River of Smoke - Amitav Ghosh [53]
Bahram had been uncharacteristically patient in enduring this performance, but at the end of it he let his annoyance show by asking: Are you sure you know what you are talking about?
The old man, whose cataract-clouded eyes contained a surprising glint of shrewdness, had smiled at him sweetly and answered: Why? Do you have any reason to think that your seed is capable of begetting a male child?
Bahram had understood at once that the old man had sprung a carefully crafted trap. To denounce him as a fraud would surely have excited Shireenbai’s suspicions, and expensive though the alternative might be, the cost was negligible in comparison with the price he would have to pay if it came to be known that he had already sired a son – a bastard. A short while ago, a similar revelation had caused an upheaval in the community: the man concerned, a trader of Bahram’s acquaintance, had been expelled from the Parsi panchayat. Not only had he become a social outcast, a pariah to whom no Parsi would so much as rent a room, he had also been financially ruined because no one would do business with him any more; there was almost no price that Bahram would not have paid to prevent such an outcome.
Yet, when he tried to speak the words of denial he found himself gagging on them. It was one thing to skim over the subject in silence; but to actively deny his son’s existence, to pretend that he had played no part in engendering the life of his own child – this was impossibly difficult. Fatherhood and family were a kind of religion to him, and it would be like denying his faith, erasing the sacred ties of blood that connected him, not only to his son but also to his daughters.
The sadhu, perhaps sensing his dilemma, said: You have not answered my question …
Bahram could feel his wife’s eyes boring into him, and somehow, swallowing hard, he had managed to say: No. You’re right; the fault must lie in my seed. I will take the treatment – all of it, whatever is necessary.
Over the next several months he had taken the sadhu’s tonics, applied the ointments, paid whatever was asked for and lain with Shireenbai in the prescribed ways, at exactly the prescribed times. The effort was not entirely wasted, for Shireenbai had never again talked to him about her wish for a son – but on the other hand, the failure of the ‘treatment’ had seemed only to confirm her forebodings about the future. Her belief in signs and omens had grown even more fervent than before.
Never were Shireenbai’s apprehensions more acute than when Bahram was about to set sail for southern China: in the weeks before she would make daily visits to the Fire Temple and spend long hours with the dasturs; the day and the hour of Bahram’s departure would be dictated by her astrologers and since he refused to consult fortune-tellers himself, she would seek them out, commissioning all kinds of prophecies and divinations. The night before, if an owl were heard, she would insist upon a change of date; in the morning, she would rearrange the household to make sure that he passed through a carefully constructed labyrinth of auspiciousness – a maid would materialize in the stairwell, with a pot of water on her head; the malis would be dispersed across the garden, as if uninstructed, but with their arms filled with the right sorts of fruits and flowers; when Bahram was about to step into his carriage a fisherman would mysteriously appear, just in time to give him a glimpse of his catch. Shireenbai would even dictate the route to the docks, planning it so as to avoid the washermen at Dhobi-Talao – for a dhobi carrying unclean clothes was a sight