The Malayan Trilogy

by Anthony Burgess

  “Good-night Victor,” said Anne, looking up from the front passenger seat.

  “Good-night, old boy,” said Bannon-Fraser. “It was a nice evening.”

  15

  WHILE CRABBE WAS packing his bags Anne came to collect hers.

  “I’ll pay my own bill, Victor. That’s only fair.”

  “No, we came as a married couple. We’ll end that way. What are you going to do?”

  “We’re going to Singapore.”

  “But his contract hasn’t finished yet.”

  “There’s only a month to go. He thinks they’ll let him spend it here, doing some sort of office work.”

  “And where are you going to stay?”

  She smiled. “Ah, that would be telling. I don’t want Herbert following me, begging me to come back, revelling in a nice sweaty scene.”

  “Do you honestly think I’d tell him?”

  “You might, dear. I don’t trust men.”

  “Except Bannon-Fraser?”

  “I don’t even trust him. But trustworthiness isn’t everything.”

  “Have I to tell Herbert anything at all?”

  “No. I’m going to write. Look, you’re not feeling bitter, are you?”

  “Not particularly. You’ve always been pretty honest.”

  “I’ve tried to be. What time’s your plane?”

  “One o’clock.”

  “You’d better kiss me good-bye. You still mean a great deal to me, Victor.”

  “I’ll get your luggage taken downstairs.”

  “No, just go. I’ll see to all that.”

  “Good-bye, then.” He kissed her lightly. As he opened the door she called after him:

  “Victor! What are you going to do?”

  “Oh, I shall just carry on. I suppose I’d better try being a good husband. There’s a better chance of that now.”

  “Can you be a good husband?”

  “I once had the gift. I suppose I can find it again.”

  “That’s not really likely to happen, is it?”

  Crabbe did not answer. “Good-bye, Anne,” he said. “I hope you’ll be happy.”

  Leaning back in his armchair high above the jungle, lulled by the engine-noises, Crabbe tried to take stock of himself. He felt very much alone. Malaya did not want him. The romantic dream he had entertained, the dream that had driven Raffles to early death, was no longer appropriate to an age in which sleep was impossible. The whole East was awake, building dams and canals, powerhouses and car factories, forming committees, drawing up constitutions, having selected from the West the few tricks it could understand and use. The age of Raffles was also the age of Keats and Shelley, the East attractively misty, apt for the muffled clang of the romantic image—Cathay all golden dragons, Japan the edge of the world. Liberalism, itself a romantic dream, had long gone under, and there was no longer any room for the individual, there was nothing now that any one man could build. Crabbe remembered some lines from an unfinished sonnet of Hopkins, one that Fenella had once quoted to him:

  Or what is else? There is your world within.

  There rid the dragons, root out there the sin.

  Your will is law in that small commonweal. …

  The time had come to start thinking about his private life. Perhaps there were really two kinds of marriage, both equally valid: the one that was pure inspiration, the poem come unbidden; the one that had to be built, laboriously, with pain and self-abasement, deliberate engineering, sweat and broken nails. He saw his unkindness to Fenella, the demon that urged him on to believe that it was all a mistake, that she, in some way, was the usurper. One could not spend one’s life being loyal to the dead. That was romanticism of the worst sort. In Indonesia the jungle had been cleared and rice planted. It was time he cleared the romantic jungle in which he wanted to lurk, acknowledged that life was striving not dreaming, and planted the seeds of a viable relationship between his wife and himself. He reached Kenching in the early evening. To his surprise he found that Talbot had come to meet him. As the plane taxied, he saw the stumpy figure, greying tow hair, spectacles, plump legs in running shorts, striding up and down the length of his parked car. Alighted, Crabbe greeted him with false and guilty cheerfulness. Talbot was grim.

  “Come on,” he said. “I’m taking you home. I want to talk to you.”

  “Oh, what’s happened? Is it Jaganathan again?”

  Talbot started the engine, clumsily put it into gear. “You know damn well it’s not that I want to talk about. It’s about you and my wife.”

  “Yes?” Crabbe swallowed hard.

  “You’ve been carrying on with her in K.L., haven’t you? I might have known. Bloody fool that I was. I wouldn’t have thought of it if your wife hadn’t put the idea into my head.”

  “My wife?”

  “Yes. And then this chap Hardman sees your wife in the town and says that he thought she was in K.L. with you, because that French priest sent him a post-card saying that he’d met you both, and then she put two and two together. For Christ’s sake, how long has this been happening?” He drove somewhat crookedly down the main road.

  “Herbert, will you wait? Wait just a couple of days.”

  “She’s out, she’s finished. You can bloody well have her, because I won’t. I didn’t expect you to think about me, but you might have thought about your wife. As though she isn’t having enough trouble.”

  “What sort of trouble?”

  “Oh, she’ll tell you. Perhaps she won’t. I don’t think she wants to speak to you again. I don’t bloody well blame her.”

  “Herbert, please listen.”

  “There’s nothing more to say. The damage has been done. Bloody fool I must look to the people in K.L.”

  “Herbert, listen. I might as well tell you, because you’ll find out soon enough. She’s writing to you.”

  “Writing? What about?”

  “Do you remember a man called Bannon-Fraser?”

  Talbot stopped the car, very deliberately, by the side of the road.

  “Bannon-Fraser? He’s still here, isn’t he?”

  “He went on a course to K.L. I met him there. I met him there with Anne. They’re going off together.”

  Talbot thought for a moment and said, “You needn’t try and get out of it that way. You needn’t try to put it all on to somebody else.”

  “But it’s true. She’s writing to tell you. He’s getting a job in Singapore. She says they’re going to live together.”

  “Where are they now? By Christ, if I find them both …” Talbot looked at Crabbe sternly. “How do I know you’re telling me the truth?”

  “You’ll soon know. She’s sending you a letter.”

  “How do you know all this? Are you in on it, too? By Christ, when I find them, I’ll bloody well … Where are they? Where are they living?”

  A Malay labourer paused on his way home from work. He gazed open-mouthed into the car, much struck by Talbot’s agitation. Crabbe waved him away.

  “I don’t know. She refused to tell me.”

  “I’ll find them. I’ll scour the whole damned town. This is the end of him. This is the end of both of them.”

  “It’s not worth it, Herbert. You can’t do anything.”

  “Do anything? I’ll drag them out. I’ll tell the whole damned Federation about it.” He gripped the steering-wheel hard, lowered his forehead on to the nub as if to cool it. Then he raised his eyes and said, “What sort of a woman is she? Is she a prostitute? First she’s with you, then she’s with this other swine. I just don’t know her. I just don’t know anything.”

  “We had a meal together one evening. That’s all.”

  Talbot started to sob, though his eyes remained dry.

  “Don’t you think it’s better this way?” said Crabbe. “You know it’s never worked. Be honest, has it? I knew the first day I met you both that it would never work.” He patted comfortingly the fat shaking shoulder.

  “She was all I had,” cried Talbot. “I ga
ve her everything.”

  “There’s plenty for you still,” said Crabbe. “There’s your work, there’s your poetry. Great poetry’s made out of great sorrow, you know.”

  “Great sorrow,” sobbed Talbot. “I’ll never write again.”

  “Look,” said Crabbe, “go to my house. Tell Fenella all about it. She’ll understand. She’ll be sympathetic. You’re both poets, remember. You can drop me at the school. I left my car in the school garage—safer there with a caretaker on the spot. I’ll pick it up and come round in about half an hour, then we can have a meal together.”

  “Yes,” said Talbot, calmer now. “One’s got to eat. One’s got to carry on.” Then, almost cheerful, he said, “You haven’t got a car now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing left of it. Just a mass of old iron. There’s been a fire, you know. Somebody burnt the garage down. And the boys’ lavatory’s gone as well.”

  “Jaganathan.”

  “Oh, no, I don’t think so. Jaganathan’s been away. In Malacca, I think. But it was a hell of a fire. Hell of a job putting it out.”

  “When did it happen? Why didn’t somebody let me know?”

  “Only a couple of days ago. It hardly seemed worth while to write to you. And Fenella’s been so upset.”

  “About …?”

  “Yes, about that.” In sudden Ercles vein, Talbot cried, “When I find the pair of them, I’ll kill them both. I will. They’ve ruined me, made me look the biggest bloody fool …”

  Thank God he’d remembered to renew the insurance. ‘And now,’ thought Crabbe, with a sudden lifting of spirits, ‘the Abang can have it. I’ve kept him waiting long enough. He shall have it, any time he likes.’ “Come on,” he said to Talbot, “let’s go home.”

  Talbot needed no persuading to enter the house first. He raged in, loud and bitter about Anne’s treachery, about what he would do to Bannon-Fraser. Crabbe held him in front, an umbrella against an expected squall, and soon Fenella had melted enough to accept a kiss of greeting. But she had had enough trouble. At dinner she spoke of it.

  “One of the bedroom windows. A stone straight through it. And people keep shaking their fists. And then this fire at the school, and the car. It’s been horrible. I stayed three nights at the Istana.”

  “At the Istana?”

  “Yes. They gave me one of the guest-rooms. The Abang was very kind.”

  The new Malay cook brought in more potatoes for Talbot. A mass of carbohydrate induced a philosophical outlook, and Talbot, spreading thick butter on his bread, began to recite, his eyes moist behind their glasses:

  “But loss, too, is at least a thing which, in the dark, We can hold, feeling a sharpness, knowing that a knife Is a double-edged weapon, for carving as well as killing. The knife in the abattoir is also the knife on the table, The corpse becomes meat, the dead stone heart the raw Stuff of the sculptor’s art. …”

  “Do have a little more beef,” said Fenella. “I’m afraid the gravy’s rather cold now, but there’s Worcestershire sauce if you’d like it.”

  Talbot champed away, finally spooning in resignation with the tinned fruit salad, calm of mind reached with the last piece of cheese, all passion spent in the third drained coffee-cup. Patting his stomach, he said that he would now be getting along home. He had a poem to write.

  “And I’m sorry I thought what I did, Victor. I should have known better.”

  “That’s all right, Herbert.”

  Left alone, Fenella and Crabbe sat stiffly, embarrassed. Crabbe spoke first.

  “I’ve had time to think. I’ve not been a very good husband, Fenella. Will you believe me when I say that I want to start again?”

  “I can quite believe that you do. We obviously couldn’t go on like that for ever.”

  “And I do love you. I see that quite clearly now.”

  “Do you?” She seemed cold still, withdrawn, sitting upright in the bamboo armchair. Then she got up, walked over to the glass-topped table that stood under a Paul Klee reproduction, and took a cigarette from the box there. Crabbe was aware of her grace, the gold beauty, and tried to force the name ‘love’ on the pity that rose in him.

  “It may be too late, Victor,” she said. “I’m not saying it is. It just may be.”

  “I don’t think I understand.”

  “You were never very good at understanding me. You’ve never really tried. Curiously enough, I’ve been learning a lot about myself lately. I’ve been seeing things very clearly. For instance, I’ve discovered that I’m quite an attractive woman. That I’m also intelligent. That I’ve got quite a lot to give people.”

  “All that’s perfectly true.”

  “But you’ve never told me. Never once. I’m not saying it’s your fault. But there’s only been one woman in your life. Be honest about it, Victor. You’ve always been comparing me with her. You’ve never been able to see me clearly.”

  “It was true. But you can’t be ill all your life. I’ve been convalescing. I know what I want now. You must give me this chance, Fenella. I can be happy with you. I want you to be happy with me.”

  “Yes. I think you really mean that. It’s curious that this should happen now.”

  “Curious?”

  “Yes. Just when somebody else is telling me the same thing.”

  Crabbe started. “You don’t mean …?”

  “Yes, Yusof’s been telling me.” Crabbe frowned, puzzled. “Yusof is the Abang. And he isn’t what people think he is. He hasn’t laid a hand on me. He hasn’t even attempted …”

  “Oh, Fenella,” said Crabbe, “don’t be so innocent. He’ll wait, he’ll lull you till it’s time for him to pounce.”

  “No,” said Fenella, “he won’t do that. I’m quite sure. I think I know him quite well. You see, when we meet, we just talk. Sometimes in Malay, sometimes in English. I think I’ve cured him of that American accent. He sounds quite reasonable now. He tells me he’s never really talked to a woman before, and I can believe him. Apparently, Islam doesn’t approve of women talking.”

  “What do you talk about?”

  “Oh, I’m really trying to teach him. He knows so little of life, really, especially our sort of life. And it’s our sort of life he needs to learn about, because he won’t be here much longer. He’s been persuading me very strongly to go home. He says that when he goes to Europe—as he will, very soon—I could help him a great deal. He’s not asking for anything, except my help.”

  “I see.”

  “So, Victor, it turns out that I’m really the teacher. Queer, isn’t it? You come out here to bring the great gifts of the West, and you say you’ve failed, but I’ve not failed. I’ve certainly taught something.”

  “And so you really want to go home?”

  “I don’t know. Not yet, anyway. It still depends on you.”

  “I’ve told you, darling, I want to try. Things can be very different. And I’m going to need you more than I’ve ever needed anybody.”

  “I wonder.”

  Crabbe was about to speak, to renew his protestations, when the noise of a motor was heard drawing up outside the house. From it came the sound of a fat voice, singing in an unknown tongue.

  “I forgot to tell you,” said Fenella. “We have police protection now. The Abang arranged it himself. A rather old Sikh constable. I don’t suppose he’d be much good in a crisis, but he seems to scare away our enemies, whoever they are.”

  “There’s only one.”

  “No. You’ve failed, Victor. We’re not wanted any more, any of us. It’s all enemies from now on. God, that sounds melodramatic. But politics, of course, is all melodrama. Unbelievably crude.”

  “I’m getting resigned, you know. I heard a few things in Kuala Lumpur. We shan’t be coming back, that’s reasonably certain. But …”

  “I know what you’re going to say. Will I stay with you here until the time comes to pack up completely? That, as I’ve said, depends.”

  “Because ‘going home’
is a euphemism for …”

  “You’re not slow, Victor. I sometimes forget you can be quite bright. But you don’t give me much of a chance, do you? ‘Going home’ means what you think it means. Either it works, this being together, or it doesn’t. And if it doesn’t … Well, I’m still young. And, as Yusof says, attractive. I’m entitled to a bit of life.”

  “Just what Anne says.”

  “Anne? Yes, I know about that, too. Nothing’s easy to hide in a country like this. But I’m not blaming you any more. I understand now. And I pity …”

  “Pity?” Crabbe looked up at her, still standing, with an expression of small surprise, eyes narrowed in a weak show of outrage.

  “We’d better go to bed. To-morrow we’ll go to the beach. It’s a long time since I had a swim.”

  Kartar Singh gave jovial greeting from the veranda. In return, he was given beer. The Crabbes went to bed, leaving their guard to sing quietly to himself as he made his tour of the perimeter, ending up outside the bedroom itself, whence he heard no sound. The white man, as Kartar Singh knew, was cold. The white man had no red blood in his veins. This was the hour for the dancing of the springs, but from the two sundered beds came not even the sound of sleeping. Kartar Singh smiled fatly and happily resumed his round.

  16

  THE DRIVER OF the trishaw reclined in the double wicker seat and watched them idly, picking his teeth. They had asked him to wait for an hour. One hour, two hours, three: it made no difference. He would milk the white man; he would ask him for two dollars for the double journey, and he would, quite certainly, get it. The white man had more money than sense. Meanwhile it was pleasant to rest under the sun, its heat mitigated by the strong sea-wind, and bask in the knowledge that no more work need be done for at least a couple of days. Two dollars was a lot of money.

  At the sea’s edge north-eastern Malaya shed the last tawdry clothes of civilisation. The China Sea yielded fish, the trees coconuts and bananas, the drowned fields a sufficiency of rice. The women wore a single loose garment, the men showed muscular torsos flawed with benignant skin diseases. Idiocy and slow speech were the flower of much endogamy, yaws flourished unchecked by penicillin. Life was short but happy. On the wide sands lay Crabbe and his wife, half-closed eyes taking in a distant diorama of sampans.