The Orientalist and the Ghost Read Online Free PDF

more barbed wire and guards, which I clattered out on the Olivetti. Shielded by our panama hats, we’d tour the village in the mid-morning heat, noting what facilities had fallen into disrepair and areas where the
lalang
grass had overgrown (providing cover for the Reds to slither up on their bellies and ambush us). I must confess that as we walked among the ramshackle fly-blown shacks, the popularity of Resettlement Officer Dulwich was rather eclipsed by that of his young assistant. Bare-gummed old ladies would cry out honorific greetings to me and mudlark children would fly lovingly at my shins. The neglected Charles seemed undismayed – or simply too hungover to care – and as we strolled would tut-tut and say: ‘Order must be imposed on this mess.’ Though only one tenth of the villagers were literate Charles penned civic-minded messages which I translated into Mandarin and posted about The Village of Everlasting Peace.
    Villagers! Please think of your neighbours. Do not let piglets and children wander into other people’s huts
.
    In the interests of hygiene please refrain from urinating in areas other than the latrines. Anyone caught doing so will be put on fence-mending duty for seven days
.
    Anyone caught gambling/eating opium/offering or soliciting the services of prostitution will be arrested, and/or have their rice ration halved
.
    The Emergency Information Services sent us posters of Surrendered Enemy Personnel to display as part of the anti-Communist campaign. The posters were designed by a team of government propagandists, who were so-called experts in psychological warfare and the mechanics of the Chinese mind. I recall a poster of one pot-bellied defector named Meng. Beneath his smiling photograph was the government’s rallying cry for mass surrender:
    Sick and tired of seeing loved ones starve and risk their lives fighting a hopeless cause in the jungle? Why not persuade them to turn themselves in? Meng walked out of the jungle three months ago and hasn’t looked back since. See how healthy and well-fed he is! And soon he will be reunited with his wife. We understand that Communists make mistakes and are human too …
    I dare say Meng looked the type to defect from his own mother for a pork dumpling or two, and I had my misgivings as I stapled up that poster. Sure enough, hours later Meng had been rebranded in red ink as an ‘Imperialist Running Dog Traitor’ and had to be retired from public view.
    After tiffin, when the sun was at its zenith and scorched the earth so fiercely even one’s shadow went into hiding, Resettlement Officer Dulwich typed up progress reports, or met with Sergeant Abdullah to discuss village security and drink tea with a splash of brandy (or gin or whisky or Amaretto), leaving me free to muck in where I pleased. On Wednesday afternoons the First Battalion Worcestershire Regiment came to help with the construction of the school building, and I often lent a hand there, whistling and hammering planks with the British Tommies. Or I’d troop in the sunshine with the Malay guards patrolling the perimeter fence. When I’d had enough of the security forces I roamed the market gardens, chatting to the toiling villagers and lending an ear to complaints about the over-strict curfew, poor irrigation and a cantankerous spirit that drifted from hut to hut at night, slapping awake first-born sons.
    My favourite weekday afternoons were on Tuesday and Thursday, for those were the days the Australian Red Cross nurses came. As their armoured van rumbled into the village, ailing market-gardeners would throw down their hoes and spades and hurry to queue by the medical hut. It never failed to put the brighteners on everyone. I don’t see very much of the Aussie nurses Madeleine and Josie these days. I bumped into Maddy in the kitchen of my flat about a month ago, looking heartbreakingly young in a blouse and nurses’ pinafore, a Red Cross cap atop her bouncy curls. She had a scouring pad in