The Parasol Flower
Page 38
As she is clearing a place for her stool and readying herself to sketch, a deep-throated rumble resounds to the west of her. Searching the shadowy tiers of green, she can see no movement. Slowly Hannah reaches for her satchel, feels for the paring knife strapped inside. From peeling a mangosteen to fighting a tiger—absurd. Nevertheless, she plucks out the blade and fits it carefully under her bootlaces on the outside of her ankle. Lately, she has considered buying a rifle to take with her. They have come down in price, though weight is a serious consideration. Machetes are handy for clearing, of course, but she prefers to manage without clearing and travel lighter.
No animal will come to her that day.
Hannah begins at the vortex of the colossal, alien beauty. A parasol flower. A rarity. And she has a brush in her grasp.
Acknowledgments
This book took a very long time to make, and was reborn in many different drafts. The idea for it came to me during my dissertation research, in particular, my reading of a postcolonial critique by Laura Ann Stoler called Race and the Education of Desire: Foucault’s History of Sexuality and the Colonial Order of Things. The racial science hiding at the core of this novel is historically accurate and makes up part of Stoler’s analysis of Southeast Asia. Several other books proved helpful to me for their representations of British colonial experiences in Malaysia: J. G. Butler’s The British in Malaya, 1880 – 1941, Pat Barr’s Taming the Jungle: the men who made British Malaya, and Perak and the Malays by Robert McNair. The Victorian journals of traveler Emily Innes, published as The Chersonese with the Gilding Off provided valuable observations about everyday life at the time. The well-known artist and teacher Robert Henri (1865 - 1929), whose lectures are collected in the delicious volume The Art Spirit, provided me nourishing food for thought about my own artistic journey as well a basis for the character Monsieur Godot. Finally, I took strength from the intrepid Marianne North, who trekked through rugged nineteenth-century jungles to paint botanical scenes and specimens. The book A Vision of Eden, published by Kew Gardens, is an excellent resource about her life and art.
My deepest gratitude to friends and colleagues who have provided help and support for this project, often well before it was clear it would ever have a place in the world. Thank you to Barbara Winter, Sheila Gale, Jennifer Mook-Sang, Donna Kirk, and Sherry Isaac for your supportive feedback on drafts, early and late. To Sherry Coman, a wonderful and wise writing coach: your questions, suggestions, and provocations have allowed this novel to truly come into its own. I am grateful to visionary Jaynie Royal for bringing me into the family of authors at her small but mighty publishing house, Regal House Publishing. I am equally lucky to have developed such a congenial literary collaboration with my editor there, Pamela Van Dyk.
My brother Christopher Skeaff has been an invaluable source of writerly as well as moral support from beginning to end, in good times and bad. I hope you know how special you are to me. Lastly, for reminding me on a daily basis how wonderful this life can be: thank you, my darling children, Maya and Zakir.