The Midnight Palace (Niebla 2)

‘When your father was young and fell ill with fever, he did not end up in a shack by the river where a boy looked after him until he was better, as I told you. Your father was brought up in an institution called Grant House that still exists in South Calcutta. You’re too young to have heard the name, but there was a time when it was infamous. Your father arrived at Grant House after witnessing a terrible event when he was barely six years old. His mother, who was unwell and earned her living by selling her body for a pittance, set fire to herself in front of him, offering herself up as a sacrifice to the goddess Kali. Grant House, where Chandra grew up, was a home for the mentally ill – what you’d call a lunatic asylum.

‘For years he was confined to the corridors of that place, with no parents or friends other than people whose lives were defined by delirium and suffering. People who cried out that they were devils, gods or angels only to forget their own names the following day. By the time he was old enough to leave the institution, Chandra’s entire childhood had been coloured by the most profound horror and human misery Calcutta had ever witnessed.

‘I don’t need to tell you that there never was a sinister friend who committed those crimes. The only shadow in your father’s life was that of the parasite that had penetrated his mind. His own hands committed the crimes, and the guilt and shame of it pursued him like a curse.

‘Only Kylian’s kindness and her radiant nature cured him, giving him back the ability to shape his destiny. At her side he wrote the books you’ve heard about, he planned the works that would make him immortal and dispelled the ghost of his double life. But human greed denied him his chance, and what could have been a happy and prosperous life was plunged once more into darkness. This time for ever.

‘On the night Lahawaj Chandra Chatterghee watched his wife being murdered before his very eyes the years of childhood horror turned on him, catapulting him straight back into his own private hell. He had built a whole new life on a pedestal which was now toppling over, and as the flames devoured him, he became convinced that the only culprit in the tragedy was himself and that he deserved to be punished.

‘That is why, when Llewelyn ignited the Firebird and the flames engulfed the tunnels and the station, a dark shadow in Chandra’s soul swore he would return after his death. He would return as an angel of fire. An angel of destruction, the bringer of vengeance. An angel that would embody the darker side of his soul. It’s not a murderer who is after you. Or a man. It’s a ghost. A spirit. Or, if you prefer, a demon.

‘Your father always loved puzzles, right to the end. You told me about a drawing done by your friend Michael, the picture in which your faces are reflected in a pond. The image that appears on the water is inverted. It’s as if the prophecy guided Michael’s pencil. If you were to write the name that Chandra’s mother gave him when he was born, Lahawaj, on the drawing, the reflection on the pond would give you a different word: Jawahal.

‘Ever since that day, Jawahal’s tormented spirit has been tied to the infernal machine he created, a machine that, in death, gave him eternal life as a spectre of darkness. He and the Firebird are one and the same. That is his curse: a union between an angry spirit and a machine built for destruction. A fiery soul trapped inside the furnace of that blazing train. Now that soul is searching for a new home.

‘That is why Jawahal is looking for you, because the moment you reach adulthood, his spirit needs one of his children so that he can go on living: it needs to inhabit a body and thus extend its power to the world of the living. Only one of you can survive. The other, the one whose soul is not occupied by Jawahal’s spirit, must die. Sixteen years ago he swore he would look for you and make you his, and he has always kept his promises – in this life and the next. You must realise that Jawahal has already chosen which child will harbour his accursed soul. But only he knows which.

‘Providence granted you a chance sixteen years ago when Lieutenant Peake entered the labyrinth of tunnels at Jheeter’s Gate and discovered the lifeless body of Kylian hanging in the void over her own spilt blood. Your cries reached his ears, and the lieutenant, swallowing his grief, searched for you and snatched you from the hands of your father’s spirit. But he wasn’t able to get very far. His feet led him to my door; he handed you over and then fled.

‘When you tell your sister Sheere this story, never, ever forget that the avenging spirit that emerged that night from the flames of Jheeter’s Gate and killed Lieutenant Peake when he was trying to save you both is not your father. Your father died in the fire, along with the innocent souls of the children. The figure who arose from the inferno to destroy himself, the fruit of his marriage and his own work is nothing more than a phantom. A spirit consumed by the bitterness, hatred and horror that humans had sown in his heart. That is the truth and nothing and no one can ever change it.

‘If there is a god, or hundreds of them, I hope they will forgive me for the harm I may have inflicted on you by telling you exactly what happened.’

WHAT CAN I SAY? WHAT WORDS CAN EXPRESS THE sadness I saw in the eyes of my best friend, Ben, that evening? Delving into the past had unveiled a cruel lesson – that in the book of life it is perhaps best not to turn back pages; it was a path on which, whatever direction we took, we’d never be able to choose our own destiny. I wished I had already boarded that ship that would take me far away and was due to leave the following day. Inside me cowardice mingled with the pain I felt for my friend and the bitter taste of truth.

We had all listened to Aryami’s story in silence and none of us dared ask a question, although hundreds of them were bubbling over in our minds. We knew that at last all the strands of fate were converging on one particular place: an appointment we could not escape at nightfall amid the shadows of Jheeter’s Gate.

When we stepped outside, the last rays of the sun formed a scarlet ribbon in the sky that stretched across the deep bluish hue of the Bengali clouds. A light drizzle moistened our faces as we set off down the siding that led from the back of Lahawaj Chandra Chatterghee’s house to the large station on the other side of the Hooghly River, passing through the western quarter of the Black Town.

I remember that shortly before crossing the metal bridge that led straight into the jaws of Jheeter’s Gate, Ben made us promise, with tears in his eyes, that never, under any circumstance, would we reveal what we’d heard that evening. He swore that if he ever learned that Sheere had discovered the truth about her father, about the image that had nourished her since childhood, he’d kill whoever told her with his bare hands. We all promised to keep the secret.

There was now only one thing left to complete our story: war …

Calcutta, 27 May 1932

THE SHADOW OF THE STORM HERALDED THE arrival of midnight as a vast leaden blanket spread over Calcutta, lighting up with every burst of electric fury it unleashed. The power of the north wind swept the mist from the Hooghly River, revealing the ravaged skeleton of the metal bridge.

The silhouette of Jheeter’s Gate rose up through the retreating haze. A fork of lightning flashed from the sky, striking the needle of the central dome and fracturing into an ivy of blue light that travelled along the mesh of arches and steel beams before plunging down to the foundations.

The five friends stopped at the threshold of the bridge; only Ben and Roshan took a few steps forward. The rails formed a path edged by two silvery lines that led straight into the mouth of Jheeter’s Gate. With the moon hidden behind the clouds, the city was sunk in an eerie gloom.

Ben looked carefully along the bridge in search of gaps or cracks that might send them tumbling down into the turbulent current of the river, but all he could make out was the line of the tracks shining between weeds and rubble. The wind brought a muffled murmur from the opposite bank. Ben looked at Roshan, who was nervously watching the dark maw of the station. He saw his friend approach the tracks and crouch down next to them, his eyes still riveted on Jheeter’s Gate. Roshan placed his palm on the surface of one of the rails but quickly removed it as if he’d had an electric shock.

‘It’s vibrating,’ he said, sounding frightened. ‘As if a train were approaching.’

Ben went over and touched the metal. Roshan looked at him anxiously.

‘It’s the vibration caused by the river hitting the bridge,’ he reassured him. ‘There’s no train.’

Seth and Michael came over. Ian knelt down to tie his shoelaces in a double knot, a ritual he reserved for situations when his nerves were as tense as steel cables.

Ian looked up and smiled shyly without displaying a shred of the fear Ben knew was coursing inside him – just as it was in the others, and in himself.

‘T

onight I’d give it a triple knot,’ said Seth.

Ben smiled and the members of the Chowbar Society exchanged an expectant look then proceeded to imitate Ian and reinforce the knots of their shoes, calling on the lucky ritual that had worked so well for their friend in other predicaments.