Read The Linnet Bird: A Novel Online
Authors: Linda Holeman
The Linnet Bird: A Novel
Contents
For Holly Kennedy,
who had faith in this story
A LINNET IN A GILDED CAGE
A linnet in a gilded cage,—
A linnet on a bough,—
In frosty winter one might doubt
Which bird is luckier now.
But let the trees burst out in leaf,
And nest be on the bough,
Which linnet is the luckier bird,
Oh who could doubt it now?
—C
HRISTINA
R
OSSETTI
,
Sing-Song: A Nursery Rhyme Book
Slightly smaller than a sparrow, the linnet bird was highly sought after as a cage bird in the nineteenth century for its melodious song.
Prologue
Calcutta, 1839
S
MOKING OPIUM IS AN ART.
I look at my tray and its contents—the pipe covered in finely worked silver, the small spirit lamp, the long blunt needle, the container of
chandu,
and my row of pea-size balls of the dark brown paste. My lips are dry. I close my eyes and see it: the opium ball at the end of the needle over the flame of the lamp, the bubbling and swelling of that muddy brown until it finally turns golden. Then catching it on the edge of the pipe bowl, using the needle to stretch it into long strings until it is cooked through properly. Rolling it back into its shape and pushing it—quickly, for it must be the right consistency—into the bowl. Now holding the bowl close to the lamp, the flame licking tenderly. I see my lips close around the familiar bone mouthpiece and then a deep pull, another, and another. The sound is the steady unbroken rhythm of a heartbeat.
I open my eyes, licking my lips. It is early morning. The Indian sun will not reach its zenith for a few more hours; there is time, before the copper rays bake and shrink everything, before the servants have to splash water on the reed screens and close all the shutters. I look back to my tray.
Not yet. I will not take up my pipe yet. I have something to tell you.
Through the open windows I can hear the children’s voices from the garden. I go to watch. David is playing with the
dhobi
’s son. The child’s game, a seemingly senseless galloping about on long sticks, is played with careless, easy motions as only five-year-olds can play. Malti sits on the top step of the verandah. She slowly waves a horsetail whisk in front of her oval, burnished face, wreathed with the pleasure of an ayah watching her beloved charge.
The boys romp around and around the lawn of creeping
doob.
The bougainvillea and hibiscus are in scarlet display.
I never played as my son does today. At a little older than he is now I was employed for ten hours a day, six days a week, at the bookbinders on Harvey Close in Liverpool. I had never felt grass under my bare feet nor heard the song of a bird, and only rarely felt the sun’s warmth upon my face. My son will never know the work I did, not the work I started with, nor the work I did later, when I was still a child but no longer young. That part of my life will forever remain closed to him, but not to you.
David has stopped, cocking his head as if listening, or puzzled. And then he stoops, reaching beneath the low hedge of plumbago.
He runs back to Malti, his face a portrait of sorrow, his hands cupping a bird. Even from here I recognize its green feathers, the brilliant red over its beak. It stirs, feebly, but is injured, one wing hanging oddly from its body. A small, common bird, the Coppersmith Barbet.
Basanta bauri.
Only yesterday I heard its familiar
pok-pok
from the mango trees. David is calling now, his voice thick with emotion. I see the sun-browned texture of his skin, the way his long slender thumbs crook tenderly in an attempt to hold on and yet not harm the helpless thing.
I think of my own hands when so young, chapped from the cold wind off the gray Mersey, stained with ink, cheap glue webbing between my fingers. And then, not many years later, tainted with that which I couldn’t wash away. Lady Macbeth and her own dirty hands. And finally, just before I left my youth forever and began my voyage, I remember my hands. Nicked with cuts from paper, dry from handling books, they appeared clean, so clean, although always, at least in my mind, unable to lose the smell of too many men, of the blood. How, you are wondering, have you come from that place and arrived here?
Beside my opium tray lies the quill and paper I had Malti bring me earlier this morning.
But before I begin to write, a small time to dream. It is my last. I have made this promise before. I have thought it, whispered it, spoken it, prayed it. But this time I have sworn on my child’s head, in the darkness before morning, sitting beside David’s bed, listening to his shallow, sweet breaths followed by the deep answering exhalations of Malti from her pallet in the corner. I crept in, and knelt by him, and swore, his thick hair under my pale fingers.
I swore that today will be my last dream that is fed by the White Smoke. And without its aid, I fear my dreams will warp into the old and familiar nightmare, the one I have tried so long to lose.
