The Ruby in the Smoke

by Philip Pullman

  But it was. Her father had died, and something was wrong, and there was no one but her to set it right. She quickened her pace, and entered the broad road of St Giles's that led to the centre of the city.

  There was another hour and a half before she was going to meet Frederick. She spent it in looking round the city aimlessly at first, since the old college buildings held little interest for her. But then she saw a photographer's shop, and made for it at once. She spent an hour talking to the proprietor and looking at his stock; and came away much enlightened, and much happier, having entirely forgotten (for a little while at least) Wapping, and opium, and the Ruby.

  "I knew I was right, to come to Oxford," said Frederick in the train. "You'll never guess who I've been talking to this afternoon."

  "Tell me, then," said Sally.

  "Well, I went to see an old school friend of mine at New College. And he introduced me to a chap called Chandra Sen - an Indian. He comes from Agrapur."

  "Really?"

  "He's a mathematician. Very scientific, very austere. But we talked about cricket for a bit, and he loosened up, and I asked him what he knew about the Ruby of Agrapur. He was astounded. Apparently there are more stories about that stone than just about any other piece of rock in India. And no one's seen it since the Mutiny. The Maharajah was murdered, you know."

  "When? By whom?"

  "It was during that time, evidently, because his body was discovered after the relief of Lucknow. But no one knows who did it. And the Ruby was missing, and it's never turned up since. But there was such confusion at that time and so much death and destruction... He asked me how I'd heard of it, and I said I'd read something in an old book of travel. Then he told me something very odd. He didn't believe in this himself - far too rational - but there was a legend that the evil of the stone would persist until it was laid to rest by a woman who was its equal. I asked him what that meant, and he said rather sniffily that he had no idea, it was just superstition. Nice chap, but rather prim. Still, we've learned something, even if we don't know what it means."

  "Major Marchbanks said at the start of his book that the climax was ... I forget his exact words, but - horrible, I think he said..."

  "The murder of the Maharajah. D'you think he did it?"

  "No. Impossible."

  She shook her head, and they fell silent for a while.

  Then he said, "And what have you been finding out? You said at the station you had something to tell me."

  With an effort she tugged her mind away from India.

  "Stereographic pictures," she said. "I spent an hour or so in a photographer's shop. Do you know how many people came into the place while I was there and bought stereographic pictures? Six of them, in just one hour. D'you know how many have come into your shop and asked for them?"

  "I haven't the vaguest idea."

  "Trembler says more people ask for them than for anything else. And why buy all those stereoscopes if you don't sell the pictures to go in them?"

  "But we sell stereographic cameras. People can take the pictures for themselves."

  "They don't want to. Taking stereographs is a job for an expert. And anyway, people like pictures of far-off countries and things like that - things they can't see for themselves."

  "But--"

  "People could buy them just as they buy books and magazines. They'd buy thousands! What sort of pictures did you take today?"

  "I was trying a new Voigtlander 200 millimetre lens with a variable diaphragm I'm trying to get right."

  "But what sort of pictures?"

  "Oh, buildings and things."

  "Well, you could take stereographs of places like Oxford and Cambridge and sell them as a set. The Colleges of Oxford - or The Bridges of London - or Famous Castles - honestly, Frederick, you could sell thousands."

  He was scratching his head; his tow-coloured hair stood up stiffly, and his face, in the mobile, vivid way he shared with his sister, seemed to be struggling to contain three or four different expressions at once.

  "I don't know," he said. "I could take them easily enough - it's no more difficult than taking an ordinary photograph. But I couldn't sell them."

  "I could, though."

  "Ah, well, that's different. But photography's changing, you know. In a few years' time we won't be using these great clumsy glass plates at all. We'll be taking negatives on paper in lightweight cameras. We'll be working at phenomenal speeds. There's all kinds of work going on... Well, I'm doing some of it myself. And no one will look at old-fashioned stereographs then."

  "But I'm talking about now. At the moment, people want them, and they'll pay you for them. And how can you do anything exciting in the future if you don't make some money now?"

  "Well, you could be right. Got any more ideas?"

  "Lots. Display the goods differently, for a start. And advertise. And..."

  She stopped, and gazed out of the window. The train was steaming along beside the Thames; the late autumn afternoon was closing in rapidly, and the river looked grey and cold. This water would be flowing past Hangman's Wharf soon, she thought. We're both going that way.

  "What is it?" he said.

  "Frederick, can you help me buy some opium?"

  Chapter Ten

  MADAME CHANG

  Next afternoon, Frederick took Sally to the East End.

  The year before, he had helped his uncle in a project to photograph scenes of London life, using an experimental magnesium light. The light had only been partly successful, but Frederick had made a number of acquaintances in the course of the project, including the proprietress of a Limehouse opium den: a lady by the name of Madame Chang.

  "Most of these places are abominable," he said as they sat in the omnibus. "A shelf to lie on, a filthy blanket, and a pipe, and that's all. But Madame Chang takes care of her customers, and keeps the place clean. I suppose the reason is that she doesn't take the stuff herself."

  "Are they always Chinese? Why doesn't the government stop them?"

  "Because the government grows the stuff itself, and sells it, and makes a handsome profit."

  "Surely not!"

  "Don't you know anything of history?"

  "Well - no."

  "We fought a war thirty years ago over opium. The Chinese objected to English merchants smuggling opium into the country, and tried to ban it; so we went to war and forced them to take it. They grow it in India, you see, under government supervision."

  "But that's horrible! And our government's still doing that now? I don't believe it."

  "You'd better ask Madame Chang. Time to get out now; we'll walk the rest of the way."

  The omnibus had stopped at the West India Dock Station. Beyond the gate into the Dock, a line of warehouses stretched for over half a mile to the left, and above their roofs the masts of ships and the jibs of cranes pointed to the grey sky like skeletal fingers.

  They set off to the right, towards the river. They passed the large square Dock Offices, where she supposed her father must have come many times on business, and then turned down an alley and into a maze of courts and sidestreets. Some of them were not even named, but Frederick knew the way, and never hesitated. Barefoot children, ragged and filthy, played among the rubbish and the streams of stinking water that trickled thickly over the cobbles. Women standing in their doorways fell silent as they passed, and stared with hostile eyes, arms folded, until they had gone by. They look so old, thought Sally; even the children had pinched, old-men's faces, with wrinkled brows and tight-drawn lips. Once they came on a group of men at the entrance to a narrow court. Some were leaning on the wall, some squatting on doorsteps. Their clothes were torn and clotted with dirt, their eyes were full of hatred, and one of them stood up and two others shifted away from the wall as Frederick and Sally approached, as if to challenge their right to pass. But Frederick did not change his pace. He walked straight up to the entrance, and the men drew aside at the last moment, looking away.

  "Unemployed, poor fellows,
" said Frederick when they'd turned the corner. "It's either the street corner or the workhouse, and who'd choose the workhouse?"

  "But there must be jobs on the ships, or at the docks, or something. People always want workers, don't they?"

  "No, they don't. You know, Sally, there are things in London that make opium look no more harmful than tea."

  She supposed he meant poverty, and as she looked around she had to agree.

  Presently they came to a low wooden door set in the wall of a grimy alley. There was a sign beside the doorway, with some Chinese characters painted in black on red. Frederick tugged the bell-handle, and after a minute the door was opened by an old Chinaman. He was dressed in a loose black silk robe, and he had a skull-cap and a pigtail. He bowed to them and stood aside as they entered.

  Sally looked around. They were in a hall lined with delicately painted wallpaper; all the wood was lacquered in a deep, lustrous red, and an ornate lantern hung from the ceiling. There was a close, sweet smell in the air.

  The servant left, to come back after a moment with a middle-aged Chinese woman in a richly embroidered robe. Her hair was severely pinned back, and she had black silk trousers under the robe, and red slippers on her tiny feet. She bowed, and gestured towards an inner room.

  "Please consent to enter my poor place of business," she said. Her voice was low and musical, and quite without any accent. "You, sir, are Mr Frederick Garland, the photographic artist. But I have not been honoured with the acquaintance of your beautiful companion."

  They entered the room. While Frederick explained who Sally was and what they wanted, Sally looked around in wonder. The light was very dim; only two or three Chinese lanterns penetrated the smoky darkness. Everything that could be painted or lacquered in the room was the same deep blood-red, and the door-posts and the beams of the ceiling were carved with curling, snarling dragons picked out in gold. It gave her a sense of oppressive richness; it seemed as if the room had taken on the shape of the collective dreams of all those who had ever gone there to seek oblivion. At intervals around the walls - it was a large, long room - were low couches, and on each of them was lying a man, apparently asleep. But no! There was a woman, hardly older than Sally herself; and here another, in middle age; respectably dressed, too. And then one of the sleepers stirred, and the old servant hastened up with a long pipe, and knelt on the floor to prepare it.

  Frederick and Madame Chang were speaking in low voices behind her. Sally looked for somewhere to sit; she felt dizzy. The smoke from the newly lit pipe drifted up to her, sweet and enticing and curious. She breathed in once, and then again, and -

  Darkness suddenly. Stifling heat.

  She was in the Nightmare.

  She lay still, with her eyes wide open, searching the darkness. An enormous convulsive fear was squeezing her heart. She tried to move, but could not - and yet it didn't feel as if she were bound; her limbs were too weak to move.

  And she knew that only a moment earlier, she'd been awake...

  But she was so afraid. The fear grew and grew. It was worse than ever this time, because it was so much clearer. She knew that any second, close to her in the darkness, a man would begin to scream, and she began to cry in pure fear of it. And then it started.

  The scream ripped through the darkness like a sharp sword. She thought she would die from fear. But voices were speaking! This was new - and they were not speaking in English and yet she could understand them -

  "Where is it?"

  "Not with me! I pray - I beg of you - it is with a friend -"

  "They are coming! Be quick!"

  And then a hideous sound, the sound of a sharp instrument sinking into meat - a sort of tearing sound, followed by a sudden gasp and groan as if all the breath had been forced out of a man's lungs at once: and then a gushing, splashing sound that quickly died away into a trickle.

  Light.

  There was a tiny spark of light somewhere.

  (Oh, but she was awake, in the opium den! This was impossible -)

  And she could not escape from the dream. It unwound ceaselessly, and she had to live through it. She knew what was coming next: a guttering candle, a man's voice -

  "Look! Look at him! My God -"

  It was the voice of Major Marchbanks!

  This was the point where she had always woken up before but now something else happened. The light came closer and was held out to one side, and the face of a young man looked down at her: fierce, darkly moustached, with glittering eyes and a trickle of blood down his cheek.

  All at once she was awash with fear. She was almost mad with it. She thought, I'm going to die - no one can be afraid like this and not die or go mad...

  There was a sharp blow on her cheek. She heard the sound of it a second later; things were out of joint, and everything was dark again. She felt a desolating sense of loss -

  And then she was awake, on her knees, her face streaming with tears. Frederick was kneeling beside her, and without thinking she flung her arms around his neck and sobbed. He held her tightly and said nothing. They were in the hall: when had she moved out there? Madame Chang stood a little way off, watching closely.

  When she saw that Sally was conscious again, the Chinese woman stepped forward and bowed.

  "Please to sit on the divan, Miss Lockhart. Li Ching will bring some refreshment."

  She clapped her hands. Frederick helped her on to the silk-covered divan, and the old servant offered her a little porcelain cup containing some hot fragrant drink. She sipped it and felt her head clearing.

  "What happened? How long was I -"

  "You were affected by the smoke," said Frederick. "You must have inhaled more than you thought. But to go under all at once like that - isn't that very unusual, Madame Chang?"

  "This is not her first encounter with the smoke," said the lady, still standing motionlessly in the gloom.

  "I've never smoked opium in my life!" said Sally.

  "It distresses me to contradict you, Miss Lockhart. But you have breathed the smoke before. I have seen ten thousand who have taken the smoke, and I know. What did you see in your vision?"

  "A scene that - that's come to me many times. A nightmare. A man is being killed and... And two other men come along and... What can it be, Madame Chang? Am I going mad?"

  She shook her head.

  "The power of the smoke is unbounded. It hides secrets of the past so well that the sharpest eyes in the brightest daylight would never find them; and then it reveals them all like buried treasure when they have been forgotten. What you saw is a memory, Miss Lockhart, not a dream."

  "How can you be sure it's not a fantasy?" said Frederick. "Do you really mean to say that Sally's been under the influence of opium before, and that this nightmare of hers is a memory of the time when it happened? Isn't it possible that it's no more than a dream?"

  "It is possible, Mr Garland. But it is not what happened. I can see plainly what is invisible to you, just as a doctor can see plainly what is troubling his patient. There are a hundred and one signs by which these things may be read, but if you cannot read them, you will see nothing."

  Her still figure spoke out of the gloom like the priestess of some ancient cult, full of authority and wisdom. Sally felt the urge to weep again.

  She stood up.

  "Thank you for explaining, Madame Chang," she said. "Am I... Am I in danger from the drug? Now that I've taken it once, will I crave to take it again?"

  "You have taken it twice, Miss Lockhart," said the lady. "If you are in danger, it is not from the drug. But you have the smoke in your nature now. It has revealed something you did not know; maybe you will crave the smoke not for its own sake, but for the sake of what it can show you."

  She bowed, and Frederick stood up to leave. Sally, who still felt dizzy, took the arm he offered, and after exchanging farewells, they left.

  Outside, it was nearly dark. The cold air was welcome to Sally, who breathed it in gratefully, and soon found the pounding in her h
ead diminish a little. Before long, they were in the Commercial Road, and the bustle of traffic, the gaslights, the glowing shop-windows made the opium den seem like a dream itself. But she still trembled, and her sides and back were wet with perspiration.

  "Tell me about it," said Frederick. He hadn't spoken since they left the place; he seemed to know when she wanted silence. I can trust him, she thought. So she told it all.

  "But Frederick, the worst thing was..." She faltered, and he said:

  "It's all right. You're safe now. But what was the worst thing?"

  "The man who spoke - I've heard his voice in my dreams so many times. But this time I recognized it. It was Major Marchbanks; and the man who looked down at me - Frederick, he was my father! What is it all about? What can it mean?"

  Chapter Eleven

  THE STEREOGRAPHIC REPERTORY COMPANY

  When they returned from Limehouse, Sally went straight to bed, and slept dreamlessly for a long time.

  She woke just after dawn. The sky was clear and blue; all the horrors of opium and murder seemed to have vanished with the night, and she felt light-hearted and confident.

  Having dressed quickly and lit the kitchen fire, she decided to look over the rest of the house. Rosa herself had suggested this the morning before: they were wasting space, she thought. Perhaps there was room for a lodger.

  Sally thought that she was right. The house was much more extensive than it seemed from the street. There were three floors, together with an attic and a cellar, and a long yard behind the house. Two of the rooms were full of photographic apparatus, besides the darkroom and the laboratory. The room beside the shop, on the ground floor, was fitted out as a studio for formal portraits. One of the upstairs rooms was filled with such a miscellaneous collection of things that Sally thought she had stumbled into a museum; but there were two empty attic rooms, and three others which would make very comfortable bedrooms, once decently furnished.

  The result of this exploring was revealed to the rest of the household at breakfast. She cooked it; porridge, this time, and very good too, she thought.

  "Frederick, are you busy this morning?" she said.

  "Inordinately. But it can wait."

  "Rosa, do you have to rehearse?"

  "Not till one. Why?"

  "And Trembler, can you spare some time?"