A Far Horizon (3 page)

‘She is ready.’ Demonteguy whispered. He turned towards his audience to invite a first query through the glasses. Before he could speak, a loud voice rang out.

‘Emily. Emily.’ Durga’s deep voice vibrated from Sati. Even as she spoke Sati saw Durga circle the room, making her way towards the Governor’s wife. At the same time, Durga was still fitted tight inside Sati, filling her fingers, expanding her belly.

‘Emily,’ Durga repeated, flexing up and down on her toes impatiently, like a dancer. Sati trembled with the reverberations. Durga was not visible to the others in the room. They could only watch in growing terror as Sati’s slight body contorted and stretched, releasing each growl of a word.

Emily Drake was split open by terror. She looked around for the invisible presence. About her there was only the night and the flicker of countless shadows. A whimper of fear escaped her. She had entered a world between worlds and its lush, wild shape closed around her.

Durga began to laugh, enjoying the shock of the audience at her terrifying presence. Her hoarse voice was that of an old
singer-prostitute
, worn bare by shameless projection.

‘Jane. Let her tell you about her sister Jane.’ Durga laughed in a knowing way. On the wall above Mrs Drake the fireflies seemed to grow larger. Their pulsating light lit up the room, lending energy to Sati.

‘What does Jane want?’ Emily Drake half-rose and then sank back
again onto her chair. She stared fearfully into the night, twisting this way and that as tension filled the room. People sat forward, faces contorted in fear.

‘Thief.’ Durga laughed again. Sati thrashed about as the deep voice cut through her.

‘I have had enough of such accusations,’ Emily Drake struggled up again from her chair, looking around defiantly now. Durga took no notice but continued to laugh, the sound still convulsing Sati. People looked at each other in horror.

‘Why have you come to torture me? Leave me my child, that is all I ask. You took the first; it was him you wanted. Is that not enough?’ Emily’s voice soared raggedly. She refused to relinquish another child to her sister’s ghost. And she did not care now who knew her fear of Jane.

‘Who is to judge what is enough?’ Durga screeched.

‘Leave me in peace.’ Emily’s voice tumbled from its brief peak, splintering as it fell. She stood up as if she would leave Demonteguy’s house. The room appeared stalked by unseen predators, the air was sharp as glass. Beside her Lady Russell took her hand and pulled her down again.

Rita and Fabian Demonteguy exchanged looks of alarm; Sati was not meant to act in this manner. ‘I told her exactly what to do,’ Demonteguy hissed into Rita’s ear, anger making him splutter. ‘Your mother has put her up to this nonsense. It’s her usual Black Town hokum pokum.’

‘What about the glasses?’ Rita whispered, seeking some way to control the situation. She shivered in terror. Things seemed to slither about the room. Dark, formless apparitions waited to attach themselves to her. Demonteguy stepped forward determinedly.

‘What about the glasses?’ he whispered, bending over Sati.

‘What
about
the glasses?’ Durga answered, sweeping them from the table with a single crashing gesture. Glass splintered and skidded beneath the chairs. Women lifted their skirts and drew back with choked cries. Men allowed themselves small guttural sounds of fear.
Durga lifted an arm and at her summons a bat flew into the room. It soared up to hit the ceiling, then dived to the candle with a vicious squeak. Its shadow swelled over the walls. A servant rushed forward with a broom to chase away the creature. In the chair Sati grew still as Durga’s laughter suddenly faded.

*

Half hidden behind a curtain, old Jaya watched, her soft flesh tensed in horror. This was not Sati. The voice did not belong to her granddaughter. She could not speak in this deep mocking tone, like the
ferenghi
themselves. There was another creature inside her, a
ferenghi
devil. As soon as this terrible evening was over she would go again to the temple, Jaya decided. She turned her prayer beads faster, muttering an invocation to the Goddess in a desperate whisper.

It had been clear to Jaya for some time, since the moment these strange manifestations had begun to appear several years before, that her granddaughter was possessed. She had gone immediately then to a priest at the Kali Mandhir and he had taken money to exorcise the demon. Eventually, after some sessions with a brushwood whip, throughout which Sati screamed in a hair-raising way, he declared the devil gone. Now Jaya saw that her instincts were right; priest or not, the man was untrustworthy. And so was Demonteguy. He had stirred up that creature once more in Sati. Rita should never have married him. He would destroy them all. She must talk the whole thing over with her cousin, Govindram.

She stared from the veranda at the full, ripe moon. In the month no day was more auspicious than this particular one. The full cup of the moon held a confusion of seed that would sow itself as it wished. Man could resort to nothing but prayer. Jaya sighed. The future swelled heavily before her as she sat turning her prayer beads. Yet she knew that when the Goddess gave trouble she also gave strength to bear the trial. She had not failed Jaya in the past.

T
he news arrived late in Calcutta and was brought to the Chief Magistrate by the Governor himself. Relations between the two men were strained. For the purpose of work they managed a cool but civil environment, circling each other like two prize beetles that might one day be forced to fight. Governor Drake extended his evening walk within Fort William, descending by the East Gate to pass the Reserve Battery until he arrived at the Chief Magistrate’s house. Given a choice he would not have skirted the cemetery at night, nor have been persuaded inside Holwell’s house, which, by the placement of the Governor’s apartments within the fort, he was forced to observe day and night. He was surprised to find himself doing both these things. It convinced him of the seriousness of the occasion.

At the announcement of the Governor, John Zephaniah Holwell rose from his chair on the veranda and came into the drawing room. He left a book and a glass of claret outside. Then, on an impulse, he retraced his steps and picked up the claret to meet the Governor with the insolence of a glass in his hand. He had not been pleased to hear the name of his visitor, nor to be called from his reverie on the veranda. Facing the river and a swollen moon, naked as a breast, he had sat with his hand cupped against the sky. His thoughts had been
pleasantly far away, compiling an inventory of all the womanly orbs he had had the luck to clasp. A visit at this hour from Roger Drake could mean only an emergency or disturbing news. The glow of candles softened the room, deepening the colours of a fine rug spread upon the floor. Holwell stood before the veranda door, forcing Drake to cross the room.

‘Dear God, Holwell, how can you live right opposite the cemetery? The moon is out full on those mausoleums. Sent the shivers down my spine,’ the Governor burst out, standing at last before Holwell, mopping his plump, sweating face with a handkerchief.

‘Many friends rest there. I shall no doubt be laid to rest there myself. Two monsoons are the Age of Man, and countless have died here to prove it. Best to gain a familiarity with the place now. A glass of claret or Madeira?’ The Chief Magistrate stood a head taller than Drake and was the elder by fourteen years. He spoke lightly, for thoughts of mortality did not assail him to the degree they gripped Governor Drake. Holwell’s longevity, although a matter of some mystery, was now taken for granted in Calcutta.

Drake took the claret Holwell poured and tossed back a large amount. Not for the first time he reflected that the Chief Magistrate resembled a gecko. His skin had the same yellow, rubbery quality, his small lashless eyes stared unblinking. The long cleft on his chin seemed only to define this secondary personality. Drake eyed the shadows behind the Chief Magistrate as if a tail might break free of the darkness.

The Chief Magistrate waited for Drake to finish his drink before indicating a chair. He noticed a light fall of powder from the Governor’s hair had settled on his shoulders. Such a lack of care about one’s person gave a slovenly impression. Drake rarely powdered his hair, and made a slapdash affair of it when he did. As with his dress so with his work, thought the Chief Magistrate. The man was ill equipped at every level to discharge the responsibilities of his position. In his excitable, yelping manner there was something pubescent about him. Thoughts seemed scrambled inside his head,
like a half-cooked egg, running this way or that. The Chief Magistrate took pride in his own ordered mind, each polished thought stacked carefully.

‘What is the trouble? I presume there is trouble to bring you past the cemetery at night?’ Holwell asked when Drake was seated.

The Governor already regretted revealing his fear of cemeteries to Holwell. Now, the weary sarcasm with which the Chief Magistrate phrased his enquiry only deepened this feeling. In retaliation Drake announced his news about the nawab with a flourish he might otherwise not have attempted.

‘That old devil Alivardi is dying, at last.’

The Chief Magistrate appeared unaffected by the information. He sat in his chair and sipped his claret. A familiar rage raced through him at the sight of Drake. The position of Governor was awarded by seniority. Men worked their way up to a seat on the Council of Fort William, then joined the queue waiting for the post of Governor. If the sweeping hand of mortality moved forward at an accelerated rate, which, in the climate of India, was not uncommon, this might arrive quite quickly. By right, the post should have come to Holwell four years before. Instead, Drake’s uncle, who was on the Board of Directors in Leadenhall, had swayed the voting towards his nephew.

For a moment there was silence. The sawing of crickets in the dark undergrowth of the garden filled the room. The mournful,
mudbound
boom of bullfrogs vibrated in their ears. The Governor did not want to break the momentum of his announcement by adding more details. The Chief Magistrate wished to make clear that he was unimpressed by the Governor’s news. Holwell, with no effort, and Drake, with much effort, continued their silence in the noisy room.

‘How many times before have we heard the same thing?’ The Chief Magistrate spoke at last, judging the moment, stifling a yawn. ‘The nawab has been dying for as long as I remember. He invariably recovers from whatever is wrong.’

‘The man is eighty-two. He is not immortal.’ The Governor sat
forward in his chair. His breeches strained at the seams, his stockings sagged into wrinkles.

‘From where did you hear this?’ the Chief Magistrate asked with unconcealed forbearance, savouring the bouquet of his claret. His nostrils dilated like the gills of predatory fish.

‘From the fat merchant Omichand, via his
banian,
Govindram. Omichand would not have sent such news late at night for nothing.’ Drake watched a moth blunder into a flame and tumble, a minute incendiary dart, to the base of a candle. As its tufted body flared briefly, he felt a moth-sized sense of sadness. He thought of the arrogance of Icarus. He thought of his position as Governor and wondered if this also exposed him to an overdose of sun. In the dish the singed moth gave a last convulsion.

‘With Omichand it is hard to tell.’ The Chief Magistrate continued to sip his claret, a vision of Omichand reluctantly filling his mind. He had no love for the devious Hindu merchant who seemed to
single-handedly
control Calcutta.

‘That is not untrue, but this news has been muttered by other sources for days. And I believe the word of Govindram. There is something about the man. He may be Omichand’s chief assistant, but it is easier to tell when he is lying than with the usual Hindu.’ Drake wiped his sweating face again.

‘Do not be naive,’ the Chief Magistrate advised. The image of Govindram, dark and spry, was suddenly before him, like an agile ant that persistently eluded the sole of a shoe. ‘They’re all a pack of monkeys.’

Drake mopped at his neck and the Chief Magistrate wondered, not for the first time, at the copius amounts of perspiration the Governor’s body seemed able to expel. He never visualised Drake without a wet sheen to his face. And tonight was relatively cool, with an occasional breeze off the river.

The Governor shifted about beneath the Chief Magistrate’s gaze. It was difficult to assert authority with a man fourteen years his senior, one who refused to make any deference to his position besides. It was
nothing but envy. Holwell had seen himself as Governor of Calcutta. Instead, in far-away Leadenhall, the East India Company had appointed him, Roger Drake. Official confirmation of this decision, even after four years, had unfortunately yet to arrive. Drake’s every order inevitably wobbled upon a shaky base. This was a cause of depression to Drake and a source of glee to men like Holwell. Still, a Governor was a Governor, even if not yet officially confirmed. Drake took another mouthful of claret, a smile on his lips.

‘Omichand leaves for Murshidabad the day after tomorrow. Things cannot be good or he would delay. If we do not also go we may lose a last opportunity to settle our pending business. The nawab is dying, his coffers are empty and his precious heir and grandson, Siraj Uddaulah, wishes only to see an end to our Settlement.’ Drake spoke with sudden force. The Chief Magistrate raised an eyebrow.

‘We must see the way the wind is blowing in Murshidabad,’ Drake insisted, wishing his voice would not rise to an effeminate treble whenever he felt under pressure. ‘There are many that do not wish Siraj Uddaulah to come to power. The court is alive with intrigue.’

‘When is it not? I cannot just drop all my obligations,’ the Chief Magistrate argued, although he saw that they probably had to go. Thought of the formidable palaces and stinking alleys of
Murshidabad
always filled him with unease. Something lurked beneath the town that he could never quite describe. Something fetid and menacing that might, when his back was turned, reach up to devour him.

‘We could sail with the evening tide the day after tomorrow, as will Omichand,’ Drake suggested. Whatever the animosity between himself and the Chief Magistrate, the question of power tied them firmly together. The Council of Fort William and the workings of Calcutta rested in their hands.

‘If you feel there is something to this report, then I suppose we cannot delay.’ The Chief Magistrate’s voice rose in annoyance. ‘Whatever way the wind blows in Murshidabad, our trade is needed
by all. Bengal cannot do without us.’ He spat out the words, like the fibrous residue of a fruit he had eaten.

‘The day after tomorrow then. I will have the boats ready.’ Drake stood up, glad to leave. He hesitated a moment at the door, remembering the cemetery again. Then, determined to show no further weakness, he strode off in the direction of Fort William.

*

The Chief Magistrate returned to the veranda with the remains of his claret. Above him the Pole Star glittered with mysterious force. The star beamed down on the town, making one of its White and Black parts. He chose to ignore the bloated moon, whose rhythms, fickle as a woman, continually evaded him; there when not needed, invisible when desired, always veiling an inner life. Thoughts of his wife came to him and he could not suppress the anger that any memory of her brought.

He had built his great house in Calcutta in preparation for their marriage, but Rosemary had stayed in India less than four years, withering quickly like a picked flower. She had never recovered from the death of their first child. India’s alien ways and the depression it brought debilitated her. Sometimes it had taken a year for a letter to arrive from home. This strange and unnatural isolation, where events closest to heart were viewed as if through the wrong end of a telescope, infinitely reduced and impossibly distant, distressed her more than most. She had learned of her mother’s death eleven months after the event. And that bizarre juxtaposition of thinking her alive while she had been dead all the while seemed to crack her open. She had been ill for months. When a second child was eventually born, she had insisted on returning to England, fearful of losing another baby to India’s rapacious ways. She had never returned again to Calcutta, leaving Holwell with a marriage that was living and at the same time dead. He thought of her now, and also his child, in the way he thought of dead friends.

Memories, like wet stepping stones, had led him into
uncomfortable
depths. He leaned back in his chair, listening to the soft slapping
of the river at the bottom of his garden. He had chosen to build his house on the bank of the Hoogly not only for the coolness it afforded, but also for the bittersweet edge of memory. The thick odour of the water threw him back, if only for a moment, to the place where he had been born; he had grown up beside a river. On summer nights its scent had pervaded his dreams, with the distant rush of water spilling through the weir. There was no denying the pain when he had to put aside these memories and open his eyes to a ragged fringe of coconut palms. Exile obliged him to forget while forcing him to remember in order to survive. Holwell shifted in his chair. The lapping of water from the nearby Hoogly came to him again. The river was like no other he could remember.

Beyond the veranda the trees were alight with fireflies, the moon streaked the Hoogly bronze. Crickets and bullfrogs still battled in the night, but even this din sank into the silence of the great river. This monstrous silence both drew and repelled the Chief Magistrate, much as India itself drew and repelled him. The very soil of the place seemed possessed of a wily, murderous soul and his life was a battle against it. The river exuded the dank odour of decay, of things that festered, hidden away. The corpses of thousands were dumped in its waters, the defecation of millions coloured its tide. It ate its meal of death and rot and opened its mouth for more, as did India itself. In this land everything decayed. Flesh sickened, devoured by maggots, worms and parasites even as it lived. Death waited for its victims in the air, the grass, the sweetest fruit or the waters of the well. If not buried or burned within a few hours, a body would swell and sometimes burst with the speed of its own destruction.

This voracious need to destroy and assimilate was the nature of the country, thought the Chief Magistrate, and shivered in the balmy night. He remembered a native goddess with a long red tongue, black as a goblin, hung about with skulls, that personified the country for him. The evil creature was in the river and the night, in the birthing room and the cemetery, in the Courthouse and the mango trees, even in his glass of claret. She left her vile footprints upon life and
death, dancing through both willy-nilly. Her breath moved dark trees to wildness. The Chief Magistrate was incensed by the sight of her, and such sightings were frequent and always obscene. The Old Hag, the Black Crone he called her, awash with his own bleak terror. If India and exile had taught him one thing, it was a view of his own identity he might otherwise not have learned.

Beneath the drone of crickets and the drumming of the frogs, the silence of the river rose about him again. Its silence had a waiting quality; eyes open even in sleep. The river was like a woman aroused, flushed with power, and filled him with fear. The Chief Magistrate found himself trembling with the unexpected range of his thoughts. He poured another glass of claret, fixing his gaze on Fort William, returning his mind to the tangible world and the events of that morning.