The Mulberry Empire - Philip Hensher

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unforgettable – where the India he had dreamt of in the long confinement of his childhood and the India all around him combined in a sonorous unison. Moments where no Company intruded, where no instructions were shouted, except the single one, inside him. He was reassured, as he heard that sounding double call, that what he had dreamt of was there after all. Saved, he was, in these moments from a deeper worry, that the fulfilment of the East he had dreamt of was one without his presence, his falsifying gaze. What he wanted was an East which was no longer exotic, but purely familiar, and he feared that, like a practising pianist, it could only achieve that when he was not looking at it. An India he wanted only to the degree that it could not include him; that was his fear, dispelled in those absorbed moments when he passed down a Calcutta street, unnoticed, or at least unremarked, or a curious unfearing boy met his expression with an equal gaze, and held it. Unmoving.

      That was what Masson was here for; those sudden clicks of identity when, like a hot blush, he was sure that there was something there, just there for him. It was what he had always dreamt of, in the kitchen of the Porlock farmhouse, hunched over the Vicar’s Arabian Nights. He was sure now, after a year, that it was only Suggs and Sale that stood in the way of his finding it. Suggs and Sale; they had turned into an emporium, selling only frustration to Masson, representing everything that stood in his way. Suggs and Sale; he could have started a religion, to declare the pair of them unclean.

      2.

      The long morning came to an end, and the platoon limped off into the guardroom, soggy with their combined concentration. McVitie, the hero of the platoon, was, for once, beyond a quip. He satisfied himself with bending down and rubbing his head with both hands, furiously back and forth, as if his head were unconnected to him, like a man affectionately scrubbing at his dog after a run in the rain. A shower of sweat fountained from McVitie’s head, and, stripping himself of his shirt, he sank down limply on the rude benches which ran round the room.

      ‘Well, gentlemen,’ Masson said lightly. ‘I don’t know how much any of us will remember of this morning’s dose of pointless activity.’

      The platoon ignored this, one of them merely giving a small moan of boredom with Masson’s comment. He was unpopular in the platoon, for no very clear reason. His unpopularity was such that his every statement was automatically greeted with a palpable turning of backs. More than that, it had reached the point where Masson himself aimed his occasional remarks squarely at the platoon’s disapproval. Not exactly enjoying their dislike, but having earned it, at least he would exult in the power of being able to evoke it most when he chose.

      McVitie raised his square head a fraction from the bench, without opening his eyes. ‘We all learnt what we was learnt, Masson,’ he said. ‘It was only you. Don’t tar us with your stinking brush.’

      He fell back, gormlessly, mouth open. Masson contemplated him, the platoon hero.

      Elsewhere in the barracks, Florentia Sale was passing out her brisk instructions. She was in the basement of what was termed, inaccurately, the Colonel’s house; it was merely a random stretch of the building, a few interconnected rooms with a kitchen and a washing room in the basement, but the Colonel’s status required him to have a house, and a house he should have, even where there was none. In the basement kitchen, the heat was bathlike, but Florentia Sale was livid, pale, dry in this dense heat. About her, a foot below her square determined face, the kitchen servants clustered, and listened anxiously to her instructions. ‘Very important, very important dinner,’ she was crying, not looking at her listeners. ‘I want you to imagine – to imagine that you are cooking a dinner for the Governor General himself – for the King of England.’

      There was a perceptible increase in worry, as the little faces creased. ‘King?’ one of them, the most senior apparently, said, his voice almost failing.

      ‘No, no, no,’ Florentia said. ‘I want you to imagine that the King is coming. I want you to take as much care over your work as if—’

      ‘King?’ the boy said again.

      Florentia gave up, her face set like cooling gravy. ‘Yes, the King is coming,’ she said bluntly. ‘Remember – fry the onions well, and slowly. Curry? Curry? Understand?’ The heads below her wobbled from side to side, acknowledging and agreeing. ‘And soup. Soup? Understand? And the fish? How will you cook the fish?’ There was another general agreeable wobbling; Florentia took it, apparently, for assent. ‘How? White sauce? Parsley?’ The kitchen attendants looked from side to side, trying to establish seniority; one, in the end, stepped three inches forward and bowed superbly. He stepped back, and smiled ingratiatingly. Florentia sighed, and prepared to begin again.

      After the soldiers’ tiffin, there was, unusually, three hours at leisure. Masson skipped off as soon as he inconspicuously could. He wanted to go and see Mr Das.

      Mr Das had a boutique in the bazaar. Masson had been drawn in a year before, by a blue glass vase visible through the open door. Then he had wondered if it could be Roman, with the optimism of the inexperienced. Now, he knew it was Syrian, and not at all old, but Mr Das had become the nearest thing to a friend Masson had. The shop was a ruin of miniature artefacts, and old Das a fraud, apt to proffer the cheapest bazaar silverware as precious beyond an Englishman’s dreams. But he, from time to time, failed to know when a coin from his filthy chests was a thousand years old, and deeply unfamiliar. What he knew and what he did not know was apparent from the prices he set, and, after a year going through his stock, Masson felt that, all in all, he knew more than Das did.

      Das didn’t trust Masson – that was clear from the way he constantly tried to rook him, as if taking the first step in an inevitable exchange of fraud. It was natural for someone in his position, with a boutique full of frail glass, to be wary of a beef-faced Englishman twice his size in a Company uniform; wary, too, when the Englishman in question, revealed as well intentioned, seemed to turn himself from a curious fool into a scholar within months, and Das looked at his surprising protégé with a habitual reproach, as if Masson had not been entirely honest with him at the first.

      Nevertheless, Das had been useful to Masson. That first purchase, the Syrian blue glass vase, had worried Masson while he was paying for it. Until then, his purchases had been small and solid – coins, metalwork, durable little objects of devotion, all easily contained in Masson’s pack. Each treasure was accompanied by a set of meticulous notes on the object, based on what the coin-handler could tell him. That was not a trove to attract attention in the barracks, but this vase could not be stuffed away like that. Masson would not display it to the platoon’s mockery, and yet he wanted the little vase, wanted it badly, and would have gone on wanting it even if he had known that it was not Roman at all.

      Mr Das was all tact, and saw the problem even before Masson had said anything. After all, what was a common soldier doing with such a fine object, handling it so tenderly? What would he do with such a thing? Masson eagerly fell in with Das’s suggestion that he transfer all his little collection to a secure cupboard in Das’s boutique, and, as Das foresaw, afterwards made all his purchases from Das. He was a sympathetic fellow, the shopkeeper, only betraying the slightest sorrow in a little wince when he saw the appalling tinsel exoticism of Masson’s first purchases, when he had arrived in Calcutta. Das handled the semi-industrial figure of Shiva in rough, tarnished bronze with a display of reverence intended much more to spare Masson’s feelings than for the benefit of the god. And since then, he had been of great use – there was talk, even, of introducing Masson to a scholarly friend of his, who might be able to start him off on Sanskrit – and he represented, all in all, the nearest thing to a friend Masson had ever had. His face was sharp-cornered at jaw and chin, like many Bengalis; he had an almost pentagonal, queerly inquisitive appearance.

      3.

      Das was turning a coin over and over as Masson came into his shop. A little man even by Indian standards, half Masson’s size, he was respectably dressed according to the lights of his religion. Masson could never quite get used to holding a conversation on serious matters with a man so nearly naked. He liked to be discovered in a scholarly attitude, and Masson sat in respectful silence for a couple

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