‘It is raining as you arrive here, Mr. Hopkins, but before the next rain the flowers of the forest will blossom.’ That was her greeting, neither welcoming nor forbidding to his ear.
‘If you know my name, you’ll know I didn’t come here to search the forest for flowers,’ he said. Well, why should he be astonished that she knew his name? Everyone understood that if you were – what was the phrase? – one with nature, secret lore read like an open book.
‘You are impatient for me to help you.’ It was neither a guess nor an accusation. As though to deny the charge and make conversation, he replied, ‘You speak English well, Subyata.’
Her smile curled her mouth up in the corners like yesterday’s sandwich as she answered, ‘I have uttered no word. You can hear me well without my needing speech.’
Impatiently, with a gesture which indicated she would discuss that topic no more, she added, ‘But you have come here because you wish to see Carol again?’
Carol! Nobody had mentioned that name to him in years; liberated at last, it crackled round the room like fate jumping out of a telegram.
‘I could never go back,’ he said in a whisper. That ten thousand miles between them had not grown accidentally. Now it was something too gigantic to span physically. ‘But if I could just see her … See how she was …’
‘That can be done, Hopkins,’ she told him. ‘The soul which is the essence of a being can leave its body as easily as perfume, the essence of a flower, leaves its nectary.’
She touched him lightly on the forehead. He stood there stupidly, still dripping on to the bare boards, wrestling with the significance of her gesture. Outside, the rain swished limply away through the rank grass.
‘Wait. My promise is made, Hopkins, but it must be sealed in a shared dish of food.’
As she turned to go through a door into a back room, he noticed she wore the simple wooden soles used by the Indonesian women of the bazaar, and her buttocks moved invitingly beneath her tight sarong. Awe of her left him, another emotion taking its place. Well, set up house with her and you would not need to work your heart out of its sockets; forget Carol …
Feeling more at home, he shed his cape and hat, stretched his small frame, patted his knife, and peered out of the rear window. This was not much of a place to live in. He could not see far, perhaps thirty yards, before the everlasting green entanglement rose in a wall. But before that a well-defined path led to a giant tree, a ludicrously contorted tree, whose roots, creeper-entangled, struggled out of the ground like an octopus kicking aside the bedclothes. Amid these roots Hopkins could see an alien growth with widespread leaves and one gigantic bud rising from the middle of them.
It was a rafflesia, the biggest, ugliest flower on the whole planet. The rain had ceased now, and in the pale returning sun collections of water shone on the bloated growth like lenses covering a cabbage. Uneasily, Hopkins turned away, to find Subyata returning with two small bowls.
‘Where is your cape? … Oh,’ she added, a glance into the corner answering her question for her.
‘She isn’t omniscient then,’ he observed, ‘or she would have known.’
Sitting cross-legged on the floor, she beckoned him to follow and he deliberately sat close. It was bitter stuff they ate, something green chopped fine. To make conversation he said familiarly, ‘You need a man around this place, Subyata, not just a mangy leopard.’
Her anger and contempt smouldered into his mind with the force of a burn, so that at first he could not comprehend her flow of words.
‘I have granted you the mark of liberation, Hopkins, because you sought my aid, and that I never refuse. As a part of nature here, I know better than to distinguish between good and evil, but what you did over a dozen years ago placed you as a human for ever beyond human bonds. Your life looks to me like – ’
With the last of the sour pulp unchewed in his mouth, he sat transfixed as she related back to him the details of those last few terrible hours before he had fled from the civilisation that was too much for him. Her gleaming eyes faded, and he was back in the big orchard, returning unexpectedly early to lie down and recover from a touch of the sun. It was a blazing day just before the picking, and as he approached the bungalow that he and Carol leased, it was as quiet as if the sky had conquered and killed all men – except for the faint mutter of a man’s voice drifting out of the bedroom window like a guilty cat.
He remembered the still fury with which he had scurried hump-backed under the low windows and kicked his shoes off on the rear mat. The passage was cool to his feet as he tip-toed along it, and then he had the door open.
Oh, he caught them all right. Carol let out a shrill defensive scream, ‘You didn’t expect me to live for ever without a man, did you? You skinny little lizard!’ Then the thing had gone snap in his head that had broken once before. Even in those days he always wore a knife; the burly back half way through the window took it centrally and continued its motion until it sprawled on to the rutted drive. Then he turned his attention and his knife to Carol, who had collapsed on the bed. Not death for her, no, but a horrible, slight deformity that should guarantee she never from shame took another lover. After, his sense had returned, and with it the urge to escape – to escape memory and retribution. Panic. Flight. The port, the ship, the miles of frothing ocean, Subyata threw it all back at him until suddenly the thing in his mind snapped again.
For a long while after he had made that sudden, swift movement, Hopkins did not stir. The knife hilt did not show as she lay in a last relaxation across his knees. He had killed again. He had killed Subyata, the spirit of the jungle. Repentance stirred sluggishly, congealing like blood under the scab of his thought, as he sat with bowed head.
The heat, the blinding sunlight outside, finally brought back a realisation of the world. He stood up in slow motion, resuming the old selfish cloak of protection by saying, ‘I’ve done myself no harm provided her spell or whatever-it-is still sticks. I’m safe as houses.’
The cabbage-like bud glittered through the window at him. A white steam curled up silently everywhere setting the jungle alive, and he felt abruptly not so safe. Uneasily, he took a turn outside, and round the back of the building nearly trod on Subyata’s leopard. He jumped away, but the splendid hoop of rib never so much as stirred; it might have been as dead as its mistress. Then through the mists he caught sight of a wraith, the spectre of the leopard, at present free from its body. Well, presumably the spectre could not hurt him; neither could the body without the spectre in it, so he was safe till they joined forces again.
Out here, he could hear a horde of insects, chiefly flies, buzzing round the rafflesia bud. Soon, they would be attracted indoors … Which reminded him that he ought to make a move – test the efficacy of the spell and then be away. He moved inside again, glad to be out of sight of those angry eyes in the mist.
He settled himself on the bare boards, back to a wall, legs crossed. Subyata had made so little fuss – he had expected cabalistic signs, dancing maybe. But machines became smaller, more compact, less impressive to view the more they were developed; no doubt Subyata’s spells had been perfected in the same way. That was reassuring.
At first he had no idea what to do. How do you go about severing spirit and flesh, short of taking a knife and – no, he controlled his thoughts, pictures as vividly as possible rising out of his own body. Floating out …
Below him, his body sat propped against the bare wall; the floorboards, parallel as ruled lines, slanted away from his doubled knees. He was away! The realisation and surprise took him down again, but in a moment he was floating once more among the rafters, well above himself.
It was easy now. He came down and stood on the floor, tentatively, in the manner of someone learning to skate taking the first few steps on the ice. Carefully, he moved to the door. His body remained lifelessly propped against the wall.
Nothing now remained between him and the long desire to see Carol again, to know if she had survived
the thing he had done. Nothing …except trees and land and ocean and land and trees … and now these faded beneath him like a mirage when it is approached. Faded, wavered, went.
Whatever time schedule it was that his spirit obeyed, it was night when he arrived. Nor did he know what town he had arrived at. All he was certain of was that Carol was near, and that some lost compartment of kindness in him prayed that she might appear happy. He was too quick with a blade, that was his whole trouble, but at heart he would always love her … in his fashion.
He moved through walls and rooms and people, seeking her. She would only be thirty-five now; she was just a kid when he had left her like that; perhaps once he had seen her settled down normally he could forget her, stretch a more human existence out of that little town in Sumatra …
Somehow he had lost the scent of her. It was day again and he moved bemused but tireless. Then, abruptly, he was on the right track. A big man with a carefree air and a wide-open face strolled out of a restaurant and climbed into a parked vehicle. He was heading for Carol, of that Hopkins was certain.
More discreetly than a shadow, he sat behind the gay fellow as they slid out into a bright neat countryside. Hopkins’ spirits rose; this was a fine man for Carol – more her own kind than he had ever been, a little young now possibly, but as reassuring as a good cigar.
The truck was parked and the gay fellow jumped out and made down a side-lane, singing quietly. Hopkins followed close, listening to a song he remembered from long ago but which wore well on those carefree lips. Oblivious to all else, Hopkins knew Carol was close. He could feel her vibrations. She was happy!
He observed, starting from his dream of satisfaction, that the gay fellow was stepping through a shabby door. When he got in, he paused and called softly. Was he wooing Carol or married to her? A slight wariness about him suggested the former.
And then Carol was there. Her arms about the gay fellow, her face buried in his jacket, she did not for a while give Hopkins a chance to see her face. Then she led her conquest happily into another room and closed the door. Hopkins floated through the panels and drank in the tonic of her looks. Carol! She was younger than ever! The years that had scoured him, the time that had branded him seemed to have left no sign on her. Doubtless his lines were the lines of a guilty conscience.
Hopkins saw now that they were lovers. Before his invisible gaze they emptied themselves into each other’s arms with an easy gladness that spoke of new familiarity between them. His heart welled up with thankfulness to see so clearly that his cruelty had left such little mark on Carol.
He stood in the middle of the bedroom, torn between pleasure and embarrassment, when suddenly the door was flung open. A little man with a lizard face twisted with hate stood on the threshold. Carol screamed and called something. The gay fellow leaped up with ashen face and plunged for the open window. He was half way out when the lizard was on to him. A knife flashed – the stab in the back carried the gay fellow clean through the window and then realisation swept through Hopkins like a scythe. The lizard was himself!
Subyata had sent him back as he had desired. But back in time as well as distance. He had just relived the old horror …
Beyond the tight closure of his eyelids was a world of whispers and gentle rustling, the myriad sounds that are collectively known as the silence of the rain-forest. He was back – from the scene of one crime to the scene of another.
Yet now he knew what he had to do. The old load of regret had shifted position in the recent shock. Now his duty seemed clear: he must make his way back to Carol in person. The amends that were needed required a body as well as a spirit. Anyhow he had to get out of here before an outcry was raised for Subyata. Might as well head home: that old, unpalatable crime would be cold on his plate by this time. That left only Carol … Carol …
Two great valueless tears squeezed open his eyes, and he looked about him.
It was night. A moon so full it bulged at the sides was making all speed up to the highest point of dark-blue sky. Dew fell like a nervous rain – Hopkins could hear it, but not feel it as it dripped through him.
Subyata’s sharp-roofed house was a short distance away; forty yards’ worth of long grass lay between him and it and, presumably, his body. He felt suddenly he would be glad to be in it again, and wondered if the mosquitoes had been greedy with it.
He was picking himself off the damp ground when Subyata’s clouded leopard appeared. Hopkins knew at once that it was the spirit not the reality, for no plants parted at its approach, no grass flattened beneath its tread. It saw him, invisible as he was; two sad stars of eyes took him in through a long gaze, and then it turned and made steadily for the hut.
A sudden intuition of fear made Hopkins break into a run. His body was in there, helpless, and in some sort of danger. He had to get to it first. The leopard had a start on him, but farther to travel. For a moment it looked any ghost’s race, and then the beast’s superior speed told. Like a dark flash, it was through the door feet ahead of Hopkins.
He paused, frightened, on the threshold. Within was a seedy brilliance, the room being lit by a window-shaped patch of moonlight on the boards. His body still sat dummy-like against one wall. Of the leopard there was no sign.
‘Better get my bones on and make tracks for the boat,’ he told himself grimly.
Gathering up his tenuity, he tried to shrink it back into the silent form. It would not go. He could not get in. He pushed and pushed, as if against a jammed door. But he was left out in the cold for a very good reason – the husk had a spirit in it already.
He realised this sickening truth when his body moved. Its eyes opened, its lips curled back revealing a snarl of teeth, and slowly it stood up. Hopkins jumped back in terror. This was worse than seeing the dead walk. And then he – his body – gave out a snarl: a leopard-like roar.
That was where Subyata’s enchanted cat was hiding.
Hopkins could do nothing. His spirit quailed at the sight, as with clumsy, misfitting gestures his rightful adornment lumbered across the room. The leopard was not making a good job of it; the controls were somehow just beyond its control. Abandoning the attempt at walking, it dropped Hopkins’ body heavily to the floor and proceeded on all fours in a mockery of a cat walk.
Falling back in front of it, Hopkins was quite without thought, his mind a blank ruin of dismay. This was beyond all mortal kidnapping. Only when the terrible aberrant had dragged itself down the steps and round to the back of the building did it occur to him that the leopard might have some sinister purpose in mind besides mere grotesquerie.
Helplessly, he flitted beside his lumbering body, watching it, calling to it, as it pulled itself through the intense shadow behind the house and emerged into the blue light of the clearing. It moved with a sort of deformed purpose horrible to watch. In agony of mind, Hopkins charged his body – how he hated it now! – but went through it like an unborn breeze: he had no substance or power beyond the power to suffer.
The over-ripe moon was high now, sailing superb above the tree-tops; it created a strange flare of light low among the pillars and patches of the jungle, and towards this the spirit of Subyata’s leopard headed Hopkins’ body. Distractedly, Hopkins’ spirit peered at the brilliance ahead.
At first sight it looked like a giant spider sitting awaiting them between hunched legs. Then it resolved into a more ominous clarity. Bathed in moonlight, the rafflesia flower lay among its greasy, sheltering roots. The bud was now open, presenting a gaping mouth of thick petals to the contorted trees, which bowed over it as if gloating at the obscene blossom it had fostered.
‘The flowers of the forest will bloom before the next rain,’ Subyata had said.
Oppressed by the knowledge that something foul was about to happen, Hopkins-in-spirit tried to think, and a desperate idea came to him. He faded rapidly to the back of the house. There, the body of the mighty cat still lay. Its spirit had taken Hopkins’ body; Hopkins must take it. With a leopard’s streng
th, he could save his own body from whatever fate hung over it.
Hopkins bent over the fume-coloured head. The eyes looked as dead as dusty lantern slides. He forced himself into them, striving to take over the being of the creature. Just for a moment, he felt leopardness yield to him and touched a centre of fur and fire – and then he was rejected! He was rejected violently, battered and bowled away. It was as if a python struck with a cobra’s fury.
Sickened, Hopkins grasped the truth. Subyata was a witch: Subyata did not die. Her body was dead but her spirit endured – and it was waiting in the fortress of the cat until Hopkins was destroyed. He had come spiritually face to face with her and had been repulsed.
He flittered helplessly about the clearing, crying without voice. Distraught beyond words, he ghosted back to his own body. Unremittingly and hideously, it was still being lumped towards the rafflesia. Hopkins flung himself before it. It trundled over him. He was as much of an obstacle as a snuffed draught.
What would happen if his body was destroyed? His spirit would be bound for ever to these tangled haunts, perpetually harried by the more puissant demons of Subyata and her cat. He could die then every day – and she would see that he did.
All the time, the laborious progress to the flower continued. At last it was reached. Its thick, outer petals, fungoid in texture, seemed already to be decaying, but the great inner cup, three feet wide, stood high and solid. Twittering soundlessly with terror, Hopkins peered into that sinister cup. It contained about two gallons of rain-water and syrup mixed, in which floated dozens of insects, big and small; some of the insects were dead, some still moved. On the bright, dark surface of this stuff, falling dew chased an ever varying pattern of circles.
The leopard spirit, meanwhile, had manoeuvred Hopkins’ body on to one of the tree roots which overhung the brimming bowl. Only then, as it slid into position, did Hopkins fully understand … and then, of course, it was too late. Subyata had claimed she was one with nature; soon, he would be the rotting vegetation round it.
The Complete Short Stories- The 1950s - Volume One Page 25