Traditions of Dead Generations

At Nohant - Pt. II

George's Wish

Near a wharf in London, crowding over the bank of the Thames, is an inn of ill repute; a dilapidated ruin once called the Oxford Arms, but now known to sailors, prostitutes and hop-heads alike as the Sultan's Shed.

The inn derived its new name from its most famous resident, a man last seen disembarking from the merchant ship Camilla. The swarthy gentleman was dressed in the rags of a boatswain, but these could not disguise the natural nobility of his features. His tall, straight bearing; fine, long nose; sharp cheeks and black moustache spoke of the blood of kings, even though the dull black of his clouded eyes betrayed instead the spirit of an opium fiend.

How this Prince came to be laid so low was a matter of much conjecture among the harbourfolk. Some whispered of a period of incarceration in Canton, others of a mutiny in his native Sindh. But one look at his haunted face revealed the true cause of his enslavement, and she had inflicted a wound no man could heal.

No man, but perhaps... a woman.

"Pardieu, George..."

"Shut up, Alfred. It's just a story!"

My wish took me to the side of this man, fallen from grace and left in ruin.

The inn's proprietress suspected her charge's royal background and, imagining that some day all the golden rupees in Pondichéry would sail themselves across the Indian Ocean and become beached on the doorstep of her sad little public house, had kept him as warm and as well as she, with her base expectations, could. Though he was pale, thin, and slick with sweat, the dark Prince lay on a bed of clean linens lit by a soft light with a red shade to better match the smokey visions of his opium fantasies. He was alone in the dark, cloudy attic, with only a young urchin to attend to his needs - alone with his dreams, and his pain.

I approached his cot and drew aside the curtain hung to protect his dignity. His pipe had been recently filled, and the man's eyes were wide and black, seeing futures, presents and pasts beyond normal perception among the shadows of the attic den. These were the most lucid moments of the man's life, and as I knelt by his cot he seized my hand and searched my face with his all-seeing eyes.

"She is in you," he croaked with a voice unused to speech. He spoke an elegant English with only a trace of his Oriental accent. I held his hand tight and brought much-needed water to his lips. "You carry her within you." he repeated.

"Then speak to her through me." If his sick and addled mind needed a medium through which to face the demons of his past, I would be that lens. He must be caught if he was not to descend into death.

"Lalia," he breathed, "Your blood was thick and cold. I came, but your brother had summoned me too late. I was too late-"

"Shh, my love," I offered him forgiveness. His hand went to my black hair, stroking it as the locks of his long-dead Princess.

"I have been cold since I touched your blood. Nothing could restore life to these dead limbs. Nothing... but..."

"I come to you warm now," I showed him the heat of my cheek and my hand. I-

"Your taste for the exotic is well known, George, let us not suffer the details."

"No details, Alfred? Would you not want to know day by day, hour by hour-"

"Must you throw my words in my face like this? You cut, and you cut-"

"Sit down Alfred, let the mistress finish her tale-"

"Pardieu, no! Give me that lamp to me, foutre! We know how this ends. We have all been there."

"Alfred!"

"Oh yes, yes, you're a fist of wilting flowers, the lot of you. Give me the bottle too, thank you. I have a wish. Listen..."