City of Bells (8 page)

             
“What the devil is this?”Tom asked.  But he accepted one of the cloths, the one labeled ‘woman right’ and shook it.  Chipped pieces of ice rained down upon the wooden desk and, followed by – to the great satisfaction of Seal and Morass and the mute horror of everyone else - five frozen human fingers.

Chapter Seven

The Tucker House

12:20 PM

              “Gerry, however do you know this woman?” asked Emma, when they had at last been delivered to the house and shown to their rooms, which were not only adjoining but which furthermore shared a small porch.  The two women stepped out to wait there while the bags were unloaded from the cart and dispatched to their various destinations.  “I can’t imagine you would maintain friendship with anyone who’d espouse such repugnant opinions, no matter how long ago you might have met her.”

             
“I don’t know her, darling, at least not in the way you think,” Geraldine said, sinking to a bamboo chair, which promptly groaned in protest and tilted, causing her to startle and grab the armrests.  “Oh dear, I seem to have forgotten the effect that mold and termites can have on furniture.  I seem to have forgotten any number of things.  Our trip from the docks was quite the adventure, was it not?”

`
              “Quite,” said Emma.  “But you’re avoiding my question.  Why are we staying with Mrs. Tucker?”

             
“Because we need rooms and she lets them, darling,” Gerry said, pausing to dab at her brow.  “Although you must take care to never say it quite that way.  From what I understand, the poor woman waited it out for years for her husband to retire from his post so that they could return to England.  Then, within a week of getting his papers and thus his full pension, the man very inconsiderately passed away in his sleep.  Can you imagine?  She wakes up to find all her careful plans lying dead in the bed beside her.  And so now our Mrs. Tucker finds herself stranded here in Bombay, widowed, high in rank and low on funds, and mistress of that pompous carriage and this enormous house.  Although everyone in Bombay is doubtless aware of her circumstances, her pride would never allow her to admit to the women of her social circle that she was reduced to running a hostelry, so we must help her maintain the silly fiction that we are friends visiting from London.  A rather large and illogical group of friends.  Besides, the house is perfectly commodious, is it not, and Bombay is sadly lacking in appropriate hotels.  Or even inappropriate ones.  Where else should we find a place with room for us all?”

             
“I suppose,” Emma admitted, wondering if she should risk sitting down in the even more unstable looking chair that was perched beside Geraldine’s.  Despite the odd-looking mortar walls, which she could only assume were meant to combat the heat, the house was agreeably large and open in design, with an entire host of bedrooms all opening up to a shared central courtyard.  “But the things she said in the carriage…and the rude way she greeted her staff.  What did they call her?”

             
“Memsahib,” said Geraldine.  “It means ‘the master’s woman.’  And although I agree with you that her views are both intolerant and intolerable, you mustn’t judge her too harshly.  She is very typical of the women of the Raj, at least the ones I knew in the fifties.  You must remember that they were just ordinary women, who expected to become no more than wives and mothers, to live out their lives in the villages where they were born.  They did not seek adventure, at least the majority of them didn’t, and they never asked to be put in these extraordinary conditions.”

             
“Those clothes she wore, so impractical in this heat,” Emma murmured.  “And these overstuffed furnishings, practically begging to be eaten by insects.”

             
“Silly indeed,” Geraldine agreed.  “And we shall doubtless see more of the same this very evening, for Mrs. Tucker has informed me we have been invited to dine at the Byculla Club.  All of us.  She said it with great emphasis. Which is quite the social accomplishment, I take it, especially in light of this particular group.  She may as well have added, ‘Yes, even the Jew.’”

             
“She’s horrid,” said Emma.  “Did you hear her shriek at that poor housemaid?  Why is it that when we British speak to foreigners we shout, as if raising the volume of our voice will somehow make them understand English?  It would seem after a lifetime in this country she would at least have learned a few words in the native language.”

             
“Yes, but which native language?  India has more than a hundred indigenous tongues.  No doubt a household of this size has three or four among its staff.” Geraldine looked at her kindly.  “We’re all a bit tired, I think, and the temperature has made us cranky.  An afternoon nap will set it right.”

             
Emma was indeed exhausted, although it pained her to admit it.  “A nap already?  The hall clock showed barely noon when we entered.”

             
“Ah, but it is later in London.”

             
“Actually it’s earlier in London,” Emma said, with a little laugh.  “You always manage to get that backwards.  It’s no more than three in the morning there.”

             
“All the more reason we should be in bed,” Geraldine said, pushing to her feet.  “Come, my dear.  India is punishing, especially to women, and we shall be no good to anyone tonight if we arrive at the Club, and thus at the true start of the investigation, in ill humor.  And when it comes to Mrs. Tucker…You must try a little harder to see it from her perspective.  She may be tedious, but she is our hostess.”

             
“I will try,” Emma said.  “But I do intend to tour the temples no matter what she says.  And I shall at least learn a few words of Hindustani.”

             
“Oh at least,” Geraldine said with a vigorous pat to her arm.  “And you can bristle at every ridiculous remark which is made at tonight’s dinner table, of which I’m sure there will be many.  But still….I must say that from a social standpoint, things seem better here than they were when I last came.”

             
On that disconcerting note, Emma left Geraldine and wandered back to her own room.  Both her bags were waiting there, looking somewhat the worst for their ride from the dock, and Emma could not begin to imagine how the driver and maids had determined which valise was to be delivered to which room. 

             
Her blouse was uncomfortably stiff with dried sweat, so Emma opened the smaller bag and pulled a nightgown from it.  Geraldine had warned that the British in India changed clothes three or four times a day but Emma had misunderstood the comment.  She had thought that Geraldine was suggesting they were pompous and effete, and thus trying to emulate the behavior of the upper classes back at home by having one suit of clothes designated for luncheon and another for tea.   Now she saw that Geraldine had been talking about nothing more than the necessity of staying comfortable in the heat and Emma grimly reflected that she had packed far too light.  If she continued to perspire at this rate she would have to do laundry daily.

             
Geraldine had also said something about snakes and scorpions and bugs hiding in bedclothes so – after shucking her clothing, corset, and stockings – Emma strode over to the low bed and grabbed the sheets.  She pulled them back layer by layer, systematically shaking each in turn, but no creatures emerged.  The window above the bed was open but the heavy woven grass screens seemed to be discouraging a breeze, if indeed one were inclined to blow.  Emma noted many moths and flies embedded in the slats, along with some cricket-like creature, and several large dung beetles.  

             
Continuing to wander around the room in her white muslin nightdress, Emma took account of the sparse contents.  There was a small well-like hole in the corner, which upon inspection held a bottle of water, the glass indeed far cooler than one might expect under the circumstances.  Taking one of the goblets from a nearby shelf, Emma poured herself a swig and shuddered.  It was very strange indeed, and most likely a sample of the tonic water Geraldine had also warned her to expect.  The metallic taste was undoubtedly quinine and, steeling herself, Emma ventured another sip.  It was wretched, but claimed to be effective, and she certainly didn’t want to get malaria. 

             
Passing the couch and chair, she noted both were threadbare in places, no doubt courtesy of the persistent moths and termites.  A table and oil lamp were well situated for reading, which was fortunate, for the only other piece of furniture in the room was a bookcase crammed full of what turned out to be novels, most of them apparently written by British women.  The names of the authors were not familiar to her but, based on the titles, Emma suspected they were romances.

             
The room was thus inspected and there was nothing else to do but follow Geraldine’s sensible suggestion to take a nap.  Emma felt a bit guilty about it, knowing the men were just as exhausted and probably a good deal hotter, but she was here, and so was the bed, and a certain syrupy weariness had crept into her limbs.  If only there was some sort of breeze, she thought, glancing at the courtyard which beckoned through the second door.  While showing them through the house, Mrs. Tucker had promised that on exceptionally hot nights, the servants would pull the beds out into this central open space so that the master of the house and his guests could sleep outside, a notion which had struck Emma as marvelously exotic.  But she had also wondered if the notion of sleeping under the southern sky, male and female alike in their separate enclaves, had brought up painful memories for Geraldine.

             
But there was no point of thinking of that now.  At night, when the sun was down, sleeping outside would be a delight, but at noon, with the sun near its peak, the interior of the house was presumably cooler.  So, with a resigned sigh, Emma stretched down upon the creaky bed, closed her eyes….

             
And felt a breeze.

             
Her eyes starting open, she found herself staring into the flower-like shape of an enormous ceiling fan hanging above the bed.  It was so high and recessed so deeply among the rafters that it had escaped notice in her initial study of the room, but here it now was, directly above her and steadily spinning. 

             
It was pleasant, yes, but disconcerting.   What had made it begin?

             
Emma waited a minute, enjoying the sensation, even as she wondered if it were some sort of hallucination, some sign she had already gone mad from the temperature.  Then she pushed from the bed, the springs echoing every movement, and just as she rose to her feet, the fan stopped.

             
“Curiouser and curioser,” she muttered and then she noted that a rope was attached to the fan, cleverly insinuated among the exposed rafters.  Her eyes followed the rope across the ceiling and down the wall, where it disappeared behind the bookcase.  Emma walked over to the bookcase, frowning.  It was large and heavy, like all the furnishings of the room, and far too laden with romance for a single slightly-built woman to move on her own.  But stooping and peering behind it, she could see that the rope extended down the wall nearly to the floor and then exited via a small hole.

             
Something outside was making the fan move.  Something in the courtyard.

             
Grabbing the top bedsheet to wrap around her body, Emma moved to the door and peered out.  She was rewarded with the sight of a small brown boy, naked himself except for a swaddling cloth around his hips, crouched near the wall.  He did indeed hold the other end of the rope in his hand and apparently by tugging on it at regular intervals, he was able to make the fan spin.

             
He grinned at her.

             
Disconcerted as she was, she grinned back.  He looked no more than five or six years old.

             
“How did you know when to pull?” she asked without thinking, for of course he couldn’t understand the question.  And besides, she herself knew the answer.  The creak of the bedsprings was his signal, as loud to his well-trained ears as a gong, and a sign that one of the Memsahibs was taking her afternoon rest.  A sign that he would be required to stoop here, making his slow methodical tugs for as long as she lay in the bed.  It was appalling, Emma thought -  but perhaps, on second thought, no more appalling than how the young chimney sweeps in London were treated.  They were lowered into smoking hell holes and this boy was in a reasonably pleasant courtyard as he went about his task.  He didn’t seem underfed or mistreated – or even unhappy.  He was watching her with wide bright eyes.

             
And she so dearly wanted to nap.

             
“Thank you,” she said, although she was quite certain the child did not understand this simple phrase either.  It was highly unlikely he had never heard it from Mrs. Tucker or any white skinned person.  But he grinned again and nodded, and with nothing left to say between them, Emma retreated slowly back into her room.  She sat back on the bed and with the subtle squeak of the springs, the great fan begin to turn again.

             
He’s out there anyway,
she told herself, leaning back on the bed and letting the cool air wash across her like water. 
Sitting and waiting.  He may as well stir the rope, after all.

             
And then another thought came over her, just
as she drifted off to sleep.  An hour in this country and I am already letting a child fan me while I nap.  I have become just another one of the memsahibs and, God help me, it didn’t take long.