The Choir Boats (19 page)

“Adnan and Mohsin had come back to their senses,” said Barnabas.
“Three days before we sailed, I asked Adnan for his daughter’s hand
in marriage, having no real hope that he would accept my proposal.
I do not know how it happened, but I guess that his wife Yasmin
played some role in his decision, because he said I might marry
Rehana, if I proved myself worthy.”

The Mejuffrouw put her hands in front of her, resting on the
table, fingertip to fingertip, and cocked her head forward, making
her coiffure look like the prow of a ship bearing down on Barnabas.
“Worthy in what way?” she asked.

Barnabas laughed. “Adnan said I had already proven myself an
able negotiator since I had managed to win both his wife’s heart
and his daughter’s so that he, Adnan, felt compelled to accept me as
a future son-in-law. Provided that I showed my true devotion and
settled with Rehana in Bombay.”

Sally felt dizzy. There would have been no Mincing Lane for her
and Tom!

“I would have had to become a Muslim,” Barnabas continued. “A
condition of their faith, that’s as I understand it. Adnan could only
allow the marriage if I agreed to become a Mohammedan.”

Strange emotion crossed Sanford’s face but he said nothing. Sally
thought this story far odder than reams of legend about Yount.

“Would I have?” said Barnabas. “That’s your question, it must be.
Well, yes, I would have, that’s how much I loved her. Wouldn’t have been
the first Englishman to do so in India, not by a long straw. Think of
all those John Company officials and generals who married Mughal
princesses, why, half the nabobs had Indian wives, and they had to
become Muslims to do so. A respectable practice, at least once upon a
time, and in the eyes of . . . of those content in the knowledge of one God
no matter how He might be worshipped.”

Barnabas cast a glance at Sanford as he said this, a look of gratitude
perhaps, before continuing. “Sanford remembers. I said I was fully
agreeable to settling in Bombay, that I only needed to return with our
cargo to London, sell this at a profit, and then sail back with both intent
and means to set myself up in Bombay. It seemed that Finlay, Graham
& Muir would take me as a junior partner if our business did well.”

Sanford spoke. “I remember. By Saint Adelsina, I do. It was the
only time I ever saw her, Barnabas’s Rehana. The night before we
sailed, Adnan held a great feast to celebrate both the business and
the betrothal. Rehana sat between her mother and her father, across
the table from us, but I will never forget her dark eyes or her glossy
black hair.”

Barnabas said to the Mejuffrouw, “That day in the curio room, the
sandalwood box? That last night, at the feast before we sailed, Adnan
gave me a box like that. ‘Into this box,’ Adnan said, ‘I put the memories
and good wishes of my house, and a command that you return as soon
as you can to rejoin the one you have already claimed. Remember always
that you have taken Rehana’s heart with you: it is in this box.’”

Sally sat back. How many times had she sat in the partners’ office
at Mincing Lane and smelled sandalwood, toyed with the box? Like
a memento from an aunt she never had.

“So we sailed for London,” said Barnabas. “Never has a heart been
as full of joy and hope as mine. I counted the hours and wished for
magical powers over the wind. All that remained was the blessing
of my uncle. Upon our return, good Sanford here pleaded my case to
old McDoon, and I pressed it too. Hard. But my uncle was harder in
reply. He would have none of it. It would, he said, ruin our standing
and reputation to marry an Indian, to become a Muslim. Beneath
us, because of her nation, her religion, and the colour of her skin.”

Clutching his vest, Barnabas finished.

“My uncle forbad the union, and threatened to disown me if I
pursued it. Banish me from McDoon & Associates. Disinherit me. I
did not have the courage I ought to have had. I betrayed my Yarico,
abandoned my Sacontala. I never returned to Bombay. I never saw
her again.”

Sally contemplated the wickedness of some uncles and the
goodness of hers. “Oh, Uncle,” said Sally, and stood up to hug him.
As she did so, she noticed that the Mejuffrouw had shifted her gaze
from Barnabas to her husband. Cornelius appeared to be on the
verge of saying something, but the Mejuffrouw’s eyes enjoined him
to silence.

The party broke up as the candles guttered. Barnabas was
unsteady on his feet but insisted on making his own way to bed.
Kidlington asked Sally to walk out with him to the gate.

“Remarkable story,” he said. “I take it you had no idea, none at
all, about any of this?”

“None,” said Sally.

“Well,” said Kidlington. “I am truly sorry for him, poor man. A
broken heart for all these years. It is a thing beyond reckoning. For
my part, I hope I have the courage to be with the one I love, when the
time comes.” Before she had time to react, Kidlington bent over and
kissed Sally on the mouth, lightly and just for a second. With that,
he turned, opened the gate, and disappeared into the night.

The effect of Uncle Barnabas’s revelation, plus that of Kidlington’s
parting comment and kiss, sent Sally’s heart in a dozen directions at
once. She touched her lips. She put her arms around herself. She was
not sure if she could breathe. Only later, much later that night, as she
sought sleep in vain, did she recall the oddest thing of all about the
evening. Nexius Dexius had not said a single word all night, but he
had followed every remark the way a fencer follows the moves of his
opponent. And he had kept constant watch on the Mejuffrouw, just
as she had been absorbed in Barnabas’s words. As she lay awake in
the Gezelligheid towards dawn, Sally grew ever more convinced that
Nexius was the only one — besides Sanford — who was not surprised
by Barnabas’s story.

“That old badger knew all about Uncle Barnabas and his Bombay
love, Rehana with the dark eyes and glossy black hair,” Sally
whispered to Isaak. “I am sure of it. Another mystery to add to all
the others we have collected since that mysterious box landed on
our doorstep in Mincing Lane.”

Sally had no chance to ask Nexius her questions. Either through
contrivance or happenstance, the captain of Yount was rarely at
the Gezelligheid in the next week. He was at the barracks, mostly
and, presumably as a result of some conversations he had there,
the number of regimental guards at the Gezelligheid increased.
Nexius said he felt the presence of lurkers and wanted to bolster the
McDoons’ security, especially since the
Gallinule
had signalled its
imminent arrival.

“We each have an ansible device,” explained the Mejuffrouw,
as she unlocked a room on the topmost floor. The room had just
one small grated window, set high up, and was bare except for sea
charts on the walls, and a table with four chairs. On the table was a
mahogany box full of copper wires and cylinders, cut crystal shafts,
and brass knobs.

“Can you talk to the ship?” asked Barnabas.

“No,” said the Mejuffrouw. “They send a sort of noise, a blast
through the ether that registers on our instrument here. Makes
it hum and gong when it gets close enough. We can send a similar
report to them but no more.”

“How far away are they?”

“Very hard to say. They are not yet . . . in our world. Just close
enough to send the first alert through on the ansible. It could be a
week or a month before the
Gallinule
arrives.”

The McDoons prepared for the next leg of their journey,
careful not to hint at anything to outsiders, especially Kidlington.
Kidlington’s own ship to Bombay was also outfitting, so the long-dreaded parting would soon be upon them. As a result, Kidlington
spent less time with the McDoons and the Termuydens, attending
to necessary preparations himself. Or so he said, though Sally had
other suspicions.

“He avoids my company,” she said to herself as she looked through
a German herbal in the Gezelligheid library. “I do not know why. He
has not spoken with me, not in private, since the night he kissed me.
It is not his way to be so cack-handed so I must believe he
intends
to
avoid me.”

She tried to read a page in the book, something about the uses
of
Bichskraut
.
That’s German for bixwort
, she thought.
The little blue
dye-flower we keep in the garden at Mincing Lane
. For a moment, she
saw the house in London, heard the cook clattering in the kitchen.
Her loss of Mincing Lane and her grief at leaving James collided.
She ran her finger across a picture of Frau Luna, the Mistress Moon,
surrounded by leaping dolphins, sagittaries, comets and stars, but
did not see the image through her tears.

“He leaves soon and so do I, but not together,” she said. Isaak
looked up at her, whiskers undulating. “Whatever shall I do? I long
for Yount . . . and James cannot know, much less come.”

She pulled out the ansible pendant: it glowed red. “Tom, Tom.
You would like James. He could be a brother to you.”

Sally’s room looked out over the Gezelligheid’s front garden
(where two British soldiers stood at attention by the gate) and
across the harbour. On clear days she could just see Robbens Island,
a smudge on the horizon seven miles from shore. A prison sat on
Robbens Island. As Sally thought about Yount and Tom and James,
and about Uncle Barnabas’s astounding news, she imagined the
prison squat and slit-windowed on the island. Even as she gazed at
the dark spot on the horizon, she saw a sloop head across the harbour
bound for Robbens Island. She could make out figures in shackles
being shuffled across the deck. She shuddered, and turned away.

Sensing the pall, the Termuydens held a small supper party the
next evening for the McDoons: the first of many farewells, as the
Mejuffrouw put it. They served — on the indigo pheasant plates
they knew Sally loved — goat stew spiced with cumin, nutmeg,
and ginger, along with a red wine that Cornelius insisted was the
perfect accompaniment. After several bottles, everyone at the table
readily agreed. A perfect meal in every respect, except from Sally’s
perspective since, as so often recently, Kidlington was missing —
dining with other medical students bound for Bombay.

“Pity,” said Barnabas. “Because he has missed a very passable
hara masala
, for which we give thanks. Though I dare say he will be
able to get the original article soon enough.”

The others looked expectantly at Barnabas, but there was no
repeat of the disclosures over the port-wine. Having erupted like
a volcano that no one even knew existed, Barnabas had said no
further word about Rehana or the Khodja merchants since that
evening. Sanford was just as resolute in his silence, though that was
less to be wondered at.

“A reading would be nice,” said the Mejuffrouw, steering the
conversation away from waters in which Barnabas clearly did not
want to sail.

“Beans and bacon,” said Barnabas, arrayed in a fine vest, periodically tapping the key in its pocket. “Fine idea. What shall it be?”

Sally said, “I know, something from
Roderick Random
, in honour
of our adventures. I found a copy in the library here, and have been
reading it in my room at night. Let me fetch it down.”

Sally left the table and made her way up the great central staircase
to the second floor. It is a funny thing about a house that, when all
the occupants are gathered in one room, the rest of the house begins
to feel as deserted as if no one lives in it at all. As Sally ascended the
stairs, candle in front of her, the shadows seemed very long, and the
jovial sounds from the dining room made her feel more and more
alone. At the top of the stairs, Sally hesitated. Without knowing
why, she was disinclined to proceed down the long, dark corridor to
her room at the front of the house. Surprisingly faint now came the
sounds of conversation from the room below, too indistinct to make
out individual words. The quiet outside the house seeped into the
upstairs hallway.

In the quiet, Sally suddenly heard an unexpected noise: a rustle of
papers. A rustle of papers in a merchant’s house is nothing remarkable —
unless it is late at night, and no one is supposed to be at home. Sally
was instantly back at Mincing Lane. She stopped, thinking she should
tiptoe back downstairs.
But it is probably nothing
, she thought.
A breeze,
or my imagination. The others will just laugh at me
.

The rustling came again from the other side of her bedroom
door. She froze. Who could be there? The Gezelligheid was guarded
night and day; who had slipped through the pickets? Sally stopped
breathing, padded towards her door. Without a doubt someone was
within, very quietly searching for something. She stood at the door
until she ran out of breath, then with a sudden shove, she launched
herself into her room.

It was a moonless night. Sally could make out a figure by the side-window, holding her commonplace book in his hand. The window
was open. In the light of her wavering candle, Sally saw other books
(her letter copy-book!) by the lockbox on the table. The lockbox was
open! She raised the candle. The figure, a man, stood calmly, almost
as if he had been expecting Sally. He turned to face her with a smile,
a sad smile she could just see in the dimness.

Seeing his face, Sally let out the shout that would change her
life forever, and that of the man in front of her. One shout, one
explosion of sound (how many times would she wish to recall that
cry, have it suppressed, obliterated?), and the world was changed.
Sally’s shout, almost a scream, was loud enough to find the ears of
the two guards posted by the gate under her window. Her shout
brought Uncle Barnabas and Sanford to their feet in the room below,
and all the others. As the soldiers pounded on the front door and all
was turmoil below, Sally looked in despair and wonder at the face
in front of her. She had barely the strength to keep her candle aloft.
She heard cries of “Sally, Sally” and the sound of many footfalls in
the hallway. In the few seconds before the others burst into the
room — the last few seconds she would have alone with the man in
front of her — time stopped, Sally’s eyes held his and his held hers.
She exhaled four words: