Behind the Lines

© Copyright Elizabeth Routledge 2010

The Major lit up, watched the afternoon tropical deluge
hit camp like an attacking frontline enemy, a fast and furious wave of sound
unlike the tiny, somber guerillas, silently creeping through the creaking jungle
of glossy leaves and fantastical flowers.

War is waiting, waiting, he demurred, blowing an elegant, wafting
Perfect-for-a-moment, smoke ring into the wet-blurred trees
but no one heard above the roar, the deafening rhythm on khaki and tin
regulation din, lush with fat snakes, jabbering monkeys and malarial hum.
Only their prisoner, stubborn mute before polite British Interrogators
cursing the heat in this, God Forsaken Land, concurs, his smile frugal, inscrutable.
The rain slows to a ponderous drip. Drip. Drip.

Did you ever kill? , she said, and he sighs, tries to teach her to play chess
writes poetry about the blue Aegean seas that he crossed with his wife
the image of her leaning over the side of the ship, her hair blowing in the wind
on their way to adventures protected by the might of Briton.

For his wife, drinking gin at the Dog club again, eyes too bright
still bleeding from a back street abortion, memories of her Indian lover
skin like butter, she smoothes her white gloves, removes the hat
that perfectly matches her Susan Small dress that nips in her tiny waist.
The wives of the Yang di Pertuan arrive, fluttering in brightly coloured silks
Amah takes the children and they retire to the cool of the bungalow
as the rain arrives like a regular guest always dropping by
who expects nothing, just your being, a silent salutation in their direction.
She serves nasi goring and Pimms N.O. 4, but it’s not long before
she wonders how she got here, so far from all she’s known.

Who is she now? What has she become?
She feels she has dissolved in another’s rituals, someone else’s routine
gravity has made her one with strangers, loneliness has lead her into a dream
where no one recognizes her or remembers who she was.
The rain slows to a delicate trickle, a passing lighthearted laughter
A belly rumble of thunder drifts away
and the women go out for a game of tennis.