Chapter 1, Page 3
kind of royalty that we only read about and wished we were part of; but there’s something so frightening about actually living the life; set aside living, just walking into the palace, causes the hairs to stand on end. An old verse comes to mind when I think of living the life of royalty:
Within these walls a timeless force,
Such grace and empty harmony,
A power borne out of this space,
With none but thoughts for company
Anyway, I digress; adjoining the magnificent dining hall was a living room, inside which furniture was artfully strewn around. A centre coffee table, a few sofas, some decorative items, book shelves; all displaying the same kind of regal elegance that we had by now grown accustomed to. Interestingly, while we did find a few people downstairs, this part of the hotel appeared to be empty; like we were the only guests here; given the building structure and size, I did find it quite disconcerting; I chose to ignore this. The bell boy directed us to our room which was one of the two rooms, apart from the living room, that opened into the dining hall. He pointed to the huge door and gave us the key, the board adjacent to the door said “Maharani” or some such thing, I forget the exact name, and bade us a good stay. We opened the room and entered.
We were greeted by a dimly lit room with incandescent lamps hanging from the walls around. An old chest of drawers perhaps made of rosewood or at least the colours seem to suggest so, was placed opposite the door with a nice decorative table adjacent to it, atop which was mounted a swivel mirror, the kind we only find in horror films. I tried turning the mirror to find the all too familiar creeks that all old hinges make and to my ears, this almost sounded like a warning, one that I chose not to heed. I confess, the sound didn’t help my steadily growing uneasiness and to keep myself from dwelling on it, I urged us to look to our left where we found a magnificent, inviting king size bed with a mirror mounted on the wall behind the bed’s head; what is it with royal’s and their mirrors? I sometimes wonder if these mirrors held some sort of mysterious power through which they could see who dared trespass their dwellings long after their time. We stared into the whites of our reflections and I had a peculiar feeling that we were being watched; perhaps the effect of having watched too many movies was catching up. Just beneath the high ceiling above the bed, hung a rather decorative fan with a bulb at its centre, casting an eerie spotlight on the bed. Pictures of old queens and princes adorned the walls on all sides which were interesting enough to me but a particular picture of an inverted human pyramid caught my wife’s eye; and she stopped to take a closer look. I myself didn’t pay much attention to this and proceeded to explore the remainder of the room. The other end of the room had an old storage cupboard with a writing desk and a lamp on its right, and a small two seater sofa on the left. I