He came to a place now where a great outcrop of rock jutted up from the surrounding trees and undergrowth and he recalled that here was an old favourite sleeping place of his, a small cave at the base of the rock. But as he neared it, he was perturbed by a powerful smell that seemed to be issuing from within. It was in a strange way familiar and at the same time it incorporated another smell that did not belong with the first odour. He came to a halt for a moment, sniffing and grimacing, unsure of what to do. At last, he ventured a little nearer and issued a loud roar of enquiry; whereupon several large black shapes came squawking and flapping out of the darkness, almost blundering right into him. Haji was so startled, he almost turned tail and ran. But then he realized that the creatures had been just a flock of scavenging magpies who had clearly not noticed his approach. Still, the shock had unnerved him a little and he paced backwards and forwards for several minutes, his head down, while he made low rumbling growls deep in his throat. He began to move away from the cave, but the smell antagonized him with its nagging familiarity and at the back of his mind was the thought that the cave must hold some kind of food if the magpies had been there. So he approached again, slowly, cautiously, craning his head forward to peer into the dark interior. The smell became more powerful by the moment.
He slipped into the cool shade, setting down his feet on the chill rocks with great precision. Now, he realized why the smell had seemed so familiar to him. Against the back wall of the cave, where the ceiling curved down low to meet the ground, he could discern the long striped back of a tigress lying on her side. It was his other, older mate, Seti.
Haji uttered the habitual coughing growl of welcome that tigers use, but she made no reply. She was lying with her head turned away from him and seemed to be resting, though she should surely have woken at the sound of his voice. Haji was unsettled by the strangeness of her behaviour and nervously he called her again, but she remained silent. He stood for several long moments, debating what to do. The unfamiliar smell was frightening him. In it, he thought he detected something that spoke of birth and his suspicions were confirmed when he spotted a tiny cub stretched on the ground beside Seti. He stepped forward and nuzzled it, but it did not move or make a sound. Now he crept fearfully up to Seti and saw that a second cub lay nearby, but that too was strangely still and silent. Then he saw that a third cub lay half in, half out of Seti’s body, the tiny wrinkled face and paws immersed in a sea of congealed blood. A thick mantle of flies buzzed greedily over the area, settling, flying up, resettling.
With an angry growl, Haji moved forward so he could nuzzle at Seti’s face. She was lying stretched out, her dry tongue lolling from her open mouth, which seemed to hold an expression of pain. At first, Haji thought that her eyes were closed for he could see no glimmer of light from them. But then he realized that she had no eyes, for the thieving magpies had stolen them and that was why she was so still and quiet. He knew now that the third smell was the awful stench of death, and he shrank back from it in fear, hugging the wall of the cave as he crept away. He turned back once or twice and cried fearfully for the cubs to follow him but then he realized that the death-smell was on them too and anyway, they had been so young they could barely crawl to their mother’s milk. As she was blind in death, so had they been in life, however brief that was.
Haji reeled out into the sunlight, frightened, bewildered. He knew now that Seti and the cubs could never emerge from the cave, that the death-smell had bound them there forever. He would never encounter them on the trail again and though he could not really understand grief, there was an anxiety in him at the loss of his old companion and his inability to fully comprehend what had happened to her. He paced up and down, walking faster and faster, and working himself into a kind of frenzy, for he could still feel the stench of the death-smell in his nostrils and he was torn between a natural impulse to run away and a powerful desire to stay with his mate. But the image of her blind eyes kept coming back to him, telling him that it was useless to stay and risk the death-smell, for she could never find him now.
At last he articulated the frenzy of conflicting emotions within him into a great shattering roar, which he flung to the wind. It echoed from the crags of rock, seeming to multiply in volume and duration until the entire jungle for miles around throbbed to the sound of his confusion. Flocks of birds scattered skywards, deer raced into jungle, milling in confusion, troops of monkeys shrieked feeble insults in return. But the roaring continued, all through the long morning and late into the afternoon.
Harry stepped out of the taxicab onto the crowded pavement of one of the main streets of Kuala Trengganu, the state capital. He handed the driver a five-dollar bill and waved away the change. The taxi accelerated off into a melee of cars and bicycles all reassuringly ploughing a path down the left-hand side of the road. Harry glanced quickly about. Kuala Trengganu, like most sizeable Malay towns, was a riot of sounds, smells, and visual peculiarities. Harry didn’t make the trip very often, but the only real shops were here and he had something special in mind. He noticed a couple of bedraggled beggars advancing towards him with their arms outstretched, and he wisely took to his heels, striding purposely past the ranks of Chinese emporiums and eating places, each with their own garish advertisements for drink and cigarettes displayed on tin boards outside. It was not that he begrudged the beggars a few cents, but he had learned from experience that news of a generous Englishman could spread amongst the begging community like wildfire and then the wretched creatures would appear as if by magic, crawling out of every nook and cranny. In such instances, it was simply impossible to give everybody something, there were just too many of them; and so, one played a kind of cat-and-mouse game with them, only rewarding those who showed uncanny persistence in staying the distance.
Harry headed for a certain area, where a row of Chinese merchants operated stores that specialized in watches, cameras, and radios. As he struggled through a crowded market, he felt a sharp tugging at his sleeve and glancing down he saw that a Tamil beggar was standing beside him. At first, he thought the man was very short, because he stood no higher than Harry’s elbow.
‘Please, Tuan, please!’ He gazed imploringly up, one hand extended for coins.
‘No, I’m sorry, I haven’t any …’ The excuse died in Harry’s throat, for, glancing down, he saw that the man was suffering from elephantiasis. His body was perfectly normal but his legs had degenerated into two vividly coloured stumps of bloated, clublike flesh, spreading out at the base into wide formless trunks from each of which a single yellow toenail protruded. Harry felt nauseated, humbled. He glanced back at the man’s face which was a portrait of suffering.
‘Please, Tuan …’
‘Yes … yes, of course.’ Harry fumbled in his pocket and pulled out what change there was, and thrust it into the man’s hand. Then he moved on, not wanting to see those hideous legs again. From behind him came the man’s profuse thanks.
‘Terima kasih, Tuan! Terima kasih …’
His head down, Harry hurried onwards. Lord, this country of mixed experiences. Just when a man was beginning to think that he was inured to shock, along came something like that to put him firmly in his place again. Sometimes he wondered if the white man really had any place out here. Perhaps it was a good thing that the colonial system was finally falling apart … and yet, from his middle youth onwards, it was the only life that Harry had known. He would stay on now. He would have to.
He climbed up the steps by the monsoon drain and onto a raised pavement. This was the area he had been heading for. After a few moments, he came to the particular shop he wanted. He had long ago learned that it was good policy to frequent one particular shop. After a while, the trader got to know you and recognizing that regular trade was a good thing, he would start his bartering