That was the beginning of the long educational process that turned us at last into a bilingual people. We speak Palanese when we're cooking, when we're telling funny stories, when we're talking about love or making it. (Incidentally, we have the richest erotic and sentimental vocabulary in Southeast Asia.) But when it comes to business, or science, or speculative philosophy, we generally speak English. And most of us prefer to write in English. Every writer needs a literature as his frame of reference; a set of models to conform to or depart from. Pala had good painting and sculpture, splendid architecture, wonderful dancing, subtle and expressive music-but no real literature, no national poets or dramatists or storytellers. Just bards reciting Buddhist and Hindu myths; just a lot of monks preaching sermons and splitting metaphysical hairs. Adopting English as our stepmother tongue, we gave ourselves a literature with one of the longest pasts and certainly the widest of presents. We gave ourselves a background, a spiritual yardstick, a repertory of styles and techniques, an inexhaustible source of inspiration. In a word, we gave ourselves the possibility of being creative in a field where we had never been creative before. Thanks to the Raja and my great-grandfather, there's an Anglo-Palanese literature- of which, I may add, Susila here is a contemporary light."
"On the dim side," she protested.
Dr. MacPhail shut his eyes, and, smiling to himself, began to recite:
"Thus-Gone to Thus-Gone, I with a Buddha's hand Offer the unplucked flower, the frog's soliloquy Among the lotus leaves, the milk-smeared mouth At my full breast and love and, like the cloudless Sky that makes possible mountains and setting moon, This emptiness that is the womb of love This poetry of silence."
He opened his eyes again. "And not only this poetry of silence," he said. "This science, this philosophy, this theology of silence. And now it's high time you went to sleep." He rose and moved towards the door. "I'll go and get you a glass of fruit juice."
9
" 'Patriotism is not enough.' But neither is anything else. Science is not enough, religion is not enough, art is not enough, politics and economics are not enough, nor is love, nor is duty, nor is action however disinterested, nor, however sublime, is contemplation. Nothing short of everything will really do."
"Attention!" shouted a faraway bird.
Will looked at his watch. Five to twelve. He closed his Notes on What's What and picking up the bamboo alpenstock which had once belonged to Dugald MacPhail, he set out to keep his appointment with Vijaya and Dr. Robert. By the short cut the main building of the Experimental Station was less than a quarter of a mile from Dr. Robert's bungalow. But the day was oppressively hot, and there were two flights of steps to be negotiated. For a convalescent with his right leg in a splint, it was a considerable journey.
Slowly, painfully, Will made his way along the winding path and up the steps. At the top of the second flight he halted to take breath and mop his forehead; then keeping close to the wall, where there was still a narrow strip of shade, he moved on towards a signboard marked laboratory.
The door beneath the board was ajar; he pushed it open and found himself on the threshold of a long, high-ceilinged room. There were the usual sinks and worktables, the usual glass-fronted cabinets full of bottles and equipment, the usual smells of chemicals and caged mice. For the first moment Will was under the impression that the room was untenanted, but no-almost hidden from view by a bookcase that projected at right angles from the wall, young Murugan was seated at a table, intently reading. As quietly as he could-for it was always amusing to take people by surprise-Will advanced into the room. The whirring of an electric fan covered the sound of his approach, and it was not until he was within a few feet of the bookcase that Murugan became aware of his presence. The boy started guiltily, shoved his book with panic haste into a leather briefcase and, reaching for another, smaller volume that lay open on the table beside the briefcase, drew it within reading range. Only then did he turn to face the intruder.
Will gave him a reassuring smile. "It's only me." The look of angry defiance gave place, on the boy's face, to one of relief.
"I thought it was ..." He broke off, leaving the sentence unfinished.
"You thought it was someone who would bawl you out for not doing what you're supposed to do-is that it?"
Murugan grinned and nodded his curly head.
"Where's everyone else?" Will asked.
"They're out in the fields-pruning or pollinating or something." His tone was contemptuous.
"And so, the cats being away, the mouse duly played. What were you studying so passionately?"
With innocent disingenuousness, Murugan held up the book he was now pretending to read. "It's called Elementary Ecology" he said.
"So I see," said Will. "But what I asked you was what were you reading?"
"Oh, that," Murugan shrugged his shoulders. "You wouldn't be interested."
"I'm interested in everything that anyone tries to hide," Will assured him. "Was it pornography?"
Murugan dropped his playacting and looked genuinely offended. "Who do you take me for?"
Will was on the point of saying that he took him for an average boy, but checked himself. To Colonel Dipa's pretty young friend, "average boy" might sound like an insult or an innuendo. Instead he bowed with mock politeness. "I beg Your Majesty's pardon," he said. "But I'm still curious," he added in another tone. "May I?" He laid a hand on the bulging briefcase.
Murugan hesitated for a moment, then forced a laugh. "Go ahead."
"What a tome!" Will pulled the ponderous volume out of the bag and laid it on the table. "Sears, Roebuck and Co.," he read aloud, "Spring and Summer Catalog."
"It's last year's," said Murugan apologetically. "But I don't suppose there's been much change since then."
"There," Will assured him, "you're mistaken. If the styles weren't completely changed every year, there'd be no reason for buying new things before the old ones are worn out. You don't understand the first principles of modern consumerism." He opened at random. " 'Soft Platform Wedgies in Wide Widths.' " Opened at another place and found the description and image of a Whisper-Pink Bra in Dacron and Pima cotton. Turned the page and here, memento mori, was what the bra-buyer would be wearing twenty years later-A Strap-Controlled Front, Cupped to Support Pendulous Abdomen.