Читать книгу Love and Death in Bali - Vicki Baum - Страница 12
ОглавлениеThe Puri
A FLOCK of white pigeons rose from the ground and circled high above the puri of the lord of Badung. The silver bells on their feet gave out a whirring tinkle of metallic sound, like the voice of a white cloud at noon. The gray pigeons in their red cages cooed as they tripped to and fro. A large kasuar, which had been searching the grass for food, extended its long neck, thrusting it this way and that as though it had too tight a collar. Muna, the slave-girl, laughed and let her hands fall for a moment. Bernis, the most beautiful of the lord’s wives, bent back her head and looked up into the sky. She shook out her hair. “Well?” she asked, without taking her absorbed and dreaming eyes from the flock of pigeons up in the sky. Muna began zealously combing her mistress’s long hair again. She drew it back strand by strand; it was sleek and fragrant and shone with coconut oil.
“Then she was clever enough to arrange matters so that she was bound to encounter him,” Muna went on quickly. “She put herself right in his path as he went to his cocks. He did not so much as glance at her. She said: ‘Greetings, my lord and master,’ turning her eyes away. ‘Greeting, Tumun,’ he said, and walked on. She ran after him and pulled at his sarong. ‘My lord and master has had no sirih from me for a long time,’ she said. My mistress ought to have seen how the lord behaved then! He paid no attention at all—he looked straight through her, like this”—Muna copied the lord’s contemptuous look and squinted with the effort—“he paid no more attention to her than if she had been a dead dung-beetle in his path. He simply went on and left her standing there—the vain, silly creature. All the women laughed her to scorn.”
“What a shameless woman,” Bernis said, “to make herself cheap. You can tell that she is a beggar’s daughter.”
Muna had ended her task. “I have heard,” she said, “that she was a whore at Kesiman and had to go about with her breasts covered until the Anak Agung Bima brought her into his palace.” She drew a palm-leaf basket towards her, in which were white cambodia flowers, tinged with pink. Taking here and there a single hair she wound it about a petal to hold it fast. It looked as though the flowers were scattered carelessly over her black hair. “My mistress is the most beautiful of all. She will bear a strong and fine son and the lord will raise her up to be the first of his wives,” she chanted.
“Hold your tongue and don’t talk nonsense,” Bernis broke in. Muna went dumb with fright and cowered down with the instinctive movement of one who was used to being beaten.
“Go,” said Bernis. “Leave me alone, I cannot endure your chatter.” Muna took the comb and basket and vanished down the steps. Bernis laid her head in her hands, for she wished to give rein to her sadness. She had been wedded to the young lord Alit for twelve months and still she had not had a child. In her last month, too, her hopes had been dashed and it was long since her lord had visited her. It was a strange thing that all his twenty-two wives were childless. And yet the courtyards and all the other dwellings of the puri swarmed with children; all the court officials, the servants, the slaves and all the numerous retinue of the palace—they all had children. Only the dwellings of the lord’s wives were silent; only in them there was no sound of small feet. Bernis caressed her own skin to sooth its longings. She held her breasts in her hands to still the ache of an unfamiliar pain. Then she let her hands fall and restlessly pulled her sarong tighter. “Muna,” she called out. Apparently Muna had been watching her from a distance, for the next moment she was once more on the steps of the portico. “What is my mistress’s wish?” she asked with a virtuous expression. Bernis drew the girl towards her and put her arm round her. “You are growing up,” she said cajolingly. “It will soon be time to look out for a husband for you. Have you been looking about yourself yet?” Muna giggled and looked coy. “Is it the gardener, Rodia? Or the keeper of the white cocks? Yes, it is he, I know. He has a moustache and looks like a noble. He blows out his nostrils like a horse whenever he catches sight of you.” Muna hid her face in her mistress’s lap and murmured shyly into this secret recess. “Who is it?” Bernis asked, lifting up the girl’s head with her hands on her hair.
“Meru, the sculptor,” Muna whispered with lowered eyes. Bernis reflected on this. “Your taste is not bad,” she said slowly. “He has no eyes for me—he has too many girls,” Muna whispered. She had the face of a little monkey and the prettiest and nimblest of hands.
“You are too young. Wait a year,” Bernis said chillingly. There was silence for a time. Muna took Bernis’s hand and played with it.
“With whom did the lord spend last night?” her mistress asked abruptly. Muna’s mouth twisted in a droll grimace, but she did not reply at once. She left her mistress on tenterhooks.
“With Ida Bagus Rai, the pedanda of Taman Sari,” she said at last while her eyes danced with amusement. Bernis did not appear to see the joke.
“The pedanda is a nice man and a very holy one,” she said with a sigh of relief. “And Raka’s father,” Muna threw in quickly. Bernis looked at her reflectively to see what lay behind this. “It is taking a liberty to gossip about the lord’s friends,” she said loftily.
Muna pouted and said no more. The pigeons wheeled and alighted with a rustle of wings in one of the eastern courtyards. Bernis watched them absent-mindedly. All this part of the puri had been built by Chinese and was roofed with Chinese tiles. The back wall of the portico where they were sitting was lined with large greenglazed tiles, the same as those which adorned the wall round the palace. Bernis’s dwelling was one of the most splendid of all. It stood on a tiny square island enclosed by runnels of water and flowerbeds. The lord honored the most beautiful of his wives in every possible way, and gave her the position that became noble birth. But he had not chosen his first wife, who had to be of his own caste. Muna tried to read the expression on her mistress’s face. “There are men who are fonder of the old lontar books than of women,” she said meaningly. Bernis was not angry; she merely sighed. Boredom descended upon her, like a gray bird with widespread wings.
“What can we do to pass the time?” she asked idly.
Weave, Muna suggested. Go to the pond and look at the waterfowl. Turn out the chests and try on all the sarongs. Fetch palm-leaves and plait dishes for the offerings. Sleep until it was time to dress and watch the dancing in the chief court. Bernis shook her head. Muna pushed the gilded stand towards her on which were all the ingredients for making sirih—the silver casket of sirih-leaves, lime in a little wooden box, a box of beaten silver containing tobacco, chopped betel-nut on a pisang leaf. Bernis pushed the tray away again. For some reason the lord did not like his wives to chew and make their teeth brown, as other women did. And so Bernis denied herself this consolation, in which even the poorest of women indulged. “I did not know there was to be dancing tonight in the puri,” she said listlessly. Muna began at once upon all she had heard about it. “It is the dancers from Taman Sari,” she said eagerly. “They are coming to dance the baris. The lord has given them new robes and they are dancing to express their thanks for them. Over three hundred ringits the robes cost and they say that there is real silver on the baris crowns. They say, too, that a girl is going to dance at the same time as the men, but that I cannot believe. It would be improper,” Muna said primly. “The nymph ought to be played by a small boy as she always has been. But the Taman Sari dancers always must invent something new, and that is why such an idea came into their heads. We shall see what the lord will have to say to it if Raka really brings a girl with him.”
“Who is the girl?” asked Bernis.
“Lambon, a poor sudra’s daughter. No bigger than a gnat. I saw her dance the legong at the feast of the Coral Temple,” Muna replied. Bernis scarcely heard her.
“A crown with real silver . . .” her mistress said slowly. “Raka will look beautiful with a silver crown,” she added.
“Yes, he will look beautiful,” Muna said. Then they both fell silent and gazed at the runnels which enclosed their island.
A thousand people went in and out of the puri. Buildings were crowded together in innumerable courtyards; balés full of household articles, weaving stools and sacrificial vessels; the dwellings of the wives, relatives, officials, servants, slaves and their families. Watch-towers flanked the entrance to the main courtyard in which visitors had to wait until the lord received them. His own house was in the second court, and the large reception balé in the back wall of which were the plates, that excited such great and universal admiration. The house temple in the north-east wing was a beautiful building with images of stone in its wooden shrines and with carved doors showing Vishnu on his bird, Garuda. Here, too, was an island surrounded by running water and bridges on three sides leading to the temple doorway. There was a mosaic of shells on the steps. Everywhere there were trees, coco and betel palms, cambodia trees with gray branches and bright flowers, champak trees, darkleaved and tall. Tall grasses were planted between the paths, and flowers too. A balé in the fourth court was given up to the fightingcocks, of which Lord Alit alone possessed forty. The whole place was alive with birds and beasts that were kept as pets. There were the kasuar and his mate, vain and ridiculous creatures, pigeons of every sort, small green parrots with red breasts, which were caught in the west of Bali, and white cockatoos from the neighboring island of Lombok. Monkeys tugged at their chains or roamed about free to work what mischief they liked. There was a large number of small, rough-coated horses in open sheds, and buffaloes for drawing waggons rubbed themselves against the palace walls. Black swine of alarming fecundity ran loose with their litters and dogs, poultry and ducks were beyond counting. A large leguan and three huge turtles were in cages near the largest kitchen balé in readiness for the next feast. There were rice barns and threshing floors for threshing the grain; there were numbers of cooking balés and provision stores and balés for preparing sacrificial offerings and balés in which were kept the figures for the Shadow Play.
The lord Tjokorda Alit was seated cross-legged on a couch in his house. It was fairly light there, for the door on to the portico stood open and the Chinese architect had had large glass windows put in the opposite wall, like those in the palaces of the great sultans of Java. On the cross-beam of the roof lay offerings and many books— writings engraved on narrow strips of the leaves of the lontar palm. An oil lamp hung nearby, with a fringe of blue glass beads round the shade, a present from the Dutch Controller, Visser.
The lord was only of middle height and there was a flabby and unfinished look about his face as well as his body. As his skin was remarkably light in color, his courtiers and his wives told him that he was handsome. But his looks did not please him and he knew that he was ugly, uglier even than a simple sudra, to whom hard labor gave strength at least and muscular limbs. The lord was often overwhelmed by a vehement disgust with himself, particularly when he had his handsome friend Raka with him.
Alit’s eyes were half closed and he was pulling at his opium pipe. A boy of about nine years of age crouched at his feet. He was called Oka and was a distant relation of the lord’s, the son, by some father or other, of one of his wives, a woman of no caste. He had adopted the boy. Oka’s small face was bent over the flame of the opium lamp at which he was carefully roasting an opium pill, ready for the next pipe. The drug’s bitter-sweet smell filled every corner of the room, and the fumes made the child’s heart thump and his forehead drowsy. Without opening his eyes Alit handed the smoked-out pipe to be filled again. He kept Oka almost constantly at his side because the child was quiet and seldom spoke; and the lord loved above all things to be silent and to think. It was this, no doubt, that gave his eyes their strange and almost suffering expression, like that of people who know too much. But for the moment Alit felt happy and lightened of care, borne aloft by the soothing opium trance. An ever-widening clarity opened up new perspectives before his closed eyes and it seemed to him that he could now comprehend those mysteries over which he had pondered with the pedanda of Taman Sari the night before. “One says: I have killed a man; another thinks: I have been killed! Neither one nor the other knows anything. Life cannot kill, life cannot be killed.” Long series of verses in the noble language of other days passed through his mind, echoing their wisdom in resounding words. “End and beginning are only dreams. The soul is eternal, beyond birth and death and change.” He gave his pipe to the boy to fill once more. It was the fifth and last, for he never exceeded this number at one time. So long as he smoked all was good and his mind at peace. At other times he was often overcome by a melancholy for which there was no real cause. He was young, rich, powerful. He had many and devoted wives, many loyal and gifted advisers and rice-fields stretching farther than the eye could see. His only trouble was that sometimes he found no object in his life—as though it had stopped still or as though he had been bom with a soul tired out by too many reappearances on earth.
A shadowy figure with clasped hands appeared in the open doorway. It was one of the gate-keepers from the first courtyard. “What do you want?” the lord asked with annoyance.
“The punggawa of Sanur is waiting in the outer balé with two Chinese and requests an audience.”
“Send him and his Chinese to Gusti Wana,” Lord Alit said irritably.
“I did so, master. The minister heard the punggawa and told him to bring the matter to the lord’s own ears. He sent me here.” And now there appeared in the portico behind the gate-keeper several bent figures and a murmur of voices could be heard from which Alit understood that his high officials had come to beg him to receive the punggawa. He gave his pipe to Oka and rose to his feet. The punggawa is a busybody, he thought. He thinks himself a tiger, but he is no bigger than a cat. In one corner of the room there was the figure of a courtier carved in wood and painted in sombre colors, designed to hold the lord’s kris. Oka took the kris from the hands of the wooden figure and gave it to his master, and the lord put it through the back of his girdle and then advanced into the portico among his counsellors. Gusti Wana was there with the rest, a little man who easily became excited; also Gusti Nyoman, the steward of the yield from the rice-fields and the lord’s revenue, Dewa Gdé Molog, captain of the guard, garrison and arsenal of the puri. The last was a man of fine words and very proud. There were further three of the lord’s relations, who had gained admittance to the family through one or other of his wives and claimed kinship as cousins or brothers-in-law. They had long-winded titles, fine names and no influence. Alit looked over the company with a smile and silence fell. Suddenly they all began talking at once and explaining the punggawa’s predicament. The lord put up his hand and again they were silent.
“Why did you not send the punggawa to my uncle? You know well enough that village disputes of his do not interest me.
“The Tjokorda Pametjutan is old and sick and complained of being in great pain this morning,” Gusti Wana said. “No one could ask of him to deal with difficult matters.”
“Is it then a difficult matter that the punggawa wishes to intrude on me?” the lord asked, still smiling. The best he could hope was to find the zeal of his officials entertaining and rather funny, but as a rule it wearied him to such a degree that he yawned until his eyes watered. He sat down on a raised platform which Oka had spread with a finely woven mat. “Bring the punggawa and his Chinese here,” he ordered the gate-keeper. By receiving them in the portico of his own house instead of in the large reception hall, he showed that he did not take their business seriously. The courtiers placed themselves cross-legged behind him and the punggawa entered the courtyard followed by the two Chinese. All three advanced with bodies politely bent and stopped at the foot of the steps. Just as the punggawa was about to speak, an aged little man flitted past him and crouched at the feet of the lord. This was Ida Katut, the lontar writer and storyteller of the puri. He had the face of a field-mouse and an insatiable curiosity to hear and see and note all that went on. Afterwards when he came to recount what he had gleaned, the lord often laughed aloud as he recognized the people Katut had, so to say, devoured and whom he now reproduced with all the peculiarities of their walk or voices and the vanity or submissiveness with which they entered his presence.
The punggawa came this time without his umbrella, for he had left his servant behind in the first court. The two Chinese were dressed for this solemn occasion in the dress of their country, long robes of gray silk and short coats without sleeves. It was apparent that Njo Tok Suey had lent his friend a dress to put on, for it was several inches too long for the merchant of Bandjarmasin.
Njo Tok Suey, in order to make himself more impressive, had put spectacles on and they excited great astonishment, for the courtyard had meanwhile filled with people who, unable to resist their curiosity, seemed to beg condonation by the humble and submissive way they drew near. They squatted all about, the fathers with their children between their knees as though they were watching a play.
When the punggawa began in sonorous tones to make a set speech, Ida Katut winked and blew out his cheeks. Alit caught his drift and suppressed a smile, and then listened absent-mindedly to the punggawa’s account of the wreck of the Sri Kumala. But after a time the words fell on his ear merely as empty sound and the verses of the Bhagavad-Gita again took possession of his mind: “He who is wise sorrows neither for the living nor for the dead . . .” A murmur from his retainers reminded him that he sat in council, and his attention was finally recalled to the matter in hand by a nudge that Ida Katut roguishly gave his feet on the sly. He was just in time to hear the punggawa’s summing-up: “And therefore I beg your lordship to give ear in your goodness to the complaint of the Chinese, Kwe Tik Tjiang, and to resolve the matter, for I am only a stupid man and incapable of giving judgment.”
The two Chinese now stood forward and began to talk rapidly. Njo Tok Suey, who was already known to the lord, spoke for both, since the merchant from Borneo spoke an unfamiliar Malay dialect. Ida Katut unobtrusively pointed to his left cheek. Alit saw what he meant. This other Chinese had a large wart on his cheek from which grew five long hairs. Once more he suppressed a smile. He was grateful to Ida Katut for trying to enliven the tedious duties his position imposed.
“Your Highness,” Njo Tok Suey began, “my friend has a complaint to make against the people of Taman Sari and Sanur. He asks that they shall make good the damage they have done him. He begs that the people who rifled his ship shall be punished for it and made to pay a fine in compensation.”
The lord with an effort brought his attention to bear on this tiresome business. He was enraged with the punggawa for confronting him with these smooth, unfathomable Chinese, who made him think of the yellow vipers on the sawahs. “We have heard already from the mouth of the punggawa that your ship was a wreck before it struck. It was the god’s pleasure to handle you roughly and it would be better if you asked your own priests the reason for it. The people of Taman Sari and Sanur have nothing to do with your misfortune.”
“My friend went back that very night to relieve the watch, although he was sick and weak. When he boarded his ship again he found that much was missing from it. Many people must have been there with axes and knives and have carried away everything of value,” Njo Tok Suey said in a submissive voice. The other Chinese grinned at this account of his misfortune and his forehead contracted in wrinkle after wrinkle below his black outlandish cap. Something about this exaggeratedly smiling face displeased the lord. He knew his fellow-men and his heart either went out to them or turned away from them at first sight.
“The punggawa reports that he had a watch put over the ship, although he was in no way bound to do so,” he said with a note of impatience in his voice.
“The punggawa’s watch were sleeping like armadilloes when my friend arrived on the beach,” Njo Tok Suey said modestly.
The punggawa expanded his chest and said, “I posted a watch because I knew that Badung long ago agreed in an important letter to the Dutch to waive its right of salvage and to respect the ownership of wrecked ships. But I cannot prevent the watchmen sleeping when they are tired.”
A spasm passed over Alit’s face at this reminder. It was true, he reflected, that he had given the Dutch power over the laws of his kingdom. He had put his name to many letters under pressure from the white men’s envoys, who were as ready with the tongue as with the pen. They had threatened him with armed force, persuaded him with smooth words and promised him protection against attacks of hostile neighbors. The knowing Gusti Nyoman from Buleleng had befogged his brain with a mist of words. The lords of Tabanan and Kloeng-kloeng had submitted to the same demands. Even his uncle, the Tjokorda of Pametjutan, with whom he shared the rule of Badung, had persuaded him that it was better to make small concessions to the white men rather than have them invade the country with cannon and armed force. Alit had signed his name and tried to forget. But whenever he was reminded of it, it gnawed at his heart; it was like a tiny invisible worm eating into his pride. The courtiers stirred resdessly to and fro and spoke in low voices. Only Wana, the minister, and Katut, the lontar writer, understood the foreigners’ language. The rest did not know what the Chinese wanted, but they saw clearly that it was something unpleasant.
“You Chinese, whose names I have not retained,” the lord said loftily, “I have heard what you said and now I speak to you. The men who live on the shore brought you out of danger on their backs. They watched over your ship and your goods were stacked on the beach and not touched by anyone. If they took wood and iron from your dead boat, they were only exercising a right that my forefathers gave them and that has been theirs for many hundreds of years. And as for you,” he said in his native language, turning to the punggawa, “you would do well not to remind me of the Dutch. Badung has not submitted to the foreigners. You are my father-in-law and my friend and the head of five villages, and you ought not to make yourself the spokesman of these foreign Chinese and their paltry affairs.”
“That is so,” the courtiers said, but the punggawa’s lips went white with anger; though he folded his hands and inclined himself. The two Chinese whispered hurriedly together. The lord relaxed again after he had spoken. Sometimes he felt he was a weakling in the sight of his forefathers, and his heart, in spite of his resolute words, was feeble and incapable of great wrath. He no longer listened as Njo Tok Suey began to speak again, for his ear had caught the sound of a tumult in the outer court, the pattering of many bare feet and merry shouting and loud laughter. He bent down and whispered in Oka’s ear, “Go and see whether Raka has come.” The boy slipped away with hands clasped. When Alit turned to the Chinese again Njo Tok Suey had ended his remarks and was silent. Ida Katut stole a look at his master, and Alit turned a questioning look to his first minister.
“The Chinaman says that he sailed under the Dutch flag, with his ship’s papers in order and under Dutch protection. He repeats his request to be compensated for his plundered ship. That at least is his expression. He is an impudent rascal and has two faces,” Gusti Wana ended on his own account.
“At what do you put the damage you have suffered?” the lord asked with a frown. It was obvious now that the Chinaman from Borneo needed no interpreter. Putting his hands in the sleeves of his robe he said fluently:
“My loss cannot be estimated. I must return to Bandjarmasin a ruined man, without ship, money or goods. My boat was still good enough and I could have made her seaworthy again with a little labor and trouble. The people of the coast have completed its destruction. My losses are greater by far—but I will be content with two hundred ringits in compensation.”
When he had spoken, there was a brief pause, during which Oka resumed his place with an embarrassed air at Alit’s feet. The lord bent over him expectantly. “The people of Taman Sari have come with their gamelan,” Oka whispered. “And Raka? Is Raka in the puri?” the lord asked quickly. “Raka is not with them,” Oka replied, laying his hand on his master’s knee as though he needed comforting. The sun already marked the last quarter of the day and dusk drew on.
“Kwe Tik Tjiang,” said the lord, suddenly remembering the name of the impudent and unpleasant petitioner, “as you had the Dutch flag on your ship and as in spite of this the gods allowed you to be wrecked, you can see for yourself that it is not holy and has no power whatever. But if, as you say, the Dutch are your friends, I advise you to go to Buleleng and ask for your two hundred ringits from them.”
With this the lord stood up, for his patience was at an end. The Chinese, however, took a step forward and said, “I am only a poor humble trader and cannot enforce my rights. But the Resident of Buleleng is well disposed towards me. He will use his power to see that I have my rights, for he has been put over the island by his queen and what he commands is done.”
Such insolence as this, accompanied by bows and submissive grimacing, sent the blood to Gusti Wana’s head. But before he could speak, the Dewa Gdé Molog leapt to his feet, and, losing all control of himself, sprang from the platform and stepped up to the Chinese.
“Our kings are inferior to no kings in the world,” he said in a loud voice. “Whoever insults them shall be punished with death. No one gives us commands and no one is allowed to smirch our honor. We are not afraid of the Dutch! Let them come with their cannon and their guns. We have cannon, too, and our soldiers can shoot, and when the Tjokorda sends out his holy kris and they see the sign of the lion and the snake, more than six thousand warriors will come with their spears and fight for Badung.”
Dewa Gdé Molog was endowed with a loud and resonant voice, he was a warrior of the Ksatria caste and a rash, hot-tempered man. He could read no lontars and his jokes, when he had been drinking palm wine, were broad and unrestrained. But his strength and his boastful talk gave him influence over the men. He had spoken in Balinese, or shouted rather, and to the farthest walls of the courtyard the men stirred and murmured their agreement. Even Ida Katut’s hand went involuntarily to his kris. But he soon let his wrinkled hand fall and looked at the ruby-adorned hilt which projected above the lord’s shoulder. It was the holy kris, Singa Braga, with the signs of the Lion and the Snake, on which Molog had called. It made his lord’s irresolute face seem even more irresolute. Alit’s face showed that his captain’s outspoken words had wounded him: his own pride lay deeper, encased, hard and difficult of access. “It is foolish to waste proud words on a Chinese pedlar,” he said wearily. Gusti Wana looked disapprovingly at his lord. Where can Raka be? Alit wondered impatiently. “The council is ended,” he said, and turned to go. The whole affair, which turned on such a trifle as two hundred ringits, seemed to him so utterly unimportant and petty. Where can Raka be? he thought. His heart was gripped with suspense; the whole day would end in nothing unless the sight of his friend gave it radiance and meaning. He was almost inclined to pay the Chinese the money merely to be done with it. But at that very moment he heard Kwe Tik Tjiang saying, “I will tell his Highness the Resident of Buleleng what the lord says.”
It was a humble but unmistakable threat. The Chinese bowed, smiled and waited. All looked at the lord and waited for his reply.
At this moment the gate-keeper crossed the court and whispered a message to Oka which he repeated to his master. The lord turned away impulsively and walked quickly through the gate leading to the outer court.
“My minister, the Gusti Wana, will resolve the matter,” he said over his shoulder to the punggawa who stood irresolute. Raka appeared on the steps and bowed to the lord with folded hands.
“Will my lord forgive me for being late?” he asked in the formal style. Alit quickly laid his hand on his shoulder.
He had forgotten the Chinese as completely as if they had never existed. His eyes shone and he expanded his chest with relief. “It does me good to see you,” he said familiarly, and putting his arm round Raka’s shoulder he led him away. “Tell me what you have done all day,” he said. “I have been terribly bored and only waiting for the evening.”
“Are you in a bad mood?” Raka asked with the same familiarity, for the ceremonial style was merely a joke between them, which they kept up for the courtiers’ benefit. By the time they entered the house, in front of which the tiresome conference had taken place, the Chinese and the punggawa, too, had vanished as though the earth had swallowed them up. Only Ida Katut still lounged on the steps, humming to himself. The lord took Raka in and Oka shut the door.
“Tell me something,” Alit said, sitting down cross-legged beside Raka on the couch. “In the puri the day is empty and the air stands still. What adventures have you had meanwhile?”
“I went to the temple,” Raka said. “We all took offerings, so that our dance may go well. Before that we rehearsed a long time, for we are doing something out of the common, and the gamelan players were all astray.”
The door opened and the servants brought in sirih and young coconuts with the shells cut off them. They drank the cool milk which had a delicate sourish taste, and Alit himself prepared the sirih for Raka.
“And so you have done nothing all day but make offerings and rehearse the dance?” he said with a smile.
“No,” Raka replied at once, smiling also.
“Why were you so late?” Alit asked abruptly. “In your life something is always happening. I want to have my share in it.”
“You need not envy me. I had troubles at home which detained me,” Raka said. The word “troubles” sounded oddly from his smiling lips.
“What kind of troubles?” the lord asked.
“My wife has miscarried of the child we were expecting. She bled and I had to stay with her.”
The lord was silent. Then he said, “You will beget another child.” “Many children from many wives,” Raka replied gaily.
“What does your wife look like?” Alit asked suddenly.
“She is taller than most women, nearly as tall as I am. Her face, too, is large and her hands. But she has eyes like a roe deer’s and there is great power in her.”
“I have heard that,” Alit said. “She found out where the punggawa should dig his well. Do you love her very much?”
Raka laughed and clapped him good-naturedly on the shoulder. “Love is a word from the old poems you read. In real life there is no love. Men come together like apes and birds. It is sweet sometimes to play with a woman, but the wind blows and there is an end of it. I cannot imagine what you mean when you speak of love.”
“And your wife?” Alit persisted. There was a frown on his brow and his eyes were unlit beneath the heavy lids.
“I married her because my father wished it. She is a great help to me now that my mother cannot see well. Also our families have always been connected. I respect her very highly—almost as if she were a man on the same level as oneself. She would please you,” Raka added with a smile. “Besides, she understands the old ways of speech and reads about times past in the lontar books.”
Alit considered Raka’s answer for a few moments. He appeared to be pleased with it. He signed to Oka and the boy fetched his pipe and began preparing the opium. Alit took the first pull and then offered the pipe to Raka. He shook his head. “Before dancing I must not eat nor indulge in the joys of opium,” he said.
“Like a priest before the morning prayer?” said Alit, laughing. Raka made a face. He imitated a pedanda muttering Mantras and moving his fingers. Suddenly he broke off and became serious.
“To think that I might once have become a pedanda,” he said uneasily.
Alit quickly put his hand on his knee. “You are still young and no drop of knowledge has ever penetrated your brain,” he said consolingly, with a trace of condescension and also of envy. He signed to Oka. “Bring the baris dress for Ida Bagus Raka. He shall change his clothes in my house,” he ordered. The boy slipped from the room. It was invaded for a moment by light and sounds from without as the door opened and shut.
There was coming and going all the time in the courtyard. The inquisitive spectators of the conference had gone and others had come and squatted down in their place. At one moment some fowls had strayed in, too, and been shooed away with laughter and clapping of hands. Now a crowd of servants appeared, carrying halves of coconut shells with wicks burning in the oil. They hung the lamps here and there along the walls and from the eaves and chased away the shadow of night. Below in the first court there was already a gay and expectant crowd in the light of row on row of lamps, for the people were streaming in from many villages to see the dance, news of which had been borne on the breeze. Old men and young; women with flowers in well-combed, oiled hair, accompanied by all their children and with babies on their hips or in their arms; young girls, in a state of eager excitement, with gay shawls over their shoulders against the chill of the night. The men of Taman Sari set up the instruments of their gamelan orchestra at one end of the space reserved for the dance and the gilt carving shone whenever servants went by with more lamps. Those who could find no room in the courtyard crowded in front of the main entrance of the puri. Small boys with flowers stuck behind their ears, cigarettes in their hands and much finery on their sarongs climbed up on to the walls. Women vendors spread their mats and their provisions outside in the light of the small lamps, and many of the people ate, and when they had done threw away the leaves, which were immediately licked clean by the dogs. Ida Kutut threaded his way through the crowd like a wood-beetle. He kept his ears open and his wrinkled face beamed with the joys of eavesdropping.
The dancers were already waiting up in a balé screened by hangings. It was besieged on all sides by an inquisitive crowd, surging and swaying and spying in through every gap or hole in the curtains. Mothers lifted their children up and showed them the two dancers who played the minister and his funny servant to give them a foretaste of the laughter to come. In the middle of the balé, shielded from view by the men, sat Lambon, bolt upright in her gilded robe, like the small wooden image of a goddess; she was delighted by the prospect of dancing and by the fragrant smell of the champak flowers she wore on her crown. Her aunt sat beside her; she seemed to have left her volubility at home. Probably she was overcome by the splendor of the palace. From time to time she plucked at Lambon’s robe or said something to her in a whisper. The famous teacher from Kesiman, who had taught her dancing, sat on Lambon’s other side. His long hair, already going gray, was knotted up under his head-dress and he wore a short black coat with sleeves, which gave him the air of a courtier in ceremonial dress. He seemed to be anxious and chewed sirih to compose his mind, although it was rather hard work for his toothless gums; but he was too vain to grind his betel-nuts beforehand, as old people did.
Among the gamelan players sat Pak in a state of eager suspense. He had put on his best kain and wore a hibiscus flower behind his ear. He had, too, a new red saput about his hips, a present from Puglug. As he did not possess a kris, he had brought with him a short knife in its sheath, which he had stuck in his belt at the back. But all this was nothing to the splendor of his head-dress, for the gamelan guild had bought new ones from their common purse, purple and richly embroidered with gold flowers, which rivalled the gleam of the instruments, and made the players feel that they were quite as smart as the dancers in spite of their new and costly dresses.
Pak squatted expectantly beside the large gong which it was his part to beat. His fingers were stiff and clumsy from his labors in the field; they were not adapted for the delicate bells and other metal instruments on which the melodies were played. Nor was his ear true enough to beat the large drum which led and gave the time to it all. But he loved music with a slumbering love, just as though its notes were a soft cushion he could fall asleep on. The gong was easy to manage, and he had learnt how to beat it when he was still a little boy who sat between his father’s knees.
Once he got up and went to the dancers’ balé to see his little sister, on whose account he felt a throb of agitation, for among the older members of the gamelan there were persistent undercurrents of disapproval of a girl’s dancing in the same dance as the men: it was wrong and unseemly because it had never been done before. He pushed the hangings aside and tried to attract her attention over the shoulder of her teacher, but she did not smile; she merely returned his look with a solemn gaze as though she actually were the nymph she represented in her gorgeous dress. Even to Pak she seemed no longer to be the same girl who brought him his rice that morning and carried water in her torn sarong. He loved his sister with almost the same paternal love as he felt for his daughter Rantun.
The arena for the dance was marked off by spears and flag-poles from which hung lamps of a foreign sort that Pak had never seen before. They were not made of wood and had no basin to hold the oil and wick; they were made of glass and cast almost too brilliant a light. He regretted that Krkek was not at hand to explain the phenomenon to him.
Instead he now caught sight of his wife Puglug squatting in the front row of the spectators with her two daughters in front of her. They had a piece of sugar-cane which they sucked alternately in a sociable way. Puglug was very smart in a new yellow sarong with a pattern of large birds. Pak wondered where she had got the money for it. It annoyed him to see that her breasts were uncovered, which meant that bats and vampires could suck her milk. Apparently she had left Klepon, the newly born infant, at home in its little hammock crib, in which it had been laid on the Twelfth Day festival. Then Pak suddenly caught sight of Sarna and his heart gave such a jump that his breath failed him. Her hair was combed tightly back and adorned with flowers, as though she were a woman of noble birth, which was not all in keeping with her station, for after all she was only the daughter of a sudra, however wealthy he might be. She wore silver earrings instead of rolls of lontar leaves. She looked very beautiful and Pak could not take his eyes from her face. After a time his mind was made up; he got to his feet and squeezed his way through the throng. “I’ll only buy sirih,” he muttered to himself as his pretext, although his sirih pouch was well filled. He did not succeed in getting anywhere near Sarna, so he went outside the gate where the women vendors sat. “Are you not going to buy from me?” a woman called to him. Turning his head he recognized Dasni, the Sanur girl who had brought him his food to the beach. As she had called to him he squatted down in front of her mat and looked at her. She had a white head-dress wound through her hair and her dark honest face was covered with little pimples. “Do you want sirih?” she asked, with a sidelong glance which did not become her. “Two kepengs’ worth,” he said. She eagerly made up a quid for him and he took the money out of his kain and held it out to her. She looked full in his face and refused it. Pak stared blankly. Without thinking what he was doing he had asked her for sirih. That meant: “I want to sleep with you,” and she had understood it so. A girl who refused payment for sirih implied thereby that she gave her consent. The wag Rib, who was squatting near, laughed aloud. “Take care you don’t get lost on your way home,” he said pointedly. Pak beat a retreat. “Peace to you,” he said hurriedly, and vanished.
This time he was successful in his attempt to get near Sarna. He waited until she saw him and then ventured a look which told all. And Sarna—he could not be deceiving him-self this time—answered his look by quickly raising her long eyelashes. Pak’s hands tingled; he longed to go straight to her and seize her from behind. He bit his lips. Someone gave him a nudge and said, “They are beginning.” Pak came out of his trance; he worked his way back through the crowd and bent again over his gong.
But now his eyes were caught by a sight which worked more powerfully on him even than Sarna. The large reception balé, which rose above the walls of the second court, had been illuminated in the meanwhile with many lamps, and female servants were busy laying down finely woven mats for spectators who could find no room below. The light shone and danced on the tiled wall at the back, and there, let into the wall, Pak saw plates. There were many plates and they were beautiful. Pak strained his eyes and even got on to the wall of the courtyard to see them better. There were no flowers on these plates; they had only a pattern in blue streaks that seemed to him Chinese. On the plates which Pak had let into the earth of his sawah there were flowers. His plates were whiter and there were roses on them, whose fragrance you could smell if you looked at them long enough. Pak had dug up his treasure twice already to feast his eyes with the sight of it. He felt for one dizzy moment of overweening pride that he was richer than the raja himself. The possession of the plates had made another man of him. But for them, he would never have dared to look with meaning eyes at the daughter of the wealthy Wajan and to dream of her as he did.
Next there was a surging and heaving as a gilded chair came along on the shoulders of six bearers above the heads of the crowd. On it sat an old man with white hair and beard. This was the Tjokorda of Pametjutan, the uncle of the lord Alit and co-regent. His numerous retinue followed him and assisted him, as the chair was put down, to rise totteringly to his feet. He sat down on a raised seat in the middle of the large balé and began talking to the other spectators there. Several men ran off excitedly to announce to the lord that his uncle had arrived.
The wives had already left their balés and were assembling in front of the lord’s house, followed by their serving-women. They were splendidly dressed in trailing sarongs and silk breast-bands. Black lace shawls hung over one shoulder. They wore many jewels and their hair was smoothly drawn back from their foreheads and adorned with flowers. They looked like bright exotic birds as they rustled along, laughing, talking, jealously inspecting one another or clinging together softly in mutual admiration. They felt each other’s dresses appraisingly and their eyes shone, for it was an exciting break in the routine of life in the palace to show themselves to the eyes of other men.
The burble of their eager voices ceased as the lord, accompanied by Raka, emerged. The women held their breath. Raka was already arrayed for the dance and a magnetic force seemed to radiate from him. He was clad in a white undergarment that enclosed his slender legs and from his shoulders fluttered bunches of bright-colored ribbons gleaming with gold. He wore a kain of stiff gold-painted material and at his waist was a kris with a sparkling hilt. He had a tall head-dress, triangular in shape, on which hundreds of silver discs on short stems quivered and gleamed. This lofty plaited helmet made him look very tall and erect and war-like.
He paused for a moment in the portico as though he was aware of his own beauty and wished to give the women time to admire him.
The lord lingered at his side for a moment with his little finger hooked in Raka’s; then he let go of him. He smiled on his wives, who formed up in a rank, and called out a greeting to them. They were beautiful and his eye took in their beauty with satisfaction. “You smell like a flower-garden,” he said with a smile. This joke of their lord was greeted by a loud titter. Tumun, whom the others considered cheeky and forward, approached him with a roguish look. “One does not know which is the handsomer, Raka or our lord,” she said audibly to her serving-woman. Bernis turned on the pert creature with a contemptuous look; and then she looked at the lord until she had caught his eye and drooped her eyelids and smiled at him with an expression that betrayed a previous intimacy with him. He returned her look and her smile. Her hungry heart fluttered and she felt that now there was an understanding between them. Muna, the slave-girl, whispered over her shoulder. “The lord will not read his books tonight.” Bernis pressed her lips together and took her place in the procession down to the first court. Alit looked after his wives. “Of all the things,” he said, resuming the discourse about his ill-humor which had just been interrupted, “of all the things I had to promise the Dutch the one that will trouble me least to have renounced is the burning of my widows. I do not care for the thought of making myself at home in heaven with a bevy of wives. Their chatter and their jealousy would make residence there a trial.”
Raka laughed loudly, but a moment later his expression changed. “The gamelan has begun playing,” he said hastily. The notes which ushered in the first passage of the music could be heard coming from the outer court; and when Alit looked up again, Raka was already through the gate. He saw him once more as he emerged into view in the outer court among the group of dancers in the arena which was marked off by two men holding up sacred umbrellas.
The lord, now joined by his impatient dignitaries, stood a moment longer in the gateway leading down to the outer court. He smiled without knowing it as he surveyed the dim brilliance below, the throng arrayed in all its finery, the naked children with large shining eyes. He knew many of the people and loved them all.
The gamelan played a freely moving tender melody alternating with the loud, quick and warlike notes given out by the beat of the drum. He loved these moments of expectancy before the dance began, when a prickling of suspense ran over his skin. Sometimes merely to hear the overture made him feel that he could shrink and become a child again. His eyes had feasted on the golden splendor and movement of the dance from his earliest years: before he could even speak he had sat on his mother’s lap and watched it, and something of the dreamy delight which had gripped him in those days lingered with him still. He looked forward with almost painful impatience to seeing Raka dance and he felt his heart, that often seemed asleep, beating fast. Ever since, as naked five-year-old children, they had learnt to know north from south and east from west, they had always been together. Although he was a year younger than his friend, he felt far, far older. He had seen Raka grow up, happy and impetuous and endowed with a tempestuous soul. No one could laugh as Raka could, nor be so unhappy, nor so wildly excited at a cock-fight, nor so still and silent when the sun went down. No one in all Bali could dance as he could.
Raka, surrounded by the other dancers, advanced with his hands on Lambon’s shoulders. He felt her tremble and bent down to her. “You are afraid, aren’t you?” he asked. She did not reply, but only silently shook her head. “You have only not to forget to turn away when I come with the kris.”
“I am not afraid of you,” Lambon answered, glancing up at him over her shoulder. It was her part to represent Supanaka, the sister of Rahwana, the demon-prince, who was sent by him to seduce Laksmana in the form of a beautiful nymph. He, however, cut off her nose and sent her back to the dark regions whence she came. They had rehearsed again and again that moment in the dance when Laksmana raised his kris above her head, for the dance had to go smoothly on and a false movement on Lambon’s part might cause her to be wounded by the blade.
Raka walked round her to see if her dress sat rightly. He adjusted one of the many cambodia flowers in her crown of gilded leather pierced with a lace-work pattern. He went behind her and tied the zone of gold which enclosed her body down to the hips and drew it tighter. The gamelan played. Lambon’s face smelt bitter-sweet of flowers, kunjit powder, and the lamp-black which framed her forehead. As Raka wound the zone about her he felt her budding breasts. It made him smile. To think that this was little Lambon, flowering already. He looked in her face, astonished. It seemed only yesterday that he had taken her to her master and held her consolingly between his knees. His hands were warm from the touch of her body, as though she was a bird he had caught. He let go of her and pushed her from him. She stood in front of him with lowered eyes. The gamelan played on. Lambon stood swaying inwardly, as young pisang leaves often do when there is no breath of air.
Raka turned away and sat down on the mat beside the other four dancers. Lambon took her master’s hand and crouched beside him. The first dancer stood up and with eyes fixed advanced in the solemn rhythm of the dance through the hangings and up to the two umbrellas which flanked the space marked off as a stage. The gamelan played on. The second dancer got up after a long interval; he was a better dancer than the first and the loudly talking crowd was hushed.
Servants came and knelt before Raka, offering him young coconuts filled with cool, thin, sour-tasting milk. He refused them, although his throat was parched with excitement. This always happened to him before he danced. He did not know why. He got outside himself and knew himself no more. He felt his heart beat and his sinews stretch as taut as a rope tied to a heavy weight. Yet he felt light and without weight at all. The old teacher called this state “having other thoughts.” Raka felt himself enveloped in a blue veil which made people’s faces grow pale. Soon he saw nothing but this blue haze. He was alone within it as in a cloud. The gamelan played on and on. He heard nothing of the joke of the comic servant, or of the applause of the audience shouting with delirious delight, greeting every joke and allusion with peals of laughter, signalling their enjoyment from one to another, while the young lads took the opportunity of pressing against the wall of girls as though this would help them to hear better. The lord’s wives, sitting cross-legged on mats in a small balé, were as skittish as young animals released from confinement. Their laughter rose and fell like a breeze.
Raka knew nothing of all this. He heard the gamelan call him and now he saw a point of light rise in the blue vacancy like a crystal ball. His eyes were fixed in a stare as he rose to his feet. “The way is prepared,” the narrator chanted in front. “My lord will soon appear. He walks in the forest and flowers grow beneath his feet. He threatens and tigers tremble for fear.” The gamelan was playing, the drum beat furiously. Raka stood between the two umbrellas which flanked the entrance to that other world, the world of fantasy in which he was transformed into a god. He felt himself stretch and grow, far beyond his real height. Then he stepped forward into the light of the lamps.
The lord sat with his chin propped in one hand and his eyes never left Raka for one moment. “Our master devours the dance with his eyes,” Ida Katut whispered to his neighbor who nodded and made a grimace that said much. He was called Anak Agung Bima, the child of the great. He was one of the three relations of the lord who affected to be important persons in the puri. Bima had arrogated to himself an office of his own. He confiscated horses, women and cocks that took the lord’s fancy. He had procured the plates which adorned the reception balé and paid nothing for them. He received the presents which were brought to the puri and often kept some for himself. Semal he was often called, which means squirrel, because he was always hoarding and nibbling. But above all he considered it his office to guess Alit’s unspoken desires and to fulfil them, whether for better or worse. He was short and stout and he followed his master and cousin wherever he went, never letting him out of his sight and sticking so closely to him that Alit sometimes felt that he was caught in a spider’s web. Bima got on to his knees to see what interested the lord, for he had just made an involuntary movement.
It was Lambon, who had just appeared on the scene. She looked small and slender and her child’s face was profoundly serious. She advanced with knees and thighs tightly pressed together. Her hands fluttered like birds. Her slender neck quivered under her large crown. She glided towards Raka in faltering zigzags. It was an utterly artistic, almost inhuman dance in which feeling had been left behind and everything was precisely timed and measured movement of an extreme aesthetic perfection. Her small bare feet raised the dust from the ground and her hips swayed as cool as the stem of a water-lily. Now she was close to Raka and he moved with her. Her arms enclosed in tight and gleaming sleeves described tense arabesques in the air. “Look, she approaches the god,” the narrator chanted. “She winds herself about him, like a snake, and as a creeper embraces the upright trunk. Beware, Laksmana, beware of the nymph.” The gamelan played on. Raka and Lambon glided past one another, their faces drew near for a moment and then separated and again drew near. It was like the play of butterflies before their mating.
The lord leant forward with his eyes fixed on the dance. His eyes drank their fill, as Ida Katut had said. He clenched his fists as a servant drew Raka’s kris from the scabbard and gave it him. The loveplay turned to earnest. The kris flashed over Lambon’s head and she quailed beneath it—and vanished. The gamelan played. The drums beat in a tumult. Then Raka ran towards the other two dancers in the battle of Laksmana with the two demons.
Many of the children had fallen asleep. They clung fast to their mothers like little monkeys in their sleep. Many of the slave-girls of the palace-women slept too, with their heads leaning upon one another. Even some of the courtiers, with the sirih still in their mouths, let their heads fall forward. The old Tjokorda Madé had fallen asleep, wearied out with age and much suffering. Only Alit was alert and wide-awake to the very end.
With the last note of the gamelan the crowd broke up and quickly dispersed. They set off home by the light of the torches, keeping together, so that they need fear no demons or lejaks. Many of the women held knives, with onions speared on them, a certain defence against the dangers of the night. The men of Taman Sari bore their instruments on their shoulders. The newfangled lamps round the arena, which did not last out so long as the coconut lamps, were dimmed with their own smoke. The lord’s wives stood wearily leaning on one another, and the faded flowers in their hair smelt all the more strongly for being faded. They waited on their lord’s pleasure. Bernis stood apart, impatient for what the night might bring. The lord remained seated on his mat, lost in reflection. He smiled as he looked after the retreating dancers. Ida Katut squatted near, trying to read his thoughts. The Anak Agung Bima approached him with clasped hands, though he was of the same blood as Alit.
“I noticed you found the little girl dancer beautiful,” he said tentatively yet officiously. The lord raised his eyes heavily from the vacant arena and stood up. He stretched and took a deep breath of the cool air which fell dew-laden from the tops of the palms.
“She is still a child,” he said, “but one day perhaps she will be a beautiful woman.”
