Here. I can’t think where else he could have learnt.

See, Bahram-bhai. There’s always something going on down there. You should step out and join in. It will be a change.

The thought of going out filled Bahram with a sense of deep fatigue.

What does it have to do with me, Zadig Bey? he said. I know nothing about cricket.

But still …

They watched for a while in silence, and then Bahram said: We’re old men now, aren’t we, Zadig Bey? It’s these fellows who are the future – young men like Dinyar.

Down below there was a burst of applause: Dinyar had hit a ball all the way across the Maidan.

The boy looked splendidly self-confident, absolutely masterful as he leant on his bat and surveyed the field.

Bahram could not help feeling a twinge of envy.

When they make their future, do you think they will remember us, Zadig Bey? Do you think they will remember what we went through? Will they remember that it was the money we made here, the lessons we learnt and the things we saw that made it all possible? Will they remember that their future was bought at the price of millions of Chinese lives?

Down below Dinyar was running furiously between the wickets.

And what was it all for, Zadig Bey? Was it just for this: so that these fellows could speak English, and wear hats and trowsers, and play cricket?

Bahram pulled the window shut, and the sounds faded away.

Perhaps that is what Ahriman’s kingdom is, isn’t it, Zadig Bey? An unending tamasha in a desert of forgetting and emptiness.

Eighteen

June 5, House No. 1, American Hong, Canton

Queridísima Puggliosa, I feel as if an epoch had passed since I last sat down to write to you. During these last six weeks it was impossible for us even to think of corresponding with the outside world – we were warned that any courier who was caught carrying letters for us would be severely punished and under the circumstances it seemed wrong to write letters. Only a most unfeeling person would want anyone to risk the bastinado for the sake of their silly ramblings, wouldn’t they, Puggly dear?

But that is all in the past now. Most of the opium has been rendered up and the Commissioner, in turn, has kept his word: from tomorrow onwards everyone who wishes to leave Canton will be allowed to do so – excepting only the sixteen foreigners who are considered the worst offenders. Zadig Bey will be leaving in a day or two and since I have elected to stay behind he has offered to carry my letters – so here I am, once again at my desk.

So much has happened in the interim, Puggly dear, that I do not quite know where to start. For me the greatest change was that I had to move out of Mr Markwick’s hotel. On the day I last wrote to you, Fanqui-town lost all its workers, coolies and servants – every Chinese employed in the enclave was told to depart by the authorities. After that it became impossible for poor Mr Markwick to carry on and he decided to close down.