The Midnight Palace - Carlos Ruiz Zafon [87]
‘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 same 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