The Midnight Palace Read online

  ‘We’re disbanding,’ said Michael.

  ‘Hark, the dead do speak,’ remarked Roshan, surprised to hear him talk.

  Sheere looked around the group, trying to hide her amusement at the crossfire between them.

  ‘What Michael means is that today we’re holding the last meeting of the Chowbar Society,’ Ben explained. ‘After seven years, the final curtain.’

  ‘What a shame,’ said Sheere. ‘For the first time in my life I come across a real secret society, and it’s about to disband. I won’t have time to become a member.’

  ‘Nobody said that new members were accepted,’ said Isobel, quick as a flash. She’d been listening in to the conversation, her eyes never leaving the intruder. ‘In fact, if it hadn’t been for the resident bigmouths here who’ve already broken one of the oaths, you wouldn’t even know it existed. All they need is a glimpse of skirt and they’d sell their souls.’

  Sheere offered Isobel a conciliatory smile, struck by the slight hostility in her tone. It was not easy to accept not being the only girl.

  ‘According to Voltaire, the worst misogynists are always women,’ said Ben casually.

  ‘And who the hell is Voltaire?’ snapped Isobel. ‘Only your twisted mind could come out with such rubbish.’

  ‘Ignorance has spoken!’ replied Ben. ‘Although perhaps Voltaire didn’t say exactly that …’

  ‘Stop fighting,’ Roshan intervened. ‘Isobel is right. We shouldn’t have said anything.’

  Sheere watched nervously as the mood appeared to darken in a matter of seconds.

  ‘I don’t want to cause an argument. I’d better return to my grandmother. I’ll forget everything you’ve said,’ she stated, returning the lemonade glass to Ben.

  ‘Not so fast, princess,’ Isobel exclaimed behind her.

  Sheere turned to face the girl.

  ‘Now that you know something, you might as well know everything and then keep it secret,’ she said, offering an embarrassed half-smile. ‘I’m sorry about what I said earlier.’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Ben. ‘Go on.’

  Sheere raised her eyebrows.

  ‘She’ll have to pay the admission fee,’ Siraj reminded Isobel.

  ‘I haven’t got any money …’

  ‘We’re not a church – we don’t want your money,’ replied Seth. ‘The price is something else.’

  Sheere scanned each face in search of an answer. Ian smiled back at her.

  ‘Don’t worry, it’s nothing bad,’ the boy explained. ‘The Chowbar Society holds its meetings in the dead of night at a secret location. We each pay the price of entry when we join.’

  ‘Where’s the secret location?’

  ‘It’s a palace,’ replied Isobel. ‘The Midnight Palace.’

  ‘Never heard of it.’

  ‘Nobody has except us,’ Siraj said.

  ‘And what is the price?’

  ‘A story,’ replied Ben. ‘A personal, secret story you have never told anyone else. You share it with us and then your secret will never leave the Chowbar Society.’

  ‘Do you have anything like that?’ asked Isobel defiantly, biting her lower lip.

  Once again Sheere looked at the six boys and the girl, who were watching her cautiously. In all her years of moving around with her grandmother she had never stayed in one place long enough to make a single true friend, much less seven of them willing to listen and to invite her to be a part of something.

  ‘I have a story that I’m quite certain you’ve never heard,’ she said at last.

  ‘Right then,’ said Ben rubbing his hands. ‘Let’s get going.’

  WHILE ARYAMI BOSE WAS explaining the reasons that had brought her and her granddaughter back to Calcutta after so many years of exile, the seven members of the Chowbar Society were leading Sheere through the bushes that surrounded the Midnight Palace. To the newcomer’s eyes, the palace was just a large abandoned house with a dilapidated roof through which you could see the star-studded sky. Gargoyles, columns and reliefs loomed through the sinuous shadows, the vestiges of what must once have been a stately mansion straight out of the pages of a fairy tale.

  They crossed the garden via a narrow tunnel that had been hacked through the undergrowth and led straight to the main entrance of the house. A light breeze stirred the leaves and whistled through the stone arches of the Palace. Ben turned and looked at Sheere, grinning from ear to ear.

  ‘What do you think of it?’

  ‘It’s … different,’ Sheere replied, not wishing to dampen his enthusiasm.

  ‘Sublime,’ Ben corrected her, marching on, oblivious to any other opinion regarding the charms of the Chowbar Society’s headquarters.

  Sheere smiled to herself and let him lead the way, thinking how much she would have liked to have known this group and this mansion during the years it had served as their refuge and sanctuary. The place exuded that aura of magic and dreams that rarely exists beyond the blurred memories of our early years. It didn’t matter that it was only for one night; she was looking forward to paying the admission fee to the almost extinct Chowbar Society.

  ‘My secret,’ she began, ‘is in fact the story of my father. The two are inseparable. I never met him, and I have no memory of him except what I learned from the lips of my grandmother and what I read in his books and notebooks. Yet, however strange this may seem to you, I’ve never felt closer to anyone in the world. Even though he died before I was born, I’m sure he will wait for me until I join him, and on that day I’ll finally be able to see for myself that he is just as I imagined him: the best man who ever existed.

  ‘I’m not so different from you. I didn’t grow up in an orphanage, but I’ve never known what it’s like to have a home or someone to talk to, apart from my grandmother, for longer than a month. We lived in trains, in strangers’ houses, on the streets, never having a place we could call home or somewhere to return to. During all these years the only friend I’ve had is my father. And as I’ve said, although he was never there, I discovered everything I know about him from his books and the memories of my grandmother.

  ‘My mother died giving birth to me, and I’ve had to live with the sorrow of having no memory of her. The only image I have is the reflection I’ve found in my father’s writings. Of all his books, including the treatises on engineering and the thick tomes I never really understood, my favourite was always a slim volume of stories called Shiva’s Tears. He wrote it just before his thirty-fifth birthday, when he was busy developing the idea of Calcutta’s first railway line and a revolutionary station made of steel he dreamed of building in the city. A small publishing house in Bombay printed only six hundred copies of the book, but my father never saw a single rupee. I have a copy. It’s a small black volume with the words “Shiva’s Tears by L. Chandra Chatterghee” embossed in gold on the spine.

  ‘The book is divided into three parts. The first focuses on his ideas for a new nation built on the spirit of progress, on technology, railways and electricity. He called it “My country”. The second part describes a fabulous house he planned to build for himself and his family once he’d managed to amass the fortune he longed for. He describes every corner, every room, every colour and every object in such detail that no architect’s plan could equal it. He called this part of the book “My house”. The third part, called “My mind”, is a collection of the short stories and fables he’d been writing ever since he was a boy. My favourite is the one that gives the book its title. It’s very short. Here it is…’

  A long time ago Calcutta was struck down by a terrible plague that took the lives of its children, so that little by little, as the inhabitants grew older, they lost all hope for the future. To resolve the situation, Shiva set off on a long journey in search of a cure. During his travels he frequently had to confront danger. In fact, he met with so many difficulties that the journey kept him away for many years, and when he returned to Calcutta he discovered that everything had changed. In his absence, a sorcerer had come fro
m the other end of the world bringing with him a strange remedy which he proceeded to sell to the people of Calcutta for a high price indeed: the soul of every healthy child born after that day.

  This is what Shiva’s eyes saw. Where once there had been a jungle of mud huts, there now rose a city so large that nobody could view it in a single glance and it faded into the horizon no matter which direction you looked. A city of palaces. Shiva was fascinated by the spectacle and decided to turn into a human being and walk through the streets of the city dressed as a beggar, so that he could get to know its new inhabitants, the children whom the sorcerer’s remedy had made possible and whose souls now belonged to him. But a great disappointment awaited Shiva.

  For seven days and seven nights the beggar walked through the streets of Calcutta, knocking on palace doors, but they were all slammed in his face. Nobody wanted to listen to him. People shunned him and poked fun at him. As he roamed the immense city in despair, he discovered that poverty, misery and darkness filled the hearts of its men. Such was Shiva’s sadness that on the last night he decided to abandon his city for good.

  As he did so, he began to weep and, without realising it, he left behind a trail of tears scattered through the jungle. At dawn Shiva’s tears turned to ice. When the men realised what they had done, they tried to make amends for their mistake by storing Shiva’s tears in a sanctuary. But, one by one, the tears melted in their hands and the city dwellers never saw ice again.

  From that day onwards, the curse of a terrible heat fell upon the city and the gods turned their backs on it, leaving it at the mercy of the night spirits. The few remaining righteous men prayed that, one day, Shiva’s tears might fall again from heaven and break the spell that had turned Calcutta into a doomed city.

  ‘Of all my father’s stories, this was always my favourite. It’s probably the simplest, but it embodies the true essence of what my father meant to me – and still does. Like the men of the doomed city, who had to pay the price for the mistakes of the past, I too await the day when Shiva’s tears will fall on me and free me of my loneliness. Meanwhile, I dream of the house my father built, first in his mind and, years later, somewhere in the north of the city. I know it still exists, although my grandmother has always denied it. She doesn’t know this, but I believe that in his book my father described the exact spot where he was planning to build it, here, in the Black Town. All these years I’ve lived with the hope of being able to walk into it one day and recognise everything I already know by heart: the library, the bedrooms, the armchair in the study …

  ‘So that is my story. I’ve never told anyone because I had no one to tell it to. Until today.’

  AS SHEERE FINISHED HER tale, the darkness that reigned in the Midnight Palace helped conceal the tears of some of the members of the Chowbar Society. No one seemed ready to break the silence that infused the air following the end of her story. Sheere laughed nervously and looked at Ben.

  ‘So do I qualify as a member?’

  ‘As far as I’m concerned,’ he replied, ‘you deserve to be an honorary member.’

  ‘Does the house really exist, Sheere?’ asked Siraj, who was fascinated with the idea.

  ‘I’m sure it does,’ she replied. ‘And I’m determined to find it. The clue is somewhere in my father’s book.’

  ‘When?’ asked Seth. ‘When shall we start looking?’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ Sheere said. ‘You can help, if you want to …’

  ‘You’ll need someone with brains,’ Isobel remarked. ‘You can count on me.’

  ‘I’m an expert locksmith,’ said Roshan.

  ‘I can find maps in the Town Hall dating right back to the establishment of the government in 1859,’ said Seth.

  ‘I can find out if there’s any mystery surrounding the house,’ said Siraj. ‘It might be haunted.’

  ‘I can draw it exactly as it is,’ said Michael. ‘I can make plans. From the book, I mean.’

  Sheere laughed and looked at Ben and Ian.

  ‘Fine,’ said Ben. ‘Someone will have to be the director of operations: I accept the job. Ian can put antiseptic on anyone who gets a splinter.’

  ‘I suppose you’re not going to accept a no,’ said Sheere.

  ‘We deleted the word “no” from the dictionary in the orphanage library six months ago,’ Ben declared. ‘Now you’re a member of the Chowbar Society, your problems are our problems. Company orders.’

  ‘I thought we were disbanding the society,’ Siraj reminded them.

  ‘I decree an extension due to grievous circumstances that cannot be ignored,’ said Ben, throwing his friend a withering look.

  Siraj melted into the shadows.

  ‘All right,’ Sheere conceded, ‘but we have to go back now.’

  THE LOOK WITH WHICH Aryami greeted Sheere and the other members of the Chowbar Society could have frozen the surface of the Hooghly River. The elderly woman was waiting by the front of the building with Bankim, whose expression was so serious Ben immediately started dreaming up some improbable excuse to get his new friend out of the scolding that was clearly coming her way. He went ahead of the others and put on his best smile.

  ‘It was my fault. We just wanted to show your granddaughter the courtyard behind the building,’ he said.

  Not even deigning to look at him, Aryami went straight over to Sheere.

  ‘I told you to wait here and not move,’ she said, her face flushed with anger.

  ‘We’ve only been a few metres away,’ said Ian.

  Aryami looked daggers at him.

  ‘I didn’t ask you, young man,’ she retorted, not bothering to be polite.

  ‘We’re sorry to have worried you, we didn’t mean to—’ Ben insisted.

  ‘Leave it, Ben,’ Sheere interrupted. ‘I can speak for myself.’

  The woman’s hostile expression softened for a moment. This didn’t go unnoticed by any of the young people. Aryami pointed at Ben and her face grew pale in the faint light of the lanterns dotted around the garden.

  ‘Are you Ben?’ she asked, lowering her voice.

  The boy nodded, concealing his surprise as he met the old woman’s inscrutable gaze. There was no anger in her eyes, only sadness and anxiety. Aryami took her granddaughter by the arm.

  ‘We must go,’ she said. ‘Say goodbye to your friends.’

  The members of the Chowbar Society nodded farewell and Sheere gave a shy smile as she walked away, her arm still held tightly by Aryami Bose. They disappeared into the dark streets of Calcutta. Ian went over to Ben, who seemed lost in thought, his eyes fixed on the retreating figures of Sheere and Aryami as they ventured into the night.

  ‘For a moment I thought that woman was frightened,’ said Ian.

  Ben nodded, still staring.

  ‘Who isn’t frightened on a night like this?’

  ‘I think you’d all better go to bed,’ said Bankim from the doorway.

  ‘Is that a suggestion or an order?’ Isobel asked.

  ‘You know that my suggestions are always orders,’ declared Bankim, pointing to the building. ‘In.’

  ‘Tyrant,’ whispered Siraj to himself. ‘Enjoy your last few days.’

  ‘The ones who re-enlist are always the worst,’ added Roshan.

  Bankim nodded happily as he watched the six boys and the girl file past him, ignoring their mumbled protests. Ben was the last one through the door and he exchanged a look with Bankim.

  ‘However much they complain,’ he said, ‘they’ll miss you in five days’ time.’

  ‘So will you, Ben,’ laughed Bankim.

  ‘I already do,’ he murmured to himself as he started up the staircase to the first-floor dormitories, aware that in less than a week he would no longer be counting the twenty-four steps he knew so well.

  AT SOME POINT IN the early hours Ben woke up and thought he could feel a gust of icy air on his face. A beam of pale light flickered through the narrow pointed window. Ben reached out a hand towards his bedside table and turned the face of
his watch to catch the moonlight. The hands were crossing the equator towards dawn: three o’clock in the morning.

  He sighed, suspecting that sleep had deserted him, evaporating like dew in the morning sun. Perhaps the spectre of Ian’s insomnia was haunting him for a change. He closed his eyes again, conjuring up images of the party that had ended a few hours earlier, trusting they would soothe him to sleep. Just then he heard a strange sound that seemed to be whistling through the leaves of the courtyard garden.

  He sat up, pulled back his sheets and walked slowly towards the window. From there he could hear the tinkling of the darkened lanterns in the branches of the trees and the distant echo of what sounded like children’s voices, laughing and talking in unison, hundreds of them. Leaning his forehead against the windowpane and peering through the condensation made by his own breath, he thought he could make out the silhouette of a slender figure standing in the middle of the courtyard, wrapped in a black cloak. The figure was staring straight at him. He jumped back in alarm, and before his very eyes the windowpane slowly cracked, starting with a small fissure in the centre that spread like a spider’s web gouged out by hundreds of invisible claws. The hairs on the back of Ben’s neck stood on end and his breathing quickened.

  He looked around him. All his friends were fast asleep. Ben heard the children’s voices again and noticed that a thick mist was filtering through the cracks in the glass. He moved closer again and looked down into the courtyard. The figure was still standing there, but this time it stretched out an arm and pointed at him. Suddenly its long sharp fingers burst into flame. Ben stood there for a few seconds, gripped by the vision. Then the figure turned and began to walk away into the darkness. Ben rushed out of the dormitory.

  The corridor was deserted, the only light coming from an ancient gas lamp that had survived renovation works at the orphanage a few years before. He hurtled down the stairs, across the dining halls, and emerged through the kitchen side door just in time to see the figure disappearing into the dark alleyway that led round the back of the building. The narrow alley was filled with a thick mist that seemed to rise from the sewer gratings.