Flood of Fire by Amitav Ghosh Page A

is a Christian house and we do expect a certain modesty, in all things …’
    Words seemed to fail her here, and she quickened her step, steering her daughter in front of her.
    Zachary called out after her rapidly retreating back: ‘I do apologize for my state of undress, Mrs Burnham. Won’t happen again, I promise you.’
    He received no answer, for Mrs Burnham and her daughter were already halfway to the house.
    *
    A fortnight went by without any mention of Bahram’s finances. Through that time not a word was said to Shireen about the state of her husband’s business affairs at the time of his death.
    At first Shireen was too distraught to give this any thought. It was only after the initial shock of bereavement had passed that she began to wonder about the silence.
    In a family like theirs, where matters of business weighed on every mind, there was something a little unnatural about the studied avoidance of this one topic, especially since it was well known to everyone that Bahram had travelled to China with the avowed intention of taking over the shipping division of Mestrie & Sons, a firm that had been in Shireen’s family for generations.
    Of Shireen’s immediate relatives those who were best placed to be informed about Bahram’s business affairs were her two brothers, who had jointly inherited the company upon their father’s death, a couple of years before. Shireen could scarcely doubt that they knew something about the state of her husband’s finances, yet neither of them showed any signs of broaching the subject, even though they visited her several times each day.
    It was certainly no secret to Shireen that her husband and her brothers had been locked in a struggle over the company after her father’s untimely death. The tussle was not unexpected: her brothers had never considered Bahram worthy of the Mestrie family and he in turn had heartily reciprocated their ill-will. Ever since the day of Shireen’s wedding the tensions between her siblings and her husband had snapped and whirred around her, like ropes around a windlass. But through most of her married life Shireen had been privy only to the familial aspects of the conflict: where matters of business were concerned her father had enforced an uneasy peace. It was only after the patriarch’s death that Shireen had herself become the pivot on which the family’s tensions turned.
    No one knew better than Shireen how betrayed and ill-used her husband had felt when her brothers had tried to pension him off so that they could dispose of the branch of the company that Bahram had himself built up – the hugely profitable shipping and export division. But to be a party to his own dispossession was not in keeping with Bahram’s character: he had decided to acquire the export division for himself, and to that end he had invested in a massive consignment of goods for China, in the hope of raising the funds for an outright purchase. Not being a man for half-measures he had decided that hisconsignment would consist of the largest cargo of opium ever to be shipped from Bombay. To raise the money for it he had tapped every source of capital available to him – business partners, community leaders, relatives – and finding himself still short he had turned finally to Shireen, asking her to pawn her jewellery and mortgage the land she had inherited from her father, in Alibaug and Bandra.
    Over the years Shireen had been at odds with Bahram over many things, most of all his apparent unconcern for their lack of a son. She had often pleaded with him to search for a cure, but he had never taken the matter seriously, which had caused her great pain and regret. But when it came to business she knew that his instincts were unerring – he had always proved his doubters wrong. She herself, being of a naturally pessimistic bent, had often been among those who expected his ventures to fail. But they never had