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with the hundreds of different words for type and size and colour of cocks until my head was spinning, then tested me and stamped and cheered when I got one right by sheer luck. No what what. They soothed me again with cigarettes and coffee. The rickshawman crept round the corner and shyly joined us by slow degrees, an expert, it emerged, on betting on bad cocks. Soon we were all sitting in the kicked-up dust as they explained what to look for in a fighting bird. Checking the tight closure of the anus with poking fingers was, it seemed, a key factor. Hang on, said one, what was that smell of fish? It smelled like dirty women. It must, said one wizened man enthusiastically translated by Hamid, be the white man who spent all his time and money with bad, shameless women and ended up with their smell on him. Best keep him away from the cocks. No what what. I tried to get them back to the birds. They smirked, then sniggered, then fell about. No I could not say that. Burung “bird” was at best ambiguous, at worst a dirty word. It meant … They pointed between their legs. Back to the cocks. What then of breeding? How was that organised? Well, you could not have hens around really strong cocks. If one had been with a hen, it was weakened, lost the will to fight, would be swiftly defeated. If a hen came here, with all these cocks, Oh God, it would be torn to bits. So, how was it managed? Where did they get their eggs from?
    They screamed and slapped their thighs. Hamid reached over, smacked my hand lightly and giggled. I could not use that word like that right out loud, “eggs”. He blushed. It was a slang word for men’s balls. Had I, finally, no sense of shame at all, no modesty of language?
    ***
    It was only between Singapore and Batavia that I finally began to sketch Hamid. This did not lead, as I half hoped it might, to some new Luigi-like activity. Across from me in the hot, little cabin, he remained warmly distant and I returned to the familiar sensation of viewing my most selfless emotions as something not to be reciprocated but atoned for. And yet to explore the tilt of his nose, the flare of his nostril, the soft angularity of his neck and the spiky halo of his hair was a protracted act of permitted intimacy. I lay awake at night unsure whether I was being privileged, exploited, treated with sweet compassion or wilfully tormented. I was paralysed by fear of losing his regard and thus my own. As St Paul and Miss Timms would have put it, I burned .
    The first scattered islands appeared, little clots of sand and palm with a house or two clinging on. I packed my bags, miserable and alone, as we edged through the Buginese sailing fleet of high-nosed vessels with lines of washing where Westerners would have had bunting. I dumped my language notebooks in a grip. Bunting was a Malay slang word meaning “pregnant”. I tightened the straps on my linen. Why did they have so much washing, I wondered, when no one wore any clothes? On all sides, bare bums, neither derisory nor seductive but simply nautical and indifferent, welcomed me to the archipelago.
    Blasts on the ship’s siren bullied the smaller ships out of the way as a very dirty tug with Chinese crew took our bowlines aboard and, appropriately, tugged. Anchors thundered down and we entered that long period on ships where nothing happens and no one can get on or off though gangways are locked in place. The other white passengers from Singapore were virtually unknown to me. Van Gennep had simply disappeared. The Niemeyers were there on deck, the younger children squabbling, the father shouting, the eldest girl in tears. I filled gaping pockets, Anton, Hamid, with apology for my love, given with accompanying ritual minuet. Please I wish to thank you. No, no, I cannot, you are my friend. Yes, yes, even friends have to pay for their rice. No, no, I am ashamed. Yes, yes, it is not for you but your children. In that case, I thank you – you are a