Flood of Fire (38 page)

For several successive nights, Shireen woke with a jolt, in the small hours, her nerves fluttering, her heart racing. It seemed incredible that all the obstacles that had loomed so large in her mind had disappeared; that she was now free to go to China – she, Shireen, mother of Behroze and Shernaz, a grandmother who had lived in the same house all her life and had never travelled beyond Surat! She had never quite believed that the wall she was pushing against would ever give way, and now that it had, she felt that she was toppling over.

At this critical time, when her confidence was beginning to falter, it was Rosa who steadied her by shifting her attention to practical things – like bowlas and baggage. She asked Shireen how many trunks she had and whether they would suffice for all her things.

Shireen remembered that she had put some of Bahram's old sea-trunks and bowlas in a storage loft. She had them brought down and found, to her dismay, that they were in a bad way: the trunks' wooden frames had been shredded by termites and their leather coverings had been eaten by mildew. But there were two that were not past salvaging – and to Shireen that seemed good enough: she could not imagine that she would need more.

But Rosa laughed when she heard this: No, Bibiji, you'll need at least three more trunks and a couple of bedding rolls as well. We should go to China Bazar and order them straight away.

So Shireen asked for a carriage and they went across town to visit the leather-workers' shops in the China Bazar. After their orders had been placed Rosa sprang another surprise: since they had a buggy for the morning, she said, they might as well visit Mr da Gama, the tailor, at his premises near the Esplanade.

Shireen had planned to buy a few white shawls and saris for the journey, but it had never entered her mind to visit Mr da Gama, who specialized in making coats and pelisses, mainly for Europeans.

Why Mr da Gama? Shireen asked, at which Rosa proceeded to explain that winters were sometimes bitterly cold on the south China coast. Shireen would need not just shawls and scarves but also pelisses, surtouts, hats, dresses …

Dresses! Shireen clamped a hand over her mouth. After hearing of Bahram's death she had adhered strictly to the rules of widowhood, which prescribed, among other things, that only white saris could be worn: to wear a dress would mean breaking with an ages-old custom.

Shaken by tremors of disquiet, Shireen said: You don't think I'm going to wear dresses, do you, Rosa?

Why not, Bibiji? said Rosa, with her bright, mischievous smile. At sea dresses are easier to manage than saris.

But what will people think? What will the family say?

They won't be there, Bibiji.

Shireen wondered how to explain that the thought of herself, costumed in a gown, seemed not just scandalous but also absurd. I can't, Rosa! I'd think everyone was laughing at me. Rosa smiled and patted Shireen's hand.

No one will laugh at you, Bibiji, she said. You're tall and thin – a dress will suit you very well.

Really?

In trying to envision herself in a dress, Shireen realised that the journey ahead would entail much more than just a change of location: in order to arrive at her destination she would have to become a different person.

In the following weeks, as a procession of darzees, mochis, rafoo-gars and milliners filed through her apartment, Shireen began to catch glimpses of this new incarnation of herself.

The sight made her avert her eyes from the looking-glass. Apart from Rosa she allowed no one into the room where she was being measured and fitted; she hid her new wardrobe even from her daughters, locking her almirah whenever they or their children came to visit.

The deception was so successful that she succeeded in concealing her wardrobe until her departure was just a week away. But one morning Shernaz and Behroze came over with their children, to help with the packing, and one of their little girls somehow managed to get hold of the key to the almirah in which Shireen had hidden her new clothes.

A shriek rang through the apartment and suddenly it was as if Aladdin's cave had appeared in Shireen's bedroom: everyone ran to the almirah and stood staring in disbelief at the hats, shoes and pelisses that were stored within.

After that Shireen could not refuse to show her daughters and granddaughters how she looked in her new clothes. Yielding to their entreaties, she changed into a complete ensemble of memsahib clothing – dress, pelisse and hat – and paraded defiantly through her bedroom, challenging them to laugh.

But instead their eyes widened with a wonder that was not untinged with envy.

‘Oh Mama!' cried Shernaz, who had never addressed Shireen in that way before.

‘What do you mean Mama?' said Shireen. ‘Since when have you called me that?'

Shernaz looked startled: ‘Did I call you that?'

‘Yes.'

‘Well then it's because you don't look like our Mumma any more.'

‘What do I look like then?'

‘I don't know. You look different – younger.'

Then Shernaz burst into tears, taking everyone by surprise. After that no one else could stay dry-eyed either.

For the last two days before the
Hind'
s departure, Shernaz and Behroze moved into Shireen's apartment with their children. This was meant to make things easier for Shireen, but of course it did nothing of the kind; still, she welcomed the extra work because it kept her occupied.

On the evening before Shireen's embarkation, her brothers organized a special jashan at home to seek blessings for her voyage and to wish her godspeed. Shireen was a little nervous about the event, but it went off very well. Every prominent Parsi family in the city
sent a representative, including the Readymonies and Dadiseths; even Mrs Jejeebhoy dropped by for a few minutes. Better still, the jashan was attended by several members of the Parsi Panchayat – this was a great relief to Shireen for she had not quite rid herself of the fear that the community's highest body might declare her an outcast. This way it was almost as if they had given their imprimatur to her voyage.

Next morning Shireen arrived at the dock, with her daughters and their families, to find that a large crowd had already assembled there. Many of Rosa's relatives had also come to see her off and Vico had hired a band, to play rousing tunes.

The captain of the
Hind
had been alerted to Shireen's arrival and was waiting for her with a bouquet in his hands. A tall sunburned man with muttonchop whiskers, he led her personally to her stateroom, which was in the roundhouse, on the starboard side. It was actually a suite of cabins, a small one to sleep in, and another slightly larger one, with both a sitting and a dining area. Attached was a pantry with a bunk for Rosa.

‘I hope it's to your satisfaction, madam?'

Shireen could not have hoped for anything better. ‘It's wonderful!' she said.

After the captain had left, Shireen's daughters and grandchildren helped her settle in. In a very short while the cabins were arranged to the satisfaction of everyone except Shireen herself – she could not rid herself of the feeling that something was missing. She remembered just before it came time for all visitors to go ashore. Plunging into a trunk she brought out a
toran
– an embroidered fringe of the kind that hung around the doorways of all Parsi homes.

Shernaz, Behroze and their children helped her drape the toran around the entrance hatch. When it was properly affixed, they crowded into the gangway to look at it.

Ekdum gher javu che
, said Shernaz with a sigh. It's just like home now, isn't it?

Yes, said Shireen. It is.

Zachary's initiation into the opium trade began on Calcutta's Strand Road, which adjoined the busiest section of the Hooghly River.
Pointing to six sailing vessels that were anchored nearby, Baboo Nob Kissin explained that the opium fleet had just arrived from Bihar, with the year's first consignment from the East India Company's opium factories in Patna and Ghazipur. This year's crop had exceeded all previous records; despite the troubles in China, production had continued to increase at a tremendous pace in the Company's territories.

‘Opium is pouring into the market like monsoon flood,' declared Baboo Nob Kissin.

They watched for a while as the drug was unloaded. Each of the cargo ships had a small flotilla of sampans, paunchways and lighters attached, like sucklings to a teat. Under the scrutiny of armed overseers and burkandazes, teams of coolies were transferring the chests of opium from the ships to the brick-red godowns that lined the riverbank.

Each chest held two maunds – roughly one hundred and sixty pounds – of opium, said Baboo Nob Kissin; the cost to the Company, for each chest, was between one hundred and thirty and one hundred and fifty rupees. Of this the farmer received perhaps a third if he was lucky: there were so many middlemen – sudder mahtoes, gayn mahtoes, pykars, gomustas – to be paid off that he often ended up earning less than he had spent on his poppy crop. The Company on the other hand would earn eight to ten times the cost-price of each chest when they were sold off at auction – somewhere between one thousand and fifteen hundred rupees, or five hundred to seven hundred Spanish dollars.

Then the chests would travel eastwards, to China and elsewhere, but even before they went under the auctioneer's hammer, they would pass through another market, an informal one – and it was at this very unusual bazar that Zachary's initiation into the trade was to begin.

Plunging into a side-street, Baboo Nob Kissin led Zachary to Tank Square, which was within hailing distance of the Strand. This was the heart of official Calcutta: at the centre of the square lay a rectangular ‘tank' of fresh water; overlooking it was the East India Company's headquarters, a great pile of a building, honeycombed with columns and arches and crowned with elaborate tiaras of wrought iron.

On the other side of the tank lay the Opium Exchange: a large but unremarkable building with the reassuring look of a reputable bank. This was where the East India Company's opium auctions were conducted, said Baboo Nob Kissin: the next one would be held there tomorrow morning – but for now the building was empty, and its heavy wooden doors were locked and under guard.

The bazar that they were heading for was in a dank, dirty little gali behind the Opium Exchange. Mud and dung squelched under their feet as they walked towards it, pushing past ambling cows and loitering vendors. The marketplace consisted of a small cluster of lamplit stalls: turbaned men sat on the cloth-covered counters with ledgers lying open on their crossed legs.

To Zachary's surprise there were no goods on display: he was at a loss to understand what exactly was being bought and sold – and it didn't help much when Baboo Nob Kissin explained that this was not a bazar for opium as such; rather it was a place in which people traded in something unseen and unknown: the prices that opium would fetch in the future, near or distant. In this bazar there were only two commodities and both were pieces of paper – chitties or letters. One kind was called
tazi-chitty
or ‘fresh letter'; the other kind was
mandi-chitty
– ‘bazar letter'. Buyers who thought that the price of opium would go up at the next auction would buy tazi-chitties; those who thought it would go down would buy mandi-chitties. But similar chitties could be written to cover any period of time – a month, a year or five years. Every day, said Baboo Nob Kissin, lakhs, crores, millions of rupees passed through this bazar – there was more wealth here than in any market in Asia.

‘See! In every nook and corner there are beehive activities!'

The riches evoked by Baboo Nob Kissin's words cast a new light on the bazar: Zachary's pulse quickened at the thought that fortunes could be made and lost in this dirty little alley. Through the odour of dust and dung he recalled the perfumed scents of Mrs Burnham's boudoir. So this was the mud in which such luxuries were rooted? The idea was strangely arousing.

‘You see the men who are sitting there?' said Baboo Nob Kissin, pointing at the stalls. ‘They are shroffs – brokers. From all over India they have come. Many are from far-away places – Baroda,
Jodhpur, Mathura, Jhunjhunu. All are lakhaires. Some are millionaires and some are even crore-patters. So much money they have, they can buy twenty ships like
Ibis.'

Zachary looked at the shroffs with renewed interest: their clothing seemed to be of the simplest cotton and there was nothing of any expense on their persons, apart from a sprinkling of gold jewellery – mainly studs in the ears, and neck-chains. Elsewhere in the city these men would scarcely have attracted a second glance. But here, enthroned upon their counters, with their solemn, unsmiling faces, they exuded a gnomic aura of authority.

Soon it became clear that Baboo Nob Kissin was intimately familiar with the sellers and their procedures. Zachary watched carefully as he went up to one of the counters to greet the proprietor.

Now began a curious charade: without saying a word aloud, both men began to make rapid gestures with their hands and fingers. All of a sudden, the Baboo thrust his hands under the shawl that lay draped over the broker's lap. The shawl began to bounce and writhe as their hidden fingers twined with each other, twisting and turning in a secret dance. Gradually these motions built to a climax and a shudder of understanding passed through both of them; then their hands fell inert under the shawl and they exchanged a quiet smile.

Hardly a word had been said all this while, but when Baboo Nob Kissin stepped away the broker bent quickly over his ledger and began to make rapid notations with a pencil.

It was through hand-language, Baboo Nob Kissin explained, that most transactions were done in this market; that way others did not know what was being purchased and at what price.

To Zachary's surprise it turned out that Baboo Nob Kissin had placed his money in tazi-chitties: the cost of a chest of the best Benares opium had fallen to nine hundred rupees at the last auction and the general feeling in the marketplace was that it would fall still further because of the troubles in China. Baboo Nob Kissin, on the other hand, was sure that there would be a modest rebound in the price.