EPISODE
Night and Singapore. Steamy, sweltering darkness. A stealthy wind
rustling mangoes and aloes, swaying banana and cocoa fronds. Song
of rippling water beneath the quays. Patter of bare feet, crunch of
wheels, in bazaar lanes and native streets. Clink of ice, fragments of
music, in hotels and clubs. Lazy nocturnes.
A multitude of stars had swarmed out and dropped low over the island.
So low that their reflections trembled in the dark harbor. So low that
Canopus seemed pinned to a mast and the Southern Cross caught in a net
of rigging. So low that the woman standing in semi-darkness, on the
upper veranda of a hotel facing the Roads, felt as though she could
reach out and touch them.
A light from the long window behind made a bright patch upon the
gallery. But she stood outside the reflection, a shadow among other
shadows. Her eyes were raised above the roadway--even above the
contours of shadow that melted across an expanse of park--and brooded
upon the sea. She was intent, absorbed, as though deciphering a code
traced in the harbor. The focus of her gaze was a pair of green eyes
that returned her stare unwaveringly. In reality they were starboard
lamps on two vessels anchored not far apart, but to her they were
Medusa's eyes.
Perhaps she sighed; it may have been a vagrant breeze in the foliage
below. At a swift movement her sleeves, long, flowing sleeves, fell
back from white skin. She lifted her arms above her, held them rigid, a
sharp surge of power sweeping through her. Thus she stood for a moment,
motionless, scarcely breathing, the glimmer of her bare skin like that
of ivory. It was a gesture of dominion, intolerant and commanding; and
she might have been a valkyr exulting in her immutable security. Then
she dropped her arms, soundlessly, and stepped backward into the patch
of light. Instantly a golden dragon on her kimono kindled. It seemed
animated, coiled about the heavy black silk and breathed fire at the
woman's head; a glow that melted into the fluid copper of her hair.
Quickly, with a luxurious swish of silk, she moved into the room; drew
the blinds. At this exertion her hair, loosely coiled, came unbound and
rippled about her face and shoulders in a burnished cowl.
Medusa's eyes. Her mind repeated that, held a picture of the green
lights. Six years ago, soon after she had reached the age of silk
frocks and feather fans, she had fallen under their spell. She had
seen them many times since, these serpent's eyes. In the harbor of New
York. The Bay of Naples. San Francisco. Yokohama. Wherever ships lay at
moorings in the night.
She broke into a laugh--a sound rich and faintly husky. A glance at the
clock on the dressing-table banished from her mind all but thought of
the hour. Fifteen minutes to eight; and she was to dine at eight.
She seated herself before the mirror, studying her replica. A face fine
and regal as that on a coin, wistful enough to be a girl's, mature
enough to be a woman's. Pale gold was the throat that rose in a slender
column from the black silk, pale gold the arms. Her lips, in contrast
with her flawless olive pallor, were vivid crimson, remarkable in that
their color was genuine.
The dinner-gown of _moire dorée_, she decided. It would look well with
the captain's uniform. (Captain Remy Barthélemy, French Annamite Army,
ran through her mind swift as flame.) She rose with easy, languid
grace; moved to a closet; opened the door. In reaching for her gown she
unconsciously let the kimono slip down about her arms, revealing superb
shoulders....
As she dressed she hummed softly. "Addio a Napoli"--a somber strain. It
carried her, in fancy, to a city that dreamed above a blue porcelain
bay; the prelude to her début, that most breathless of seasons, from
which she had emerged polished and super-poised--and untouched. She,
Lhassa Camber, the vivid glacier, hiding beneath indifference the
smoldering purpose that later was to lead her half across the world....
The tune ended in a sigh.
When she was dressed she surveyed herself in the mirror. Her only
ornament was a large comb thrust in her hair. She had used no rouge,
not because of scruples but because she was aware of the effect of her
red lips against the colorless oval of her face. Satisfied, she went
below.
2
An officer seated in the lounge sprang up at her entrance. On his
brilliant uniform were medals and ribbons that told of service on
far frontiers. Black hair, glossy as lacquer, was brushed back from
features almost Oriental in their impassible regularity. Wind and glare
had bitten into his granular skin, and but for his eyes and mouth, both
rather humorous, his appearance would have been that of a man calloused
not only physically but in character as well. A short waxed mustache
added a fastidious touch.
"I am late," she apologized.
He inclined forward from narrow hips. "Yes? I was not aware of it," he
lied.
She gazed at him analytically. He was what one might expect a
_légionnaire_ to be: a man whose emotions were as well disciplined
as his muscles. "Knew his father," the consul had confided before
introducing him. "Good family. I can vouch for that. You'll find him
interesting company on the voyage." She had found him interesting
already, interesting by virtue of the fact that he had seen much of the
world and absorbed from it a certain genial iniquity.
"Men always say the expected," she observed as they moved toward
the veranda, "and women do it. If they did otherwise they'd be
original--and that's dangerous."
He smiled. "Do all women do the expected?"
The implication did not escape her. However, when they were seated in
one end of the café, she commanded:
"Be specific."
The Frenchman made a gesture. "A young woman traveling out here in the
colonies is expected to have a chaperon, usually some aristocratic
ancient who takes her duties too----"
"Am I being lectured?" she interposed. "Yesterday when the consul said
you were going to Bangkok on the same boat as I, I felt that he wanted
to suggest that you keep an eye on me. For all I know, he may have
after I left. But please don't inform me that I'm being improper; I
know it."
She spoke with the splendid independence of a woman accustomed to
attention, and her manner challenged admiration into Barthélemy's face.
"Ice and fire!" he thought. But he said, "I am merely pointing out that
you are courageous--and original."
"Does that mean--dangerous?"--languidly.
He gazed into the still, dark mystery of her eyes, eyes that could one
moment kindle with a poignant intensity of feeling and the next freeze
cold as northern forests, and realized that the secret of her charm
was an enigmatical streak in her temperament, as powerful as it was
inscrutable. He likened it to _Gioconda's_ smile in that it was too
subtle to be explained.
"It means...." He shrugged. "How can I say it? I see two distinct
pictures in your eyes. Generally, I see snow--ice--polar nights!" He
smiled. "Less frequently, I see jungles--undiscovered rivers--Asia,
yes, Asia."
"Jungles," she repeated with a speculative look. "Perhaps you see
anticipation. I intend to explore jungles, undiscovered rivers.
Impossible, you think? Impossible! An alluring word. Somehow I feel
that I belong to the unknown places. My mother must have felt it, too,
or why did she call me Lhassa?"
"You are not serious."
"About the jungles? Why not?"
"You are a woman; and what would be your purpose?"
"Purpose!" she echoed scornfully. The word had stung her. "Purpose!
Does a woman have any purpose other than to make herself attractive?
Purpose! Always I've wanted some object other than simply to live; I've
never had one and I probably never shall. When I was a girl my purpose,
according to my governess, was to graduate and make a successful début.
After that my purpose was to marry. And then....
"Monsieur, have you ever dreamed over an atlas?" she demanded abruptly.
Without waiting for a reply she went on. "I remember the first time I
saw a map of the world. There was something thrilling about the lines
that marked tides and winds, the tiny dots that in reality were great
cities, and the patches of yellow that were deserts. South America was
mysterious. Africa was dark and fearsome, like my room after the light
had been turned out. But there was one continent----" A pause; when she
resumed her voice had a low, impassioned timbre. "When I looked at it I
felt as a butterfly must feel when it's caught in a net."
She smiled; paused again as a "boy" approached.
"Once," she continued when their order had been given, "I took an atlas
to my grandfather and turned to Asia.... You see, there were only we
two; I never knew my parents.... I told him I was going there some day;
and he laughed. He always laughed when I spoke of going to Asia--until
I grew older and he realized my desire wasn't a childish fancy. 'It
isn't the place for a woman,' he would say; I can hear him now. 'If
you go you'll come back with malaria and a citron complexion.' Before
I finished boarding-school he sent me to Europe with a companion. I
wanted to go eastward. We had a scene, and it almost made him ill. So I
surrendered.
"But I kept on dreaming over the map of the world. After I returned
from Italy, we spent our summers in the West, and often, in the late
afternoon, I'd go down to the waterfront and watch the ships steal out
in the dusk, headed for strange ports; ports whose names are written in
italics in the history of romance. Bangkok, Zamboanga, Karachi; towns
with barbaric names like those. One evening when I returned I found
grandfather sitting in the dark with a map, a map of Asia, crumpled at
his feet. As soon as I entered the room I knew I was alone. That was
two years ago. I felt, and still feel, that if he had spoken before
the end he would have exacted a promise.... It was a queer obsession,
his. But probably no stranger than mine. I sensed Asia tugging, I----To
illustrate: a friend in the states had a macaw, and she took it out to
her country-place and chained it to a perch in a garden. Each day it
would hear the cries of wild birds in the woods, and it would answer
with little restless screeches and bite at its chain. One evening my
friend found the macaw gone."
She ended with a shrug. Barthélemy, smiling thoughtfully, drew out
cigarettes; passed them. He lighted hers, then his own, and flicked
the match away. The smoke coiled about her head, leaving her face
unobscured to glow in the foggy blue, as vivid, he thought, as a flame
burning through gauze.
"A macaw," he mused, still smiling. "Brilliant feathers."
"A wild creature, never really tamed," she added. "A gaudy, vain bird,
but free, free as the wind.... I obeyed the impulse to break away from
the old sphere with its worn-out gods and explore other worlds. So I
came, alone except for Manuel, a Filipino who was my grandfather's
valet; and I brought him merely for convenience, to attend to baggage
and other such details. First, Bangkok; then, Zamboanga and Karachi;
all those cities with gorgeous names; alone, free as the macaw that
broke its chain."
"And how long in Bangkok?" he inquired. "Until you feel the impulse to
fly?"
"Yes. Siam! Gold-leaf Buddhas and sleepy temples. I am going there
ostensibly to visit a man whom I've never seen and who doesn't even
know I'm coming. Perhaps you know of him--Dr. Garth? I believe he was
the king's physician for a while."
Barthélemy shook his head. "I am not well acquainted in Bangkok;
the fact is, I am merely going there to pay a short visit, two days
perhaps, to an old comrade attached to the consulate. But tell me more
about this doctor."
"He and grandfather went to school together in Virginia. I didn't
write that I was coming because I like to appear unexpectedly"--with
an indolent smile. "Yes, I have a dramatic streak. But don't
misunderstand: I sha'n't intrude; I shall go to a hotel when I
arrive. The doctor is simply an explanation for my presence in Siam,
a compromise, if you wish, with the rule that says a woman must not
travel alone in Asiatic countries, at least without a conventional
reason. I....
"Notice that man," she enjoined abruptly, indicating a figure that had
risen from a near-by table. "Isn't he extraordinary-looking?"
The object of her remark was a man with a short-cropped, gold-brown
beard. He wore a white silk suit, and a blue sash was bound about his
waist, its fringed ends swinging flippantly as he strode toward the
door.
"Sacred name!" exclaimed Barthélemy, his gaze following the white-clad
form.
"Rather striking, isn't he?"
"Striking!" He chuckled. "Name of God! What a resemblance!"
"To whom?"--curious.
"For a moment I thought I had seen a ghost. Just his profile...."
Another chuckle. "The man I know is quite a character, a handsome
rogue, with the most unusual hands----"
"I didn't see his hands. What was that around his waist?"
"A slendong; similar to a sarong but narrower." He glanced toward the
doorway through which the man had gone; smiled reminiscently. "No, it
could not have been he--not unless the devil has turned a grim trick."
* * * * *
Later that night Lhassa Camber, lying in darkness, half asleep,
remembered the man whose singular appearance had attracted her in the
café. She had once seen a cinema where a horseman rode toward the
camera and apparently over the screen; and as she drowsily recalled
the wearer of the slendong, he, like the rider in the cinema, seemed
to advance, almost ruthlessly, and stride over her, vanishing into a
fissure of memory.