However, she thanked them politely before striding out of the room. Victoria practically flew to her.
“So? What did he foretell for you?”
“That we’re going to be in a whole load of trouble, and all for nothing more than a few incoherent mumblings and some symbols that no one can read.”
Her eyes shining, Victoria grasped the paper from her hand. “What does this mean? What did he tell you?”
“Nothing of any importance. We should be going.”
“But I haven’t had my turn!” Victoria protested, grabbing her sister’s skirt firmly and holding her back. “Anyway, the five rupees were for us both!”
At that moment the assistant appeared to call the second miss in.
Victoria practically ran in after the man who had come to fetch her. Grace watched her go with a sigh, then sank down on the wooden bench and looked at the paper. Did the writing really mean what they had told her? Had she understood the man correctly? Maybe I should have the leaf read again by someone else. There must be people on the plantation who could do it.
But what do I care about it anyway? These prophecies must apply to any English people who come to Ceylon. The old man and his assistant, who could even be his son, were sure to be offering this service to make a living. For all she knew, they had written on these palm leaves themselves and created a great stir about them to surround the whole thing with an aura of mystique. Maybe there wasn’t even a library of palm leaves behind that door at all—after all, he’d closed it quickly enough—but a single leaf, which they brought out again and again to people as the old man made up stories.
Who could prove what was really written on the leaf?
I’m going to find out, Grace suddenly decided, and put an end to this deception.
After what seemed like an endless wait, Victoria finally returned. She wasn’t carrying a piece of paper, and she had a long face. “They don’t have one for me,” she said, her voice filled with disappointment.
“What?” Grace raised her eyebrows in amazement. Then anger struck. Of course it’s all just a shabby conjuring trick. She knew it all along! If there were more than one of these ridiculous leaves in existence, they wouldn’t have seen fit to disappoint Victoria. They must be afraid of exposure if they made the same prophecy twice. “I’m going to talk to that man!”
“No, leave it . . .” But Victoria was talking to herself, as Grace was already storming through the beaded curtain.
“Can you tell me why you refused to give my sister one of these absurd leaves?”
Grace drew herself up to her full height, her arms folded.
The old man raised his head and looked at her calmly. He smiled, as though he had allowed her a little joke.
“Some people no palm leaf because souls new in world. Still no karma, no former life yet.”
He spoke English? As well as that? Why had he been acting as though he understood nothing? Was that part of the deceit?
After a brief stunned silence, Grace began again. “I would like to see your alleged palm-leaf library!”
“You can’t,” the old man replied without batting an eyelid.
Grace folded her arms aggressively.
“Why not? Could it be because you only have one of these dried-up leaves? I intend to complain to the governor in person that such fraudulent activities are possible in his territory!”
Although the old man was still looking at her strangely with his penetrating eyes, Grace continued to stare at him defiantly.
Finally, the old man turned to his assistant. “Show them to her.”
“But they’re sacred!” he objected.
“She’ll complain to authorities about us. Show them to her.”
Giving her a dark look, the young man went to the door and opened it.
“Come, miss.”
Grace approached warily. Would the fellow try to hit her? Her heart raced wildly, but her pride prevented her from drawing back. As she peered through the door, the sight took her breath away. In a room about the size of her father’s study, an array of crooked shelves held rows of countless box-like books made up of these inscribed palm leaves. Each of the books held about a dozen dried leaves.
Shaken, Grace took a step back. Her outburst suddenly seemed dreadfully embarrassing.
“I sensed your doubt,” the old man said behind her. “But fate doesn’t care about that. I foretold what will happen to you. If you need my advice about it or want to hear the prophecy again, you can come back at any time.”
“Forgive me, I . . .” Shame robbed Grace of her voice.
“You’re English. You don’t know our ways. Not yet.”
To her amazement his voice sounded neither angry nor offended. “Always listen to your heart, and follow what it tells you,” he added. “If you don’t, you will bring bad luck on yourself and those you love.”
Grace looked at him in bewilderment before taking her leave of the old man.
“You don’t have a leaf for me, do you?” Victoria asked as she came running out to her.
Grace shook her head. “Come on, Victoria, we have to get back!” After looking around briefly at the man who had followed her into the waiting room, she took her sister by the hand and dragged her outside.
Back at the hotel that evening, after a good dressing-down from their mother and a lecture on good behaviour from Miss Giles, Grace was back on the window seat.
Moonlight glinted silver on the harbour and the sea, while the golden lamplight cast her silhouette as a mirror image on the windowpane. The lights of the ships shone in the darkness, and in the distance the lighthouse sent its beam out into the night.
Try as she might, she could not get the visit to the palm-leaf library out of her mind. Maybe because I behaved so frightfully?
The more time that passed since the encounter, the more details that her prejudice had caused her to overlook came into her mind, like a magic spell gradually beginning to take effect.
The way the old man had run the tips of his fingers over the engraved characters and intoned the words in a sing-song drone, to be interpreted by his pupil. The leaf, which must be many centuries old. The scent of incense, patchouli, and other things she couldn’t name. And the man’s eyes!
Although she told herself that the forecast was nonsense, she picked up the piece of paper and a jotter and pencil. She then tried to remember the assistant’s gibberish.
“What are you doing?” Victoria asked, looking up from her beloved city plan.
“I’m writing.”
“What?”
“Just jotting down a few thoughts. Nothing special.”
“Thoughts about your palm leaf?”
Her sharp eyes had not failed to notice that Grace had placed the piece of paper from the library next to her.
“Thoughts about how I’ll probably never again allow myself to be persuaded to follow you to some dubious corner of the city,” Grace replied with a vicious tone to her voice that she hoped concealed her embarrassment. After the fuss she had made on the way back, she could hardly admit that she intended to reconstruct what had been said during the consultation.
“It wasn’t as bad as that!” Victoria replied, turning over a page of the guidebook. “And we haven’t been anywhere near the gemstone merchants yet. I want to go there tomorrow!”
“Only if we go by carriage and avoid the slums! Anyway, I’m sure Mother and Miss Giles will want to come with us—you heard what she said over dinner.”
“Yes, yes. ‘Promise me you’ll never go anywhere near the natives, girls, they’ll eat you alive.’”
Grace couldn’t help smiling at Victoria’s voice.
“You’d better be careful or your face will crack,” Victoria added, since she had noticed that it was taking all her sister’s self-control not to burst out in unbridled laughter.
“You’d better not let Miss Giles or Mother hear you, or we’ll be grounded!”
“Don’t worry. I’ll be a good little ang
el tomorrow.”
Once Victoria had immersed herself again in her travel guide, Grace went back on the trail of the assistant’s words.
What had the man said? That she would find the love of her life before the age of twenty? That she would marry and have a child? It didn’t take a clairvoyant to predict that. Her mother was bound to make sure that she would marry and have a family. It was probably the same for every woman. And it was unlikely that she would get away from here. At best she would live in Colombo, by the sea.
One part unsettled her deeply. In the same year in which her baby was born, a great storm would break over her, ending her life as she knew it. Did that mean she’d die in a storm? Or was it the storm of change that awaited her?
The latter was more likely, as among the mutterings that had become increasingly unclear, she had made out that she was destined to have a good end and wouldn’t pass over to the next life until she was almost sixty-three. Oh yes, and she would spend the rest of her life by the sea.
Grace noted down all these facts, and after reading them through she shook her head.
It looked as though her family wouldn’t be leaving Ceylon any time soon, marriage and children were nothing out of the ordinary, and if she was to live for a total of sixty-two years, it wasn’t particularly old, but it was a long way off. Apart from the age of her death—which she found rather macabre—they were things that any fairground fortune teller could have told her.
But then she recalled something else—the advice the old man had given her as she was leaving. “Always listen to your heart, and follow what it tells you. If you don’t, you will bring bad luck on yourself and those you love.”
Something like that. Listen to my heart, Grace thought, leaning her head against the windowpane. What does my heart want? And why should my wishes affect the fate of my family? The Tremaynes were used to following their intellect, to doing their duty.
Thoughts like these were still preoccupying her as she went to bed and stared, wide awake, at the ceiling.
12
Berlin, 2008
As the underground train rattled towards the city centre, Diana tried to put the information she’d obtained so far about the secret in order. She had found a piece of an oracle, practically an ancient horoscope. She usually laughed over those little predictions in the newspaper, since they were always formulaic enough to apply to anyone. She didn’t believe that anyone could know a person’s complete future, even if it were the case that the hour of death was fixed at birth. But this palm leaf had a strange feel to it. Had Tremayne House breathed a sigh of relief when the leaf was removed from its walls? Did the stones somehow know what they had been concealing? It would be pointless to ask the pragmatic Mr. Green about it . . .
Forty-five minutes later she was back at home. As she entered she was once again struck by the icy atmosphere that had reigned during breakfast and to which she had made her own, not insignificant, contribution.
Damn it, why’s he back so early? Diana thought irritably. He always used to enjoy working late.
“You’re back.”
Diana looked up. Philipp was leaning on the banister.
“Are you going to hang around the house every day, waiting for me to get back? You never used to.”
“I’ve got a day off, or did you forget that? This was supposed to have been our holiday together.”
“Holiday.” Diana sniffed scornfully. “When did you decide that? During the two weeks I was in England? We haven’t had a holiday together for years.”
“Well, maybe it’s time we started to.”
Diana shook her head. What had got into him?
“I’m sorry, I’ve got things to do,” she muttered miserably.
“Please can we talk?” he said then. “Believe me, it was only a one-off.”
Diana didn’t want to talk. Her mind was whirling with all that she had discovered during the day, and she was expecting some important documents by email from Eva.
As she made to pass him on the stairs, his hand shot out and stopped her. Diana looked at him darkly. “What are you doing?”
“I only want to get to the bottom of things.”
Only then did she notice the whiff of alcohol on his breath.
Diana realised that anger wouldn’t get her very far. She could almost think she was a little afraid of her husband.
“Philipp, let me go,” she said with as much self-control as she could muster. Their eyes met and Diana saw that his, which she could never have got enough of in the past, now looked as cold as two dark pits. She knew that any explanation he came out with would be a lie. A lie intended to lull her into a false sense of security and give him the freedom to do it again as soon as the opportunity arose.
“Philipp, please!” She made sure her voice didn’t sound pleading, but determined, as though she were threatening him with a thrashing if he didn’t obey her. The clamp around her arm suddenly loosened.
“Damn it!” he swore in the next moment, slamming his fist angrily down on the banister. Diana jumped back in shock. She had seen him angry on occasion, but not like this.
“Then don’t talk to me!” he snapped. “Creep off into your beloved work. Or maybe back to that derelict English wreck of a house!”
Turning as he spoke the last word, he stormed down the stairs and out of the house. A moment later, his car engine sprang into life. Diana leaned back against the wall.
He’s right, she thought. I should have stayed in England. And he should have stayed with his girlfriend. Why on earth was he here? Only to pacify his conscience, she was sure.
He’s no longer the man I met years ago. Or is it that I’m not the same woman?
As the engine noise faded into the distance, she went upstairs and got out the casket.
“What secrets are you still hiding?” she wondered aloud as she carefully traced the ornate surface with her finger and ran what Michael had told her through her mind. Philipp’s anger distracted her momentarily, but she soon managed to get the information in order.
Minutes later she was sitting in front of the computer searching the Internet: eye-witness accounts of Nadi readings, reports on the accuracy or otherwise of the predictions. If people’s claims were true—and alarm bells frequently rang in Diana’s sceptical mind at the assertions—the palm-leaf oracle was incredibly accurate. Was it possible that what was written on this leaf had actually come to pass?
After thinking about it for a while, Diana picked up the old photograph that had also been in the casket. It nearly fell apart in her hand. She had hardly given it more than a passing glance back in Tremayne House; now, she took the time to look at it more closely. I must have a copy made of it, she thought as her eyes took in the yellowing light patches and dark shadows that depicted a mountain landscape against a radiant sky.
Looking more closely, she noticed that the picture showed more than the imposing mountain. In the distance, almost blotted out by a stain, she noticed a white figure. After trying in vain to identify who it was, she rummaged in the drawer for a magnifying glass, which she kept for picking splinters from her fingers. It failed to make the image much clearer, but she could nevertheless make out that it was a woman. A woman in typical Victorian dress. The painting in the corridor of Tremayne House came into her mind. Could this possibly be Grace or Victoria?
Another look through the magnifying glass told her that this person must be an adult. As Victoria would have been around thirteen or fourteen, Grace was the only possibility. Grace—her great-great-grandmother.
Diana sank back in the chair, overcome by a strange feeling. She was already familiar with Grace from the painting, but that would have been influenced by the painter’s style and the tastes of the times. The camera didn’t lie. It was a pity she couldn’t see her face, as she had no way of knowing what Grace was feeling at that moment.
As for the backdrop, she was a little more certain. She had seen a similar landscape to this once in an article about India. Gr
ace was clearly standing in front of a hill cloaked in tea plants. She must have travelled to Ceylon with her family. Because of her uncle’s death? Or was there another reason?
Diana suddenly knew where her journey would take her.
She quickly stowed the things back in the casket and tucked it under her arm before rushing downstairs.
Half an hour later, Diana was leaving a travel agency having secured a flight to Colombo and a booking at the Grand Oriental Hotel, the place that was highlighted in the old Passenger’s Guide. As soon as she had wound up the legal case that Eva had landed while she was away, Diana intended to fly to Sri Lanka and set out from there on the trail of her ancestors. And, of course, the library from which the palm leaf had been taken.
The travel agent had also given her a leaflet warning of unrest between the Tamil and Sinhalese ethnic groups, and even possible terrorist attacks, but these were far from the areas Diana intended to visit. She felt light with anticipation. The days until her trip would pass quickly if she immersed herself in her work and tried not to think about Philipp. If she handled it well, she would get home when he was out, and leave before he woke in the mornings.
Her head full of these thoughts, she got back into the car and drove towards the office.
Her phone rang on the way. Assuming it was Philipp, she didn’t bother to pull over, but continued to follow the tram line until she reached her turn. It was only once she had found a parking space near her office in Charlottenburg that she looked to see who it was.
The caller had left her a voicemail. Although she hadn’t yet saved the number, she recognised it and immediately dialled up the voicemail.
“It’s me, Michael,” the voice said. “I’ve finished with your palm leaf earlier than I expected to. Please can you get in touch? You have my number.”
She immediately pressed the green button and dialled the missed-call number.
Michael sounded breathless when he answered.
“What’s up? Are you running a marathon?”
“No, I’m just in the middle of looking for something,” he replied. “Thanks for getting back to me so quickly.”
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