Paul Theroux - The Consul's File

‘I’ll shoot them the next time,' said Rupert hoarsely. 'We'll move, get a transfer. But you've got to help me.'

'I'd go to the police,' I said.

'Don't you understand anything?' said Rupert. 'We're keeping her.'

Jan said, 'We're determined now,' and jumped as the telephone jangled.

'That'll be my wife,' said Evans.

But it was Miss Leong. Father Lefever had called the Consulate. He wanted to see me immediately.

Tm going over to the mission,' I said to Rupert.

'I'll give you a lift,' said Evans.

'I was hoping you'd stick around,' said Rupert.

'You'll be all right,' said Evans, giving Rupert a matey slap on the back.

In the car Evans said, 'He thinks we're stupid. People come here from tin-pot places like Nigeria and they think they have all the answers.'

'What are you talking about?'

'He discovered her trying to leave. He discovered some kidnappers. It's rubbish! ' said Evans with greater outrage than I thought he was capable of. 'He's knocking her off. He's setting the whole thing up. There was no kidnapping attempt. In a few weeks there'll be another disappearance, but this time it'll be the two of them doing a bunk, mark my words. Then you'll hear they're in North Borneo playing housie. Prosser's screwing her, the lucky sod.'

At the mission I thanked him and started to get out of the car. He stopped me with his hand and said, 'Who do you believe, him or me?'

'I believe the girl,' I said, and saw that frightened face again.

Evans said, 'She's not talking.'

Across the courtyard, Father Lefever watched from his office doorway, and as I drew nearer I could see on his cassock — so white at a distance — grease marks and stains. A French Canadian, he had the grizzled appearance that dedicated missionaries acquire in the tropics; he usually needed a shave, his houseboy cut his hair. His sandals had been clumsily resewn, and yet these like the stains on his cassock seemed like proof of his sanctity. Eager to talk, he put his arm around me and hurried me inside.

'The girl,' he said. 'I think I know who she is.'

I told him I had just seen her.

'Is she well?'

'She's rather upset.'

'I didn't mean that. Is she in good health?'

'Father Lefever, someone tried to kidnap her today.'

'Yes,' he said, and shook his head. 'I was also afraid of that.'

'It was pretty serious. Three men came to Prosser's and put her in a sack. Prosser arrived just in time to stop them kidnapping her.'

'He saved her life — they meant to kill her.' Father Lefever fingered the knots on the rope that was tied around his waist. 'It's the Triad,' he said. 'Probably the Sa Ji— they're the fellows who keep order around here.'

Triad: the word was new to me. I told him so.

He said, 'A Chinese secret society.'

'Then it's not political,' I said. 'But Prosser doesn't have any money.'

'Triads don't kidnap only for money,' he said. He showed me the three knots on his rope belt. 'It is like a religious order,' he said, grasping one thick knot. 'This obsesses them. Purity — but their kind of purity. And they punish impurity their own cruel way. A person is taken and put in a sack and drowned. They call it "death by bath".'

I saw Evans's point. He had guessed that Rupert had been to bed with her; and he had a good case — the fortuitous finding of the girl about to escape, the visit home in the middle of the day: adulterer's luck. And now I understood Pei-Kway's tattoo.

'I suppose if the Triad thought she was Prosser's mistress they'd do that. Punishing the adultery.'

'I didn't say anything about adultery,' said Father Lefever. 'They don't want her here, that's all.'

'Batu Pahat's not far away.'

'She doesn't live in Batu Pahat. Quite a bit off the road, in fact, at our mission hospital. I doubt that you've ever seen it. No one goes there willingly.'

'A hospital?'

'A leprosarium,' he said. 'She's a leper.' I could not conceal my shock. But Father Lefever was smiling. 'You see your reaction? You're as bad as the Triad. It's not the girl, but her parents. Both have what we now call Hansen's disease. It's not so much a hospital as a village — very isolated, because people have such a horror of the disease. The girl probably doesn't have it, but what can she do? Her parents want her near them. She ran away six weeks ago. The priests were very reassured to know that she is safe here.' 'What happens now? '

'You should tell your friends something of the girl's background. I'll put them in touch with the leprosarium and they can take it from there.' 'They'll be horrified.'

'Tell them not to worry. Even if she's a carrier it's only infectious if contact has been extensive. She's merely a house-guest — there's no problem.'

Walking out to the courtyard, Father Lefever said, 'They are doing great work at Batu Pahat. Why, do you know that two years ago your Mr Leopold visited? He was much impressed. He's made a study of the disease.'

'I don't know him,' I said.

'Yes, you do. Leopold — he and his friend murdered that poor child in Chicago about fifty years ago. It was a celebrated case.'

I delivered the news as tactfully as possible and withdrew, wondering what would happen. Though I had said nothing to Evans he knew all about it within a week — not from Prosser but from Pei-Kway. And Pei-Kway had the news that the girl had been sent back. I never found out what had gone on at the Prossers', among those three people; and the Triad was not charged with attempted murder. The only victim was that waif, who was made a leper, and each time I thought of her I saw her radiant, captive, in a new dress entering the leper village to join those two ruined people.

Jan stopped coming to the Club; Rupert was there every night until the bar closed. One weekend he went down to Batu Pahat. We didn't know whether he was seeing the girl or taking a cure, or both. He came back alone and seemed much happier; he talked of his great luck. Evans became fond of saying, 'I give that marriage six months.'

I imagine that couples often forget they're married; I know that a person who is single remembers it every day, like a broken promise, that dwindling inheritance he is neglecting to spend. The married ones remind him of his condition — children do, too. He feels called upon to apologize or explain. He resists saying that he has made a choice. Where is his act? Bachelorhood looks like selfish delay, and the words are loaded: bachelor means queer, spinster means hag.

The hotel elevator stopped at every floor filling with witnesses who brought me back to myself, to Jill's note. She was planning to stop in Ayer Hitam on her way to Djakarta — would I mind if she stayed a few days? She had specified the dates, her time of arrival, the telephone number and contact address in Kuala Lumpur where she could be reached. The flat belonged to her friend who was, like Jill, a secretary: the embassy's sorority sisters. She told me how many suitcases she had. She was methodical, decisive; she had typed the note neatly. Several weeks later she sent a postcard repeating the information. She wasn't pestering. It was secretarial work.

And the only indication I had of her present state of mind was the form in which she sent the messages. The letter came in a 'Peanuts' envelope — a cartoon of Snoopy on the flap; her neatly-typed note was from a joke notepad titled Dumb Things I Gotta Do. The postcard was of a square-rigger and she had mailed it from Miami. I guessed that she had taken the windjammer cruise advertised on the front.

We had met in Kampala during my first overseas tour. As she was the ambassador's secretary and I was a junior political officer she knew a great deal more than I did about the running of the embassy. She showed me how to work the shredder, she alerted me to important cables. The fact that I was seeing her caused a certain amount of talk, embassy gossip, more class snobbery than a concern for security. The way she reacted to it made me like her the more: she never referred to her boss except by calling him 'the Ambassador', she was discreet, she did not betray the smallest confidence. It was as if she had taken vows, and though celibacy was not one of them, secrecy was. She was so tactful about other people, I knew she would be tactful when my name came up. On the weekends we went to the loud dirty African nightclubs and danced to Congolese bands. I had made love to her on nine occasions — I kept count as if preparing a defence for myself, because I was sure we were watched. Eight of the occasions were after these dances; the ninth was the night before she left the country on transfer — I remember her suitcase in the living room and the stack of tea-chests awaiting the embassy packers. I was left with the sense that we had deliberately been separated.