by Vicki Baum
“The people of the coast of Badung behaved like wreckers,” he said bitterly. His disaster took on even larger proportions as time passed and, in any case, lying was part and parcel of his tortuous Chinese mentality.
“All this is quite new,” the Resident said. “There was nothing of all this in your first claim.” Visser bent forward to hear better. The Chinese did not reply. The Resident produced the earlier document and began to compare it with the new one. He shook his head and finally produced his spectacles, although he was loath to admit his short sight, and began again. At last he put the whole bunch down on the table and looked the Chinaman up and down.
“So you had three thousand seven hundred rix-dollars on board and two thousand nine hundred kepengs besides. How was it that nothing of all this money was rescued?” he asked.
“Kepengs to the value of a hundred and seventy-five guilders were recovered from the sea,” the Chinese said. “I have only entered my actual losses.”
“I see. The actual . . .” the Resident said abstractedly. “I read in your first statement that the crew when they were rescued carried some cases ashore with them. What did they contain?”
“Sugar,” the Chinese said.
“Oh—the sugar was rescued and the money left on the wreck,” the Resident observed. Gusti Nyoman laughed loudly. It seemed to him a good joke.
“Salt water destroys sugar——” the Chinese said. “I cannot say exactly what happened—I had hit my head on the mast——”
“One moment,” Visser said, stepping up to the Chinaman. “Are you certain that the case with all that money was on board when you left the ship? Or is it not possible that it went overboard in the storm?” Kwe Tik Tjiang considered this. He weighed the pros and cons. If it was more to his advantage not to lie, he was quite ready to speak the truth.
“It is possible that the chest went overboard. But I know nothing. I saw nothing,” he said smoothly. Visser was satisfied and sat down again.
“Your claim has gone up a good deal from the five hundred ringits it started with,” the Resident remarked after a pause, during which he had been totting up the figures with the point of his pencil and trying to make a rough calculation. Kwe Tik Tjiang looked at the gusti, as though seeking his advice. The gusti went on smoking; the smell of cloves was wafted on to the verandah and he complacently surveyed his long finger-nails.
“Tuan Resident, your Excellency,” the Chinese said, “how could I presume to make a definite claim? I am a simple man and now a ruined man. My boat was good, it had a new cabin, it has been plundered and broken up and the copper stolen; now there are only a few planks left. I have specified my actual loss under oath. His Excellency will decide what compensation shall be paid me.”
The Resident sighed. The matter was even more troublesome and unpleasant than before. He almost regretted he had ever dug it up again. The gusti threw away the stump of his cigarette.
“The Chinaman says they told him at the court of Badung that they had a perfect right to do as they did and that thirty per cent of the wreckage went to the lord of Badung,” he said, without raising his voice. The Resident took off his spectacles and his eyes narrowed.
“Did the lord of Badung say that?” he asked quickly.
“One of his relatives, Tuan Resident, your Excellency,” Kwe Tik Tjiang said. There was a pause. Visser did not appear to be listening.
He had collected all the papers in his rather informal way and was studying them; a broad smile came and went over his perspiring face. “I have given you a hearing and will give your suit my closest attention,” the Resident said, rising to his feet to show that the hearing was concluded. The Chinese again glanced at the gusti to see what he ought to do next. Then with a low bow he withdrew. His long robe swept the dry ground of the garden as he returned to the waiting carriage.
“It would be best to make an investigation on the spot in Badung,” the gusti said. “The Chinese have slit tongues, it is true. But the people along the coast of Badung are brought up by their fathers to be robbers. That is true also.”
Visser broke into a laugh as he read. “He had a gold watch and chain too. And chain——” he repeated. “It must have been no common watch. A hundred and seventy-five guilders our friend wants for it.”
“A watch?” the Resident asked absent-mindedly. He was reflecting that the ship had sailed under the Dutch flag. Impossible to overlook that. “What were you saying, Visser?”
“The whole business stinks to heaven, Resident. This letter in Malay of the other Chinaman is a put-up job. You can see that a mile off. And the list of his losses is a pure invention, in my opinion.”
“What do you propose?” the Resident asked. The gusti stood by, thoroughly enjoying himself. How these white men perspired and how seriously they took everything. Visser tried to guess his superior’s wishes. He suppressed a sigh.
“If your Excellency thinks fit, I can of course go to Badung and see what really happened. The punggawa of Sanur is a supporter of ours. He will give me all necessary information. But, as I say, it is a fishy business, very fishy indeed. We would do better to steer clear of it.”
“The question turns on whether Badung has broken Clause II of the treaty by which it renounces the right of salvage,” replied the Resident. “I don’t see how we can steer clear of that, my dear Visser.”
The People of Taman Sari
WEEKS of hard work followed for Pak and his muscles grew hard and the sweat ran off him in streams. The rice was ripening in his west fields, the ears hung heavy on the stalks, whose green became first silver and then gold. Even his old father often came out in the late afternoon and sat on the narrow dyke and rejoiced in the sight. Life is sweet when the rice ripens and the heart is content. Pak made many clappers which he fastened to long poles and set up in his fields; they scared the birds and at the same time made enough din to excite his neighbors to fury. There was a festival in the rice temples of the subak on the day before the harvest, with many offerings, and the old women wound black kains about their thighs, with golden ones beneath hanging down in a train; they wore yellow shawls over one shoulder and had many flowers in their gray hair. They danced before each shrine with the offering-vessels held high in the left hand and the children sat nearby in great delight. Pak’s aunt danced, too, with a rapt expression, for though her breasts might be withered, she had been a temple dancer when she was a child, as Lambon was. Puglug went with her mat and took her place in the row of vendors at the temple gate and made more than two hundred kepengs. Pak took them from her, for the three ceremonies after the birth of little Klepon had cost a lot in rice and money and on the third day of the festival there was to be a cockfight to which he looked forward with the greatest excitement.
Pak’s father was a great connoisseur of cocks, and on the crossbeam of his balé there were three old lontars, where it was written in which corner of the cock-pit and against what sort of cock on any given day a bird had to fight in order to win. On the day before each cock-fight many people came to Pak’s place to ask the old man’s advice. He pretended to be reading out of his old books, although his eyes were dim and he had long ago forgotten how to read. But he knew the lontars by heart, for he had learnt them from his father when he was still a boy. The visitors brought presents with them of ducks’ eggs and coconuts and papayas, and Pak was proud of having so knowing a father. Altogether his family was distinguishing itself, although they were only poor people of no caste. The eye of the raja had looked with favor on Lambon, and when she danced the legong with two other children on the evening of the harvest festival, Pak could see that she delighted everybody, though no one said so. Meru, his young brother, moreover, was summoned to the palace to carve two new doors for the eleven-storeyed tower of its temple and he went out and bought himself a kris on the strength of it.
Pak dug beneath the floor of his house when Puglug was at the market and took out three ringits for the cock-fight. He gave only a little food to his red coc
k, so that he should be light and nimble, and putting him in a wicker hamper went off to the cock-pit. He hesitated a long time before deciding which cock to challenge and rejected a large black-and-white one, although his red bird was frantic to fight him. He went over in his mind all the advice his father had given him—to take the west corner and to pit his cock against a white bird without a single black feather. In spite of this he lost his cock and two of his ringits besides. The winner took his beautiful red cock away dead and Pak’s heart was heavy, though he gave no sign of it; he laughed and slapped the other man on the knee and made a number of jokes which he thought very good indeed.
He tried to make good his losses by staking his last ringit on the lusty black-and-white cock he had passed over as an opponent, and won. His courage rose and he made bet after bet and lost and soon there was not a kepeng left in his kain. He felt a strong inclination to stake his loin-cloth, Puglug’s present, but at the thought of her his courage failed him.
Early next day they began harvesting, Pak and his friends who belonged to the same harvest guild and his brothers and uncle. The women and children joined in, too, and there was much singing, although the work was hard. The sun blazed and the ears were prickly. Pak wore his large hat and a sleeved jacket woven out of fibre as a protection against the haulm. He saw to it that he worked all day long near Sarna and he asked her when she would go to the river to fetch water. Yes, Sarna was helping in his field, for her father belonged to the same guild and the members had to help one another. Sarna sang well but was not much good at reaping. But Pak was in love and the blood pulsed in his veins, and little he cared whether Sarna was quick or slow with her rice sheaves.
Puglug came out to the sawah, bringing food for all the people, and they ate a great deal from politeness, and said what a good cook Puglug was and that Pak was a lucky man. Pak, too, was polite, and poured scorn on his wife and her cooking, and his face shone with sweat and happiness. But Puglug was cross and spoke less than her custom was. At night when the two fields were harvested the men went back to Pak’s house and ate once more. The old man squatted among them and told old tales and generally forgot how they ended. The rich Wajan sent his son home for palm wine in bamboo stems and Krkek praised the harvest and Pak for the way he had tilled his land. There was a great deal of laughter and drinking and it was one of the happiest nights of Pak’s life.
They had forty-eight sheaves from the one field and fifty-three from the other, and this was seven more than Pak had hoped for. When he had given half to the lord and three-tenths to the guild, there remained forty-five for himself, and this was more than his family required for the next half-year, by which time the next fields would have ripened on the soil in which Pak had buried his treasure.
“Father of Rantun,” Puglug said, addressing him by the name of his favorite child, as she did when she wanted something, “Father of Rantun, the work is becoming too hard for me. My back pains me since the birth of the last child, and the aunt, the old besom, is no help to me. I have to go to the river three times a day for water because I cannot any longer carry the large pitcher. What are you going to do to lighten my labors?”
Pak muttered that his household was full of women; there were Lambon and the two daughters and his uncle’s wives. This brought a torrent of words from Puglug. “Lambon,” she said, “thinks no doubt that her hands are too good for work now that she dances the legong. She is off to Kesiman to her teacher and does not come home for the rest of the day, like a strayed dog. She runs after Raka, who spends half his time at Kesiman too, practising new dances. She is no good in the house and only one more idle mouth to feed. Rantun has enough to do looking after her little sisters and gathering dried coconut shells for the fire. Besides, she has the heat sickness every three days and her arms are tired out with carrying Klepon around. I don’t believe you know what goes on in your own house.”
All Pak’s peace of mind was shattered and he let his head sink. “Wife, that is not a seemly way to speak and if I did what was right I should beat you,” he said to preserve his dignity; but in his heart he was ashamed of himself. Ever since the harvest he had been meeting Sarna secretly, at night under the wairingin tree, where it was pitch-dark, or near the old temple on the outskirts of the village where the grass grew high between the balés. Merely to think of Sarna was worse than hunger and thirst and yet he could not stop thinking of her.
“Rantun, come here,” he called, and Rantun came running across the yard from the kitchen to her father. He took her by the shoulders and held her in front of him and looked at her. It was true that her little arms were thin and her eyes too bright. She was carrying Klepon on her hip—a thriving happy little girl, who had no idea of being an unwanted child. The brass rings round her wrists and ankles were almost lost to sight in rolls of fat. She was clearly too heavy for Rantun to carry about. Madé, finger in mouth, clung to Rantun’s sarong. Rantun had a broad leaf in her hand with offerings on it and a glowing coconut shell. It would soon be evening and she had to place the offerings at the gate and a light, so that the evil spirits would see to find them and not need to come into the yard.
“Are you quite happy, Rantun?” Pak asked as he stroked the little girl’s hot neck.
“Very, father,” Rantun said, and this stirred Pak’s heart as though with the touch of a hand. “Give Klepon to me, I will carry her, your mother has no time,” he said, and he took the plump little girl on his own hip. If she had been a son he would have proudly stationed himself outside the gate to excite the admiration of his neighbors. But as she was a daughter he preferred to keep her within. “Go and put the offerings outside,” he said with a playful slap on her thin little flanks. Rantun smiled at him, almost as though he needed comforting, because she had the heat sickness, and went off with her lighted coconut shell. Puglug stood near meanwhile, her arms folded on her breast, for which little Klepon stretched out her arms.
“What have you been thinking I ought to do to make your life less hard?” he asked Puglug. She was a good wife and had not made such a very great fuss when he lost the three ringits. The worst of Puglug was that you could keep nothing secret from her. She came home on market-days stuffed to the brim with news and other people’s secrets, which tumbled out of her like potatoes from an overfilled basket. She had found out all about the cock-fighting to the last detail, even though women were not allowed to be present.
“I have been thinking that it was time you took a second wife,” Puglug said, confident of being on the right tack. “I have the right to ask that you should give me a younger sister in the house to share the work and help me when I am not well. Also she could look after the house and cook the meals when I am at the market making some money.”
When he heard this Pak felt as he had that time when a large coconut fell on his head. He blinked his eyes. “You are not half as stupid as I thought,” he said amiably. “You are right. I will look about in the village and bring home a second wife as soon as I have found the right girl.” His head went hot and dizzy. It overwhelmed him that Puglug herself should direct him how to appease his hunger for Sarna. He took her hand in his and patted it.
“There is someone in Sanur who is the very one for you and who would be glad to have you. Everyone in the village knows that you have not much eye for the girls. But there would be very little difficulty in persuading this Sanur girl I am speaking of. She would suit very well in the family, for her sister’s mother married a cousin of your father’s. You won’t remember that, for she went a long way away, to Krobokan.” And Puglug took up the child from his hip as it was showing signs of beginning to cry.
“In Sanur?” Pak said in amazement. “Who is there in Sanur who thinks of marrying me?”
Puglug squatted down beside him with the child at her breast. She always did this when she had news to impart and Pak knew that a lengthy talk was to come.
“I mean Dasni, if you want to know, and I could not ask for a better sister in the house. She can carry
forty-five coconuts on her head, and if you think I am exaggerating ask anyone in Sanur. She can carry three sheaves of rice on a pole like a man and last harvest she threshed more rice than any other woman. As it happens I know that she has had her eye on you for a long time past, but of course you have never noticed that. But long ago she asked me to bring her two earthenware jars when I went to Badung market. When she came for them we had a long talk. And if you like to be spared the trouble I was going in any case to Sanur for Sweet Wednesday and I can talk it all over with her then.”
A second whacking great coconut seemed to have fallen on Pak’s head. “Dasni,” he said, almost speechless for disappointment. “And why should I want Dasni of all people as a second wife?”
“I am just beginning to tell you the reasons. Dasni can weave baskets and padang mats beautifully, and I could take them to market and sell them. And in her family there are always three sons born to every daughter, and the balian has read in his books and told her that she will soon have a husband, who is a better man than people think,” Puglug went on volubly. The child had fallen asleep on her breast, and she crouched in front of Pak and her ill-favored face looked up into his with entire devotion. Pak was confounded by her last words. A better man than people knew. He was certainly that. A man who had treasure buried in his rice-field, which he could dig up any day and turn to money. True enough, Pak was a better man than people knew. Nevertheless, the balian’s prophecy did not please him. “There are plenty of good men in the two villages,” he said. “And Dasni has pimples on her face.”
“That is a ridiculous objection,” Puglug said. “Rich Wajan has many sugem pigeons. You have only to go and ask him for some of the droppings, so that the balian can make the remedy, and in three days her skin will be clean.”
Pak started once more at the mention of Sarna’s father. He winced at anything that reminded him of Sarna and there was nothing that did not remind him of her apparently. He looked down on his wife in silence and thought it over. What am I to do with two ugly women in my house? he thought. I am not a pig—to be contented as long as I have all the food I want. My eyes want to be fed, too, and I want to be envied for a wife with beautiful breasts, and who is a delight to me. But he was sorry for Puglug and refrained from saying anything to wound her.