Ghost Letters (19 page)

Gil and Nargis had no time to react before it was gone. Along with Lenore and Prescott, they stepped across to the window and looked down at the yard, where dusk had settled. Below them on the lawn, they saw, or thought they saw, the figure of a postman walking across the grass and disappearing into the leafless trees.

Trudging out of history, one slow stride at a time,

He shoulders a mailbag full of letters unreceived,

Lost missives, postcards gone astray, an errant rhyme.

Sore of foot, numb-kneed, the postman seems aggrieved.

One envelope he bears is folded neatly as a conscript's bed,

Each corner tucked and crisply sealed—chaste sheets

Bleached with fear—last words home, written at the dead

Hour of dawn, before marching into the killing streets.

He follows his own footsteps, ashen shadows upon the snow.

A nameless wanderer, whose story is a skein of yarns.

Unlike the anonymous soldier he has no tomb. Nothing I know

Will give him rest. No one stands at his crypt and mourns.

Then let these words be inscribed in stone; may fate dictate

On the postman's grave: “Better never than forever late.”

Setting aside the poem, which he had just finished typing, Prescott glanced up at the photograph of Camellia Stubbs on his wall. For a moment his mind drifted back to the letter Nargis and Gil had found. Then his thoughts came to a sudden halt. The photograph looked different. It was still inside its oval frame but the image had changed. Instead of the silver-haired spinster in her black lace dress, the photograph was of a younger woman standing beside a writing table.

Reaching for his glasses, Prescott got up from his chair and squinted at the picture. The woman was definitely Camellia, but thirty years younger. She wore a long white gown, and her hair was open over her shoulders instead of being drawn back into a severe-looking bun. One of her hands rested on her hip in a carefree pose. Rather than the grim expression of resignation in the earlier portrait, her lips were parted in a bashful smile, as if someone behind the camera were teasing her. Camellia's other hand was placed on the table.

As Prescott examined the photograph carefully, he noticed something else that made him jump. On top of the table lay an inkstand. Even though it was a black-and-white photograph, he could see the glinting jewels and recognized the rich luster of gold. There was no mistaking it.

Turning quickly from the picture, Prescott rushed out of his office and up the stairs. He reached his study and shouted
for Gil, who came out of his room just as Prescott was unlocking the lower drawer of his desk.

“What's wrong, Grandpa?” Gil asked.

“It's gone,” said Prescott, holding the drawer open.

Gil looked baffled.

“The inkstand,” his grandfather said. “I locked it in here for safekeeping.”

“Do you think it's been stolen?” Gil asked.

“No,” said Prescott under his breath.

“What happened?” said Gil.

“The genie has granted your third wish.”

Still not sure what was going on, Gil's eyes traveled from his grandfather to the etching on the wall—the old picture from the
London Illustrated News
, of the siege of Ajeebgarh. But instead of a battle scene, the artist had drawn a peaceful picture of tea pickers with baskets on their backs. They looked as if they were walking through a maze of bushes that spread down the slope of the hill. In the background, Gil could see a placid river snaking out of the mountains, with the town along its banks, a cluster of rooftops, domes and minarets. The caption read

AJEEBGARH
Plucking the Finest Tea in the World

Sikander is dreaming. It isn't exactly a nightmare, though it isn't particularly pleasant either. He's on a battlefield with cannons firing, and smoke fills the air. Somehow, in the middle of all this, he finds himself fishing in a broad trench full of muddy water. He has cast his line into the middle, where a float made of peacock quills bobs up and down. As a cannonball screams overhead, the white bundle of feathers dips beneath the surface. He pulls back on his fishing rod and feels a tug at the other end. Moments later, three horsemen come galloping out of the smoke and he recognizes their tattered uniforms and broken teeth. One of them swings a sword at him as Sikander jumps aside. The three Tommies go riding off into the smoke. Sikander begins to reel in his line, but instead of a fish, he has snagged the blue bottle. The hook is embedded in the cork. Peering inside the bottle, he can see no message. Instead, a centipede crawls from of the mouth and onto his hand. Crying in panic, he drops the bottle …

Just then, Sikander wakes up. The sun has risen, glazing the windowpanes with a yellow sheen. He lies there for a moment, a cotton quilt pulled over his head. He is disturbed by the dream, not only because of the centipede, but because the day before, he'd gone down to the river, hunting for the bottle. Hoping to receive an answer from Gil, he had searched the muddy banks of the Magor, all the way from the railway bridge to the washermen's huts. Though he saw plenty of objects floating in the water, soldiers' boots and charred splinters of wood, there was no sign of the blue bottle. Despondent about his father's fate, Sikander had gone home. The bazaars were empty and his mother had made a gruel of barley flour, the only food she could find, but Sikander had no appetite and went to bed hungry that night.

Now, as he stares at the first light of dawn filtering through the windowpane, he realizes that something has changed. All of the windows in their house were shattered during the battle, but now they are intact. Slowly, he gets up from bed and peers through the glass. Instead of the blackened shells of neighbors' homes, the street has been restored. Sikander gasps with delight, wondering if the war was nothing but a terrible dream, something he will gradually forget. Yet he knows it happened. He has seen the death and destruction with his own eyes. He has heard the cannons and smelled the smoke. He has seen the post office in ruins and remembers his father being marched across the parade ground with the other prisoners of war.

At that moment he hears a soft shuffle of footsteps overhead.
Scrambling out of bed and through a curtained passageway that opens into the kitchen, Sikander races up the staircase leading to the roof. He takes two steps at a time and leaps onto the terrace. A whistle blows, and he sees a trail of smoke as the
Himalayan Mail
sets out on its weekly journey. He can see the mountains rising to the north and tea gardens spread across the lower slopes. In the other direction lies the palace, with its gleaming white dome and the pennants of Ajeebgarh rippling in the breeze.

As he rushes toward the pigeon coop, there is a flutter of wings, and a tall figure stands up, his beard brushed out from his cheeks. Mehboob Khan holds a handful of millet seeds with two white pigeons on his arm. Sikander runs across and throws his arms around his father, scaring off the birds and spilling the seeds. His father holds him tight, then lifts Sikander up, laughing with surprise.

“What's this?” he says. “Why are you awake so early?”

“I thought you were …” Sikander begins to speak but stops himself. “When did you get home?”

“Late last night,” says Mehboob Khan. “You were asleep.”

“But what about … the war?” Sikander asks. “The execution?”

His father raises his eyebrows and shakes his head. “What war?” he says. “You must have been dreaming.”

The two pigeons have returned and one of them settles on Sikander's shoulder. He can remember clearly seeing the white birds flying through the black clouds of smoke.

When his father sets him down, Sikander hurries back downstairs to get dressed. Then he heads out to collect lampblack from all of the houses in the neighborhood. At each door, when he knocks, he recalls the burning roofs and shattered walls. There is no sign of the battle now, and by the time Sikander has finished his rounds, he begins to question his own memory.

The calligrapher is waiting for him when he arrives, drinking his tea, as he always does each morning. Ghulam Rusool says nothing about the terms of surrender that he penned the day before. Instead, he gives Sikander instructions to make an ink for writing the verses of Ghalib, a poet whom the calligrapher admires more than any other. The old man asks Sikander to mix the lampblack with the burned wicks of seven candles. This is combined with two spoonfuls of rosewater and a drop of wild honey. When the mixture is complete, Ghulam Rusool dips his nib in the ink and begins to write in a flowing script. Sikander watches the characters stream across the page from right to left, recognizing the Urdu words. As the calligrapher dips his pen in the ink to begin the second couplet, there is a shout from the street. Sikander hears someone calling his name.

When he goes out to see who it is, Lawrence stands there in a white shirt and khaki shorts. Sikander is so surprised he cannot speak. As he glances at the calligrapher, he sees the old man wave, shooing him out of the shop.

Sikander grabs Lawrence by the hand and slaps him affectionately on the shoulder.

“What happened to you? How did you get back? I thought you were kidnapped!” he asks.

“I was,” says Lawrence. “But my parents got the ransom note and they paid the money to the three Tommies, who set me free. Of course, the police caught up with them soon afterwards. Now they're in jail.”

Sikander blinks in disbelief.

“I got your note,” Lawrence says with a grin.

“Which one?” asks Sikander.

“The one you sent by pigeon,” Lawrence reminds him, frowning. “Unfortunately, the Tommies ate the bird.”

“I'm sorry I ran away,” says Sikander.

“You didn't have any choice,” says Lawrence. “By the way, what happened to your bottle and those messages?”

Sikander hesitates for a moment.

“Oh, that,” he says. “It's gone.”

As the two boys set off along the street toward the river, Lawrence describes his adventure with the Tommies, how they kept him hostage in the dak bungalow. He begins to tell Sikander how he escaped and was almost shot, then got lost in the forest and was bitten by a cobra … Suddenly, Lawrence stops and looks puzzled.

“Wait a minute,” he says. “That couldn't have happened. I must have dreamed all that, but I'd swear …”

Sikander grins at his friend. “Don't worry,” he says. “The important thing is that you're safe.”

Lawrence scratches his head. It seems as if everything has
changed, while at the same time nothing is any different than before.

• • •

A few days later, they decide to go fishing again to Ambital, though this time Lawrence's father accompanies them. As they walk up the trail through the forest and look back on the town from the ridge above the tea estate, Lawrence seems to have forgotten about the threat of war. Sikander tries to tell him about the burning palace and the booming cannons, but Lawrence looks at him as if he's making it all up.

“Come on, it would never have come to that,” he says. “The Russians backed down and the maharajah was allowed to keep his portrait on his postage stamps.”

Sikander begins to argue but then thinks better of it. Instead he challenges Lawrence to a race, to see who will be the first to reach Ambital. Roderick Sleeman follows behind the boys, pausing to light his pipe.

When they reach the lake, Sikander and Lawrence stop for a moment to catch their breath beside the gravestone in the grass. Something is different, Sikander can tell, but before he is able to puzzle over the words, Lawrence is pulling impatiently at his sleeve. As he turns away, Sikander notices two names on the stone instead of one:

Sacred
to the memory of
EZEKIEL FINCH
M
ARCH
12, 1802—A
UGUST
18, 1879
and his beloved wife
CAMELLIA
S
EPTEMBER
3, 1812—A
UGUST
19, 1879

Come live with mee, and bee my love,
And wee will some new pleasures prove
Of golden sands and christall brookes,
With silken lines, and silver hookes.

J
OHN
D
ONNE

As the bell rang, Gil slid into his seat and arranged his notebook on the desk in front of him. It was strange to be back in school again; he felt nervous and excited at the same time. Some of the other students were staring at him, and he knew they were trying to figure out who he was and where he'd come from. Gil could hear whispers and the restless sound of homework papers being sorted. Somebody dropped a book and there was muffled laughter. The teacher was tacking sheets of paper to the bulletin board. When she turned around, the students settled down. Two kids came in late and hurried to their desks.

After all of the dead letters, the reluctant genie and the skeletal hand, it was nice to be back in an ordinary classroom again, where everything seemed perfectly normal and predictable. The homeroom teacher, Mrs. Ballantine, seemed nice enough. She introduced Gil to the rest of the class. He was relieved she didn't call him Gilbert. Nargis had made sure of
that. Still, he felt uncomfortable as everyone's eyes turned on him, though soon enough they got down to work.

Convincing his parents to let him go to school in Carville had been easier than Gil had thought. His grandfather had done most of the persuading, telling them that he was happy to have Gil stay with him, and how it was better than putting him in a military academy.

“I think he's learned his lesson,” Prescott told them over the phone. “And Gil seems to like being here. He's made friends. It would be difficult adjusting to a new place all over again.”