The Moonlit Garden

by Bomann, Corina

  She was on her way back into the village when she saw Verheugen and Setiawan coming toward her.

  “We’ve been looking for you!” Verheugen called, waving.

  “I was just looking at the garden from above,” Lilly said. “A marvelous sight. It’s a shame I won’t be able to see it in the moonlight.”

  “I’ll send you a photo. And perhaps you’ll come back one day and spend more time here.” Verheugen gave her an encouraging smile. “But you should come back now. Indah would be extremely offended if you didn’t enjoy a good meal before you leave.”

  29

  London, 1920

  The days after the accident were a blur of delirium. Helen had occasional lucid moments when she realized she was in the hospital and in great pain, but then she would sink back into unconsciousness, trapped in a chaotic world of weird dreams. She saw a village she knew she had never been to. Strange roofs with gables like buffalo horns pointed up into the sky.

  After three weeks of semiconsciousness her thoughts began to get clearer, and she became aware of her body again. The doctors now spoke to her, trying to engage her in conversation. At first she found it difficult to give any answers, as her tongue refused to obey her brain’s signals. When the doctors realized this, they explained that it was due to the opium she was being given to alleviate the pain of her fractures.

  The last thing Helen could remember was the lights of the bus racing toward her and the dreadful hooting of its horn, the most horrible discord she had ever heard. Everything after that was a blur of light and shadow, heat and cold, silence and muffled sounds.

  As her vision began to clear, she found she was looking up at a metal frame above her. At first her mind was too sluggish to know where she was, but then she realized that she could not move one of her hands.

  When the nurse became aware that she was awake, she fetched the doctor on duty, a man with friendly blue eyes and graying hair.

  “My violin, Doctor. What happened to my violin?” was the first question Helen asked.

  A smile flitted across the face of the man who introduced himself as Dr. Fraser.

  “You’re obviously well enough to be thinking of music, then?”

  Helen didn’t fail to notice the hint of sympathy in his expression. It was destroyed, she thought, and although she had hated the instrument during the last moments before the accident, the thought that her treasure might have been destroyed caused her breast to tighten painfully. Or was that only her broken ribs? No, the pain was deeper than that.

  “I can set your mind at rest regarding your violin. Miraculously it only suffered a few scratches, and a couple of strings snapped. Someone picked it up at the scene of the accident and sent it with you to the hospital. There are still some honest people in the world, even these days.”

  Tears sprang to Helen’s eyes. The violin was safe. Even though she had put her career at risk with the accident, she would be able to play again.

  Her delight in the thought of music paled when the plaster cast was removed from her arm, and Helen soon realized that something was wrong. Her thumb, index, and middle fingers were numb. At first she had assumed that this was due to the anesthetic, but Dr. Fraser was worried when she told him about her lack of sensation.

  A few days later, the doctor appeared in her room with an X-ray plate. His dejected expression caused Helen’s stomach to tighten. Until that moment she had not allowed herself to contemplate the dreadful thought—but now . . .

  With a heavy sigh, Fraser stood by her bed and for a few moments said nothing, as if assessing his patient’s condition to see whether she was strong enough for the news he had to break to her.

  “It appears that some of your nerves were also affected by the accident,” he began a little hesitantly. “I’m reluctant to make a definite prognosis, but I fear . . . ”

  “I’m never going to be able to play again, am I?” Helen’s voice cut through her throat like glass.

  Fraser sighed again. She could see clearly how much he wished he could tell her otherwise.

  “At some stage . . . ,” he began, but stopped again as if fighting for the right words. “Perhaps you will one day. Nerves sometimes knit together again, heal. If you train your hands, you might eventually manage it again.”

  The words of the old woman, the one who had claimed to be her grandmother, resounded in Helen’s ears again. During the encounter in her dressing room they had led to Helen throwing the old woman out and ultimately running out into the street in a state of bewilderment.

  “You’re Rose’s daughter,” the old woman had said, her sharp eyes fixed on Helen.

  “I don’t understand,” Helen replied in confusion. “My mother is Ivy Carter.”

  The old woman shook her head and then straightened her head scarf.

  “No, Ivy Carter brought you up because your mother gave you away for music.”

  What was the old woman talking about? Helen felt a strange weight in her stomach. She had never doubted that Ivy was her mother, and now this old woman was claiming that her mother was actually a stranger.

  “Look. Have you ever seen this woman?”

  With trembling hands, the old woman took a photo plate from her bundle. The picture was stained, the plate slightly rusty, but the woman it showed was clearly recognizable.

  Helen gasped. It was the woman who had spoken to her by the fence! The mystery lady who had given her the strange violin. After the earthquake she had never seen her again.

  “This woman was called Rose. Rose Gallway. You probably won’t know her name.”

  “Oh yes, I know it!” Helen cried in astonishment. “Twenty years ago she was one of the best solo violinists in the world!”

  A bitter smile crossed the old woman’s face.

  “You’re Rose’s daughter,” she said. “And I blame myself for not being there for you.”

  “You?”

  “I’m Rose’s mother, Adit. After the death of my husband I returned to my village to accept my inheritance—the inheritance of my forebears. I learned too late what happened to Rose.” She sighed heavily and stroked her thumb lovingly over the plate. “I had hoped she would come to find me, that she would confide in me when she was in need, but she was obviously too proud for that. It was only later that I found out what had happened. That she had married and was among the dead following the earthquake. And that she had a daughter who grew up in another family.”

  Helen shook her head in disbelief. No, none of this had anything to do with her! The old woman was talking nonsense. Perhaps she was after money.

  “You don’t believe me,” the old woman observed. “I didn’t expect you to. But I’m old, and I’m going to die soon. I had no other daughter but Rose. You’re my granddaughter, Helen. And it’s up to you whether our maternal line will die out or remain.”

  Maternal line? Granddaughter? Helen’s head was spinning. What did it all mean? Surely her mother was—

  At once, she saw the face of the mystery lady before her. Amber eyes, exotically shaped. A strong chin, full lips. The years had eroded her recollection of the stranger but not fully erased it, and the photo now brought her mental image back into focus. How beautiful the woman had been.

  “Go away!” she said, not noticing how harshly or hysterically her voice rang out in the room. “Leave me in peace!”

  With a sad smile the old woman turned and left.

  With a long sigh, Helen returned to reality in her hospital room. Bitterness spread through her heart. Despair. Perhaps the accident was fate’s way of punishing her for failing to believe her grandmother.

  Did she now have any other choice than to return to her roots? She was no longer able to live the glittering life of a musician. Maybe she would be able to play again one day—she was determined to succeed in that—but at best she would only be good enough to entertain the company at an evening function, who were bound to blather on about the tragic fate of Helen Carter, once such a bright star. The very thought made h
er stomach turn.

  She looked regretfully at the violin case by her side until tears clouded her vision. Would my grandmother place such a curse on me? she wondered, then reached out her less injured hand to the case. As she fumbled to open the catches, a film of sweat coated her skin, making her nightshirt stick to her belly and back, but she refused to yield. She could have called for a nurse, but she had something to prove. To herself, and to the old woman who had so thoroughly turned her life upside down.

  After she had finally raised the lid, she felt weaker than ever in her life. Her breathing hurt her ribs, and her unfeeling hand felt even number. She managed to grip the neck of the violin and take it from the case.

  As if it were a child, she hugged it to her breast before sinking back against the pillow. The thought that she would never again be able to get a sound from it was almost unbearable, but her pain and sadness were subsumed by defiance. I will do it, she told herself. Somehow.

  Helen was released a few weeks later. She was not sent home but to a sanatorium in Switzerland to convalesce after the trauma of her accident. Her agent had reacted with shock to the doctor’s diagnosis but had assured her that he would not make the news public until it was definite that her hand would never recover.

  Helen had her violin with her in the sanatorium and had discovered a piece of music in the lining of the case—a very unusual piece, one that may even have been composed by her mother.

  She held the music tightly as she looked out at the garden. Which garden did her mother have in mind? Was the music really by her?

  Her period of convalescence did not restore her ability to play the violin, but her courage to face life had grown. She had run through the conversation with the old woman again and again in her mind, and gradually a desire had crystallized: I must find out about my mother!

  The number of questions she faced could have discouraged her, but she suddenly felt an inner strength, the like of which she had never known before. I mustn’t give in! she thought.

  Perhaps she could start over again. Perhaps being so far from London was not the worst thing that could happen to her.

  Home, she thought. Sumatra is so far away from everything. It’s my homeland; it was my mother’s homeland, and that of my forebears. As soon as I get the opportunity, I intend to return.

  30

  London, 2011

  The early spring sunshine was hot on Lilly’s skin as she walked up the gravel path to Ellen’s house. Its warmth did not compare to the heat Lilly had experienced on Sumatra, but it felt very good for European conditions.

  Once she had reached the house, she looked in vain for the gardener, but there was no sign of him except for the snowdrops and crocuses adorning the beds alongside the path. Was Rufus ill, or had she merely missed him?

  Ellen’s car sitting outside the house indicated that her friend must have arrived home just before her. Although Lilly had deliberately not given her a precise time of arrival, since she never liked to distract her from her work, Ellen clearly seemed to have a sixth sense.

  “The happy wanderer returns!”

  Lilly jumped as Ellen appeared beside her. She was wearing gardening gloves and carrying a bundle of birch twigs, which she probably wanted to add to a bouquet of flowers. The two women fell into one another’s arms.

  “How lovely to see you! I’ve missed you so much this week!”

  “I’ve missed you too! You should have come with me; I’ve discovered so much.”

  “Well, come in and tell me. I can’t wait!”

  In the living room, over tea and cakes, Lilly gave Ellen a detailed report of everything she had done in Indonesia and all she had found out about Rose and Helen. The diary and the photocopies were on the table, radiating a strange energy, as if they were dying to get into Gabriel’s hands and be back where they belonged with Rose and Helen, even though they were little more than shadows of the past in the music school.

  “So they were mother and daughter.” Ellen shook her head in disbelief. “I don’t understand how a mother could bring herself to give her child away.”

  “Times were different then,” Lilly said, although she knew she would never be able to grasp it either. “The only way of really escaping from the scandal would have been to return to her mother in Magek. But Rose was afraid of that, afraid of losing her self-determination. But she paid a high price for it.”

  Ellen thought for a moment in silence before saying, “I’m really glad I live now, in a time when women no longer have to decide between family and career.”

  “You’re right there,” Lilly agreed and sank into her own thoughts. How would it have been for Rose in my situation? Could she have loved again if Paul had died? Paul had abandoned her, and despite what she had written, she had probably harbored a tiny spark of hope that she might see him again before she died. Whereas I’ve lost Peter forever. Rose couldn’t open her heart to anyone else, but I can.

  “Anyway, it seems the earthquake saved her from prolonged suffering,” Ellen said sadly as she picked up the copy of her obituary. “No wonder she was thought to be missing without a trace. Historians would have looked in vain without the knowledge that she was married.”

  “Exactly. I’m so pleased that I had the help of that enthusiastic Dutchman. At first I thought he was after something from me, but no, he had already found the love of his life.” Lilly paused to get her thoughts in order, then asked, “Have we received any mail from Italy?”

  Ellen shook her head.

  “No, I’m afraid not. The day you set off I sent Enrico an e-mail, but I only got a brief reply to say that his friend still hadn’t been in touch. He probably needs a while longer.”

  “Yes, probably. Or he hasn’t been able to find anything.”

  “Could be. But as it turns out, there’s nothing left for him to find, is there?”

  “I guess you’re right—I’ve solved the puzzle of Rose and Helen, apart from the mystery of how the violin came to me. I suppose the music can’t really help me with that last piece of the jigsaw, can it?”

  “Probably not, unless one of the women could see into the future.” Ellen paused briefly before giving an enigmatic smile. “Well?”

  “Well what?” Lilly asked, although she could guess.

  “I’m sure Gabriel will be delighted to hear all this.”

  “You bet!” Lilly replied with a smile.

  “Well, don’t leave him on tenterhooks. You were supposed to be having a meal together, weren’t you?”

  “Yes, we were. And . . . ” It occurred to Lilly that with all the things she had experienced in Padang, she had forgotten to tell Ellen that Gabriel had come to find her before her flight. “He came to meet me.”

  “In Padang?”

  “No. Well, kind of. I thought about him a lot. He came to find me at the airport before I left. I’d called him, but the last thing I expected was for him to appear. But he did, and he brought me a letter in which Rose asked one Paul Havenden to look after their daughter. That was the catalyst that set the ball rolling.”

  “And you kept all that secret from me? Shame on you!” Ellen laughed. “You know what this means?”

  “That Havenden abandoned her?”

  “That’s not what I meant. I mean Gabriel. You know he wouldn’t do something like that if he wasn’t crazy about you, don’t you? And that means your fears about his ex-wife were completely unfounded.”

  Lilly lowered her head, slightly embarrassed. “I know.” She looked up with a smile. “And I’m sure about him myself now.”

  “Then pick up the phone! Do I have to keep telling you?”

  “No, I don’t think you do.”

  Lilly got up and went over to the telephone table, but Ellen couldn’t help giving her a final piece of advice.

  “Take him to the restaurant we went to. And wear your green dress—I’m sure the sight of you in it will floor him!”

  Lilly looked out the window uncertainly. It was already half past seven.
Perhaps she should have ordered a taxi. When she suggested it to Gabriel, he had protested.

  “Surely you don’t believe that I’d entrust my lady to a stranger’s driving skills!”

  Lilly had laughed. “I’ve accepted lifts from quite a few strange men recently—I’m sure I’d survive the journey to the restaurant.”

  “I don’t doubt it, but I’d like the pleasure of spending a few more precious minutes with you. I’m not going to pass up that opportunity.”

  He was a bit late in giving himself that pleasure—where was he? After checking her hair and the fit of the green dress one more time, she heard the sound of an engine. As she looked out the window, she saw headlights shining through the twilight. There he was!

  She grabbed her purse and ran toward the living room, her heart thumping. Dean and Ellen were sitting on the sofa watching TV, a sight that made Lilly smile. One day, will I sit there like that with Gabriel, happily spending such an ordinary evening?

  “Gabriel’s here, I’m off!” she called, and whirled out of the room again to fetch her coat.

  “Have fun!” they chorused in reply. Ellen waved through the door.

  Lilly felt as though she were going to the prom, or like Cinderella being whisked away by her prince.

  “Make sure you don’t only talk shop with him!” Ellen called after her, but Lilly was already out the door and only had eyes for Gabriel, who got out of the car and greeted her with a kiss.

  “I can hardly believe you’re finally coming to this meal with me!” He laughed as he held the passenger door open for her.

  “Of course, what did you expect?” she replied with a smile as she fastened her seat belt.

  “I’d better get going quickly before you change your mind.”

  “No fear of that. Anyway, it’s not been entirely my fault that this dinner didn’t happen sooner.”

  “OK, OK, I admit I’ve been guilty, too. So we’d better make sure we enjoy this evening. We’ve earned it, haven’t we?”