The Midnight Palace (Niebla 2)

The girl’s face lit up for a moment.

‘Have I ever told you what my dream is?’

‘To see snow fall over London,’ said Ben. ‘I remember. Next year we’ll go there together. We’ll visit Ian. He’ll be there studying medicine. It will snow every day. I promise.’

‘Do you remember our father’s story, Ben? The one I told you the night I went to the Midnight Palace?’

Ben nodded.

‘These are the tears of Shiva, Ben. They’ll melt when the sun rises and will never fall on Calcutta again.’

Ben gently sat his sister up and smiled at her. Sheere’s deep pearly eyes watched him carefully.

‘I’m going to die, aren’t I?’

‘No,’ said Ben. ‘You’re not going to die for years and years. Your lifeline is very long. See?’

‘Ben …’ Sheere groaned. ‘It was the only thing I could do. I did it for us.’

He hugged her tightly.

‘I know,’ he murmured.

Sheere tried to push herself up and bring her lips closer to Ben’s ear.

‘Don’t let me die alone,’ she whispered.

Ben hid his face from his sister and pressed her against him.

‘Never.’

They remained like that, hugging each other quietly under the snow until Sheere’s pulse slowly faded like a flame in the breeze. Little by little the clouds receded towards the west and the light of dawn melted away the veil of white tears that had covered the city.

THOSE PLACES WHERE SADNESS AND MISERY ABOUND are favoured settings for stories of ghosts and apparitions. Calcutta has countless such stories hidden in its darkness, stories that nobody wants to admit they believe but which nevertheless survive in the memory of generations as the only chronicle of the past. It is as if the people who inhabit the streets, inspired by some mysterious wisdom, realise that the true history of Calcutta has always been written in the invisible tales of its spirits and unspoken curses.

Maybe it was this sam

e wisdom that lit Lahawaj Chandra Chatterghee’s path during his final moments, making him realise that he had fallen inexorably into the prison of his own damnation. Perhaps, in the deep solitude of a soul condemned to revisit, time and time again, the wounds of the past, he was able to understand the real value of the lives he had destroyed, and of all the lives he could yet save. It’s hard to know what he saw in his son’s face seconds before he allowed him to put out the flames of bitterness that blazed in the Firebird’s boilers. Perhaps, in the midst of his madness, he was able, for one brief second, to muster the sanity that his tormentors had stolen from him ever since his days in Grant House.

The answers to all these questions, as well as his secrets, discoveries, dreams and expectations, disappeared for ever in the terrible explosion that split the skies over Calcutta at daybreak on 28 May 1932, like the snowflakes that melted even as they kissed the ground.

Whatever the truth may be, I must record that, shortly after the burning train sank into the Hooghly, the pool of fresh blood that had housed the tormented spirit of the twins’ mother evaporated. I knew then that the soul of Lahawaj Chandra Chatterghee and that of the woman who had been his companion would rest in eternal peace. Never again would I see in my dreams the sad eyes of the Princess of Light leaning over my friend Ben.

I haven’t seen my friends in all the years since I boarded the ship that was to take me to England that very afternoon. I remember their frightened faces when they said goodbye to me on the wharf on the Hooghly River as the boat weighed anchor. I remember the promises we made to stay in touch and never to forget what we had witnessed. I have to admit that, even then, I realised that our words would be lost in the ship’s wake as soon as it departed under the flaming Bengali sun.

They were all there, except for Ben. But none was as present in our hearts as he was.

When I look back on those days, I feel that each and every one of my friends lives on in a corner of my soul, a corner that was sealed for ever that afternoon in Calcutta. A place where we all continue to be sixteen years old and where the spirit of the Chowbar Society and the Midnight Palace will remain alive as long as I do.

As for the fate that awaited each of us, time has effaced the footprints of many of my companions. I learned that after some years Seth succeeded the rotund Mr de Rozio as head librarian and archivist of the Indian Museum, and that in doing so he became the youngest man ever to hold that post.

I also had news of Isobel, who married Michael years later. Their marriage lasted five years, and after their separation Isobel went off to travel round the world with a small theatre company. The passing of the years didn’t prevent her from keeping her dreams alive. I don’t know what has become of her. Michael, who lives in Florence, where he teaches drawing in a secondary school, never saw her again. To this day I still hope to spot her name topping the bill at some show.

Siraj passed away in 1946 after spending the last five years of his life in a Bombay prison, accused of a theft which, until his dying day, he swore he didn’t commit. As Jawahal predicted, what little luck he’d had abandoned him that day.

Roshan is now a prosperous and powerful businessman, owner of a good number of the old streets around the Black Town, where he grew up as a beggar without a roof over his head. He’s the only one who, year after year, keeps up the ritual of sending me a birthday letter. I know from his letters that he married and that the number of grandchildren who run around his properties isn’t far off the figures that make up his fortune.

As for me, life has been generous and has allowed me to journey through this strange passage to nowhere in peace and without hardship. Shortly after I finished my studies, I was offered a post in Dr Walter Hartley’s hospital in Whitechapel. It was there that I really learned the job I’d always dreamed of and which still earns me my living today. Twenty years ago, after the death of my wife Iris, I moved to Bournemouth, where my home and my surgery occupy a small comfortable house with a view over the salt marshes of Poole Bay. My only company since Iris departed has been her memory and the secret I once shared with my companions in the Chowbar Society.