The Eden Passion (52 page)

Such a simple question I Still gaping, as though the answer were written on Andrew's face, John realized for the first time the full measure of his recent estrangement from life. The immediate future

had come to a halt on that escarpment above Section Three. And with Jack Willmot's death, it had vanished altogether.

John shook his head. Was it necessary that he address that black vacuum of the future so soon?

While Andrew detected his mood, he obviously did not know its cause. "Shall we plan to meet in London, then? Within the year? Together we should be able to plot some sort of negotiable future, don't you think?"

John nodded, shocked by his ability to deceive. Meet in London! He had neither appetite nor desire for London. What was there in London except the empty flat on Warwick Lane, filled with Jack Willmot's memories? What was there for him in that obscene house in St. George Street? And he would never again step foot in Brassey's office. The generous wage and assistantship that was to have been his future had been shattered on the bloody field of massacre at Section Three. As for Eden? On that thought his mind disintegrated into the fragmented images of a madman.

"Then London, is it?" Andrew asked.

John nodded. He would write to Andrew later and abridge the lie, after he had settled upon a destination.

He looked up to see Andrew moving back to the foot of the bed. "Must you leave so soon?" John asked. "There's time yet."

But Andrew shook his head, a helplessness in his expression which suggested that the parting was no easier for him than it was for John. "I need to report to the docks early," he murmured. "I heard this morning that the ship will be full to capacity. A new regiment was brought in from India. Reinforcements." He grinned. "Don't worry. In no time we'll have Ivan on the run back to Moscow."

John's suffering was acute at the imminent loss of this last good friend. He thought that it would be best if he said only what Andrew wanted to hear. "Then go and fight your war." He smiled. "Go along with you."

Andrew lifted the valise at his feet. He started to lift his hand to his forehead as though in salute. But something altered in his face. He dropped the valise and started forward, and John was there to receive him, his good arm returning the embrace, the mottled patterns of late-evening sun dancing in liquid movements across the bed.

Then he was gone. For a moment John held still, his eyes fastened on the vacuum at the end of the ward. Finally he fell back into the pillow, appalled at the tears in his eyes. How long would it go on, this unfortunate propensity of his to lose people he loved?

Lacking the energy and will which might have led to an answer, he turned on his side in an attempt to conceal his tears from the passing nurses. He swallowed hard and was in the process of wiping his face with the back of his hand when suddenly he felt eyes upon him and glanced across at the bed opposite. The man lay in his exact same position, on his side, one hand crooked beneath the dark matted hair, the other still grasping the leather pouch about his neck, his pale watery eyes open and fastened upon John.

Neither spoke, as though both were shocked by the intimacy of the confrontation. Finally, in a voice so low that it was scarcely audible, the large man smiled. "Rough, ain't it, losing a good mate?"

John said nothing. For the first time he noticed a front tooth missing in the broad flat mouth, and took in the rest of the face and was on the verge of turning in the opposite direction when the man spoke again.

"Didn't mean to pry," he said. "No offense?"

Still uncertain whether he should respond to the strange man, John returned his stare, fascinated and curious about the way in which the man maintained an iron grip on that soiled leather pouch. When the man seemed disinclined to speak again, John closed his eyes, assuming the episode was over.

Then again John heard his voice, weakened now, but audible. "I meant what I said," he whispered, "about losin' a friend. I . . . lost mine, just three days ago. At Malta. Went to India together, we did. Saw good times and bad, fortune and misfortune. . ."

His voice seemed to be fading. John raised himself up on his elbow, the better to hear. India interested him as always and here was a firsthand witness. The man's eyes were open, though fixed and staring at the ceiling. "But we was headin' home, with our just rewards, and he . . . died." The voice broke. John saw tears running out of the corners of his eyes. "Oh, lord," the man murmured, "how can the world and ever'thing in it look so right one morning and so wrong the next?"

John listened sympathetically. "Sleep now," he urged quietly. "Ill stand watch, if you wish. No one will come near you. I swear it."

There was a moment of doubt. Once John saw him make an effort to throw off his fatigue. But he couldn't do it, and as his head tossed back and forth on the pillow, John urged, "Please. Whatever the nature of your treasure, I promise it will be safe."

The man looked up at him. "That's what me mate was told as

well," he whispered, "and he ended up with a knife between his ribs."

"I have no knife," John reassured him, startled by the account of murder.

"Them didn't either," the man said, his speech beginning to slur as sleep crept closer. "But they found one quick enough when they learned what me friend was carrying."

In one last effort he tried to lift the small pouch. But even that was too much to ask of him now.

Still watching, John was certain a few minutes later that he was fast asleep. But as he was on the verge of drawing a breath of accomplishment, the man opened one eye. "Forgive me, lad," he whispered, "but what's your name? Something about you tells me you couldn't knife a man you'd exchanged names with."

"Eden," he said, "John Murrey Eden."

The man seemed impressed. "Suits you, it does," he murmured. "With luck, you'll grow into it one day. Beats hell out of mine." His eyes were closed now. John was beginning to wonder if the mouth would ever follow suit.

"You might as well hear it right off . . ." He faltered. "Alex. Alex Aldwell, and I don't recollect who gave it to me, but ... I'll catch up with them one day, and when . . . I do . . ."

The threat was never completed. At last the massive head rolled to one side, mouth open, though silent.

John held still a moment. There had been false alarms before. But no. At last the large man was safely submerged in sleep. As John expected, the last area of the man's body to relax was that left hand, the fingers uncurling from about the leather pouch.

Again he looked closely at the sleeping man. His precise age, John could not even guess. Fifty perhaps, the same as Jack Willmot.

A bad move, that. Best to stay safely lost in the mystery of Mr. Alex Aldwell. The longing for Jack Willmot behind him, John took up a vigil on the edge of the bed, determined to serve the man by keeping his word.

From the end of the ward he heard the approach of the dinner trolley. He'd eat again tonight. Practically speaking, a man didn't stand a chance of putting his world together again on an empty belly.

He heard the trolley making its slow progress down the hospital ward. But his attention was now focused in another direction, on one small object, that leather pouch which hung, unattended, about

the man's neck. What was it? And what a simple matter it would be to. . .

No. When he became rich, he might indulge in a harmless deception. But he was a poor man now, and when a poor man gave his word, it was all he had to give.

A week later, John sat in the large solarium at the end of the central ward, looking out over the blue waters of the Bosporus at Constantinople, a blaze of early May sun on his face, trying to coax Alex Aldwell into telling him about India.

John leaned back against the wicker chair, a little amazed at how well he felt, both physically and emotionally. His constant companion for the last seven days had been Alex Aldwell, a not-so-peculiar bond springing up between the two, considering that both had lost good friends during the last fortnight.

Of course, as far as John was concerned, there was no point of resemblance between his new companion and Jack Willmot. There were the physical attributes, for one. Though strong, Jack had been normal size, while Alex Aldwell standing was an even more awesome sight than Alex Aldwell lying prone on the bed. A good foot beyond John's six feet, he literally towered over all, and added to that was the girth of a chest which resembled an apple barrel, and arms and flanks the size of quartered cattle, and in every sense of the word he was an awesome sight. Once past the more weakening stages of his dysentery, he had shown no anxiety at all over that damnable leather pouch which still hung on the V of white flesh about his neck. And no wonder. Any man would be a fool to try to remove it against Alex's wishes.

"Tell me of India, Alex," John began on a fresh breath. "Everything," he added, smiling. "How did you get there? Why did you leave?"

The big man looked sideways at him, his expression one of suspicion. "Why?" Alex demanded bluntly.

"Why not?" John countered.

Alex averted his face, his mammoth hands locked together between his legs, the pouch bobbling gently about his neck. "What's to tell?" he muttered to the floor. "Suffice it to say that it's . . . Eden, that's what it is."

John looked sharply up, amazed that that one small word could render him speechless. Surely it had been mere coincidence. Not once had he spoken of his past to Alex Aldwell.

A broad grin broke on Alex's face. "At least as close to paradise as any man has a right to expect, a gorgeous land, really," he added, warming to his subject.

John was on the verge of prodding the man to speak further when he saw there was no need. Alex leaned back into the settee now, his legs sprawled before him, his eyes fixed on the ceiling, a new calm on his face. "Would you believe me if I told you I was never cold there, not once? Lord, I grew up with ice in me blood, and it took that Indian sun to thaw it proper."

"How did you get there?"

"How else?" Alex muttered. "John Company." He looked over at John and apparently saw the question on his face. "East India Company," he explained. 'Twenty-five years ago, it was the new horizon. If you had no future in England, join the company and go to India. There was future enough for all."

Sternly he shook his head. "'Course, all that changed right enough. I signed on simply as a guard for the company. Then one day, about ten years ago, I looked up and it had the smell of the military about it, more sepoys than whites in the ranks, and officered by English 'gintlemen.'"

He said this last with a pronounced sneer. "Bloody aristocrats," he cursed. "The plain blokes does the work, and they move in to take the credit."

John agreed with a nod, recalling the stupidity of the British officers in the Crimea, who frequently were more concerned with getting their boots polished than finding a warm dry place for their men to sleep.

He was about to make this contribution when he saw that Alex needed no help. The man was talking effortlessly now, of exotic scenes, vast official palaces, and dark-skinned veiled beauties, of the fierce Indian sun and the liquid seduction of the Ganges. "So I roamed for a while, I did." He grinned at John. "Me and Rod, that is, who had no more stomach for the military than I did. We'd saved a good purse between us, thanks to John Company, and one day we took off on our own." The grin broadened. "Went native, we did, lived good and bad from Bombay to Delhi." For a moment he sank into a kind of trance, the calm of his voice spreading to the expression on his face. "Lord, but I loved it," he whispered. "A world where the sun reaches its zenith before noon, the sweltering heat of the plains, the shuttered houses with only the slow wafting of a punkah to move the air, the shimmering afternoons, the courtyards

emptied of all white men, and only a few natives visible, dozing in the shade like bundles of old rags."

The spell was complete, skillfully woven. Surprised by the man's eloquence, John found that he was almost afraid to breathe.

"'Course, don't get me wrong," Alex warned. "It's a harsh land with lots that takes gettin' used to. They do things different, they do, but I figured it was still their country in spite of John Company, and they had a right." He leaned closer. "Like suttee. Ever heard of it? No, of course you ain't. Well, what that is in two words is widow-burning."

John listened closely, amazed by the new light in the man's face and the grim tale he was telling. "'Course, our missionaries has stamped it out in most places now. In His Name, they calls it. But Rod and me seen one once in a village near Meerut. Some Moghul had died and we saw the natives building this bier. All night long they worked on it, and at dawn they carried out the dead man and laid him atop it, then went back for his widow."

The light of excitement on his face dimmed. "She didn't seem to take to the idea at first, and they had to drag her through the dust, not ten yards from where we was standing. But they managed to get her up there with her dead husband, and suddenly she wasn't objecting no more. Just sittin' there on top of that bier with her face raised. And she was still sittin' there when the flames took her."

He broke off speaking, his left hand kneading the back of the settee. "Lord, but it's awful, the smell of burning flesh."

John felt himself accompanying Alex back into that exotic world, and finding it, if not preferable to, at least different from any he had ever known before.

"Where did you go from there?" he asked eagerly.

"After Meerut?" Alex grinned. "Well, it was our intention, Rod's and mine, to find our fortune, you see. Plenty of others had found theirs before us, so naturally we figured why not us?"

There was a spirit of joking about him now, as though he were secretly laughing at his own foolishness. "Instead, for a period, all we found was plenty of soft brown spread legs." He laughed aloud, a look of affection on his face. "Never seen such willing females. And gifted, too, they are. Like brown macaroni, wrapping themselves about a man."