by Vicki Baum
By the time the Dutch officials and the lord of Badung with his retinue arrived at Taman Sari the whole village was already astir. Sixteen lancers preceded the carriage and the people fell back to the sides of the road and went on their knees to greet the great lords. The punggawa, complete with servant and umbrella, awaited them at the entrance to the village and himself conducted the distinguished visitors to the Temple of the Dead, before whose chief gateway the barong dance was to take place. Men, women and children squatted in hundreds in a circle, with the usual array of women vendors and hungry, expectant dogs in the background. A bamboo platform had been erected for the lord and his following and for the Dutch there were chairs which the Chinese Njo Tok Suey had provided.
“Our old friend the gamelan once more,” the Commissarius sighed before he had even sat down. The musicians of Taman Sari, wearing head-dresses adorned with gold, sat on the ground and played with all their might.
“If I have to listen to this for very long I shall fall into a trance myself. It acts like a narcotic. Don’t you feel it too?” he said. The Resident greeted his superior’s pleasantry with a smile. Lord Alit leant over towards them. “There has been much sickness in Taman Sari of late,”
he said in Javanese. “The village hopes to enlist the protection of the barong. Their barong in this village possesses peculiar power.”
“Very interesting——”Van Tilema replied. The punggawa had placed himself close to the Controller, Visser, and he whispered in his ear from time to time. The boy, Oka, who crouched at his master’s feet, smiled shyly as he offered him a coconut. The Commissarius smiled back and declined. There was a continual coming and going in and out of the temple gateway. Women bearing offerings passed through, old men kept a look-out behind the wall, young men with krisses at their backs came out and marched across, bending low, to the gamelan players, squatted down and silently chewed their sirih.
“By Jove—that’s a fine fellow!” Van Tilema exclaimed.
The Resident followed the direction of his eyes and Visser beckoned to the man as he approached. It was Raka coming through the crowd, which quickly made way for him, showing not only deference to his caste but their affectionate regard for him. The lord smiled to him. Raka bowed ceremoniously, clasping his hands, and made as though to crouch on his heels below the platform. The lord quickly beckoned to him to join him. “This is Ida Bagus Raka,” he said to the Commissarius. “The son of the pedanda of Taman Sari and the best dancer in all Badung.”
Van Tilema looked graciously at the young man, whose dress and bearing marked him out from all the rest. “Will Ida Bagus Raka dance for us?” he asked politely in Balinese. Raka said no, with an embarrassed smile. “Raka is a baris dancer, he has nothing to do with barong,” the raja said. “I see,” the Commissarius replied in confusion.
The gamelan in the balé now stopped playing, and the sound of another one could be heard approaching along a path which led through a grassy clearing to the Temple of the Dead. The musicians walked at the head of a small procession which moved slowly towards the temple, carrying large, white and red sickle-shaped flags. Two men held up long-handled gilded umbrellas over a strange mythical beast, which was escorted by a number of men. Some women with flat offering baskets on their heads followed at an interval.
“The barong——” Visser explained. “It goes to the temple to receive offerings before the dance. The other dancers, too, have to make offerings and say prayers in case of accidents when they get going with their krisses.”
The monstrous beast drew nearer and the afternoon sun flashed from its sides. It was a huge creature with a disproportionately small head carved in wood and painted red and black. Its jaws opened and shut and were furnished with grisly teeth. Arched above its head was something resembling the mountain of muscle on a buffalo’s shoulders, composed of gilded and pierced leather scales, set with small mirrors and richly ornamented. As the barong approached the temple gateway, reflections danced over the gray walls at every movement of these pieces of looking-glass A heavy long-haired, yellowish white pelt covered the barong’s body; and its hind-quarters and loftily curving tail were again all red and gold and lookingglass, and loaded with a great number of bells which tinkled at every step. Now although the barong advanced on the four bare and not too clean feet of two village youths, with human legs in closefitting red and white striped trousers, yet it was so thoroughly beastlike in appearance and motion that the Commissarius looked after the strange creature with a smile of astonishment as it vanished through the temple gateway, which seemed too narrow to admit its mighty bulk.
“Looks crazy, that beast,” he said approvingly.
“It is by way of being the tutelar deity of the village,” Visser explained in a low voice. “Bung full of magical power. Now they are bringing the mask of Rangda——”
“Yes?” the Commissarius said, rather out of his depth, as a fresh group went into the temple carrying in their midst a small chest swathed in white.
“Something like the principle of evil, Commissarius. A representation of the death-goddess Durga, who in other manifestations appears as the wife of Shiva,” Visser said.
“Oh, stop that,” Van Tilema said pleasantly. “Indian mythology is too complicated for me altogether. And now that damned gamelan is starting up again.”
Berginck laughed. He could well understand Van Tilema’s aversion. “A regular sleeping-draught,” he said. “We can doze off for an hour at least before the fun begins.”
But Van Tilema was alive to the claims of politeness.
“Wonderful surroundings,” he said to the lord. “The old trees—and that path through the clearing. Bali is wonderful.”
Alit looked at him with mild surprise. “It is very good of you to praise our island, although it has nothing out of the common to show——” he replied courteously.
“There is Teragia?” Raka said.
“Who?” the lord asked, laying his hand on his friend’s shoulder and then instantly withdrawing it again.
“I remember you once asked about my wife. There she is,” Raka said.
Alit looked, but without curiosity. Teragia was ascending the steps to the temple, carrying a silver vessel of holy water and followed by a few girls with smoothly combed and flower-adorned hair.
“Is this show ever going to start?” the Commissarius said to the Resident.
Visser whispered to the punggawa, who then dispatched a youth, and soon after the gamelan ceased playing, only to strike up again at once in a different rhythm and style.
“Now then,” the Resident remarked contentedly with half-closed eyes as he settled down to his cigar.
Next two men with long-handled umbrellas emerged from the temple gateway, and took up positions on either side of the steps near the stone demons who guarded them. Then the barong appeared. It stood waiting between the almost too ornate pillars of the double gateway glaring at the people below. Then it descended, now slowly, now with backward stampings, and traversed the dancing arena. Its bells jingled, its jaws opened and shut with a wooden snap and its red and white striped legs tramped forwards and backwards. It was the dance of a dangerous, malevolent and at the same time humorous beast, and it lasted a good long time.
Van Tilema sighed with relief when the barong finally retreated again within the temple. Now four dancers came out of the temple, wearing white, laughing masks, girls’ faces of a fixed sweetness beneath round, peaked, gold hats. They had fans in their hands and they glided and zig-zagged over the arena, crossing in front of and behind one another.
“What do these affected ladies represent?” Van Tilema whispered; he was attempting in vain to recover his usually unruffled good humor.
“Some say butterflies,” Visser whispered back, “and some say spirits who belong to the barong.”
“I see,” said the Commissarius.
The lord smiled to his guest. He found it astonishingly rude of these Dutch to talk together in their own language, and make con
temptuous remarks about the sacred and solemn dance they were invited to watch.
“I am sure the dances in Holland are much more beautiful and splendid than ours,” he said.
The Commissarius thought this remark delightful and began to laugh. He put his hand on the lord’s knee and replied, “Holland has not had much time up to now to devote to the art of dancing. Perhaps that is still to come.” Raka joined in his laughter; he found these white people comic and entertaining.
“I have been told that the Queen of the land of Holland is very beautiful. Does she not dance? And the princes and princesses of the court?” he asked, clasping his hands momentarily as he mentioned the foreigners’ Queen. Even Berginck now started laughing. “Good Heavens, no!” he said highly amused.
Van Tilema was the first to recover his composure. “The customs of our country are very different from those of the Sultan’s Courts in Java, Ida Bagus Raka,” he said graciously. His mood had suddenly taken a turn for the better. The beautiful young dancer fitted exactly with the picture of Bali he had in his mind whenever he recalled his days on the island as a young official. “They are after all only children,” he said in Dutch to the Resident.
After the white, laughing masks had glided to and fro for a long time, raising the dust in clouds with their strong broad boys’ feet, four others emerged from the temple gateway.
“Djaoks,” Van Tilema exclaimed, for his memory had suddenly begun to function again.
“Yes, Djaoks,” the lord said, delighted that his guest showed some appreciation of what was going forward. These masks had large, round, staring eyes and moustaches, and they had peacock feathers stuck in their curiously shaped hats. They wore clumsily made gloves, from which long nails projected of a substance resembling mother-of-pearl, and altogether they made an impression of strength and malevolence. Between them and the laughing masks there developed a drama of menace and pursuit and sham fight, all represented in the elaborately stylized movements of Balinese dancing. This part of the performance also took a long time, and Tilema now brought himself to take a drink from a coconut. Gradually he became used to the gamelan which through endless mazes always returned to the same scrap of tune. He was quite affected himself when the rhythm altered again, and an almost imperceptible movement ran through the spectators. The barong appeared in the temple doorway and, descending the steps, mingled with the masked dancers. Its two attendants with the umbrellas remained standing at the foot of the steps.
“Looks quite a dangerous beast,” the Commissarius whispered to the Resident.
Berginck nodded without taking his eyes off the barong. There was something savage, threatening and unbridled in the manner of its entry. Sometimes it stood completely motionless with its eyes fixed on one particular group among the spectators, until the children sitting in front wriggled in embarrassment and laughed uncomfortably. Then it suddenly plunged again, stamped in anger, shook itself till all its bells rang, reared up, snapped its gruesome jaws savagely, while the rather comic goatee depending from its chin jerked up and down. It stampeded the eight masked dancers and drew them hither and thither, raising the dust and giving every sign of animal strength and impetuous vitality. Van Tilema watched the beast’s antics with fascinated eyes; he had quite forgotten that beneath its pelt there were only two village youths. But after a while his attention wandered and he looked again at Raka, whom he found particularly pleasing. A black head-dress whose edges had a pattern in gold was wound about his glossy hair; he wore a kain of dark wine-red in which a silver thread gleamed here and there, and a loin-cloth of brown silk encircled his remarkably slender hips and reached to his chest. He was not adorned with hibiscus flowers as the lord and most of the other men were; instead he had a single orchid in the middle of his forehead, which by its shape and the way it crept out beneath his head-dress suggested an animal rather than a flower. This scorpion-like orchid was indefinably in keeping with Raka’s fine, arched nostrils and oblique eyes and long eye-lashes.
The sensuous outline of his lips made him seem to be always smiling in a half-mocking, half-mysterious way. Van Tilema watched him as he bent forward to take an unripe coconut from a servant’s hands and offered it to the lord. Alit took it smilingly, lifted up the green shell and drank. Then he gave it back to Raka.
“Has this young man any influence with the raja?” Berginck took his cigar from between his teeth. “No political influence as far as I know,” he said and replaced his cigar. Visser gave a gentle pull at Van Tilema’s sleeve to distract him from his absorbed contemplation of Raka. “There are the kris dancers,” he said. The Commissarius looked as he was directed, but saw nothing in particular. A knot of about a dozen men were squatting, rather drowsily it seemed, in the gateway of the temple. They all wore krisses and were stripped to the waist, but they did not differ in this from the rest of the spectators; the only difference was that their heads were bare. Most of them were young, although a few among them might have been twenty-four or so. They sat on their heels with one arm stretched out over their knees for balance and chewed as placidly as cows chewing the cud. Occasionally one whispered a word to another and was answered with a sleepy smile.
Time went on to the tinkle of the bells on the barong’s body and to the interminable music of the gamelan. Already the trees that surrounded the open space were casting long shadows and beneath the wairingin that grew beside the temple wall it was almost dark. The eight masks sat down on the ground when their dance was over and the barong retired within the temple gateway, shaking itself in a threatening manner. A brief pause followed, during which there was a charming interlude that Van Tilema watched with much enjoyment. A crowd of people had assembled at the edge of the arena; they were on their way home from their labors in the fields, but they had not ventured to interrupt the dance. Now way was made for them and they looked, as they moved across the scene like a pageant of peasant life.
Men with sheaves of rice on poles over their shoulders, men with pitches of hay, children driving buffaloes from the pastures and more children with droves of ducks. Lastly there came a troop of women, carrying bundles of large palmleaves; their little daughters came scampering behind them with baskets of fruit, giggling nervously, for the gamelan had begun playing again and the show was about to proceed. Just as a new personage was making his appearance from the far side of the arena, some stragglers from the flocks of ducks came along and rushed quacking in all directions, making the children in the front row laugh loudly. An old man got up and chased them away just as the next scene of the drama commenced.
A being of alarming aspect, dressed in red and wearing a demon’s mask, appeared on the scene and declaimed his set speech in a forced voice. Van Tilema smiled; he remembered those Balinese plays he had seen long ago and the natural tones of the voice he now heard brought it all back.
“This, I believe, is Rangda’s daughter and she is going to meditate in the graveyard,” Visser whispered as he encountered the Commissarius’s eyes. But Van Tilema did not wish to be coached. He took another glance in the deepening dusk at the knot of kris dancers. They sat as before, as though the whole affair was no business of theirs. Tilema had heard and read wonderful descriptions of these kris-dances, though he had never had the opportunity of seeing one during his time in the island. It will, no doubt, be rather a fantastic affair, he thought sceptically. Turning to Berginck he discovered that he had fallen asleep—without loss of dignity, however, for his head was kept in an upright position by his uniform collar in spite of his closed eyes. The gaze of the Commissarius lengthened its range, and he saw that the lord was absorbed in a conversation with Raka. Tilema gave his mind up to the effort of understanding what they were saying. His Balinese was patchy, but he could just make out that the topic was the great beauty and enviableness of some possession or other. Whether it was a woman or a cock he was unable to be sure. As soon as Raka became aware that the white man’s eyes were upon him he broke off, and taking a handful of maize-leaf cigarettes f
rom his girdle he offered them to Tilema in a shyly amiable way. The Commissarius took one and bravely put the mouth-piece of straw between his lips in spite of its overpowering taste of cloves. Tours of inspection in the colonies brought with them all kinds of strange and dubious delights, for East Indian hospitality was lavish. He was already dreading the evening meal.
Meanwhile the barong had taken the stage once more, and appeared to be engaging in a violent and threatening dispute with the Rangda’s daughter. The jaw-clapping was louder than ever, so were the roaring and stamping, and when it stood at bay with lowered head and raised neck, there was something really menacing about the beast that made the flesh creep. Once again Van Tilema let his gaze wander; he looked at the spectators and was surprised at the placid cheerfulness with which the fabulous beast and its conflict with the female demon were regarded. Among the vendors at the back he saw men sitting on their heels, chewing, eating and flirting. There was even a small ring of gamblers, throwing down their kepengs on a board and bending forward to see the result of their throws. The children in the first row of the circle surrounding the arena had their usual, sleepy, dreamy smile, but some teased one another or sucked sugarcane or smoked cigarettes. Behind them, their mothers held their babies to their breasts, and only a few of the smaller and more timid children hid their heads in the sarongs of mothers or elder sisters, and of these some had fallen asleep. Behind, again, a group of girls was leaning one against another—as though posing for a sculptor, the Commissarius thought—and as the air had grown cooler two of them were wrapped in one shawl, which now and then bellied out like a sail. Behind the girls the young fellows of the village were crowded together, laughing and nudging one another with the very obvious intention of getting closer to the girls without being observed.
When Van Tilema’s eyes had roved round the entire circle and came back to the arena he found that very little had happened there in the meanwhile; and so he sank into reflection. The gamelan was still playing, Rangda’s daughter shouting her strident curses and the barong surging and stamping around her. Van Tilema reflected on his mission, and how he could best bring it to a successful conclusion. He began to compose in his head his speech for the conference next morning, frowned when he was stumped and smiled to himself when a good Balinese idiom occurred to him. It was essential to bring these folk to their senses. He stole a glance again at the raja. He looked limp and without energy. Opium, thought the Commissarius. Opium and keeping a harem and the lack of occupation. Not much of an opponent, he thought, and felt more hopeful. Suddenly a slight commotion aroused him from his reflections. “What’s up?” he asked Visser. The raja was on his feet gazing at the barong, which was now being led to the temple by two men under the shelter of its sacred umbrellas.