The Elephant Keeper's Daughter Page 18

  She leaned forward, took one of his hands, and pressed it against her breasts. Her breathing quickened. “Harder! That’s it. Just how I like it.”

  “I’m nearly there, nearly there, Molly,” he said, moaning.

  She threw her head back with laughter. “And I can feel you, Henry. You don’t know how much I can feel you.”

  Henry laughed, too. He felt stupendous. He sensed that today he would find the release he needed to make his strange feelings for the young mahout a distant memory.

  He clutched Molly’s hips, pushed her down hard onto his pelvis, and then, with a great roar, he climaxed. But at this most intense moment of their coupling, soft, bouncing Molly faded, and the image of someone else stood before his eyes—Phera, sweet and enticing, like in his opium dream.

  The shock was like a knife in his gut. The moment he had so longed for was destroyed. He covered his face with his arm. He wanted to vanish.

  “You were magnificent, Henry.” Molly’s soothing fingers stroked his ribs.

  “Please stop.” He pushed her hand away.

  She looked at him in surprise. “What’s wrong? Wasn’t it nice for you? You exploded like fireworks!”

  He grunted unintelligibly.

  “It was good for me,” she went on. “It’s always good with you, Henry, and that’s not something I can say about all my clients.”

  He turned away. “There’s no need for flattery.”

  She shrugged, now at a loss as to what to say. She slid off the bed and went over to the washstand. He watched silently as she stooped and removed from her vagina the lemon-juice-soaked sponge intended to prevent conception and threw it in a tin bucket. Then she got a clean washcloth and dunked it in the water.

  “Why are you in such a bad mood?” she asked as she wrung out the cloth and washed between her legs. “If you’d had problems, like last time, I could understand it. But you didn’t!” She glanced at him over her shoulder with a little smile. “You had so much egg-fry. I’m full of it.”

  “The opposite of last time,” he muttered.

  She threw the cloth in the bucket, then took a silk dressing gown from a hook on the wall. Now she went to her dressing table. Next to pots of cream, hairbrushes, and powder puffs were a carafe and two tiny china cups. She picked up the carafe, poured a clear liquid into each cup, and, smiling playfully, sashayed back to Henry. “Drink!” She handed him one of the cups and sat on the side of the bed.

  “What’s this?” he asked suspiciously.

  “Baijiu, Chinese liquor. It’ll do you good.”

  He raised the cup to his lips very hesitantly but downed it in one gulp. “Whoa!” The burning effect made his eyes water.

  She topped up his cup. “This is better for you than opium.”

  “At least opium doesn’t taste so awful,” he grumbled.

  She took the cup from him and put it on the floor near the bed. “Tell me, what is it that’s upsetting you so?”

  He stared past her to the mirror on the wall and his pale, unshaven face. “I—” He shook his head.

  Molly poked him in the ribs. “Out with it!”

  “I—” He tried to find the courage. “I don’t understand myself these days. Here.” He pointed to his head. “And here.” He pointed to his penis.

  For a while she stared at him blankly, then threw back her head and gave a hearty laugh. “I can’t believe that.”

  He edged away from her a little, irritated. “I’m afraid you don’t understand what I’m trying to say to you. Have you had clients, long-standing, coming to you and then suddenly realizing that they’re”—he nearly choked on the word—“that they no longer feel the same way about women?” He felt his face flush with shame.

  “Yes, of course, but—aaah, now I understand.” Molly took him by the chin and gently, but firmly, turned his head so that he was forced to look straight at her. “You think you lust after men?”

  He managed a sheepish smile. “I didn’t really want to hear it quite like that. Will it pass?”

  She thought hard. “It hasn’t amongst my clients. They would come here only to prove to themselves that they didn’t have needs like that. But it didn’t work.”

  He groaned and covered his face with his hands.

  “Henry! Look at me.” Gently, she pulled his hands away. “Whatever happens, you mustn’t be beaten.”

  “Yes,” he said flatly. “You’re right, I know.” And yet as he got dressed, he felt more beaten now than ever before.

  “Mr. Henry, wonderful good morning! I got good tea, special for you. Best tea in Cathay.” Chang set the tray on a low table near Henry’s mattress.

  “Thank you, Chang. And good morning to you, too.” Henry sat cross-legged on the edge of the mattress and ran his fingers through his disheveled hair.

  “I must look like a vagrant,” he muttered as he reached for his shoes.

  Chang flashed a broad smile. “After you saw Molly, you smoked lot opium pipes. Give you plenty nice dreams.”

  Henry held the steaming bowl with both hands and took a mouthful. He looked at the other guests, still stupefied on their mattresses. In the gray half-light of the room, their faces looked pale, drawn, their cheeks sunken.

  Had the opium turned him into a specter like that, too? He rubbed furtively at the stubble on his chin and face. He suspected he would frighten off small children, at least. After swallowing another mouthful of tea, he took his watch from his vest pocket and glanced at the time. Nearly noon. He had wasted half the day.

  I’ll get the new laudanum and then set off, he decided. He knew if he stayed any longer in Colombo, he would only smoke more opium and wallow in remorse about his feelings for the mahout. At least on the construction site he had a meaningful occupation, and if he pulled himself together, he could hopefully manage not to dip into his patients’ supply of laudanum again.

  He placed the empty teabowl on the table and reached across the mattress for his now-crumpled jacket, but Chang was there first. “I help you, Mr. Henry. Hey! What’s this?”

  A small stone that looked as if two tiny pyramids had been stuck to its base had fallen from his pocket.

  “I forgot about that.” Henry bent to pick up the stone he’d found on Eranga’s body. Yet again, Chang got there first.

  “If you allow me, Mr. Henry, I take a look.” Holding the stone between thumb and forefinger, he scrutinized it. “Beautiful. Where you find it?”

  Henry gave him a quizzical look. “Why should that interest you?”

  Chang looked up. “Because could be precious stone. Where you found, could be many more.”

  “Do you know about precious stones, then?”

  “Little bit, Mr. Henry. Here plenty precious-stone dealers. Many my clients. I listen good when they talking.”

  Henry examined the crystal. “But it could just be a simple quartz.” In the twilight of the room, the stone looked dark and unremarkable.

  By way of reply, Chang placed the stone on the flat of his hand. Then he took Henry’s teacup and tipped some dregs over the stone. Small, globular drops formed and rolled off without losing their shape. “When water go like that is good sign of precious stone.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “To be absolute sure, more investigation needed,” replied Chang. “If you want, I can arrange.”

  Henry thought for a moment. “I’d be much obliged.”

  Chang nodded. “One good client jewel trader. I give him stone for polish. Next day you know more.”

  “Agreed.” Henry put on his jacket.

  A short while later, Henry was in a rickshaw on the way to the Fifteenth Infantry Regiment barracks. He planned to get a few bottles of laudanum from the regiment’s pharmacy and stock up on quinine and dressing materials.

  The barracks bordered the red-light district, and the rickshaw puller sped through crowded alleys bustling with traders. But Henry paid no attention to either the colorful displays or the tempting blandishments of the stallholders.
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  If Chang were to be proven right about the crystal, that would raise many questions—for example, whether it explained Eranga’s fatal head injury. If so, that would mean someone else knew about the find.

  The rickshaw stopped unexpectedly, jolting Henry from his musings. He could see they had not yet reached the barracks but were stuck fast in a crush of rickshaws and passersby. When an elephant trumpeted nearby, he turned and was surprised to see they were outside the little monastery where the abbot had helped him several months ago. Through the open gate, he could see the temple elephant tethered beneath the spreading canopy of the Bodhi tree. A monk stood with the elephant, feeding it fruit. At that moment the monk turned his head and looked at Henry. It was Mahinda Dharmapala, and he smiled at Henry so calmly, it was as if he had been expecting him.

  Without thinking, Henry sprang out of the rickshaw and pushed a few coins at the startled puller. Then he hurried through the monastery gate.

  “Ayubowan, venerable hamudru.” He put his hands together in front of his forehead and bowed.

  Mahinda Dharmapala returned his bow. “So, Henry Odell, you are here.” He turned and went toward the open hall in the middle of the courtyard.

  Henry followed him with a furrowed brow.

  In the hall was an older monk, sitting alone on the floor and meditating, and a group of novices listening attentively to their teacher reading from the wisdom of the Enlightened One. Mahinda sat cross-legged in one corner of the hall and indicated Henry should join him.

  There was a short silence. Then Mahinda said, “I read of this meeting in the stars some time ago.”

  Henry let slip a small laugh of disbelief. He knew that astrology, horoscopes, and the prophecies deriving from them played an important role in the native population’s faith. But he himself thought it sheer hocus-pocus. He almost regretted his sentimental, impulsive decision to come in.

  Mahinda was looking at him indulgently. “You Europeans think your way of looking at the world is the one right way. In fact, it is one of many and—pardon my candor—it often seems like looking into a narrow tunnel.”

  “It’s simply hard for me to see what the stars in the sky have to do with our chance meeting here on Earth,” retorted Henry.

  “Astrology is an ancient science. The Enlightened One knew early on that it holds knowledge and understanding. Its secrets are revealed only to those who understand the language of the stars,” Mahinda explained patiently, as if telling a child the sun does not drown in the sea at night, even though it has vanished into the water.

  Henry frowned, but before he could say anything, Mahinda raised his hand. “I know you don’t share my faith. But didn’t you come here today because you cannot give up opium?”

  Henry dropped his eyes. It was extraordinary that a stranger he had met only once before could see through him as if he were made of glass.

  “I abstained for a few months,” he admitted with reluctance. “It wasn’t easy. Every day I had to fight against it all over again, and in a moment of weakness, it beat me.” Furious and ashamed, he clenched his right hand into a fist. “I have worries that drive me to the drug, but they shouldn’t be used as an excuse.” He looked into Mahinda’s tranquil eyes. “I have seen terrible injustice meted out by someone close to me, and then rewarded by those who should stop it. And, as if that isn’t bad enough, I’ve begun to doubt my own mind. When I look in a mirror, I see someone I no longer recognize.” He broke off. He hadn’t envisaged speaking to a stranger about his brother’s violence or his own feelings for Phera.

  Mahinda placed a hand on his arm. The touch was only momentary, but it gave Henry some consolation.

  “Don’t worry. Your mind is in good working order, but there are obstacles in every human life. Many are small and we overcome them with ease. But others seem insurmountable, and we fear never overcoming them. We bring the most difficult obstacles with us from our earlier existences. Perhaps we did someone an injustice. Perhaps we made a promise and did not keep it. Whatever it is, equilibrium has to be maintained, even if it takes us many lives to reach it.”

  “You talk of karma. I’ve read some of the writings of your Siddhartha Gautama,” said Henry. “At the moment it seems like I’m not righting previous wrongs but actually creating new ones. Perhaps I’m just making sure I don’t get bored in my future existences,” he added with a wry smile.

  “First of all, you must learn to conquer your craving for opium,” said Mahinda. “Everything else will follow. Your craving exists only in your spirit. So you must learn to control your spirit.”

  “Sadly, I have no idea how to manage that.” Henry spoke as if resigned to failure.

  “You must practice the art of meditation.”

  Henry looked over at the lone monk. He was still sitting on the hard ground, his legs crossed. His hands lay intertwined in his lap. His back was straight and his eyes closed. His face showed concentration and yet also relaxation.

  “During meditation our spirit is calmed, and we understand that quiet is an eternal space for freedom and wisdom,” said Mahinda. “If you practice daily, you will learn that what we see as our worries can neither oppress us nor break us.”

  “I fear just that posture would finish me off,” said Henry. “And it’s hard to believe that crossing the legs and closing the eyes is enough to beat opium.”

  Mahinda laughed. “Masters don’t fall from the sky. Is that how you say it, too? Just as water will seep into a house with a poor roof, so desires will insinuate themselves into the spirit that does not practice meditation. This is the teaching of the Enlightened One. By retreating into quiet, you will find the endless source of strength concealed within you. Whether you use it is your decision.”

  Henry sighed. “It sounds like the art of sitting around and doing nothing takes plenty of practice.”

  Mahinda thought for a while, then said, “It’s easier to learn under the guidance of a teacher. If you wish, you may come here to the monastery every day and meditate with us.”

  “That’s so generous of you, venerable hamudru. But tomorrow I’m leaving Colombo to ride back to the Kadugannawa Pass. As a doctor, it is my job to tend to the workers building the new road from Kandy to Colombo. If I still have a bit of time left after straightening fractured limbs, fitting splints on broken bones, dealing with crush wounds, and caring for malaria victims, I’ll try and have a go at meditation.” He stood up. “I thank you for your kindness and your advice, venerable hamudru.”

  Mahinda got up, too. “You will be too busy caring for your patients, and you will neglect your own welfare—to their ultimate detriment as well. If you will allow me to, I’d like to help you. I am not bound to this one monastery. We monks often follow the example of the Enlightened One and travel through the country, teaching and preaching. I shall accompany you and, during the journey, will teach you to meditate and conquer your craving for opium.”

  “You would really do all that for an Englishman?” Henry marveled.

  “Our paths have not crossed by chance, Henry Odell,” said the abbot. “I don’t know why, but it seems we are meant to walk some of the path through life together.”

  During the journey to the Kadugannawa Pass, the Sinhalese monk and the British doctor grew slowly to trust one another. To cover more ground, they rode together on Henry’s horse, Henry in front, Mahinda behind. They quickly fell into conversation.

  Mahinda talked about the caste he was born into, Bamunu, and how priests and monks traditionally came from this group. His parents had committed him at a very early age to a monastery where, on his twentieth birthday, he had received Usampada, the highest level of Buddhist ordainment. When Henry asked him which monastery he had grown up in, and when he had come to Colombo, the abbot became evasive and asked instead how people lived in Great Britain. He wanted to know everything about the distant island empire, from the weather and landscape to the food and styles of dress—even what the royal palace and London itself looked like. When Henry
talked about his medical studies at the Royal College of Surgeons, and his subsequent service in India and Ceylon as staff doctor, Mahinda listened with particular interest because he himself was trained in the healing art of Ayurveda. The two men enjoyed exchanging ideas on different methods of treatment and compared medicines, their administration and effects. Henry, however, was mistrustful of any system which maintained that human health depended on the balance of energies in the body.

  “Whether such energies even exist needs to be proven using scientific methods, and I can’t imagine how one would do that,” he said as the two men prepared to set up camp at dusk on the fourth day of travel.

  Mahinda slid down off the horse. “It’s easy. Don’t you feel energies in your belly?”

  Henry shook his head, baffled.

  “These energies are what cause your incessant tossing and turning at night. During the day I feel them in your tense voice and nervous movements as your thoughts revolve around the temptation of opium. Please permit me to give you a medicine which will bring your body’s energies back into equilibrium. It will make you more relaxed during the day and will give you the gift of sleep at night.”

  Henry dismounted, too, undid his horse’s girth, and then took off the saddle. “I doubt there’s anything other than willpower that can beat opium,” he said, surprised at how accurately the monk had once again recognized the state of his soul.

  He led the horse to a little river. While the animal was drinking, Mahinda collected dry wood and small branches, lit a fire, and took out two earthenware bowls.

  “This must be the Nanu Oya River,” Henry said. “That means we’ll reach the construction site sometime tomorrow.”

  Mahinda now took dried herbs from the leather pouch he wore, and dropped them into one of the little bowls. Then he sprinkled into the other bowl a handful of ground roots, also taken from the pouch.

  “This is root of hathawariya. I use it to prepare a drink that will bring you rest tonight. If you take this medicine every night, it will help you regain your equilibrium.”