" So did he get the answers right? " I asked looking up.
She just shrugged her shoulders.
"I wake up before anything else could happen. His success is not pertinent or my concern. It is a freedom he represents that my mind cannot fathom. He sees himself as this nation. He is too, in many ways. Those rough deserts and the people of Dalimacus dancing through their rituals, they are a stateless people but are one. It is a world so foreign yet concerns quite mine. Will I live? Am I worthy ? Do the skies respond to these calls ? I know I am more worthy than many" looking out the window "but is that enough? What does being a nation, or a savior to one feel like ?is it burden or a gift ?"
I was still confused but my heart added on to her string "My heart agrees with your answers more in the trial. It is honest if not decisive. Ask a sailor, a storm is an omen to even the most godless pirates. Why are we more important than the sheep ?" I see her eyes wide and " I apologize. Your gift for written word has me struck me to speak out of turn" I said
She smiled shaking her head gently dismissing my outburst. " This cold will be the end of me" she said sniffing her nose.
" Let me call for the evening tea. Excuse me" I said. The warm orange sun shined in between us through the window on my left. The dust was floating and drifting down in the beam of light. She just nodded massaging her temple. I ringed the bell and sat down. There was a silence, it was fabric that draped us both. My eyes did not lift of the ground, they did not find their way to her shoes or gently trace the modest curves up to her nape. We did not, under this blanket of warm silence share a look. I was not shook off my feet and tempted to go closer nor reach for her forehead. It was just a pause of could-I-have that I dream of till today. We received the tea and drank it feeling cozy pink. My pen will not let me write the rest of that evening, it says my heart wants this secret to itself.
That was the end of it, we never spoke of the story again.
I spent the rest of my years reading through her library and visiting small cafes with Francesco. Life wasn't dull by any means, the bank was running tremendously. Even among the calls of protest, the bank was damaged very little.
A decade of affairs, with the world moving more to the edge, the newspapers got thicker and streets more dense. Everyone pointed more and more fingers horizontally than up or down. I can only remember my skin burns and heat from all of it now. In 97 I was called to Bombay. The spreading plague was in the papers. But I boarded the ship willing to let go of the island.
The ship, she was beautiful. My fever ridden journey was almost memory in my head. So I took regular walks through the 4 month journey on the SS Isidora .This is where I met the man who sold me the mirror, Gestas M Moth.
He came on board at Port Said, or at least I noticed him when we docked at beginning of the Red sea. It was boiling salty winds and irritating morale. I dined at the Captain's table and kept myself mostly to my cabin since the decks were dense with officers traveling to India, returning educated Indians and merchants, luskars shouting responses to orders. Evening walks on the deck with Egypt to my right and all of Europe to my left, the thin canal silt cause the slow travel to be quite bumpy. Two ships could pass by each other only in some spots so there was a lot of waiting. At one such stops in the evening after a sweaty afternoon sleep I was weaving through the crowd of the deck and saw Robert laughing at a Luskar jumping into the water almost naked because he could not handle the heat. There he stood, draped in dark overcoats in the heat laughing hoarse, the punishing light, facing across silt banks of Egypt where noise of struggling life bartered with anyone who dared step near, the unspoken politeness dictating white travelers did not seem to matter.
The second time I saw him was a surprise, walking out of my cabin, he was sitting right outside, drunk I assumed. He hands were cold. Before I could be wake him he exclaimed loudly. We are friends he said, Mrs. Gelfici's brother he claimed to be, an architect he was for the Canal with her husband. Voice dense that peaked a little too high when he thought about something humorous and he did a lot of the other. The French Republic, the supposedly secret deal with a King in Africa, the rising infection he claimed he saw in the cities in Europe all of it was topics of humor. I was swept off to separate tables with queer people. He claimed people had written books about him.
"I made a deal with this fine young man in London. He is a writer, or was a writer" he claimed
I waited for him to continue.
"Oh nasty business" he said waving his hand. We were strolling on the decks at night. Carefully stepping around sleeping men. The cool winds under the blanket of stars is to die for claimed Robert.
"At least he is alive now uses my last name sometimes, living in Naples last I heard. Miserable life he traded for, but what can we do. That is the business right" he said smiling with all his shiny white teeth, the accent was vaguely French. I could only nod to his statements, there was an urgency to the way he spoke, no obvious pauses where one might interject an opinion, long rambling speeches with a lot of hand movement. It was an exercise to keep up with him.
"Suez, what a marvel. We finally have a gateway. World feels closer, no more round around the capes down south. Hopeful or not, this is the future. Do you agree Simon?"
The last time we met was the day he got called for me, he claimed he was getting of at Aned. We finally spoke about his sister.
"She is delusional, hoping to write into life some fantasy. I heard you were forced upon to read this" he said handing out the sheet.
"She never finished it. She never wanted to, maybe the company to speak to about an effort indulged in was all on her aging mind" he said eying me. We were in my cabin, he sat on the only chair next to a barely used table while I sat on the edge of my bed.
"We need to find a better cabin for you, the Captain knows you are here ? Never mind all that, I will mention it to him. Did she ever mention I told her that story first ?"
I started my nod before he went off again.
"Of course she did not, it was a story I was writing. It was about a kingdom of king Pyter. He had 4 sons, the youngest being Neitch who had not seen even 20 winters. The king was seeing the small kingdom growing weaker summoned his sons to challenge them. He told them to bring him the most important thing a king should posses. They set off in the cardinal directions. The eldest went to war, out maneuvering the Northern mountain folk and conquering the peaks. He rode home having married the daughter to be as he deemed the future queen. The second son set off across the sea to the West in search of 'Land of Wine and Wealth'. Conquering the seas he brought back with him a new language and people with seeds to empower the trade of future. The third searched South for the mystical healers who would grant the people of the kingdom the nectar of the gods. Finally Neitch went East, through the punishing desert in search of the Mirror. The mirror was the guide to all heroes of the past, it was God's gift to see the future and thus will the favorable one into not just life but legend."
"So Neitch won ? An ability to see the future is the most important virtue for a king ?"
"I do not know. But I know he did come back with this" he said showing me a dark rectangular plate.
"This is not for meant to be given this early, it was part of a collection of a friend. He sadly… never mind Franks' case " he said rubbing the plate with his red kerchief "But we need people like you defending the crown's interest far from the motherland. Look around you, the luskars and the Negroes crying and sweating to keep this boat afloat. You have kept up with news haven't you ? The red is spreading. A Parie tout de monde etait coupable. Everyone is guilty of bad discipline. The glory days of the empire are ending, East isn't as meek as we would like to believe. So take this to help them, your fellow officers." He said holding out the mirror.
"You are a model of the modern British man, haven't docked in three ports for more than a quarter century, sill you carry the respect and diligence for us all. So please take it. This is not a deal with unacceptable consequences, no, it is an attitude you are adapting to towards powers that should be, we are the power that will be.I have tempted people for so long, people will give up their future if it means they can imagine a better one. But this is not that, this is just a cry for somebody to keep civilization alive. Stare at it and we will find everything that is best." He said shoving the mirror into my hands.
After he left, the journey was nothing but storms. We finally reached Bombay in July, more than a week late. I was guided away briskly, while the police clashed with a marching crowd. They were protesting the arrest of a prominent leader . I was here as a solicitor of an aging British businessman. I was yet to be introduced to him or his family. So I stayed in the Government house. I heard of the bomb blast, the arrest and the growing plague in Poona and the fear grew.
We heard of the queen's illness, the rumors of the prince, finally in 1901 when the tragedy did occur the whole empire was mourning. I heard the fears of the end echo all the way in Bombay. I saw the smile in many of their eyes, I felt a trembling anger soar through me. I saw if we lost control a million of them would eat us alive. They could at any moment, they were uniting themselves under the guise of solitude. The radicals were gaining the upper hand. A fear crept through but it was fueled by anger. I was mortified of being shot, bombed or even beaten by those around me. So I started writing letters to the Viceroy of what I could foresee. First we had to split Bengal, the calls for revolution and indecency were the most prevalent there. We needed more legislative blocks against the Congress party. We needed cultural difference between an already fractured state of society. We did not need to do too much, they hated each other enough, all we needed was to push the hungry dogs into pound. As the boats sailed back and we heard the coronation of King Edward we would turn this soil into a realm of safety and abundance for the empire.