by John Burgess
The man seemed at a loss – he’d thought I’d be delighted. ‘It was that way, Lady. Your husband is a very influential man. He was always with the prince, even when there was no need of parasols or other ceremonial implements. Sometimes they conferred in the prince’s own pavilion. We all were aware of it.’
You can imagine my feelings – joy turned to dismay. My husband and son gone off to a real war, my husband encouraging fighting and the violent release of souls from bodies. This was so different from what my daughter and I had come expecting.
17: The Siamese territories
Was I remiss in doing what I did next? Everyone said the prince and his men could not yet have reached the Siamese territories, but must be just in the next village to the north. Hardly an hour away. So the following morning, I led Bopa north for a look. Despite what I’d heard about an impending campaign, it was my hope that we would meet the army marching toward us, coming home, my husband and son among the ranks. We would all return to the Capital and be a family again.
We walked, then, bags over our shoulders. There was no doubt we were going in the right direction – there were so many footprints in the mud, left by men, by horses, oxen and elephants. And long snake-like marks of the twin wheels of carts. We came to the village. Prince and men were not there, but they had been. Try the next village, people said. So we went on. This one was somewhat further. We reached it in late afternoon. Again, there was no army. The headman took us in for the night.
The next morning we took to the trail again. It narrowed and entered a forest. We passed through places where the foliage grew so thick that the sun was blotted out. I began to feel uneasy. If we see anything unusual, I told myself, we will turn back. But we kept moving deeper and deeper into this woodland, as if it were drawing us in. I began to sense emanations from the vines overhead, from holes in the earth that looked like the dens of animals. Were we welcome in this place? I could not tell. Then came a terrifying thought: what if the dead prince’s ghost had followed us here? Don’t believe that, I told myself – all chances are that we are being watched only by this forest’s resident spirits. They will let us pass. We have done them no harm. I took Bopa’s hand and we hurried on. I felt some comfort in continuing to see footprints. Many, many people have been right here, I told myself. Soon we will be with them.
Then we rounded a bend. A bamboo fence showed itself, the first sign of a village. But as we drew near, we saw that this place only had been a village. The houses, perhaps they had numbered a dozen, it was hard to tell, had all burned, leaving just their stilts, standing but charred. Shards of broken water pots lay scattered. There was no sign of farm animals. And, of course, no people.
‘We turn back now, daughter,’ I announced, suddenly feeling reckless for having come so far, and with my girl in tow. ‘There may be Siamese here.’
She, however, wanted to go on. She cocked her ear and claimed to hear the army, just ahead.
It is rare that I become angry with Bopa, but now I did. I took her hard by the arm to cut off any protests. But just as suddenly I went still. We both saw that a column of soldiers, two officers on horseback in the lead, was approaching from down the trail. Who were they? It was too late to hide. I stood facing them, afraid, hoping to protect my daughter with a show of stern dignity.
One of the officers jumped down from his mount.
‘Khmer women in the Siamese territories!’ he declared. ‘How did this happen?’
He spoke in our native tongue. We were safe.
I of course had no idea that we had left the Empire’s soil. I explained who we were and who our prince was, which brought on the usual eagerness to assist. Why, the army is just an hour’s walk ahead, the officer said. We will take you to it. There is an equipment cart at the rear of the column – please, please, you will ride. Orders went out that room be created. So from there on we did ride, foot-sore, while bundled arrows and sacks of rice that had been in our place were born on the backs of walking soldiers.
But it turned out that, again, the army was not the promised short distance ahead. We went on for many hours, the officers saying again and again that surely it was just over the next ridge, or just across the little stream ahead. They were cheerful, almost too much so. I suspect they were trying in part to distract us from the sights that the trail had begun offering up. Awful things. There was another burned village, then a dead water buffalo, bloated. And then – two human bodies, men by the look of them, the blood all bled out of them, lying beneath a gum tree. I shielded Bopa’s eyes, and again reproached myself for bringing her here.
Dusk came. The soldiers made camp, setting up a portable pavilion for Bopa and me. Cooking fires were fanned to life. An orderly brought us a lamp and some cooked rice and fish. Don’t be afraid, he told us. You are surrounded by the Empire’s bravest fighting men. We slept only fitfully that night.
In the late morning of the following day, we finally did arrive. Emerging from leafy forest cover, we found ourselves at the top of a large hill of grass that spilled down toward a stream. The entire area was filled with Khmer soldiers! Thousands of them, camped out, having flattened the grass in many places. It was a city transplanted to the countryside. Some of the men were drawing water from the stream, others were lying on mats beneath shelters, or tending horses and elephants, or carrying out tasks of military life that I couldn’t understand. I was wondering how we were going to find two people in this multitude.
But then – I think the officers had sent someone ahead – there he was. My husband.
What pride he showed! Smiling broadly, he approached with a confident stride I had never seen. He wore a fine blue sampot; jewellery I didn’t know hung around his neck. He stood before me and I felt a surge of pride as well. My own husband, so happy, so accomplished. The morose airs with which he and I had lived for so many years – gone! I began to raise my hands in greeting but, what was this? He stepped close and embraced me, right there in public! I must admit I was so joyful that I submitted, not caring that men were looking on. You must understand that never had he and I been apart for more than a day or two.
He broke away, looked to me, and said: ‘And now, with you and our girl, I have everything.’
Then, behind him, running as if he were afraid he would miss us,
was my boy. And so much bigger! But when he drew near, he stopped. Rather than jumping into my arms, he put hands together.
My husband turned to the soldiers and announced in a rather grand voice: ‘My wife Mrs Sray, together with my daughter Young Mistress Bopa.’
The men – these strong soldiers – went to their knees, hands together.
My husband led us down the hillside. How quickly emotions can change. As I walked with him, already I was wondering whether, now that the initial excitement of reunion was over, he could really welcome us in this place, this man’s place.
He brought us to a pavilion, in an area that seemed set aside for the prince’s senior retainers. It was much better than the rude shelters in which the soldiers were sleeping. ‘You will want to rest, I’m sure,’ he said, motioning us to enter. An orderly appeared with our bags, another brought bowls of water, and we drank together. My husband watched, proud again. My boy sat alongside me.
Just then a messenger came running up and announced that my husband’s presence was required at the prince’s pavilion. Nol jumped to his feet, squeezed my hand and went off. We had been together not ten minutes.
Another women might have made a trip like this out of fear that her husband, away for so long, would take a minor wife, a young thing of such allure that she would displace the first wife in his affections and refuse to submit to her authority. I had no such concern. Nol had been loyal from the moment we met, and, unlike so many men, he never saw rise in wealth and influence as an opportunity to bring a new female into the household. To say it directly, he was awkward with other women, barely looking at them. But, as I sat in that pavilion that day, separated again from him, I
grasped that another kind of newcomer wife had moved in, rolled out her mat and lit the coals of her stove. This wife? Her name was duty.
Bopa lay down on a mat and dozed. Poor thing – the journey had exhausted her.
Sovan and I were left together.
‘Just look at my boy,’ I said. ‘So much taller than when he left his mother.’
He smiled in the sheepish way that had always touched me. ‘I am so happy that you came, mother.’
Another shock – the voice of a man! My eyes teared up again and I moved to put an arm around him, to draw him to my lap. He was of course too big now for that. But he submitted to this motherly gesture.
After a while, he tactfully removed my arm and shifted slightly away. He took my hand and looked into my eye. ‘It must be like this now, mother.’
We both laughed.
‘I had known this day was coming, Sovan. I had always hoped to put it off.’
‘Don’t worry. Everything else will remain the same.’
Do you see what a jewel this boy was? Having sympathy for his mother, not just respect. But I cannot say this was a surprise. I have told you how as a small child he stayed in my lap beyond the usual years. And when I got up, he followed. If I moved to the water jar beneath the house, he went there too and sat near, watching me fill a jug, holding it for me when he became big enough for that. If I beat the dust out of our sleeping mats, he was just behind me, adding a stroke or two of his own with a twig he’d picked up. He came to the market with me many mornings, ready to run whatever errands I had for him. Later, when he became old enough to help in his father’s work, I had to give him up, but I would always see him off in the morning. He and his father would be gone for long hours. But if he had a concern, it was me who heard it first, not his father. If I worried over my boy, it was that he was too content to be alone, too enamoured with private thoughts. I was never aware that he had real friends among the boys in our old quarter. And now I wondered how happy he would be in this camp. He would not complain about the hardships of life on the march. Yet I had no reason to think he would be drawn to this world of soldiers and war elephants. As a boy, he had never played with make-believe spears and armour.
So I asked. ‘You are happy here, Sovan?’
‘Yes, mother.’
‘You have things to do?’
‘Many things.’
‘You have friends?’ I was hoping now…
He thought a moment, then said: ‘Let me show you, mother.’
We walked a few steps to another, larger pavilion. Inside it, laid on the floor in straight lines, were four folded parasols.
He took up one, very carefully. Then he pushed on something with one hand, and the holy implement opened.
What a thing of beauty! Bright red silk, alive with white lotus flowers. Surely our lords in Heaven had no parasol finer than this one. I approached it; Sovan stood proudly, holding it upright for me. With an index finger I dared touch the fabric, silk made taut from application of oils. The edges were trimmed in silver, with tassels hanging down. At the crown was another lotus, a large one, formed of silver-dyed cloth. Underneath, bamboo ribs radiated from a carved wooden hub in the most astonishing way, like rays of sunlight. To this hub was attached a sturdy bamboo shaft, with silver rings tight around it top to bottom, each spaced the length of an open hand, as if it were a divine species of bamboo. Perhaps it was.
I put a finger to one of those silver rings. It was faintly wet. A hint of varnish came off on my fingertip.
‘A repair, mother. It’s not yet quite dry. If I’d known you were coming, I’d have made sure it was done.’
‘You fixed it yourself?’
‘Yes. I spend a lot of time here. Father has taught me.’ He gestured to the parasols. ‘These are my friends.’
18: The girl in the hidden teak house
You know, I had recognized this quality too in my boy some years earlier. He appreciated beauty. How old was he that first time I took notice? Maybe seven. Early one morning, I came upon him standing in the door of the old house, looking out. He was so still that I thought something must be wrong. But when I asked what, he just looked at me and said that it was nothing. I persisted. Finally, he explained. ‘I am watching the sunrise. Look there. It was dark purple a few minutes ago, now it’s almost pink. Heaven puts on a show for us every day.’ This at age seven.
I took note again when he was older and going out with his father to help with canal-dredging jobs. One day they were called to work inside the walls of one of the older mountain-temples southeast of the Capital. It was the first time they’d been accorded such a privilege. They came home that night with Nol in a bad mood. The boy wouldn’t work, wouldn’t work, all day long, he said. All he wanted to do was look up at the temple, never the water, though that’s where the work was. Later, I sat with Sovan and he told me, yes, his father was right. He couldn’t stop looking. He whispered to me: ‘A mountain temple is not one piece of stone. It’s tens of thousands of small ones. Each one fits together perfectly with those around it like they’re one. How can that be possible?’
That day at the camp, Sovan took some time putting the parasols away.
Afterwards, I said to him: ‘The parasols are fine friends, son of mine, but do you have any friends of the human kind? Other boys, perhaps?’
‘Yes, there are other boys here, but…I don’t see much of them.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be, mother. I am happy enough.’
‘Perhaps there are girls, then?’
What spirit made me ask this? There were clearly no girls here. But it was the right question. My boy went red, right there before me. I was not prepared for so many changes in him!
Of course on something like this, he was not willing to come out with it all immediately. But, as his mother, I had to know. So as the afternoon wore on (Bopa slept most of it away), I got the story.
It had happened back at one of the estates through which the army had passed. The supply of varnish for the parasols and other implements was running low, so Sovan had walked, by himself, to a nearby market town, to see if any could be found.
He was happy to be alone. He was getting away, for a while, from the hubbub of processions and princely audiences. So when he reached the market, he took his time buying varnish and brushes. When finally he felt he must return, he picked up some dried banana sweets for Veng and the other bearers, who always expected that a trip like this would produce something good to eat for them.
As he neared the estate, he turned and set off down a side track. On a whim, he told me, but I think it was to further put off the return to the estate.
Rounding a bend in the track, he saw a house ahead. At first he thought it was some hermit’s dwelling, but as he drew closer he saw it was large and built of fine teak, its eaves carved with images of gods. In the back was a lotus pond. Probably it was the forest retreat of a local noble. He walked closer, drawn by the beauty of the house and its grounds. No one seemed to be home. At the front gate, he took a breath, muttered a prayer of apology to the household spirit, and passed through. No one came out to challenge, so he moved down the entrance path, passing manicured shrubs. The eaves seemed almost to float above walls and windows. He circled around the house and arrived at the pond. How peaceful it was – a long rectangle, edged with stone, the water half obscured by floating lily pads. With straight lines and a surface undisturbed, the pond defined an enclave of calm and order, keeping out the chaos of the jungle beyond.
‘Go away! There’s nothing to steal here!’
He spun around. Behind him stood a grey-haired woman, an angry one, a lady’s maid by the look of her. Yet, a lady’s maid holding a rather stout stick over her head.
‘I’m not here to steal,’ sputtered Sovan. ‘I’m sorry – I’ll leave.’
‘Go, go, then! Now!’ cried the woman, stepping closer and swinging the stick. Sovan hopped back to avoid it.
‘Nang! Please, it’s all
right. He doesn’t look like a thief.’
On the terrace above him stood not a lady but a girl. Sovan described her to me as a bit younger than he, a year or two shy of the age at which she could bear children. The sun shone full on her. Her face and hands bore the rouge of aristocracy; her hair, pulled back, was secured by a bronze clasp.
‘Thank you!’ called my son. ‘I’m sorry – I thought no one was here. I just thought I’d sit for a bit by the water.’
‘You can if you want to.’
He didn’t feel like sitting now. Especially with the maid still eyeing him suspiciously.
The girl came down steps from the terrace.
‘You’re from Prince Indra’s army?’
‘No, I’m not! I’m not a soldier.’
‘See, Nang? No need to be worried. And look – he doesn’t even have a knife.’
The maid lowered the stick. ‘Still,’ she said, keeping her eyes on Sovan, ‘we should be getting home now. I told you we shouldn’t have come.’
‘Just a few more minutes. Please…?’
The maid gave in – Sovan sensed that she often did for this girl – and left to fetch cups of drinking water. The girl turned to Sovan, who was now very nervous, never mind about the issue of trespassing. He had never in his life spoken with a girl of her sort, certainly not when we lived in the old neighbourhood. He wondered if he should be kneeling, looking down to avoid her eyes, summoning up that special palace language to keep her from laughing at him. But before he could do any of that, she began to speak, the sun again full on her face.
‘I couldn’t bear to go home now. My elder sisters and I have been cooped up for days, ever since the prince’s army arrived in the district. All anyone’s talking about is getting outside again.’
‘But staying inside is not such a bad idea for now,’ ventured Sovan.
‘No, it’s terrible!’ She had opinions, this girl. Then she took on a confidential tone. ‘But do you know, this afternoon I found Nang in the cooking shed and talked her into taking me out on a walk, just a short one. But once we were beyond the gate I, well, managed to stretch it into a long one. She kept whispering the whole way that we had to get back!’ She made a mischievous face. ‘But never mind. Now we have you for protection!’