Some hours later, he woke up, urgently needing to relieve himself. Opening the door, he found the moon shining brightly upon the river. Afterwards, as he was making his way back to the cabin, his eyes strayed to the prow of the boat – he saw now that two figures were seated there, reclining in the bows.

Instantly, Neel was fully awake. He made his way quietly forward, until the two figures were only a couple of yards away. They were reclining against the moonlit bulwark: one was Ah Fatt and the other was the girl who did the cooking.

‘Ah Fatt?’

All he got in answer was a subdued grunt.

Stepping up to the bows, Neel saw that Ah Fatt was cradling a pipe in his hands.

‘What’s this you’re doing, Ah Fatt?’

‘Smoking.’

‘Opium?’

Ah Fatt tilted his head back, very slowly; his face was pallid in the moonlight and there was a look in his eyes that Neel had not seen before, subdued and dreamy, yet not somnolent. ‘Yes, opium,’ he said softly. ‘Vico give me some.’

‘Have a care Ah Fatt – you know what opium does to you.’

Ah Fatt shrugged. ‘Yen have catch me today: must bite bowl; must have tonight.’

‘Why?’

‘Father tell me something.’

‘What?’

There was a pause and then Ah Fatt said: ‘Mother dead.’

Neel gasped: he could see nothing of Ah Fatt’s face, and nor was his voice expressive of any emotion. ‘How did it happen?’

‘Father say, thieves maybe.’ He shrugged again, and said, on a note of finality, ‘No use talk about such-thing.’

‘Tell me more,’ said Neel. ‘You can’t stop there. What else did your father say?’

Ah Fatt’s voice seemed to fade, as though it were retreating down the shaft of a well. ‘Father happy see me. He cry and cry. He say he worry about me too much.’

‘And you? Were you happy to see him?’

Ah Fatt shrugged and said nothing.

‘But what else? Did he tell you what you should do next?’

‘He agree better I go to my sister in Malacca. He say after this season in Canton he give me money for start busy-ness. Just have to wait three-four month.’

Ah Fatt’s attention was clearly drifting away now, and Neel realized that it would be hard to get much more out of him. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Maybe we should sleep now. Better to talk tomorrow.’

But as he was turning to leave Ah Fatt called out: ‘Wait! Some news for you too.’

‘What?’

‘You want work for Father?’

Neel looked into his absent eyes and expressionless face, and decided that he was merely rambling. ‘What are you talking about, Ah Fatt?’

‘Father need munshi – to write letter and read paper. His old munshi dead. I tell him I know someone who can do this job. In jail I see you write letter, no? And you can write English, Hindusthani and all: true?’

‘Yes, but …’

Neel clapped his hands to his head and sat down again, beside Ah Fatt. He knew nothing about Bahram Modi except what he had heard from Ah Fatt, and these accounts had given him plenty of cause for misgiving. At times he had been reminded of his own father, the old Zemindar of Raskhali: between the two of them also there had been little communication, for the zemindar had spent much more time with his mistresses than at home. Their meetings, being infrequent, had involved much preparation and a great deal of anxiety: always, when the time came to enter his father’s presence, Neel would find that his tongue was stilled by a peculiar combination of emotions – a mixture of fear, anger and a dull mulish resentment – all of which came flooding back now, at the thought of meeting Bahram.