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peered out. She was rewarded with the sight of a small brown boy, naked himself except for a
swaddling cloth around his hips, crouched near the wall. He did indeed hold the other end of the
rope in his hand and apparently by tugging on it at regular intervals, he was able to make the fan spin.
He grinned at her.
Disconcerted as she was, she grinned back. He looked no more than five or six years
old.
“How did you know when to pull?” she asked without thinking, for of course he couldn’t
understand the question. And besides, she herself knew the answer. The creak of the bedsprings was
his signal, as loud to his well-trained ears as a gong, and a sign that one of the Memsahibs was taking
her afternoon rest. A sign that he would be required to stoop here, making his slow methodical tugs
for as long as she lay in the bed. It was appalling, Emma thought - but perhaps, on second thought, no
more appalling than how the young chimney sweeps in London were treated. They were lowered into
smoking hell holes and this boy was in a reasonably pleasant courtyard as he went about his task. He
didn’t seem underfed or mistreated – or even unhappy. He was watching her with wide bright eyes.
And she so dearly wanted to nap.
“Thank you,” she said, although she was quite certain the child did not understand this
simple phrase either. It was highly unlikely he had never heard it from Mrs. Tucker or any white
skinned person. But he grinned again and nodded, and with nothing left to say between them, Emma
retreated slowly back into her room. She sat back on the bed and with the subtle squeak of the
springs, the great fan begin to turn again.
He’s out there anyway, she told herself, leaning back on the bed and letting the cool air
wash across her like water. Sitting and waiting. He may as well stir the rope, after all.
And then another thought came over her, just as she drifted off to sleep. An hour in this
country and I am already letting a child fan me while I nap. I have become just another one of the
memsahibs and, God help me, it didn’t take long.
***
The Byculla Club – The Kitchens
1:20 PM
“Don’t tell Trevor or he shall have apoplexy,” Tom said, “but the idea about cutting off
the fingers wasn’t a bad one. Either Seal or Morass, one of them, is cleverer than he seems.”
“Well I suppose even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while,” said Rayley, wiping
his hands on a dishcloth. Within minutes of their arrival at the club, they had been shown to the
kitchens, and then to the storage cooler, and had there been greeted by the sight of Rose Weaver and
Pulkit Sang lying side by side in what appeared to be a coffin made of ice. It was both eerie and
rather like a child’s fairy tale, Rayley thought, noting how the corpses lay not only in close congress
but furthermore gazing into each other’s eyes. As if they shared some secret unknown to the outside
world.
But any such romantic notions quickly dissipated when Tom approached the pair and
matter-of-factly began to whack away at the ice. They were extracted easily enough, since the thick
dome which covered them broke off nearly all in a piece, allowing Tom and Rayley to set it aside.
The revelation of the bodies brought both the sweet smell of decomposition and the awareness that
rigor had in essence fused them together. Tom, utterly nonplused, had merely picked up his hammer
again.
Rayley had stood in the doorway, ostensibly to shield the kitchen staff from the