"Do you love the girl?" Pranjivan asked.
"It's no business of yours," said James, his voice dropping to a growl.
"If you love her, you can love her silence too."
"Love her silence? What is this? Some kind of a game?"
"It is a game, but not a funny one. It's a demon's game, and if you encourage the girl to speak, you encourage her to kill you, and the demon wins. I especially wish the demon not to win."
"Demon?" James said. "Are you mad? There are no demons. There are no curses. There are only vicious jokes and vile people, tormenting an innocent girl!"
Pranjivan shook his head and said, "Are you really so certain? Would you look at a rock in a field and claim no cobra lies beneath it because you can't see it?"
"And what is it I can't see? Demons?"
"You can see demons."
James looked around him at the throng of camels and rickshaws and stern turbaned men with twirled mustaches. He cocked an eyebrow at Pranjivan, who smiled a thin smile and said, "There are none nearby just now."
"Of course not. Look, I'll just be on my way. I don't have time for your mythology today." James stepped around Pranjivan and continued down the avenue.
Pranjivan fell into step beside him. "Oh? Why is that? What happens today?"
James gave him a dark glance but didn't answer. In his pocket, his hand curled around the little velvet box.
"From what I hear," said Pranjivan, "she would be devastated if she killed you. For her sake, I wish that not to happen."
"How good of you."
"If you wish to protect her --"
"I wish to marry her," said James, turning to face him.
"So marry her," said Pranjivan in a low, urgent voice. "But believe. The world goes down deeper than you know, Englishman. There are cobras under the rocks, and there are curses."
The urgency in the Indian's voice perplexed James. He might be mad, but he was certainly sincere. What was this all about? The strength of James's certainty weakened just a little.
Pranjivan went on. "She mustn't speak. Believe it. Believe there is more to the world than what your own eyes have seen." Then he nodded his head in a sharp farewell and crossed the avenue to a waiting rickshaw. James watched him go. He saw him climb in, and he saw the rickshaw men gather up their poles, but before they could start off, a spidery hand reached out from within the shadows of the contraption and the men halted.
The street was banded with shadows slung low and long by the setting sun, and James couldn't make out the second figure in the rickshaw until she sat forward. It seemed to cost her a great effort to move that little bit, and when her face came into the light, James saw Estella. She looked very ill. Her face was pinched and sallow, but her eyes burned with a fearsome intensity. James felt a shiver pass through him as she looked straight at him.
"What does she want?" he wondered. Uneasy, he started walking toward her but he hadn't gone more than a few steps when the old bitch reached her hand out of the rickshaw and, in a sudden startling motion, snatched James's shadow away.
He faltered and stared at his feet, then up at the rickshaw, then back at his feet. What had he just seen? The old bitch had reached out one frail hand, clutched it suddenly into a fist, and pulled - and James's long thin shadow had gone taut before him, then disengaged from his feet and scudded over the cobbles to disappear into the shadowy rickshaw. He almost thought he had felt it pull free. A smile quavered at the corners of his lips and he wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it.
But when a box-wallah paused beside him to reshoulder his burden before crossing the street, James couldn't help but see the man's shadow splayed out thick and dark over the cobbles and beside it... nothing. James cast no shadow at all.
The old bitch slumped wearily back in her seat and Pranjivan gave James a long look before ordering the rickshaw runners to move off. An incredulous laugh burst from James's lips as he thought of calling out, "Stop! Thief!" He turned in a circle to see if anyone had been watching, but the street sweepers and lamplighters were all going about their own business, and the rickshaw soon faded into the gloom.
James resumed his walk toward the Agent's Residence with a fervor of thoughts clashing in his mind. He didn't believe in magic and demons. He believed in day and night, endurance and fury, cold mud and loneliness and the speed with which blood leaves the body. He also believed in miserable, defiant hope and the way the shape of the girl you love can fill your arms like an eidolon when you dream about dancing with her.
But whether he believed it or not, his shadow was ... missing. With each person he passed he was forced to acknowledge its absence in stark contrast to the many quick shadows slipping by on the street. By the time he reached the gates of the Residence, he had begun to feel as if a neat slit had been opened in the lining of reason, letting madness sidle in.
"Sahib!" a little street boy cried, running up to him. "Yes, little man? What is it?"
"The old memsahib, she say give you this, Sahib," the child told him breathlessly, tossing something at James's chest so he had to catch it. It was a little parcel of brown paper, and as the boy ran off, James unfolded it. It was weightless; it seemed empty, but as it fell open, a mass of darkness hit the ground at James's feet, dark and quick as paint splashed from a bucket. It was his shadow, and it was crisp beneath the lamps of the Agent's gates now, as if it had never been gone. Inside the little parcel, on the brown paper, was scrawled one word. Believe.
James's soul trembled, just a little.
NINE The Kiss
Inside, Anamique was watching for James. A pianist had been hired for the evening so that she might not have to entertain at her own party, and the fellow was playing a rowdy ragtime tune. Others were dancing and laughing, but for Anamique the party wouldn't begin until James arrived. She looked in a mirror and saw a strange girl looking out. She smiled. She'd had her hair bobbed. Her sisters had sculpted it into finger waves and it looked glossy and sleek against her cheeks. She wasn't a girl anymore, and she wasn't wearing a girl's gown either. She wore a jazzy shimmering shift that fell to mid-calf, and in her stockings and strappy shoes her ankles felt naked. Her shoulders were bare too and she felt daring and sultry and alive.
She saw James reflected in the mirror and she turned. He'd just come in and was looking for her. She watched mischievously as his eyes swept the room, passing over her twice before finally fixing on her face with a flash of surprise. His startled brown eyes dropped to her shoulders, then down to her ankles and darted quickly back up to her face as a blush overspread his cheeks. He stood immobile for a moment, clutching a bouquet of flowers, before crossing the room to her in a rush.