Flash House

by Aimee E. Liu

  “You see?” Mem said. “Every sacrifice has its reward.”

  Her eyes were on the road, so I couldn’t tell whether she was answering Lawrence or speaking to us all. She was steering around an uphill turn so sharp that the car shuddered. The hillside dropped away long and steep, and there was no barricade. I wondered for the first time why it was always Mem who drove.

  But Lawrence seemed unconcerned. “I don’t believe in sacrifice,” he said. “But I’ll take all the rewards I can get.” Then he threw his arm across the back of the front seat and half turned to Simon and me. He winked so that he was looking at us only through his silver eye, then he winked again, so that only his green eye was watching. He seemed to be two people behind a single skin.

  Kasauli was cool and green. Terraced fields stepped down either side of the narrow ridge on which the village perched. There were patches of forest, with views of snowcapped mountains to the north. To the south stretched the bleached yellow plain we’d just crossed, with the Yamuna River like a silver snake. Simon and I put our heads out the windows and breathed in the cool pine-soaked air. We were greeted with yawns by rows of brown monkeys sunning themselves on the roadside walls, more solemnly by the families of black-faced langurs keeping watch from the trees. It was not as grand as Kashmir, not as bleak as the Karakorams or as wild as the Tien Shan, but it seemed familiar nonetheless.

  The road ended in a square car park filled with the vehicles of other firenghi escaping the heat of the plains. Before we could open the doors we were surrounded by porters and rickshaw pullers offering their services. These were hill men, some locals with orange hair and green eyes, others Nepali and Tibetans whose broad faces reminded me of Tot. Lawrence passed our luggage to two of the local porters, who loaded up quickly and trotted ahead. We followed on foot along a narrow path past native shophouses, hotels and bungalows built by the British, and a steepled church made of gray stone. Soon we were out of the town. Footpaths slid sharply from the main trail to houses tucked below. The breezes carried the fragrance of wood smoke, and the last of the daylight fell like lace across the dirt tracks. As we walked, Mem breathed deeply and swung her arms. Lawrence took her hand.

  The path to our guesthouse plunged down an incline between rows of pipal and deodar trees. The house itself, which sat out of view from the main trail, faced north into the mountains. It had two stories, a tin roof painted red, and a small surrounding yard and rose garden. A radio crackled from one of the upstairs windows.

  Mrs. Swetenberg, the elderly lady who owned the house, answered our knock herself. She wore a long black skirt and a starched white blouse, and welcomed us warmly. We were her only guests. Her husband had been a major in the British Indian Army, though he had gone to heaven many years ago, and she was born in Denmark. She told all this in a single sweep of words, as if it was important we know her story before entering her home.

  Simon leaned over and asked, didn’t she remind me of the little old lady in his Babar books? We agreed, she seemed very nice. So nice, in fact, that by lunchtime the next day, she and Mem had baked us a birthday cake.

  It was iced in chocolate with yellow frosting roses around its base. Simon, who craved sweets, was quite beside himself at the sight of it and gulped down his meal in anticipation. I did not share the intensity of his craving, but I was amused by the excitement he always brought to such moments. Finally Mem and Lawrence began lighting the candles—twelve on one side for me and ten for Simon on the other, with two in the middle, Mem explained, for good luck. “Children, say thank you to Mrs. Swetenberg.”

  “Thank you,” we cried.

  Mrs. Swetenberg’s face lit up. “You are most very welcome, but it is I who should thank you for having me to your party. If only I’d been blessed with children. I do so love having young people in my Kasauli home.”

  She said it just like that, as if she had fifteen or sixteen other homes. It seemed quite natural, then, for Simon to ask, “Where are your other homes?” But this brought tears to her eyes. She pressed at them with a white handkerchief.

  “No,” she said, “you misunderstand. They’re all gone now. I have no other home anymore.”

  Mem touched the old lady’s hand, and a look passed between them that seemed briefly to exclude everyone else in the room. Mrs. Swetenberg sighed and closed her eyes.

  Lawrence finished lighting the candles. Then he loudly hummed a note, and everyone sang “Happy Birthday to You.” That broke the sadness. Lawrence shouted, “Who can blow out the most candles! On your marks, get set… Go!”

  Simon and I leaned over the cake. Our heads banged together as we blew. Three breaths later the flames were out.

  Mem insisted that Mrs. Swetenberg judge. The old lady took her time. She tapped one long finger against her chin, staring hard through the field of smoke. She inspected one set of candles, then the other, frowned at each of us in turn. At last she said, “Simon, you certainly blew out more than your ten, and Kamla, you fell a bit short of your twelve, but that boils down to a tie. I suggest you receive equal slices of cake.” She placed a hand on each of our heads, and smiled at Mem. “All right?”

  “All right.” Mem smiled back. She liked the old lady. I could see that. And she liked this place. She seemed more at ease here than she ever seemed in Delhi. She had fixed her hair in a pretty fashion, clipping it back with a sprig of jasmine behind one ear. Even her lipstick seemed softer, the color of a fresh peach instead of the geranium red she normally wore.

  I looked to Lawrence, saw the way his eyes played over her bent head, the slope of her arm as she helped Mrs. Swetenberg remove the candles. He smiled and swallowed at the same time.

  We ate our cake. Simon and Mrs. Swetenberg both had second helpings. Then Lawrence brought out our birthday presents. Simon’s consisted of a wooden cricket bat (“For playing with Nagu’s boys,” Mem explained) and, from Lawrence, a spyglass in a leather case. Mine were a copy of Jane Eyre (“At the rate you’re progressing in school,” Mem assured me, “you’ll be ready for the Bronte sisters before you know it”) and, from Lawrence, a black-banded Timex watch, ordered from the States.

  I kissed Mem and Lawrence each on the cheek to thank them. Lawrence returned the kiss with a hug so strong my shoulders ached afterward. Then Mrs. Swetenberg excused herself to take her nap, and Simon asked if he and I could go outside. It was a fine day, warm and clear, and he wanted to test his new spyglass.

  “Be back before dark,” Mem said. It was not even two in the afternoon.

  The guesthouse was surrounded by paths that led up and down the mountain. Even the immediate grounds stretched over several levels, with old servant quarters and sheds and other outbuildings to each side. But Simon wanted to stay close to the main house. “Let’s spy on ’em,” he said, training the glass back across the ribbon of lawn as Mem and Lawrence came through the dining room door to the terrace. Lawrence waved. Simon lowered the glass. “We need to go somewhere they can’t see us,” he whispered. “I want to see if I can read their lips.”

  I was willing to play Simon’s games because he was my brother, because I was expected to behave like a child, and because I had no other friends. In truth, while I enjoyed his enthusiasm for play, and marveled at it, I did not often share it. This game, however, appealed to me.

  We went behind the servant quarters, up the hillside behind the house, and back down on the far side of an overgrown rose garden that bordered the terrace. We squatted under a veil of petals that, when Simon passed me the spyglass, appeared as enormous pink blurs in the lens. When I aimed between them, however, Mem’s and Lawrence’s faces leapt into focus, seeming as close to me as Simon. Lawrence sat sideways on a lawn chair with his hands knotted between his knees. Mem lay on the chaise beside him, one arm up against the sun. She had removed her shoes, and her bare toes pointed skyward, ankles crossed, her skirt fanning out around her like a great blue blossom.

  In fact, we hardly needed to read their lips. Except for the occasional trill of a
bird, the rustle of langurs in the tall pines, and the faint scrape as Mrs. Swetenberg’s mali raked the front walk, the mountain was quiet. The breeze carried Mem’s and Lawrence’s voices as effectively as a telephone. I offered Simon the glass, but he was so pleased at my interest in his game that he motioned for me to keep it.

  “You realize,” Lawrence was saying, “a year ago we were in Kashgar.”

  “Seems more like twelve,” Mem said. She cupped her hands over her eyes to watch a formation of geese flap across the sky.

  “Not all twelve equally unbearable, I hope.”

  “Not equally.” She smiled at him. “No.”

  Her arm came down so that her elbow lay crooked above her head. The sun beat on her face. She closed her eyes, and the smile ended.

  He placed a hand on her ankle. “You’ve done all you can, Jo.”

  Suddenly Mrs. Swetenberg’s radio came on, pouring static from her upstairs window. A man’s voice sounded, loud and stern, then quieted to a murmur.

  Mem sat up and rubbed her forehead. “I don’t know.”

  “At a certain point, it’s not about him anymore. You realize that.”

  “But what is that point?” She shook her head. “The worst of it is, I don’t know whether I love him or hate him.”

  “Maybe the answer is both.” He leaned toward her. “It usually is, you know.”

  “There’s nothing usual—”

  He cut her off. “The thing is, what if he really is dead? You need proof, I know. But what if there is no proof, or no way to find it? What if I asked you to—”

  Simon ripped the glass from my hands. I’d forgotten he was there. Still, I didn’t see why he had to grab. But then I realized he was not merely taking the spyglass. He was growling—whining. He yanked me by the arm. “Come away!” He began to scream, dragging me now, his face like a fright mask. I had no idea he was so strong. His shrieking seemed that of a mouse, but a mouse with the energy of an elephant.

  “Simon—!”

  I watched the spyglass fall behind us, the lens cracking on a rock, but Simon paid no heed. He had me by the sleeve and was running. We rounded the servant quarters and nearly tripped over Mrs. Swetenberg’s mali.

  “Ek dam jao!” Simon screamed at the man. “Saap!”

  “Snake?” I asked. “What snake?”

  “It was in the grass, right by your foot.”

  As the gardener grabbed up his hand scythe and motioned for Simon to show the way, I realized I was trembling. We hurried back, the mali sending up a shout of alarm that brought the entire household to attention. Mrs. Swetenberg was roused from her nap. The cook and bearer came running. Mem and Lawrence stood at the edge of the terrace looking stunned and anxious. They had Simon and me come stand beside them as the servants proceeded to beat the ground around the roses to drive off any remaining snakes, then searched more closely, poking sticks underneath a pile of loose rocks.

  A short distance from where we had been squatting, they found a pocket of leaves containing thirty small egg sacs. It seemed we had taken cover in front of a cobra’s nest.

  “You saved my life,” I told Simon that night. We were sharing a corner attic room under the eaves. There was no light, but our beds, as in Delhi, stood close enough together that I could see him in the darkness. I reached across the gap and touched his shoulder. He turned his small sweet face.

  “I’d do it again,” he said. “I love you.”

  The words sprang from him like pebbles from a slingshot, and I sensed an urgency in his voice that I had never heard before. He curled his hand over mine. Our palms were the same size. Outside, it began to rain.

  I thought of our dress-up days. Simon in his father’s white dinner jacket and I in Mem’s red evening dress, the low collar slipping off one shoulder and my hair twisted up on top of my head. How, stepping in, stepping out through the long leg slit, I would pose for him, chin up and saucy as a film star. And his eyes would grow large, his voice hushed. “Princess Kamla.”

  At the time I thought he was merely playing back to me. Now I was not so sure.

  I didn’t move, didn’t push him away. He slipped out of his bed and into mine. I sat up, brought my knees against my chest, pulled my nightgown down over them. He lay behind me, hugging my back. His chin pressed too sharply into my hip, but still I didn’t object.

  The next morning Mem and Lawrence told us that war had broken out in a place called Korea. American soldiers would be fighting against Korean and Chinese Communists. Simon asked if we knew any American soldiers, and I thought of the green helmet in his father’s closet, but Mem hugged him and said, no, no soldiers. If we were lucky no one we knew would be hurt by this war.

  Lawrence poured himself a glass of whiskey and stared off into the mountains.

  4

  “In 1868,” he spoke into her ear, “two British adventurers spent three months in the middle of winter crossing the Karakorams, the very same route you and I traveled. One of them was Robert Shaw. The other was George Hayward. Both of them were determined to be the first Brits into Chinese Turkestan, and they often camped no more than a mile from each other, but in all that time they met face-to-face just once, for about an hour. Months later they were taken prisoner separately by the King of Kashgaria. After weeks of confinement Shaw was released and told he could return to India. He was also told that Hayward would be kept on as a hostage. Shaw refused. He said he wouldn’t leave unless the King released Hayward, too.”

  “Don’t tell me Aidan’s related to this noble spirit.”

  “No.” He lifted his voice above the rain slamming like artillery fire against the tin roof. “That’s just coincidence.”

  “Then why are you telling me this?”

  “Shaw loathed Hayward. He called him ‘the thorn in my flesh,’ yet he risked his life to save him.” Still holding her fast with one arm, Lawrence ran his other hand flatly down her side, grazing the slope of her naked breast, the channeled ribs, finding the valley at her waist and sinking the hard edge of his palm into her softest flesh.

  “We’re at war now,” she said. “And Aidan’s trapped inside enemy lines—”

  “A year after Shaw got him out of Turkestan, Hayward was back trotting over the Pamir Steppe, tempting fate all over again. He sent out news dispatches about the local Maharajah slicing up babies from some rebel tribe. Guess what? The Maharajah had Hayward killed—in his camp, along with his loyal servants. A single stroke of the sword. Shaw’d saved his life for nothing.”

  “What more do you want from me?”

  She attempted to roll away from him, but he snaked an arm around her shoulder, brought his hand across her chest, and pinned himself against her back. “What are we doing?” He moved his hips, unlocking her legs. “Is it only the thrill of betraying him? The dare?”

  She struggled against the power of his thigh now curling over her, the intrusion of heat and desire. He could feel it. The affliction of her own lust.

  “Yes.” She was crying. “Yes! Are you happy? You win. It’s all about Aidan. And maybe he’s not worth it, but he’s not dead. Not for me!”

  He felt the air go out of him as cleanly as if she had driven a hatpin through his lungs.

  Chapter 10

  1

  HE ESCAPED TO CALCUTTA. Preposterous thought. Calcutta, the fabled Black Hole. Mecca for refugees, headquarters for the Goddess of Death and Destruction. Well, maybe not so preposterous after all, he considered, settling down for a late morning drink in the lobby of the Grand Hotel.

  There were the usual palms in shiny brass pots, twirling ceiling fans, and mahogany paneling. It was coming down outside, and the morning light from the veranda slanted pale green and viscous. Most of the desk staff stood lethargically staring through the open doors at the downpour. Occasionally put-upon guests would straggle in shaking off beads of rain from their slickers, stamping sodden feet, and snapping umbrellas in the bellboys’ faces. The energy with which Europeans battled the monsoon struck Lawrence
as one more example of the gulf between Asia and the West. Asians, who waited most of the year for the rains and then, often as not, were flooded or even drowned by them, threw monsoon parties to welcome them. They would run out in their finest suits and saris with arms spread wide and mouths open to catch the first drops. Europeans, by contrast, treated the monsoons as a personal affront, wearing their rain gear like armor and ranting over India’s lack of storm drains, gutters, protected cisterns, popping malaria pills like candies and ordering their gin and whiskey neat because they dared not trust the ice—even in the best hotels. Like this one, he thought, jiggling the cubes in his own sweating glass and drinking deeply.

  He was alone in the bar except for the Assamese waiter and a shirt-sleeved man tuning the piano. The instrument seemed to be resisting the tuner’s efforts—doubtless the effect of humidity. The thudding repetition of notes was like a faltering heartbeat. Tung, tung, tung.

  He thought of Davey splayed on the ground, the roar of his own pulse as he turned his face so the child wouldn’t see the terror in his father’s eyes. He thought of Joanna down on her knees, clutching Simon and Kamla—safe. Did she have any idea how lucky she was? Was she even capable of appreciating just how much more she had to lose?

  He dug a hand into the silver bowl of cashews on the table in front of him and popped the whole fistful into his mouth, then washed it down with gin and tonic. Breakfast.