Ghost Letters (3 page)

“And it will,” says the clerk, putting the envelope on the scale and raising his eyebrows. “A first-class letter to Cairo … Two ounces … Four annas.”

Sikander hands over the coin and the clerk takes a pair of two-anna stamps from his drawer, both with pictures of the maharajah of Ajeebgarh, and affixes them to the envelope. Then with a decisive gesture, he thumps the ink pad and the envelope to cancel the postage.

“How long will it take to reach Cairo?” asks Sikander.

“Let's see … At six o'clock tomorrow morning it will travel by train on the
Himalayan Mail
. After thirty-six hours, the letter will reach Bombay and be put on a ship to Suez. A couple weeks' voyage … Then from there, I suppose it goes by camel to Cairo. Three weeks altogether … four at the most.”

Thanking the postal clerk, Sikander stares up at the high ceiling and imagines himself riding the train from Ajeebgarh to Bombay, then boarding the ship and sailing across the Arabian Sea, and finally climbing onto a camel to travel over the sand dunes to Cairo.

As he leaves the Post and Telegraph Office, Sikander decides to take a shortcut home. Crossing the railway bridge over the Magor River, which flows through Ajeebgarh, he climbs down the steps to the water, where washermen are pounding laundry on the rocks. Continuing along the riverbank, Sikander passes a couple of boats tied up near the shore. The Magor is a dark green color with a sluggish current that drifts between muddy banks where buffaloes wallow in the backwaters. A few miles below Ajeebgarh, the Magor joins a much swifter river called the Arun that eventually runs into the Ganga. From there the water pours out into the Bay of Bengal. Sikander has often dreamed of climbing into one of the boats, cutting the ropes free, and drifting from one river to the next, until he reaches the sea.

He stops to watch a white-necked stork standing in the shallows of the river, its long beak ready to snap up a fish. Just then, Sikander catches sight of something blue at the water's edge. Going closer, he sees a bottle sealed with a cork. To reach it, he has to wade into the river, and the stork flies off. Picking up the bright blue bottle, Sikander finds it is empty, except for a scrap of paper rolled up inside.

Leaving Kipling at home this time, Gil and Nargis climbed into Prescott's car—a battered Volkswagen that rattled and shook. Instead of crossing the park and scrambling through the fence, they drove around to the other side of the town dump, and parked next to the recycling center and mulching station. There didn't seem to be anyone else around. Nargis led them through the gate and down a dirt track to Trash Hill. Prescott had brought his walking stick, but he didn't really use it, except to poke a hole in the rusty remains of the old refrigerator as Gil and Nargis nervously approached the mailbox.

“There it is,” said Gil.

“A perfect place for junk mail,” Prescott joked. He didn't seem convinced about the skeletal hand.

Nargis asked, “Who's going to open it?”

“Go ahead,” said Gil.

“Why don't you?” she said with a nervous smile.

Gil looked across at his grandfather, who nodded encouragingly. Reaching out his hand, which was shaking badly, Gil flipped the mailbox open. For a moment nobody moved. Then Nargis leaned down and squinted. There wasn't any smell.

“It's empty,” said Gil.

“That's impossible.” Nargis echoed his surprise.

“But the hand was here just half an hour ago. I swear we saw it,” said Gil, staring into the empty mailbox, then looking back at Prescott. “Grandpa, you have to believe me. It was a skeleton's hand. The bones were a yellowish white and it smelled awful.”

“It's true,” said Nargis. “It was really gross!”

Prescott nodded and shrugged, a skeptical frown adding to the wrinkles on his face.

“Sure,” he said. “Maybe so.”

• • •

When he had first arrived in Carville, a week ago, the last thing Gil expected was to have anything unusual happen. Staying in a musty old house overlooking the sea wasn't exactly the choice he would have made for himself. But nobody seemed interested in his opinion, particularly since he'd just been expelled from school. Both his parents traveled all the time for work, and there was nobody to stay with him at home in Connecticut. This was the main reason Gil had been put in boarding school in the first place. Two days after he was thrown out of McCauley Prep, his mother had to leave on a business trip, and his father had driven him up to Prescott's house.

As their car pulled into the driveway, Kipling had barked at them but came up wagging his tail and sniffed Gil's hand. Prescott greeted his son-in-law with an awkward handshake. The two men had never seen eye to eye. When Prescott invited them inside, Gil's father thanked him but said he needed to get back to New York to catch a flight. Warning his son to “behave yourself and make up for what you've done,” Gil's father drove off.

“He's a busy man, your dad …,” said Prescott, tugging at his moustache to hide his disapproval.

Gil looked at the old man with an uncertain smile. Prescott was close to seventy, but his shoulders carried his age lightly. He picked up one of Gil's bags and led him to his room at the far end of the house, up a flight of stone stairs. The bedroom was a large, gloomy space with a tilted wardrobe and bookcases filled with murder mysteries. The one window looked out into the woods.

Setting the suitcase at the foot of the bed, Prescott put a reassuring arm around his grandson's shoulder.

“Don't worry,” he said in an understanding voice. “Your mother probably never told you this, but I was kicked out of McCauley too. It isn't the end of the world.”

Gil glanced up with surprise. “Why were you thrown out of school?” he asked.

“We'll talk about that later,” said his grandfather. “Now, I imagine you're thirsty. How about some tea?”

Gil had been to the house a couple of times before. It always reminded him of a medieval castle with heavy stone archways
and turrets supporting a slate roof. After passing through several doorways, down a long hall, they came out into the kitchen, which was much brighter than the rest of the house. On the counter was a plate of cookies.

Gil sat down as his grandfather opened the refrigerator and took out a jug of tea. Filling two glasses with ice he poured the amber liquid over the cubes. Though he hated tea, Gil didn't want to say anything to Prescott, who squeezed a wedge of lemon into each glass.

“Two spoons of sugar or three?” his grandfather asked.

“Just one, thanks,” said Gil, hoping he wouldn't gag.

“Here you go,” Prescott said. “Have a cookie.”

Still dazed from his journey and the dizzying ride up the coast, Gil felt a little sick to his stomach. But when he took a cookie and tasted it, he realized that he was hungry. The gingery sweetness crumbled on his tongue, and it was gone before he knew it. After this he helped himself to another, which went down just as quickly.

Kipling edged closer to the kitchen counter, his nose snorting expectantly and his mouth slobbering. Prescott gave him a cookie from the plate, then told him to get lost. Gil's tea sat untouched until the ice cubes had almost melted. Raising the glass at last, he sniffed the fragrance, surprised at how different it was from the soapy, dishwater smell of the tea his mother made at home. Cautiously, he tried a sip and the flavor startled him. It actually tasted good. Gil closed his eyes and took a large swallow.

“Darjeeling. Orange pekoe. First flush,” his grandfather
said. “Made with rainwater so it doesn't ruin the taste. You know this house was built with tea and ice.”

“What do you mean?” said Gil.

“My great-granduncle—your great-great-great-granduncle—Ezekiel Finch made his fortune as a Yankee trader, shipping tea from India to America,” said Prescott. “He also used to ship ice from America to India.”

Gil gave his grandfather a skeptical glance.

“It's true. The ice came from the pond on the other side of the hill. This was long before there were refrigerators. During winter, Ezekiel hired teams of men to cut the frozen surface of the pond into rectangular blocks, which they hauled down to the harbor on horse-drawn sleighs. The ice was covered with sawdust for insulation, and loaded into the holds of clipper ships. Half of it melted by the time they reached India, but the ice could still be sold to English colonials living there, so they could have cold drinks in summer.”

Gil took another sip from his glass and listened intently as Prescott continued.

“The cargo of tea that Ezekiel brought back from India weighed much less than ice, so his ships needed ballast. Most sea captains filled the holds of their clippers with rocks to keep them on an even keel. When they returned to New England, the ballast stones were thrown into the harbor or onto shore. All along the coast of Massachusetts you'll find rocks from India, China and other countries around the world. Instead of discarding the ballast stones, Ezekiel decided to store them.
Once he had enough, he built this house and called it the Yankee Mahal. But Ezekiel never really lived in this house. Soon after it was constructed in 1840, he sailed for India and never came back.”

“Why did he do that?” asked Gil.

“Nobody's really sure, but the story is he fell in love with a woman who rejected him. Ezekiel went away brokenhearted to a lonely exile in the East. Our ancestor was a colorful character. Everyone's heard of Paul Revere and his midnight ride,” said Prescott, “but not many people know that Ezekiel Finch delivered an equally important message to the people of Boston.”

“What kind of message?” said Gil.

“It was during the War of 1812. In those days, Carville was still known as Hornswoggle Bay, and a British navy frigate sailed in to blockade the harbor. Ezekiel Finch was only ten years old at the time. His father was the harbormaster, and he wrote a letter to the governor, warning him that the British were coming. Ezekiel didn't have a horse, but his family owned a mule named Sally. Taking the letter and jumping onto Sally's back, Ezekiel rode all the way to Boston in less than three hours. The letter he carried is preserved by the Carville Historical Society. They also have one of Sally's horseshoes on display.”

“Why isn't he famous like Paul Revere?” said Gil.

Prescott shrugged. “I guess it's just the way history gets recorded. Some things are remembered and others are forgotten. Paul Revere probably wouldn't be as famous today if Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow hadn't written a poem about him. You remember how it goes:

“Listen my children and you shall hear,

Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere …”

Gil nodded. “We were supposed to read it in school, but it was kind of long and boring.”

“Well, at least you didn't have to memorize the whole thing,” said Prescott. “When I was in seventh grade, we had to recite it for a school assembly.”

“Maybe you should write a poem about Ezekiel Finch,” said Gil. “That way people will remember him.”

“Not a bad idea,” said Prescott thoughtfully.

“I guess you'd have to find lots of words that rhyme with
Finch
,” said Gil, “and
Sally
.”

“That's the easy part,” said Prescott. “Do you want to see a picture of your ancestor?”

Before Gil could reply, his grandfather got to his feet and headed out of the kitchen. There was a formal parlor downstairs that was almost never used. It was a gloomy, dusty room with heavy curtains on the windows. When Prescott turned on the lights, Gil could see that the furniture was shrouded in dustcovers, and there was a musty smell of old wood and fabric. On the wall opposite the fireplace hung a large oil painting in an ornate frame. It was a picture of a boy on a gray mule, riding through farmland. The boy was dressed in blue breeches, with a loose shirt blowing in the wind. When Gil looked at the
picture more closely, he could see that Ezekiel was holding a letter in one hand.

“Sally was used for plowing fields,” said Prescott. “She wasn't meant to be ridden, certainly not thirty miles to Boston.”

Gil tried to imagine what it would be like to ride bareback all that way; it made him feel sore just thinking about it. On the other side of the room was a later portrait of Ezekiel Finch, painted just before he left for India. There was a resemblance to the boy in the other picture. His eyes were the same pale blue, and his mouth was similar—neither a smile nor a frown. His hair had receded and he was wearing a formal black frock coat, with a red silk scarf knotted at his throat. On a table in the painting, next to Ezekiel's right hand, lay a jeweled inkstand set with rubies and emeralds. A quill pen rested beside it. Prescott pointed to the inkstand.

“That's a gift Ezekiel was going to give Camellia Stubbs, the woman he loved. Ezekiel knew that Camellia had a passion for writing and he ordered it especially for her, all the way from India. The stand was made of gold, encrusted with jewels, and the two ink bottles were the finest crystal. Supposedly, it cost eight hundred dollars in those days. Of course, when Camellia turned down his proposal, Ezekiel was heartbroken. Nobody knows what happened to the inkstand. There's a rumor he buried it before he sailed for India, but it's never been found.”

“If it cost eight hundred dollars back then, it must be worth a ton of money now,” said Gil, peering at the painting.

By the time Nargis got home, her mother was already cooking dinner. The smell of frying onions and the peppery tang of spices greeted her before she opened the front door. Though Nargis loved the food her mother made, she was self-conscious about the smells of Indian cooking that drifted out of their house into the neighborhood. Most of the other people on their street had backyard barbecues, and the charred odor of grilled meat filled the air. Nargis's family were vegetarians, and the cooking smells from their home were mostly frying onions, ginger and garlic, mixed with cumin and coriander.