River-of-Perfumes-Chapter-03

Much later, Barrett’s detachment asserted itself. The girl was now content just to sit up and look at him; then a fresh wave of affection would come and she wanted his arms again. She was completely and utterly in love with him. Her eyes danced, sparkled, blazed, invited; repelled in sheer mischief, only to relent and invite again. Her laugh was like music, her voice caressing, wise, merry, deep with feeling as she talked. Barrett wondered when, if ever, she would return to the normal, rather disdainful girl who wanted to go back to the palace. That reaction always set in.

But it did not with her. An hour passed and she remained absorbed in him. She was charming, vivacious, intelligent, abounding in humor. Her exotic beauty was intoxicating. Barrett confronted the appalling fact that he, too, was fast falling in love with her. He had heard of love at first sight and scoffed. Now he was experiencing it. The rest had been mere physical dalliances that satisfied in a way; this was the real thing.

He fought against it. Sardonically, his inner mind told him he was being moved to do precisely as Prince Tou Dac had done—throw away everything: position, professional standing, comforts of home and income, even his social status in the white colony of Hué, all for love of this Oriental beauty. He must not permit it. He glanced toward the wharf.

“They will begin to worry about you at the palace,” he hinted.

“Aieee!” Her brown eyes grew round. “The palace? You would send me there, delight of my heart? It would be my death! The Emperor will find I am no longer virgin, and”—her graceful hand with tapering fingers clutched at her throat—”no more little Nanya Shan!”

Shan? Of course! He had been misled by Tou Dac’s pronunciation—the harsh “ch” of Chan. She was a Shan girl. Barrett had heard of them. Ask the English. They had the bulk of that race over in Burma, across the river from Laos. “Why, how ridiculous! They make charming little wives!” Barrett heard in memory that sharp rejoinder by an English officer’s wife to an ignorant American questioning a marriage with “a yellow woman,” to use his coarse phrase. Nanya was Shan. She possessed those rare Burmese qualities of humor, comradeship, capability, and intelligence that, better than the Japanese, set them apart from all other Oriental girls as worthy of any man, even the haughty white man. She was no pretty doll.

But Barrett was now deeply disturbed. He had known immediately that he risked her life when first he yielded to her embrace. He should have denied himself at once. The Emperor would simply have her strangled. Never before had a closely guarded virgin been sent to him as a snakebite patient. It had taken Prince Tou Dac’s Hindoo snake-juggler to accomplish that.

“Let me stay with you forever, my heart’s joy!” Nanya begged. “You who have brought me love! I worship you! Aiee—I would die if you were not near—always!” She cast herself upon him with passion. Barrett clasped her to him with renewed fervor, in a tumult of pity, perplexity, remorse. A rebellion against parting with her—ever—gripped him. Like Tou Dac, he felt wildly that nothing else in life mattered compared to the love of this starry and vivid beauty. And he had it, and Tou Dac hadn’t.

He was her first love. She had never been permitted to look at any youth since the beauty-child of some obscure Laos village waxed into a womanhood fit for the Emperor. There is nothing more ardent or enduring with any woman than that love for the man first to open the gates of life to her. She would remember the white man always.

But there wouldn’t be any days—not for Nanya. Strangled tomorrow in some palace closet. Barrett did not know what to advise. He did not mention the sheer cruelty of returning her, but she read the doubt in his eyes. She sighed, reached for the heap of jewel-encrusted finery, and her hand came away with a steel dagger in it—a glittering needle of a blade five inches long.

“Love me one last time, my all—my heart’s treasure,” she murmured passionately against his breast. “Then this dagger! I swear it before Buddha.”

Tears made her eyes gorgeous as she looked out over the dark River of Perfumes in farewell. Its scented aromas of frangipani and moon-flower and lotus drifted languorously through the marble tracery of Barrett’s windows. Out there all was beauty, peace, lights on the black flowing mirror of the river, glistening foliage winnowing in the breeze. It was her farewell to life. But to die would be sweet in the first rapture of love, amid the odors of blossoms, in the arms of her man. She could care for no other after him.

Barrett rose with resolution. He had decided. Her life was precious to him now. He was her life; she preferred death without him. Her devotion equaled that supreme sacrifice. And with her lay supreme happiness. Like most bachelors of long standing, he was hungry in heart for the mate of his dreams. He had found no one so far. She would forever be a delight: vivacious, charming, intelligent—and a raving beauty in any style of womanly apparel she chose, European or Asiatic. His position here? Bah! His services as a specialist commanded employment anywhere in the East. He must get her out of this.

“Wait,” he said. “Put on those filmy underthings. Do up the rest… Boy!” He clapped his hands. “Bring coolie suit, chop-chop!” To Nanya: “We go, Nanya, dearest! Out of this! Out of Indo-China. Away! Bangkok—Singapore—Rangoon—where you will. There is no need to die.”

“Oh, my love!” In her eyes shone rapture. She reached at once for the filmy things. Rodin would have wept over the poem of her body as she stepped into them.