The collected stories (57 page)

This time the girl seemed reluctant to speak, and I could see that Pei-Kway was urging her. He was certainly challenging her, and he could have been uttering threats, his tone was so nasty. He did most of the talking, with greedy energy. The girl replied in monosyllables to his squawks. None of us interrupted; we stood by, lending Pei-Kway authority in what was by the minute becoming an inquisition. Though instead of going closer and bearing down on her, Pei-Kway inched back as he kept up this flow of questions.

He stopped. After all that talk all he said was, 'She's not from Ayer Hitam.'

'I could have told you that,' said Evans.

'Doesn't she have parents?' asked Jan.

'Dead,' said Pei-Kway. He made a vague gesture with his tattooed hand. He seemed satisfied, almost subdued. He had become as laconic as the girl; his grin was gone.

Now, unprompted, the girl spoke.

Pei-Kway said, 'She wants to stay here. She is saying thank you.' He said something to the girl in a harsh growl and I saw her react as if he'd given her a push.

I said, 'What did you just say to her?'

Pei-Kway gave me a vast empty smile, simply a stiffening of his face. 'I say, this is not your place.' To Evans he said, 'Titan, I'm going.'

But Jan had put her arm around the girl. 'Wait a minute,' she said. 'Why is it she doesn't speak Malay? I thought everyone in this country knew Malay.'

'They speak Hokkien in her village.'

Rupert said, 'Where is this village?'

'Batu Pahat,' said Pei-Kway, who no longer looking at the girl was replying without referring to her. He appeared restless. He

TRIAD

had announced his intention to go, but was kept at the door by the questions.

Jan said, 'But what's her name?'

Angrily, Pei-Kway addressed the girl. Her mutter sounded familiar.

'Nina,' said Pei-Kway.

For several days I saw nothing of the Prossers, but as usual when someone stayed away from the Club he became all the more present in conversation. Gossip and hearsay made absentees interesting and gave them a uniqueness that was dispelled only when they showed up.

'Prosser's got his hands full,' said Evans one day. 'Nina tried to do a bunk last night. Found her sneaking out of the house. Scared rigid, she was. Had to carry her back bodily and lock her in her room.'

'Lucky he caught her in time,' I said.

'Very lucky, I'd say.' Evans laughed loudly. 'Imagine old Prosser, who's in bed by midnight - and he sleeps like a bloody log -imagine him catching the girl leaving his house at four in the morning.'

'You're sure of the time, are you?'

'Jan heard him. Maybe he was up splashing his boots,' said Evans. 'But she's pretty, that girl.'

I had not heard from Father Lefever. I rang him when Evans left, and he apologized for not getting in touch with me. He said he had found out nothing- he had completely forgotten about the girl.

'But now that you've reminded me,' he said, 'I will get down to business.'

I told him to try Batu Pahat.

And yet I began to feel that I was prying. The Prossers seemed happy, and Evans's gossip I was sure was full of malicious envy. The girl had to be given a chance. If what Evans had said was true - that she had tried to get away - then it was only the fact of the odd numbers, the three of them. I pictured them in their bungalow on the oil-palm estate, playing at being a family, as the children in threes played their games on the Club's grounds. And I began to think they had succeeded with the girl in creating one of those outposts of intimacy so rare in the tropics, a happy family. They had left us.

DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS (i): THE CONSUL'S FILE

There followed a period of dateless time, the hiatus of the delayed monsoon, hot and lacking any event; only the whine of the locusts, the occasional roar of a timber truck, the sound of the thin breeze rattling the palms, the accumulation of dust on the verandah that was more like sand or silt, bulking against my house. Silence and the meaningless chirp of birds, the scraw of lizards behind the pictures on the wall. I wished that I had, like Rupert Prosser, found a child in a garden at midnight that I could treat as my pet.

The mood was broken one afternoon by Prosser's voice saying, 'Come over quick. I can't leave the house. Hurry, it's important. Evans is on his way.'

'If anyone rings,' I told Miss Leong, 'I'm at the Prossers'. But I'm not expecting any calls.'

Jan and Nina were on the sofa when I arrived. Nina was pale and held her face with the tips of her thin fingers; Jan was comforting her. Nina's face was shining with fear. Rupert was almost purple, and before I could speak he shouted, 'They had her in a bag!'

Hearing this, Jan hugged the girl so tightly I thought she'd break. But the girl only drew her arms together, contracting in grief and closing her fingers to hide her face.

Evans's car drew up to the verandah. Rupert paused until he entered the room, then said again, 'They had her in a bag!'

'Chinese?' said Evans.

'Three of them,' said Rupert. 'They must have been watching the house, because as soon as Jan left for her tennis they stepped in.'

'Rupert found them-'

i had an inkling something was wrong,' said Rupert, and he swallowed hard, trying to resume. 'I was at the estate stores and had this inkling. As soon as I saw their car I was on my guard, then three blokes came out of the house struggling with this bag. It shook me. I ran back to the car and got my pistol. They took one look at it and dropped the bag and drove off. They had parangs, but they're no match for a bullet. I thought it was a break-in -reckoned they had my hi-fi and Jan's jewelry in the bag. When I saw Nina crawling out you could have knocked me over with a feather.'

Evans, with just the trace of a smile, said, 'Lucky you came back when you did.'

TRIAD

Rupert bent over and tugged his knee socks straight.

'I didn't know you had a gun,' I said.

'I was in Nigeria/ he said. 'I would have shot the bastards too, but they dropped the bag. I don't want any trouble with the police. You can get a jail sentence for shooting burglars in this bloody country. Burglars! But these were kidnapers.'

'Probably political,' said Evans.

'Sure,' said Rupert. 'Communists. They want to hold the estate to ransom.'

'That sort of thing doesn't happen around here,' I said. 'This isn't Kedah. It might have been her relatives. Anyway, she's sixteen. You don't know much about her. She might be married. Her husband-'

Rupert said, 'She's not married,' and cleared his throat. 'Dead scared, she was,' and coughed, 'I got their license number. But I don't want to go to the police because they'll start asking a lot of questions about who she is.'

'The kidnapers might try again,' said Evans.

'I'll shoot them next time,' said Rupert hoarsely. 'We'll move, get a transfer. But you've got to help me.'

'I'd go to the police,' I said.

'Don't you understand anything?' said Rupert. 'We're keeping her.'

Jan said, 'We're determined now,' and jumped as the telephone jangled.

'That'll be my wife,' said Evans.

But it was Miss Leong. Father Lefever had called the Consulate. He wanted to see me immediately.

'I'm going over to the mission,' I said to Rupert.

'I'll give you a lift,' said Evans.

'I was hoping you'd stick around,' said Rupert.

'You'll be all right,' said Evans, giving Rupert a matey slap on the back.

In the car Evans said, 'He thinks we're stupid. People come here from tin-pot places like Nigeria and they think they have all the answers.'

'What are you talking about?'

'He discovered her trying to leave. He discovered some kidnappers. It's rubbish!' said Evans with greater outrage than I thought he was capable of. 'He's knocking her off. He's setting the whole

DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS (i): THE CONSUL'S FILE

thing up. There was no kidnaping attempt. In a few weeks there'll be another disappearance, but this time it'll be the two of them doing a bunk, mark my words. Then you'll hear they're in North Borneo playing housie. Prosser's screwing her, the lucky sod.'

At the mission I thanked him and started to get out of the car. He stopped me with his hand and said, 'Who do you believe, him or me?'

'I believe the girl,' I said, and saw that frightened face again.

Evans said, 'She's not talking.'

Across the courtyard, Father Lefever watched from his office doorway, and as I drew nearer I could see on his cassock - so white at a distance - grease marks and stains. A French Canadian, he had the grizzled appearance that dedicated missionaries acquire in the tropics; he usually needed a shave, his house boy cut his hair. His sandals had been clumsily resewn, and yet these like the stains on his cassock seemed proof of his sanctity. Eager to talk he put his arm around me and hurried me inside.

'The girl,' he said. 'I think I know who she is.'

I told him I had just seen her.

'Is she well?'

'She's rather upset.'

'I didn't mean that. Is she in good health?'

'Father Lefever, someone tried to kidnap her today.'

'Yes,' he said, and shook his head. 'I was also afraid of that.'

'It was pretty serious. Three men came to Prosser's and put her in a sack. Prosser arrived just in time to stop them kidnaping her.'

'He saved her life - they meant to kill her.' Father Lefever fingered the knots on the rope that was tied around his waist. 'It's the Triad,' he said. 'Probably the Sa Ji - they're the fellows who keep order around here.'

Triad: the word was new to me. I told him so.

He said, 'A Chinese secret society.'

'Then it's not political,' I said. 'But Prosser doesn't have any money.'

'Triads don't kidnap only for money,' he said. He showed me the three knots on his rope belt. 'It is like a religious order,' he said, grasping one thick knot. 'This obsesses them. Purity - but their kind of purity. And they punish impurity their own cruel way.

TRIAD

A person is taken and put in a sack and drowned. They call it "death by bath.'"

I saw Evans's point. He had guessed that Rupert had been to bed with her; and he had a good case - fortuitous finding of the girl about to escape, the visit home in the middle of the day: adulterer's luck. And now I understood Pei-Kway's tattoo.

'I suppose if the Triad thought she was Prosser's mistress they'd do that. Punishing the adultery.'

'I didn't say anything about adultery,' said Father Lefever. They don't want her here, that's all.'

'Batu Pahat's not far away.'

'She doesn't live in Batu Pahat. Quite a bit off the road, in fact, at our mission hospital. I doubt that you've ever seen it. No one goes there willingly.'

'A hospital?'

'A leprosarium,' he said.

'She's a leper.' I could not conceal my shock.

But Father Lefever was smiling. 'You see your reaction? You're as bad as the Triad. It's not the girl, but her parents. Both have what we now call Hansen's disease. It's not so much a hospital as a village - very isolated, because people have such a horror of the disease. The girl probably doesn't have it, but what can she do? Her parents want her near them. She ran away six weeks ago. The priests were very reassured to know that she is safe here.'

'What happens now?'

'You should tell your friends something of the girl's background. I'll put them in touch with the leprosarium and they can take it from there.'

'They'll be horrified.'

'Tell them not to worry. Even if she's a carrier it's only infectious if contact has been extensive. She's merely a house guest - there's no problem.'

Walking out to the courtyard, Father Lefever said, 'They are doing great work at Batu Pahat. Why, do you know that two years ago your Mr Leopold visited? He was much impressed. He's made a study of the disease.'

'I don't know him,' I said.

'Yes, you do. Leopold - he and his friend murdered that poor child in Chicago about fifty years ago. It was a celebrated case.'

I delivered the news as tactfully as possible and withdrew,

DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS (i): THE CONSUL'S FILE

wondering what would happen. Though I had said nothing to Evans he knew all about it within a week - not from Prosser but from Pei-Kway. And Pei-Kway had the news that the girl had been sent back. I never found out what had gone on at the Prossers', among those three people; and the Triad was not charged with attempted murder. The only victim was that waif, who was made a leper, and each time I thought of her I saw her radiant, captive, in a new dress entering the leper village to join those two ruined people.

Jan stopped coming to the Club; Rupert was there every night until the bar closed. One weekend he went down to Batu Pahat. We didn't know whether he was seeing the girl or taking a cure, or both. He came back alone and seemed much happier; he talked of his great luck. Evans became fond of saying, 'I give that marriage six months.'

DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS (i): THE CONSUL'S FILE

the more: she never referred to her boss except by calling him 'the Ambassador,' she was discreet, she did not betray the smallest confidence. It was as if she had taken vows, and though celibacy was not one of them, secrecy was. She was so tactful about other people, I knew she would be tactful when my name came up. On the weekends we went to the loud dirty African night-clubs and danced to Congolese bands. I had made love to her on nine occasions -1 kept count as if preparing a defense for myself, because I was sure we were watched. Eight of the occasions were after these dances; the ninth was the night before she left the country on transfer - I remember her suitcase in the living room and the stack of tea-chests awaiting the embassy packers. I was left with the sense that we had been deliberately separated.

She was sent to Vietnam, a promotion of sorts since her salary was practically doubled with hardship pay. There she stayed, in Saigon, while I finished in Kampala and was reassigned to Ayer Hitam. At first she had written to me often; the letters became fewer, and finally they stopped altogether. I thought I had heard the last of her, then the 'Peanuts' envelope came, and the windjammer postcard, the news that she was being sent to Djakarta. Knowing that I was going to meet her again I felt a thrill and a slight ache, the mingled sense of freedom and obligation at seeing a former lover.