The Linnet Bird: A Novel (31 page)

W
E STOPPED AT THE
S
ANDHEADS,
at the mouth of the Hooghly River, to wait for the tide to help push us into the river. This last leg of the journey, Mrs. Cavendish cautioned, was very hazardous. Traveling the sixty miles up the dimpled, belching brown water of the Hooghly as it cut through the green Bengal countryside had proved disastrous for many ships because of the dangerous sandbanks and suddenly shifting shoals. “Hundreds of lives lost on one sandbank alone, the treacherous quicksand of the James and Mary,” she went on, unmindful of Faith’s expression.

Faith had not done well on the journey. Like all of us, she had lost weight. There were new hollows under her eyes and the lines around her mouth had deepened. I had tried to do what I had been brought for—as a companion, to offer company and support—but Faith had grown sullen and uncommunicative. It seemed she had receded into herself while I felt myself growing stronger, more able. I felt as if I had even grown taller, although I knew that was impossible.

“Look, Faith, look there. Palm trees and banana as well, just like in your book,” I said, trying to cheer her with the vision of emerald lushness a few hours from Calcutta. There were waving fields of rice. Everywhere the color was so vibrant, so alive. England’s watercolor pastels paled in comparison. I gazed idly at a dog on the riverbank, noticing its pathetic protruding ribs and horribly scabbed flesh. It was busily tearing at something surrounded by bits of rotted blue cloth, and I realized that the dog’s prize was a human leg and foot at the same time as Faith. She emitted a high, strangled cry, running from the deck. As I made to follow her, Mrs. Cavendish laid her hand on my arm.

“Best let her be,” she advised. “India takes some hard. Some never get used to it. And others”—she puffed out her chest, reminding me of a pouter pigeon—“why, others simply do the best they can and are the better for it. Fourteen years—and just look at me. I’ve survived it all—fevers, heat, monsoons, birthing—two buried in India and three alive back home—heathen customs, snakebite, to say nothing of the things I’ve seen—stabbings in the market, executions of
thugees,
suttee. Although suttee was deemed forbidden last year. Not many like me, though.” She studied me. “You think you have what it takes?”

As I nodded, she shook her head. “Better start learning, then, Linny. Not even a parasol and, I must say, you’re quite unfashionably colored from the sun and wind.”

T
HE SHIP FINALLY STOPPED,
midafternoon, just before the shallow waters of the docks at Chandpal Ghat. The date I had written on the final page of my voyage letter to Shaker that morning was November 18, 1830. As I looked toward the docks, all I could make out was movement, a swarming mass of humanity. The waters were filled with every kind of vessel—fishing boats, rafts, dhows, ferries, and lorchas—so crowded that they chafed at one another. I thought of the coasting brigs and cutters and schooners in the thick fog at the harbor at Liverpool, drawing comparisons to these small vessels, manned by near-naked brown-skinned men.

The outskirts of Calcutta surprised me. Facing the river were white Palladian villas, elegant and stately, owned, Mrs. Cavendish told me, by British merchants grown rich on the East India Company’s trade.

After I’d fetched Faith from the cabin, where she sat forlornly in her sling bed, and, remembering Mrs. Cavendish’s warning, taking my parasol, we climbed down a rough rope ladder into masoolas—small rocking boats that ferried passengers to shore. The boat pitched and yawed in the brown water, and we held tightly to its sides. Dirty water sloshed over our boots and drenched the hems of our dresses.

Faith had been told that we’d be met by Mr. Waterton, her father’s friend who had agreed to be our hosts for as long as we remained in Calcutta. I was actually glad for my frilled pale blue parasol as I sat between Faith and Mrs. Cavendish, watching the crowd swell on the pier as we crossed the short span of water. Voices rose in shouts, cries, and chants.

“Do you see your husband, Mrs. Cavendish?” I shouted into the woman’s ear, realizing it was a foolish question. How could anyone discern any one thing in such a throng? Everywhere brilliant colors swarmed; I had to close my eyes for a moment to sort out what I was seeing. Women’s saris of bright pinks and oranges and reds, carts heaped high with unfamiliar fruits and vegetables. Dark faces under white turbans. As we drew closer to the pier, I raised my head, breathing in scents that I couldn’t identify but was sure, from my reading, must be jasmine and sandalwood and the tang of cloves and ginger. But there was something else. Underneath it all lay a fetid, cloying odor, urine and dirt and decay, a deep smell of rot that I recognized from the seeping cellars, flooded each year, crowded with the most desperate of families in the meanest courts in Liverpool.

We were lifted on to the dock, and the mass of brilliance I had seen from the masoola now became real, and in detail that belied the dreamy beauty I had assumed from the distance. We stood in the dust and heat and babble of the tumultuous crowd, our boots soaked through, trying to say our good-byes to the passengers we had come to know so well over our journey, shouting over the added noise of a tinny band playing to greet the ship. I found it difficult to stand on land after so many months on the rolling sea. My knees felt as if they were still dipping and balancing, and there was a listing in one side of my head. I felt a pressure on my ankle and looked down, thinking it was my body playing tricks on me as it adjusted to land under my feet. But it was a young woman—little more than a girl, really—kneeling at my feet, holding an emaciated naked infant with one arm while her other hand held up a dented tin bowl. Her mouth was moving, but in the terrific gabble surrounding us I couldn’t understand whether she was actually speaking or crying or praying. I had no Indian money yet, no rupees or annas in my reticule to give to her, and I smiled uncertainly, pointing at my reticule and shaking my head. But she appeared not to understand, her mouth growing wider. I saw now, with a shock of recognition, that the child’s head, which I assumed was covered in black hair, was actually swarming with flies. As the girl shifted the baby in her arm to pull at my skirt with a filthy hand, I saw the tiny scalp to be a mass of running sores. I swallowed, trying to step away from the tugging on my skirt, feeling a tiny ripping at my waist as the girl held tightly to the thin fabric of my frock. I saw that the handful of flowered muslin she gripped was now darkened with dirt, and I knew that the gauzy material on my back must also be growing dark as sweat dampened my torso.

As I continued to pull away, Faith, who stood beside me, looked down and saw the girl and what she held, and her legs gave out. I hooked my arm through hers to hold her up, struggling with my parasol and reticule, feeling, momentarily, a small flutter of panic as I once again looked down at the pathetic creature attached to my skirt. My stays were suddenly too tight, I was too hot, I found it difficult to breathe, and the multitude of strange odors now turned my stomach.

And then the pointed end of a parasol appeared at the girl’s ragged shoulder. The parasol—which I recognized as Mrs. Cavendish’s—gave the girl a sharp poke. She dropped my skirt and scurried away between trousered legs and flowing skirts.

I tried to drag Faith along. Her skin had the color and consistency of parchment paper, her hair a bright flame around it. Mrs. Cavendish followed, carrying Faith’s dropped reticule.

The dock was smothered with human forms: men in the ragged loincloths I knew from my reading were called
dhotis,
carrying bundles on their heads as they pushed their way through the throngs; sweetmeat sellers shouted as they hawked their wares—from water to hot fresh tea to betel nut; beggar children with huge, beseeching eyes screeched, holding out their hands; mangy yellow dogs barked. Everywhere brown-skinned men and women and children sat and stood and wandered about, some eating, some sleeping. It was a mass of moving, jabbering, stinking humanity. My lightheaded listing grew; I had never swooned, thinking women who did to be weak. But suddenly I feared that the immensity of sights and sounds and smells, and the bright heat that encased my body, might squeeze me, like a giant fist, into a limp and senseless being. I took deep breaths, biting down hard on my back teeth to drive away the hazy sense of disconnection.

A series of high squeals rang out above the general cacophony; the urgency of it made me search out this new source of noise. My head cleared at what I saw.

A man on a rich chestnut horse with black mane and tail sat high above the people on the hard-packed dirt and rock of the pier. Man and beast were caught in the shifting, restless crowd, and the horse whinnied in distress, lifting each foot and setting it down, panic in its rolling eyes. The man called out in a loud and demanding voice, but I didn’t know whether he called to his horse or the milling throngs surrounding them. He pulled with swift, upward tugs on the leather reins as if to steer the horse in another direction, but the beautiful gleaming animal kept throwing back its head, tossing its thick mane. I knew that if it should rear, the heavy hooves would surely come down on a foot or even a child. The man, seemingly huge on the horse, had long black hair oddly similar to his horse’s mane. His white teeth shone in his sun-darkened face, and I could even see the ebony glisten of his long eyes. He suddenly leaned forward, dropped his head, and appeared to speak into the horse’s ear, which was pricked forward.

Immediately the creature stopped its frantic head tossing and stood as if mesmerized. They looked as if they had been chiseled from one piece of magnificent stone, and finally the crowd thinned enough for them to move forward. The rider slowly edged the horse along, never glancing down, his eyes fixed on some distant spot.

“Who was that?” I asked Mrs. Cavendish, my arm still tight through Faith’s. She sagged against me.

“Who, dear?” Shielding her eyes, Mrs. Cavendish scanned the crowd.

I pointed. “That man. The tall one, on the horse.” Whether it was unrealized exhaustion from the journey and the excitement of docking, or the forgotten feel of solid earth under my feet, or the confusion to my senses, or a combination, something about seeing that man on his horse—so alone and distinct in the crowd of hundreds—had somehow settled me.

Mrs. Cavendish followed my finger. “A Pathan—not one of the Indian people. The Pathans are from the northwest frontier, way up beyond Peshawar, on the border with Afghanistan. They fairly often ride down into India to trade horses. Wonderful riders, the Pathans—or Pashtuns, as they call themselves. Rule most of Afghanistan, the blighters. Proud, they are, even noble, I suppose, but the Indians are a bit leery of them. And their women are just as fierce, mutilating their enemies and all that nonsense. Odd, actually, to see one this far south.”

“A Pathan,” I repeated. “A Pathan from Afghanistan.”

“Thank goodness,” Faith said, weakly. “Look. That man, with the sign with my name on it. Yes, it’s Mr. Waterton.”

Mrs. Cavendish and I hugged good-bye, and then I followed Faith as she cautiously made her way through to Mr. Waterton, her shoulders so high and tight I thought they might touch her ears. Mr. Waterton greeted us formally. He was a small man with thinning hair and a twitch under his left eye that made him appear to be continually winking. He’d brought a palanquin for the ride to his home. We climbed into the litter, with its wooden rods and tattered curtains around all four sides. It was carried by four brown men wearing very small, dirty loincloths. Faith was flustered as she climbed into the palanquin, trying not to stare at the men and yet stealing glances at them from beneath her lashes. We sat beside each other on one of the hard wooden benches while Mr. Waterton gave instructions for our luggage, which had been piled beside us on the pier, to be taken in a second palanquin. Then he climbed in and drew the curtains on all sides before sitting across from us. I had the immediate impression of going blind after so much color and activity.