The Malayan Trilogy

by Anthony Burgess

  “You mean about Abdul Kadir?”

  “I think it better we go out to talk.”

  They went on to the dry grass of the playing-field. The sun rode high and the air was loud with children and home-going bicycle-bells. Mr. Jaganathan, his head dewed by the sun, his armpits spilling over their damp patches, spoke.

  “Mr. Crabbe, I have found out all about you.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “It is too late to beg pardon, Mr. Crabbe. What I have found out is very, very serious. It is so serious that I will tell nobody. But you will realise there is only one thing you can do.”

  Crabbe thought: ‘It hasn’t taken long.’ Bitterly he remembered that there can be no secrets in a colonial community. But still he presented to Jaganathan the face of bewilderment, with anger ready to show at any moment.

  “Perhaps you had better make yourself clear, Mr. Jaganathan.”

  “I will make myself clear. Not to mince matters, I will say here and now without preliminaries of any kind whatsoever that I know about your politics.”

  “A government officer has no politics, Mr. Jaganathan. You have been in the service long enough to know that.”

  “That makes it all the more worse, Mr. Crabbe, that your politics should be of the kind they are. Not to beat about the bush, Mr. Crabbe, I will say that I have found out you are prominent Communist and that you are here to help Communist terrorists in the jungle under the disguise of teaching the little ones of Malaya.”

  “That, Mr. Jaganathan, is a most serious accusation. I hope you realise the gravity of what you are saying.”

  “I realise it all too well, Mr. Crabbe. I realise also the gravity of your being in this school, in charge of innocent minds which it is your intention to corrupt with vile Communist indoctrination.”

  “I refuse to get angry, Mr. Jaganathan. If what you’re saying were not so slanderous I should be tempted to laugh. What evidence have you got to support these wild statements?”

  “It is evidence of what was told me by a man who knows you well, Mr. Crabbe. It is a man you have known many years. He studied with you at the same university, and he says even there you were prominent Communist.”

  “You mean Mr. Hardman?”

  “None other, Mr. Crabbe. It is but a matter of very short time indeed that I have it from his word of mouth. Moreover, there was witness in the shape of the gentleman in charge of the aborigines. I am very grieved about all this, Mr. Crabbe.” Grief sweated from him all over; his shirt wept with grief.

  “I see. And naturally you believe this gentleman?”

  “I do not wish to, Mr. Crabbe. But I must think of these poor innocent children.”

  “Right, Mr. Jaganathan.” Crabbe felt more empty than angry. Betrayal has always to be expected. What in God’s name had Hardman got against him? Crabbe thought he knew: the old envy of the odd little albino freshman, shy of women, for the successful and prominent third-year student who was engaged to a pretty and talented girl. Envy, too, because Hardman had suffered from the war more than Crabbe had. And then the intrusion on Hardman’s new rootless world, on his penury, his eccentric marriage. Hardman had acted quickly. But was all this enough to justify such a betrayal? Perhaps so; one never ceased to learn, never ceased to be astonished.

  “Mr. Jaganathan,” said Crabbe slowly. “You may do precisely what you please. I do not propose to deny or confirm this allegation to you. If you wish to believe this incredible story, you may. You may act on it as soon as you wish. But remember that you will require evidence, very conclusive evidence. This is a most grave accusation, remember. I would ask you, for your own sake, to think most carefully before you act.”

  “But, Mr. Crabbe, I do not wish to act. I know it is my duty to do so, but I have read my Shakespeare and I know of the quality of mercy.” Mercy rilled down his face, strained through his shirt. “It is quite easy, the thing you have to do. You have merely to ask for a transfer. I do not wish to ruin your career. I only wish you not to be corrupting these poor children here in this school where I have worked so long.”

  “But, you know, Mr. Jaganathan, you should wish to ruin my career. If I had conclusive evidence that you were a Communist I should immediately start ruining your career. I should go immediately to the police about you. I should only be happy if you were under lock and key.”

  Mr. Jaganathan smiled in sweaty benignity. “You are a young man, Mr. Crabbe. Perhaps already you learn the error of your ways. Perhaps you do not know precisely what you do. I give you a chance.”

  “What is your evidence?” asked Crabbe. “Frankly, I believe all this is bluff, Mr. Jaganathan. Ever since I came to the school you’ve wanted me out of it. This is your first full-dress attempt to drive me away. You can’t do it, you know. You know as well as I, that there’s nothing in this damned silly piece of slander. Hardman’s got something against me, so have you. You say I’m a Communist. All right, I could say the same about you, about the Abang, the Sultan, the High Commissioner. But I’ve got to have evidence, strong evidence. You know damn well that you wouldn’t dare go to the police about this business. It’s just sheer unscrupulous nastiness, and you’re going to suffer for this. …” His temper was rising too fast. He gulped, stopped. Jaganathan calmed him with a smile and gesture.

  “There, there, Mr. Crabbe. It is not good that you lose your control like that. This is very bad climate for losing control. I see your heart beating through your shirt. Now just go home and lie down for a little while and rest and think of what I have said. I can be your friend, Mr. Crabbe. I ask very, very little, and then you are perfectly safe with me. Now go and rest, Mr. Crabbe, rest, rest, rest.” Crabbe felt listless, hearing the sing-song soothing voice, remembering another time when Jaganathan had counselled rest, in that same voice, remembering Talbot’s words about the ‘magic boys’. He raised his eyes to Jaganathan’s, but found he was squinting into the sun, that he could not look at Jaganathan. It was all bloody nonsense, of course.

  “You’ll suffer for this, Jaganathan,” he said. “By God, you will.”

  “You will suffer, Mr. Crabbe, if you are not more sensible. You go home now and rest, and then write a short note to Kuala Lumpur asking for a transfer. It is quite simple. You have never liked it here, Mr. Crabbe, you have always hated it. You will be happier somewhere else, much, much happier.”

  Crabbe stumbled off, up the grass slope, to his car, trying to think. Evidence. Suppose Hardman maliciously got hold of Ah Wing and used the innocent Father Laforgue to interpret, suppose he gave Jaganathan that first-hand evidence. … Suppose, worse, he contacted the Security Forces and got them to watch for the next Sakai emissaries, to seek out the path to the hide-out. Why, why, why? Did Hardman want him out of the way so badly? Did he want to wreck his career? What was the real motive behind it? Or was it just some peculiar malice, age-old, living in this primitive State, demons older than Islam or even Hinduism, exiled to the jungle, working silently through the axe-men, the magicians, the betrayers of friends, the men who were, almost despite themselves, cruel to their wives, as he was to Fenella?

  He arrived home to find the table set for one, and on the table a folded note.

  “The Abang called personally and asked me to go with him to the Bedebah Waterfalls. I didn’t see why not. I may be late. Don’t worry. F.”

  Crabbe ate his way grimly through the last of the huge Edwardian luncheons—ox-tail soup, grilled sole, Scotch eggs, beef and four vegetables, caramel cream, Camembert. He eyed with something near to hate the happily chirping Ah Wing. He tried warning him again, but his Malay was not of a kind that Ah Wing understood, and he knew no Chinese. Ah Wing nodded brightly, crowing assent to he knew not what, going off singing to the kitchen. After lunch Crabbe sat around, restless, trying to read, sour-faced even at the rhythmic haunches of Fatimah, the young amah, who undulated down to the bedroom with an armful of laundered clothes. Empty time stretched before him—afternoon school was a loud chant of Koran and vernacul
ar languages, outside the white man’s province—and he needed Fenella now, perhaps, he realised, for the first time for a long time.

  He was lonely, worried. He ought to contact Hardman and have it out with him, but that was no work for an afternoon fainting with heat. Perhaps he ought to drive down to the Waterfalls and confront the Abang. Finally he decided to go and see Anne Talbot. Talbot would certainly be in his office and Anne would certainly be at home. He wanted comfort, even the comfort of that apneumatic bosom and those thin thighs.

  He found she was ready enough to give comfort. They wore the afternoon away, sweating in the fanless bedroom, at last drowsing while a cock crowed near-by and the sea beat and the coconut palms rustled with questing beroks. Meanwhile, in the sun-hot town, three Sikhs drank.

  “Brother,” said Kartar Singh, “that your business does not prosper is a sign. It is a sign that trade is an ignoble occupation for men of our race. It is God himself telling you that buying and selling ill befit a warrior son of the great Guru. Brother, get out while there is time. Our life is service, not gain. We, the warriors, protect the weaker and more timid citizenry of the shops and offices, by night as well as by day.” Gracefully he had acknowledged the value of Teja Singh’s supine occupation. Teja Singh, mindful of the courtesy, raised his glass of samsu and solemnly drank.

  “It is competition,” said Mohinder Singh. “The Chinese and Bengalis and Tamils are men of no honour. They sell too cheap. But, misguided, the fools of the town patronise them. I am losing money, brothers, I am losing it fast.”

  “What is money?” said Kartar Singh. “It is nothing.”

  “It is useful for buying samsu,” said Teja Singh.

  “Come,” said Kartar Singh, “we will have a song.” He raised his tuneless voice in a doubtful ballad:

  “Beasts and men are made the same —

  Here a one and there a two.

  And with these three they play the game

  Of doing what they have to do.”

  Two Malay workmen, dish-towels round their heads, came in to drink iced water.

  “There they go, hairy sods, drinking all day.”

  “Doing no work.”

  “Let them have their pleasure. They won’t have it much longer.”

  “The reckoning is coming.”

  “Shit for brains.”

  “Like prawns.”

  The samsu flowed freely. Kartar Singh had overlooked a parking offence that day, and the grateful Chinese driver had slipped him five dollars. As the magical flower of the brief twilight lulled them, the yodel of the muezzin turning to Mecca, the lights coming on in the shops, only Mohinder Singh felt morose.

  “I have failed,” he said. “Failed. Here am I grateful for the hospitality of a police constable, when it is I who should be crowding this table with bottles.”

  “And so you will, brother, so you will. It is not too late to start again. In the police there are many opportunities. And,” he nodded his great beard at Teja Singh, “also even in the night watchman’s profession.”

  “It is now we need money,” said Teja Singh. “I have but thirty cents. The bottle is empty.”

  The scanty ration of intellect that sweltered in Kartar Singh’s monumental fat today had determined to expend itself. What the hell.

  “The white woman, brother,” he cried. “Have you forgotten? Have you forgotten that she wants to buy up your shop? Camphorwood chests and blankets and sheets and cutlery and plates. We will go to her house. We will take these things to her. We shall be paid. We may even be offered whisky.”

  “Can we?” Mohinder Singh was sapped of confidence. “We may be turned away. And then we shall have wasted trishaw fares and also have lost face.”

  “Lose face? It is only the cowardly Chinese who talk of that. We Sikhs are men of courage, of adventure. If we fail, we fail. But we shall not fail.”

  Kartar Singh was exhibiting signs of a talent for salesmanship. He was showing enterprise. Mohinder Singh did not like this.

  “I think it is not a good idea,” he said.

  “And so you will drink all day at my expense, and when the chance is given you to repay hospitality you will not take it. That I call the attitude of an ingrate.”

  “It was you who persuaded me to come and drink. I was unwilling.”

  “Not so unwilling. You needed only three minutes’ persuading.”

  “You will remember that before you lost me valuable trade. It was inconsiderate, to say the least.”

  “It was this trade, brother, trade that you seem anxious to lose without any help from me or anyone else.”

  “Are you implying …”

  “Brothers, brothers,” soothed Teja Singh, “we must not quarrel.”

  “No, we will not quarrel,” said Kartar Singh. “I accept his apology. Come, we will go. We will have a little adventure.”

  They staggered down to the shop, unlocked it with difficulty, and then called loudly for trishaws. Soon they were loading goods on to them, while the mummified Chinese druggist next door looked on sardonically.

  “I knew you would never make a shopkeeper. You take too much time off.”

  “These,” said Kartar Singh, “we are selling. We will beat you towkays at your own game. We seek custom in the highways and by-ways. We do not sit on our bottoms, picking our teeth, waiting for people to come. We go to them.” Kartar Singh, this one night, was inspired.

  “So he is not closing down?”

  “We are not closing down,” said Kartar Singh. After all his talk about the ignominy of trade, Mohinder Singh did not like this new proprietorial attitude, this lordly plurality. But he said nothing. Clumsily they loaded three trishaws with miscellaneous goods. They locked the shop. They called for two further trishaws—one for Teja Singh and Mohinder Singh, one for Kartar Singh. Again Mohinder Singh did not like this, though it was evident that the policeman’s great bulk could not be accommodated in less than a full seat. Still, Mohinder Singh would have much preferred it if he himself had led the procession in lone comfort, instead of being pressed against the crumpled and grubby person of one who was, after all, and all questions of racial solidarity aside, his social inferior. It was certainly not pleasant either to see Kartar Singh taking charge of the sweating and swaying cortège like some gross god of wine re-arisen, bringing fatness and loud words to the humble village folk.

  At one point on the dark road the camphorwood chest crashed to the dust, but helpful kampong boys restored it to its seat. Later a roll of muslin fell and unwound snakily. But to Kartar Singh’s simple heroic soul these mishaps were part of some picaresque adventure, a pretext for plump laughter and even song.

  At length they reached the house of the Crabbes, a civilised outpost among crude Malay dwellings. “See,” said Kartar Singh in triumph, “the lights are lit. They will now be drinking their whisky before the evening meal. We will provide diversion. We will be welcome and offered refreshment. Was I not right, brothers, to suggest this small excursion? Will it not bring us both pleasure and profit?”

  But, mounting to the veranda, they were amazed to see great activity and to hear loud Chinese words and Malay screams. “Surely,” said Teja Singh, “that Chinese is not lord of the house. Certainly it is not seemly for him to be chasing a young girl like that.”

  “Ha,” said Kartar Singh, “that young girl I know. She is the daughter of Abu Bakar. He was in the police with me, a corporal. I have seen her often at his house. Now what is that old man trying to do?”

  “She is carrying a black cat,” said Mohinder Singh.

  “That will afford her little protection.”

  The pursuer and pursued disappeared down a dark corridor. The pursued reappeared from another direction, screaming and still clutching the black cat. Ah Wing, not yet winded, was soon after her.

  “Here we must step in,” said Kartar Singh bravely. “What he is doing is not right.” From his left breast pocket he produced a whistle and blew it. Then he strode into the house, f
ollowed by his friends. In a solid heavy-bearded line they confronted Ah Wing. The girl fled to her quarters.

  “Are you not ashamed?” said Kartar Singh. “An old man like you, and a girl so young and defenceless.” He spoke in Malay. Ah Wing replied in the same tongue, or an obscure version of it, and the only intelligible word was ‘Makan’.

  ‘Makan’ has too many meanings. It primarily means to eat, but it is often used of the action of the cock and the hen, the bull and the cow, supererogatory in a language rich in motor and sensory terms. Kartar Singh, his one rare day of imagination not yet set, took this secondary meaning. He forgot that the Malays revere cats and that the Chinese merely relish them. He wagged a solemn finger at Ah Wing, warning him, telling him that the sins of the flesh were the last to be forgiven. Then, seeming to relent, he said, “We have come to see your master. We will wait. Bring us refreshment.”

  Ah Wing seemed not to understand, so Teja Singh used two words of the universal language, potent words on which the sun never sets.

  “Police. Whisky.”

  Ah Wing scuttled off. The Sikhs sat in lordly ease on the veranda. Kampong dwellers appeared, curious, responding tardily to the whistle. Kartar Singh addressed them.

  “It is nothing. The police have everything under control. It is but this foolish old Chinese seeking to cover a virgin and thus regain lost youth. That is their superstition. Ah, my old friend Abu Bakar. It is a long time since we last met. Yes, your daughter. Ha ha, it is nothing. This old Chinese was after her. But we got here in time. The Sikhs are always in time.”

  His words had some effect. Murmuring began. Tough swarthy faces turned to each other in glottal complaint. But two days before there had been a small Sino-Malay brush-up in the town: two Malay workmen, turban dishcloths on their heads, had seen a Chinese at his evening meal and accused him of eating pork. A row had started; other Malays had appeared; the eater—who had been consuming innocent halal market beef—called on his sons to come from the back of the shop and support him. Hard words had been exchanged; the police came. In the minds of some who heard of the incident there grew the notion that the day of wrath was at hand; the hour when the Malays should be freed of their Chinese creditors was approaching; independence would soon be here. The guileless Ah Wing was now in an awkward position, especially as the suitor of the young amah, Fatimah, heard the words of Kartar Singh. He was a young carpenter and, in his spare time, a shadow-play master. Often he had prayed to the ox-hide figure of Pa’ Dogok, hero of the ancient Hindu legends which he nightly presented, to soften the heart of the haughty maiden. And now a Chinese, an old one at that, a pork-stuffing pincered crab, had dared to attempt what he himself blushed to dream of. Anger rose in the crowd. There was talk of axes.