She starts to laugh. Sergeant Singh follows suit, letting out the little booms she remembers. He has a sense of humour underneath all his seriousness.
“I wish to tell you something foolish about myself,” he says, looking around them as if there might be bystanders in this remote corner of the garden.
“If this is in service of making me feel less foolish, Sergeant, believe me there’s no need.”
“I’ve been meaning to tell you this before. I only hope you won’t be angry with me, madam.”
“Angry?” She is intrigued. Touchingly, he appears to be working his way up to an opener.
He says, “I am looking for a special flower. I was looking for it on our treks, too.”
She considers this strange confession. “So you’re saying you were secretly leading me to places where you thought it might be, this special flower?”
“It is called the parasol flower. That is, I call it that, because it blooms as big as a lady’s parasol. Sometimes even as big as a carriage wheel, the locals say. It is something of a legend here.”
“Goodness, that large? It’s a wonder we hadn’t come across it in three months walking.”
“It is notoriously rare. Yes. And it blooms only once in every seven years. Blooms for a fortnight.”
“Once in seven years! Incredible.” She admits that she has never heard of such a thing.
“The foliage is totally unremarkable—resembling a young nipa palm, merely an unassuming clump of fronds. So, one must, practically speaking, catch it in bloom.”
“Really!”
“You must know that I followed your explicit wishes, Mrs. Inglis, whenever you made them known to me. And never did I compromise your safety. Never! If I had ever found any evidence of a predator, I would have alerted you.”
When they first began on the outings, Sergeant Singh trained her as to what to do if they came across a tiger, or it came across them. Tigers are shy creatures who will not want to see you. Freeze, then back away slowly and wait for the animal to leave. If for some reason it is curious and comes closer, remain very still unless and until it bats you with a paw. In this eventuality, smash its face with whatever you have at hand. Then stand your ground; never run from a tiger.
“I don’t think it’s foolish to search for a parasol flower,” she tells him. In fact, it would be a coup to paint such a spectacular bloom. A life-sized portrait! She should be painting on a larger scale. She should be in the wilds, not in this pruned and preened facsimile of nature. It’s simply wrong, sitting in this soupy air, being so prudent.
“No, no, I don’t think it’s foolish in the slightest,” she avows. “What’s foolish is to keep out of the woods on account of a tiger who has been there all along!”
“Well. There are probably several.”
“Precisely.” She bites her lip. “But why ever didn’t you tell me about this flower before, Sergeant? I would have loved to have joined you in the quest.” He bobs his head apologetically. “And you don’t mean the carrion flower? I’ve heard of that one. The huge one that smells of rotting flesh.”
“The Rafflesia.” He pulls a face. “No, no.”
Before long they say goodbye, offering each other good wishes for their pursuits, as there seems nothing else left to say.
“Do let me know if you find one!” she calls after him.
Thirteen
By late February in Paris, the newlyweds were honeymooning in Majorca, and I was more alone than ever. I had been quite unable to turn up any more of Hannah’s artwork. Nothing at Julian. Nothing in any of the local galleries. Nothing in the Sotheby’s database or on eBay. From the Ashcan people in New York and Philadelphia, I’d learned a little more about Edward Coles. Of course, there was also a lot out there about Henri Godot, and I’d been occupying myself learning about his life and his work after Julian. He’d lectured extensively and his lecture notes had been compiled into a lovely little work called The Spirit of the Artist. I bought a copy for myself at Shakespeare & Co. and marked it up with my musings as I went along. I could see why Hannah had liked him so much, and why she’d cherished their relationship. Once in a while, I took out my phone and flipped past the images of Zoe and Chris, kissing and holding their new salad tongs, to the pictures I’d taken at Kew of Strangler Fig Attacking Mighty Kapok. Shrunken and digitized, there was nothing much mighty about the kapok and barely any strangulation effected.
Whether it was Godot’s enthusiasm or my own anxious aimlessness, I decided to try some oil painting myself. In high school I’d taken a few art electives that involved mostly sketching and design, and I’d earned A’s. My oil painting, however, was an expensive disaster. I was left with three little canvases, an indelible stain on a place mat, and a box full of chemicals and gear. My scenes were interlocking fragments of color, muddled in perspective and without depth. They managed to convey less feeling than the photographs on which I’d based them. A bridge over the Seine looked like a playground slide. An iconic Metropolitan sign resembled a giant bullfrog-green lollipop. My paintings were not so much communicating my spirit, I told Henri Godot, as insulting artists. And other people with eyes.
A postcard arrived from Zoe and Chris of a turquoise strip of ocean, white sands, resort towers. Funny, I’d never considered them beach people. On the back, Chris had drawn a picture of his hand giving me the finger (an inside joke of ours), and Zoe had added an earnest little message: Thank you so much for the new kitchen weapons! Everyone at the farewell party thought you were lovely. xo Zoe
Everyone at the party thought I was lovely? Lovely! Everyone at the party. She made it sound as if their friends had gone with them to…Cala Millor, the caption said, and the group of them were sipping margaritas and swapping impressions of me. It was only slightly less unnerving to imagine that the four of them had been separately in touch with Zoe to share their feedback. Zoe, I reckoned, must be inventing the group’s impression. After all, which one of those people would have seriously called me lovely? Yet it wasn’t a word in Zoe’s usual repertoire either.
I’d reflected on that evening a fair bit, and I’d thought about, mostly, what I hadn’t said: what hadn’t felt sayable. I’d not even mentioned the engraving of The Parasol Flower or The Descent, for instance. Had that been some unconscious attempt to protect it and preserve it for myself? Most of all, I was uncomfortable about the way the conversation had pivoted at a certain point. It had become about me and not Hannah. Had I caused that? The French lawyer had wanted to know why I was bothering with old paintings. My response, looking back on it, was a cheap and convenient one, like I’d reached for a premade shrink-wrapped sandwich. Yet it was inauthentic. I wanted to find Hannah’s art because of the art. Because of Hannah. I was doing this for her, not for me, and certainly not for “self-development” or whatever I’d said that sounded like an explanation. I was doing this because I loved the paintings I’d seen and I loved the promise of the paintings I hadn’t yet seen. And the voice I heard in her letters—it felt as if we could be good friends, she and I, as if I should have been her best friend and ally. I reread the postcard. Everyone at the farewell party thought you were lovely. Maybe this had come across somehow, in spite of my own ignorance to it; people could sense that I was full of love. What a terrifying prospect.
I pinned the postcard on the corkboard in my kitchen and hurried to change into my sports gear and running shoes. “Don’t make a big deal of it,” said the Zoe in my head. “Congratulations on your lovely wedding,” I replied, giving both of them the finger in jest.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Fwd: hoping to reach you
Dear Nancy,
Forgive me for my delay in replying to you. I have been away on a walking holiday in Morocco. Invigorating!
For various reasons, I had not thought about the family art collec
tion for quite some time before reading your requests. I happen to be making a trip to London this coming week and there I will consult with my sister-in-law as to the works in storage. Stay tuned, as the young people say. Regarding the parasol flower, I looked into this many years ago and concluded that its existence is highly doubtful. From a scientific perspective, it makes very little sense. Yet, as you imply, the inclusion of a fantastical flower in The Descent is itself curious. Have you read The Descent, by the way? One must get beyond considering it all a nasty business, in my humble and outdated opinion.
More anon,
Barnaby
Keenly aware of his use of the plural “requests,” I sent Barnaby the briefest of replies. I would wait to kindly hear from him again, after his trip to London. I would stay tuned, indeed. Dancing around the living room, I busted into a Saturday Night Fever freestyle.
Coming back to his email, which I tended to do first thing in the morning and again while I ate dinner, I was careful to contain my expectations. At the very least, it would be interesting to compare notes. “Have you read The Descent?” Barnaby’s email kept asking me. “One must get beyond considering it a nasty business, in my humble and outdated opinion.” I growled these words at my reflection in the bathroom mirror, trying on different fuddy-duddy accents. Clearly Barnaby was the sort of man who felt his opinions would never grow outdated.
What nasty business? I wondered. He’d dropped the reference so casually, as if I should know what he meant. I returned to Richelieu and sat down to properly read The Descent in four-hour increments—the reserve library lending period. Perhaps there would be some clue within the book about Hannah or the parasol flower. If not, at least I’d be able to go toe to toe with the globetrotting Barnaby when he resurfaced.
Fourteen
There is nothing in Kuala Kangsa’s year quite like the queen’s gymkhana festival. In addition to the horse-racing, the cricket match, and the brass band, there is bobbing for apples, a kite-flying competition, boat races, shaved ice, a tent-pegging competition, stilt-walkers, a clown who juggles knives, donkey rides, an egg toss, three-legged races, and the large baked goods table hosted by the Ladies Association of Perak. Festival day is excess and exception. Even the vigilant members of the Ladies Association encourage their customers to eat too many sweets.
Like the rest of the village, Hannah is in a bright mood as she weaves her way up the sloping parade ground to the LAP baked goods table. Chastened by her encounter with Lucy and Hazel at the post office, she has volunteered for two shifts this year. Around her, Malays are strolling in sisterly chains, their colorful headscarves floating on the breeze behind them. A family of Dutch homesteaders are laughing at each other as they attempt the apple bobbing. She makes a large detour around a queue of Chinese women and children waiting for the egg toss. Two English officers—she remembers their faces but not their names—strut through this same commotion in uniform, looking like smug peacocks. They are heading for the racetrack, she supposes, where the colonel will be found.
She herself will not spend a penny that day. Not even on a kebab, she tells herself. Their spicy meaty scent seems to be following her, making her mouth water. Her measures of austerity brought her through to the next installment of her stipend, from which she promptly removed payment for an order from Schlauerbach’s. A reduced order, but an order nonetheless. Knowing that seven tubes of paint and twenty metres of canvas were making their way from France is as gratifying as anything she could enjoy at the festival.
“Is it going well, then?” Hannah says as she reaches the LAP table. “The location is good this year.”
“No, it’s not. We’re well out of the way up here,” grumbles the lady manning the table, Myrtle Something-or-Other. A flushed, porcine woman, she is married to the bank manager.
“The view is inspiring!”
“But they’re not going to trudge all the way up here for the view, are they?”
“I suppose that’s why we have the baked goods.” Hannah moves in around the tables, assuming her place in the second empty chair. “Such a lovely breeze, too.”
Myrtle is so overheated that droplets are forming on her temples. “Did you not bring any baking?”
“No,” Hannah admits. She’d not wanted to squander pantry ingredients, but this decision seems churlish and wrong now that she sees how generously the others have donated. “I’m afraid my upside-down cake fell flat,” she fibs.
Myrtle peers at her skeptically.
Hannah turns to check the roster, hoping Myrtle is about to head off shift. No such luck. When she looks up again, she sees the crumpled hat coming nearer through the crowd. Soon the Peterborough woman is standing across from them at the baked goods table, hand in hand with a girl of about ten. Behind them, a light-skinned Malay servant waits.
Hannah greets the mother and daughter warmly, giving a brief tour of the goods on offer.
“I’m Eva Peterborough,” the woman interrupts her.
“Oh yes, I know.” Hannah laughs nervously. “Though I didn’t know you had a daughter.”
“The gossip mill failed to report that I have a daughter?”
Myrtle snorts.
“Well it…probably not,” allows Hannah. “I just don’t take much notice of gossip.”
Eva’s mouth crooks into something resembling a smile. “You’re telling the truth, aren’t you? This is my daughter, Charlotte. Charlotte, this is Mrs. Inglis. The artist.”
Charlotte looks much like her mother, though shorter and somewhat fairer. She nods politely and they exchange greetings.
“She’s lovely,” Hannah says to Eva. Exactly how the lady knows who she is, “the artist,” is that owing to the same gossip mill?
The Peterboroughs order two plates of various squares and biscuits and two slabs of fruitcake. Myrtle, recording the tally on a clipboard, brightens considerably.
“I think you should know,” Eva says, as she and Hannah come together over the fruitcake, “that Lucy Finch has just cautioned me against you.”
“Why? What do you mean, cautioned you?”
“Just what I said.” They confirm that Myrtle is busy dispensing cups of lemonade to Charlotte and her girl. “I’m not sure of her purpose.” Eva squints. “I believe the charge was fraternizing in the public gardens with an undesirable.”
“What? Good grief!” Hannah exclaims. Lucy, or one of her spies, must have seen her with Sergeant Singh. “We were discussing… It doesn’t matter. Sergeant Singh works for me. Or rather, he used to. When I painted in the jungle.” It’s a false characterization in more ways than one. That anybody should be “cautioned against” her! And that Mrs. Peterborough should confide in her about it!
“Don’t worry, darling,” says Eva. “I understand completely.” She stands, chewing a macaroon, for a few moments longer before bidding Hannah goodbye.
“Well, that was very odd,” Hannah says to herself.
“She’s an odd duck, if nothing else.” Myrtle mops her brow as the Peterboroughs disappear into the shifting crowds below. “I’m surprised they came into town today to fraternize with the hoi paloi. Hannah, do make sure to replace the doily over the lemonade jug if you’re serving from it. The wasps are voracious.”
“What is that?” Hannah points. At the corner of the parade ground, a party of servants is struggling over something massive. What on earth are they hauling between them? She strains to see as onlookers crowd in; the little mob moves slowly across the field. Others rush across the grounds toward the men. Hannah comes around the table. “That’s not a game. I don’t think that’s part of the festival.”
“Mrs. Inglis?” calls Myrtle. “Where are you going? You’re on shift!”
She wanders down the lawn, side-stepping darting children and their ayahs, pursuing in fluttering sarongs. The newcomers at the center of the melee are natives. Their miners’ jumpsuits are rolled
down their waists and bamboo poles are yoked to their bare shoulders. Hannah stumbles and falls into a horseshoe pit.
“It’s George’s tiger,” she says, righting herself. Back on her feet, she continues down the slope.
The majestic cat is upside-down, bound by its legs to the crossed poles. It is large enough, and the men short enough, that the back of the body is dragging against the scrubby grass as they travel. As Hannah nears, she sees that one of the arm bones protrudes near the shoulder. The surrounding flesh looks to have been hacked at. Even in this state the fur—a warm apricot brown with strokes of jet black—appears exquisitely sumptuous. Instinctively, she puts out her hand.
“Is this for sahib colonel?” she calls to them.
Some in the crowd move aside as she nears. The hunters do not turn or break stride. The weight must be staggering. She runs to the head of the party and catches a glimpse of the beast’s sympathetic countenance. Dead. Riddled with bullets.
The crowd forming around the tiger and its hunters causes them to slow and finally stop. Malays and Chinese and Europeans alike are poking and pinching and jeering at the carcass. Two men lift the great muzzle by the lips, exposing the fangs. They drop the head back down with a crack. Hannah becomes aware of the flies buzzing over the body, especially at the anus and along a gaping wound on one flank. When the breeze shifts direction, forcing a metallic wet-fur stench upon her, she claps a hand over her nose and mouth. Eva Peterborough, she notices, is watching, farther up the slope.
“Please,” Hannah says to the men, raising her voice even louder. “Are you bringing this animal to Sahib Colonel Inglis?”
One of the miners, struggling to keep his footing near the beast’s head, looks up at her.
The Parasol Flower Page 9