She sniffed at the air. The fragrance of the jamu was so delicate that it barely registered over the more pungent aromas of the ingredients she was grinding for Citra.
“One day I was out collecting honey near the forest temples and it started to rain,” Kitchen Boy began. “I took shelter in the tallest temple and discovered someone was already there. Luckily for me he was a holy man, not a bandit, and while we waited for the rain to stop, I gave him some of my honey and he told me a story about how the temples were built.
“It all began with a prince. I forget his name now; let’s call him Bhre Mataram. And there was a princess, let’s call our princess Raden Ajeng Citra. It will help us get used to thinking of Citra as a princess.
“Anyway, Bhre Mataram decided that Raden Ajeng Citra would be his bride, but she had other ideas. You can’t just tell a prince that you won’t marry him though, so Raden Ajeng Citra had to come up with a face-saving way of refusing him. For some reason, she decided to set him a challenge. He was to build her one thousand temples in one night and if he succeeded, she would marry him.”
The first pile of jamu was spent and Kitchen Boy paused while he set the next pile on the brazier. Kancil leaned over her grinding stone to look at Mother; her chest was rising and falling rhythmically and her eyes were closed. She was asleep.
Kitchen Boy looked pleased. He sat back on his heels while he continued to fan the smoke across Mother’s face.
Kancil prodded him with her foot. “Finish the story,” she signed to him.
When Kancil woke the next morning, Mother was still sleeping peacefully and a faint sweet and smoky smell hung about the shack. Kancil tried to ease herself carefully off the sleeping platform so as not to wake her mother but that was impossible. Mother sat up with a gasp and looked around her in confusion.
“Are you well?” Kancil signed.
Mother’s forehead was creased with the effort of remembering something; it was replaced with a look of horror as the memory came back to her.
“Child!” she breathed. “The prince – he’s going to turn Citra to stone. I’ve seen it in a vision!”
Kancil stared. Mother looked much healthier than she had for weeks, but had she gone mad?”
“I must go and warn my brother,” Mother said, standing up.
Kancil grabbed her and pulled her back to the sleeping mat. “Remember,” she signed, “the story, it was the story about the princess.” This was too hard to sign but she didn’t dare speak – the chickens next door were restless and Kancil wouldn’t be surprised if Bibi was spying on them. She looked around, just in time to see Kitchen Boy returning from his early morning errands. She motioned urgently to him to join them.
“Tell him,” she signed to Mother when he arrived.
“Kancil, your friend is very clever, but he’s only a boy. Now let me go, I must warn my brother. There’s not a moment to lose.”
Kancil clutched at Mother’s wrist. She couldn’t let her tell the story to Big Uncle – he would think that Mother was possessed and lock her up. Kancil herself would have thought she was possessed if not for that sweet smell in the air. Could last night’s jamu be responsible? She had had some strange dreams about temples and princesses herself. She had no doubt they were dreams, not visions, but she hadn’t been in the direct line of the smoke.
“Are you well, Ibu?” Kitchen Boy asked.
“Quite well, thank you, and I promise I will drink the rest of the jamu presently. First, I must warn my brother. I have had the most terrible vision that the prince will turn Citra to stone.”
Kitchen Boy looked at Kancil quizzically. “Remind her!” Kancil signed to him. What was in that smoke? she wondered.
“That’s … interesting …” Kitchen Boy was looking at Mother now. “Are you sure, Ibu, that you are not confusing Citra and the prince with the story I told last night? You remember the story, don’t you?”
Mother looked uncertain and Kancil nudged Kitchen Boy. “Remind her!” she signed to him again.
“It was the story the holy man told me about how the temples were built. The prince turned the princess to stone after she tried to trick him.” Kitchen Boy paused, looking for some sign of recognition in Mother’s face. She wasn’t trying to leave the shack now but she didn’t look convinced.
“Remember,” he continued gently, “the princess challenged him to build one thousand temples in one night. She wasn’t expecting him to enlist the help of demons to complete the task. When it looked like he might succeed, she cheated. She got all the villagers to light their fires and rattle their pots and pans so the roosters would think it was dawn. The prince and his demons had built nine hundred and ninety-nine temples. When he heard the roosters crowing, he gave up. When the real sun rose, he realised he’d been tricked so he had his demons turn the princess to stone and she became the thousandth temple.”
A look of realisation had spread over Mother’s face as Kitchen Boy spoke and now she put her hand to her mouth. “Of course,” she said. “How strange, I was so sure when I woke up that it was a vision of Citra’s future. It wasn’t until I heard your voice just now that I remembered you telling me. Oh, you must think I’m a fool!”
“Not at all, Ibu,” Kitchen Boy reassured her. “You may well be right. The prince will most probably think about turning Citra to stone once he discovers how annoying she is, but I don’t think it’s so easy to find the necessary demons to do the job these days.”
13
THE DALANG
Mother drank her morning jamu and Kitchen Boy gave Kancil two lidded baskets, each one lined with banana leaf and filled with raw jamu ingredients.
“This one is to make more tonic if she needs it,” he told Kancil. “You’ll have to get hold of the grinding stone again to prepare it. Once it’s ground it will only last a day or two at the most.
“These are the smoking ingredients,” he continued, opening the other basket to reveal the dried herbs and bark that he had smoked on the brazier the night before. “You shouldn’t need them again, but keep them just in case.”
“Are you crazy?” Kancil signed to him. “We should destroy these!”
“Why?” Kitchen Boy asked, looking puzzled.
“Because they caused …” she couldn’t think of a way to sign what had happened to Mother, but she could tell from Kitchen Boy’s face that he knew what she was trying to say.
“Do you think the jamu caused that?” he asked.
Kancil rolled her eyes; surely he had figured that out for himself.
“You’re quite smart really, aren’t you?” Kitchen Boy said. “You might be right about the jamu causing the dream. You’re wrong about destroying it, though. Your aunt went to a lot of trouble to gather those ingredients. They’re not the ordinary beauty muck she sent for Citra. We’d better keep these in the kitchen where they’ll be safe from weather and insects.”
“Under here,” he said as he crawled under a shelf in the darkest corner of the kitchen. He shifted a folded mat out of the way and lifted the heavy lid from a large clay jar, dropping the baskets inside.
“Don’t worry,” he said, “nobody uses this jar except me.”
Kancil turned away to tend the fire.
“Why are you in such a bad mood?” Kitchen Boy asked.
Kancil pointed her chin towards the jar and shook her head, turning the corners of her mouth down.
“Bah,” muttered Kitchen Boy. “Some people are never satisfied! The jamu cured her, didn’t it? And double-quick time too. Besides, there was no harm done, was there? I, for one, quite liked her vision.”
Kancil looked around for something to throw at him. She stopped herself – that was the sort of thing Bibi would do. She gave him a scathing look instead and picked up the broom.
“Maybe you’re jealous that it’s Citra marrying the prince, not you.”
Kancil laughed soundlessly and began working the broom from the back corner towards the kitchen door. She was surprised to see Kitchen Boy p
ick up the bucket and sprinkle water on the floor to settle the dust. What a strange day she was having! First, her seriously ill mother woke up cured (if she was prepared to accept Kitchen Boy’s assurance that crazy visions didn’t count for anything), and now Kitchen Boy was helping her with her chores. A smile spread across her face; she was actually happy!
Then Kancil heard the sound of Bibi’s cane thumping down the path. It sounded angrier than usual, if that were possible. Kancil exchanged a glance with Kitchen Boy and he pulled a face. “Just when I thought I was going to have a good day,” he whispered. They grinned at each other.
“Why isn’t the rice cooking?” Bibi demanded, sniffing at the air as she stomped in. Then the tray of rice that Kitchen Boy had left on the hulling bench caught her eye. “Why is the rice not even hulled yet?” she bellowed. “What have you been doing all morning, you lazy bint?” She picked up the nearest thing to hand and threw it at Kancil’s head. Kancil ducked as the coconut shell flew past. She need not have bothered – Bibi’s aim was way off today. Usually, that was a sign that something was really bothering her.
“You, boy,” Bibi said. “Go and get two more measures of rice. And you, bint! You’d better get hulling that rice faster than ever before or your life won’t be worth living.”
Kancil stowed her broom and went to the long hulling bench, wondering if “bint” was an improvement on “bandit spawn”. She decided to assume that it was. She scooped some of the rice from the tray into one of the two hollowed-out bowls in the bench. As she lifted the pounding rod into position, Ida tried to walk past. Bibi blocked her way.
“There’s a reason there are two holes in that thing,” Bibi said, nodding towards the hulling bench.
“That’s her job!” whined Ida, glaring at Kancil.
“And today it’s your job too,” said Bibi. “A dalang and his troupe are expected to arrive at any moment and I have to feed them – as if I didn’t have enough to do already.”
Kancil had heard the men discussing the dalang, the puppet master, in the pendopo a week previously. Dalang Mulyo was from the port of Pekalongan. He travelled around the kingdom with his wayang puppets and gamelan musicians, performing at weddings and ceremonies in villages that didn’t have their own dalang.
Kitchen Boy could barely contain his excitement when he heard that the dalang and his troupe had arrived and were resting in the pendopo at the north gate. “I’ll take the refreshments to them,” he offered, reaching for the tray of sticky rice cakes that Bibi had prepared.
“The girl can go,” Bibi ordered.
Seeing Kitchen Boy’s crestfallen face, Kancil did her best to look wobbly when she lifted the tray onto her head and tried to pick up the water kendi.
“Bah!” fumed Bibi. “You useless wretch! Boy, take the kendi from her before she drops it. Get out of here the pair of you!”
When Kancil and Kitchen Boy arrived with the refreshments, they found that a swarm of children had already formed around the perimeter of the north gate pendopo.
Inside the pendopo, a group of weary travellers lounged against a jumble of boxes and baskets. A woman, who Kancil figured must be the pesinden singer, was sitting on the far edge of the pendopo, looking bored and fanning herself with a delicate sandalwood fan. Four men were positioned around the belongings. Two appeared to be asleep while the other two were observing the throng of children with amusement.
In the middle of the pendopo was a man with white hair, who must be the dalang. His eyes were closed but a small smile played on his lips as he listened to the children’s whispers. His hand was resting gently on the lid of a long wooden box.
“Please, Bapak Dalang, won’t you show us your puppets?” asked one brave child after much prodding from his companions.
Dalang Mulyo opened one eye and fixed it on the little boy. “Oh, I couldn’t possibly do that,” he said.
“Can’t we have a quick look?” the boy persisted.
The dalang shook his head sadly. “They’ve had such an arduous journey and they need their rest. You’ll have to wait until they are ready to perform.”
The village children looked at each other and giggled.
“But I’ve never seen a shadow puppet,” the boy made one final appeal.
“What is that child going on about? I can’t understand a word these inland children say,” the singer said to nobody in particular. She spoke the Jawa language but her coastal dialect was quite different to the inland dialect of the village. She sounded almost like she was speaking the Sunda language.
Kancil looked around to see if Kitchen Boy or the children had noticed, but they were focussing intently on the dalang and the wooden box. For a moment Kancil felt annoyed; it wasn’t fair that a travelling singer could get away with sounding like she came from Sunda while Kancil had to pretend to be mute to hide her origins.
Then an idea popped into her head. Perhaps the dalang’s troupe could be her means of escape from the village. If she could make herself useful to them in some way, they might take her with them when they returned to Pekalongan.
That was the port where she and Mother had ended their sea journey in the clove trader’s boat and begun their long journey inland. It must be somewhere between Sunda and that awful place, Bubat. If Agus had survived the massacre and escaped imprisonment, he would probably have passed through Pekalongan on his way back home. She might find a trace of him there.
The puzzle in her dream – the scoundrel, the temple treasures, Agus – would have to remain unsolved. That’s all right, she told herself, I’m using the sense that Mother taught me in the market – watch and listen and make the most of opportunities. It might not be as comforting as having Father’s spirit to guide me, but it could prove more reliable.
14
PREPARATIONS
The next morning, every task was at least doubled. Kitchen Boy dumped a sack of rice on the hulling bench and left immediately to look for firewood. Ida grumbled as she hauled a huge pile of washing onto her back, leaving Kancil to hull the rice by herself.
Throughout the morning the sound of gamelan music, rising and falling in intensity, could be heard coming from the north pendopo. The pendopo in front of Big Uncle’s house, usually so quiet during the day, was alive with the chatter of girls and young women gathered to make decorations for the welcome ceremony.
Two of Big Uncle’s pigs had been slaughtered for the ceremony and Bapak Pohon, the giant, spent the morning under the tamarind tree expertly preparing the carcasses. Kancil laughed now at how he had frightened her the first time she met him. Nowadays, he made a special point of greeting her whenever he visited to collect supplies for the joglo or to perform his role as village butcher. What was more, Bibi was less severe when he was there to witness her cruelty.
“The scout’s back,” said Kitchen Boy as he burst through the door with a load of firewood. “He spotted the prince at the high spring. He’ll definitely be here by nightfall.”
“What did he look like?” asked Ida. It was the first time Kancil had heard her sound excited about anything.
Kitchen Boy shrugged. “The scout only got close enough to see where he was and came straight back,” he said.
“Well, what did he see?” demanded Bibi. Nothing in the world could make her sound excited.
“He saw a jempana carriage carried by six bearers. He couldn’t see into the jempana because the parasol bearer kept getting in the way. He was sure it must be the prince, though, because the jempana and the parasol were very grand.”
“And that’s all?” Bapak Pohon bellowed in mock amazement. “A prince and seven bearers? No kitchen staff, no livestock? I hope he’s not planning to stay too long or we’ll have no food to feed ourselves when he’s gone.”
Mother could rest now she had made new kain and kemben for Big Aunt and Citra and finished all the cloths for the prince’s joglo. She was in the sleeping shack, patching a well-worn kain when Kancil arrived for the midday rest.
“This is f
or you to wear tonight at the prince’s welcome,” Mother said, holding up the kain as Kancil climbed onto the bamboo platform. “It’s a gift from your cousin.”
Kancil handed her the small parcel of rice that was her midday meal. The chickens in the shack next door were quiet so she knew it was safe to talk. “Be careful,” she said, “there will probably be stones in the rice. I didn’t have time to pick over it properly before I cooked it.”
She glanced at the kain. “Is that the one she threw out when you gave her the new one you made?” she asked. Mother pursed her lips and Kancil knew that she must feel bad about something – Kancil wouldn’t normally get away with an ungrateful comment without a rebuke at the very least.
Mother folded the kain and unwrapped her rice. She cleared her throat as if she were about to say something. Then she seemed to change her mind. They sat in silence for a while, chewing the bland rice and occasionally picking out a small stone and flicking it onto the path. Kancil could feel the tension of her mother’s unspoken words.
“I know I’m not to sit with the family at the welcome ceremony,” she said. “Bibi told me.” Bibi had, in fact, taken particular glee in conveying that message from Big Aunt to Kancil.
Mother looked apologetic.
“It’s all right,” Kancil said with a shrug. “I wouldn’t want to sit near Citra anyway.”
“Child, really! You shouldn’t say such things,” Mother replied. Her voice was so tired and weak that the rebuke had little impact. Mother was alive, and for that Kancil was grateful, yet there was something missing; the determination that had kept her strong all the way from the coast to the village had been worn away, leaving nothing but gratitude to her horrible family for allowing her to survive.
Tiger Stone Page 9