Love and Death in Bali

by Vicki Baum

  “Why do you not take her into your house? I know of no woman in Badung who would not gladly be carried off by you,” Alit urged. Again Raka hesitated before he replied.

  “She is married,” he said, looking Alit straight in the eyes. Alit blinked his inflamed eyelids. Silence fell between them. Alit’s dearest wish was to make Raka again the man he had been before. “Shall I take her from her husband and give her to you?” he asked. Raka jumped to his feet. “Don’t torture me, Alit, I implore you,” he cried. “And do not let us ever mention this again.” Alit looked narrowly at him as he went out and down the steps without having asked his lord’s permission to leave him. But Raka was cut to the heart at having to deceive his dearest friend and at there being no help for it.

  Lambon, as women do, teased her mind with “ifs” and “ands” when she and Raka were together. “If you had taken me into your house as your second wife before they took me into the puri,” she said, “then all would have been well. I should have loved to serve Teragia. I would have been her slave. I think she likes me.”

  Raka put his hand over her mouth. He could not bear to hear her say this.

  “If you had asked the prince to give me to you before his eyes had taken pleasure in me,” she said another time, and Raka burned with seven fevers.

  “It is too late and he has found pleasure in you. Do not go on saying things like that,” he said sternly.

  “Muna told me that the lord had given you his favorite horse— and I cannot possibly mean as much to him as his favorite horse,” Lambon persisted.

  “You talk as though you had never heard of a man’s honor,” Raka said.

  “What should I know of a man’s honor?” Lambon said innocently. “I know that the lord is good.” She took the crushed flowers from her hair and threw them into the rank growth that choked the ditch.

  “I remember one day,” Raka suddenly began, “when he and I were children going to bathe in the river together. We were too big by then to bathe with our mothers, and not grown up enough to join the men. And so we went together accompanied by a few slaves of my father’s. They were most of them young slaves, only a year or two older than ourselves. They rubbed us down with stones and played about with us in the water. We were all in great spirits that day, I remember; we splashed one another and wrestled and fought in the water, which only came up to our knees. But as we were playing about in this way it happened that the youngest slave accidentally got hold of Alit’s head and threw him down. He was a slave, you understand, and not merely a boy of no caste, and he had touched Alit’s head. He had no thought of insulting him; it just happened in fun. But Alit went as rigid as a rock. He did not speak a word on the way home. I felt that he would fly into splinters if he was touched—he was so brittle. He went to his father and demanded that the slave’s hands should be cut off because he had touched his head and thus insulted him.”

  “Were the slave’s hands cut off?” Lambon asked when Raka did not go on.

  “Yes, they were cut off. I happened to see the man only the other day in one of the courtyards. He looks like a leper, with stumps instead of hands.”

  Lambon shuddered. “Why do you tell me about it?” she asked in a low voice.

  “Don’t you understand? In Alit’s eyes one thing is supreme above all else—his pride, his honor. I believe I know Alit better than most people in the puri do. They think he is good and rather weak, and that he dreams his life away over his books, and that his wives mean nothing in his life. But I can tell you what it is that holds the first place in his inmost soul: pride. There he is as hard as that transparent jewel which can cut all others.”

  Lambon thought this over for a long while, for it was seldom that anyone spoke to her so seriously. “If that is so, you ought never to come here again, Raka,” she said at last. Raka took her in his arms and laughed. “No, I ought not,” he said. “And how long could you bear to be without me, my little flower?” he asked, laughing still. “Scarcely an hour,” Lambon whispered, and hid her face on his breast. She could hear his heart beating. It sounded like the summons of a muffled kulkul.

  It was not true, as many in the puri whispered, that the prince, who had lived so long among his books, now loved a woman—Lambon, the dancer. He did not love Lambon. It is possible he loved Raka—if love is the right word for a feeling made up in equal parts of sweetness and bitterness, in which pain and delight alternated—with a preponderance of pain owing to Alit’s peculiar circumstances. For Alit was ugly and Raka was beautiful. The lids of Alit’s eyes were inflamed and Raka’s eyes were like the sun. Alit waited for Raka and Raka let him wait.

  But as for Lambon, she was the first of his wives in whose society Alit had taken pleasure, the first to be frequently commanded to appear in his presence. He liked to have her with him in his room, silent and pliant as a flowering spray. She seldom spoke and Alit could follow his thoughts undisturbed, while his hand stroked her hair and her skin. She was beautiful and the prince loved beauty above everything. Beauty made him weak and soft. Lambon seemed in his eyes like the women in the old books and poems. When he read them, her picture accompanied him in his dreams of old times and battles long ago. For the lord of Badung was a dreamer, whom birth and fate had set in the place of a man of action.

  He hung Lambon with jewels and gave her names from the poems in which he found her likeness. He loved to dress and undress her slender body with his own hands. For this reason he gave her many dresses, and the slave-girls could not weave and dye quickly enough, running gold and silver thread through the weave and painting the cloth with great gold flowers. Alit clothed and unclothed his youngest wife, wishing to see her always in new colors; he played with her hair and let it flow over his arms, and he talked long and earnestly with her about the choice of a color, or the kind of flower she should wear to adorn her head. Also Lambon had to dance for him sometimes, for him alone, crowned with a golden crown. She loved that. She had not forgotten one of the steps she had learnt with her old master at Kesiman, not a single quiver of the hands, not a glance of the eyes nor a movement of the head.

  Oka taught Lambon how to knead and roast opium and make ready the prince’s pipe. She sat at her husband’s feet when the pedanda, Ida Bagus Rai, came and the two men engaged in endless discussions about matters she did not understand. When Alit discovered that she took a childish pleasure in shadow-plays, he often had the linen screen put up and the oddly shaped lamp lighted behind it and then Ida Katut, the story-teller, moved the figures about with dexterous hands and spoke in thirty different voices and made jokes that threw the whole puri into fits of laughter. Alit looked at Lambon—yes, she, too, laughed. It was a rare sight to see Lambon laugh, and therefore he was glad of any opportunity of summoning laughter to her face. As a rule she sat with neck erect and supple limbs and lips just parted, as though a state of wonder never left her.

  The prince was beset with cares, for the Dutch blockade did great harm to the country. Coastal trade was crippled and it was only owing to the friendship of the lord of Tabanan that it was possible to keep a chink open on the landward side. But the menace of the ships and cannon in Badung waters was a constant oppression and the raja’s pride was galled. He was shut off altogether from Gianjar, and the Dutch had established what amounted to headquarters at Ketewel. The gusti Nyoman from Buleleng was there—the friend of the Dutch, a traitor and a spy.

  At that time many preparations were in progress for a journey the raja was to make to the great shrine of Batukau. People and lords with their retinues from many provinces of the island proceeded to the great forest of Batukau to make offerings and pray at the sacred spring. It was not altogether a secret that piety was not the sole motive of the pilgrimage. The lord of Badung wished to have an occasion for meeting his friends the lords of Tabanan and Kloengkoeng, for a final decision had to be made whether to meet the demands of the Dutch or whether the three territories, the last in all Bali to keep their independence, were to continue to offer a reso
lute resistance. The gusti Wana made it his care that his lord should appear with befitting splendor and the anak Agung Bima put on airs of great importance. Molog, the soldier, grumbled at having to part with many of his lancers whom he would rather have been drilling every day and every hour. Rifles and guns were still being smuggled into the country and Molog informed the lord that his army was a match for the Dutch. It was another matter, however, to acquaint his warriors with the use of firearms. He had appointed a few Arabs as instructors, and they handled the long-barrelled breech loaders with disconcerting ease. His own soldiers fired them with the utmost enthusiasm. The noise of the reports delighted them beyond measure. They would have liked nothing better than to shoot all the powder away in blank cartridges as they might Chinese rockets at a festival. But it was not an easy matter to introduce order and discipline into the army, for all the soldiers had sawahs, which they were always running off to attend to, saying that this was of more importance than preparing for a war.

  The lord gave orders that all his wives were to accompany him to Batukau; they were beautiful and he wished to impress the other lords. Also he wanted Lambon with him to prepare his opium pipe before the anxious discussion that awaited him. Heavy buffalo waggons stood ready in the puri and also small two-wheeled carts, drawn by horses. Curtains were fixed to conceal the raja’s wives from the gaze of passers-by. The lancers were given new tunics, black and white with red sleeves, of which they were very vain and proud. Anak Agung Bima went about in the villages collecting horses. “Our lord and master does you the honor to make use of your horse for the journey to Batukau,” he said as he took the animals from the stable. Their hoofs were polished and shod, and baskets of the wives’ clothing and the paraphernalia for offerings were loaded on the buffalo waggons. Umbrellas and chairs were also taken for the solemn ceremonies in the temple at Batukau, also the raja’s gameIan with all its richly carved instruments. Ida Katut was almost delirious with joy and excitement. And the best dancers and players of Badung assembled for rehearsals, and worked themselves to death for fear of being outdone by the dancers from other districts when they got to Batukau.

  “Will you come with me, my brother?” the prince asked Raka. He did not command him to come; he merely asked and awaited his reply. And Raka said, yes he would gladly come and he looked forward to dancing in Batukau. The truth was that Raka could not bear being parted for days from Lambon and hoped to be able to exchange a word with her somewhere on the way and press her hand unobserved. Also he loved, as the lord did too, to see Lambon dressed in her loveliest robes as she walked to the temple with her basket of offerings and put all the other wives in the shade. And so at last, on the fifth day of the third month, the long train set forth and the grass of the wide road that led first to Tabanan was left trodden bare by hundreds of naked feet.

  They reached Tabanan on the first day and were very hospitably received. There was a cock-fight—for of course the cocks had not been left behind—and the cock that Raka gave him won Alit a hundred and twenty ringits and much glory. At night there was dancing, by the dancers of Badung as well as of Tabanan, and Raka outshone them all. The wives of the lord of Tabanan took the wives of the lord of Badung into their dwellings, and they exchanged kains and told stories and their balés echoed with talk and laughter. As for the slave-girls, they got beyond all bounds and some of the lancers had to be beaten because they were so drunk that all discipline went by the board.

  Next day the journey was resumed; it grew rather cooler and they came to regions many of them had never seen before. In the villages all the people stood open-mouthed by the road-sides, bending down with clasped hands, and the children ran alongside shouting until they were tired out. Lambon sat in the curtained waggon and when she was not asleep she looked through a slit in the curtains. She hoped to catch sight of Raka and see him give her a secret signal, but all she saw was the backs of the buffaloes and the lancers at the sides of the road. Yet she was content to know that Raka was there. She would watch him dance at Batukau and he would smile at her in secret as she sat in her new purple kain among the rest of the wives.

  Raka rode on his light bay horse at Alit’s side in the forefront of the train, just behind the first company of lancers. The waggons and baggage carts moved more slowly than the mounted men and the distance between them increased as the day went on. Raka’s father, too, rode in the lord’s immediate following, sitting his white horse erectly and looking very handsome in his close-fitting black jacket, and he, too, wore a kris as all the other men did.

  When they reached the hill villages, where the houses were not thatched with grass but with pointed shingles, the prince said to Raka, “Let us leave the main road and ride by Mengesta. I want to be alone. I have much to think over, and it is not very pleasant to swallow the dust of my entire court.”

  Raka shrank in dismay, for it was becoming more and more painful to be alone with the friend whom he betrayed and deceived, but he could not refuse. Alit told the anak Agung Bima of his intention and at the next turning they went off on their own, followed only by two servants on foot, each leading a spare horse.

  As soon as they had left the main road where the villagers sank to their knees with clasped hands as the lord rode past, everything became cool and silent. No one recognized them once they were on the side roads; and possibly the people of these hill villages did not even know that a lord and his train were journeying that way. Alit smiled and hummed to himself as they rode. He was reminded of his childhood when he and Raka used to set off on their adventures, alone and without even servants to accompany them.

  The life of Bali was unfolded before their eyes as they rode along. Rice-fields in rounded terraces opened out and then contracted again and descended step by step to the deep gorges where rivers foamed over the rocks. Palm groves crowned the ridges of the hills, which rose one above another up to the Great Mountain, whose summit was veiled in two long, sparse, white clouds. The huge dark domes of wairingin trees contrasted with the jewel-like green of the fields and the tawny temple gateways stood beneath them. Springs bubbled from the ground and the water was led in bamboo pipes to irrigate the sawahs. Bamboo thickets met in graceful arches over narrow brooks, making a cool and secret shade. Gray buffaloes were asleep in the ditches behind the villages. Naked children wearing large hats drove flocks of ducks along the dykes. Great bundles of hay moved along, for they hid the men who carried them. Old men with faces like dancers’ masks walked along with sticks to help them and sirih pouches at their girdles. Women came from field or market, carrying baskets or sheaves of rice or towers of coconuts or great pyramids of earthenware vessels on their heads. The habit of carrying loads on their heads gave them an erect carriage and a rhythmic step, and their breasts and shoulders were at once soft and muscular. Their daughters followed them with smaller loads on their heads and the six-year-olds balanced only half a coconut shell above their small, serious foreheads, so as to learn the art in good time. Peasants squatted at the edges of the fields, resting from their labors, and in the brooks others stood washing themselves and their cows. And all these people were beautiful and their faces had an expression of softness and trustfulness and good-nature.

  The landscape grew more beautiful the higher they went; in the valleys the standing water in the rice-fields was like a thousand mirrors, and the silken slopes of alang-alang grass rippled like water when the wind passed over them. The lovely lines of hill and mountain were interrupted here and there by little islands that stood out from the uplands, each crowned with its temple beneath a wairingin tree. Countless birds sang and red-breasted mountain parrots flitted across the path. White falcons with brown wings hung large and motionless in the air and the darkness of the forest, curtained with lianas and resounding with the cooing of large wild pigeons, was exchanged again for villages where the people sat at their gates, gazing wide-eyed at the strangers riding by. The fruit trees and palms in the courtyards of the houses made tunnels of the village streets, an
d at the cross-roads stood stone statues of demons to protect the travellers on their way. And everywhere there was the sound of running water, that blessed sound of the island’s teeming fertility. From field to field it trickled and rippled and gurgled in its unceasing flow; it ran down from the mountains and poured into the deep valleys, making rice grow in plenty for all, until as a winding river it found its way to the sea. For thus the gods had ordained—the island was theirs and only given to men in loan, so that they should make the ground fruitful and the land rich enough to nourish all, with leisure to keep the festivals and rejoice in the gift of life.

  Alit was so engrossed as he rode along that his face had an almost drowsy expression, and Raka looked about him and was lighter of heart than he had been for many a day. The beauty of the country drove even Lambon from his mind for a few hours.

  “I have had another letter from the Dutch,” the raja said when at last he broke his long silence, and it sounded like the final link in a long chain of reflections. “They are now sending one of their greatest dignitaries to me. He comes from far away, from Batavia, which is a large town in Java. He is a man of high caste and great knowledge and, as I hear, they trust to his persuading me to pay the sum they demand of me.” Alit reined in his horse and rode at Raka’s side. He talked more to himself than to Raka and Raka had in any case no reply to make.

  “How much more they want now, they scarcely know themselves. The Chinese, who would have been content at first with two hundred ringits, now talks of seven thousand five hundred Dutch guilders.” Alit laughed in passing, for this was the sort of joke that appealed to his peculiar sense of humor. “Besides this I am to pay a great sum for every day the Dutch ships lie at anchor in my waters—thousands of ringits for the cost of the blockade. They understand figures, these white men. They say the Dutch are better merchants even than the Chinese. If I pay all this money, then—so they say—our differences can be forgotten and Badung be left its freedom as before.”