And do not imagine for a moment, my dear Puggly, that I have forgotten about your camellias – I have not! The moment the river is opened again I shall make another foray in the direction of Fa-Tee.

Oh, and I cannot send this off without mention of the incident you described in your last letter (your little squabble with the Redruth’s cook). You must not take it too much to heart, dear: it was not at all wrong of you to tell him that the galley smelled like a crêperie! The fault was entirely his for taking offence. I suspect the fellow has no French and did not understand that you were merely complimenting him on his pancakes. If he was upset it was probably because he thought (quite wrongly, of course) that you were comparing his kitchen to a tottee-connah (sometimes vulgarly spoken of in English as a ‘crappery’).

Really, dear, I would have loved to see the cook’s face when you told him that you liked nothing better than the smell of fresh crêpes, warming in the pan. I am sure the Redruth has never seen its like!

*

Although Bahram was deeply attached to his faith, he was not fervently religious; nor did the practical considerations of his busy life allow him to be as meticulous in his observances as he would have liked. He was always careful, however, to keep a copy of the Khordeh Avesta beside his bed and he was never without a sadra and a kasti. When in Bombay he often accompanied Shireenbai on her daily visits to the Fire Temple and when Mullah Feroze delivered his homilies he made every effort to be in attendance. While in Canton, he tended personally to the altar in his bedroom, daily lighting incense under the portrait of the Prophet, regularly changing the flowers and fruit that lay under it and making sure that the wick of the divo was always lit. But most of all he tried, in his own acknowledgedly fallible way, to keep in mind the guiding principles that had been instilled in him in childhood –Humata, Hukhta, Hvarshta – ‘good thoughts, good words and good deeds’.

In his easy-going, yet respectful, approach to religion Bahram was not unusual amongst his peers; where he did differ from them was in a certain lack of credulity – in his circle of merchants he was one of the few who never sought the guidance of augurers, astrologers, fortune-tellers and the like. If he was an exception in this, it was mostly because he had always placed more trust in his own intelligence and foresight than in the divinations of kismet-doctors.

But now, as the chill of December turned into the numbing cold of January, he began to doubt, as never before, his ability to look ahead. Everywhere he turned there was confusion; every day there was a new pronouncement or edict to add to the uncertainty.

Sometimes, at night, when the fog came swirling in from the river, he would look out of his bedroom window and imagine that he was seeing Allow, down in the Maidan: the figure would appear to wave in the direction of his window, beckoning with his finger, signalling to Bahram to follow him to the water. In some part of his mind, Bahram knew his eyes were playing tricks on him – and yet, in that other part of him that had now become prey to all kinds of fears and fancies, Allow seemed always to be waiting in the shadows. Even in his head he could not bear to pronounce his names: Ho Lao-kin, Allow – the syllables, in their various iterations, had taken on the character of mantras that could summon the dead.