River of Smoke - Amitav Ghosh [251]
Down below Dinyar was running furiously between the wickets.
And what was it all for, Zadig Bey? Was it just for this: so that these fellows could speak English, and wear hats and trowsers, and play cricket?
Bahram pulled the window shut, and the sounds faded away.
Perhaps that is what Ahriman’s kingdom is, isn’t it, Zadig Bey? An unending tamasha in a desert of forgetting and emptiness.
Eighteen
June 5, House No. 1, American Hong, Canton
Queridísima Puggliosa, I feel as if an epoch had passed since I last sat down to write to you. During these last six weeks it was impossible for us even to think of corresponding with the outside world – we were warned that any courier who was caught carrying letters for us would be severely punished and under the circumstances it seemed wrong to write letters. Only a most unfeeling person would want anyone to risk the bastinado for the sake of their silly ramblings, wouldn’t they, Puggly dear?
But that is all in the past now. Most of the opium has been rendered up and the Commissioner, in turn, has kept his word: from tomorrow onwards everyone who wishes to leave Canton will be allowed to do so – excepting only the sixteen foreigners who are considered the worst offenders. Zadig Bey will be leaving in a day or two and since I have elected to stay behind he has offered to carry my letters – so here I am, once again at my desk.
So much has happened in the interim, Puggly dear, that I do not quite know where to start. For me the greatest change was that I had to move out of Mr Markwick’s hotel. On the day I last wrote to you, Fanqui-town lost all its workers, coolies and servants – every Chinese employed in the enclave was told to depart by the authorities. After that it became impossible for poor Mr Markwick to carry on and he decided to close down.
You can imagine the spot this put me in: I could not think where I would go. But I need not have worried: Charlie came to see me and offered me a room in his house (is he not the kindest man in existence?). I thought I should pay rent, but he would not hear of it and asked only that I make him some paintings, which I gladly undertook to do. Since then I have been installed in the American Hong, in a room twice as large and far more luxurious than the one I had before: and nor am I deprived of the view that I had at Markwick’s, for here too I have a window that looks out on the Maidan! I have indeed been singularly fortunate: I miss Jacqua terribly, of course, but I do see him from time to time, across the barricades, and sometimes, when it is possible, he sends me things with one of the linkisters – jujubes and candied fruits. And to be living with Charlie is compensation of no small order: our time together has passed so agreeably that I am loath to see it end.
You have no doubt heard rumours about the privations we have had to endure during the last few weeks. You must not believe a word of it, Puggly dear. We have been lavishly supplied with food and drink – the lack of servants is the worst of the hardships we have had to suffer, and if you ask me, this has been in truth a most salutary thing. I can scarcely tell you how much pleasure it gives me to walk around the enclave and see these fanqui merchants, who have all grown rich and lazy on the fruits of their crimes, having to swab their own floors, make their own beds, boil eggs &c. &c. It is perhaps the only justice they will ever meet with.
You would not believe how helpless, indeed desperate, some of them are: why, just the other day, a fat old fellow came waddling after me in his sleeping gown and positively begged me to become his footman. Why no, sir, said I, drawing myself to my full height. I am the King’s man and would not dream of serving anyone else.
I find endless amusement in watching the scenes that pass between the fanquis and the linkisters (who take it in