In the Mouth of the Tiger

by Lynette Silver

  ‘Mummy said Frances can sleep in my room,’ he shouted, getting the ground rules straight before any other grown-ups could interfere, and Frances accepted the invitation with an imperious nod.

  The manager’s bungalow on the Argyle Rubber Estate was rather smaller than I had expected, but Tanya had done a magnificent job of turning it into a home. There were colourful chintz curtains, vivid Indian rugs scattered on the polished timber floor, and comfortable cane furniture full of richly embroidered Chinese cushions.

  ‘We have worked like navvies,’ Tanya said, showing off the main bedroom. ‘Eugene stripped and sanded every inch, and I painted until my arms felt like falling off.’ It was a delightful room, all white and pink, and with a white enamelled four-poster facing a wall of widows. A Russian icon hung on the wall above the bed head, a lovely thing that I recognised, full of colours and with a heavy gold-leaf frame.

  Tanya saw me looking at it. ‘Your mother gave it to me,’ she said, blushing slightly. ‘She should have given it to you, I think. I am sorry, Nona.’

  ‘Don’t be sorry,’ I said sincerely. ‘You have been more of a daughter to my mother than I have. I am glad that she appreciates you. Have you heard from her at all?’

  ‘Only a card, last May. She only sends cards, because she is ashamed of her English and she will not write anything in Russian. She is happy and well. I had told her in my previous letter that I was in touch with you, but she did not respond. She is as stubborn as you in that regard.’

  The manager’s work on a rubber plantation begins before dawn, and Denis was up with Eugene at four thirty to help get the tappers started and to set the weeding gangs to work. They’d be back by ten, and after cold showers would join us for a late breakfast on the broad verandah. As I had hoped, the change did Denis a power of good.

  ‘By Jove, this takes me back,’ he said one morning as he tucked into a typical planter’s breakfast of eggs, bacon, sausages, tomatoes and bubble-andsqueak. ‘You know, Norma, I lived this life for two years when I first came out to Malaya. I had forgotten just how much I relished it.’

  ‘Oh, go on,’ Tanya said. ‘I know it’s got to be done, but surely nobody could actually like getting up at the crack of dawn six days a week.’

  Denis put his knife and fork down. ‘It’s pitch black when one arrives at the coolie lines, but there’s already smoke in the darkness and the smell of cooking. Then the Tamils appear, long lines of ghostly figures in the gloom. You can only half see their faces, but you’ve got to know every name, all their strength and all their weaknesses.

  ‘Malik – you will lead the tappers on the Experimental Plot. Make sure every man makes his cut straight and true. Raja – tell your men to be more careful when they hammer in their collecting cups. Nathan, your men will weed the hillside pathways. There are banded kraits in those thickets, so tell them to be careful. Then the sun comes up. It’s like a great red ball at first, filling the aisles between the trees with a weird orange light. But all too soon it’s a golden hammer, beating you into the ground. It’s a hard life, but by God you feel you’re doing something useful.’

  ‘I didn’t know you could be so poetic,’ Tanya said. ‘But now get on with your breakfast, Denis. Tim and Jan are due in half an hour, and then we’re going into Kuala Lipis for tennis and a swim.’

  It was a delightful few days, and I watched Denis return almost to normal. He thrived on the hard work and the exercise, and at night he sat down with Eugene and went through the paperwork associated with running a rubber plantation. The price of rubber was high, but there were problems moving the latex down to the KL railhead due to strikes and mechanical problems. Strikes because of the Communists, and breakdowns because the Pahang transport industry was ageing and under-maintained.

  ‘I think you’ll make a go of it,’ Denis pronounced on our final evening. ‘Well done, Eugene – we’ll make a planter of you yet.’ Eugene had blushed like a schoolboy.

  It was an overcast evening, hot and muggy, and after dinner we sat drinking stengahs until nearly midnight. I think perhaps Tanya drank a little more than she had intended, because suddenly and unaccountably she began to weep. It was the strangest thing. We had been sitting there in companionable silence when suddenly we heard her sobbing. Eugene was on his knee beside her in an instant, his arms around her shoulders. ‘What is wrong, my dear? Why are you crying?’

  I got up too and knelt on Tanya’s other side. ‘Is it the loneliness?’ I asked intuitively. ‘Is it that when we’re gone you’ll feel isolated out here at Argyle?’

  Tanya turned to me and nodded. ‘I am frightened,’ she said. ‘I’m very frightened, Nona. Just those awful grey rubber trees for miles and miles and miles. And there are Communists all round us. I know there are. They are biding their time, just waiting to pounce on us when we least expect it. I’ve been listening to the radio. The Communists are going to take over the world, and Malaya is where they will strike first.’

  ‘Are you really frightened here at Argyle?’ Eugene sounded astounded. ‘You’ve never said anything before, darling. I thought you liked it here.’

  Tanya swung round and put her arms around Eugene neck. ‘I’m so sorry, my darling,’ she said into his shoulder. ‘I’m letting you down, aren’t I? Just when you need me most.’

  Denis had poured a cup of coffee from the pot left by the boy and brought it across. ‘Knock this back, Tanya,’ he ordered. ‘It’s a bit lukewarm but the caffeine will do you good.’

  It took a while but we calmed Tanya down, and then Eugene took both her hands in his. ‘I think you might not be seeing things very straight just now,’ he said softly. ‘You are tired, and a coming baby can play merry hell with a woman’s emotions. But if the isolation out here really is getting you down, you are going back to Singapore. At least until things settle down.’

  ‘Will you come with me?’ Tanya asked in a small voice, and I could see the pain on Eugene’s face.

  ‘You know I can’t, my dear. We have everything we own in the world tied up here in the estate.’

  I didn’t sleep at all that night, and in the morning when I went out on the verandah I saw the place through Tanya’s eyes. The garden bright with cannas but somehow crushed by the serried ranks of rubber trees that surrounded it like a dismal wall. Everywhere you looked there were rubber trees, rubber trees, and more rubber trees. Cutting the bungalow off from the rest of the world, stifling thought, stifling imagination.

  Tanya joined me, looking pale and tired. ‘It’s not just the rubber,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘All those trees are depressing, but what I’m really frightened of are the Communists. You were too young to know how evil they are, and how determined they are to take over the world. Winston Churchill has said that there is an iron curtain cutting the world in half. On one side there are people like us. On the other side there are monsters. If the Communists take over in Malaya, and we’re caught on the wrong side of the curtain, people like you and I will be killed out of hand. Remember what your mother used to say? The Communists never forget. And you and I were born their enemies.’

  We left Argyle for the drive back to KL just after lunch. There was a painful moment when Andrei refused to let Frances out of his arms. He had been cheerfully bossed around by the little lady all week, and clearly dreaded the return to the life of an only child in the middle of nowhere. It was almost as hard for me to disentangle myself from Tanya. The chilly iceberg of my youth was long gone, replaced by a passionate and vulnerable woman. ‘Take care of her,’ I said to Eugene, my eyes not as dry as they should have been.

  ‘I love her,’ Eugene said simply. ‘If we have to sell Argyle, we’ll sell Argyle like a shot and find something else to have a go at. Tanya’s happiness is my only concern.’

  On the way to KL we dropped in on the Featherstones. The Dunlops plantation at Bentong was a different world to Argyle, with the palatial manager’s bungalow set in manicured lawns and surrounded by all the trappings of a substantial and well-
established estate. There was a dressing station large enough to be called a hospital, a pitch-roofed schoolhouse, a range of assistant manager’s bungalows, and coolie lines so substantial that they looked almost like a village in their own right.

  Tim and Jan were playing tennis on their private court, but chucked their racquets aside and insisted on us staying for dinner. ‘Your train’s not leaving until nine o’clock tomorrow morning,’ Tim insisted. ‘So who cares what time you get to bed? And you’re in the Railway Hotel, for heaven’s sake!’

  I was glad we stayed. The Featherstone twins – identical girls with Tim’s red hair in curly mops on their heads – were shy at first but Frances soon had them running at her beck and call. They played on the wide lawns, and given what was to happen at Bentong later my memories of that afternoon are amongst the most precious I have. Frances tossing her golden head imperiously as she set the rules of the game, then reset them on a cheerful whim. Jenny and Rachel, their red-gold mops catching the sunshine as they ran, and jumped, and crawled and shouted, enthusiastically playing parts in a glorious game that had taken over their entire universe. Tim and Jan chatting with drinks in their hands, their eyes straying constantly and with joy to their children.

  If happiness is sitting back and seeing your children transported by delight, then Tim and Jan were certainly happy that afternoon. I am so glad they were, and I hang on to the thought of their happiness with grim determination.

  ‘Are the Communists still a problem for you?’ Denis asked, and Tim chuckled.

  ‘I think the boot is a little bit on the other foot,’ he said. ‘The local branch of the MCP is frightened of me. Remember the little plan I told you about down at the Aubreys’ farewell? Well, I’ve put it in place and it’s worked quite a treat. I pay my chaps in strict accordance with the award, but I give them things they couldn’t possibly buy. I send all the older children into trade school in KL. Pay for their education out of the incidentals account. I’m also giving every family a two-week holiday at our rest bungalows in Kuantan. I call it a training camp, and we do give’em a bit of training: we teach the kids to swim. There are other things, too. I reckon the local MCP Secretary is frightened to death of me. If I can keep on going as I am, he’ll have to close his unit down for lack of business.’

  Denis frowned slightly. ‘Don’t underestimate them, Tim,’ he said seriously. ‘It’s when the Communists are frightened that they are at their most dangerous.’

  ‘There have been the odd incidents,’ Jan put in. ‘One or two of our people have been bashed by louts while visiting Bentong. And some crazy young idiot set fire to the smokehouse. Luckily one of the estate guards caught him at it, and he’ll spend the next twelve months in gaol.’

  We dined early and set off for KL just after dark. The lights blazed in the bungalow behind us, the children screamed their goodbyes to each other, and Denis and I waved carelessly out of the car windows.

  Another silly, happy, normal farewell.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  One evening in early September Denis and I were sitting under the casuarina trees with our pre-dinner drinks when I noticed an unfamiliar ship out in the Straits. She was moving slowly westward through the evening light, bathed in pink from the setting sun and obviously headed for Keppel Harbour. She was a freighter, but one of unusual beauty, painted all white with a red star on her superstructure and a red hammer-and-sickle on her funnel.

  Even Frances, playing with her dolls on the grass at our feet, was moved to stand and stare, a chubby arm thrown up to shield the sun’s reflection on the placid sea. Denis got out his binoculars and we read her name: the Borodino, home port Vladivostok.

  ‘I thought she had to be the Borodino,’ he said in a rather resigned voice.

  While he was dressing the next morning, Denis paused as he was knotting his tie. ‘You might get a call today,’ he said in the casual voice he used when he was talking about something important. ‘It’ll be from a chap called Sokolov, who’s on the Borodino. He’s the Political Commissar for this part of the world, and he wants to give you something. A reward for what we did in Melbourne during the war. You know, the cables business.’

  I felt my heart beating with sudden alarm. ‘Isn’t that rather silly of them? Handing out presents for no apparent reason? People will wonder what is going on.’ I had thought the cables business was well and truly behind us.

  ‘I think it’s damned stupid, and I’ve told them so,’ Denis said. ‘But once the Communists get something into their thick skulls, you need a jackhammer to get it out. I’m sure they will be discreet, but it’s a risk nobody had to take.’

  ‘What should I do?’ I asked.

  ‘Go along with it. Accept the blasted thing with as much good grace as you can muster. But don’t get involved in conversation with them. That’s important, darling. Don’t talk to them about anything.’

  The call came about mid-morning, a strongly accented voice asking me if I would mind if Mr Sokolov called on me during the afternoon. He wanted to return something of mine. We arranged three o’clock, and I asked Amah to prepare tea and biscuits for us in the lounge.

  The Russians came in style, without any attempt at discretion whatsoever. A large black hire car pulled up and a Russian sailor leapt out to open the rear door. Chu Lun had sensed that something was up and had stationed himself by the porch, pretending to weed the garden bed. I knew he was pretending because Chu Lun never, ever did any real gardening.

  Two men emerged from the back of the car. One was a small man in an immaculate white uniform with lots of medals on his breast. He introduced himself as Captain Rogov, clicking his heels together and giving me a small bob of the head as he shook my hand. ‘May I present Commissar Ivan Sokolov,’ he said, stepping aside.

  I thought political commissars were small men with bitter mouths and insipid handshakes, but Sokolov did not fit that mould at all. He was a huge man with a round, jolly face and a firm, friendly handshake. ‘It is an honour to meet you, Madam,’ he boomed cheerfully in Russian. Then, coming straight to the point: ‘I am here on behalf of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, and I wish to present you with an award on behalf of the Communist Party and the people of Russia.’

  I glanced around nervously. ‘Then you had better come inside,’ I said in English. ‘Amah has provided us with some tea.’ I knew it was a pretty inadequate response, but I was far too worried to think of any grand phrases.

  We sat in the lounge, Captain Rogov and I sitting stiff and uncomfortable, Sokolov lounging back so expansively in his cane chair that I felt the rattan might give way at any moment. ‘I am new to the tropics,’ he said, this time speaking in unaccented English and fanning his face with his hat. ‘My area of responsibility is Hong Kong to Colombo. The area that I think used to be called the Far East. I am visiting the area to meet people and to learn as much as I can. It is a fascinating corner of the world, is it not?’

  I stared at Sokolov curiously. I couldn’t help it. This man, an avowed Communist and a Commissar of the People to boot, should have been the physical embodiment of evil. ‘Soldiers of Satan’, my mother had called the Communists. ‘Monsters’, Tanya still called them. And yet there he was, lounging back in our cane chair, his eyes smiling into mine, looking for all the world like a perfectly normal human being. Even a rather likeable human being.

  I realised I was staring and got up hurriedly to pour the tea. ‘How long are you staying in Singapore?’ I asked politely.

  ‘It depends on Captain Rogov. When he sails I suppose I will have to sail with him.’ He glanced at Rogov. ‘But if I have time I would like to see the Tiger Balm Gardens, and have a meal at Raffles. And perhaps attend a race meeting at the Singapore Turf Club.’ He winked at Rogov. ‘If the Comrade Captain had similar tastes to mine I think we would be here for at least a fortnight.’

  Rogov moved uncomfortably. ‘We need only remain two days in Singapore. To take on some cargo, and to take on some fuel.’ Rogov fi
tted my picture of a Communist Commissar far better than Sokolov did.

  Sokolov sighed. ‘Comrade Captain is a harsh taskmaster,’ he said. He suddenly sat up straight, fishing a small red box from the breast pocket of his light cotton suit. ‘But he reminds me of my duty. Madam, I have been authorised to present you with one of the Soviet Union’s highest awards for services to the Party and the State.’

  I think I actually gasped. Certainly I felt the blood run from my face. This is absolutely dreadful, I thought. The Communists are our sworn enemies, destined to fight us in the final battle between Good and Evil. And here I am being awarded a medal for services to the Communist State.

  It seemed the ultimate seal of treachery.

  Sokolov mistook my horror for awe, and got to his feet with an encouraging smile. ‘Dear lady,’ he said, ‘you have well and truly earned the Order of Lenin. Your courage, and that of your husband, helped change the course of the war. We owe you far more than a mere trinket.’ He saw me staring back at him, numb with shock, and must have decided that he had better get on with the little ceremony. He helped me to my feet and then cleared his throat.

  ‘On behalf of Comrade N. Shvernik, Secretary of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, I hereby award you the Order of Lenin.’ He had taken the medal from its box and now pinned it rather clumsily to my cream cotton blouse. Captain Rogov had stood up with us and he clapped, a soft, dry sound in the empty house.

  Somewhere outside, I heard Chu Lun laugh. It had nothing to do with what was going on in our lounge, but the peal of laughter seemed curiously appropriate and I found myself blushing furiously.

  ‘It is usual at this point to drink something a little stronger than tea,’ Sokolov said. ‘And if you will excuse me for saying so, I think you need something a little stronger than tea, Madam.’

  The dreadful feeling of disloyalty had gone, and I was suddenly myself again. ‘We have something appropriate for such an occasion as this,’ I said. ‘Allow me to offer you both a glass of Tiger beer.’