King Rat

by James Clavell

  “Tuan Allah,” she whimpered as the storm-pain blew its violence to a peak, “give me death, I beg Thee, give me death.”

  “Ayee,” the old crone said simply, wiping the sweat from her, “pray not for death, N’ai, for that will come to pass soon enough. Pray better for life.”

  The cries parted the girl’s lips as the pain built to impossibility and she twisted. The cries caught in her larynx and they became screams, a single scream which bent to the curve of pain, and subsided as the tide withdrew to ocean pain, once more at ocean strength.

  “Wah-lah!” The old woman said testily, then shifted her betel nut chew to the other side of her mouth, “Push little one, push harder, push with the pain and let us both have done with the birth of the child.”

  N’ai could bear the pain at ocean mood. Exhaustedly she opened her eyes and looked at the woman, saw the red-stained, needle-filed teeth of the old way, saw the flat withered dugs which once were breasts, felt the smile and confidence of the dark, dark eyes. “Will it be long?” she asked tiredly.

  “Longer than some, shorter than others,” the old woman said and squatted more comfortably, waving away the mosquitoes. “If thou would push with the pain and not fear it, then it will be very soon. Thy hips are wide and strong, and thy body strong, and the child-to-be’s exit is firm and unscarred. There is nothing to fear for thee or for the child. As I am the best midwife in the village, or in these parts for that matter, as sure as I am Buluda, the midwife, the maker of potions, there is nothing to fear.”

  “Wah-lah,” N’ai said, wan and very tired, “it is hard this time. I beg thee give me a little water.”

  Buluda fetched the water and helped her to drink, and she had put a little sangi bark into the water which made it very healthful.

  “I thank thee,” the girl said. She lay back and let her eyes wander the comfort of the hut, seeing the rafters and the screens and the cooking place and the eating-living-thinking space. “Where is Tua?” she asked, suddenly concerned.

  “Where he should be,” Buluda said, “asleep with thy husband’s mother. Would thou have thy son here tonight, with thee birthing? Does thou think a three-year-old can help?” Her laugh was more a cackle and a spill of red betel-juice pencilled her chin, hung momentarily in a droplet, then fell to the matted floor.

  “Chide me not, dear Mother Buluda.” The girl’s lips were pocked with teeth marks where she had bitten her flesh when the last pain had soared. But the scars were only transients and they made her lips more red, more pleasing red.

  “And Tua, now that’s a foolish name for a boy,” Buluda was saying. “That’s no name for a boy.”

  A smile touched the lips of the girl as she thought of her son and his father. “I like the name,” she said softly, “it is a good name.” She sighed and wearily moved the sweat from her face and neck. “It is hot tonight.”

  “Yes. But this night is a good night for a birth. The omens are good.” Buluda felt the penetration of the girl’s scrutiny and she kept her face impassive. “Rest, child, rest and gain strength. It will not be long.”

  Buluda got up and eased the ache in her shoulders and pottered around the hut checking that all was ready against the time.

  Another tide of pain swarmed the girl and Buluda fondled the monstrous stomach, molding it, helping it. “Push hard, little one, push with thy pain. Let thy pain help thee. Push.” Her voice was as soothing as her gnarled hands, and though both her voice and her hands were strong and confident, her mind was not confident. Ayee, she told herself, too much pain and too long and too early. This is not good for one so young, not on the second birth. On the first, Wah-lah, that was different, very different and not hard. But this, this has too much pain and the portents are not good. Did not a hawk sail the eastern sky this noon when the pains began? Did not a toad cross the path to the hut as I hurried confidently to the hut of the mother-to-be? Ayee, she thought grimly, a hawk in the eastern sky and a toad on the path are bad omens at a second birth.

  So Buluda continued her vigil and as the pains ebbed and flowed, she soothed the body as best she could. The ointments were ready and the herbs were ready and the water boiling on its charcoal fire. There was nothing for her to do but be patient. The position of the life-to-be was good and no harm should come to mother or child, but there seemed to her to be a strangeness in the space of the hut, and she feared for the child-woman she loved.

  Wah-lah, Buluda thought, oh that I could be so young and beautiful, that I could be there, lying in child birth, not old and useless and without. She leaned forward and stroked the brow and the long raven hair, glorying in the deep bronze satin of the skin. She let her hands wander over the body, over the fullness of the breasts—seeping with the goodness of the milk of life—down over hips and stomach, grotesque yet beautiful with the marvelousness of fulfullment, over loins and thighs, soothing them, enjoying them, this beautiful body, hairless and pure.

  Ayee, Buluda told herself in wonder, is it possible that only a few short years ago, this mother-to-be was yet a babe I held up from the womb and smacked life into, only a measured time ago? She counted the seasons and the girl’s count became sixteen years of life, and she remembered too that even the mother of this woman she had brought into life as well. I am old, old, she muttered, and she became a little sad. But not so old, she chuckled, that I cannot get a little warmth from the sight of a young buck caressing his love, nor yet a twitch of envy at the sight of a young virgin, or a young woman, or a young widow, or even a middle-aged widow; and not so old that I cannot feel excitement from the mating dance, and not so old that I cannot remember the time of my youth and my children, and the time, for instance, that I and Tuan Abu had down at the shore, when my husband was in Surabaya, and Tuan Abu yet a boy who knew not. Buluda laughed and laughed and the tears ran down her cheeks as she remembered her life. Ayee, thou art not yet ready for the earth, old woman, she told herself.

  As the pains increased and pulsated quicker and more vast, Buluda held the girl’s hands to give her strength to push, push, push little one. Then she took her right hand away, and probed gently deep within and finger-touched the head, and she nodded to herself and knew that soon, what was to be, would be. She took her hand away and washed it, then sat once more beside the girl and held her hands, forgetting the ache in her own back or the oldness of her bones.

  “Push, push again, little one,” she crooned encouragingly, “push for thy life and the life of thy child.”

  The pain no longer ran like the ocean, but only came and went as the typhoon comes and goes—sudden, shocking, gone. Sudden, vicious, here. Sudden, killing, gone.

  And the tide of pain hammered at the gate of brain, fulfilling the function that was required of it. It unlocked the door and let the spirit soar free, beyond the pain, leaving only muscles to the will of pain, leaving them free to stretch and split and move to open up the path of birth. A wave of pain crashed into her and her body bent to its will while her spirit rose above it.

  Now N’ai was floating on a zephyred sky under a silken moon. She was serene now, no longer fearing death, no longer fighting it. She only felt regret, regret for her son, for her child to be, for her husband, regret that she would no longer be there to care and worry and cook and mend and plant and work and love the three of them.

  “Truly I have no wish for death,” she murmured, unafraid, “but there is nothing I can do against it. So I will let death come, gently or terribly as is her wish. But I am sorry that I have to die—but there is nothing I can do, nothing.”

  “Thou art wise, child,” a benign voice said.

  She looked and smiled, and then a puzzled frown crossed her brow. “Tuan Abu! But thou art dead, Father! Thou art dead for two years now. Am I already dead?”

  “No child, not yet.”

  She was no longer in the sky, for the sky had become a chasm, and the path of the chasm was deep and dark and the thread of path was lit by fireflies, the steep walls of the chasm shutting out th
e sky and the light above. She was walking in the chasm, part of it, yet not a part of it, and now she walked out of the shadow into the sun.

  “Ayee,” she sighed happily, “truly the sun is good.”

  “How is he?” Tuan Abu asked gravely.

  N’ai was puzzled for a moment and then she understood. Tuan Abu’s ears were old and tired, and where she had said sun, he had only heard “son.”

  “He is growing and growing and he will make a fine man,” she said proudly, not wishing to embarrass him by saying “I but said the sun feels good.”

  “I still can be proved right, my child,” Tuan Abu said sadly.

  “I know, Father, but that is in the hands of Allah.”

  She smiled confidently at the old man, loving him. “I would want the same to happen as it happened.”

  It had happened when her first husband had left the village, and though she knew that she had been given to the stranger to make his sleep calm and not as a wife, even so she felt a wife to him. She had waited two weeks after he had left, and then she had bowed low before Tuan Abu, the Headman of the village, and said: “I am with child, Father.”

  The Headman had looked at her astonished. “Did not the women tell thee what to do, what herbs to use, that thou should not have a child by him?”

  “Yes, Tuan Abu, assuredly. But I wanted his child.”

  Then Tuan Abu had become angry and had said: “This is a bad thing, N’ai. The blood of East and blood of West should not mix, for thou would have a tormented child that is half of our world and half of his. Neither of each, neither of both.”

  “I know, Father. But I want his child, I want his child.”

  “Thou hast done a bad thing,” Tuan Abu had said angrily. “You will go to Buluda and tell her to give thee the drink that will take away the child.”

  “This I will not do,” she had said firmly.

  Then the torrent of his rage had poured over her. “Thou art a wicked woman to disobey. Then think not of thyself but of the child! Why condemn a child to agony, a lifetime of agony, longing for one world or the other world—when neither can be had?”

  “I want his child,” she had said stubbornly.

  “This will not be!”

  “Yes it will, Father. Be patient with me.” She had stopped and collected her words. “When my beloved went away he walked past the paddy and into the jungle. I followed secretly, obeying thy orders, but I wanted to see what would come to pass with him. He took off the village clothes and put on his own. Then he walked the road until a Japanese patrol met him. There was an officer with them and he questioned my beloved. My man said that he had been wandering the jungles for months, stealing food as he could, and he denied that he had ever lived in any village. He said that he had come from the west, and not the east where our village lay. The officer asked about the darkened color of his skin, and my beloved said that his own skin was deeply pigmented, and this, with the force of the sun, had made him darker than an Englishman should be.

  “The officer gave him a cigarette and after they had talked about many things, the officer said, ‘As thou art an officer, thou hast lost face to be captured alive by the enemy. I will save thy loss of honor. I will help thee. I will let thee use my sacred dagger to commit hari kiri. Then thou wilt die honored.’

  “My beloved hid his fear and said, ‘Why should you do this for me?’

  “‘Because thou art the Samurai rank of England. I do this for I admire thy bravery and it is not fitting for a brave man to suffer the dishonor of capture.’

  “For many minutes my beloved argued for his life, saying that by their code, the English code, that hari kiri was dishonor. Then the officer became angry and spat on my beloved and berated him. Finally the officer said, ‘Thou art a pig without honor. Therefore thou can die like the pig thou art,’ and they put iron manacles on his hands and took him away.”

  She had stopped, the tears silently sweeping her cheeks. Then she had said with quiet strength, “So my beloved is dead. It is only right that his seed should live. It is right that a man should have a son to follow him. Even if the son is half of his world and half of ours.”

  “Perhaps he has sons in his homeland,” the old man had said compassionately.

  “No, Father, he has none. This is why I did not wish to stop the birthing of his child. Our son will be called Tua, which is almost Tuan, which is the title of respect.”

  Then Tuan Abu had touched her forehead and blessed her, and said, “Against my knowledge, let the child be born. Perhaps it will be a girl child. For a girl it is not quite so bad to have East and West within her.”

  In time Tua had been born. He was golden skinned and his eyes were blue like his father’s, and his limbs were strong and straight and blemishless. He was a son to be proud of, and he became the light of Tuan Abu’s eyes. Dying, Tuan Abu had touched Tua’s head, blessing him, saying, “One day, perhaps, thou will cross the seas to find thy father’s kin and perhaps, if Allah wills, they will smile on thee. But I believe they will not smile on thee,” he had added sadly. And before he died he had given her a paper which gave the sureness to the birth and the truth of it, and the name from which Tua came.

  Now N’ai was walking the golden jungle, pink flowered, verdant, strong. She walked across the taro patch and climbed the bamboo stairs to their hut and ran into the arms of her beloved and they lay together, warmed, and then they ate good food that she had cooked—saté and rice and shrimps and breadfruit and coconuts—and then she had made kawa for him, and he lay back and she knew she was good in his eyes.

  They passed the time in talking, for now, three months after he had arrived in the village, he could speak their tongue even as she. He was telling her about his home and many things.

  “And thy wife?” she asked hesitantly.

  Peter Marlowe laughed. “I have no wife.”

  “Well, then, thy mistresses?”

  “I have no mistresses. But, for a short time I did have one.”

  She frowned, thinking that it was strange that a man so old should have had but one woman in his life, one woman. But she knew that he was telling her the truth, so she knelt beside him and said, “Tell me about her, my love.”

  “Her name was Marina, and I met her on the great ship that brought me from England to the East. We fell in love, but I was a child in matters of love.” Peter Marlowe smiled and stroked her raven hair.

  “What was she like, how did she look, tell me.”

  “She was tall and fair, a head taller than thee. Her skin was like milk and her eyes blue.”

  “And I am small and my skin is dark and my eyes dark,” she cried, and wept suddenly for her love was so much.

  He took her in his arms and held her close. “But I love thee.”

  “Do you love me, truly do you love me?”

  “Thou art my life, little one.”

  In time she let herself be soothed and begged forgiveness for her tears, tears not of jealousy for Marina, but tears that she was not like her, tall and fair and blue eyed. She blessed Marina, for it was Marina who had taught him how to love, and the secrets of love, taught him with her love, open, kind, gentle, taught him the things that please a woman, showed him the things, secret things, freely because of her love, things that now she and her beloved enjoyed, things that smoothed the way of content, man to woman. “I bless Maree-na” she said happily. “I will always bless her for her love for thee.”

  She felt the pain begin to build. He was tiny in the distance, calling her name, then the typhoon wiped the sky dark and fear swept into her. Now she saw him no more. The sky was pitched with fire, and the earth was fire and the fire burned her feet and she screamed and tried to draw her feet away, but there was no place to go, for the fire covered the whole earth. The flames began eating her.

  She was running through the burning coals towards a single coconut palm that grew from the fire and she whimpered with agony and climbed the trunk of the palm, wrapped her arms and legs around it.
But the fire burned the roots of the tree and she felt herself falling into the fire and she screamed and screamed and screamed. Then through the blaze she heard a voice and she saw her husband, Aliman, running through the coals towards her.

  “N’ai, my love,” he was shouting, “don’t despair, fight the fire, push away the trunk, push, push, push!”

  And she felt her hands gripped and Aliman tore her from the molten trunk and ran with her through the fire, telling her of his love for her and Tua, “Live for Tua, live for me, for I love thee and the boy, love thee. Run and live. Run, my love!”

  But the fire spread up the sky and the sky burned and the ground burned and the trees and the birds and the creatures burned, and the stars burned and the whole firmament fell upon her and she lifted up her hands to protect Aliman and Tua, and she felt the fire crushing her and she fought the fire with her nails and hands and legs and body.

  Buluda was working frantically, massaging, pushing, tugging, helping, and as she sweated she muttered incantations to the djinns of the earth and sky and sea, and with the same desperate breath, she called on Allah for the balance of life and death was now. The head was cleared and one shoulder. With the bamboo spatula, she deftly eased the shoulders free and tugged against the wrong contractions, praying for help, weakened by her length of vigil, sick of waiting, sick with anxiety for mother and child….

  Still the fire burned the girl, the flames reaching up from her feet, around her thighs, ripping at her weakness, tearing for her womb. Frantically, she tried to fight the fire with her hands—better to lose hands than essence—but the agony blew them away, and fire swarmed viciously into her.

  Then the heavens opened and the rains gushed and the earth reeled instantly, and suddenly she was beyond the zephyred stars, in a paradise of soft green sward, beside the stream of paradise….

  “Ayeee,” Buluda shouted, victorious, holding up the squalling child. “Wake up, N’ai, thou has a child, a fine child—and thee and the child are well and blemishless.”

  The girl opened her eyes and saw the beauty of her son and the last thing she saw before she closed her eyes and floated into blissful slumber-peace, was the face of Aliman, her husband, and his love for her—written clear and content in the glory of his smile.