Leila

by Robin Jenkins

  ‘That’s nonsense,’ he said, rather weakly.

  ‘You must have heard Mrs Srinavasan lamenting how black she is.’

  ‘I’ve heard her lamenting about a lot of things.’

  ‘She told me, in confidence – but you are my husband and exempt – that Mr Srinavasan got her cheap because she is so black.’

  ‘He’s pretty black himself.’

  ‘Ah, but it doesn’t apply to men.’

  He was becoming vaguely aware that this conversation, so lightly engaged upon, was serious. Leila must know of, must have divined, his instinctive – she would charitably think of it as that – aversion to dark skin, though she had never mentioned it before. Now in this oblique, humorous, loving way, in this lonely place, she was drawing the poison out of him.

  He turned on his side and stared at her. ‘You have the most beautiful colour I have ever seen.’ He was able to say it with conviction for he believed it.

  She turned on her side. ‘I hope all our children have blue eyes.’

  ‘I don’t. I want a little girl with brown eyes like you.’

  ‘Do you, Andrew?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  They both remembered Christina.

  Then, still smiling, still speaking lightly, she said something that threatened to revive his worst qualities and destroy his happiness which moments ago had seemed indestructible.

  ‘There is one available, Andrew, a little girl with brown eyes like mine.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Mrs Daya’s daughter. Her father does not want her and her mother cannot have her. I would like her, Andrew.’

  He was appalled. Half an hour ago he was swimming joyfully in the clear uncontaminated sea. Now he was plunged into the murky bitter waters of his own inadequacies.

  ‘She is very intelligent and brave, Andrew.’

  ‘Are you serious? About adopting her?’

  ‘Very serious.’

  ‘Does your father know?’

  ‘It has nothing to do with my father.’

  ‘But you think he might not approve?’

  ‘I hope he would approve.’

  ‘But, Leila, for God’s sake, have you considered –’

  ‘That her mother has committed a terrible crime? Yes, Andrew, I have considered it. The child herself is blameless. Is that not so?’

  He was silent.

  ‘Is it not so, Andrew?’

  ‘Yes, but the world won’t think so.’

  ‘What matters to me is what you think, not the world.’

  ‘What’s going to happen to her mother? Won’t she be hanged?’

  ‘If they are not merciful.’

  ‘And they won’t be.’ But if they were and the poor wretch was shut away for life would they be expected to take her child to see her regularly? He would never be able to do it.

  ‘You would have to give your consent, Andrew.’

  He was being asked to do something that was beyond him. Even with all his best qualities on display he just wasn’t good enough.

  What would those cynics on the verandah say? With guffaws they would say, what a joke, a selfish cunt like Sandilands being asked to face up to something that a saint would turn away from.

  But Leila could face up to it, if he did not prevent her.

  He felt great shame. It was no consolation or excuse that out there, beyond this ocean and all the other oceans, were millions as selfish and limited as he.

  He began to see, vaguely at first, that he might be able to do it, with her help. Was he not looking for a chance to show that he deserved her?

  ‘What about the child herself?’ he asked. ‘Is she willing?’

  ‘Yes. Will you come with me to see her?’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘A friend of mine is looking after her.’

  It was a reminder that he did not know her friends. To that extent, yes, she was still a stranger.

  ‘She has seen you, Andrew, the little girl, I mean. You came to her school to inspect your students. She liked you. She said all the children liked you. You made them laugh. Christina liked you too.’

  Tears came into his eyes.

  ‘You’ll come with me then?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you’ll think about it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Thank you, Andrew.’

  Then, taking him by surprise, though it shouldn’t have, she burst into tears.

  How grand the sky was, how splendid the sea, how busy these little crabs, how beautiful these flowers fallen from the tree above them, and how necessary Leila’s weeping for her dead daughter.

  After a while he consoled her.

  Eleven

  THE DAY of the elections was also a holiday. From early morning there were queues of patient smiling men and women at all the polling stations in Savu Town and elsewhere in the country. It was assumed that this eagerness to vote was because they were the first elections in the country’s history. They were therefore a kind of celebration. When asked where they had put their crosses, whether opposite the water buffalo that represented the People’s Party or the tiger of the Sultan they had politely declined to say. ‘Is it not confidential, sir?’ they replied, with secret smiles.

  Sandilands and Leila drove into town in the morning to do some shopping. They met Mr Srinavasan and his wife outside Huat Lee’s Cold Storage.

  Mr Srinavasan had been to watch people voting. ‘Such simple souls,’ he cried, laughing. ‘They go into the polling station as if it were a holy temple. We know what that portends, do we not? They are seeing it as an opportunity to show their loyalty and gratitude for their esteemed ruler. It is not a good omen for you, Mrs Sandilands. Prepare, I am sorry to say, for humiliation. Your Party, alas, will be fortunate to gain a single seat. I do not think that in Mr Huat Lee’s emporium you should purchase a bottle of champagne.’

  He went off, giggling.

  ‘Just for his bloody cheek,’ said Sandilands, ‘we will buy a bottle of champagne, the best in the shop.’

  ‘What will we be celebrating, Andrew?’

  ‘Ourselves.’

  That afternoon they were going to visit the child that Leila wished to adopt.

  She held his arm tightly as they went into the shop.

  It was a favourite meeting place for white expatriates. They met several. The men particularly were friendly and sympathetic towards Leila.

  ‘So this is the big day, Mrs Sandilands?’

  ‘Don’t be too disappointed.’

  ‘Democracy’s a concept beyond most of them.’

  She smiled. ‘You are going to get a big surprise.’

  They laughed. She was almost British, they thought, in the way that she could take it on the chin and still smile.

  Sandilands backed her up. ‘Look, we’ve got the champagne ready.’

  ‘Well anyway, we’re going to be in the Town Hall tomorrow night. See you there.’

  Tomorrow night the results were to be declared in the Town Hall. The voting papers were being brought by helicopter from the remote parts. They were to be counted in public by impartial tellers brought from Malaya. The Sultan wanted everything to be fair and to be seen to be fair. The results would be flashed up on a large screen. They would be announced from the platform by the Speaker of the National Council, wearing his official wig. There was to be free food and drink. It was going to be a celebration party. His Highness might attend. Though the Town Hall was grand and spacious it was thought that there wouldn’t be room for everyone. Arrangements had been made to relay the results to the crowd outside.

  Sandilands and Leila had been invited to lunch at her father’s house. A number of the People’s Party’s candidates were to be present. Sandilands was curious to see them. He had wondered where in Savu were there enough men of education and experience to form a government, even of a country whose population was just half that of Edinburgh.

  He mentioned it in the car as they drove to Dr Abad’s.

/>   ‘They’ll be a lot more competent than the Sultan’s appointees,’ she said, scornfully.

  ‘Yes, but the Sultan’s got the backing of the British government. Wouldn’t your People’s Party get rid of the Resident?’

  ‘We would, immediately.’

  ‘And the Gurkhas?’

  ‘They’d go too.’

  ‘Who would protect you then? Would you have an army of your own?’

  ‘We don’t need an army. Who’s going to attack us?’

  ‘Someone might, for the oil. What about the expatriates? They fill most of the top jobs. In a sense they run the country.’

  ‘We’d keep those we considered necessary, but we’d see to it that Savuans were trained to take their places.’

  ‘That might take a long time.’

  ‘We’re patient people.’

  ‘What about the Principal of the Teachers’ Training College? Would he be replaced by a Savuan?’

  ‘Isn’t he a Savuan himself? By marriage?’

  He laughed and pressed her knee. ‘Yes, he is. What do they do for a living, these colleagues of yours?’

  ‘Teachers, accountants, lawyers, businessmen. You’ll find them intelligent and concerned.’

  So he did, but what impressed him most was their good-natured confidence. They did not boast, boasting not being in the Savuan nature, but they talked quietly of victory. That was surely stupid, and yet none of these well-dressed prosperous men looked or sounded stupid. They pointed out that they knew the people. Besides, they added, teasing him, did they not have his lovely wife on their side? Was he aware that she was the most trusted person in Savu?

  He was convinced that there was no faction likely to resort to armed rebellion.

  When he asked a group of them what they would do if they lost they assured him they would try another time. But what if there was no other time? What if His Highness decided that they had been given their chance and the people had rejected them, once and for all. What would they do in that case?

  A white-bearded Chinese replied that they would leave it to their children or grandchildren. Another, a plump Malay, added, not at all ironically, that their children would be better educated, thanks to Mr Sandilands’ excellently trained teachers.

  Chia and Lo were present, acting as waiters. Sandilands had a brief private word with them. They said that they didn’t regret having left their jobs: winning the election was much more important. In any case, their jobs were safe: their headmasters were supporters of the People’s Party. Whether the elections were lost or won they had promised to go back. There was valuable work to be done, educating the children of the interior.

  ‘The verdict of the people must be respected,’ said Chia, solemnly.

  Alec Maitland’s spies must have been exaggerating or lying.

  Twelve

  LEILA’S FRIEND, Mariam Muji, lived in Tawau, a village six miles from Savu Town. A tarred road led to it but ended there; beyond, it became a jungle track. His Highness had spent years as a child in Tawau, in one of his father’s palaces, now disused. He had told Sandilands that he had once thought of making a golf course there but had given up the idea because, Tawau being several miles from the sea, there were no cooling breezes as there were in Savu Town. No white expatriates lived there but they often drove to it on Sundays, to picnic.

  Mariam Muji was Headmistress of the school. This was unusual, for the other three teachers were men. Sandilands had heard, though not from Leila, that she owed her preferment to services rendered to the Sultan in bed when he and she were young but, according to Leila, she had been promoted on merit, being cleverer than most men. She had been trained in Malaya and had taught for some years in England where she had learned modern methods of teaching, now, though she refused to admit it, out of date. Sandilands’ students did not do any of their teaching practice at her school. Therefore he had never met her.

  ‘Do you think it’s true she and the Sultan had an affair?’ he asked, in the car.

  ‘They say I had an affair with him. That is not true either.’

  ‘But wouldn’t it be a great honour to have an affair with His Highness?’

  ‘Some women might think so. Mariam Muji would not.’

  ‘Why did she never get married? Did His Highness forbid it?’

  ‘She does not have a high opinion of men. You should know why. You have been in Asia long enough to know that men here consider women to be inferior creatures.’

  Not only in Asia, he could have said; all over the world; among Eskimos too, no doubt.

  ‘Why doesn’t she adopt this child herself?’

  ‘As an unmarried woman she would not be allowed to.’

  ‘I see.’ It was, he thought, a convenient get-out.

  They drove into Tawau under a banner exhorting the people to vote for the Sultan, whom Allah favoured.

  It was a peaceful prosperous little place. The school was indeed like a temple, with a domed roof. People were going in and coming out, like worshippers, as Mr Srinavasan had sneered. Every one of them, Sandilands was sure, would vote for the Sultan. They had no more idea of democracy than the headhunters who had once lived here. They might be able to buy electric toasters in the shops but they still had their innocence.

  The Headmistress’s house was next to the school. Brilliantly coloured parrots sat on the roof.

  ‘Is she a member of your Party?’ he asked.

  ‘I cannot answer that, Andrew.’

  He knew why. After the results were declared, with His Highness safely triumphant, he might well wish to punish all those in his employment suspected of voting against him.

  Mariam appeared on the verandah. Years ago she must have been voluptuous; now she was just fat. Unfortunately she was wearing her kebaya and sarong much too tight, emphasising the fatness of her breasts and buttocks, and too gaudy, giving her a resemblance to the birds on her roof. She jingled and glittered with jewellery. She stared hostilely at Sandilands, as if she would have liked to punch him on the nose with her fist massive with rings like knuckle-dusters.

  They sat on basket chairs on the verandah, drinking cold lemonade. It was very hot. She explained that the child was playing with friends in an adjacent house.

  ‘So she has friends?’ said Sandilands.

  The conversation was in Malay and therefore courteous, though sharp things might be said.

  ‘Why should she not have friends? She is a human being, among other human beings.’

  ‘Do they know about her mother?’

  ‘No. Not yet, so far as I know.’

  ‘If they did know would they still be her friends?’

  ‘Yes, until their parents poisoned their minds. Children acquire prejudices from their parents.’

  True, but also from their human nature.

  ‘Surely, Andrew,’ said Leila, ‘most people are fair-minded enough not to blame the child.’

  ‘I would like to believe that, Leila.’

  It gave no pleasure seeing humanity as stupid and unjust, though it might be true.

  ‘She’s seen Andrew before,’ said Leila, ‘when he visited her school.’

  ‘Yes, so she has said. She seems to have good memories of you, Mr Sandilands. Of you, Leila, I am sorry to say, not so good.’

  Leila was hurt and disappointed. ‘I have tried to be kind to her.’

  ‘Yes, but look at you, Leila, beautifully dressed as always, rich (by her standards at any rate), a lawyer, a woman of importance. How can you expect a child brought up as she has been not to be overawed by you? You know my opinion. Have you discussed it with Mr Sandilands? I am sure he agrees with me.’

  ‘What is your opinion?’ he asked.

  ‘That it would be foolish for you and Leila to adopt this child. Pay some respectable family to take her. Pay them well. Not here in Savu. In Malaya perhaps, far enough away for them never to know about her mother. I have connections there and could help to arrange it. What do you say, Mr Sandilands?’

  He
wanted to say that it made good sense. The child would suffer, in a distant place, among strangers, but then nothing could ever be done that would save her from suffering.

  ‘Have you spoken to her about it?’ he asked.

  ‘No. Why bother? She will do what she is told to do, she will go where she is told to go. What else can she do?’

  They heard children’s voices. There was laughter.

  But the child on the steps, coming up slowly, gazed at them with utmost seriousness.

  She was about the same size as Christina but with coarser darker features. She was wearing white; dress, socks, and ribbon.

  She had been dreading this interview but was going to confront it bravely: so much so that Sandilands found his heart missing a beat or two. This was a child he could learn to admire and even love.

  But there were difficulties. He did not know if he had the courage to overcome them.

  Suddenly she smiled at him. Then she glanced at Leila anxiously and, it seemed, with some distrust.

  He smiled back.

  She went over and stood by his chair. God help her, he thought, she trusts me. I am the kind gentleman who came to her school and made them all laugh.

  ‘She remembers you, Andrew,’ said Leila, in English. She put out her hand. The girl took it, hesitantly.

  ‘Be honest with her,’ said Mariam, sharply, also in English, ‘and with yourself.’

  Holding Leila’s hand, the child was not at ease. Was she remembering the scene in the prison cell when she, her mother, and Leila had wept together? How genuine had been Leila’s tears?

  ‘Make no decision now,’ said Mariam. ‘Give her, and yourselves, time.’

  Yes, but he did not want to leave it to Leila to explain. He too did not altogether trust her. He could not have said why.

  ‘This lady is my wife,’ he said, in Malay.

  The girl nodded. She was intelligent. She knew what was going on. She was even more aware of the difficulties than he.

  ‘We would like you to come and live with us,’ he said.

  ‘For a little while,’ added Mariam.

  ‘Would you like that?’ he asked.

  She looked neither at him nor at Leila but at the sky. What she saw in her mind God knew, but it must have been painful. Her mouth moved as if she was about to cry but she did not cry. She closed her eyes but opened them again immediately. This terrible situation had to be faced.