With a straight face, "I'll try," Will had promised.
"Anyhow, if you ever do manage to land in Pala, make a bee-line for the palace. The Rani-that's their Queen Mother-is an old friend of mine. Met her for the first time six years ago at Lugano. She was staying there with old Voegeli, the investment banker. His girl friend is interested in spiritualism and they staged a seance for me. A trumpet medium, genuine Direct Voice-only unfortunately it was all in German. Well, after the lights were turned on, I had a long talk with her."
"With the trumpet?"
"No, no. With the Rani. She's a remarkable woman. You know, the Crusade of the Spirit."
"Was that her invention?"
"Absolutely. And personally I prefer it to Moral Rearmament. It goes down better in Asia. We had a long talk about it that evening. And after that we talked about oil. Pala's full of oil. Southeast Asia Petroleum has been trying to get in on it for years. So have all the other companies. Nothing doing. No oil concessions to anyone. It's their fixed policy. But the Rani doesn't agree with it. She wants to see the oil doing some good in the world. Financing the Crusade of the Spirit, for example. So, as I say, if ever you get to Pala, make a beeline for the palace. Talk to her. Get the inside story about the men who make the decisions. Find out if there's a pro-oil minority and ask how we could help them to carry on the good work." And he had ended by promising Will a handsome bonus if his efforts should be crowned with success. Enough to give him a full year of freedom. "No more reporting. Nothing but High Art, Art, A-ART." And he had uttered a scatalogical laugh as though the word had an s at the end of it and not a t. Unspeakable creature! But all the same he wrote for the unspeakable creature's vile papers and was ready, for a bribe, to do the vile creature's dirty work. And now, incredibly, here he was on Palanese soil. As luck would have it, Providence had been on his side-for the express purpose, evidently, of perpetrating one of those sinister practical jokes which are Providence's specialty.
He was called back to present reality by the sound of Mary Sarojini's shrill voice. "Here we are!"
Will raised his head again. The little procession had turned off the highway and was passing through an opening in a white stuccoed wall. To the left, on a rising succession of terraces, stood lines of low buildings shaped by peepul trees. Straight ahead an avenue of tall palms sloped down to a lotus pool, on the further side of which sat a huge stone Buddha. Turning to the left, they climbed between flowering trees and through blending perfumes to the first terrace. Behind a fence, motionless except for his ruminating jaws, stood a snow-white humped bull, godlike in his serene and mindless beauty. Europa's lover receded into the past, and here were a brace of Juno's birds trailing their feathers over the grass. Mary Sarojini unlatched the gate of a small garden.
"My bungalow," said Dr. MacPhail, and turning to Muru-gan, "Let me help you to negotiate the steps."
4
Tom Krishna and Mary Sarojini had gone to take their siesta with the gardener's children next door. In her darkened living room Susila MacPhail sat alone with her memories of past happiness and the present pain of her bereavement. The clock in the kitchen struck the half hour. It was time for her to go. With a sigh she rose, put on her sandals and walked out into the tremendous glare of the tropical afternoon. She looked up at the sky. Over the volcanoes enormous clouds were climbing towards the zenith. In an hour it would be raining. Moving from one pool of shadow to the next, she made her way along the tree-lined path. With a sudden rattle of quills a flock of pigeons broke out of one of the towering peepul trees. Green-winged and coral-billed, their breasts changing color in the light like mother-of-pearl, they flew off towards the forest. How beautiful they were, how unutterably lovely! Susila was on the point of turning to catch the expression of delight on Dugald's upturned face; then, checking herself, she looked down at the ground. There was no Dugald any more; there was only this pain, like the pain of the phantom limb that goes on haunting the imagination, haunting even the perceptions of those who have undergone an amputation. "Amputation," she whispered to herself, "amputation ..." Feeling her eyes fill with tears, she broke off. Amputation was no excuse for self-pity and, for all that Dugald was dead, the birds were as beautiful as ever and her children, all the other children-, had as much need to be loved and helped and taught. If his absence was so constantly present, that was to remind her that henceforward she must love for two, live for two, take thought for two, must perceive and understand not merely with her own eyes and mind but with the mind and eyes that had been his and, before the catastrophe, hers too in a communion of delight and intelligence.
But here was the doctor's bungalow. She mounted the steps, crossed the veranda and walked into the living room. Her father-in-law was seated near the window, sipping cold tea from an earthenware mug and reading the Revue de Mycologie. He looked up as she approached, and gave her a welcoming
smile.
"Susila, my dear! I'm so glad you were able to come."
She bent down and kissed his stubbly cheek.
"What's all this I hear from Mary Sarojini?" she asked. "Is it true she found a castaway?"
"From England-but via China, Rendang, and a shipwreck. A journalist."
"What's he like?"
"The physique of a Messiah. But too clever to believe in God or be convinced of his own mission. And too sensitive, even if he were convinced, to carry it out. His muscles would like to act and his feelings would like to believe; but his nerve endings and his cleverness won't allow it."
"So I suppose he's very unhappy."
"So unhappy that he has to laugh like a hyena."
"Does he know he laughs like a hyena?"
"Knows and is rather proud of it. Even makes epigrams about it. 'I'm the man who won't take yes for an answer.' "
"Is he badly hurt?" she asked.
"Not badly. But he's running a temperature. I've started him on antibiotics. Now it's up to you to raise his resistance and give the vis medicatrix naturae a chance."
"I'll do my best." Then, after a silence, "I went to see Lak-shmi," she said, "on my way back from school."
"How did you find her?"
"About the same. No, perhaps a little weaker than yesterday.'
"That's what I felt when I saw her this morning."
"Luckily the pain doesn't seem to get any worse. We can still handle it psychologically. And today we worked on the nausea. She was able to drink something. I don't think there'll be any more need for intravenous fluids."
"Thank goodness!" he said. "Those IV's were a torture. Such enormous courage in the face of every real danger; but whenever it was a question of a hypodermic or a needle in a vein, the most abject and irrational terror."
He thought of the time, in the early days of their marriage, when he had lost his temper and called her a coward for making such a fuss. Lakshmi had cried and, having submitted to her martyrdom, had heaped coals of fire upon his head by begging to be forgiven. "Lakshmi, Lakshmi . . ." And now in a few days she would be dead. After thirty-seven years. "What did you talk about?" he asked aloud.
"Nothing in particular," Susila answered. But the truth was that they had talked about Dugald and that she couldn't bring herself to repeat what had passed between them. "My first baby," the dying woman had whispered. "I didn't know that babies could be so beautiful." In their skull-deep, skull-dark sockets the eyes had brightened, the bloodless lips had smiled. "Such tiny, tiny hands," the faint hoarse voice went on, "such a greedy little mouth!" And an almost fleshless hand tremblingly touched the place where, before last year's operation, her breast had been. "I never knew," she repeated. And, before the event, how could she have known? It had been a revelation, an apocalypse of touch and love. "Do you know what I mean?" And Susila had nodded. Of course she knew-had known it in relation to her own two children, known it, in those other apocalypses of touch and love, with the man that little Dugald of the tiny hands and greedy mouth had grown into. "I used to be afraid for him," the dying woman had whispered. "He was so strong, such a tyrant, he could have hurt and bullied and destroyed. If he'd married another woman . . . I'm so thankful it was you!" From the place where the breast had been the fleshless hand moved out and came to rest on Susila's arm. She had bent her head and kissed it. They were both crying.