Amelia Dee and the Peacock Lamp

by Odo Hirsch

  ‘I do not normally meet children,’ said the Princess.

  Amelia looked back at her.

  ‘It was only because the maestro requested it. Normally I would not meet such a child as you.’

  Amelia glanced at Mr Vishwanath. There was nothing on his face – not a flicker, not a glance – to show that he had heard.

  ‘Do you know why?’ said the Princess.

  Amelia silently shook her head.

  ‘Because children behave disgracefully. Last time, you behaved disgracefully. I suppose now you wish to apologise to me for this.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Amelia. ‘I shouldn’t have done that.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What I did.’

  ‘Is that an apology?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then say sorry,’ said the Princess. ‘In an apology, in your language, one must say sorry, I think. Otherwise it is not a proper apology.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Amelia.

  The Princess continued to stare at her, one black eyebrow raised expectantly.

  ‘Your Serenity,’ mumbled Amelia.

  ‘Good,’ said the Princess. But there was no warmth or pleasure or satisfaction in the way she had said it. Her gaze was as stern as before.

  There was silence.

  Amelia had the feeling the Princess didn’t care about her at all, didn’t want to know anything about her, had absolutely no interest in her. All she cared about was receiving an apology, a ‘proper’ apology, and that wasn’t because she cared about Amelia, but because she cared about herself. About her rank. About how important she was.

  ‘What is that you are holding?’ asked the Princess.

  Amelia glanced at the pages in her hand. They were getting crumpled, she was gripping them so tight.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘It’s just . . . It doesn’t matter,’ muttered Amelia.

  ‘What? What is it?’

  Amelia frowned. ‘It’s a story.’

  ‘Did you write it?’ said the Princess. ‘For me?’

  Amelia wished she had never brought the pages with her. She wished she had never even written them. Mr Vishwanath was wrong, there wasn’t anything nice about the old lady, there was no beauty within her. She was harsh, horrible. Amelia didn’t want to show her the story she had written. Suddenly the story seemed like a soft, fragile little creature, and if she showed it to her, the old lady with her angry gaze and her haughty tone was just going to stomp all over it.

  ‘Well?’ said the Princess.

  Reluctantly, almost trembling, Amelia held out the crumpled pages.

  But the Princess made no movement to take them. ‘Read it to me.’

  Amelia stared.

  ‘Read,’ said the Princess, and then she looked away at the sheet-covered window again, and gave a little sigh, as if she didn’t really care about Amelia’s story, except in the sense that it was something that had been done because she was a princess, and since people always want to do things for a princess, a princess is obliged to pretend that she’s interested. But not too interested. In fact, rather bored.

  Amelia hesitated. But the Princess remained impassive, waiting for her to commence.

  Amelia looked down at the first page. ‘There was a princess once . . .’

  ‘Louder,’ said the Princess. ‘I can’t hear you. If you want to read the story you wrote for me, speak so I can hear you.’

  Amelia took a deep breath. ‘There was a princess once . . .’ she began again, more loudly. ‘She lived in a palace with all kinds of marvellous things, gold and jewels and beautiful clothes and lovely furniture, but the thing she loved most was the lamp in her room. They didn’t have electricity in those days, so they had to light oil in the lamp each day and put it out each night. The lamp was made of bronze, and it had six sides and a top and a bottom, and the metalwork of the lamp was very rich, with all kinds of rare and wonderful animals carved in it with such skill and such cleverness you could barely see them unless you looked very closely. There was a tiger, and an eagle, and a rhinoceros, and monkeys chasing each other around the light and one of them had the face of a person. And the bottom of the lamp was made up of a pair of magnificent peacocks. To light the lamp, there was a little door . . .’

  Amelia read. She gazed strictly at the page, concentrated wholly on the words, as if by doing that, and forgetting about the Princess, she could protect her story from the withering harshness of the lady who sat opposite her. So she didn’t see the Princess turn her head as she spoke. She didn’t see the look on the Princess’s face as she described the lamp. She didn’t see the Princess’s hand go to her mouth, and her eyes go wide, nor hear her stifled gasp at the mention of the monkey with the face of the man, or her second gasp at the mention of the two peacocks on the bottom of the lamp. And she didn’t see the way the Princess looked at her after that, without any hint of practised boredom, but with a kind of stunned disbelief.

  Amelia didn’t see any of that. And after a while she did forget about the Princess, losing herself in the words she had written, the images she had created, the flow of the story of the princess and the lamp, how the princess would light the lamp each night, and how it wasn’t lit when she was kept away from the man she loved, and how they were reunited at the end and the lamp came alight for one last night. It wasn’t one of the bloodcurdling versions, with the ghost of the princess and phantom beasts coming to life and lots of blood everywhere, but it wasn’t the soppiest version either. It was the one, in truth, that was Amelia’s own favourite.

  When she was finished, she put the pages down, and only then did she remember where she was, and why she was reading it, and who she was reading it to.

  The Princess didn’t say anything. She was staring at Amelia blankly, as if not seeing her at all.

  ‘That’s it,’ whispered Amelia.

  The Princess gave a little jerk. Her expression became severe again, impatient, dismissive.

  ‘Hm! It is a silly story. A fancy!’ She said the word contemptuously, in her heavy accent. A fenceeee. Amelia winced.

  ‘Life is not like this. Why did you write such a story?’

  ‘I just thought . . . I thought you’d like it.’

  ‘It is a stupid story. Stupid! Do you hear me?’

  Amelia stared. It was the first story she had ever written – apart from the ones she was forced to write at school – that she had showed to anyone. And it wasn’t just any story, it was about the lamp – the lamp which had almost killed her, yet had also saved her life, the lamp about which she knew so little, and yet contained so many stories – and of all these stories, it was the one she loved most. For years, she had carried it in her head, thinking about it, developing it, perfecting it. It was the most precious story she had! And she had wasted it on this Princess. Amelia could feel tears coming to her eyes. But she wouldn’t cry. Not here. Not in front of this awful, awful lady.

  ‘Do you think this is what life is like to be a princess?’ The Princess laughed bitterly. ‘Do you think it is so simple? No, it is hard, harder than any other life.’

  ‘Why?’ said Amelia. ‘Why is it so complicated? You have everything. You’ve got palaces, and people to look after you, and—’

  ‘Stupid story! Why do you write about this lamp?’

  Amelia shook her head, not sure what to say.

  ‘Well? This lamp?’ The Princess said it as if Amelia had no right even to mention it.

  ‘It’s just a lamp,’ murmured Amelia.

  ‘How do you know about it? With the monkey with the face of a man. With the peacocks on the bottom. The two peacocks. How do you know about the two peacocks? How do you know about this lamp?’

  ‘I’ve seen it,’ said Amelia.

  The Princess stared. Now Amelia saw the Princess’s face as it had been before, when Amelia had been reading. The old woman’s eyes were full of amazement and disbelief.

  ‘Where have you seen it?’ asked the Princess.

  ‘It’s . . .’
/>
  ‘Where?’ demanded the Princess. ‘Where is it?’

  ‘In my house,’ whispered Amelia. ‘Outside my room.’

  The Princess stared at her again. Then her face flickered with a kind of tremor of horror. She turned away. She got up, holding her hand to the side of her face so Amelia couldn’t see her expression, and went quickly to the door.

  CHAPTER 10

  ‘I can’t see the point of it,’ said Amelia to Mr Vishwanath later, when they were sitting under the verandah. ‘Why did you want me to meet her? She didn’t care about anything I said. And then she just got up and walked out!’

  Mr Vishwanath didn’t respond. He continued to gaze at the garden, where Amelia’s father was moving the statues of her mother’s thin-white-faces phase down the back.

  Or trying to. His improvements to the mover-and-stacker machine still needed some work. The winch was larger, which helped with the bigger statues, but that made the machine top-heavy, and it had developed a tendency to topple over when lifting the sculptures. It had already toppled over half a dozen times. But that didn’t disturb Amelia’s father, who knew that any improvement takes a number of attempts to get right. In fact, he would have been more disturbed had the machine not toppled over. Or at least that’s what he claimed, calling out to them cheerfully as the machine toppled over on its side for the seventh time.

  Mr Vishwanath smiled encouragingly at him.

  Amelia didn’t how much Mr Vishwanath had heard when she met the Princess. He had been there all the time, sitting on the other side of the room in one of his yoga positions. He was still sitting there in his yoga position when the Princess rushed out, and even after that he continued to sit for another couple of minutes. He certainly would have heard if he had been listening, but it was possible that he wasn’t listening. Anyone else would have, but not Mr Vishwanath. He had once told Amelia that when he held one of his yoga poses he emptied his mind completely. Which was harder to do than it sounded, Amelia knew, because she had tried.

  ‘Mr Vishwanath,’ said Amelia, ‘you don’t understand.’ Her voice dropped to a whisper, even though her father was too far away to hear, and even if he hadn’t been, was too preoccupied with his machine to listen. ‘I wrote a story. I read it to her.’

  Amelia gazed at Mr Vishwanath, waiting to see how he would react. Just admitting it made her feel all the humiliation again. The Princess had called her story a fancy. A fancy! And then she had called it a stupid story. Amelia felt all the hurt once more. The Princess had made her feel so small, so foolish, like someone who didn’t matter at all.

  ‘Mr Vishwanath? Did you hear me?’

  Mr Vishwanath nodded.

  ‘She could at least have been polite, Mr Vishwanath. Even if she didn’t like the story, she could have thanked me. She could have said she enjoyed it. But no. All she could say was it was a fancy.’ Amelia forced out the word between gritted teeth, she could hardly bear to say it. ‘All she cared about was the lamp! Did you hear her, Mr Vishwanath? All she wanted to know about was the lamp. And then she gets upset, and looks at me as if I don’t even have the right to have a lamp. Why shouldn’t I have a lamp? It’s my lamp. She should get her own lamp!’ Amelia folded her arms in outrage. ‘I’ll never write a story for anyone else again,’ she muttered. ‘Never. Do you hear me, Mr Vishwanath? Never!’

  Mr Vishwanath didn’t seem to have anything to say to that. Amelia turned angrily back to the garden, breathing heavily. Her father had managed to keep the machine upright with the latest sculpture and was wheeling it slowly towards the back. There were only a couple of the white sculptures left now. Amelia wasn’t going to miss them when they were gone.

  ‘Why is it important to you that the Princess cared about your story?’

  Amelia looked at Mr Vishwanath in disbelief. Wasn’t it obvious? He was still looking at the garden, and had spoken in that tone he sometimes had, that kind of murmur that made you wonder whether you really had heard anything at all or whether it was all in your own mind.

  ‘Is it because you want to feel important?’

  Mr Vishwanath’s lips had hardly moved.

  ‘It’s not because I want to feel important.’ Amelia’s voice dropped again. ‘Mr Vishwanath, you don’t understand. I’ve never written a story for anyone before. I’ve never shown one to anyone. I’ve never even told anyone.’ Amelia shook her head in frustration. ‘Do you understand, Mr Vishwanath? Not one of my own stories.’

  ‘How was the Princess to know this? Did you tell her?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. She could have been polite, that’s all. At least she could have said she enjoyed it.’

  ‘What if she didn’t enjoy it?’

  ‘At least she could have thanked me for trying.’

  ‘What if she didn’t want you to try?’

  ‘Mr Vishwanath, please. Sometimes when you do this . . . It just doesn’t help.’

  ‘When I do what, Amelia?’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘But I don’t understand, Amelia. Would you prefer a person to lie just so you can feel important?’

  Of course she didn’t want someone to lie. But that wasn’t the point. This wasn’t about her feeling important. Somehow she couldn’t get across to Mr Vishwanath how hurt she felt, how much that story had meant to her.

  ‘When we need other people to tell us we are important,’ said Mr Vishwanath, ‘we have lost sight of who we are. We do not know ourselves. We only know ourselves by what other people tell us.’

  Why did Mr Vishwanath keep going on about that? It wasn’t about being important!

  Or was it? Amelia frowned. Suddenly she was starting to wonder. What was it about?

  Really, why did it matter so much to her whether the Princess liked or disliked her story? What difference did that make to her, Amelia Dee? She was still Amelia Dee, and the story she had written was still exactly the same story that she had written, whether one particular princess happened to have disliked it. Another princess might have liked it, yet it would still be the same story, no better or worse, and she would still be the same Amelia Dee, and the other princess’s opinion wouldn’t matter either.

  It was a good story, Amelia knew that, whatever anyone said. She didn’t need to show it to anyone. She could have kept it hidden away, just like her mother kept her sculptures hidden in the garden, and it would be just as good. And she herself would be just as important – or just as unimportant – for having written it.

  Amelia looked up at Mr Vishwanath. He was watching her.

  ‘According to what you just said,’ said Amelia, ‘the Princess doesn’t know herself.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Mr Vishwanath.

  ‘All she cares about is making sure everyone else treats her like she’s an important person. I had to call her Your Serenity and she wasn’t happy until I did. Why? Because that showed I wasn’t as important as she is. If I was as important as her I could have used her real name. And that’s what she wanted to prove.’

  Mr Vishwanath didn’t say anything to that.

  ‘It’s unfair!’ said Amelia.

  ‘To who?’ asked Mr Vishwanath.

  ‘To me! To anyone! To . . .’ Amelia stopped. Suddenly, she wasn’t sure.

  Mr Vishwanath smiled. He turned back to look at the garden, where Amelia’s father was very slowly, very carefully, beginning to winch another sculpture up on the machine.

  ‘You’re right about the Princess,’ said Mr Vishwanath. ‘She only cares about making sure she is treated importantly enough.’

  ‘See?’ said Amelia. ‘That’s unfair, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s much worse than unfair. It’s a tragedy.’

  Amelia wasn’t sure about that. Calling it a tragedy might be taking it a bit far.

  ‘It’s the Princess’s tragedy, Amelia.’

  Amelia looked at Mr Vishwanath doubtfully. How could it be someone’s tragedy that all they cared about was being treated importantly? If it was such a tragedy
, why didn’t they just stop caring about it?

  Mr Vishwanath didn’t explain.

  Amelia thought about the Princess. She didn’t like her, which made it hard to think of her as tragic. When you think of someone as tragic, you feel sympathy for them. But it was hard to think sympathetically of someone as unfriendly and ungrateful as the Princess. Amelia tried to. She tried hard. It wasn’t easy.

  ‘I just don’t know why you wanted me to meet her,’ she said at last.

  Mr Vishwanath shrugged. ‘It’s like a door. Sometimes you open a door, and maybe something will happen. Yes, Amelia?’

  ‘And sometimes it doesn’t.’

  ‘Exactly,’ replied Mr Vishwanath. ‘One cannot tell.’

  Amelia shook her head. ‘You must have known what she’d be like, Mr Vishwanath. She’s so spoiled! She wouldn’t care about someone like me. I bet she lives in a huge palace with a whole army of servants and she gets everything she wants.’

  Mr Vishwanath was silent.

  Amelia stole a glance at him. Mr Vishwanath gazed imperturbably at the garden.

  ‘The Princess does live in a palace, doesn’t she?’ asked Amelia eventually. ‘I mean, in a house that’s as big as a palace?’

  Mr Vishwanath shook his head.

  ‘But she’s got servants, hasn’t she? I mean, lots and lots?’

  Mr Vishwanath shook his head again.

  ‘That old man who drives for her . . . he’s not the only one, is he?’

  Mr Vishwanath didn’t reply.

  Amelia frowned. She remembered the tone of bitterness in the Princess’s voice. She thought of the cream-coloured car that looked so impressive from a distance but so shoddy close up.

  Somehow, Amelia realised, she had known what the answers to those questions would be, even as she asked them.

  CHAPTER 11