The Horatio Stubbs Trilogy

by Brian Aldiss

  Too violent to last, the rainstorm was fading away. The dripping into the landing basin became more slowly spaced and deeper in tone. Daisy could be heard singing softly to her baby on the other side of the partition.

  ‘There’s a good film showing at the Deli Cinema tomorrow evening. Shall we go and see it?’

  ‘I don’t want see any films. Why you change the subject? Why you are ashamed to be see’ with me in London if you don’t mind in Medan? You think I not pretty enough for Mayfair or something, you bastard? Anyhow, what is this rotten film you mention?’

  ‘Melvyn Douglas and Joan Crawford in They All Kissed the Bride. Comedy.’

  ‘Aei-ya, I love Joan Crawford. Really great, though not so hot as Rita. Will you take me along, in spite my bad temper, honest?’

  ‘What do I get if I do?’

  ‘You so kind man, Horry. Though you do not love me, you so sweet man.’ She rubbed her face against mine so that one wing of that night-black hair swept my cheek, while her naughty little hand teased my prick again. As I began to respond, she rolled over so that she was half on top of me, opening her legs and gently chafing her fanny against my thigh.

  Her titties swung into my grasp like two mangoes, her nipples became imprisoned between my thumb and first finger. In the heat, we were juicy together. She had that beautiful clear scent, which was in part an artificial aid but mainly emanated from her body. As we started to stir, the covering slid from us on to the floor. Shadows lay across our flesh. Part-seen, Margey was wholly lovely.

  She had my prick in a curious grip, her thumb pointing up its stem. Up came her right leg and – pwop! – she’d slipped cock and thumb – yet it was the tiniest little delicate petalled hole you ever saw – up that succulent passage and was immediately working on my knob, while smiling impudently into my face, as if determined to sharpen the blunt end to a fine point. Sliding over on the bed, I pulled her right on top of me, grunting at her in encouragement.

  ‘Aei-ya, you muscle-brute!’ She bounced away so positively that I was afraid, as I counter-thrust from below, that I would lose her. Her legs were spread wide now, she clutched at my torso. Working my hands down between her little tight buttocks, I nailed her in place with one finger up her bumhole. As ever, that induced tremendous voltage on both sides. She always came when I did that. ‘Illegal, illegal!’ she cried. We went over the top.

  We were having a smoke. The downpour ceased. Margey got up and opened her little window. Draughts of cool air blew in, tickling our flesh. Outside, water dripped from innumerable broken gutters. From Daisy in the next compartment came only silence; she and her baby were asleep. Checking with my watches, I found the Amsterdam one had stopped; I wound it vigorously. The Indian one indicated a time somewhere near eleven-twenty, but the hour hand looked a bit loose. It was time I thought about getting back to the billet.

  A shot sounded only a couple of streets away. It was answered almost immediately by rifle fire. The first weapon replied, then a sten opened up, firing bursts. I stubbed my fag out and jumped to the window, pushing the lamp and custard powder away so that I could lean out.

  ‘Horry, you get shot, come in!’ Margey called.

  In the alley, all was quiet. The action was taking place in the street beyond.

  Running feet could be heard. A dog was barking. The sten opened up again for one brief burst, then a vehicle engine started – a Jeep by the sound of it. Whatever vehicle it was, it belted up Bootha Street from the direction of the Kesawan, and I caught sight of the wash of its lights as it shot past the entry to the side street in which we were ensconced. Then silence. A minute later, I could hear its engine distantly, still going like the clappers. No more shots.

  Night airs moved against my cheek. Wild dogs yelped dispersedly from the direction of the Deli River. Incredible to think that next Monday night – only next Monday night – I would be away from here for ever, waiting in Nee Soon stinking transit camp for the boat to take me home. It was like a sentence of death; all this would exist only as something shrivelling slowly in memory, flowers in an empty vase.

  Margey smacked my haunches.

  ‘Why you must stick your head out there, you foolish soldier? Why they shoot so close here? Never before so close, I think. Aei-ya, never any peace, nowhere! After the Nips are beaten, now come these terrible Indonesians under Dr Soekarno, to make new troubles. Will they shoot again, Horry?’

  ‘That’ll be it for tonight.’ I drew the curtains and put the lamp back. ‘Probably just some trigger-happy MPS, or some nut trying something … I’d better get on back.’

  She clung to me with fierce strength.

  ‘Damn you, why you have no proper feeling? What do men think, blast them? Listen to me, Horry, I no speak more of coming to live London with you. Not London, not Singapore, not Tsingtao, not any place on this round globe. But I much hurt in my heart, okay. You know I am educated girl with Shanghai degree. I understand more than you how us two live different places – me here, you there – only – no, I no can find words, my Horry, tell you all things … Fuck it, forget what I say … Just stay here with me in this humble room tonight, all night. Just sleep and love, no more jig-jig, just stay in Margey’s arms, my English love.’

  I looked down at her, half in anger.

  ‘You know I could lose my tapes if I was found staying out all night with no pass.’

  She waved her arms above her head, and then had to clutch at the sheet.

  ‘What’s that answer? Oh, you time-expired man, you not care what army do – how often I hear you say that? Yet for Margey not one thing you do, not one single thing! You think I utter fool because I no can speak English so proper!’

  ‘Sorry, Margey, I’ll stay the night if you want. You never asked me before, that’s all.’

  I clung to her, feeling all her strength and energy. Her arms went round my neck. ‘I get you fruit,’ she whispered.

  ‘You are a terrible girl, Margey. I love you more than anything.’

  As I sat down on the bed, she looked dubiously at me, smoothing down her silky black hair. Now she saw that she was to have her immediate wish, she was calm. Her lips came together, her forehead wrinkled in a thoughtful frown.

  ‘Now stay here, Horry, you devil. Not look out window. I go get you fruit and bread and beer. Then we smoke cigarette and sleep all night together.’

  Still frowning, she slipped into her knickers and the towelling robe.

  From her finger, a cautionary wag before she disappeared. I heard her carry the bowl of rainwater from outside our door and fling it out of a window.

  As soon as she was gone, anxiety possessed me. I pulled the curtains over the window and began to dress with immense haste.

  It was not that I distrusted Margey. But I suddenly felt myself alone in the heart of a hostile city. Even in the peaceful Chinese quarter, army training warned me to remain alert for danger. Of all the races churning about in Medan, the Chinese had least reason to hate the British, but they had their survival to see to, and I was one man on his own.

  Silence from the other side of the partition. I stood for a moment, then buckled on my belt and revolver. I took the gun out of its holster, walked out to the landing, started to descend the ladder, peering through the shrouded dimness as I went.

  As for Margey’s despair … How could she exist without resorting to prostitution, penniless and unprotected as she was? Fat was little use to her, except as a pimp. She must be a whore, however desperately she tried to hide the truth from me; why else her perpetual obsession with disease? Besides, Johnny Mercer had been slipping her a length before I arrived in Medan. If Johnny, many others, white, brown, yellow. Some of them would have a personal interest in this house, and would know when I, Margey’s current purchaser, was in occupation. The bitch could get me shot.

  Dear Ghost of Margey, that was how I calculated then. I shied from the thought of your whoredom, I understood little. I was a cold young man from Europe, brought up with a traditional mi
ddle-class suspicion of sexuality. I thought I had renounced all that crap, but it lay under my surface like permafrost, even when the spring of your body was on mine.

  On the floor below, people were already in bed, horizontal behind their dividing curtains. Their presence could be felt. The air was thick with a sweet Chinese smell, a mixture of cooking, sweat, perfumed soap, and revolting Jap cigarettes. Taking courage from my revolver, I continued on down to the ground floor.

  It was very dark, one naked bulb burning in the living area, a small oil lamp dim in the kitchen area. Night had changed the almost changeless scene. The card-players had gone. A battered bamboo screen had been drawn round the sofa; behind the screen, Auntie slept restlessly, dreaming of faraway lands.

  Two men sat at the table. One was Fat Sian himself, still in greasy string vest and shorts, smoking with his cigarette almost vertical in his mouth. The other was a Chinese I had noticed about the place before. They had been talking quietly together over a bottle of Red Fox; now they lapsed into silence and watched me.

  I went over to them, ostentatiously holding the revolver and enjoying my role.

  ‘Man shoot,’ Fat said. ‘Bang, bang, bang.’ He raised his plump right hand and fired it three times in order to get his meaning across. In addition, he smiled and nodded.

  ‘That’s right,’ I agreed. ‘Merdeka, bang, bang, bang …’ Merdeka was the Malayan cry for freedom, the slogan of the Indonesian campaign.

  I gave Fat’s companion a hard look. He returned it. He was a slender man, neatly dressed with a white shirt, the sleeves of which were rolled down against mosquito bites. He wore gold-rimmed spectacles. His hair was brushed to the back of his head.

  Margey came out from the rear, carrying a plate of apples and mangusteen and a glass of beer. She looked tense, smiling at me without speaking.

  ‘I’m checking to see that the place is properly secure,’ I said. ‘Ground floor windows all shut.’ Walking across to the door into the lane, I found that it had no lock and the bolt was broken. There was only a simple catch. Fat said something, laughing, and Margey translated. ‘Fat Sian sleep in his bed so no man ever break in here. He pull bed in front this door. China people all very scare Malayan murder-thief.’

  ‘The back?’ I crossed to the kitchen area. A door with cracked glass panels led into a cluttered little yard surrounded by other yards and premises. I could make out puddles on the stones. My expert eye told me that in case of trouble in the front one could escape out the back. It also noted a platoon of cockroaches reconnoitring round Margey’s sink. I tried the lock on the door. Although it was secure enough, an armchair had been pushed against the door, another indication of Fat’s commendable concern with security.

  ‘Who is this man with your brother-in-law?’ I asked Margey, pointing the gun at the man with the gold-rimmed spectacles.

  At this point, Margey showed extreme embarrassment, and put the refreshments down on a cupboard to recover herself. I stared at her in surprise, never having seen her behave like this before. I was immediately suspicious.

  ‘Come on then, sod it, who is he?’

  ‘He is only journalist …’

  At this juncture, the man in spectacles spoke up for himself. He said, ‘You have no need to shout or shoot, sir, I am only a journalist, as Tung Su Chi says.’

  Acting heavy, I walked slowly over and looked at him. He countered by rising from the table as I approached and regarding me with a half-smile.

  ‘You speak English. What’s your name? Do you live here?’

  ‘I live in Medan. Not particularly through choice.’

  I moved a pace nearer. ‘Do you live in this particular fucking building?’

  ‘I live nearby, sir.’

  ‘Is he a relation of yours?’ I asked Fat.

  Fat had been devoting his attention to smoking and blinking. He continued to blink as he said, ‘No, sir, no rela’. On’y fren’. He Tiger Balm, run China newspaper.’

  The other man produced a grubby visiting card. ‘You see, sir, I am known by my journalist’s name of Tiger Balm. My name is Chae Lieng Sing, and I am acting editor of New South China Times, published from Boulan Way, where I also live.’

  Glancing hopefully at my two watches, I said, ‘It’s nearly curfew.’

  Tiger Balm nodded. ‘I shall be on my way soon. Meanwhile, why don’t you sit down with us? Su Chi, please bring over your friend’s beer.’

  There was something mocking in the way he spoke. I mistrusted his flawless English, and the point he made by addressing Margey by her Chinese name. She came forward with the beer and the fruit. Fat immediately seized on an apple and began to munch before his sister-in-law could fade into the background. I looked for a signal from her but she gave none.

  Lifting his glass, Tiger Balm said, ‘It is a pleasure to talk with you. Shooting sometimes makes for friendliness. May I offer a Singapore cigarette?’

  Perhaps it was time to make amends. I sat down opposite the two Chinese and pulled out the field-dressing tin which I used for a cigarette case. ‘Have an English fag.’

  All three of us lit up. Margey stood watching in the background, saying nothing.

  ‘Let me ask you why the British authorities do not stop all the shooting,’ said Tiger Balm. ‘Surely they could do so if they wished.’

  ‘It’s only a few extremists. They live in the kampongs and come into town to cause trouble. Things are far worse in Java, as I expect you know.’

  He shook the match until it went out, in an idly contemptuous gesture.

  ‘Of course I know it. Nevertheless, what happens in Java and what happens here is all part of one process, the endeavour of the Soekarno Freedom party to rid NEI of colonial rule. It is not just a matter of a few extremists, as you represent.’

  ‘Bang, bang, bang, “stremis”,’ echoed Fat. We ignored the man, and he gradually disappeared behind a wreath of cigarette smoke.

  Swigging down the beer, I said heavily, ‘As you probably realise, the Japs here started handing out their weapons to the natives as soon as they were defeated, to stir up trouble for their victors. The British mission when we arrived here last October was simply to pack the Japs off to Japan and let the Dutch resume their rule. What you might call restoring the status quo, eh? But nobody wants the Dutch back, so we have to hang around and keep the peace as best we can.’

  As I peeled a mangusteen, Tiger Balm pressed his argument.

  ‘Excuse me if I say so, but you do not keep the peace so very well, sir. In Sourabaya, your troops fight pitched battles with the extremists. You bomb towns, kill innocent people. You also use the defeated Nipponese to help. Why are you allowed to ally yourself with a defeated and disgraced enemy in that way? It brings unpopularity.’

  ‘The real wars are over, in case you’ve forgotten. We had Hitler to fight as well, you know. Now we want to pack up and go home. We’re short of men, owing to the demob programme, so we – well, the trouble is that the local population encourages the extremists. You have to inflict peace on them.’ I laughed.

  Silence reigned, inside and out.

  He smoked his cigarette concentratedly and made a comment in Chinese to Fat. To me he said, ‘You see, sir, what you have to say about the situation is not at all exact. You must face one fact, that the old world of the nineteen-thirties is totally shattered. None of us can go back to those times. Demons are loose.’

  He paused as if considering what to say, tapping impatiently with long fingers on the table. ‘Myself, I am a wanderer on the earth’s face, but let me give the example of the family who employs me, who owns the New South China Times. They remain here in Sumatra under Dutch rule since five generations. They come from Swatow, a fine port you should visit if ever you would. They are Overseas Chinese, not mere refugees like Fat Sian and I. But who can say what will happen to them before the end of 1946? How can they go back to China, where civil war rages? Sumatra is their place, they understand everything about it …

  ‘We sit here,
you and I, and talk in this poor building. It once housed a spare – what do you say? – an auxiliary printing press of the firm’s. The press was stolen, the mechanic who guarded it is killed. Many unlawful things happen …’

  ‘Look, the curfew –’

  He sighed. ‘I see you do not care to learn. Please give me another cigarette. I mean no harm, I even admire the British in a way. But I wish you understand my meaning. You hear the shooting, you enjoy certain pleasures with Su Chi. You think you are in old Medan.

  ‘Let me tell you, sir, that you are not. You are in a new place, and the hairs on your head should be standing upright in alarm.’ He laughed with sudden ferocity. ‘You are in a snake’s den. You are in a town of the new Indonesian Republic! You appear not to understand that. Do you know that Dr Soekarno declared the Netherlands East Indies dead and gone in 1945? We now remain in a militant new republic, with its own flag, under which certainly no colonialists will be allowed. They will kill off all white foreigners, ten to one.’

  It irritated me to be lectured at. Swigging the beer, I said, dismissively, ‘Well, it’s their bloody country, after all.’

  He laughed, and again made a rapid remark in Chinese to Fat, who blinked expertly. ‘My godfather, is that the British point of view, sir, the famous British sense of justice? Murder is okay on home ground, is that what you say? If so, why don’t you clear off, every one of you? Or if you do not clear off, why don’t you send more troops, Indians if necessary, and crush this whole damned Soekarno Merdeka movement once for all? Do one thing or the other, for god’s sake!’

  ‘Look here, it’s a difficult –’

  ‘Restore real peace, get business picking up again, introduce a proper legal currency, open up trade with outside world. Then if local discontent dies, support for Dr Soekarno dies.’

  ‘It’s a difficult political situation for the British. You know the name of Jinnah?’