Flowers in the Blood (72 page)

Edwin laughed genially, saying, “Haven't we learned by now that my wife has a mind of her own?” The subject was not discussed again.

My father's will left Theatre Road and the bulk of his estate to Jonah, who graciously told Zilpah she might stay on as long as she wanted. Edwin and I had continued to live in Free School Street even though we had taken possession of Kyd Street when the Lanyados left for France. With the complications of reorganizing Sassoon and Company, the plans for traveling to China, my father's illness—not to mention the impossibility of our reaching any agreement on a domestic issue— moving had been an absurd consideration. Besides, I could not envision myself walking in Aunt Bellore's garden or eating from her dishes, let alone sleeping in her bedroom.

Jonah chided me for my bias. “Why not have the place redecorated to suit your fancy? Look what you did to brighten Free School Street. With half the attention, Kyd Street would be a palace.”

I was not about to admit anything about my personal confusion to my brother. Besides the obvious reason, I also did not want him to question the wisdom of matrimony. He should have been wedded already, but had resisted every match suggested to date.

“With Father's illness and the commotion, I can't take any steps in that direction,” he protested. “I'll consider the next round when we return from China, if you will pledge not to prod me until then.”

One afternoon when he was delivering some documents for our journey, Jonah looked around the crowded, shabby Free School Street parlor and clucked his tongue. “Why don't you have Edwin move while we are away? Wouldn't it be wonderful to come home to a new house without having to undertake the packing yourself?”

“I've told you before, I can't see myself as the mistress of Kyd Street,” I replied peevishly.

“Would you sell it?” he asked, shocked.

“Possibly,” I replied, although I had never before considered the idea.

“You can't do that,” my brother protested good-naturedly, “any more than I could sell Theatre Road.”

“Don't you want Theatre Road?”

“What would I do with such a large house?”

“Fill it with children!”

He wagged his finger at me. “You promised . . .”

“Jonah . . .”I began as an idea formed. “Wouldn't you rather have Kyd Street? It should have been handed down to a male Sassoon heir from the beginning.”

“Kyd Street is even larger. How many children do you suppose I will have?”

“Don't forget, there is a separate wing, which would be convenient if you had to take in any members of your wife's family.”

“What are you getting at, Dinah?”

My eyes twinkled impishly. “We could trade. I would much rather live in Theatre Road than anywhere else in the world. And if you were in Kyd Street, your position in the family would be solidified.”

“As second to you,” he replied flatly.

I shrugged. “You are a man. That will always make you superior in everyone's eyes. I have to fight for every ounce of respect, and frankly, I am finding it wearisome. After this trip I plan to sit back and let the others manage matters.”

“What about Edwin?” he asked uneasily.

Avoiding the issue of Edwin's position in the company, I replied, “Edwin will be as content at Theatre Road as anywhere else.”

Jonah backed off. “Do you really want to swap houses?”

“I believe it would be fair, as long as you agreed. Theatre Road is newer but smaller. Kyd Street is larger but requires more renovation. If you want, I will pay you a premium.”

“Does it mean that much to you?”

“Why are you surprised?”

Jonah swallowed hard and spoke warily. “I thought you had some unpleasant memories . . .” He trailed off.

“And you don't?”

“I was much younger than you. I have no recollections of our mother.”

“There are happy memories also,” I mumbled softly.

Jonah shook his head. “Father always said women were more perplexing than the Chinese.”

I forced myself to smile. “Soon you will have substantial experience with both.”

My brother was quiet for several seconds, then brightened. “I believe I would prefer Kyd Street,” he replied slowly. “Just as you and Edwin don't want to appear like the next Bellore and Samuel, I do not want to live in the shadow of Benjamin Sassoon.”

To seal the matter, my brother and I shook hands formally. And without consulting Edwin or anyone else, Theatre Road was mine.

 

Everything was arranged. Zilpah agreed to stay on at Theatre Road until she determined where else she might go. She had ties in Darjeeling she wanted to renew, but she did not want to be apart from her children, who were settled in Calcutta.

“Why not consider living part of the year in each place?” I suggested. “You could follow the seasons.” It was too soon for her to decide, thus the temporary solution of assisting us while I was in Hong Kong seemed logical.

Before our departure I left a list of renovations for Theatre Road. None would inconvenience the family drastically, but were necessities if I were to claim the house as my own.

Edwin, however, was more difficult to rearrange. “I will stay on in Free School Street,” he announced shortly before the children were to make the transition with their ayahs.

“But, Edwin, the boys should have their father with them,” I said amid the boxes and bundles stacked in the corridor.

“I shall see them daily and be available whenever they require me. I expect they will also visit me here. In fact, having me in a familiar environment should ease their confusion.”

“No, it will confound them further. They must know they will be making their home at the new house and are not just visiting Grandmama.”

“As far as I am concerned, they can remain with me here or go with Zilpah, but you cannot transport me along with the furnishings and the servants.” He sat down on a crate and leaned back against the wall with studied nonchalance.

“This argument is not about houses—it is about opium!” I challenged forthrightly. “You want your privacy so you may indulge to your heart's content.” I clenched my fist at him. He did not flinch.

“Exactly,” he replied in the bitter tone that I had come to know well in the past few weeks. “The moment you leave, I will convert the house into a den of iniquity. I shall stop going to Clive Street and spend my days, as well as my nights, lost in a miasma of woeful Oriental dreams. As De Quincey said, 'Thou only givest these gifts to man; and thou hast the keys of Paradise, oh, just, subtle, and mighty opium!' “

“Don't forget that De Quincey not only wrote
The Pleasures of Opium
, but
The Pains of Opium
as well.”

“Pity I did not marry an ignorant woman. Or did I? Education does not necessarily breed common sense. Why can't you understand that I am not affected adversely by a few puffs from a pipe? Until you discovered me, you did not suspect that I had ever inhaled a whiff.” He stood and stretched languidly. “Besides, what difference should it make to you? If I were dissolute, if I had left your bed, if I had failed at my work, you might have some cause for complaint.”

“That is not the point. Who knows how your body is being poisoned? Who knows when the pleasure will turn to pain? What if you begin to see 'crocodiles with leering eyes' and other 'unutterable monsters' like De Quincey?” I began to sob with anxiety. “What I want is to have the man I dearly love back in my arms again!”

“Nonsense.” He moved farther away from me. “The man you love smoked before he met you, and at times throughout your marriage. In truth, you have never loved a man who did not smoke opium. If I stopped, you might find me a hateful creature. Perhaps it is the opium itself that made me so desirable to you.”

“No!” I gasped.

“Why won't you look at the facts instead of some imagined horror?” he concluded before shutting himself off in his study.

There was no middle ground where we could meet to discuss his habit rationally. Edwin believed we could be reconciled if I accepted him as he was. This I could never do. If he truly loved the children and me, he would see that giving up this minor yet dangerous pleasure was the way to give us peace. I began to hope that while I was away, he might miss me so dreadfully he would be willing to undertake the sacrifice. Yet I also worried that he might find the solitary life satisfactory, and I would return to find he had left us forever.

What choices did I have? Someone had to go to China. And anyway, arguing was not bringing our estrangement to an end. There was one more option. Even though it involved a risk to our reputation, I had to take it.

 

Before I set sail, I went to see Dr. Hyam to acquire antimalaria tablets and to be inoculated against the plague. As I lay down on my stomach on the examining table, the doctor's assistant lifted my skirt and pulled down my undergarments. The doctor approached me from the front and prepared the treatment while I watched.

“To think of the lives this vial of serum has saved.” Dr. Hyam held up the syrupy substance reverently. “I suppose you know the connection between it and your esteemed family.”

“No . . .” A more serious matter on my mind distracted me.

“Come now, you must recall that Waldemar Haffkine, a Russian Jew who studied with Pasteur, discovered the serum. First he worked on a cure for cholera, and then the British ambassador in Paris encouraged him to extend his studies in India to find a serum for plague. After the last terrible outbreak, your family was one of the first to accept his newest vaccine. I am surprised you did not get one then.”

“I was in Travancore when the plague struck.”

“How fortunate that you were protected by distance. Now you will have a more secure shield.” He injected the stinging dose into my buttock.

I winced, then said, “So our family inspired others to be protected.”

“They did more than that. When Haffkine was working in Bombay, the government gave him a bungalow on Malabar Hill for his use as a laboratory. That’s how the doctor came to know his neighbor and your distant relation, Flora Sassoon.” With a clink the doctor dropped the syringe in a dish and told me to press the spot where he had stabbed me.

“Really?” Suddenly I was intrigued. Ever since I had taken charge at Clive Street, there had been mumblings that I was going to turn into Calcutta's Flora Sassoon, the grande dame of the Bombay clan who managed their cotton mills and other aspects of the family's business after the death of her husband.

“Such a devout man, and so humble,” Dr. Hyam prattled on. “Without her encouragement, some say Haffkine might never have made the breakthrough.”

“Dr. Hyam, I . . .” Long ago I had trusted this old friend with the embarrassing problems Edwin and I had confronted on our honeymoon. Desperate again, I had to confide in him.

“Yes?” he asked as he washed his hands. When he turned around, he went on as though I hadn't spoken. “To think Haffkine caused himself to be inoculated with his own preparation to prove its harmlessness. What courage! What vision!”

“Vision.” I embraced the word. “That's another matter I wanted to speak with you about.” I sat up and straightened my skirts.

The doctor took my wrist in his hand. “Are you feeling lightheaded?”

“No.”

“Excellent. Now you must sit awhile to make certain there are no ill effects.” He turned to make a note on his chart. With his back to me, he added, “Is there anything else?”

I took a deep breath and blurted, “Is it possible for someone to smoke opium in moderation with no ill effects?”

“What brought this about?”

Echoing in my mind were my father's words of explanation in that Patna field long ago: “This is
Papaver somniferum
, the most prized flower in the world . . .”

“Yes?” the doctor prompted.

I wiped my brow with the handkerchief crumpled in my hand. “My father used to say the poppy eliminated pain and cured diseases.”

“And so it does. You see the black balls that are shipped to China, but I see a compendium of morphine, narcotine, codeine, narcine, thebaine, opianine, meconine, pseudomorphine, porphyoxine, papavarine, and meconic acid—a total of eleven useful organic compounds available in every ounce of opium. From them we compound morphine tablets, ointments, solutions, tinctures, suspensions, and clysters. Asthmatics clear their lungs with it, racking coughs are quelled, stomach cramps are ended, and people with pain—pain so hideous you would prefer to put them out of their misery rather than see them suffer another second—can function between doses.”