A Woman of Angkor

by John Burgess

  One night, as he sat with a new lady friend in a drinking stall, worried that he could not match the gift that she had received from her previous man, it suddenly came to him: Kumari could earn more by telling fortunes. The next morning, he paid a priest to write a series of proverbs on votive sticks. It took only a few days for the elephant to learn a new skill and for it to catch on with the city’s people. The sticks were spread on the grass in front of the beast. The client paid a fee, posed a question to Sadong, who then whispered it into the elephant’s ear. After a moment’s contemplation, she picked up a stick with her trunk and presented it to Sadong. He could not read but he memorized the words based on the script’s appearance, and the customer always listened with gratitude as he voiced the elephant’s advice.

  What a time that was. Everyone was talking about the elephant. It seemed that every question, large or small, that arose in the Capital was put to Kumari, to the point that the elephant seemed to tire and disapprove of the attention. Still, merchants and labourers, soldiers and princes sought her out, day and night. Even the aged King, the orchid lover, took notice. One day, his procession was moving past the main market when it came upon Kumari telling fortunes. The royal locomotion stopped, and the King watched for a long while from atop his palanquin.

  We are taught that everything that rises high must fall. About two years after they arrived in the city, Kumari and Sadong experienced their fall. It began with a summons from one of the Capital’s wealthiest families. Sadong led the beast into the family’s compound, passing through a gate to a small garden with a lotus pond. There, the family’s patriarch was waiting, wearing a costly embroidered sampot and ruby-studded armlets. He was a large and impatient man, and he spoke sharply to a guard who did not close the gate quickly enough. Sadong was paid his fee in advance, getting hardly a glance. Then the man posed his question. But he didn’t give it to Sadong for conveying to the elephant, as was the normal practice. He stepped forward and whispered it into the elephant’s ear himself. Servants would later relate that the beast seemed indignant about this man and his question. She huffed, flapped her ears, and passed the tip of her trunk back and forth across the sticks, huffing again, refusing to pick one up. Finally she went still. It was clear she was refusing to make a divination, but the man would not accept that and chose to take her answer as the stick that lay closest to her unmoving trunk. He picked it up. It read: ‘One dove, then two, take shelter in a bamboo thicket during afternoon showers.’ The man pondered that, and then smiled slyly. It came out later that his question was: what will happen to the value of silver in the next six months? He took the verse to mean it would double during the rainy season. Kumari and Sadong were sent on their way, and in following weeks, the family converted all its wealth to silver. It borrowed quite a bit more on the strength of the blessed elephant’s supposed answer. But in fact, silver’s value fell by half during the rains, because new mines to the far north turned out to be more productive than predicted and ten Chinese ships arrived unannounced in the Freshwater Sea to purchase, with silver bars, as much rice as could be found, to take back to a famine zone. The rich family was ruined. Creditors descended on its house, escorted by magistrates and guards. On one of those visits, there was shouting and foul language, and a son stabbed a guard. He was arrested. Magistrates seized and sold the house, and everything in it. The family took refuge in a monastery, living on alms. The wife accepted this life as the will of Heaven; the husband did not and told anyone who’d listen that it was the fault of the elephant Kumari. He asked: had she really saved anyone at the quarry camp? Who could attest to actually seeing this happen? And here in the city did any good really come from water sprayed from that trunk? Stories began to circulate that to increase business Sadong had paid people to fake recovery from disease, and that the diamond between Kumari’s eyes had been placed there not by the gods but by Sadong, using paint and brush at night.

  That was all it took. People turned their attention elsewhere and soon Kumari and Sadong were almost as poor as the fallen family. They walked Angkor’s streets largely ignored. I can only imagine the shame that Sadong felt. Children shouted after him as a charlatan! They made fun of the gap in his teeth. But there was a change for the better in him. He faced up to this challenge bravely. He stopped drinking; he faithfully bathed the elephant each evening, going into the water with her, whispering endearments, rubbing down her rough skin with an old krama. I am sure there was no shame felt by Kumari. She knew she had done nothing wrong. She was happy to be spared all the attention. She seemed contented again.

  There was a small group of people who never lost faith in her. Some said that the verse had in fact signalled what would happen to silver – each bird represented the Empire’s supply of the metal, not the price. When the supply doubled, the value fell by half. In his greed, the merchant had taken it as the answer he wanted to hear. He had triggered the next cycle of existence – where there had been wealth, now there would be poverty, for family and elephant alike. In any case, the arrest of the man’s son was not a bad thing. Everyone knew he had committed murder twice, avoiding punishment because of his father’s payment of bribes.

  During Kumari’s days of fame, I had many times watched the elephant pass by, and could always sense the divine presence. I could rarely afford to pose a question, because the price was so high. But now it was low, just a few lengths of sugar cane, bought from Sadong for some small amount more than its worth, and so I began to consult each time I encountered the elephant. Such were her powers that I always came across her when something was weighing on my mind. And no one can say that she didn’t answer wisely each time. The mysterious pain in Bopa’s shoulder? It will go away. The best place to sell duck eggs in the market? Move to the north side and business will improve.

  Now I had again encountered Kumari, and at a very important point in my family’s life.

  As I stood before her, she took the other bits of cane one by one from my hand, in a patient, grateful way that prolonged the satisfaction I felt in watching the great animal feed. When the cane was done, the trunk rose again and the large, pacific eyes turned my way. A trumpet of thanks sounded.

  Sadong spoke. ‘And now, Mrs Sray, it is our turn to serve you. What question would you like to pose?’ He was laying a cloth on the road and arranging on it the votive sticks bearing the texts. He also set out a bowl and filled it with water from a clay jug that was wrapped in a krama.

  I sank to my haunches before the sticks and elephant. ‘Ask the Blessed Kumari, please, is it possible for a simple family to find contentment in a new and strange station, one that is not simple?’

  Kumari took her time swinging the tip of her trunk across the sticks, expelling blasts of hot breath that knocked some of the sticks awry like straws in a monsoon wind. And then she stopped, considered something, and picked up one with the same gentle grace she had always shown me.

  Sadong voiced the text: ‘Given a boon, one person makes something foolish with it, a second makes something on which Heaven smiles, even though that which is given both people is the same.’

  There was hope, then.

  ‘And now,’ said Sadong, standing up, ‘your holy water.’

  ‘But I haven’t paid for that…’

  ‘A boon, Mrs Sray. A small one, but Kumari’s gift to you.’

  The elephant dipped her trunk into the bowl at her feet. A torrent of bubbles broke the surface of the water – it was as if it was boiling on a fire. Then the level sank rapidly and silently and the trunk withdrew. It was time to close my eyes. There followed the most pleasing spray on my face, shoulders and breasts. I savoured the holy coolness.

  But when I opened my eyes, I saw something disturbing, a lesion on the elephant’s neck.

  ‘Oh! You have an injury, Kumari?’

  Sadong replied sheepishly for the beast: ‘It’s been like that for two days, I’m afraid. She scraped against a tree. But we don’t have...’

  I handed him more si
lver. ‘For the man in the market who sells balms. He’ll have one for that.’

  Sadong thanked me profusely, hands together.

  But on the contrary, on this day it was I who owed thanks, to the elephant, for putting things in perspective. I placed one more piece of silver in Sadong’s hand. ‘For sugar cane. But not now. Later. Give it to her after her evening bath in the river.’

  The elephant’s eyes met mine again, calmly. For just an instant, I experienced that immeasurable something.

  6: An honourable occupation

  I returned to our house determined to take Kumari’s answer to heart. Through the afternoon, I busied myself sorting possessions and placing them in baskets. Bopa was bright-eyed. We’ll live only a little while in that dirty little house, she declared. Our prince will come and order some men to knock it down and build a big new one, with tiles on the roof and polished wooden floors. Mother, the floors will be so smooth we’ll slip and slide! There will be fruit and palm sugar every day, and ivory combs, not wooden ones. My little girl, prancing about, chattering like this – always so optimistic, she was. For a time I was buoyed by her example, but then, as evening neared, my spirits sagged again. The tea set kept presenting itself in my thoughts. By now, I concluded, it must be in the home of some other family. The pot was being filled by some other wife, the cup being raised by some other husband. By nightfall, I wanted it back desperately, though I knew that it could now bring only disappointment. If it somehow returned, it would simply open the way for another craving, desire for the resumption of the old life altogether. The set would be a reminder of the bygone existence, all that I had lost, causing dolour each time I touched it.

  I slept badly that night. Before sunrise, I rose and left for the central market. This is what I had done every day, but this time I was going to close the egg business I had run for a decade. The ducks in the pen beneath my house I would give away to neighbours.

  I arrived at the market. How foolish I was! I had thought I could merely say I was moving back to the countryside. But of course the news had reached here too. People with whom I had worked for years had already become strangers, variously distant or overly friendly. When I sold the lease to my space on the market’s ground, where early every morning I had spread a mat and arranged eggs atop it, the buyer gave me quite a good price, but there was some unspoken suggestion that I would later steer some business her way from the prince’s pantry. As I stood talking with her, my every move was watched, just as it was in the neighbourhood. I finished as quickly as I could. On the way out I shopped for fish. The price asked was absurdly high. This time I was viewed as a wealthy woman who’d be too proud to bargain.

  I returned to the house at mid-morning, climbed the steps and found Bopa gone and a pair of strange men inside. I was already dispossessed, it seemed. One of the intruders I recognized as a man who had a stall outside the market. His business was the sale of houses. Nol must have made arrangements with him to find a buyer. The second man wore bronze jewellery that signalled no particular occupation, just possession of money. They turned my way when I appeared at the door and the man in bronze gave a leer, in that way that certain men do, but to all women.

  I retreated down the steps – my own steps! In a few minutes, the men followed. ‘You could get rid of these things in the space below the house,’ the agent was saying, ‘and put the looms right here. Four or five of them would fit, I would think.’

  My heart was breaking. Everything around me would be lost – the jars at which I had bathed on a thousand evenings, pouring water gently over my skin, then, as I dried myself, listening for the voice of Heaven in the chirping of crickets and the stirrings of the breeze in the palm trees’ fronds. The pen from which I had released my ducks each morning to forage for rice crabs in the nearby paddies would be broken up for kindling. The house where my children were born, where my husband and I had found sanctuary and a measure of quiet happiness – this house would become a place where hired women wove fabric.

  The following morning, two slaves from the palace showed up unrequested, sent by Mr Narin. There was no more putting it off. Bopa and I said prayers before our household shrine, the men waiting silently below. They draped our baskets’ handles over either ends of bamboo poles, then lifted with their shoulders, balancing the load. With me in the lead, walking slower than I might have, we set off for the prince’s compound. The new neighbours watched our arrival with the same noncommittal eyes. When the job was done, I gave the slaves rice and vegetables and they bowed and thanked me elaborately.

  Alone now, Bopa and I knelt at our new household shrine. ‘Spirit of the House,’ I murmured. ‘Accept us as your new occupants and know that we will always honour you.’

  At mid-afternoon, we gathered the day’s washing and passed through the door in the compound wall, headed to the canal that Mr Narin had told us of the first day. It had only one small bamboo dock and four women were squatting on it, chatting and laughing together as they scrubbed garments. We stood waiting to be noticed and invited to join. But not one of the four looked up and their washing seemed to take a very long time. So we turned back toward our house, in silence.

  As we neared our steps, a girl approached. Bopa stopped and stood, with a tiny smile that said, please look to me, I am ready to be your friend. But the girl averted her eyes and hurried past. As she did, her lips mimed two words: canal dredger.

  In the house, I gathered my daughter in my arms. ‘My girl, your father’s occupation is an honourable one,’ I whispered. I could not bring myself to say former occupation. ‘If the canals were not kept deep, how would boats pass through to carry our food? How would the waters of the sacred reservoirs and moats be clear and please the gods? Each person has his work in this world and your father’s has built him merit to advance to a holier plane in the next life. But we are still in this life, and now Heaven has chosen to raise his station. We cannot know why, only that now his place, and our place, is here, serving the prince. The people here will come to accept us and you will have friends. Maybe that same girl whom we passed just now.’

  I gave a squeeze but it seemed to have no effect. Bopa sat morose with misty eyes. What more to say to convince her? But then, a welcome distraction – Mr Narin calling from outside the door. We got quickly to our feet to welcome him. How was the first day going? he asked. Did we need anything in particular? I brought tea. I told him that all was working out well. His visit, I reflected as I put a cup before him, made that partly true.

  After he left, Bopa and I went to the dock again and this time no one was there. We did our wash. The coolness of the water, the busy cooperation, put us both in a better mood. Then we stood and unknotted the garments we wore. We bathed. We returned to the house feeling fresh, but we slept fitfully that night, circled by mosquitoes that came up through cracks in the floor. I would have to deal with that standing water.

  Sometime before sunrise I was awakened by voices outside. I got up to look and saw that the compound was alive with people, despite the hour. Women stood in groups outside houses, holding small children close, trading words I could not discern. Something told me to dress and go see what it was.

  ‘There’s been trouble at the estate where our prince went,’ a woman explained anxiously. ‘The prince has been killed, the other prince, I mean. They say that the King and his priests are very angry and that our prince did the killing and they’re going to take away his title.’

  My hand went to my heart. I resolved on the spot to take Bopa from this place. We would find Nol and Sovan and move to another city. We would live as fugitives again. I awoke my daughter, then quickly gathered up a basket of things – an iron cooking bowl, the previous day’s rice, a comb, a single change of garments. I led my sleepy girl down the steps of the house and toward the gate – I was pulling her, really. But then I saw something truly frightening: A line of soldiers was blocking the gate, holding shields that bore the symbol of the King’s guard.

  One of them ye
lled in our direction: ‘Go back! Nobody leaves!’

  I blanched. I knew now that I had been right. The ghost had only pretended to go away. Now it had succeeded in corralling me and Bopa in this awful place. But we would try to escape. I hurried Bopa to the compound’s front gate. But there were soldiers there too.

  We retreated to the house. Inside, we sat huddled together. I was completely at a loss. I wished I could ask the elephant Kumari. I wished I could pray before Bronze Uncle.

  In half an hour, rough male voices carried in from outside. I looked from a window and saw soldiers moving among the houses. Then three were striding right up our own steps, right through our own door, asking no permission. Just like that! I put arms around my daughter and determined to offer myself in exchange if the girl was threatened. Don’t close your eyes, I told myself. You must see whatever they plan to do. But the men merely leered at me. ‘So this place does have something worth finding!’ laughed one of them. Then more shouts came from outside, and they left quickly. I peered after them. In front of the next house they joined other soldiers who were forcing a man to the ground for binding.

  I understood now. They were looking for any of the prince’s men who hadn’t gone to the provinces with him. In the meantime, they would keep the families penned up in the compound.

  We remained inside the rest of the day. I wished I had brought more food from the old house. We had at most a two-day supply. When night fell, we did not light our lamp, lest it attract soldiers.