The Glass Palace

by Amitav Ghosh

  On the next clear day, Dinu promised himself, he would bring his cameras to the lodge. For the first time in his life, he regretted never having learned to drive: for this view alone, the effort would have been worthwhile.

  The next day Arjun was back at Morningside again, at an unusual hour—at eleven in the morning. He was driving a motorcycle, a wasp-waisted, pigeon-breasted Harley-Davidson, painted a dull, military green. It had a sidecar attached. Arjun drove up to the house from the plantation office with Alison sitting in the sidecar.

  Dinu was in his dark room when Arjun shouted up from the porch: ‘Dinu! Come down here. I’ve got some news.’

  Dinu went running downstairs. ‘Well . . .?’

  Arjun laughed, punching his shoulder. ‘You’re an uncle, Dinu—and so am I, Manju’s had a baby—a girl.’

  ‘Oh . . . I’m glad . . .’

  ‘We’re going to celebrate. Come with us.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Down to the sea,’ said Arjun. ‘Jump on. Behind me.’

  Dinu glanced at Alison, who looked away. He felt his feet growing leaden. Over the last many days he had struggled to keep pace with the two of them, but he could not be what he was not. He did not want to be with her just so that his presence would weigh on her as a reminder—anything but that.

  ‘I don’t think you really want me with you,’ Dinu said quietly.

  They sounded a chorus of protests.

  ‘Oh, Dinu. Rubbish!’

  ‘Oh, come on, Dinu. Don’t be an ass.’

  Dinu turned on his heel. ‘I have work to finish in the dark room. You go ahead. You can tell me about it when you get back.’ He went back into the house and ran upstairs. He heard the coughing sound of the motorcycle’s kick-starter and could not keep himself from looking down, from a window. The Harley-Davidson was speeding down the drive, heading into the estate. He caught a glimpse of Alison’s scarf, fluttering like a pennant.

  He went back into his dark room and found that his eyes were smarting. In the past he’d always been able to count on the ambience of the dark room for reassurance; its dim red glow had been an unfailing source of comfort. But now the light seemed too bright, unbearably so. He switched it off and sat crouched on the floor, hugging his knees.

  His instincts had been true from the start. He’d known that Arjun could not be trusted—nor Alison, not with him. Yet what could he have done? They were adults, and he had no real claim on either of them.

  In a while he touched his face and found that it was wet. He grew angry with himself: if there was any tenet on which he’d wanted to build his life, it was that of never giving in to self-pity—that was a road that would not end, he knew, once he had started down it.

  He rose to his feet and walked around the room in the darkness, trying to recall its exact size and layout as well as the placement of every bit of furniture and every object. He counted his paces and every time he touched a wall or bumped against something, he started over again.

  He came to a decision. He would leave. It was clear that Alison had lost interest in him and there was nothing to be gained from remaining at Morningside. He would pack his things and spend the night at Ilongo’s mother’s house. Tomorrow he would go to Penang, to wait for a steamer that would take him back to Rangoon.

  The motorcycle headed due west, down a road that dwindled into a fraying ribbon of tarmac, fringed by dust and sand. They drove through a small town with a blue-domed mosque and then the sea appeared in front of them, sparkling blue. Waves were climbing gently up a long shelf of sand. The road turned left and they stayed on it, driving parallel to the beach. They came to a small hamlet and the road ended. The marketplace smelt of salt water and drying fish.

  Alison asked: ‘Should we leave the motorcycle here?’

  ‘No.’ Arjun laughed. ‘We don’t have to. We can take it with us. This Harley can go anywhere.’

  The villagers gathered to stare as they drove through the marketplace, slipping through the gaps between the shacks. The motorcycle whined as it climbed over the dune that separated the hamlet from the sea. The sand was blindingly white in the noon-day sun. Arjun kept to the edge of the beach, where the ground was held together by a thin carpet of weeds. He drove slowly, dodging between the windblown trunks of coconut palms.

  They left the village far behind and came to a cove that was sheltered by screwpines. The beach consisted of a thin, white fingernail of sand. At the mouth of the cove, no more than a hundred yards from the shore, there was a tiny island. It was thickly wooded, with green bushes and dwarf pines.

  ‘Let’s stop here,’ said Alison.

  Arjun wheeled the motorcycle into a patch of shade and pulled it on to its kickstand. They took off their shoes and left them on the sand. Arjun rolled up his trouser cuffs and they ran across the burning sliver of beach, straight into the water. It was low tide and the sea was very calm, with gentle waves lapping at the shore. The water was so clear that it magnified the shifting patterns of the sea floor, giving them the appearance of coloured mosaics.

  ‘Let’s swim,’ said Arjun.

  ‘I didn’t bring anything.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ Arjun began to unbutton his khaki shirt.

  ‘There’s no one here.’

  Alison was wearing a workaday cotton dress. She’d been holding it up, keeping the hem above the water. Now she let it drop. The water soaked quickly into the cotton, rising towards her waist.

  ‘Come on, Alison. We have the whole place to ourselves.’ Arjun’s shirt-tails were hanging loose, the buttons undone.

  ‘No.’ She laughed. ‘It’s December. You have to respect our winter.’

  ‘It’s not cold. Come on.’ He reached for her hand, his tongue flicking over the sparkling line of his teeth.

  She dug her toes into the sand. Through the clear water, she spotted the curved edge of a seashell, buried between her feet. Reaching into the water she dug it out. The shell was unexpectedly heavy, large enough to fill both her hands.

  ‘What is it?’ said Arjun, looking over her shoulder. His khaki trousers were wet almost to the waist.

  ‘It’s a nautilus,’ she said.

  The shell had an elliptical opening at one end, like a horn: the colour inside was a rich mother of pearl, tinged with silver highlights. Its body was coiled into an almost perfectly circular mound. A spiral line ran along the mound, ending in a tiny protrusion, not unlike a nipple.

  ‘How do you know what it’s called?’ Arjun asked. She could sense his presence behind her. He was looking over her at the shell, his chin resting lightly on her head.

  ‘Dinu showed me a photograph of a shell like this one,’ she said. ‘He thinks it’s one of the greatest pictures ever made.’

  His arms reached round her shoulders, encircling her body. His hands closed on the shell, his fingers dwarfing hers, his palms wet against the back of her hands. He ran his thumb along the edge of the mother of pearl mouth, over the line that encircled the swelling body, to the tiny nipple-like point that topped the mound.

  ‘We should . . .’ She felt the touch of his breath blowing through her hair. ‘We should take this back for Dinu,’ he said. His voice had gone hoarse.

  He let his arms drop and stepped away from her. ‘Let’s go and explore,’ he said, pointing in the direction of the island that lay at the mouth of the cove. ‘I bet we could walk over. The water’s very low.’

  ‘I don’t want to get my dress wet.’ She laughed.

  ‘You won’t,’ he promised. ‘If the water gets too high I’ll carry you on my back.’

  He took hold of her hand and pulled her deeper into the water. The ground dipped until the water was at waist-level. Then the sandy floor began to rise again, sloping up towards the island. Arjun began to move faster, pulling her with him. They were running when they reached the shore. They raced across the sun-baked fringe of sand, into the shaded interior of the island. Alison fell on her back, on the soft, sandy earth, and looked u
p at the sky. They were encircled by bushy screwpines, screened from the shore.

  Arjun threw himself down beside her, on his stomach. She was still holding the shell and he prised it free of her grip. He laid it on her chest, and ran his finger along the shell’s spiral edge, cupping its body with his palm.

  ‘It’s so beautiful,’ he said.

  She saw how badly he wanted her; there was something irresistible about the insistency of his desire. When his hand slipped off the shell, on to her body, she made no effort to stop him. From that moment on, when it was already too late, everything changed.

  It was as though he wasn’t really there and nor was she; as though their bodies had been impelled more by a sense of inevitability than by conscious volition; by an inebriation of images and suggestion—memories of pictures and songs and dances; it was as though they were both absent, two strangers, whose bodies were discharging a function. She thought of what it was like with Dinu; the intensity of his focus on the moment; the sense of time holding still. It was only against the contrast of this cohabiting of absences that she could apprehend the meaning of what it meant to be fully present— eye, mind and touch united in absolute oneness, each beheld by the other, each beholding.

  When Arjun rolled off her she began to cry, pulling her dress down over her body, clasping her knees. He sat up, in consternation. ‘Alison—what’s the matter? Why’re you crying?’

  She shook her head, her face buried between her knees. He persisted. ‘Alison, I didn’t mean . . . I thought you wanted . . .’

  ‘It’s not your fault. I’m not blaming you. Only myself.’ ‘For what, Alison?’

  ‘For what?’ She looked at him in disbelief. ‘How can you look at me after this and ask me a question like that? What about Dinu?’

  ‘Alison.’ He laughed, reaching for her arm. ‘Dinu doesn’t need to know. Why tell him about this?’

  She pushed his hand away. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘Please. Don’t touch me.’

  Then they heard a voice, calling in the distance, just loud enough to carry over the lapping of the water.

  ‘Sah’b.’

  Arjun pulled on his wet uniform and stood up. He saw Kishan Singh standing on the beach; behind him was a helmeted motorcyclist, on a Harley-Davidson just like the one Arjun had driven up from the base.

  Kishan Singh was waving a piece of paper, snapping it urgently through the air.

  ‘Sah’b.’

  ‘Alison,’ Arjun said, ‘something’s up. They’ve sent a messenger from the base.’

  ‘You go ahead,’ Alison said. All she could think of at that moment was of throwing herself into the water, to wash off the feel of his touch. ‘I’ll follow in a minute.’

  Arjun walked into the water and waded over to the beach. Kishan Singh was waiting at the water’s edge; his eyes held Arjun’s for an instant. There was something in them that made Arjun check his pace and look again. But now Kishan Singh had snapped to attention, his hand raised in a salute, his eyes fixed in an unseeing gaze.

  ‘What is it, Kishan Singh?’

  Kishan Singh handed him an envelope. ‘Hardy-sah’b sent this.’

  Arjun tore the envelope open and unfolded Hardy’s note. He was still frowning at it when Alison stepped out of the water and walked up to him.

  ‘What is it?’ she said.

  ‘I have to get back,’ Arjun said. ‘Right now. It looks as if something big is under way. We’re leaving Sungei Pattani—my battalion, that is.’

  ‘You’re going away?’ Alison stared at him, as though she couldn’t believe what she’d heard.

  ‘Yes.’ He glanced at her. ‘And you’re glad—aren’t you?’

  She walked off without answering and he followed her. When they were over the crest of the dune, out of Kishan Singh’s sight, he turned her around with a sudden violence.

  ‘Alison,’ he said sharply, ‘you didn’t answer me.’

  She narrowed her eyes. ‘Don’t take that tone with me, Arjun. I’m not your batman.’

  ‘I asked you a question.’

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘Are you glad that I’m leaving?’

  ‘If you really want to know,’ she said flatly, ‘the answer is yes.’

  ‘Why?’ His voice was halting and confused. ‘You came here because you wanted to. I don’t understand this: why are you so angry with me?’

  ‘I’m not.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m not angry at all—you’re wrong about that. It wouldn’t make sense to be angry with you, Arjun.’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

  ‘Arjun—you’re not in charge of what you do; you’re a toy, a manufactured thing, a weapon in someone else’s hands. Your mind doesn’t inhabit your body.’

  ‘That’s crap . . .’ He cut himself short. ‘The only reason you can get away with that,’ he said, ‘is because you’re a woman . . .’

  She saw that he was a hair’s-breadth away from hitting her and this had the odd effect of making her suddenly sorry for him. And then she realised that she had always felt sorry for him, a little, and that was why she had come with him that morning to the beach. She saw that despite the largeness and authority of his presence, he was a man without resources, a man whose awareness of himself was very slight and very fragile; she saw that Dinu was much stronger and more resourceful, and she understood that that was why she’d been tempted to be cruel to him; that that was why she had had to take the risk of losing him. The thought of this made her suddenly apprehensive.

  She walked quickly to the Harley-Davidson. ‘Come on,’ she said to Arjun. ‘Take me back to Morningside.’

  part six

  The Front

  thirty-two

  It was early evening by the time the 1/1 Jats left Sungei Pattani. They drove out of their base in a convoy of trucks, heading northwards, on the north–south highway. On reaching the town of Alor Star, they were deposited at the railway station and told to await further instructions. The men settled down at one end of the platform, the officers commandeered the other.

  The station was the smallest and prettiest that Arjun had ever seen: it looked like a dolls’ house version of the railway stations he’d known in India. There was a single, narrow platform, under a low, red-tiled awning. Potted palms hung in clusters from the beams and the wooden columns that lined the platform were wrapped in brightly coloured bougainvillea bushes.

  Lieutenant-Colonel Buckland had stayed on at divisional headquarters and he arrived late. At midnight he called his officers together to brief them on the latest sitrep. There was to be a drastic change in tactics, he said. There were indications that the Japanese were about to enter the war: their forces were believed to be preparing to attack Malaya from the north. In order to forestall this a strike force was to thrust deep into Siam, to secure the eastern seaboard: this was intended to be a pre-emptive attack to deny a Japanese invasion force the potential landing grounds of the coast. The 1/1 Jats were to play a key part in this operation. The battalion’s orders were to hold itself in readiness to entrain at a half-hour’s notice. At dawn they would move northwards with the objective of occupying a beach-head near the coastal town of Singora. ‘Jot these down.’ Lieutenant-Colonel Buckland read out a string of map references while the officers took notes.

  After the briefing Arjun spread a map on the station floor, under a naked lightbulb, brushing away the insects and moths that came to settle on the surface. He could feel his index finger shaking in excitement as he followed the thin red line of the road that led to the beach-head. This was it then: the proof of all these years of training; the waiting was over at last. Arjun glanced at the flower-bedecked platform: it struck him that this was a very unlikely place from which to launch a major operation.

  It was hard to sleep. At about 3 a.m. Kishan Singh brought him a cup of tea in an enamel mug. Arjun took it gratefully, without asking where it had come from. Beside him Hardy was dozing peacefully in a long-armed chair, with his turban tipped back. Ar
jun stood up and strolled down the platform, picking his way past the huddled figures of the men. He noticed a light in the station master’s office, and stepped in.

  The station master was a Goan Christian. He was fast asleep, lying sprawled at his desk. There was a radio on a shelf. Arjun stepped round the desk and turned on the radio. He began to fiddle idly with the knobs. Presently, the crackling airwaves yielded a newsreader’s voice: ‘. . . heavy fighting near Kota Baharu . . .’

  Kota Baharu was in eastern Malaya: Arjun knew of it because of a friend who was stationed there. It was a small, out-of-the-way coastal town. Arjun turned up the volume and listened again: now the newsreader was talking of massive Japanese landings along the seaboard—he heard him mention Singora, the town they were meant to occupy the next day. Arjun turned and went sprinting down the platform to the waiting room where he had left the CO.

  ‘Sir.’

  The CO and Captain Pearson were dozing in armchairs.

  ‘The balloon’s up, sir: the Japs have landed.’

  ‘Impossible, Lieutenant.’ The CO sat up.

  ‘It’s on the radio, sir.’

  ‘Where?’

  Arjun led them to the station master’s room. Along the platform the men were stirring now, aware that something was under way. Arjun pushed the station master’s door open. The man was awake, groggily rubbing his fists in his eyes. Arjun stepped round him and turned up the volume. The newsreader’s voice filled the room.