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‘At least touch me with your lips, then.’ (There is no Burmese word for to kiss.) ‘All white men do
that to their women.’
‘There you are, then. Now leave me alone. Fetch some cigarettes and give me one.’
‘Why is it that nowadays you never want to make love to me? Ah, two years ago it was so
different! You loved me in those days. You gave me presents of gold bangles and silk longyis from
Mandalay. And now look’–Ma Hla May held out one tiny muslin-clad arm–‘not a single bangle. Last
month I had thirty, and now all of them are pawned. How can I go to the bazaar without my bangles,
and wearing the same longyi over and over again? I am ashamed before the other women.’
‘Is it my fault if you pawn your bangles?’
‘Two years ago you would have redeemed them for me. Ah, you do not love Ma Hla May any
longer!’
She put her arms round him again and kissed him, a European habit which he had taught her. A
mingled scent of sandalwood, garlic, coco-nut oil and the jasmine in her hair floated from her. It was
a scent that always made his teeth tingle. Rather abstractedly he pressed her head back upon the
pillow and looked down at her queer, youthful face, with its high cheekbones, stretched eyelids and
short, shapely lips. She had rather nice teeth, like the teeth of a kitten. He had bought her from her
parents two years ago, for three hundred rupees. He began to stroke her brown throat, rising like a
smooth, slender stalk from the collarless ingyi.
‘You only like me because I am a white man and have money,’ he said.
‘Master, I love you, I love you more than anything in the world. Why do you say that? Have I not
always been faithful to you?’
‘You have a Burmese lover.’
‘Ugh!’ Ma Hla May affected to shudder at the thought. ‘To think of their horrible brown hands
touching me! I should die if a Burman touched me!’
‘Liar.’
He put his hand on her breast. Privately, Ma Hla May did not like this, for it reminded her that her
breasts existed–the ideal of a Burmese woman being to have no breasts. She lay and let him do as he
wished with her, quite passive yet pleased and faintly smiling, like a cat which allows one to stroke
it. Flory’s embraces meant nothing to her (Ba Pe, Ko S’la’s younger brother, was secretly her lover),
yet she was bitterly hurt when he neglected them. Sometimes she had even put love philtres in his
food. It was the idle concubine’s life that she loved, and the visits to her village dressed in all her
finery, when she could boast of her position as a bo-kadaw–a. white man’s wife; for she had
persuaded everyone, herself included, that she was Flory’s legal wife.
When Flory had done with her he turned away, jaded and ashamed, and lay silent with his left hand
covering his birthmark. He always remembered the birthmark when he had done something to be
ashamed of. He buried his face disgustedly in the pillow, which was damp and smelt of coco-nut oil.
It was horribly hot, and the doves outside were still droning. Ma Hla May, naked, reclined beside
Flory, fanning him gently with a wicker fan she had taken from the table.
Presently she got up and dressed herself, and lighted a cigarette. Then, coming back to the bed, she
sat down and began stroking Flory’s bare shoulder. The whiteness of his skin had a fascination for