Love and Death in Bali

by Vicki Baum

  “Nothing—only the front legs fallen into a trance,” Visser said, laughing under his breath.

  “How do you mean—a trance?” Van Tilema asked in a puzzled voice.

  “I saw it coming,” Berginck put in, although he had only just woken up. “That boy has been trembling the whole time.” Raka turned to the white men with a smile.

  “It will go on again at once,” he said. “A friend of his is waiting to take his place.”

  The gamelan had not ceased playing, and Van Tilema was surprised at the calm way in which the little incident passed off.

  “What sort of trance is it?” he asked.

  “Nothing out of the way for a Balinese. A sort of catalepsy. There is a priest in the temple who will bring him round,” Visser said. The barong was already emerging again from the temple, rattling his scales more violently than ever. He circled the arena, which he now had to himself, two or three times in a threatening manner. But now from the side opposite the temple two men appeared carrying an umbrella beneath which a new demon of hideous aspect advanced. This creature wore a mask with long tusks, bulging eyes and an immense long tongue hanging out of its mouth. Its head was furnished with a shaggy wig of goat hair which hung down to its knees. It brandished a dirty white cloth in its hands. The children cowered and looked alarmed as this personage came on the scene.

  “Here we have Rangda herself,” Visser said in an undertone. The Commissarius began to find the Controller’s running commentary annoying. “I think we might insist on the conference beginning at eight o’clock. I want to get on to Kloengkoeng,” he said to the Resident, without paying much attention to the new scene. Rangda, too, declaimed in hoarse, squeezed-out tones from behind her mask. Fresh flocks of ducks had appeared in front of the ring of spectators and their quacking joined in with comic effect. A vendor threw a stick at a dog which was trying to thieve the eatables displayed on her broad leaves and he yelped piteously. Visser bent down and picked up the pith helmets of his two superiors. “We had better get everything out of the way,” he said. “It will soon get going.”

  What on earth is there to get going, Tilema thought to himself. Rangda stood there, clapping herself on the knees and leaning back in a fit of vulgar demon laughter. The barong tramped up behind her and pushed her in front of him by the neck with a wooderr clatter of its chops, and Rangda brandished her dirty cloth. Rangda’s feet also were the dirty feet of a simple peasant; the nail of one big toe was torn and black. The little knot of kris dancers squatted as before in the temple gateway. The umbrella-bearers who had escorted Rangda stood at the farther side of the arena, and behind them were others also with umbrellas and sickleshaped flags, which they held aloft over a figure resembling Rangda but with back turned on the proceedings as though entirely unconcerned.

  “Does it go on like this for ever?” Van Tilema asked. The Controller only muttered, “Durga—the goddess of death.” Van Tilema turned to the lord to ask whether the conference could begin at eight. But the lord did not appear to hear him. He had one arm round Raka’s shoulders, without, however, paying any heed to him;his eyes seemed to be fixed on vacancy. Raka himself looked as though he was asleep; his face had undergone a remarkable transformation—or so the Commissarius thought. Dusk had already fallen under the palms and the features of the onlookers grew dim; yet at this very moment Van Tilema clearly distinguished a beautiful young woman in the second row who was winding her little daughter’s head-dress round her head and laughing as she spoke to her.

  “Now,” Visser said, “the barong needs help—against Durga.” Next moment a shout was heard and the kris dancers flew at Rangda in a wild charge, holding their curved krisses erect, death and murder and frenzy in their eyes. This mad onset was so sudden and had such an air of deadly earnest that Van Tilema felt for something to hold on by. “Nothing will happen,” he heard the Controller murmur at his elbow and he was grateful to him this time. Rangda raised her hand and the men flung themselves in the dust and lay as though dead. They lay with legs sprawling just as each had chanced to fall, as though killed by some unseen weapon, and as the fallen lie on a battlefield. But Rangda, too, was the victim of some mysterious influence. Her limbs began to quiver and shake and she fell stiffly into the arms of her umbrellabearers. Several men sprang forward and carried the rigid human form away.

  “Another trance—that’s not in the programme,” Visser mumbled. The barong, escorted by its two umbrella-bearers, now began to move in and out among the prostrate kris dancers. They rose one after another at the touch of the monster’s feet. With kris in hand they staggered a few steps with hanging heads, and then suddenly turned the points of the double-edged, serpentine blades against themselves. Roaring and groaning each man threw himself on his own kris, ran themselves through the breast, leapt high as though in convulsions, only to plunge the kris deeper and more violently. This frenzy of destruction and suicide rose in wave after wave, ebbing and flowing again in crisis after crisis. Tilema discovered that he was gripping Visser in a grip of iron, while Visser murmured from time to time, “Nothing is happening—it’s all in the game.” Resident Berginck pulled hard at his cigar to keep himself in countenance, but his hands shook, for the sight was one of almost unbearable horror. “Not a drop of blood—not a drop,” Visser murmured reassuringly. “They can’t wound themselves as long as they are in the trance.”

  Van Tilema could in fact see that the bare brown chests of these frantic men remained unhurt by the thrusts they gave them. And the way the Balinese spectators behaved was incomprehensible to him. They crowded closely round the space where the men were raging and some even laughed. The children were still in front and had no intention of missing a moment of it. A priest in a white jacket and white headdress went calmly among the frenzied dancers and sprinkled water over them. A few other men threw themselves on one or other of the kris dancers, and after taking away his kris, guided his tottering steps to the barong, who stood quietly waiting. Those who waked from the trance wiped the streaming sweat from their faces on the barong’s black, beflowered and rather comic beard and then vanished rather shyly among the crowd. Others raged on with increasing violence, as though they wanted to kill and flay themselves at any cost. And now a procession of girls came out of the temple, led by a tall thin woman; in silence they walked, with a step that was almost a dance, from one to another of the shouting, groaning and crazy men, trying to bring them out of their trance by sprinkling them with holy water. Van Tilema stared with a mixture of repugnance and horrid curiosity at these incomprehensible goings-on, until the arena became shrouded in a veil of dust; and it was only then that he was aware of what had been happening at his elbow.

  Raka, the beautiful young dancer, with the orchid in his goldpatterned head-dress, to set off his handsome face, had fallen into a trance too.

  The lord had tried at first to arrest the tremors of his friend by whispering calming words in his ear. Then he had held him in his arms when he shuddered more violently and threw himself about. Some of the lord’s retinue helped to hold him, until he forbade them and let Raka go. With a sudden cry Raka shook the men off and with his kris drawn rushed to join the other kris dancers who were still surging round the barong.

  The Commissarius went white, for as Raka, unconscious of what he did, flung him aside, the curved and snake-like edge of his kris whistled about his ears. The raja jumped from the platform where they were all sitting, and strained his eyes to follow Raka’s movements as he joined the others in their whirling dance. His courtiers crowded round him, talking loudly. Even the Resident addressed him—in Javanese which in the moment of excitement no one could understand. Visser remained standing near the Commissarius, a little white himself, perspiring profusely and smiling a little wryly. “Extraordinary,” he said as though to himself. “So far as I know, Raka has never fallen into a trance before.”

  “Can you explain the whole show to me, Controller?” the Commissarius asked, observing with annoyance that his hands s
hook, and that he had an uncertain feeling in his knees and a sort of cramp in his jaws.

  “There is nothing to explain, Commissarius,” Visser said. “It is Bali, that’s all.”

  “And the moral?” Van Tilema asked.

  “I don’t follow you, Commissarius,” Visser said with formality. “No? I thought the story had a moral—for my benefit,” Van Tilema said.

  Berginck joined them in time to hear the last words.

  “A kris-dance is not a political factor,” he said curtly. “Such things have their place in ethnological studies but not in our files. Thank the Lord, I remembered to bring some gin with me to Badung. It takes a lot more than rice wine to help one swallow such entertainment. Don’t you agree with me, Commissarius?”

  There were now only three men still under the trance, Raka and two of the kris dancers; and darkness was rapidly drawing on. When neither holy water nor fumigation nor the touch of the barong sufficed to wake these three they werd disarmed. It took six men to release the kris from the grasp of Raka’s clenched fingers. The barong turned about and retired with its two umbrella carriers into the outer court of the temple. The three unconscious men were carried in behind it. Teragia led one tottering form, one was supported under the arms by two relations and Raka had to be carried, for he was as rigid as a bar of iron. The prince was anxious about Raka and sorry for him, for he had never been taken in this way before and in him it was unbecoming. He puzzled over the significance of the occurrence, it seemed to him to fit in remarkably well with the alteration he had observed in him of late and he racked his brains for anything in the old lontars that might bear on it.

  “What happens next?” he heard the Commissarius asking, and he recollected his distinguished guest.

  “If it pleases my friend we can now return home,” he said courteously. “I mean what happens now in the temple?” Van Tilema asked. The abrupt end left him unsatisfied. The people were already dispersing, and although they bent low as they crept away, owing to the presence of the raja, they were all the same perfectly cheerful and incomprehensibly unmoved.

  “In the temple? Nothing worthy of mention. The dancers will be awakened from their trance,” the prince said. He took some cigarettes from one of his courtiers and offered them to his guests.

  “I suppose we are not allowed to enter the temple?” Van Tilema asked. “All the same I’d like to see what the end of it all is,” he added in Dutch to Visser.

  “If my friends would not find it wearisome——” the lord replied, and smiling with vacant politeness he conducted the Dutchmen up the steps and went before them through the temple gateway. He was eager himself to know how Raka was. The Commissarius clasped his pith helmet to his breast as though he was in a church.

  In the outer court two torches were already alight. The barong stood with lowered head between his two umbrella carriers and a mat was spread in front of him on which the young girls were preparing offerings. The lord stood some distance away with his guests and looked on. The smoke of the torches made Berginck cough. A temple priest sat in front of the mat trying to release the three men from the trance with holy water and fumigation.

  “The tall woman holding the youngest one is married to Raka,” Visser whispered to the Commissarius. “He’s a nice boy,” Van Tilema whispered back after looking at him. He was limp but not yet conscious; his head rested on Teragia’s breast, and a hoarse sobbing and groaning issued from his throat. A second lay rigid, with legs astride, between the barong’s front feet, the bare brown and rather dirty and weary feet of a village youth, who was not at all sure he had not in some magic way been transformed into a part of the monstrous beast which was the divine protection of the village. Raka had been laid in front of the priest; his body quivered convulsively and the blood trickled from a scratch on his chest. His saput was awry and his long hair, which had fallen down when he threw off his headdress, was covered with dust and sand.

  The raja took quick puffs at his cigarette and Berginck breathed in its aroma of cloves with a faint repugnance. Van Tilema observed the raja out of the corner of his eyes. He was trying to be cool and collected, but it was clear that the young dancer’s trance upset him. No wonder, thought the Commissarius, who was still feeling weak in the knees.

  The girls, after they had laid all their offerings on the mat, began singing, in order to loosen the trance by the soft persuasion of music, and to guide the souls gently back to the bodies to which they belonged. Teragia, too, sang, holding the young man’s head on her breast. She did not look at Raka, for she was bereft of any feelings of her own and possessed solely by her magic powers. The smoke of the two torches hung low over the ground, and whenever the singing girls paused to take breath the cicadas could be heard all round the temple walls. Raka began to utter deep groans as though overcome with agony, and the priest held the brazier of glowing resin towards him. Raka plunged both hands into the red-hot embers and appeared to find some relief. The spasm slowly relaxed; he took deep breaths of the holy fire and the groans died away. The other two dancers came slowly to themselves. They opened their eyes and looked about them, smiling in an embarrassed way before joining the other kris dancers, who squatted near a balé in the darkness, resting. Only Raka was still in his trance. The prince looked at him as he lay there limp and unconscious, and felt that never had Raka been so dear to him as now when he lay there helpless and deprived of his reason.

  “He will come round in a moment,” Visser said in a low voice to the Commissarius. The priest sprinkled Raka’s forehead with water once more, and Teragia came and bathed his temples. Raka’s face relaxed and seemed for a moment to be sleeping, then he opened his eyes. He sat up and looked about him in surprise. The women had ceased singing and at that moment the mask of Rangda was carried past in its white-swathed box. Raka stood up and putting his hands to his hair he bound it up behind his head. Teragia helped the priest to collect the sacred vessels and utensils.

  “We can go now, if my friends agree,” the lord said, turning to the temple gateway. Some of his retinue ran ahead with backs bent to scatter the children who were still crowding round outside. Van Tilema took a deep breath of the cool moist air given off by the trees. “Interesting, Herr van Tilema, don’t you think?” the Resident said, as he wiped his face before putting on his helmet again.

  “Decidedly. Extremely so. But tell me, my dear Berginck, how on earth is one to make such people see reason?” the Commissarius replied, deep in thought.

  “I have been asking myself that question all the twelve years I have spent in Bali,” the Resident replied blandly. The lord came to a stop when they reached the grass path leading to the clearing, where torch-bearers and lancers were stationed to await him. “Here comes Raka,” he said. “Where are you off to, Raka?”

  “To the river to bathe, your Highness,” said Raka, bending forward as he stood still. Van Tilema looked at him with curiosity and astonishment. Not a trace was to be seen of the complete loss of consciousness and the frenzy in which he had been plunged a few minutes before!

  “Is Raka not tired?” he asked in Balinese.

  “No, tuan. I feel happy and relieved,” Raka replied.

  Van Tilema shook his head and smiled. “They call me a connoisseur of Bali in Batavia,” he said to Berginck. “But I see now I don’t know the first word about it.”

  The lord fell back a step. Raka was just behind him. “How did it happen, Raka?” he asked in an undertone.

  “I don’t know. I felt a great anger and that is all I know,” Raka said. After a moment’s hesitation he added, “Tell me—did I say anything when I was beside myself?” Alit looked round at him in surprise. “No, you said nothing, my brother. What should you have said?”

  Raka looked fixedly at him for a long time and said not a word. The Dutchmen had already been lighted to the carriage. You have become strangely and greatly altered, the lord thought, but he did not say it aloud. “Ask me nothing, for I cannot tell you,” Raka said. He turned awa
y, stood still for a moment and then followed the other kris dancers to the river.

  When Raka was attacked by the first symptoms of the horrible Great Sickness he did not believe it, although he saw it with his own eyes and felt it on his own body.

  It began almost imperceptibly with a slight affection of the skin on his left breast. A small mark formed which became gradually a brighter red; it looked unhealthy and mysterious and was no larger than a kepeng. This mark grew larger for a few weeks and then it remained the same size; there were no other symptoms to be observed and although he was worried he forgot it again.

  Yet at this time he felt that his life had suddenly become insipid; it no longer ran fresh and clear in his veins as from a spring, but crept along muddily as the dyke water of a sawah and Raka did not know what to do about it. When he went to his secret meetings with Lambon he was overcome by a sudden zestlessness, as though being with his beloved was no longer a joy but a task. Lambon became angry and jealous. “Have you found another woman who pleases you more than I do?” she asked persistently. “Are you tired already of coming to me? Is it so far from Taman Sari to Badung that you are too tired to embrace me? Or perhaps you are afraid of old Ranis who keeps guard over me?” She plied him with these and all the other questions that a woman who is madly in love can think of to torture her lover. Raka left the ruined island where they had their meetings in an ill humor and he no longer went every day to find her there as before. Yet he felt the same longing and desire as soon as they had parted and his sleep was restless.