The Shallow Seas

by Dawn Farnham

  Charlotte had never before experienced such an elegant hotel. The mere idea was somewhat intriguing. In Singapore the only hotel she had entered was on Commercial Square; it was a rather plain and practical place, meant for the sailors who passed through the town. Here, Takouhi had told her, the chef was French, a student of Beauvilliers, the famous gastronome. Takouhi lowered her voice and confided to Charlotte the rumour that he had come to Batavia because of some scandal. He had been in service with Van der Cappellen and Du Bus de Gisignies, but, so the story went, quickly got tired of the Dutch palate of his employers and had been engaged by the Hotel Place Royale with the understanding that he would be in charge of the restaurant. Here food was served à la russe, one dish after the other. Charlotte had not heard of this man, but marvelled somewhat at the number of the French who seemed to so thoroughly dominate the couture, cuisine and arts of Batavia.

  They were shown to a table at the edge of the terrace by the maître d’hotel, a middle-aged Javanese dressed in a dark-patterned sarong, a white jacket and batik cap. Charlotte was somewhat amused to note that his feet were bare. The owner of the hotel, knowing that Charlotte would soon be married to one of the wealthiest men in Batavia, had immediately paid his respects to both ladies. He was a small man with an impeccable moustache and slightly yellowing teeth. He smelled of lavender water and had the disconcerting habit of sniffing at the end of every sentence. He offered to bring them some wine, with his compliments, but they declined. Charlotte did not wish to see a glass of wine for a long time to come.

  The menu arrived, they made their choices, and Charlotte looked around her at this house of Olivia and Thomas Raffles. The other diners threw glances in their direction, and some of the men made no effort at all to contain their stares.

  “Takouhi, did you know Olivia Raffles at all?” Charlotte asked as a basket of small hot rolls arrived, followed rapidly by their first course, a soupe à la purée de pois.

  “Yes, not well. She spend most time at Buitenzorg or travelling with Thomas. Often sick. Sometimes she come here to this house and wives have to come to see her. I come too because Indies women scared of her. Thomas very kind man to me, very, umm, how to say, gracious.”

  “What was she like?”

  Takouhi finished her soup. “Quite beautiful, lovely skin, white and pink, like that. Eyes very lovely. Dark, thick hair. Good figure. She like to wear colourful clothes. She speak good Malay, clever. Kind, not bad person I think. We have, how you say, no same experience.”

  “Nothing in common?” Charlotte offered.

  “Yes, nothing in common, right. English want to change us. I not mind, I think some changes nice, but many hate this. She often with friend, Flora Nightingall, wife of second military commander. When she talk with Flora, very easy. My English not good like now but I see that.”

  A grilled white fish arrived with a delicate sauce, and a dish of asparagus. A second waiter spread a quantity of small side dishes around the table. Sambal, chilli, fish sauce, small raw vegetables with peanut sauce, pembek, tempeh, tall cones of rice arranged in fresh green banana leaves, preserved fruit. The Indies table, it seemed, could never be abandoned, even in a French restaurant.

  As they finished their meal, a man walked over and bowed.

  Takouhi looked up and smiled. “Oh, Captain Palmer, hello.” she said.

  Captain Palmer took her hand gallantly and raised it to his lips. “Miss Manouk, how lovely to see you.”

  He turned his gaze to Charlotte. He was entirely charmed. There was no doubt, he thought to himself, the dusky maidens served their purpose, but the skin of a lovely young white woman was heaven to behold. Her creamy bosom was exposed just enough to excite admiration, and her hair was as black as midnight. But her eyes were her feature, blue as Boston skies. Sometimes he missed America, but not, of course, enough to go back. Besides, this creature was beyond anything he had ever seen in America or anywhere else. He felt a dangerous pull, even as she was introduced as Tigran Manouk’s fiancée.

  After the presentations were made and the exchange of civilities completed, he took his leave with obvious reluctance. Takouhi watched him depart.

  Palmer was a ruggedly good-looking man, tall with broad shoulders and grey eyes. Takouhi sensed something dangerous in him that she could not put her finger on. She knew little about him. He had been recommended to her as a tenant for her house in Nordwijk by Gillean Maclaine, with whom he was in business, provisioning the American ships which were often in port.

  They departed, with compliments to the chef. He was one of a number, Takouhi told her, French, Chinese and Malay, who would prepare the food for the European reception at the Harmonie Club. Charlotte had begun to realise the stir that this wedding was having on the town.

  The heat was now oppressive, and the skies growing heavy. Rain was in the air, and they turned for home, abandoning other plans. As they alighted from the barouche, a wind whipped up quickly. Within seconds, the trees were tossing their heads, and servants rushed around the house, closing windows and doors with rapid clacks. Charlotte knew that once the wind got up, it could whirl vegetation into the air and whisk papers in the house into a dance. Lashing rain would follow in minutes.

  8

  Tigran caressed the girl’s face, motioned her to dress and go. She was pretty and pliant, as the hill girls were, but he had been unable to arouse a single ounce of passion for her. She was probably amazed—disappointed perhaps—but it was not important. For as long as he wanted her, she would stay in the house. He would send her home tomorrow. She was not a slave; she was Sundanese, and she had asked to come to him. They always asked to come to him. To be with the white master was a mark of prestige over all the other girls in the village. But any child of these village girls he would not legitimise. He would see them cared for but nothing more.

  He examined his conscience. Charlotte had awakened thoughts he would rather not examine. How many children of his or even his father’s were in the villages on the plantation? He had once wondered if he were sometimes sleeping with a half sister and made sure to choose only the darkest girls. It was kinder to leave the children to the kampong life than rip them from their mother’s arms to a bizarre life in limbo. Everyone accepted this. Most men were happy to marry the women, for they came with dowries from him and could never go back. Village women in Java were not subservient or restricted. Divorce and multiple husbands were not unusual. The women understood before they came to him. And in the villages he was known as a kind man. The women were curious about him. He discouraged pregnancy, made sure Madi, the woman who had helped give birth to him and all his children, always instructed them. If they became pregnant, they told her. If they wished to keep the child he did not argue, and sometimes they stayed with him until they gave birth. Tigran was aroused by pregnancy, the rounding of the belly, the aura a woman had when she was carrying her child, and was happy for them to stay. But he never took them back. Once they had a child with him, they could not return, they knew that. Mia had never come here, nor Surya. When he was here, he was always alone. How many had there been?

  With Surya he had been utterly faithful. Surya … his mind fell softly on her. Charlotte was like the very reincarnation of her that the Hindoos believed in. The same slenderness and grace. Only their eyes differed: hers violet blue, Surya’s deep black.

  He shook his head. He had returned to Mia, briefly, out of loyalty, and there had been no other women. But he had quickly grown tired of her. In the years he had stayed away, her looks had suffered, and he now found repugnant the breath she exhaled from continuous chewing of the betel and the greasy oiliness of her hair. When she became pregnant with their last son, he never went to her again, turning instead to these casual liaisons with the village girls. After Surya, he didn’t want another constant in his life to care about, fall in love with, grieve for. Since then there had been dozens of women. And, for a while, there had been Petra.

  He thought about her, their words at the ball. The
y had come together after her old, third husband had died. Two of her husbands had married her virtually on their deathbeds.

  He had thought theirs was a love affair, and it had been for him, for a while. He had courted her. She was as lovely as dusk on a river, but elegant, too, and clever. She was one of the many women who had benefited from the brief English rule. Educated and sociable, she was so different to the older Indies women or the native women, with whom he could not share a conversation. They rode together; she was a wonderful horsewoman, full of adventure and fire. He had never met a woman like her. She had cast a spell over him, he saw it now. He had been warned that she was too dangerous, but he had liked her danger. He had not touched her other than to kiss her, and that was enough. She had kisses of fire, full of endless promise. She had the same feelings for him, he had been sure. He had contemplated marriage—the idea of her companionship in his house was a pleasure, and the prospect of her in his bed every night filled him with lust.

  Then he had called on her one day, unexpectedly. The maid had gone off, and he had wandered out into her garden. He had heard sounds and gone down one of the alleyways where a pavilion stood in a grove of trees. Two big black men, former African soldiers of the Dutch Army, now her guards, were with her. Her dress lay in wild folds about her waist. One was holding her legs as the other … even now he could not put the words in his mind. Her head was flung back in abandon, her eyes half closed. Her voice was making animal grunts. As the men saw a white man, they froze, and she turned her head momentarily and saw him. He had left immediately. He would not see her, and for months she stayed away. Then gradually, he knew, she had begun to have regrets. When they met finally, she accused him of hypocrisy; she was only doing what every man in Java did with native women. She was sorry he had seen it, but it meant as much to her as Tigran’s own liaisons.

  But he could not forgive her. A woman did not act like a man. The image stayed with him, and the spell was broken. Now, even as he announced his marriage, she wanted him back, in her bed, she said. She would be his mistress. But everything had changed, he had told her. I love Charlotte; I will never want another woman. Not you Petra, not any more.

  And everything had changed. Love changed everything; it was as simple as that. He had submitted to its power as a knight submits to his queen. He would wait for Charlotte to be his wife. He looked at the ring on his hand. His vows in the church would be sacred. He could hardly wait to make them.

  His thoughts flew to her. He felt her absence as a shadowy space, a physical void which she filled with light. But he knew he had to be out of her life for a while, especially whilst the wedding preparations were underway. He had left everything in Takouhi’s hands.

  He went to the window. How much should he tell her? Would she think him a monster? It had all seemed so normal, so natural before he had thought of taking a wife. Every man in the Indies had the same life. Now he saw how it might look in her eyes. She was European. She had accepted Mia and his concubines in Batavia. What would she think of this? But why should she know? It was over.

  He dressed, for the room was growing cold. He threw some logs onto the pile of glowing embers, moving it with the iron until it blazed into life, crackling and throwing starry sparks into the air.

  Charlotte would surely grow to love life in the hills. As soon as they were married he would bring her here, to the cool air, away from the sweltering plains. After the baby was born, he would teach her to ride. He had just the pony for her, gentle and sweet-natured. They would walk on the high slopes where the flowers were like stars. And the views over the volcanoes, wreathed in threads of cloud, would bewitch her. A sentiment of the utmost tenderness flooded him, occupied his entire body, and he suddenly felt a moment of weakness, as if love could melt bones, and threw out his hand to grip the bedpost.

  He walked, shakily, to the desk in the corner of the room and took out the letter.

  It had come to his warehouse in the Kota a week before. A letter addressed to Charlotte at the Manouk offices. He would not have known; the writing was in Chinese. It had come via one of the Chinese sugar trading houses with her name and his written in alphabet on the front. He had no idea what it said or who had passed it to him. He had looked at it for a long time. Then he had put it away for two days. Then he had called his office chief and asked him to find a man who could translate from Chinese to Dutch or English or Malay and who was discreet. Two days after that a translation had arrived in excellent Dutch. He felt absolutely no guilt at reading the letter. Charlotte was betrothed to him, and it was his duty to protect her from harm.

  Now he opened it again. You are my heart. I am dying every day from missing you.

  Tigran looked up and out of the window. The evening was drawing in rapidly, and the hills had become indistinct, lying like dark, hump-backed giants against the violet sky.

  You are my heart. I am dying every day from missing you. These were his own feelings. He had known instantly who had written the letter and looked down to the end, but there was no name. She would know, this man knew very well, she would know who the letter was from. This was the man whose name she had called, but he had forgotten it. He searched his memory, but it would not come. Chinese names were all so alike and unmemorable.

  He looked down.

  Lao Tzu said, “to be loved deeply gives you strength, to love deeply gives you courage.” We have strength and courage. Our love is deep. You live in my skin.”

  Tigran frowned and stared at the letter. His first thought was how on earth this man had imagined it would ever reach Charlotte. Then he realised the man did not know Charlotte would be married, knew only she was alone and far away. He felt the truth of the words trying to reach out over the dark ocean, through the mist of unshared language to a woman he loved, wanted to reassure, give peace in separation. He was certain the Chinese man did not know she was pregnant.

  You live in my skin. He curled the letter in his hand into a tiny ball and threw it into the fire, watching, eyes narrowed, as flames consumed it.

  He sat at the desk and began to write to Robert, Charlotte’s brother. Tigran knew that Charlotte had written to her brother when she arrived in Batavia. He had made sure he read the letter before it was sent. He had felt a momentary hesitation, but his need to know had overcome everything. It contained nothing more than reassurances of her safe arrival, her affection for him. She had not mentioned his proposal.

  Now he gave Robert news of their forthcoming marriage, inviting him to the wedding if at all possible, though he knew Robert would not be able to come. He sent news of her health, of her well-being, of the inheritance he had settled on her. He was not sure if Robert knew she was pregnant and did not mention this. It would be better if everybody thought this child was his. He intended the birth to be here in the hills. The society of Batavia might do their sums on their fingers, but they would imagine only that he had been unable to resist the temptation of sleeping with his beautiful wife before the wedding. Then he added a final sentence.

  Charlotte is much improved and slowly forgetting her past experiences in Singapore. I think you understand my meaning. However, should she seek news of the person she has left it might be best not to lend encouragement to her enquiries. I leave it up to you, of course, but we both have her best interest in our hearts. I’m sure Charlotte joins me in sending good wishes and news of our coming nuptials to all her acquaintance in Singapore.

  He sealed the letter. He was annoyed he had not written when he was in Batavia, but she distracted him there. He would send it by the first ship to Singapore. At the same time he would make an announcement in the newspaper.

  He dropped into a chair before the fire and contemplated the flames.

  At the same moment in Brieswijk, Charlotte, too, sat composing a letter to her brother. The time had come, she realised, to announce her wedding. She sent news of her health, Takouhi and Tigran, the splendid house he owned, of which she would soon be mistress. She asked for news of her acquainta
nce. She described the society of Batavia, told him of the ball with the Governor-General, the French shops and the prospect of visiting the French Opera. Now she sat, contemplating the page, wondering if she dared ask about Zhen. On a separate page she began a few lines: it would ease my heart to have news … to know he is well. Robert, I should be happy to have news … Please, Robert, when you see Zhen give him my fondest regards. This last she crossed out vehemently. Perhaps later she would dare to raise this subject. At the moment, it made her head whirl. And to ask for news of him in a letter announcing her marriage … She shook her head and finished the letter with words of affection.

  From the drawer of her bedside table, she took out the simple box. The necklace from Zhen lay on a bed of old wizened nutmegs, and she inhaled the odour of the sweet spice. It took her back to the old orchard where he had first kissed her, that kiss like an alchemist’s potion, altering her in an unknown and profound way. She fastened it around her neck. A small white pearl, round like the moon, in a silver mount of filigree shaped like the upturned eaves of a Chinese temple, on intricately braided and thickly entwined red silk threads. It was not expensive like the diamonds that Tigran offered her, but Zhen had given it to her when she knew he had nothing. It was as if it had some magical power, for as it lay on her skin she saw him, in the mirror, behind her, so real she gasped and turned. But no one was there. She put her head in her hands. She wanted so desperately to see him. Surely they would meet again. When would this subside?

  Charlotte took up a book of poetry. Her eyes stopped on Byron.

  Still Hope, breathing peace through the grief-swollen breast,

  Will whisper, Our meeting we yet may renew: