letters in the register. 'Theek you are,' said the pilot. 'That's how I'll put him down then – as Maddow Colver.'
'Maddow Colver.'
Deeti, standing beside her husband, heard him whisper the name, not as if it were his own but as if it belonged to someone else, a person other than himself. Then he repeated it, in a tone of greater confidence, and when it came to his lips again, a third time, the sound of it was no longer new or unfamiliar: it was as much his own now as his skin, or his eyes, or his hair – Maddow Colver.
Later, within the dynasty that claimed its descent from him, many stories would be invented about the surname of the founding ancestor and the reasons why 'Maddow' occurred so frequently among his descendants. While many would choose to recast their origins, inventing grand and fanciful lineages for themselves, there would always remain a few who clung steadfastly to the truth: which was that those hallowed names were the result of the stumbling tongue of a harried gomusta, and the faulty hearing of an English pilot who was a little more than half-seas over.
Although the prisons at Lalbazar and Alipore were both known as jails, they no more resembled each other than a bazar does a graveyard: Lalbazar was surrounded by the noise and bustle of Calcutta's busiest streets, while Alipore lay at the edge of a deserted stretch of land on the city's outskirts and silence weighed down on it like the lid of a coffin. It was the largest prison in India and its fortress-like battlements loomed over the narrow waterway of Tolly's Nullah, well within view of those who travelled by boat to the migrants' depot. But few indeed were the passers-by who would willingly rest their gaze upon those walls: such was the dread inspired by the grim edifice that most chose to avert their eyes, even paying their boatmen extra to warn of its approach.
It was late at night when the carriage came to take Neel from Lalbazar to Alipore Jail. To cover the distance took about an hour as a rule, but tonight the carriage took a much longer route than usual, circling around Fort William and keeping to the quiet roadways that flanked the riverfront. This was done to forestall trouble, for there had been some talk of demonstrations of public sympathy for the convicted Raja: but Neel was unaware of this and to him the journey seemed like a prolongation of a special kind of torment, in which the desire to be done with the uncertainties of the recent past was at war with a longing to linger forever on this final passage through the city.
Accompanying Neel was a group of some half-dozen guards who whiled away their time with ribald banter, their jokes being premised on the pretence that they were a marriage party, escorting a bridegroom to his in-laws' house – his sasurál – on the night of his wedding. From the practised nature of their exchanges, Neel understood that they had enacted this charade many times before, while transporting prisoners. Ignoring their sallies, he tried to make the most of the journey – but there was little to be seen, in the darkness of the small hours, and it was largely through memory that he had to chart the progress of the carriage, envisioning in his mind the lapping water of the river and the tree-shaded expanse of the city's Maidan.
The carriage picked up speed when the jail came into view, and Neel willed himself to concentrate on other things: the howls of nearby jackals and the faint smell of night-time flowers. When the sound of the wheels changed, he knew the carriage was crossing the jail's moat, and his fingers dug into the cracked leather of his seat. The wheels creaked to a halt and the door opened, allowing Neel to sense the presence of a multitude of people, waiting in the darkness. In much the way that the legs of a reluctant dog lock themselves against the tug of a leash, his fingers dug into the horsehair stuffing of his seat: even when the guards began to prod and push – Chalo! We're here! Your in-laws are waiting! – they would not yield. Neel tried to say he wasn't ready yet and needed a minute or two more, but the men who had accompanied him were not of a mind to be indulgent. One of them gave Neel a shove that broke his hold; in stumbling off the carriage, Neel happened to step on the edge of his own dhoti, pulling it undone. Flushed with embarrassment, he tore his arms free, in order to rearrange his garments: Wait, wait – my dhoti, don't you see…?
In descending from the carriage, Neel had passed into the custody of a new set of jailers, men of a wholly different cast from the constables of Lalbazar: hard-bitten veterans of the East India Company's campaigns, they wore the red coattees of the sepoy army; recruited from the deep hinterlands, they held all city folk in equal contempt. It was in surprise rather than anger that one of them kneed Neel in the small of his back: Get moving b'henchod, it's late already…
The novelty of this treatment confused Neel into thinking that some sort of mistake had been made. Still grappling with his dhoti, he protested: Stop! You can't treat me like this; don't you know who I am?
There was a momentary check in the motion of the hands that had been laid upon him; then someone caught hold of the end of his dhoti and gave it a sharp tug. The garment spun him around as it unravelled, and somewhere nearby a voice said: