River of Smoke - Amitav Ghosh [44]
‘Did it come to Canton?’
‘No,’ said Ah Fatt. ‘Big ships can-na come to Canton – just like they can-na come up this river. Too shallow. They must anchor at Huang-pu – Whampoa in English. Many boats go up and down so I know about ship: I know has set record for season – seventeen days from Bombay to Canton. When Father come, I say: take me, take me to your ship, and he turn red, shake head. He afraid if he take me then ship will carry news back to Bombay. Elder Wife will find out about me and there will be trouble. Ship not his, he tell me; belong to father-in-law and brothers-in-law. He like paid servant and must be careful. But this mean nothing to me; I do not care. I tell him I want to go, or I will shame him. I will go Whampoa myself. So then he says, yes, he will take. But he sends me with Vico, his purser – does not go himself. Vico shows me ship, tell me stories. And it is like I saw in my head – a palace, better even than mandarin-boat. You cannot believe till you see …’
He broke off to point to the Anahita’s raised quarter-deck, which was lit by the glow of a binnacle lamp. ‘Look, near stern – third mast, what do you call it?’
‘The mizzen-mast?’
‘Yes. That mast like tree. Around its roots, on quarter-deck, there is carved bench, where people can sit. Grandfather built like that, to be like banyan tree in village. Vico tell me that. Afterward, when I see Anahita, always I think that my bench …’
Again now the cook interrupted, placing bowls of steaming rice on the plank, along with the rest of the chicken, prepared in a half-dozen different ways. The smells were tantalizing, but Neel was so absorbed in Ah Fatt’s recollections that he paid no mind to the food.
‘Did you go back to the ship again?’
‘No – did not go, but saw many times. At Lintin Island.’
‘Did you go there to see your father?’
‘No. Father never in Lintin.’ Seeing the puzzlement in Neel’s eyes, he said: ‘Look-see here, I show you …’
Using his chopsticks, Ah Fatt expertly dismantled a piece of chicken and picked out the wishbone. Laying it on the plank, he pointed to the yawning jaws: ‘This like mouth of Pearl River, which lead to Canton.’ Then, picking some grains of rice from his bowl he scattered them across the gap with his chopsticks. ‘These like islands – have many here, like teeth rising from sea. Teeth very useful to pirates. Also to foreign merchants, like Father. Because foreign ship cannot bring opium to Canton. Forbidden. So they pretend they do not bring to China. They go here’ – his chopsticks moved to point to a grain of rice that lay halfway between the jaws of the wishbone – ‘to Lintin Island. There they sell opium. When price is settled, dealer send out boat, quick boat, with thirty oar – “fast-crab”.’ Ah Fatt laughed, and his chopsticks flashed as he flipped the wishbone into the water. ‘That how I go to Lintin – in “fast-crab”.’
‘Why? What were you doing there?’
‘What you think? Buying opium.’
‘For whom?’
‘My boss – he big opium-seller, have many fast-crab, many leng work for him, many hing-dai. We are one big gaa and he is our Daaih-go-daai, Big-Brother-Big, for our family. We call him Dai Lou. He Canton man, but he travel everywhere – even to London. He stay there long time and then he come back to start business, in Macau. He have many like me to work for him; he like to hire my kind.’
‘What do you mean your kind?’
‘Jaahp-júng-jai – ‘mixed-kind-boy’.’ Ah Fatt laughed. ‘Many like that along Pearl River – in Macau, Whampoa, Guangzhou. In any