There were some eggs left in the kitchen and a Primus stove. While I held the flashlight, Rosalie made an omelette. I salvaged a couple of broken chairs from the chaos in the living room and we ate out on the terrace. It was not comfortable and the smoke still drifted over, but we were very hungry and did not care. We were eating the last of the fruit when Major Suparto returned.
I offered him fruit, but he declined stiffly.
“No, thank you, Mr. Fraser. I have to report to General Ishak and must leave immediately.”
“I see. Well, what’s the news?”
“I do not think that Miss Linden need feel alarmed for her sister’s safety. I am told that there is little damage in that quarter. Apart from that, I regret that the news I have for you is not good. The streets about here are forbidden to civilians at present. If you insist on leaving, I will provide you with an escort, but I do not advise it. The hotels are being searched for rebel sympathisers and many arrests are being made. Emotions have been aroused and matters are a little out of hand. You would be wiser to remain here.”
“Oh.”
“I can understand your reluctance to stay in this apartment a moment longer than is necessary, but in your own interests it is better that you do.”
“Yes. All right.”
“There are troops in this building. There is much to be done here. But you will not be disturbed. I have given strict orders. By the morning, perhaps …”
“Yes, of course. It’s good of you to come and tell us yourself.”
He hesitated. It was clear that he was desperately tired, but he also seemed ill at ease, even embarrassed. I wondered why.
“Mr. Fraser,” he said, “I may not have the opportunity of seeing you again.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“You, I think, will soon be leaving Selampang.”
“If the police haven’t lost my passport in the confusion.”
“Should you have difficulties, Lim Mor Sai will arrange matters for you. If you will mention that I suggested that he should.”
“Thank you. I was forgetting he was a friend of yours. Will you be going back to Tangga?”
“No. I believe that I am to be given other duties now.”
His face had become impassive, and I knew now what was troubling him. He was going to be promoted for his services to the Government, and he had a bad conscience. Aroff’s sneer about his treachery had hurt, and I had been there to hear it. He believed that in my heart I despised him. I wished that there were some way of telling him that I did not; and knew that there was no way that would not humiliate us both.
“Gedge will be sorry to hear that,” I said; “and so will the Transport Manager.”
He smiled sourly. “As Mr. Gedge will shortly be losing his other liaison managers also, perhaps he will feel compensated.” The smile went. “And now I regret that I must go.”
“Major, I wish that I could begin to thank you …”
He broke in hastily. “Please, Mr. Fraser, no thanks. We are both civilised and-what was your word? — humane men. Are we not? Yes. I will wish you, as I wished you the other day in Tangga, a safe journey and a happy future.”
“Thank you.”
He gave Rosalie a curt little bow, and then went back through the living room to the passage door. I followed. As he opened the door, I held out my hand.
“Goodbye, Major.”
His handshake was limp; a perfunctory concession to European manners.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Fraser.”
He went. There was another officer waiting for him in the passage.
I shut the door and bolted it. Then, I walked back through the living room and stood for a moment looking round at the litter and wreckage and filth on the terrace. Where Roda and Sanusi had died there were two large stains, congealed, glistening, and black in the moonlight.
I went over and sat down by Rosalie.
“Do you mind very much that we have to stay here?”
“Now that I am not so worried for my sister, it does not matter.”
“Are you still hungry?”
“Not any more.”
“Would you like a drink?”
She shook her head. “Do you think that we could have baths?”
“There should be enough water for you.”
“For both of us if we use the water carefully. I will show you.”
“All right.”
So we bathed, pouring the water carefully over one another so that none was wasted, soaping ourselves, and then each rinsing the other. And gradually, as we stood there in the warm darkness, our bodies began to come alive. Nothing was said. We had not touched. We could not see. Yet both of us knew suddenly that it was happening to the other as well. For a moment or two we stood there motionless, each listening to the other’s breathing. It became intolerable. I put out my hands and touched her. She drew in her breath sharply; and then her body pressed with desperate urgency against mine.
I picked her up and carried her along the terrace. Somewhere in the wreckage of the bedroom there was a bed. Later, when our bodies had celebrated their return to life and the smell of death had gone, we slept.
10
Soon after eight thirty the next morning I was awakened by someone knocking on the outer door of the apartment. By the time I had found my dressing gown, the knocking had ceased, but there were voices in the passage, one of them a woman’s. She sounded annoyed. When I opened the door, Mrs. Choong was waving her door key angrily in the face of a soldier who had come to ask what she was doing there.
She gave a cry of triumph as she saw me. Not only, she said, had she been prevented from coming to work the last two mornings by soldiers in the street, but now, when the soldiers in the street did let her pass, there were other soldiers waiting to accuse her of looting. Her trousers quivered with indignation. When I sent the soldier away she shouted insults after him.
Then, she came in and saw the apartment.
For several seconds she stood there staring; then, she waddled through slowly into the living room.
It looked awful in the daylight. The bombing had made a mess, but it had been a tolerable mess; in two days a decorator could have put everything right again. The grenades and machine-pistol fire had savaged the place. The furniture was torn and splintered, the floor and walls and doors were scarred and pitted. Nothing was unspoiled; a pleasant room had become a hideous disfigurement.
To my dismay, I saw tears beginning to roll down Mrs. Choong’s plump cheeks.
“Soldiers!” she said bitterly, and then looked at me. “Bedroom also?”
“That’s pretty bad, too, I’m afraid, Mrs. Choong.”
“Poor Mr. Jebb! But you, mister? You here?”
“Most of the time. Last night, when the attack came, Miss Linden and I went up on the roof.”
“Miss Linden? That is Miss Mina’s friend?”
“Yes.”
“Ah.” She brushed the tears away. “You want breakfast?”
“I’m afraid there isn’t any food left.”
“I bring.” She held up the bag she was carrying. “I promise, I bring. Miss Linden, too? She want breakfast?”
“Yes, please, Mrs. Choong. There’s no electricity, though. We used the Primus stove.”
But she was already in the kitchen. I heard her swearing to herself over the confusion she found there.
After breakfast, Rosalie and I cleaned ourselves up as best we could with the dregs of the water in the bathhouse, and made ready to leave. We had arranged to meet later at the Harmony Club. Meanwhile, she would go home and I would see the police about my passport. I would also have to buy some clean clothes. Mrs. Choong took away the dirty ones to get them dobi-ed.
Nobody was allowed inside the radio station without a new sort of pass that I did not have, and we had to use the auxiliary staircase to get down into the square. The road was still closed to four-wheeled traffic, but the betjak drivers were back, and Mahmud was there, grinning knowingly as if we had all been on a wild two-day party together and were suffering a common hangover. There were a lot of people about, staring awe-struck at the damaged buildings or excitedly discussing their experiences. The children were having a fine time playing in the shell holes. As he pedalled along, Mahmud talked continuously about what had happened where he lived; but I don’t think either of us listened to a word he said. We were enjoying our freedom.