Crabbe looked at what he could see of the other passengers. A squat Chinese, deep in his newspaper of ideograms. A turbaned haji asleep. Two Malay wives, meek behind their husband. Meek perhaps with air-sickness, for Malay women were normally all earth and spirit. A red-haired Englishman with brief-case and dark glasses. A bald Tamil, blue-black above the white shirt. And a smiling Sikh.
The Sikh was smiling with full-bearded compassion at Fenella, who was retching quietly into a paper bag. The intrepid British of the past, who had ruled the waves. Ah, they were becoming an effete race. The least thing upset them now. And the man next to her, her husband, he too had turned green. The white man had turned green. Ah, very good. He, Mohinder Singh, had never felt better.
“I feel so ill,” said Fenella, and she flopped back in her seat. Crabbe took her hand and she suffered the pressure of his fingers.
“Never mind, darling.”
“How could you?” she whispered, from a lifeless mouth, eyes closed.
“It won’t happen again.”
Though it probably would, despite the passionate men with axes.
Soon the tawny land of Dahaga began to ogle them and then, brazenly, to raise its arms towards them from its sleepy sandy bed. Its coconut-palms swayed mannequin-like, voluptuous in the sea-wind. They saw the whitewashed name on a long attap roof, the whispered introduction rising to a shout: KENCHING.
Molly de Cruz brought round her charger of glucose sweets. LAP-STRAPS. NO SMOKING, said the electric sign. They dropped to earth and the aircraft changed from a flying ship to a great awkward lolloping bus.
Mohinder Singh slowly lost his full-bearded smile of confidence. He became agitated. There was something he had to communicate to the memsahib. She had been sick, she still looked green (ha!), but she walked now with grace towards the aircraft’s open mouth, towards the huge sunlight and marine sky outside. Mohinder Singh followed the man her husband, struggling with something in the back pocket of his white trousers. At leisure, below, he would, if only he could find the accursed thing.
“They said he’d meet us,” said Crabbe. “I can’t see a single European waiting anywhere.” They walked towards the terminal of two long huts, their luggage trundled after them. Two Malay women in sarongs, white powder, high heels greeted their fellow-wives. Their husband, who carried only a paper carrier, marched off his hens to a waiting car, his belly proud before him. The Chinese passenger was greeted in loud Hokkien by a loose-shirted yellow cadaver, all big teeth and spectacles. The red-haired Englishman shambled off with his brief-case. The Crabbes had much luggage, it had to be passed by the Customs official, they had to wait. But there was definitely no one waiting for them.
“You ought to check on these things,” said Fenella.
“It was in the letter, in black and white,” said Crabbe. “Official.”
Mohinder Singh pulled out his wallet and began to search desperately. Identity card. Lottery ticket. A broken comb. A picture of his fat small niece. A soiled paper with Chinese magic numbers. A folded pamphlet about Guru Gobind Singh. Some ten-dollar notes. But not what he was looking for.
On the counter of the stifling Customs shed the Crabbes’ luggage was ranged. A Siamese girl in a short-skirted uniform asked them if they had anything to declare. No, they had nothing.
Standing splay-footed at the back of the terminal were Malays of a kind that Crabbe had never seen before. Their legs were bare and muscular, bidding their feet hold down the earth as though, in this place of flying ships, the very sandy soil might take off. On their heads were dish-towels wrapped in loose turban-style, with apices waving in the wind. They wore torn sports-shirts and old sarongs. Their faces were lined and their eyes keen. They were silent. In their hands …
Crabbe felt fear tremble through his hangover. No, this was impossible. Damn it all, he’d only just arrived. Had the word been passed already? Had they been told off by her relatives on the West Coast, the message drumming through the thick jungle? In their hands were long cloth bundles, but their fingers clutched a recognisable heft, and Crabbe felt in anticipation the sharp axe-edge pierce his skull or, at best, the thud of the dull heavy blunt back.
“Lady,” said Mohinder Singh. “It is misfortune that I mislay my business card. My name is Mohinder Singh. You are coming to Kenching. You will want many things for your fine house. My shop is very new shop on Jalan Laksamana. Fine silks and curtainings and cloths of all kinds. Bedspreads. Camphorwood chests. You come and you will be satisfied. For babies all things too.”
“Don’t mention babies,” said Crabbe.
“Look,” said Fenella. “They’re coming here. For us. They’ve got weapons.”
“Yes,” said Crabbe. “They’ve got weapons.”
“This is all your fault,” said Fenella, unreasonably. “Messing about with native women.”
“Don’t retreat,” said Crabbe. “Look them in the eye.”
The men advanced steadily, five of them, a small boy in the rear, he too with a bundle, learning the trade. The Customs girl paid no attention, chatting to one of the airport underlings. Soon the eldest axe-man, a vigorous patriarch, snarled briefly at the others, who then just stood and stared without rancour at the intended victim. With a relief so immense that it brought the hangover hurtling back, Crabbe saw that their quarry was the shopkeeper Sikh.
“What’s he saying?” asked Fenella. The patriarch was using a terse barking language that seemed all vowels and glottal checks. But Crabbe could understand something of this strange dialect, for his Malay tutor in Kuala Hantu had given him an account of its phonology. The senior axe-man approached the cowering Sikh and told him that there was no animosity on the part either of himself or of his colleagues. He was just doing this for a friend. The Sikh well knew that the friend was soon to appear in court on a charge of stealing one tea-towel from the Sikh’s shop. It would be a good thing for the Sikh to drop the charge. Indeed, he was now about to be formally warned to drop the charge, for friends must be helped, without friendship the world is nothing. If he would heed this warning he would not thereafter be molested further. All this was told in rapid root-words with little structural linking. Then the warning came.
The axe thudded but dully on the Sikh’s mass of turban and unshorn hair. The Sikh sat on the ground and moaned a while. The patriarch took from the waist of his sarong two cigarettes. He told the Sikh that this was the only payment he had taken, as the work was done for a friend. He put one cigarette in his own mouth and handed the other to the Sikh. To show there was no real animosity. A job, as you might say.
“Foolish old man,” said one of the axe-gripping juniors. “He is a Benggali tonchit. It is against their religion to smoke.”
“True,” said the patriarch. “The world is full of pork-stuffing infidels. Let us go.” And off they went, the small boy waiting respectfully to bring up the rear.
“What a shame,” said Fenella to Mohinder Singh. “Are you dreadfully hurt?”
“See,” said Mohinder Singh, “my business cards were in my turban. They dislodged with the strike of the weapon. In Dahaga such things happen. Law and order not possible. Please take one card, lady.” And he tottered off to the rear of the terminal. Soon he could be seen on a bicycle, twisting drunkenly down the road.
“Now what do we do?” asked Fenella. “We can’t stay here all day. I feel terrible. I don’t think I’m going to like it here. For God’s sake ask somebody something.”
Crabbe asked the Customs girl. Did she know where Mr. Talbot lived? She did not. Mr. Talbot was the State Education Officer. She knew of no such appointment. Did she know of a school called the Haji Ali College? She had never heard of it. How far was it from the airport to the town? That she knew: eight milestones. Was it possible to get a taxi? Not from here. Was there a telephone available? There was not.
“Helpful, aren’t they?” said Crabbe. The sun had started its afternoon stint, and the sweat welled in his shirt.
“We’ll have to go som
ewhere,” said Fenella. “I feel like death. Is there no way we can get into the town?”
“Hitch-hike, that seems to be the only way,” said Crabbe. “That looks like the main road. Let’s get on to it.”
‘’Oh, what an awful bloody mess,” moaned Fenella. “You never could organise anything. Time and time again you let me down.”
Crabbe asked the Customs girl and the interested ground-staff of three if they could leave their luggage here at the airport and call for it later. The girl replied that it was not advisable, as there were many thieves. Perhaps, suggested Crabbe, it could be stored in some office that had a lock and key? That was not possible, for there was no such office.
Now at that moment two of the turbaned Malay axe-men reappeared, this time without their axes. They both pedalled decrepit trishaws and one of them called out: “Taksi, tuan?”
“Where?” said Fenella with hope. “I can’t see any taxi.”
“They call these things taxis,” said Crabbe. “Come on, better than nothing.”
And so the luggage was piled on to one trishaw, and Fenella and Victor Crabbe wedged themselves into the cane seat of the other. They had to sit close, like lovers, and Crabbe even had to put his arm round her back.
“Don’t sit so near,” she said. “I hate you to touch me.”
“Oh, hell,” he snapped. “I’ll walk if you want me to.” He was hating everything and everybody. But he did not move. Soon the sullen journey commenced, hard muscular legs circling, on the sandy road to the town. On their right was the conventional tropical paradise of sea and palms, slim girls bathing in soaked sarongs, attap huts and waving children. On their left were paddy-fields and massive buffaloes. Above them merciless blue and the sun at its zenith.
A few cars passed them, small Austins with huge families crammed inside, the children waving derisively. Once a Cadillac passed, empty but for a proud smoking uniformed chauffeur, bearing as number-plate the legend ‘ABANG’.
“Ominous that,” said Crabbe. “Tyres, I mean. I wonder how our car will fare on this road. When it gets here.”
“If it gets here. I suppose you’ve messed that arrangement up, too.”
“Oh, shut up.”
“You shut up. How dare you speak to me like that.”
“Oh, shut up.”
But then they stopped their wrangling, for ahead of them a car had halted. A dusty car, and from it peered a face, a European face, and then a greeting arm.
“A sort of Livingstone and Stanley,” said Crabbe. “Nice of him.”
The face was pale, the eyes pale, the hair almost white, the eyebrows invisible, the eyelashes seemingly singed away. It was a young face, however, pointed, pixyish.
“Better if I gave you a lift,” said the stranger. “You shouldn’t really go around on those things, you know. I mean, white men don’t do it, and all the rest of it, not here they don’t, and besides there’s an Emergency on. Communists leap from the sea, like Proteus. You must be new here. No car?”
“It’s coming by train. Look here, I know you. In England somewhere. Or Army?”
“I was Air Force. You a University man? I was at …”
“You read Law. I read History. Something-man, something-man …”
“Hardman.”
“Hardman, by God. Robert Hardman. Well, of all the …”
“Rupert Hardman.”
“I’m Crabbe.”
“Well, good God, who would have thought …”
Handshakes, pommellings, cries of incredulity. Patiently Fenella waited. At length she said, “Manners, Victor.”
“Victor, of course. And this is Mrs. Crabbe?”
“Sorry. Rupert Hardman, Fenella. And what are you doing here?”
“Law. Still law. You posted here?”
“Education: I should have been met. By Talbot. Do you know the man? We were trying to get into town. I suppose somebody there would …”
“Not in town. He lives somewhere near here, I know. Have you much luggage?”
“A few cases. The rest is coming by train. With the car.”
“Well, well, incredible. Get in. I’ll take you to Talbot’s place. Queer sort of chap. Queer sort of set-up. The whole place, I mean. You must come round to the hotel sometime. The Grand, a bit of a misnomer. Talbot’s a bit off the beaten track.”
They paid off the trishaw men and loaded the luggage into the boot and on to the back seat. Fenella looked curiously at the pale-headed lawyer, the shabby upholstery, the stuffed ashtray which spoke of failure.
“Mortimer’s out here, too. You remember him?”
“He was the chap who—— —”
“That’s right. He’s doing well. Married a Chinese widow. Money in tin.”
“And you? Married? Doing well? This is incredible, you know. I mean, meeting like this.”
Hardman shrugged his thin shoulders. “I shall be. Both, I think. Fairly soon. That is, if everything goes right. Things don’t always go right, you know. Not here.”
“I know.”
Hardman turned left, entering a lane bumpy with sand-drifts and ruts. The car jolted and bounced and creaked. “Springs not very good, I’m afraid. This gear keeps slipping, too. I shall be getting a new car. At least, I think so. A Plymouth or a Jaguar or something. Let Austin have his swink to him reserved.”
“I’ve got an Abelard. Second-hand.”
“You’d better sell it. Quickly. There aren’t many of those on the East Coast. There aren’t any in Dahaga.”
“What do you mean, sell it?”
“It’s just down here,” said Hardman. They passed attap shacks and many hens and naked cheerful children who cried, “Tabek!” in greeting. A goat bleated her flock off the road. “Hiya, kids,” said Hardman. Soon they came to a lone bungalow with a back-cloth of swamp and coconut palms. The palms carried no fruit.
“Very bad soil,” said Hardman. “Nothing grows here. A lot of malaria, too. It’s those damned swamps. And then sand-fly fever. And snakes. And iguanas. Big ones.”
“You make it sound most attractive,” said Fenella. “And what does one do in the evenings?”
“Oh, there’s a club. In town. But nobody ever speaks to anybody there. It seems to be one of the rules. And you can go to the pictures. Indonesian epics and Indian visions of Baghdad, a very ill-lit Baghdad. It’s best to stay at home and drink. Drink a lot. If you can afford it. Oh, you can bathe. But it’s a bit treacherous. Look, this is where Talbot lives. Do you mind if I leave you here? He’ll look after you. Actually, I don’t particularly want to see his wife. Nor him, for that matter. Do look me up. At the Grand. And then we can talk. Soon, I think, I shall be able to buy you a beer. Perhaps two. At least, I hope so.” He smiled at them wanly, reversed into a patch of coarse high grass, then bumped off back to the main road, his exhaust belching irritably.
“What a very extraordinary man,” said Fenella. They stood on the bottom step of the bungalow, their luggage all about them.
“Oh, he’s all right,” said Crabbe. “You’ll like him, once you get to know him. I wonder why he came out here.”
“I wonder why anybody ever comes out here. I wonder why the hell we did.”
“Never mind, darling.” Crabbe took her arm, smiling ingratiatingly. The sun had started up again the gongs in his head, and the Lion-dance returned, twisting and jumping and bowing. But he felt hope, because he felt hungry. “Let’s go and see if anybody’s at home. Perhaps they’ll give us something to eat.”
So he knocked on the wooden wall beside the open door and braced himself to enter the life of the State of Dahaga.
* * *
1 Done
2 Shut
3 Cold
2
“YOU SEE,” HE said, in sudden irritation, “they’re still here. Spite of their bloody promises. Every day it’s the same. You and me working our guts out in the sun, and them there in their motor-cars, going off to drink their whisky under a big fan.” The brown, lined, lean workman leant
on his heavy road-tool, whatever it was, and gawped indignantly at the passing car. His companion spat on to the scorched road and said, “They’ve let us down. They said when they got in there wouldn’t be a white man left in the country. They said they’d all be buried alive.” He spoke a thick strangulated Malay dialect, the tongue of Dahaga.
“Burnt alive.”
“And now they’ve been in power since last August, and the white men are still here.”
“Like what I said at first. They’re still here.”
“You can’t trust the political men. Ties round their necks and kissing the babies. Promise you this and promise you that. And the white men are still here.”
“Still here. Like what I said.”
“I reckon we’ve done enough work for one day. We’re only working for them.” The car had long passed, but he spat in its direction, and the spit was swallowed by the large afternoon heat.
“I reckon we ought to lay off now.”
A fat Tamil overseer came over to them, speaking toothy Malay, the Malay of the Tamils of another State, Greek to these workmen. Behind him the heavy steamroller gleamed in gold of a Victorian coat-of-arms and seethed in boiling impotence. The two workmen listened stolidly, understanding one word in ten, understanding clearly the drift of the whole speech. When he had gone one said to the other:
“In the other States it’s the Tamils does the dirty work.”
“So they ought, black sods. Adam’s shit, my father used to call them.”
The Malayan Trilogy Page 21
