Anna was glad of the invitation to go with the household. It was her first glimpse of a royal cremation and she was much interested in every detail.
The mausoleum had been erected on a great concourse that extended north from the Royal Palace. The base was sixty feet square and the apex of the roof seventy feet from the ground. It rose tier on tier with something of the same lacy, upward-lifting effect of Gothic architecture. The catafalque was approached by long flights of stairs on the east and west. The body of the queen had been placed in a golden urn around which the scented wood used for the cremation was already piled.
On one side of the square enclosing the mausoleum was the King’s pavilion, on another that of the Kralahome. Outside the square tens of thousands of the common people milled about. Anna was surprised to see that there was none of the solemnity that Western minds associated with occasions of this sort. Instead, there was an air of festivity. All over the concourse theatrical performances were in progress, free to the people. There were pugilistic combats and tight-rope exhibitions. In the evening there would be grand displays of fireworks.
Within the enclosure people came and went. Chapters of priests from all over the kingdom chanted in course, one group succeeding another. Many grotesque figures of great size had been set up near the approaches to the mausoleum, apparently guardian giants from the Hindu mythology. There was a rock garden, with fountains and a pool. Anna was amused to see some of the priests bathing there, indifferent to passers-by.
For several days she went back and forth with the Kralahome’s household. On the three afternoons before the day of the cremation the King sat in state surrounded by his nobles. Toward evening he amused himself and them by tossing among them handfuls of limes in which small coins and gold rings had been embedded. He seemed to enjoy the undignified way they scrambled after these prizes on their hands and knees. The third day there were tickets in some of the limes, which entitled the finders to handsome boats that the King was giving away.
Anna met many of the foreign residents at the Kralahome’s pavilion. There was a great deal of suppressed excitement and speculation among them about the all-too-apparent absence of the Second King. Some even whispered that his flag still flew at its masthead, and that he was incensed at the pretentiousness of the cremation on the ground that the queen consort had not been of high enough rank to deserve it, especially since it was even more splendid and costly than the cremation of the two kings’ brother the year before.
“Oh, well,” one of the gossipers said to another, “the King does as he pleases, and why not? Everyone knows how fond he was of the queen.”
“It’s probably just another move to settle the succession on her son. I don’t believe this woman ever was raised to the full rank of queen, was she? The real queen died ten years ago, if my memory serves. But a full royal cremation like this would establish her position in the public mind. Therefore, the position of her son, too. And scotch any remaining hopes the Second King may have of succeeding his brother.”
“It could be,” the first speaker agreed.
“Oh, I don’t know,” a third put in. “It sounds to me more like the old jealousy between the two brothers. Besides, the Second King is powerless. What fun does he get out of life except annoying his brother with a little occasional disrespect?” They drifted away.
It was the first Anna had heard of the feeling between the two kings, although the strange institution of the dual kingship was familiar to her from Sir John Bowring’s account. It had been customary in Siam for hundreds of years to have two kings simultaneously. Only the first had actual power. Often they were father and son, and the son usually succeeded his father. Now they were brothers. The Second King’s palace could be seen at the northern end of the concourse on which the cremation was taking place. It was almost as large, although not so magnificent, as the First King’s, which was at the southern end.
Anna did not attend the igniting of the pyre. It came on the afternoon of Good Friday and she decided against it.
When the cremation was over and she still received no call to start the school in the Palace, she determined to begin her study of the Siamese language. Mr. Hunter supplied her with a teacher, a withered old man who had once been a priest. Sometimes Mr. Hunter himself stopped by to help her with difficulties that were beyond the ability of the teacher, who spoke no English.
She found that she liked the study. As she gradually mastered the curious letters, and then some of the words, she saw that her knowledge of Sanskrit was going to be useful. She could recognize occasional Siamese words from their resemblance to Sanskrit words. Bida, for instance, was father, and krot was anger.
When she returned the Mattoons’ call one afternoon they gave her an elementary book called Tables & Lessons in the Siamese Language, and a Gospel of Matthew. Mr. Mattoon had revised and printed the Gospel several years before. And Mrs. Mattoon, whose personal copy the book was, had written into the margins and spaces between the lines translations of the more difficult words. Armed with this, Anna made rapid progress. By comparing it with her English Bible she was able to get the meaning of many Siamese words and phrases which her teacher could explain only vaguely. Again, the Mattoons sent her about fifty pages of a partially printed Siamese-English dictionary which another of the missionaries, Dr. Dan Beach Bradley, was compiling. It proved a great boon.
She began halting conversations with the women of the harem when they called on her. These were necessarily limited to words and the simplest of sentences—“Are you well?” “What do you call this?” and so on. They entered into the new game with enthusiasm. They told her the names of all the objects in her room and she pronounced the words after them. Her memory was good and she soon knew many common nouns, adjectives, and many action verbs. She began to be able to detect here and there a word when it was spoken rapidly in ordinary conversation. Once in a while she caught a whole sentence. The fascination which languages always held for her made the dull hot days interesting. Living as she did in the very midst of the Siamese people, she found that she was acquiring the language even faster than she had Hindustani and Malay, and that was a source of satisfaction.
Francis Cobb wrote from Singapore that Avis had sailed with Mr. and Mrs. Heritage and Susan on April 16:
I saw the travellers on board, and Avis was gay, talkative and merry as a lark—seemed in high enjoyment of the novelty and could not remain motionless one second. The ship Ranu did not dissipate my former character of her and I prophesy a slow but safe voyage. By October 16 you should expect to hear from her in England.
Captain Orton personally delivered the letter, a small package from Mrs. Heritage with a new picture of Avis that brought tears to Anna’s eyes, and a little note from Avis herself saying, “Mama good-by now good-by for Louis, your own child, Avis Leonowens.”
Her old house in Singapore was about to be reoccupied. Mr. Cobb’s partner was going to the United States and Mr. Cobb was to act as vice-consul for the United States beginning in May. Anna sighed. Everything moved forward except her work in the Palace.
Apparently the King had forgotten that he had hired her at all. Mr. Hunter told her that His Majesty was about to set off for Petchaburi, a city three days’ travel distant to the south on a river of the same name, which was a great favorite with the King. There on a low range of mountains the King had had a retreat constructed. Five hundred slaves had been working under the supervision of the Kralahome for many years. Now the palace was ready for dedication. A prominent part of the services to be performed would be the installation in a shrine of a sliver of bone said to be a genuine relic of the Buddha.
“How does the King know that it’s genuine?” Anna asked curiously.
“Well,” Mr. Hunter’s voice was deprecating, “it is said that when lime juice is dropped on it, it is agitated a little. And if it is placed under the eyelid and carried there it does not irritate the eye. That is, er—hem, supposed to be the final test.”
So May began and the King and his entourage went grandly by on the river. Louis and Anna still took their morning and evening walks. On them they caught glimpses of the lives of the simple people of Bangkok, meals being cooked over charcoal braziers, crowds of youngsters laughing and splashing about in the river like brown porpoises. Once they ventured to buy cakes of banana dipped in batter and toasted over open coals. Anna was delighted to realize that she knew enough of the language to count out the proper amount for these when the woman asked it.
There was a never-ending fascination about the river for both of them. It was as if the whole panorama of the life of Bangkok passed them there as they stood watching hand in hand. In the morning the sun flickered on the silver ripples of the water and gilded the hundreds of little boats in which the market people moved up and down to the swing of a single oar. Tied to the riverside were rafts and hundreds of floating shops in which much of the population lived. These shops offered curious things for sale. Sometimes Anna and Louis bought trifles to be sent to Avis. If they were up early enough, they watched priests in saffron robes moving from door to door of the floating houses in tiny boats, receiving without thanks the alms with which the pious laid up merit. Swinging at anchor in midstream were junks from Amoy and Swatow, some green, some red, with enormous staring eyes. Swarms of coolies crawled over them like flies. Slaves, half naked or in rags, hurried by on errands for their masters, paddles flashing. Worshipers on their way to the temples balanced dainty trays of cakes that they bore as offerings. And over the whole sparkling scene fan-shaped temple bells scattered Aeolian melodies. It was like the Burma of Emily Chubbuck Judson’s poem:
On the pagoda spire
The bells are swinging,
Their little golden circlets in a flutter
With tales the wooing winds have dared to utter;
Till all are ringing,
As if a choir
Of golden-nested birds in heaven were singing;
And with a lulling sound
The music floats around
And drops like balm into the drowsy ear.
One tempting morning when the air was almost cool they ventured beyond the bounds of their usual cautious promenade, which had previously kept them close to the quayside of the Kralahome’s palace. They stopped to watch forty or fifty carpenters building boats under a long shed. Louis was entranced. “Let’s come every day, Mama,” he urged, as they strolled to a canal where a stone bridge was being built. The laborers were half-clothed convicts wearing heavy iron collars which were joined together by lengths of thick chain. They seemed to move only with the greatest effort, even with positive pain. It sickened Anna to watch them, and she would have turned away quickly, if Louis had not pulled on her hand. The men were bringing cut stones from a barge tied to the bank of the canal. Each man picked up a stone and then the line moved slowly up the bank sweating and panting to where masons fitted the stones into the structure of the bridge. Most of the prisoners had hard defiant faces. But there were several with sad and gentle eyes.
“Poor things!” Anna thought. “I wonder if Pharaoh’s slaves worked like this on the Pyramids.”
She and Louis watched them for some time. Then the leader of one of the columns, which had just disposed of its stones, approached Louis and held out his hand, grinning. Louis recoiled, but reaching into his pocket drew out the few coins he had and dropped them into the filthy palm extended to him.
What happened then was so unexpected that Anna had not a second to prepare for it. With a shout the whole gang was upon them, hands outstretched, chains clanking, bodies pressing, grabbing at them and screaming, “Give alms, give alms, give alms!” The men crowded around Anna and Louis on all sides, wrangling and yelling and snatching at them. Frightened almost out of her senses Anna could do no more than seize Louis and hold him against her breast where the wild rabble could not trample him. She tried to break through the press, again and again, and could not.
The men were in front of her and behind her. She had no money with her to satisfy their menacing, “Give alms, give alms, give alms!” The disgusting odor from their bodies sickened her. For a moment she lost footing and thought that she and Louis must both go down. A brown mist floated before her eyes and she was afraid she was going to faint. Then, suddenly, as if struck by lightning the men were lying flat on their faces around her. She swayed and caught her breath. Officers flew among the prostrate convicts swinging heavy thongs against the human flesh that a moment before had seemed menacing, and now seemed only pitiful.
This scene was as nauseating as the other. With another deep breath Anna stepped quickly over the bleeding slaves to the open ground. She set Louis carefully down. He was white and shaking, but unharmed. Anna snatched his hand and grasping her skirt she ran—ran until she had no breath left in her, with Louis skimming along beside her. Then without a backward glance they walked as fast as their panting lungs permitted to the palace gate, back into the courtyard and were safe in their rooms. These rooms that Anna had grown to hate nevertheless now seemed like a gracious sanctuary.
After Louis and she had taken off their clothes, stained by the sweaty hands of the prisoners, had bathed and dressed in fresh garments, they sat down quietly to breakfast. As was their custom, Anna opened her little prayer book and read the lesson for the day: “I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart.” She closed the book with a feeling that the verses had been written especially for her.
Beebe brought in breakfast. She had taken over the serving from the mischievous pages. But breakfast tasted earthy and the atmosphere was choking. Their hearts were sick with the morning’s experience and they could scarcely swallow.
“Let’s go away, Mama,” said Louis with a pleading look. “Let’s go back to Singapore, please!”
Anna sighed. She, too, had been thinking of their home in Singapore, but she was not ready to give up yet. So she summoned a false cheerfulness and answered, “You’ll like it here, Louis, when we have our own home. We’ll get the piano out and the pictures of Avis, and all our books, and it will be just as nice as Singapore.”
11
IN THE KING’S HAREM
The heat was still intense, although it would break any day now with the coming of the monsoon. At night Louis tossed on his bed calling, “Ayer sujok, Beebe. Ayer sujok.” (Cold water, Beebe. Cold water.) And Anna gasped for a cool breeze, turning back and forth beneath her mosquito netting. She had a fancy that the air of this Eastern prison house in which she lived was like the life within it—heavy, stifling, stupefying; and that the air of her own home, if she could only get it, would be fresher.
But what could she do? The King had returned from Petchaburi and had not sent for her. She could not go to him until he did. She would not return to Singapore and admit defeat. Her heart recoiled from marriage. Whenever she lay down to sleep her thoughts ran in an endless circle: she must do something, and there was nothing to do. She had been in Siam for two full months, and the inaction was eating her heart. If only it were not so hot—if only her work would begin, to absorb her thoughts—if only she had a home of her own where she could be busy—if only … Then somehow the night would be gone. Another leaden day would start.
Finally one morning Mr. Hunter came from the Kralahome to tell her to be prepared to commence her duties at the Palace at once.
“The Kralahome’s sister, Lady Piam, will take you this time,” he explained. “She’ll call for you tomorrow morning with her boat.”
The Kralahome’s sister was a broad, motherly woman who greeted Anna with, “Good morning, sir.”
“Good morning,” Anna replied. “It’s kind of you to come for me. Shall we start at once?”
The lady answered amiably, “Good morning, sir. Good morning, sir.”
Taking this to mean “yes,” Anna put on her cloak, bonnet, and gloves. Beebe settled Louis’s hat on his c
urls, for he had insisted on going, and picked up the books that had been carefully prepared and waiting for weeks. Lady Piam led the way to her boat, walking slowly. Behind her came the procession of slave girls who always accompanied her. One bore a golden teapot upon an embroidered cushion of satin. Another, a gold tray on which were set two tiny porcelain cups without handles but with covers. A third carried a betel-box, also of heavy gold, intricately wrought. Two brought up the rear with large fans. These were all emblems of the noble lady’s rank and were not to be left behind.
After the whole party was seated in the covered basket boat, Lady Piam caught sight of the books and took one up with interest. When, in turning over the pages, she came upon the alphabet, she gave Anna a look of pleased surprise and started to say the letters, pointing at each with her finger. Anna helped her, and for a while she seemed gratified and amused. But presently she closed the book abruptly and offered Anna her plump hand, saying, “Good morning, sir.”
Anna replied, “Good morning,” and after a moment’s thought added “sir.” As the boat proceeded in a leisurely fashion up the river her ladyship repeated the greeting every time her attention returned to Anna, which was not less than a dozen times.
They landed at a showy pavilion that projected into the river with a roof rising tier on tier. Parts of the elongated structure looked ancient and dilapidated. But some of the interlocking roofs were gay with new colored tiles. To the slender Englishwoman approaching the landing for the first time it seemed as if the rotting pillars groaned and protested against the architectural anachronism that piled so many young heads upon their time-worn shoulders. The fancy pleased and diverted her.
Through several covered passages they came to a barrier guarded by Amazons. These were strongly built women, a little taller than Anna, with the usual short hair of the country. They wore tight-fitting jackets of scarlet buttoned to the neck, with sashes tied diagonally across their breasts. Their lower garments were a sort of woven plaid that reminded Anna of kilts. The old lady was evidently well known to them, for they threw open the door quickly and then squatted with their hands folded before their faces until she and her party had passed. A hot walk of twenty minutes brought them to the inner wall, which shut off the Forbidden City, the Khang Nai (Inside), from the rest of the palace grounds. A curious oval door of polished brass in an ornate frame opened noiselessly to admit them to a courtyard.
Anna and the King of Siam Page 9