Khaing had spread the white sheet over my mat and placed my regular sheet over it. The bride, draped in a cotton shawl, sat on the edge of the mat. Her hair, now loose, flowed about her shoulders, the flowers hung around her neck. Khaing had lit two candles and placed them on either side of the bed. She left a tray with cups of sugarcane juice and small coconut cakes that I have become fond of. I offered the young woman juice and the cakes. We nibbled the cakes without speaking. I am sure she was not hungry or thirsty but, like me, went through the motions to calm her pounding heart.
A day has passed, and even when I write these words, I feel my heart quicken, my face flush with shame, my skin likely turning scarlet under the lamplight. I performed poorly—like the clumsy boy of eighteen I was when I married innocent Ruth of blessed memory, who was even younger than I. During our engagement, we did not touch each other, not even our little fingers, not even the brush of my hand across her arm. Uncle thought it a good match—a distant cousin of a good man. There was no love in our wedding bed. Duty lay in my marriage bed, not love. I did not know her long enough to love her. It pains me to say it, but in our year together I grew only to expect her presence. Perhaps if she had not become pregnant so soon and she and the child had not died in birthing, maybe love would have bloomed. Maybe our bodies would have grown more comfortable, our hands more comforting, and our hearts warmer. Ruth of blessed memory did not even live to be the companion her name promised—time and my callow heart did not allow it.
So last night, I slid beneath the sheet, awkward as a frightened groom on his wedding night. Almost a decade had passed since I lay with a woman, and never a woman so full in her nakedness. Nightgown, blanket, and darkness always covered Ruth.
I do not count the whore you bought for me two years after death took Ruth of blessed memory. I should not have been swayed by wine and your words. You told her that my loss had turned me into a morose fellow, and she pranced and preened—a painted clown—to make me smile. I have erased much of that night but cannot forget the image of her flouncing about in worn black stockings, dimpled with darning and snags, pulled up above her thick knees. Her forced frivolity and that dark room’s thick purple curtains, heavy with the stink of countless customers, turned me even gloomier. She cooed my name, but her false passion could not warm the coldness of her embrace or mute the clink of coins echoing in my ears.
The bride shivered, her shoulders tensed when I lightly touched her arm. I think she was frightened to be so close to a man so pale and hairy—the men here are smooth as marble statues. I must have seemed like a ghost or a demon to her young eyes. When my fumbling hands touched that place, she was dry. I confess my carnal longings. The touch of her smooth skin aroused me. I could not control my desire after these celibate years. When I tried to enter her, I spilt my seed on her thighs before I could pierce her virgin’s shield. Unmanned, ashamed, I turned my back to her, certain she knew from the talk of women that this was not the way bodies should behave. I lay at the edge of the mat, my mind churning from thought to thought like the surface of a pond under whipping winds. It seemed like hours but was probably only thirty minutes or so judging from the candle as it burned. I felt her fingertips touch my back, move down my spine slowly, stop, then caress the curve of my buttocks, and reach even more slowly between my legs to stroke my member. I turned over to face her, and with a grace that I had never before possessed, my hands moved from her whitened cheeks, over her small breasts, down to that place. A man again, I entered her. She held me tight with a strength that surprised me, as if she were trying to keep me from tumbling into a sudden chasm in the earth. I did what was expected of me. I came deep inside her with an explosive shudder of relief. Stars burst behind my closed eyes. My cheek, wet with tears, pressed against hers, and we fell asleep entwined in each other’s arms.
In the half sleep of morning, I heard a loud knock. I jerked up, covering myself with the sheet, certain the Assembly had sent someone to exile me as an apostate into the wilderness of the marshes. The young bride, startled awake by my sudden movement, pointed with a giggle to the corner of the ceiling, where a gecko lay in wait for the day’s prey. She raised the top sheet to see the stained cotton beneath her. She smiled, touched my cheek, and with a slight bow of her head, rose, wrapped the shawl around her bare shoulders, and padded out of the room in search of Khaing.
As was my routine, Khaing had put a bucket of heated water outside my room. I washed, and before I dressed, I gave my thanks to the Holy One, blessed be He, for guiding me through the night. Though she was not my first woman, I do not think I blasphemed to offer a blessing for her arrival and safe passage through the night. My safe passage as well. Passage to where, I leave to God to chart. All that happens happens under His eyes and for reasons that time may reveal.
How long Win, the husband, and the bride’s parents waited on the verandah I do not know, but they were there when I went outside. We stood, not saying anything, our silence matched by the dawn quiet of the street whose daily life had not yet begun. When I was a small child waiting for Yom Kippur prayers to start, I would close my eyes and count backward from ten, believing I could will the service to begin when I uttered “one.” As I stood on the verandah, I felt that if I counted down to one, a bell would sound and the town would come alive, like actors rushing onto a stage. When the bride came out of the house, she looked as fresh and smelled as fragrant as when she had arrived the night before. Khaing had oiled and brushed her hair into a bun, and from some trove secreted since her youth she had rubbed the girl’s body with perfume. The bride thanked “Auntie” Khaing and “Uncle” Win for their kindness—in this land the young address their elders in this way. She handed the bridal sheet stained with her blood to her husband, who bowed his head slightly. It may seem strange to say, Joseph, but I felt a twinge of pride, as if I were sending my own daughter off to a new life. She looked directly in my eyes, said a simple thank you, turned, and followed her husband down the steps. Win looked relieved, and said he would return later in the morning.
I think that for the moment, I should write no more about last night. My mind swirls with thoughts, and words may set in a mold feelings not fully formed. I am not wise enough to quote the Rambam or plumb the wisdom of the Talmud—you know I, like you, was not the most diligent of students. All I know is this morning before I washed the dried blood and fluids from my body, I didn’t feel unclean.
Your cousin,
Abraham
9 January 1599
Dear Joseph,
More than two weeks have passed, and thoughts of the young bride haunt me. I remember the feel of her body. Some nights I have even dreamt new brides into my arms. What am I to do? Wear a hair shirt or walk to the market with my eyes closed, Win leading me like a blind beggar? I thought myself a stronger man.
While you have risked your life in the arms of your Christian courtesan and your soul in Purim flirtations with Ghetto maidens, I have sat in silent but stern judgment, wondering how you keep your mind free of guilt. You tell me your carnal adventures are but a temporary way station on the journey to faithfulness to a wife whose moderate appetite will keep you virtuous and in good health. But I worry you will become one of those men who empty their purses on a prostitute’s bed and bring tears to their wives’ cheeks. Or worse, your weekly trysts in a Christian’s bed will lead to galley chains or death in a windowless dungeon. Now I wonder if perhaps I have been too harsh a judge and held myself in higher regard than our shared nature allows.
Cousin, you make me think the world less etched in black and white. You do not deny that you break the commandments, but claim that does not mean you do not believe in them. On Purim you proudly claim to do as the Talmud commands. On our one day of revelry to rival the Gentiles’ Carnival you are commanded to eat, and you eat. You are commanded to be merry, and no one is merrier. You are commanded to drink until you can’t tell the difference between “cursed be Haman” and “blessed be Mordecai,” and you drink the cup of
obedience until the last drop. Many a Purim I have taken you by the arm and led you up and down the narrow stairs of houses that list and lean from too many stories, like you from too much wine. Young maidens, emboldened by their masks and their heads dizzied by sweets, too much dancing, and a cup or two more of wine than they are used to, rarely rebuff your sweet words—in truth, I think they encourage them.
They forgot that you are a dance master and do not need to see a woman’s face to know who she is. There are few young women in the Ghetto you have not partnered. You know the feel of fingers bare and gloved. You can read their hands like a sea captain can read the stars. You know a masked woman by her carriage, by the way she moves. And yet though you may coax an embrace and a kiss in an alley hidden from other revelers, you guard like a brother the names of these young women. You confine your flirtations to young maidens. You never take advantage of married women, who, freed by their supposed invisibility, seek to salve a wounded heart with forbidden kisses.
Sometimes you seem a man ruled by your body, other times by the law. What a strange teacher you are turning out to be. Honor is not always a well-marked path. An ox yoked to the grinding wheel cannot claim to be virtuous for not trampling the crops in the field. When the next bride comes, I will do what is expected. I pray that I do what is right.
Your cousin,
Abraham
5 February 1599
Dear Joseph,
Trade goes slowly. The days are full of festivals, and the countryside full of bandits. We await the arrival of fresh stones from Capelan. I am afraid Uncle has sent me to live in a house whose foundation is rotting: termites feast upon the beams, and the walls shudder with every gust of wind. All I can do is make as much profit as possible and wait for the seasonal winds to take me home before I am buried beneath fallen timbers.
Peguans, their minds full of superstition, read dire omens everywhere. There is talk in the market that the spirits have abandoned the king. Rats, it is rumored, have overrun the royal granaries. More frightening to their heathen eyes, clouded by spirits and demons, was the death last week at its bath of one of the king’s white elephants. The people hold these beasts sacred—they believe Buddha was a white elephant just before being reborn in his final human form. The king’s white elephants live better than princes in our land. Protected from the elements, they lounge in houses gilded with gold. Attendants bathe them in sandalwood-scented water poured from silver basins and feed them sugarcane by hand. This spoiled behemoth is in truth a pink-eyed, dusty gray creature with patches of white; even bejeweled, he looks sickly to my eyes. But kings in these lands fight wars and sacrifice thousands of lives to capture these sorry animals. I and every other foreigner are taxed to keep the royal elephants pampered like concubines in the seraglio. When the king commands, we visit the royal elephants; we must attend, no excuses are allowed. And as a foreigner, I must bring gifts of ganza to the royal handlers for the care of their charges. Little did Uncle think that his profits would be eaten by elephants.
Perhaps it was only coincidence that, soon after the death of the elephant, a festival was held today to display the fierceness of the royal elephants. Maybe the full moon dictated the celebration, or maybe the king heard the rumors swirling in the market and wanted to awe the populace with his power and pomp. No awe to my eyes, only more doubt and concern about the kingdom’s fate. Before the celebrations began in the royal compound, the king rode through the city in a high, gilded wagon drawn by sixteen white horses. Twenty noblemen walked behind and at the side of the wagon, holding taut ropes to keep the wagon from tipping over. The horses were well groomed and strode with stately grandeur; the noblemen, short swords with jeweled handles strapped around their waists, looked straight ahead, like statues come to life. But I could not help think through the trumpets’ roar and the clatter of hoofs and the crunch of the wheels over the road that all this display was a symbol of what is rotten here: a gilded wagon too high for its own good, built for effect only, held up by the labor of others, and if it were to fall, those below would be the ones to suffer the greatest injury. The king sat impassive under a white canopy that only he as king is allowed to travel under—noblemen and commoners must suffer under umbrellas of darker color. The king did not wave or smile—he sat there to be seen, to instill awe in the minds of his subjects by his presence alone.
I could not tell whether the crowds lining the road were impressed with the king or scornful of his extravagant display, while they scrimp to buy rice that trickles into the market, more costly with each day. It is hard to read the faces of Peguans. Their flat, round faces are more mask than mirror. When I first arrived, I judged them dull and thick-witted, but hidden beneath their impassive softness are quick minds and generous souls, just as the waters of the Lagoon are alive with creatures under its dark surface. They show little emotion and never anger. It is only Europeans, new to these lands, who lose their tempers, bare their teeth like dogs, and turn red with anger. From what I have seen, those who do not govern their temper and restrain their emotions, no matter the color of their skin, will die poor men in this land.
Later in the day, the foreign traders were compelled to go with thousands of Peguans to a large enclosed field in the royal city to see the royal elephants battle a wild tiger. It was a dispiriting event that brought me only sad reservation about where man stands in the ladder of being, or what these believers in Buddha call the planes of existence. The elephants, though not white, were quite regal—large brown creatures with huge, gleaming tusks pointed in gold. But there was no fairness to this fight, no doubt as to its outcome. It was all mummery. The tiger was tethered to a stake in the middle of the field. Four elephants gored and stomped the poor creature until he lay bloodied in the dust. Royal retainers cut him free and dragged his body across the ground in front of the benches where Win and I and much of the crowd sat. The tiger had no claws—they had been pulled out—and his mouth had been sewn shut. What chance did that poor beast have? What acclaim could the king garner with such a barbaric display? Where was the compassion, the reverence for life that Win speaks so much about?
I think even Win must have been embarrassed by the sheer unfairness of the battle. He must know in the royal script the tiger cannot win, that the forces of royal order will always triumph over rebellion and disorder. But in so hobbling his enemy, the king makes a sham of the contest and diminishes himself.
Wishing perhaps to wash the bad taste of the afternoon from our mouths, Win invited me and several local traders and brokers to his house for something cool to drink and eat. I went in hopes it would be humble offerings of sugarcane juice, whose sweetness I enjoy, and a luscious fruit called mangosteen that looks like a small wooden ball but under its tough exterior nestle plump white crescents of sweet flesh, the size of almonds, that taste almost like pure sugar. I dreaded anything more substantial, for these people eat whatever they can catch. Vermin and creatures that creep upon the earth—they eat everything but the croak and the hiss. I have seen cages of lizards, frogs, and snakes in the market and even heaping mounds of rats and baskets black with bats. Whatever the creature, all the Peguans need are hot coals, some chilies and banana leaves to wrap it in, and their mouths are open and waiting.
We drank coconut juice and palm wine sweetened with honey and dipped our fingers into a heaping plate of a special delicacy they call pickled tea—a pile of tea paste surrounded by piles of fried beans and peanuts, fried garlic, roasted sesame seeds, and chopped green chilies. Usually it is served with dried shrimp, but I had told Win once that my faith forbids my eating such animals, and out of kindness he put them on a separate plate for the others to eat. The mix of the leaves’ sweetness and bitterness—a bit like dipping maror into charoses at Passover—with the crunch of seeds and nuts is very much to my liking, and I could survive a desert exodus with such food. As my fingers swung back and forth between plate and mouth, one of the slave children brought out a wooden plate steaming with what at first looked l
ike our gnocchi flecked with slices of red chilies. I hesitated, and well I did, because as the plate passed from one guest’s hands to another’s, Win said they were the worms that spin silk. I need no mitzvah to keep me from eating worms, whatever beauty might come from their bowels. After the plate was cleaned and fingers licked, Win went out behind the house to his garden and returned with a large spiky fruit cradled in his arms. The eyes of the other guests sparkled, and some rubbed their stomachs in joking anticipation. Everyone here, including not a few Europeans, is addicted to this fruit they call a durian. Inside its spiky exterior hides—but is not hidden enough—a creamy flesh that smells to those who love it like garlic custard. Joseph, I tell you it is an aroma most foul, like undergarments forgotten in some chest, which have rotted and fermented and then been mixed with decaying old slippers and garlic bulbs black with age. You can smell a man who has eaten this fruit ten paces off, and approaching verandah stairs you know without sight when the family has just split open this stinkpot of a fruit. Win had tried before to force me to swallow a spoonful of this fetid flesh, and of course this night I became the butt of everyone’s good-natured joking.
—How can you claim to be a man of sound mind and good breeding if you turn your nose up at this delicacy?
—How could the country of your birth be any better than a jungle of ignorant beasts if it produces men of such low taste?
The Jewel Trader of Pegu Page 7