King Rat

In time she let herself be soothed and begged forgiveness for her tears, tears not of jealousy for Marina, but tears that she was not like her, tall and fair and blue eyed. She blessed Marina, for it was Marina who had taught him how to love, and the secrets of love, taught him with her love, open, kind, gentle, taught him the things that please a woman, showed him the things, secret things, freely because of her love, things that now she and her beloved enjoyed, things that smoothed the way of content, man to woman. “I bless Maree-na” she said happily. “I will always bless her for her love for thee.”

She felt the pain begin to build. He was tiny in the distance, calling her name, then the typhoon wiped the sky dark and fear swept into her. Now she saw him no more. The sky was pitched with fire, and the earth was fire and the fire burned her feet and she screamed and tried to draw her feet away, but there was no place to go, for the fire covered the whole earth. The flames began eating her.

She was running through the burning coals towards a single coconut palm that grew from the fire and she whimpered with agony and climbed the trunk of the palm, wrapped her arms and legs around it. But the fire burned the roots of the tree and she felt herself falling into the fire and she screamed and screamed and screamed. Then through the blaze she heard a voice and she saw her husband, Aliman, running through the coals towards her.

“N’ai, my love,” he was shouting, “don’t despair, fight the fire, push away the trunk, push, push, push!”

And she felt her hands gripped and Aliman tore her from the molten trunk and ran with her through the fire, telling her of his love for her and Tua, “Live for Tua, live for me, for I love thee and the boy, love thee. Run and live. Run, my love!”

But the fire spread up the sky and the sky burned and the ground burned and the trees and the birds and the creatures burned, and the stars burned and the whole firmament fell upon her and she lifted up her hands to protect Aliman and Tua, and she felt the fire crushing her and she fought the fire with her nails and hands and legs and body.

Buluda was working frantically, massaging, pushing, tugging, helping, and as she sweated she muttered incantations to the djinns of the earth and sky and sea, and with the same desperate breath, she called on Allah for the balance of life and death was now. The head was cleared and one shoulder. With the bamboo spatula, she deftly eased the shoulders free and tugged against the wrong contractions, praying for help, weakened by her length of vigil, sick of waiting, sick with anxiety for mother and child….

Still the fire burned the girl, the flames reaching up from her feet, around her thighs, ripping at her weakness, tearing for her womb. Frantically, she tried to fight the fire with her hands—better to lose hands than essence—but the agony blew them away, and fire swarmed viciously into her.

Then the heavens opened and the rains gushed and the earth reeled instantly, and suddenly she was beyond the zephyred stars, in a paradise of soft green sward, beside the stream of paradise….

“Ayeee,” Buluda shouted, victorious, holding up the squalling child. “Wake up, N’ai, thou has a child, a fine child—and thee and the child are well and blemishless.”

The girl opened her eyes and saw the beauty of her son and the last thing she saw before she closed her eyes and floated into blissful slumber-peace, was the face of Aliman, her husband, and his love for her—written clear and content in the glory of his smile.

When they were about a mile from the camp, the King and Peter Marlowe stopped for a breather. It was then that the King noticed for the first time the small bundle wrapped in cloth.

He had been leading the way, and so concentrated had he been on the success of the night’s work, and so watchful of the darkness against possible danger, that he had not noticed it before.

“What you got? Extra chow?”

He watched while Peter Marlowe grinned and proudly unwrapped the cloth. “Surprise!”

The King’s heart missed six beats.

“Why, you goddam son of a bitch! Are you out of your skull?”

“What’s the matter?” Peter Marlowe asked, flabbergasted.

“Are you crazy? That’ll land us in more trouble than hell knows what. You got no right to risk our necks over a goddam radio. You got no right to use my contacts for your own goddam business.”

Peter Marlowe felt the night close in on him as he stared unbelievingly. Then he said, “I didn’t mean any harm—”

“Why, you goddam son of a bitch!” the King raged. “Radios are poison.”

“But there isn’t one in the camp—”

“Tough. You get rid of that goddam thing right now. And I’ll tell you something else. We’re finished. You and me. You got no right to get me mixed in something without telling me. I ought to kick the shit outta you!”