As soon as Aiden rode into the front yard of his office, Duraisamy and Kannan came running. Duraisamy took the reins from Aiden while Kannan removed the saddlebag from the horse’s back. Aiden tossed the strap to Duraisamy, strode towards the office, his boots resounding against the stone ground, leapt up the stairs, and seeing Sepoy Samikkanu across from him, said: “Sam, ask Nar to see me at once.”

When Aiden entered his room and took the chair, Ammasi, the old untouchable seated on his haunches outside, began to pull the punkah. Even though there was a generous breeze gusting into the room through the windows, the punkah was a symbol of authority. The wicker chair made of densely woven palm-leaf spines creaked under Aiden’s weight as he settled in and closed his eyes for a moment.

Hearing the screech of the push door, Aiden opened his eyes. Narayanan came in and offered him a crisp salute. Aiden stared vacantly at him for a second or two. A turban-like blue hat. A leather belt sequinned with a string of bullet pockets ran across a bright-red linen coat. The coat flaps that parted at his midriff revealed a white cotton tunic and a second leather belt secured around his waist. On one side of the belt was a dagger; on the other, a brass-handled pistol. Khaki knee-length trousers. Khaki puttees. Clumsily cobbled tough leather boots of local make.

All the British sepoys across India, Burma, and Malaysia wore the selfsame uniform. However, the persons they clothed in each place were disparate human beings. No identity could unite them. On the contrary, they regarded identity as a means to differentiate themselves. This man had decorated his forehead with a thin red line that ran perpendicular to his brow. Evidently, he wished to show that he was not one of the others.

“Sir,” greeted Narayanan.

Awoken by his call, Aiden asked off-kilter, “What’s that?” He was pointing at Narayanan’s forehead.

Narayanan looked baffled. A moment later, he said, “It is the mark of my religion, sir.”

These people had imbibed that word with precision. One of the many stringent orders laid down by the British Crown that had taken over the government from the Company after the Sepoy Mutiny was not to interfere with the religious identities of the sepoys. Overnight, the sepoys had deftly transformed all their caste markers into religious symbols. The British could not fathom how they had learned to do it.

“Oh,” said Aiden. “Would you touch those outside your religion?”

Narayanan fell silent.

“Speak up,” Aiden commanded.

“There are those who cannot be touched, sir,” said Narayanan.

Instantly, Aiden decided there was no use sending him alone. Lieutenant Mackenzie had gone to Teynampet. Among the white men present in the office at that time, only he knew enough of the local tongue to hold a conversation. No matter their seniority, no matter their length of service, these black sepoys could not be trusted.

“Come with me,” Aiden said, getting to his feet. “Bring 20 of our soldiers with you,” he instructed as he walked out of the office.

“With weapons, sir?” Narayanan asked.

“The ordinary ones will do.” Aiden hastened down the stairs and was back in the front yard again. The sun, having reached its prime by then, had filled the yard like molten glass. The white walls of the building shone blindingly. A yellow litter of neem leaves overspread the low, red-tiled roofs of the office buildings that choked the neighbourhood. A cuckoo’s call rang out, over and over, without alteration. Aiden would often imagine that it was saying hello.

There arose the faint sound of the wind being spliced by the tightly drawn hawsers holding up a tall mast salvaged from some ship and erected at the office entrance. The Union Jack at the top of the mast fluttered in the sea breeze. The entire building, Aiden often fancied, was a ship moored on the shore. Having covered many thousands of miles, it had beached itself there. With time its anchor will become the roots from which a great tree will rise. Someday, it may turn into a boulder, and in due course, into a mountain, even.

The moment Aiden stepped out of the office, Duraisamy hurried up to him with his horse. The horse turned its head and rested its big muzzle on Aiden’s shoulder. Thick spittle dribbled over his forearm. He shook his hand dry and mounted the horse even as Duraisamy was tightening the saddle. The horse started and spun around a bit; when Aiden tugged at the reins, it tensed its head and snorted. Narayanan hastened to a small wooden podium on the right-hand side of the building and blew his bugle. Its strident birdlike call rose up with the sea breeze and dissipated in the wind like ink on water. The clatter of soldiers falling into line at the back of the building replaced the sound of the bugle. “Company fall in!” Narayanan’s command reverberated after Aiden as he started out.

When his horse hit the road, the sound of the 20-man platoon following in a double march filled the air. Aiden did not look back. Hearing the din of the marching forces, a few people in the two warehouse-offices along the seashore lifted the vetiver-grass screens covering the windows and poked their heads out. A two-horse phaeton coming from the opposite end hesitated and hung back. The reined-in horses twitched their heads, neighed softly, and lifted their stick-like legs. The left wheel shuddered and the carriage keened to one side before finding its balance again. The driver jumped off the coach with whip in hand and stood holding the horses. A white woman wearing an ornate, red tricorne hat looked out of the carriage. Her pale, powdered face was dense with wrinkles. Blue eyes shorn of all emotion flitted this way and that, taking in the sights.

It was only when he crossed the phaeton that Aiden became aware of the presence of Narayanan’s platoon marching ten feet behind him. Like a swaying shadow creeping into view from the corner of his eye, a pitch-dark elephant emerged by the side of the road. Its trunk was curled around a big wooden box. The man seated on its back appeared naked. A mere illusion, for his blackened loincloth had camouflaged him against the elephant’s body. At its feet stood a 12-year-old boy, also clad in no more than a loincloth, with sticks in hand. Somewhat startled by the elephant, Aiden’s horse began to back up; he patted its neck and pacified it.

For a split second, Aiden met the elephant’s glistening eye – like a speck of water pooled in the deep crevice of a boulder. What lies buried in the soul of a black boulder? With his little stick, this little man trains the elephant to dance to his tunes. Its feet, its tusks, its trunk, its ears have each submitted themselves to him. But those eyes are yet to accept him. Eyes that are beyond man’s comprehension. There is something in them, like fire buried in the recesses of darkness.

Aiden paused when he neared the Ice House. There was no one now at the spot where he had seen those workers come under the whip. A little farther away, the curved façade of a red-tinted edifice rose in front of him like a fortress. A cluster of arched windows dotted the façade. Fitted with amber-stained glass panes, every one of those windows was closed shut. Two flags fluttered atop the circular crown of the Ice House. The Union Jack flew high, and beside it, the flag of Frederic Tudor & Co. Red stripes against white. It was indeed the New England flag, save a blue square bearing a circle of white stars in one of its corners.

A fine phaeton coach stood at the entrance by the side of the building. Ostensibly an import from London, it was crafted in mahogany that gleamed as if it were leather or wax, and bronze that glistened like gold. Silver trims adorned its doors. Four beautiful black horses, unharnessed from the coach, were tethered nearby. Hearing the platoon, they lifted their heads out of the bags of horse gram suspended from their muzzles; when they turned their necks, a shiver rippled through their hides. Prrr, exhaled one of the horses, at which the others gave a gentle whirl, lowered their heads, shook their necks until the soft hair on their hides stood up tall, and tilted their saggy-jowled jaws upwards.

Aiden instructed Narayanan to hold the platoon back, and rode into the compound. The minute he set eyes on the manager of Tudor & Co., who, dressed in a short coat, loose trousers, and high boots, approached him with fake calm while holding down his American-style top hat against the wind, Aiden knew it. Everything had already been arranged.

Excerpted with permission from White Elephant: A Novel, Jeyamohan, translated from the Tamil by Priyamvada Ramkumar, HarperCollins India.

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