Anna and the King of Siam

by Margaret Landon

  She paused and looked about. Behind her stretched the dim unpeopled road. Before her in the wall was a door of polished brass. Above it towered a grotesque façade that threw over the deserted street a shadow like a black pall. The din and roar of palace life were not fifteen minutes away, and yet the solitude of the place was strangely hushed. Its soundlessness had an eerie quality. As Anna stood uncertainly, a wind rattled some dry grass on top of the wall with a low, mournful soughing. Gooseflesh prickled along her arms. “Here, now! None of that!” she scolded herself, and, ashamed of her feeling of panic, attacked her fear directly.

  She threw her weight against the ponderous door and pushed. With well-oiled ease it swung open—slowly, noiselessly. She stepped across a high sill into a paved courtyard. There was a garden on the right, a building on the left. The wall ran all around and enclosed both. The walks of the garden were bordered with small Chinese trees planted in straight rows. Grass covered half of them and moss the rest. The façade of the mansion was even more decayed and gloomy than the one on the wall. To the Englishwoman, still holding the door open, half afraid that she was trespassing in some forbidden place, it had a sinister appearance. The windows were closed, and those on the upper story had heavy shutters like a prison.

  A slight movement drew her eyes from the house to an animate figure she had not at first seen. In the middle of the garden near a small pond of water a woman was sitting on the ground. She was nursing a naked child about four years old. At that moment she discovered Anna also and raised her head with a convulsive movement. She clasped her bare arms around her child and stared at Anna with fixed, truculent eyes. She was large, strongly made, and swarthy. She looked more like a gargoyle carved from dark stone and set there to frighten intruders than a human being. Her features were gaunt, and long matted hair hung around her shoulders.

  Anna let the door go. It swung back with an ominous thud. She stood trembling a little, looking at the black, defiant woman. She had made up her mind to ask for help in finding the temple, and she had no intention of prying into the secrets of the deserted house, whether they were innocent or as gory as Bluebeard’s.

  The moment Anna approached the woman and child she forgot her fear in a choking surge of pity. The woman was naked to the waist, and chained by one leg to a post driven into the ground, without the least shelter under the burning sky. The chain was of cast iron and heavy, seven long double links, attached to a ring and fitted closely to the post by a rivet. Under her lay a tattered fragment of matting, and farther on were a block of wood for a pillow and several broken Chinese umbrellas.

  The woman made no sound, only kept her eyes warily on the white stranger. Anna sat down on the rim of the pool and looked at her helplessly. Once more she was confronted with the apathy and callousness of harem life. Even a dangerous criminal should not have been left unprotected beneath the lurid tropical sun. But here sat this slave, almost without clothes, her filthy hair in dense masses around her face. The mat, the pillow, the broken umbrellas, all testified to the fact that she had been there a long time. Unrelenting heat pulsed around her. Rain no doubt buffeted her. She had been degraded to a level where no vestige of decency could be expected of her, and yet there was something in her concern for the child that was very fine. What sort of person was responsible for this outrage, this sadistic brutality?

  Indignant questions churned to the surface of Anna’s mind. She could have wept from the tumult of anger that pounded in her breast. But she was silent for several minutes, unable to command her voice. At last she asked the woman her name.

  “Pai sia!” (Go away!) was the savage reply.

  Undisturbed, Anna tried again. “Why are you chained here? Won’t you tell me? You don’t need to be afraid of me.”

  “Pai! Pai! Pai!” screamed the woman, snatching her breast impatiently from the sucking child, and turning her back on Anna. The child set up a howling which echoed and re-echoed from the walls. The woman turned and took him in her arms, and he was quiet in an instant. He was a sturdy little fellow, begrimed with dirt but healthy. She rocked him to and fro with her face resting against his unwashed cheek. Anna looked at her more closely, and, as she observed the clean line of the bones under the rough skin, thought, “Why, she may have been very pretty once!”

  A little puff of wind shook the hot blanket of air. A coconut loosened by the nibbling of a squirrel dropped with a loud report in a far corner of the garden. Anna rose from the wall of the pond and sat down respectfully on the blistering pavement beside the woman and child. Very gently she asked the child’s age.

  The slave looked at her with mistrust, but did not hitch away. “He is four,” she replied curtly.

  Anna persisted. “And what is his name?”

  “His name is Thuk (Sorrow),” the slave answered reluctantly, turning away her face.

  “And why did you give him such a name?”

  Again the woman looked toward Anna. Something blazed in her eyes, but was gone before it could be interpreted. “What is it to you, woman?”

  After this she relapsed into grim silence, gazing intently at the empty air. They sat that way, the three of them, for several minutes, but Anna refused to accept the impasse as final. The slave was obviously entitled to misgivings about the motives of other human beings. Nevertheless, there was some key to the locked door of her heart. The Englishwoman revolved first one tentative approach and then another. Before she had reached a decision she heard a strangled sob torn from the woman’s throat. The hard face was shattered. Slowly the slave passed her bare arms across her eyes where a flood of tears had sprung. This acted as a signal for the little boy to scream lustily. The woman quieted him and then, to Anna’s great surprise, began to talk of her own accord.

  “Did you come here to the garden looking for me, gracious lady? Were you sent to find me by the Naikodah, my husband? Tell me, is he well? Have you come to buy me?” With a quick shift of her body she prostrated herself before Anna. “O gracious lady, merciful lady, buy me! Buy me! Help me to get my pardon!”

  Anna pushed back the brown curls from her hot cheeks and tried to discern the meaning of the woman’s incoherent jumble of words. Hesitantly she asked, “Why are you chained here? What sort of crime did you commit?”

  This seemed a terrible question to the woman. Her face became a mask of anguish. Her black lips moved, but no sound came from them. With a convulsive movement she threw her arms over her head and began to weep. Her body wove back and forth, wracked with passionate sobbing, while Anna looked on alarmed and helpless. After a while she became quiet, and turning her face to Anna, said bitterly, “Do you want to know my crime? It was loving my husband.”

  Anna was more puzzled than ever. “Why did you leave him, then, and become a slave?”

  “Gracious lady, I was born a slave. It was the will of Allah.”

  The use of the word “Allah” gave Anna a clue. “Are you a Mohammedan?”

  “My parents were Mohammedans, slaves of the father of my mistress, Chao Chom Manda Ung. When we were very young my brother and I were sent as slaves to her daughter, Princess Butri.”

  “If you can prove that your parents were Mohammedans, I think I may be able to help you. All the Mohammedans here are under British protection and no subject of Britain can be made a slave.”

  “But, gracious lady, my parents sold themselves to my mistress’ grandfather!”

  “That was their debt, which they have paid over and over again by their faithful service. You can insist that your mistress accept your purchase money.”

  “Insist!” The slave’s eyes blazed into fury. “Do you know who my mistress is? Do you know she is the Chao Chom Manda Ung? Do you realize that she is the daughter of Chao Phya Nikon Badinton, the Minister of the North, and the most powerful man in the kingdom next to the Kralahome? I insist?” she laughed contemptuously. “Do you know that she was the consort of King Phra Nang Klao? And that the Lord of Life himself is her son-in-law? And do you know that her
daughter, Princess Butri, was his favorite for a long time, and is still high in his graces? Insist? I, who was born a slave!” The fire that had lighted the woman’s eyes while she talked faded away. “No, my only chance of freedom is a pardon from my mistress herself, and that she will never give me.”

  “But what about your friends outside the Palace?” Anna suggested. “Maybe there’s something they could do. Have you sent them word of your captivity here?”

  “No. I was taken too suddenly. Perhaps they think I’m dead. I have no chance to talk to anyone here, not even to the slave who brings me my food. And her life is so hard already that she would never run the risk of carrying a message outside the Palace for me. My disappearance is still a mystery after four years. No one comes here but the Chao Chom Manda Ung, and she only visits the place once in a while with the most trusted of her slaves. Now that she is old the King lets her go in and out of the Palace as she likes. Every few weeks some of her slaves come to trim the trees in the garden or clean the house, but they have nothing to do with me except to ridicule me. If one of them showed any interest in me, the others would report it to their mistress.” There was despair in her voice. “There is no one to help me. I shall be chained here until I die. No one cares any more but my husband—if he is alive. And he doesn’t know where I am.”

  The eleven o’clock bell boomed through the solitude. Anna had forgotten about the festival she was to attend. The woman lay down beside the sleeping boy to rest, apparently worn out by the emotional effort of talking. She did not appeal a second time for help, accepting as a matter of course the impotence of the stranger against one so powerfully entrenched in privilege as her mistress. Anna placed her own small umbrella over the head of the slave in such a way as to shield her eyes and those of the boy. This simple act of kindness so touched the slave that she started up suddenly and, before Anna could prevent it, kissed the soiled and dusty shoes of the white woman. Anna’s eyes filled with tears.

  “Little sister,” she said with sudden determination, using the gentle Siamese term, “tell me your whole story from beginning to end and I’ll lay it before the King.”

  The woman sat up swiftly and adjusted the umbrella over her sleeping child. Her eyes kindled as she began: “My name, gracious lady, is L’Ore. My brother and I were born slaves. We were both so faithful that we became favorites with the Chao Chom Manda Ung. My brother was put in charge of one of her rice plantations at Ayuthia, and I was made the chief attendant of Princess Butri.

  “One day the Chao Chom entrusted me with a bag of money and sent me to purchase some Bombay silk from the Naikodah Ibrahim. It was the first time in many years that I had been outside the Palace. I felt as if I had been born into the world anew, and as if my past life had been nothing but a troubled dream. It seemed to me that the river splashed and rippled more enchantingly than it ever had done before. It was broader and more beautiful than I remembered. The leaves and buds on the trees had burst forth as if to greet me. How green the grass was! And how clearly and joyously the birds on the bushes and in the trees poured forth their song, purposely for me, while from the distant plain across the river floated the aromatic breath of new-blown flowers, filling me with inexpressible delight! I was silent with a feeling of supreme happiness! On that day a new light rose in the east, a light that was to brighten and to darken all my coming life.”

  She paused for a moment, half smiling. Anna was amazed at the way the slave expressed herself. She had the rare ability, much coveted by Palace women, of extemporizing in poetry. Her story had fallen into it naturally. The graceful words were strange coming from her wild face and matted tangle of hair. Anna remembered then that the princesses of Siam made it a special point to educate children born in their households. Such slaves were often among the most cultivated women in the kingdom. No doubt either the Chao Chom Manda Ung or the Princess Butri had trained L’Ore as a minstrel. Anna could see her as she must have been, seated on the floor with a lute, while her mistresses relaxed on low couches nearby. Other slaves would have knelt in front of the great ladies moving fans with languid persistence, while L’Ore chanted the plaintive story of some long-dead love.

  The slave spoke again. “We moored our boat by the bank of the river, and made our way to the shop of the Naikodah. My companions entered while I sat outside on the steps. They could not come to terms with the merchant, so I went in hoping that he would sell the cloth for the price they offered when he saw the money. But I was dazzled instead. I drew my tattered scarf tightly around myself and sat down. My friends continued to bargain while I wondered where I had seen him before, and why he had such an effect on me.

  “After a great deal of bargaining about the silk, we came away without it, but the next day we went again and bought it at the merchant’s price. I was surprised to see that he left five ticals in my hands when I paid him. ‘That is our kamrai (perquisite),’ the other women said snatching it. Time after time the Chao Chom sent us back to the same shop. The merchant was always respectful in his manner toward me. He invariably left five ticals for us, but I refused to share in this kind of profit.

  “The merchant began to watch me closely, and one day after we had bought some boxes of fragrant candles and wax tapers, and I had paid him the full price, he left twenty ticals on the floor beside me. My companions pointed to the money, but I wouldn’t touch it. When the merchant saw that I was unwilling to take it he picked up fifteen ticals and left five as usual.

  “We returned by the river as was our custom. Every moment of freedom was sweet to us and we paddled our canoe very slowly. I hated to go back to the Palace. I was even tempted to plunge into the water and escape, but the responsibility of the money made me hesitate. Still almost unconsciously I had begun to indulge the hope of obtaining my freedom. I didn’t know how or when.”

  She paused again. Anna was leaning forward listening. In a moment the musical voice took up the tale, but with a kind of wistful sadness. “Gracious lady, we all love Allah and we are loved of him. And yet he has made some masters and some slaves. Strange as it may seem to you, the more impossible my hope of freedom, the more I longed for it. Then one day a slave woman came to my mistress with some new goods from the Naikodah. When she saw me she asked for a drink of water. As I handed it to her, she said in a low tone, ‘You are a Moslem. Free yourself from bondage to this unbelieving race! Take the price of your redemption from my master! Come out of the Nai Wang (Inner Palace) and be restored to the true people of God!’

  “I listened in astonishment, afraid to break the spell of her words by questioning her. She left me suddenly, as if she were afraid of having said too much or of having aroused the suspicions of my mistress. I was in a more disturbed state of mind than I had ever been before. My thoughts flew hither and thither like birds during a storm, flapping their silent and despairing wings against the closed and barred gates of their prison. I found comfort only in trusting to the Great Heart above, and with the instinct of all sufferers I turned at once to him.

  “When I saw the woman a second time I asked her, ‘How shall I get my purchase money? Tell me quickly! Won’t your master hold me as his slave?’ She answered, ‘He will give you the money, and never repent having freed a Moslem and the daughter of a believer from slavery.’ I threw my arms around her, shaking with joy, but she freed herself quickly and, taking some money from her scarf, tied it into mine. Then she left me without another word. I was terrified for fear I would be caught with the money in my possession, so I came here that night and hid it under the pavement on which we are sitting.

  “Several weeks later we were sent again to the Naikodah to buy sandalwood tapers and flowers for the cremation of young Princess Adung. I had never been so conscious of the shabbiness of my clothes as I was that day. We made our purchases and paid the money. When I stood up to go my friend the slave woman, whose name was Damni, beckoned to me. Her master followed us into an inner chamber and said—I remember every word—‘L’Ore, you are so guileless
and so beautiful that you have aroused my pity. See! Here is the money you have just paid me, double the price of your freedom. Take it, and forget not your deliverer!’

  “‘May Allah prosper you!’ Damni said in awe. But I could say nothing. All I could do was burst into tears. The merchant smiled as if he understood, and went back into the shop, while Damni found a handkerchief and dried my eyes. From that time on I lived from day to day, waiting and hoping. Physical freedom seemed to be almost within my grasp, but there was a new kind of bondage in my heart. ‘I am more a slave than ever,’ I thought, ‘for who can ransom me from the sweet feverish servitude of love? I am the good merchant’s slave forever.’

  “I bided my time like a mother watching for the return of an only child. I knew that I could not persuade the Chao Chom to grant me my freedom unless she was in the mood for it, since she was proud and haughty and I was useful to her. So I waited long and anxiously, praying to God every day, calling him Buddha! Father! Goodness! Compassion! Praying passionately only for freedom.

  “One day the Chao Chom was so kind to me that I thought my opportunity had come at last. I threw myself at her feet, and said, ‘Gracious lady, be merciful to your child and hear her prayer. As the thirsty traveler beholds afar the everlasting springs of water, or as the dying man has foretastes of immortality, even so your slave L’Ore has tasted freedom through your goodness and would more fully drink of the cup. It is the only desire of her heart, the dream of her slave’s life. Here is the price of my freedom, gracious lady. Be merciful! Set me free!’

  “I didn’t dare to look at her face, but when she spoke I knew that she was angry. She reviled me for ingratitude in wanting to leave her. She reviewed all her kindnesses to me, all the care and teaching that had been lavished upon me, and accused me of selfishness. I begged and implored and wept. ‘You were born my slave,’ she said coldly, ‘and I will not take money for you. You are much more valuable to me than money.’