LITMIR.BIZ

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of a row! But the astonishing thing was that it only made him laugh. The prospect that would have appalled him a month back now almost exhilarated him.

      Why? And why had he given his promise at all? It was a small thing, a small risk to take—nothing heroic about it—and yet it was unlike him. Why, after all these years—the circumspect, pukka sahib-like years—break all the rules so suddenly?

      He knew why. It was because Elizabeth, by coming into his life, had so changed it and renewed it that all the dirty, miserable years might never have passed. Her presence had changed the whole orbit of his mind. She had brought back to him the air of England—dear England, where thought is free and one is not condemned forever to dance the danse du pukka sahib for the edification of the lower races. Where is the life that late I led? he thought. Just by existing she had made it possible for him, she had even made it natural to him, to act decently.

      Where is the life that late I led? he thought again as he came through the garden gate. He was happy, happy. For he had perceived that the pious ones are right when they say that there is salvation and life can begin anew. He came up the path, and it seemed to him that his house, his flowers, his servants, all the life that so short a time ago had been drenched in ennui and homesickness, were somehow made new, significant, beautiful inexhaustibly. What fun it could all be, if only you had someone to share it with you! How you could love this country, if only you were not alone! Nero was out on the path, braving the sun for some grains of paddy that the mali had dropped, taking food to his goats. Flo made a dash at him, panting, and Nero sprang into the air with a flurry and lighted on Flory’s shoulder. Flory walked into the house with the little red cock in his arms, stroking his silky ruff and the smooth, diamond-shaped feathers of his back.

      He had not set foot on the veranda before he knew that Ma Hla May was in the house. It did not need Ko S’la to come hurrying from within with a face of evil tidings. Flory had smelled her scent of sandalwood, garlic, coco-nut oil and the jasmine in her hair. He dropped Nero over the veranda rail.

      ‘The woman has come back,’ said Ko S’la.

      Flory had turned very pale. When he turned pale the birthmark made him hideously ugly. A pang like a blade of ice had gone through his entrails. Ma Hla May had appeared in the doorway of the bedroom. She stood with her face downcast, looking at him from beneath lowered brows.

      ‘Thakin,’ she said in a low voice, half sullen, half urgent.

      ‘Go away!’ said Flory angrily to Ko S’la, venting his fear and anger upon him.

      ‘Thakin,’ she said, ‘come into the bedroom here. I have a thing to say to you.’

      He followed her into the bedroom. In a week—it was only a week—her appearance had degenerated extraordinarily. Her hair looked greasy. All her lockets were gone, and she was wearing a Manchester longyi of flowered cotton, costing two rupees eight annas. She had coated her face so thick with powder that it was like a clown’s mask, and at the roots of her hair, where the powder ended, there was a ribbon of natural-coloured brown skin. She looked a drab. Flory would not face her, but stood looking sullenly through the open doorway to the veranda.

      ‘What do you mean by coming back like this? Why did you not go home to your village?’

      ‘I am staying in Kyauktada, at my cousin’s house. How can I go back to my village after what has happened?’

      ‘And what do you mean by sending men to demand money from me? How can you want more money already, when I gave you a hundred rupees only a week ago?’

      ‘How can I go back?’ she repeated, ignoring what he had said. Her voice rose so sharply that he turned round. She was standing very upright, sullen, with her black brows drawn together and her lips pouted.

      ‘Why cannot you go back?’

      ‘After that! After what you have done to me!’

      Suddenly she burst into a furious tirade. Her voice had risen to the hysterical graceless scream of the bazaar women when they quarrel.

      ‘How can I go back, to be jeered at and pointed at by those low, stupid peasants whom I despise? I who have been a bo-kadaw, a white man’s wife, to go home to my father’s house, and shake the paddy basket with old hags and women who are too ugly to find husbands! Ah, what shame, what shame! Two years I was your wife, you loved me and cared for me, and then without warning, without reason, you drove me from your door like a dog. And I must go back to my village, with no money, with all my jewels and silk longyis gone, and the people will point and say, “There is Ma Hla May who thought herself cleverer than the rest of us. And behold! her white man has treated her as they always do.” I am ruined, ruined! What man will marry me after I have lived two years in your house? You have taken my youth from me. Ah, what shame, what shame!’

      He could not look at her; he stood helpless, pale, hangdog. Every word she said was justified, and how tell her that he could do no other than he had done? How tell her that it would have been an outrage, a sin, to continue as her lover? He almost cringed from her, and the birthmark stood on his yellow face like a splash of ink. He said flatly, turning instinctively to money—for money had never failed with Ma Hla May:

      ‘I will give you money. You shall have the fifty rupees you asked me for—more later. I have no more till next month.’

      This was true. The hundred rupees he had given her, and what he had spent on clothes, had taken most of his ready money. To his dismay she burst into a loud wail. Her white mask puckered up and the tears sprang quickly out and coursed down her cheeks. Before he could stop her she had fallen on her knees in front of him, and she was bowing, touching the floor with her forehead in the ‘full’ shiko of utter abasement.

      ‘Get up, get up!’ he exclaimed. The shameful, abject shiko, neck bent, body doubled up as though inviting a blow, always horrified him. ‘I can’t bear that. Get up this instant.’

      She wailed again, and made an attempt to clasp his ankles. He stepped backwards hurriedly.

      ‘Get up, now, and stop that dreadful noise. I don’t know what you are crying about.’

      She did not get up, but only rose to her knees and wailed at him anew. ‘Why do you offer me money? Do you think it is only for money that I have come back? Do you think that when you have driven me from your door like a dog it is only because of money that I care?’

      ‘Get up,’ he repeated. He had moved several paces away, lest she should seize him. ‘What do you want if it is not money?’

      ‘Why do you hate me?’ she wailed. ‘What harm have I done you? I stole your cigarette-case, but you were not angry at that. You are going to marry this white woman, I know it, everyone knows it. But what does it matter, why must you turn me away? Why do you hate me?’

      ‘I don’t hate you. I can’t explain. Get up, please get up.’

      She was weeping quite shamelessly now. After all, she was hardly more than a child. She looked at him through her tears, anxiously, studying him for a sign of mercy. Then, a dreadful thing, she stretched herself at full length, flat on her face.

      ‘Get up, get up!’ he cried out in English. ‘I can’t bear that—it’s too abominable!’

      She did not get up, but crept, wormlike, right across the floor to his feet. Her body made a broad ribbon on the dusty floor. She lay prostrate in front of him, face hidden, arms extended, as though before a god’s altar.

      ‘Master, master,’ she whimpered, ‘will you not forgive me? This once, only this once! Take Ma Hla May back. I will be your slave, lower than your slave. Anything sooner than turn me away.’

      She had wound her arms round his ankles, actually was kissing his shoes. He stood looking down at her with his hands in his pockets, helpless. Flo came ambling into the room, walked to where Ma Hla May lay and sniffed at her longyi. She wagged her tail vaguely, recognising the smell. Flory could not endure it. He bent down and took Ma Hla May by the shoulders, lifting her to her knees.

      ‘Stand up, now,’

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