TAROU
BY ROBIN MAUGHAM

The prolific author Robert “Robin” Cecil Romer Maugham (1916-81), 2^nd Viscount Maugham wrote the short story presented here under the title Drums for an unknown issue of the Los Angeles magazine In Touch. It was not much later posthumously republished under the name Tarou in his collection of short stories, The Boy from Beirut and Other Stories, edited by Peter Burton and published by Gay Sunshine in San Francisco in 1982, whence the text here is taken.

H Y E N A , U N D I S T U R B E D B Y the noise of his car, was roving close to the compound. Down the valley the drums were thudding, sending waves of excitement into the darkness. In the room which he had just left, the pressure lamps would still be hissing steadily while the moths swerved about them. The married couple who owned the farm, some twenty miles away from this small property, had tried to persuade him to stay the night and spend Christmas day with them. But he had thanked them and refused. He wanted to get home. He wanted to spend the night in his bed with Tarou, with his smooth body and ebony-black skin, beside him.

The drums were growing louder. Their sound, which at first had pleased him because they were a part of the romantic background, now assumed a different meaning, incoherent as yet, but menacing, as if the relentless thudding were part of a secret crime, the feverish preparation for an act directed against himself. The hot pulsing beat thrust against the walls of his mind; the rhythm pounded in assault, the sound fading and swelling when the tempo quickened, as if, soon, full vigor would be attained and the walls of his mind pierced, if he allowed himself to relax, and then his whole being would be horribly penetrated. Now, when he listened to the drums, unless he kept tight control over his imagination, he could see the hard shining chests and heavy black limbs of the workers on his property.

He slowed down. The two little green lamps a hundred yards away belonged to an enormous brown owl in the middle of the road, which was peering into the headlights without moving. He sounded his horn; the owl took no notice. Ten yards away he switched off his lights, and got out of his Land Rover and walked towards it. Awkwardly, yet without haste, the owl spread its jagged wings and flew slowly away. Wild life in Darkest Africa, he thought. Wild life, my foot. They’re not wild, they think they own the place. Elephants push cars over escarpments, giraffes canter along the highway, leopards wander into your house, snakes drift into the bathroom, and owls hold you up on the road.

“God be with you till we meet again.” The tune of the hymn suddenly began to float through his mind as he drove home carefully along the track. Only ten miles to go; the act of driving was sobering him as it always did. Never drunk in charge of a car, he thought, never quite drunk, though they once tried to prove it.

“God be with you till we meet again.” They had sung that hymn on the last day of term at school, at evensong in the chapel of his preparatory school. And how many of them had known, while the music swelled above their pulsing chastity? How many of them were aware of the moment? He could remember when he had first become aware. It was during the verse which was sung by a soloist, towards the end of that summer term. In his cassock and surplice, the boy had looked pure and spiritual. Hard to remember that he was the same being that slept in the bed next to his. Heming, his name was. That was not so bad to remember thirty years later and at this time of night. Heming, with a tilted nose and freckles on his shoulders. But it wasn’t Heming who sang on that still evening, whose treble voice, clean and effortless, rose like an arrow to the rafters and soared gently into the violet night; it was all that was beautiful in the world, all that could never be attained. And as he heard the true cold notes he had felt a pain — not in his heart, but a pain that pierced his tumescent virginity. And he had known… he had known in that acute moment of awareness and nostalgia that life might be better, but it could never be the same again. He would walk once more under the hot scent of fir trees, stripping the fronds of bracken with his hands; he would sprawl again on the smooth-rolled lawn. Lying awake in bed he would again hear distant voices, floating with the scent of roses through the open windows. But it would never be the same. In a few months, his own voice would break like a crystal and become ridiculous. In a few months he would be led by growth into the sniggering mystery. Small defiling hairs were already appearing to spoil the whiteness of his body. Meanwhile, the boy’s voice, like a small white bird, flew serenely to the sky. God be with you, Heming, till we meet again.

One travels along in a darkness of imperception, he thought. These instants of awareness came unexpectedly like a sudden flash of lightning on the lonely road. For a second one could see the signpost and the dykes. Then, all would be night again. But the warning had been read. His trouble had been that through weakness he could not be wise after the event.

The muddy winding track he had been following led to the open road ahead, and again his mind turned back. “Next time, Heming,” the master had said, “it won’t be a hundred lines. It will mean a whipping.” The master never used a cane, he had a thin whip which he preferred to use. But Heming remained lazy and cheerful. He seemed to have no fear of punishment. And a fortnight before the term ended the moment had come. “You will report to my study at the end of this lesson,” the master had said.

That evening as Heming had undressed beside his bed, there were thin livid weals on the white skin of his back. And he had gazed at them with indignation at a system which allowed such cruelty. But as he gazed he felt to his horror a desire to stroke the red marks of the lash. He wanted to take Heming into his arms to comfort him. Suddenly, and inexplicably, he realised that he would have liked to have watched the whip rise and fall on the smooth, tender skin. His heart pounded in excitement and terror. With a lurch of disgust he found that he would have liked to use the whip himself and observe each new scar on the slim, white body. He mumbled some words of sympathy to Heming and turned away hurriedly. They spoke seldom for the remaining week of the term. Heming left for another school. He had not seen him since.

The love that he felt for Heming had faded; the desire the boy had aroused in him still remained. The sight of the red lashes of the whip would always linger in his mind. The whip was now the key that unlocked his passion.

Tarou was waiting for him. Tarou, who was thirteen years old — the same age Heming had been — was prepared to submit to the pain that would be once again inflicted on him. As he imagined the boy sprawling on his bed asleep in the small whitewashed house, he suddenly felt revolted by the thought of what he intended to do after a last drink.

The whip hung on a nail in the wall beside his bed. Why should Tarou submit to pain? Various reasons seemed obvious. Tarou led a softer life than any of the other house-boys? He was paid on each occasion?

He turned off the road onto the narrow track that led to his farm-house. It was nearly midnight, so by the time he reached home it would be Christmas Day. God be with you… But God was no longer with him. Not a trace of Godhead remained. Then why did he feel a spasm of disgust when he imagined the ritual that would soon be enacted in his bedroom? Was it because in some pathetic way he believed that within him there still remained the purity of love he had originally felt for Heming? Or was it because he had allowed his will-power to be rotted away by alcohol?

As he helped himself to a last drink from the side-table he could see into his bedroom. It was cold but the fire was burning and the boy was lying naked and asleep. The boy looked as innocent as Heming. The drink tasted unpleasant. He finished it in a gulp and went into his bedroom. Slowly he pulled open the drawer where he kept his whip. For a long time he gazed down at its dark pliant leather. Then he went to the window. He looked out at the lawn, shining in the moonlight. It was very still, and in the distance he could hear the hooting of an owl — perhaps the one he had saved on the road. But what else could he save? Two people. Tarou and himself. He turned back toward the bed. Tarou was still asleep.

He had already determined not to harm Tarou today or the next day or the next. He had made up his mind never to hurt the boy again. He closed the window, and went over towards the bed.

Tarou was still motionless. He would not disturb him. As he looked down at the sleeping boy for an instant he heard the words of the hymn. But they were distorted: “God save us until we die.” He walked again to the window to throw away the whip. Then he hesitated. He realised that one evening, perhaps in a week or so, he might need to hold the whip in his hand once more — if he used it or not.

He sighed. He took the whip and placed it under some clothes in his cupboard. Then he got into bed and clasped Tarou in his arms. As Tarou woke up, a look of fear distorted his face. But when he became conscious of the gentle caresses on his body, he smiled.

“Happy Christmas,” he said drowsily.

Presently both of them were asleep.