Love and Death in Bali

by Vicki Baum

  He got his refractory cow to the bottom by the time that the girls had reached the top. They stood there in a gaily colored row shouting down to him and laughing, but he could not catch the drift of their jokes. He looked after them till they vanished across the ricefields, and then went on, shaded by his large hat. The cool water refreshed his feet as he forded the river, and he was happy.

  After ascending the other bank he soon reached his sawahs. They were deep in good muddy water, and although Pak had got up in a bad temper for work he now rejoiced in it. He got the plough in position, attached the cow to it and put his own weight, too, behind it. With bent knees he pressed heavily down to make the plough dig deeply into the soft, moist earth. The soil made a dull sucking noise as it rose and fell from the ploughshare. Pak loved this sound. He loved this earth. The mud splashed up and sprinkled him and the cow with cool drops which soon dried to a gray crust. White herons flew over and alighted to fish on stilt-like legs for the slender eels which throve in the sawahs. Dragonflies flickered past. The earth sucked and threw up noisy mud bubbles and was eased.…

  So the hours passed. When the sun was at its highest and the first four of the eight hours of the day had gone by, Pak stopped ploughing. His thighs ached, so did his arms. Sweat ran into his mouth. He felt a great emptiness in his stomach. Yet it annoyed him to have to leave his work to go home to fill his empty stomach with food. He put a fresh sirih into his mouth to appease his pangs.

  Then suddenly he saw a small figure coming across the rice-fields with a small basket on her head. He screwed up his eyes. The white herons rose at her approach. Pak began to laugh—it was Rantun, his daughter, bringing him his dinner, though really she was still too small to undertake the tasks of a grown girl. She came along looking very solemn, dressed in a little sarong which flapped about her feet. She had little earrings in her ears and a long lock of hair fell straight down her forehead. It had not been cut yet, for Pak had never yet had enough money by him for the festival that he had to give when the pedanda cut this lock for the first time and blessed the child. Why, he had not even had his own teeth filed, though he was a married man and a full member of the village council. These festivals were put off from year to year in Pak’s family. Perhaps in time he would be able to save enough money to get it all done at one go—the filing of his teeth, Lambon’s ripeness, the cutting of the lock and the first birthday of the newly born child. Pak had a little money buried under his house, fifty-two ringits in all; it had been fifty-five before the last cock-fight. Puglug had made sharp remarks about men who gambled away their money instead of seeing to the burning of their mothers, and Pak had listened with a stolid face, knowing in his heart that Puglug was right. His mother had died five years ago and it was high time her remains were burnt. Pak was often secretly afraid that the unreleased soul of his mother would make itself felt in ways disastrous for the family. He had searched everywhere to find where Puglug hid her own money, her market earnings; but he had never found any of it and Puglug maintained that she had to spend it all to feed him well, as it was the duty of a wife to do.

  While Pak’s thoughts had been running on all the cares of which Rantun’s uncut hair reminded him, the child had come up. Now she knelt down at the edge of the sawah and opened her basket. Earnestly and a little timidly she handed him a pisang leaf of rice and another of roast beans. Pak rinsed his hands in the water which ran from the neighboring field down into the sawah and began to eat. The cow cheerlessly pulled the grass on the narrow balk. When he had eaten his fill he gave Rantun what was left and she modestly ate it up. Rantun was a quiet gentle child and Pak was very fond of her in spite of her not having turned out to be a son. He put his hand on her shoulder and they sat thus for a time, motionless, silent and perfectly happy.

  When he was rested and had enjoyed long enough the comfort of a full belly, Pak got up. “You are a good little woman and one day I’ll give you a fine new sarong,” he said, putting his hands round her. Rantun snuggled tenderly against them. Pak was grateful to his little daughter, but he had a great longing for a son. He could squat for hours picturing to himself all that he would do if he had a son. Daughters belonged to their mothers and later to the man who carried them off. A father had to have a son for companionship and to give him descendants. With his hand still on Rantun’s tender little body he reflected that he needed a second wife to bear him sons, since Puglug bore only girls. At last he let go of the child and helped her to cut a long thin wand to catch dragonflies, which, roasted, are a great delicacy. Then with a sigh he turned again to the plough and the wet earth.

  The sun was already declining when Pak heard a sound that made him stop and listen. The kulkul, first from Sanur, faint but insistent, and then from Taman Sari too, could be heard in deep rapid beats. Pak finished his furrow, but he paid little attention now to his ploughing. He was wholly absorbed in wondering why the kulkul was beating at that hour of the day. He could feel his liver swelling with curiosity. Hurry up all of you, come and help quickly, was the message beaten out by the village drums, as they reverberated over the sawahs. Work had ceased in every field. “What does that mean?” the men called to one another. “They’re calling us in,” others said. Pak was already unloosing the cow. “We have got to go,” Krkek shouted across to him. He was an elderly, intelligent man, much respected in the village, and the head of various committees to do with the supply of water to the fields and the harvesting of the rice-fields. Pak, like the rest, left his work and drove his cow as fast as he could along the dyke and across the river to the village. The ford was thronged with gray buffaloes, light-brown cows and mud-caked hurrying men, eager to know what was up. Half-way up the river bank they met another lot of men coming from the village. “Turn back,” they shouted. “We have to go to Sanur, we’re wanted, something has happened.” Most of them had brought the pointed bamboo poles, used as a rule for carrying loads, and some even had a kris in their girdles or a spear in their hands. “Is it a tiger?” Pak asked excitedly. Krkek laughed scornfully through his nose. “You can grow to be a very old man in the plains without ever seeing a tiger,” he said patronizingly. “There are still some in the hills. I helped to kill one up in Kintamani.” Pak made a sound of polite admiration with his lips. The cow pulled him back to the river; she wanted to be washed down after her labor as she always was. For a few minutes everything was turmoil, shouting and confusion. Then Krkek told some children to drive the cows and buffaloes to the pastures, and the men fell into single file and set off at a quick pace for Sanur.

  There the roads were crowded with people, all making for the shore. At every yard gate stood old women carrying astride on their hips the infants entrusted to their charge. The younger women hurried along with the men, laughing and chattering, followed by their daughters. The boys of the village were a long way in front, kicking up a cloud of dust. Pak learnt from the clamor all round him that a boat had been wrecked on the coast. He laughed in amazement— this was just what his old father had said. He was as wise as the pedanda himself.

  “The old man at home told me that already,” he shouted to the man nearest him. Another burst out laughing at some thought that suddenly crossed his mind and the laughter spread. They could not go on for laughing, they shut their eyes and slapped themselves on the knee. They had all been frightened and now it appeared that Baju, the god of the wind, had wanted to do them a favor and had cast up a ship on the coast for them. They all had visions of rich wreckage, cases of goods, rice and dried coconut. Pak, who was hurrying along faster and faster, secretly felt that he had a good deal to do with the wrecking of the ship. His father had foretold it and he himself had killed his finest white hen for the god. He saw cause and effect in close and most happy sequence and he bothered no more about his broken wall.

  The crowd parted for a moment to make way for the head man of the coast villages, the punggawa, Ida Bagus Gdé He was a handsome man, rotund and stout, with round eyes and a moustache. A servant held a Chinese pa
per umbrella above his head, although the road was completely shadowed by palm trees.

  Pak could hear the surf before he saw it. Big waves were crashing on the beach, for it was high tide. They ran the last part of the way and then they all abruptly stood still and gazed at the sight that met their eyes.

  The sea was breaking over a large ship, which appeared to be helpless. It had once had three masts, but two had gone overboard. The sails hung down in shreds. A few men could be seen on her, waving their arms and calling out; but the people of Sanur could not understand what they said. The waves broke in foam between the ship and the shore, and with each wave the ship was flung crashing upon the reef with so deafening a roar that some of the women put their fingers to their ears. Although the reef was only about a hundred paces from the shore it was impossible to wade out to it. Sarda the fisherman and two other men carried a jukung down the beach and launched it. They rowed out head-on to the waves, but they were flung back time after time and at last gave it up. As each wave retreated it left on the beach small packages of unfamiliar objects which had a strong and unpleasant smell. Some boys ran down and picked them up and ran back again screaming before the next wave thundered in. The women fell on the booty, laughing in their eagerness to know what it was. It was buffalo hides, wet through and softened by the water and stinking, and dried fish which the water had almost turned to a jelly. Pak picked up one of these dripping fish and wondered whether it could be dried again and still made use of.

  And now the Chinaman, Njo Tok Suey, pushed his way through the crowd. He had a house in Sanur and traded with the boats that put in there. People laughed as they made way for him. He wore a sarong, as they did in Bali, but also a jacket and cap, like a real Chinaman. His cap was crooked and showed his shaven head. The crowd shouted with laughter. They had heard that Njo Tok Suey had a head as smooth as an egg, but they had never seen anything like it before. The Chinaman paid no attention to their merriment but pushed his way, puffing and blowing, to the punggawa. The two men were at once surrounded, for of course everybody wanted to hear what they said. Pak was disappointed at not being able to understand. “What are they talking?” he asked the knowing Krkek. “Malay,” the other replied with the air of knowing every language in the world.

  After speaking for a short while with the punggawa, the Chinaman stepped back and made a low bow. The punggawa, addressing the crowd, called out in a loud voice, “Bring everything you find and lay it down before me here. It belongs to the men on the ship and nothing of it must be taken.”

  There was a low murmur from the crowd. If the gods of the wind and sea cast up wet buffalo hides on the shore it was clear they meant them as a present to the people of the coast. Pak surrendered his fish rather unwillingly. He laid it reluctantly down on the heap of dripping objects which rose at the punggawa’s feet. “It is only a heap of stink,” cried out Pak’s friend, Rib, who was a wag, and the murmurs of the crowd turned to laughter.

  But the laughter died away when the punggawa ordered them to rescue the men from the ship. The punggawa had great power over the people of Taman Sari and Sanur and it was not an easy matter to defy him. His eyes were fiery and he had a loud voice that no one could disregard. The front ranks of the circle surrounding him unobtrusively melted away, and a few of the older men muttered that they had no courage. It was not for poor sudras and rice cultivators to have courage; courage was the business of warriors and rajas of the Ksatria caste and self-sacrifice might be the duty of a Brahman, as Ida Bagus Gdé was. This at least was what Pak thought and the majority was of his way of thinking. Meanwhile the ship’s timbers could be heard groaning and rending every time it was thrown on the rocks. The crew had stopped crying out and their silence showed the danger they were in. The Chinaman, Njo Tok Suey, stood beside the punggawa, not behind him as good manners enjoined, waiting patiently with his hands buried in his wide sleeves.

  A small knot of men who had been standing together higher up the beach now came running up. They were the unmarried and younger men of the two villages and Pak saw his brother, Meru, among them. His youngest brother, Lantjar, was there too; he had got hold of a spear from somewhere and was waving his lanky arms. Suddenly all the men turned their heads, and a cry, started by the women, spread from mouth to mouth. “Raka,” they shouted, “here’s Rakal Raka, what are you going to do?”

  Pak elbowed aside the man next him and then saw with a momentary shock that it was the wealthy Wajan whose ribs he had dug with his elbows in order to make his way to the front.

  Raka had put himself at the head of the young men and was now knotting his kain into a loin-cloth. Raka was the handsomest man in all the five villages round and the best dancer in the whole lordship of Badung. He was the eldest son of the revered pedanda, Ida Bagus Rai, and all this combined to make him the hero of the villages. The girls’ eyes darkened when he passed and the men could not help smiling and wishing him well whenever they saw him. When he danced he looked like the young god Arjuna himself, splendidly dressed, proud and beautiful.

  At this moment indeed there was nothing of the glamour about him, except for the fine build and beauty of his body. He looked like any peasant with his kain knotted between his thighs as he darted into the sea behind a retreating wave which left only its froth on the sand. “Who will come bathing with me?” he called out laughing, and some did actually follow him up to the edge of the foaming breakers. Meru was one of them, Pak saw, and he had only just time to seize Lantjar and drag him back as the next wave was breaking on the beach.

  A universal shout went up when the young men vanished in the water, for the people of Sanur were afraid of the sea where there were sharks and sword-fish. Only a few fishermen were on intimate terms with it and its unreliable god Baruna too, who exacted many offerings from them. Pak stood perfectly motionless, his arm about Lantjar’s slender shoulders, which were quivering with excitement. Everyone was motionless as they gazed dumbly at the water. When the wave had spent itself they saw Raka and his companions already some way out wading towards the wreck. The ship’s sides were stove in by the next sea that struck it and a man climbed to the highest part of the ship that was still above water and waved what looked like an old faded flag.

  “What is that he’s waving?” Pak asked the omniscient Krkek, for it might well be a cloth endowed with magic powers.

  Krkek screwed up his eyes and considered the matter. “It is the sign the Dutch carry in front of them when they fight,” he said at last.

  “Mbe!” said Pak, impressed by the extent of his knowledge. Even he had heard of the white men who ruled the north of the island and even on the south of it had overthrown the lords of Karang Asem and Gianjar. Far-travelled men who passed through Taman Sari had surprising things to tell of these Dutchmen. Pak had never yet seen one and he knew that the sight of them would terrify him. It was said that the white men were as tall as giants and tremendously stout and strong. Their eyes were without color, but they could see quite well, although they moved about like blind men, as stiffly and clumsily as figures of stone. It was uncertain, too, whether they had souls and whether any part of the divine nature dwelt in them as it did in every living creature in Bali. They had come years ago from Java, the only foreign land Pak had ever heard of. They were clever and powerful beyond measure, probably because they had fair skins like many of the gods. Although this was all in the highest degree strange and alarming, it appeared that the Dutch did not do any harm. They respected the gods of the island and the ancient laws. They could cure sickness and were unwilling to have people killed. It was even said that they would not allow the rajas on the conquered territories to carry out death sentences. They were immeasurably rich and occasionally one of their ringits got as far as Taman Sari. On it was stamped the picture of a long-nosed, full-breasted but not unpleasant-looking goddess.

  Pak ran over in his mind all he knew about the white men, while Lantjar’s trembling body leant against him. He plucked up his courage, for it was possibl
e that some of them might come to land from the wrecked ship and that he would before long have to face the sight of them. In a few minutes he even forgot his anxiety for his brother Meru, who was struggling on through the water, although he had nothing to gain there.

  A great cry rose from the crowd when Raka and the handful of men with him reached the ship. The force of the waves had decreased, for the tide seemed to have passed its height. The sea had fallen already and revealed the vessel’s battered hull. Two jukungs put out; one was Sarda’s and the other belonged to another fisherman, Bengek, who owned the neglected sawah next to Pak’s.

  The people laughed when they saw what Raka was about now he had reached the ship. He and some of his companions each took one of the shipwrecked men on their backs and then waded through the surf and foam of the ebbing water to the shore. The laughter grew louder and louder as they came nearer and ended in general uproar and stampeding when they reached the shore. Pak’s extreme apprehension was relieved when he saw that the men who were carried ashore on the sandy beach were not white men after all. They were Mohammedans and Chinese and in wretched plight. The women uttered cries of pity, particularly over the youngest and handsomest of them, who was bleeding from a wound on the forehead and seemed to be unconscious. They came round him in a circle, but made way when a woman who was taller than the rest went up to the wounded man and crouching beside him took his wounded head on her knee.