No More Learning

’

‘All these spices — they kind of take your breath away. And what is that dreadful smell
like fish? ’

‘Oh, only a kind of sauce they make out of prawns. They bury them and then dig them up
several weeks afterwards. ’

‘How absolutely horrible! ’

‘Quite wholesome, I believe. Come away from that! ’ he added to Flo, who was nosing at
a basket of small gudgeon-like fish with spines on their gills.

Li Yeik’s shop faced the farther end of the bazaar. What Elizabeth had really wanted was
to go straight back to the Club, but the European look of Li Yeik’s shop-front — it was
piled with Lancashire-made cotton shirts and almost incredibly cheap Gennan clocks —
comforted her somewhat after the barbarity of the bazaar. They were about to climb the
steps when a slim youth of twenty, damnably dressed in a longyi, blue cricket blazer and
bright yellow shoes, with his hair parted and greased ‘Ingaleik fashion’, detached himself
from the crowd and came after them. He greeted Flory with a small awkward movement
as though restraining himself from shikoing.

‘What is it? ’ Flory said.

‘Letter, sir. ’ He produced a grubby envelope.



‘Would you excuse me? ’ Flory said to Elizabeth, opening the letter. It was from Ma Hla
May — or rather, it had been written for her and she had signed it with a cross — and it
demanded fifty rupees, in a vaguely menacing manner.

Flory pulled the youth aside. ‘You speak English? Teh Ma Hla May ITl see about this
later. And tell her that if she tries blackmailing me she won’t get another pice. Do you
understand? ’

‘Yes, sir. ’

‘And now go away. Don’t follow me about, or there’ll be trouble. ’

‘Yes, sir. ’

‘A clerk wanting a job,’ Flory explained to Elizabeth as they went up the steps. ‘They
come bothering one at ah hours. ’ And he reflected that the tone of the letter was curious,
for he had not expected Ma Hla May to begin blackmailing him so soon; however, he had
not time at the moment to wonder what it might mean.

They went into the shop, which seemed dark after the outer air. Li Yeik, who was sitting
smoking among his baskets of merchandise — there was no counter — hobbled eagerly
forward when he saw who had come in. Flory was a friend of his. He was an old bent-
kneed man dressed in blue, wearing a pigtail, with a chinless yellow face, ah cheekbones,
like a benevolent skull. He greeted Flory with nasal honking noises which he intended for
Burmese, and at once hobbled to the back of the shop to call for refreshments. There was
a cool sweetish smell of opium. Long strips of red paper with black lettering were pasted
on the walls, and at one side there was a little altar with a portrait of two large, serene-
looking people in embroidered robes, and two sticks of incense smouldering in front of it.
Two Chinese women, one old, and a girl were sitting on a mat rolling cigarettes with
maize straw and tobacco like chopped horsehair. They wore black silk trousers, and their
feet, with bulging, swollen insteps, were crammed into red-heeled wooden slippers no
bigger than a doll’s. A naked child was crawling slowly about the floor like a large
yellow frog.



‘Do look at those women’s feet! ’ Elizabeth whispered as soon as Li Yeik’s back was
turned. ‘Isn’t it simply dreadful! How do they get them like that? Surely it isn’t natural? ’

‘No, they deform them artificially. It’s going out in China, I believe, but the people here
are behind the times. Old Li Yeik’s pigtail is another anachronism. Those small feet are
beautiful according to Chinese ideas. ’

‘Beautiful! They’re so horrible I can hardly look at them. These people must be absolute
savages! ’

‘Oh no! They’re highly civilized; more civilized than we are, in my opinion. Beauty’s all
a matter of taste. There are a people in this country called the Palaungs who admire long
necks in women. The girls wear broad brass rings to stretch their necks, and they put on
more and more of them until in the end they have necks like giraffes. It’s no queerer than
bustles or crinolines. ’

At this moment Li Yeik came back with two fat, round-faced Burmese girls, evidently
sisters, giggling and carrying between them two chairs and a blue Chinese teapot holding
half a gallon. The two girls were or had been Li Yeik’s concubines. The old man had
produced a tin of chocolates and was prising off the lid and smiling in a fatherly way,
exposing three long, tobacco-blackened teeth. Elizabeth sat down in a very
uncomfortable frame of mind. She was perfectly certain that it could not be right to
accept these people’s hospitality. One of the Burmese girls had at once gone behind the
chairs and begun fanning Llory and Elizabeth, while the other knelt at their feet and
poured out cups of tea. Elizabeth felt very foolish with the girl fanning the back of her
neck and the Chinaman grinning in front of her. Llory always seemed to get her into these
uncomfortable situations. She took a chocolate from the tin Li Yeik offered her, but she
could not bring herself to say ‘thank you’.

‘Is this ALL RIGHT? ’ she whispered to Llory.

‘All right? ’


‘I mean, ought we to be sitting down in these people’s house? Isn’t it sort of — sort of
infra dig? ’



‘It’s all right with a Chinaman. They’re a favoured race in this country. And they’re very
democratic in their ideas. It’s best to treat them more or less as equals. ’

‘This tea looks absolutely beastly. It’s quite green. You’d think they’d have the sense to
put milk in it, wouldn’t you? ’

‘It’s not bad. It’s a special kind of tea old Li Yeik gets from China. It has orange
blossoms in it, I believe. ’

‘Ugh! It tastes exactly like earth,’ she said, having tasted it.

Li Yeik stood holding his pipe, which was two feet long with a metal bowl the size of an
acorn, and watching the Europeans to see whether they enjoyed his tea. The girl behind
the chair said something in Burmese, at which both of them burst out giggling again. The
one kneeling on the floor looked up and gazed in a naive admiring way at Elizabeth.
Then she turned to Flory and asked him whether the English lady wore stays. She
pronounced it s’tays.

‘Ch! ’ said Li Yeik in a scandalized manner, stirring the girl with his toe to silence her.

‘I should hardly care to ask her,’ Flory said.

‘Oh, thakin, please do ask her! We are so anxious to know! ’

There was an argument, and the girl behind the chair forgot fanning and joined in. Both
of them, it appeared, had been pining all their lives to see a veritable pair of s’tays. They
had heard so many tales about them; they were made of steel on the principle of a strait
waistcoat, and they compressed a woman so tightly that she had no breasts, absolutely no
breasts at all! The girls pressed their hands against their fat ribs in illustration. Would not
Flory be so kind as to ask the English lady? There was a room behind the shop where she
could come with them and undress. They had been so hoping to see a pair of s’tays.

Then the conversation lapsed suddenly. Elizabeth was sitting stiffly, holding her tiny cup
of tea, which she could not bring herself to taste again, and wearing a rather hard smile. A
chill fell upon the Orientals; they realized that the English girl, who could not join in their
conversation, was not at her ease. Her elegance and her foreign beauty, which had



charmed them a moment earlier, began to awe them a little. Even Flory was conscious of
the same feeling. There came one of those dreadful moments that one has with Orientals,
when everyone avoids everyone else’s eyes, trying vainly to think of something to say.
Then the naked child, which had been exploring some baskets at the back of the shop,
crawled across to where the European sat. It examined their shoes and stockings with
great curiosity, and then, looking up, saw their white faces and was seized with terror. It
let out a desolate wail, and began making water on the floor.

The old Chinese woman looked up, clicked her tongue and went on rolling cigarettes. No
one else took the smallest notice. A pool began to form on the floor. Elizabeth was so
horrified that she set her cup down hastily, and spilled the tea. She plucked at Flory’s
arm.

‘That child! Do look what it’s doing! Really, can’t someone — it’s too awful! ’ For a
moment everyone gazed in astonishment, and then they all grasped what was the matter.
There was a flurry and a general clicking of tongues. No one had paid any attention to the
child — the incident was too nonnal to be noticed — and now they all felt horribly
ashamed. Everyone began putting the blame on the child. There were exclamations of
‘What a disgraceful child! What a disgusting child! ’ The old Chinese woman carried the
child, still howling, to the door, and held it out over the step as though wringing out a
bath sponge. And in the same moment, as it seemed, Flory and Elizabeth were outside the
shop, and he was following her back to the road with Li Yeik and the others looking after
them in dismay.

‘If THAT’S what you call civilized people — ! ’ she was exclaiming.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said feebly. ‘I never expected — ’

‘What absolutely DISGUSTING people! ’

She was bitterly angry. Her face had flushed a wonderful delicate pink, like a poppy bud
opened a day too soon. It was the deepest colour of which it was capable. He followed
her past the bazaar and back to the main road, and they had gone fifty yards before he
ventured to speak again.



‘I’m so sorry that this should have happened! Li Yeik is such a decent old chap. He’d
hate to think that he’d offended you. Really it would have been better to stay a few
minutes. Just to thank him for the tea. ’

‘Thank him! After THAT! ’

‘But honestly, you oughtn’t to mind that sort of thing. Not in this country. These people’s
whole outlook is so different from ours. One has to adjust oneself. Suppose, for instance,
you were back in the Middle Ages — ’

‘I think I’d rather not discuss it any longer. ’

It was the first time they had definitely quarrelled. He was too miserable even to ask
himself how it was that he offended her. He did not realize that this constant striving to
interest her in Oriental things struck her only as perverse, ungentlemanly, a deliberate
seeking after the squalid and the ‘beastly’. He had not grasped even now with what eyes
she saw the ‘natives’. He only knew that at each attempt to make her share his life, his
thoughts, his sense of beauty, she shied away from him like a frightened horse.

They walked up the road, he to the left of her and a little behind. He watched her averted
cheek and the tiny gold hairs on her nape beneath the brim of her Terai hat. How he loved
her, how he loved her! It was as though he had never truly loved her till this moment,
when he walked behind her in disgrace, not even daring to show his disfigured face. He
made to speak several times, and stopped himself. His voice was not quite ready, and he
did not know what he could say that did not risk offending her somehow. At last he said,
flatly, with a feeble pretence that nothing was the matter:

‘It’s getting beastly hot, isn’t it? ’

With the temperature at 90 degrees in the shade it was not a brilliant remark. To his
surprise she seized on it with a kind of eagerness. She turned to face him, and she was
smiling again.


‘Isn’t it simply BAKING! ’



With that they were at peace. The silly, banal remark, bringing with it the reassuring
atmosphere of Club-chatter, had soothed her like a charm. Flo, who had lagged behind,
came puffing up to them dribbling saliva; in an instant they were talking, quite as usual,
about dogs. They talked about dogs for the rest of the way home, almost without a pause.
Dogs are an inexhaustible subject. Dogs, dogs! thought Flory as they climbed the hot
hillside, with the mounting sun scorching their shoulders through their thin clothes, like
the breath of fire — were they never to talk of anything except dogs? Or failing dogs,
gramophone records and tennis racquets? And yet, when they kept to trash like this, how
easily, how amicably they could talk!

They passed the glittering white wall of the cemetery and came to the Lackersteens’ gate.
Old mohur trees grew round it, and a clump of hollyhocks eight feet high, with round red
flowers like blowsy girls’ faces. Flory took off his hat in the shade and fanned his face.

‘Well, we’re back before the worst of the heat comes. I’m afraid our trip to the bazaar
wasn’t altogether a success. ’

‘Oh, not at all! I enjoyed it, really I did. ’

‘No — I don’t know, something unfortunate always seems to happen. — Oh, by the way!
You haven’t forgotten that we’re going out shooting the day after tomorrow? I hope that
day will be all right for you? ’

‘Yes, and my uncle’s going to lend me his gun. Such awful fun! You’ll have to teach me
all about shooting. I AM so looking forward to it. ’

‘So am I. It’s a rotten time of year for shooting, but we’ll do our best. Goodbye for the
present, then. ’

‘Good-bye, Mr Flory. ’


She still called him Mr Flory though he called her Elizabeth. They parted and went their
ways, each thinking of the shooting trip, which, both of them felt, would in some way put
things right between them.



CHAPTER 12


In the sticky, sleepy heat of the living-room, almost dark because of the beaded curtain, U
Po Kyin was marching slowly up and down, boasting. From time to time he would put a
hand under his singlet and scratch his sweating breasts, huge as a woman’s with fat. Ma
Kin was sitting on her mat, smoking slender white cigars. Through the open door of the
bedroom one could see the corner of U Po Kyin’s huge square bed, with carved teak
posts, like a catafalque, on which he had committed many and many a rape.

Ma Kin was now hearing for the first time of the ‘other affair’ which underlay U Po
Kyin’s attack on Dr Veraswami. Much as he despised her intelligence, U Po Kyin usually
let Ma Kin into his secrets sooner or later. She was the only person in his immediate
circle who was not afraid of him, and there was therefore a pleasure in impressing her.
‘Well, Kin Kin,’ he said, ‘you see how it has all gone according to plan! Eighteen
anonymous letters already, and every one of them a masterpiece. I would repeat some of
them to you if I thought you were capable of appreciating them. ’

‘But supposing the Europeans take no notice of your anonymous letters? What then? ’

‘Take no notice? Aha, no fear of that! I think I know something about the European
mentality. Let me tell you, Kin Kin, that if there is one thing I CAN do, it is to write an
anonymous letter. ’

This was true. U Po Kyin’s letters had already taken effect, and especially on their chief
target, Mr Macgregor.

Only two days earlier than this, Mr Macgregor had spent a very troubled evening in
trying to make up his mind whether Dr Veraswami was or was not guilty of disloyalty to
the Government. Of course, it was not a question of any overt act of disloyalty — that was
quite irrelevant. The point was, was the doctor the KIND of man who would hold
seditious opinions? In India you are not judged for what you do, but for what you ARE.



The merest breath of suspicion against his loyalty can ruin an Oriental official. Mr
Macgregor had too just a nature to condemn even an Oriental out of hand. He had
puzzled as late as midnight over a whole pile of confidential papers, including the five
anonymous letters he had received, besides two others that had been forwarded to him by
Westfield, pinned together with a cactus thorn.

It was not only the letters. Rumours about the doctor had been pouring in from every
side. U Po Kyin fully grasped that to call the doctor a traitor was not enough in itself; it
was necessary to attack his reputation from every possible angle. The doctor was charged
not only with sedition, but also with extortion, rape, torture, performing illegal
operations, perfonning operations while blind drunk, murder by poison, murder by
sympathetic magic, eating beef, selling death certificates to murderers, wearing his shoes
in the precincts of the pagoda and making homosexual attempts on the Military Police
drummer boy. To hear what was said of him, anyone would have imagined the doctor a
compound of Machiavelli, Sweeny Todd and the Marquis de Sade. Mr Macgregor had
not paid much attention at first. He was too accustomed to this kind of thing. But with the
last of the anonymous letters U Po Kyin had brought off a stroke that was brilliant even
for him.

It concerned the escape of Nga Shwe O, the dacoit, from Kyauktada jail. Nga Shwe O,
who was in the middle of a well-earned seven years, had been preparing his escape for
several months past, and as a start his friends outside had bribed one of the Indian
warders. The warder received his hundred rupees in advance, applied for leave to visit the
death-bed of a relative and spent several busy days in the Mandalay brothels. Time
passed, and the day of the escape was postponed several times — the warder, meanwhile,
growing more and more homesick for the brothels. Finally he decided to earn a further
reward by betraying the plot to U Po Kyin. But U Po Kyin, as usual, saw his chance. He
told the warder on dire penalties to hold his tongue, and then, on the very night of the
escape, when it was too late to do anything, sent another anonymous letter to Mr
Macgregor, warning him that an escape was being attempted. The letter added, needless
to say, that Dr Veraswami, the superintendent of the jail, had been bribed for his


connivance.



In the morning there was a hullabaloo and a rushing to and fro of warders and, policemen
at the jail, for Nga Shwe O had escaped. (He was a long way down the river, in a sampan
provided by U Po Kyin. ) This time Mr Macgregor was taken aback. Whoever had written
the letter must have been privy to the plot, and was probably telling the truth about the
doctor’s connivance. It was a very serious matter. A jail superintendent who will take
bribes to let a prisoner escape is capable of anything. And therefore — perhaps the logical
sequence was not quite clear, but it was clear enough to Mr Macgregor — therefore the
charge of sedition, which was the main charge against the doctor, became much more
credible.

U Po Kyin had attacked the other Europeans at the same time. Flory, who was the
doctor’s friend and his chief source of prestige, had been scared easily enough into
deserting him. With Westfield it was a little harder. Westfield, as a policeman, knew a
great deal about U Po Kyin and might conceivably upset his plans. Policemen and
magistrates are natural enemies. But U Po Kyin had known how to turn even this fact to
advantage. He had accused the doctor, anonymously of course, of being in league with
the notorious scoundrel and bribe-taker U Po Kyin. That settled Westfield. As for Ellis,
no anonymous letters were needed in his case; nothing could possibly make him think
worse of the doctor than he did already.

U Po Kyin had even sent one of his anonymous letters to Mrs Lackersteen, for he knew
the power of European women. Dr Veraswami, the letter said, was inciting the natives to
abduct and rape the European women — no details were given, nor were they needed. U
Po Kyin had touched Mrs Lackersteen’s weak spot. To her mind the words ‘sedition’,
‘Nationalism,’, ‘rebellion’, ‘Home Rule’, conveyed one thing and one only, and that was
a picture of herself being raped by a procession of jet-black coolies with rolling white
eyeballs. It was a thought that kept her awake at night sometimes. Whatever good regard
the Europeans might once have had for the doctor was crumbling rapidly.

‘So you see,’ said U Po Kyin with a pleased air, ‘you see how I have undermined him. He
is like a tree sawn through at the base. One tap and down he comes. In three weeks or less
I shall deliver that tap. ’


‘How? ’



‘I am just coming to that. I think it is time for you to hear about it. You have no sense in
these matters, but you know how to hold your tongue. You have heard talk of this
rebellion that is brewing near Thongwa village? ’

‘Yes. They are very foolish, those villagers. What can they do with their dahs and spears
against the Indian soldiers? They will be shot down like wild animals. ’

‘Of course. If there is any fighting it will be a massacre. But they are only a pack of
superstitious peasants. They have put their faith in these absurd bullet-proof jackets that
are being distributed to them. I despise such ignorance. ’

‘Poor men! Why do you not stop them, Ko Po Kyin? There is no need to arrest anybody.
You have only to go to the village and tell them that you know their plans, and they will
never dare to go on. ’

‘Ah well, I could stop them if I chose, of course. But then I do not choose. I have my
reasons. You see, Kin Kin — you will please keep silent about this — this is, so to speak,
my own rebellion. I arranged it myself. ’

‘What! ’

Ma Kin dropped her cigar. Her eyes had opened so wide that the pale blue white showed
all round the pupil. She was horrified. She burst out:

‘Ko Po Kyin, what are you saying? You do not mean it! You, raising a rebellion — it
cannot be true! ’

‘Certainly it is true. And a very good job we are making of it. That magician whom I
brought from Rangoon is a clever fellow. He has toured all over India as a circus
conjurer. The bullet-proof jackets were bought at Whiteaway & Laidlaw’s stores, one
rupee eight annas each. They are costing me a pretty penny, I can tell you. ’

‘But, Ko Po Kyin! A rebellion! The terrible fighting and shooting, and all the poor men
who will be killed! Surely you have not gone mad? Are you not afraid of being shot
yourself? ’



U Po Kyin halted in his stride. He was astonished. ‘Good gracious, woman, what idea
have you got hold of now? You do not suppose that / am rebelling against the
Government? I — a Government servant of thirty years’ standing! Good heavens, no! I
said that I had STARTED the rebellion, not that I was taking part in it. It is these fools of
villagers who are going to risk their skins, not I. No one dreams that I have anything to do
with it, or ever will, except Ba Sein and one or two others. ’

‘But you said it was you who were persuading them to rebel? ’

‘Of course. I have accused Veraswami of raising a rebellion against the Government.
Well, I must have a rebellion to show, must I not? ’

‘Ah, I see. And when the rebellion breaks out, you are going to say that Dr Veraswami is
to blame for it. Is that it? ’

‘How slow you are! I should have thought even a fool would have seen that I am raising
the rebellion merely in order to crush it. I am — what is that expression Mr Macgregor
uses? Agent provocateur — Latin, you would not understand. I am agent provocateur.
First I persuade these fools at Thongwa to rebel, and then I arrest them as rebels. At the
very moment when it is due to start, I shall pounce on the ringleaders and clap every one
of them in jail. After that, I dare say there may possibly be some lighting. A few men
may be killed and a few more sent to the Andamans. But, meanwhile, I shall be first in
the field. U Po Kyin, the man who quelled a most dangerous rising in the nick of time! I
shall be the hero of the district. ’

U Po Kyin, justly proud of his plan, began to pace up and down the room again with his
hands behind his back, smiling. Ma Kin considered the plan in silence for some time.
Finally she said:

‘I still do not see why you are doing this, Ko Po Kyin. Where is it all leading? And what
has it got to do with Dr Veraswami? ’

‘I shall never teach you wisdom, Kin Kin! Did I not tell you at the beginning that
Veraswami stands in my way? This rebellion is the very thing to get rid of him. Of course
we shall never prove that he is responsible for it; but what does that matter? All the



Europeans will take it for granted that he is mixed up in it somehow. That is how their
minds work. He will be ruined for life. And his fall is my rise. The blacker I can paint
him, the more glorious my own conduct will appear. Now do you understand? ’

‘Yes, I do understand. And I think it is a base, evil plan. I wonder you are not ashamed to
tell it me. ’

‘Now, Kin Kin! Surely you are not going to start that nonsense over again? ’

‘Ko Po Kyin, why is it that you are only happy when you are being wicked? Why is it
that everything you do must bring evil to others? Think of that poor doctor who will be
dismissed from his post, and those villagers who will be shot or flogged with bamboos or
imprisoned for life. Is it necessary to do such things? What can you want with more
money when you are rich already? ’

‘Money! Who is talking about money? Some day, woman, you will realize that there are
other things in the world besides money. Fame, for example. Greatness. Do you realize
that the Governor of Burma will very probably pin an Order on my breast for my loyal
action in this affair? Would not even you be proud of such an honour as that? ’

Ma Kin shook her head, unimpressed. ‘When will you remember, Ko Po Kyin, that you
are not going to live a thousand years? Consider what happens to those who have lived
wickedly. There is such a thing, for instance, as being turned into a rat or a frog. There is
even hell. I remember what a priest said to me once about hell, something that he had
translated from the Pali scriptures, and it was very terrible. He said, “Once in a thousand
centuries two red-hot spears will meet in your heart, and you will say to yourself,
‘Another thousand centuries of my torment are ended, and there is as much to come as
there has been before. ’” Is it not very dreadful to think of such things, Ko Po Kyin? ’

U Po Kyin laughed and gave a careless wave of his hand that meant ‘pagodas’.

‘Well, I hope you may still laugh when it comes to the end. But for myself, I should not
care to look back upon such a life. ’



She relighted her cigar with her thin shoulder turned disapprovingly on U Po Kyin while
he took several more turns up and down the room. When he spoke, it was more seriously
than before, and even with a touch of diffidence.


‘You know, Kin Kin, there is another matter behind all this. Something that I have not
told to you or to anyone else. Even Ba Sein does not know. But I believe I will tell it you
now. ’

‘I do not want to hear it, if it is more wickedness. ’

‘No, no. You were asking just now what is my real object in this affair. You think, I
suppose, that I am ruining Veraswami merely because I dislike him and his ideas about
bribes as a nuisance. It is not only that. There is something else that is far more important,
and it concerns you as well as me. ’


‘What is it? ’


‘Have you never felt in you, Kin Kin, a desire for higher things? Has it never struck you
that after all our successes — all my successes, I should say — we are almost in the same
position as when we started? I am worth, I dare say, two lakhs of rupees, and yet look at
the style in which we live! Look at this room! Positively it is no better than that of a
peasant. I am tired of eating with my lingers and associating only with Burmans — poor,
inferior people — and living, as you might say, like a miserable Township Officer. Money
is not enough; I should like to feel that I have risen in the world as well. Do you not wish
sometimes for a way of life that is a little more — how shall I say — elevated? ’

‘I do not know how we could want more than what we have already. When I was a girl in
my village I never thought that I should live in such a house as this. Look at those
English chairs — I have never sat in one of them in my life. But I am very proud to look at
them and think that I own them. ’

‘Ch! Why did you ever leave that village of yours, Kin Kin? You are only fit to stand
gossiping by the well with a stone water-pot on your head. But I am more ambitious, God
be praised.