“Hai,” she replied. “Hitotsumo nemuku arimasen.” She kissed him softly. “Anata dozo oyasumi ni natte ne.”
He did as she bade him. He turned over and went back to sleep once more.
For a while she lay back too, trying to sleep, but sleep would not come. She turned over once or twice, gently, for she didn’t wish to disturb him, then finally she gave up and got off the bed and put on her light housecoat.
She opened the door of the cage and closed it quickly lest a stray mosquito was lying in wait, then crossed the marble floor to her dressing table. She lit a cigarette and brushed her hair while she smoked. This always seemed to help to make her sleepy, but tonight the ritual did not work. As she brushed, she looked into the mirror and the mirror showed herself to herself.
Clean lines, round where they should be round, her shoulders nicely sloping and set just right to carry the breasts that still needed no bra to lift them. Flat stomach. Long legs. Long neck, a swan neck. Fair, fair skin with an English bloom to her cheeks. A delicate face, high cheek bones, unlined yet, long swaths of gold hair that curled of their own majesty. Yes, she told herself, for thirty-three, you’re still a woman to be desired.
But the thought did not wholly please her.
To shake off her mood, she slipped on the feathered mules and spilled sweet-smelling cologne on her hands and forehead, walked across the room and opened the door. Refreshed, she went across the hall and opened another door. She was about to enter when her amah came from the back of the house where the servants quarters were.
“Dost thou require anything, Mistress?” the old woman asked politely in Malay.
“No. If I do, I will call thee.”
Then Mema went into the room and closed the door softly. Angus was curled up in a ball in the center of his bed under the mosquito net, curled around the long cylindrical pillow which in the East is called a Dutch nurse. Mem crossed, a sibilant movement, to her son, happily watching him sleep. Tousled hair, very short. Good body, tall for three and a half years.
The boy yawned, then feeling eyes upon him, awoke. When he saw his mother, he smiled. “Okasa!” he piped as he had been taught. Fleetingly Mema thought that “Mummy” sounds so much better than “Okasa” which also means “Mummy.”
“Angus, doka shita no?” she asked as she tucked the net closer to the mattress. She knew he was all right, and comfortable, but she asked anyway.
“U-un,” he nodded happily. “Nandemo nai yo.” Of course I’m all right, ’cause I had ice cream for my supper, he told himself happily.
“Ja,” she told him, “Hayaku nenne shimasai ne.”
Angus was yawning and needed no gentle command from her to go back to his dreams. She waited, watching him. Often she would sit beside his bed at night when she could not sleep and gain from his tiny presence the peace that she needed to take away the bad dreams. It was a nice room and there were always fresh flowers beside his bed and his toys were scattered in the neatness of a child’s pattern which adults call chaos. But tonight Mem did not feel there would be bad dreams when at length she went to sleep. Happily she turned away and wandered past the little bed to the cot.
Always she smiled when she saw the cot, for the miniature mosquito net and the tininess of the cot and the smallness of her daughter, beneath the sheet and under the net, pleased her. Nobu was so pretty, unbelievably so. Creamy golden skin, not as golden as her father’s, and not as white as her mother’s, but just right. Black hair and dark-dark eyes, slanting pleasingly, eyes that were now tight in sleep.
She had been named Nobu, for her birth month was November. And she was fourteen months old.
Mem checked the net to see if it was tight, and made sure that the child was sleeping well. She noticed a slight flush and the wet mouth, and reminded herself to talk to the doctor tomorrow, for the child was teething. Perhaps he could do something to help the little one.
Content now that all was well, Mem went out, softly closing the door. Then, sleep still not on her, she wandered listlessly into the vast living room and turned on a lamp. She lit another cigarette.
Through the long netted windows, out through the netted veranda, she could see the garden, banks upon banks of tropical flowers, and the little path that led at length to the road. The guard was as usual at the gates—and beyond the road was the sea. A few miles east was Oasthaven, the south-most seaport on the southmost tip of Sumatra.
There was a pitcher of iced grapefruit juice, pressed from fresh fruit from their garden on a long marble table, and she poured herself a glass and took it out onto the veranda and sat in her favorite long chair, sipping it, her legs curled beneath her, and she looked out, past the palm trees, to the sea.
