Anna and the King of Siam

by Margaret Landon

  “I’d be glad to see them, but tell me—how did you happen to give up your teaching in the Palace?”

  “That’s quite a long story,” Mrs. Mattoon said. “There’s one thing about the King that you must always remember. He is very sensitive to criticism. Of course he is surrounded by adulation and flattery, so it’s natural enough. Well, he subscribes to the Singapore papers and combs them for any reference to himself. If there’s one that he doesn’t like he goes into a regular transport of rage. Several years ago an article appeared in one of the papers criticizing him for his conduct of negotiations with various European countries. He immediately shut the doors of the Palace against us without any explanation. We found out that he suspected one of the Baptist missionaries of having written the offending article. Now all of the missionaries were innocent, naturally, for it would have been the height of stupidity to have done any such thing, but it took more than a year to convince him that none of us had done the deed. I think that eventually he was convinced, but he has been suspicious of us since. But, as I said before, he is an intelligent man. Only one does have to tread lightly.”

  As they gathered their things to go Mrs. Mattoon added, “If we can help you in any way, you must call upon us. Our house is only five miles down the river.”

  “I saw it as we came up the river,” said Anna. “It looked like a bit of home transplanted.”

  9

  THE FIRST AUDIENCE WITH THE KING

  On the fateful afternoon of April 3 Anna dressed with more than usual care. Over her mauve muslin she wore a black lace shawl from the India days. After several weeks of negotiations with the Kralahome, through the medium of Mr. Hunter, it had been decided that she should be presented at court by Captain John Bush. The British Consul, Sir Robert Schomburgk, was out of town for the hot season and Captain Bush seemed the next best person. He was British, and his official position as harbor master had brought him the Siamese title of Luang Wisut Sakharadit. This made him eligible to present himself at the semi-weekly audiences of the King. Before the matter had been settled and the day selected, however, March had slipped away and April had begun.

  With her best bonnet framing the smooth brown curls around her face, and long black silk gloves, Anna was ready an hour before the appointed time. Then a complication arose. Louis refused to be left behind. He wailed so at the prospect that even Beebe’s offer to take him for a walk and make him some couay could not quiet him. He had to be dressed and prepared to accompany his mother.

  Promptly at five o’clock Captain Bush arrived, puffing a little in his high-necked suit of white duck, but ruddy and cheerful as always. The little party moved out of the canal and across the river in his boat. Louis, tired and fretful from the unrelenting heat, maintained an ominous silence. Once he leaned against his mother and whispered, “Mama, I’m afraid of the King!”

  “There’s nothing to be afraid of, dear,” she whispered back, willing herself to believe it. “You’ve never even seen him.”

  But a spasm of fear squeezed her own heart at the prospect of the interview with the strange king about whom she had heard so many sinister things. There might be much to fear. And she was alone, in a strange country where there were no broad-backed soldiers of the Queen. Siam was not India or Singapore. She must make just the right impression on this mysterious Oriental potentate, whom his subjects called “The Lord of Life”—appear neither servile nor presumptuous. The only question was how.

  She mused on this as the boat moved steadily across the river to the Palace landing. It was teeming with activity. A large party of priests were bathing in the river. Other priests, standing on the bank in wet yellow robes, were wringing out garments they had just finished washing. Graceful girls with vessels of water balanced on their heads were passing along the road that bordered the quay, while others carried bundles of hay or baskets of fruit. Noblemen in gilded sedans, borne on the backs of sweating slaves, were hurrying toward the late afternoon audience. In the distance Anna caught a glimpse of a troop of spearmen, the sun glittering on their long weapons.

  Captain Bush, Anna, and Louis climbed out of the boat and walked through the covered gangway of the landing to a clean brick road, which took them away from the river and down a narrow street bounded on either side by high brick walls. The wall on the left, whitewashed and crenellated, enclosed the Royal Palace, while the one on the right surrounded Wat Bo. Captain Bush told them about Wat Bo, especially about its famous colossus, a reclining figure of Buddha one hundred and fifty feet long and forty feet high, overlaid with gold plate. The soles of its monstrous feet were covered with bas-reliefs inlaid with mother-of-pearl. “You must see it for yourself, ma’am,” he urged. “I doubt that India has shown you anything more awe-inspiring.”

  “I will, I surely will!” cried Anna eagerly, with the pleasure that the strange and bizarre always aroused in her.

  Leaving the temple behind they turned left with the palace wall and walked for some distance until they reached a circular fort, like the model of a great citadel, with bastions, battlements, and towers. They entered its heavy wooden gate, bossed with huge, flat-headed nails, and found themselves on a stony path close to the stable of the White Elephant. Louis wanted to stay and see the great beast, albino rather than white, but there was no time.

  They came next to the Wat Phra Kaeo, Temple of the Emerald Buddha, most fabulous of all the gorgeous temples of Siam, and the King’s private chapel. Anna stopped delighted. The tall, octagonal pillars that stretched skyward, the spire that tapered far aloft, reminded her of the Temple of the Sun as she had seen it at Baalbec, of the proud fane of Diana at Ephesus, of the shrines of the Delian Apollo. The quaint doors and windows suggested the Gothic, but Brahminical symbols predominated. Strange, she thought, that the Buddhists who had suffered ruthless persecution at the hands of the Brahmans should have returned in this great monument of their faith to Brahmin pantheism.

  Louis was entranced with the many statues and would have dragged his mother and the captain to look at each one, if they had been willing. There were beautiful Italian marbles on pedestals—even one of Ceres and one of the Apostle Paul—oddly out of place in the midst of many-armed deities of bronze, birds with human heads, and strange four-footed beasts.

  Beyond the temple they passed into a paved courtyard. The fantastic roofs of palaces and still more temples, soaring tier on tier, sparkled and gleamed. A short walk brought them to the Amarind Palace. They paused uncertainly at the entrance, but there was neither guide nor page waiting. Slaves who passed looked at them with indifference. So they walked in unescorted, and through several antechambers until they came to one larger than the rest that gave entrance to the audience hall itself. They hesitated on the lowest of the marble steps, expecting some sign from whatever functionary presided at the door above.

  A flood of late afternoon sunlight swept through the spacious hall from high, crowned windows, upon a throng of noblemen dressed in gold-encrusted silks of various colors. All were crouched on their elbows and knees with their heads down, facing the golden throne at the far end. On it sat the King. He was of medium height and excessively thin, dressed in what from that distance seemed to be cloth of gold. As he sat cross-legged and motionless, he appeared to have been carved of a piece with the glittering throne.

  The little group on the steps waited and watched with deep interest for perhaps five minutes, but, when it appeared that no one intended to pay them the slightest attention, Anna whispered to Captain Bush, “Please do present us at once. Louis is beginning to be quite tired and hungry.”

  “Better to wait, ma’am,” Captain Bush demurred.

  But Anna’s patience was exhausted. She shook her curls and took Captain Bush by the arm. Together they mounted the steps with Louis dragging on her hand and entered the hall unannounced. Ranged on the deep red carpet were the prostrate, mute, motionless forms of hundreds of courtiers and noblemen. Anna felt a wild childish impulse to play leapfrog down those lines of
squatting figures and so arrive triumphantly before the man in whose hands her destiny lay, sitting impassive and remote, like Buddha on his throne.

  The King caught sight of them at once. He bounced erect and advanced rapidly down the length of the hall, screaming petulantly, “Who? Who? Who?”

  When he reached them, Captain Bush, on his knees like the other courtiers, performed his office: “Your Majesty, the new English governess, Mrs. Anna Harriette Leonowens, and her son, Louis.”

  Anna curtsied deeply, and then balanced herself as best she could with bent knees in the froglike position she had been told would be acceptable. “At least,” she thought, “I’m not a worm like those poor reptiles on the floor!”

  The King shook hands with her, watching her all the while out of hard shrewd bird’s eyes. But he said nothing at all. With his appraising eyes still on her he began to march up and down the carpet in front of her in quick steps. He put one foot before the other with mathematical precision, as if bent on performing accurately the steps of some intricate drill. His feet were encased in gold slippers turned up at the toe and crusted with gems that refracted little gleams of light as he moved.

  Captain Bush whispered in a quick aside out of the corner of his mouth, “The fireworks’ll begin in a minute, ma’am. Best to be prepared!”

  Suddenly the King took one long final stride and brought himself to a halt exactly in front of her at a distance of three feet. He stretched his arm at full length and pointed his forefinger at her nose.

  “How old shall you be?” he asked in a stentorian tone.

  Anna was taken completely by surprise. In all her worrying over this interview she had never imagined it beginning like this. She was hardly able to suppress a smile. Yet she was annoyed, too, at the prospect of a cross examination into her private life in front of the hundreds of kneeling men. Her sense of propriety made her feel that such intimate questions should have been asked before she was employed or in private. Still she did not wish to offend the King at the outset. Her mind made several quick revolutions. She answered demurely, “One hundred and fifty years old, Sire.”

  The hand dropped. Surprised, puzzled, the King resumed his march, back and forth, back and forth, in quick even steps. His beady jet eyes scrutinized her face minutely, then lighted with quick understanding. He coughed, laughed, coughed, and in a high sharp key returned to the attack. “In what year were you borned?”

  Instantly she struck a mental balance and with a grave and serious expression replied, “I was born in 1712, Your Majesty.”

  At this reply the expression on the faintly withered countenance of the King was indescribably funny. Captain Bush, who had begun to rumble ominously, slipped behind a pillar without ceremony to have his laugh. The King coughed again with a significant emphasis that startled Anna into wondering whether he was angry with her for her boldness in evading his questions. Then he addressed a few quick words to the nearest courtiers, who smiled at the carpet beneath their noses—all but the Kralahome, who turned and studied her, frowning.

  In the meantime the King had taken up his quick march with vigor, studying Anna’s face as if he would get it by heart. Then he stopped, wheeled, and lunged with a swift thrust, “How many years shall you be married?”

  “For several years, Your Majesty,” parried the new governess, determined not to be outwitted, and not to reveal any of the simple facts of her private life in this public place except as they dealt with her qualifications for the post of governess. She had begun to enjoy the battle, which was like a child’s game of wooden swords.

  The King took six steps, paused, and fell into a brown study. After several minutes of careful thought he turned again. Then, laughing, he rushed at her and demanded triumphantly, “Ha! How many grandchildren shall you have by now? Ha, Ha! How many? How many? How many? Ha, ha, ha!”

  Everyone laughed heartily, King, governess, Captain Bush emerging from his pillar, and those of the courtiers who knew enough English to understand the exchange. The King had won the engagement.

  In excellent fettle at having beaten her at her own game, he seized Anna’s hand and dragged her rapidly down the length of the Audience Hall past the ranks of kneeling men and through a curtained door at the back. Louis clung desperately to her skirt. At this undignified pace they flew along a succession of covered passages, in which crouched shriveled and grotesque duennas, and a few younger women. All had modestly covered their faces with their scarves, as if the sun of the King’s presence was to their merely human eyes unendurably bright. When Anna and Louis were quite out of breath the King stopped at last before one of a series of curtained recesses. He pushed open the velvet hangings.

  There on the floor was the kneeling form of a woman. Like the women in the corridors her face was covered with her scarf. She had a childlike body as finely made as a Dresden figurine. The King drew aside the pleated silk that she held in front of her face. Her features were as delicate as her figure, and very beautiful. Stooping he took her hand and placed it in the one of Anna’s that he still retained. It lay there softly, unresisting as a dead bird.

  “This is my wife, the Lady Talap,” he made the introduction. “She desires to be educated in English. She has had some lessons from the ladies of the mission. And she is as pleasing for her talent as for her beauty. It is our pleasure to make her a good English scholar. You shall educate her for us.”

  Something about the young woman won Anna completely. Her eloquently modest and gentle bearing was very charming. “That would give me great pleasure, Your Majesty,” Anna said.

  As the King translated the reply to Lady Talap, she laughed in a clear ripple of sound like temple bells. She cast in Anna’s direction a look of such genuine joy that Anna was startled. Was it so much to ask, to study English? The Lady Talap apparently thought it was. She appeared so enraptured with the graciousness of the King’s act, so overjoyed at the granting of her wish as she prostrated herself before them, that Anna left her with a mingled feeling of affection and pity. How revolting to be dependent for one’s innocent desires upon the caprice of this withered grasshopper of a King! She cast a sidelong glance at the rigidity of his features and shuddered a little.

  The Palace—marble and gold and rich fabrics, jewels and glistening tiles—seemed filled with gloom. Anna could not tell whether the shadow of its slavery and oppression had suddenly fallen across her spirit or whether the sun was setting.

  Back through the corridors toward the great hall the King led her. Dozens of children had come out of the inner precincts of the Palace. The King addressed them indulgently, but it was Louis who drew them. They descended upon him, chattering, laughing and shouting. He pulled back shyly as they reached out to touch him, but they only pressed closer. They fingered his clothing, his hair, his skin, his shoes, and his strange white hands. It was agony to Louis, torture almost beyond endurance. He looked beseechingly at Anna, but there was nothing she could do except keep on walking. The King laughed, pleased by the spectacle of the children.

  “I have sixty-seven children,” he said proudly, as they reached the Audience Hall, and Louis was free at last. “You shall educate them for me, and as many of my wives also as may wish to learn English. And I have much correspondence in which you must assist me.” Leaning closer to her he went on sotto voce, “And, moreover, I have much difficulty for reading and translating French letters, for French are fond of using gloomily deceiving terms. You must undertake, and you shall make all their murky sentences and gloomily deceiving propositions clear to me. And, furthermore, I have by every mail foreign letters whose writing is not easily read by me. You shall copy on round hand for my readily perusal thereof.”

  Anna was appalled at the prospect of such a multiplicity of duties, but thought it best to reserve any protests for the future.

  “I will send for you later,” the King finished with a wave of his hand.

  Anna curtsied, and even Louis managed a bob of the head. Then with Captain Bush they withdrew
and were shortly out in the evening air. Anna breathed deeply. The Palace had been stifling in the great heat of April. She was profoundly thankful that her agreement with the King included a home outside its walls. To go in and out of that unbelievable place and teach would be one thing; to live in it would be quite another! But the interview had not gone badly, although it had been strange. The King had seemed kindly disposed, and he was certainly not without a sense of humor. But he was a curious man, obviously unpredictable and autocratic to a degree, and he might be hard to please, especially if he expected her to be private secretary as well as governess. She did not mind hard work; in fact, she welcomed it as an anodyne.

  Captain Bush was still chuckling as they passed through the gate of the Palace. “He had you there, didn’t he, ma’am? ‘How many grandchildren do you have?’ That was a good one, all right. Though I can’t say that he got the best of you, either, when it comes to that.”

  10

  THE CREMATION OF A QUEEN

  The summons to start the new school did not come. The King, it seemed, was busy initiating the first civil police force that the city of Bangkok had ever had. Two young Englishmen from Singapore were the new commissioner and deputy-commissioner, S. J. B. Ames and S. Bateman. The fifty-five officers and constables were mostly Malays and Indians.

  Then the cremation of the queen consort began. The ceremonies were to last from April 10 to April 18, when the King would ignite the pyre. The Kralahome in his official position was responsible for a large pavilion in which any foreign residents of Bangkok who cared to attend were to be accommodated. This meant a great deal of work for Lady Phan. The day before the ceremonies were to start boatloads of furniture had to be taken across the river to the pavilion, curtains hung, and rugs laid. Long before daylight on the first day of the rites the household was astir. Flowers were cut and put in vases and much food was cooked. It was the custom to serve an elaborate collation to guests at whatever hour they came. The fat prince at whose palace Anna had seen the circus was charged with the entertainment of the priests and Siamese officials. The common people, of course, would not presume to enter the fenced square in which the ceremonies took place.