By Eastern windows (27 page)

‘
Jo san
,’ Chinqua said in greeting, and then throwing up his hands in apology, spoke in English. ‘Your friend, my friend,’ he gestured to Lestock Wilson, ‘he tell me of your sorrow. I know not how to help you, but I try.’

The three immediately sat down to discuss Lachlan's situation. They spent hours and then days discussing the various problems, but even Chinqua could find no obvious solution. In the end, he, too, was of the opinion that Lachlan must take each day patiently and wait to see if an English ship drifted in to Canton's harbour.

One month later Lachlan returned to Macao, no nearer to leaving China than before, for no ship at all had drifted into Canton's harbour.

*

The gentleman of the British factory came to see him, but still he resolutely refused to bury his wife in the neutral strip of unconsecrated ground and leave China without her.

And now, familiar with the obsessive determination that had sprung to life in Lachlan Macquarie's character, the British group gave up their argument and made no further protest.

Lachlan hired an interpreter. Day after day he approached the Chinese officials for permission to take his wife out of the country, but they had their laws and would not allow the slightest deviation from any of them.

Finally, due to his dogged persistence, they agreed to take further consultation and look into the matter, which resulted in many meetings and many questions from the mandarins who looked at him silently and without expression when he admitted that, Yes, he was a soldier, a British soldier. Yes, an officer, of the rank of major.

‘But I am here as a civilian!’ he insisted. ‘Tell them!’ He turned angry eyes on his interpreter. ‘Tell them I am here as a civilian who wants to take his wife out of Macao and never come back!’

But as the meetings went on, he realised that all the Chinese officials were doing was tying him up even tighter in knots of red tape.

FOURTEEN

A month had passed since his return from Canton. Nothing had been achieved and nothing had changed, except his silent face now had a worn pallor and showed even deeper lines of strain. The Portuguese officials still scorned him, and the Chinese Mandarins continued to ignore him.

Every day was now a torture for him, and he could see that the long days imprisoned in this place, with no end in sight, was also becoming a torture for Bappoo and the two children.
 

In the first week of November, he returned from a desolate evening walk along the waterfront to find Bappoo waiting for him at the door of the house, telling him there was a visitor waiting to see him.

‘A visitor?’ Lachlan assumed it was one of the gentlemen from the English factory. He frowned at Bappoo. ‘Which one?’

‘He only say he from Canton. But, Sahib …’ Bappoo clutched his arm with a whisper of warning, ‘He a Chin man’

Lachlan entered the house and stared in amazement at the young man who came towards him with that easy athletic stride of his.

‘Chinqua!’

‘May the Gods bear witness to the turn in tide of your fortune,’ Chinqua said, smiling.

‘Chinqua, oh, man, am I glad to see you!’

‘Bearer of good news always welcome, heya?’ Chinqua held out a letter addressed in Lestock Wilson's hand.

After the traditional greetings had been exchanged, and while the traveller sat down to refreshment, Lachlan read the letter from Lestock Wilson.

It was brief and to the point: There was an English ship, the Sarah, bound for Bombay and leaving Canton on the 10th of the month. The Sarah was mastered by a Captain McIntosh, who on hearing of Lachlan's situation had readily offered a passage to himself and family, but in view of the restrictions of the Chinese government, Lachlan would have to find a way of meeting him at the mouth of the Pearl River and board the ship there.

Lachlan looked up from the letter and met Chinqua's calm gaze. ‘Do you know what this says?’

Chinqua nodded. ‘The winds of favour and fate have blown English ship into harbour.’

‘But to get to the ship means a long journey up the Canton River, with my wife, my servants, my baggage – and not one sampan or junk willing to take us – not at any price!’

Chinqua calmly laid down his rice bowl and smiled. ‘That is why Chinqua come to help you, heya?’

The following night, under cover of darkness, Lachlan and his precious coffin, his servants, and his baggage were being loaded into a spacious junk, followed by Chinqua who spoke in quiet but rapid Cantonese to the boatmen, urging them to be off.

Incredulously to Lachlan, other junk owners had come forward and offered to take them, but Chinqua had shaken his head in apology.

And now, as the lopsided junk made its silent passage up the dark reaches of the Pearl River, Lachlan could not believe the tide of fate had finally turned and he was truly getting out of China.

‘Chinqua,’ he said in quiet admiration, ‘you're not just clever, you’re a bally genius! How did you do it? Persuade the boatmen to take us so willingly?’

Chinqua smiled his calm smile and threw a glance at the junk-master who was standing astride the bowsprit with his back to them.

‘In the beginning,’ Chinqua confessed in a low voice, ‘it was a problem to which I find no answer when starting my journey from Canton with the letter. But I find the answer in Macao itself, because Macao's true name is A-Ma-Gao, which means "Bay of A-Ma".’

Chinqua glanced at the junk-master, and then continued. ‘Chinese legend say A-Ma was poor girl seeking to travel. Rich junk owners refused to take her because she cannot pay, but a fisherman, a poor but kind disciple of Buddha, he agree to take girl. And as soon as A-Ma steps in his boat, the winds of a storm blew and roared like a dragon. The storm wrecked all junks on river – except boat carrying A-Ma. When fisherman's boat reached land, the girl vanished like smoke before fisherman's eyes. The people then said A-Ma was a goddess of the sea and protector of all kind seafarers. They built A-Ma temple in her name, and land where she last seen is now called A-Ma-Gao… Macao.’

‘But how did that help …’ Lachlan stared at him. ‘Chinqua, you didn't ... you didn't infer that Jane may be a goddess?’

‘She your goddess,' Chinqua said calmly. ‘This journey up river speaks truth of it.’

Just in time Lachlan checked his startled objection. Chinqua had sought a way to help him, at no advantage to himself, and to repay Chinqua now with a stern rebuke would not only be impolite, it would be disgusting.

‘I not say she goddess,’ Chinqua explained. ‘I speak only of A-Ma and how no junk or sampan would take her, and then I look up at the wind and contemplate in silence.’

Lachlan had to smile.

Chinqua motioned his head in the direction of the junk-master. ‘Look at him,’ he whispered with a smile. ‘See how proud he stands, heya?’
  

Lachlan turned his gaze to the junk-master who indeed made a very proud figurehead in the moonlight as he stood astride the bowsprit, one hand on hip and head held high.

‘When he return to Macao,’ said Chinqua, ‘he think all junks be wrecked by storm, but not his.’

Lachlan shook his head, and Chinqua grinned. ‘No sorrow, no guilt, no need. Junk-master get good joss from Heaven in other way.’

They spoke a little more, then both settled into an easy silence as the lopsided vessel yawned up the dark river through the long night and Lachlan eventually laid his head down on one of the cushions and went into a deep sleep in which for once he did not dream.

When he eventually awoke it was to the bright yellow light of the morning sun, and the sight of the ship the Sarah, waiting for them at the outreaches of Canton’s harbour.

‘Oh, thank God!’ Lachlan whispered.

‘Ya Allah!’ George Jarvis shouted, jumping up and punching his fist at the sky.

Marianne and Bappoo simply smiled in tired relief: the lopsided junk had been very uncomfortable and Bappoo was sure he would be listing to one side for days.

*

Two hours later, the Macquarie entourage were standing on the strong deck of the Sarah, waving farewell to the junk-master who had already turned back towards Macao, standing now at the stern and bowing to them deeply and graciously.

Then they all turned to look at Chinqua, who was grinning and waving from a small sampan that would take him home to Canton.

Lachlan gazed fondly at the noble-hearted young man who had taken the time to help the friend of a friend and would take no reward, simply because China was his land and its people were good if not always its government, and at the end of a day and a life, friendship was more valuable than gold.

FIFTEEN

India, at last.

As soon as the
Sarah
anchored in Bombay harbour it was surrounded by a number of small boats, one of which took a message ashore to John Forbes.

John Forbes, a practical man, immediately took charge of everything. He insisted that Lachlan stay for a while at his house where he could be in the company of friends, yet still have peace and privacy.

On the second morning after his arrival in Bombay, Lachlan faced the task of arranging the delivery of all the little toys and presents that Jane had bought in Macao for the children of their friends. Throughout the day ladies all over Bombay opened their door to the call of ‘
Kooee-hai!
’ from George Jarvis, who handed over parcels with short notes, all of which more or less said the same: ‘
Some toys for little Anne and a Chinese fan for yourself – from Jane and Lachlan Macquarie.
’

The four-year-old son of Mrs Oakes received a boxful of toys. The wife of Jane's doctor, Mrs Kerr, received a breakfast set of china. Mrs Coggan, Mrs Scott – the deliveries of Jane's gifts went on. The poor girl had spent her time in Macao buying presents for them all, and now they couldn't even thank her.

Then, in the cool of the evening of the third day after their return, the funeral of Jane Macquarie finally took place.

The whole of British Bombay turned out to walk in the train of the sweet and amiable twenty-three year old girl who had been born in Antigua, married in India, and died in China. Her coffin, covered in white jasmine, was solemnly pall-beared to Bombay Cemetery by six senior officers of the 77
^th
Regiment.

John Forbes, the man who had first introduced the couple less than five years earlier, walked as chief mourner beside Lachlan who seemed to be moving within a dream. Despite all the people around him, he seemed so alone. His behaviour was impeccable, no outward signs of grief, but his responses were not quite in tune with life, slightly abstracted from what was happening around him, as if people were saying things to him that he couldn't quite hear.

But then, none of them yet knew of his experiences in China, or of the nightmare that began that summer dawn of the 15th July in Macao. And with the dawn of each new day since then, his life without Jane became harder to deal with, impossibly hard since his return to India.

China had been alien and hostile, but India was now a reflecting mirror for every memory of her. Wherever he looked, he saw only her absence. The long empty years of his future stretched before him like an arid and lonely wilderness.

To John Forbes, with whom he lived, it was the most dreadful study of grief after bereavement he had ever witnessed, and helplessly so, because Lachlan would not even allow himself to be consoled. He stood apart, walked alone, convinced there was no consolation, not for him. Without Jane he was emotionally dead, spiritually dead, and only the dead can comfort the dead.

He spent the days in solitude of lonely walks, or in the horse rides he took into the country. Often he rode out to their first home, their bridal home, and in his mind he saw her again in full health and youth, saw her face, her smiling eyes, heard her questioning and laughing voice. And in these times she became the light that banished the darkness in his life.

But it came only in flashes, and when his mind returned from that distant place where no one could reach him, to the desolate world in which he now lived, his memories only made his grief worse.

He tried to reason with himself.
 
He had loved a girl and he had lost her. As simple as that. But there was a real and constant physical pain in the region of his heart that nothing could alleviate. In the rare times he slept his sleep was troubled, full of images and voices from the past.

It was easier not to sleep at all, nor to eat. He wanted nothing, asked for nothing, and longed to feel nothing. All he wanted was Jane back in the world and back in his life, but he knew that was as impossible as trying to tie a ribbon around the sun.

John Forbes became so worried he sought the private advice of Dr Kerr, who declared it all to be ‘A tragedy,’ and then demanded, ‘Describe to me the symptoms of Major Macquarie’s state of mind.’

Upon hearing the symptoms Dr Kerr shook his head and again declared it all to be ‘A tragedy,’ then insisted he visit the patient immediately.

‘No, no!’ John said swiftly. `He stays in my house because we are friends. He trusts me implicitly. I would hate him to know that I have been discussing him behind his back.’