Owen Sheers: The Dust Diaries

Before Arthur could reply the Governor addressed Pruen himself, taking in the attention of the whole table at the same time, speaking as he did, a little too loudly. Arthur suspected a case of tropical deafness.

‘I don’t believe I’ve told you the history of this house, have I, Mr Pruen? Or indeed any of you. Except Father Weston’—he smiled at Frank—‘and of course my dear wife, who has heard it all before.’ The Governor turned to his wife. She did not look up from her plate on which she was pressing her fork onto the last grains of rice that had, until now, eluded her. He turned back to the assembled company and as the servants cleared the plates and served coffee, he began his story of the house and its previous owner, Princess Salome.

Settling back into his chair, the Governor told them how the Princess had been betrayed by her brother, the Sultan Mahjid, when in 1870 he gave the house they were now sitting in to the British to use as their consulate. The Princess, an emotional and passionate woman, was distraught. She had put the energy of a mother into the gardens that surrounded them, and she wept bitterly when she had been guided out of the house with her servants under the watchful guard of her brother’s men. She was moved to a third-storey apartment in town, where she pined for her house with its spacious rooms and balconies through which the coastal wind wandered freely. Her apartment was cramped in comparison, and without character. From its high window she watched her island change at the hands of commerce: the influx of Europeans, the bustle and activity of slave market days, the tall ships that sailed into harbour to take their spices across the oceans to the tables of Russia, Europe, the Americas. It was not, however, the view of her pulsing capital that came to fascinate her, but the view of another window, opposite her own. This window looked into the rooms of a young German merchant from Hamburg and, lit at night by oil lamps, it provided an insight into another life too tempting for the Princess to resist.

She had watched the young man move in and unpack his belongings: a few books, his new solar sun hat, a sepia photograph of his mother placed on his desk. Then over the following months she had watched him grow into the island, and it into him. She traced the sun’s effect on his pale skin, from the red blushes on the back of his freckled neck to a darker brown that showed in contrast to the milky whiteness of his torso when he took off his shirt. She watched him acquire friends and observed their Western din tier parties, bright with laughter and the sound of glasses in the nighi. He bought a gramophone and she listened with him when he played his scratched records of Bach and Wagner. She watched him when he was alone and despondent, dreaming of home, and she watched him when he was cheerful and excited, dressing for a party. Anc! in this way she fell in love with him.

When they finally met (ironically, introduced to each other at a British consulate party, so that just for one night she had both her house and the man she loved together in her life), the attraction was instant. She wore her traditional dress with long amber beads looping around her neck down to her exposed waist. But what the young man had noticed was not the finery of her jewellery or the scent of her perfume but the smoothness of her skin and the darkness of her eyes. They spoke to each other in broken English, each understanding more than they said, and that night, for the first time, she appeared in the window she had watched for so long, finally a part of its small, bright life.

Shortly after news of their affair reached the Princess’s brother, the couple left the island, and Princess Salome sailed with the merchant back to his home in Hamburg. It was the first time she had left the island other than to travel to Dar es Salaam, and as the ship steamed away from its shores she tried to locate her beloved house and gardens. But all she could see was palms, dipping onto the sands, and dhows, circling inside the reef.

In Germany they married; the Princess converted to Christianity and they set up home in Hamburg. Life was strange for her. Some people wouldn’t talk to her, and in the winter the bitterness of the cold made her cry. But she loved her husband and the two children she gave him, a girl and a boy. Then, three years after their arrival, her world fell apart when he slipped on some ice avoiding a salesman’s cart and fell under a tram. He was dead before the screech of its brakes had died on the November air.

‘She did return once, back in ‘85 I think, before my time.’ The Governor looked away, moved for a moment by his own story. ‘She wanted her children to see her island, and of course this place. She got quite a welcome, but didn’t stay. Apparently by then she spoke Arabic with a German accent, but I’m not sure if I believe that.’

The table was quiet and even Mr Pruen just nodded sagely rather than offering comment on the Princess’s story. Arthur looked out past the other guests into the unmanned dark. The Governor’s tale had saddened him, and not just out of feeling for the Princess whose house they now sat in. It was a more personal sadness than that; a sadness of empathy as well as sympathy.

It was Mr Beardsley who broke the silence, nudging his young companion and jokingly admonishing her, ‘You see, Charlotte, that’ll teach you to go running off to strange lands with merchant men!’ He followed the remark with a hearty laugh that sent his head back and his mouth open so Arthur could see the rotten state of his lower teeth.

Charlotte did not share his amusement, and the gentle nudge in her ribs finally upset the tears that had been brimming inside her all night. Her face dismantled under the weight of them, and gave way completely with a bursting sob as she pushed her chair away from the table and ran through the huge double doors into the central vestibule. They heard her small feet on the wooden floorboards receding behind them, then the slam of another heavy door.

The merchant looked sheepishly around at them all. ‘Gosh, I do apologise. It’s been a long day, and the heat you know…I’ll just…’ He made to get out of his chair.

‘No, don’t bother yourself, I’ll go and see to her.’

It was the Governor’s wife, speaking for the first time that night. With a sigh which seemed to say that she’d seen it all before, she rose from the table, ample in a bottle-green evening dress, and walked slowly and purposefully through the carved double doors. While she was gone the servants served port. Again, Arthur declined but he did allow himself a smoke of his pipe as he sat back and listened to the others talk about matters of commerce, the railways and the war in the south. The cicadas sang their static song in the darkness beyond the balcony and he wondered if he would ever get used to their sound, or indeed any of Africa.

Eventually the Governor’s wife returned, but just to excuse herself and say goodnight. She was about to leave when Mr Beardsley cleared his throat;

‘Er, Charlotte. Is the old girl all right?’

She looked at him as a mother might at a tiresome child.

‘Oh, yes, fine. Silly girl was wearing a corset. In this heat,’ she added, shaking her head, and then as she turned to leave, ‘Nearly cut in two with heat rash, no wonder she looked so miserable.’

The merchant managed a weak smile. ‘Oh good, jolly good,’ he said quietly, avoiding the eyes of the others and swilling the last dash of port in his glass.

♦

The dinner party ended not long after the Governor’s wife retired. Mr Beardsley and Mr Pruen were both staying at the consulate, so a car was ordered for Frank and Arthur to return to Stonetown. Beardsley made his excuses and also left them, apparently now back in buoyant mood.