by Arjun Gaind
Amidst this hubbub, at strategic positions around the banquet room, arrayed so as to always arrest the eye line, a bevy of beautiful women waited, clad scantily enough to cause a moral man heartburn. Sikander spared barely a glance for the exquisite favors on offer. He knew only too well, that beautiful as these specimens were, they were only second-string courtesans. The real beauties entertained their patrons upstairs, accepting visitors by appointment only in their first-floor boudoirs, while on the second floor, the most celebrated of Rajpore’s concubines resided in absolute privacy, kept in regal style in richly appointed suites paid for by their lovers, like birds of paradise locked away in velvet-lined cages.
As Sikander paused for a moment, trying to get his bearings straight, the majordomo of the house, an impeccably dressed old South-Indian with skin as tough as leather, sidled up.
“May I help you?” He inquired, eyeing Sikander’s dusty clothes down the not-inconsiderable length of his beaky nose.
How typical! Sikander thought with a wry grin, Mrs. Ponsonby’s was so posh that even the servants had a sense of jaded entitlement, an observation which would ordinarily have rankled him if he hadn’t been having quite so much fun.
“I am here to see Madame Krasnivaya,” he said.
“That is not possible,” the majordomo started to object, but Sikander cut him off with a grin.
“Let’s not do this song and dance, shall we? Surely you recognize me?”
The man sniffed frostily, choosing to delay just a whisker too long before offering him a curt bow.
“Of course,” he said. “If you would care to follow me.”
Pivoting on his heels as gracefully as a dancer, the majordomo ushered Sikander toward a side door so that the Maharaja would not have to walk through the parlor and be subjected to the eyes of lesser guests. Sikander trailed after him at a dilatory pace, his eyes widening as a particularly buxom young blonde dressed only in a French maid’s outfit blew him a very suggestive kiss. He offered her a wink as the majordomo carefully unlocked the door and urged him through it like a sheepdog herding a recalcitrant sheep, before pausing to ensure it was securely bolted once more behind them.
Beyond, a wrought-iron staircase spiraled up to the second floor, where the majordomo directed the Maharaja down a narrow corridor, leading him past a sequence of apartments from within which the muffled sounds of pleasure emanated, muted but still audible enough to make Sikander turn positively scarlet. At the end of this passageway, they came to a stop before a nondescript-looking door painted a dull white. Rather than waiting to be announced by the majordomo, whose solicitousness was starting to aggravate his nerves, the Maharaja shoved the old man aside and barged straight in. He found himself standing in a small, cramped room that seemed more like a company clerk’s office than the private chambers of Rajpore’s most notorious madam. He had been expecting gauzy curtains and brocade walls, with overstuffed divans everywhere within swooning distance, like a Turkish harem, but instead Sikander was greeted by bare floors and a drab utilitarian row of shelves stacked high with musty ledgers.
At the center of the room, perched in a tall wicker-backed wheelchair, an ancient woman was engaged in heated negotiations with an oily looking Englishman, ostensibly making the final touches to a transaction acquiring the services of a gamine courtesan who stood close by, a pert-nosed little filly he guessed was probably a Slav, judging by her cheekbones.
However, the moment Sikander made his dramatic entry, the old woman’s wrinkled face broke into a smile and she paused in mid-sentence, dismissing the Englishman with one flick of her hand.
“Come back later,” she said. “Something more important has just turned up.”
The Englishman started to object, but one poisonous look from the madam was quite enough to quash his complaints and send him scurrying for the door, the girl following close behind, but not before pausing long enough to favor Sikander with a very saucy grin.
The Maharaja smiled back appreciatively, admiring her beauty for what it was, that effortless charm of innocence untainted by the hardship of time. With a sigh, he shook his head and sank into the chair so recently vacated by the Englishman.
“They seem to grow younger and younger, don’t they?”
Madame Krasnivaya let out a cackle of delight.
“Why, bless my lonely heart! I never thought I would see the day when such a celebrated lothario such as yourself would visit my humble establishment. What brings you to us, your Highness? Have you lost your fabled touch?”
Sikander refused to respond to this jibe. Instead, he let his eyes play across the ravages of the old hag’s features. The name was a nom de guerre, of course. He knew enough of Russian to know that Krasnivaya meant beautiful, a sobriquet which seemed almost ironic when applied to the withered creature who sat before him. She was very tiny, just over four and a half feet tall, not a midget or a dwarf, but somehow a woman in miniature, perfectly formed, from her hands and feet to her face, exactly two thirds the size of most women. Sikander had read once that there were tribes near the far reaches of the Caspian Sea who never grew taller than five feet high, and he guessed she hailed from one of those remote valleys, beyond the Caucasus Mountains. She made up for this lack of height however with an immensity of girth. Madame Krasnivaya was almost as perfectly round as a ball, with stubby little legs and knees so weakened by gout that she could barely walk, which explained the wheelchair.
As Sikander studied her, she gave him a coy smile, and he saw that her teeth had long since rotted and fallen out, to be replaced by dentures made from the purest gold which gleamed and glinted blindingly in the gloom of the room’s gas lamps. Looking at her, he guessed she could have been anywhere between seventy and eighty, but he could not be sure. Even though her back was bent and her skin as desiccated as parchment, her face was still youthful, caked heavily with powder to give her a somewhat incongruous appearance, which was only made even more ludicrous by the preposterous wigs she liked to favor. In this case, it was an enormous construction of tiered curls so bulbous that it would have given Marie Antoinette nightmares. And if that wasn’t striking enough, she wore a large mouche pasted on one wrinkled cheek just beside her lip, a taffeta la coquette shaped like a shiny heart.
The Maharaja spared a moment to meditate on what he knew of her history. If rumor was correct, she had been born in Georgia, one of the descendants of ancient Colchis. As the story went, an Amur Cossack, one of the Tsar’s boyars who had been mapping the far reaches of Transcaucasia, had come across her one day, and had been so enchanted by her beauty that he had carried her away to become his wife. But then the Crimean War had come, and the Cossack had died in a hail of gunfire at Chernaya, leaving her to be sold for three guineas to an English officer named Lieutenant Ponsonby, who had brought her to Rajpore with him, only to die four years later of the bloody flux.
With his death, Madame Krasnivaya found herself widowed for the second time, stranded far from her homeland, with no means of support other than her husband’s meager military pension. Most of the people who knew her had expected her to seduce a boxwallah and become his mistress, or perhaps sink her claws into some naïve officer and marry him next, but Madame Krasnivaya had surprised everyone. Instead of taking another husband, she had decided to gather together a troupe of the most beautiful whores she could find, and go into business for herself. Thus Mrs. Ponsonby’s Academy had been born.
“As it happens,” Sikander said, reciprocating her smile with one of his own, “I have come to see you, Madame, not your wards.”
“Come to see me!” Madame Krasnivaya’s rheumy eyes lit up, twinkling with delight. “How very flattering, although I fear I am too much woman for even a strapping young buck such as yourself…!”
Sikander feigned a small laugh, pretending to be amused by her flirtatiousness. “I do believe you’re right. Isn’t it fortunate then that I am here only to speak with you
?”
As he made that declaration, the old woman’s demeanor changed. The playfulness vanished, replaced by suspicion, a canny wariness. “Speaking with me is an even more expensive proposition than the other services we offer.”
Sikander raised one acerbic eyebrow. “I am sure, Madame, that whatever the price may be, I can afford it.”
“And why would I talk to you? My clients pay me well for maintaining their confidentiality.”
“It would be sad, Madame, if you were forced to shut down this establishment and leave Rajpore.” Sikander fixed her with a cold stare. “I am sure it would be exceedingly difficult, having to start again, particularly given your age.”
“Are you threatening me?” Her eyes flashed fire.
“Indeed,” Sikander replied, unflappable, “I most certainly am.”
Madame Krasnivaya held his gaze for a long time, as if trying to test his resolve, to see who would be the first to blink. A lesser man might have found this exhibition intimidating, but Sikander remained entirely unmoved. It was quite obviously a display designed expressly to get a rise out of her visitors, and he refused to give her the satisfaction of letting her see that she had managed to perturb him in the slightest.
Finally, after what felt like hours, she nodded, her wrinkled features settling into a well-practiced frown. “Very well, what is it you wish to speak of?”
“The Resident of Rajpore, Madame. I believe he was a patron of your fine…academy.”
At this mention of Major Russell, something seemed to flash across the old woman’s face, a hint of nervousness so palpable that it aroused Sikander’s curiosity.
“Indeed he was. He visited us every few months, as regularly as clockwork.” A grimace played across her desiccated lips.” And he had very particular and very expensive needs.”
“What exactly do you mean, Madame?” Sikander straightened up, intrigued by the faint tone of disapproval in her voice. Whatever the Major’s interests had been, they had to be exceedingly depraved to have managed to offend someone who had seen as much immorality in her time as Madame Krasnivaya.
The old woman let out a faint sigh, and fanned herself with one withered hand. “Well, for one thing, he insisted on my complete discretion, that I close my doors to my regular patrons whenever he chose to call on us. For another, he desired only young girls, the younger the better, and never the same girl twice.”
“Is that all?” Sikander felt rather disappointed. He had expected something particularly salacious, given Madame Krasnivaya’s obvious reluctance to discuss the Major’s private affairs. While his proclivity for young girls was somewhat shocking, he knew only too well that such wickedness was all too common amongst men of a certain age, who saw the conquest of childish virtue as a way to regain some of the fervor of the youth that they had themselves left far behind.
“Not quite.” She paused, seemingly struggling to find the right words. “The Major was, for lack of a better phrase, a man with a marked excess of anger.”
“Really?” Sikander leaned forward, his interest piqued once more. “Do you mean to suggest he was the sort of man who enjoyed inflicting pain?”
The old Russian nodded, her face stiffening with barely repressed revulsion. “He was a great believer in the teachings of the Marquis de Sade.” Her bony shoulders shuddered. “He liked to beat my girls, often with a horsewhip, until they bled.”
Sikander frowned, taken aback. He had expected some hint of scandal, but this…it was just too prurient to swallow. Madame Krasnivaya had managed to surprise him, which was not an easy thing to do. Sikander prided himself on being a man of the world, familiar with many strange notions and outlandish habits that most ordinary people would have found deplorable, even degenerate, but the thought of the straitlaced Major secretly being a sadist—that was something he had not, could not have envisioned, not in a hundred years.
Though his mind was racing frantically, Sikander made an effort to maintain his outward appearance of calm. Tenting his fingers beneath his chin, he made himself sit back. “I was not aware that your establishment offered such exotic services.”
“As a rule, we do not, but for the Major, I was forced to make an exception.” Madame Krasnivaya bared her gilded incisors, as if to convey her immense dislike of the man. “At first, I suggested he take his patronage elsewhere. There is a woman in the old city, I believe, who does not care what is done to her girls. I recommended he try her establishment, but he insisted. He was very particular about discretion, and as you know only too well, there is no discretion in the native town. Frankly, I think he was afraid of getting caught in a scandal.”
Sikander nodded. It made ample sense. The Major had obviously been a cautious man, given that he had managed to keep his proclivities hidden so far, and undoubtedly he was quite aware that if even a whiff of his demented passions was to get out, the ensuing scandal would have been the end of his career for once and for all.
“I had no choice, I assure you,” she continued. “He was a powerful man, and I could not afford to get on his bad side. Besides, he paid us exceedingly well to accommodate his exotic preferences, and so, I let him indulge his passions on the mountain girls. They are as strong as oxen, and really, a little pain never hurt anyone, did it? I never allowed him near the white girls, of course. They are much too valuable.”
A swirl of rage unfurled inside Sikander like a red flag. It infuriated him to no end to hear the old crone to speak of people with such cold disdain, as if they were little more than objects to be used and thrown away. Through a great force of will, he held his tongue in cheek, knowing he could not afford to alienate Madame Krasnivaya, not until she gave him what he needed.
“When was the last time he visited you, Madame?”
“Oh, about four months ago. I was willing to accommodate him, in spite of his special requests, until then.”
“What happened to change your mind?”
The old woman did not reply at first, watching him sullenly, as if she did not trust him. Sikander waited her out patiently, until she let out a feeble sigh, and said, “I had a new girl, a pretty little thing, as fresh as a flower just in bloom. The sick bastard almost killed her. He broke her cheekbones and blinded one of her eyes.” She clucked her tongue insincerely. “Poor thing, she will never be beautiful again.”
Sikander shot her a disgusted glare, but it may as well have been wasted on the old woman, who barely even noticed.
“Why didn’t you go to the police, Madame?”
“As a matter of fact, I did. I went to see the English Superintendent, the one who sweats too much and smells terrible. I knew him vaguely, from past experience, so I thought he would help me. He visited us occasionally, you see, and I always let him take his pleasure on the house.” She touched her nose suggestively. “Of course, none of my young ladies were particularly eager to please him. It seems the fat man is the victim of God’s most unfortunate injustice.”
She winked one rheumy eye, and held up her finger and thumb exactly an inch apart, as if to suggest that Mr. Jardine was somewhat under-endowed, a gesture which caused Sikander to smirk, in spite of his mounting outrage.
“Didn’t the fat man take any action?”
“Oh no, nothing at all. He heard me out, and then told me to pay the girl off and forget anything had ever happened, if I knew what was best for me.”
Sikander’s lips thinned, compressing until they were almost invisible. He had already had a fleeting prescience that he would receive just such an answer, that Jardine had hushed it all up, but in spite of his innate cynicism, some part of him had hoped that would not be the case. He had always believed that Jardine, in spite of his pungency and pugnacity, was ultimately an honest man, but now it was more than apparent that he was just as corrupt as the rest of the bloody Angrez.
“I banned the Major, of course, from making any further visits to us. Honestly
, that was the best I could do.”
“How did he react to such a restriction?”
“Oh, he was not pleased at all. He threatened to have me shut down, and stormed out of here, ranting like a madman.”
“Weren’t you afraid he would follow through with that threat?”
She laughed, a shrill birdlike twitter. “Afraid? Of that fool? I think not. I have faced down far more dangerous men than him. Besides, what can he do to me? I am an old woman, my boy. I have lived for far too long and seen far too much to be scared of an upstart like him.”
“What about the girl? What happened to her?”
“I paid for her hospital bills, of course, to have a doctor stitch her up, for all the good it did. Sadly, the Major had ruined her for the business, so I gave the poor child some money and sent her to Hyderabad to an acquaintance of mine who serves the Nizam. I thought he could teach her how to be a housemaid, and that would be the end of it.”
“But it wasn’t?”
“No,” Madame Krasnivaya shook her head sadly. “A few weeks later, a boy showed up looking for her.”
“Her lover..?”
“Her brother!” she exclaimed with a snort. “Understandably, he was really quite livid when I told him what had happened.”
“Let me guess. He swore to have revenge on the Major.”
“Oh, not just that! He took an oath he would make him suffer first, like his sister had, and then kill him slowly.”
Sikander sat up. Now this was more like it!
“Do you happen to recall this angry young gentleman’s name, Madame?”
“No, I’m afraid not. It was some time ago, and sadly, I am not as young as I once was.”
“Of course,” Sikander said, trying not to look crestfallen. It would have been too easy, he told himself, if she had the name. Still, it was better than nothing. He had a starting point, and with Ismail Chacha’s network of informers, it should not be too cumbersome a task for him to track down this girl and her brother, whatever remote corner of India they may have disappeared to.
