A Far Horizon (5 page)

Holwell’s confusion grew. He could make no sense of the proceedings. To his further horror he saw that the girl, Sati, faced them all from an armchair. Her amber-flecked eyes, luminous as phosphor, that he had fought to be free of all day, now burned relentlessly into him. He was terrified to drop his gaze. In his present state of vulnerability the girl might detect a crevice through which to shred his soul. Within that dark, icy place at the back of his mind, cold waves seemed to rise and fall. He braced himself to keep his balance before such a naked thrust of will.

One by one people turned towards him, as if the girl had the power to bend their gaze. Her eyes pinned the Chief Magistrate to his chair. Carved nodules of wood pressed into his back. The room seemed to darken about him. The flame of a candle wove sinuously about like a snake from a fakir’s basket. The walls of the room had vanished, he appeared to be wandering in a dark cave, an unknown presence at his side. Sati was speaking, her voice deep and strange.

‘He carries darkness into all his dealings. The river will be powerless to bear him away, even though he leaves. His lies will last.’ The girl raised her arm, pointing at Holwell; her voice rang out in the room. A needle of pain passed through him.

‘What nonsense is this?’ the Chief Magistrate shouted, but the words sounded faint in his throat. With an effort he forced himself up, his limbs felt heavy as lead. About him the candles danced dangerously.

‘Jane. Jane …’ Suddenly the voice began to fade. Sati stood up abruptly, then collapsed on to the floor.

‘About time too.’ Strength pulsed through the Chief Magistrate’s veins. As he pushed his way to the door, Demonteguy hurried towards him.

‘How dare you bring me here, to this unspeakable charade, under the false pretence of business,’ Holwell swore.

‘I did not ask you here tonight. Our meeting was for tomorrow,’ Demonteguy answered. His voice was unsteady and there was something unhinged in his expression.

The Chief Magistrate stopped in confusion and Demonteguy took control of himself. ‘It is over. People are going. If you wish, we can talk now. Be so kind as to wait a few moments.’ Demonteguy led Holwell to the veranda and a small table upon which was a bottle of arrack. Demonteguy quickly filled two glasses as Holwell sat down.

‘The evening has been eventful.’ Demonteguy gulped down the liquor with an apologetic smile, then hurried away.

A servant with a silver collecting tray was making a round of departing guests. Most people appeared bewildered and made no contribution to the evening. Demonteguy struggled to contain his fury. Not only would there be a lack of funds, but bad reports would circulate in Calcutta. Mr Dumbleton passed him without a word, hurrying out with a frown of disapproval, Lady Russell steered a dazed Mrs Drake to the door. Others followed her example, ignoring the collection tray. Demonteguy stood in the middle of the room, staring at the debris of the evening. Something he had appeared to hold in his hands had trickled through his fingers.

On the veranda the Chief Magistrate turned his back on the crowd filing out into the night. Through the open window shutters he saw servants lighting candles and oil lamps again. His fury increased as he observed old Jaya suddenly stepping into the room. That she should have seen him enmeshed in a charade indubitably of her own making was more than he could bear. The memory of her feathered hat across the Courtroom just that morning, trembling like a belligerent cockerel, came before him again. He watched as she and Rita bent
over the prostrate girl, who now lay upon a sofa. Jaya covered her with a quilt.

‘They are gone.’ Demonteguy ran back up the steps to Holwell as the last palanquin departed. He had recovered his composure.

‘And what was all
that
?’
The Chief Magistrate’s mouth was pinched in anger.

‘The girl sees spirits. They speak through her. In Paris I attended a seance such as you have seen tonight. Many people wish to contact dead relatives or to know the future. Tonight the spirit of Mrs Drake’s dead sister came into the room through Sati. We had not expected such a thing. Is it not marvellous?’

‘Bah,’ the Chief Magistrate exploded, and reached for the arrack. The liquor set his throat on fire. Everything within him was in disarray and now, face to face with Demonteguy, he felt an unexpected discomfort. Did the Frenchman know of his wife’s reputation? But Demonteguy’s mind was locked on more concrete matters than the Chief Magistrate’s tumbled senses.

‘Now that Rita and I are married, I have decided to adopt Sati. She can then be permanently with her mother. Already she is of marriageable age and can no longer be allowed to run wild in Black Town. It reflects badly upon us.’ An oil lamp burned nearby and the light caught Demonteguy’s watery blue eyes, as they confronted the Chief Magistrate.

‘What is this to do with me?’ the Chief Magistrate enquired.

‘The girl’s grandmother is filing for custody,’ Demonteguy replied.

‘Upon what grounds?’ Holwell asked, as if he knew nothing of the matter.

‘She has no grounds,’ Demonteguy insisted. ‘The only good she could do she has just now done, by making over to Sati a substantial inheritance.’

‘An inheritance? Old Jaya Kapur?’ The Chief Magistrate put down his glass. He felt inclined to laugh.

‘Diamonds. She lived for a time in Murshidabad, in the
zenana
of some princeling there. Of course, I believe she did not go willingly,
but was sold into concubinage. A sad story but a common one here. She escaped and fled with jewels the princeling had given her. Recently, she has made these baubles over to Sati to insure for her an adequate dowry.’

‘It is possible, I suppose,’ Holwell replied. There seemed no end to the day’s eccentricity.

‘How can a young girl take care of such an inheritance? How can an old woman be trusted not to lose such a valuable treasure? She might go senile and forget where it is. Will you be presiding over the case?’ Demonteguy asked.

‘Probably.’ The Chief Magistrate became wary.

‘If I were granted legal custody I could invest the inheritance to Sati’s best advantage, perhaps double it by the time she married.’ Demonteguy spoke in a coaxing manner. Holwell said nothing, for he felt at this moment silence was to his advantage.

‘The diamonds are of a high carat. Shipped to Amsterdam, cut and polished, they would be of great value,’ Demonteguy continued.

‘How do you know all this?’

‘I have seen the document making these things over to Sati. A scribe from the lawyer came to me. They were uncertain the old woman was of sound mind, or that the jewels even belonged to her.’

‘I am told the girl is happier with her grandmother than with her mother.’ The Chief Magistrate sat back to watch his words take effect.

‘My wife is anxious to have her child beside her now that she can provide an adequate life.’ Demonteguy gave a nervous laugh. ‘If I were granted legal custody, I would make it worth your while. Some fine diamond buttons are included in the inheritance.’

‘I believe the case is scheduled in the Cutcherry within a few days. I will let you know my feelings upon the matter before then.’ The Chief Magistrate stood up to take his leave.

His retinue of servants came forward as he emerged from Demonteguy’s house. He climbed into the palanquin and was soon jolted forward at a smart trot in the direction of his home.

*

Demonteguy turned back into the house. He glanced only cursorily at Sati, still asleep on the sofa.

‘Sit with her until she wakes,’ he ordered Jaya, rage knifing between each word. He strode to the inner room, where Rita waited.

His wife bent before an open cupboard, red hair streaming about her shoulders. She started as her husband entered and hurried to shut the cupboard door. Something furtive alerted him. Demonteguy stepped forward and pulled back the door. He saw a narrow shelf had been constructed inside the cupboard. Upon it stood several small brass images and a framed picture of the ugly goddess Rita had worshipped before their marriage.

‘I told you to keep your heathen gods out of my house.’ Everything burst in his head. The evening’s humiliation seemed but a link in a continuing conspiracy between his wife, her mother and his stepdaughter.

‘Soon you will destroy me.’ Demonteguy pushed Rita aside.

She recovered her balance and began to shout. ‘Several times I have told you, but you do not listen. The spirits come to Sati and they are real. In Black Town such things are common. I am requesting only protection from the Goddess, I am not seeking to destroy you.’

Rita was exhausted; the evening had been a great strain. Terror at her daughter’s possession still echoed through her. On top of everything, Mr Holwell had appeared unexpectedly to stare at her in a lewd manner. Although not disagreeable it had been inappropriate and Demonteguy had noticed. The Chief Magistrate’s sudden appearance had released a flood of uncomfortable memories that she preferred to put behind her.

‘I do not believe in such nonsense. The girl is hysterical but her strange moods serve our purpose. Had she done as instructed it would have been a profitable evening. Instead she has made us a laughing stock. Tomorrow Calcutta will talk of nothing else.’ Demonteguy was incensed.

‘We have awoken forces beyond our control,’ Rita whispered.

‘I do not want your Black Town hokum-pokum here in my house,’ Demonteguy shouted.

‘I will tell my mother to call the priest from the Kali Mandhir. Once before he rid Sati of an evil spirit,’ Rita replied in a trembling voice.

‘Let there now be an end to this,’ Demonteguy exploded. Reaching suddenly into the cupboard he swept the brass figurines from the shelf. He ripped up the cheap picture of the Goddess before his wife could stop him.

‘You do not know what you have done.’ Rita immediately dropped to her knees before the paper scattered on the floor.

‘I have rid my house of heathen trash, that is what I have done,’ Demonteguy fumed.

Rita’s fingers trembled as she gathered up the brass images and the shreds of paper. The Goddess’s eyes and part of her nose stared critically up at her from a fragment. Rita’s heart beat fast in terror. What her husband had done was unconscionable. The Goddess would not overlook such treatment but would seek to exact her revenge. Rita knew she must immediately speak to her mother; the old woman would know what to do.

‘All things are done through the Goddess, you do not understand.’ Rita was sobbing now.

‘I will not listen to any more of this heathen mumbo-jumbo,’ Demonteguy yelled, incensed.

‘You are seeing only profit for us in Sati,’ Rita shouted, changing the subject.

‘Once we have that profit she can return to your mother,’ Demonteguy announced. He loosened the stock at his throat and pulled off his wig. Without it his balding head reminded Rita of a plucked chicken.

‘We have entertained both the Governor’s wife and the Chief Magistrate in our home. Is that not a good thing?’ Rita reminded him, drying her eyes.

‘Indeed, it is all that can be said,’ Demonteguy responded.

Perhaps all was not lost. He had no interest in the Governor’s wife, but something had been established with the Chief Magistrate. If Holwell participated in his plan they would be tied irrevocably together. There was no one more powerful in Calcutta than the Chief Magistrate. The Governor’s power came through his position, which could be overturned at any moment by Leadenhall. The Chief Magistrate’s power came through his guile. Perhaps, decided Demonteguy, the evening had not been entirely wasted.

*

Old Jaya listened to the sounds of argument between her daughter and Demonteguy. She applied a damp cloth to Sati’s temples and smoothed back the girl’s wild hair. At times her granddaughter murmured in a troubled way, but did not surface into consciousness. Jaya stared grimly in the direction of Demonteguy’s voice. Terrible feelings rolled through her. Why had Hatman Holwell come here tonight? What business had he and Demonteguy to discuss for so long on the veranda? She had watched them together, faces shadowed by the oil lamp, pale eyes agleam, weighing each other up. The feeling of vulnerability she had carried about for the last few days had grown to new proportions. She remembered the
magistrate’s
rage at the sight of her only that morning, and turned hurriedly again to her prayer beads. The seeds that were sown in an individual’s lifetime never failed to be harvested, if not in this life then in the next. She would pray again to the Goddess, for there was nothing She did not see. When it came time for the Chief Magistrate to reap his harvest of worldly deeds, the Goddess would remember.

F
rom a window Emily Drake looked out over the bastions of Fort William and was surprised at her trepidation. Beyond the fort, The Avenue, as far as she could see, was crowded with camels, horses and elephants, all colourfully adorned. In their midst moved ornate palanquins and a richly covered cart. Dust shrouded the scene in a yellow haze. The procession turned towards the house of the merchant Omichand.

‘What is happening?’ she asked the old ayah, who had been with her since childhood.

‘A nobleman has arrived from Murshidabad.’ Parvati craned her neck from the window, then squatted down again by the cradle, toe rings clinking on the floor.

Emily fanned herself with a handkerchief. The hot winds blew fire on the town and beat in the shutters like rain. She always kept one tattie rolled up for a view of the Hoogly and the bougainvillaea she had planted on the balcony. She had no desire for the tame blooms of Europe, so fashionable in Calcutta. They did not remind her of home. Home was India for Emily Drake; she had never been to England. She had missed a garden most of all since the move into Fort William. Only the pots of bougainvillaea sustained her, overflowing the balcony, trailing bright magenta and orange. Grey
bricks, bugle calls and the drill of soldiers circumscribed her day. She rarely left the fort. To leave it was to invite hurt.

Beside her the baby whimpered. Emily placed a hand on the cradle, rocking it back and forth. Parvati moved forward to take over, croaking the discordant ditty with which she had once put Emily to sleep. In a far corner crouched the wet nurse, sent at the time of Emily’s confinement by the redoubtable Lady Russell. Ill health forced Emily to use the woman’s services against her best intentions. When the baby refused to settle, she beckoned to the woman, a young girl of twenty, neat in white muslin but with a vacant stare.

‘Bibiji, visitors have come.’ A servant entered the room and Emily rose in anticipation. There was a faint smirk on the servant’s face; the Governor’s private apartments were not usually the haunt of the
riff-raff
of Calcutta. Emily Drake knew the thoughts that passed through his mind. She sensed he did not approve of her; in some way she was not
pukka.
Arrogance was needed for the role of Governor’s wife, and this she could not summon. The more arrogance displayed by employers, the more respect it produced in servants, according to her husband. It was he who had aspired to their present position; it had not been her wish at all. The wet nurse took the baby and Emily made her way to where her visitors waited.

She entered the room apprehensively, testing the air for intensity, glancing into the shadows for light. She gave only a cursory nod to Rita Demonteguy, her eyes fixing at once on Sati. For a moment she stopped in doubt. In the spacious room the girl seemed of no more substance than the saplings that lodged in the crumbling walls of Fort William. Before Emily there was only the empty room, the naive, shrinking girl and her vixen-like mother. It had seemed so different the other night.

It must have been the mother who had forced her to wear the garish, brightly trimmed gown, thought Emily. The girl fiddled with the ribbons at her neck, as if she would tear them away. Upon her wrists were glass bangles, at her neck a talisman such as Indian women wore. A gold nose-stud gleamed in the dim room. These
accessories contrasted strangely with the ill-fitting European dress. She appeared neither eastern nor western but a strange hybrid creature that struggled to be born. Her thin, dark face bore little resemblance to the brazen voluptuousness of her mother. Nor, except for her yellow eyes and tortoiseshell hair, could Emily find the genes of her English father. In contrast, the mother exuded the essence of a commodity. Rita Demonteguy’s rouged cheeks,
kohl-lined
eyes and mane of hennaed hair appeared more appropriate to a
nautch
girl. The sweet, sticky perfume of attar of roses emanated from her. Her dress was of a glowing pink that flattered her honeyed skin. It must have been chosen by Demonteguy, Emily decided; such an eye for line could not be part of Rita Demonteguy’s learning. The women diffused the essence of Black Town. Its tastes, smells and teeming vulgar life seemed suddenly to fill the room. To Emily Drake this sudden cracking of her silent world was not unwelcome. The flesh of her childhood expanded suddenly within her, like a dried fruit dilating in water. The river near her home was before her again, the sweet juice of the sugar cane wetting her tongue as she ran free with the servant’s children. She thrust away the memories. They had no place in her present life and only impeded her further.

She returned her gaze to Sati, trying to find in the shuttered quality of her face the raucous creature that had mesmerised a crowd. Sati appeared more prey than predator now, more wistful than wild, more trusting than transformative. The girl was coiled deeply within herself and exuded nothing. Emily Drake gave a puzzled shrug; disappointment filled her. Perhaps the events in Demonteguy’s home had been no more than a hypnotic dream. She had heard such a cloak of magic could be thrown by some adepts upon a crowd as to make hundreds hallucinate, but this girl, no more than fifteen, showed little maturity. The rough voice that still echoed in Emily’s ears could not belong to her. It must have been a clever trick. India abounded with tricksters: fakirs and fanatics, snake charmers, spies, God-men, shamans and all manner of charlatans. The information the girl had spewed out the other night was not
difficult to come by. Who in Calcutta did not know the gossip of Emily’s marriage to her former brother-in-law? At these thoughts fatigue settled upon her.

‘There has been a mistake. Things are not as I thought … There is refreshment in the other room. Please rest there a while before you go.’ She turned towards the window and the blaze of bougainvillaea.

‘You have called Sati here because of your sister. Now when you see her you do not believe Sati was saying all those things. But any time she can summon up those spirits. She will do it for you now.’ Rita Demonteguy was all shrill persuasion.

Already the vision of herself dining at Fort William was slipping rapidly away. The terrible scene on her mother’s Black Town doorstep only days before, watched by neighbours, chickens and watermelon vendors, became horribly clear once more. That tug of war for the girl and her gift, Rita saw now, was a fight for her own survival in White Town.

‘They will not come just like that.’ Sati pulled away from her mother’s grasp.

‘What are you saying? They came the other day with so many people watching.’ Rita pushed Sati into a chair.

‘Oh, please …’ Emily protested, but Rita Demonteguy held up a hand authoritatively. Already Sati was covering her face, attempting to obey her mother.

For some moments the women stood side by side watching the girl’s bowed head and hunched shoulders. At each slight trembling of her body an expression of triumph seeded itself in Rita’s eyes and then faded as nothing happened. At last Sati straightened.

‘I cannot do it. They do not hear me.’

‘You
will
do it.’ The expectation on Rita’s face turned to anger. She leaned over Sati, whispering in her own language, ‘Pretend, fool. Like the other day.’

Emily Drake, from her wild childhood, understood something of that language. At Rita’s words she took a step forward and called for the servants.

‘I have seen enough. I want you to go. I will not have her pretend,’ Emily protested.

‘Sometimes, when she pretends, they decide to visit her,’ Rita answered with a shrug.

‘Bibiji …?’ Servants quickly entered the room at the sound of argument.

‘Get out,’ ordered Rita, turning upon them.

‘You are in
my
house,’ Emily retorted, stunned at the woman’s audacity.

‘They are disturbing my daughter. Just now her spirit people are coming to her, as you desire, and your servants rush in. How do you think the spirits must feel, forced to appear before monkey servants?’ Desperation directed Rita.

‘It is all right.’ Emily weakly echoed Rita’s order and the servants backed away.

‘Now,’ commanded Rita.

‘Oh,’ Sati breathed. She began to sway and clutch her stomach. She remembered little of her attacks and was uncertain now of how to behave.

‘I am Jane.’ Anxiety made her voice a trembling pipe. This name, she had been instructed, was the magic word. She had been told how Emily Drake’s dead sister had appeared the night of the seance, and the effect it had had on the Governor’s wife.

‘I am Jane.’ She could think of nothing more to say, yet felt something further was needed. In panic she left her chair and began to run about the room, hands held out before her. Rita Demonteguy stood a distance away, looking pleased. Mrs Drake wore a frown of confusion.

‘Jane.’ Above Sati the rafters of Fort William disappeared into the gloom. A sparrow flew in beneath the half-furled blind and beat its wings against the wall. At last it flew up to the rafters and perched on a beam. A great candelabra hung from the centre of the ceiling; Rita stood beneath it. Sati continued to dance about the room, wishing she too was a bird and could fly up to the candelabra. Then, from
that inaccessible perch, she would send down enough foul droppings to cover her mother in a mountain of lime.

She whirled past the furled blind of the balcony but was brought to a halt by surprise. She had caught a glimpse of Durga in a forest of flowering shrubs, swaying about with ugly laughter. Durga had gone as suddenly as she had appeared, melting into the bougainvillaea. Sati was left to create her own mischief. She started off again.

‘Jane. Jane,’ Sati shouted.

‘Hate you. Hate you,’ she silently whispered as she danced past Rita, swallowing the words under her tongue. Above her the bird twittered.

‘Hate her.’ Suddenly the words coughed loudly out of her, as if someone had thumped her on the back. In a corner she saw Durga again and knew it was she who had thrown the words into the room.

Durga stretched out a hand from the shadows. Immediately pictures tumbled about in Sati’s mind, of the red, blue and yellow glasses, of Demonteguy’s garlic-tinged breath on her face as he had bent to instruct her. She felt again the pressure of her mother’s hand pushing her down into an armchair before the pale candlelit faces. She ran to where Durga hid in the shadows, but Durga had disappeared.

‘Hate her.’ Now, even if she tried to swallow the words, they were tugged out of her. A luminous energy swirled through Sati; she was Durga’s thoughts, the deserts she walked and the fiery winds that blew through her fingers. Durga spewed out of her like a firework; there was no way to contain her.

*

Emily Drake drew a breath, unable to evaluate what she saw. She smelled the vanish of fakery and yet, as she stared at the whirling girl, something quickened in her own veins. As if she herself was drawn towards a transformation. The girl seemed not to know herself. She had entered a state of ecstasy in the way that shamans, through dance and drum, are pulled deep into themselves. The girl spun around, releasing strange sounds, stamping her feet as if the rhythm of her
dance drew her across a magical line into another realm. A wild energy spiralled from her, filling the room, reaching out to Emily Drake. Something formless seemed then to find shape within Emily. A sudden indefinable longing overwhelmed her, and took her by surprise. Where this powerful, bittersweet emotion sprang from and what it encompassed she could not explain, but her foot moved, as if she would dance after the girl. She controlled herself.

Once, in the house by the river of her childhood, she had gone with the servant’s children to the hut of a shaman in the nearby village. This old crone had frightened Emily, for as she entered the hut, the woman had fastened upon her. The servant’s children had crowded about, giggling and whispering. The dark hut had smelled of dung and mustard oil, chickens entered and pecked about. A thatched roof held the heat and released it around them. Emily’s heart beat fast before the old woman, who sat cross-legged on the earthen floor. The woman’s hair was matted and wild, strange animal noises escaped her, merging with the clucking of chickens. She drew Emily forward, gnarled black fingers curling around her arm. Then the old crone had begun to rock about, her eyes rolling up until only the whites were visible. Emily thought of the boiled eggs that had lain on her plate at breakfast. The woman rocked faster and faster. The strange grunts became the hissing of snakes, the squeaking of bats, the whistling of the wind. Emily tried to pull away but the old woman strengthened her grip. The wild energy that knocked about within her seemed to shake itself free. The woman seemed to grow tall and smooth-skinned; her boiled-egg eyes protruded from her head. The force loosed within the hut seemed to enter Emily, flowing hotly through her from the old woman’s palms. The shaman still gripped her, fingers kneading rhythmically. Small as she was, Emily knew then that she had entered a crack between worlds, a place of miracles and imaginings. Her very substance ran free, dissolved. She was nothing but this inner knowing, ageless and older than the old crone, the source of the seen and hidden worlds; the source of her very self.

Suddenly, the woman had grown quiet and slumped in a heap. Emily’s body stilled. She saw she was alone in the hut with the woman, and turned to stumble outside. The servant’s children waited there. Fearful now of adventure, they drew back at the sight of Emily. Her feet seemed not to touch the ground but to move her fluidly forward. Her hair streamed against the sky. The leaves and trees, the dark dung soil, the song of birds and the flow of the river all now seemed manifest in her. For hours she lived in a daze, telling no one of the experience. She lay on her bed and let the mercurial feelings stream through her. Eventually her body ceased its
thrumming
. Once more her instincts turned inwards, like the petals of a flower at the end of day. The thunder passed, the flood dried. She no longer gazed at the world through a thousand eyes. Soon she was left with only the memory. Soon that too passed and she forgot the inexplicable adventure. Until this moment, before this strange girl.