A Far Horizon (33 page)

Within a short while guards came up. They stared at the Fort William men, conferred briefly, and then pulled out from amongst them the three young writers, Burdet, Court and Walcot. It was announced that all but Holwell and these three young men were free to go. The Chief Magistrate was forced to sit outside the Black Hole and watch the men with whom he had shared such a nightmarish time quickly depart Fort William. Beside him on the benches, Burdet, Court and Walcot searched once more for chips of brick with which to play five-stones. In the interval the Chief Magistrate’s thoughts turned again to old Jaya’s diamonds. From where he sat, he could see the dark hole upon the parade ground that was the entrance to the warehouses. The thought of the gems shut away in their sepulchre now filled the Chief Magistrate’s mind. He stood up as if to go to them and then sat down once more. How would he reach them unseen by the guards? How would he keep them safely upon his person? Questions buzzed painfully in his mind like an insect that could not get free. There was no choice, the Chief Magistrate decided, but to leave them for the time being in their grave. He would find a way to return to them later.

Before long, Siraj Uddaulah arrived once more in Fort William to interrogate the Chief Magistrate on the whereabouts of the Begum’s treasure. The Chief Magistrate was marched to the parade ground to stand before the nawab’s silver litter again. His dishevelled
appearance
and obvious fatigue took the nawab by surprise. He ordered a chair brought forth for Holwell, but was told all the Hatmen’s
furniture had been destroyed in the fire. Eventually a set of folio volumes discovered in a heap of plunder were found and piled up for the Chief Magistrate to sit on. Immediately, Holwell recognised them as part of the library housed in the Council chamber. He placed himself reluctantly on them, yet even when seated, the Chief Magistrate could no better oblige with information than the night before. Siraj Uddaulah grew incresingly testy.

‘Then you shall remain under my command until you remember better,’ the nawab at last declared.

The Chief Magistrate stood but his knees trembled so badly he was obliged to sit down again on the leather-bound books. He looked up at the sky but was immediately blinded by sun. A guard approached with fetters.

*

Sati had followed the other prisoners from the Black Hole and walked with them from Fort William. Once out of the gate, she looked towards the charred mess of Black Town and then at the remains of The Avenue. She began to make her way towards Omichand’s house, where she was sure Govindram would be.

E
mily Drake watched as the
Dodaldy
drew steadily further away over the water. The small boat in which she sat rocked upon the tide. In the early morning light the
Dodaldy
acquired the quality of a Chinese ink painting, half folded into the night. The sound of the waves splashed against the craft. She trailed her hand in the water until the river ran in her flesh, as if it was one with her.

She had stood in front of Mrs Mackett and Mrs Bellamy and made the arrangements herself in the local language, showing the man the money beforehand. The women gave her no more than a desultory glance. She could not believe they did not recognise her beneath the turban and dirty face. It immediately gave her hope.

Hanging on a makeshift washing line she had found a
lungi
and a shirt and then a length of cloth for a turban. Roger Drake slept heavily in the roundhouse; the morning light filtering through the window had not yet disturbed him. Behind a screen Emily discarded her dress and stays and put on the strange new clothes. She had untied her hair and cut it off roughly close to her head, then wound the turban about it. She had wrapped her hair in a piece of sacking, stuffing it into a bag with a few other necessities. Then, hesitantly, she had looked in the mirror and been surprised; even in the brightest light she might not be recognised. She left a letter for her
husband propped up on his mahogany washstand. Once the shock and humiliation were digested she doubted he would look back. She turned once at the door and watched as he snored, his face squashed loosely in sleep, then hurried to the stairs. Many small craft came about the ship at this time of day, bringing fresh produce, taking off washing or men. She had been confident from the start she could persuade one of the boatmen to take her to the shore.

Now, as Calcutta edged closer, the first doubts seeped into her mind. The water was cool upon her hand and the force of the current against her fingers brought her back to herself. Something had been captive, held to ransom in her life. Now a creature separate from herself had taken command of her. Upon the gently rocking
Dodaldy
, that she had fought so hard against boarding, this wild woman had insidiously emerged. Day or night, the heady scent of the river spiralled in Emily’s head. The sight of the water stretching about her, flowing always anew upon its journey seemed to enter her body. She could not take her eyes from the river, leaning constantly upon the rail. The wash of its waves and the smell of the water were forever in her head. And all the while the slap and creak of the billowing sails seemed to lift her out of herself. It was as if another river ran beneath this river, and within it flowed her life.

The same voice that had whispered in Fort William,
Do
this
,
do
that.
Go
here,
go
there,
whispered again to her. But now that strange woman was out in the open, billowing like the creaking sails, luscious and powerful to behold. Emily Drake grew weak before her. This woman, discarded, devalued, in every way unacceptable, had lain in darkness planning the jump to freedom. If Harry had not died she might never have felt the moment ripe to boil up from her shadowy place. Now that she was prancing about so recklessly, there was no way to put her back. Emily was like the tail of a kite, winging helplessly through the air behind her, powerless to do more than follow. She had trusted to something inexplicable, just as now, without trepidation, she had handed herself to the river. Whatever it was that commanded her was wiser than she was. She reached out a
hand to cup the river in her palm and watched it run through her fingers. The same essence that flowed through the river flowed in the veins of the woman steering her now to her fate.

The mist on the river had lifted. The morning was already spilling out its fierce heat. A net of dark clouds drifted forward slowly, a harbinger of the monsoon. The boatman did not give her a second glance as he chatted. She had told him she was from Afghanistan, for this would cover any oddity of speech or paleness of skin and eyes. The
Dodaldy
drew further away and the figures on the deck no longer seemed real. On the shore cooking fires smoked into the morning. Now at last she drew from her bag the parcel of hair. A sudden revulsion filled her. The hair was weightless and yet in her hands she held the very thread of her life. She was impatient to be rid of it. As the boat drew nearer the shore, she cast this obsolete part of herself to the waves. Water quickly flooded the soft sacking and drew the parcel down. For as long as she could she followed its descent as it journeyed amongst the dark bodies of fish. It gave her a strange satisfaction to know some part of her would now swim with the river, dispersing in a million fine filaments to mix at last with the sea.

She drew a breath and the scent of the river knotted in her head. The grotto on the hill above the Kali Mandhir came suddenly into her mind. As she had left the blazing sun to enter that dark cave she had been robbed of sight, waiting blindly between two worlds, unable to see her way forward. She had trusted then to something larger than herself, and slowly the darkness had cleared and she had passed to where the Goddess waited. On the river now she knew herself to be in that same place of passage. This journey across the water was a journey of return. And yet the land before her was not the place she travelled to. Already she was as if dead to that world, but death’s road seemed to lead to life’s door. She looked again towards the shore, to the growing coils of smoke from early morning cooking fires and the smell of burning cow dung lifting strongly over the water.

Eventually they reached the quay. The boatman set her down near
Fort William. No one took any notice of her as she walked along the wharf. She had not planned to return to the fort, but the boatman had landed here. Already the sight of Fort William’s grey walls, pitted by cannon, filled her with heaviness. She dreaded the moment she must turn into the fort, forced again to face her old home, to touch the cradle, to open a drawer, to run a finger over a book. The past lay upon her like armour, within which she might be caught forever.

*

The fort bustled with activity; the nawab’s soldiers ambled in and out. Everywhere she looked was familiar and yet something appeared to be wrong. She entered the fort without difficulty but came to a halt in shock. Fort William was nothing but the sum of its walls. The proud life it had enclosed was gone. Charred mounds of burned rubble were all that remained of Governor’s House, the armoury, the laboratory and Writers’ Row. She stared about disbelieving. Someone pushed roughly against her but still she did not move. All that she had been was now wiped from the earth. Not an article remained, not a book, a glove, a ribbon or a letter. The child’s cradle was gone and his small muslin robes, her tapestry, her footstool, her flowery balcony and its view of the Hoogly, all were gone now from her forever. Only the residue of memory remained. She owned nothing but a man’s stolen
lungi
,
a turban and a shirt. Even her gender had been misplaced. She was thrust roughly across a boundary, as if something were recast.

There was nothing to stay for. She left by the East Gate, coming down on to The Avenue. There was a lightness now in her step. She walked quickly along Fort William’s walls until she came to the cemetery. A short distance away stood the remains of the Chief Magistrate’s house, charred and deeply gashed, its innards revealed for all to see, looted of its finery. The gate to the cemetery swung crookedly on its hinges but its peace remained untouched. The cemetery had survived, an oasis in a shattered world, its trees still knitted into shady tunnels. Emily walked along a dappled path. On either side of her, rows of weathered mausoleums stood like stout
matrons at a ball, exuding disapproval. Monkeys and adjutant birds had found sanctuary from fire and flying cannon balls about these gloomy tombs. The still and statuesque nature of the birds made them appear part of the masonry.

Emily arrived at Harry’s small grave and was relieved to find it deserted of wildlife. A bush of jasmine grew nearby and its scent was heavy in the air. As she squatted down to clear away dead leaves from the grave, her eyes fell on the bright and coarsely woven cloth covering her knees. For a moment she was filled with a confusion of fear and exultation. She sat back on the grass beside the jasmine. The peace of the place came down upon her. The singing of birds and the rustle of the coming monsoon stirred in the branches of trees. Always, in the silence here, she pulled into herself a new strength. A door seemed to open within her and through it she passed to a timeless place that she had now learned existed within herself.

She looked down now and saw that a thick line of ants ran before her. Some carried bits of refuse, and when she investigated she found they swarmed about a dead cicada, systematically dismantling it. For a while she watched them running backwards and forwards, relentlessly set on their business. Each moving speck contained a brain, each body its limited emotions and the boundaries of fulfilment. Yet, what could an ant know beyond this one small grave? Perhaps it might explore some nearby area of the cemetery, but beyond the cemetery lay a town, beyond the town a country and beyond the country a sea. And over that sea lay further countries and yet again further seas. And beyond all this was the limitless sky. How could an ant comprehend such vastness or the cohesion of all these things?

Similarly, how could she comprehend the mysteries that lay beyond her life, or the universe within her? Her horizon was as limited as an ant’s. And like the searching of that tiny insect she too had only instinct to guide her. She sensed the cycle of life running always before her, life, death and life again knitted seamlessly together. And she saw then that in order to live she had decided to
die, for in loss she knew she must gain. The pattern was there for her to see. The sun set only to rise the next day. The apple fell for the seed to sprout. Winter was reborn as spring. The past died to bear the future. Each frail death carried its own transformation.

At last she rose and turned to leave the cemetery, looking back once at Harry’s small grave. She sensed a new finality, as if his spirit was gone and no longer hovered about her. And she sensed too the sudden absence of Jane now that the past was soldered against her. Emily left the cemetery, walking back towards The Avenue. The wreckage of The Park lay before her. Beside it The Avenue was still littered with the refuse of war: abandoned cannon, pieces of sacking, the carcasses of horses picked clean by scavengers but not yet cleared away. She walked on until she arrived at St Ann’s Church and turned to face Omichand’s house. It was not until she was before it that she realised where she was.

In one place the wall of the compound was shattered. Through this gap she looked straight into the garden where she had seen Omichand’s wives meet their end. She heard again the screams of the children behind the banana trees and saw the dying women, blood soaking through their clothes. It was as if she saw herself lying there beside them. Then she shook her head and the picture was gone. Before her again were flowering trees and the empty ground beneath them.

She took a step forward and passed through the broken wall, passing from the dishevelled atmosphere of The Avenue into a silent, overgrown world. She stood at the place where the women had fallen. She expected their ghosts to gather about her but there was nothing now to see. In the days since the slaughter, weeds had grown to cover the spilling of blood. There was nothing but silence and the thick, hot smell of the undergrowth.

Banana trees stood to one side, and before her was an orchard. The aroma of ripe fruit folded about her like the scent of her own intuition. She walked on and the trees seemed to bend towards her, offering their fruit. She reached up to a low-hanging bough and
pulled down a thick-skinned golden pear. A breeze rustled suddenly through the trees, stirring the dry, dusty leaves. Already the smell of the monsoon burrowed into the heat. There was a wildness in this garden. Roses grew unpruned beside flowering bushes of jasmine and bougainvillaea. Banana and coconut palms spread their ragged fronds beside fig, apple, pear and mango trees. A peacock stood suddenly before her and raised its great tail in a fan of iridescent crescents and moons. She sat down on a marble bench and watched it silently while she ate the pear. Already she had passed, as she had in the grotto of the black goddess, from one world to another. She must wait now for the blindness to clear.