563296589345

Ko S’la put the tea-tray down on the table very quietly, and then went round to the end of the bed
and tickled Flory’s toes. He knew by experience that this was the only way of waking Flory without
putting him in a bad temper. Flory rolled over, swore, and pressed his forehead into the pillow.
‘Four o’clock has struck, most holy god,’ Ko S’la said. ‘I have brought two teacups, because the
woman said that she was coming.’
The woman was Ma Hla May, Flory’s mistress. Ko S’la always called her the woman, to show his
disapproval–not that he disapproved of Flory for keeping a mistress, but he was jealous of Ma Hla
May’s influence in the house.
‘Will the holy one play tinnis this evening?’ Ko S’la asked.
‘No, it’s too hot,’ said Flory in English. ‘I don’t want anything to eat. Take this muck away and
bring some whisky.’
Ko S’la understood English very well, though he could not speak it. He brought a bottle of whisky,
and also Flory’s tennis racquet, which he laid in a meaning manner against the wall opposite the bed.
Tennis, according to his notions, was a mysterious ritual incumbent on all Englishmen, and he did not
like to see his master idling in the evenings.
Flory pushed away in disgust the toast and butter that Ko S’la had brought, but he mixed some
whisky in a cup of tea and felt better after drinking it. He had slept since noon, and his head and all
his bones ached, and there was a taste like burnt paper in his mouth. It was years since he had enjoyed
a meal. All European food in Burma is more or less disgusting–the bread is spongy stuff leavened
with palm-toddy and tasting like a penny bun gone wrong, the butter comes out of a tin, and so does
the milk, unless it is the grey watery catlap of the dudh-wallah. As Ko S’la left the room there was a
scraping of sandals outside, and a Burmese girl’s high-pitched voice said, ‘Is my master awake?’
‘Come in,’ said Flory radier bad-temperedly.
Ma Hla May came in kicking off red-lacquered sandals in the doorway. She was allowed to come
to tea, as a special privilege, but not to other meals, nor to wear her sandals in her master’s presence.
Ma Hla May was a woman of twenty-two or -three, and perhaps five feet tall. She was dressed in a
longyi of pale blue embroidered Chinese satin, and a starched white muslin ingyi on which several
gold lockets hung. Her hair was coiled in a tight black cylinder like ebony, and decorated with
jasmine flowers. Her tiny, straight, slender body was as contourless as a bas-relief carved upon a
tree. She was like a doll, with her oval, still face the colour of new copper, and her narrow eyes; an
outlandish doll and yet a grotesquely beautiful one. A scent of sandalwood and coco-nut oil came into
the room with her.
Ma Hla May came across to the bed, sat down on the edge and put her arms radier abruptly round
Flory. She smelled at his cheek with her flat nose, in the Burmese fashion.
‘Why did my master not send for me this afternoon?’ she said.
‘I was sleeping. It is too hot for that kind of thing.’
‘So you would rather sleep alone than with Ma Hla May? How ugly you must think me, then! Am I
ugly, master?’
‘Go away,’ he said, pushing her back. ‘I don’t want you at this time of day.’