CHAPTER II
EPISODE
Night and Singapore. Steamy, sweltering darkness. A stealthy wind rustling mangoes and aloes, swaying banana and cocoa fronds. Song of rippling water beneath the quays. Patter of bare feet, crunch of wheels, in bazaar lanes and native streets. Clink of ice, fragments of music, in hotels and clubs. Lazy nocturnes.
A multitude of stars had swarmed out and dropped low over the island. So low that their reflections trembled in the dark harbor. So low that Canopus seemed pinned to a mast and the Southern Cross caught in a net of rigging. So low that the woman standing in semi-darkness, on the upper veranda of a hotel facing the Roads, felt as though she could reach out and touch them.
A light from the long window behind made a bright patch upon the gallery. But she stood outside the reflection, a shadow among other shadows. Her eyes were raised above the roadway—even above the contours of shadow that melted across an expanse of park—and brooded upon the sea. She was intent, absorbed, as though deciphering a code traced in the harbor. The focus of her gaze was a pair of green eyes that returned her stare unwaveringly. In reality they were starboard lamps on two vessels anchored not far apart, but to her they were Medusa's eyes.
Perhaps she sighed; it may have been a vagrant breeze in the foliage below. At a swift movement her sleeves, long, flowing sleeves, fell back from white skin. She lifted her arms above her, held them rigid, a sharp surge of power sweeping through her. Thus she stood for a moment, motionless, scarcely breathing, the glimmer of her bare skin like that of ivory. It was a gesture of dominion, intolerant and commanding; and she might have been a valkyr exulting in her immutable security. Then she dropped her arms, soundlessly, and stepped backward into the patch of light. Instantly a golden dragon on her kimono kindled. It seemed animated, coiled about the heavy black silk and breathed fire at the woman's head; a glow that melted into the fluid copper of her hair. Quickly, with a luxurious swish of silk, she moved into the room; drew the blinds. At this exertion her hair, loosely coiled, came unbound and rippled about her face and shoulders in a burnished cowl.
Medusa's eyes. Her mind repeated that, held a picture of the green lights. Six years ago, soon after she had reached the age of silk frocks and feather fans, she had fallen under their spell. She had seen them many times since, these serpent's eyes. In the harbor of New York. The Bay of Naples. San Francisco. Yokohama. Wherever ships lay at moorings in the night.
She broke into a laugh—a sound rich and faintly husky. A glance at the clock on the dressing-table banished from her mind all but thought of the hour. Fifteen minutes to eight; and she was to dine at eight.
She seated herself before the mirror, studying her replica. A face fine and regal as that on a coin, wistful enough to be a girl's, mature enough to be a woman's. Pale gold was the throat that rose in a slender column from the black silk, pale gold the arms. Her lips, in contrast with her flawless olive pallor, were vivid crimson, remarkable in that their color was genuine.
The dinner-gown of moire dorée, she decided. It would look well with the captain's uniform. (Captain Remy Barthélemy, French Annamite Army, ran through her mind swift as flame.) She rose with easy, languid grace; moved to a closet; opened the door. In reaching for her gown she unconsciously let the kimono slip down about her arms, revealing superb shoulders....
As she dressed she hummed softly. "Addio a Napoli"—a somber strain. It carried her, in fancy, to a city that dreamed above a blue porcelain bay; the prelude to her début, that most breathless of seasons, from which she had emerged polished and super-poised—and untouched. She, Lhassa Camber, the vivid glacier, hiding beneath indifference the smoldering purpose that later was to lead her half across the world.... The tune ended in a sigh.
When she was dressed she surveyed herself in the mirror. Her only ornament was a large comb thrust in her hair. She had used no rouge, not because of scruples but because she was aware of the effect of her red lips against the colorless oval of her face. Satisfied, she went below.
2
An officer seated in the lounge sprang up at her entrance. On his brilliant uniform were medals and ribbons that told of service on far frontiers. Black hair, glossy as lacquer, was brushed back from features almost Oriental in their impassible regularity. Wind and glare had bitten into his granular skin, and but for his eyes and mouth, both rather humorous, his appearance would have been that of a man calloused not only physically but in character as well. A short waxed mustache added a fastidious touch.
"I am late," she apologized.
He inclined forward from narrow hips. "Yes? I was not aware of it," he lied.
She gazed at him analytically. He was what one might expect a légionnaire to be: a man whose emotions were as well disciplined as his muscles. "Knew his father," the consul had confided before introducing him. "Good family. I can vouch for that. You'll find him interesting company on the voyage." She had found him interesting already, interesting by virtue of the fact that he had seen much of the world and absorbed from it a certain genial iniquity.
"Men always say the expected," she observed as they moved toward the veranda, "and women do it. If they did otherwise they'd be original—and that's dangerous."
He smiled. "Do all women do the expected?"
The implication did not escape her. However, when they were seated in one end of the café, she commanded:
"Be specific."
The Frenchman made a gesture. "A young woman traveling out here in the colonies is expected to have a chaperon, usually some aristocratic ancient who takes her duties too——"
"Am I being lectured?" she interposed. "Yesterday when the consul said you were going to Bangkok on the same boat as I, I felt that he wanted to suggest that you keep an eye on me. For all I know, he may have after I left. But please don't inform me that I'm being improper; I know it."
She spoke with the splendid independence of a woman accustomed to attention, and her manner challenged admiration into Barthélemy's face.
"Ice and fire!" he thought. But he said, "I am merely pointing out that you are courageous—and original."
"Does that mean—dangerous?"—languidly.
He gazed into the still, dark mystery of her eyes, eyes that could one moment kindle with a poignant intensity of feeling and the next freeze cold as northern forests, and realized that the secret of her charm was an enigmatical streak in her temperament, as powerful as it was inscrutable. He likened it to Gioconda's smile in that it was too subtle to be explained.
"It means...." He shrugged. "How can I say it? I see two distinct pictures in your eyes. Generally, I see snow—ice—polar nights!" He smiled. "Less frequently, I see jungles—undiscovered rivers—Asia, yes, Asia."
"Jungles," she repeated with a speculative look. "Perhaps you see anticipation. I intend to explore jungles, undiscovered rivers. Impossible, you think? Impossible! An alluring word. Somehow I feel that I belong to the unknown places. My mother must have felt it, too, or why did she call me Lhassa?"
"You are not serious."
"About the jungles? Why not?"
"You are a woman; and what would be your purpose?"
"Purpose!" she echoed scornfully. The word had stung her. "Purpose! Does a woman have any purpose other than to make herself attractive? Purpose! Always I've wanted some object other than simply to live; I've never had one and I probably never shall. When I was a girl my purpose, according to my governess, was to graduate and make a successful début. After that my purpose was to marry. And then....
"Monsieur, have you ever dreamed over an atlas?" she demanded abruptly. Without waiting for a reply she went on. "I remember the first time I saw a map of the world. There was something thrilling about the lines that marked tides and winds, the tiny dots that in reality were great cities, and the patches of yellow that were deserts. South America was mysterious. Africa was dark and fearsome, like my room after the light had been turned out. But there was one continent——" A pause; when she resumed her voice had a low, impassioned timbre. "When I looked at it I felt as a butterfly must feel when it's caught in a net."
She smiled; paused again as a "boy" approached.
"Once," she continued when their order had been given, "I took an atlas to my grandfather and turned to Asia.... You see, there were only we two; I never knew my parents.... I told him I was going there some day; and he laughed. He always laughed when I spoke of going to Asia—until I grew older and he realized my desire wasn't a childish fancy. 'It isn't the place for a woman,' he would say; I can hear him now. 'If you go you'll come back with malaria and a citron complexion.' Before I finished boarding-school he sent me to Europe with a companion. I wanted to go eastward. We had a scene, and it almost made him ill. So I surrendered.
"But I kept on dreaming over the map of the world. After I returned from Italy, we spent our summers in the West, and often, in the late afternoon, I'd go down to the waterfront and watch the ships steal out in the dusk, headed for strange ports; ports whose names are written in italics in the history of romance. Bangkok, Zamboanga, Karachi; towns with barbaric names like those. One evening when I returned I found grandfather sitting in the dark with a map, a map of Asia, crumpled at his feet. As soon as I entered the room I knew I was alone. That was two years ago. I felt, and still feel, that if he had spoken before the end he would have exacted a promise.... It was a queer obsession, his. But probably no stranger than mine. I sensed Asia tugging, I——To illustrate: a friend in the states had a macaw, and she took it out to her country-place and chained it to a perch in a garden. Each day it would hear the cries of wild birds in the woods, and it would answer with little restless screeches and bite at its chain. One evening my friend found the macaw gone."
She ended with a shrug. Barthélemy, smiling thoughtfully, drew out cigarettes; passed them. He lighted hers, then his own, and flicked the match away. The smoke coiled about her head, leaving her face unobscured to glow in the foggy blue, as vivid, he thought, as a flame burning through gauze.
"A macaw," he mused, still smiling. "Brilliant feathers."
"A wild creature, never really tamed," she added. "A gaudy, vain bird, but free, free as the wind.... I obeyed the impulse to break away from the old sphere with its worn-out gods and explore other worlds. So I came, alone except for Manuel, a Filipino who was my grandfather's valet; and I brought him merely for convenience, to attend to baggage and other such details. First, Bangkok; then, Zamboanga and Karachi; all those cities with gorgeous names; alone, free as the macaw that broke its chain."
"And how long in Bangkok?" he inquired. "Until you feel the impulse to fly?"
"Yes. Siam! Gold-leaf Buddhas and sleepy temples. I am going there ostensibly to visit a man whom I've never seen and who doesn't even know I'm coming. Perhaps you know of him—Dr. Garth? I believe he was the king's physician for a while."
Barthélemy shook his head. "I am not well acquainted in Bangkok; the fact is, I am merely going there to pay a short visit, two days perhaps, to an old comrade attached to the consulate. But tell me more about this doctor."
"He and grandfather went to school together in Virginia. I didn't write that I was coming because I like to appear unexpectedly"—with an indolent smile. "Yes, I have a dramatic streak. But don't misunderstand: I sha'n't intrude; I shall go to a hotel when I arrive. The doctor is simply an explanation for my presence in Siam, a compromise, if you wish, with the rule that says a woman must not travel alone in Asiatic countries, at least without a conventional reason. I....
"Notice that man," she enjoined abruptly, indicating a figure that had risen from a near-by table. "Isn't he extraordinary-looking?"
The object of her remark was a man with a short-cropped, gold-brown beard. He wore a white silk suit, and a blue sash was bound about his waist, its fringed ends swinging flippantly as he strode toward the door.
"Sacred name!" exclaimed Barthélemy, his gaze following the white-clad form.
"Rather striking, isn't he?"
"Striking!" He chuckled. "Name of God! What a resemblance!"
"To whom?"—curious.
"For a moment I thought I had seen a ghost. Just his profile...." Another chuckle. "The man I know is quite a character, a handsome rogue, with the most unusual hands——"
"I didn't see his hands. What was that around his waist?"
"A slendong; similar to a sarong but narrower." He glanced toward the doorway through which the man had gone; smiled reminiscently. "No, it could not have been he—not unless the devil has turned a grim trick."
Later that night Lhassa Camber, lying in darkness, half asleep, remembered the man whose singular appearance had attracted her in the café. She had once seen a cinema where a horseman rode toward the camera and apparently over the screen; and as she drowsily recalled the wearer of the slendong, he, like the rider in the cinema, seemed to advance, almost ruthlessly, and stride over her, vanishing into a fissure of memory.