River of Smoke - Amitav Ghosh [189]
The ship was carrying over a hundred coolies and two qaidis. One of the two convicts was a Bengali – about your age I would say, Anil-babu. He had been a raja earlier, but had lost all his money and committed forgery. He was taken away from his wife and son, his palace and his servants; he was packed off to jail, there was a trial and he was sentenced to transportation – seven years of hard labour in a prison camp in Mauritius. I had seen this man, this raja, on the streets of Calcutta before his fall from fortune: he was like other zemindars, arrogant and lazy, corrupt and debauched. But ships and the sea have a way of changing people, would you not say so, Anil-babu?
Neel looked up from his biryani. Yes, maybe …
I don’t know whether it was he or I who was most changed by the Ibis, but when I saw this one-time raja in chains, on the ship, I felt a strange connection with him. My inner voice whispered in my ear: this is your son; this is the child you have never had. I tried to help him; I would go to see him and his fellow prisoner in their chokey and I would take them food and other things. As the supercargo, I had my own keys to the chokey; one night the qaidis asked me to leave the door open. This too I did, and that night, in the midst of a storm, this young man and some others tried to escape. Next day evidence was found that their boat had capsized and they had all perished. The blame for this incident fell, unfortunately, on the shoulders of the blameless Zachary Reid, who is still in Calcutta trying to clear his name. But for myself, I had to suffer another kind of punishment: I thought I had lost my new-found child – and I felt the pain of it so bitterly that when I returned to Calcutta I went to see his wife and son …
It was all Neel could do, now, to keep his eyes fixed on his biryani. Somehow he managed to keep his head lowered and his jaw working.
… the news of his death had already reached them, but you will be amazed to hear, Anil-babu, that the Rani, a woman deeply observant of Hindu custom, was not wearing widow’s whites. Nor had she broken her bangles or removed the vermilion from the parting of her hair. I discovered then that even though her husband has been declared dead she was certain, in her heart, that he was alive. And I confess to you that she was persuasive enough to convince me too. She asked me to keep my eyes open for him on my travels. I told her that even if he was alive it was unlikely that I would recognize him. He was sure to have changed his name and his appearance; what was more, he would be extremely wary of revealing himself to me, knowing that I work for Mr Burnham, who is the cause of his dispossession and banishment. But she would not listen. She said: if ever, by some miracle, it should happen that your paths do cross, then you must tell him that you would never betray him, for he is still like a son to you, just as he is still my husband …
Stop! Neel looked around to make sure there was no one nearby. Then leaning forward, he said in a whisper: Is it true Baboo Nob Kissin? Did you really see them? Malati, my wife, and my son Raj Rattan? Don’t lie to me.
Yes. I saw them.
How is she, my wife?
She has managed better than you would think. She teaches your boy his letters and some of the local children too. Neither your wife nor your son doubt for a moment that you will return.
Tears came into Neel’s eyes now, and he lowered his head to blink them away unseen. He remembered Malati’s face as he had seen it the first time, on the night of their wedding, when he was fourteen and she a year younger. He remembered how she had hidden behind her veils, even when they were in bed; he remembered how she had turned her face away from him when he tugged at the coverings. He remembered also the day she came to see him in jail, in Calcutta: her ever-present veils were gone and it was as if he were seeing her for the first time. Not till then did he realize that