River of Smoke - Amitav Ghosh [147]
But no, said I, to Ah-med’s evident disappointment. As if in revenge, he pointed to a spot in the distance. ‘Lookee that side,’ he cried; ‘that place cuttee head! Cuttee head!’
Whatever could he be talking about? It took me a minute or two to understand that he was pointing to the public execution grounds, which are also situated on the river.
I confess I was transfixed. Zadig Bey has told me about the grounds: on execution days many people, including fanquis, go there to watch – some factories have even been known to organize boat parties! It seems utterly revolting, does it not? But of course hundreds of people go to watch the hangings in Calcutta, and I know the same is true also of London and many other cities – so one cannot pretend to be shocked that it happens here too. But since I, for one, have no taste for such things, I had promised myself I would stay away – yet now that it was in sight I must admit I gaped in fascination.
It is a narrow stretch of open ground, right by the river, so you can see it all quite clearly from a boat. Instead of a gallows there are other devices and contraptions – for example a kind of chair, to which men are tied before their heads are lopped off. There is even an apparatus that looks like a cross, but it is actually used for strangling people: the condemned man is tied, with his arms outspread, and then a cord is pulled tight around his neck.
Although it was a good distance away, I thought I discerned a corpse hanging upon one of those crosses. It made me feel quite faint – but now that I have seen it I do not regret it at all: I knew at once that this too must figure somewhere on my scroll and for a long while afterwards I could think of nothing but how to paint it.
Thus was I preoccupied when Ah-med announced that we had come to Fa-Tee. I had expected this to be an area of open gardens extending down to the waterside but it was nothing of the kind; the shore was pierced by a multitude of muddy creeks and channels, not unlike those we see around Calcutta, and on the banks were many trees that we see also in Bengal: banyans, bodhis and silk-cottons. We turned into a creek and from time to time we passed large, fortress-like compounds, where nothing was visible beyond the walls except, on occasion, a few tiled roofs. Then we came to a jetty around which were moored many boats of different kinds – sampans, scows, lanteas and even a large brightly painted pleasure-boat.
Beyond lay a compound not unlike those we had passed on the way. The wall that ran around it was tall, grey, and so forbidding in appearance that you would think you had come to a prison or an arsenal. So little did this place accord with my conception of a nursery that I thought at first there had been some mistake. But when Ah-med led me to the entrance it became clear that I had indeed arrived at the right destination – for hanging beside the gate was a sign with a few English words inscribed above the Chinese lettering: ‘Pearl River Nursery’.
Ah-med took me inside and showed me to a bench; then after taking my card, he vanished through a small