The Sandalwood Tree (27 page)

“Um …”

“Nooooo.”

“OK.”

She wobbled her head, slightly mollified, and the mischievous smile appeared. “A verrry special mala I’m bringing your good self.”

“Oh, wonderful.”

Rashmi dug into her cloth bag and whipped out a fat orange garland—three strands of marigolds woven together. “Triple first class, this mala.”

“Very nice. Thank you, Rashmi.”

“This excellent mala I am hanging on the bed.”

“OK.”

“Guaranteed money back hundred percent.”

“Great.”

Her smile vanished. “I’m telling you for truly, madam. If this mala not be working, I’m veerrry sad for you.”

“Don’t worry.” This was clearly our last chance, and I considered mussing up the bed as if orangutans had been tussling in it, even leaving a damp spot in the middle, anything to silence her.

Rashmi wagged her head solemnly. “
Big
puja for this mala I’m making.”

I took the book of poetry out to the verandah and opened it, immediately disappointed by page after page of that flowery, Victorian nonsense that had irritated me in college. “Dewy-eyed doggerel,” I mumbled. A young Victorian girl was in love. So what? Anyone can be starry-eyed for a while, but how do you manage the long haul after life throws you a few fancy curves? I thought of Verna and Henry and felt more confused.

I flipped through, thinking the poems were uninspired and mawkish to boot then dropped the book on my lap and put my feet up on the railing. Billy was in the kitchen, singing with Rashmi; his childish voice melded with her alto, and a unique version of “A Bushel and a Peck” sailed out to the verandah. I smiled at the thought of the leprechaun trap, forgotten in Lydia’s suite. It wasn’t only the puppy; Billy and Lydia were good for each other. Now there was a curve I hadn’t seen coming.

I drummed my fingers on the book and shifted in the creaky wicker rocker. Billy and Rashmi launched into a boisterous rendition of a Hindi folk song, and I heard Rashmi’s ankle bracelets
clashing. No doubt she was twirling around the kitchen with Billy in her arms. I opened the book again and flipped through a few pages to the poem with the salutation and signature.

My Dearest
,
Moonlight bathes
your Face in light,
my dusky Lover,
Life’s Delight.
Beneath the Moon
we both are bright.
No Colour taints
our Love at Night
.

Yours
,

Felicity

Felicity’s poetry was sentimental, and why not? She was young and in love. Of course she wouldn’t have put her name on the cover. It was considered unbecoming for a lady to write, and downright embarrassing for her to publish. Activities like that carried the stigma of being a bluestocking. Typically, Victorian women who published did so anonymously, but Felicity wasn’t typical, and I was a little surprised that she would adhere to that convention. Then I realized she hadn’t. She had died. Someone else had published this collection.

The River shines in Sunlight like
a Chain of Gold
thrown carelessly across the land.
Beauty quite ineffable
& yet
Nothing
to the Sunlight in
my Lady’s fine-spun Hair

My Lady? Why would Felicity write a love poem to a woman? Then I remembered the title—
The Collected Poems of a Lady and a Gentleman, 1857
. I read another:

I love a Riddle, so I ask
What Miracle would have us bind
the unseen Future to the Past?
What ancient Mystery
will save
our Hearts to beat beyond the Grave?

And the next:

The only Mystery known to me,
both young & old as spring,
is one for which I have long prayed,
the Gift most sought by Kings
.

Felicity and her lover had written those poems as messages to each other. I recalled Adela complaining that “
messages come & go and she does not show them to me.”
Adela said Felicity’s lover had lived in England and spoke the Queen’s English, which made him as much a Victorian as she. Felicity told him that she was pregnant with a Victorian riddle, and he answered in kind. In spite of the scandal, they were happy about the pregnancy. But how did all of it come to be bound together in a book? I turned back to the first page and read from the beginning.

You are a Gentleman
& so
when first our Fingers touched by Chance
you pulled away from me
as if your Flesh by Flames was licked
.
But why must we do Penance, Sir?
I see no Blame in Love
.

He had responded:

I am not free
in terms that Men respect.
There is a Contract to constrain
my acts
though not my Heart
.
Your Friendship is a humbling thing
which I accept in Gratitude,
& care not whether Men absolve Agape.
Yet I confess
My Lady C
you take my Breath away
& make me ponder Eros
.
Can it be?

For Victorians, the mention of Eros would have been risqué even in England. But in India, with issues of race and class, the Sepoy Rebellion raging, and him being married, it would have been insanely dangerous. Yet the book appeared to be a full account of their secret romance. How bold they were!

Beloved Sir
,
When I saw your changeling Face
—in our winged Garden—
the Moon was round & bountiful
yet not as full as my full Heart,
quickened
by your Touch
.

The last poem was his:

My Lady lost
,
I sink
I drown
.
My Body
&
my Spirit
both
descend
into
the black
Abyss
.
I would despair
but for one thing—
Our Child
lives!
And thus
shall we
cheat
Death
.

But did they cheat death? Did their child live? I turned the book over and examined the fine binding, the good leather. Professionally done, but who did it?

These dead women kept goading me into finding the rest of their stories, and the first place I thought to explore was that mighty wall of books in the club room known as the Study.

That night, we brought Billy to Lydia at the Cecil, and I went to the Club with Martin.

W
e spotted Walker at the bar, swigging Indian beer and talking politics to a military man with gray hair sprouting out of his ears. As we came up behind him we heard Walker say, “I wouldn’t be surprised if there are a million dead before it’s over.”

Martin clapped him on the back and Walker turned. “There’s my drinking chum,” he said. “And with his lovely wife for a change.”

The military man seemed relieved to excuse himself, and I wondered how long Walker had had him cornered. We sat on the rattan bar stools and ordered drinks. Walker said, “I was just telling old Cromley that more than twelve million people will be displaced. Think of it. Miles of homeless families trudging along dusty roads, dragging everything they own—Muslims going one way, Hindus the other. Someone throws an insult, or a stone, and then God help us.”

“It’s the agitators.” Martin lit my Adbullah, and then his bidi. “I don’t think it would be half so bad if extremists didn’t keep stirring them up.”

Walker nodded. “They start an argument between neighbors and let them chew on their rancor overnight. The next day a cow
is killed. The day after that, the cow killer comes home to find his daughter’s been raped. A day or two goes by and the rapist’s daughter is found with her throat cut. Within a week the whole city is burning, and old tribal hatreds are fanning the flames.”

Martin, the scholar, put his elbows on the bar and made a tent with his fingertips. “Confucius said, ‘Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.’” He gave me a knowing look as the bearer set down our drinks.

I took a quick sip of gin and stubbed out my Abdullah. “I’m going to poke around the books in the Study.”

“Not much current there, I’m afraid,” said Walker. “Bound volumes of
Punch
and
Tatler
, a few novels by Rider Haggard, and all the year-old newspapers you want.”

“I like old books.” I remembered the journal in the sandalwood tree and said, “After all, all we really have are our stories.”

Martin caught me with a sharp look, and I thought I’d said something wrong. He stared at me as if I’d said something profound or profoundly stupid, then he turned back to his whiskey. I said, “You two can figure out how to achieve world peace.” I slipped off the rattan chair. “I’ll be back.”

Standing again in the open double doors to the Study, I inhaled cigar smoke and old leather. The walls were solidly covered by oil paintings, animal heads with staring glass eyes, and faded photos in battered frames. Shabby books, dusty vases, faded needlework, antique jewelry, and odds and ends of every description filled the bookshelves. The room reeked of Victoriana, and I stepped across the threshold like a spelunker entering a cave looking for buried treasure.

The room was larger and more ornate than it appeared from the lobby, stuffed with game tables, leather chairs, and hassocks, with the snooker table in the center. Everything was braided and
tasseled and bordered, and a heavy blue-velvet curtain with deep folds covered a tall window. I turned my back to the men at the snooker table and perused the collection of old bric-a-brac on the bookshelves. A sign had been posted on one of the shelves:
PLEASE DO NOT HANDLE THE ARTEFACTS
. I let my eyes roam over the hoary bits and pieces, idly thinking that the brown tea cozy looked drab next to a pillowcase embroidered in raspberry and mango and gasjet blue. I recalled Adela’s mention of embroidering pillow covers and ran a fingertip over a fuchsia lotus petal, wondering whether it had been created on my verandah.

An ivory and jet brooch carved with a woman’s profile lay on a sachet pillow that still gave off a weak whiff of lavender. I studied the miniature profile, the strong nose and chin, hard angles chiseled in cold stone, and I thought of the sketch of the woman riding astride in a split skirt. Another shelf held a row of silver-framed sepia photographs, people in formal poses, looking dour and uncomfortable. Petal’s voice came back:
“no one knows who the frightful old sticks in the photographs are …”
I picked up a photo in an ornate silver frame, a baby wearing a sweater over a long white dress with fine embroidery around the collar and hem. But it wasn’t a bald, blue-eyed English baby. This baby looked Indian, with black hair, dark eyes, and a dazzling, impish smile. I whispered, “Charlie?”

In a glass-front shadowbox, a display of gold and green silk moths achieved immortality, mounted on black velvet—fabulous forever—and the box had been positioned on top of a book to give it height, a sculptural statement. I angled my head to read the title on the book’s spine—
The Collected Poems of a Lady and a Gentleman, 1857
. That volume, like the one I had at home, looked pristine, as if it had never been opened. Petal again:
“it’s not as though anyone wants to read their boring rants …”

On a low shelf, a pile of crocheted doilies and antimacassars, yellow with age and sadly flaccid, fanned around a small hand-bound
book with a mauve suede cover and tiny silver stitches around the edge. I had to fold my hands behind my back to keep from grabbing it.