They lived like that for three and a half months.
Yang caught Gujrati with the tongue of a native in record time. He could not read Gujrati, nor English nor Chinese, but he spoke each with an ease and fluency many aspire to. He worked for Jyothi, sweeping her floors, dyeing her saris a new shade each month, and lighting the incense. In time, he graduated to greeting Jyothi’s patrons – often fatter than her, smelling of citrus and dressed in silks. In India, he was less of a foreigner – with China neighbouring, the sight of his slimmer features was not uncommon; though the agitation was still present, still suffocating.
‘Guests’ swept in and out of Jyothi’s establishment daily, with appointments jotted down neatly in a soft leather-bound book, in a script of natural curving and flow. They arrived with deep frowns, and disappeared into the room where the incense was thickest – somewhere Yang was forbidden from venturing – and spoke in hushed tones with Jyothi, sometimes for a quarter an hour, a half, a full and on rare occasions, two complete hours. Jyothi paid him well, and Yang quickly learned that trading in India wasn’t different from China. Bargaining was an essentiality – it was just a matter of vocabulary. On his days off, Yang held hands with Maya and stood in the market place, listening to the conversations, memorising the sounds and vocal arcs.
Maya grew miserable. Once, Yang thought to tempt her out of her moods with sweetmeats and other delicacies – he clambered up to their room at the top of the inn as silently as his tired legs would allow, the wrapped parcel smelling sweetly in his grasp. He had opened the door, saw her smile and rush toward him, as she often did, and just as instantly saw her happiness vanish. He berated himself for his thoughtlessness for many weeks following that moment. He remembered the watery glint of her eyes in the dying sunlight, the look speaking when she could not: how do you expect me to taste with no tongue?
The days passed, and they fell into a routine. She would smile when he came home to small flat, they would partake in plain rice – perhaps a spoonful of butter on top if Jyothi was particularly kind that day, she would lie in his arms and he would speak of the day. He would tell of Jyothi’s strange customers, of the grey incense that made his lungs struggle and his eyes burn, of the markets and the merchants and wares, and she would listen with an unrivalled patience. She would drift off to sleep, and soon he would follow, and in the morning, after he washed his face and sipped his tea, she would sink to the ground and sulk; a plea to not go to work.
He would tell her that he had to. It was for them. How else would they eat? How would they afford this room? A house, maybe, in the future? She would glare at him stubbornly, and when he would ignore her and make a move for the door, she would weep. At first, this act alarmed him, and he was compelled into comforting her – facing Jyothi’s irritation when he arrived at work late – but in due time, he grew used to Maya’s tactics. It became easier to disregard her unhappiness. Yang didn’t know if that was a good thing.
Yet despite their lack of communication, their relationship strengthened. He could tell her feelings by the way she scrunched her nose, or twirled her hair or smiled without the corners of her eyes tilting. He suspected she read him the same way – without difficulty or reluctance.
They had survived.
“As soon as we establish ourselves,” Yang whispered, one night, in Maya’s ear as they slept together on their single bed, “I’ll find somewhere else to work.”
His promise sent Maya to sleep’s caress with a faint smile on her face, and Yang’s step lightened. Their pile of silvers grew.
It was some time in 1840 – Yang wasn’t sure, time had lost its bearing on him – that he ran into a regiment of Chinese soldiers disguised as traders. They were slipping through the back alleys, skulking through the muck and the sewage. They were poorly camouflaged and caught Yang’s eye as he was passing. “Brothers,” he said in surprise.
“Brother,” they returned in putonghua, exchanging glances with one another. They wore scarves over their faces, and the ones who wore hoods, wore them low, over their faces. Dirt and mud covered their foreheads and cheeks. “Why are you here?”
Over a pint at the tavern’s, Yang revealed his story once more. Somehow, he could not bring himself to tell them about Maya, or Isaiah, their names feeling heavy on his tongue so he swallowed them instead. His brothers listened to his tale in awe. Yang did not miss the way they flinched every time someone passed, and they shifted uncomfortably at the table, in the warm firelight. They devoured the cheap food like starved men, something feral and abandoned living in their eyes.
“We fought the border wars with the Sikhs1,” the leader, Zhang Feng Ting, confessed, over a plate of steaming rice. He glanced around the room, at the other ignorant patrons, minding their own, before leaning in close: “If you value your life, it would be best to leave India now.”
“Border wars? You’re a long way from the border here,” Yang said, confused.
“We’re deserters,” one of the ruddy-faced men spat – his anger visible in the tightening of his fist, and the darkening of his gaze.
Yang was not satisfied. He levelled the man’s gaze. “I haven’t heard of any wars with China.”
“It hasn’t happened yet,” Zhang Feng Ting bowed his head. “Only preparations are underway.”
“You fled from a war that hasn’t even begun yet?” Yang said, in disbelief.
“You do not know what it is like,” one of the younger men, a skinny thing, said. “India’s infantry is too large, we would be a fool to charge at them in open battle. I value my life.”
Yang thought of China. He would die for China.
“Nevertheless, once the wars begin, the Indians will not take kindly to Chinese on their shores. Our distance from the border is irrelevant. We can smuggle you back into China,” Feng Ting told him. “It will not come cheap, however. We would need to purchase more supplies…and safe passage.”
“How will you leave? Won’t any Chinese ship in passing know you are deserters?” Yang asked. Wasn’t counterproductive in the first place for them to come to western India only to return to China?
Feng Ting inhaled sharply. “There is a ship that will pass through the harbour in a few days. The Yunnan, it has been out on the waters, fighting off pirates and raiders. They will not know anything of yet. We might be able to escape that way.”
That night, with Maya in his arms, Yang considered their plan. The memories of his parents, of their farm, of his home, reawakened. He longed to flee for China, but the weight of Maya, and the symphony of her deep sleep breathing kept him grounded. He had responsibilities here. He had a life. He would discuss it with Maya in the morning.
Morning came and Maya slept in. Yang did not have the heart to wake her up. He closed the door as quietly as he could when he left. Jyothi was absent when he arrived at work, perhaps she was at the market, perhaps she was already with a patron inside the backroom. Yang set the incense to burn, and dusted the furniture. It was in the corner, on the chipped wooden desk, that he found a map of India; scrolled up with the edges eaten. China – his home – was so close, yet so achingly far. With his finger, he traced a path from Surat to where he knew Canton was. He could not read the names of the places along the way, but he felt elated just from looking at the Sanskrit.
When the ground swallowed the sun and he readied himself to leave Jyothi’s, she stepped out from the cloud of incense and gauzy orange fabric, and gave him a hard look. “You’re a good one,” she told him. “A hard worker – dedicated, honest. Maybe it’s time you learned more about what I do here.” She exhaled a puff of opium and disappeared back in her den. Yang didn’t know whether or not to follow her. Were her words enough of an invitation? Yang decided not. He went home, his mind swirling with possibilities.
He clamoured up the stairs to his room at the inn, and when he opened the door, Maya flung herself at him. Her familiar shape in his arms, Yang factored in the most important aspect that he’d conveniently forgotten. Maya. His excitement drained. Whatever Jyothi would tell him, Maya would not like it.
She would not be pleased if he remained in Jyothi’s employ, and she’d be even more upset if he mentioned the possible ‘promotion’. With dread, he realised, he could not take her back to China with him. They would never let an Indian girl into Canton while India was still colonised, while these border wars were waged. He was already suspect, having lived in two British ruled countries, and to return to the war-torn China? It was unlikely. He realised, he might never go home.
With Maya asleep in his arms that night, Yang’s mind was in turmoil. He could drop both China and Jyothi and opt for an alternative; Yang spoke an Indian language – they could seek a living elsewhere, but Yang would have to start from scratch. A prospect he did not rejoice at. His heart would always long for China, and it felt like betrayal to sentence Maya to a life with him where he’d secretly resent her because she indirectly kept him from his homecoming.
He pressed a kiss to Maya’s forehead. He would deal with it in the morning. The soldiers did not leave for another two days, he had time to decide. And he would – in time.
Jyothi did not await his arrival, the next day, and she gave no indication of remembering her words from the night before. It seemed of such a dreamlike quality, Yang doubted it even happened at all – a second-hand opium haze likely clouded his perception of events. But as evening drew, Jyothi beckoned for him to enter her forbidden den.
With a heavy heart, Yang followed her instructions, walking through the gauze curtain and into the opium den. “Do you know who I am?” Jyothi asked, lounging on the floor, amidst a bevy of swollen pink and orange cushions, smoking a pipe.
“The follower of a god long forgotten,” Yang repeated the words she had said when they’d first met.
Jyothi smiled, revealing a set of yellow stained teeth. “Smart boy,” she said, and her voice seemed to echo. “Do you know what I sell here?”
Yang’s cocked his head to the side. “Opium,” he guessed wildly.
Jyothi snorted, phlegm building in her wheezing lungs. “No,” she said. “I’m paid in opium, often times. But no, I do not sell it.”
Yang paused. “What do you sell then?”
Jyothi stood up, and pointed to another archway, covered by curtains. “Come here,” she commanded, and led him through the haze of shimmery fabric. On the other side, the aroma of incense was pungent and nauseating, a statue sat on a podium, with snakes for hands and a deformed part monkey, part lion for a face2. At the base of the statue, a row of human skulls sat merrily, grinning at Yang.
“That is Ighair,” the fat woman claimed. “And those are the bones of offering.”
No. Not again.
“I deal in the medicinal value of crushed bones – soups, poultices, salves, idol carvings…” the woman trailed off into a long explanation. It took everything Yang had inside him to keep the horror from creeping into his face. How had this happened again? What was it about him that just attracted these monsters?
“And now you will join me,” Jyothi was saying. “You will help me prepare the bones –”
“Bones…that are of…humans?”
“Naturally, those are the most potent,” Jyothi erupted into fit of coughs.
Yang’s hands clenched into fists. Perhaps it was not him. Perhaps it was everybody else. They were no better than the English – the Indians. Perhaps that is why they slaved silently beneath English rule. They shared their hideous belief in the restorative properties of humans consuming other humans. They were the same. Everyone was the same.
Yang walked out.
He turned around and left. Jyothi screeched after him, but he did not look back. He would not be fooled again. He wanted to believe he could belong here. He ignored those occasions when Indians in the streets shot him wry glances – the sly Chinese, they said. Sly – they dared call his people sly when the followed such savage practises.
He did not think. Bursting into the inn, he avoided meeting the gazes of the astonished patrons, and stomped up the stairs. At the door to his room, he paused, Maya…how would he face Maya? His face twisted in disgust. He wouldn’t face her at all. She was collectively a hybrid of two of the ugliest things humanity had to offer, combining the savagery of the Indians and the English. She did not deserve even a look from him.
He stole into the room. As per her habit, Maya rushed at him – Yang had no patience to spare her. He pushed her away – she fell. From the floor, she gaped at him in wordless stupefaction. “You,” he spat and now that he had started, he could not stop. “You’re exactly the rest of them. Only you’re worse; you’re both of them.”
Maya stared, open mouthed.
He’d give her a chance, he decided. “Do you know Ighair?” he asked, forcing himself to remain calm.
Her eyes widened with realisation. She blubbered incoherently, her words a cacophony of meaningless sounds. Yang shook his head in disbelief, holding his hand up so she’d stop talking. “The silver,” he commanded. “I want it. All of it.”
He could not bring himself to look at her face. He felt cut open and raw.
Grabbing their coin-purse from inside the drawer, he turned to leave with nothing but the clothes on his back and every silver he’d earned in this godforsaken land. It would be enough, he told himself, to convince his Chinese brethren to let him accompany them back to China. Before he left completely, he paused in the archway of the door, and spun around to face her. She looked ripped apart, her expression hopeless, desperate, pleading.
He dug into the purse and tossed her the coin. “Here,” he said. “For all the moments you had me convinced you truly loved me.”
And like that, he left the love of his life in tears on the floor, unable to fend for herself – he would never see her again. Their hearts too raw for that.
1. The Sino-Sikh wars or ‘the invasion of Tibet’ was fought from 1841 to 1842 – peace finally been reached with the Treaty of Chushul, after the Chinese attacked and were defeated at Ladakh.
2. This god does not exist – I don’t think so. Unfortunately, the histories of corpse medicine in Asia during the 1840s is vague at best. I’ve taken the liberty to manufacture facts for the purpose of story. Note that if something is necessarily historically accurate, I will likely footnote it.
Comments (0)
See all