A Far Horizon (35 page)

Although the danger was averted, the knife had come so near Holwell’s heart that his waistcoat had been slashed. When order was finally restored, one of the
gomastah
lay dead, stabbed in the manner the Chief Magistrate had avoided. At the moment the villager had sprung towards him, Holwell, out of the corner of his eye, had seen the dead
gomastah
fall, but could not identify the murderer. Now the remaining
gomastah
urged the Chief Magistrate to dispense a quick judgement that would erase once and for all further thoughts of rebellion in this and other villages. At Holwell’s agreement a rope was found and hung from the mango tree behind his makeshift table.

There was much struggling by the bound man and much shouting from the villagers. All this was ignored by Holwell. It could not be determined who had killed the dead
gomastah,
but everyone knew it was not the man being pushed to the rope. The Chief Magistrate
gave no weight to the fact that the man was innocent. He knew his anger exceeded his sense of right, but an example was needed immediately. When he saw that his fate was unavoidable, the bound man fell silent, as if bending to his destiny. As the rope was placed about his neck, his eyes settled on the Chief Magistrate, not in appeal but in defiance. Amongst the circle of villagers now all protest had ceased; only the sobbing of women was heard. A girl with a baby at her breast and two children clinging to her sari had stumbled forward and collapsed at the Chief Magistrate’s feet, pleading for the man’s redemption. The Chief Magistrate had taken no notice. Above the hysterical woman’s head and the cries of her children, he had given the nod that tightened the rope about the villager’s neck.

The jerking body soon quietened at the end of the rope. Yet at the moment when life had been taken on his order the Chief Magistrate had looked away. He fixed his eyes beyond the man and saw the flash of a kingfisher diving towards water. When he eventually returned his gaze to the tree, the man hung lifeless from the bough. Holwell had at once ordered his table packed up and retired to his tent a short distance away. There he had called for a glass of Madeira. His blood ran quickly in his veins in a not unpleasant manner. He interpreted this feeling as the satisfaction that came from completing a repellent but necessary task. Afterwards he gave the incident no further thought. The slashed waistcoat had been burnt.

Now, in his prison in Murshidabad, this incident came before him, as if it had been lurking in a prison of its own, waiting for release. He saw the face of the doomed man again, and heard the pleas of his wife and children in a way he had not experienced at the time. It was as if through the years the incident had distilled within him to a substance so potent it would destroy him. A great ache that he could not locate filled the whole of his body.

He no longer knew if it was day or night, who came or went. Fever racked him. At one point he was aware that they were taken from the stable and transported on a cart to another prison. Here it was enclosed and dark, and an iron-bound door swung shut on them.
The door was opened periodically and food of some kind was pushed inside. Guards appeared from time to time to inspect the Chief Magistrate and the three writers, prodding them with a stick or a foot to determine the degree of life within them. Once they came with lanterns and he saw the lights as if at a great distance, swinging above him as they turned him over. He was unprepared for the stab of pain that suddenly tore through his body. He thought his end had come. In his fevered mind it seemed they split him open, ripping out his entrails. He heard the young writers cry out with a pain equal to his own. Soon the door was shut again. And still he lived.

His fever roared and his spirit seemed to float free. A great pain filled him, rising to new intensity whenever he moved. He could no longer smell the river and thought at first the wretched black goddess was gone, leaving him to his fate. But then he saw her, rising out of his body, as if she were a creature of his own depths and held the key to his fate. There was nowhere to run to in the darkness. He was forced to stare at her open-eyed. Then other repugnant visions began to show themselves; pot-bellied devils with spindly legs and long fat noses, toads, lizards and rats of fantastic size scampered about him. Even when he stared into empty darkness, this too began to stir and throw forth weird forms. But always, above all these visions, the dark goddess reigned supreme. He knew she had led him into a hell that was no more than the embodiment of himself.

So great was his terror that he was forced to acknowledge all that was shown him. At last he cowered before the very wretchedness of himself. In the darkness the goddess appeared to weave about him, sinuous as a spiral of smoke. At last he relinquished himself to her.

Then, at that moment of surrender, he saw the goddess change, her repulsive skin whitening, her features diminishing, her sagging breasts tightening, her long tongue disappearing. She shimmered in her nakedness, filling him then with a degree of desire he had never known before. A light came from her, encasing him in sudden warmth. He saw then that both the light and the darkness of this goddess flowed within himself in one mighty stream. He had to
make his peace with both these parts to possess at last his own wholeness. The visions left him then, and soon he slept a dreamless, undisturbed sleep.

It was impossible to gauge how long he was kept in the cell. Eventually the door was opened and he was pulled roughly to his feet. He could not stand at first, and a dull ache throbbed through him as if he recovered from a wound. He shuffled forward, bowed and filthy, the three young writers behind him. Daylight suddenly sizzled about them. He saw he walked through courtyards planted with jasmine, where the sun played on fountains and filled the air with myriad rainbows. He suddenly caught sight of his own hands and was shocked. They appeared like the claws of a bird, thickly encrusted with a layer of filth. The perfume of blossom filled the air. Marble flagstones were hot beneath his bare feet; flowers and bright birds filled his vision. He saw he was once more in the palace of Siraj Uddaulah and neared the Hall of Audience.

The nawab sat as before on his gold throne. Arches inlaid with precious stones led one by one to his dais. The Chief Magistrate stumbled towards him, his fetters knocking the marble floor, his knees barely able to hold him up. The nobles drew back in silence. The Chief Magistrate remembered, as if at a great distance, how he and Drake had walked this short distance, a band playing proudly before them. At last he was pushed to prostrate himself at Siraj Uddaulah’s feet. To one side of the dais on which the nawab sat stood the treacherous Rai Durlabh. His eyes ran coldly over Holwell before he looked away.

Siraj Uddaulah bent forward and stared for some time at the Chief Magistrate, frowning. He expressed surprise at finding the Chief Magistrate still in Murshidabad, as if he had forgotten his order to send Holwell up river. A string of large pearls hung about his neck, above a chain of diamonds. A ruby still sparkled like frozen blood on his turban, emeralds large as quail’s eggs covered his hands. The sun blazed on these jewels, surrounding the monarch with light. Once more Holwell was questioned about the treasure, and he could make
even less of a spirited appeal for innocence than before. He lay without answering until he was pulled to his knees and a knife was held against his throat. He was beyond caring and could only shake his head. At last the questioning petered out and he heard Siraj Uddaulah speaking with Rai Durlabh. The nawab suggested that the Chief Magistrate was past his usefulness and should be allowed to go free. He had lost interest in him. Soon the Chief Magistrate and the three writers were marched from the nawab’s presence, and thrust beyond the palace gate.

After a while they picked themselves up, reviving slightly at their luck. Holwell knew his bearings about the palace and soon led the three writers the few hundred yards to the nearest sanctuary, the Dutch settlement in Murshidabad. There they were received with consternation. The Dutch spared no effort to restore them to health. Food, clothes, medicine and baths were ordered for them
unstintingly
. Slowly the first ravages of the trauma lessened, but nothing could alleviate the shock that faced the Chief Magistrate on his first day at the Dutch settlement.

Once they had eaten, baths of medicinal herbs were prepared, to ease away the thick crust of grime on their bodies. The Chief Magistrate gratefully shed the stinking items of clothing he had worn through the last weeks. Although his limbs were still sore with boils, the dirt fell away in the hot water. At last he stepped from his bath and entered his bedroom to take stock of himself in a mirror. He saw then that what he had thought to be pustules around that most private part of himself was instead the slashed wound from a knife. He stared down at himself in disbelief, remembering the pain in his delirium that had seemed to tear open his body. He knew then with a sickening horror that the Moors had branded him with the mark of their race. He remembered now that circumcision was a practice sometimes inflicted on captured infidels. The Chief Magistrate turned in distress before the mirror and examined himself once more. In his hand his organ now appeared a freakish stump, like the
wrecked limb of an amputee. He let out a howl of despair. Wherever he went, whatever he did, this mark would be upon him forever.

He found that the three young writers, Court, Burdet and Walcot, had also been circumcised along with him. Anger gave him strength, and when the Dutch began to question him about the events of the last few weeks, the Chief Magistrate did not hesitate to once more write down his account of things, as he had done for the French. The trauma between the time of meeting the French and arriving at the Dutch settlement had caused him to forget what exactly he had written down at Chandernagore, but this did not deter him.

Once more the Chief Magistrate put pen to parchment and his anger flowed anew, greater now for his treatment in Murshidabad. He forgot about warehouses, fires, women and children. He saw himself back in the Black Hole. His mind was now full of the men who had died so bravely defending Fort William in the fight against Siraj Uddaulah. Coales, Valicourt, Dalrymple, Jebb, Page, Ballard … He saw their faces pass before him, young men struck down in their prime. He began to write the names down, for they might just as well have died in the Black Hole, sacrificed as they had been to the wrath of Siraj Uddaulah.

One
hundred
and
sixty
men
were
locked
into
a
cell
eighteen
feet
long
and
fourteen
feet
wide
with
only
two
small
windows,
wrote the Chief Magistrate.
Only
twenty
came
out
in
the
morning.
He wrote of sitting on a carpet of bodies and of a thirst so great he was forced to drink his own urine from the heel of a shoe in order to survive. He wrote of the terrible deaths he had witnessed and the efforts he had made to avert them. At last he laid down his pen. In his mind the Black Hole, the filthy stable and the dark prison in the nawab’s palace had each become interchangeable. He knew that he would be caught forever within these dark chambers of his mind.

F
rom the women’s quarters of Omichand’s house, Jaya and Govindram looked out at the garden as they sat on a wide veranda. Mohini dozed beside them, propped up against silk bolsters. Outside, Sati rocked on a swing beneath a mango tree, eyes half closed. With his women gone, Omichand had opened his house to the Devi Ashram until new wives and concubines were chosen.

‘The Goddess has left Sati only because her work is done,’ Govindram remarked. The air from the garden was fresh after a night of rain.

‘She has rid Calcutta of the Hatmen and brought us safely through the siege,’ Jaya agreed. The smells of damp undergrowth rose pleasantly. All about was a sense of renewal.

On the flattened expanse of Black Town, new huts were already being constructed. Those houses of White Town that were still habitable were now occupied by Black Town families. They wandered the many rooms in wonder and hung laundry from the balconies where their bare-bottomed children played. Families unable to find room in the houses were established in stables or the servants’ quarter, or had erected rough shelters in gardens. The Goddess had arranged this too, thought Jaya. She had flooded White Town with Black Town people, returning to them what was
rightfully theirs. It was her revenge on the Hatmen. Jaya suddenly felt full of power.

Even the Kali temple, stolen by the Hatmen and filled with their weapons and gunpowder for years, had now been returned to the Goddess. The Hatmen and the remains of their inflammable deposits had been thrown out on to the road willy-nilly. The temple had been cleaned and swept and ceremonies had been held to exorcise it. Then, the Goddess had been carried back to Her abode. Her statue rode on the shoulders of jubilant men; all night drums had been beaten in revelry. From the veranda of Omichand’s house, Jaya could see the tall padoga-shaped towers of the temple rising proudly once more to the sky. The nawab had renamed Calcutta Alinagore, as if a new era had begun, and to seal her sense of a new beginning, Jaya had seen Hatman Holwell led away in chains. Her hatred for the magistrate welled up anew, unimpeded by fear now. She could never forget the terrible day Sati had been sacrificed to the man’s lust. The pain she had felt for the child would never go away. She remembered the way he had stolen her jewels. All these things the Goddess had seen, as Jaya had known she must. Now the Chief Magistrate was reaping the harvest of his deeds. Jaya sighed with satisfaction.

She watched Sati rock gently on the wide swing a short distance away. Behind the coconut palms beyond the swing a young man stood, half hidden, staring at Sati. Jaya kept her eyes on him in case he should misbehave. A peacock appeared and raised its great tail, filling the garden with colour. Jaya turned back to Govindram.

‘The Goddess also returned my diamonds to me. This is something I can never forget.’ The miracle had not ceased to amaze her. She continually searched for a reason to explain why the gems had not only been taken also so dramatically returned.

‘I feel there is something the Goddess is wanting me to do but I cannot yet understand what it is,’ Jaya told her cousin with a perplexed frown. Behind her Mohini gave a loud snore and turned on the bolsters.

‘Why are you never content? You have your diamonds safe again.
Give them to Sati as you were wanting to do before,’ Govindram replied, preparing to leave the women’s quarters, where he knew he had already spent too much time. Omichand would be waiting for him.

‘Maybe Sati will never marry,’ Jaya whispered, voicing the fear at last.

‘Why should she not?’ Govindram enquired, although his thoughts were in tandem with his cousin’s. The effort of renewing his search for a husband for Sati already weighed heavily on him.

‘Because she has become the Goddess’s creature. The Goddess belongs to no man, Her
shakti
is too great. She is like a warrior. And She will keep Sati for herself.’ As she spoke, things seemed to clear in Jaya’s mind, revealing the shape of the future.

‘Perhaps the Goddess has no more use for her and has left her free to marry,’ Govindram suggested, seeing the seriousness of his cousin’s expression. As Govindram finished speaking, the loud roar of a tiger came from the nearby jungle.

‘It is the Goddess. She speaks to us,’ Jaya gasped, clasping her hands together. As she spoke, a thought flashed through her mind. It came to her so spontaneously and remained in such a convincing manner that she knew at once that this too was the work of the Goddess.

‘I will sell my diamonds to Omichand,’ Jaya announced.
Govindram
turned to her in alarm. Omichand was back in business again, working now for Siraj Uddaulah, his vast resources and wily mind at the nawab’s convenience, his funding once more oiling the wheels of state.

‘And with the money we shall set up a proper ashram. This will be better than marriage for Sati. She will be known far and wide. People will come from all over Bengal for her
darshan.
This is what the Goddess wanted me to understand.’ Once more the tiger roared, and Jaya began to smile. Behind her Mohini stirred, sat up and rubbed her eyes.

‘So much noise you are making. I cannot sleep,’ she complained with a yawn.

‘While you are sleeping the world has been remade,’ Jaya retorted.

Govindram looked at his cousin with new respect, for he saw the sense of her decision. ‘Your idea is a good one.’

The smile spread across Jaya’s face. ‘Then I shall do it in the morning. Please speak to Omichand.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Mohini yawned again.

At that moment Jaya saw the strange man behind the coconut palms step out from his hiding place and walk towards Sati. The old woman rose hurriedly to her feet.

*

The further Emily Drake walked into the garden, the closer it seemed to press about her. The place was overgrown, untended since Omichand’s arrest. The scent of jasmine was in the air and the branches of shrubs sprang forward to brush her arms. The smell of damp leaves and soil rose from the earth. Her childhood home had had the same look of neglect about it. The memory of that other garden returned to claim her. She had played there with the servant’s children and listened to Parvati’s tales of fantastical gods who seemed always more absorbing than the bearded man her mother
worshipped
. Parvati told of gods afire with power or large with benevolence, all facets of a single being. In the schoolroom, prayers were learned and hymns were sung but nothing took Emily out of herself like the tales Parvati told her. Unbeknown to her mother, the servant’s children taught her other prayers and pulled her into their rituals. Within these strange rites she found an inspiration never conveyed to her at home.

She remembered one of the children’s rituals. It took place in the cold winter months, in the early mornings before the sun had risen or the first birds had begun to sing. Secretly she had left her bed and run into the dark, silent garden to join the servant’s children. They made a small crude figure of mud without proper arms or legs. The mud doll was positioned in a secret place and a small moat was dug
about it. They called the figure Jamburi, and offerings of water, flowers and grass were laid before it. Suddenly the old words of that rite came back to Emily.

‘
I
bring
thee
water
before
the
crow
has
drunk
of
it;
I
bring
thee
flowers
before
the
bee
has
sucked
them
.’
The words fell about her in the overgrown garden of Omichand’s house as she remembered the story of Jamburi. She had no feet or hands, nor even a mouth, yet Jamburi could accomplish anything because she had a will. This was what the children learned from that crude mud figure in the darkness before the sun. Each day the rites became more intense. Each day the story of Jamburi was retold like a bridge across which the limbless creature gave her essence to the children. Without hands Jamburi could neither give nor receive. She had no feet to walk upon and her eyes could barely see. Her experience of life was not as others knew it. Left with no guide but intuition, Jamburi had to find her way to that place of transformation deep within herself. Emily remembered with surprise that Jamburi had been no more than a clod of earth. Yet she had returned to her bed each morning as the sun came up, filled with a sense of wonder. Something had been communicated to her that could not be conveyed in words. A new reality entered her by which she was herself transformed. Her mother and Jane knew nothing of her early morning sorties. The secret of Jamburi was something she held to herself.

Now, in Omichand’s house, the peacock came before her again, pecking the ground, placing his feet deliberately, arching his neck. Once more as she watched he fanned out his tail. The magical diadems of colour burst before her, shimmering as he moved. It was as if in this garden, filled with the scented fragments of childhood, she recovered her memory. She saw that Jamburi did not dwell in a world apart, but was dissolved deep within herself. The journey Jamburi had spoken of was no different from her own. The intuition that guided was the source of her own renewal.

All her early memories had been of wholeness, and she knew now she must make the passage back to that same beginning. She stared
down at the bright checks of the dirty
lungi
draped about her and touched the turban on her head. She was content to rest in this genderless state, beyond colour or creed, belonging to no one but herself. It was then, as the peacock swayed, moving forwards then backwards, his feathers brushing the ground like a skirt, that she saw the spirit girl, Sati, sitting on a swing as if waiting for her to appear.

*

Sati looked up and saw the Governor’s wife dressed in the clothes of a man. Sooner or later she had known she would come, although she did not know how she knew this. Durga had disappeared but it no longer distressed her. The crack by which Durga had entered her soul now appeared to have fused. She tried not to recall the long night in that cell in Fort William, for its terror remained with her still. And yet, in that dark descent, some alchemy was done; her memories had made her whole. Neither past nor present could touch her now. She looked up into the face of the Governor’s wife and knew that perhaps this was the thread that joined them.

*

Almost immediately Jaya rushed up. Sweat stood out on her brow and collected between her great breasts. She took hold of Emily Drake, wrestling her to the ground.

‘
Badmash
boy. How dare you come into this garden. What are you doing here?’ Jaya screamed. The peacock looked up in alarm, closed its tail and fled.

Sati jumped off the swing and tried to pull her grandmother away. ‘It is the Governor’s wife,’ she shouted.

Govindram hurried up, but stood helpless before his cousin’s energy until Sati repeated her statement. He reached forward to pull Jaya back but she shook her head, making no sense of Sati’s words. Emily’s turban had now fallen off to reveal the sheared remains of her hair. Jaya stepped back in shock, recognising the Governor’s wife at last.

‘How are we supposed to know who she is? All Hatmen ladies look
the same, I cannot tell one from the other. And why is she dressed like a Black Town man?’ Jaya demanded angrily.

‘I only …’ Emily began in a fluster.

‘She will rest here a while,’ Sati announced.

And suddenly then Emily Drake saw that indeed this was what she would do. She would rest in this androgynous state for as long as she needed. The rich smell of damp undergrowth rose up about her, filling her with wholeness. The future would take care of itself. Like the spider that sits in his web, she knew now she was both the centre and the source of her world, its lightness and its dark. The future would emerge when ready, just as the moon returned from darkness to flood the sky with life. And whatever that future might be, she would no longer live a confiscated life but one that would be her own. She looked up at the circle of people about her and rose awkwardly to her feet.

The old woman who had grappled with her and held her down now nodded in invitation towards Omichand’s house. Emily Drake followed gladly. Govindram walked beside her, undecided suddenly of his role. He was unsure of how to speak to the Governor’s wife, who was so strangely dressed and had been so strangely manifested in their midst that he did not know what to make of it all. He had no doubt there was a reason for her presence, which would soon be revealed to them all. Already, as they walked to the house, he could hear Jaya explaining to Sati her plan for establishing a proper ashram. It was a good idea, thought Govindram. The Goddess would be pleased. On the breeze he smelled the river, still full of the rancid Salt Lakes, and knew that as all rivers find rebirth in the ocean, a new beginning awaited them all.