The Glass Palace (37 page)

One day she said to Matthew: ‘Where do you go, so early in the morning?'

‘To Muster.'

‘What's that?'

‘We have an assembly ground near the estate office. The tappers come there in the morning and the contractors give them their jobs for the day.'

She was intrigued by the jargon: muster, contractors, tappers. ‘Can I come?'

‘Certainly.'

The next morning Uma drove down to the office with Matthew, along shortcuts that went corkscrewing down the slope. Scores of tappers were converging in front of the plantation's tin-roofed offices by the light of blazing kerosene lamps: they were all Indians, mainly Tamils; the women were dressed in saris and the men in sarongs.

The ceremony that followed was part military parade and part school assembly. It was presided over by the estate's manager, Mr Trimble, a portly Eurasian. The tappers fell into straight lines, facing a tall flagpole that stood at the far corner of the assembly ground. Mr Trimble hoisted the Union Jack and then stood at attention beneath the flagpole, saluting stiffly, with two rows of Indian overseers lining up behind him—these were the ‘conductors'.

Mr Trimble kept attentive watch as the conductors took attendance. His manner varied between that of a strict
headmaster and a snappish sergeant. Occasionally he would dart into the ranks, with his rattan cane tucked under his arm. For some of the tappers he had a smile and a quick word of encouragement; with others, he made a great show of losing his temper, gesticulating and pouring out obscenities, in Tamil and English, singling out the object of his wrath with the tip of his pointing cane: ‘You dog of a coolie, keep your black face up and look at me when I'm talking to you . . .'

Uma was disturbed by this spectacle: she had the feeling of watching something archaic, a manner of life that she had believed to be fortunately extinct. In the car Matthew asked what she had thought of ‘Muster' and she had difficulty in keeping her voice under control.

‘I don't know what to say, Matthew. It was like watching something that no longer existed: I was put in mind of the American South before the Civil War, of
Uncle Tom's Cabin.
'

‘Oh, come on, aren't you exaggerating a bit? Our tappers are well fed and well looked after. And they're a lot better off than they would be if they were back where they came from.'

‘Isn't that what masters have always said about slaves?'

Matthew raised his voice. ‘They're not slaves, Uma.'

‘No, of course not.' Uma reached out to touch his arm, in apology. ‘No. But did you see the terror on their faces when that man—the manager—shouted at them?'

‘He's just doing his job, Uma. It's a very hard job and he does it very well. It's no easy thing to run a plantation you know. To look at, it's all very green and beautiful—sort of like a forest. But actually it's a vast machine, made of wood and flesh. And at every turn, every little piece of this machine is resisting you, fighting you, waiting for you to give in.'

He brought the car to a sudden halt. ‘Let me show you something.' Opening his door, he led the way into a stand of rubber. ‘Come. Over here.'

It was first light now and dawn was descending on the peak of Gunung Jerai. This was the one time of day when the mountain's heights were always visible, unclouded by the haze that rose later from the heated plain. On the slopes above
them, the jungle was coming slowly to life, with flocks of birds rising from the forest canopy, and unseen troops of monkeys sailing through the treetops, leaving wakes of tossing leaves.

Under the rubber trees, there was a slow dripping of dew. Matthew leant against a tree trunk and pointed up. ‘Look at this tree,' he said, ‘and look at the others around it. Wouldn't you say they're all exactly the same?'

‘Yes,' Uma nodded, ‘it struck me the other day: even their limbs branch off at the same height, and in exactly the same way.'

‘And so they should. An enormous amount of human ingenuity has been invested in making these trees exactly similar. They're called clones, you know, and scientists have been working on them for years. Most of our trees are of a clonal variety called Avros—developed by the Dutch in Sumatra in the twenties. We pay a lot of money to make sure that we get reliable clonal seed. But let me show you something.'

He pointed into a coconut-shell cup that was fastened in the tree's trunk, beneath a long, spiral slash in the bark. ‘See how much latex this tree has produced overnight? The cup is half full, which is about right. If you walked down this row of trees, you'd find that most of them had yielded roughly the same amount of latex. But now look over here.'

He led the way to another tree. ‘Look at this cup.'

Uma looked in and saw that the cup he was pointing to was almost empty. She asked: ‘Is something wrong with this tree then?'

‘Not that I can tell,' Matthew said. ‘It looks all right—no different from the others. Think of all the human effort that has gone into making it the same as the rest. And yet . . .'— he pointed into the almost-empty cup—‘. . . there you are.'

‘So what do you think the matter is?'

‘Botanists will tell you one thing and geologists will tell you another and soil specialists will tell you something else again. But if you ask me, the truth is quite simple.'

‘What is it?'

‘It's fighting back.'

Uma gave an astonished laugh. ‘You can't really believe that.'

‘I planted this tree, Uma. I've heard what all the experts say. But the tappers know better. They have a saying, you know—“every rubber tree in Malaya was paid for with an Indian life”. They know that there are trees that won't do what the others do, and that's what they say—this one is fighting back.'

Through the surrounding tree trunks, the plantation's offices were visible in the distance, on the slope below. Matthew pointed to them, making a sweeping gesture with his hand.

‘This is my little empire, Uma. I made it. I took it from the jungle and moulded it into what I wanted it to be. Now that it's mine I take good care of it. There's law, there's order, everything is well run. Looking at it, you would think everything here is tame, domesticated, that all the parts have been fitted carefully together. But it's when you try to make the whole machine work that you discover that every bit of it is fighting back. It has nothing to do with me or with rights and wrongs: I could make this the best-run little kingdom in the world and it would still fight back.'

‘And what's the reason for that?'

‘It's nature: the nature that made these trees and the nature that made us.'

‘So are you saying then . . .' Uma began to laugh, ‘that some of your trees are rebels by instinct?'

‘Not in so many words.'

‘But, Matthew,' Uma laughed again, ‘what on earth are you going to do if your tappers decide to take a lesson from your trees?'

Now it was Matthew's turn to laugh. ‘Let's hope it never comes to that.'

Unable to sleep past daybreak, Uma began to go for long walks in the rubber groves. It was years now since she had
risen this early: dawn was a discovery. There were days when teams of rubber tappers would loom suddenly out of the golden early morning mist, with tendrils of fog clinging to their saris and sarongs. They would pass within inches of her, oblivious of her presence, utterly absorbed in keeping pace with each other, their scythe-like knives glinting in the half-light as they peeled slivers of bark from the tree trunks.

On one of these early morning walks, Uma became aware that she was being followed. She looked over her shoulder, and saw a figure slipping out of view: it was either a boy or a man, she couldn't tell. It was easy to lose sight of things in the rubber groves, especially in the half-light of dawn. The arrangement of the trees was such that things would slip away, from one line of sight into another, and you'd have no idea where they were in relation to yourself.

The next day, hearing the crackle of leaves behind her, it was she who hid herself. This time she was able to catch a glimpse of him in the distance: it was a boy, thin, lanky and dark. He was dressed in a shirt and checked sarong. She took him to be one of the worker's children.

‘You, there . . .' she called out, her voice echoing through the tunnels of foliage. ‘Who are you? Come here.' She caught a glimpse of the whites of his eyes, flaring suddenly in the darkness. Then he disappeared.

Back at the house, Uma described the boy to Alison. ‘Do you know who he might be?'

‘Yes.' Alison nodded. ‘His name is Ilongo. He's from the coolie lines. Was he following you?'

‘Yes.'

‘He does that sometimes. Don't worry; he's completely harmless. We call him Morningside's village idiot.'

Uma decided to befriend the boy. She set about it carefully, taking little gifts with her each morning, usually fruit, rambutans, mangoes or mangosteens. On catching sight of him she'd stop and call out, ‘Ilongo, Ilongo, come here.' Then she'd put her offering down on the ground and walk away. Soon, he became confident enough to approach her. The first
few times, she made no attempt to talk. She set down her gifts and watched him retrieve them, from a distance. He was about ten, but tall for his age, and very thin. His eyes were large and very expressive: looking into them, she could not believe that he was a simpleton.

‘Ilongo,' she said to him one day, in English, ‘why do you follow me around?' When he didn't answer she switched to Hindustani, asking the same question again.

This produced an immediate effect: spitting out an orange seed, he suddenly began to speak.

‘After my mother leaves for Muster, I don't like to stay in the house, all by myself.'

‘Are you alone at home then?'

‘Yes.'

‘What about your father?'

‘My father isn't here.'

‘Why? Where is he?'

‘I don't know.'

‘Have you never met him?'

‘No.'

‘Do you know where he lives?'

‘No. But my mother has a picture of him: he's an important man, my mother says.'

‘Can I see the picture?'

‘I'll have to ask my mother.' Then something startled him and he vanished into the trees.

A couple of days later, walking past a line of rubber tappers, Ilongo pointed to a woman with a strong, square face and a silver nose ring. ‘That's my mother,' he said. Uma made as though to approach her and the boy panicked. ‘No. She's working now. The conductor will fine her.'

‘But I'd like to talk to her.'

‘Later. At our house. Come here at five, and I'll take you.'

That evening, Uma walked with Ilongo to the line of shacks where he lived. Their dwelling was small but neat and bare. Ilongo's mother had changed into a bright, peacock-green sari in anticipation of Uma's visit. She sent the boy out to play and set a pot of water on the fire, for tea.

‘Ilongo said you had a picture of his father.'

‘Yes.' She handed over a piece of fading newsprint.

Uma recognised the face at first glance. She realised now that she'd known all along, without wanting to acknowledge it to herself. She shut her eyes and turned the picture over so that she wouldn't have to look at it. It was Rajkumar.

‘Do you know who this man is?' she said at last.

‘Yes.'

‘Do you know that he's married?'

‘Yes.'

‘How did it happen? Between you and him?'

‘They sent me to him. On the ship, when I was coming over. They called me out of the hold and took me up to his cabin. There was nothing I could do.'

‘That was the only time?'

‘No. For years afterwards, whenever he was here he'd send for me. He wasn't so bad, better than some others. One time, I saw a picture of his wife and I said to him, she's so beautiful, like a princess—what do you want with a woman like me?'

‘What did he say?'

‘He told me that his wife had turned away from the world; that she'd lost interest in her home and her family, in him . . .'

‘And when was the last time you saw him?'

‘Many years ago. He stopped coming after I told him I was pregnant.'

‘Did he not want to have anything to do with the boy— with Ilongo?'

‘No. But he sends money.'

‘Why haven't you spoken to his wife? Or to Mr or Mrs Martins? They could do something. What he's done is very wrong: he can't be allowed to abandon you like this.'

Ilongo's mother glanced at her visitor and saw that her face was flushed with indignation on her behalf. Now a note of anxiety entered the matter-of-fact tone of her voice. ‘Madame, you won't speak of this to anyone?'

‘You can be sure that I will,' Uma retorted. ‘This is a shameful business. I'll go to the police if I need to . . .'

At this the woman panicked. She came quickly across the room and sank to her knees at Uma's feet. ‘No,' she said, shaking her head vehemently. ‘No. No. Please understand. I know you mean to help me but you are an outsider. You do not know how things are here.'