King Rat

N’ai was perhaps fourteen, but in the sun-rain lands a girl of fourteen is already a woman with the desires of a woman and should be married, or at least with the man of her father’s choice.

The darkness of her skin had a milk sheen to it and her eyes were jewels of topaz and her hands were petals of the fire orchid and her feet slim and her child-woman body was satin and held within it the happiness of a hummingbird. She was a child of the sun and a child of the rain. Her nose was slender and fine and the nostrils delicate.

N’ai was all satin, liquid satin. Firm where it should be firm. Soft where it should be soft. Strong where it should be strong. And weak where it should be weak.

Her hair was raven. Long. A gossamer net to cover her.

Peter Marlowe had smiled at her. He had tried to hide his embarrassment and be like her, free and happy and without shame. She had taken off her sarong and stood proudly before him, and she had said, “I pray that I shall be worthy to make thee happy and make thee soft-sleep. And I beg thee to teach me all the things that thy woman should know to make thee ‘close to God.’”

Close to God, how wonderful, Peter Marlowe thought; how wonderful to describe love as being close to God.

He looked up at Sutra. “Yes. We loved much and long. I thank Allah that I have lived and loved unto eternity. How glorious are the ways of Allah.”

A cloud reached out and grappled with the moon for possession of the night.

“It is good to be a man,” Peter Marlowe said.

“Does thy lack trouble thee tonight?”

“No. In truth. Not tonight.” Peter Marlowe studied the old Malay, liking him for the offer, smoothed by his gentleness.

“Listen, Tuan Sutra. I will open my mind to thee, for I believe that in time we could be friends. Thou couldst in time have time to weigh my friendship and the ‘I’ of me. But war is an assassin of time. Therefore I would speak to thee as a friend of thine, which I am not yet.”

The old man did not reply. He puffed his cigarette and waited for him to continue.

“I have need of a little part of a wireless. Is there a wireless in the village, an old one? Perhaps if it is broken, I could take one such little piece from it.”

“Thou knowest that wirelesses are forbidden by the Japanese.”

“True, but sometimes there are secret places to hide that which is forbidden.”

Sutra pondered. A wireless lay in his hut. Perhaps Allah had sent Tuan Marlowe to remove it. He felt he could trust him because Tuan Abu had trusted him before. But if Tuan Marlowe was caught outside camp with the wireless, inevitably the village would be involved.

To leave the wireless in the village was also dangerous. Certainly a man could bury it deep in the jungle, but that had not been done. It should have been done but had not been done, for the temptation to listen was always too great. The temptation of the women to hear the “sway-music” was too great. The temptation to know when others did not know was great. Truly it is written, Vanity, all is vanity.

Better, he decided, to let the things that are the pink man’s remain with the pink man.

He got up and beckoned Peter Marlowe and led the way through the bead curtains into the darker recesses of the hut. He stopped at the doorway to Sulina’s bedroom. She was lying on the bed, her sarong loose and full around her, her eyes liquid.

“Sulina,” Sutra said, “go onto the veranda and watch.”

“Yes, Father.” Sulina slipped off the bed and retied the sarong and adjusted her little baju jacket. Adjusted it, thought Sutra, perhaps a little too much, so the promise of her breasts showed clearly. Yes, it is surely time that the girl married. But whom? There are no eligible men.

He stood aside as the girl brushed past, her eyes low and demure. But there was nothing demure in the sway of her hips, and Peter Marlowe noticed them too. I should take a stick to her, Sutra thought. But he knew that he should not be angry. She was but a girl on the threshold of womanhood. To tempt is but a woman’s way—to be desired is but a woman’s need.

Perhaps I should give thee to the Englishman. Maybe that would lessen thy appetite. He looks more than man enough! Sutra sighed. Ah, to be so young again.

From under the bed he brought out the small radio.

“I will trust thee. This wireless is good. It works well. You may take it.”

Peter Marlowe almost dropped it in his excitement. “But what about thee? Surely this is beyond price.”

“It has no price. Take it with thee.”

Peter Marlowe turned the radio over. It was a main set. In good condition. The back was off and the tubes glinted in the oil light. There were many condensers. Many. He held the set nearer the light and carefully examined the guts of it, inch by inch.

The sweat began dripping off his face. Then he found the one, three hundred microfarads.