River of Smoke - Amitav Ghosh [174]
Oh?
Sitting up slowly, Neel put a hand to his head and found that a bandage had been wrapped around it.
And Sethji? Is he all right?
Yes. He’s fine. He’s gone to the Club to have dinner with Mr Dent and Mr Slade. Everything’s quiet now, the trouble’s over. Except for the uprooted fences and broken glass in the Maidan, you wouldn’t know it had happened.
*
‘It is going exactly as I had predicted,’ said Dent gloomily, looking at his plate. ‘Instead of protecting our liberties Captain Elliott intends to join hands with the mandarins to deprive us of them. After his speech of today there can be no doubt of it; none at all.’
A steward had appeared at Dent’s elbow as he was speaking, bearing a tray of Yorkshire pudding: Bahram was no lover of this concoction but it did not escape his notice that the version being offered today was quite different from the dining room’s usual soggy staple – it was steaming hot and freshly risen.
Bahram had never known the Club’s staff to be as solicitious as they had been that evening: it was as if they were trying to make amends for the chaos of the day. Earlier, one of the stewards had come up to him and whispered in his ear: knowing of his fondness for Macahnese food he had offered him items that were not usually served in the Club – crisp fritters of bacalhau, char-grilled octopus and roast-duck rice. Bahram had accepted gladly but now that the rice was in front of him, topped with succulent slices of mahogany-coloured duck, he found he had lost interest in it.
Slade’s appetite, on the other hand, seemed only to have been whetted by the riot: having already wolfed down an enormous helping of roast beef, he now helped himself to some more.
‘It is unconscionable, I tell you! Completely and utterly unconscionable that Captain Elliott should take it upon himself to issue these fiats. Why, it seems to be his intention to offer himself to the Celestials as the chief officer of their police and customs!’
‘Shocking, is it not,’ said Dent, ‘that he should direct his strictures specifically at British traders?’
‘It is but proof of his ignorance of the situation in China,’ said Slade. ‘He seems to be unaware that this so-called system of “smuggling” was pioneered by the Americans. Was it not a Boston schooner, the Coral, that first sent her boats upriver with opium?’
‘So indeed it was!’
‘And in any case Captain Elliott has no legal authority to issue extravagant pronouncements on our behalf. There has never been any express diplomatic convention between England and China. Ergo he is not invested with any consular powers. He is assuming powers he does not possess.’
Dent nodded vigorously. ‘It is appalling that a man whose salary we pay should take it upon himself to impose Celestial misrule upon free men.’
Bahram happened to be facing a window and he noticed now that several brightly illuminated flower-boats had appeared on the misted waters of White Swan Lake; one passed close enough that he could see men lounging on pillows and girls plucking at stringed instruments. It was as if the turmoil of the day had never happened; as though it were all a dream.
Even at the time, as the events were unfolding under his own window, Bahram had found it hard to believe that these things were really happening: that a gibbet was being erected in the Maidan; that some poor wretch was to be executed within sight of his daftar. The semblance of unreality had grown even more acute when the condemned man was carried in. At one point, while twisting and writhing in his chair, the man had turned his head in the direction of the Fungtai Hong. Very little was visible of his face because of the hair that was matted on it, but Bahram had noticed that his eyes were wide open and seemed almost to be staring at him. The sight had shaken him and he had stepped away from the window. When he returned, the melee was already under way and the execution party had disappeared.
‘What happened to that fellow?’ Bahram said