Letter from Singapore

THE VICAR

With one hand holding his wide-brimmed hat and the other pressed against his aching lower back, Reverend Owen climbed over the low stone wall that separated his small house from the church yard, and started on the roses. Agnes was very proud of her roses – the yellow Desprez á Fleur Jaune, the red Duchess of Portland, the Maiden Blush with its heavenly tint of pink on white petals.

The reverend missed his wife greatly. Thirty seven years of perfect harmony they had, would have been forty this year. Where are you now oh Agnes, my Agnes? Are you happy there, is there enough light? Look, Agnes, I'm pruning your roses the way you taught me to –cutting the lower branches short, leaving them longer at the top.

"Good morning, Reverend Owen!"

The vicar lowered his scissors, straightened up with a soft groan and returned the greeting. Young Priscilla Brooks came to the churchyard every Friday, in any weather. Usually she brushed the dust and leaves off the narrow grave under the dark old yew tree, put some fresh flowers in the stone vase, then sat there for a while on a little bench, motionless and straight-backed. Priscilla’s mother and father rested together under the big gravestone, and at their feet there was another - a white marble plate the size of a book.

That burial the vicar remembered all too well. The coffin was hardly bigger than a hat box and just as light. Priscilla had only held her baby for a few minutes after having her that night, then fell asleep and never saw her daughter again. She wasn’t even aware of the funeral as by the morning she was half way to the better world herself, struck with the violent childbed fever that lasted a whole week. Nobody thought she would rise from that bed. But she did – and the first place she went was here, and she hasn’t missed a week since.

The Reverend often saw her from his window - as he was going around his kitchen making tea or some quick ham sandwiches, easy widower's snack. Priscilla would be sitting in the shadow of the dark tree, dark, thin and shadowy herself, with her white narrow face wearing a stern, resolute expression. Reverend Owen would sigh then, absent-mindedly reaching for the teapot and the cup that his wife liked best - ivory porcelain with small roses. Agnes would have known what to say to the girl, she would go straight to Priscilla and somehow comfort her, find out what was wrong. She was the one who always knew the right words.

"Good morning, my dear Pris! The weather is rather poor for this time of year, wouldn't you agree?"

The young woman nodded, pulling her black lace gloves back on.

"Yes," she said. "An unusually cold and windy May this year. I can see that your back is still troubling you? I'm going to London next week and will try to obtain one of those patented rheumatic back bracers for you. They sound rather wonderful."

She smiled at him and the Reverend smiled back, thinking what a lovely and kind girl Priscilla had always been and how he and his Agnes had always dreamed and prayed to have a little girl just like her. But the stork kept missing their small rectory house and twenty years ago flew just a bit too fast, delivering little Priscilla to a stone cottage on the other side of the hill, to the family of mister Wood, a piano teacher. When Reverend Owen was baptizing the baby, she grabbed his finger tightly and looked straight into his eyes, as if recognising the priest somehow. Then she smiled at him: even though the Reverend knew she was too small a baby to be able to smile, he could have sworn that she did.

"Poor little thing," Agnes sighed over and over, supervising the workers digging a grave for Mr. Wood, who had been coughing up blood all winter all the while being sure that the spring sun would kiss him better. At the funeral ten year-old Priscilla was already beyond tears and was standing there rigidly, with her small face swollen and puffy, biting her lip and looking at the daffodils and crocuses coming into bloom all over the churchyard as if she suspected that it was all just a weird dream.

When Priscilla turned seventeen, Reverend Owen himself had married her to Brooks, a successful middle-aged merchant who had settled in their small town of Weymouth a few years ago and now had a big shop in the high street. It was a Wednesday and the little church looked almost empty as neither bride nor groom had much of a family.

"Nothing good is going to come from it," said Agnes back then and it was one of their last conversations. "This Brooks isn't a good man. His eyes are like dead jellyfish. I can't see why Mary is giving Priscilla to him, and so early too, the girl is way too young. I wouldn't dream..." she broke off, looking a bit sad, then concluded, "It will not end well!"

The next day Agnes fell ill with a cold from which she did not get up again.
Her death felt sudden as she'd always been so robust and healthy and it struck the Reverend hard. He didn't expect to find himself so lost and helpless in the face of his grief, he didn't count on feeling so utterly alone, as if walking in the valley in the shadow of Death, whispering his wife's name till his lips started to bleed. God didn't help, his job didn't help, his faith didn't help. What did help eventually was a long and solitary journey to Yorkshire where Agnes was from - somehow it felt easier to mourn her there, amongst the hills and houses that remembered her laughter.

And when Reverend Owen had finally recovered from his loss, returned to Weymouth and inspected his parish, he observed that Priscilla Brooks was always coming to the church alone, without her husband, that she was very pale and there often were bruises and scratches on her face and hands.

"I hit the door," she would say, not looking him in the eye.

"I slipped, whilst helping Janet to hang out the washing."

"I tripped down the stairs, lucky it was just three steps to the landing."

"I burned my hand on the kettle. Please, never mind."

What could the old priest do?

Two months ago Jeremiah Brooks ventured to Singapore, where trade flourished and capital was rumoured to grow by leaps and bounds. He intended to buy a house there, get the business going and in a few months time return for his wife.
Reverend Owen didn't think much of the idea, he feared that in a sickly tropical climate Priscilla would not last long: the girl still looked very fragile after her first disastrous pregnancy and labour, always withdrawn and unwell somehow. And in those parts of Asia, as the "London Illustrated Weekly" informed its readers, many tropical diseases ran rife and the heat was such that "one wanted to take off all the flesh and sit around wearing nothing but bones."

Despite the questionable prospects for the future, since her husband had left, Priscilla seemed much happier. She seemed to have come alive and to remember that she was only twenty years old. She looked like her old self again, was smiling a lot more and somehow stopped having those painful little accidents involving the doors, steps, household items and furniture. She wasn't coming to the church services anymore though, but never missed her Friday visit to the graveyard.

"Priscilla," Reverend Owen said carefully, "My child, do remind me kindly when was the last time I last saw you at the sermon? The day after tomorrow I was planning to talk about family values, Mark twenty-three and beyond. I would strongly - "

"The mail is here," she interrupted him as she raised her hand in a greeting.
The postman smiled, opening his black uniform bag.

"Reverend," he said, handing him a big flat package wrapped in brown paper. Reverend Owen sighed. He knew what the parcel contained: a catalogue of gardening equipment from a London trading company. It was sent to him every year in enduring hope that the provincial priest would suddenly place a mail order for some indecently expensive German shovels or watering cans.

"Mrs Brooks," the postman handed Priscilla a cream envelope, addressed with beautiful large handwriting. "You have some news from distant lands by the look of it. Isn't it the very first letter from Mr Brooks from Singapore? Took him a while to get there, didn't it?"

Priscilla, frozen, looked at the envelope as if it was a snake in the grass. Then a slow smile parted her lips, and the Reverend winced, for now she suddenly looked like Eve that had already listened to that snake, already eaten the apple, already learnt good from evil.

"Yes," she said, and took the letter. "But I'm pretty sure there will be another one soon, with the next steamer."

She started putting the letter in her pocket, but then shook her head, looking at the postman and the reverend, as if something occurred to her suddenly and she took it out again.

"Better this way," she said. She took off her gloves, tore the envelope, pulled out the letter and began to read. At the moment when her fingers touched the paper, Reverend Owen's heart clenched with a distinct sense of foreboding - as it had done for a split second when his Agnes, returning from the market, said, "My shoes are completely drenched, I can hardly feel my feet now, but it's nothing, I'll warm them up by the fire." A gust of wind threw a few handfuls of cold water from the gray sky, shook the branches of the old yew, boomed and whistled in the belfry.

"No," said Priscilla shakily. "No! No!"

She crumpled the paper in her fist, looked around blankly, raised her face to the clouds and cried out in fear and despair. Before anyone could react, she started running off to the gate, but tripped over her own skirts and fell to the path, right onto the reverend's rose cuttings. She tumbled and lay there motionless in a deep faint.

Reverend Owen crouched next to her, quite forgetting about his bad back.

"John, there is a small casket with smelling salts on the windowsill in the church hall," he said. "Would you please - "

He folded his coat and carefully put it under Priscilla's head. Her breathing was shallow but regular, and a deep scratch from a rose thorn on her cheek started bleeding, deep crimson on white. The Reverend picked up the letter, glanced at Priscilla's blank face and started reading.

"My dearest Mrs. Brooks, it is with very deep regret I have to inform you of the death of your husband Jeremiah Brooks, on April 16th of this year. The long bout of fever he endured onboard the ship had weakened his health greatly and although his full recovery seemed very close, yesterday his condition rapidly deteriorated. He died last night in his room at the "Raffles" hotel in Singapore.

Jeremy and myself had become trading partners here in Singapore and were considering some business possibilities to be explored later in Australia. Alas, many dreams died last night with your husband and my good friend.

I am sending all the official documents to your attorney in London, they will contact you about the inheritance and the taxes and procedures involved. In Jeremiah's papers I found this envelope signed with your name and address, and considering myself a good friend of yours too, decided to deliver the sad news to you in personal writing.

Jeremiah recalled you often last night, just before drawing his last breath he became delirious and kept repeating "Pris must forgive, please let her forgive." I do not know what these words referred to, but I beg you to forgive any transgressions and misunderstandings that might have happened and to mourn Jeremiah with a pure heart.

Whereupon I remain, with the deepest regrets,

Yours sincerely,

Adam Lawrence, Esq."

Reverend Owen sighed and put the letter down. Priscilla had come to, but was laying there quite motionless, staring into the low gray sky with the eyes of the same colour.

"I didn't know you loved him that much," the priest muttered. "I'm so sorry, my dearest girl..."

"No," she said quietly, but clearly. "No one has ever hated anyone as much as I hated him."

"Then why are you crying?" Reverend Owen asked. "Why are you crying, Pris?"

Without answering, Priscilla sat up, looked around and wiped the tears and blood from her cheeks. She rose up and spent some time busily brushing her skirts.

"I'm sorry," she said at last, not meeting the old priest's eyes. "I need to be alone now."

And she walked away with her head bowed low. As Reverend Owen was watching her go, his eyes played a trick on him: it looked for a moment as if a shadow moved from the graveyard after Priscilla, the dark ripple in the air following the small slender figure in a simple black dress.

The postman had finally come back with the smelling salts. The priest nodded, absent-mindedly listening to the detailed story of how they weren't on the window and how John kept looking for the little casket in various locations high and low throughout the church hall.

"Thank you, John," he said, taking the box from him.

"What was it? The letter?" the postman asked. "Did the husband... pass away?"

"Yes," Reverend Owen answered slowly. "It would appear that he did."

The postman left, but the old priest kept standing in his garden, deep in thought. John would go all over the village now, delivering the mail and the news. Then people would start talking. By the evening the whole town would know that Priscilla Brooks has become a widow, and in what deep despair the letter from Singapore has gotten her into.

"Something's not right, Agnes," said the old man, "something's fishy."

And the roses nodded in the spring wind, agreeing with him.

THE MEDIUM

Madame Claire stopped to catch her breath and take in the panoramic view of the beautiful landscape - the sea, the trees, picturesque houses here and there in the valley. She was glad she didn't take up the widow Brooks on her offer to book a cab from the train station and decided to walk all the way instead. The air was fresh, crisp and salty, so wonderfully different from London's smoky rottenness. That was one of the reasons she responded to the widow's letter and agreed to make the journey - she wanted to spend a few days at the seaside in a nice quiet place, which definition Weymouth seemed to meet to a letter.

If not for the desire of a short refreshing break, Madame Claire wouldn't have set foot on that train; even travelling first class wouldn't be worth it. She didn't need any clients from far away, she had enough in London: grieving widows, parents who have lost their children, lovers longing for some instructions from the higher spheres. The river of human misery runs deep, its rapids are strong. If you don't know how to paddle, if you lose your grip even for a minute, they will smash your ship and drag you down all the way to the bottom. But Madame Claire came from a family line of psychic mediums and clairvoyants and her small comfortable boat was captained with a skilful, even if slightly cynical, hand.

Here and now, admiring the green curves of the hills, the polished steel shine of the sea, the clean lines of white cliffs framing the bay, she was already figuring out how much would it cost the Brooks widow to sort out the ghost that recently started haunting her house. When a young widow is being haunted there's usually little mystery, it's the husband. That is if there is a ghost at all, which doesn't happen as often as people think, so with the ladies it's usually their own guilt or hysteria, or both.

"Many physicians these days think that the hysterical nervous disorder affects one woman in three," doctor Clarke was telling her confidently at their first meeting some time ago. "Alas, that would be the price the fairer sex has to pay for our society's rapid civilization. The more civilized women are, the more susceptible they seem to be to a variety of nervous disorders and faults of their... reproductive tracts. There is nothing to be ashamed of, my dear Madame Claire, nothing. It's all completely natural and easily remedied."

The medical profession did rise to the social challenge and a skilled physician could indeed eliminate all the nervous spasms and tension in just a few minutes, using the purified oil and a special pelvic area massage technique. Claire spent a few moments happily reminiscing of young doctor Hugo's dark eyelashes, the strength of his long fingers and the sweet devastation of a "nervous paroxysm" achieved at the end of the massage. Another memory of a similar sensation came, unbidden, from a different time of her life and a very different context: she was fourteen, cousin Jack was visiting from Glasgow, they ran away from her governess and hid in the attic... Madame Claire sighed, shook her head and continued to climb the path, and in a few minutes was knocking on the door of Mrs. Brooks' very nice house with the knocker shaped like a swan.

The door was answered promptly by a young maid, very pale and quite pretty. She wore a simple black dress and her left hand was heavily bandaged. Madame Claire expected the girl to maybe curtsy and go fetch her lady, but she just nodded and gave the guest a mirthless smile.

"Welcome, Madame Claire," she said. "I hope your journey wasn't too tiresome."

So this was the widow Brooks. Claire followed her down the long hallway to the cosy living room, thinking disapprovingly of men who marry such young girls instead of seeking so much more easily obtained happiness amongst the decent women who have already seen and learned important things about life and family, and acquired mental skills, inaccessible to youth.

Priscilla seemed very nervous and jumpy at first, sitting on the very edge of the couch and looking around like a hunted deer, but after she served tea and biscuits - which she had to do herself as it appeared that there wasn't anybody else in the house - she seemed to have calmed down and become capable of normal conversation.

The ghost appeared about a month ago, on the day when a letter came, announcing her husband's untimely death in the faraway lands. At first only Priscilla herself could see it in the corners of the room, at a distance. The black ripples thickened the air and if you kept looking started resembling a human figure. It was obviously very scary, but didn't do anything and Priscilla couldn't be sure that she really saw it, having just received such shocking news and not quite trusting her mind. A few days later the ripples began to suddenly appear in Priscilla's path, she wouldn't have time to stop and would walk into what felt like a shred of cold thick mist. Her ears would start ringing, her eyesight darken, and she got the feeling like she could not breathe. Every time it happened it was getting worse. A week later it happened when she was on the stairs - luckily almost at the bottom of them. It felt like being pulled into a vortex of dark, icy cold and bitter water.

"Janet found me," Priscilla said and her teeth chattered on the edge of a porcelain cup. "She's our maid. She said my face was gray; I was breathing hoarsely and didn't wake up whatever they tried, for twenty minutes or so. I don't remember any of it. I woke up in my bed, very sore all over."

"Did you see a doctor?" Madame Claire asked, biting into another crunchy biscuit. Extremely tasty those were, she had to ask for the recipe! Priscilla smiled ruefully.

"The next day Janet, too, saw a dark shape in the air. It was there, by the top curtains," the girl waved her bandaged hand at the window. "She wasn't sure what she was seeing so she was just standing there by the door, looking at it. The dark shape rushed across the room directly to her and scratched her face. Four deep scratches across the left cheek."

"Where is Janet now?" Claire asked at once, putting down the cup. "Can I talk to her?"

"She asked for her payment that very day and left. She said she wouldn't sleep in the house and travelled to her sister in Cornwall," the young widow sighed. "A week later the cook also left. I'm alone, Madame Claire."

She got up, walked to the window and put her thin white hand on the frame while looking at something in the garden. Then she turned around, pulled on the bandages on her left hand with her teeth and started unwrapping them.

"It started recently," she said. "After I had already spotted your advertisement in the hat catalogue and had written to you."

She reached out her hand. There were multiple deep scratches and teeth marks on it, most looking quite fresh and angry, a few were bleeding. Madame Claire, her head bowed, considered the bites, red and purple on white skin. She was trying to figure out from the angles of the marks whether the girl could have been biting herself. Her physic career was eighteen years long, there was little that she hasn't seen.

"It drinks my blood," said Priscilla. "It chokes me, claws on me, and then I feel the teeth breaking my skin. Blood comes out of the wound and disappears, and I can't even move. I just watch."

"Couldn't you leave this house for a while and go..." but Priscilla wouldn't let Madame Claire finish.

"Last week I went to London," she said. "I had to see the attorney. I stayed in a hotel, it was very nice, there were little silver roses on the wallpaper. As I was looking the roses disappeared under the black ripples, they ran down the wall and rushed at me. This is when I had to bandage my hand for the first time."

Grimacing, she began to wrap her wrist again.

"So it's not the house, Madame Claire. It's me. I really need your help."

Claire nodded thoughtfully. She often had to stretch and bend the truth, to play a role, to tell the customers what they needed to hear. She saw herself as a healer of wounded souls, a kind of healer that works for a good reward and without stretching the limits of her comfort too far.

She did have a real experience of the contact with beyond, but she also knew very well that most of the dead do go away, go away for good, without looking back at those who remain. The living think of the boundary of the worlds being thin and permeable as a lace curtain between the house and garden. But for the dead on the other side it's more like a high brick wall with broken glass on top. Why climb it and suffer, and bleed, and risk losing yourself forever, if the light and beautiful path is laid ready and the good companions are calling you along? And even if you turn your back on them and refuse to abandon that brick wall - you still wouldn't be able to jump down and change anything in the world you have left behind.

"What do you want, Mrs. Brooks?" Madame Claire asked directly. "If your ghost is real, it probably is your late husband. Do you want to cast him out? Force him to go, to rest in peace?"

"This is not my husband," Priscilla said firmly. "I would know. And my husband died of natural courses. I don't know who's haunting me, but I'm pretty sure that he has a reason to blame me. As for what I want... I want to know how can I make amends."

Madame Claire charged for the mysteries of the dead, not the living. So she just nodded to Priscilla and leaned back in her chair, relaxing her back vertebra by vertebra all the way up to the brain.

Since she was a little girl, when her eyes were closed and her back relaxed, Claire could travel to a little room with the walls of moonlight. The floors there smelled of cedar wood, there were no windows, and in the lid of the wooden chest by the longest wall there was a mirror, framed by a silver snake biting its own tail. Sometimes when Claire looked in it, she saw the reflections of people who were not in the room. She saw the dead. It only happened sixteen times over all these years.

Claire grabbed the heavy mirror by the handle and lifted it from the chest. She looked into it - she was always seven years old in the reflection and had gaps for two front teeth. She moved the mirror around and screamed when the dark ripples gushed at her from the walls.

The plump forty year old blond woman wearing a low cut blue silk dress straightened in the chair, opening her eyes wide and Priscilla gasped - they were completely black, as if filled with liquid darkness.

"You!" the woman cried loudly, pointing. Priscilla trembled and fell to her knees, unable to look away from those terrible eyes.

"Sorry," she wept. "I'm so sorry. What do I need to do? Tell me, I'll do anything!"

"You come," screamed the thing that Madame Claire currently was. "You find them. You save them. Fix! Hurry!"

And she dropped her shaking hand, wheezed and went limp like a rag doll.
Priscilla got up and wiped off her tears. Huffing and puffing, she dragged Madame Claire to the couch, laid her down and loosened her corset. Then she brought a jug, wet a towel and put it on the lying woman's forehead. Then she sat down next to her and waited, thinking hard.

Madame Claire came to another quarter of an hour later.

"What happened?" she asked, sitting up and running the hand over her face. Her eyes were very red, as if she had been crying for a long time. "Never before have I... Wasn't something I... What the hell happened? Did we get in touch?"

"Yes," Priscilla said. "And now I need to find out what happened in Singapore. The steamer sails on the eighth of each month, so I have a week to get ready."

It had been many years since Madame Claire got actually surprised by anything. She sat up on the couch, massaging her temples, then yawned wide.

"Pour me another cup of tea please, my dear," she said. "Four sugars. And pass the biscuits."

THE RAKE

Oliver noticed her at the docks in Southampton. Slim she was, graceful and vulnerable in her full mourning attire, just as he liked them. At first he took her for a young girl that had lost her parents and possibly the family fortune: she was travelling alone and her dress was very simple and at least two seasons outdated. Oliver could tell now, after five months in his beautiful London, the cradle of civilization and progress, where life was always in full swing, unlike the Singapore garrison, where it dragged along slowly and unpleasantly like a half-dead tropical snake.

The most exciting event of his two years of service had been the three day long action when the five regiments swept the island and killed all the tigers. In the preceding month the brazen brutes had carried away into the jungle three Chinese coolies from the forest felling sites. So the foremen had complained to the contractors, those petitioned the governor, the governor invited the general for dinner, and there they were: bang-bang, twenty beautiful tiger skins and heads, five cubs for sale. The tiger cubs were cute and pretty, like slightly oversized kittens, as if they weren't going to grow very quickly into the ruthless three hundred pounds predators. Oliver smiled. That was a good hunt - the heart pounded like drums from the heat and the danger, and the low menacing roars of the great animals, lurking somewhere in the green shadows reverberated in everyone's bones. A good hunt he was looking forward to now as well - as it turned out that the chosen game wasn't a timid and poor young girl, but a lonely and well-off widow travelling first class. A smile, a whisper and a coin for the steward - and the beautiful Priscilla Brooks will be seated at the same table as himself, so will have the pleasure of Oliver Evans' company twice a day at lunch and dinner, as breakfast was usually served to the first class passengers in their cabins.

"I remember how impressed I was when I first saw Singapore's fruit market," Oliver said pensively over dinner, pouring wine for Priscilla and the rotund wife of a colonial officer, Mrs. Lee. "The smell of sun-warmed fruit was filling all the space around. Their generous juices were like the wet and hot blood of the earth, and their taste like fierce rays of the tropical sun trapped under the thin skin. Everywhere I looked all was gold and green - piles of bananas, baskets of pineapples, cart after cart of cream apples and mango fruits. I was young back then, inexperienced. I had never felt or indeed imagined such... voluptuousness before."

And he shot a look across the table, a shy look that at the same time suggested that he, Oliver, was a lot more experienced now and had known his share of passions and sensual pleasures. Much can be said while talking about something else. It was rumoured that some particularly pious circles of London society had adopted a habit of draping furniture legs to avoid this possibility. Because if one starts talking about the new style of William Morris' furniture and the elegant side table legs - word for word, and here you are: the gentleman puts his hand on the lady's leg and she suddenly doesn’t bash it away.

Oliver took a sip of wine. Priscilla was looking not at him but out of the window where the sunset was burning hot pink and still looked European, without the tropical fierceness. In another attempt to get her attention, Oliver talked about hunting tigers. About how it is partly by his, Oliver Evans' efforts that the island has become safe and no one eats the hardworking Chinese loggers any more. Mrs. Lee gasped in all the right places and thanked God for British courage, generosity and rifle power.

"The jungle is probably full of tigers again by now," said a small Asian who kept silent before, looking mostly into his plate and sometimes at the sunset. He seemed quite young, was dressed in European style and very expensively, and spoke without any accent. "The tigers are excellent swimmers, wouldn't take them long to get to the empty hunting grounds from the Malay Peninsula."

Mrs. Lee, who was watching the strange Asian with a calculating expression, suddenly clasped her hands.

"You are Mr. Eugene Monk," she exclaimed. "You were that orphaned little Chinese genius that Lady Monk had adopted in Hong Kong, weren't you? Is it true that you spoke and read in four languages by the age of ten? And did you really graduate the Oxford School of Medicine at seventeen?"

The Chinese blushed, mumbled something, lowered his eyes and put a slice of cherry pie on his plate. Priscilla looked at him with interest.

"But you're a celebrity, Mr. Monk," Mrs. Lee just wouldn't accept that nobody wanted to talk about the short guy’s achievements. "I've been reading about you in the newspapers for years!"

"The two-headed calves also make it into the newspapers," Oliver said glumly. "Doesn't make them celebrities, does it?"

Priscilla glared at him, Mrs. Lee smiled apologetically. The Asian genius Eugene ate his dessert without engaging in any more table conversations.

When they had passed Madeira, Oliver grew bolder and asked Priscilla why does she so rarely come to the deck, doesn't she get bored alone in her cabin? She didn't return his smile and answered curtly that she doesn't ever get bored, and that in her cabin she paints, reads and thinks. What was she reading? Well, right now - Schopenhauer's "The World as Will and Representation." The Chinese looked at her with sudden sharp curiosity and Oliver almost choked on his compote. Straight away he had to put to a stop the Chinese's attempt to find out if Mrs. Brooks agreed that the possibility of human compassion arises from the transcendence of selfishness. With a bit of manoeuvring Oliver turned the conversation to the fruit again, and from there - to the sweet pleasures of light sins, condemned by society, but in fact so innocent and not harming anyone. Mrs. Lee was nodding and agreeing with him rather enthusiastically, but he got an unpleasant impression that Priscilla was barely listening.

"Something about what you've just said made me think of the durian, which is considered by many the king of all Asian fruits," the Chinese just refused to eat in silence tonight. "It is covered with sharp thorns, so one can immediately see that it might scratch. But inside the rough shell creamy sweetness is promised, so people open the fruit and enjoy the juicy flesh. Then they realize that the delicious taste is accompanied by an unbearable smell - it is impossible to describe, it is differently terrible for different people. Rotten onion some say, decaying flesh, dirty pigsty. And this smell is almost impossible to get rid of, it immediately penetrates the clothing, the skin, the items around. It is very resistant. So... I think that having sinned, the soul begins to suffocate in the cloud of moral miasma, regardless of whether the sin was intended or accidental, whether it harmed anyone else or just the sinner himself."

"And what would you advise such a person to do?" Priscilla asked suddenly.
Eugene looked her straight in the eye.

"To fix what can be fixed outside, to find a new point of balance inside... and to sin no more," he said. "But to continue with our fruit metaphor - most people simply get used to the smell. To the point where it no longer bothers them."

Oliver thought that at this point he should say something witty and intelligent that would tie up the pretentious little man, but instead said that he really likes the durian fruit.

"Me too," Eugene nodded. "Amazing taste. I missed it in England."

They passed Cape Town on the twentieth day of their journey, and another twenty five lay ahead until they would reach Singapore. Oliver decided that it was time to move the hunt to the next stage, the most pleasant one. There would be three weeks of secret meetings and sweet minutes shared; and then as soon as the ship docked in Singapore it would be instantly over, as if brought to stop by a law of physics. Oliver loved the steamship affairs.

And how incredibly lucky it is that the lady's travelling without a companion. One could even consider it inviting, as if abandoning the way that is common and decent for a woman of her class she secretly wanted and was hoping for something to happen. For someone just like Oliver.

Priscilla sat in a deck chair with an umbrella and a book. She looked very pretty despite being too pale, as a particularly attractive marble statue, the one to be put not in a church, but in an alcove. Sometimes she took her eyes off the page and looked around as if hoping to see someone. Oliver was hoping that it was him, whom else? Surely it can't be the Shorty, he would barely reach up to her ear, if that. It would be funny, really, absolutely laughable. Oliver was looking at her across the deck again, considering his plot for tonight, and suddenly realized that he got overheated: a black ripple passed between him and the girl, merging with the haze of the hot air that enveloped the unbearably vivid blue of the ocean. However, it only lasted a few seconds.

In the evening a pre-bribed steward passed a note to Priscilla, a message begging for help. Oliver chose the meeting place that would seem quite public and therefore safe - the dining cabin. Mrs Brooks doesn’t need to know that no one will come in here for the next half an hour.

She came. Looked around, then sat down glancing at her watch. The moment was right and Oliver came out from behind a pillar; he was pale, his eyes were burning with passion - the look he had practiced today with the mirror for about an hour. He fell to his knees before her and explained himself. Gently but passionately embraced her legs.

"Let me go," Priscilla said.

He sat next to her so that she couldn't leave. She was silent and Oliver decided she was ready to allow him something.

"I only need to know if your heart is beating as fast as mine is this very moment!" he said and put his hand on her chest, feeling the steel ribs of the corset, and underneath - her tight young body. His excitement grew.

"Take your hands off me," said Priscilla and tried to push him away.
But Oliver moved even closer, put his arm around her waist - he knew this game, he had played it many times. The ice does not crack unless you force it to, sometimes you just need to press a little bit harder... Again she tried to free herself from his grasp, but he was much stronger and held her tight, maybe harsher than he had planned. It was getting harder to control himself - her bosom was simply divine.

"No one will touch me against my will anymore," Priscilla said hoarsely, picked up a silver fork from the table and stuck it into Oliver's hip. The fork went deep and as she let go of it, swung back and forth as if sticking out of a baked ham. Oliver stared at it for a moment, refusing to believe his eyes. Then he screamed out in pain and resentment, staggered, nearly falling off the chair.

"You cussed hysterical bitch!" he cried. "Bloody cherry!"

Blind with rage, all he wanted now was to swing and hit her, hit her hard, so that her stupid pretty head jerks back on that thin soft neck... But suddenly the walls were covered with dark ripples, they gushed down, enveloped Oliver, squeezed him tight. He became blind and cold, he wheezed, unable to breathe, and fell to the floor.

"No, no, no, please don't," he heard Priscilla's pleading voice through the thick wave of unconsciousness, swallowing him whole.

Oliver woke up under the table with a fork in his leg, a scratched cheek and a strange bitter taste in his mouth. What had the bloody witch done to him? The inside of his mind felt dark and empty. And the good trousers were ruined. He had to limp all the way to the Chinese's cabin, knock on his door and ask him to stop the bleeding. Somehow it felt less shameful than going to the ship's doctor - maybe because the man wasn't a real gentleman, Oxford or not. Also it would let the Shorty see what the crazy white women are capable of, so that he doesn't get any ideas. The Chinese bandaged Oliver's thigh, shaking his head and smiling with the corner of his mouth.

Priscilla had asked to be seated at another table. Oliver was more than happy not to have to sit across the table from the hysterical witch. The Chinese kept glancing at her though. Probably missed the talks about Shopping-whorer, or whatever that German’s name was.

A week later, when they were approaching Bombay, Oliver's feelings were suddenly answered by Mrs. Lee.

"Here, come here," she whispered, pulling him into her cabin. A Chinese middle-aged maid, surprisingly ugly even for an Asian, quickly walked out, keeping her eyes down.

"I'll fire her as soon as we get to Singapore," Mrs. Lee muttered, turning her back to Oliver so that he could undo her corset. "My husband will never know, don't worry..."

He imagined a very different woman before him and embraced her so passionately that she moaned out loud. Over the next ten days Oliver listened with progressively fading enthusiasm to Mrs. Lee's moans, and the steamer "Lady Mary Wood" whipped the Pacific water into a white foam trail all the way to Penang, the capital of the British lands at the Strait of Malacca.

Here Eugene Monk, who caused Oliver constant and ever growing irritation, finally came ashore. He stood on the dock for a long time, with his head up, holding his hat with a hand. And Priscilla stood on the deck and looked down at him. The rain started, a real tropical downpour, but she seemed not to notice, even though she had a folded umbrella in her hand. She was just standing there with water dripping down her face. Oliver left the deck in an incomprehensible anguish. His leg had almost healed but he felt a strange discomfort in his heart, a small annoying pain of longing for something that would never happen.

The cabin door opened slightly and Mrs. Lee looked out, glanced up and down the corridor.

"Come in, come in," she whispered hotly.

Oliver didn't really want to, but stepped through her door. It smelled of durians.

THE KILLER

The porter in the "Raffles" hotel was an old and amazingly handsome Malay. Priscilla wanted to draw him quite badly, but she resolved herself, sighed and asked for the room in which her husband Mr. Jeremiah Brooks had died four months ago.

The receptionist did not show his surprise, if he felt any. Yes, that suite is available. No, it doesn't have an ocean view, but if Madame wanted to see the ocean, it is a pleasant five minute walk to the promenade. The servant's room in en-suite and sleeps two. Madame doesn't have a maid? The hotel management would be happy to recommend some trustworthy and inexpensive local servants.

Bracing herself and taking a deep breath, Priscilla asked about a friend of her husband's, Adam Lawrence, who stayed here and sent her the letter. She knew what she would hear. That he'd organised the funeral, went through his late friend's papers, at some point felt rather ill, took to his bed, began to choke, called a doctor, suffered through the night and did not see another sunrise. Priscilla swallowed hard and tried to fortify her soul waiting for the answer.

"Mr. Lawrence left for Australia two weeks ago," the receptionist replied.

"He's alive!" Priscilla gasped. And silently started spinning into the abyss "who did I kill then?"

"Yes, ma'am, definitely alive," the receptionist reassured her without showing any surprise. "At least for the moment of his check-out from our hotel he stayed in excellent health and enjoyed the state of cheerful well-being."

"Raffles" was a very beautiful place. The white of the walls and columns contrasted with the polished dark wood of the flooring, the gilded fixings looked exquisite, the carpets were thick and rich in colour. Bright light pierced the room, filtered and softened by the thin curtains, the aromas of flowers and palm trees from the garden mixed with the waxy mastic smell from the floor.

Priscilla pulled the mosquito net aside and lay on the bed. As she looked up, the dark ripples appeared on the white ceiling, as if it suddenly grew some strange outwordly mould. Pris unbuttoned her sleeves, rolled them up and spread her tormented arms on the silk bed covers - here you are, drink. She had stopped struggling some time ago. It seemed fitting that the ghost of the murdered person should have the right to feed on the life of the murderer. At least until the sin is redeemed, if it was redeemable at all. Priscilla wasn't sure she cared much about her own life anymore, it all seemed like going from one chapter full of grief and pain to another, so who in their right mind would want to keep reading?

"Who are you?" she asked the darkness that descended on her from the ceiling. She felt the bitterness in her mouth, the familiar burn of pain in her left arm. Breathing became difficult. She closed her eyes and thought about her mother. And a blue glass vial.

"Take it from me, Pris," Mama had asked, licking her dry lips. "Get rid of it. Very carefully. I do not know how actually. Throw it into the latrine? No, if the glass breaks it might poison the workmen who'd come to empty it... Oh dear!"

She didn't get up anymore by then and propped herself up on the cushions with great difficulty.

"What is it, Mama?" Priscilla looked through the vial's clear liquid under the ground stopper.

"I remember your grandmother dying," her mother said, looking beyond Priscilla, somewhere dark in her own thoughts. "Awful it was, not even remotely Christian. Two years ago, when I found the first big lump in my breast, I went to see a jeweller in London that a friend had recommended... and bought some refined cyanide from him. I wanted to have a choice, Pris. Even if it was a choice between the pain and the sin. But now, in the end, I shall not choose sin."

She reached out and stroked her daughter's cheek. Priscilla sat by the side of the bed, her dress stretched by the pregnant belly.

"Hide the vial, Pris," her mother asked. "Do not give it to me even if I'm begging. Then, after... put it in my coffin."

"Priscilla!" Jeremiah called loudly from the living room. Pris jerked at the sound even though it was only the first year after their wedding and he did not really beat her yet - well, except for some slaps and pinches, but not too often. Mama had noticed her fear and began to weep.

"Forgive me Pris," she cried. "I shouldn't have forced you to marry him... I got scared... I'm so sorry, my own, so very sorry..."

Three times she asked Priscilla to give the vial back. But every time after the pain subsided she thanked her for not giving it up. On her mother's last morning Priscilla smiled to the milkman and agreed with him that yes, it probably wouldn't start raining today, at least not till the afternoon. When she returned to the kitchen, Jeremiah slapped her so hard for it that the skin on her cheek broke. Then he left for work and Priscilla was cradling an ice compress at her cheek and trying not to cry.

Mama opened her eyes, not clouded by pain today, and looked at her for a while.

"Five drops - quick death," she said at last. "The less, the slower. If it's just one drop, he will suffer greatly, but the coroner shouldn’t find out. Cyanide absorbs into the skin, so please wear gloves."

"Mama!" Priscilla clasped hands to her mouth. But her mother closed her eyes and didn't open them again. Standing by the coffin, Priscilla was going to put the blue vial into her mother's stiff white hand. But she didn't.

Jeremiah had always dreamed of a big family, a numerous litter of obedient and neat little boys in velvet suits. When the doctor said that Priscilla wouldn't bear him any more children after her first and nearly fatal experience, he was mightily disappointed. That's when he began to beat her for real. Always careful not to cause too much damage.
Always having a cause, a little something for which she could be blamed.

"Look what you made me do, Pris," he would say. "I do not want to hurt you, but the husband's duty is to discipline his wife."

He lied. Her pain fuelled his desire and after hurting her he always came to her bed, using his rights passionately and for a long time. He inherited after her mother and now the house belonged to him too, as Priscilla, a married woman, could not own property.

"We'll go to Singapore," Jeremiah said one day, sitting at the table and sorting through his correspondence. His long fingers stroked a thick smooth envelope. He loved the expensive textured paper, novelty fountain pens, the smell of ink.

"My trading partner promises that within three years we'll be able to double the capital. I'll go alone first, set everything up, get ready. I shall write to you often, keep you informed."

Priscilla was watching him as he sealed the envelopes by slowly moving his wet tongue over the glue strip, then pressing the corner down. The next day she bought a large envelope of the best cream paper and carefully signed it with their home address. Then she put on some gloves and added one drop from the blue vial to a blob of glue. With a brush she spread the glue over the sealing strip of the beautiful envelope and left it to dry. The brush and gloves she carried to the smouldering pile of winter debris at the end of the garden. With her heart beating very fast, she handed the envelope to Jeremiah just as he finished packing.

"I will be waiting for this letter," she said and her voice trembled. "Very much."

He seemed touched and promised to write to her as soon as he arrived.

"Look what you made me do, Jeremiah," she whispered as his train slowly pulled away from the platform.

Priscilla opened her eyes as if waking up from a long and unpleasant dream. She sat up, wiped the blood off her arm with a towel, fixed the sleeves and pulled the bell cord at the bedside. A few minutes later a young Chinese maid came in, bowing.
Yes, if Madame wishes to send a letter to England, one of the servants will take it to the post office at once. No, Madame doesn't need to bother with the stamps - everything will be arranged at the reception. Yes, she enjoys working here, it is a very good hotel, she got lucky to be chosen for it. No, not very long, she got this job about three months ago, when one of the maids passed away unexpectedly, which was very unfortunate for that poor woman. Some people just have weak hearts, even very young ones. Very sad, because poor Saomin left two young children orphaned. Oh, what a pity that Madame got so upset...

Bowing and apologising, the maid left the room. Pris pressed a hand to her chest, it felt like the whole world was beating now with the heavy rhythm of her heart.

"Saomin," she said into space around her. "Forgive me. Please forgive me. I will find them, I promise."

She got dressed and went out into the white heat of Singapore's evening, full of raw and hot smells, multilingual shouts of the street merchants, laughs and buzz of the crowd. The doorman outside blew his whistle, making Priscilla jump, and a rickshaw ran to them from a group waiting nearby with their carts. He was young strong Malay with a confident smile and a white straw hat. Priscilla had already travelled on a rickshaw from the port, and although the fact that the wagon was pulled by a man still seemed very strange to her, she climbed into the small cart.

The rickshaw moved immediately, as if he knew where to take her. Priscilla remembered how at sea Eugene told her once or twice about the Buddhist "flow" - a current under the surface of the universe, which, if you don't fight it, carries all things to equilibrium and conclusion. She closed her eyes and tried talking to Saomin, asking the ghost to guide her search. Also she prayed a little. And allowed herself just a few moments of forbidden thoughts about Eugene, out of which she was thrown abruptly as the rickshaw stopped with a jerk. Some fish carts were crossing the main street, their movement slow and their smell overwhelming.

Priscilla sighed and looked around, suddenly spotting a familiar unsightly figure - Mrs. Lee's Chinese maid from the ship was standing at the street corner, a jute bag at her feet, an expression of sheepish resignation on her broad face. Priscilla caught her eye and waved. The woman approached.

"What happened to you?" Priscilla asked.

"My lady let me go," she shrugged. "Having no living. I think what to do now."

"I need a maid," said Priscilla. "What's your name?"

A minute later the rickshaw had two passengers. The maid's name was Mei Liu, which meant "a beautiful willow." Her parents hoped for the best, but she had never been pretty, even before the smallpox, but it's nothing, she was well used to it by now.

"Mei Liu, I need to find a family," Priscilla said. "But I don't know where to start. There would be two children, young children, whose mother died around four months ago. She was a maid at the "Raffles" hotel. She was Chinese and her name was Saomin..."

"I knew Du Saomin," nodded Mei Liu, as if she was expecting this question. "When living here, before going to England. Saomin lived with white man. A Frenchman. Bad person, smoked opium a lot. Du Saomin half-blood and orphan, with no one looking after her. A good family never allow her to choose a man like that. Still, pity she died."

Priscilla cheered up. The Flow had brought her to Mei Liu, now it might take her to the children.

"Yes, there were children," the maid shrugged. "Girls, I think. But I was a year in England, I do not know about them. Probably got older, if not died. Bad area, bad water, many children die."

Priscilla grabbed her hand and squeezed.

"Can we go there?" she asked hopefully. "Will you show me where they used to live? Please help me find them, Mei Liu!"

The woman looked around, squinting at the sun.

"Dark soon," she replied. "I said - bad area. Maybe go tomorrow morning?"

Priscilla considered it. The rickshaw was driving them along the waterfront now, the ocean was a beautiful shade of deep blue, the other carts sped around, carrying the sumptuously dressed Europeans, the rich Chinese in the bright silks and brocade. Three tall Sikhs in their long robes of the whitest muslin stood at a railing, talking and gesticulating. Two Malay women, looking almost identical and very graceful in their bright yellow sarongs went by, laughing at some joke. All the colours and movements were dazzling. But as Priscilla was looking, everything suddenly darkened and a familiar tightness clenched her heart.

"No," said Priscilla urgently. "Today, now, we need to hurry!"

"Oi!" Mei Liu shouted, and the rickshaw stopped so abruptly that the rider behind them had to rear the horse. Mei Liu told the rickshaw something in fast Chinese, he nodded, turning the cart and then ran quickly. Priscilla's heart was beating fast, as the driver’s feet beat into the dust, and it seemed to her that Saomin's shadow moved with them, urging them on, telling to hurry.

The rickshaw stopped where the pavement ended, he couldn't go any further here. Priscilla asked him to wait, picked up her skirts and walked along the narrow street through the slippery mud. The house wasn’t a shack, but seemed rather small and neglected. Whoever lived here took a very long time to answer the door. When it finally opened, Priscilla saw a man, clearly an European, with a thin gaunt face,overgrown up to his very eyes with untidy dark beard. The man looked at them, squinting suspiciously.

"You are not the ones I've been waiting for," he said in French. "What do you want?"

"I lived in the neighbourhood," Mei Liu said, protectively pushing Priscilla aside. "Some time ago. Now I come to ask about Saomin, your dead wife."

The Frenchman jerked his head, blue eyes flashed.

"I'm waiting for important people," he said. "Go away."

He started to close the door, but Priscilla put her foot forward.

"I'll pay," she said. "I'd like to see the children."

The Frenchman licked his lips.

"Englishwoman? And how much do you pay?"

"Half a crown," she said.

"Two silver crowns," he answered quickly and, after seeing her nod, stood aside and let them into the house. It was dirty, and the air was full of a sweet smoky smell.

"Opium," Mei Liu whispered, noticing Priscilla sniffing.

"None of your business," the Frenchman snapped without turning around. "Hey, you! Zoe, Irene! Come out now!"

From behind a low bamboo cabinet two girls climbed out. They both looked around the age of five or six and were dressed in simple cotton dresses, torn and dirty. They stood silently in the middle of the room, not looking up at their father or the strange women. Priscilla's heart was beating so loud, she was sure everyone in the room could hear it.

"Well, these are the children," the Frenchman said. "Now I'll have those two crowns and you'll be on your way."

Pris swallowed. She couldn't take her eyes off the little girls, orphaned by her crime.

"I'd like to take them," she said suddenly and realised with surprise that it was true, she really wanted to do it. "I'll adopt them and bring them up. You don't seem very concerned with such matters."

The Frenchman laughed heartily, throwing his head back. He barely had any teeth left in his mouth.

"I would be happy to haggle with you, madam," he said when he was done laughing. "But I already have a buyer for these goodies. In fact, they should be here any moment now. I happen to be in a deep debt to some respectable Chinese gentlemen," he made a clownish bow to Mei Liu, as if she represented here the whole of China.

"You! Get back behind that cupboard!" he snapped at the girls and they jumped with fear. The smaller one clung to her sister, who flashed an angry look at them from under her unkempt hair. Her eyes were just as blue as her father's.

"Wait!" Priscilla said. "What do you want? How much? Who are you going to sell them to?"

"I told you - it's not about the money anymore," he shrugged. "I'm in great debt. I was told what I must do to close it. If I don't give them up, those Chinese will chop me up for a steak tartare, and do it without any hurry, trust me."

"A choice between the pain and the sin," Pris muttered. "Why would they want the girls? What will happen to them?"

"How do I know?" he snapped. "Maybe someone else will want to adopt them. Look at them - they look almost white, right? Not too Asian..."

"When a little older, they will be sold to brothel," Mei Liu said. "Many brothels around here. Some special ones, with young children."

She shook her head in dismissive disapproval.

"Well, be it as it may!" the Frenchman shouted. "What am I supposed to do now? And how many times must I tell you to get out?!"

"Saomin!" called Priscilla, closing her eyes and concentrating. "Saomin!"

It looked as if the walls had become fluid, bubbling with dark ripples. The Frenchman looked around in horror. A shade detached itself from the ceiling, like a thick dark cloud it descended at the man below, enveloped him, swallowed him whole. A strangled cry and all became quiet.

"Go outside, quickly," Priscilla said. "Mei Liu, please take the girls and wait for me out there."

The girls climbed out again and were looking at the pulsing dark cloud in the middle of their room with wide eyes.

"Is it our mother from the shadow?" the youngest girl asked in French, pointing. "Mamá! Mamá!"

And not waiting for answer, she launched herself across the room and ran straight into the terrible outwordly blackness. A long moan sounded through the house, the shadow lifted and fell apart with something like a sob. The Frenchman was lying on the floor, blood oozing from the deep scratches on his face, mixing with tears – he was weeping. The little girl looked around, then lay next to him and put her little head on his chest.

“Don’t cry, Papá!” she said quietly. “You see? She didn’t die completely...”

The Frenchman, his eyes wide as if he just witnessed a terrible but magnificent wonder, hugged his daughter. Then he sat up and called, "Zoe!" The second girl also threw herself into his arms. He held them very tight for a moment, then let go and looked up at Priscilla.

"Take them and go. Right now, hurry."

"What about you?"

He grinned ruefully.

"I'll be dead by the morning. Or the next one. End of the week in the best case. Take my children and go with God."

The hotel receptionist finally showed some surprise when the lady, who went for a walk at the Promenade alone, returned three hours later with a maid and two children.

The girls were sitting in a large enamelled bathtub like two shaggy dolls, all covered in bruises, scratches and stubborn dirt. Kneeling before the bath and preparing to give them a good scrub, Priscilla undid and rolled up her sleeves, and at the sight of her arms, covered with sores and scratches, the girls finally showed some interest.

"Did someone do this to you because you misbehaved? To punish you?" Zoe asked.

Priscilla nodded.

"The shadow Mother told me you were nice," Irene said quietly.

Priscilla burst into tears, reached for the girls and hugged them both, wet and dirty as they sat there, still strangers to her, but already threading through her heart the same hot, blind, suffocating feeling she's had once before, when, still bleeding after giving birth, she clutched her daughter's tiny body to her chest - never to see her again.

"I will love you a lot," she promised to Zoe and Irene.

The girls had already been asleep in the big bed under a mosquito net when Mei Liu came back. She returned a slightly lighter purse of coins to Priscilla and proudly laid out her purchases on the couch - the two small sarongs and a big one, red as blood, made of beautiful heavy silk with gold embroidery.

"What, for me?" Pris smiled in disbelief.

"They say that even binding feet is not as painful as every day wearing European corset," Mei Liu said patronizingly. "Try it, my lady. It will be easy and beautiful for you. And you will not be so hot."

Priscilla was taking off layer after layer of her thick clothes, like shedding the old skin. The steel cage of her corset, sewn into the fabric, banged on the floor heavily. Pris slipped into the smooth silk of her new sarong and smiled. Mei Liu bowed, returned the smile and left for her room.

A dark shape made of ripples started thickening on the wall. Pris opened her arms to it, accepting the guilt of what she had done, bracing for the familiar pain. But Saomin's shadow slid past her - the weightless touch, the last farewell. For a moment it covered the sleeping girls and melted away like a cloud of mist.

Priscilla understood and bit her lip. She suddenly thought that she was still young and now didn't depend on anyone, that for the first time in her life she was free. She could stay here or take the girls back to England, or go to Australia, or America - anywhere.

She stepped outside onto the balcony, breathed in the fragrant night air and with a start noticed a man standing in the garden - he was clearly visible in the lights of the ground floor. He raised his hat and bowed to her.

"Mr. Monk?" Pris asked, afraid to believe it. "How did you... Are you... What are you doing here?"

"But, soft!" Eugene said, raising his hand theatrically. "What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Priscilla - the sun. Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, who is already sick and pale with grief, that thou her maid art far more fair than she..."

It was so incredibly silly and beautiful that Priscilla was laughing and crying, standing in her very red sarong on the very white balcony in the blackness of tropical night.