Читать книгу Love and Death in Bali - Vicki Baum - Страница 11
ОглавлениеThe Wreck of the Sri Kumala
PAK woke up when the cocks crowed at the back of his yard. He shivered under the blue kain with which he had covered himself and his eyes were still heavy with sleep. The room was dark, although Puglug, his wife, had left the doors open when she went out. Pak gave a deep sigh. He got up unwillingly and unwillingly went to his labors. But the day was favorable for ploughing, according to the calendar, and Pak got up from his mat just as the kulkul of the village sounded the seventh hour of the night. An hour more and the sun would step from his home and bring the day with him out of the sea.
The cocks still crowed lustily and Pak smiled as he picked out the voice of his favorite, the red one. He was still too young, but Pak could already see he had the makings of a fighter. Pak girded his kain about his hips and pulled it through between his legs so that it made a short loin-cloth. He groped about in the darkness for the beam and took down his knife and the sirih pouch and tied them to his girdle. His kain was moist and cool with the heavy dew. He had a hazy recollection of a confused dream. He felt his way to the other mat on the bamboo couch which stood opposite his own. The children were asleep—Rantun, who was seven years old, Madé, the next in age, and in the corner the bundle containing the baby, who had no name as yet.
Pak and his wife had made sure that they would have a boy this time. They had paid the balian eleven kepengs when the child began to stir in its mother’s womb and he had promised them a boy. Pak had begun to build castles in the air and had thought out a fine name for him. He wanted to call him Siang, the light and the day. Then when Puglug disappointed their expectations by giving birth to another girl, they did not know what name to give the child. Probably they would simply call her Klepon, a name that several girls of his family had been given.
Pak sighed once more as he left the room and after hesitating a moment in the open porch went down the steps into the courtyard. The kulkul had stopped.
The women had lit a fire in the kitchen balé and Pak’s father came following his lean shadow across the yard with a bundle of dried palm-leaves on his head and went across to the wall. Pak’s uncle lived on the west side of the plot and his first wife, who could never be at peace with anybody, could be heard quarrelling already. But Puglug was unclean for forty-two days after the birth of her little girl and could not prepare any food for Pak. He had good reason to sigh. He was as sick of Puglug as if she had been a dish of which he had eaten too much. Three daughters she had borne him and not one son. She was useless and not even good to look at. He sat on his haunches on the steps and looked down ill-humoredly at his wife, who was sweeping the yard with a besom. The sky by now was a little lighter behind the tops of the coco palms and Pak could distinguish her heavy shape, as she bent and got up again.
Then he caught sight of Lambon, his young sister, coming from the kitchen and carrying a pisang leaf heaped up with cooked rice. Pak took it eagerly, sat down again on the steps and felt better. He put three fingers into the rice and crammed his mouth full. His spirits rose with every mouthful he swallowed. Puglug paused in her work for a moment and watched her husband, for whom she was not allowed to cook any food, while he ate, and then went on sweeping. She is a good wife, Pak thought to himself, now that his belly was contented with rice. She is strong and can carry thirty coconuts on her head. She is hard-working and goes to the market and sells sirih and foodstuffs and earns money. It is not her fault that she cannot bear a son. Our forefathers decided it so. He wiped his fingers on the emptied pisang leaf, threw it down on the ground and began carefully wrapping his sirih in betel-nut and adding a little lime to it. As soon as he had the strong quid in his mouth, so strong that the spittle ran down from the corners of his mouth, the world seemed a good place. He got up to fetch the cow from the shed and the plough from the balé where all the implements were kept.
Lambon, who had sat at his feet watching him eat, went back to the kitchen. Her small face looked pretty in the light of the blazing fire and Pak looked back at her for a moment and was proud of her.
Lambon was a dancer; she danced the legong at the festivals with two other children, in a dress all of gold and a crown of yellow flowers in her hair. She was beautiful; Pak could see that, even though she was his sister. She had not celebrated the festival of ripe maidenhood and yet the boys of the village stood in front of the house and drew in their breath with nostrils dilated when she passed. The whole family hoped she would marry a rich man when she was old enough.
But now that Pak stepped into the yard in the dawning light, he stopped still with open mouth. It looked as though the demons had made their home there all night. In many places the straw had been torn from the wall, which he had thatched with such care after the last harvest. Not far from the gate on to the road yawned a hole. A heavy branch had been broken from a bread-fruit tree and lay on the ground like a dead thing. Half the roof of the shed had been carried away. Pak stared at all this in terror. He could not understand it. He had never seen anything like it. He ran quickly to his father, who was old and knew more than he did. “Who has done it?” he asked, out of breath.
The old man was both lean and feeble, for his strength had been drained away by many attacks of the heat sickness. “Who has done it?” he repeated in a sing-song, as his habit was. It gave him time to think and to hit on a shrewd answer. Pak stared at him in an agony of suspense. He could positively feel the evil spirits about his ears. It was they who had played havoc with his yard by night.
“There was a storm from the west last night,” his father said. “That is what has done it. I lay awake all night and there was lightning in the sky and a great uproar in the air.” He began to smile with toothless gums and added, “The sleep of the old is light, my son.”
At this Pak’s terror gave way a little. “Perhaps we ought to make a special offering to Baju, the god of the wind,” he murmured, staring at the gap in the wall. The old man pondered this at his leisure. “Many years ago,” he said, “there was a storm like this. That time the pedanda ordered every household to kill a chicken for Baju. There were great offerings made and next day the sea cast up a ship, laden with rice and coconuts, which were divided up among all of us.”
Pak listened in astonishment. “Mbe!” he said, deeply impressed. He examined the gap in the wall. “Shall I kill a fowl?” he asked. It occurred to him that now all the demons and spirits of the underworld could come thronging into his unprotected yard. The old man, who often knew what people were thinking without needing to be told, said, “Call your brother. We will mend up the hole with straw while you are on the sawah. When you come home you can build it up with earth. There is still some lime here too, to whiten it with. You must kill a fowl and we will offer it to the gods. But after that, go out to the field, for today is a good day to plough.”
Pak turned about obediently, feeling consoled by the old man’s measured sing-song. “The wife is still unclean and may not offer sacrifices,” he muttered, however.
“You must kill the fowl and your sister and my brother’s wives will make the offering and I will ask the pedanda what we must do.”
Pak’s heart was lighter, for the pedanda, Ida Bagus Rai, was almost the cleverest man in the world and nearly infallible. Even the Lord of Badung sent for him when he wanted advice. Pak spat out his sirih and went to the kitchen. “You must get a present ready for the pedanda,” he said to the women. “It need not be anything very much, for the pedanda knows that we are poor. Lambon shall take it. And bring me a white fowl to kill.”
Puglug, whose ears were sharp, had come up and stood leaning on her besom. Suddenly, without waiting to be asked her opinion, she burst out, “Why do you want to go taking great presents to the pedanda when the balian gives just as good advice for three papayas? Perhaps I, too, could tell you what happened last night if I was asked. I could have told you beforehand, for Babak was here only the day before yesterday and told me what the market women were saying.
The sister of Babak’s mother saw a man with only one leg and a great pig’s face and anyone with any sense knows what that means. If the balian were asked he could say what would be best to do. He would say that every man in the place should take a big stone and go with it to a certain house and stone a certain person, who is the cause of it all, to death. Killing a white fowl! And taking presents to the pedanda! You might think we were rich folk with forty sawahs. Or perhaps my husband has five hundred ringits buried under the house the way he runs to the pedanda just because there is a little hole in the wall. Naturally Lambon is glad to go to the pedanda’s house, for perhaps she will catch sight of Raka there. I have noticed myself how her eyes darken if Raka only passes by, and that is a disgrace for a girl whose breasts have not grown yet——”
What Puglug went on to say was drowned in the squawking of the fowl which Lambon was carrying. Pak took it by the legs and went with it to the south corner of the yard. He would have liked to strike his unmannerly wife, who spoke without his permission, but he did not. She talked and talked—like a flock of ducks in the sawah, quack, quack, quack, whether she was asked her opinion or not. Oh, how sick he was of Puglug and how obvious it was that he ought to take a second wife.
He took his broad-bladed knife from the wooden sheath, which was stuck in his belt, and lifted the fowl high in the air.
“Fowl,” he said, “I must now kill you. I do not do it because I wish you evil, but because I must offer you up in sacrifice. Pardon me, fowl, and give me your permission.”
When this formality was concluded he held the knife level with the ground and swung the fowl so that its neck collided with the blade, and then he threw the bleeding creature down. It gave one cry and died. In the sudden stillness, a regular battle could be heard going on between Puglug and the uncle’s first wife in the kitchen. They were a good match in their passion for chatter and gossip and in fluency of tongue, and Pak could not help laughing outright as he listened to the unintelligible clatter, which suddenly ended in loud peals of good-natured laughter. He had almost forgotten his fears. As he went past he gave his two younger brothers, who slept together on a mat in an open balé, a shake to wake them. “You must shovel out some earth and mix it with lime so that I can mend the wall properly tonight,” he said, feeling that he sat aloft as master of the house.
Meru was wide awake at once. “As you command and desire, my lord,” he said in the lofty language used to a raja. Pak gave him a friendly clap on the shoulder. He had had a great liking for his goodlooking, light-hearted brother ever since the days when he had taught him to walk. Since then Meru had in a sense left him behind, for he could carve and had even made a doorway for the palace of the Lord of Badung. “Who is going to give you your sirih today, you idler?” he asked good-naturedly, and went on to joke about Meru’s many adventures with girls. “Someone who is better looking than your wife,” Meru replied, and this, too, was said in fun. “We shall see yet who brings home the best-looking wife,” Pak said grandly. And as he spoke he was thinking of a particular girl, who had been in his mind for some time.
His spirits were quite restored as he led the cow by her halter out of the ruined shed, lifted the plough on his shoulders and set out. The old man, tottering at the knees, was already busy at the wall with great bundles of straw. It was late; the sun was rising. “Will my father think of feeding the cocks?” Pak called out to the old man politely. He was answered merely by a reassuring wave of the hand and a lift of the forehead with eyes closed—a gesture of friendly assent. And so Pak, with mind at rest, turned his back on the strange occurrences of this extraordinary morning and left the yard by its narrow gateway, peaceably preceded by his cow.
In the village street, where the walls of the compounds formed a long line, broken only by the high gateways, life was by now in full swing. The rays of the sun in the smoking morning air lay like silver beams athwart the tops of the palms and the dense fruit trees. A thousand birds sang at once. The large ribbed leaves of the pisang were transformed by the rising sun into bright transparent discs of green. Red hibiscus flowers bloomed round the house altar behind every wall. Women went by with baskets and mats on their heads, one behind the other, preceded by their lengthened shadows; and the one in front spoke under her breath without caring whether the next heard what she said. They stopped when they came to the wairingin tree and helped one another to lower the loads from their heads. Then they spread their mats on the ground and displayed their goods on them to the best advantage—sirih, cooked rice, ducks’ eggs, garlic and spice. Puglug as a rule went to the market too, but now she had to wait until the days of her uncleanness were over before she might work again. Pak, as he went quietly along, shook off the thought of Puglug as though it were an ant. He loitered a moment in front of the house of Wajan, who was a man of wealth, and the cow came to a stop and began pulling at the short grass at the edge of the road. She was used to having to wait for Pak here. He stopped as though to see to his large round hat which he wore on top of his head-dress, and at that very moment a boy came out bringing Wajan’s cocks, which he put down on the grass to cool their feet. Wajan had eighteen cocks and Pak only four; even this was more than a man in his poor circumstances ought to have and Puglug made many peevish comments on the fact. Since there was nothing but the cocks to be seen Pak gave a tug at the cow’s halter and said, “We must get on to the sawah, sister,” and went on his way.
Pak’s father had been given two sawahs by the old lord of Pametjutan and he himself had got two more from the young lord Alit of Badung. His were situated on the northeast side of the village and the old man’s on the north-west. As his father had not the strength now for heavy work in the fields, Pak had to cultivate all four sawahs himself; he had only one cow and his relations could not give him enough help. The lord’s gift of land had made a serf of Pak in so far as he had to pay half the yield to the overseer of the lord’s land. Also he had to do any work required of him by the household of the lords in the puris of Badung. But in return for all this he had four sawahs, rich and well-watered land, heavy sheaves at harvest time, green and fragrant silk before the ears formed. If he worked industriously, the four sawahs yielded two hundred sheaves, with two harvests every fifteen months. That brought in, for his share, enough food for his family, enough rice for the festivals and taxes and offerings, enough to pay friends of his for occasional help. And in good years there was still a little over which he could sell to Chinese traders when ships put in at Sanur to take in a cargo. Pak had prayed to the goddess Sri that the harvest might be a good one and the earth kind and the ears full. He had let the water into the eastern sawahs three days before, and that was why he had to start ploughing that day, for so it was laid down. Meanwhile the fields on the west were nearly ripe; the water had already been drawn away from them, and thus ploughing and planting on one plot alternated with reaping and binding on the other.
Pak met other men from the village, who had come to work on their fields, all along the narrow balks. They shouted a word or two to each other—about the night’s storm and the jobs they were going to and coming from—without stopping to talk. His eastern fields lay some way from the village and Pak had to get his cow and his plough down the steep bank of a river and across the ford. The path, trodden by bare feet, was slippery and the cow jibbed. Pak called her “sister” and “mother,” begged her pardon and tried to explain that the descent was unavoidable. Suddenly he heard girls’ voices from the river and stared with open mouth. He had forgotten that he was later than usual and that he would meet the women on their way back from bathing. They climbed the steep bank one after the other, laughing and twittering like birds at sunrise. Pak’s heart stopped. He had caught sight of Sarna among them.
He gave her a quick glance as she passed him, but he did not see whether she returned it. She smiled, but he did not know whether it was to him or at him. I ought to have put a red hibiscus flower behind my ear, he thought. But no, he thought immediately after, that would have ruined everything. It did not do to show the girls all you felt for them. He stood on the grass and grasshoppers jumped about him and he gazed after Sarna. She was young and strong and beautiful. Everything about her was rounded—her face, her breasts, her hips. Round, but tender and charming. His liver and his heart were big and full of sweetness when he looked at Sarna. Her hair was wet and her sarong too. She had a moist and heavy lock of hair hanging from below her headdress, as a sign of her maidenhood. She wore large earrings made of lontar leaves in her ears, like the rice-goddess Sri. When Pak made offerings to the goddess and prayed to her for a good harvest, he always saw her in his mind’s eye as Sarna, rich Wajan’s daughter.
He got his refractory cow to the bottom by the time that the girls had reached the top. They stood there in a gaily colored row shouting down to him and laughing, but he could not catch the drift of their jokes. He looked after them till they vanished across the ricefields, and then went on, shaded by his large hat. The cool water refreshed his feet as he forded the river, and he was happy.
After ascending the other bank he soon reached his sawahs. They were deep in good muddy water, and although Pak had got up in a bad temper for work he now rejoiced in it. He got the plough in position, attached the cow to it and put his own weight, too, behind it. With bent knees he pressed heavily down to make the plough dig deeply into the soft, moist earth. The soil made a dull sucking noise as it rose and fell from the ploughshare. Pak loved this sound. He loved this earth. The mud splashed up and sprinkled him and the cow with cool drops which soon dried to a gray crust. White herons flew over and alighted to fish on stilt-like legs for the slender eels which throve in the sawahs. Dragonflies flickered past. The earth sucked and threw up noisy mud bubbles and was eased.…
So the hours passed. When the sun was at its highest and the first four of the eight hours of the day had gone by, Pak stopped ploughing. His thighs ached, so did his arms. Sweat ran into his mouth. He felt a great emptiness in his stomach. Yet it annoyed him to have to leave his work to go home to fill his empty stomach with food. He put a fresh sirih into his mouth to appease his pangs.
Then suddenly he saw a small figure coming across the rice-fields with a small basket on her head. He screwed up his eyes. The white herons rose at her approach. Pak began to laugh—it was Rantun, his daughter, bringing him his dinner, though really she was still too small to undertake the tasks of a grown girl. She came along looking very solemn, dressed in a little sarong which flapped about her feet. She had little earrings in her ears and a long lock of hair fell straight down her forehead. It had not been cut yet, for Pak had never yet had enough money by him for the festival that he had to give when the pedanda cut this lock for the first time and blessed the child. Why, he had not even had his own teeth filed, though he was a married man and a full member of the village council. These festivals were put off from year to year in Pak’s family. Perhaps in time he would be able to save enough money to get it all done at one go—the filing of his teeth, Lambon’s ripeness, the cutting of the lock and the first birthday of the newly born child. Pak had a little money buried under his house, fifty-two ringits in all; it had been fifty-five before the last cock-fight. Puglug had made sharp remarks about men who gambled away their money instead of seeing to the burning of their mothers, and Pak had listened with a stolid face, knowing in his heart that Puglug was right. His mother had died five years ago and it was high time her remains were burnt. Pak was often secretly afraid that the unreleased soul of his mother would make itself felt in ways disastrous for the family. He had searched everywhere to find where Puglug hid her own money, her market earnings; but he had never found any of it and Puglug maintained that she had to spend it all to feed him well, as it was the duty of a wife to do.
While Pak’s thoughts had been running on all the cares of which Rantun’s uncut hair reminded him, the child had come up. Now she knelt down at the edge of the sawah and opened her basket. Earnestly and a little timidly she handed him a pisang leaf of rice and another of roast beans. Pak rinsed his hands in the water which ran from the neighboring field down into the sawah and began to eat. The cow cheerlessly pulled the grass on the narrow balk. When he had eaten his fill he gave Rantun what was left and she modestly ate it up. Rantun was a quiet gentle child and Pak was very fond of her in spite of her not having turned out to be a son. He put his hand on her shoulder and they sat thus for a time, motionless, silent and perfectly happy.
When he was rested and had enjoyed long enough the comfort of a full belly, Pak got up. “You are a good little woman and one day I’ll give you a fine new sarong,” he said, putting his hands round her. Rantun snuggled tenderly against them. Pak was grateful to his little daughter, but he had a great longing for a son. He could squat for hours picturing to himself all that he would do if he had a son. Daughters belonged to their mothers and later to the man who carried them off. A father had to have a son for companionship and to give him descendants. With his hand still on Rantun’s tender little body he reflected that he needed a second wife to bear him sons, since Puglug bore only girls. At last he let go of the child and helped her to cut a long thin wand to catch dragonflies, which, roasted, are a great delicacy. Then with a sigh he turned again to the plough and the wet earth.
The sun was already declining when Pak heard a sound that made him stop and listen. The kulkul, first from Sanur, faint but insistent, and then from Taman Sari too, could be heard in deep rapid beats. Pak finished his furrow, but he paid little attention now to his ploughing. He was wholly absorbed in wondering why the kulkul was beating at that hour of the day. He could feel his liver swelling with curiosity. Hurry up all of you, come and help quickly, was the message beaten out by the village drums, as they reverberated over the sawahs. Work had ceased in every field. “What does that mean?” the men called to one another. “They’re calling us in,” others said. Pak was already unloosing the cow. “We have got to go,” Krkek shouted across to him. He was an elderly, intelligent man, much respected in the village, and the head of various committees to do with the supply of water to the fields and the harvesting of the rice-fields. Pak, like the rest, left his work and drove his cow as fast as he could along the dyke and across the river to the village. The ford was thronged with gray buffaloes, light-brown cows and mud-caked hurrying men, eager to know what was up. Half-way up the river bank they met another lot of men coming from the village. “Turn back,” they shouted. “We have to go to Sanur, we’re wanted, something has happened.” Most of them had brought the pointed bamboo poles, used as a rule for carrying loads, and some even had a kris in their girdles or a spear in their hands. “Is it a tiger?” Pak asked excitedly. Krkek laughed scornfully through his nose. “You can grow to be a very old man in the plains without ever seeing a tiger,” he said patronizingly. “There are still some in the hills. I helped to kill one up in Kintamani.” Pak made a sound of polite admiration with his lips. The cow pulled him back to the river; she wanted to be washed down after her labor as she always was. For a few minutes everything was turmoil, shouting and confusion. Then Krkek told some children to drive the cows and buffaloes to the pastures, and the men fell into single file and set off at a quick pace for Sanur.
There the roads were crowded with people, all making for the shore. At every yard gate stood old women carrying astride on their hips the infants entrusted to their charge. The younger women hurried along with the men, laughing and chattering, followed by their daughters. The boys of the village were a long way in front, kicking up a cloud of dust. Pak learnt from the clamor all round him that a boat had been wrecked on the coast. He laughed in amazement— this was just what his old father had said. He was as wise as the pedanda himself.
“The old man at home told me that already,” he shouted to the man nearest him. Another burst out laughing at some thought that suddenly crossed his mind and the laughter spread. They could not go on for laughing, they shut their eyes and slapped themselves on the knee. They had all been frightened and now it appeared that Baju, the god of the wind, had wanted to do them a favor and had cast up a ship on the coast for them. They all had visions of rich wreckage, cases of goods, rice and dried coconut. Pak, who was hurrying along faster and faster, secretly felt that he had a good deal to do with the wrecking of the ship. His father had foretold it and he himself had killed his finest white hen for the god. He saw cause and effect in close and most happy sequence and he bothered no more about his broken wall.
The crowd parted for a moment to make way for the head man of the coast villages, the punggawa, Ida Bagus Gdé He was a handsome man, rotund and stout, with round eyes and a moustache. A servant held a Chinese paper umbrella above his head, although the road was completely shadowed by palm trees.
Pak could hear the surf before he saw it. Big waves were crashing on the beach, for it was high tide. They ran the last part of the way and then they all abruptly stood still and gazed at the sight that met their eyes.
The sea was breaking over a large ship, which appeared to be helpless. It had once had three masts, but two had gone overboard. The sails hung down in shreds. A few men could be seen on her, waving their arms and calling out; but the people of Sanur could not understand what they said. The waves broke in foam between the ship and the shore, and with each wave the ship was flung crashing upon the reef with so deafening a roar that some of the women put their fingers to their ears. Although the reef was only about a hundred paces from the shore it was impossible to wade out to it. Sarda the fisherman and two other men carried a jukung down the beach and launched it. They rowed out head-on to the waves, but they were flung back time after time and at last gave it up. As each wave retreated it left on the beach small packages of unfamiliar objects which had a strong and unpleasant smell. Some boys ran down and picked them up and ran back again screaming before the next wave thundered in. The women fell on the booty, laughing in their eagerness to know what it was. It was buffalo hides, wet through and softened by the water and stinking, and dried fish which the water had almost turned to a jelly. Pak picked up one of these dripping fish and wondered whether it could be dried again and still made use of.
And now the Chinaman, Njo Tok Suey, pushed his way through the crowd. He had a house in Sanur and traded with the boats that put in there. People laughed as they made way for him. He wore a sarong, as they did in Bali, but also a jacket and cap, like a real Chinaman. His cap was crooked and showed his shaven head. The crowd shouted with laughter. They had heard that Njo Tok Suey had a head as smooth as an egg, but they had never seen anything like it before. The Chinaman paid no attention to their merriment but pushed his way, puffing and blowing, to the punggawa. The two men were at once surrounded, for of course everybody wanted to hear what they said. Pak was disappointed at not being able to understand. “What are they talking?” he asked the knowing Krkek. “Malay,” the other replied with the air of knowing every language in the world.
After speaking for a short while with the punggawa, the Chinaman stepped back and made a low bow. The punggawa, addressing the crowd, called out in a loud voice, “Bring everything you find and lay it down before me here. It belongs to the men on the ship and nothing of it must be taken.”
There was a low murmur from the crowd. If the gods of the wind and sea cast up wet buffalo hides on the shore it was clear they meant them as a present to the people of the coast. Pak surrendered his fish rather unwillingly. He laid it reluctantly down on the heap of dripping objects which rose at the punggawa’s feet. “It is only a heap of stink,” cried out Pak’s friend, Rib, who was a wag, and the murmurs of the crowd turned to laughter.
But the laughter died away when the punggawa ordered them to rescue the men from the ship. The punggawa had great power over the people of Taman Sari and Sanur and it was not an easy matter to defy him. His eyes were fiery and he had a loud voice that no one could disregard. The front ranks of the circle surrounding him unobtrusively melted away, and a few of the older men muttered that they had no courage. It was not for poor sudras and rice cultivators to have courage; courage was the business of warriors and rajas of the Ksatria caste and self-sacrifice might be the duty of a Brahman, as Ida Bagus Gdé was. This at least was what Pak thought and the majority was of his way of thinking. Meanwhile the ship’s timbers could be heard groaning and rending every time it was thrown on the rocks. The crew had stopped crying out and their silence showed the danger they were in. The Chinaman, Njo Tok Suey, stood beside the punggawa, not behind him as good manners enjoined, waiting patiently with his hands buried in his wide sleeves.
A small knot of men who had been standing together higher up the beach now came running up. They were the unmarried and younger men of the two villages and Pak saw his brother, Meru, among them. His youngest brother, Lantjar, was there too; he had got hold of a spear from somewhere and was waving his lanky arms. Suddenly all the men turned their heads, and a cry, started by the women, spread from mouth to mouth. “Raka,” they shouted, “here’s Rakal Raka, what are you going to do?”
Pak elbowed aside the man next him and then saw with a momentary shock that it was the wealthy Wajan whose ribs he had dug with his elbows in order to make his way to the front.
Raka had put himself at the head of the young men and was now knotting his kain into a loin-cloth. Raka was the handsomest man in all the five villages round and the best dancer in the whole lordship of Badung. He was the eldest son of the revered pedanda, Ida Bagus Rai, and all this combined to make him the hero of the villages. The girls’ eyes darkened when he passed and the men could not help smiling and wishing him well whenever they saw him. When he danced he looked like the young god Arjuna himself, splendidly dressed, proud and beautiful.
At this moment indeed there was nothing of the glamour about him, except for the fine build and beauty of his body. He looked like any peasant with his kain knotted between his thighs as he darted into the sea behind a retreating wave which left only its froth on the sand. “Who will come bathing with me?” he called out laughing, and some did actually follow him up to the edge of the foaming breakers. Meru was one of them, Pak saw, and he had only just time to seize Lantjar and drag him back as the next wave was breaking on the beach.
A universal shout went up when the young men vanished in the water, for the people of Sanur were afraid of the sea where there were sharks and sword-fish. Only a few fishermen were on intimate terms with it and its unreliable god Baruna too, who exacted many offerings from them. Pak stood perfectly motionless, his arm about Lantjar’s slender shoulders, which were quivering with excitement. Everyone was motionless as they gazed dumbly at the water. When the wave had spent itself they saw Raka and his companions already some way out wading towards the wreck. The ship’s sides were stove in by the next sea that struck it and a man climbed to the highest part of the ship that was still above water and waved what looked like an old faded flag.
“What is that he’s waving?” Pak asked the omniscient Krkek, for it might well be a cloth endowed with magic powers.
Krkek screwed up his eyes and considered the matter. “It is the sign the Dutch carry in front of them when they fight,” he said at last.
“Mbe!” said Pak, impressed by the extent of his knowledge. Even he had heard of the white men who ruled the north of the island and even on the south of it had overthrown the lords of Karang Asem and Gianjar. Far-travelled men who passed through Taman Sari had surprising things to tell of these Dutchmen. Pak had never yet seen one and he knew that the sight of them would terrify him. It was said that the white men were as tall as giants and tremendously stout and strong. Their eyes were without color, but they could see quite well, although they moved about like blind men, as stiffly and clumsily as figures of stone. It was uncertain, too, whether they had souls and whether any part of the divine nature dwelt in them as it did in every living creature in Bali. They had come years ago from Java, the only foreign land Pak had ever heard of. They were clever and powerful beyond measure, probably because they had fair skins like many of the gods. Although this was all in the highest degree strange and alarming, it appeared that the Dutch did not do any harm. They respected the gods of the island and the ancient laws. They could cure sickness and were unwilling to have people killed. It was even said that they would not allow the rajas on the conquered territories to carry out death sentences. They were immeasurably rich and occasionally one of their ringits got as far as Taman Sari. On it was stamped the picture of a long-nosed, full-breasted but not unpleasant-looking goddess.
Pak ran over in his mind all he knew about the white men, while Lantjar’s trembling body leant against him. He plucked up his courage, for it was possible that some of them might come to land from the wrecked ship and that he would before long have to face the sight of them. In a few minutes he even forgot his anxiety for his brother Meru, who was struggling on through the water, although he had nothing to gain there.
A great cry rose from the crowd when Raka and the handful of men with him reached the ship. The force of the waves had decreased, for the tide seemed to have passed its height. The sea had fallen already and revealed the vessel’s battered hull. Two jukungs put out; one was Sarda’s and the other belonged to another fisherman, Bengek, who owned the neglected sawah next to Pak’s.
The people laughed when they saw what Raka was about now he had reached the ship. He and some of his companions each took one of the shipwrecked men on their backs and then waded through the surf and foam of the ebbing water to the shore. The laughter grew louder and louder as they came nearer and ended in general uproar and stampeding when they reached the shore. Pak’s extreme apprehension was relieved when he saw that the men who were carried ashore on the sandy beach were not white men after all. They were Mohammedans and Chinese and in wretched plight. The women uttered cries of pity, particularly over the youngest and handsomest of them, who was bleeding from a wound on the forehead and seemed to be unconscious. They came round him in a circle, but made way when a woman who was taller than the rest went up to the wounded man and crouching beside him took his wounded head on her knee.
It was Teragia, the only wife of the beautiful Raka; she was greatly revered in the village, though she was still young and awaiting the birth of her first child. The good powers were so strong in her that many could feel them radiating from her. She had the gift of healing and of finding springs, and sometimes the divinity entered into her and spoke through her mouth. She was of high caste, as Raka, too, was, and the doctor of the village was her father and had taught her many formulas and magic prayers. She wiped the blood away from the young man’s forehead with the corner of her sarong and looking round murmured a few words to her servant who knelt beside her. The girl folded her hands in token of obedience and ran off. She quickly returned with a small basket out of which Teragia took a number of large leaves. She put them on the wounded man’s forehead, whereupon the bleeding ceased and the man opened his eyes and sighed. The women uttered exclamations of astonishment and admiration and pressed closer.
Meanwhile Njo Tok Suey had taken charge of the other newcomers. They had brought a few saturated cases with them which they put down on the beach. One of them was a Chinaman too, and he gave a few brief orders in Malay. He was clearly the master of the ship, although he was in a wretched state; his clothes were torn to rags and his chin trembled. Njo Tok Suey supported him and conducted him to the punggawa. The men of Sanur and Taman Sari crowded round, eager not to miss a word. Unfortunately the interview between the punggawa and the two Chinese was carried on in Malay. Krkek pressed forward as near as he could, and even put his hand to his ear to hear better. He translated bit by bit what the three men said for the benefit of his fellows.
“He says his name is Kwe Tik Tjiang. He says he is a merchant from Bandjarmasin. He says his ship is called Sri Kumala.”
There was some laughter at this, for they thought it funny that a ship should have a name like a person. Krkek motioned to them to keep silent so that he could hear.
“He says they anchored yesterday off Bijaung. The storm came up and beat against the ship and broke the anchor cable. He says the ship was tossed to and fro like the shell of a coconut. He says they have been in great terror. They did not think they would ever reach land alive.”
Krkek paused to listen attentively as the Chinaman raised his voice and embarked on a long sentence.
“The Chinese Kwe Tik Tjiang thanks the men for rescuing him and begs leave to retire. He is in pain and very tired,” Krkek then went on.
The crowd murmured its sympathy. The Chinaman stood a moment longer in silence, and looked at the people round him with inflamed and swollen eyes. They stared back at him, for it was not every day that they saw a shipwrecked merchant from Bandjarmasin. The Chinaman tottered as he turned to go, and Njo Tok Suey quickly gave him his support and led him away in the direction of his house.
“He looks like a dead sea-urchin,” the wag Rib said as soon as their backs were turned. There was some laughter at this and the punggawa turned round in annoyance.
“Men of Sanur and Taman Sari,” he said, “I order you to mount a guard to see that nothing is taken from the ship. Whatever is thrown up on the shore is to be stacked up here, so that the Chinese, Kwe Tik Tjiang, loses nothing. Any man who acts contrary to my orders will be severely punished and fined a heavy penalty.”
“So be it!” the men murmured obediently.
The punggawa searched the crowd with his eyes. “Where is Raka?”
he asked. Everyone turned round to look for him.
Raka was standing behind Meru, Pak’s brother, the carver, with his arms affectionately about his shoulders, resting after his exertion. The water ran from his long hair, and though he laughed he looked exhausted. The punggawa stepped up to him, followed by his servant with the indispensable umbrella. “Raka,” he said in a loud voice for all to hear, “I shall inform your exalted friend, the lord of Badung, of your gallantry and readiness. His heart will rejoice to hear a good report of you.”
The men again expressed their assent. Raka raised his clasped hands to his shoulder to thank the punggawa, who then left the beach. The crowd was already dispersing. Some had followed the Chinese to Njo Tok Suey’s house, where they now stood gaping inquisitively over the wall. Others followed the women, who took the young Javanese into the village. Pak stood irresolute. He was proud of Meru for the part he played in the rescue and for the friendly way Raka had leant upon him. Nevertheless, he resolved to warn his younger brother as soon as he got home.
“What we want now, brother,” Raka said to Meru, “is a big jar of palm wine.”
“My belly feels as cold as if I had drunk the whole sea between Bali and Lombok,” Meru replied as they went off hand in hand. Just as Pak was about to follow them, he felt a hand on his shoulder.
“You, with a few more, had better mount guard here,” Krkek said. “You are honest and sensible and I can trust you. I will send you food and firing, and perhaps I can pick out a few friends of yours to join you, and then you won’t need to be afraid of the darkness. You shall be relieved at the first hour of the day.”
Pak’s heart sank as he heard this, but Krkek was the most important man of his village and president of the water committee. He was not a man to gainsay. Even the raja had no power over the subak and had to accept its distribution of irrigation water. Nevertheless, Pak attempted a feeble excuse. “I am too tired to stay here as watchman,” he said. “My eyes will shut whether I like it or not. I was at work in the sawah since sunrise. A tired man makes a poor watchman.”
But Krkek would not listen, for it would have compromised his authority if he had revoked his order. “We have all worked in the sawah, brother,” he said mildly as he walked away. “My wall has a hole in it, big enough to let in all the demons, if I don’t mend it up before night,” Pak muttered in an aggrieved tone, but Krkek shut his ears and vanished behind the palm trees that bordered the village. Pak looked round about him. He was almost alone on the beach. There was only Sarda, and a few more with him, crouching beside his boat and chewing sirih. But they were fishermen of Sanur and used to the sea. A few of the ship’s crew were lying down about two hundred paces away. They looked strange and ill-disposed. The natives called out to the foreigners and invited them to join them, but they shook their heads and a little later got up and went away. Pak sighed. He was horribly afraid of the night. Already the sun was sinking in the west. The tide had gone out and the sand extended nearly as far as the wreck and only tiny wavelets nibbled at the shore. A group of children had waded out to the wreck, where they frolicked about with a great show of daring and kicked the water up with their feet. No more hides were floated ashore, but the smell of them pervaded the air and made the watch still more unpleasant.
Pak now felt for the first time how tired he really was. His thighs ached as he squatted beside Sarda. His eyes were haunted by all he had seen and whenever he closed them he saw the ship being battered against the reef. The sky was as green as a ripening rice-field and then as red as the gums of a child at the breast, and then darkness fell. The kulkuls in the villages announced the beginning of the night with short rapid beats.
Pak chewed sirih. His mind wandered, and his head felt empty. A long time passed in this way. Then the women, whom Krkek had sent from the village, arrived with ample supplies of food—rice and vegetables and meat roasted on spits. The light of torches shone out behind them among the palm trunks, and men came with palm wine in hollow bamboo stems. Pak was glad to drink the sweet tuak, for his throat was dry. Dasni, a Sanur girl, squatted in front of him. She had looked at him more than once at the Temple festival and the last rice harvest. She was not exactly ugly, but she had a dark dirty complexion and her breasts were too heavy. She crouched submissively before him and handed him food, gazing attentively while he chewed to see whether he enjoyed it. “I hear you have got a child,” she said. “I hope it will be strong and beautiful and like its father.”
Pak muttered a word or two in acknowledgment and after wiping his fingers threw away the empty pisang leaves. Dasni remained where she was while the other women got ready to go. At the last moment she took something from her girdle and thrust it into Pak’s hand. Then she vanished with the others. Pak looked to see what she had given him. It was a bulb of reddish garlic. He smiled. So Dasni was anxious about him and wanted to be sure that he would be safe during his watch.
When the women had gone, the men continued discussing the day’s events as they sat on their heels round the nearly burnt-out torches and at last they began to yawn. Sarda collected broken coconut shells and driftwood and made a fire. The night was lonely, cold and perilous. Pak crossed his arms and put his hands round his shoulders to warm himself. Some of the watch had vanished and others fallen asleep. Pak stared into the darkness and his fears gained on him. He drew nearer to Sarda. After a time the fisherman fell asleep with his head on his knees and Pak succumbed also. If lejaks or evil spirits emerged now from the darkness he was defenceless. He quickly felt for the garlic in his girdle which Dasni had given him and rubbed himself all over with it, so that the smell should keep away the evil spirits, and finally stuck the rest in the bored lobe of his ear. Now he felt safer, for it was well known that the demons could not endure the smell of garlic. He gave Sarda a cautious shake, but it did not wake him, so he left him alone; it was not right to be too tough with people when they were asleep, for then their souls might not have time to return to their bodies. He felt a great longing for his sleeping bench safe within the walls of his house and for the warmth of his wife Puglug, who was good even though not beautiful, and for the little girls on the other bench. Nobody came stealing stinking fish or going off with the stranded wreck. I told Krkek, thought Pak, that my eyes would refuse to stay open; and he let them close. He dreamt of the gap in his wall and saw it mended again and better than before. He heard a great noise in his dream coming from the battered ship. He also saw men going by in the light of the watch fire and the face of the Chinese, Kwe Tik Tjiang, bent over him and his foot in a black shoe kicked against him. Pak turned unwillingly on to the other side and ceased dreaming. He heard the cocks crow and opened his eyes. The kulkul beat the last hour of the night. He thought he was at home and groped about him, but the things he touched were unfamiliar. He was chilled to the marrow and biting cold nipped his feet. It was this that woke him and he sat up. Now he recognized Sanur beach where he had been when he fell asleep. It was still dark but for a strip of greenish light where sky and water met. This was the herald of Suria, the sun-god, who would soon leave his house bringing the day with him. The tide was high again and sang with a loud voice and flung the waves up to Pak’s feet. He jumped up in terror, and looking round for the others saw that they had vanished. The fire had burnt out; there were only a few embers in which Pak warmed his hands. His limbs ached, his stomach was empty and his heart had gone small. He pondered for a minute or two and then decided to go home. Even Sarda had gone. He had his sawah to see to; that was his job—not watching over the battered ship of a Chinaman who looked like a dead fish and left the smell of dead fish behind him on the shore. The spirits had already retreated and all wandering souls had returned to every sleeper’s body. Pak felt full of courage again as he set off on his way home.
But his heart stood still when he saw a light coming over the water. His feet became as heavy as stone and he could no more move them than if he had been bewitched. He tried to remember the incantation his father had taught him when he was a child to protect him if he encountered lejaks or spirits. But his head was as empty as a pot with a hole in the bottom. The light came nearer and he heard the sound of a laden boat grating on the sand. Pak was relieved to see a man get out of the boat and come towards him with a light in his hand: it was at least nothing supernatural. It was just an ordinary lantern, a wick in the hollow of a bamboo stem, covered with a dried pisang leaf. Pak waited. At first he thought it was Sarda, but when he recognized who it was he began to feel afraid once more.
The man with the light was Bengek, the husky fisherman. He was a hideous man with a bad throat which prevented him speaking out loud, though he was not dumb. On the contrary he had a quick and bitter tongue. His mother was reputed to be a witch, with the power of turning herself into a lejak, and for that reason people avoided her son as far as possible. Yet no one dared to offend Bengek, for all feared him and his mother.
“Peace on your coming,” Pak therefore said with trembling lips, and Bengek stood still and shading the light with his hand peered into the darkness.
“Is that you, Pak?” he asked in a hoarse whisper. “Are you not on your sawah yet, you industrious neighbor?” he asked again. Pak decided not to notice the sarcasm, but to behave as though this encounter at the edge of the sea in the last hour of the night was nothing out of the common.
“Where are you coming from?” he asked therefore—the usual question on meeting anybody.
“From my mother’s house,” Bengek replied.
“Were you not on the sea? I saw your light on the water,” Pak said.
“Why do you ask, then, you clever Pak?” Bengek said.
“I was told to keep watch over the ship,” Pak said. It sounded more imposing than he had meant it to. Bengek came close up to him and shone the light in his face.
“And have you kept good watch to see that no one stole the ship and went off with it in his sirih pouch?” he asked hoarsely. Pak stood his ground in the odor of garlic and felt fairly safe.
“Had you been to the Chinaman’s ship?” he asked.
The fisherman made no answer. He turned back to the shore, where the outline of his boat grew slowly more distinct. Soon he returned with a wet box on his head as though he were a woman. As he passed Pak he remarked casually, “And if I had been to the Chinaman’s boat, what would you do then?”
Pak caught him up, for he felt his liver grow hot with anger.
“I should denounce you to the punggawa,” he said breathlessly. “No, no, my brother, you would not do that,” Bengek replied. Pak felt for the knife in his girdle, and standing in the husky fisherman’s path he commanded, “Put the box down. I must see what is in it.” “Fish I have caught,” Bengek whispered in a sing-song. He put the box down at Pak’s feet contemptuously, as though to say: I dare you to open it. Pak did in fact feel that poisonous sea-serpents and things with prickles might bite his hands as soon as he groped under the lid. “Take up the box and follow me to the punggawa,” he said all the same, trying to speak in Krkek’s authoritative manner. Bengek caught sight of the knife in Pak’s hand and squatted down beside the box. “Come, brother, let us consider the matter,” he said. “I tell you it would be very mistaken if you denounced me to the punggawa. And you know why, too.”
“Why?” Pak asked with a tremor, for he knew the answer already. “Because it would do you and your family no good. If I choose, your cow will fall sick, your fields will dry up and your children die.”
Pak raised his hands in horror and shut his eyes. He knew how Bengek and his mother got power over people and money from them by such threats and how some who had not given way had suffered for it. He did not know what to say and he wished his father was there, for he had the wisdom of the evening of life.
“You have seen me come from the sea with a basketful of fish I have caught,” Bengek said. Pak considered this and said nothing. What were the Chinese foreigner and his miserable ship to him that he should put his family in peril?
“I have seen you come from the sea with a basket of fish you have caught,” he said obediently.
Bengek laughed and caught hold of his hand to pull him down to the ground beside him. “Wait a moment,” he said. “As you are my friend I’ll show you what I have caught in my net.”
Pak could not resist his curiosity. He crouched down and watched open-mouthed while the fisherman opened the case. Bengek lifted out three bundles of seaweed from which he slowly and carefully unwrapped three plates. Then he held his lantern close to them and let Pak see the treasure in all its splendor and beauty.
What he saw was white plates with a garland of roses on them, so life-like that you felt you could take hold of them. Pak put out his forefinger and touched the flowers timidly. The plate was cold and smooth and the roses were painted or rather, in some magic way, united with the white porcelain.
Pak had seen plates before. The Chinese, Njo Tok Suey, had two hanging on the wall of his house and it was said in the village that they were worth more ringits than could be counted a thousand times over on the fingers of one hand. Plates like these were let into the base of two shrines of gods in the Temple of the Sacred Wood. And the lord of Badung had had the back wall of the large balé, where he received important guests, adorned with them. Pak had heard of them first from Meru, and then he had himself gone with many other men from Taman Sari to Badung to marvel with open mouth and round eyes at this priceless treasure. But plates like these three had never been seen by anyone in Bali.
“Have you any more?” he asked incredulously as he looked into the box.
“No,” Bengek answered, and shut down the lid. But with that one fleeting glimpse Pak had seen the gleam of silver, as though of fishes’ scales or of many ringits. Bengek lifted the case on to his head and turned to go. “The plates,” Pak called out. The fisherman did not look round or pause.
“The plates are for you because you are such a good watchman. And the fish I caught are for me,” he said, and his hoarse whisper mingled with the sound of his bare feet on the sand.
Pak stayed crouching over the plates. My soul is wandering in a dream and sees things that are not real, he thought. Then—how long after he did not know—the kulkul beat the first hour of day. Daylight had come without his knowing. He cautiously put his hand out to the plates. He was wide awake and they were real. The birds sang and soon the road would be full of the people of Sanur. Pak snatched up his treasure in a panic and hid it within his dew-soaked kain and then took the nearest path that led to the rice-fields. It skirted the village and not a soul was to be seen. It seemed to him that a whole year had passed since he left his sawah the day before. He did not know yet what Bengek’s present portended. Squatting down at the edge of his sawah he took the plates carefully from his kain and breathed on them and polished them. The rising sun was reflected in them and the roses looked like real flowers. Only the raja possessed anything like it. His chest throbbed and thudded like a gong, as he turned the plates about in his hands. There were some marks on the back which he examined closely, straining his eyes and wrinkling his forehead. They had no resemblance to the letters in the lontar books he had learned to read. Probably they were characters of great magic power. Otherwise how could such delicate and fragile ware have come whole and unbroken to Bengek’s net, when a great ship like the Chinaman’s burst asunder and broke up? He did not know whether the powers of good or of evil dwelt in the plates. Pak considered this and looked about him. His eye fell on a mound in the corner of his sawah on which some offerings lay, dried by the sun. He had heaped up the mound the day he let the water into his field, bringing shovelfuls of earth from three points of the compass in turn to form an altar for his offerings and prayers.
This spot was under the protection of the Goddess. The earth of his field, blest by her, was of sufficient power to break any spell that might, for all he knew, be inherent in Bengek’s gift. Taking his knife from its sheath he began digging out the earth at the foot of the mound. It was soft and muddy and easy to dig out. When the hole was large enough he bedded the plates into it and closed the earth round them and smoothed it down.
“O Goddess,” he said, “I offer you these precious plates. Make them pure of evil influences and bless my field so that its soil shall be fertile and the ears full and heavy.”
The tjrorot sounded its hollow wooden note in the distance. Pak set off home to fetch his plough. He had left home a poor man yesterday. It was as a rich man he returned. Richer than Wajan, Sarna’s father. His secret lay big and warm in his heart, like a steadily glowing fire.
