The Moonlit Garden

by Bomann, Corina

  After Ellen left to start her packing, Lilly got up, threw her robe on, and crept up to the study. She switched on the light, booted up the computer, and opened her e-mail.

  Dear Gabriel,

  I’m writing in case you’ve already planned a date for our dinner.

  My friend has persuaded me to go on a sudden trip to Cremona, on the trail of Rose and our violin. You’ll probably find this a bit of a surprise, but perhaps she left more behind her there—maybe more than a recording. I hope you understand and aren’t annoyed with me.

  As soon as I’m back, I’ll let you know. And then we’ll have our meal, promise.

  Kind regards,

  Lilly

  Lilly reread the message before sending it. Did it sound too impersonal? Should she have included something more? Something to give him a little insight into her soul? She was about to add something but held back. No, that was fine; it was enough—enough to show him that she was serious about the dinner. Enough not to sound ridiculous. She pressed “Send.” She felt strangely light and at the same time peculiarly tense. It was unlikely that he would see the message that night, but she enjoyed imagining him sitting at his computer and opening her e-mail. I hope he’s not annoyed with me, she thought a little anxiously.

  But before she could turn off the computer, an e-mail arrived with a soft ping. It was from Gabriel’s office address. Was he still working? With shaking hands, she opened the e-mail window and read.

  Dear Lilly,

  I’m ashamed to say that I still don’t have a date in mind. However, I do have a surprise for you, but as you’re going away for a few days, I think it would be a good idea to keep it back until after you return from Cremona. I’ve been there once and found the city so captivating that I was only a hair’s breadth away from staying there. To make sure that doesn’t happen to you, and to make sure you come back to me, I’ll say just this: I’ve uncovered a small piece of news that throws a whole new light on Rose Gallway.

  I hope you have a lovely time in Cremona and look forward to hearing about anything you unearth. I send you my best wishes and warmest thoughts.

  Yours,

  Gabriel Thornton

  Lilly leaned back in the office chair with a smile. What had he discovered? Or was it really all just a trick to entice her back from Cremona? No, she couldn’t imagine Gabriel doing such a thing. If he said he had something, then he had something. Lilly was far more interested in the fact that he’d said she should come back to him than the news itself. He could have worded it more generally, but as she read the message over and over again, the words to me jumped out at her.

  Before she could read it yet again, the door opened and Ellen entered. Her eyebrows shot up in amazement.

  “Oh, I didn’t know you were up here!”

  “I just contacted Gabriel to let him know I’d be gone a few days in case he found something new,” Lilly explained as she closed the e-mail.

  “Good. So let’s have a look when the next flight’s leaving. Dean just got back. If you’re looking for him, just follow the smell of smoke.” Ellen had an affectionate look on her face. “I’m so glad that he’s OK.”

  “Me too.” Lilly kissed her friend’s temple and returned to her bedroom before memories of Peter could creep back in and spoil her lovely evening.

  12

  Padang, 1902

  That afternoon Rose finally found the time to visit her parents.

  She had not seen them since she had been sent to England, but she had never lost the yearning for the house by the harbor and the people on the street outside it. And for her mother and father, whose differences had been apparent to her even as a child. Her father was English—a tall, stocky man with broad hands, blue eyes, and hair as light as the sun. Her mother was a native of Sumatra, dainty, with thick, black hair and delicate almond-shaped eyes, which Rose had inherited. As a child she had sometimes noticed how her father was envied for his beautiful wife, and that had made her feel proud.

  As she hurried through the streets of Padang, past market stalls selling fruit, coconuts, and rice, she thought again of the Englishman who had spoken to her during the governor’s reception. Since those few minutes spent with him in the garden, she had visualized his face again and again—his sea-blue eyes, his golden-blond hair. The strange confusion she had felt the previous day had since grown—never before had she found a man so attractive, although she had been courted by plenty.

  “Don’t be afraid, lady, monkey do nothing,” an old man declared in broken English.

  Do I really look that white? Rose wondered. She replied in Malay: “I’m not afraid. But keep a good hold on him, or he’ll vanish up a palm tree, and then you’ll have to chase him.”

  The man stared at her wide eyed, surprised into silence. Rose turned with a smile and continued on her way.

  The salty breeze that blew through the city’s streets gradually became stronger and fresher. Her parents’ house was near a few warehouses on the seafront. Her father managed the buildings for a major trading company. The house was not built on stilts like the natives’ houses on Sumatra but in the Dutch style—with thick stone walls whose whitewash was marked with ever more cracks and dark patches.

  Rose had often overheard the other girls at school saying how foolish it was. If ever there was a flood—and they occurred frequently on the island—it risked being destroyed. But that had not happened yet.

  Rose noticed with delight that it was still standing and had not changed much. The window frames must have been recently painted, as the blue color was unfamiliar to her. The roof shingles were covered with a little more moss, but otherwise things were as they had always been.

  Her heart thumping with anticipation, she walked up to the front door. Would Father be there?

  She knew that her mother only ever left the house in the evenings—usually to talk to the neighbors—since she was always busy during the day, even though she and her husband had lived alone for some time.

  As Rose entered, she heard voices, which she didn’t understand at first. They were talking rapidly in her mother Adit’s language, so fast that Rose could hardly translate a word in her head. It had been so long since she had heard the language!

  Her mother had always used it when they were alone together, but since leaving home, Rose had almost always spoken Dutch and English, with the correct use of the latter being drummed into her mercilessly by Mrs. Kavanagh, the English teacher at the conservatory.

  After a while, however, she tuned in and understood more or less what the voice that wasn’t her mother’s was saying.

  “I was against you going away from the start. It’s against adat for a woman to move away to her husband’s house.”

  Adat. What was that again? Rose thought for a moment before recalling. Her mother had explained that before Islam had gained a foothold here, adat, the code of customs and conventions, had governed the life of the community. From birth to death, from building a house to cultivating rice—everything was controlled by adat.

  “But I’ve explained to you a hundred times,” her mother said with a sigh. “I decided to live here with him. You’ve left me in peace for so long, yet now that I’m almost an old woman, you’re back and starting all over again.”

  What did she mean? Rose couldn’t remember ever having seen this old woman. She leaned forward slightly in an attempt to catch sight of the visitor’s face. She was brown as a nut, and the wrinkles on her cheeks looked like a deep-cut river delta. She must have been over eighty.

  “It’s your duty to take up your place with us,” the old woman said more angrily. “It’s prescribed by adat. Who would we be without our elders? You know it brings great honor.”

  “Honor I don’t want! I want to stay with my husband; I want to see him every day, not merely to be visited by him. As far as I’m concerned, you can pass the honor and all that goes with it to someone else. I have a sister, after all.”

  Rose frowned in confusion. Her mother wa
s to be granted some honor? Honor she didn’t want?

  Of course she knew her mother was from the north and had previously lived with her people, but she had never told her anything more.

  A floorboard suddenly creaked beneath her shoe.

  “Is someone there?” her mother asked.

  Rose couldn’t stay concealed any longer.

  “Mother?” she said as she pushed aside the curtain that divided the back room from the kitchen.

  At first the dainty woman, whose hair now had a few strands of silver, stared at her as if she had seen a ghost.

  “Rose!” she cried out. She jumped up and rushed over to her daughter, the old woman who had been talking to her all but forgotten now.

  Rose was now a good head taller than Adit, but that didn’t prevent her mother from placing her hands on her face and gently drawing her down.

  “You’re back! My Rose has come back to me!”

  Rose should have shown her respect by kissing her brow, but her mother gave her no chance, hugging her to her breast with amazing strength and bursting into tears. Rose was no better. She felt a lump in her throat until she finally managed to relieve it with a sob. They stood there for a while, holding one another, offering mutual consolation. Neither of them paid any heed to the old woman, but she eventually drew their attention back to herself by clearing her throat.

  Rose now bowed to her, as was fitting, and at once felt as if she were twelve years old again, in the time shortly before her departure to England. The old woman accepted her gesture without a hint of emotion.

  “So this is your daughter,” she said in a tone Rose could not interpret. “Does she know where her origins lie?”

  Her mother gave the old woman a look of warning. “She knows, but she has decided on a different life. A life away from the island. A modern life.”

  Rose looked between the two women in amazement. What was it she was supposed to know? She had no memory of any conversation with her mother in which they had spoken of her origins. Or of any honors and obligations, or eerie old women in strange dress.

  The old woman sniffed disdainfully. “A person’s life is not always a matter of their own choosing. That applies to you, and also to her. If I were in your shoes, I’d not leave it too long before informing her of the obligations she will have one day. If you don’t, it’s possible that your child will suffer bad luck and drag her whole family down with her.” She turned to go.

  Rose stared after her. What a peculiar woman! Why was she threatening her with bad luck?

  Once the woman had disappeared through the curtain, Rose looked at her mother, who was rooted to the spot, her mouth moving weakly but no sound emerging.

  “Who on earth was that woman, Mother?” Rose asked once she had recovered slightly from her astonishment.

  “An old acquaintance,” her mother replied a little absently. She appeared to bring herself back to reality. “I’m so pleased to see you again, my child. You didn’t let me know you were coming.”

  “Everything happened so quickly—I received an invitation from the governor to play at a reception. And now I’m here.”

  “I’m glad. It’s lovely that you haven’t forgotten your parents amidst all this. You’re famous now.”

  “I’m just a simple musician, Mother, you know that. Did you get my letters and parcels?”

  “Every one, and I’ve kept them all safe. So often I wished I could write back to you, but as you travel so much, it would be impossible for my letters to reach you.”

  Rose had sorely missed receiving mail from her mother. She had written to Rose more often when she was at the conservatory, but it had become impossible now that she was in a different place every day, and though she could send messages and letters, she was unable to receive them.

  “My tour will be over in six months,” Rose said. “Then I’ll insist to my agent that I be given some time to come and stay with you for longer.”

  “You should make better use of your time and allow a young man to court you,” her mother said, laughing as she went over to the stove to boil water for tea.

  “I don’t think that’s very likely,” Rose replied. “When I’m on tour, I only rarely meet any men I like. They’re mostly old and lecherous—not the sort of person I’d like to settle down and start a family with. Besides . . . ” She hesitated briefly, since she knew how much her mother wanted grandchildren.

  “Besides, your heart belongs to your music.” Her mother finished her sentence for her. “That’s always been the case, ever since you were little.”

  Before Rose could say anything more, her mother came over and took her hand in her soft, gentle fingers.

  “Don’t worry, Rose, I know what it feels like to have a dream. My dream was to free myself from all my family obligations. I . . . ” She lowered her head, then shook it. “Perhaps she’s right. Perhaps I should tell you about it.”

  “Tell me what?”

  Her mother sighed deeply, then, without replying, went over to the stove and picked up the kettle, which was now boiling. After making the tea, she set two cups down on the table. Rose watched her. Had her movements always been so slow? Had she always been so faltering? No, Rose didn’t think so. There had been something about the old woman that had shaken her badly.

  “Mother?” she prompted gently.

  “Yes, my child, I haven’t forgotten. I’m only trying to find the right words. I really didn’t want you to be burdened with this knowledge.”

  “What knowledge?” Rose didn’t know where she was heading. What did her origins have to do with anything?

  After pouring them each a cup of tea, her mother sat down and folded her hands on the table as if she were about to pray.

  “Perhaps you don’t remember that visit to your grandmother all those years ago,” she began. Rose noticed her voice had a tremor in it.

  “I remember the garden,” she answered honestly. “And a little of my grandmother. But it is only a faint memory.”

  “You were three at the time. I can understand that the garden made more of an impression on you. It’s always held a certain magic. It’s also obvious that you didn’t pay attention to the conversation between the adults.”

  However hard Rose tried, she could not recall any of the conversation between her mother and grandmother.

  “Perhaps your memory’s also wrong on another count: I went there alone with you. Your father wasn’t there.”

  Rose shook her head. “I don’t remember that.”

  “But that was how it was. I went up there alone with you because your grandmother summoned me to talk to her. Of course I didn’t know what it was about. I hadn’t seen her since I came to Padang with Roger. She called me to her to remind me of my obligations. At the time I was obedient enough to go to her. That afternoon ended in an argument, though. While you were enjoying the delights of the garden, many angry words were spoken between me and my mother.”

  As her own mother spoke, a long-suppressed detail found its way into Rose’s memory. She saw a house with a magnificent roof adorned with pointed gables. It had been a palace to her then! Over the years, her imagination had added a golden roof, fine stone walls, towers, and huge windows to the building until it bore no resemblance to the real house. But now, strangely, she saw it as it had really been, with six peaks that looked like crescent moons stacked one above the other. Crescent moons of brown shingles, and in place of the stone walls she saw carvings on a red background, and window frames painted green and red.

  But the memory was only fleeting. As Adit continued, the image faded from her mind.

  “I’m sure you don’t remember that I grabbed you by the arm and dragged you back with me to the carriage. Your father was waiting a long way out of the village because he was not allowed to cross the boundary.”

  Rose honestly couldn’t remember but nodded to avoid complication. “And what does that mean for me now?”

  “That one day you too will receive a visit from them. The
y’ll try and persuade you to move to the family home to be the mistress over our people’s rice paddies. It may not seem such a bad prospect at first glance. But if, by then, you have a husband, you’ll be forced to leave him and live with your people. At best, he would be allowed to visit you, but the rest of the time he would have to live with his own people. That’s why I’ve decided to go against adat—and therefore sacrificed my inheritance.” She was looking Rose directly in the eye. “You have to know that your father means everything to me. Some people marry because their parents arranged it for them. I married him because from the moment I saw him, I knew there was no one else for me. I couldn’t bear to be separated from him a moment longer than necessary. Now, you could say I’m separated from him when he goes to work, but that’s not the same thing at all, because I know he’ll be coming back to me. If I were to give in to the old woman’s request, I’d have to leave all this behind and move to the family home. There was good reason for me to leave the village when I did. I didn’t want to live without Roger.”

  Her mother reached across the table and took Rose’s hand in hers, which was icy cold. “You’re still too young to grasp the meaning of true love, but I’m telling you, when you do fall in love, every moment you’re separated from that person will cause you great pain. For me, it’s a pain I couldn’t bear. Can you understand?”

  Rose understood. And her mother was wrong to assume that she had no idea of love. True, she had not yet found a man to love in the same way as her mother loved her father, but what she felt for him was just like Rose’s love for her music—and Rose had no intention of giving that up for adat.

  Rose spent the rest of the afternoon helping her mother with the housework, something that had long become foreign to her. Immersing herself in the activities she had carried out as a child gave her a lovely warm feeling.