The Elephant Keeper's Daughter Page 11

  “But we’ll be dependent on the goodwill of your family,” said Anshu.

  “No, we won’t.” Phera sprang determinedly to her feet. “We can work. We’ll have our own house and our own fields where we’ll grow our own rice.”

  “We can’t do that, my child. We’re not farmers; we’re members of a very high caste.”

  “We will not become beggars just because our caste forbids us from looking after ourselves,” Phera shot back. “We have to do whatever is necessary to survive. Siddhi will help us with the heavy work. And Eranga will help, too, isn’t that right?” She looked at the mahout.

  He bowed. “It is an honor, my brave young mistress, to play a part in the protection of the family.”

  “Then so be it,” said Anshu.

  Phera looked at her sister. “Do you agree as well, Samitha?”

  “Upali wouldn’t want me to work in the field like a peasant,” she replied. “But he’d want me begging for food even less. Let us make a new start in Mapitigama.”

  Part Two

  The Blood Sapphire Road

  1822

  Chapter Six

  Colombo, April 1822

  Wielding a windbeaten umbrella, Henry Odell plowed through a muddy puddle, climbed some rickety steps, and stopped outside a narrow door. Torrential rain beat down from the gray skies, streaming off his umbrella and creating a din against the corrugated-iron roofs that lined both sides of Cinnamon Street.

  In spite of the weather, the place was bustling. Rickshaw porters charged back and forth in bare feet, chattering and laughing amongst themselves. There was cursing in all sorts of languages, and drunken brawling. It all combined with the rain to create a deafening cacophony.

  Henry seemed oblivious to the noise. He stood in front of the plank door, biting his lower lip, his brow furrowed. Eventually, he raised his hand and knocked.

  A peephole opened, and a pair of black eyes peered out. “Aah, Mr. Henry! Nice see you! Come, come.” Then the peephole shut, and the door opened.

  “Good day to you, Chang.” Henry closed his umbrella as he stepped into the narrow entrance hall.

  The Chinese man bowed, smiling. He was wearing his usual high-necked mandarin jacket of shiny brocade with matching trousers and slippers. He wore his black hair short at the front and braided long down his back. The oil lamp he was holding cast dancing shadows on the walls and closed doors. At the end of the corridor, a curtain of faded pink silk concealed any further view.

  Chang snapped his fingers. A small, dark-skinned boy darted out of a little alcove located to the right, just behind the entrance, and took Henry’s umbrella, hat, and coat.

  “Thank you, Joey.” Henry gave him a coin. The boy grinned and slipped back into the alcove.

  Chang looked equally pleased. “What can I do for you, Mr. Henry? You want see Molly, then wonderful dream?”

  A smile, barely perceptible, played on Henry’s lips. “Exactly, Chang. As ever.”

  “Very well, Mr. Henry.” The man hurried down the hallway ahead of his guest. Just before the end, he stopped and opened a door leading into an oblong chamber.

  The air here was heavy, shot through with sickly sweet perfume. The walls were covered with red fabric and holders for numerous candles, which cast their flickering light on a bed that took up almost the full width of the room. The only other furniture was a chest of drawers, an oval mirror on a little dressing table with its own chair, and a washbowl and jug on another table.

  “Good day, Molly,” Henry said.

  As Chang quietly closed the door behind him, the young woman brushing her hair at the dressing table turned.

  “Good day, Henry,” she purred, holding out her hand. He stepped closer, giving her hand a little kiss.

  “You’re always such a gentleman, dear Henry,” she murmured. Of all her clients, she valued Henry the most. He always treated her like a lady, never haggled over the price, and never involved her in anything strange or violent.

  Chang claimed Molly was twenty-three, but Henry was convinced she was no more than twenty. She was Eurasian, skin like alabaster, eyes dark and sensual, hair right down to her hips, and an irresistible heart-shaped mouth. Today her body was hiding in a cerise silk dress, black lace trim doing full justice to her cleavage.

  “You don’t look well,” she observed as she ran her index finger down the lines from the sides of his nose to the corners of his mouth. “But you’ll feel better soon. Just leave everything to me.”

  An hour later an exhausted Molly flopped back on the bed, next to Henry. “I’ve tried everything, and I can tell you like it, but”—she looked at the sturdy erection—“why can’t you finish?”

  He propped himself up on his elbows and forced a smile. “It’s not your fault. Let’s just leave it for today.”

  But Molly shook her head. “If anyone hears that I let you out of here with your manhood that size, my clients will stay away. Come on, lie down again and try to enjoy yourself.” She gave his chest a little push. He sighed and let himself fall back in the cushions.

  She grasped his erection and massaged it. “That’s good, just relax. Do you know that I’ve never seen a cock as magnificent as yours before?” She slid down, bent herself across his hips, and closed her damp, red lips firmly around his penis.

  Henry moaned, pushed her head deeper with both hands, and concentrated hard on the painting that stared down at him from the ceiling. It showed an elegant Chinese man pleasuring three women in a style that would never have occurred to a well-brought-up English girl, even in her naughtiest of dreams. Henry’s excitement grew. Then Molly was caressing him with her tongue.

  Now, he told himself. Now, now . . .

  But the painting suddenly disappeared, and all the memories he wanted to escape came crowding in to replace it.

  Now he saw only the corpses of twenty men hanging from the boughs of an ancient tree. Their dead eyes seemed to ask, “Why did you let them kill us?”

  He groaned in distress, trying to shake off the vision. The image of hanged men disappeared and was replaced with one of a decapitated torso, blood streaming from its neck. The head rolled toward him, the mouth half-open, shouting, “Why did you let me die this horrific death?”

  Then this scene faded, too. But the images of dead children, drifting past like ghosts, completed the nightmare. Their mothers’ lament came to him: “Why didn’t you stop our children being murdered? Why did you watch while our huts and fields burned and our men were butchered? How could you let so many of us die?”

  The sights and sounds crowded in on him. All over again, he was looking into the eyes of the mud-covered creature under the veranda. Neither before nor since had he seen so much fear, hurt, and incomprehension in the eyes of a human being, and it was like a knife to his heart.

  “Leave it now!” More roughly than he intended, he pushed Molly away and sprang off the bed. He grabbed his pants from the floor and pulled them on. Then he seized his shirt from Molly’s dressing table. In his haste, he knocked over her perfume bottle, and it fell to the floor and smashed. The overpowering fragrance of jasmine filled the room, almost taking his breath away.

  “Henry!” Molly exclaimed.

  “Damn it, I’m sorry!” He knelt to clear up the broken glass.

  “Stop, it’s all right,” she said, more gently now. “Joey can sweep it up.”

  He got to his feet, pulled his jacket off the hook on the back of the door, and fished out a bundle of cash. “That should be sufficient to compensate you for all this.” He placed the money on the table. Then he sat on the edge of the bed to put on his boots.

  Molly slid behind him and put her arms around his chest. “It’s no big deal, Henry. I often get clients who can’t climax. Where there’s no obvious injury, it soon rights itself again—”

  “That’s enough!” He held up his hand to stop her talking.

  She rubbed her soft breasts against his back. “I know what you’re longing for now, Henry. But it’s not
a good idea to smoke opium feeling as you do.”

  He hung his head and stared at his boots. “You’re a remarkably talented woman, Molly. But today it’s Chang who can help me more.”

  She breathed a gentle kiss on the back of his neck, then let go of him. “Never hold up a traveler.”

  “Molly good?” asked Chang as Henry pulled Molly’s door closed behind him.

  Henry nodded. “Perfect. As ever.”

  Joey leapt up, ready to bring Henry his things, but Chang shook his head. “Mr. Henry still want wonderful dreams?”

  “Very much,” replied Henry, and felt his tension easing for the first time in days.

  Chang picked up his flickering oil lantern and led Henry farther down the hall. At the end of the corridor, he stopped and drew back the faded pink silk curtain.

  On either side of the door were small tables with weighing scales and glowing incense. Opium pipes gave off the heavy, sickly aroma filling the room.

  Oil lamps on low shelves cast unsteady shadows over the guests. There were sailors, garrison soldiers, Arab merchants, members of the Sinhalese nobility dressed in western clothes, and a couple of Chinese customers. Most were men, but in the gloom he made out one Chinese woman and two European women.

  The guests lay on mattresses on the wood floor. On the walls were prints, yellowed by the smoke, of exotic birds and flowers. A silence hung over the room in spite of the number of people. Only an occasional sigh broke the silence. Two Chinese helpers moved noiselessly around the guests, placing on the low, lacquered tables an array of long-stemmed pipes, bowls filled with lumps of the sticky, brown opium, and lamps for burning it. Some guests were still drawing on pipes, while others had already had their smoke and, their eyes glazed, stared fixedly into the dreamworld conjured by the opium.

  “Over here, Mr. Henry.” Chang ushered him to a mattress in the corner. “You got nice place here.”

  Henry nodded. “But I’d like a clean sheet, please.”

  Chang bowed. “Straightaway.” He dispatched one of his helpers.

  “Is all right, Mr. Henry?” Chang inquired when the man came back and spread the sheet over the mattress.

  “Yes. Now I’ll take my pipe. Today I want something good and strong, Chang.”

  “Did I ever disappoint you, Mr. Henry?” Chang sounded offended. “I make you exquisite pipe with Kokang opium, bought special for good guests like you. Kokang opium take care all worries.”

  When Chang had gone, Henry sank onto the mattress with a long, low sigh. He took off his boots and placed them next to the low table. Then he loosened his shirt collar.

  How he craved that opium. Nothing, not even Molly’s charms, it seemed, could deliver him from the suffering he had endured since the attack on the village in Uva.

  “You ready for very good drug, Mr. Henry?”

  Chang put on the low table a tray bearing a bowl, a small hook, and an oil lamp, then sat on the floor, his legs crossed. Next he took a lump of opium from the bowl, used the yen hok hook to break off a tiny piece, and held it over the lamp’s flame.

  The heat made the drug swell into a hard ball the size of a cherry, which Chang then put inside the pipe bowl. He handed it to Henry. “I wish you wonderful travels.”

  Henry nudged the lamp to the edge of the table, made himself comfortable on his side, took the bamboo stem in his lips, and held the bowl of the pipe in the flame. It wasn’t long before the opium started to vaporize, and he drew the smoke down deep into his lungs.

  The images of the hanged men, dead infants, and violated women dissolved; their cries wafted away like the smoke itself, and were replaced by a sense of eternal peace and heavenly happiness.

  The following morning, as Henry slipped out of Chang’s establishment, the sun was rising above Cinnamon Street. Blinded by its glare, he tripped on the steps and almost fell onto the muddy road. He swore under his breath and pulled the brim of his hat even lower. Real life was intolerable after a dream-filled night in the arms of the opium poppy. He had a dull ache just behind his forehead and felt so nauseous he was afraid he would be spitting bile any minute.

  With his head down, he lurched along the street. He wanted to get back as fast as possible to the harbor area and the boardinghouse where he’d taken lodgings for the duration of his regimental leave.

  As a trained doctor, Henry knew all too well how destructive opium was. And yet since the Uva massacre, he had been tormented day and night. To calm himself, he had started plundering the regiment’s laudanum supplies. But soon the effect of the opium tincture was not enough, and during his leave, his self-control had slipped. Far from his regiment’s station in Kandy, he now spent days and nights in Colombo’s red-light district. It was crystal clear to him that he was on a path leading straight to hell. To give up opium, however, he needed a reason. He had none.

  As the bars and bordellos of Cinnamon Street gradually closed, Arab merchants started to open their shops selling exotic spices, colorful silks, and precious stones from the territory of Kandy’s virgin forest. Money changers sat outside their booths, awaiting clients, as did the rickshaw drivers, chewing betel nut as they lounged against the shafts of their rickshaws. Cross-legged in the mud before an eye-catching figurine of the Hindu god Shiva, a half-naked sadhu sat meditating. From tiny food stalls, women preparing rice with spicy vegetables tried to tempt Henry to linger. But he stumbled on, his gaze fixed on the ground in front of him.

  After some time he found himself approaching a small square, which was shaded by a makeshift palm roof and next to an Anglican church mission. Fishermen always sold the night’s catch here. Baskets of prawns, shrimp, lobsters, and squid were already on display. Huge, silvery tuna lay on the ground, their scales still shining, and white-bellied skates were ready for gutting under the critical eye of local women. Crows and egrets hovered, ready to pounce. Henry had to cross this square to get to his boardinghouse, but the smell was even more pungent than usual. His head still lowered, holding his nose with one hand and waving away flies with the other, he quickened his pace between the dead fish and through slicks of blood and sludge.

  “Aargh!” He collided hard with a monk who had been begging with his brothers for their one meal of the day, as was the tradition. A few spoonfuls of rice and vegetables were usually donated by the merchants and street cooks. The monk kept his balance, but Henry slipped on discarded fish innards and fell headlong into the muck.

  “Damn!” He picked himself up and looked down at his clothes. His suit was splashed all over with mud and worse. A slimy lump of fish stuck to his knee. He doubled up and vomited. The monks, who had halted at a signal from their leader, watched without emotion as Henry pulled out a handkerchief and attempted to clean himself up.

  “Our monastery is very near here.” When the senior monk spoke, it was in perfect English. “You can wash yourself there.”

  Before Henry could reply, a second monk spoke in Sinhalese: “The Englishman needs to see to his cleanliness himself!” His colleagues nodded in agreement.

  Their leader gave them all a stern look. “Have you forgotten how the Enlightened One told his pupils to demonstrate empathy at all times?”

  He nodded to Henry and set off. The other monks reluctantly followed.

  Henry hesitated. But he could not possibly appear before his landlady in his present state. With a feeling of resignation, he joined the monks.

  The monastery was separated from the sea by only a narrow stretch of sand. Henry followed the monks through an archway to a walled area and saw a small, white temple with a tiled roof shaped like a pagoda straight ahead. At its front were two dvarapala, mythical warriors made of clay whose task was to keep the Buddha figure inside from harm. As Henry walked past, he caught a fleeting glimpse of the golden statue of the Enlightened One in meditative pose on a stone plinth, surrounded by a host of oil lamps.

  Behind the temple was an open space, at its center an open hall around which ranged the monks’ cells. A roughly made tres
tle bearing a bell stood in front of the hall. To its right was a sacred Bodhi tree. Beneath the tree, the temple elephant, the embodiment of the divine Ganesha, stood, tethered. The animal was busy eating a breakfast of palm leaves and fruit and took no notice of the monks’ return. To the left of the hall was a pool decorated with lilies, orchids, and dwarf rhododendrons.

  The monks went into the hall, sat on the floor, and started their meal in silence. Their leader gestured to Henry.

  “Wait here,” he said and went off toward the cells. Soon he returned with a clean towel and an orange habit.

  “You’re giving me your own clothing?” asked Henry in surprise.

  “You want to go naked?” replied the abbot. “We have no clothes like those you’re accustomed to. Bring the habit back when you are able.” He turned to leave, but Henry wanted to talk.

  “You speak very good English.”

  “You British have been in our country so long, it would have been foolish of me not to have learned your language,” said the abbot coldly. “When you have cleaned yourself up, go to the hall. There you’ll get something to eat and some tea, which will alleviate the effects of the opium.”

  “How do you know that I—?” Henry felt so ashamed that he could not bring himself to speak the word.

  “Look at yourself!” The monk drew Henry toward the pool and pointed at the Englishman’s reflection in the water. Henry was shocked at what he saw. Was that really him? This filthy, unkempt, hollow-cheeked specter with lifeless eyes? He quickly turned away again.

  “So now you’ve seen what I’ve seen,” said the abbot. “Do that for two or three more years, and you’re dead. I’ve noticed so many like you around the harbor here. As long as you British go on allowing opium in from India, the suffering will not stop. But you British are ruining not only our people with it, but yourselves, too.”