A Woman of Angkor

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A Woman of Angkor Page 12

by John Burgess


  After perhaps half an hour, he saw the stone that marked the border of Prince Teng’s estate. A bit beyond was another horrifying sight. Caught in an eddy was one of the waterborne corpses, still in a blue sampot. It seemed to be the helmsman.

  Several hours later came the tree where the prince, the late prince, had pointed out the gibbon. Not much further down, on the left bank, would be the retainers’ houses, his own family’s among them, the first sign of the Chaiyapoom Estate’s main settlement. Then the river would curve sharply right and back to the left to trace its arc around the estate house. Nol mouthed a prayer of thanks to the log, and said good-bye to it.

  He came ashore near the houses, hiding himself among brush. Things were strangely silent. The scent of smoke hung in the air, stronger than what cooking fires make. From the top of the bank, he saw another terrible sight: two of the houses were smouldering ashes. All others that he could see, including his own, seemed deserted. But soldiers with spears were standing by his very own house, conferring about something. They wore helmets of a kind he didn’t know. Then one of them moved and Nol saw behind him a corpse, its sampot stained in red. Who? It seemed to be one of his sisters!

  I half imagine that when he came ashore he was still a boy, but when he saw this, he became a man.

  He crept back down to the river, swam out to the middle, then let the current carry him around the great bend. Just above the waterfall, he emerged again, this time on the right bank, where a thicket grew. He hid among its friendly leaves. From here he had a partial view of the estate palace and temple. Again – bodies sprawled in shocking poses on the ground. And armed men standing around everywhere, seemingly bored by the sights around them. A few had straw bags over their shoulders, others had jewellery draped over their arms.

  Then the men came suddenly to order. A horse with rider appeared, with an escort of guards and four parasol bearers. It was Prince Teng, inspecting his conquest. He got down from the horse, then entered the palace. It was his now.

  As dusk approached, Nol lay hidden, nibbling nervously at the leaves of strange plants, spitting them out. He decided he must get away from this place. He had no idea where to go, but somewhere Prince Vira’s people would be coming together, gathering weapons, preparing to retake the estate. He would find them.

  He began to walk, hoping that maybe just in the next grove was such a gathering. But there was no one. He pressed on. One moment he was hurrying along a trail through tall grass, the next there was a woman right there on the ground in front of him, lying still. It was the wife of Prince Vira’s militia commander.

  He went to his knees by her and her eyes opened.

  ‘Nol – you, at least!’

  Her eyes closed and she let out a long breath and said it again: ‘You, at least.’ There was blood on her calf; her garment was stained.

  Then she asked: ‘Do you have any water?’ He answered no, ashamed that he could not meet even this simple request.

  She lay back, panting. ‘Where is the prince? And the guardsmen?’

  Nol could only say: ‘Not with me.’

  ‘But they’ll come soon?’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘They have to, they have to. The whole estate is filled with these men....They came at midday. I don’t know how it happened – but they got past the guards at the gate. It was awful. I hid, for the whole afternoon, I hid in a rice bin and I heard a man say, say, that the prince’s staff and all their families must be caught and killed.’

  ‘Did you see my mother, my sisters?’

  She did not answer.

  ‘They got my husband. Oh, I saw that. They got one of my two boys. And they got me as well, but in a different way. But...then I went into the water and swam.’

  Nol looked down at her. All he could hope to do was comfort her with his presence.

  ‘You! Hold it there!’

  Two soldiers had come into sight down the trail.

  ‘Let’s run!’ Nol cried. But she seemed not to hear. He tried to pull her to her feet. But she merely stared blankly, unable to move, and then collapsed to the ground again. And so Nol ran away on his own.

  When he stopped, exhausted, deep in the forest, he could hear no steps behind him. Darkness had fallen. He stepped off the trail and lay down.

  Early the next afternoon, he sat in a food stall in the market of a small town, gobbling down noodles bought with silver from selling the two bangles, the only jewellery he had not abandoned to the river. A magistrate’s assistant arrived with two guards. The man announced to the market goers that members of a terrible criminal gang were on the loose, having murdered their own prince and master, the beloved Prince Vira, even their own parents. There would be a reward of fifty silver ingots for anyone turning members of the gang over to Prince Teng, who was safeguarding the late prince’s property as he worked to avenge this crime. Then came the names of the fugitives: Nol, son of the late parasol master; Rom, daughter of the late chief concubine; Rit, son of the late militia commander. Nol looked the assistant’s way, because that seemed the inconspicuous thing to do, and kept eating.

  From that market, he set out for the village that produced the parasols. He arrived at night, four days later. He was hungry, dirty, exhausted. The headman gasped on seeing this and took him directly into his house. But really what could this man do? He kept Nol in hiding a few days, sent word to a relative in the Capital who of course lacked power to help. Prince Teng’s account of events had been accepted in the palace, where he had powerful family members. The Chaiyapoom Estate was indeed now his.

  After a few days, it was decided that for the safety of everyone, Nol would go to stay with a cousin of the headman far to the south, near the Salt Water Sea.

  ‘I will come back here one day,’ said Nol, as he took his leave. ‘And this village will make parasols again for the lord of Chaiyapoom.’

  ‘I know it will happen, master Nol,’ said the headman. ‘When you are ready, we’ll be here.’

  So Nol departed. But he never made it to that cousin’s village.

  After a day on the road, he stopped at a travellers’ hostel and lay down to sleep on a mat. He awoke to find that four young men had come in during the night. He began talking with the one who seemed to be in charge.

  They were dredgers, headed for a job three districts away at a reservoir that had silted up.

  ‘We’re short a man,’ said the head, a jovial type who found nothing suspicious in Nol’s accent. ‘Do you want to come? One silver pebble a day, plus food and a place to sleep. And lots of pretty girls in the market. The job will run about two weeks. What do you think?’

  My future husband said yes.

  There it is, then. He began his life in privilege. His entire family was murdered, and he was reduced to being a canal dredger. When I learned this story many years later, I finally understood the anger that I had always sensed within him.

  14: The palace pantry

  I have told you that on the day when peace returned to the prince’s compound in the Capital, I had hoped that the people there would accept Bopa and me as no different from them. But special treatment continued, in ways larger than being offered little gifts.

  One day, Mr Narin called at the house with news that Bopa and I would move. He described the new place, and I knew it immediately. It was the largest retainer house in the compound, with a new tile roof and a carved doorframe. I was quite sure that two families, maybe three, had been living there, sharing it. I asked him.

  ‘Oh yes, that’s right,’ replied Mr Narin. ‘Three families. But now they’ve moved back to their home villages, on business of the prince. They will have large houses there. And since their former place is sitting vacant, going to waste, I thought...’

  I protested that he must reconsider. But the next morning, six slaves showed up with empty baskets. Other women from the compound – they had been told what was happening – came and helped us pack our things. And when the baskets were filled and lined up at the
foot our steps, as if awaiting a journey across the Empire, I went back into the house for a last time and knelt at its shrine. I gave thanks to the household spirit for the shelter and protection it had accorded Bopa and me, and asked please that it would recognize that we’d rather have stayed put, but that people more powerful than we had arranged this move.

  There are times when kneeling at an image that I say things that are less than true, that I make excuses for my own behaviour, but this was not one of them. Mr Narin was a kind man, he had gone out of his way for us more than once. And he was our guide and protector here, with my husband still away. So I resigned myself, saying nothing when the day after we moved into the new house I discovered that the former occupants were in fact still in the compound, now sharing a smaller house.

  But I was finally driven to action a few days later when a girl of maybe twelve years appeared at our steps and announced that she had been sent as a maid.

  I went right away to see Mr Narin. I found him at work in his pavilion, palm-leaf ledgers spread out before him. He was at a low teak table that had a flawless finish and, like so much else around the prince’s compound in those days, looked brand new.

  Mr Narin rose with the genuine courtesy he always extended. He invited me to sit. A servant I hadn’t seen before brought tea.

  ‘Sir,’ I said after some small talk, ‘Sir...’ And then it began. ‘You have given us too much, sir. We don’t need such a big house. We don’t need a maid. There is only myself and my daughter. And women in the compound are always leaving gifts at the door. The gods will think I want too much, that I’m greedy and I....’

  ‘Please, please,’ he replied softly, seeming to have known what I would say. ‘Don’t you see that everyone in the prince’s service is coming to live better? It’s quite natural you should have some comforts. Our master is rising in stature and he is sending silver and valuables from the campaign in the Upper Empire.’

  ‘But sir, we don’t need anything more than we already have.’ I was already losing control of the conversation.

  ‘Perhaps you don’t need it, Mrs Sray. But you deserve it. Especially you. You are the wife of a man who is fast at His Highness’s side, who is loyal through and through. And your husband’s rank can only rise further. As you know better than I, Mrs Sray, the priests teach that certain rewards are enjoyed by those people who serve well on this earth, who assist Heaven in bringing order and prosperity to society. Your husband does that, and you do it too. Don’t you think it would be unfair if the other women were not allowed to show respect to you and your family with gifts from time to time, for the help you gave during the siege here, the food you shared, for the risks you took to safeguard us all? I am among those who are in your debt.’

  I frowned. For an instant, my mind pictured a jungle clearing, in which a man lay dying, his skull crushed from the blow of a shovel.

  Please! I will tell you about that in time. But for now, take it as enough to know that I was not at all deserving of this kind of praise.

  So, I began to cry, right there, with Mr Narin sitting across the table. His face fell and he hurried around to my side and knelt. But he did not know what to do. Oh, what I put the poor man through.

  ‘Mr Narin!’ I said presently, wiping back a tear. ‘Sometimes I wish I could go back to my old house. The one back in the little quarter behind the mountain-temple Pre Rup. Our life was so much simpler there. The children played outside, there weren’t so many temptations, there was no problem with soldiers. I had something to keep me busy, I had a life in the market. I sold ducks eggs, did you know? I did it every day, for twelve years.’

  ‘Please, Mrs Sray,’ he said, finding his voice. ‘Give it a while longer. You’ll come to feel comfortable here, maybe sooner than you think.’

  I thanked him and walked back to the house. I arrived there to find Bopa sitting alone in the front room, playing at a dice game. Where had it come from? I had no idea – probably another gift. The little maid was in the back, trying to manoeuvre a broom that was too large for her. Sweeping was supposed to be Bopa’s job. I felt exasperated all over again.

  The next day, a slave from the palace kitchen came and announced that the presence of Mrs Sray was requested.

  I followed him. Why wouldn’t I? My life was no longer my own. We walked silently past a pond, then a stable, to a part of the compound I had never visited. In it stood a long wooden house that announced its function with the scent of charcoal and sizzling greens and spices. Inside, a large man turned from a collection of braziers, wiped his hands on a dirty cloth tucked into his waist, and put them together to greet me.

  ‘I’m told, Mrs Sray,’ he said cheerfully, ‘that you might be able to help solve a problem.’

  ‘What problem?’

  ‘This!’ He reached into a basket and held up a mango.

  I could see that it had been picked too early; the colour hadn’t come in properly. He passed it to me and I confirmed with my fingers. Its flesh lacked the requisite bit of give.

  ‘And this.’ He gestured toward a bucket. There were live prawns in it, in water. ‘Too small,’ he said, stating the obvious. ‘And tasteless. Not even fit for slaves! We have young girls without a trace of sense in their heads going to the market for us in the morning. And they’re supposed to find the good stuff? They hardly even know how to count. You give them silver and they come back with no idea or how much they’ve spent and for what.’ He grimaced. ‘And I’m supposed to make food fit for serving in a palace.’

  ‘That can’t be easy...’

  ‘Yes, yes. Now, don’t you see, Mrs Sray, that if these girls had some direction, from someone who knew the market, and all the tricks people play there, our life would be much easier? We’d get the respect we deserve from the vendor women. We’d get good produce and good fish and meat. And save money, even.’

  I asked: ‘What time do they go?’

  ‘An hour after dawn, usually.’

  ‘That’s too late. The good things are all gone.’

  ‘Of course they are! But do they listen to me?’ He laughed. He was enjoying talking market. And so was I.

  ‘Perhaps I will speak with them.’

  ‘Yes, yes! And go with them too, maybe? Just one day? I will send them to you. At the right hour.’

  He told me their names. Then he made a bow and a grunt and turned back to his pots and fire. He tossed a handful of greens into an iron pan and a cloud of spiced smoke billowed into the air. I walked out smiling, for the first time in weeks.

  The next morning, before sunrise, I found the girls gathered outside my house. (Bopa was still sleeping, having pled that this trip was starting too early.) They sweetly put hands together in lamplight when I came down the steps. There was no mischief here, I could see, just inexperience. I led them forth as the first hints of daylight coloured clouds in the east.

  The market had the pleasant bustle of its first hour. We walked a circuit of its many aisles, not buying anything yet, just taking in what was on offer in lamplight, which stall had what fish from the Freshwater Sea, which had the sweetest rambutans. The girls seemed to like being under my wing. It was rather like in the old days, when the young Pala came with me. Baskets over their arms, they listened as I showed them how to tell real dew from water splashed on fruit for appearance of freshness, how to spot a crooked scale when silver was weighed.

  Then we bought. The final stop was the stall of the grown-up Pala, where we purchased sixty coconuts – it felt good to give her so much business – and hired four boys to carry them back to the palace kitchen. Then we all sat down on Mrs Pala’s mat and drank some of the sweet milk ourselves.

  When I arrived back at the house, there was another surprise waiting – a novice priest.

  He bowed, and, eyes on the ground, announced: ‘I have been sent so that the woman called Mrs Sray may have the ability to read the holy scriptures.’

  I took a moment to compose myself. Please don’t smile, but I had always be
lieved that ability to read came from revelation of a secret that priests and nobles guarded closely. There would be a rite in a dim chamber, the smell of incense and mildew on stone. An aged abbot would chant for an hour or more, then whisper a single magic word that would infuse meaning into the symbols I had seen etched on palm leaves and festival banners.

  So now I asked the novice to which shrine we would go for this rite. The question seemed to confuse him; he responded by asking if the house had a place where we could sit down. I directed him to the front veranda, where passers-by could see us, because it would of course not do for a woman and a young priest-to-be to be alone in a private place. We sat, rather far apart, and on the mat he unfolded a piece of slate on which he had drawn a chart with chalk. Five lines from side to side and five up and down formed boxes on the sheet, each with a symbol written inside it.

  He pointed to the first one. ‘Kah.’

  ‘Young novice, what is this ‘kah’’?

  ‘It is the name of this letter, ma’am. The first letter in the alphabet.’

  An hour later, he departed, leaving the slate with me. I peered down at it and struggled to recall the names of the first ten letters.

  My life began to change for the better from that day. Each morning I went with the girls to the market. Soon, Mr Narin was asking if I might help out with buying drapes and porcelain and other things for the prince’s household. I did, visiting the stalls and Chinese shops where such things were sold. After a while, it began to be quite a bit to handle myself, so Mrs Pala entered the prince’s service as well, as my assistant.

  We were very busy, going to this market, then that one, then to this warehouse, then to that farm where pigs lived behind bamboo fencing, their little ones scurrying around in the mud. How much we bought! The prince’s household had begun at perhaps twenty people, now it was four hundred. I must say that with all this coming and going to places of commerce, I began to buy things for my own home, and then, then to trade on my own account. Just a little bit, then a bit more. It was a kind of game of chance that I enjoyed. One day I bought a dozen vats of honey though the prince’s household needed only six. I stored the extra six under our house on a hunch that their value would rise. Why did I think it would? Because I had heard talk in the market of a new water route opening to the Cham lands (we were at peace with the Chams at that time) and it was said that people there loved honey but had little of it. Later I sold those six jars to a wholesaler at a mark-up. I swear to you that I never cheated anyone at this, that profits I made were only reasonable. But they were large enough to allow me to hire men to make repairs to the big house that we now occupied. It seemed wrong to let the roof leak water onto the lacquered floors. And I bought some things for Bopa. Shiny things made her happy and she deserved some happiness. Still, was I wrong to profit this way? Though I tried to avoid it, I know that I was sometimes offered a better price when I sold things because people imagined that they would get some benefit next time, when I was buying for the prince’s household.

 

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