Jan Slauerhoff - The Forbidden Kingdom

The priests had talked about that, but she did not know she had one. She knew that her body had parts that were more tender and more easily aroused than others; she did not long for them to be loved, she wanted to be untouched. She liked looking at herself in the water, but did not touch herself. She never desired anyone else.

Of the Chinese, apart from her mother and the Hao Ting whom she had seen a few times at an audience, she knew only the servants, of the Portuguese only those who ruled by force or lived in prayer and ostensible humility. Neither group had the feelings capable of moving her. But the figures that she did not know, the courtiers and poets and scholars from Lisbon would also have left her cold. She could not understand how one could admire heroes and poets and out of admiration love them. That one could suffer because of unrequited love and as a result be unhappy for years or even a lifetime seemed stranger to her than the complicated ceremonies of a Chinese wedding or funeral.

If she had been told that at the same time as she was living all alone in the overgrown quinta , a strange shipwrecked mariner was wandering around the island, and suffering unspeakably because no one could understand him, no one looked at him or took him in, she would have been astonished and would have felt no pity.

IT WAS DIFFERENT when she unexpectedly caught sight of him.

During her stay at the quinta , the nurse noted with secret satisfaction, she was becoming more and more Chinese. She left her hair, which she had combed into a quiff low on her forehead as a disguise in her flight, as it was; she only felt comfortable in the robes that the nurse laid out for her, she made herself up at length and with great care, she had brought no books with her. Her feet, without having been deformed in childhood, were extremely narrow and small. She exchanged only a few words with the nurse, having forgotten her language, and did not sing.

She saw little of the nurse herself. They took turns to keep watch. No unnoticed attack was possible from the mainland side. The area was overgrown and surrounded by rocks; on the ocean side one could spot an approaching craft from a long distance. Usually they looked out from the roof of the house. What would happened if people came to look for them here? There was a well overgrown by creepers, in which she could hide. She could also run away with the nurse to Canton and become fully Chinese, and perhaps find Pedro Velho, further up the Pearl River, and place herself under his protection. Her thoughts were gradually turning in that direction.

Then she found the stranger lying in the unused room in the wooden house. She had stayed up that night, because the moon was so full and she slept badly on moonlit nights and because she liked seeing the waves glisten and surge like a herd of sea animals. She had overlooked him at first.

At first she thought he was dead. He was not breathing. He did not look like the men she knew, but like a supine Jesus, a Cristo jazente , with his protruding ribs, his thin goatee beard and the cadaverous colour and pained features of his face. But she felt that he could not be anything but an escaped prisoner or a deserter from the army.

She left him lying there; she would not wake him for the time being, perhaps never. Tomorrow the stupid fisherman was coming. He could take him with him in his empty sampan and set him down somewhere on a deserted beach, so that he could get on with dying, if he wasn’t dead already. She saw nothing cruel in this: think of all the people you saw die by the wayside, already covered in bluebottles that they could no longer shoo away! Even death was nothing but change.

But when morning came she wanted to see his face again. Now it had a half-resentful, half-attractive expression. He could not be like the others. Now she was curious to see his eyes open too. She put down food and water beside him, so that he could see it when he woke up, and let the boatman leave without him, however much the nurse insisted and pointed to the dangers. She herself didn’t know what she was supposed do with him: he was probably a fugitive and would want to keep hidden and could help them keep watch, but he might also betray them…

She stopped, bent over a flower and picked its petal. When she stood upright again, he was standing in front of her, looking at her at first happily and then reproachfully. Then he burst into a hectic tirade, a torrent of words, half of which she did not understand; though he spoke the words of her father’s language, the sound, the sentences, everything was different. Pilar closed her eyes so as to hear nothing but the voice, so as not to see the battered, emaciated man in front of her, his thin arms sticking out of his robe, the bloodshot eyes, the scab-covered lips open wide. The voice was also hoarse, yet not broken, and even seemed to be speaking contemptuously of everything across the water in Macao and of those who ruled it.

She went on listening. The voice became sad and reproachful again, and finally, because he was repeating himself, she realized that he was talking about her and blaming her for something.

This annoyed her; she laughed loudly, leapt aside among the bushes and observed him through the leaves. He lost his balance, tried to find her, but in vain, put his hand to his head, stamped his foot and suddenly turned. He went down the path, but did not get very far; after a few steps he slowed down, steadied himself on a tree trunk and leant his head against it. Slowly Pilar went towards him and waited patiently until he looked up. She treated him the way a child treats a wounded animal. But he just stood there. She made the branches crack, nudged him, laughed. Finally he looked up again, helpless and silently now, but still with a bitterly reproachful expression.

When he started talking again, Pilar was once more astonished; she had never heard this tone before: her father’s voice was always loud and imperious, Ronquilho’s boastful and shrill, while the monks spoke unctuously and full of devotion as if they were talking missals. But she suddenly realized that the stranger was delirious and had mistaken her for someone else who resembled her but had different eyes, obviously Portuguese. She now tried to calm him, but since she spoke Macao dialect, he had difficulty in understanding her. Still, he eventually allowed her to take him to the room he was occupying. She called the nurse, who knew of a remedy against fever.

The next morning he seemed calmer and Pilar went to see him again. When she opened the door, she had the momentary feeling that she was returning to her own room, from which she had fled. She was about to close the door again, but it was too late: he made straight for her, went down on one knee and took her hand in gratitude. He asked her who she was and for want of a house and a sword put his life at her disposal. She asked him to make himself known first. He did not give his name, but told her that he was a Portuguese nobleman who had fallen out of favour.

“You’re a strange kind of knight to say such things about her face to a woman whom you have known for less than a day: that it would be as beautiful as that of a former lover, if only the position of the eyes were different. I don’t know what you’ve been through in Portugal; perhaps your mind is confused. Anyway, I’ll tell you who I am: Dona Pilar, the daughter of the Procurador of Macao. Because Portuguese women do not venture so far from the fatherland, my father chose his bride from a Chinese family. That is why I have my mother’s eyes. She is dead, and my father wants to force me to marry a man I hate; I have no protectors but the Dominicans and they themselves are open to persecution. So I fled here, in the hope that no one will look for me in this place. The nurse and I take turns watching for an attack. We are tired; you can help us. I think you are also afraid of danger from across the water; keep your eyes open and don’t think of mine. I’m only here to escape from a man and I don’t want anyone else. Don’t keep comparing me with your former sweetheart or with a phantom. Keep watch at night and stay in your room during the day, and then you can stay.”