Paul Theroux - The Consul's File

'He doesn't travel,' said Azhari, as if the Sultan was some rare wine. He searched my face suspiciously: had I meant my question as criticism?

I said that I had been longing to meet him; that I might be leaving soon. 'I'd hate to leave without having had a chat with him.'

'I can arrange that,' said Azhari.

I felt I had gone about it the right way. The Sultan might get in touch with me, or Azhari might give me the go-ahead. I'd write a personal note and wouldn't mention security — I didn't want to talk to a general. But nothing happened. It was so often the case with the oriental approach: one needed oriental patience, like Gillespie.

It was a sign of our diminishing numbers, perhaps a siege mentality that we began meeting together for lunch, Alec, Squibb, Evans, Strang, and sometimes Presser. A club within the Club, for since I had arrived many expatriates had left and the membership committee started encouraging locals to join. It looked like tolerance; it was a way of paying the bills. Our lunches might have been a reaction to the Chinese tables, the Malay tables, the Indian tables. A multi-racial club seemed to mean nothing more than a dining room filled with tables at which the various races asserted their difference by practising exclusion.

At one of those lunches I noticed Alec carrying an odd familiar stick that I recognized and yet could not name.

'A shooting stick,' he said when I asked. 'You sit on it, like so.' He opened it, stuck it into the dining room carpet and sat. There were some stares; the local members had not progressed to the point where they were allowed this sort of eccentricity.

'Going shooting?' Evans asked.

'Polo,' said Alec. Tm driving down to the Sultan's. This is the last day of the festival.'

'Hari Raya Haji's months away,' I said.

'Not that festival, you idiot. The Sultan's not a complete barbarian.' He winked at me. 'Polo festival. It's been going on for a week. This will be the best day — Pahang's playing. And tonight the Sultan awards his cup. But I shan't stay for that hoo-hah.'

'Do you mind if I come along with you?'

Alec spoke to Squibb. 'Hear that? I told you we'd make a gentleman out of this Yank.'

And Alec even found me a shooting stick in one of the Club's storerooms. 'Remember,' he said, 'pointed end in the ground. Got it?'

There were flags flying at the gateway of the Sultan's mansion, the flags of all the states, and coloured pennants fluttering on wires. Across the driveway were the Christmas lights the Malays dragged out for special occasions. The day was overcast and sultry and the spectators looked subdued in the heat — a crowd of Malays standing on the opposite side, some still figures on our side, surrounded by many empty chairs. As we passed behind the awnings of the Royal Pavilion Alec said, 'Just follow me and set your stick up. Don't turn around. Concentrate on the match.'

'What's wrong?'

'He's here,' said Alec. 'I was hoping he wouldn't be. Worse luck.'

'Who?'

'Buffles,' said Alec.

'The Sultan?'

'Buffles. And if I catch you calling him "Your Highness" I'll never give you lunch again.'

We were not at the sidelines — Alec said we'd be trampled there. We had set up our sticks about thirty feet from the margin of the field, our backs to the Pavilion.

It was to me an unexpectedly beautiful sport, graceful horses leaping back and forth on a field of English grass; like mock warfare, a tournament, chargers in the colours of chivalry, green and gold. No shouts, only the hookbeats, the occasional crack of sticks and the small white ball flying from the scrimmage of snorting horses.

'Third chukka,' said Alec. 'There's Eddie Pahang— awfully good player. Get him! ' Alec lurched with such excitement he drove his shooting-stick deeper into the ground.

'I say, aren't you playing, Stewart?'

It was a high querulous voice. Alec sighed and said, 'Buffles.' But he turned smiling towards the striped awning 'Not today! '

I had not taken a good look at the Sultan when we entered the polo ground. Now I saw him and, seated next to him, Angela Miller in her garden-party outfit, white gloves and a long dress and a wide-brimmed hat. The Sultan wore a batik sports shirt and dark glasses; his head came to Angela's shoulder, her hat shielding him like an umbrella.

'Sit here, Stewart,' he said, patting an armchair in front of him. 'Join us — bring your friend.'

Alec smiled rather coldly at Angela, as at a betrayer, then introduced me.

The Sultan said, 'I didn't know there was still a consulate in Ayer Hitam. Why don't my people tell me anything?'

'It's really a small affair,' I said.

'Ayer Hitam is lovely. Like those villages in the Cots-wolds one sees. One drives through and always wishes one could stop. But one never does. Stewart, what do you think of the game?'

The Sultan was about seventy, with the posture and frown of an old toad. I had never seen a Malay who looked quite like him, certainly none as fat. And there was a greater difference — his skin was unmistakably freckled and in places blotchy, crushed and oddly-pigmented: strange for the ruler of such sleek un wrinkled people.

'—spirited,' Alec was saying.

'Yes, spirited, spirited,' said the Sultan. 'That's just what I was telling Angela.' He peered again at me, so that I could see my face in each of the lenses of his glasses. 'Did you say you were a writer?'

'Consul,' I said.

'But you know Beverley Nichols.'

‘I’ve heard of him.'

'English,' said the Sultan. 'Frightfully clever. Wrote a book—' The Sultan fidgeted, trying to remember.

'The Sun in My Eyes, Your Highness,' said Angela.

'That's it. Frightfully good book.'

'His Highness appears in the book,' said Angela.

'We must get it for the Club library,' I said.

'It's there,' Alec said. 'Nichols stopped the night a few years ago. Gave us a signed copy. Bit of an old woman actually.'

Angela said, 'Literary gossip! It makes me homesick.'

'He stayed with me a fortnight,' said the Sultan. 'I had a letter from him yesterday. His book was a best-seller.' He turned to Angela. 'Someone's coming to stay. Lord— who is it?'

'Elsynge, Your Highness.'

'Elsynge is coming, yes. Elsynge. Had a letter from him. Here,' he said, 'you two sit here. Do put those sticks away. You'll be more comfortable.' He motioned to the armchairs in front of him and after we sat down he touched me on the shoulder. 'Somerset Maugham — did you know him?'

'I never had the pleasure,' I said.

'He visited,' said the Sultan. 'With his friend Earl, of course. Had to have Earl.'

'He came to your coronation, Your Highness.'

'Yes, he came to my coronation. He was here a week. But he stayed at Raffles Hotel. He liked Raffles. If he was alive to see it now he'd die! '

Alec said, 'He's away!'

A pack of horses galloped down the field after one rider who had broken away swinging his mallet. The handle curved as he hit the ball, which rose towards the goal. There was a great cheer from the Pahang side. The horses trotted away to regroup on the field.

The Sultan said, 'Was that a goal?'

'No, Your Highness, but very nearly,' said Angela.

'Very nearly, yes! I saw that, didn't I?'

'Missed by a foot,' said Alec.

'Missed by a foot, yes! ' said the Sultan and wiped his face.

'They're beautiful horses,' I said. 'I had no idea it was such a graceful sport.'

The Sultan said, 'Did you say you're a Canadian?'

'American.'

'Do you know what a Canadian told me once? He said horsemeat is very good. This Canadian had pots of money — he owned all the cinemas in Canada. He went on safaris and shot grizzly bears in Russia and what-not. He said to me, "Bear meat is the best, but the second best is horse-meat." He said that. Yes, he did! '