by Vicki Baum
“I knew you could not sleep, brother,” she said softly. “That is why I came.”
Raka opened his eyes. At first he saw nothing, and then when his eyes got used to the darkness he saw Teragia’s head above him; she had a light-colored shawl over her shoulders to protect her against the chill night air. He shrank into his kain to hide himself, but Teragia felt for his hand under the folds, and in spite of his resistance she took hold of his cramped fingers and enfolded them tightly in her large warm hands. After a minute or two something in him gave way and he relaxed and the fierce need of hiding away in secret left him and became a pain in his throat and a hot wave in his breast and he laid his head in Teragia’s lap and wept.
She rocked him gently to and fro as she would a child and after a moment she asked softly, “Are you in great pain?”
He shook his head in her lap and went on sobbing; his tears were like a bath that washed him clean within. Teragia waited patiently until he was calmer, but it took a long time. She held his leprous fingers fast in the pressure of her large hands; they lay as though between the two halves of a coconut shell, as the ashes of a burnt body did before they were consigned to the river. Some semblance of peace came over Raka and he stopped sobbing. Teragia put her forehead on his cheek and began to speak; she was as near to him as on the night when she conceived her son.
“You have been avoiding your father for many weeks and you have been afraid of your mother’s touching you. But it is time you spoke to them.”
Raka thought over this for a long time in the darkness before he answered. “And what will happen to me after that?” he asked.
Teragia sat upright and let go of his hand. She began stroking his forehead as though he had a fever. “You must not think of yourself but of your father and the village. You will bring great misfortune on all if you remain here. You know that,” she said. Raka made no reply.
“You are unclean,” Teragia went on. “And you are making your father’s house unclean and the whole village and the temples. The waters of the sawahs will be made unclean through your presence and the children will die and the people starve if Taman Sari has another bad harvest.”
“What shall I do? What shall I do?” Raka whispered.
“You must not wait for the village to cast you out. You must go of your own accord,” his wife said.
“You are hard, Teragia,” he said, filled with bitterness.
“Yes, I am hard,” she said, and went on stroking his forehead. “Why does this happen to me, why to me?” Raka whispered.
“Can you tell me that? Why to me? Why just to me? What have I done? Why do the gods punish me so terribly? Why have they made me a leper and unclean for ever?”
Teragia wound her arms about his shoulders when she heard his despairing cry and held them so tightly that it hurt. It was some consolation to him. “I do not know,” she said softly. “I have asked the gods, but they give no answer. You must bear it.”
“Bear it for ever and ever,” Raka repeated. Teragia knew what he meant. Whoever died of the Great Sickness might not be burned and his soul, unreleased and unclean and pestridden, had to remain on the earth and never find rest. Raka, her beautiful husband, an outcast and an exile for ever and ever, a soul condemned and deprived of all hope of ever being born again.
“Will you speak to your father tomorrow?” she asked again and so often that he felt she was made of stone.
“Yes,” Raka whispered. “I will speak with him.”
She could feel his body relax in her arms as soon as he had made this resolve.
“The village will decide where you may build yourself a house,” Teragia said. “They love you and will make it as light for you as possible.”
“Have I to give up everything and see no one again?” Raka said as though to himself—his parents, his house, his son; the puri, the dances, the temples, the cock-fights, the festivals; his friend Alit— and Lambon, his beloved; give up his whole life, his radiant glamorous life, and say good-bye to it all.
“I shall go with you,” Teragia said. “The child can stay with your parents. I weaned him as soon as I recognized your sickness, so now he needs no mother.”
“You will come with me?” Raka said in amazement. He had forgotten Teragia when he enumerated all he had to give up. Yet she would go with him. She was hard and heavy and stern and had large hands and wrinkles round her mouth and she could neither play nor laugh. But she would go with him—the unloved wife, while the Beloved stayed behind and was lost to him. “I do not want you to come with me if I am cast out,” he said. “I do not need you.”
“Who will cook your food?” she asked, and now in the darkness and in the midst of misfortune she smiled. She leant over him and without his saying anything she found the place on his shoulder that had begun to hurt again. He sighed as she felt it and then resigned his outcast limbs to the firm touch of her large warm maternal hands.
Muna, the slave-girl, ran through the courtyards with her headdress awry and kain flapping and the men shouted witticisms after her whenever a glimpse of her legs was to be seen; but Muna heard nothing as she ran on and on, through courtyards and doors, scattering the fowls as she went, and on beyond the little balés where the slaves lived, until she reached the wall behind which was the ruined house by the water. She thrust aside the creepers that overhung the entrance and though she was in such haste she now stood still a moment to get her breath.
On the other side of the ditch Lambon sat with flowers in her hair, deeply absorbed in the task of sharpening a long thin wand. She was dabbling the soles of her feet in the water, from which rose a smell of reedy decay. When the wand was pointed to her satisfaction, Lambon put her tongue between her teeth and started hunting the few dragonflies which had settled on the water-lilies. It was a foolish proceeding, for there was plenty to eat in the puri and the favorite wife of the raja had no need to eke out her meals by catching dragonflies. But Muna knew well why Lambon did it; she had been waiting there day after day in vain and had to pass the time in some way or another. When she had caught a couple of dragonflies she gave up the pursuit and threw her wand into the water, where it floated idly on the surface, and sat down again with the two dragonflies in the palm of her hand and then forgot all about them. Muna imitated the call of a betitja and Lambon looked up.
“Will you not come back to the house, mistress?” Muna begged. Lambon shook her head. Muna measured the ditch with her eyes, took a run and jumped across. Lambon looked at her with mild astonishment: the little slave crouched near her and tenderly embraced her knees.
“Why should I go back?” Lambon asked impatiently. “No one misses me and the lord has been shut up with the pedanda for the last three days and will see nobody.”
Muna choked back a sob. “Raka will not come any more, little mistress,” she said.
Lambon gave a start and pushed Muna away. Although Muna had backed her up in all her secrets, smoothing her path by bribing the old Harem attendants and doping them with opium, so that Lambon could steal away unobserved, and although it was understood between them that Lambon went to meet a man, yet Raka’s name had never been uttered.
“Do not wait any longer, Lambon, for Raka will never come any more,” Muna said again, almost chanting the words.
“Did he tell you to tell me so?” Lambon asked in terror. “Or have you found out that he goes to someone else?”
“Little mistress,” Muna said miserably, again embracing Lambon’s knees, “little mistress, Raka is sick. He will never come any more. He has the Great Sickness and they have cast him out of Taman Sari. That is why the lord is shut up with the pedanda and will see no one.”
Lambon closed her eyes. Everything turned round and round and for some time there was a rushing sound in her ears, as though she was standing under a waterfall. But she came to herself again and pushed the slave-girl, in whose arms she found herself, away. “You are lying,” she said loudly. “It is not true.”
Muna said no more
. She merely looked at Lambon, who saw now that her eyes were brimming with two heavy tears which slowly rolled down her cheeks and were licked away by her tongue as they reached her mouth. Though she cried she did not cease to smile and to cling to Lambon’s knees. Lambon felt that her heart would fly from her breast as a bird from an open cage. She drew in her breath with care.
“Tell me all you know,” she said.
“No one believed it at first,” Muna said, taking breath for her announcement. “It seemed too frightful that it should come to Raka of all people. His forefathers were Brahmans and priests and nothing is known of any guilt to deserve such heavy punishment. But nevertheless it is so, and at some time evil must have befallen which now the gods bring home to Raka. It was noticed first at the Full Moon Festival of the third month, and then it got worse and worse and the people of Taman Sari came together and the Council decided to question him. They went to his father, the pedanda, and asked to see Raka, who by then was in hiding. That was nine days ago, mistress—”
Lambon nodded. Feebly she moved her fingers in her lap and reckoned: it was eleven days since her last dark night with Raka. Eleven days of frightful impatience and uncertainty and waiting.
“And then——” she said.
“When he came from his balé they saw that he had the Great Sickness and that they would have to send him away from the village, although it made their hearts ache, for not one wished ill to Raka. But Taman Sari has been punished enough already and the people are afraid of the gods, and rightly, and so they could not turn their heads away or make their eyes blind to spare Raka. I hear that the pedanda himself agreed with them and bade Raka leave his house at once. It is particularly serious for the house of a priest to be made unclean in that way. But they say that his father went with him when he left the village and embraced and blessed him before they parted at the cross-roads, caring nothing for the uncleanness. They did not have to burn the balé where Raka slept, but only to lay the proper offerings on the floor for the bad demons, and the pedanda remained for three days in prayer and meditation. Then he and his house were clean again and he speaks no more about his son. The people of Taman Sari were very sad, too, for a whole day, but they try to forget and they say it will be a good rice harvest. There was far too much sickness and misfortune along the coast, but now the gods seem to be appeased.”
“And Raka?” Lambon asked softly.
“Raka?” Muna said. “They say he does not look so horrible as other lepers. He has not lost his eyebrows. They say he stood by when the chief men of the village spoke to his father, but he himself did not say a word. They say he said good-bye politely to all as though he were just going for a walk or to Kesiman and that he turned round at the cross-roads and waved his hand and smiled until they were out of sight.”
Lambon pondered over all this for a long time. Muna’s eyes filled with tears again, but Lambon did not cry. It was as though so great a disaster could not find its way into her little head.
“And where is he now?” she asked.
“The Council of Taman Sari assigned him a place south of the village and his father promised him wood and bamboo to build a balé But the council of Sanur would not agree to his settling there, for the water runs from Taman Sari to Sanur and their sawahs would be unclean if Raka lived higher up there. All the five coast villages have united in sending him where lepers belong. He is building his house there.”
Lambon shuddered. She knew the river mouth with its stagnant, unclean, brackish water, its prickly scrub and sand dunes, where the mosquitoes hung in clouds all day and ghosts and strayed souls gathered by night.
“And he is all alone there?” she murmured.
“Not alone,” Muna said. “Bengek, the fisherman, lives there, too, and he is trying to dig the ground and to grow something.” She hesitated a moment before adding: “And Teragia, his wife, has gone with him.”
“How have you found out all this?”
“Old Ranis heard it in the market. Everyone is talking about it. Puglug, who comes with things to sell from Taman Sari, told her and many others have confirmed it word for word.”
“Yes, Puglug always knows all the news,” Lambon said, smiling wanly as her thoughts went back to her brother’s wife. It was all very far away and much had happened since she left her family. It was only now she grasped what Muna had started by telling her. “And you say Raka will never come here again?” she whispered. Muna embraced her knees afresh and more tightly than before.
“Little mistress,” she said, “little mistress, don’t you understand yet? He is unclean. They would stone him if he came to Badung. You must not think of him again or the gods will be angry.”
“Should we, too, make offerings to be clean?” Lambon asked in alarm.
“I know nothing about those matters and we cannot ask anyone either,” the slave replied.
“No, we cannot ask anyone,” Lambon repeated. She had forgotten her family and the household in which she grew up, but now she felt homesick for them. Puglug and her aunt—they were never at a loss over offerings. She went on thinking it all over in a daze.
“And did he say good-bye to no one in the puri?” she asked. “No, only to his child and his parents so far as I heard.”
“Not even to the lord?” Lambon insisted.
“How could a leper speak to the lord? Perhaps he sent a message of farewell to our master by his father,” she added.
“Do you know anything about that?” Lambon asked quickly. The slave put her lips to her mistress’s ear. “They say the lord wept when he heard about it—Oka told Ida Katut,” she whispered.
Lambon opened her hands and looked at the crushed dragonflies which all the time had been clenched in her fist. Then she laid her hands wearily in her lap. “What am I to do now?” she asked, almost crazed with sorrow.
“Forget,” said Muna. “The days come and go, the water flows by and you will soon forget.”
Lambon shook her head violently.
“Yes, yes,” Muna said. “I know how it is. I, too, was fond of a man—Meru, the sculptor, your brother. But he gave me up for Bernis the shameless, and then I thought I should die for the pain in my heart. Now, I cannot remember even what he looked like or the sound of his voice.”
Lambon considered this, but it was no help to her. She reflected. “Perhaps I might ask if the lord would see me,” she said shyly. Muna peered into her face in amazement. “He wept—should I not be with him when he is sad? I could fill his opium pipe and that stills pain,” Lambon went on.
“Would you like some opium?” Muna asked, for she had quick perceptions. Lambon had never yet smoked.
“Yes. Get me some opium,” she said.
“And now come back, little mistress,” Muna begged. “You will get the heat sickness sitting over this stagnant water. I will bring you opium and I will ask Oka whether the lord would see you. Perhaps the pedanda may have a farewell message for you from his son—”
“What a liar you are,” Lambon said with a smile as she released the slave’s hands from her knees. “I will come soon. Leave me here alone a moment longer.”
Muna gazed at her and sighed. She looked round and found a half-decayed board which she laid across the ditch. “There, is not that better?” she asked as she stepped across the bridge.
“No bridge is needed now,” Lambon said, and for the first time the whole extent of her unhappiness came over her. When Muna had vanished through the leafy doorway she sat on, transfixed and turned to stone by grief. She stretched out her foot and kicked the board into the water. It splashed her kain and she wiped the drops away. She found the dead dragonflies in her hand and slowly tore them to pieces—the wings, the long gleaming bodies, the heads with their jewelled eyes—and threw them into the water. Then she put her arms round her knees and buried her head in the dark cleft between them. She longed to cry. But no tears came.
The Srawah
WHEN the people of Taman Sari had finished building their rice
temple and had dedicated it anew with a great festival; when the eleven-storeyed tower of the coral temple at Sanur was completed; when the villages of the coast had burned all their dead, surrendered all their unlawful possessions to the gods and driven out their outcasts, then a good time came. Everything had been done to ascertain what the gods required and to carry out their wishes and now they were satisfied and blessed the coast villages with good fortune and rich harvest.
The rats disappeared from the sawahs and the rice flourished. Where usually a sheaf of seed yielded forty-five sheaves at harvest time, they could now hope for sixty, so laden were the ripening ears. The coconut palms bore rich clusters of fruit and the squirrels had retreated northwards. Rain came down from the Great Mountain as often as it was wanted and the streams carried rich mud to the valleys. A few old people and a few children, who were no older than the dew on the fields, died, but all the other sick got well and there were enough hands for the work in the fields and for threshing the rice. The children’s thin arms plumped out again with flesh and their fine round little bellies were a joy to see when they collected in troops about the gateways.
Also there were many more sons than daughters born at this time, and there were many birthday feasts when the whole village cooked and ate heartily and drank tuak or sweet rice-wine, and even the dogs got fat from the leavings of the offerings and the feasts.
Pak had his full share of the general prosperity and this he found only right. His plates were let in to the base of the new high altar of the temple and formed one of the chief decorations there. He had made the gods a present of them and it was only just that the gods should thank him as they saw fit. Pak loved to stop at the new shrine on the way home from his sawahs, letting his buffaloes graze outside, while he knelt before the shrine and gazed with satisfaction at his plates. It seemed to him that they shone with growing beauty and that their roses bloomed with ever fresher tints.