The Hamilton Case Read online

  Copyright © 2003 by Michelle de KretserReading group guide copyright © 2005 by Michelle de Kretser and Little, Brown and Company (Inc.)

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  Back Bay Books / Little, Brown and Company

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017

  Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroup.com

  The Little, Brown and Company Publishing name and logo is a trademark of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  First eBook Edition: September 2007

  ISBN: 978-0-316-02818-9

  Contents

  PART I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  PART II

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  PART III

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  PART IV

  Chapter 70

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  A READING GROUP GUIDE

  A CONVERSATION WITH MICHELLE DE KRETSER

  QUESTIONS AND TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  International acclaim for Michelle de Kretser’s

  THE HAMILTON CASE

  “Simply put, The Hamilton Case is one of the most extraordinary novels I have ever read. . . . It makes the English language sing.”

  — Kenneth Champeon, Bookpage

  “A splendid, intelligent, and at times mesmerizing work of fiction. . . . As Sam Obeysekere lingers over the events of his life, his cool Edwardian narrative voice is as deceptive as that of the butler Stevens in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Remains of the Day. . . . By novel’s end, it is Ms. de Kretser’s great skill that has allowed us to become so thoroughly involved in a sordid family drama that we almost neglect to notice the great events passing by in the background.”

  — Sudip Bose, Washington Times

  “Multilayered and beguiling. . . . The Hamilton Case — which beautifully renders the sensuality of Ceylon — is a very artful and evocative plea for interpretation over explanation. . . . Through a rich family history replete with joys and tragedies, Michelle de Kretser has adroitly demonstrated just what a baffling, intractable, multifaceted thing one person’s life can be.”

  — William Boyd, New York Times Book Review

  “De Kretser’s prose is powerfully evocative. She deserves comparison with J. M. Coetzee and her countryman Michael Ondaatje.”

  — Fiona Stager, Courier-Mail (Australia)

  “Absorbing, elegantly written. . . . A many-layered, fascinating novel, finely attuned to both history and humanity. . . . The Hamilton Case displays a formidable talent.”

  — Charles Matthews, San Jose Mercury News

  “Opulently atmospheric. . . . It is de Kretser’s style that seduces, a somersaulting bird of paradise. . . . At the close, a chain of revelations sews together chance and innuendo in surgically tight stitches. . . . Sam’s Victorianisms transmute to poignant irony, Maud’s losses bloom into poetic exactitude.”

  — Kai Maristed, Los Angeles Times

  “There is a mystery at the heart of The Hamilton Case. . . . De Kretser takes her subject — which is how the English language, and with it a way of looking at the world and at people, has penetrated the psyche of Ceylon — and twines it into the fabric of her story. In other words, this is no protest novel, but an elegant, seductive, and manipulative work of art. . . . Sam Obeysekere’s life, as an old friend of his describes it, is ‘a devastating lesson in how a man might see every detail with perfect clarity and yet misread the shape of the whole.’ De Kretser has pulled off something remarkable, writing a novel that charms and beguiles without soothing us into making a similar and unjust mistake.”

  —Laura Miller, Salon

  “I devoured this book. De Kretser misses nothing.”

  — Christopher Ondaatje, Literary Review

  “De Kretser has given us the classic whodunit wrapped up in a beautiful and tragic literary novel.”

  — Ella Walsh, Vogue

  “A miniature masterpiece of a mystery. . . . Sherlock Holmes haunts The Hamilton Case. . . . Sam Obeysekere’s story takes some time to reveal itself as a mystery, but it does so when Obeysekere takes on the case of a respectable English planter — Hamilton — who gets shot in the chest. ‘Murder, a moonless night, the jungle crowding close.’ . . . De Kretser’s prose is stunning and subtle in depicting Sam’s downfall, evoking the glittering excesses of colonial life — after a party ‘you could have strolled across the lagoon on the champagne corks’ — and the tropical fecundity of Ceylon with equally irresistible power.”

  — Lev Grossman, Time

  “A bewitching novel. . . . An utterly captivating blend of intellectual muscle and storytelling magic.”

  — Boyd Tonkin, Independent

  “A dazzling performance. . . . The Hamilton Case ratifies every dream one might have of a tropical landscape with its account of a rich and eccentric family and its complex and serpentine history. De Kretser is, however, as smart and up-to-date as she can be. . . . It is impossible to describe her prose as anything but rich, luxuriant, intense, and gorgeous.”

  — Anita Desai, New York Review of Books

  “Prose as lush as a tropical jungle. . . . A poignant mediation on colonialism, family ties, race, and national identity.”

  — Adam Woog, Seattle Times

  “The Hamilton Case is one of the most remarkable books I’ve read in a long while — subtle and mysterious, both comic and eerie, and brilliantly evocative of time and place. I’ve never been to Sri Lanka but I feel it’s become part of my interior landscape, and I so much admire Michelle de Kretser’s formidable technique — her characters feel alive, and she can crea
te a sweeping narrative which encompasses years, and yet still retain the sharp, almost hallucinatory detail. It’s brilliant.”

  — Hilary Mantel

  “A razor-sharp evocation of a place and time. . . . The Hamilton Case has a way of insinuating itself into the reader’s mind. . . . De Kretser, like Ishiguro in The Remains of the Day, finds a heartbreaking dignity in her hero’s pathos.”

  — Bill Ott, Booklist

  “Beautifully written. . . . There are mysteries, but de Kretser is more concerned to explore most movingly the characters of the dangerous, pompous, and ultimately tragic Obey and his family. . . . The Hamilton Case is haunting, lush, and delicately nuanced.”

  — Peter Guttridge, Observer

  “Absorbing, elegantly written. . . . A many-layered, fascinating novel, finely attuned to both history and humanity. . . . The Hamilton Case displays a formidable talent.”

  — Charles Matthews, San Jose Mercury News

  “The novel’s beautiful, delicate, and scathing prose . . . provides the ruminative gratification of serious literature.”

  — Brenn Jones, San Francisco Chronicle

  “Part colonial whodunit, part Faulknerian gothic, the beauty of this book is its ability to constantly surprise. . . . The Hamilton Case is an important novel that gives up more of its secrets with each reading.”

  — Liam Davison, Weekend Australia

  “Stunning. . . . Rich with evocative writing that brings to life its lush locale, made all the more exotic by its teetering place on the precipice of history.”

  — Laura DeMarco, Cleveland Plain Dealer

  “De Kretser has given us the classic whodunit wrapped up in a beautiful and tragic literary novel.”

  —Ella Walsh, Vogue

  “A bewitching novel. . . . An utterly captivating blend of intellectual muscle and storytelling magic.”

  —Boyd Tonkin, Independent

  “Rewarding, thought-provoking, witty, and often disconcerting, The Hamilton Case takes the reader into a world of transformations.”

  — Clare Griffiths, Times Literary Supplement

  “Every so often there comes a novel for adults that combines a fastidious literary sensibility with that intense, urgent childhood readability, and then the result is as magical as the old childish enchantments. The Hamilton Case is like this. . . . De Kretser is a virtuoso in language. Whatever the linguistic equivalent of perfect pitch may be, she has it.”

  — Jane Shilling, Telegraph

  “I read The Hamilton Case in a single day, greedily, absorbed in its narrative drive, its poised voice, its rich texture, its dense sense of life.”

  — Delia Falconer, Sydney Morning Herald

  “Ambitious, gracefully composed. . . . The Hamilton Case is really about something far more absorbing than the tidy and classic plot twists of a British murder mystery. . . . ‘Who isn’t drawn to what he pities?’ The signal accomplishment of de Kretser’s hypnotic, lush, and calmly observant novel is that we feel this same sentiment on Sam’s own behalf, even after we learn in the story of his life how deeply suspect it must be. That is the final, remarkable mystery that endlessly enlivens The Hamilton Case.”

  — Chris Lehmann, Washington Post Book World

  ALSO BY MICHELLE DE KRETSER

  The Rose Grower

  For Chris, with love

  PART I

  I always made it my business, at least, to know the part thoroughly.

  G. K. Chesterton

  A WISE CHILD

  A name is the first story that attaches itself to a life. Consider mine: Stanley Alban Marriott Obeysekere. It tells of geography, history, love and uncertainty. I was born on an island suspended midway on the golden trade route between East and West—a useful bauble, fingered and pocketed by the Portuguese, Dutch and British in turn. In 1902, when I was born, Sir Alban Marriott was Governor and he agreed to be my godfather. How could he refuse? He had been in thrall to my mother ever since she sent him the skin of a leopard she had shot, along with a note. I shall call on you between five and six this evening. The skin is for the small blue reception room, which is ideally suited to fornication and whatnot. Her name was Maud and she was a great beauty. Also a first-rate shot. In Scotland she had stalked deer with the Prince of Wales; his performance, she reported, was mediocre. He presented her with a brooch fashioned from an eagle’s talon mounted on silver and onyx. Mater dismissed it as monumentally obvious and palmed it off on her stewardess in lieu of a tip on her voyage home.

  My father insisted on calling me Stanley, although my mother hated the name. I have often pondered the significance of Pater’s uncharacteristic resolve. His father, too, was a Stanley, so he might simply have been affirming family tradition. On the other hand, might his assertion of my paternal provenance betray some anxiety about it? My mother had a certain reputation. It was alleged that she once swam in a jungle pool wearing only her bloomers, even though there were gentlemen and snakes present. Half of Colombo society followed the lead of Lady Marriott, who was stout and afflicted with shingles, in cutting her dead. Mater said Stanley was fit only for a peon, so it was just as well my initials spelled Sam. These days there is no one left to remember that I was ever called anything else.

  Stanley Alban Marriott Obeysekere: between the names that define me as my father’s child falls the shadow of an Englishman who didn’t serve a second term as Governor. Shortly after his death eight years ago a package from a firm of London solicitors found its way to my desk. It contained a small murky oil painting of a large and largely unclad female gathering flowers and berries against a backdrop of broken marble columns in a woodland glade. The artist—quite unknown to the works of reference I have consulted—signed himself Tom Baltran. The executor’s letter accompanying the painting explained that the Baltrans and the Marriotts were cousins. Moreover, it continued, the Hon. Thomas was descended on the distaff side from the first Duke of St. Albans, Charles II’s illegitimate son by Nell Gwynne. The artist’s hefty nymph was held, in family lore, to represent the orange seller, but this was purely speculative. Sir Alban, wrote his solicitor, was most anxious for this painting, the gem of his small collection, to pass to you. He retained the warmest memories of his years in Ceylon, and often referred to happy times spent in the company of your mother.

  An ambiguous legacy, wouldn’t you say? I keep the painting in a cabinet, along with Sir Alban’s other gift, a silver eggcup presented on the occasion of my christening. Now and then I set these objects before me and study them. An egg, a mistress, a bastard son: their message seems unequivocal. But the testimony of signs is unreliable. Within minutes I have reasoned that an eggcup is a wholly conventional gift on the part of a godparent, and that the Hon. Thomas’s daub points only to the ill-judged sentimentality of a nonagenarian. The argument prevails for a brief interval; then doubt creeps in again. These sessions always end the same way: I cross to my mirror where reassurance waits in the solid evidence of my flesh.

  If you wish to ascertain a man’s lineage, read his face not his birth certificate. My skin is as dark as my father’s, our branch of the Obeysekeres being famously black. Like Pater, I am of average height and inclined to portliness in age. We share a high forehead, thick, springing hair, a curved nose and assertive ears. We are not handsome men. But we have presence. Whereas Sir Alban, as he appears in my parents’ photograph album, is tall and hollow-chested, with pointed features and an entirely unconvincing mustache. He clasps his left wrist in his right hand, holding himself together.

  By now it will be apparent that my pen is not constrained by decorum. I have always set great store by the truth, a virtue not usually prized in my profession. But it was my ability to see accurately and to speak the truth, without concern for convention or fear of reprisal, that made my name in a different sense. The very notoriety of the Hamilton case has seen it shrouded in the fog of rumor, conjecture and misinformation that passes for analysis in the drawing rooms of this country. In these pages I intend to s
et down the facts of the matter at last.

  A REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST

  My grandfather, Sir Stanley Obeysekere, was a mudaliyar, an office that placed a man at the pinnacle of our island’s social system. A mudaliyar was a leader of men, with considerable influence in his ancestral district. By tradition he was a gifted soldier and a skilled diplomat, abilities he placed at the service of his sovereign. With the advent of the Europeans, however, the role of the mudaliyar evolved. The Kandyan kingdom remained unconquered in the hills until 1815, but as the Portuguese, Dutch and finally the British occupied larger and larger areas of the maritime provinces, it was for their administrative talents, above all, that my ancestors came to be valued by the colonial powers. Their education, the respect they commanded among their countrymen and their knowledge of the island’s customs meant they were ideally suited to assist in the colonial administration: as record keepers, as intermediaries and interpreters, as presidents of the courts that dealt with native disputes concerning land, contracts and debts.

  The Europeans rewarded loyalty with land: whole villages were given in gift to the mudaliyars, vast tracts of jungle, tax-free estates. Pater’s inheritance included landholdings throughout the southern provinces, four properties in Colombo, six or seven outstation bungalows, a cottage in the hills, a tea plantation and a plumbago mine; as well as Lokugama, our country seat, where my childhood unraveled in splendid isolation.

  I have no doubt that my ancestors were vigorous men. One of my lasting regrets is that I never knew my grandfather, who was by all accounts a wise and able administrator. I have by me a copy of the confidential memorandum from Government House recommending his knighthood. It notes that my grandfather possessed a most complete and accurate knowledge of the practice and procedure of the Island and describes him as a man of the highest character, honourable, high principled and unswervingly loyal.

  Alas, Sir Stanley met with disaster at the age of thirty-four. He was boating on the lake in Kandy one afternoon when he noticed that a party of English girls, who had ventured out without a boatman in the spirited way of the young, had gotten into difficulty. Before his horrified eyes, one of the girls, who had unwisely risen to her feet, was pitched overboard. Ten years earlier my grandfather had swum the Hellespont, cheered on by a smelly band of very villainous Greeks, as he recorded in his diary. Now he dived at once into the lake and reached the young lady’s side in a few swift strokes.