The Unknown Notes of Dr Watson About the Travels of Sherlock Holmes, ch. 1
Title: The Unknown Notes of Dr Watson About the Travels of Sherlock Holmes
Аuthor: tanchouz
Translator: med_cat
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes, ACD-verse
Characters: Holmes, Watson, Mrs Hudson
Summary: A real friend will always find a way to cheer up the person who is dear to him. And it is not his fault if that person draws entirely unexpected conclusions from such an attempt.
Warnings: AU in that Holmes had visited India during his hiatus. Also, there is a discussion of the Aghori sect and death rituals (somewhat graphic) and there is also an unfavourable view of Buddhism.
Word count: 4,230
Translator's Notes: this is NOT my story. It was originally written in Russian for a fest “Our Birthday Present for Mr Brett” for Nov. 3, 2011 in the 221b comm on diary.ru. I liked the story and asked the author for permission to translate into English and post on English-language fanfic comms, which the author kindly granted.
Cross-posting to watsons_woes, violinandwatch, and mere_appendix
Mods, can I please have two tags: "translator: med_cat" and "author: tanchouz"? Thanks!
1.
Having awakened early in the morning after an insane night, following the miraculous reappearance of my dear friend from the abyss of the Reichenbach Falls, (although, according to his own confession, he never was in it), I sat up, shuddered with the cold, felt for the matches in the pitch darkness and lit a candle.
Trying to be quiet, I went onto the staircase, descended to the second floor and crept up to the door leading to Holmes’ bedroom. I have done that, forgetting all rules of decorum, only because I still couldn’t believe that the person to whose loss I had found it so difficult to resign myself, was lying in the bedroom in the floor below and breathing quietly in his sleep. I had to either hear his breathing or at least to see the familiar silhouette to convince myself that it had not been a dream, and that yesterday Holmes’ hand really did feel my forehead, and then put his brandy flask to my lips, when he was trying to revive an army doctor, who yielded to his weakness in such an undignified manner, like a sentimental maiden. Of course, that marvelous bust which Mrs Hudson had left in the living room till morning, its beauty slightly spoiled by the revolver bullet, which passed through the back of the head and tore apart the forehead could have also convinced me of it-because that wax copy couldn’t have appeared there by itself. Still, of the two adjacent rooms, I chose the one which had been empty for so long, and even now no sounds came from it.
I carefully pushed the door open. The bed was empty. I stood for some time looking at the smoothly spread comforter, then raised my candle higher, assuring myself that the room was empty. I suppose the darkness and silence of this morning hour, this uneasy time of final transition from yesterday to a nebulous perception of this day, must have affected me more than could be expected. Only this, and also a certain nervous tension, which did not completely subside after an unexpected and dangerous adventure, which disclosed the mystery of poor Ronald Adair’s death and led the criminal Moran into the arms of the law, could have explained the fact that I rather loudly called my friend’s name, and, disregarding caution, quickly walked into the living room.
“Holmes!”
I spoke his name again, more quietly this time, having discerned in the dim flickering light of the candle the hem of his dressing-gown and the outline of a familiar figure, sitting in the armchair which used to be mine back when the sitting room belonged to both of us.
“Watson, you are like Prometheus, bringing fire to the humans. Descend, then, to the suffering humanity and light the fire. I promise your liver will be safe.”
Holmes made not the slightest move whilst he was uttering these words, and, having walked around his armchair, I saw that he had placed his bust with the bullet hole through it on the table, facing him, and they were looking at each other, as if arguing silently who was the real one.
“I am very glad to hear that my liver is safe”, I grumbled, putting the candle down on the table, crouching in front of the coal-box and picking up the tongs. “Do you not find that rather irrational-to risk a no-longer-young liver for the sake of bringing fire to the humanity which immediately forgets what to do with it? Holmes, why are you sitting here in the dark? Don’t you remember where the matches are kept?”
“That wasn’t why, my friend. I merely got to thinking, and the light of the street-lamps sufficed for that. And when I remembered the matches, I discovered that I could not even move because I was so infernally cold. I decided to spend my body’s energy wisely and to maintain life in it until you would come and rescue me. I think that was quite a rational decision.”
Despite these friendly words, Holmes had not even glanced at me or moved, as if he were truly benumbed with cold.Having finished building up the fire and extinguishing the candle, I sat down in the armchair opposite Holmes and started observing how his eyes, which seemed huge in his wasted face, stared at one spot, unblinking. The spot right in the middle of the high wax forehead, which was just as pale as the forehead of the person on whom it was modeled. The fire gradually burned brighter, and soon the high flames were cheerfully dancing in the fireplace, filling the room with such life-giving warmth as if its source truly had been purloined from the gods.
We sat silently. I was silent because everything that came to my mind was so foolish and sentimental that I myself would have winced in displeasure, had somebody said such things to me. Holmes remained silent as well, and I didn’t know what it was he really saw in front of him-a replica of his own head or other sights, for instance, icy torrents plunging into an abyss, which seems to be howling with half-human voices. Or a man, his face distorted by hate, clutching Holmes’ shoulder with one hand, and stretching the other hand to claw at Holmes’ throat.
“Are you feeling any warmer?” I asked, finally. Holmes started, as if my question awakened him out of some strange trance, and, extending a thin hand, touched the bullet-mark on the wax forehead.
“Do you know, Watson, that this is the site of Ajna’s chakra? The Hindus believe that the so-called ‘third eye’ is located right here.”
I chuckled.
“What else can one expect from people who consider cows sacred and who drink water from a river which has half-decayed corpses floating in it? I can just imagine the sorts of things they see with that third eye of theirs once they’ve chewed enough betel. An acquaintance of mine has been to India and told me afterwards that the streets there reminded him of TB wards, because they are covered with red saliva from those intoxicating nuts, and full of naked insane men, who are worshipped as saints.”
“That chakra is responsible for enlightenment and comprehending the truth,” Holmes continued, as if he had not heard me. “Do you see what Moran wanted to deprive me of?”
“I doubt that thought had occurred to him, Holmes. But have you really visited India? As far as I recall, you’d mentioned only Tibet, Persia, and Khartoum.”
“True…I’d not told you…You know, my friend, a few minutes between life and death in a picturesque Swiss valley and the necessity to present myself as a dead man had slightly affected the state of my nerves. I was seeing some very strange things when I crossed the Alps. I clung only to one thought, so as not to completely lose my mind…”
What that one thought was, which helped him climb over the mountain pass and reach Florence, where he was finally able to dispatch a message to his brother, Holmes did not say.
“Were you remembering your homeland?” I cautiously asked.
“Oh yes, yes,” he answered straight away, as if he were grateful for the suggestion. “Yes, that is what I was remembering…”
We fell silent again.
I grew ill at ease. The facility with which Holmes had mentioned his travels had made me imagine something like an educational tour, undertaken out of curiosity by an Englishman, who, no matter where he is, never forgets that he is a citizen of a great Empire on which the sun never sets, and condescendingly gazes at the curiosities surrounding him, imagining how they would look on the wall of his study. That the facility was deceptive did not enter my mind until now.
I bent down and stirred the coals with the poker, making the dying flames leap higher. There wasn’t much coal left in the coal scuttle, but I added more to the fire, so as to preserve the heat which was gradually bringing colour back to my friend’s face.
“All that is behind you, Holmes. You are here, you are alive-and that is the most important thing. There is no need to think of things connected with death…”
“With death…” my friend echoed thoughtfully.
“Have you ever heard of the Aghori?” Holmes finally raised his eyes to my face, but his expression was so strange that I felt ill at ease again.
“I think I might have heard something about them. Some lawsuit filed by the British government against several Hindus who were accused of cannibalism. Was is they?”
“No.”
“Who are they, then?”
“Those who don’t exist.”
“Perhaps then we needn’t talk of them further? If they don’t exist in any case,” I liked Holmes’ expression less and less.
“In India, I only visited one city. Benares,” said Holmes, pulling his dressing-gown more tightly about him. “It stands on the shore of the Ganges river. And on that river, past the people who have come to perform their ablutions, indeed, half-decayed corpses float. And on the shores funeral pyres are burning. You can’t imagine the kind of smell that is constantly there, Watson. Fried human entrails…And the sound when the priest breaks the skull with his stick. Oh yes, in quite a similar way to how you are now breaking up the coals in the fireplace.”
I involuntarily froze with the poker in my hand.
“Although that is considered to be against the rules,” Holmes continued, as if nothing had happened. “Not a priest but a close relative of the deceased must break his skull to let out the last breath of life. Do you think Mycroft could have conducted the ritual of breaking my skull?”
That was rather too much, even for my friend. Or perhaps I have grown less accustomed to his eccentricity during these three years.
“Pray continue, Watson. You’re doing very well. Perhaps in my will I would entrust you the care of that part of my body,” a sad smile lit up Holmes’ face, to some extent lessening the impression his ominous words made upon me.
I laid the poker aside.
“I am very flattered to hear that, Holmes,” I said, having decided to continue the conversation in the same way as if we were talking of everyday, routine things, and then later to direct it onto a safer topic.
“I should like to know what induced you to visit such an…ahem…unusual place?”
“Rumours, my friend, rumours.”
“And were these rumours confirmed? Did you see those who do not exist?”
“How could I have seen them if they don’t exist? You are contradicting yourself. What I saw there was all a dream, a delirious dream…”
I feverishly considered the list of possible topics for conversation in my mind, not wanting the silence to fall again, because unwholesome thoughts possessed my friend during the silence. But he forestalled me to it.
“Do you believe, Watson, that having lost all illusions, one can once again view the world with the eyes of an innocent babe?” he asked, leaning his elbow on the armrest and his head on his hand. His eyes were this time riveted to the flames, which were evenly burning in the fireplace and softly lighting his haggard face.
“That is too complicated a question, my friend. Perhaps you should…”
“Nothing complicated about it. Imagine you are crawling on the ground during the night, in pitch darkness, dying of thirst. And suddenly your fingers plunge into the blessed coolness of water in some small hole. What are you going to do?”
“I suppose I shall drink it.”
“Would you enjoy it?”
“I would enjoy it very much. I’m dying of thirst, aren’t I?”
“All right. The next morning you awaken in the same place and you see that you had drunk water out of a human skull. What will you do now?”
“Good heavens, Holmes!” I exclaimed involuntarily. “What are you talking about? That is rank madness!”
“So what will you do, Watson?”
“Since I have already lived till morning,” I answered irritably, “I will try to purge my stomach. Although, since this water has been in my body all night already, it wouldn’t do much good. Therefore, I’ll try to obtain a bottle of whisky, take a few deep draughts and will beg the good Lord to help the alcohol kill the contagion within me.”
“Let us suppose that the skull was as clean as your hands just before you were to perform surgery.”
“What does that change?” I couldn’t understand what Holmes wanted of me. “It’s still horrible to drink water out of the human skull.”
“But why, Watson? How is human bone different from clay or china? Or the bone of an animal?”
“In my opinion, that is self-evident.”
“All that is inside here,” Holmes raised his hand, as if he wanted to touch my forehead. But the hand did not reach far enough to actually do that and lowered itself back onto the armrest instead. “All these differences are engendered by your own conscious will. If you get rid of it, you would be able to drink water out of anything. The only question that would remain is whether you’d be able to drink water out of a skull and enjoy it the same as the first time. When you didn’t yet know it was a skull.”
“And this you also picked up in that Benares of yours?”
“No, that was later, in Tibet. An old story, popular in one of the Buddhist sects.”
“Well, I’ll tell you something then-one can arrive at such a way of thinking without any experiments of that sort with skulls and water. I believe it was yesterday that you were quoting Shakespeare to us? When you greeted Colonel Moran after he nearly choked you to death? Then you should be able to remember what Hamlet answered Rosencranz when he disagreed with the prince’s comparing Denmark to a prison, the very worst kind of prison at that.”
“And what did he answer?” asked Holmes without the slightest flicker of interest.
“That, therefore, it is not a prison for Rosencranz. Because things are not in themselves good or evil, only in our opinion of them. What do you think engendered these differences in their opinion, if not their own conscious mind? For him, Denmark was a prison. Do you remember how he was sent to England, to be cured of his madness? And the gravedigger said that even if he does not recover there, nobody would notice it. Because everyone else there is just as mad…”
Holmes seemed not to be listening to me. The Prince of Denmark, who suffered through an inner drama and incidentally came to the conclusion which seemed so significant to a Chinese novice several thousand years ago, did not engage his interest at all. It was still dark outside the window. The barely-flickering gas lights could not completely keep back the predawn darkness, and from experience I knew that the darkness would not disperse until the murky yellowish luminescence (which Londoners consider to be daylight) spreads throughout the city.
“Why have you fallen silent?” Holmes chuckled mirthlessly, pulling the dressing gown even more tightly around himself. “Are you frightened by such conversations?”
“To be honest, having listened to your tales, I am afraid to even ask what you’d been doing in Persia.”
“You needn’t be afraid. I never went there.”
“How is that possible?” I was stunned by Holmes’ words. “Your report to the Ministry…”
“My dear fellow! To obtain a clear picture of what was going on in Persia, it was not at all necessary to be present there myself. I had not the slightest desire to visit a country in which even its ruler cannot feel safe. I had other plans. If I weren’t obligated to Mycroft…To participate in the Great Game and to contribute my bit to this undercover war with the Russians in the Middle Asia, I needed slightly less than a month, which I spent in Askhabat and its surroundings-you know, it’s a military fortification on Turkestan’s territory near the border with Persia. It was founded by Russian Cossacks about thirteen years ago.
I portrayed a veterinary assigned to our inspector of military stables. It was an amazing experience. I have never encountered anything similar, although I did have some knowledge of how to care for horses. If you ever decide to keep a horse, Watson, I am at your service-now I can easily tell a good mare from all the others. They had magnificent breeds-Alkhatekians-intelligent, proud, so seemingly fragile but incredibly hardy. For the Turkmen they are not merely household animals, they are members of the family, and they are cared for just as children are.”
Holmes gradually grew more animated as he told me this tale. His pale face grew slightly pinker, he finally stopped pulling his dressing gown around himself as if he were unable to get warm. Having congratulated myself mentally, I prepared to listen. My friend could be an excellent raconteur when he so chose. His easy manner of narration was distinguished by unobtrusive humour, although perhaps it lacked some irony in relation to himself. Holmes always took himself very seriously.
“But the inspector, unfortunately, was not so interested in the appearance and qualities of local riding horses as you would judge from the name of his position,” Holmes continued, chuckling, “but rather in the state of affairs in the so-called Persian Cossack Division, which is employed to guard the Persian Shah and his ministers and in which Russian military instructors serve. Our government considers it highly desirable to dissolve that division and to replace it with something more British, rather than French or German.”
“I’ve had to make the acquaintance of several ‘pundits’, who, under the guise of dervishes and folk healers, travel from India via Persia to the Russian Turkestan and collect information for Great Britain. I even ended up in the local prison with one of them for a short while, when the Russians made the Turkmen government to carry out a purge among the Hindus, as all of them without exception were suspected to be spying for England. And not without cause, I can tell you. It was he who told me of curious things one encounters in his homeland. These things interested me so much that I did everything possible to leave Turkestan as soon as possible and wend my way to India.
The inspector, just as all other inspectors we are acquainted with, was not overly intelligent, and that is why I had to explain to him in detail that, judging from the number of horses being bought for the Cossack Division attached to the Shah’s Court, things in it are going far from well, and judging from how the payments for those horses are made, the Russian Government doesn’t pay sufficient attention to this division and most likely is already in debt to its officers. So I advised him to inform his superiors that now is exactly the time to make our move through the military minister of Persia, who is loyal to us. And that we should concentrate not on the Near but on the Far East, where the Russians are seriously involved with China and Japan.
Having parted with the inspector, I headed south. A few days at an inn on the border of Afghanistan and Persia in the company of a charming Frenchwoman, who was waiting for her husband so as to continue her traveling to the Shah’s court, and as a result, the Ministry is already expressing serious concerns about the aspirations of the Persian ruler to open schools in which lessons are taught in French, and about his plans of possibly inviting the new military instructor from France rather than England after all.
And as a farewell gift, when I had already gotten to India, I spent several weeks together with one of our local agents, wandering the bazaars of Belujistan, which is adjacent to Persia. You know, there are many Persian sympathizers there and one can hear quite a few things in the local coffee shops if one only spends long enough in them. Especially since these shops, with their rugs and hookahs, make one inclined to linger. I informed Mycroft that rather progressive reforms of Nasreddin-Shah or what he takes for such will not be crowned with success until he is able to rein in the religious fanatics who are turning the people against him. And that the Shah has significant reasons to fear for his own life….There was something you wanted to ask, Watson?”
Indeed, I wished to clarify a detail which, I must confess, had surprised me. I had imagined Holmes’ travels in an entirely different light, but I wanted to ask him not about the political situation in the Near East and not about Mycroft’s role in all this either.
“Holmes, you had mentioned a charming Frenchwoman. Did I hear you correctly?”
“You did. A bored woman in a foreign country, deprived of her husband’s society, is the best source of information for a man if he decides to court her a bit.”
This was even more astonishing.
“Did you really court her? I just can’t imagine it, albeit I’ve been trying to,” said I, perhaps with a greater amount of sarcasm than I should have.
“What do you find so surprising about it?” Holmes answered, irritably. “You know my skill with disguises. Especially since in this case I didn’t need to become a whole foot shorter, glue on those awful sideburns and portray an old book collector, with whom you collided near the house of the late Ronald Adair. All I had to do was simply to portray a slight interest and admiration.”
“And did you succeed in doing so?”
“Judging from how willingly she was sharing information with me, yes, I did.”
The animation with which Holmes talked of his adventures on the border of Persia began to wane. I saw from the look in his eyes that other thoughts, not at all connected with the state of affairs in a faraway country where the Kajars rule, were occupying him. My friend lowered his head and quietly remarked, “You know, I was ready to do anything so as to put an end to the duties of a faithful Englishman and to gain my freedom regarding my plans. Even if to accomplish that I had to become a man who is considered dead by everyone in his homeland. Although, perhaps, none of them experienced much sorrow because of that…”
I was taken aback by Holmes’ last words. I shifted my gaze to the flames in the fireplace, which blazed up brightly all of a sudden and a hot coal jumped out onto the floor. I returned it to the fire, using the fire shovel, and asked calmly,
“Do you truly think so, Holmes?”
He didn’t answer, sitting all huddled up in his armchair.
“Would you like me to also share my impressions with you? From that trip to Switzerland?”
“No need, my dear fellow…I had seen you myself…” Holmes was looking at me with such pitiful eyes that my resentment immediately gave way to the desire to say something encouraging, or at least something which could end this conversation. Just as I wished, he’d changed the subject, but the subject he chose was even less preferable, because it was a painful one for both of us. I wasn’t sure to which one of us it caused more pain, actually.
“Your idea with this bust was pure genius,” I said the first thing which came into my head, perhaps because Holmes again was staring at his replica on the table in front of him. “But perhaps we could remove this excellent decoy, which deceived the most dangerous man after Moriarty in England, from our sitting room? Do you not find it a rather gloomy decoration?”
And I got up, intending to move the bust as far away from Holmes as possible.
“Oh no, no!” he exclaimed immediately. “Leave it here. I intend to keep it.”
“As a reminder of a successfully solved case?”
“No, my dear fellow. As a reminder of my conversations with the Dalai Lama, those ones that did not pertain to dividing the spheres of influence with the Russians in Pamir.”
“But in what way would it remind you of that? Ah, wait…I think I understand how you were able to deceive Moran. In his mystic visions the Dalai Lama had beheld Moran, gun in hand, aiming at your wax replica behind the window of our flat from that empty house over there, and he told you of it. Am I right?”
“No, Watson,” Holmes didn’t even smile. “This wax replica will embody for me an idea of which I learned in Tibet.”
“Which idea was that?” I asked, not expecting anything good.
“About the impermanence of everything that exists. I think this is a very expressive embodiment…” and he again touched the bullet mark on the wax forehead.
I could only sigh heavily at this return to the point from which we started.
I dared not question Holmes regarding his visit to the Khalif of Khartoum.