“There is a most nauseating fluid exuding from the yaws sore, and the causative organism is found abundantly in that.”
Mrs. Foo smiled winningly and nibbled at a sardine on a toothpick.
“As much as twenty years between the primary sore and the tertiary stage.”
Crabbe cleared his throat and called: “Ladies and gentlemen.” The words “spirochaete” and “ginger ale” lagged into the near-silence. With drink Vythilingam found the gift of speech returning. He too said, goldfish-twittering to the ceiling: “Ladies and gentlemen.”
“I don’t want to talk a great deal,” said Crabbe. “First, let me say how glad I am to see you all here, and, more particularly, express my pleasure at the sight of representatives of all the races of South-East Asia mixing freely and in obvious harmony in the house of a wicked Englishman.” There was dutiful laughter; only Arumugam nodded gravely; Vythilingam, as on a dummy flute, tried out mouth-twisting phrases. “We hear a great deal these days,” said Crabbe, “about the prospect of racial discord in the new, independent Malaya. These ideas have been disseminated by unscrupulous elements who see in racial dissension an admirable instrument for the furthering of their own nauseating ends. I refer, of course, to the Communists.”
There were pious noises of agreement. Rosemary stood puzzled, wondering at so strange an exordium to a speech about her and her engagement. Suddenly, surprisingly, Vythilingam said, quite clearly: “The Communists,” and drank off more whisky.
“But,” said Crabbe, “apart from the Communists, I don’t think we can doubt that the component races of Malaya have never made much effort to understand each other. Odd superstitions and prejudices, complacency, ultra-conservatism—these have perpetually got in the way of better understanding. Moreover, the idea of a community—a single community, as opposed to many distinct communities—never seemed very important during the period of British management. There was a cold, purely legal unification provided by the State—a British importation—and a sort of superficial culture represented by American films, jazz, chocolate-bars, and refrigerators; for the rest, each race was content to keep alive fragments of culture imported from its country of origin. There never seemed any necessity to mix. But now the time has come.” He banged his fist forensically on the top of a dinner-wagon. “There must not merely be mixing, there must be fusion.”
“Confusion,” said Vythilingam, nodding agreement. He was shushed.
“There must be inter-marriage, there must be a more liberal conception of religion, there must be art and literature and music capable of expressing the aspiration of a single unified people.” Nik Hassan grinned cynically. “I suggest that we attempt, here in this town …” Here Crabbe stopped. His heart sank at the vision on the veranda: Syed Omar, in newspaper shirt, making a spectacular entrance, crooning throatily.
“Big words,” said Syed Omar, “big words. But they will not help us to get jobs.” He came into the drawing-room, blinking with drunken photophobia, and then stood swaying under the fan, his untidy hair stirred by its breeze. “Look at them,” he said, “wearing their suits. Black bastards.”
“Come on, now, Omar,” soothed Nik Hassan. “Come to the kitchen, have some black coffee.”
“Don’t want any black coffee. Don’t like anything black.”
“For God’s sake,” whispered Crabbe, “pull yourself together, Omar. We don’t want any trouble.”
“I never wanted any trouble,” cried Syed Omar. “I did my work, didn’t I? I did my work better than the next man. And now I get my reward. I am out of a job.” He sat down in the nearest arm-chair and began to sob quietly. Everybody looked embarrassed, everybody except Vythilingam. Vythilingam sang very quietly the song the Japanese had sung in celebration of the fall of Singapore.
“I think,” said Mr. Foo, all fat smiles, “my wife and I had better be going.”
“Not so soon,” said Crabbe.
“Oh,” cried Syed Omar, “I see. You do not want to be in the same house as a man without a job. You think 1 am only a dirty jobless Malay.”
Vythilingam picked this up very clearly. “Dirty jobless Malay,” he smiled to the whisky bottle.
Syed Omar was on his feet. “And if you are a clean Tamil I would rather be a dirty Malay,” he cried. “It is your fault, it is the fault of your race that I am now without a job. Your Mister bloody Maniam and the whole damned lot of you.”
“You’d better go home,” said Crabbe. “Come on, I’ll take you.” The party, he felt, might as well be abandoned. But Syed Omar shook himself free of Crabbe’s arm, saying: “I will say what I have to say to these black bastards.”
“Such filthy language,” protested Mrs. Pereira. Rosemary tried to cling, in a show of apprehension, to Lim Cheng Po. Vythilingam broke through his cordon, smiling, saying very distinctly to Syed Omar: “I know you.”
“I know you too, you bastard.”
In the scuffle that followed, nobody actually got hurt. Some of Nik Hassan’s ginger ale was spilled on to Rosemary’s dress, and the dress began to reek of brandy. ’Che Asma, disgusted, swept her hand across a row of spirit bottles, and two of these rolled over the floor, and Syed Omar tripped and fell over a bottle of rum, grasping, as he fell, at the nearest stable object, which was Mrs. Foo’s right leg. The whole business was quite deplorable.
“Well,” said Idris, panting a little, “what do we do now?”
“Quiet,” whispered Syed Hassan. “He’ll hear you.” The house of Dr. Sundralingam was in darkness, but there was no doubt that Maniam was within.
“But what are we going to do?” asked Hamzah.
Nobody answered, for nobody really knew. Each carried in his mind a confused image of violence, and this was further confused in the mind of Hassan by a sense of filial obligation, of guilt and also, since his father had come home and said that there would be no more wages coming in and hence no more school-fees could be paid, by relief and even a curious gratitude to Maniam. Hassan envisaged for himself a fine idle adult future, feeling, at the thought, as they stood breathing quietly and quickly in the palmy darkness, a kind of promise of ecstasy in his loins, which whetted his desire to do some harmless harm or other to Maniam.
Inspired, he said: “Handkerchiefs round our faces.”
“Have no handkerchief,” said Azman. His whisper got out of control on the last syllable, and a sudden voice-breaking bass rasped the darkness.
“Sssssshhhh! Fool!”
“I’ve got two,” breathed Idris. Tonight he was wearing the suit, and had a handkerchief in top as well as trouser pocket.
They tied these yashmaks round their faces, and, as a car went by on the road parallel to the avenue where they stood, they saw each other’s big brown eyes above them, and Azman started to giggle.
“Sssssshhh!”
“Front door locked,” said Hassan. “Must be. We’ll try kitchen door. Take off that jacket,” he said to Idris. “Take off that tie. May see. May recognise. Leave under that tree there.” Idris obeyed. Softly on sandals they trod grass; now and again a dried twig cracked underfoot, Hamzah stubbed his toe on a coconut shell, Idris squelched into an over-ripe papaya lying under its tree. Starshine above, faint rustle of palm-leaves, black, quiet, moonless. The kitchen door was locked.
“His boy sleeps here?” asked Azman voicelessly.
“Sssssshhh! Boy always go to town. Look, window there. Open.”
“Listen! Maniam’s breathing in sleep?”
“Help me up,” whispered Hassan. “Will look. Knives ready.”
Elbows on window-ledge, legs held by comrades, he looked in, darkness, saw nothing. “In,” he whispered urgently, “help in. Knives ready.” Hassan kneed himself up, over, in, soundlessly, feet on floor, knife out, eyes like blunter knife trying to cut darkness. No sound. “Azman,” he whispered. “Azman next. Then Idris. Hamzah stay out there. Watch. In here nobody.”
Idris, Azman, now in also, Azman pulled out pocket-torch, shone through room dimly with dying
battery. Nobody. Sundralingam’s room, perhaps. Bed empty, mosquito-net down, wardrobe, dressing-table, Chinese nude calendar on wall. Cautiously the three soft-footed out of the room, opening door creaked a little. In new room Hassan felt for light-switch.
A blaze of glory shone on Maniam sitting up startled in bed. Like ’Che Asma who, just at that moment, was knocking bottles off Crabbe’s drink-table. Maniam wore a tartan sarong. His eyes wide with surprise and fear, he clutched tightly the bolster—sweat-absorbing bedfellow of sleepers in the East—known as a Dutch wife.
“What? What? Who?”
It was always as well to leave things to impulse. Hassan found the right thing to say.
“Jangan takut,” he said, then remembered that the language of sophisticated crime was English. “Don’t be afraid,” he amended.
“What? What? What do you want?”
“We come to protect you,” said Hassan. “Are enemies wanting to kill you. We will stop enemies wanting to kill you.”
“What do you mean? Who are you?” Maniam’s great eyes, his black skin oiled with sweat, Maniam’s hands pudgily clutching his Dutch wife.
“You pay little money only. We stop enemies from killing you,” said Hassan.
“Where do you keep your cash, bub?” asked Idris hoarsely. His American was better than Hassan’s English. “You gotta hand over, see.”
Maniam eyed the knives. “How much do you want?”
“Twenty bucks,” said Azman.
“A hundred bucks,” bid Hassan, giving Azman a rough elbow-jab. “Pay up and you be all right.”
“I’ve got no money,” said Maniam.
“I bet there’s money there in your trousers,” said Hassan. A pair of crumpled green slacks lay over the bedside chair. “Pay up.”
“Or else,” added Idris. He juggled his knife in menace, dropped it on the floor, picked it up, repeated, “Or else.”
“My wallet’s in the next room,” said Maniam. “I don’t know how much is in it. I’ll go and fetch it.”
“That’s right, you go and fetch it,” said Hassan. “We’ll wait here.”
“Yes,” said Maniam, out of bed with eager agility. “You wait here.”
“Idiot,” cried Idris in Malay. “There’s a telephone in there. Stop him.” Azman, nearest to Maniam, grasped his sarong, which immediately unwound down to Maniam’s ankles: black round buttocks were disclosed, short hairless legs, Maniam’s shame. “Let me go,” he said in anger. He tried to get into the living-room, his dropped folds of sarong hobbled him; eluding Azman’s grasp too vigorously, he was tripped by his own wide stride and the folds at his ankles; he went over, striking his nose hard on the door-knob. He lay cursing an instant, aware of a maimed face just healed, now maimed again. “Damn you!” he cried.
“You get the money, bub,” menaced Idris. “And no more tricks, see?”
“A car! A car coming!” cried Hamzah from without.
“Allah!”
“Out the same way,” ordered Hassan. “Through the window, quick.”
“We get the money first,” said Idris. “Here in trousers.”
“Out, out, I order,” ordered Hassan. “Out now, quick, quick.”
“I bring trousers,” said Idris. He grabbed them from the chair. The naked Maniam tried to rise, called: “Help! Murder!” as he heard the car engine come closer. The boys dashed. Azman had already scrambled out into moonless garden, clumsily landing on Hamzah the helper. Idris, trousers under arm, followed, Hassan tumbling after. The big eyes of the car, turning into the drive, caught their yashmaks, their legs doubtful whither to run. “Help! Help!” from Maniam at the front door. “Get them, quick! There!”
In the back of the car, Vythilingam was loudly singing: “…And the rising sun shall rise yet higher, destroying with its flaming fire the evil will of the wicked West, but smiling warmly on the rest,” in demotic Japanese. Arumugam was out, ready with fists, voice girling high: “Where, where?”
The boys ran, scattered. Idris and Hamzah met the big arms of Sundralingam, realised it was not a question of catching but of recognising, realised too late that this sort of adventure was not for small towns, but part of the culture of cities. Hamzah knifed Sundralingam gently in the forearm. Sundralingam wailed, Hamzah and Idris got away. Arumugam was down, kicked by Azman. “Run, run!” They ran. Running, Hassan remembered the jacket, with the string-tie in the pocket, lying under the tree. Tomorrow it was his turn to wear full uniform. He ran that way, ready to scoop it up from the tree’s shadow. Even in this panic and flurry he saw clearly that he was rightfully the leader, having the brains to remember to remove a clue from the vicinity of the crime. (Crime? Had there been a crime?) Thus Arumugam, athletic and virile under the feminine dress of his voice, caught him, being quickly on his feet again, off his mark. Hassan struggled in muscular arms, his turn now to call for help, but the six fugitive feet were padding down the road, abandoning him. Caught in an unarmed combat grip, raised in agony to his toes, Hassan was marched, the voice squealing in his ear, towards the house and the waiting Maniam and Sundralingam. Vythilingam snored.
The yashmak jerked off, in the third-degree light of the house, Hassan’s scared face was scanned. “Syed Omar’s son,” said Sundralingam.
“Yes, yes,” squeaked Arumugam. “Like father, like son. This is Syed Hassan.”
“They got away with my trousers,” said Maniam.
“What is this he has?”
“That is a jacket.”
“Was there money in the pocket?” asked Sundralingam. Then he sucked the tiny wound on his arm.
“There was my wallet. Some money, yes, not much.”
“Your face,” said Arumugam. “They hit you on the face.”
“Yes, yes, they did that, too.”
“Pembohong,” gnashed Hassan, “liar.” Arumugam tightened the screw of the hold. “Ow!” cried Hassan.
“Well,” said Sundralingam, “I shall ring for the police. This is very, very bad. Will Syed Omar never be out of trouble?”
So comparatively early in the evening still, and the party broken up, though the drawing-room had a morning-after look and Syed Omar groaned over his black coffee.
“But damn it,” said Crabbe, “it sounds to me as if losing your job was nobody’s fault but your own.”
“Other people,” said Syed Omar, eyes shut against the light, slumped in an arm-chair, “other people have done what I have done and have kept their jobs. I lost one file only, though I do not think I really lost it, but somebody stole it deliberately. I never claimed to be much good at typing. I have taken a few days off. I once had a bottle of whisky in the desk drawer, but that was only because I had fever. Other people have done worse and have not been given the sack. I have been framed. Maniam is at the back of it all.”
Lim Cheng Po yawned delicately and continued to keep his distance from Rosemary, who sat temptingly by him on the couch. Rosemary pouted, feeling also a twinge of superstitious foreboding because her engagement party had fizzled, or exploded, out. She looked with distaste at Syed Omar, blaming him, blaming Crabbe too, then deciding also to blame Lim Cheng Po for the failure of the evening; and it would be their fault, too, if Joe now wrote breaking off the engagement.
“And who’s going to get your job?” asked Crabbe.
“I don’t know, I don’t know,” groaned Syed Omar. “Some Tamil woman, I suppose, some other relation of all those black bastards.”
“Really,” protested Rosemary, from her best refined mouth.
“I suppose I’ll have to find something for you,” sighed Crabbe. “There may be a vacancy in my office. Though,” he added, “it’s not really my office now.”
Then there was the sound of transport, too heavy a sound for a private car, and headlights showed up the withered pot-plants in Crabbe’s porch. “Whoever it is,” said Crabbe, “they’ve come too late for the party.” Slammed metal doors and boots. Inspector Ismail stood on the veranda, saluted, showed many teeth, and said, “Ah
, I thought he would still be here. Forgive this intrusion, Mr. Crabbe. There is trouble with Syed Omar’s son. Syed Omar had better come to the station.”
“Trouble? What trouble?”
“Trouble?” Syed Omar’s mouth was fixed for the dentist’s chair, his eyes huge now, despite the light.
“Your son and his friends tried to kill Mr. Maniam with knives. They stripped off his clothes, hit him on the face, kicked him while he was down, stole his trousers and his money, assaulted Mr. Arumugam too and tried to stab Dr. Sundralingam to death.”
“No!”
“Oh yes,” smiled Inspector Ismail. “We have everybody down at the station now.” He sounded happy, as though everything were set for a party, the more pleasant because unexpected. “I think Syed Omar must come too.”
“Oh, God God God,” said Crabbe. “Why, oh why do they do these things?”
“Unfortunately,” smiled Inspector Ismail, “they only caught Syed Hassan. The others got away. But the gentlemen think that Syed Hassan will be enough. For the moment, anyway.”
“Look, I can’t believe all that about killing and whatnot,” said Crabbe. “Let me have a word with Maniam and the others. It was probably only a stupid childish joke, anyway. They must drop the charge.”
“But,” smiled Inspector Ismail, “it is really a police matter. They had weapons, you see. And housebreaking is very serious.”
“I’ll drive Omar down,” said Crabbe.
“Keep out of these things, Victor,” said Lim Cheng Po. “Keep out of these Asian matters. You will find yourself in terribly deep water.”
“I’ll drive him down,” said Crabbe. “Stay here with Rosemary. Have a drink. Have something to eat. I shan’t be long.”
“My son,” said Syed Omar, “my son, my son. They are ruining us all, the whole family.” He wept.
“Come on now, pull yourself together.”
The Malayan Trilogy Page 47
