River of Smoke(25)

When the Anahita reached Singapore Bahram was still too weak to leave his bedroom; he chose to remain on board while the ship was being repaired and refurbished. This was no great trial, for the comforts offered by Mr Dutronquoy’s hotel, the only respectable hostelry in town, were far exceeded by those of his own surroundings. The Owners’ Suite on the Anahita was perhaps the most luxurious to be found outside a royal yacht: apart from a bedroom it also included a salon, a study, a bathroom and a water-closet. Here, as in many other parts of the Anahita, the bulkheads were decorated with motifs from ancient Persian and Assyrian art, carved in relief upon the wooden panels: there were grooved columns like those of Persepolis and Pasargadae; there were bearded spear-carriers, standing stiffly in profile; there were winged farohars and leaping horses. In one corner of the cabin there was a large mahogany desk, and in another, a small altar, with a gilt-framed picture of the Prophet Zarathustra.

The suite’s bed was one of its most luxurious features: a canopied four-poster, it was so placed that Bahram could look out at the harbour through the cabin’s windows. He was thus able to appreciate, as never before, how quickly Singapore was changing.

The Tivendale boatyard was situated at the mouth of the Singapore River, between the port’s inner harbour, which was in the estuary, and the outer anchorage, which was in the bay beyond. Being anchored between the two, the Anahita’s stern tended to swing with the flow of the tides: when it faced outwards, hundreds of bumboats and tongkang lighters would come into view, swarming around the ships anchored in the bay. On their way back to shore the boats would sometimes pass so close to the Anahita that Bahram would hear the voices of the Chulia boatmen talking, shouting and singing in Tamil, Telegu and Oriya. When the Anahita’s stern came about, a panoramic view of newly built godowns and bankshalls would appear in front of him. Sometimes the Anahita would sweep so far around that he would even be able to look upriver towards Boat Quay, where the smaller ‘country boats’ discharged their goods and passengers.

The activity was unending, the boat traffic constant, and in watching it Bahram began to began to understand why several businessmen of his acquaintance had recently bought or rented godowns and daftars in Singapore: it seemed very likely that the new settlement would soon overtake Malacca in commercial importance. This evoked mixed emotions in Bahram: he had a suspicion that this British-built settlement would not be an easy-going place like the Malacca of old, where Malays, Chinese, Gujaratis and Arabs had lived elbow to elbow with the descendants of the old Portuguese and Dutch families. Singapore had been so designed as to set the ‘white town’ carefully apart from the rest of the settlement, with the Chinese, Malays and Indians each being assigned their own neighbourhoods – or ‘ghettoes’ as some people called them.

What would become of this odd new town? The one thing that was for sure was that it would be a good place for buying and selling: the reports Vico brought back from his forays ashore confirmed that bazars and markets were springing up all around the settlement – Vico’s particular favourite was a weekly open-air mela where people came from near and afar to sell and exchange old clothes.

From Vico’s accounts, as from his observations of the traffic on the river, it was clear to Bahram that Singapore was rapidly evolving into one of the principal waystations of the Indian Ocean: this was why he was not greatly surprised to learn that an old friend of his, Zadig Karabedian, was in the city – Vico had run into him as he was walking down Commercial Street.

Arré Vico! said Bahram. Why didn’t you bring Zadig Bey back with you?

He was going somewhere, patrão. He said he would come as soon as possible.

What’s he doing in Singapore?

He’s on his way to Canton, patrão.

Oh? Bahram sat up eagerly. Has he booked a passage already?

Don’t know, patrão.

Vico, you have to go and find him, said Bahram. Tell him he has to travel with us, on the Anahita. I won’t take no for an answer. Tell him to come aboard as soon as possible. Go na, jaldi!

Zadig Karabedian was one of Bahram’s few true intimates. They had met twenty-three years before, in Canton. Zadig was a watchmaker by trade and travelled often to various ports in the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea, to sell clocks, watches, music-boxes and other mechanical devices – known collectively as ‘sing-songs’, these articles were in great demand in Canton.

Although Zadig was Armenian by origin, his family had been settled for centuries in Egypt, where they lived in the old Christian and Jewish quarter of Cairo. Legend had it that one of Zadig’s ancestors had been sold to the Sultan of Egypt as a boy: after rising in the Mamelouk ranks he had arranged to bring some of his relatives to Cairo where they had prospered as craftsmen, tax collectors and businessmen. Since then they had developed close business connections with Aden, Basra, Colombo, Bombay and several ports in the Far East, including Canton.