The Parasol Flower

by Quevillon, Karen;

  “Besides, I am an odd duck to them, Mrs. Inglis. I am already teased mercilessly.”

  “What for? Not for spending time with me, I hope.”

  He adjusts his turban, smiling mysteriously, and they travel in silence for some time. I must ask myself, what am I doing this for? Who am I? What answers did he supply to the questions he’d posed to himself, that first day in the mountains?

  In the forest behind the estate they have worn a rough path that extends perhaps a hundred feet before it dissipates. Darshan stops where the brush thickens, pulling his compass from his pocket.

  “Would you sit for me today?” she asks.

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you.”

  “I don’t…really sit. Though I am honored.”

  “You don’t sit?” She plants her fists on her hips. “You could stand, then. I’m asking, would you let me paint your portrait?”

  Darshan’s eyes flit in their sockets. “Potentially, Mrs. Inglis. Potentially.”

  “Let’s look first for a parasol flower. A good hike first, and instead of a botanical specimen…”

  “A human specimen.”

  “Please? You are willing?”

  “Am I able to read while you…?”

  “Oh yes. You needn’t be perfectly still. Not the whole time.”

  As they wind their way between the mossy outcroppings of limestone and sun-dappled ferns, Hannah’s cares slip from her mind, as they always do. It’s as if the ferns reach out and take them from her, holding them aloft to be dissolved in the fragrant air of the forest. There is no other time or place on earth she’d rather be.

  Ah, but let them find a parasol flower.

  Eventually they make camp near a cannonball tree at the edge of a whispery grove of bamboo. Darshan keeps his word. She positions him, standing, in front of the cannonball tree.

  “Am I not rather upstaged here?” he says, twisting around to look.

  True to their name, the fruits are as large and hard as ammunition. They dangle from a series of liana-like branches.

  “You, Sergeant? Not at all,” she assures him. “Besides, my intention is to keep all of that firmly in the background.”

  “They are very good for healing burns, by the way. The juice of the cannonball fruits.”

  He stands patiently for some time, occasionally breaking the posture to swat at an insect or stretch. Then he fetches his notebook from the inside of his jacket and begins leafing through the pages.

  “What are you reading?”

  “Ah.” He shuffles his feet and says, “I can attempt a translation.”

  “It’s not your own notes, then?”

  “Guru Nanek Dev,” he replies. “I intersperse.”

  Hannah paints through the long silence that follows, blocking out the background of the work, and is almost surprised when he begins speaking again.

  This Earth is flower-dyed

  With diverse species of life,

  This Earth teems with their

  Infinitude;

  As we do here so shall we be judged,

  The court of God separates

  Chaff from wheat, there

  Shall be measured unto us

  Our raw and ripe;

  Each man shall stand alone;

  His own deeds shall hold on

  After the life of this Earth.

  “Well. That’s beautiful,” she says. And a little intimidating, she thinks to herself, just like the sergeant. “‘His own deeds shall hold on after the life of this Earth.’ I do like that. Very much.”

  “‘Hold on.’ ‘Persist.’ ‘Bloom.’ I am not sure of the best word, Mrs. Inglis. It carries all of these meanings.”

  “Not much longer now,” she tells him. “I can work up the rest of it indoors.”

  He nods, replacing his notebook with his pipe, which he lights and puffs on for a time. “People may see this painting, Mrs. Inglis?”

  “Yes, they may.”

  “What about Madam Peterborough?” he asks shortly after.

  “What about her?”

  “You are not concerned that she will say something about us to...somebody?”

  “Of course not.” She concentrates for a moment on bronzing the shade of orange she is using. “Besides, what is there to say?”

  “You have good reasons to trust her, I imagine.” Unsheathing his machete, he begins swinging it lightly beside him.

  “Eva wants me to keep painting. You don’t hear our conversations. She’s what people might call a progressive woman. Which is quite difficult to describe. She believes in the equality of the sexes. That women should be allowed to freely pursue their own goals.”

  “She appears to believe in marriage.”

  “As an adaptationary device. She’s developed a theory about the evolutionary benefit of longstanding bonds.”

  He swings the blade, a light sidearm motion, in the way boys skip stones. “Well, then. That is reassuring.”

  “I think you’d like her, Darshan. She’s a brilliant woman. And she would be astounded by your knowledge of the natural world.”

  “Mrs. Inglis, it is entirely inappropriate for her to be astounded by me. Not to mention the three of us to be chitchatting.”

  “Well.” Hannah wipes her brush. “She might be astounded just the same.”

  They pack up and she follows him back through the grove and across the stream they have forded, going down on hands and knees over the fallen java olive that serves as their bridge. By the time she touches solid ground again, her blood is pumping and an idea has worked its way into her mouth. “Let’s take Eva to the waterfall. The one with the seven stages. We could make it a nice outing for the day.”

  He stops and turns to face her as she is brushing the worst of the grime from the front of her. “Why?”

  “This is her property, after all. Let’s show her how beautiful it is!” Darshan looks uneasy at the prospect. “What?” she demands. “Why not?”

  As they hike back toward the estate, she considers the sergeant’s discomfort. Maybe he has put his finger on something, in all these queries about madam. There is a distance, an awkwardness, that exists between her and Eva that isn’t dissipating, no matter how many games of chess or pots of tea. Once she sees this fact, there is no way to squelch it out of her consciousness. What if she got the lady out of her stuffy mansion? Would that change things?

  “I do trust Eva,” she tells him as the coffee orchards come into sight. “But you’re right, there is something. Something not quite…right.”

  Twenty Seven

  Malays and Chinese and mixed blood natives, all of them women, come and go on the slender pathway worn into the meadow. They say nothing to Malu as she greets them, serves them water, holds open their sarongs, translates their questions. It seems, very nearly, that they don’t see her. By now, the whole of the lower town must know she is helping the doctor sahib. And the whole of the lower town will call her a traitor?

  Manang knows, too, of course, but how much? As he weeds and plants and prunes, he watches for her coming and going from the cabin. One afternoon, he drives his pitchfork into a flowerbed and beckons to her. Malu nods toward the studio door and lifts her tray, to explain she cannot stop to speak. But he waves again. So she walks over, balancing a large bowl of figs and a jar of antiseptic.

  “New job,” he says, jerking his head toward the cabin.

  “Yes.”

  “I hear things,” he says.

  She shrugs, looking away from him.

  “What does he do in there? Sahib?”

  Malu purses her lips and shakes her head. Even if she wanted to, there is no way she can talk out loud to Manang, of all people, about the tools sahib uses and the ways his hands push and poke at the women’s bodies. The questions he asks. The drawings he mak
es while they wait with their arms and legs stretched apart.

  He says, “The women are paid, yes?”

  Though she did not know this, it’s not surprising. Nobody would come to that cabin otherwise.

  “My sister Marayam,” he continues. “We owe money to the sultan.”

  Malu shakes her head. “Tell her no.”

  “She wants—”

  “Tell her no,” Malu repeats. “It’s not enough money.”

  A day comes that is different than all the others, a day with the power to change other days. For the better or for the worse, she is afterward unsure.

  “Malu, we’ll spend the whole day in the jungle! Trekking and picnicking and swimming!” Miss Charlotte has run into the servant’s quarters with her news.

  “Who?” asks Malu, leading her back down the corridor.

  “Me and you, silly! And Mama and…uh…”

  Malu sucks in her breath.

  “…Mrs. Inglis and her sergeant.”

  “Not your papa?” Malu says quietly.

  Charlotte’s smile falls. “No. But it’ll still be smashing. I’m sure they’ll pack us cakes. And we’re going to go swimming! And I can bring my butterfly net.”

  She smiles at the girl. It does sound good. And she likes Mrs. Inglis, who always speaks to her in a kind way. As for the police officer, she’s not sure what to think. All morning he’s chopped out the rough patches for them, helped them over fallen trees, told explorer stories. For fun, he shows her and the Miss into a little cave that feels as cold as an icebox when you shimmy into it. Auntie Nattie taught Malu never to trust police officers. Well, it wouldn’t be the first thing Nattie was wrong about.

  After hours of clambering uphill—with mem complaining every step of the way—they arrive at the waterfall. Malu is familiar with the falls closer to town, which are full and broad and foamy. This one is different. It is so high. Higher than any building she’s ever seen. Up at the top the water splits itself over a jagged rock and hangs in sheets that float like silks and sound like thunder. A plume of mist rises toward the treetops. For a while, all she can do is stare.

  “It’s the limestone.” Mrs. Inglis’ voice reaches her. “What an incredible color.”

  Following Charlotte, Malu jumps from rock to rock below the falls where the river pools in ledges. Directly under the falls is the deepest and widest pool, its milky surface rolling and shivering like a drum. Malu and Charlotte stand at the lip of the main pool to watch the water plunging. Endlessly.

  “Mrs. Inglis!” shouts Miss in surprise. “Are you going to dive?”

  The lady is standing on the opposite bank. She is wearing a bathing costume that leaves her arms and legs bare but falls in lumpy folds over her middle.

  “I don’t know how to dive,” she calls back to them. She grins and leaps, swinging her arms high. Her legs cycle the air for a moment before she crashes.

  Charlotte is squealing with delight. The police sergeant, grinning. They all watch her surface, sputtering and laughing.

  “It’s magnificent,” says Mrs. Inglis. She stands up, then lies back, kicking, then stops kicking. With a twist, she is on her stomach, pushing the water apart with her arms. Her wilted hair and her droopy grey costume make her look like a muskrat.

  Miss Charlotte jerks at Malu’s hand, tugging her away from the falling water to one of the calmer eddies farther from the falls. She wants helps searching for caddis flies under the river rocks. The move brings them closer to the adults. Mrs. Inglis soon comes out of the water.

  “You’re not coming in at all?” she asks.

  “Thank you, but I shall stretch out here,” mem answers.

  A large tartan blanket has been spread over the ground for the women. Malu steals glances as Mrs. Inglis towels off and the memsahib digs in the picnic basket. Sergeant Singh is nowhere to be seen.

  “How is Charles managing with his research?” Mrs Inglis asks. “Has he been able to get on in this heat?”

  “I’ve hardly seen him he’s so productive.”

  “Really?”

  The women lower their voices. With Charlotte singing nearby, Malu strains to hear what they are saying.

  “…worked out perfectly.”

  “Oh? I’m surprised she’s able to help him.”

  “…extra pair of hands. And her English is quite good so she can translate.”

  “Translate?” Mrs. Inglis leans toward the basket and pulls out a mango. “I thought you said Charles was studying insects.”

  The memsahib looks over and her eyes strike Malu’s. Turning away, Malu plunges her hand into the water and pulls a stone free from the creek bed. Clinging on the underside are three caddis flies inside their bubble homes.

  The sergeant pushes his way through the milky water of the lagoon, bypassing Malu. His thick arms and shoulders are bare. His hair falls long behind his head because he has removed his turban.

  “Where’s he going?” asks Charlotte.

  They watch him hoist himself up out of the pool, climb the ledge to the next.

  “He’s going toward the falls,” the girl says, answering her own question.

  The sound of crashing water, which had faded in Malu’s ears, is thunderous.

  Suddenly Malu’s feet are hopping along the shoreline, rock to rock to rock, winding her toward the sergeant. Behind her she can hear Miss set out, calling as she slips and sloshes her way upstream. Ahead, Sergeant Singh is swimming and wading through the rushing water. He seems to know exactly where he is going. Malu wills him to look back. The water is roaring now, the shoreline narrow.

  When Miss Charlotte slips and comes up coughing, Malu backtracks and hauls her upright out of the water. “Okay, Miss?”

  “I’m coming, too!”

  Below, both ladies are standing on the blanket; the mem is scowling and talking in an excited way to Mrs. Inglis, who touches her shoulder and points at Malu.

  “Wait!” Malu shouts at Sergeant Singh. She and Charlotte struggle to close the distance between them until he slows, looking around him. “Wait! Please!”

  “We want to go too!” Miss shouts.

  Sergeant Singh watches them approach, then reaches to haul Malu up onto the ledge where he is standing. The three of them talk at once, uselessly, until he shouts, “Stop! If you are coming with me, then I am in charge of this…expedition.” He cracks a smile.

  Far off through the trees, on their blanket by the lagoon, the memsahibs look like miniature, perturbed versions of themselves.

  “First rule,” the sergeant says, gathering them closer, “do not look backward.”

  “Malu, are you frightened?” Miss Charlotte squeals.

  “Second rule: do what I do, and only what I do.”

  Why didn’t they think to ask him what that was going to be? All at once they are clambering after the sergeant, using the great tumble of rocks near the cliff as a ladder. The air spits at them, and Malu’s ears, her whole body, fills with the thunderous movement of the crashing river. When they stop climbing, she struggles to see past the sergeant’s wide back. Where exactly are they going? When Miss Charlotte’s cold hand slips into hers, Malu squeezes back. Surely they’re not going under the falls!

  “Here, ya?” the sergeant shouts, barely audible. He points where they must go. “Take a big step—through there. Watch.”

  There is an outcropping he steps onto, then steps again beyond, disappearing around a curtain of water. Malu’s breath catches until Sergeant Singh reappears, grinning at them. He extends his hand, beckoning them onward.

  Miss Charlotte picks her feet up and down and asks a hundred useless questions. Go, just go! Malu wants to shout. Now that they are here, she feels nothing more than the need to reach the rushing water and have it pour over her. If she slips and falls, praise Allah, the water will still pour over her. At last Miss m
oves shakily forward, reaching for the sergeant’s outstretched arm. When it is her turn, Malu steps to the outcropping without any help and joins them in the moving tunnel. Spray floats over them; the sound of the water drowns everything in one mammoth hush. They stand side by side like this for the length of a morning prayer.

  Then Malu holds out her hand, palm up, and the river crashes it down. Laughing, she wipes water from her eyes. It was “irresistible,” she tells Miss later. A new word this week.

  Sergeant Singh leads them carefully along the ledge, testing the footholds. As the ledge widens, Malu is able to come around Charlotte and drop herself down onto a jutting stone to offer the girl help. For the Miss can barely put one foot after the other, now, on her own. She seems tamed, as if the falls have washed away her boldness. Slowly, slowly, the three of them descend until they reach the foot of the falls on its opposite side and the roaring is replaced by ordinary jungle sounds. Further below, mem is still glued to their progress, having crept closer along the shore. She beckons vigorously.

  “I will take her back,” Sergeant Singh says to Malu over Miss’s head. He points to an offshoot of the falls, where water splashes from a low overhang into a shallow pool. “This is a nice place to visit. But go slowly, it can be slippery.”

  Malu follows the sergeant’s suggestion, glancing back to see him hoist Miss like a sack of flour over his strong shoulders to carry her down the last stage to the bottom. At the little pool she shimmies toward the falling water. A cool jet strikes her in the back and makes her gasp. Her feet push against the rock, with its skim of slime, until she finds her balance, and all the while the water keeps coming, stroking her hair from the back of her neck and tugging at her sarong. Enfolded by the contours of the rock and the fragrant branches of an agarwood tree, she has moved out of everyone’s sight. For a moment the fact panics her; her legs twitch. But she keeps her feet planted, holds herself until the stillness supports her. Slowly, the inside parts of her give way and her thoughts ooze out of her skin and float away downstream, one by one, until there are none left at all.

  Twenty Eight

  As the little party winds its way down the mountain slope and back to the estate, rumbles of thunder chase it. As before, Sergeant Singh is clearing and leading, followed closely by Charlotte and the genduk, while she and Eva bring up the rear.