Plain Tales from the Hills

  THE GATE OF A HUNDRED SORROWS.

  "If I can attain Heaven for a pice, why should you be envious?"

  Opium Smoker's Proverb.

  This is no work of mine. My friend, Gabral Misquitta, the half-caste,spoke it all, between moonset and morning, six weeks before he died; andI took it down from his mouth as he answered my questions so:--

  It lies between the Copper-smith's Gully and the pipe-stem sellers'quarter, within a hundred yards, too, as the crow flies, of the Mosqueof Wazir Khan. I don't mind telling any one this much, but I defy himto find the Gate, however well he may think he knows the City. You mighteven go through the very gully it stands in a hundred times, and be nonethe wiser. We used to call the gully, "the Gully of the Black Smoke,"but its native name is altogether different of course. A loaded donkeycouldn't pass between the walls; and, at one point, just before youreach the Gate, a bulged house-front makes people go along all sideways.

  It isn't really a gate though. It's a house. Old Fung-Tching had itfirst five years ago. He was a boot-maker in Calcutta. They say thathe murdered his wife there when he was drunk. That was why he droppedbazar-rum and took to the Black Smoke instead. Later on, he came upnorth and opened the Gate as a house where you could get your smoke inpeace and quiet. Mind you, it was a pukka, respectable opium-house, andnot one of those stifling, sweltering chandoo-khanas, that you can findall over the City. No; the old man knew his business thoroughly, and hewas most clean for a Chinaman. He was a one-eyed little chap, not muchmore than five feet high, and both his middle fingers were gone. All thesame, he was the handiest man at rolling black pills I have ever seen.Never seemed to be touched by the Smoke, either; and what he took dayand night, night and day, was a caution. I've been at it five years, andI can do my fair share of the Smoke with any one; but I was a child toFung-Tching that way. All the same, the old man was keen on his money,very keen; and that's what I can't understand. I heard he saved a gooddeal before he died, but his nephew has got all that now; and the oldman's gone back to China to be buried.

  He kept the big upper room, where his best customers gathered, as neatas a new pin. In one corner used to stand Fung-Tching's Joss--almostas ugly as Fung-Tching--and there were always sticks burning under hisnose; but you never smelt 'em when the pipes were going thick. Oppositethe Joss was Fung-Tching's coffin. He had spent a good deal of hissavings on that, and whenever a new man came to the Gate he was alwaysintroduced to it. It was lacquered black, with red and gold writingson it, and I've heard that Fung-Tching brought it out all the way fromChina. I don't know whether that's true or not, but I know that, if Icame first in the evening, I used to spread my mat just at the foot ofit. It was a quiet corner you see, and a sort of breeze from the gullycame in at the window now and then. Besides the mats, there was no otherfurniture in the room--only the coffin, and the old Joss all green andblue and purple with age and polish.

  Fung-Tching never told us why he called the place "The Gate of a HundredSorrows." (He was the only Chinaman I know who used bad-sounding fancynames. Most of them are flowery. As you'll see in Calcutta.) We usedto find that out for ourselves. Nothing grows on you so much, if you'rewhite, as the Black Smoke. A yellow man is made different. Opium doesn'ttell on him scarcely at all; but white and black suffer a good deal. Ofcourse, there are some people that the Smoke doesn't touch any more thantobacco would at first. They just doze a bit, as one would fall asleepnaturally, and next morning they are almost fit for work. Now, I wasone of that sort when I began, but I've been at it for five years prettysteadily, and its different now. There was an old aunt of mine, downAgra way, and she left me a little at her death. About sixty rupees amonth secured. Sixty isn't much. I can recollect a time, seems hundredsand hundreds of years ago, that I was getting my three hundred a month,and pickings, when I was working on a big timber contract in Calcutta.

  I didn't stick to that work for long. The Black Smoke does not allow ofmuch other business; and even though I am very little affected by it, asmen go, I couldn't do a day's work now to save my life. After all, sixtyrupees is what I want. When old Fung-Tching was alive he used to drawthe money for me, give me about half of it to live on (I eat verylittle), and the rest he kept himself. I was free of the Gate at anytime of the day and night, and could smoke and sleep there when I liked,so I didn't care. I know the old man made a good thing out of it; butthat's no matter. Nothing matters much to me; and, besides, the moneyalways came fresh and fresh each month.

  There was ten of us met at the Gate when the place was first opened. Me,and two Baboos from a Government Office somewhere in Anarkulli, but theygot the sack and couldn't pay (no man who has to work in the daylightcan do the Black Smoke for any length of time straight on); a Chinamanthat was Fung-Tching's nephew; a bazar-woman that had got a lot ofmoney somehow; an English loafer--Mac-Somebody I think, but I haveforgotten--that smoked heaps, but never seemed to pay anything (theysaid he had saved Fung-Tching's life at some trial in Calcutta whenhe was a barrister): another Eurasian, like myself, from Madras; ahalf-caste woman, and a couple of men who said they had come from theNorth. I think they must have been Persians or Afghans or something.There are not more than five of us living now, but we come regular. Idon't know what happened to the Baboos; but the bazar-woman she diedafter six months of the Gate, and I think Fung-Tching took her banglesand nose-ring for himself. But I'm not certain. The Englishman, he drankas well as smoked, and he dropped off. One of the Persians got killed ina row at night by the big well near the mosque a long time ago, and thePolice shut up the well, because they said it was full of foul air. Theyfound him dead at the bottom of it. So, you see, there is only me, theChinaman, the half-caste woman that we call the Memsahib (she used tolive with Fung-Tching), the other Eurasian, and one of the Persians. TheMemsahib looks very old now. I think she was a young woman when theGate was opened; but we are all old for the matter of that. Hundredsand hundreds of years old. It is very hard to keep count of time in theGate, and besides, time doesn't matter to me. I draw my sixty rupeesfresh and fresh every month. A very, very long while ago, when I usedto be getting three hundred and fifty rupees a month, and pickings, ona big timber-contract at Calcutta, I had a wife of sorts. But she's deadnow. People said that I killed her by taking to the Black Smoke. PerhapsI did, but it's so long since it doesn't matter. Sometimes when I firstcame to the Gate, I used to feel sorry for it; but that's all over anddone with long ago, and I draw my sixty rupees fresh and fresh everymonth, and am quite happy. Not DRUNK happy, you know, but always quietand soothed and contented.

  How did I take to it? It began at Calcutta. I used to try it in my ownhouse, just to see what it was like. I never went very far, but I thinkmy wife must have died then. Anyhow, I found myself here, and got toknow Fung-Tching. I don't remember rightly how that came about; but hetold me of the Gate and I used to go there, and, somehow, I have nevergot away from it since. Mind you, though, the Gate was a respectableplace in Fung-Tching's time where you could be comfortable, and not atall like the chandoo-khanas where the niggers go. No; it was clean andquiet, and not crowded. Of course, there were others beside us tenand the man; but we always had a mat apiece with a wadded woollenhead-piece, all covered with black and red dragons and things; just likea coffin in the corner.

  At the end of one's third pipe the dragons used to move about and fight.I've watched 'em, many and many a night through. I used to regulatemy Smoke that way, and now it takes a dozen pipes to make 'em stir.Besides, they are all torn and dirty, like the mats, and old Fung-Tchingis dead. He died a couple of years ago, and gave me the pipe I alwaysuse now--a silver one, with queer beasts crawling up and down thereceiver-bottle below the cup. Before that, I think, I used a big bamboostem with a copper cup, a very small one, and a green jade mouthpiece.It was a little thicker than a walking-stick stem, and smoked sweet,very sweet. The bamboo seemed to suck up the smoke. Silver doesn't, andI've got to clean it out now and then, that's a great deal of trouble,but I smoke it for
the old man's sake. He must have made a good thingout of me, but he always gave me clean mats and pillows, and the beststuff you could get anywhere.

  When he died, his nephew Tsin-ling took up the Gate, and he called itthe "Temple of the Three Possessions;" but we old ones speak of itas the "Hundred Sorrows," all the same. The nephew does things veryshabbily, and I think the Memsahib must help him. She lives with him;same as she used to do with the old man. The two let in all sorts of lowpeople, niggers and all, and the Black Smoke isn't as good as it usedto be. I've found burnt bran in my pipe over and over again. The old manwould have died if that had happened in his time. Besides, the roomis never cleaned, and all the mats are torn and cut at the edges. Thecoffin has gone--gone to China again--with the old man and two ounces ofsmoke inside it, in case he should want 'em on the way.

  The Joss doesn't get so many sticks burnt under his nose as he used to;that's a sign of ill-luck, as sure as Death. He's all brown, too, andno one ever attends to him. That's the Memsahib's work, I know; because,when Tsin-ling tried to burn gilt paper before him, she said it was awaste of money, and, if he kept a stick burning very slowly, the Josswouldn't know the difference. So now we've got the sticks mixed witha lot of glue, and they take half-an-hour longer to burn, and smellstinky. Let alone the smell of the room by itself. No business can geton if they try that sort of thing. The Joss doesn't like it. I can seethat. Late at night, sometimes, he turns all sorts of queer colors--blueand green and red--just as he used to do when old Fung-Tching was alive;and he rolls his eyes and stamps his feet like a devil.

  I don't know why I don't leave the place and smoke quietly in a littleroom of my own in the bazar. Most like, Tsin-ling would kill me ifI went away--he draws my sixty rupees now--and besides, it's so muchtrouble, and I've grown to be very fond of the Gate. It's not much tolook at. Not what it was in the old man's time, but I couldn't leave it.I've seen so many come in and out. And I've seen so many die here on themats that I should be afraid of dying in the open now. I've seen somethings that people would call strange enough; but nothing is strangewhen you're on the Black Smoke, except the Black Smoke. And if it was,it wouldn't matter. Fung-Tching used to be very particular about hispeople, and never got in any one who'd give trouble by dying messy andsuch. But the nephew isn't half so careful. He tells everywhere that hekeeps a "first-chop" house. Never tries to get men in quietly, and makethem comfortable like Fung-Tching did. That's why the Gate is getting alittle bit more known than it used to be. Among the niggers of course.The nephew daren't get a white, or, for matter of that, a mixed skininto the place. He has to keep us three of course--me and the Memsahiband the other Eurasian. We're fixtures. But he wouldn't give us creditfor a pipeful--not for anything.

  One of these days, I hope, I shall die in the Gate. The Persian andthe Madras man are terrible shaky now. They've got a boy to light theirpipes for them. I always do that myself. Most like, I shall see themcarried out before me. I don't think I shall ever outlive the Memsahibor Tsin-ling. Women last longer than men at the Black-Smoke, andTsin-ling has a deal of the old man's blood in him, though he DOES smokecheap stuff. The bazar-woman knew when she was going two days before hertime; and SHE died on a clean mat with a nicely wadded pillow, and theold man hung up her pipe just above the Joss. He was always fond of her,I fancy. But he took her bangles just the same.

  I should like to die like the bazar-woman--on a clean, cool mat with apipe of good stuff between my lips. When I feel I'm going, I shall askTsin-ling for them, and he can draw my sixty rupees a month, fresh andfresh, as long as he pleases, and watch the black and red dragons havetheir last big fight together; and then....

  Well, it doesn't matter. Nothing matters much to me--only I wishedTsin-ling wouldn't put bran into the Black Smoke.