Paul Theroux - The Consul's File

I gave Ah Kwok, my house-boy, the day off; I told Miss Leong that I was working at home; and I opened the box-room. It was very dusty, and when I walked in cob-webs brushed my eyes and trailed down my face. I smelled decayed wood and the peanut-stink of dead insects. The room was small and hot and just being there made me itch. I found some cardboard boxes and inside stacks of paper bound with string. I didn't have to untie the string: I lifted it and it broke and I saw that what it had held were ragged yellow papers in which white ants had chewed their way to nest. Many of the ants were dead, but there were still live ones hurrying out of the chewed pages. Another story: dramatic; the consuls' files made illegible by the white ants, because the files were hidden and secret. Well, that was true, but I did not have to look for long to discover that there was little writing on them, and certainly no secrets; in fact, most of the pages were blank.

A road, some gum trees, a row of shop-houses, three parked cars: Ayer Hitam was that small, and even after we parked in front of the coffee shop I was not sure we had arrived. But apparently this was all — this and a kind of low dense foliage that gave, in the way it gripped the town, a hint of strangulation. It was to be months before I made anything of this random settlement. It seemed at times as if I was inventing the place. I could find no explanation for its name, which meant 'Black Water'.

The trip had started gloomy with suppressed argument. Flint, number two in the Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, had offered to drive me down and show me around. With no Malay syce to inhibit conversation I had expected a candid tour — Flint had been recommended to me as an old Malaysian hand. I needed information to give life to the position-papers and the files of clippings I'd studied all summer in Washington. The Political Section had briefed me in K.L., but the briefing had been too short, and when finally I was alone with the Press Officer he launched into tedious monologuing — a clinical dithyramb about his bowel movements since arriving in the country.

Flint also had other things on his mind. As soon as the road straightened he said, 'The Foreign Service isn't what it was. I remember when an overseas post meant some excitement. Hard work, drinking, romance, a little bit of the Empire. I never looked for gratitude, but I felt I was doing a real job.'

' "The White-Man's Burden",' I said.

Flint said, 'That's my favourite poem. Someday I'll get plastered and recite it to you. People think it's about the British in India. It isn't. It's about us in the Philippines. It's a heart-breaking poem — it makes me cry.' He smacked his lips in regret. 'God, I envy you. You're on your own here. The telephone will be out of order half the time, there's a decent club, and no one'll bother you. It's just the kind of job I had in Medan in sixty-two, sixty-three.'

'It doesn't have much strategic value.'

'Never mind that,' said Flint. 'It's a bachelor post.'

I've always hated the presumption in that phrase; like dirty weekend it strikes me as only pathetic. I said, 'We'll see.'

'It's no reflection on you,' he said. 'They don't send married men to places like Ayer Hitam any more. Sure, I'd be off like a shot, but Lois wouldn't stand for it.' He was silent for a while, then he tightened his grip on the steering wheel and said, 'It's in the air, this dependent wife business.'

I said, 'At that party in K.L. the other night I met a very attractive girl. I asked her what she did. She said, "I'm a wife." '

'See what I mean? I bet she was eating her heart out. Hates the place, hates her husband, bores the pants off everyone with what it means to be a woman.'

'It was a silly question,' I said. 'She seemed happy enough.'

'She's climbing the walls,' said Flint. 'They hate the designation — dependent wife. Lois is going crazy.'

'I'm sorry to hear it.'

He shrugged, bringing his shoulders almost to his ears. 'I've got a job to do. She's supposed to be involved in it, but she refuses to give dinner parties.'

I said, 'They're a lot of work.'

'The hell they are — she's got three goddamned servants! ' Flint glowered at the road. For miles we had been passing rubber estates, regular rows of slender trees scored with cuts, like great wilted orchards criss-crossed by perfectly straight paths, a yellowing symmetry that made the landscape seem hot and violated. I had expected a bit more than this. 'And sometimes — I'm not kidding — sometimes she refuses to go to dinner parties with me. We've got one tonight — I'll have to drag her to it.' He squinted. 'I will drag her, too. She says I'm married to my job.'

'I can sympathize with some of these wives,' I said. 'They get married right out of college, the husband gets an overseas post and everything's fine — the woman becomes a hostess. Then she sees that what she's really doing is boosting her husband in his job. What's in it for her?'

'I'll tell you what's in it for her,' said Flint, turning angry again. 'She's got three square meals, duty-free booze, a beautiful home and all the servants she wants. No dishes, no laundry, no housework. And for that we get kicked in the teeth.'

'I wouldn't know about that.'

'Then listen,' said Flint. 'Lois is upset, but the younger ones are bent out of shape. Sure, they're pleasant when you first meet them, but later on you find out they're really hostile. They want jobs, they want to read the cables, they write letters to Stars and Stripes and sign them "Disgusted". Then they corner the ambassador's wife and start bending her ear.'

'We had a few problems like that in Uganda.' 'This isn't a problem, it's an international incident.' Now Flint was pounding the steering wheel as he spoke. 'The wives in Saigon — you know whose side they were on? The Vietcong! I won't name names but a lot of those gals in Saigon got it into their heads that they were oppressed, and believe me they supported the V.C. No, they didn't give speeches, but they nagged and nagged. They talked about "our struggle" as if there was some connection between the guerrillas shelling Nhatrang and a lot of old hens in the embassy compound refusing to made peanut-butter sandwiches. It's not funny. 1 knew lots of officers who were shipped home — their wives were a security risk.' Then Flint added warily. 'You probably think I'm making this up. I'm not. They don't want to give dinner parties, they don't wear dresses any more — just these dungarees and sweatshirts. They hate coffee mornings. "What do you do?" "I'm a wife." Whoever said that to you — I'm not asking — is a very unhappy woman.'

In this way, when he could have been filling me in on Ayer Hitam, Flint ranted for the entire trip from K.L. When we arrived at the coffee shop he was a bit breathless and disappointed, as if he wished to continue the journey to continue his rant.

The door of the car was snatched open. Outside was a woman of about thirty, not fat but full-faced, yellow-brown with thick arms and a tremendous grin. She wore a sarong kebaya and her feet, which were bare, were so dirty I took them at first for shoes. She saw the two of us and let out a cry of gratitude and joy, a kind of welcoming yelp.

It had started to rain, large widely-spaced drops going phut at the roadside and turning to dust.

She said, 'It's raining! That means good luck! ' She ran round to Flint's side of the car, tugged his sleeve and dragged him to a seat on the verandah, repeating her name, which was Fadila.

'Yes, yes,' she said. 'Two coffees and what else? Beer? I got some cold Tiger bottles waiting for you. You want a bowl of Chinese noodles? Nasi gor eng? Laksa? Here, have a cigarette.' She offered us a round can of mentholated cigarettes and muttered for a small Chinese boy to leave us alone. 'Welcome to Ayer Hitam. Relax, don't be stuffy.'