The Glass Palace. Amitav Ghosh

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ where does she live?’

      ‘In India I think. I don’t know for sure.’

      Doh Say scratched his chin. ‘One day you’ll have to go looking for her.’

      Rajkumar laughed. ‘It’s very far.’

      ‘You’ll have to go. There is no other way.’

      

      It was from Doh Say that Rajkumar learnt of the many guises in which death stalked the lives of oo-sis: the Russell’s viper, the maverick log, the charge of the wild buffalo. Yet the worst of Doh Say’s fears had to do not with these recognisable incarnations of death, but rather with one peculiarly vengeful form of it. This was anthrax, the most deadly of elephant diseases.

      Anthrax was common in the forests of central Burma and epidemics were hard to prevent. The disease could lie dormant in grasslands for as long as thirty years. A trail or pathway, tranquil in appearance and judged to be safe after lying many years unused, could reveal itself suddenly to be a causeway to death. In its most virulent forms anthrax could kill an elephant in a matter of hours. A gigantic tusker, a full fifteen arms’ length off the ground, could be feeding peacefully at dusk and yet be dead at dawn. An entire working herd of a hundred elephants could be lost within a few days. Mature tuskers were valued in many thousands of rupees and the cost of an epidemic was such as to make itself felt on the London Stock Exchange. Few were the insurers who would gamble against a disease such as this.

      The word anthrax comes from the same root as anthracite, a variety of coal. When anthrax strikes human beings it shows itself first in small pimple-like inflammations. As these lesions grow little black dots become visible at their centres, tiny pustules, like powdered charcoal: thus the naming of the disease. When anthrax erupts on an elephant’s hide the lesions develop a volcanic energy. They appear first on the animal’s hindquarters; they are about the size of a human fist, reddish-brown in colour. They swell rapidly and in males, quickly encase the penis sheath.

      The carbuncles are most numerous around the hindquarters and as they grow they have the effect of sealing the animal’s anus. Elephants consume an enormous amount of fodder and must defecate constantly. The workings of their digestive systems do not stop with the onset of the disease; their intestines continue to produce dung after the excretory passage has been sealed, the unexpurgated fecal matter pushing explosively against the obstructed anal passage.

      ‘The pain is so great,’ said Doh Say, ‘that a stricken elephant will attack anything in sight. It will uproot trees and batter down walls. The tamest cows will become maddened killers; the gentlest calves will turn upon their mothers.’

      They were at a camp together once when an epidemic struck. Saya John and Rajkumar were staying, as was their custom, with the camp’s hsin-ouq, a small, stooped man with a shoelace moustache. Late one evening Doh Say burst in to tell the hsin-ouq that an oo-si was missing: it was thought that he had been killed by his own elephant.

      The hsin-ouq could make no sense of this. This elephant had been in its oo-si’s care for some fifteen years and had not been known to cause trouble before. Yet just before his death the oo-si had led his mount away from the herd and shackled her to a tree. She was now standing guard over his corpse and would not let anyone approach. None of this was as it should have been. What had gone wrong? Late as it was, the hsin-ouq headed into the jungle, with Doh Say and a few others. Saya John and Rajkumar decided to go with them.

      It so happened that the Assistant who was in charge of the camp was away for a couple of days, staying in the company’s chummery in Prome. In his absence there were no firearms in the camp. The oo-sis were armed only with flaming torches and their customary weapons, spears and das.

      Rajkumar heard the elephant from far away. The noise grew very loud as they approached. Often before Rajkumar had been amazed at the sheer volume of sound that a single elephant could produce: the trumpeting, the squeals, the flatulence, the crashing of saplings and undergrowth. But this was something other than the usual feeding-time racket: there was a note of pain that pierced through the other accustomed sounds.

      They arrived on the scene to find that the elephant had cleared a large space around itself, flattening everything within reach. The dead oo-si lay under a tree, battered and bloody, just a yard or two from the elephant’s chain-shackled feet.

      Saya John and Rajkumar watched from a distance as the hsin-ouq and his men circled around the angry cow, trying to determine what had gone wrong. Then the hsin-ouq gave a cry and raised his hand to point at the animal’s rump. Dim though the torchlight was, Rajkumar could tell that there were swellings on the elephant’s rear, an angry red in colour.

      Immediately the hsin-ouq and his men turned around and plunged headlong into the forest, racing back the way they had come.

      ‘Sayagyi, what is it? Why are they running?’

      Saya John was hurrying through the undergrowth, trying to keep the oo-sis’ torches in sight. ‘Because of anthrax, Rajkumar.’ Saya John flung the word breathlessly over his shoulder.

      ‘What, Saya?’

      ‘Anthrax.’

      ‘But, Saya, why don’t they try to rescue the corpse?’

      ‘No one can approach the creature now for fear of contagion,’ said Saya John. ‘And in any case they have more pressing things to think of.’

      ‘More pressing than their friend’s body?’

      ‘Very much more. They could lose everything – their animals, their jobs, their livelihood. The dead man gave up his life in an effort to keep this elephant from infecting the rest. They owe it to him to get the herd out of harm’s way.’

      Rajkumar had seen many epidemics come and go – typhoid, smallpox, cholera. He had even survived the outbreak that had killed his family: to him disease was a hazard rather than a danger, a threat that had to be lived with from day to day. He found it impossible to believe that the oo-sis would so easily abandon their comrade’s corpse.

      Rajkumar laughed. ‘They ran as if a tiger was after them.’

      At this Saya John, usually so equable and even-tempered, turned on him in a sudden fury. ‘Be careful, Rajkumar.’ Saya John’s voice slowed. ‘Anthrax is a plague and it was to punish pride that the Lord sent it down.’

      His voice slowed and deepened as it always did when he was quoting the Bible: ‘And the Lord said unto Moses and unto Aaron, Take to you handfuls of ashes of the furnace, and let Moses sprinkle it toward the heaven in the sight of Pharaoh. And it shall become small dust in all the land of Egypt, and shall be a boil breaking forth with blains upon man, and upon beast, throughout all the land of Egypt.’

      Rajkumar could understand only a few words of this but the tone of Saya John’s voice was enough to silence him.

      They made their way back to camp to find that it had emptied. Doh Say and the others had departed with the evacuated herd. Only the hsin-ouq remained, to wait for the Assistant. Saya John decided to stay on in order to keep him company.

      Early next morning they returned to the site of the accident. The infected elephant was quieter now than before, dazed by pain and weakened by its struggle with the disease. The swellings had grown to pineapple size and the elephant’s hide had begun to crack and break apart. As the hours passed the lesions grew yet larger and the cracks deepened. Soon the pustules began СКАЧАТЬ