The Glass Palace (3 page)

‘What is it?'

‘A motorwagon.' Matthew pointed out the details—the small internal-combustion engine, the vertical crankshaft, the horizontal flywheel. He explained that the machine could generate almost as much power as a horse, running at speeds of up to eight miles an hour. It had been unveiled that very year, 1885, in Germany, by Karl Benz.

‘One day,' Matthew said quietly, ‘I am going to own one of these.' His tone was not boastful and Rajkumar did not doubt him for a minute. He was hugely impressed that a child of that age could know his mind so well on such a strange subject.

Then Matthew said: ‘How did you come to be here, in Mandalay?'

‘I was working on a boat, a sampan, like those you see on the river.'

‘And where are your parents? Your family?'

‘I don't have any.' Rajkumar paused. ‘I lost them.'

Matthew cracked a nut between his teeth. ‘How?'

‘There was a fever, a sickness. In our town, Akyab, many people died.'

‘But you lived?'

‘Yes. I was sick, but I lived. In my family I was the only one. I had a father, a sister, brothers . . .'

‘And a mother?'

‘And a mother.'

Rajkumar's mother had died on a sampan that was tethered in a mangrove-lined estuary. He remembered the tunnel-like shape of the boat's galley and its roof of hooped cane and thatch; there was an oil lamp beside his mother's head, on one of the crosswise planks of the hull. Its flickering yellow flame was dulled by a halo of night-time insects. The night was still and airless, with the mangroves and their dripping roots standing thick against the breeze, cradling the boat between deep banks of mud. Yet there was a kind of restlessness in the moist darkness around the boat. Every now and again, he'd hear the splash of seed pods arrowing into the water, and the slippery sound of fish, stirring in the mud. It was hot in the sampan's burrow-like galley, but his mother was shivering. Rajkumar had scoured the boat, covering her with every piece of cloth that he could find.

Rajkumar knew the fever well by that time. It had come to their house through his father, who worked every day at a warehouse, near the port. He was a quiet man, who made his living as a
dubash
and a
munshi—
a translator and clerk— working for a succession of merchants along the eastern shore of the Bay of Bengal. Their family home was in the port of Chittagong, but his father had quarrelled with their relatives and moved the family away, drifting slowly down the coast, peddling his knowledge of figures and languages, settling eventually in Akyab, the principal port of the Arakan—that tidewater stretch of coast where Burma and Bengal collide in a whirlpool of unease. There he'd remained for some dozen years, fathering three children—of these the oldest was Rajkumar. Their home was on an inlet that smelt of drying fish. Their family name was Raha, and when their neighbours
asked who they were and where they came from they would say they were Hindus from Chittagong. That was all Rajkumar knew about his family's past.

Rajkumar was the next to fall sick, after his father. He had returned to consciousness to find himself recovering at sea, with his mother. They were on their way back to their native Chittagong, she told him, and there were just the two of them now—the others were gone.

The sailing had been slow because the currents were against them. The square-sailed sampan and her crew of
khalasi
s had fought their way up the coast, hugging the shore. Rajkumar had recovered quickly, but then it was his mother's turn to sicken. With Chittagong just a couple of days away she had begun to shiver. The shore was thick with mangrove forests; one evening, the boatowner had pulled the sampan into a creek and settled down to wait.

Rajkumar had covered his mother with all the saris in her cloth bundle, with longyis borrowed from the boatmen, even a folded sail. But he'd no sooner finished than her teeth began to chatter again, softly, like dice. She called him to her side, beckoning with a forefinger. When he lowered his ear to her lips, he could feel her body glowing like hot charcoal against his cheek.

She showed him a knot on the tail end of her sari. There was a gold bangle wrapped in it. She pulled it out and gave it to him to hide in the waist knot of his sarong. The
nakhoda
, the boat's owner, was a trustworthy old man, she told him; Rajkumar was to give him the bangle when they reached Chittagong—only then, not before.

She folded his fingers around the bangle: warmed by the fiery heat of her body, the metal seemed to singe its shape into his palm. ‘Stay alive,' she whispered. ‘
Beche thako
, Rajkumar. Live, my Prince; hold on to your life.'

When her voice faded away Rajkumar became suddenly— aware of the faint flip-flop sound of catfish burrowing in the mud. He looked up to see the boatowner, the nakhoda, squatting in the prow of the sampan, puffing on his coconut-shell
hookah, fingering his thin, white beard. His crewmen were sitting clustered round him, watching Rajkumar. They were hugging their sarong-draped knees. The boy could not tell whether it was pity or impatience that lay behind the blankness in their eyes.

He had only the bangle now: his mother had wanted him to use it to pay for his passage back to Chittagong. But his mother was dead and what purpose would it serve to go back to a place that his father had abandoned? No, better instead to strike a bargain with the nakhoda. Rajkumar took the old man aside and asked to join the crew, offering the bangle as a gift of apprenticeship.

The old man looked him over. The boy was strong and willing, and, what was more, he had survived the killer fever that had emptied so many of the towns and villages of the coast. That alone spoke of certain useful qualities of body and spirit. He gave the boy a nod and took the bangle—yes, stay.

At daybreak the sampan stopped at a sand bar and the crew helped Rajkumar build a pyre for his mother's cremation. Rajkumar's hands began to shake when he put the fire in her mouth. He, who had been so rich in family, was alone now, with a khalasi's apprenticeship for his inheritance. But he was not afraid, not for a moment. His was the sadness of regret— that they had left him so soon, so early, without tasting the wealth or the rewards that he knew, with utter certainty, would one day be his.

It was a long time since Rajkumar had spoken about his family. Among his shipmates this was a subject that was rarely discussed. There were many among them who were from families that had fallen victim to the catastrophes that were so often visited upon that stretch of coast. They preferred not to speak of these things.

It was odd that this child, Matthew, with his educated speech and formal manners, should have drawn him out.
Rajkumar could not help being touched. On the way back to Ma Cho's, he put an arm round the boy's shoulders. ‘So how long are you going to be here?'

‘I'm leaving tomorrow.'

‘Tomorrow? But you've just arrived.'

‘I know. I was meant to stay for two weeks, but Father thinks there's going to be trouble.'

‘Trouble!' Rajkumar turned to stare at him. ‘What trouble?'

‘The English are preparing to send a fleet up the Irrawaddy. There's going to be a war. Father says they want all the teak in Burma. The King won't let them have it so they're going to do away with him.'

Rajkumar gave a shout of laughter. ‘A war over wood? Who's ever heard of such a thing?' He gave Matthew's head a disbelieving pat: the boy was a child, after all, despite his grown-up ways and his knowledge of unlikely things; he'd probably had a bad dream the night before.

But this proved to be the first of many occasions when Matthew showed himself to be wiser and more prescient than Rajkumar. Two days later the whole city was gripped by rumours of war. A large detachment of troops came marching out of the fort and went off downriver, towards the encampment of Myingan. There was an uproar in the bazaar; fishwives emptied their wares into the refuse heap and went hurrying home. A dishevelled Saya John came running to Ma Cho's stall. He had a sheet of paper in his hands. ‘A Royal Proclamation,' he announced, ‘issued under the King's signature.'

Saya John pulled a face. ‘Brave words,' he said. ‘Let's see what happens next.'

After the initial panic, the streets quickly quietened. The bazaar reopened and the fishwives came back to rummage through the refuse heap, looking for their lost goods. Over the next few days people went about their business just as they had before. The one most noticeable change was that foreign faces were no longer to be seen on the streets. The number of foreigners living in Mandalay was not insubstantial—there were envoys and missionaries from Europe; traders and merchants of Greek, Armenian, Chinese and Indian origin; labourers and boatmen from Bengal, Malaya and the Coromandel coast; white-clothed astrologers from Manipur; businessmen from Gujarat—an assortment of people such as Rajkumar had never seen before he came here. But now suddenly the foreigners disappeared. It was rumoured that the Europeans had left and gone downriver while the others had barricaded themselves into their houses.

A few days later the palace issued another proclamation, a joyful one, this time: it was announced that the royal troops had dealt the invaders a signal defeat, near the fortress of Minhla. The English troops had been repulsed and sent fleeing across the border. The royal barge was to be dispatched
downriver, bearing decorations for the troops and their officers. There was to be a ceremony of thanksgiving at the palace.

There were shouts of joy on the streets, and the fog of anxiety that had hung over the city for the last few days dissipated quickly. To everyone's relief things went quickly back to normal: shoppers and shopkeepers came crowding back and Ma Cho's stall was busier than ever before.

Then, one evening, racing into the bazaar to replenish Ma Cho's stock of fish, Rajkumar came across the familiar, white-bearded face of his boatowner, the nakhoda.

‘Is our boat going to leave soon now?' Rajkumar asked. ‘Now that the war is over?'

The old man gave him a secret, tight-lipped smile. ‘The war isn't over. Not yet.'

‘But we heard . . .'

‘What we hear on the waterfront is quite different from what's said in the city.'

‘What have you heard?' said Rajkumar.

Although they were using their own dialect the nakhoda lowered his voice. ‘The English are going to be here in a day or two,' he answered. ‘They've been seen by boatmen. They are bringing the biggest fleet that's ever sailed on a river. They have cannon that can blow away the stone walls of a fort; they have boats so fast that they can outrun a tidal bore; their guns can shoot quicker than you can talk. They are coming like the tide: nothing can stand in their way. Today we heard that their ships are taking up positions around Myingan. You'll probably hear the fireworks tomorrow . . .'

Sure enough, the next morning, a distant booming sound came rolling across the plain, all the way to Ma Cho's food-stall, near the western wall of the fort. When the opening salvoes sounded, the market was thronged with people. Farm wives from the outskirts of the city had come in early and set their mats out in rows, arranging their vegetables in neat little bunches. Fishermen had stopped by too, with their night-time catches fresh from the river. In an hour or two the vegetables would wilt and the fish eyes would begin to cloud over. But for the moment everything was crisp and fresh.

The first booms of the guns caused nothing more than a brief interruption in the morning's shopping. People looked up at the clear blue sky in puzzlement and shopkeepers leant sidewise over their wares to ask each other questions. Ma Cho and Rajkumar had been hard at work since dawn. As always on chilly mornings, many people had stopped off for a little something to eat before making their way home. Now the hungry, mealtime hush was interrupted by a sudden buzz. People looked at each other nervously: what was that noise?