Anna and the King of Siam

by Margaret Landon

  At this there was another pause. The auctioneer tried to stimulate the crowd to a higher price, but it was no use. People around Anna began to murmur that one hundred and twenty ticals—at that time the equivalent of seventy-two American dollars—was far too high a price for a child who would probably die on one’s hands. The sale was over. The crowds began to hurry home for their midday meal. Some of the great ladies gathered around Anna to ask her what she was going to do with the child, and she hardly knew how to answer, since she had no plan.

  Lady Piam came up to her and said, “Mem, you are paying too much for the little girl, but I have taken such a fancy to her that I’ll give you one hundred and thirty ticals for her, if you’ll let me have her.”

  “What will you do with her?” Anna inquired.

  “Why, I’d have her carefully brought up, and make her a dancing girl for the Palace.”

  “But you see,” Anna explained, “I bought her to keep her from that kind of life. And no money can buy her into it now.”

  This answer infuriated the usually cautious Lady Piam, and she flounced away without bothering to hide her anger. Anna turned to the auctioneer, who was also the child’s mother, and told her to wait until school was over. The baby, worn out with the heat and excitement, was fast asleep.

  After school Anna took the woman and child home across the river. She had her servants prepare food and while the woman ate Anna learned her story. She said that her name was Monthani, which meant “adornment,” and that she had been married to the English mate of a Chinese vessel, the Li-Hun. He had treated her cruelly and she had run away, taking with her his child, because, she said, she “wanted to spoil his heart for him,” for he loved the child very much.

  She called this English sailor only “Capitain.” By much inquiring and cajoling Anna learned that his name was George Davis. After some months Monthani had found herself so poor that she had decided to sell the child. She had carried Mae Khao (Miss Fair One) to the Inside because she knew that she would get the best possible price for her there. Anna listened to the story sympathetically, and then got up to find the money she had agreed to pay. Since she was earning only a hundred dollars a month, this gesture on her part was costly, but she did not regret it. She found that she had not enough money in the house, and asked Monthani to come with her to the British Consulate where she knew she could borrow the rest. It seemed a good idea, anyway, to have the proper paper of sale made out at the Consulate so that there could be no possible future question as to her ownership of Mae Khao.

  Monthani was not unwilling, but she refused to leave Mae Khao with Beebe. She said that she wanted to keep the little girl in her arms as long as she could, and she pleaded so earnestly, with tears starting in her eyes, that Anna yielded. Monthani with the baby climbed into the boat first, then Boy. The stones of the landing quay were very slimy, and as Anna started down them carefully her foot slipped. She stumbled, tried to recover her footing, and stumbled again head first into the river. She heard a scream and the water closed over her head. The tide was running out swiftly. She struggled against it vainly, but could not reach the surface. She had a sense of many thoughts chasing one another through her mind, and grew unconscious.

  When she opened her eyes again, she was in her own room, lying dressed but still wet on her own bed. A light was burning beside her on the table. Standing around her were all the servants, Boy, and the boatmen. But no Monthani or Mae Khao. The boatmen had dragged Anna out of the river, but in the meantime Monthani had disappeared. Anna sent the boatmen away with the promise of a reward. Beebe took care of her through the long hours of semi-delirium that followed. Anna was troubled about the disappearance of the little white child. But by the next day she was too sick with fever to think any more.

  When Beebe saw how very ill her mistress was she rushed to the Mattoons for help. They had her carried to their own home, and night after night took turns sitting up with her until the crisis was past.

  During the month that she was absent from the Palace, Lady Son Klin sent her notes almost every day. They were full of love and concern, but a little short on punctuation. The Siamese language used none and it was hard for all the royal pupils to understand why it was essential in English.

  My dear Mrs. Leonowens

  I know you sick falls a that boat. I am very sorry not happy. I think to you often very much. Why fall down now is sick. My dear friend am writing to school night time.

  SON KLIN

  Saturday evening

  My very dearest Friend

  I do not understand your note very many word if you please perhaps will you like me a little but please to come and express to me today did you my dear? If you do not come today my heart so unhappy then I think in my heart I am now like a person blind eye. You please and take me to go straight upon the Road don’t let me fall down in the darkness, with mine and dear Krita best love to dear Louis and yourself.

  I am dearest Friend yours affectionately

  SON KLIN

  You must drink my medicine very good for sick that believe me my dear. S.K.

  Thursday morning

  My very dearest Teacher

  You please to believe me truly I prayed to God tonight for you and dear Louis and I dream about you and you will to be well very soon my dear you don’t to be sorry and my very dear Teacher don’t forget me. And my dear truly I dream of medicine will you please to drink some or not as you please perhaps will you please to drink some you must drink one time. I am yours affectionately

  HARRIET BEECHER STOWE SON KLIN

  Tuesday morning

  My dearest Friend

  I hearing that you very ill. I am very much sorrow and truly and can’t happy for you and dear Louis perhaps will you like me and my mother a little more you please to drink medicine of mine and dear mother for three day, and perhaps you cannot drink medicine mine and dear mother truly. I and my mother very much sorry to you indeed and I am cannot love you a little more truly I can’t send my Mama and brother and my servant to go visit you again and you can’t like me and my very dear mother truly because you do not drink.

  I am your’s affectionately

  HARRIET BEECHER STOWE

  In some of the notes, besides urging medicine, she kept reassuring Anna that all would be well, that Anna was not to worry; that she, Lady Son Klin, was much in intercession and prayer. Furthermore, she had made a vow which would ensure Anna’s recovery.

  As soon as Anna was well enough she made inquiries about Monthani and Mae Khao, but she could learn nothing. She half expected to hear that the mother had taken the child once more to the Inside and offered her for sale. When she was able to resume her teaching, she learned not only that this had not happened, but also that it could not happen again.

  As Anna seated herself at her schoolroom table, she saw that the Siamese women were looking at her curiously. They regarded her as one resurrected from the dead. Many of them found occasion to tell her of their wonder at her survival. Lady Talap said: “You were bewitched when you bid for that strange white child. She wasn’t a child but a changeling. The devil often assumes the form of beautiful children, especially beautiful girls, in order to destroy human beings. That child was nothing more nor less than the devil, who wished to kill you because of all the good deeds you have been doing, and don’t you see that he would have succeeded except for those boatmen?”

  Anna did not see that Mae Khao was the devil incarnate, but she did see that it was a great advantage to have the women of the Palace go on thinking so. Nothing could have induced the guards at the gate to admit the little girl again, so, whatever dangers she was in from poverty, she was safe at least from slavery on the Inside.

  Lady Son Klin took all the credit for her friend’s recovery from imminent death. She put her arms around Anna and embraced her, saying, “I made you well! I made you well!”

  “And how did you do it?” Anna asked, touched by her friend’s affection.

  Lady Son Klin’s
plain dark face was illuminated as she leaned toward Anna. “I made a vow in my favorite temple to save seven thousand lives if yours were granted to my prayers.”

  Anna did not smile. Such childlike faith inspired no mirth, but she was curious. “How can anyone save seven thousand lives?” she asked.

  The Lady Son Klin was delighted to see that she had mystified her friend. “Oh, there is no trouble about that,” she answered with a gay wave of her hand. “Wait a little while and you will see!” She summoned one of her slaves and whispered to her.

  In an hour the slave was back with seven closely woven baskets. In each were masses of writhing small fish, a thousand to a basket. Immediately Lady Son Klin, Anna, and the slaves set off for the narrow open ditch that conducted water from the river into the harem. There with pomp and ceremony, music, singing, and beating of drums, the fish were dumped into the water, and so their seven thousand lives were saved.

  26

  ROYAL LOCUSTS

  The new house was on the eastern side of the Palace. It was one of a row of two-story brick apartments. From her upstairs window Anna could see the Suthaisawan Palace, a long pavilion surmounting the high white walls across the street, from which the King and court watched processions. Directly in front of the house was a broad plaza of several acres called the Sanam Chai, or Field of Victory.

  The long trip back and forth across the river had taken a great deal of time each day. Now she stepped out of her house in the morning, crossed the Sanam Chai and the road to one of the handsome gates that flanked the Suthaisawan Palace. Usually she entered by the northern one, called the Gate of the Guardian Angel. Either gave access to the court between the inner and outer walls, from which she passed directly into the formal garden fronting the Hall of Audience. Five minutes was time enough to allow from home to work.

  There was one disadvantage. Living only a few hundred feet from the Palace made her so accessible that the King called her more and more frequently in the evening. Since she liked to spend her evenings with Boy she resented the long hours after supper spent in correspondence. Often she was aroused at one or two in the morning by a troop of shouting slaves who drummed on her door and carried her away with them to the King’s presence.

  At first when these summonses had come in the middle of the night, Anna’s heart had pounded with the certainty that something disastrous had happened in the harem. But experience had shown her that there was no way of knowing what to expect. Once she had been awakened from heavy sleep by the King’s messengers and ordered to come to the Palace with all haste. She had dressed hurriedly, thinking that another of the royal children might have been stricken with cholera. She had kissed Louis, asleep on his bed, called Beebe to stay with him, and rushed off through the tropical night with the messengers in the lead.

  Sleepy Amazons had admitted them and they had threaded their way through the maze of buildings, fountains, and statues, grotesque in the dark, to the women’s hall of audience, which was brilliantly lighted. In the middle of it the King lay full length on his stomach, with his chin propped on his hands, and an enormous book in front of him. When Anna approached she saw that it was an English Bible open at Genesis. She sank to the floor, as she had been instructed to do when the King was in this, his favorite position for study.

  He had turned to her impatiently, “Mem, your Moses shall have been a fool!”

  “But, Your Majesty—”

  “I say,” interrupted the King with asperity, “your Moses shall have been a fool.” Tapping the Bible, he continued: “Here it stands written that God created the world in six days, and rested on the seventh. You know and I know and all scientists know it took many ages to create the world. Your Moses shall have been a fool to have written so! You may go!”

  When she would have answered him, he drove her forth with a haughty gesture, refusing to allow her to utter a word. Again and again she was so aroused in the middle of the night by noisy female slaves, and dragged in haste and consternation to the hall, only to discover that the King was not at his last gasp, but simply bothered to find in Webster’s Dictionary a word that existed nowhere except in his own fertile brain, or perhaps he was in excited chase of the classical term for some piece of scientific equipment he wanted to order from London.

  Before her arrival in Bangkok it had been his not uncommon practice to send for one of the missionaries when he needed help. The poor man was beguiled or abducted from his bed and conveyed three or four miles by boat to the Palace because the King wanted to know whether it would be more elegant to write “murky” instead of “obscure,” or “gloomily dark” rather than “not clearly apparent.” If the sleepy missionary ventured to state a preference for the ordinary over the extraordinary form of expression, he was dismissed with irony, arrogance, or even insult, and never any apology for the rude invasion of his privacy, or thanks for his assistance.

  Even Sir Robert Schomburgk had not been immune. One night a little after twelve the King, who was on the point of going to bed, had fallen to wondering how most accurately to render into English the troublesome word phi. Should it be ghost, spirit, soul, devil, evil angel, or what? After puzzling for more than an hour and getting himself possessed with the word as with the evil one it stood for, he ordered his second-best state barge manned and sent with speed downriver for the British Consul. The consul, thinking that some serious diplomatic crisis had arisen, dressed with unceremonious celerity. Perhaps the French had invaded the eastern provinces or blockaded the port of Bangkok to enforce their territorial demands! He hurried to the Palace, conjecturing all the way on the various possibilities of politics and diplomacy, revolution and invasion, which could have caused the King to send for him at so late an hour.

  He found the King en déshabillé, engaged with a Siamese-English vocabulary, and mentally divided between “deuce” and “devil.” His Majesty gravely laid the final choice before the consul, who thought of several appropriate uses for either word. Inwardly chafing at the “confounded coolness” of His Majesty, he dared do nothing but decide, with what grace he could muster, on “devil” and go back to bed.

  One of the distinct advantages of the location of her new home was that it made possible certain plans Anna had been considering. Now Louis could have his coveted pony. There was a cavalry barracks near at hand where she was able to make arrangements to have the pony stabled. The several miles of new road, which the King was opening formally with a great celebration in March, made riding in almost any season feasible. Louis named his new pet Pompey, after the little Welsh cob that his mother had had when she was a girl.

  Then Anna had wanted to supplement her formal classroom teaching with other contacts, which would fulfill the King’s urging that his children be taught European manners and customs. She had been thinking that this could best be done by bringing a few of the children at a time into a proper setting and teaching them both by word and example the principles of European etiquette. Their lives were so circumscribed that the introduction of any idea opposed to their own experience and Siamese training was extremely difficult.

  The maps and the globes had broken down their concepts of geography and astronomy. Even that battle had to be fought over with each new child who entered the class. Recently a very beautiful little girl named Wani Ratana Kanya, a newcomer, had rejected quite firmly the modern ideas set forth by her teacher. “I believe,” she had said, “that the moon is the beautiful daughter of a great king of Ayuthia, who lived many thousands of years ago, and the head wife of the sun, and not a great stupid ball of earth and rock rolling about in the sky to no purpose but for the sun to shine on!”

  The children’s love of pictures had helped to widen their horizon. They were able to gain some idea of the outside world from views of other countries and people, which Anna sedulously hunted and brought to class. Whenever she could find an unusual object, she brought it with her in the morning and allowed them to examine it—a lump of coal, which they could compare with charcoal su
ch as their slaves used for cooking meals; a strip of fleece from a sheep, with pictures of a carder and spinning wheel, and of a modern mill; and samples of yarn and woolen cloth. Hand weaving the children understood, since many of the slaves wove skillfully on looms set up in a section of the Inside.

  One day the steamer Chow Phya had brought the King a box of ice from Singapore. Anna had obtained some for an object lesson. The children examined the novelty with a great deal of interest, and as word of it spread women from the harem crowded into the temple to see it. They felt it and giggled to find it cold; then they watched it melt and turn into water. With the ice before them they found no difficulty in believing that water froze in the colder countries of the world until it was possible to walk on it. Anna showed them some pictures of boys and girls skating on the canals in Holland and they were excited and interested. But when she went on to say that rain in such countries froze as it fell and became a white substance that the people called snow, the whole school was indignant at what they considered an obvious effort to stretch truth out of all reason and impose a ridiculous fantasy on them.

  Lady Son Klin laid her hand gently on Anna’s arm and said in a low voice: “Please do not say that again. I believe you like my own heart in everything that you teach me, but this sounds like the tale of a little child who wishes to say something more wonderful than anything that was ever said before.”

  The lesson on snow proved a stumbling-block for several days. By some misfortune she could not find any pictures of snow. Her pupils’ imaginations had taken alarm, and they could not be brought to believe the simplest statements. Their resistance to what she was trying to teach them proved such a handicap that she told the King about her dilemma, and he came to her aid in person. He stood at the head of the schoolroom table one morning and explained to the royal children that it was possible that there was such a thing as snow, for English books of travel, which he had read, spoke frequently of a phenomenon called snow.