The Corpse in the Garden of Perfect Brightness

by Malcolm Pryce

  ‘Reportedly he falls in love with a blue-eyed girl and goes missing one night after a row with the same Mr Fink who took the photograph of the buffalo. That night there was a break-in at the hotel and a vase and a rug were taken.’ I stopped, as Jenny nestled her head next to my left ear and stroked my right ear softly with her fingers. Was it really sensible to bring the girl who had brought me such joy into this perilous adventure? Was I being an utter fool?

  ‘But we are so close.’

  ‘How can you know we are?’

  ‘I just sense it.’

  ‘We really have no idea where to look. My understanding is that the plane will take off the day after tomorrow. All these people who you say know where he is will be on it. The three chaps will leave Bangkok. In the meantime, should the man with the burned face arrive, I don’t think … I am pretty sure I could not kill him in cold blood. I could not kill anyone in cold blood. And I am not sorry.’

  ‘We must hold our nerve, Jack.’ She pulled herself away. ‘Would you like me to change into something else?’

  ‘Not at all, as long as you don’t mind standing out.’

  ‘We already do, Jack. Surely you must see that? Let’s both get squiffy and then we won’t mind.’

  We descended the stairs and out on to the lawn. Earwig was standing alone, clutching a drink and looking deeply troubled by the events of the afternoon. Sam Flamenco and Solveig Connemara walked across the lawn. Mr Flamenco wore a cream suit with a pink cravat, and dark glasses. He walked stiffly with a cane and his face had that artificial tautness that they say comes from the surgeon’s knife. Miss Connemara wore a sequinned evening gown and a white stole upon her shoulders. A microphone had been set up before the string quartet and Mr Flamenco stooped towards it and spoke.

  ‘Folks, I’ll keep this brief, parties are for drinking, not making speeches. But I have a short announcement. After fifty years of telling me to go and jump in the lake, Miss Connemara has agreed to be my wife. Anyone who has the slightest inkling of just how wonderful a person she is will understand that I am utterly consumed with happiness. My wedding present will be to make her once again the star she never stopped being in my eyes.’ He then proposed a toast to his betrothed. A thin scattering of guests on the lawn raised glasses and said, ‘Solveig!’ There was polite but passionless applause.

  A hand touched mine, so gently it could have been a passing butterfly. I looked down. It was Hoshimi, for once standing without the need of her chair. She was wearing the Gosling’s Friend badge pinned to her frock. She grinned at me in delight, revealing unintentionally the gap where the incisor had been.

  ‘Thank you so much, Mr Wenlock,’ she said. And before I could say it was nothing she held her hand out, fist balled in a manner suggesting it contained a secret she wished to pass to me. I put my open palm under her fist and she released something into it. I looked down. It was a small brown shrivelled thing that instinct told me was a human ear. She indicated that I was to follow her, and led me out onto the terrace and down the lawn.

  She walked to a pile of junk and bric-a-brac near the water towards the edge of the grounds where a crumbling wall marked the boundary with the neighbouring building. In England it might have passed for a compost heap. She pointed at something in the pile and I took a closer look. It was a piece of string. I tugged and drew out the necklace of human ears that Curtis had stolen from Kilmer. There was also a scrap of cloth.

  I tugged at this experimentally at first, and then with greater confidence. The cloth took shape, appearing to be some sort of jacket. Finally it came free. I unfolded what indeed turned out to be a jacket and held it up. It was a scarlet circus ringmaster’s coat and had five puncture holes on the front. The cloth around each hole was darkened with a stain that must have been blood. I divined in an instant the significance of the holes. At the same time I realised that I would indeed be able to take part in the guest performances tonight. I would be able to put on a little show that even Hercule Poirot would have been proud of.

  I returned my gaze to Hoshimi. She stared at me without expression, her eyes glistening.

  ‘Thank you,’ I whispered and, raising my finger slowly to my mouth, said softly, ‘Shhh!’ A furtive smile stole across her face.

  I rolled the necklace of ears and jacket up into a bundle and returned to the hotel, where I sought out the manager. I asked him to provide for my little routine a number of items: a boy from the kitchen, a white chef’s tunic, and a pot of strawberry jam. I also asked that the spiked rattan ball be brought down but kept hidden from view under a cloth until a certain moment in my performance.

  Satisfied with the arrangements, I wandered over to the party and caught the middle of Mr Spaulding’s conversation. He was holding forth to a group of guests.

  ‘You probably think he was an awful rotter, but the Mongols to this day revere him as their George Washington. Balkh in Afghanistan was even worse. A beautiful ancient city of temples, observatories, galleries, gardens, palaces, libraries. Birthplace of Zoroaster, admired by Marco Polo and Alexander the Great. There’s nothing there now, just windswept ruins. They didn’t even spare the dogs.’

  ‘I do think it is terrible to destroy libraries,’ said Jenny, interrupting him from behind.

  ‘These are the realities of war,’ Spaulding replied, turning round. ‘If you spared libraries, the enemy would hide in them and shoot at you.’ It was then that he noticed Jenny. His throat tightened. ‘Have you not had the chance to change?’

  ‘Change what?’ said Jenny.

  He swallowed hard, and said icily, ‘Your outfit.’

  ‘What’s wrong with it?’

  ‘This is St George’s Day.’

  ‘He won’t mind, he was Turkish wasn’t he?’

  I forced a laugh. ‘Ha ha! By Jove, I didn’t know that. Was he really?’

  Spaulding blanched.

  Earwig joined us. ‘So glad you could make it, Wenlock,’ he said, as if the party was his. A thought troubled his countenance. ‘She hasn’t folded anything today, so I guess that’s it.’ He spoke in the manner of someone who had spent the time since our return from the beach in the bar.

  ‘It still strikes me as wrong,’ said Jenny, ‘to blow up a whole city. I’m sure we would never do things like that.’

  ‘Of course we would. In fact, this hotel is named after just such an occasion. Do you know where the name The Garden of Perfect Brightness comes from?’

  Neither of us did.

  ‘It was the old imperial summer palace in Peking. Fifty square miles of temples and pavilions, pleasure palaces and gardens. Museums filled with antiquities, art galleries filled with gorgeous paintings and tapestries and jade sculptures. More libraries than you could shake a stick at. Probably few places on earth to compare to it. Well, it’s gone now, not a trace of it remains.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked. ‘What happened to it? Was there a fire?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose you could say that, the fire in the loins of the doughty British infantryman. Stout men every one, sacked the whole place.’

  ‘That sounds horrible,’ said Jenny, shocked.

  ‘I’m sure it does to you, because you don’t understand these things. I suppose you would have preferred it if we had put the people to the sword instead.’

  ‘Of course not!’

  ‘We showed them clemency, that is more than most would do.’

  ‘Why destroy such a beautiful thing in the first place?’ I asked.

  ‘It was a reprisal, you see. Some Chinese ruffians attacked a handful of British merchants. An example had to be made. The Earl of Elgin ordained that rather than shoot a load of worthless peasants he would be merciful and sack the Summer Palace. Remarkable man.’

  ‘Why did they attack the British merchants?’ asked Jenny.

  ‘A dispute over opium. They stopped buying it.’

  ‘Who did?’ asked Jenny. ‘The Chinese? I thought they liked opium.’

  ‘Oh they did, too much. The whole country
was greedily sucking on the pipe, no one went to work. They were in a pretty sorry state of affairs, so the authorities banned the import of it. We had large tracts of land in India under cultivation with the crop. Being a woman you are squeamish about the measures that it is sometimes necessary to take, you prefer not to know, or not to know about what might happen if they were not taken. When nations go to war they fight worse than dogs. We talk a lot about honour and fair play but it is the biggest beast who wins.’

  ‘It used to be the case,’ Jenny objected, ‘that civilians were spared in times of war.’

  ‘You have a very selective understanding of history if that is what you believe.’

  ‘Even if the enemy you face is a brute,’ I said, ‘I don’t see that it is much of a victory to become a brute yourself.’

  As I spoke, Kilmer walked in, spotted us and strode over. Spaulding acknowledged him without warmth.

  ‘That’s because you were brought up in an orphanage,’ said Spaulding. ‘You can’t expect to get a proper schooling there.’

  ‘You know,’ said Kilmer, ‘when you tell a Siamese person how you abandon your children at the age of seven and send them away from their mothers for most of the year, they think you are joking.’

  ‘Seven?’ said Spaulding. ‘Roger was sent away to school at four! It didn’t do him any harm.’ He continued: ‘It’s called sacrifice. A word, I suspect, that is unknown to Mr Wenlock. He lives in a civilised country with museums and libraries, law and order and a fine police force – perhaps one of the very few in this world that cannot be bribed – a blessed realm of hospitals and football matches where he enjoys many fine freedoms and countless other wonders that are the envy of the world … but who pays for it? Do you, Mr Wenlock? What have you ever done to merit your place in all this? The wealth that pays for it comes from peasants in other lands who break their backs in the noonday sun and live short lives on your behalf.’

  ‘You should be more grateful, Jack,’ said Kilmer.

  Spaulding responded before I had a chance to. ‘Tell me, Mr Kilmer, what is it you do for a living?’

  ‘I work for the Military.’

  ‘Yes, I know, but which branch?’

  ‘Many branches.’

  ‘In what capacity?’

  ‘Lots of capacities.’

  ‘All rather conveniently vague,’ said Spaulding, draining his glass and standing to leave. ‘If you ask me you are up to no good. What actually are you doing in Bangkok?’

  Kilmer smiled. ‘I’m here to keep an eye on you.’

  We all laughed, but it was slightly forced because one strongly got the impression that he was telling the truth.

  During the course of the conversation the waiters had been quietly wending their way among us bearing trays from which drinks were regularly lifted. Roger arrived, looking sweaty, with a slightly unhinged gleam in his eyes, and said, ‘Rather!’

  Kilmer turned to Jenny and said, ‘I like your outfit.’

  ‘Why thank you, sir!’

  ‘Reminds me of Katherine Hepburn. Yes, I’d say it was pretty … lalapalooa!’

  ‘Lalapaloosa!’ said Jenny raising her glass. ‘Spoony even!’

  ‘Totally Fifth Avenue,’ said Kilmer.

  ‘Super-colossally fantabulous!’

  ‘Snazzy!’

  ‘Cheezle-goddam-peezle.’

  I listened with a sense of growing despair. It was wrong to be discomfited by this, and yet I was.

  ‘I say, Wenlock,’ said Spaulding quietly. ‘Have a care to your wife.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She’s making a bloody fool of herself. And of you too.’

  It was odd. The exchange of American slang with Kilmer had disconcerted me, but the idea of Spaulding expressing disapproval of Jenny made my gorge rise. ‘My wife,’ I said in a steely tone that I hoped left no doubt that he had better watch his step, ‘is behaving in a perfectly acceptable fashion, and I’ll thank you to mark that.’

  He was about to respond when he spotted Mr Fink approaching. ‘Well, of all the cheek!’

  ‘Happy St George’s Day!’ said Mr Fink.

  ‘So now we have the deserter and a lady dressed in trousers,’ said Spaulding. ‘Some St George’s Day this is turning out to be.’ He gestured with his drink at Fink. ‘What in blazes do you think you are doing here?’

  ‘Come for the party.’ He wore a supercilious smile that suggested he was already a bit tipsy.

  ‘This is no place for a deserter, your presence dishonours our patron saint.’ Spaulding’s face was dark with repressed fury. He whispered as if it would be letting the side down if the natives heard them disputing.

  ‘I have my own patron saint,’ said Fink. ‘Saint Martin of Tours. He refused to be conscripted into the Roman cavalry in ad 334, saying, “I am the soldier of Christ: it is not lawful for me to fight.”’

  ‘They have a patron saint for cowards?’

  ‘Conscientious objectors.’

  ‘What nonsense! Where would we be if everybody behaved like you?’

  ‘In a world without war.’

  ‘In chains you mean. Those chaps you abandoned fought on, risked their lives so you could take your silly photographs and mock the country that bore you.’

  ‘Why should I go and fight chaps with whom I have no quarrel?’

  ‘So they don’t dishonour your sister, you bloody fool.’

  During the heated exchange, Kilmer, perhaps with an eye to calming things down, had moved over to the microphone. He blew on it and then announced the beginning of the performances. He called on Mr Fink to take the first turn. Fink walked over to the microphone and explained that he would make a recital about St George, with the theme: How can we be sure he was English?

  Spaulding lost whatever was left of his patience. ‘Of course he was bloody English!’

  Mr Fink grinned provocatively. ‘Are you sure, now? He was born in Cappadocia, to Greek parents, and never visited England.’

  ‘Yes he did, he came to our school,’ interjected Earwig. ‘I mean, the place where it was later built.’

  ‘The legend of the dragon was added a thousand years after his death and is believed to be a mistranslation of “crocodile”.’

  Again Spaulding objected, but some of the guests were rather enjoying the mild blasphemy and encouraged Mr Fink. Although he clearly did not need any. ‘He is also the patron saint of syphilis sufferers.’ The audience tittered and exchanged looks of mild shock.

  ‘But there is one way we know he must have been English,’ continued Mr Fink. ‘Because in the third century ad the Emperor Diocletian threw George in the dungeon and tried to test his faith by sending him a beautiful damsel to spend the night in his cell. And it’s what he did to her that tells us he was an Englishman.’

  ‘Did he make her a cup of tea?’ shouted one of the guests.

  ‘Even worse,’ cried Mr Fink. ‘He converted her.’

  There was more laughter. Spaulding looked on, unable to impose his will on events, aware that they were running out of control.

  As the applause died down, Mr Kilmer called on Hoshimi, who had requested to be allowed to participate. The mood changed and softened as she walked up to the dais. One could sense everybody willing her to do well. The mike was lowered and she stood as straight as a sentry.

  ‘Dear people, you know that my health is not good, so I will make this very short. I hope you like it.’ She paused, her face betraying the effort of concentration. ‘A small recitation,’ she said. Took a breath, and then said:

  ‘Hush hush, nobody cares!

  Christopher Robin has fallen downstairs.’

  She paused, then bowed to show her piece was ended. Enthusiastic applause broke out as soon as it was understood there was no more.

  After this, the three chaps recited a verse.

  ‘The sand of the desert is sodden red,—

  Red with the wreck of a square that broke; —

  The Gatling’s jammed and the C
olonel dead,

  And the regiment blind with dust and smoke.

  The river of death has brimmed his banks,

  And England’s far, and Honour a name,

  But the voice of a schoolboy rallies the ranks:

  “Play up! Play up! And play the game!”’

  The next act was Mr Webster, who declared he wished to recite a short piece entitled ‘Why I decided to stop shooting Jesus’. This was met with more polite expressions of feigned shock, and once more Spaulding objected that such a subject was unsuitable. But Mr Webster disagreed.

  ‘On the contrary, this is the story of how I lost my faith and here today have rediscovered it. I’m sure St George would be delighted to hear it.’ So it appeared was everyone else. Mr Webster began:

  ‘My story begins in Japan in the years before the war. I was seconded to a mission in Japan attached to the Catholic cathedral. It was a very nice one with two towers and an Angelus bell, and lovely statues of Agnes holding a lamb. It was called Urakami Cathedral. Christianity had arrived in the sixteenth century with the Jesuits, who taught the locals about the Crucifixion only for the locals to promptly crucify twenty-six of them. I guess that’s what you call irony.’

  There was a smattering of laughter.

  ‘The beautiful cathedral was built in a lovely city on a bay overlooking the sea whence those Jesuits had first arrived. And it was there in the apse that I met a Japanese girl called Izumi. It was the Feast of the Assumption of Mary and the girl, seventeen years old, was standing there in a modest navy-blue serge skirt and the blue and white sailor collar top that the girls wear to school over there, staring at an alabaster statue of the Virgin Mary and crying. What man could fail to be moved?’

  The laughter died and was replaced by the concentrated gazes of the audience who, one sensed, had divined that this story came genuinely from the heart.