The Red Thread

by Dawn Farnham

  As she passed the doorway, her eyes sought him. She could see Mr Erskine, the sitting magistrate, and his new wife, presenting their congratulations. Then she saw them, the young woman in a heavily embroidered gown of pink, blue, and turquoise, covered in jewels, her face round and white, her lips ruby red, eyes lowered, a golden crown on her head.

  Zhen was beside her, in dark silk, with the gold-and-silver Chinese dragon on his chest. She remembered seeing it in the room the day she had first walked into his arms. He wore a black mandarin hat, the top studded with a huge diamond. He looked straight ahead, not moving, as each guest passed before him. He had never looked so handsome: regal, a young emperor. Robert gripped his sister’s arm and they moved slowly forward.

  Zhen saw her. He felt moths fluttering somewhere in the base of his stomach. Her eyes were down, not looking at him. His face impassive, he waited, but Noan had suddenly noticed his hand grip the closed fan he held a little tighter. It was an imperceptible movement to anyone but her. She swivelled her lowered eyes to his face, but saw nothing to explain the movement. The next guest passed, and a pale yellow silk skirt came into view. She saw her husband’s hand clench tighter. The skirt stopped in front of her husband, the black trousers of a man in front of her. Words were uttered which she did not understand, and then the skirt dipped slightly and seemed to sway towards the black trousers and departed. Her husband’s hand remained clenched. She did not know what to make of this, had not dared to raise her eyes in this company of the ang mo.

  Charlotte breathed deeply as she left the mansion. She had stood in front of him as Robert paid his compliments and congratulations. Then she had raised her eyes. He was looking at her, his gaze seemingly saying nothing, but knowing him now, she saw the intensity. Remember the words in the orchard, she had thought. They had echoed faintly in the back of her mind. Love, yours: pointless, meaningless words. Then, feeling faint, she had leaned onto Robert’s arm, dropped a brief curtsy and Robert had taken her from the room. He had called for the carriage, and they were soon driving away from the mansion.

  ‘A handsome couple, eh Robbie?’ Charlotte was eventually able to say.

  Robert said nothing.

  ‘Very handsome, don’t you think? The bride pretty, the groom manly, eh, Robbie?’

  Robert heard the faint note of hysteria in his sister’s voice.

  ‘Stop, Kitt. Stop it.’

  Charlotte leaned her head on his shoulder and said nothing more. When they arrived at the bungalow, Robert showed her the clothes on her bed, told her to change. The Sea Gypsy stood ready, rocking against the jetty. Today they would go out on the sea, far along the coast to the house at Katong, and stay there, the two of them. First they would swim, the way they once had back on their mother’s island, the feel of the warm water soothing her cares. He was taking whisky, and they’d talk and get a little drunk, eat fish and walk along the beach, draw solace from the beauty of the island, the curve of the leaning coconut palms, listening to the song of the sea, the white sand. They’d watch the little shells running back and forth with the waves, the crabs popping their heads from watery holes, the kites making lazy circles in the sky. There would be a big driftwood fire, and there would be no one else in the world but them.

  41

  Robert was with George at the Christian cemetery. The pure white twin rotundas were complete, standing together, shining against the dark wood of the banyan tree, the fresh green of the tamelan. George had not wanted his workmen to build them, and apart from preparing the ground on which they stood, he, Robert, John and his old friend, Billy Napier, had put down every brick and spread the thick white chunam over them. Now they were sweeping up.

  ‘Fine work, old friends. I thank you; I do indeed.’

  They all gathered round and contemplated their handiwork as they drank the ale which George had ordered, brought from the tavern in earthen jars dripping with condensation. Six fluted columns with Ionic scrolls supported a frieze of flowers, and above that rose the curved and nippled domes of the rotunda. George smiled. The rotunda was an ancient and classical monument, a temple to cults of the earth goddess, to fertility, to life, not death. A sacred space, a sky within. There was a reason he had chosen the Ionic order for Tir Uaidhne, a private amusement shared with Takouhi. These two little temples to Meda and Takouhi were his tribute to love. He had buried the tokens—one for his daughter and one for his wife—inside the brickwork, and now as he contemplated them, it was a small soothing balm on his heart.

  George seemed to have revived, but all three of these men saw his eyes.

  ‘The heart will break, yet brokenly live on:

  Even as a broken mirror, which the glass

  In every fragment multiplies; and makes

  A thousand images of one that was,

  The same, and still the more, the more it breaks;

  And thus the heart will do which not forsakes,

  Living in shattered guise, and still, and cold,

  And bloodless, with its sleepless sorrow aches,

  Yet withers on till all without is old,

  Shewing no visible sign, for such things are untold.’

  George went over to the grave of Thomas Hallpike and looked down at it, remembering the day he had stood here with her. Then, together, they moved about the cemetery, contemplating the headstones and reflecting on the brief lives of those who lay there. So many children. Dr Montgomerie’s little ones, who had died the same day, two years old and one, Margaret and Robert, next to their tiny brother, dead just two years later. The heartbreak spoken of by those three little graves. Here lay one three years, ten months; there, a child three months; eight years—Charles and Ella, two babies of Jose da Souza; and also his granddaughter, Maria, one year, seven days. It went on and on, the terrible toll.

  ‘Let’s talk of graves, of worms and epitaphs.

  Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes

  Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.’

  He took a long drink of ale.

  ‘Ah, boys. Poor Thomas, Maria, Margaret, all of them, never got to know the joy of love. We should be grateful, aye, we should, for what we get. Takouhi and I had eighteen years, and for most of them we had Meda.’ He faltered at the sound of her name and drank.

  ‘Count our blessings, eh? Not for sorrow, these two little temples. Ad vitam. Ad amor aeternum.’

  He raised his tankard, and they all drank to Thomas, and missed love, and George’s two loves, and loss, knowing he would go away too.

  When the news had come of Meda’s death, George had shut himself up in Tir Uaidhne. Charlotte had gone to the shuttered house, let in by one of Takouhi’s young Malay servants. He was dirty and half-dressed, gone the pretty green jacket and white sarong. After he closed the door, he ran off, and in the dusty half-light she climbed the staircase to the bedroom.

  ‘Black Melancholy sits and round her throws

  A death-like silence and a dread repose

  Her gloomy presence saddens all the scene

  Shades every flower, darkens ev’ry green’

  She felt it in the house: black melancholy, a miasmic vapour trailing on the air. She opened the door to the bedroom. Airless, it smelled cloyingly of jasmine incense. He lay curled on their big bed, behind the mosquito netting, unmoving. When she went up to the bed, she saw that he was asleep, a bottle of whisky by the bedside, a book open on a pillow. Gaunt, unshaven, his head resting on Takouhi’s silken gown, one of Meda’s little English dolls held loosely in his hand. She lay down by his side. She was as utterly miserable as he, although she knew she had no right to compare his enduring love, his dreadful loss, to her brief encounter. Yet both seemed monumentally important.

  The faint and haunting chords of the gamelan seemed to echo round the empty house, but she knew these sounds were inside her head.

  She slept, and when George woke, befuddled, he imagined Takouhi had returned and took her in his arms. She woke then and held onto him, and he realised.

&n
bsp; ‘I’m leaving, Kitt.’

  ‘I know, George. You have to go.’

  ‘Will you be all right?’

  ‘Yes, I will, George. I think I must go too, soon, to Takouhi. Would that be all right, do you think? Will you not come with me?’

  ‘No, Kitt. I cannot. It could never be the same between us. But will you tell me if she’s well and where Meda is buried? Tell her about the temples on the hill. Perhaps lovers a hundred years from now will stop and gaze at them and wonder what they mean, kiss against them in the dusk. Ask her dukun to guide their spirits there to meet up with me one day. That’d be a comfort.’

  ‘Yes, I will, though I’m certain she will return. She needs time.’

  She took his head in her arms, and they lay awhile together as shadows moved around the room.

  Finally she sat up and took up the book on the pillow, opened at the page he had been reading:

  ‘For hearts so touch’d, so pierc’d, so lost as mine.

  Ere such a soul regains its peaceful state,

  How often must it love, how often hate!

  How often hope, despair, resent, regret,

  Conceal, disdain—do all things but forget.

  But let Heav’n seize it, all at once ’tis fir’d;

  Not touch’d but rapt; not wakened, but inspir’d!

  Oh come! oh teach me nature to subdue,

  Renounce my love, my life, myself—and you.

  How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot!

  The world forgetting, by the world forgot.

  Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!’

  The impassioned plea of Eloise to erase Abelard from her memory. ‘Desires compos’d, affections ever ev’n’, the spotless mind of emptiness.

  ‘Would you cut them from your remembrance, George? As if they’d never been?’

  ‘Sometimes, when the longing is strong. When I think of sweet Meda and in what shades she might lie.’

  He sat up now too, against the pillow.

  ‘She would not want it though. “Silly-billy, George,” she’d say. But the Javanese are the most gentle people, locked into eternal rhythms, accepting what we white fools cannot. As if we can change the way of the world.’

  He stopped for a moment, then continued. ‘Plato said that death is not the worst that can happen to men. It is either a dreamless sleep or else a passing to another place where all the dead are, the poets and heroes, wise men of old, children, lovers. Either way it is not a loss but a gain.’

  He paused, then looked at Charlotte. ‘Of course, you might find all the long-departed, pale and pompous governors of the East India Company, and that would not be such a blessing.’

  Charlotte smiled. ‘And their wives.’

  They both laughed.

  ‘When will you go, George?’

  ‘When I’ve found a tenant for me house. Not Tir Uaidhne, not this one. I don’t want anyone living here. Put things in store, lend Matahari to Robert. I might go to Europe, cultivate meself, do the tour. A thousand miles or one, what does it matter if she won’t be with me anymore?’

  He moved away and sat up.

  At the mention of Tir Uaidhne, Charlotte suddenly remembered that she had never had an answer about the name written large across its portal.

  ‘George, may I ask about Tir Uaidhne? What does it mean? I asked once before, but you never told me, and Takouhi didn’t feel able to explain properly.’

  George rose and got off the bed, offering her his hand.

  ‘I’m as dry as a nun’s cupboard. Pardon the vulgarity. And I surely smell like Father Flaherty’s goat as well. Come, we’ll get some coffee, and I’ll tell you the story.’

  He smiled at her, and they went down to the kitchen.

  When she left George, she walked down Coleman Street to the Armenian church and sat inside. It was always so peaceful inside this lovely building, and she felt close to Takouhi here, able to reach her through a mist of Javanese spirituality. Alamah, she heard her say, don’ be silly-billy, for goo’ness sake.

  Charlotte smiled, lit a candle for Meda’s sweet soul and leant her head against the back of the pew, filled with the futility of it all, remembering her voice: ‘Bonjour. Comment allez-vous?’

  The wedding was over and this was the first time Zhen had been free. He was in his house. The shop was being fitted. Tan was passing over some of his business to his new son-in-law, and Zhen was also using part of the shophouse for Chinese medicine. The final night of the wedding he and Noan had moved back into the bridal chamber. Her period was over. This time he had lain next to her when she got into the bed. He had decided that he would have sex with her regularly until she got pregnant, but quickly, no lingering around. Zhen knew he would have to sleep in this house until that time. Tan would not bother him after that. He would be freer to come and go.

  Noan lay still as he moved on her. She did not know if he wanted her to touch him, so she lay passively, scared he would repeat the rough intensity of the first night.

  Zhen finished as quickly as possible that first time. The second time, though, he began to like the feel of her soft and full brown body and had begun to touch her gently. He realised, despite everything he had told himself, he could not lie with a woman, any woman, without using his skills to arouse her. Without her response, it made everything too ugly. The third time, Noan had begun to react, happy beyond anything that Zhen allowed himself to be touched.

  Now, weeks later he had grown sick of her. He could see she adored him. She could not hide it in the way she served him food, poured him tea, turned her body to his each night, desperate to touch, be touched. She sought his lips, but this he could not bear. There was no passion in this lovemaking with her. Her red mouth repelled him, and her cloying attentiveness had begun to irritate. He needed to see Charlotte. Since his marriage, she had not once come to Boat Quay.

  Tan, by contrast, was delighted. In the morning, at the breakfast table the two men shared, he could see his daughter’s happiness. She served her father and husband with devotion. Nothing was too much. Zhen only had to raise his head for Noan to run to his side, waiting to answer any call. He certainly had a way with women, for all the daughters got slightly giggly when he was in their presence. He could see that it might be time to look for a husband for his second daughter, for the marriage of her sister seemed to have unsettled her. She was not yet fifteen, but after her birthday he would start to look around. Zhen had been a good choice. As soon as a pregnancy was announced, Tan intended to settle a sum of money on him for his new business.

  The second daughter was more unsettled than her father could have imagined. She had developed a black hatred for Noan, envious every night when she and her husband closed the door to the bridal chamber. She had taken to creeping into the robing room after her mother went to bed and listening to the noises they made. She heard her sister’s soft moans and his deep voice, and trembled with the intensity of her feelings. She could not help thinking about what she knew: if something happened to a wife, it was not uncommon for a man to marry a sister.

  42

  Zhen fairly skipped across the bridge and along North Bridge Road. Qian had trouble keeping up and had to call him to slow down. Zhen smiled and stopped, waiting for his friend. They were going to the school at the Catholic chapel. Today he would see Charlotte after so long. He would ask her to meet him at his house tonight.

  He saw her as they turned in the gate; she was standing with Father Lee. Her loveliness was a rediscovery, a moment of Zen enlightenment; he felt his whole being falling instantaneously in love with her again.

  When she turned to face them, she did not smile. They bowed to her, and she bobbed a curtsy and then turned abruptly and went into the chapel to teach the younger boys. Zhen was dumbfounded. He had seen her eyes the day of the wedding reception, seen her faltering, knew she was badly affected. It had occupied his thoughts every night as he drank the rice wine and willed the silly girl in the bed to go to sleep.

  He c
ould not wait for the lesson to end and bowed quickly to Father Lee and left the classroom, going to the chapel before she could leave. As she came out of the little room next to the sacristy, he called her quietly. She looked at him with such impassive coldness he felt it pierce him like a needle. She made her way down the outer aisle to avoid him, but he quickly cut her off near the door to the side garden. He pushed the door open and, taking her hand, pulled her through. On this side there were several groves of trees, and he knew that once inside one of them, they would not be seen from the chapel.

  She tried to pull her hand out of his, but he was not about to let her go. Charlotte knew she should cry out, but this touch on her hand had shaken her resolve—this sad, crumbly thing she called ‘resolve’. She let herself be led into the wood. He put her against the trunk of a tree, taking her waist in his hands, sinking to his knees, imploring her soundlessly to take his head in her hands, forgive him.

  She looked down at him. Why did he always know how to turn her mood? Had he tried to kiss her she would have slapped him but this passivity squeezed resistance out of her.

  ‘Please, Xia Lou.’

  She put a hand on his head, touching his hair, and he pulled himself into her, holding his face against her dress. ‘Zhen, I cannot go on like this. It will kill me.’

  He rose then and took her hand, putting it to his lips. ‘Yes, we talk about this. Please, Xia Lou, come my house tonight?’

  Charlotte sighed. If she went to his house, she knew there would be little talking. Qian had been right. Zhen was a river, and she was simply swept along when she was alone with him, powerless to resist.

  She had made up her mind to leave. George had found a tenant for his house, auctioned off some things, stored others. He stayed in Tir Uaidhne now. Charlotte had gone every day at dusk with George to the cupolas, putting flowers under their domes, lighting incense, both of them finding peace in this quiet, green place. They sat near the young banyan tree which was entwining itself in and around the tamelan so that the leaves of both drooped gracefully to the ground together. The tamelan was just beginning to put out its flowers; they covered it in a haze of lilac buds. George read a poem to her which he had received from one of the American clipper captains, an American Indian funeral chant, the captain had said, and it had given his mind an unexpected comfort: