The Impressionist (18 page)

Yes, sir, Cornwell Birch is back in town. Birch, fresh from the City of Angels with a consignment of the latest in motion-picture entertainment. Birch, dressed in an Angeleno tailor’s idea of tropical evening dress (yellow silk suit, green spats) and smoking a totemic double corona. Birch, changed from Burcz at Ellis Island, Cornwell for that toney back-East ring. Whoever introduced him to Firoz should be ashamed of themselves, but they certainly started something. Birch comes to Fatehpur both to show his latest work and to make some more, maybe a little newsreel stuff, scenes of life at the Maharaja’s palace, that kind of thing, but more often movies of a highly specialized nature, which he would prefer not to discuss unless someone round the table can vouch for you.

For now he is smoking and half listening to Firoz, who is cursing and fuming about the latest political developments. Political in the loosest sense. To Firoz, politics is mainly a matter of allowances, or rather
his
allowance (pitifully inadequate size thereof), and whether he is ever going to be able to get his hands on any of the capital tied up in the royal lands. Then he could convert it into something useful, like cufflinks. Or an aquarium. Whatever it is he needs (he is not quite sure, but he knows he needs
something),
it would be far easier to get it if he were Nawab. And now his brother is making trouble. O Mighty Sword and Shield of Fatehpur! O Ruler Incapable of Sustaining an Erection Worthy of the Name! Like trying to push an oyster into a slot machine, apparently; he has it on good authority. Perhaps not an aquarium. Perhaps a spa, with hot springs and attendants in white uniforms. Anyway, if he is ever to stand a chance of some real money, his impotent brother must not be allowed to adopt an heir.

Which is where the politics comes in.

The latest news is that in three days’ time Sir Wyndham Braddock, Combined Punjab States Resident, will be arriving with Lady Aurelia to shoot some tiger, eat too much and have himself inventively pampered at the expense of the state of Fatehpur. A protocol visit. No doubt Murad will ask his permission to adopt, and he in turn will consult his man on the ground. Thus the power to decide Firoz’s entire financial future will fall into the lap of that appalling dunderhead Privett-Clampe. Ordinarily, he would not worry. Everyone knows the British would love to get rid of Murad. The thing is, Firoz is not sure that Privett-Clampe approves of him. The recent redecoration spat was mistimed. So was the hoo-ha over trying to buy that zeppelin. For pity’s sake, the vendor said he was Swiss!

However, there are ways of ensuring the right outcome. ‘Apparently he likes boys,’ Firoz snarls to Birch. ‘Ned Flowers told me. And then I had another one of my fabulous ideas! Jean-Loup? Are you there?’

Jean-Loup is indeed there, sitting in the back row, coiled up like a lithe Gallic spring. Jean-Loup, dragged out of a gutter in Marseilles, cheekbones like razors, solace of sailors, willing to do absolutely anything with absolutely anybody, as long as – well, as long as nothing, really. He just will. Someone woke up with him in Cannes, someone else on a yacht off the Cap d’Antibes. Eventually he ended up here, and might well have made the voyage in someone’s luggage for all Firoz knows. He says he is twenty-one, but most put him at seventeen. No one would care either way, were it not for the notorious bulge in his unnervingly tight trousers.

‘So Jean-Loup – my idea was that you should do something unbelievably twisted with Major Privett-Clampe, and
you,
my dear Cornwell, should film it. Then I will threaten to show Sir Wyndham the reel, unless the old pig supports me as my brother’s successor! What do you think of that?’

‘What do I think of what?’ asks Privett-Clampe, who has just wandered in at the heels of a wildly gesticulating Flowers.

‘He just came along,’ mouths Flowers. ‘I couldn’t stop him.’

‘Hello, chaps,’ says the Major, who is quite tipsy. ‘Flowers said you were putting on some sort of a picture show. Haven’t had the chance myself, so I thought I’d come and see what it’s all about. You don’t mind, do you?’

‘Major, of course not,’ purrs Firoz. ‘How delightful to see you. Jean-Loup? Come and keep the Major company.’

*

‘Rukhsana? Wake up.’ Yasmin shakes Pran by the shoulders. ‘They want you.’

Rubbing his eyes, Pran walks into the Khwaja-sara’s cramped quarters, to find the Picturewallah and the Diwan there, deep in conversation. Sir Wyndham Braddock’s imminent visit is causing as much consternation here as in Prince Firoz’s wing of the palace. The Nawab wants to know if they can assure him there will be no problems with the adoption. It is vital that he can name his little cousin as his heir, so the kingdom does not become Firoz’s piggybank. So far, he does not feel reassured at all.

‘Boy,’ says the Khwaja-sara, ‘it is time for you to show your art. Great things are at stake. The honour of the kingdom. Your safety. I have just had word that Major Privett-Clampe is with Prince Firoz. Now is our chance to act. You must lure him back to the Chinese room. Then at last we will be able to make an end to this.’

Before Pran is fully awake, he has been dressed in his school uniform and taken to the end of a long corridor. At the far end of the scarred parquet is a set of double doors, through which comes light and the sound of laughing. His escort vanishes, and Pran is left wondering what on earth he is supposed to do.

As he gets closer, he can clearly hear the Major’s gruff tone.

‘Absolutely not. Don’t you worry. O’Dwyer will keep a firm grip on things.’

‘But,’ comes Firoz’s drawl, ‘these troublemakers have a lot of support. There are many ignorant people for them to mislead. In Fatehpur we should really be doing much more against them.’

‘Couldn’t agree more. That’s why we needed the Rowlatt powers in the first place. Come down hard on the bastards. It’s the only way.’

Pran peeps his head round the door. The room is darkened. A few straggly rows of chairs are lined up in front of a large white screen. From the back of the room, a humming projector throws out light as a servant fits a reel of film on to the spindles and threads it in. There is evidence of a party. Champagne bottles roll lopsidedly on the floor and a few bodies are slumped in decorative attitudes on the chairs. Among them Pran spots several people he recognizes: the South American, the naked cyclist and the strangely dressed man who arrived this morning with all the steamer trunks. Major Privett-Clampe sits in the middle, a portly shadow among stick figures. No one notices as he slips through the door.

‘There you are,’ says Prince Firoz, pouring Privett-Clampe a Scotch.

‘Thanks, old man,’ responds the Major nervously. Though he is grateful for the chance to have a crack at Firoz’s imported whisky, the young fellow beside him is sitting uncomfortably close. Privett-Clampe has never had much time for French people, and this one has his hand on his thigh.

Against the screen their silhouettes contrast comically. Jean-Loup’s head wilting on the Major’s shoulder, Firoz’s angular profile threatening to burst Privett-Clampe’s heavy jowls and swollen nose like a blown-up balloon. Pran edges further into the room, almost slipping on some kind of ladies underthing which gets tangled round his foot. He has to grab on to a chair to right himself. The chair crashes loudly into its neighbour, and Pran squirms underneath, his heart pounding.

‘Are you awake, De Souza?’ calls out the Prince. ‘You’re just in time for Mr Birch’s latest discovery.’

Pran lies very still. Firoz swears loudly. Then there is a yelp and a smashing of glass against the back wall. Evidently, the Prince has launched a champagne bottle at his projectionist.

‘What are you doing, you silly black bastard? How long does it take you to make the damn thing work?’

The projectionist stammers apologies in Urdu.

‘And speak English to me! I hate it when people speak that bloody monkey-language!’

‘Sorry, sahib!’

Prince Firoz apologizes effusively to his guests. Pran takes a peek over the row of chair backs. As the projectionist tries to make his machine work, Privett-Clampe carries on talking politics, saying things which Pran does not completely catch, about the defence of India and marching and protests and detention without trial. The other guests seem less than interested. Only Firoz appears to be paying attention, but every so often he shifts about in his chair, as if he would rather be doing something else.

As Pran’s eyes become accustomed to the darkness, he spots other figures – the sullen French boy who hangs around the Pathans, Flowers, a scandalous Swedish dancer whom the zenana women have read about in the illustrated papers.

‘Aha!’ shouts Firoz. There is the crackling sound of a needle being placed on a gramophone, and dramatic piano music begins to billow out into the room. Pran peeps above the chair back and sees a title flash on to the screen:

SYLVIA
OR
TERRORS OF THE WHITE SLAVE TRAFFIC

Firoz begins to applaud loudly, and one of the dead bodies in the back row lurches upright and rubs its eyes.

‘This is very special!’ Birch announces to the darkened room. ‘It wasn’t made for public exhibition.’

Pran has never seen a moving picture before. The flickering images take him up like a fist and sit him on one of the Prince’s high-backed wooden chairs. He forgets where he is. He forgets that he is in danger. The people on the screen are like ghosts, memories that have been drained of all colour. He wonders how they have been persuaded to show such intimate details of their lives.

Sylvia, the eponymous heroine, is a young immigrant girl arriving in the USA. Almost immediately on landing, she is plucked out from the crowd of arrivals by a young man in a straw boater. Saying he will make her famous by putting her in moving pictures, he takes her off to a tall brick house. Pran is confused by this, since Sylvia is already in a moving picture. Still, the action is taking place in America, where the meanings of things may be different. It soon becomes clear that the young man is not a maker of moving pictures at all but a ruffian with designs on Sylvia’s virtue. Once she is inside the house she is locked in a room with an old woman who grimaces and wears a lot of kohl around her eyes. Pran can sympathize with this. Then the straw-boater man (who has been making plans with some moustachioed associates) returns. Little time is wasted in stripping Sylvia of all her outer garments.

‘Good Lord,’ expostulates the Major. Birch laughs.

‘Hold on to your hat, please. This is only the beginning.’

Birch is right. Item by item, Sylvia is divested of all the rest of her clothing bar a pair of black stockings. When the young man begins to undress as well, Major Privett-Clampe can contain himself no longer and leaps to his feet in shock. For a moment he stands swaying, his silhouette obscuring most of the screen. The semi-conscious man in the back, De Souza or whoever, slurs an incomprehensible complaint and makes flapping sit-down gestures.

‘How on earth do they – that’s disgusting.’ The Major clearly cannot believe his eyes.

‘I’m told it gets much better. Birch promises us a very piquant scene where she falls into the hands of three evil Arabs. The contrast of the light skin and the dark is –’

Prince Firoz has overstepped the mark. Even though the Major is full of his host’s whisky, even though the host is of royal blood, even though he is the
host,
God damn it, still Privett-Clampe cannot let this kind of thing pass.

‘You scoundrel!’ he shouts. He is squaring up to punch the Prince when he is distracted by the screen. The straw-boater man is now wearing nothing at all but his trademark headgear, and standing side-on to the camera is approaching Sylvia with a villainous erection. Like a deflated balloon Privett-Clampe sits down in his seat to watch coitus take place. Behind him Pran too is open-mouthed in amazement.

The scene comes to a conclusion, and is rapidly replaced by one in which Sylvia is joined by another female captive. The sight of not one but two white women in peril floods the Major with memories of his darkest days of maharajas and
le vice Anglais,
and soon he is back on his feet, accusing Firoz of all manner of wickedness, in an apparent confusion of on-screen events with those at Fatehpur. Ignoring the Prince’s suggestions that he sit down and have another drink, he starts clearing chairs out of his path, attempting to get to the door. Too late Pran remembers that he was supposed to be discreet, but, before he has a chance to hide, finds the Major directly in front of him.

‘Clive? What are you doing here?’

Prince Firoz looks round, peering into the darkness. ‘Who the hell is that?’

‘I –’ says Pran, and flees.

An atmosphere of crisis descends on Fatehpur. At the British Residency, Charlotte is organizing an enormous garden party. At the palace, where the Braddocks will be staying, the Nawab’s retinue are making preparations for a parade and a ceremonial durbar, while Firoz’s servants are putting the finishing touches to a programme of entertainments designed to demonstrate their master’s taste, thoughtfulness and self-evident fitness to rule.