The Malayan Trilogy

by Anthony Burgess

  “Where? We can’t go to the Club, we can’t go to the Harlequin. The town’s full of conferring headmasters. They all know us. Certainly, they all know me.”

  “Yes.” There actually was a headmasters’ conference. That palliated a little the sense of guilt. And Anne was, so Talbot believed, staying with a woman friend who was in Radio Malaya.

  “Come on, we’ll go somewhere.” Crabbe wanted to get out of the sweating airless room with its tortured grey sheets.

  They dressed. Applying lipstick, Anne said, “Tell me. When you talk about love, is that just the voice of tumescence?”

  “Partly.”

  “Because I’ve got to get out. I’m not going to live with him any longer. He not only eats but drinks as well. Then he becomes all hairy arms. The only room I can lock myself in is the lavatory. You can’t spend the rest of your life in the lavatory.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “It often happens. It happened the night before I left.”

  “Poor darling,” said Crabbe. He kissed her left ear. She looked at him, not too warmly, in the mirror.

  “The point is,” she said, “what are you going to do about it?”

  “What am I going to do?”

  “Yes, dear. You have a certain responsibility towards me, you know.” Crabbe, in tight tie and palm-beach suit, sat on the unused bed and scooped sweat off his forehead. “What do you want me to do?” he asked.

  “The time will come when he’ll have to divorce me. He knows that. He can’t put it off indefinitely. When he’s a big enough laughing-stock he’ll do something. He’s got his precious career to think about.”

  “And where do I come in?”

  She turned from the mirror, reintegrated, demure, after her self-indulgence of the previous hour. “You can send Fenella home,” she said. “She’s always moaning about wanting to go home.”

  “She won’t go home without me.”

  “She’ll go home soon enough. She’ll go home for good.”

  “You want me to get a divorce? Is that it?”

  “You please yourself about that. You’ve certainly got ample grounds.”

  “She says that the Abang hasn’t done anything wrong. She says he just worships her from afar. Anyway, what do you want?”

  “I want to get away from Herbert.”

  “You don’t have to stay with him, you know. You can always get out.”

  “How? Where do I go? What do I use for money? I can’t even get the fare home unless he authorises it.”

  Crabbe lit a cigarette, looked at her through the smoke. “I still don’t see where I come in. Do you want us to be married?”

  “No. I’ll never marry again. I want to be free. Give me one of those.” He lit her cigarette.

  “I see. You just want to use me, is that it? You want me to help create so big a scandal that he’ll let you go. And then what do you do?”

  “I stay with you.”

  Crabbe gazed in astonishment at the demure boy-gangster’s face. “And what exactly happens to my precious career?”

  “You haven’t got one. Not here, anyway. You’ve left it all too late. When you’ve finished this tour you won’t come back. Unless you accept a contract with the Government. If you stay in the Oversea Civil Service you’ll have to go somewhere else. Borneo, Hong Kong … There aren’t many places left, are there? But Herbert will probably see his time out.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “Oh, information’s coming through. They want the white men out quickly.”

  “So it’s all been in vain,” said Crabbe, gazing at the bare floor. “It’s too late.” Was it worth fighting Jaganathan? Hardman was right: the twilight was here, the twilight in which man can do some work, but unhandily. Not enough light, bats fly into your eyes, mosquitoes bite. If you loved, your love was rarely returned. Malaya didn’t want him.

  “Be honest, Victor,” she said. “You don’t want marriage. You’re like me. You want love with the door open. I could make you happy for as long as you wanted. Or as long as I wanted.”

  “There was a time when I was really married. I think it only happens once.”

  “You were lucky. Listen, Victor.” She sat beside him. “I’ve been good. Haven’t I? Really good. Nobody knows about us. Not a soul. I’ve been clever.”

  “Fenella suspects something.”

  “Not much. And I’ve got some decency. I don’t flaunt things. And we’re being careful here, aren’t we? All too damn careful. But I do care for you, you see, I care for you quite a lot.”

  “I care for you, too,” he said lamely, putting a hot hand on her cool one. She drew it away, concerned only with what she was saying.

  “If you care for me, for God’s sake don’t let me suffer. We can be together till the end of your tour. You can save something. You can get me home. That’s the least you can do. But I can’t go on with him, I just can’t. He’s making me physically sick, just his being there, gorging and mouthing his filthy poetry, and then smelling of whisky and coming for me with his hairy arms.” Somehow this did not sound like Talbot, the mild, yokel-locked, moon-faced, fat-boy-buttocked.

  Crabbe sighed. “It’s so difficult,” he began.

  “Difficult? How about my difficulties? You just don’t begin to understand. You’re ready enough to take me to bed, aren’t you? You make enough noise about loving me. But when it comes to a real bit of help, you’re just like the rest of them …”

  “The rest of them?”

  “The rest of them. All men. Selfish. Out for what they can get. Oh, come on, let’s go for that drink.”

  They went down the narrow stairs, seeing on the bare treads odd dirty plates and bottles of soya sauce. The manager of the hotel stood at its entrance, sucking a toothpick, dressed in vest and underpants. He gave them no greeting. In the hot street Malay and Indian urchins called, “Taksi, tuan?” and begged for small coins. Troops lurched singing, and a fat Chinese prostitute spat loudly into the monsoon-drain. Anne and Crabbe walked to a drinking-shop outside which stood a posse of military police.

  Smoke, shouting talk and loud metallic music hit them. Crabbe ordered beer. At the bar leaned a moustached plump-shouldered young man in an evening gown. Loud and sloppy-mouthed the troops sang, mindless of the whores who clung to them. A glass was smashed in a far corner.

  “This is not quite my line,” said Anne. “And we can’t talk here.” A reinforcement of fresh troops staggered in, one man soaked and dripping, his hair sticky with the chrism of poured beer, another with his pockets crammed with sauce-bottles. Above the partition of the alcove where Anne and Crabbe were sitting a wandering hand appeared. It groped and lighted on Anne’s hair. She cried out, inaudible in the solid noise, and Crabbe touched the hand with his lighted cigarette. The hand disappeared back to its own world and was not seen again.

  Half-way through their beer they saw the main fight start. It came into their view, segment after segment, like a groaning thudding wave, heralded by a piling-up of chairs and tables, flopping bottles and broken glass. The fight was an anthology of all the techniques—punching, kicking, jagged bottles into faces. A young wild-haired Tamil kicked high like a ballet dancer, a fair-haired New Zealand private bit his opponent’s ear. The wave broke at the juke-box which tottered in a flicker of coloured lights. The military police entered, and, under their cover, Crabbe and Anne left.

  They took a taxi to Campbell Road where, in the vast open-air eating-hell, they ordered beer, chicken soup and fried mee.

  “You know,” said Anne, “the whole thing’s just turning out to be sordid. I didn’t expect it to be like this at all. And we could have so good a time. You know that.”

  Crabbe took her hand. “We’ll think about it,” he said. The gloom of the twilight was settling on him. Did anything matter any more? Perhaps the days of circumspection were over. Perhaps Anne really understood him. Perhaps what she wanted he wanted too.

  “Oh, God,” said Anne. “We’re ba
ck in Kenching. Look who’s over there.”

  At a small table, bowing to them, was Father Laforgue. He was in his surgical white, smiling, happy with a crowd of animated Chinese.

  “But what on earth’s he doing here?” wondered Crabbe. “He can’t afford any holidays.”

  “Perhaps there’s an ecclesiastical conference as well,” said Anne.

  Father Laforgue came over. He shook hands and spoke rapid French.

  “A drink, Father?”

  He shook his head. “Merci.”

  “What are you doing in this galley?”

  “I am no longer in Dahaga,” said Father Laforgue. “I have been ejected.”

  “Slower, slower, please.”

  “They have thrown me out.” He spoke without bitterness. “You will remember when this teacher of yours was dying. He was not so ill as he thought. Moreover, the sacrament of Extreme Unction often has the power to restore health when God sees it to be expedient. This may well have happened. And, to show his gratitude, he has denounced me to the Islamic authorities. Or, rather, I think it was his wife who did this. Our good friend Rupert is in great trouble also. His wife was very annoyed to learn that Rupert had taken me to Mahalingam’s house in his car. Or, rather, she says it is her car. She is having one of their holy men to come and exorcise it.” Father Laforgue smiled. “In some ways it is very amusing, of course. But I am very sorry for Rupert. He is having great trouble with the authorities now, and his wife has been most angry with him. All this because we try to help a man who is dying.”

  “When did this happen?” asked Crabbe.

  “The day before yesterday I was given my notice to quit. I was given only twenty-four hours. Some of my Chinese friends raised the money for my air passage and they are arranging to send on my books. I reported here yesterday and I now await instructions.” He continued to smile. “I am not sorry for myself. Here I have met many Chinese, far more than in Dahaga. And there is a Chinese schoolmaster here who is writing a book on Chinese philosophy. But it is poor Rupert I am thinking about. Although, in a way, it is a kind of judgement on him. God is not mocked.”

  “Do have a drink.”

  “No. If you will excuse me, I will return to my friends. We are to have some shark’s fin soup. On the east coast you cannot get good shark’s fin soup. Here you can. And then we are to go to a midnight showing of a Chinese film. You see, there is plenty to do here.”

  “Your parish will miss you,” said Crabbe.

  “My parish. Yes, my parish.” Father Laforgue shrugged his shoulders. “They will get somebody else.” Candidly he added, “Somebody better. Good-night, Mr. Crabbe. Good-night, Mrs. Crabbe.” He had no longer much of a memory for European faces.

  Sweating again that night in the stifling room, Crabbe felt a sort of love well up for Anne. It was the sort of love she seemed to want. A love with the door open, she had said. For him there had only been one time when he had wanted the door locked and bolted, enclosing a love that must never escape. That door was still locked and bolted, but now he was on the outside, only in sleep hammering vainly to be let in again.

  The day before the end of the conference he returned to the hotel at midday. Anne was seated at the small bar, drinking, talking quietly but earnestly with a man in uniform. The only other occupant of the room was a dishevelled soldier, drinking steadily, spilling drink among screwed-up dollar bills which were scattered over the table. He drooled incessantly, alternately moaning and cursing in a low somniloquist’s voice. Anne turned as Crabbe entered, feigning surprise. Crabbe then saw that the man in uniform was Bannon-Fraser.

  “Victor,” she cried. “What are you doing in K.L.?”

  He played up. Good girl, she was protecting his reputation.

  “It’s a small world,” said Bannon-Fraser. “I’m on a course here. Damn silly to send me on a course just when my contract’s coming to an end. But typical, I suppose.”

  “Are they renewing your contract?” asked Crabbe. Behind them, the forlorn soldier suddenly cursed loud and clear.

  “Really,” said Anne.

  “They got him! They got him, the bastards! Best bloody pal a man ever had.”

  “No, they’re not,” said Bannon-Fraser. “In spite of the fact that the Emergency’s still in full swing. Still, I’m not worrying. I’ve got myself fixed up with a job in Singapore. With a Chinese transport firm. I’ve nothing to go back home for, and I like Singapore. The pay’s good, too.”

  “Congratulations,” said Crabbe. He sipped the gin Bannon-Fraser had bought for him. “What are you doing here?” he said to Anne. He enjoyed these harmless charades.

  “Seeing a specialist. It’s my old trouble again.” She turned innocent eyes on him. “I can’t sleep at nights with it.”

  “I didn’t know you frequented dives like this.”

  “Well, I don’t normally. But I was looking at the shops and felt thirsty and this place looked reasonably quiet. And I was just sipping a harmless orange squash when Jock walked in. As he says, it’s a small world.” Crabbe did not smile back. Had this been arranged? The bar-boy tapped him on the arm and gave him some letters. Forwarded bills, by the look of them.

  “Yes, I’m staying here,” said Crabbe. “How the poor live.”

  “But how frightful,” said Anne. “It’s so squalid. The sort of place people might go for a week-end.”

  “Yes,” said Crabbe. “That sort of place.” He gazed at her levelly. “Nostalgie de la boue on my part.”

  “I’ve got to lunch with a chap at the Selangor Club,” said Bannon-Fraser. “I’m sorry to shoot off like this. Can I give you a lift, Anne? You didn’t tell me where you were staying, by the way.”

  “With a friend.”

  “Have a drink!” called the soldier. “Best bloody pal a man ever had.”

  “Well, can I take you there or anything? Or perhaps Crabbe wants to give you lunch.”

  “Victor has his reputation to think of,” said Anne. “He can’t be seen lunching with the wife of his superior officer.”

  “My reputation can take care of itself,” said Crabbe. “If yours can. I should be honoured if you would lunch with me.”

  “Toffy-nosed bastards!” mumbled the soldier. “Won’t have a drink.”

  Bannon-Fraser gave a smooth demonstration of man-management. “Sorry, old chap,” he said. “We can’t stay. Some other time. And do watch your language in front of a lady, there’s a good chap.”

  “They killed him, I tell you. Those bastards killed him.”

  “I know, and they’ve nearly killed me. Well, I’ve got to be going,” said Bannon-Fraser. “Could we all meet, do you think, tonight? Do the town and all the rest of it. Safety in numbers.” He turned on to Anne an advertisement-smile, put on his cap, looking, all clichés of handsomeness, every inch a Home Guard officer.

  “That would be nice,” said Anne.

  “Look here,” said Crabbe. “We’ll come too. That is, if you’d like to,” he added, to Anne. “I believe the food’s rather good at the Selangor Club. You could give us a lift,” he said to Bannon-Fraser.

  “I don’t particularly want any lunch,” said Anne. “I rarely eat it.”

  “If you’ll excuse me,” said Bannon-Fraser. “Let’s meet at the Harlequin about eight. Will that be all right?” Smiling, young, muscular, paunchless, probably odourless, he went. The soldier called after him:

  “Stuck-up bastard.”

  “Well,” said Crabbe. “Was this all aranged?”

  “Was what arranged?”

  “You knew he was here, didn’t you? Knew he was in K.L.?”

  “I’d heard vaguely that he was on a course, yes.”

  “And it’s starting all over again, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, Victor.” She fingered his wrist. “That was all over a long time ago.”

  “Now you’re just friends.”

  “Oh, that is possible, you know.”

  “Come and sit down here, lady,” said the soldier. “Have
a drink with me.”

  “Fancy you being jealous,” she said. “Remember what you were always saying?”

  “What?”

  “That you didn’t want to start anything.”

  The soldier now lurched towards the bar, put an arm round each of them and looked blearily into their faces. He smelt of everything the bar stocked, his strawy hair was wild, and he had splashed beer over his jungle-green. “They killed him,” he said. “He was ambushed. That’s why I’m getting pissed, see? You get pissed with me,” he invited.

  “Please stop pawing me,” said Anne sharply. “Victor, tell him to go away.”

  “Go away,” said Crabbe.

  “Found his body, they did, full of holes, see? That’s why I’m …”

  Anne wrenched herself away and went towards the door. Crabbe followed. The white-hot light of the street hit them, noise of cars, bicycles, brown urchins.

  “That was rather unfortunate,” he said.

  “Oh, it’s so sordid, sordid. I shan’t go back there. I shall go somewhere else.”

  “It won’t be for much longer.”

  “No, it won’t.”

  “Please, Anne.” Crabbe tried to take her arm. “Don’t be angry.”

  She slowed her walk. “I’m not angry. I’m just tired, that’s all. I’m not having much of a life. And think what I’ve got to go back to.”

  “That won’t be for long, either.”

  “I wonder.”

  That night they did the town. It was all very decorous. They drank in the bars of reputable hotels, Crabbe and Bannon-Fraser neck-tied and jacketed, spilling, among other members of their race and class, their colonial bromides on the conditioned air, Bannon-Fraser, handsome, vacuous, neatly locked with Anne on the small dance-floors, telling innocent jokes at the bar, greeting friends with a warm chubby laugh. At midnight they left the air-conditioned dream-world and entered the oven of the street.

  “I’ll drop you first, shall I, Crabbe?” Here it was, then.

  “Yes, do that.”

  Outside the hotel in the rough singing drunken street, the Sikh watchman asleep on his charpoy, the manager standing indifferent, sucking his tooth-pick, Crabbe said good-night.