But then Somers came to my room. He stood in the doorway, and I saw his reflection in the mirror. I turned on my chair to face him.
“I’ve heard of your involvement with these people, Linny. The book people.”
I put down my brush, standing. I smiled. “Yes. I think the booklets are quite useful, especially to new wives. I wish I’d had something similar when I—”
“You’re not going back.”
I took a step toward him, my smile gone. “But . . . but why ever not? It’s a function for the ladies. You said I could—”
He interrupted again. “It’s a function that includes Indian women, Linny.”
“Yes, some of them are Eurasian, but—”
“They’re all half-castes. As is that Elliot, who works as a clerk in the public office.”
“Mr. Elliot is highly educated, very quiet and gentlemanly. His wife is lovely. What does it matter that—”
He wouldn’t let me complete a sentence. “Did you not learn your lesson with the Snow woman?”
“Her name was Faith, as you well know.”
“Well, you seem to have forgotten that I do not allow you to associate with anyone unless they are of pure Norman or Saxon blood.”
“Do you think their color rubs off on the pages, Somers?”
His jaw clenched. “We’ve taken over this mess that is India, and we’re all working together—and that includes you, whether you like it or not—to make this land as proper a place as is possible. In spite of its tremendous downfall. We are the superiors. It’s our moral obligation.”
“But I do feel as if I’m helping in this way—creating booklets for English women new to India, to help them understand the culture. And help them adjust.”
“It’s not the booklets. It’s the company. As I’ve said, it’s out of the question.” He crossed to where I was standing.
I looked into his face, my pulse pounding with anger. “So. You expect me to share in this obligation, yet have no responsibility for it.”
“Say it any way you wish, Linny. The point is you’ll do those activities I see as fitting the wife of a burra sahib, not the wife of a lowly uncovenanted clerk. You won’t embarrass me again.”
“Why would you be embarrassed by what I create? Mr. Elliot said—”
“I’m quite aware of what he said.”
“You’ve spoken to him?” I looked at Somers’s sullen face. “Are you jealous, Somers? Jealous because I’m doing something worthwhile? Perhaps you just can’t stand the fact this work has given me something to do. And they respect me, did you know that? That’s it, isn’t it?”
He laughed. “Work? You call the worthless way you’ve spent your time there work?” His voice grew louder. “And I won’t listen to any more of this,” he said, and before I had a chance to move he hit me across the cheek with his open hand. At the sound of the damp smack, there was a small strangled cry. We both turned to the doorway to see David, his hands over his eyes.
“David. Darling, Mummy’s all right. Look,” I said, trying to smile as he uncovered his eyes.
He ran towards Somers, throwing his small arms around Somers’s legs. “Don’t hit Mama. You mustn’t. It’s bad to hit.”
I reached down and pulled him away, holding him against me, staring into Somers’s face as if to ask what he would do now.
He tugged at his cuffs. “Mama’s been very naughty, David,” he said. “She must be punished when she’s naughty.”
David struggled to break free of me. “Mama’s not naughty,” he said. “She’s not.” He turned to face Somers, his small body rigid, his lips set. There was no fear in his face; what I saw was anger.
“It’s too bad you haven’t been disciplined properly, either, David,” Somers said now, dull red staining his cheeks. “That is not a proper way to address your father.”
I held David tighter, trying to shield him from the blow I expected Somers to inflict on him. He hadn’t struck David yet, or touched him in any way. In fact, he went out of his way to avoid seeing the boy, or be near him. I felt it was only a matter of time, though, until something terrible might happen.
But now Somers simply strode past us. For the first time since I’d known him, he had the grace to look abashed. It had taken a small child to do this.
WITHIN A YEAR I found something else to occupy my time, something that involved neither the wrong people nor the wrong area of Calcutta. I found my comfort in the substance derived from the papaver somniferum—the beautiful poppy.
IN 1836, SHORTLY AFTER David’s third birthday, I was pleased to hear that Meg and Arthur Liston had returned to Calcutta after their posting in Lucknow. I hadn’t had a chance to see her before an invitation for David arrived, asking him to the second birthday of Gwendolyn Liston, Meg and Arthur’s daughter.
Perhaps, I thought, we will resume our friendship; I remembered feeling that Meg had much the same outlook on life as I had back at the Watertons’ in those last days of 1830.
But I was shocked at the change in Meg. She was gaunt and sleepy looking. The pockmarks on her face appeared more visible than I remembered; perhaps it was the paleness of her complexion that emphasized the deep scars. I wasn’t even sure that she remembered me; after greeting me politely she told me she had asked Elizabeth Wilton for the names of the children in the vicinity, and Elizabeth had passed along David’s name. I was disappointed in her apparent confusion over who I was; she appeared vague about her time at the Watertons’ six years earlier. I was sure that if we had a chance to talk alone I would again find the irreverent, confident, and single-minded woman I remembered.
During the party, the children and their ayahs gathered under a large striped tent in the huge garden and were entertained by performing monkeys and talking birds. Later, after the cake, the children were given rides around the estate on a frisky little pony, the smallest girls and boys—including David—firmly ensconced in a ring saddle.
The mothers remained inside the shuttered drawing room, eating dainty petits fours and drinking lemonade. As I looked around the overdecorated room, I noticed a large hookah sitting amidst small potted palms and ferns on a round, marble-topped table. It had a brass jug and attached cup, with a long snakelike tube wound around it. The tube ended in an ivory mouthpiece. I ran my hands over the jug’s smooth round surface. It was warm.
“A pretty hubble-bubble, Meg,” I said, when she came over to me. I found myself using Hobson-Jobson more and more often now with the other women, even though I had told myself I wouldn’t slip into the nonsense language created by the English in India. “Does Mr. Liston smoke it?” I asked, picking up the mouthpiece.
She laughed. “No. It’s mine. The water makes it so much easier,” she said, touching the round container. “It cools the smoke by the time it reaches your mouth. Oh dear, here’s little Gwendolyn, and she’s torn her frock!”
She rushed to her daughter, who was sobbing loudly and holding up her torn gingham skirt. Left alone with the hookah, I tentatively put the molded ivory mouthpiece between my lips. It was smooth and carried a faint sweetness.
After Meg had comforted the distraught child and sent her back out with her ayah, she came back to me. The other women had broken into small groups, intent on their conversations. “Would you like to smoke it with me sometime?” she asked, smiling in a distracted manner.
“Oh, I don’t smoke,” I said. “I don’t even like the smell of Somers’s cheroots.”
“Foolish girl,” Meg said. “You don’t have to smoke tobacco in it.” She opened a small drawer under the table’s white marble surface and removed a wooden box. Made of mangowood, the box had a tiny hinged lid. Meg pressed the lid, and it sprang open. Inside lay six black balls, each the size of a large pea.
“What are they?” I touched one sticky sphere with the tip of my forefinger.
“It’s White Smoke. Opium. Quite harmless. You know—the ingredient in laudanum. And what would we do without our laudanum.” It wasn’t a question. “
It saved me through three births.”
“Three?” I said, and then immediately clamped my lips together. Gwendolyn was Meg’s only child.
“Didn’t you rely heavily on it?”
I shook my head.
“Surely, when you had your little fellow . . .” She studied my face. “Nobody goes through childbirth without great quantities of it. Why would one?”
I made a noncommittal sound.
“Well, you simply must, the next time. You give some preparation of it to your boy, for his aches and pains, though. Godfrey’s Cordial, or Mother Bailey’s.”
“The herb teas that my ayah makes for him when his stomach is upset from too many treats seems to do the trick,” I told her.
Meg frowned. “He’s never suffered from boils, or prickly heat, or earache? What about fevers during the hot season?” Her voice was slow, insistent.
I shook my head, wondering why I suddenly felt guilty for having such a healthy child, and why she kept going on about it in a repetitious and tiresome way.
“I’ve always dosed Gwendolyn with it to settle her. You know, when she’s overexcited or won’t settle down at bedtime. Much healthier than gin, as some do. I find Godfrey’s works like a charm, just like it says on the bottle—‘A Pennyworth of Peace.’ She goes straight to sleep, and is dozy for ages, even after she wakes up. I’ll give you a bottle; I brought a small crate with me.”
I remembered Elsie’s baby, back on Paradise, dead from an overdose of Mother Bailey’s Quieting Syrup.
“David’s always been an easy child,” I said. “I realize I’ve been very fortunate.”
Meg touched the hookah. “Never mind, then. But listen—this isn’t medicine, but sport. Sometimes I have a few puffs in the afternoon when everyone is napping. It’s lovely and relaxing. Lots of my friends in Lucknow used it. We called it Dreamer’s Delight. Why don’t you come over one day next week and try it with me?”
“I’m not sure . . .”
“Come on, Linny. Aren’t you the memsahib who’s the recluse, stuck over there in that great big shut-up house? Wouldn’t you enjoy some fun?”
I looked at her heavy-lidded green eyes. I felt a strange pull from their unblinking stare.
“All right. Next week. But Meg,” I warned, “I’ll only try it one time. Just the once.”
As she slowly nodded, I saw that Meg was no longer the bold creature I remembered, given to wild flights of impulse and outspoken in her ideals. Now she appeared as worn and listless as all the other women who had been too long under the Indian sun.
Chapter Thirty-Five
THE NEXT TUESDAY I SAT IN MEG’S DRAWING ROOM, LISTENING to the plunk, plunk, plunk of the ruffled punkah overhead. I shouldn’t have come. But our house was even more stuffy and quiet than usual today. Somers was on a two-week hunt. David spent most of his time on the verandah with Malti these days. Today he had played with his small set of drums and tom-toms, and each whack of his little stick on the tightly stretched goatskin pounded painfully against my skull. Even the ticking of the clock on the mantel was unnaturally loud, and I had felt an overpowering urge to flee from what I saw now as a dark prison.
I’d sent our chuprassi with a chit to Meg, and she’d replied immediately that she would be delighted to see me. Now she came into the parlor with slow, elastic steps, her smile making her bony cheekbones even more prominent. Today it was the smile I remembered from the Watertons’, and I was genuinely pleased. Perhaps I had been wrong in my first judgment of her. She seemed different today, more aware and responsive.
“Linny! I’m so pleased you decided to come,” she said, her eyes glowing.
“Are you sure you’re not busy?” I asked. “I realize I should have sent my card yesterday, but—”
Meg waved a hand. “Busy? What is there to be busy with? Here, sit next to me.”
“Meg, I have so much to ask you. About your travels with Mr. Liston. You must have been able to see so many sights.”
But again she waved her hand through the air as if what I said were unimportant. “One can’t spend one’s life running about; surely you’ve realized that it takes all our efforts just to keep going here, haven’t you?”
“But did you not pursue your book on shrines? Or your sketches of local customs? You seemed so passionate . . .”
Meg looked pensive for only a moment. “I’d almost forgotten. How is it you still remember those silly ideas?” She shrugged. “I was young and impressionable all those years ago.”
“It was only six years.”
“Six years in India—for a woman—is like twelve at home. Surely you’ve changed as well, Linny? Are you the same person you were when you arrived?”
I shook my head.
“Well, then,” she said, almost triumphantly, as if she were pleased at this.
She pulled a small bamboo table close to the horsehair settee, then set the hookah on it. She placed the mangowood box next to it, taking a small oil lamp from a corner table and lighting it. “Now we’re ready,” she said, clapping her hands at a boy standing near the door. “Tell the cook to prepare some tea and have it brought in shortly,” she ordered, and the boy bowed and scurried away. “This makes one terribly thirsty,” she said.
“Just watch me, if you like, then you can have a turn,” she went on. “Some people feel a tiny bit funny, at first, as if they’re back on the rolling sea, but it quickly passes. Just ignore it,” she said, smiling, “and relax.”
She pulled a long hairpin out of her carelessly piled dark blond hair, then scooped a tiny globule of the black opium onto the tip of the pin. She held the pin over the lamp for a moment, and when the opium was soft, fit it into the small opening of the pipe. Putting the mouthpiece to her lips, there was a loud hissing as she sucked deeply, then silence as she held her breath for a long moment. She suddenly released it in a long plume of vapor that burst from her nostrils. The smoke swirled slowly around my head, and I breathed in its dark, sweet, slightly decayed odor.
Meg rested her head back against the shiny horsehair cushion of the settee, the mouthpiece still in her hand. She looked at something far beyond my sight.
I waited as long as I could. “Meg?” I finally whispered.
The woman’s eyes blinked once, then slowly swiveled in their sockets. Only a rim of green showed around the black centers.
“Shall I try it now, Meg?”
Silently, and with obvious effort, Meg prepared the hookah for me. I put the mouthpiece between my lips and sucked up the warm air through the bead of opium. The smoke went softly into my lungs. I immediately felt dizzy, but it wasn’t unpleasant.
After a timeless period I heard myself say, as if from a distance, “Yes. I see.”
Time emptied into a shadowy twilight, emptying and then folding inward on itself in a gentle pattern, emptying and folding, over and over, without end. I was one of the loose bits of colored glass caught between the two flat plates and two plane mirrors in the instrument I had held to my eye as a child in Liverpool, standing in a dusty aisle of Armbruster’s Used Goods.
I was nothing but a tiny piece of a larger sliding, changing, endless pattern. I thought I felt the very beat of my life in my veins and embraced that false signal.
I FELL INTO the habit of stopping to spend an hour or two with Meg and the hookah every other day. After the first few puffs, we fell silent, and I reveled in the peaceful, dreamy lethargy that spread warmly through me. I learned to set the pattern for my visions, letting myself hover, then float, up and away, back to the beautiful Kashmir valley. That’s how it was at the beginning. I could direct the shape of my dreaming.
Sometimes I would be astride a horse in front of Daoud, with the assuring broad warmth of his chest against my back; at other times I felt his arms around me, the hardness of his body against the length of mine. But these sensations aroused no bodily passion in me. It was just a wonderful timeless reverie that blended and deepened. Daoud seemed to tell me things, flowing, poetic statements, a
nd yet he never spoke. In the communication I felt totally happy, my mind floating in a sea of warmth. Eventually the dream faded, and I returned to the couch in Meg’s drawing room, riding on a favorable breeze of euphoria.
I was grateful to Meg. I thought, in those early courtship days with the poppy, that she had saved my life.
Going home in my darkened palanquin, curtains drawn, I felt that my blood had been replaced by a lighter-than-air, buoyant fluid, and I knew that if I opened the curtains I would fly out, weightless, into the still, muggy air of Calcutta.
But best of all, Daoud’s face didn’t disappear for a number of hours after my visits to Meg. He seemed real and alive, just in the front of my forehead, like a portrait in the secret compartment of a brooch.
AFTER A FEW WEEKS, I knew that it was unfair and impolite of me to visit Meg simply to smoke her hookah, although she didn’t seem to mind. I knew she smoked it every afternoon, whether I was there or not.
“Meg,” I asked her one day before we took up the hookah, “would it be possible for me to get some opium for myself?”
“Certainly. There are large English companies that cultivate it in the fields in northern India. Patna produces the best variety. Mr. Liston made a trip there, to Patna, on business, and he says that they have a tremendous factory there, with halls for drying the opium juice, and then balling it—with each ball the size of a small room. Can you imagine? There’s also a storage hall with shelves going up to the roof, five times the height of a man, where tons of it can be stored. Most of it is eventually processed into cakes and then sold in vast quantities to China. The Company’s way of leveling a deficit, actually.” She poured the tea she always had waiting. “Has your husband never talked to you about the problem with the Chinese?”
The Linnet Bird: A Novel Page 44