Love and Death in Bali

by Vicki Baum

  Among the gamelan players sat Pak in a state of eager suspense. He had put on his best kain and wore a hibiscus flower behind his ear. He had, too, a new red saput about his hips, a present from Puglug. As he did not possess a kris, he had brought with him a short knife in its sheath, which he had stuck in his belt at the back. But all this was nothing to the splendor of his head-dress, for the gamelan guild had bought new ones from their common purse, purple and richly embroidered with gold flowers, which rivalled the gleam of the instruments, and made the players feel that they were quite as smart as the dancers in spite of their new and costly dresses.

  Pak squatted expectantly beside the large gong which it was his part to beat. His fingers were stiff and clumsy from his labors in the field; they were not adapted for the delicate bells and other metal instruments on which the melodies were played. Nor was his ear true enough to beat the large drum which led and gave the time to it all. But he loved music with a slumbering love, just as though its notes were a soft cushion he could fall asleep on. The gong was easy to manage, and he had learnt how to beat it when he was still a little boy who sat between his father’s knees.

  Once he got up and went to the dancers’ balé to see his little sister, on whose account he felt a throb of agitation, for among the older members of the gamelan there were persistent undercurrents of disapproval of a girl’s dancing in the same dance as the men: it was wrong and unseemly because it had never been done before. He pushed the hangings aside and tried to attract her attention over the shoulder of her teacher, but she did not smile; she merely returned his look with a solemn gaze as though she actually were the nymph she represented in her gorgeous dress. Even to Pak she seemed no longer to be the same girl who brought him his rice that morning and carried water in her torn sarong. He loved his sister with almost the same paternal love as he felt for his daughter Rantun.

  The arena for the dance was marked off by spears and flag-poles from which hung lamps of a foreign sort that Pak had never seen before. They were not made of wood and had no basin to hold the oil and wick; they were made of glass and cast almost too brilliant a light. He regretted that Krkek was not at hand to explain the phenomenon to him.

  Instead he now caught sight of his wife Puglug squatting in the front row of the spectators with her two daughters in front of her. They had a piece of sugar-cane which they sucked alternately in a sociable way. Puglug was very smart in a new yellow sarong with a pattern of large birds. Pak wondered where she had got the money for it. It annoyed him to see that her breasts were uncovered, which meant that bats and vampires could suck her milk. Apparently she had left Klepon, the newly born infant, at home in its little hammock crib, in which it had been laid on the Twelfth Day festival. Then Pak suddenly caught sight of Sarna and his heart gave such a jump that his breath failed him. Her hair was combed tightly back and adorned with flowers, as though she were a woman of noble birth, which was not all in keeping with her station, for after all she was only the daughter of a sudra, however wealthy he might be. She wore silver earrings instead of rolls of lontar leaves. She looked very beautiful and Pak could not take his eyes from her face. After a time his mind was made up; he got to his feet and squeezed his way through the throng. “I’ll only buy sirih,” he muttered to himself as his pretext, although his sirih pouch was well filled. He did not succeed in getting anywhere near Sarna, so he went outside the gate where the women vendors sat. “Are you not going to buy from me?” a woman called to him. Turning his head he recognized Dasni, the Sanur girl who had brought him his food to the beach. As she had called to him he squatted down in front of her mat and looked at her. She had a white head-dress wound through her hair and her dark honest face was covered with little pimples. “Do you want sirih?” she asked, with a sidelong glance which did not become her. “Two kepengs’ worth,” he said. She eagerly made up a quid for him and he took the money out of his kain and held it out to her. She looked full in his face and refused it. Pak stared blankly. Without thinking what he was doing he had asked her for sirih. That meant: “I want to sleep with you,” and she had understood it so. A girl who refused payment for sirih implied thereby that she gave her consent. The wag Rib, who was squatting near, laughed aloud. “Take care you don’t get lost on your way home,” he said pointedly. Pak beat a retreat. “Peace to you,” he said hurriedly, and vanished.

  This time he was successful in his attempt to get near Sarna. He waited until she saw him and then ventured a look which told all. And Sarna—he could not be deceiving him-self this time—answered his look by quickly raising her long eyelashes. Pak’s hands tingled; he longed to go straight to her and seize her from behind. He bit his lips. Someone gave him a nudge and said, “They are beginning.” Pak came out of his trance; he worked his way back through the crowd and bent again over his gong.

  But now his eyes were caught by a sight which worked more powerfully on him even than Sarna. The large reception balé, which rose above the walls of the second court, had been illuminated in the meanwhile with many lamps, and female servants were busy laying down finely woven mats for spectators who could find no room below. The light shone and danced on the tiled wall at the back, and there, let into the wall, Pak saw plates. There were many plates and they were beautiful. Pak strained his eyes and even got on to the wall of the courtyard to see them better. There were no flowers on these plates; they had only a pattern in blue streaks that seemed to him Chinese. On the plates which Pak had let into the earth of his sawah there were flowers. His plates were whiter and there were roses on them, whose fragrance you could smell if you looked at them long enough. Pak had dug up his treasure twice already to feast his eyes with the sight of it. He felt for one dizzy moment of overweening pride that he was richer than the raja himself. The possession of the plates had made another man of him. But for them, he would never have dared to look with meaning eyes at the daughter of the wealthy Wajan and to dream of her as he did.

  Next there was a surging and heaving as a gilded chair came along on the shoulders of six bearers above the heads of the crowd. On it sat an old man with white hair and beard. This was the Tjokorda of Pametjutan, the uncle of the lord Alit and co-regent. His numerous retinue followed him and assisted him, as the chair was put down, to rise totteringly to his feet. He sat down on a raised seat in the middle of the large balé and began talking to the other spectators there. Several men ran off excitedly to announce to the lord that his uncle had arrived.

  The wives had already left their balés and were assembling in front of the lord’s house, followed by their serving-women. They were splendidly dressed in trailing sarongs and silk breast-bands. Black lace shawls hung over one shoulder. They wore many jewels and their hair was smoothly drawn back from their foreheads and adorned with flowers. They looked like bright exotic birds as they rustled along, laughing, talking, jealously inspecting one another or clinging together softly in mutual admiration. They felt each other’s dresses appraisingly and their eyes shone, for it was an exciting break in the routine of life in the palace to show themselves to the eyes of other men.

  The burble of their eager voices ceased as the lord, accompanied by Raka, emerged. The women held their breath. Raka was already arrayed for the dance and a magnetic force seemed to radiate from him. He was clad in a white undergarment that enclosed his slender legs and from his shoulders fluttered bunches of bright-colored ribbons gleaming with gold. He wore a kain of stiff gold-painted material and at his waist was a kris with a sparkling hilt. He had a tall head-dress, triangular in shape, on which hundreds of silver discs on short stems quivered and gleamed. This lofty plaited helmet made him look very tall and erect and war-like.

  He paused for a moment in the portico as though he was aware of his own beauty and wished to give the women time to admire him.

  The lord lingered at his side for a moment with his little finger hooked in Raka’s; then he let go of him. He smiled on his wives, who formed up in a rank, and called out a greeting to them. They wer
e beautiful and his eye took in their beauty with satisfaction. “You smell like a flower-garden,” he said with a smile. This joke of their lord was greeted by a loud titter. Tumun, whom the others considered cheeky and forward, approached him with a roguish look. “One does not know which is the handsomer, Raka or our lord,” she said audibly to her serving-woman. Bernis turned on the pert creature with a contemptuous look; and then she looked at the lord until she had caught his eye and drooped her eyelids and smiled at him with an expression that betrayed a previous intimacy with him. He returned her look and her smile. Her hungry heart fluttered and she felt that now there was an understanding between them. Muna, the slave-girl, whispered over her shoulder. “The lord will not read his books tonight.” Bernis pressed her lips together and took her place in the procession down to the first court. Alit looked after his wives. “Of all the things,” he said, resuming the discourse about his ill-humor which had just been interrupted, “of all the things I had to promise the Dutch the one that will trouble me least to have renounced is the burning of my widows. I do not care for the thought of making myself at home in heaven with a bevy of wives. Their chatter and their jealousy would make residence there a trial.”

  Raka laughed loudly, but a moment later his expression changed. “The gamelan has begun playing,” he said hastily. The notes which ushered in the first passage of the music could be heard coming from the outer court; and when Alit looked up again, Raka was already through the gate. He saw him once more as he emerged into view in the outer court among the group of dancers in the arena which was marked off by two men holding up sacred umbrellas.

  The lord, now joined by his impatient dignitaries, stood a moment longer in the gateway leading down to the outer court. He smiled without knowing it as he surveyed the dim brilliance below, the throng arrayed in all its finery, the naked children with large shining eyes. He knew many of the people and loved them all.

  The gamelan played a freely moving tender melody alternating with the loud, quick and warlike notes given out by the beat of the drum. He loved these moments of expectancy before the dance began, when a prickling of suspense ran over his skin. Sometimes merely to hear the overture made him feel that he could shrink and become a child again. His eyes had feasted on the golden splendor and movement of the dance from his earliest years: before he could even speak he had sat on his mother’s lap and watched it, and something of the dreamy delight which had gripped him in those days lingered with him still. He looked forward with almost painful impatience to seeing Raka dance and he felt his heart, that often seemed asleep, beating fast. Ever since, as naked five-year-old children, they had learnt to know north from south and east from west, they had always been together. Although he was a year younger than his friend, he felt far, far older. He had seen Raka grow up, happy and impetuous and endowed with a tempestuous soul. No one could laugh as Raka could, nor be so unhappy, nor so wildly excited at a cock-fight, nor so still and silent when the sun went down. No one in all Bali could dance as he could.

  Raka, surrounded by the other dancers, advanced with his hands on Lambon’s shoulders. He felt her tremble and bent down to her. “You are afraid, aren’t you?” he asked. She did not reply, but only silently shook her head. “You have only not to forget to turn away when I come with the kris.”

  “I am not afraid of you,” Lambon answered, glancing up at him over her shoulder. It was her part to represent Supanaka, the sister of Rahwana, the demon-prince, who was sent by him to seduce Laksmana in the form of a beautiful nymph. He, however, cut off her nose and sent her back to the dark regions whence she came. They had rehearsed again and again that moment in the dance when Laksmana raised his kris above her head, for the dance had to go smoothly on and a false movement on Lambon’s part might cause her to be wounded by the blade.

  Raka walked round her to see if her dress sat rightly. He adjusted one of the many cambodia flowers in her crown of gilded leather pierced with a lace-work pattern. He went behind her and tied the zone of gold which enclosed her body down to the hips and drew it tighter. The gamelan played. Lambon’s face smelt bitter-sweet of flowers, kunjit powder, and the lamp-black which framed her forehead. As Raka wound the zone about her he felt her budding breasts. It made him smile. To think that this was little Lambon, flowering already. He looked in her face, astonished. It seemed only yesterday that he had taken her to her master and held her consolingly between his knees. His hands were warm from the touch of her body, as though she was a bird he had caught. He let go of her and pushed her from him. She stood in front of him with lowered eyes. The gamelan played on. Lambon stood swaying inwardly, as young pisang leaves often do when there is no breath of air.

  Raka turned away and sat down on the mat beside the other four dancers. Lambon took her master’s hand and crouched beside him. The first dancer stood up and with eyes fixed advanced in the solemn rhythm of the dance through the hangings and up to the two umbrellas which flanked the space marked off as a stage. The gamelan played on. The second dancer got up after a long interval; he was a better dancer than the first and the loudly talking crowd was hushed.

  Servants came and knelt before Raka, offering him young coconuts filled with cool, thin, sour-tasting milk. He refused them, although his throat was parched with excitement. This always happened to him before he danced. He did not know why. He got outside himself and knew himself no more. He felt his heart beat and his sinews stretch as taut as a rope tied to a heavy weight. Yet he felt light and without weight at all. The old teacher called this state “having other thoughts.” Raka felt himself enveloped in a blue veil which made people’s faces grow pale. Soon he saw nothing but this blue haze. He was alone within it as in a cloud. The gamelan played on and on. He heard nothing of the joke of the comic servant, or of the applause of the audience shouting with delirious delight, greeting every joke and allusion with peals of laughter, signalling their enjoyment from one to another, while the young lads took the opportunity of pressing against the wall of girls as though this would help them to hear better. The lord’s wives, sitting cross-legged on mats in a small balé, were as skittish as young animals released from confinement. Their laughter rose and fell like a breeze.

  Raka knew nothing of all this. He heard the gamelan call him and now he saw a point of light rise in the blue vacancy like a crystal ball. His eyes were fixed in a stare as he rose to his feet. “The way is prepared,” the narrator chanted in front. “My lord will soon appear. He walks in the forest and flowers grow beneath his feet. He threatens and tigers tremble for fear.” The gamelan was playing, the drum beat furiously. Raka stood between the two umbrellas which flanked the entrance to that other world, the world of fantasy in which he was transformed into a god. He felt himself stretch and grow, far beyond his real height. Then he stepped forward into the light of the lamps.

  The lord sat with his chin propped in one hand and his eyes never left Raka for one moment. “Our master devours the dance with his eyes,” Ida Katut whispered to his neighbor who nodded and made a grimace that said much. He was called Anak Agung Bima, the child of the great. He was one of the three relations of the lord who affected to be important persons in the puri. Bima had arrogated to himself an office of his own. He confiscated horses, women and cocks that took the lord’s fancy. He had procured the plates which adorned the reception balé and paid nothing for them. He received the presents which were brought to the puri and often kept some for himself. Semal he was often called, which means squirrel, because he was always hoarding and nibbling. But above all he considered it his office to guess Alit’s unspoken desires and to fulfil them, whether for better or worse. He was short and stout and he followed his master and cousin wherever he went, never letting him out of his sight and sticking so closely to him that Alit sometimes felt that he was caught in a spider’s web. Bima got on to his knees to see what interested the lord, for he had just made an involuntary movement.

  It was Lambon, who had just appeared on the scene. She looked sm
all and slender and her child’s face was profoundly serious. She advanced with knees and thighs tightly pressed together. Her hands fluttered like birds. Her slender neck quivered under her large crown. She glided towards Raka in faltering zigzags. It was an utterly artistic, almost inhuman dance in which feeling had been left behind and everything was precisely timed and measured movement of an extreme aesthetic perfection. Her small bare feet raised the dust from the ground and her hips swayed as cool as the stem of a water-lily. Now she was close to Raka and he moved with her. Her arms enclosed in tight and gleaming sleeves described tense arabesques in the air. “Look, she approaches the god,” the narrator chanted. “She winds herself about him, like a snake, and as a creeper embraces the upright trunk. Beware, Laksmana, beware of the nymph.” The gamelan played on. Raka and Lambon glided past one another, their faces drew near for a moment and then separated and again drew near. It was like the play of butterflies before their mating.