Edouard leans forward. “So you performed—”
“Yes. I danced with Mahadevi at one of the parties I hosted. I dressed in a scarlet sarong I bought at the pasar. I was exotic. An orchid among buttercups. Three hundred people dressed in chiffon and gold sat in our garden: my husband’s colleagues, his subordinates, their wives.”
I danced with Mahadevi; primitive and wild. When we were finished, Mahadevi kissed me on the lips, and our bodies melted together in the warm island moonlight to the sound of applause.
“Your husband must have been shocked,” Anna says.
“He was enraged.” He seethed as I mingled with our guests. And when we were alone, he warned me, “You will never disgrace me like that again!” I said the worst thing I could think of in Malay. “Is that right?” he asked, reaching into a drawer. What was he going to do? I heard the click of his gun just as I heard the creak of a door from upstairs.
“Norman was on the landing,” I tell them.
Edouard looks horrified.
“ ‘Go to bed!’ I said. ‘Go to bed, Norman!’ I heard little feet scamper down the hall and the click of a door. Rudolph whipped me across the face and afterward, all I could recall was his heavy weight on top of me and the smell of alcohol on his breath. I went to Mahadevi the next day, a veil over my face to hide my blackened eye and bruised cheek. ‘Give me something that will keep him away from me,’ I begged. She gave me cajeput oil. ‘Smear this between your legs and he will never bother you again.’ The next time he tried to take me his prick was covered with small red blotches. I told him, ‘My body has turned against you.’ ”
Tears begin leaking from the corners of my eyes, remembering what happened next. Edouard reaches out and takes my hand. I try to catch my breath.
“It was the middle of the night,” I tell them. “I went to Norman’s crib. He was sleeping. I caressed his cheek. He was three years old. I looked at Non, all curled up and warm. I slipped one finger into her palm. Her little hand closed around it. I shut my eyes and sang softly, a nursery rhyme my mother sang to me when I was a child. Then I heard the screams. They were Fairuza’s.”
Edouard and Anna glance at each other.
“She was in the kitchen with Rudolph. He . . . my husband was violating her. The household came awake. I could hear doors opening along the corridors. I grabbed Rudolph’s arm and pulled him off of her. I steeled myself, waiting for him to hit me. But he was too drunk. He collapsed on the floor. The servants stepped around him and waited to see what Fairuza would do. There was blood on her legs, bruises on her arms. She was hysterical.”
“What did she do?”
“Nothing. We put her to bed in her room. We left him on the floor. The next morning Rudolph awoke and he found himself lying half-naked exactly where he fell. It was ten in the morning and already hot. He was late for work. I expected a terrible fight. But there was nothing. I crept downstairs after he was gone and wondered where Fairuza was; had she gotten up early and gone home to her family, or to the police?
“I had no idea who was in my own house.
“ ‘Is she still here?’ I asked Laksari.
“Laksari brought me into the parlor. Her voice was low. ‘She is devastated, ma’am.’ She spoke in Malay. ‘She will not go to the police. It is bad luck for a woman to say she has been . . . she will leave the house tonight. After she has packed and said goodbye to the children.’
“ ‘I should see her,’ I said. ‘I should pay her.’
“ ‘She says she doesn’t want to see anyone.’
“I should have heeded the danger in Laksari’s words, but I was blinded by guilt. I spent the day worried about what would happen to Fairuza and what I would tell Norman about her absence. When Rudolph came home, Fairuza was still in the house. I found him reading. ‘You raped a woman last night,’ I said.
“ ‘She’s a servant.’ He straightened the paper and raised it in front of his face. ‘Let her disappear and find another house.’
“ ‘She was a good nurse for the children! She’s a human being.’
“ ‘She’s a goddamned native. Shut up for your own good.’
“I went into the kitchen. It was dark outside. The children were in bed. Laksari was bent over a bowl of rice and chicken. She stood when she saw me.
“ ‘Please, sit down. Finish eating.’ I pulled up a chair next to her. I was thinking my husband deserved to die. We sat for several minutes in the kitchen, and then my children started screaming. My children. The entire house awakened for the second night in a row.