“No thank you, Tuan Sutra.”
My word, thought Peter Marlowe, it’s a change to be able to turn down food. But he had eaten his fill, and to eat more would have been impolite. It was obvious that the village was poor and the food would not be wasted.
“I have heard,” he said tentatively, “that the news, the war news, is good.”
“Thus too I have heard, but nothing that a man could repeat. Vague rumors.”
“It is a pity that times are not like those in former years. When a man could have a wireless and hear news or read a newspaper.”
“True. It is a pity.”
Sutra made no sign of understanding. He squatted down on his mat and rolled a cigarette, funnel-like, and began to smoke through his fist, sucking the smoke deep within him.
“We hear bad tales from the camp,” he said at last.
“It is not so bad, Tuan Sutra. We manage, somehow. But not to know how the world is, that is surely bad.”
“I have heard it told that there was a wireless in the camp and the men who owned the wireless were caught. And that they are now in Utram Road Jail.”
“Hast thou news of them? One was a friend of mine.”
“No. We only heard that they had been taken there.”
“I would dearly like to know how they are.”
“Thou knowest the place, and the manner of all men taken there, so thou already knowest that which is done.”
“True. But one hopes that some may be lucky.”
“We are in the hands of Allah, said the Prophet.”
“On whose name be praise.”
Sutra glanced at him again; then, calmly puffing his cigarette, he asked, “Where didst thou learn the Malay?”
Peter Marlowe told him of his life in the village. How he had worked the paddy fields and lived as a Javanese, which is almost the same as living as a Malay. The customs are the same and the language the same, except for the common Western words — wireless in Malaya, radio in Java, motor in Malaya, auto in Java. But the rest was the same. Love, hate, sickness and the words that a man will speak to a man or a man to a woman were the same. The important things were always the same.
“What was the name of thy woman in the village, my son?” Sutra asked. It would have been impolite to ask before, but now, when they had talked of things of the spirit and the world and philosophy and Allah and certain of the sayings of the Prophet, on whose name be praise, now it was not rude to ask.
“Her name was N’ai Jahan.”
The old man sighed contentedly, remembering his youth. “And she loved thee much and long.”
“Yes.” Peter Marlowe could see her clearly.
She had come to his hut one night when he was preparing for bed. Her sarong was red and gold, and tiny sandals peeped from beneath its hem. There was a thin necklace of flowers around her neck and the fragrance of the flowers filled the hut and all his universe.
She had laid her bed roll beside her feet and bowed low before him.
“My name is N’ai Jahan,” she had said. “Tuan Abu, my father, has chosen me to share thy life, for it is not good for a man to be alone. And thou hast been alone for three months now.”
N’ai was perhaps fourteen, but in the sun-rain lands a girl of fourteen is already a woman with the desires of a woman and should be married, or at least with the man of her father’s choice.
The darkness of her skin had a milk sheen to it and her eyes were jewels of topaz and her hands were petals of the fire orchid and her feet slim and her child-woman body was satin and held within it the happiness of a hummingbird. She was a child of the sun and a child of the rain. Her nose was slender and fine and the nostrils delicate.
N’ai was all satin, liquid satin. Firm where it should be firm. Soft where it should be soft. Strong where it should be strong. And weak where it should be weak.
Her hair was raven. Long. A gossamer net to cover her.
Peter Marlowe had smiled at her. He had tried to hide his embarrassment and be like her, free and happy and without shame. She had taken off her sarong and stood proudly before him, and she had said, “I pray that I shall be worthy to make thee happy and make thee soft-sleep. And I beg thee to teach me all the things that thy woman should know to make thee ‘close to God.’”
Close to God, how wonderful, Peter Marlowe thought; how wonderful to describe love as being close to God.
He looked up at Sutra. “Yes. We loved much and long. I thank Allah that I have lived and loved unto eternity. How glorious are the ways of Allah.”
A cloud reached out and grappled with the moon for possession of the night.
“It is good to be a man,” Peter Marlowe said.
“Does thy lack trouble thee tonight?”
“No. In truth. Not tonight.” Peter Marlowe studied the old Malay, liking him for the offer, smoothed by his gentleness.
“Listen, Tuan Sutra. I will open my mind to thee, for I believe that in time we could be friends. Thou couldst in time have time to weigh my friendship and the ‘I’ of me. But war is an assassin of time. Therefore I would speak to thee as a friend of thine, which I am not yet.”
The old man did not reply. He puffed his cigarette and waited for him to continue.
“I have need of a little part of a wireless. Is there a wireless in the village, an old one? Perhaps if it is broken, I could take one such little piece from it.”
“Thou knowest that wirelesses are forbidden by the Japanese.”
“True, but sometimes there are secret places to hide that which is forbidden.”
Sutra pondered. A wireless lay in his hut. Perhaps Allah had sent Tuan Marlowe to remove it. He felt he could trust him because Tuan Abu had trusted him before. But if Tuan Marlowe was caught outside camp with the wireless, inevitably the village would be involved.
To leave the wireless in the village was also dangerous. Certainly a man could bury it deep in the jungle, but that had not been done. It should have been done but had not been done, for the temptation to listen was always too great. The temptation of the women to hear the “sway-music” was too great. The temptation to know when others did not know was great. Truly it is written, Vanity, all is vanity.
Better, he decided, to let the things that are the pink man’s remain with the pink man.
He got up and beckoned Peter Marlowe and led the way through the bead curtains into the darker recesses of the hut. He stopped at the doorway to Sulina’s bedroom. She was lying on the bed, her sarong loose and full around her, her eyes liquid.
“Sulina,” Sutra said, “go onto the veranda and watch.”
“Yes, Father.” Sulina slipped off the bed and retied the sarong and adjusted her little baju jacket. Adjusted it, thought Sutra, perhaps a little too much, so the promise of her breasts showed clearly. Yes, it is surely time that the girl married. But whom? There are no eligible men.
He stood aside as the girl brushed past, her eyes low and demure. But there was nothing demure in the sway of her hips, and Peter Marlowe noticed them too. I should take a stick to her, Sutra thought. But he knew that he should not be angry. She was but a girl on the threshold of womanhood. To tempt is but a woman’s way — to be desired is but a woman’s need.
Perhaps I should give thee to the Englishman. Maybe that would lessen thy appetite. He looks more than man enough! Sutra sighed. Ah, to be so young again.
From under the bed he brought out the small radio.
“I will trust thee. This wireless is good. It works well. You may take it.”
Peter Marlowe almost dropped it in his excitement. “But what about thee? Surely this is beyond price.”