pedlars scrambled off with their bazaar baskets on their backs, calling out like crows. The clerks got on then, all black bags and silence. Some looked at me curiously. I just handed my piece to the boatman and watched the riverbank fall away as we cut along by the Reach and past the great fort.
Our destination was the Esplanade, in the English part of the city. Mr Hickey had told me that in London, Calcutta was called the city of the white palaces, as a snare to catch speculators. But it was true that the ghat where we landed was fit for a palace, with smooth wide steps that the coolies swept clean of everything, even of water.
I had never been up and about the wide streets so early before. Underfoot the street bricks were only half warm, half awake. But further upriver at this hour I knew the giant was already at work.
See, Anila, see how the giant leans from the sun and stretches his great arms down the high road. Then he reaches out and pokes his fingers and toes into the lanes and under the temple stalls. Thatâs how he stirs them into life. Heâs tapping at our door, Anila. Wake up!
Some carriages clattered along Chowringhee, heading for the Esplanade. It was the Christmas season but it was too early for the ladies to show themselves and so there were no palanquins abroad yet.
Lots of noisy delivery carts and wagons were rolling by in the other direction, piled up with goods for the houses of Alipore and Garden Reach. I saw a new pianoforte standing up smartly on one, tied down with many ropes. Two small boys in dhotis were sitting on top of it. Their feet just reached the curved keyboard top.
âAnila! Anila!â
Someone was calling out behind me. I turned but my eyes were suddenly full of sun and I could not see for a moment or so who it was. Then I did. Her limp slowed her down, but her smile ran ahead of her like warmth.
It was Anoush.
I waited for my friend to catch up, my back against the smoothness of one of the painted houses.
âAnoush!â
We hugged each other. Anoush had tiny bones like a child. Her amber sari, as usual, was too long for her so sheâd folded it over in a double bind. Anoush liked to wear saris even though she had no Indian blood, not a drop. She was Armenian, with pale skin and tiger-coloured eyes under her tight cap of dark hair. Her face was thin and clever but it was never those things merely because it was entirely ruled by her smile.
Like me, Anoush was an orphan, but unlike me, she had not been left the gift of good health by her parents. Her left leg had been shrunken with a disease when she was young and she used a stick to walk in the streets. Anoush worked in Mrs Panossianâs shop and I had known her almost as long as Iâd known Miss Hickey.
âAre you coming to work at Auntieâs?â she asked me now. âOh, do say yes. Iâm going there now, as you may guess,â she said. âAnd you, if not yes, where are you going, so early?â
âIâll walk with you,â I said. For it was early yet. I told Anoush that I was delivering a testimonial from Miss Hickey in response to a notice in
The Gazette
.
âThere is a position for a person who can draw birds, can you believe it? I imagine that only a boy or a man will get the work but Iâm going to try.â
âOh, then you should hide your hair in a boyâs silken puggree and wear a long dhoti and tunic,â Anoush giggled. âNot your funny trousers. But I donât think that pretty nose-stud you have today would convince anyone!â
I had forgotten it, though I had scrubbed my face hours since in the dim light. Anoush giggled while I took the stud out and wrapped it with the coins in the bottom of my case.
We left the white and pink and ochre houses of the Esplanade behind us and turned off in the direction of the Bowbazaar, up the small busy streets that led through the old butchersâ area. I hated the sounds and the smells around