The collected stories

by Paul Theroux

  'Go around back,' I said to Peeraswami. 'In those trees. If you see anyone, catch him!'

  Peeraswami sprinted away. I went into the house and stumbled in the direction of the sobbing. Miss Clem was alone, sitting on the edge of the bed. I switched on the light and saw her sad fat body on the rumpled bedclothes. She had an odd shine, a gloss on her skin that was lit like a snail's track. But it covered her stomach; it was too viscous to be perspiration and it had the smell of jungle. She was smeared with it, and though she seemed too dazed to notice it, it was like nothing I had ever seen before. She lay down sobbing and pulled a sheet over her.

  'It was him,' she said.

  'The Prince?'

  'No, no! Poor Ibrahim,' she sobbed.

  'Take a bath,' I said. 'You can come back to my house when you've changed.'

  'Where are you going?'

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  'I've got to find my peon.'

  I found him hurrying back to the house. In the best of times he had a strange face, his dark skin and glittering teeth, his close-set eyes and on his forehead a thumbprint of ashes, the Eye of God. He was terrified - not a rare thing in Peeraswami, but terror on that Tamil face was enough to frighten anyone else.

  'TuanV he cried.

  'Did you see him?'

  'Yes, yes,' he said. 'He had no clothings, no shirtings. Bare-naked!'

  'Well, why the hell didn't you catch him?' I snapped.

  'Tuan,' said Peeraswami, 'no one can catch Orang Minyak.'

  'You knew him?'

  'Everyone know him.'

  'I don't understand,' I said. 'Orang is man. But Minyak - is that a name?'

  'It his name. Minyak - oily, like ghee butter on his body. You try but you cannot catch hold. He trouble the girls, only the girls at night. But he Malay spirit - not Indian, Malay ,' said Peeraswami, as if disclaiming any responsibility for another race's demons.

  An incubus, I thought. What a fate for the Flower of Malaya. Peeraswami lingered. He could see I was angry he hadn't caught Orang Minyak. And even then I only half-believed.

  'Well, you did your best,' I said, and reached out to shake his hand. I squeezed and his hand shot away from mine, and then my own hand was slippery, slick, and smelling of jungle decay.

  'I touch, but I do not catch,' said Peeraswami. He stooped and began wiping his palms on the grass. 'You see? No one can catch Orang Minyak.'

  ;;s

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  'Well, mine was at least that. I'm not exaggerating. When I think of him on top of me - it's ludicrous.'

  'It's obscene. Mine kept gaining weight, and finally I said to him, "Look, if this goes on anymore we won't be able to make love." Not that that worried me. By then I'd already taken a lover - not so much a lover as a new way of life. But Erwin said it didn't matter whether you were fat or thin. If you were fat you'd just find a new position.'

  'The fat man's position!'

  'Exactly. And he got this - this manual. All the positions were listed, with little diagrams and arrows. Arrows! It was like fitting a plug, an electrical manual for beginners. "Here," he said, "I think that one would suit us." They all had names - I forget what that one was, but it was the fat man's position. Can you imagine?'

  'Mine had manuals. Well, he called them manuals. They were Swedish I think. You must have seen them. Interesting and disgusting at the same time. He didn't want me to see them - I mean, he hid them from me. Then I found them and he caught me going through them. Honestly, I think I gave him quite a shock. He looked over my shoulder. "Ever see anything like it?" he said. I could hear him breathing heavily. He was getting quite a thrill!'

  'Did yours make a fuss over the divorce?'

  'No,' said Milly, 'what about yours?'

  'He divorced me. Nothing in particular - just a whole series of things. But, God, what a messy business. It dragged on for months and months.'

  'Mine was over before I knew it.'

  'Lucky,' said Maxine.

  'Up till then we'd been fairly happy.'

  'Happy marriages so-called turn into really messy divorces,' said Maxine.

  '1 think not,' said Milly. 'The best marriages end quickly/

  Theirs, the Strangs had gone on serenely for years, filling us with envious contempt. It fell to pieces in an afternoon of astonishing abuse. They had pretended politeness for so long only an afternoon was necessary. Then we were friendlier toward the couple, no longer a couple, but Milly alone in the house and Lloyd at the Club. The marriages in Aver Hitam were no frailer than anywhere else, but we expatriates knew each other well and enjoyed a kind of kinship. A divorce was like a death in the family. Threatened

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  with gloom, we became thoughtful. The joking was nervous: Milly had burned the toast; Lloyd had made a pass at the amah. Afterward, Lloyd clung to the town. He was overrehearsed. One of his lines went, 'It was our ages. Out of the horse latitudes and into the roaring forties.' He was no sailor; he was taking it badly.

  Milly, unexpectedly cheerful, packed her bags and left the compound. Within a week she was in Indonesia. Before she left she had said to Angela Miller, 'I always wanted to go to Bali. Lloyd wouldn't let me.' She went, Lloyd stayed, and it looked as if he expected her back: her early return to Ayer Hitam would have absolved him of all blame.

  It did not happen that way. Before long, we all knew her story. Milly saw friends in Djakarta. The friends were uneasy with this divorced woman in their house. They sent their children out to play and treated her the way they might have treated a widow, with a mixture of somberness and high spirits, fearing the whole time that she'd drink too much and burst into tears. Milly found their hospitality exhausting and went to Djokjakarta, for the temples. Though tourists (seeing her eating alone) asked her to join them, she politely refused. How could she explain that she liked eating alone and reading in bed and waking when she wished and doing nothing? Life was so simple, and marriage only a complication. Marriage also implied a place: you were married and lived in a particular house; unmarried, you lived in the world, and there were no answers required of you. Milly changed her status slowly, regaining an earlier state of girlishness from the widowhood of divorce. Ten years was returned to her, and more than that, she saw herself granted a valuable enlightenment, she was wiser and unencumbered, she was free.

  The hotel in Bali, which would have been unthinkably expensive for a couple with a land surveyor's income, was really very cheap for one person. She told the manager (Swiss, married - she could tell at a glance) she would stay a month. There was a column in the hotel register headed Destination. She left it blank. The desk clerk indicated this. 'I haven't got one,' she said, and she surprised the man with her natural laugh.

  The tourists, the three-day guests at the hotel, the ones with planes to catch were middle-aged; some were elderly, some infirm, making this trip at the end of their lives. But there were other visitors in Bali and they were mostly young. They looked to Milly

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  like innocent witches and princelings. They slept on the beach, cooked over fires, played guitars; she saw them strolling barefoot or eating mountains of food or lazing in the sand. There was not a sign of damage on them. She envied them their youth. For a week Milly swam in the hotel's pool, had a nap after lunch, took her first drink at six and went to bed early: it was like a spell of convalescence, and when she saw she had established this routine she was annoyed. One night, drinking in the bar, she was joined by an Australian. He talked about his children in the hurt remote way of a divorced man. At midnight, Milly stood up and snapped her handbag shut. The man said, 'You're not going, are you?'

  'I've paid for my share of the drinks,' she said. 'Was there something you wanted?'

  But she knew, and she smiled at the fumbling man, almost pitying him.

  'Perhaps I'll see you tomorrow,' she said, and was gone.

  She left the hote
l, crossed by the pool to the beach, and walked toward a fire. It was the makeshift camp of the young people and there they sat, around the fire, singing. She hesitated to go near and she believed that she could not be seen standing in that darkness, listening to the music. But a voice said, 'Hey! Come over here, stranger!'

  She went over, and seating herself in the sand, saw the strumming boy. But her joining the group was not acknowledged. The youths sat crosslegged, like monks at prayer, facing the fire and the music. How many times, on a beach or by a roadside, had she seen groups like this and, almost alarmed, looked away! Even now she felt like an impostor. Someone might ask her age and laugh when she disclosed it. She wished she was not wearing such expensive slacks; she wished she looked like these people - and she hoped they would not remind her of her difference. She was glad for the dark.

  Someone moved behind her. She started to rise, but he reached out and steadied her with his arm and hugged her. She relaxed and let him hold her. In the firelight she saw his face: twenty years old! She put her head against his shoulder and he adjusted his grip to hold her closer. And she trembled - for the first time since leaving Ayer Hitam - and wondered how she could stop herself from rolling him over on the sand and devouring him. Feeling that hunger, she grew afraid and said she had to go: she didn't want to startle the boy.

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  Til walk you back to the hotel,' he said.

  'I can find the way.' Her voice was insistent; she didn't want to lose control.

  The boy tagged along, she heard him trampling the sand; she wanted him to act - but how? Throw her down, fling off her clothes, make love to her? It was mad. Then it was too late, the hotel lights illuminated the beach; and she was relieved it had not happened. / must be careful - she almost spoke it.

  'Will I see you again?'

  'Perhaps,' she said. She was on her own ground: the white hotel loomed behind the palms. Now - here - it was the boy who was the stranger.

  'I want to sleep with you.' It was not arrogant but imploring.

  'Not now.'

  Not now. It should have been no. But marriage taught you how to be perfunctory, and Milly had, as a single woman, regained a lazy sense of hope. No was the prudent answer, Not now was what she had wanted to say - so she had said it. And the next day the boy was back, peering from the beach at Milly, who lounged by the pool. In the sunlight he looked even younger, with a shyness that might have been an effect of the sun's brightness, making him hunch and avert his eyes. He did not know where to begin, she saw that.

  Milly waved to him. He signaled back and like an obedient pet responding to a mistress's nod came forward, vaulted the hibiscus hedge, smiling. Instead of taking the chair next to her he crouched at her feet, seeming to hide himself.

  'They won't send you away,' said Milly. 'You can say you're my guest.'

  The boy shrugged. 'At night - after everyone clears out - we come here swimming.' He was silent, then he said, 'Naked.'

  'How exciting,' said Milly, frowning.

  Seeing that it was mockery, the boy did not reply. He got to his feet. For a moment, Milly thought he was going to bound over the hedge and leave her. But in a series of athletic motions he strode to the edge of the pool, and without pausing tipped himself into it. He swam under water and Milly followed his blue shorts to the far end of the pool where he surfaced like a hound, gasping and tossing his head. He returned, swimming powerfully, flinging his

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  arms into the water. But he did not climb out of the pool; he rested his forearms on the tiles and said, 'Come in. I'll teach you how to swim.'

  'I was swimming before you were born.' She wished she had not said it, she wished it was not true. She picked up a magazine from her lap and plucked at a page.

  The boy was beside her, dripping.

  'Take this,' she said, and handed him a towel. He buried his face in it with an energy that aroused her, then he wiped his arms and threw it aside.

  'Time for lunch,' said Milly.

  'Let me treat you,' said the boy.

  'That's very thoughtful of you,' said Milly, 'but I'm afraid they won't let you in the dining room like that.'

  'They have room service. We can have it sent up - eat on the balcony.'

  'You seem to be inviting yourself to my room,' said Milly.

  'No,' said the boy, 'I'm inviting you to mine.'

  Milly almost laughed. She said, 'Here?'

  'Sure. I've been here for about six weeks.'

  'I've never seen you at breakfast.'

  'I never eat breakfast,' said the boy. 'And I've only used my room a few times in the past week or so. I met a girl over on the beach - they have a house there. But my stuff is still in my room. My money, camera, passport, watch - the rest of it. I don't want it stolen.'

  'It must be fearfully expensive.'

  'My mother pays.'

  'How very American.'

  'She's on a tour - in Hong Kong,' said the boy. 'I thought we were talking about lunch/

  if you're a guest at this hotel, then you must have other clothes here. I suggest you dress properly, and if there's an empty chair at my table I have no objection to your joining me.' Her voice, that fastidious tone, surprised and appalled her.

  The boy's name was Mark. He told her that over lunch, but he said very little else. He was so young there was practically nothing he could say about himself beyond his name, and it was for Milly to keep the conversation going. It was not easy in her new voice. She described her trip through Indonesia, everything that had

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  happened to her since leaving Ayer Hitam, but after that she was stumped. She would not speak about Lloyd or the divorce, and it angered her that it was impossible to speak about her life without discussing her marriage. Nearly twenty years had to be suppressed, and it seemed as if nothing had happened in those years that could matter to this young boy.

  To his timid questions she said, 'You wouldn't understand.' She was hard on him. She knew why: she wanted him in the simplest way, and she resented wanting him. She objected to that desire in herself that would not allow her to go on alone. She did not want to look foolish - the age difference was ridicule enough -and wondered if in shrinking from an involvement she would reject him. She feared having him, she feared losing him. He told her he was nineteen and eagerly added the date of his next birthday.

  Milly said, 'Time for my nap.'

  'See you later, then,' said Mark. He shook her hand.

  In her room, she cursed herself. It had not occurred to her that he might not be interested. But perhaps this was so. He had a girl, one of the innocent witches; but her fate was the Australian who, late at night, rattled the change in his pocket and drawled for a persuasive way to interest her. She pulled the curtains, shutting out the hot sun, and for the first time since she arrived lay down on her bed wondering not if she should go, but where.

  She closed her eyes and heard a knock on the door. She got out of bed, sighed, and opened the door a crack. 'What is it?'

  'Let me come in,' said Mark. 'Please.'

  She stared and said nothing. Then she moved aside and let the boy swing the door open. He did this with unnecessary force, as if he had expected her to resist.

  Milly had not written any letters. A few postcards, a message about the weather. Letters were an effort because letters required either candor or wit, and her solitary existence had hardened her to both. What Milly had done, almost since the hour she had left Ayer Hitam, was rehearse conversations with an imaginary friend, a woman, for whom in anecdote she would describe the pleasures of divorce. Flying alone. The looks you got in hotels. The Australian. A room of one's own. The witches and princelings on the beach. Misunderstandings. The suspicious eyes of other men's

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  wives. The mystery and the aroma of sexuality a single woman carried past mute strangers.
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  Listen, she imagined herself saying; then she reported, assessed, justified. It was a solitary traveler's habit, one enforced by her separation from Lloyd. She saw herself leaning over a large menu, in the racket of a restaurant - flowers on the table, two napkin cones, a dish of olives - and she heard her own voice: / think a nineteen-year-old boy and a woman of - let's be frank - forty-one -I think they're perfectly matched, sexually speaking. Yes, I really do. They're at some kind of peak. That boy can have four or five orgasms in a row, but so can a middle-aged woman - given the chance. It's the middle-aged man with all his routines and apologies that makes the woman feel inadequate. Sex for a boy, granted, is usually a letdown because he's always trying himself out on a girl his age, and what could be duller? It hurts, Jim, and hurry up, and what if my parents find out? What I'm saying, and I don't think it's anything to be ashamed of, is Mark and I were well-matched, not in spite of our ages, but on the contrary, on the contrary. It was like coaching a champion. I know I was old enough to be his mother, but that's just the point. The age ratio isn't insignificant. Don't laugh - the boy of a certain age and his mother would make the best of lovers -

  But lovers was all they'd make. Conversation with Mark was impossible. He would say, 'I know a guy who has a fantastic yacht in Baltimore.'

  A yacht. At the age of twenty-three, when Mark was one, Milly had driven her own car to the south of France and stayed with her uncle, a famous lawyer. That handsome man had taken her on his yacht, poured her champagne, and tried to seduce her. He had failed, and angrily steered the yacht close to the rocky shore, to scare her. Later he bought her an expensive ring, and in London took her to wonderful restaurants, treating her like his mistress. He renamed his yacht M/7/y. Lloyd knew part of the story. To Mark Milly said, 'I was on a yacht once, but I was much younger then.'

  For three weeks, in her room, in his, and twice on the beach, they made love. They kissed openly and made no secret of the affair. The guests at the hotel might whisper, but they never stayed longer than a few days, and they took their disapproval away with them. Milly herself wondered sometimes what would happen to