State of Siege

We ate half the fruit and drank a third of the water. I was still filthy from the plaster dust. When the rest of the fruit and water had been put away to keep cool, I got permission from the sentry to go along to the bathhouse and clean up. There, I found that the water supply was no longer working. It did not matter at that moment. The Dutch ewer was full and there was a further supply in the storage cistern on the roof, but I could hear that there was no more water coming in.

As I walked back along the terrace, I was surprised to see Rosalie at the window talking to the sentry. When he heard me coming, he smiled and moved away.

Rosalie’s eyes were gleaming with excitement.

“Why did you not tell me that you helped the man who was wounded?” she began, as I went back into the room.

“It didn’t seem important.”

“It has made a very good impression. That man is his friend. He told me he would bring us more fruit later.”

“You mean they’ve decided not to kill us after all?”

“Oh no, but now they do not hate us so much.”

“That’s something, I suppose.”

“He told me that there are machine guns being mounted on both sides of the roof in case there is another air attack, also that the Nasjah army is advancing from the direction of Meja.”

“How does he know that-I mean about the army?”

“He heard one of the officers on the telephone. It is curious,” she went on thoughtfully; “before, that man would not have looked at us except to think how it would feel to kill us. Now, because you bandage his friend, it is different. He speaks to us and brings us fruit.”

“That’s because of the bombing, and because we were all covered in dust just as he was. He’s not used to air attack. He was frightened, and now because he isn’t dead he feels generous and friendly and wants to talk. It’s nothing to do with my bandaging his friend. It always happens. Besides,” I added, “you’re a woman. That would make a difference, too.”

She thought for a moment or two and then nodded. “Yes, I understand. It was the way I felt when the men with the parangs did not kill us last night. I wanted you to take me to bed at once. If it had not been for the guns beginning to fire and making me frightened in another way…”

I kissed her, and she smiled. “Was it like that in the war?” she said. “When you had been very frightened of being killed or wounded and were not, did you always want a woman afterwards?”

“Well, there wasn’t much to be frightened of building airfields, and when we were in the desert there weren’t any women to have.”

“But you would want one?” she persisted.

“Oh yes. There was nothing to stop you wanting.”

“Now you are making a joke of it. I think it is very good that people should feel that way.”

“There’s a simple biological explanation.”

“Is it biology that I am here with you?”

“Well, not exactly.”

“No. It is because it is good for a man and a woman to have pleasure together. If they are sympathetic, that is…”

“And if they aren’t being threatened by men with parangs, and bombed, and peered at by sentries.”

She looked startled, but did not turn her head. “He is watching us now?”

“With great interest.”

Without once letting her eyes stray in his direction, she walked over to the window and looked up at the torn curtains. “If you will take these down,” she said, “I will pin the pieces together. Then we can put them back again as we wish. If we do it now, he will think it is because of the sun. If we wait until the sun has moved, he will know that we do not wish to be seen and will be offended.”

“All right.”

It was a good idea in any case. The sentry had managed to hoist the bamboo roof back into position, but the blast and debris had split it in several places, and the sun was pouring through the gaps into the room. Every slight movement raised the dust again, and even the sight of it swirling about in the shafts of sunlight made me thirsty.

I made a great show of shielding my eyes from the glare as I unhooked the curtains. The sentry, squatting in one of the patches of shade, watched idly while Rosalie, with the few pins and a needle and thread that she had in her case, tacked the pieces of curtain together. When I put them up again, I was able to cover almost the whole of the window space.

Since the air attack, the telephone in the next room had been in constant use, but the voices had been those of the junior officers. I had concluded that Sanusi, Roda and Suparto had temporarily abandoned the sixth floor for some less exposed command post. When, as I finished rehanging the curtains, I heard footsteps crunching towards us over the broken glass on the terrace, I assumed that it was the bow-legged officer on his way to the bathhouse. Then, the footsteps ceased, the curtains were brushed aside and Major Suparto stepped into the room.

I saw Rosalie freeze into the passive immobility with which she had faced him before, but he did not even glance at her. He looked at the ceiling, at the debris piled in one corner of the room, finally at the curtains.