The Shallow Seas (39 page)

They walked home in rain, but, by the time of their departure, the sun shone. On the old jetty, Charlotte hugged Robert tightly. She embraced her friends: Evangeline, Teresa and her family, and finally Takouhi. She knew her friend would come back when she was ready.

Tigran helped Charlotte into the cutter, and with shouts and cries, the men began to pull away from shore. She watched as, once again with sadness, she left these shores. The tide was up, and the brig stood close in. It took them only a few minutes to reach the ship. Charlotte stood as she had before and looked over the town. It had changed; it had grown, but she loved it still. Her eyes went to Mount Wallich and the long ridge which bordered the bay. She could see only the luxuriant growth of the hill. It was impossible to see the Chinese town in Telok Ayer Bay, for it lay beyond the headland.

Then, suddenly, she saw him. He was standing on one of the piers which gave out from the back of the godowns on Commercial Square. She stood looking at him. He did not move, watching the ship. Tigran turned from giving some orders and saw her, leaning forward, looking to shore with an unconscious intensity. He saw her smile quietly. He went forward and stood next to her.

She dropped her eyes, but he had seen who she was staring at. Tigran said nothing; he, too, now stared at the man, frowning, trying to think. And then he saw, knew. This was the son-in-law of Baba Tan. This man was the father of Alexander. He knew now why the man's face had been so familiar to him. The eyes, the curve of the jaw, the now unmistakable signs of blood and bone written into Alexander's face. Charlotte had been seeing this man whilst he had been away, he felt certain. He did not even have to ask her. She had not moved, had not looked at him. Her gaze had returned to the man on shore, who turned and quickly disappeared behind the godown. She knew he had gone to Mount Wallich.

She faced Tigran. He stared at her, for the first time ever, with anger. He took her arm, moved her off the deck, into their cabin and shut the door.

“So, madam, I see I am to be deceived, cuckolded, if ever you are in Singapore. Whilst I have been struggling with death and misery, writing you letters of love and constancy, you have been playing your adulterous game behind my back.”

Charlotte looked him straight in the eye. She gave no thought for her words. They simply came rushing out.

“I do not wish to hurt you, Tigran. It was in this very cabin that I told you of my love for him. I thought those feelings had changed, but they have not.
Love dwells not in our will
. It is now over. I am returning to Batavia with you.”

“To think of him, to dream of him. Again, like it was before? No, it is too much.”

Chrlotte felt her temper rise. “How dare you! You destroyed his letters to me, which would have given me comfort in misery!” She stared at Tigran, her fists clenched. “What I dream, what I think, neither you nor even I can control.”

The ship lurched slightly as the winch began to weigh the anchor. The noise of barked orders and shouting came from deck as the sails were set, and the deep thrumming of the wind began in the rigging.

Tigran was lost for words. He wanted to strike her, tell her to stop loving this man. To go back was intolerable. It had taken too long for her to come to him, and now this. He had been her support, her friend, her lover, and she had betrayed him. Something like hatred entered his mind.

“Stay here in this cabin. I do not wish to see you for this entire voyage. You will take your meals here. Do not come on deck. Your maids will attend to you.” He turned and left the cabin.

Charlotte sat on the edge of the bed, shocked. He had flung these words at her with contempt. She felt the wind's hand on the ship, turning it away from shore. He would not allow her even to wave good-bye to Robert, to Takouhi. She went to the door and opened it. A man had been stationed outside! She could not believe it. She asked him to bring her husband. The man, obviously confused about his orders, hesitated. The mistress was with child. But he had been ordered not to leave the door. He called a ship's boy to send for the master.

Whilst she waited for Tigran, she found her composure. When he opened the door, he stood waiting, coldly.

“Tigran, this is intolerable. Please, may I wave good-bye to Robert and Takouhi?” she said.

Tigran motioned her to come and let her pass onto the deck. She went to the side and waved, and they all raised their hands. Safe voyage, they called. She looked up to Mount Wallich. When the ship had caught the wind, the sails cracking with air, it moved rapidly away from shore. Soon the figures were a blur. Tigran came up to her, grasped her by the arm and once again took her to the cabin. This time he took the key from inside the door and went outside. She heard it turn in the lock.

She gasped. A prisoner! Had he gone mad? She had not meant to provoke him. She had had every intention of returning to him a loving wife, giving birth to his child, sharing this joy together. This very evening in this very bed, she would have welcomed him into her arms. She could put Zhen quietly in her heart now. She had learned to accept this, he had taught her how.

And now, in the blink of an eye, everything had turned hideously sour. She went to the line of windows and opened one, letting the air rush in. She watched as the shoreline of Singapore receded, keeping her eyes on Mount Wallich. But now she was not sure which hill was which. And as they left the harbour, the sea became rough. She shut the window and lay on the bed. The baby had begun its churning. Surely Tigran would calm down, surely he would forgive her. She closed her eyes.

33

Charlotte awoke as the light began to filter into the room. The oblivion of sleep left her and the day, and her thoughts rushed in. She remembered. Tigran would not speak to her. She lay and watched the passage of the early morning pass across the floor.

For four days she had been confined in the cabin, but the journey had taken much longer than expected. For days they had lain windless, floating on the shallow blue sea of the Straits of Carimata, which joined the South China Sea to the Java Sea. The main island in the passage rose, a lofty, barren height of grey and yellow; another lay like the backbone of a stooping creature. Further off, a smattering of insignificant and indistinct islets curved into the haze. The ship floated motionless, chained to its mirror image on the glassy sea. This becalming seemed, to her fevered mind, the very symbol of her plight: stuck immobile between Singapore and Batavia, between two men, utterly incapable of action, just as the wind had seemingly deserted the earth.

Sometimes there would be an inexplicable long, heavy swell, as if the sea had inhaled a deep breath, and this would cause the ship to move forward, raising spirits. Charlotte could hear it in the animation and chatter of the Malay and Javanese sailors. It would give only brief hope, however, for soon, again, they lay unmoving. Then would come only what sailors called the baffling winds, the shifting, varying breeze which caused the idle sails to flap. There was surely no more hideous sound at sea than the monotonous and never-ending flap, flap, flap of the idle sails against the masts and yards.

Charlotte thought they might never leave these regions of the doldrums. When the sun was at its zenith, the breeze would die altogether and the sun beat down, scorching the ship, heating them like a furnace and reducing them all to dripping, exhausted wraiths.

The food was adequate, for rice was plentiful and the men fished and shot seabirds. The water, though, ran low and the men took the cutters and went to Caramata Island for fresh supplies, to look for firewood, fruits and whatever else they could gather. The water party returned, but the second boat was attacked by a small group of natives, with one man killed and two wounded.

Now the fear of pirate attack added to their woes. After two days, both wounded men died, and the captain held a burial at sea. Charlotte could not bear to watch, hearing from the cabin the splash of their bodies.

On the fifth day, Tigran, seeing the prospect of a long voyage, allowed Charlotte to come on deck, though he remained unremittingly cold to her. He responded when she spoke, but otherwise he addressed not a word to her. Charlotte was certain she would go into labour on this mirrored sea and die in hideous agony in the relentless heat. She would stare down into the waters, watching the sunlight move on beds of coral and dark indistinct shapes and imagine her body floating there: she and her child still joined by the cord.

The captain could not help but notice the tension; he could not make out what had so suddenly turned this loving couple against each other. Mrs Manouk looked sickly, so heavy with the child, but her husband seemed indifferent.

To raise her spirits, he talked to her of the sea and of the ship. He told her that the word “brig” came from “brigand”, for some believed that pirates lay at the origin of this two-masted vessel. The
Queen
was an old-fashioned lady, over twenty years old and much modified. She had been an English privateer which Tigran's father had bought because he liked her English name. The upper cabins behind the wheel, which the captain and the ship's master occupied, had been added so that the roomy main cabin was reserved for the owner or his guests.

The
Queen
was a good sailor, quick to respond and courageous in all weathers, he told her, and she felt his affection for this sleek craft. They talked of the stars and navigation. Captain Elliott showed her how to use a sextant and found her quick to grasp the concepts. They discussed the merits of steam and both agreed that it was in seas like this when every sailor would be glad of it to confound the capricious spirits of the air.

Charlotte was comforted by the captain's little mongrel dog, Tasty, which lay in the day, panting, at her side in the rigged shade of an old sail and in the evening shared her lonely cabin. Elliott told her he had named him this when he had saved him, as a pup, from the jaws of a crocodile during some village foraging. When Tigran saw them talking together, he turned away.

Charlotte could not reach him. She had been angry at this confinement, determined to make him pay for it, but as it extended, she had become bored, agitated. When she had been allowed on deck, initially she had been happy to be free, still annoyed with him. After a week, however, she had become anxious. The voyage which should have taken four days had, finally, taken sixteen. It had been hideous, long, hot and tedious. She had been sick and frightened, filled with visions of madness. Only the Captain's kindness and the presence of the young Javanese maid had kept her mind in order, for this young girl was more terrified than she. Charlotte longed for Brieswijk.

Now she was here, but nothing had changed. Tigran left in the early hours for the Kota. He returned in the afternoon, but then, after bathing and changing, he went to the Harmonie Club or the Concordia Club or the Hotel de Provence or the Masonic Lodge or heaven knows where. He slept not in the room next to hers, but in apartments at the other end of the house.

They were invited to dine, but he refused everything on grounds of her health. She felt, now, that what had been wounds of love had festered into hatred of her. She longed for Takouhi to come home, but her friend wrote that she could not. She wanted to see George's tomb built. She wasn't ready to leave him.

Nathanial was absent, on another expedition to the East. Louis was away too, travelling with part of the troupe to Semarang and Surabaya. She spent her days with Alexander, who barely recognised her, in her room, or in the library and at the river. The river gave her some comfort. The maids were charming and attentive, but they chatted in a language she could not understand.

Once she went at sunrise to the river and watched quietly as the villagers bathed in the green and golden waters. The men, half-naked, ran and leapt into the water, diving under and emerging, their copper bodies gleaming wet. The women, sedate, pulled their sarongs over their bosoms, leaving their shoulders bare. At the edge of the water they paused and lifted their arms to twist their heavy hair into knots. Young mothers coaxed their little ones into the stream. Crowds of small boys and girls plunged and splashed noisily. Half-hidden in clumps of reeds, the young girls poured water from palm leaves over each other's heads until their sleek black hair melded with their garments in flowing, clinging folds, moulding their lithe figures into those of nymphs. She turned away. She took her meals alone. She did not know how long Tigran meant to punish her.

Now, today, she did not want to get up. It was too much effort. It was so much easier just to go back to sleep. She half-awoke when the maid came with tea, but then returned to slumber. In the evening she awoke, surprised to find she had slept all day. She rose, needing relief from the sticky heat and went to the verandah, where she felt a waft of cool evening air and sat looking out into the darkness. Her maid, anxious, appeared instantly at her side, with tea and some food. Charlotte smiled at her and resumed her vigil over the darkness.

Charlotte's maids liked her a great deal. She never bullied them, was always gentle and kind. They could not speak her language, could only watch as she fell into this despond. Madi should come, but without the master's permission it was impossible to send for her. When she heard, the housekeeper informed Janszen, the major-domo, who ran everything in the house.

Tigran failed to return that night, and Janszen became concerned. The mistress slept all the time. She had taken a little water but had eaten nothing now for two days. The maid feared for the master's child.

When Tigran finally came back, Janszen made his report. Tigran frowned and went to her room. Charlotte lay naked on the bed. She had lost weight, and her skin was sallow and sweaty; her hair stuck to her.

He went to the bed and touched her, tried to wake her, but she did not move. She was all belly, so thin it protruded like a barrel. Had he done this? He had not seen her for two weeks. Had he done this?