The hare-lipped house girl’s chemically fixed expression materializes on the screen of Hannah’s memory. “But what about those women?” she repeats. “They’re not animals. Surely they must feel ashamed and violated.”
“Oh, well then!” Eva balances her empty palms, two trays of an imaginary scale. “Weight of scientific evidence and unpleasant feelings for a few natives. Frankly, darling, science is in the service of something greater than any of those women. Greater than either of us.”
“Do they know why he is examining them?” she says quietly.
“Hannah, think. If you can’t grasp the utility of these studies, then how can we possibly explain them to illiterate Malays?”
So what have they been told, she wonders? What do their families think about this? She tries a different tack. “George was shocked by what he saw in that cabin. So much so that he doesn’t want me coming here anymore.”
Eva laughs. “Well, we both know who that would serve. Did your caring husband share with you that he persuaded the sultan to procure the women?”
Hannah shakes her head, shamed into silence.
“Granted, I dislike the way we’ve had to go about this, Hannah. Skulking around as if we were criminals of some sort. But six years! Six years I’ve been working here without any institutional support, because the institutions don’t support equality. Not for those of us living in an inbred Oriental backwater.” She nudges her plate, overhanging the ottoman, fully onto its brocaded surface. “So we resorted to doing it the old-fashioned way, by waving a bit of money around. And now here are you, the live-and-let-live artist, the furthest thing from the hand of moral propriety, I would have guessed, bothering herself about—how did you put it?—‘what’s happening in my back garden.’ Why is that?”
It is the most volatile she’s ever seen Eva Peterborough. The least collected. Even when Charlotte disappeared behind the flow of the waterfall, even then Eva was less panicked. The woman is afraid. Of what Hannah might do? Or think?
“Why?” Eva snaps, repeating her question.
“I don’t know, Eva. I love this country. And its people.”
“Tosh. You might love them as subjects for your paintings. But that’s not quite the same, is it?”
She takes this in—a foreign body she’ll have to probe and salve and possibly winkle free, later. “This is as much your project, then, as it is Charles’?”
“Yes.”
Hannah gets to her feet. Whatever has happened here, she’s done nothing but make things worse. She presses a hand over her mouth and chin, side-stepping the coffee table, eyeing the bolted door.
“You’re a progressive woman,” says Eva, following. “You know what it means to carve out a space of freedom and try to live as if that little pocket of air were an atmosphere. We’re alike, the two of us.”
“I don’t know that we are.” Her thoughts are dimming and shrinking away. She reaches for the bolt on the door.
“Hannah, wait. I’m glad that you’ve spoken your mind. I have something I want to tell you, too. So let us both clear our consciences.”
“You have no conscience.” Afterward, hunched in the bathtub back on the Ridge Road, Hannah would wish she’d flung these words and run.
Instead, she takes a step back from the door, to face Eva.
“Your Sergeant Singh. He’s lying to you about this parasol flower.”
The idea jars Hannah awake. Through everything, until then, she’d been dozing.
“I asked a botanist colleague about your parasol flower. I wrote to him several weeks ago, when you told me about it. You see, I was suspicious from the first. Neither Templeton nor any of his colleagues at Cambridge have ever heard of such a plant.”
“It is unrecorded. We realize that.”
“No, Hannah, it’s a fantasy!”
She is supposed to have recognized this Templeton’s famous name, is she? And to put some store in the fact that he’s a learned specialist at Cambridge? Cambridge is the fantasy, she thinks. “This is just one circle of colleagues, at one university. Why should they have knowledge of every flower on the planet?” Hannah demands. “Why would Darshan lie to me?”
“Why?” Eva moves even closer. “To trick you into spending time with him, of course. If he’s lied to you, it’s obviously for his own gain.”
“His own gain? What gain?” There is a muffled thump in the hallway. Hannah lowers her voice, drawing even further back from the door. “What are you insinuating? He hasn’t gained anything from the time he’s spent with me.”
“Oh, come now. Use your imagination.” Eva backs away, coming to prop herself against the back of the closest chesterfield. “Payment. A sympathetic ear. The satisfaction of compromising your position as a British Resident. Compromising your position as a wife! He’s had you on a wild goose chase, Hannah.”
“He doesn’t have to trick me into spending time with him.” She throws her shoulders back and faces the poisonous woman. “I am happy to consider Sergeant Singh my friend and colleague.”
“Friend and colleague?” snorts Eva. “You’re not serious.”
“I really don’t understand you.” Her voice rises. Who really cares who may be listening behind the doors? “You’re suddenly concerned for what, my reputation? Your reputation? I thought you didn’t put any store in reputations and society. I thought you wanted to help me. You facilitated this whole arrangement!”
Later, Hannah will recall her friend, in that moment, so vividly as to be able to paint her portrait. The attitude of her body and limbs, pressed against the furniture, recoiling, wounded, in stark contrast to the expression on her face. The chin jutting, and her cheeks and lips a vivid pink-red. A strand of hair has loosened itself from her normally severe bun to softly frame her face, though her eyes shine hard and bright with discontent.
“You came here, begging to be rescued,” Eva says. “You came to me.”
Hannah concentrates on the bolt, the knob, the open doorway, drawing rapid breaths as the hallway’s narrow roll of Turkish carpeting flies under her feet.
“More fool me,” she hears Eva call out behind her, “for commissioning the painting of an imaginary flower.”
Thirty Three
When it is her turn, Malu is required to touch herself as sahib watches. She minds this less than helping to arrange the others. Take Slow Roki, for instance, who has never liked Malu and always calls her a half-breed and sneers when she walks past. In the cabin, Slow Roki only shivered and bit at her broken upper lip, bowing to Malu and lowering her eyes like Malu was her elder. It was nearly impossible to convince her to raise her head and look toward the camera.
There are plenty of other women Malu does not want to meet again in the neighborhood. So she does not go home for many weeks. Until one day, after the worst of the monsoon is over, she does.
To her surprise, nothing has changed in the lower town. The air smells, as ever, of river fish guts. Uncles stretch in the doorways of their stilted huts, groggy from the afternoon sleep or too much nipa toddy. Women are rinsing their hair in rain buckets. They lean over the railings, chatting to each other from one landing to another and the village rings with voices. A few young kids scamper to keep the ball aloft in game of sepak takraw. Malu smiles to herself. She’s forgotten how good it feels to kick a ball.
She gives the wet grass a couple of practice kicks before climbing the slippery ladder of Nattie’s raised hut. Three broken rungs, she counts, and one rung completely missing. Nobody fixes anything around here! Nobody cleans anything, either! Uncle Nito’s shrimpers spend all their time squabbling and chewing betel. Their conversation is so loud they don’t notice her come in. Or notice the rat scurrying along the rafter above them. Five or six men are seated around a low table which is laden with an ulam spread, heavy on the shrimp, with extra spicy sambal for Nito.
“Take this problem to
the raja,” says one man. “That’s what I say.”
“He is part of their shame, I tell you. Who do you think is spreading the monies for their visits, heh?”
“The longo, you fool.” Nito pushes a hand through his black hair.
“Yes, and the raja’s receiving his monies.”
“So what? He will still hear us on it. He may even give us some of those monies.”
Auntie Nattie, who is bringing the men a fresh bowl of rice, happens to look over. “Malu child! What are you doing here?”
The shrimpers turn and stare. Nodding to the men, Malu walks to the bundle of blankets in the opposite corner and kneels beside it. Her mother moans.
“Amah? Are you cold? What’s wrong?”
Umi’s eyes are tired and small. She struggles to sit up, her head bobbing on its slender neck. “Like this with me now. Better not to see.”
Nattie is tugging at Malu’s sleeve. “No work tomorrow? Want to help me at market?”
“No.”
“You know, your longo medicine is no good,” Nattie spits. “None of it.”
Malu ignores this. She tucks the blankets around Amah’s knees.
“There’s some trouble for you, my girl,” Umi says. “I see it in your face. Something bad going on inside of you.”
Could it be that none of the women have said anything yet to Nattie? Or else, more likely, Nattie is sparing her dying sister the shame. Malu leans gingerly toward her mother, closes her eyes, and holds herself there, afraid to rest the full weight of her head against the frail body. Like everything else in Nattie’s house, the blankets smell of brine. She fights the tears. She doesn’t care what happens to her. But she needs Amah. Without Amah, what is left? “Please,” she whispers to her mother, “please don’t listen to what they say about me.”
“Come and eat something.” Nattie is trying to pull her up by the armpits. “God knows you’ve gone too skinny, whatever else you’ve done.”
“Leave me alone. I want to rest with Amah. I just want to rest.”
“I’m sick of her ulam, too,” Umi whispers. “Stay here with me. Leave them to their politics.”
Malu puts her head on her mother’s lap. As she closes her eyes, she sees Auntie Nattie’s eyebrows rise in surprise. Dr. Peterborough measured Malu’s eyebrows: each one is two inches long, “decidedly European in texture.” He measured her pubic hair, too, pulling the strands upright against the cold metal of his scale. He wiped the scale in the vinegar water before he brought his scissors down.
“Be still!” he said. “I’m merely cutting a lock. Parasites live in hair. Different parasites for different kinds of people.”
Hush, you are home now, in Amah’s arms. For the moment, this is enough.
Waking, she hears Nattie circling. Light as a flea, walks like an elephant, Umi always joked about her sister.
“So? What’s going on, long face?” Nattie asks, poking Malu’s leg. She sets down a bowl of rice topped with curry. “Sahib doctor bothering with you, heh?”
With relief, Malu sees that Amah is asleep beside her.
Nattie looks over at the men.
“They all upset now about sahib doctor. Allah, these white people mixed in the head!” Nattie’s eyes grow wet as she strokes her own forearms. “I should never have sent you to work there.”
“What?” says Malu. Can she be hearing right?
Her aunt squats down. “Stay. Don’t go back there, child.”
Malu pulls the bowl of rice and curry closer and eats while Nattie watches. She says, “Dr. Peterborough has promised to come here to see Amah. To help treat her sickness.”
“Ha. And you think your uncle will allow that visit, girl? Uh-huh.” Nattie blinks fast. “Don’t matter how many fancy words you know for asking. You can stay home with us from now on.”
“No.” Malu is surprised at how hard the word comes out of her, like an arrow to a target.
Nattie stares. “What do you say to me?”
“I’m going back,” Malu answers. “And Amah will be treated.” She raises her head to look in the direction of the men as they pick over the spread of food between them. “Tell me, where is the money going that I am sending home? Huh?”
“In the tin,” Nattie says, avoiding her eyes.
Thirty Four
Rounding the exit platform, I spotted the Fiat with little trouble, and Daphne waving by its side.
“Where’s Bob?” I asked, slipping into the passenger seat.
“He’s taken a bit of a turn with his health.”
“Oh! Is he okay?”
“He’ll be just fine, dear. He’s in the hospital for the time being, to make sure everything’s sorted. How was your trip to Oxford? Did you get what you needed?”
“What happened?”
“Sepsis,” Daphne said.
The word sounded familiar, but I had no idea what it meant.
“Infection of the blood.” Daphne’s fingers gripped the steering wheel loosely. In every way, she looked perfectly normal.
“Oh.” I didn’t want to let on how horrible that sounded, an infection in the blood. Or to ask any stupid questions about Bob’s health that might hurt her feelings and reveal my own ignorance. “I’m glad he’s going to be okay.”
It wasn’t until we went to visit Bob in Frimley Park hospital, the next morning, that I mentioned my adventures with Barnaby Munk. Daphne and I had settled in amongst various machines and were trying to ignore the noises of the ward—sporadic shouts, whimpers of pain, a nurse talking with exaggerated loudness and slowness. My excursion provided a welcome distraction.
I told them in detail about Barnaby and his sister, Celia, Hannah’s letters, the progress I’d made, the lovely painting of Sergeant Singh, the many more paintings Celia would be able to show me. I speculated about the two that her son in Brighton owned: Nude House Girl and The Parasol Flower. Thomas Munk, a solicitor in Brighton. Daphne and Bob offered little coos and murmurs of support as my tale unfolded. They kindly offered for me to stay with them as long as I needed.
“Who is he again, Nancy, this fellow you met?” asked Bob. I wondered how closely he had been listening, after all. Were the two of them simply impersonating themselves, trying to appear engaged? I couldn’t blame them for being preoccupied.
“A descendent of the Peterborough family,” I said. “You know, Fulgham House?”
I asked if they remembered ever hearing news of the Peterboroughs being involved in a sex scandal. By then I’d read Maikin’s piece in its entirety—it had originally been released in three parts, over three Sundays, as part of a series titled “How The Mighty Have Fallen.” As Barnaby had hinted, Maikin stripped everything of its context and was over-generous with his inferences. Hannah’s name was mentioned only in passing, as “one special friend who, having become embroiled in the goings-on at the Peterborough plantation, was never heard from again.”
Plantation? I thought. He made it sound like they’d done her in.
“The sex scandal, of course,” said Daphne. “They’re all funny, those elites. Some sort of child pornography ring they were running back in the nineteenth century!”
“The Mail broke it, if I recall correctly,” Bob added. I remembered his avid daily reading of the papers. He had The Mail and The Evening Standard on subscription.
“I had no idea about any of this,” I said. “Barnaby told me about it.”
“Why should you?” Daphne exclaimed.
“And you didn’t mention anything, when you suggested I visit the estate.”
“Should we have?” Daphne asked herself. “Should that have mattered for visiting the estate? It’s a beautiful stately home.”
“Lovely grounds, too,” added Bob. “Gives you some good ideas for the garden, it does.”
Daphne reached over and patted his hand. She turned to me
. “Oh, I think they were probably both rotten to the core, Nancy. It just goes to show that money and power don’t make for happy families.”
I returned home with Daphne and went about my day doing much of nothing, my conversations with Barnaby looping through my mind. It would have been right and good if I, like Daphne, quietly missed Bob and was concerned about his recovery. I did, and I was! But it was the Peterborough-Munks who were distressing me.
During a long shower, I came to the nut of it. It bothered me that Hannah’s paintings belonged to the Munk family. They were not Hannah’s heirs. It was a definite possibility that Eva and Charles Peterborough had themselves never purchased the art, certainly not the works that Hannah had intended to send to her mentor. And who knew what kind of arrangements had been made about the other paintings, or what kind of duress Hannah may have been under. A young penniless artist amongst wealthy, unscrupulous elites. Forgive me for being blunt, Ms. Roach, but I must ask you: why is this woman’s art noteworthy? Is it noteworthy?
Forgive me for being blunt, Dr. Munk, but who are you to ask?
The Munks had made no attempt to have any of the works appraised, as far as I was aware. Nor to search for any of Hannah’s heirs, the people with a legitimate stake in her belongings. Far from championing the large number of works in her possession, Barnaby’s sister-in-law had locked them away. Out of indifference. Or worse, some sort of homophobic hostility spurred by baseless accusations that the woman was their great-grandmother’s lover. The more I thought about it, the angrier I grew. If Hannah appeared nowhere in Eva’s correspondence with the engravers and publishers of The Descent, if I could believe Barnaby in this, then it was even possible the Peterboroughs had used her botanical art for their book without her knowledge. Stewing like this for a day or two, it started to seem to me that Barnaby and Celia Munk were actively trying to suppress Hannah’s contribution. To silence her voice so that she was forgotten.
When an email came through from Barnaby, I squelched whatever annoyance was lingering. I needed him, and he appeared to be helping me now. The best I could do—and I vowed I would do it—was to honor Hannah’s contribution and to advocate for her, if and when it came to that. Barnaby’s message cc’d Celia, who replied shortly after. They suggested an upcoming date for us to “raid the lock-up,” presumably where the family stored their considerable art collection. Celia, the key-holder, would let all of us in, supervise the extraction of Hannah’s studies and sketches, and offer us a room in which to view them.
The Parasol Flower Page 22