“Were you not worried that he was going to be doing something illegal?” asked Domenica. “After all, it’s a dangerous job.”
“Not all that dangerous,” said Mrs Choo. “I sometimes think that it’s more dangerous to be a train driver or virtually anything else. Most jobs have their dangers.” She paused. “We haven’t lost any of the men over the last five years. Not one.”
Domenica expressed surprise at this. Pursuing large ships on the high seas could hardly be a risk-free occupation, she thought.
After all, some of the vessels would return fire these days. “But what about the illegality?” she pressed. “Aren’t you worried that the men – and that would include your husband – may be arrested?”
Mrs Choo waved a hand in the air. “There’s very little danger of that,” she said. “Nobody has been arrested so far.”
Domenica changed tack. “But do you approve?” she asked.
“Do you think that piracy is right?”
The question did not appear to embarrass Mrs Choo. “I’m not entirely happy about it,” she said. “After all, I come from a very law-abiding family. My father was the headmaster of a school. And my mother’s people were a well-known mercantile family from Kuala Lumpur. But it’s not as if Choo is involved in anything too serious. Just a little piracy.”
Domenica decided that she would not press the matter at this stage. But she would return to it in future, she thought. There 220 Mrs Choo’s Tale
must be substantial dissonance of beliefs there; it would be fascinating to investigate that. There was, though, one question that she wanted to get out of the way now, and so she asked Mrs Choo about the Belgian anthropologist. Had she known him, and how had he died?
She asked the question and then sat back in her chair, awaiting the answer. But for a time there was none. Mrs Choo seemed to freeze at the mention of the Belgian. She had been sitting back in her chair before Domenica asked it; now she sat bolt upright, her hands folded primly at her waist. It was not body language which suggested readiness to talk.
There was silence for a good few moments before Mrs Choo eventually spoke. “That man,” she said coldly, “went back to Belgium. He went back to where all those other Belgians live.
That is what happened to him. More tea?”
Domenica, an astute woman, even in unfamiliar social circumstances, guessed that the conversation was an end. It had been a mistake to stray into matters of controversy so quickly, she thought. People did not appreciate that, she reminded herself.
They liked subtlety. They liked discretion. They liked the circumlocutory question, not the brutal, direct one. So she immediately made a superficial remark about the attractive colour of the orchids on the veranda. Did Mrs Choo know that one could buy such orchids in Edinburgh? They were imported, she believed, from Thailand and Malaysia.
“They are very attractive flowers,” said Mrs Choo, warming a bit. “I am glad that people in Scotland like orchids.”
“Oh, they do,” said Domenica. “They are always talking about them.”
Mrs Choo looked surprised. “I’m astonished,” she said.
“Always talking about orchids? Even the vulgar people?”
Domenica smiled. It was such a strange expression, but she knew exactly what Mrs Choo meant. “Maybe not them,” she conceded.
71. A Formic Discovery
Domenica spent a further hour or so drinking green tea and talking to Mrs Choo. She did not wish to overstay her welcome, but it very soon became apparent to her that her hostess had very little to do. In fact she said as much at one point, when she referred to the heaviness with which time hung on her hands now that her children were at school. But apart from the occasional self-pitying remark, she was a light-hearted companion who made Domenica feel appreciably better about her situation.
And her situation, of course, was that of having been the victim of a rather uncomfortable scorpion sting.
At the end of the hour, though, the swelling on the tip of Domenica’s left foot had diminished considerably, and the stinging pain which had followed upon the initial encounter with the scorpion had all but disappeared. When she rose to leave, she found that it was perfectly possible to put her full weight on her left foot without feeling much discomfort, and her walk back to her own house was a proper walk rather than a hirple.
Ling was waiting for her on the veranda, seated on the planter’s chair, a paperback book on his lap. Domenica did not see him until she had mounted the steps, and she gave a start when he rose to his feet to greet her.
“You frightened me,” she said, “sitting there in the shadows.”
“I’m very sorry,” he said. “I saw you go across to Mrs Choo’s house, and so I thought that I would just wait for you.” He paused, and looked at her foot. “You were limping. I was worried that you had hurt yourself.”
Domenica explained about the scorpion, and Ling bared his feet in sympathy and shared discomfort. “If you see another scorpion,” he said, “you must ring this bell. You see, I have brought you a bell.”
He fished into the pocket of the tunic top he was wearing and extracted a small brass bell. As he gave it to Domenica, he shook it and a penetrating, surprisingly loud sound rang out.
“If I hear that sound,” he said, “then I shall come running over from my place.”
222 A Formic Discovery
Domenica thanked him and took the bell. “I shall only use it in a dire emergency,” she said. “Only then.”
Ling nodded. “If the Belgian had had a bell . . . “ He tailed off, as if he had suddenly remembered that this was a subject that was not to be talked about. But Domenica had heard.
“This Belgian,” she said quickly. “The anthropologist. Mrs Choo said to me . . .”
She did not have the chance to finish the sentence. “Now then,”
said Ling firmly, “we have much to do. Or rather, you have much to do.” He looked about him. “Do you wish me to interpret?”
Domenica shrugged. “Well, I’ll need to meet people,” she said. “I’ve only spoken to Mrs Choo so far, and that was just a general conversation.”
“Mrs Choo is not always accurate,” said Ling, his voice lowered, as if Mrs Choo herself might hear. “She means well, but she is not an accurate person.”
Domenica said nothing. If one was using an interpreter in an anthropological study, it was important that the translation be scrupulously correct. There was nothing worse than an interpreter who had his or her own view of what was what, and this, she feared, might be the case with Ling.
“It’s very kind of you to be concerned about accuracy,” she said gently. “But the important thing for me is that I hear exactly what people say. It doesn’t matter if you think that they are wrong about something. I can work that out later. All I want to hear is what they say.”
Ling frowned. “But what if they’re telling lies?” he asked.
“What if I know that what they are saying is just wrong? I cannot stand by and let people deceive you.”
For a moment Domenica said nothing. This was going to be difficult, she feared, and a measure of tact was required. “Well, how about this, Ling?” she said. “You can tell me exactly what somebody says. Then, afterwards, you can tell me what you think they should have said. In that way we can keep the two things separate.”
Ling smiled. “That is a very good idea,” he said. “You can hear what the vulgar people say first; then you can get the truth from me.”
Preparations for Paris 223
Domenica nodded enthusiastically. But she had noted, again, the use of the term “vulgar people”, the expression used by Mrs Choo earlier, when they had discussed orchids. This was obviously a literal translation from the local Chinese dialect. Unless, of course, Ling thought that the people of the village were truly vulgar. That was always a possibility.