The Malayan Trilogy

by Anthony Burgess

  “Class stand!” yelled Kadir.

  Small brown faces and an occasional yellow one, wide eyes and wondering mouths. They stood and sat down again. “Look here,” said Crabbe, “you can’t use words like that.” The children strained to hear his low voice.

  “Chaos? It is not a rude word.”

  “No, no, I mean the other ones. ‘Bastard’ and ‘bloody and so on. Those aren’t used in polite society.” Crabbe was reasonable, affable, smiling, catching the breath of stale hops from Abdul Kadir.

  “Those are common English words. All sailors in the British Navy use those words. I teach these children English as it is spoken, not from dusty books.”

  “Yes, yes.” Crabbe was patient. “But don’t you see …”

  At the end of the long morning the headache raged and the tin of cigarettes was nearly empty. His task seemed hopeless. One young Tamil teacher had assimilated the sound-system of English so thoroughly to that of his mother-tongue that none of the Chinese and Malay children understood him. Others could not be heard beyond the first two rows. A lot of them were teaching nonsense—New York is the capital of America; Shakespeare lived in the Middle Ages; the Malays founded Singapore; “without” is a pronoun; the kidneys secrete bile. And a loose fluid arithmetic flourished in the number-melting heat, so that most answers could be marked right. Before the final bell a bright Malay boy of fourteen came in. He wanted time off to attend a “Voice of Youth” rally in Tahi Panas. The rally was to be held on a Saturday, a holiday on the West Coast but not in the strict Muslim State of Dahaga. He could travel down on the Friday, he said, and be back in time for work on the Sunday.

  “But your work comes first,” said Crabbe. “You can’t afford to start taking time off at this stage in your career.”

  “This is an important meeting, sir. It is to assert the solidarity of Malay youth against the intruder.”

  “The intruder?”

  “The non-Malays, sir. Such as the white man, sir.”

  “It doesn’t seem a very laudable sort of thing to do. At least, it doesn’t seem important enough to justify my giving you a day off.”

  “I can’t go, sir?”

  “I think it would be better if you didn’t.”

  The Malay boy’s eyes melted and his mouth drooped. “Have a heart, sir,” he said. “For fuck’s sake.”

  That night Crabbe went to the Grand Hotel to meet Hardman. Hardman had seemed shy of seeing him, and Crabbe had received no invitation to the wedding celebrations. But they had encountered each other on Jalari Laksamana in an ironmonger’s shop, and Crabbe had suggested a few drinks together, finally fixing a time and a place. At the bar of the Grand, under the match-dousing fan and the cheeping house-lizards, surrounded by throat-hawkings and naked Chinese calendars, they drank beer and so warmed up the engine.

  “But why did you come here?” said Crabbe.

  “I might ask the same of you. Neither of us is exactly a Colonial type.”

  “Oh, it’s a long story. My wife died.”

  “I thought there must be something like that. I puzzled about it quite a bit. There was that dark girl, the one who did music, wasn’t there? You were always pretty thick, and I remember someone telling me during the war that you’d got married. I’m sorry.”

  “Oh, one gets over it. It was a ghastly business. A car smash. The damn thing went into a river. I got out all right. It was January, a very cold January. Then I married Fenella. I’d known her before: she was a postgraduate student when I was lecturing. I just couldn’t get warm again. I used to shiver in bed. It was partly accident my coming here—you know, answering an advertisement when I was tight—and also a kind of heliotropism, turning towards the heat. I just can’t stand the cold.”

  “I can understand that. Look here, do you remember what I used to look like in the old days?”

  “You were always pretty pale. I don’t think you’ve changed much.”

  “You don’t notice anything queer round my nose and mouth?”

  “Oh, that. I thought it was a sort of peeling, sunburn or something. Isn’t it?”

  Hardman grinned and thrust his disfigurement into a full beer-glass. Then he said, “I had to get out because of this. Damned egotism, I suppose. It was a ’plane crash. Anyway, I’d worked up such a beautiful mumbling self-consciousness about it that I became pretty useless in court. You know, like Oscar Wilde, covering my mouth up with my hand and muffling all my rhetoric. Redshaw and Tubb in Singapore wanted somebody to join them, so I came out. My point was, I suppose, that all white men here are white to the same degree, and people—Asians, I mean—would stare anyway. So what the hell. Look, let’s have some whisky.”

  “Yes. Whisky. And now you’re married.”

  “Now I’m married. I’m sorry I didn’t invite you to the reception.”

  “As you said. Did you have the usual Malay business—you in uniform and kris, recalling the glories of ancient Malacca, and the medicine-man’s mumbo-jumbo?”

  “You don’t have that when one of you’s been married before. Just a contract and then orange crush for the mosque officials and then alcohol for the rest of the boys. It strikes me I’m a better Muslim than most of them. God, what a night. Abdul Kadir …”

  “Yes. For fuck’s sake.”

  “Oh, they’re all right. They’re a bit more alive than the Club boys.”

  “And the wife?”

  “You know, she’s pretty good.” Hardman drank some whisky and water. “I think it’s going to work out all right. Mind you, Malay women are pretty demanding.”

  “So I’ve heard.” Crabbe opened his mouth to speak of Rahimah, then shut it again. She obviously still meant something to him.

  “It’s not lasciviousness, not really. It’s a means of checking whether you’ve been with another woman.”

  On that cue-line Mrs. Talbot entered. She swung open the bar-door and stood glaring, her eyes a little out of focus, her lipstick smeary, dishevelled. She was wearing a smart crisp cocktail dress, patterned with lozenges of local silver thread. She had evidently been drinking. She said:

  “Where is he?”

  “Who?” said Crabbe politely, coldly, standing.

  “You know damn well. Bannon-Fraser. He’s upstairs, isn’t he?”

  “Madam,” said Hardman, “I’ve just no idea.” At a single table a couple of Chinese drinkers looked up incuriously. Then Auntie appeared, huge, with great welcoming arms. “Ah,” she said, “this is great pleasure. You do not honour us as often as you should.”

  “Is Mr. Bannon-Fraser upstairs?”

  “Mr. Bannon-Fraser is not here, not to-night.”

  “He’s upstairs, with that bitch.”

  “He is with no bitch, at least here he is not. Elsewhere he may be.”

  “I’m going up to look.” Mrs. Talbot made towards the main room.

  “That is private,” said Auntie. “That is for residents.” Her bulk barred the way. “You come over here to the bar and have a little drink. With me.” She steered Mrs. Talbot across, her beef-red ham-hand on the fragile arm. Mrs. Talbot flopped on to a bar-stool, elbows on the counter, then started to snivel. “All alike,” she sniffed. “You’re all alike.” Then she turned on Hardman viciously. “You with your bloody Catholic virtue,” she said. “Not too virtuous to …”

  “All right.” Hardman snapped it out. “Not here.”

  “What’s it going to be, my dear?” said Auntie ingratiatingly. “Gin?”

  “Double whisky.”

  “Look here,” said Hardman to Crabbe, “I’ve got to go. I promised to be back by ten.” He winked and jerked his head in the direction of Mrs. Talbot’s back, bowed over the bar. “Drop in at the office sometime.”

  “I’m going myself,” said Crabbe. Then he looked at Mrs. Talbot, wife of the State Education Officer, getting drunk, not herself, alone, not fit to drive. “In a minute or so,” he added. Hardman winked again and went out quietly. Auntie waved, winking, conspiratorial.

&
nbsp; “It is so nice to see you here,” said Auntie to Mrs. Talbot. “It would be nice to see you more often. Sometimes we have parties, with nice people from Bangkok and Penang. They like to meet nice European people.”

  “Oh God, God,” said Mrs. Talbot. “I don’t want to meet anyone ever again.” She drained her whisky and called “Boy!”

  “Look here,” said Crabbe, “have a tomato juice. Chilled. Have you eaten anything?”

  She laughed without mirth. “There’s always eating in our house. Non-stop performance. For God’s sake don’t mention food to me.”

  “Don’t have any more whisky,” said Crabbe. “Please.”

  She lolled her head at him. “You trying to protect me from the worse side of my nature or something?” She lisped slightly, little-girlish, looking at him still while drinking whisky steadily from the full glass.

  “Let me take you home,” said Crabbe.

  “You think I’m not fit to drive or something?” It was the same high child’s voice of innocence.

  “Come on, let me take you home. He’ll be worried about you.”

  “Who? Bannon-Fraser? He’ll be worried when I see him.” The voice had modulated to full woman. “I’ll give him something to worry about. The swine. The worm.”

  “We have nice people coming here,” said Auntie. “There is a radiogram. There can be dancing.”

  “You can leave your car here,” said Crabbe. “A boy can bring it along in the morning. Come on, let me take you home.”

  “You keep harping on that.” The little-girl coquette. “You got designs on me? Oo, how exciting.”

  “And there is a new cook,” said Auntie. “Chinese. He is paid a hundred and fifty a month.”

  “One for the road,” said Mrs. Talbot, “before Mr. Crabbe takes me to my lonely bed. Or his lonely bed. Which?” She goggled at him, swaying, some scum at the corners of her mouth.

  “Come on,” said Crabbe, taking her arm.

  Outside it was drizzling. Mrs. Talbot lost her balance, fell to the wall. “Steady,” said Crabbe. He put an arm round her. “My car’s here, round the corner.”

  The Abelard stood, smooth and ghostly in the faint street lighting. It was evident that nobody would get home in it, not that night. All the tyres were slashed. Mr. Jaganathan’s good peoples, their vicarious thirst for learning thwarted by the wicked white man, had presumably sipped a small revenge. Crabbe, holding up Mrs. Talbot, swore.

  “Look what the swine have done to my tyres.”

  Mrs. Talbot saw the joke. She laughed full-throatedly, almost soberly. “It’s not at all funny,” said Crabbe.

  “Now you’ll have to come home with me,” she said.

  “Give me your ignition-key.”

  “No. I drive my own car.”

  “You can’t, not to-night. Give me that key.”

  “No. Get inside.”

  Crabbe hesitated. She seemed somewhat more sober. Her speech was not slurred. She fitted the ignition-key into the switch deftly.

  “Well. Are you coming?”

  She drove too fast but her reactions were normal enough. She darted from side to side of the road but was quick with her brakes. A home-going trishaw driver missed death by many yards.

  “Look,” said Crabbe, “this isn’t the way.” She had branched off the main road and was speeding towards the airport. She paid no attention. “This isn’t the way,” he repeated.

  “No, dear. I know it isn’t the way.”

  “Then what the hell are you doing?”

  “Don’t you know, dear? There’s a nice quiet spot up this road where you and I can be rather cosy.”

  “But, damn it all …”

  “Just what I say. Damn it all. And them all. You’re only young once.”

  Physical pleasure is in itself a good, and some mystics say that God is good precisely as the taste of an apple is good. Anyway, one should not withdraw from the proffered good, despite morality, honour, personal pride (having her revenge on Bannon-Fraser), the knowledge that sooner or later there will be a hell of a row. Crabbe took what he was offered, as one would take slices of orange or a peeled banana. Meanwhile the drizzle rattled on the car-roof and the red light of the control-tower glowed—in vain.

  7

  “BROTHER, BROTHER! DO not be forever in your shop. Come today and drink with us.”

  Mohinder Singh hesitated. It was all very well for them. Kartar Singh was a police constable, fat and happy in the realisation that even now, two years before retirement, he would not gain promotion. Teja Singh was a deep sigh of rock-bottom insouciance, night-watchman outside a Chinese hotel. Neither had anything to lose. He, Mohinder Singh, had his way to make, a great deal to lose, the big sale of the year to miss on a random wanton day off. He hesitated.

  Kartar Singh was so fat as to generate in the beholder a re-orientation of æsthetic standards. His was a fatness too great to be gross, a triumphant fatness somehow admirable, an affirmative pæean, not a dirge of wasted muscle and over-indulged guts. This fatness was Kartar Singh: it was the flesh singing, in bulging cantilenas and plump pedal-notes, a congenital and contented stupidity, a stupidity itself as positive as the sun. A mere week before, Kartar Singh had been patrolling the streets with a younger constable—a keen Malay boy—and the clock above the bank had struck the hour. “We are finished now,” said the boy. “It is time for us to report off duty at the station.” “How do you know?” said Kartar Singh. “The clock has just struck,” said the Malay. Kartar Singh laughed heartily and said, “Don’t be silly, that is nothing. The clock is always making that noise.”

  Teja Singh was all dirty grey hair and straggling piebald beard, dirty whites and a turban that always needed adjusting. He slept all night on his watchman’s bed and he slept off his sleep during the day. Now he was taking a rare holiday from sleep.

  “See,” said Kartar Singh. “Here is a bottle of good samsu I have received as a bribe from a Chinese. It is a very light colour. That shows it is good. Take money from your till, brother, for we have none, and let us go to some kedai for a day’s merrymaking.”

  Mohinder Singh hesitated. He looked round his shop—the rolls of cloth, the soapstone elephants, the underpants, the dummy teats, the razor-blades, the single camphorwood chest and said, “It is difficult. A shopkeeper should keep to his shop.”

  “Not always, brother. We Sikhs must have our occasional meetings. We are so few, and the other races are so many. We must show a solid face to the world, show that we are one. Come, brother, dip your hand in that overflowing till and accompany to us some kedai for a day’s merrymaking.”

  Mohinder Singh took from the till all that it contained—two dollar notes and a handful of small change—and locked his shop door. He glanced suspiciously at the withered Chinese who sat in underpants, picking his teeth, outside the druggist’s shop next door, and also at the Malay tailor on the other side. “I should not be doing this,” he said; “the rent has not been paid this month.”

  “What is rent, brother? It is the tyranny of landlords. Let us go.”

  Arm in arm they proceeded along the covered five-foot way, greeting various acquaintances. They entered Cheng Leong’s Muslim Eating Shop, took a central table, and called loudly for glasses. Then they uncorked their samsu and drank to each other.

  “What is to become of us,” asked Teja Singh, “when they have their independence? I see bad times ahead for Sikhs.”

  “The Sikhs against the world,” said Kartar Singh. “What are a few Malays and a few more Chinese? We are a warrior race, we can fight for our rights.”

  “Where is your bangle?” asked Mohinder Singh. “You are not wearing the bangle on your wirst. A Sikh should not be without his bangle.”

  “I found a way of using it to open beer bottles, brother. By ill luck it broke. But I shall get another one.”

  “We have been pushed around,” said Teja Singh. ‘We are human beings, like any other people living in the world. But where will you see your wealthy S
ikhs, or your Sikhs in their offices with many telephones and riding in their big cars? I say the Sikhs have been cheated, and when this independence comes they will be cheated even more.”

  Two Malay workmen entered, old dish-towels round their heads. They had been pounding the road and were tired. They wanted two glasses of iced water. One looked at the huge belly of Kartar Singh with contempt and said to his colleague:

  “There they are, the fat sods. Bearded prawns, my father used to call them. They carry shit in their heads just like prawns, he used to say.”

  “Fat at our expense. No work to do. Drinking the day away. Sucking the marrow from the bones of the Malays.”

  “Right. But things are going to be different soon. Sikhs and Chinese and Tamils and white men … Did you hear of that new white man who runs the school?”

  “No.”

  “He has a wife with gold hair, but he spent the whole night at that fat white woman’s hotel, sleeping with another woman. His car was outside all night. When the fathers and mothers of some of the school-children found out they slashed his tyres.”

  “Ah.”

  “And he was with another white woman in a car just by the flying-ship place. Half the night, they say. That’s what things are coming to. Godlessness and sleeping with women. And such men are to teach in the schools. But things are going to be different soon.”