just climbed back into bed and put his arms around me. My chest was filled with a sweet painful turmoil, like a bird beating its wings. Turning over the scenes of our childhood, our many arguments and rivalries. Had I managed to catch up to Shin, or had he, by playing a cool and patient game, ensnared me instead? I lay on my side, listening to the rain and Shin’s breathing, feeling ridiculously happy.
43
Batu Gajah
Sunday, June 28th
The call comes on Sunday evening, interrupting the cool hush of the veranda, where William is sitting in a cotton shirt and a sarong. The air feels heavy and sticky, prelude to a monsoon. He lies in a woven rattan chair, the ice in his glass tinkling as he tilts it. William remembers walking by a frozen lake and hearing the loose chunks of floating ice ringing against the shore. Like bells chiming, Iris had said, her charming face pink with cold. That was right before she accused him of infidelity, of kissing another woman. Of all the things he’s done, he was never untrue to her. It must have been a mistake, he’d told her. “I know what I saw,” she’d said coldly. “At the Piersons’ party.” The only person he’d kissed that night in the darkness of the hallway, no witness save the grave ticking of a grandfather clock, was Iris herself. And ironically, it was because he’d been filled with sudden affection for her after a day spent, enjoyably, with friends. Recalling this injustice, a surge of resentment rises in William. So much for Iris’s neuroses, her uncanny ability to ruin good moments. But it’s a memory from another time, another life, and William presses the icy whisky glass against his forehead, listening as the telephone rings and rings through the empty bungalow.
On the eighth ring, Ah Long picks up the receiver. He’s not as fast as Ren was, scampering to pick up the telephone. Then he’s at the veranda door.
“Lady, Tuan.”
Right on time, William thinks. After all, he didn’t go to church this morning; Lydia would have missed her chance to speak to him then. He takes a deep breath. “Hello?”
Her voice is faint and uncertain, even if you discount the crackling of the telephone line. “William? It’s Lydia. Will you be in early tomorrow morning?”
“How early?” This is both annoying and alarming. “Surely it can wait?”
More crackles on the line. “—talk about Iris.”
A strong wind is blowing, whipping the thin cotton of his sarong around his ankles. The smell of rain.
“What did you say?” he shouts.
“Meet me at seven. At the European wing.”
There’s a crooked flash of lightning and the phone goes dead. William stares at it. Tomorrow morning then. Despite the poor reception, there was a note of triumph in Lydia’s voice that makes the bile rise in his throat. What else has she been up to, sleuthing around in her amateur way? Squeezing his eyes shut, he prays for the dark fortune that has followed him, to favor him again.
* * *
By six on Monday morning, William is up and dressed. The storm that raged all night is gone, leaving only swathes of flooded grass and a steady dripping from the eaves. Ah Long serves a tepid breakfast of toast with tinned baked beans in tomato sauce. No eggs. William can’t stomach them this morning and besides, he misses Ren’s delicate omelets. The whole house misses Ren. In the gloom, it’s empty and full of shadows. Ah Long says gruffly, “When is the boy coming back?”
“I’ll look in on him today.”
Ren’s condition has been so strange, his deterioration so precipitate, that William is filled with sick dread that he’ll arrive at the hospital and find Ren dead. But he mustn’t mention such thoughts to Ah Long, who’s superstitious.
Darkness on the winding road before sunrise. The Austin’s headlamps scatter shadows that melt into the bushes and trees. What does Lydia want from him? He has a bad feeling, one that only intensifies when he gets to the hospital. A milky blush seeps from the horizon, and though the buildings are quiet, there’s the indefinable sensation that people are beginning to stir. It’s 6:45 a.m. He’s early.
The district hospital, built in a tropical half-timbered style, has a whimsical charm. Glancing up, William approaches the dark bulk of the administrative offices in the European wing. It’s one of the few two-story buildings in the low, gardenlike hospital—surely Lydia must be somewhere around here. Instinct takes him round the corner. And