A Woman of Angkor

by John Burgess

Things had begun the very day I left for the provinces. Nol saw me off that morning, then turned to a major job at hand, replacement of the parasol pavilion’s roof. During a monsoon cloudburst some weeks earlier, water and broken tile had come cascading down without warning. Eight new parasols had been stained beyond repair. A slave sent up to inspect had reported that the supporting timbers had gone rotten. Nol gave an order that the entire roof be replaced.

  After I left, he went to the pavilion and paced in front of it, waiting for another cart, which would bring the first load of new tiles. When he committed money to something, he liked to see with his own eyes that the materials were of the quality promised. The cart appeared. The driver stopped it with the oxen facing a door through which the tiles would be taken. Nol inspected them; they were good. He stepped back, gave an order, and a couple of slaves began to unload, from the back of the cart. They carried armloads past the cart, then around the oxen, ducking each time to avoid the animals’ horns. They were taking many extra steps just to get past the cart.

  ‘Why haven’t you turned the cart around?’ Nol demanded. ‘Place it so the back is by the door. The job will go much more quickly that way.’

  Nol swore under his breath, thinking that people had to be told the simplest things. And right there the idea came to him. It was so frightening that his legs began to tremble and he had to sit down to consider it.

  The following day, Nol was shown into a rear room in the palace. The King sat on a dais. A new concubine was an arm’s reach away.

  Nol pressed head to mat. After preliminaries, he put on his best worried face and said: ‘Majesty, I ask permission to tell you something.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘A dream, Majesty.’

  ‘Ahh – a dream.’ The King was always intrigued by dreams.

  Nol took a breath and pressed on. ‘It was a very short one, Majesty. But when I woke up I remembered it so vividly that I felt it must have some special significance. People have advised me that I should not share it, that I should not bother you...’

  ‘And you have ignored them. Good. Now what was it?’

  ‘A simple dream, Majesty. You were standing at the foot of the steps to your mountain-temple. It was completed, in its full glory. You were...’

  ‘You saw the completed temple?’

  ‘Yes, Majesty. And words fail me to describe it. It was the largest and most beautiful in the universe. Its spires glittered with gold, it rose so high in the sky that clouds had to make way for it. It was on the earth, and yet it was not, it was part of Heaven itself.’

  ‘And I was there, in this dream?’

  ‘Yes, Majesty. You were dressed in silk and gold and with the largest sword, and you were standing at the foot of the steps with the royal flame burning at your feet. You were facing down the entrance causeway toward the outer gate, Majesty. I was not there, Majesty, There was no need – your parasols floated of their own accord above you. But somehow I was able to see you. Or perhaps just sense your presence.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘And down the causeway, beyond the entrance gate, was the sun, and it was low in the sky.’ Nol paused, and said nothing, waiting for the King to speak.

  ‘That’s everything?’

  ‘No, Majesty, not everything. But I have hardly the standing to mention what I saw. Down the causeway, just before the entrance gate, stood our Lord Vishnu.’

  ‘But the temple will be dedicated to Shiva.’

  ‘It will be, Majesty, but it was Vishnu I saw. To his side was his consort Lakshmi, she who in her devotion massages his feet in eternity. And behind them was his mount the Bird God Garuda and one hundred attendants. And I think it was very significant that Our Lord Vishnu was not above Your Majesty but at the same level. Our Lord Vishnu was beckoning that Your Majesty should come commune with him. He was speaking words that were soft, but somehow they carried the entire distance between Your Majesty and the divine party with no trouble whatsoever.’

  ‘What did Our Lord say?’

  ‘Majesty, I cannot answer – the words had no meaning to me. They were in the language between King and god. But I think that they had meaning to Your Majesty, because the royal feet began carrying Your Majesty down the causeway to join the divine party.’

  ‘Right toward the divine presence?’

  ‘It was that way, Majesty. And then as Your Majesty walked, the sky began to grow dark, and on reaching the divine party, Your Majesty was entirely covered up in this darkness. There was nothing to see anymore.’

  I do believe His Majesty must have been very concerned at this point. But Nol quickly followed with words to fix that.

  ‘But then, Majesty – it was like many hours passed in the snap of a finger. Your Majesty was back at the temple and had even more power and vitality than before. And the sun was rising from the other side of the temple.’

  The King was wearing a rare expression of contemplation. ‘I feel it’s a very meaningful dream...’

  ‘Yes, Majesty. I felt that I had to relate it.’

  ‘You are to be commended.’

  ‘I should tell you, Majesty, that there was in this dream a mood of great optimism, despite the interlude of darkness.’

  ‘Darkness, yes, darkness. Now, you say the sun was low in the sky, and then there was darkness?’

  ‘Yes, Majesty.’

  ‘The sun rose...and then it set. Then there was darkness.’

  ‘No, no, Majesty, it was not like that!’ For a moment, Nol worried he had overplayed his case, but it was too late to stop. ‘The sun did not pass high and set behind the temple. It was low in the sky when I first saw Your Majesty, and then it went down and vanished. That’s what caused the darkness.’

  This startled the King.

  ‘And you say that Our Lord Vishnu and the divine party had entered the temple grounds and were standing with their backs to the main gate?’

  ‘Yes, Majesty. It was just behind them.’

  The King thought this over some more. Then he said: ‘You’re sure about these details?’

  ‘Yes, Majesty. Is there something that troubles you about them?’

  ‘No, no...only that what you recount would seem to suggest that the temple was facing to the west.’

  ‘Majesty?’

  ‘Facing to the west.’

  ‘But temples don’t face to the west, Majesty. They face to the east, every one I’ve ever seen. But yes...you have helped me understand! This temple, the temple in my dream, must have been facing toward the setting sun, toward the west.’

  ‘What could that mean?’

  ‘I am not an interpreter of dreams, Majesty. But I wonder...No, I mustn’t say.’

  ‘Yes, you must!’

  Nol swallowed, to give time to frame his words carefully. ‘Majesty, I wonder if Our Lord Vishnu was communicating that the temple of the greatest King should show the King’s glory in a special way. That though most mountain-temples honour Shiva, Vishnu is signalling that he has chosen a special association with Your Majesty, in this life and the next. And that though it would be wrong for other kings to build a temple facing the west, it would be wrong for this King to build one facing east.’

  ‘But the temple is being built facing east!’

  ‘Yes, Majesty, it is, it is! Forgive me, forgive me!’ Nol put his head to the floor again. ‘My interpretation must be wrong.’

  The young concubine drew near, anxious to regain the King’s attention, but he showed no interest.

  Just then Subhadra entered the room, looking like he’d come in a rush and slowed only at the door. Nol felt dismay.

  ‘Majesty! Is there some difficulty?’

  ‘There is none.’

  ‘But as I was entering, Majesty, wasn’t the parasol master saying something about the alignment of the temple...’

  The King was caught, and so he told Nol to repeat the dream. He did, and the Brahmin listened and then made a show of giving it deep consideration. ‘I think, Majesty, that
you can ignore this dream. The Lord Vishnu would not deliver such a message through someone outside of holy orders, someone uncertified as a vessel of spiritual communication. And such a remarkable message would come many times, not just once.’

  Nol looked to the King, and he could see that this was not what the ruler wanted to hear, that in this brief time His Majesty had been taken with the idea of his temple and his divine affinity being different than the others. Nol said: ‘The Brahmin is more schooled in these things than I am. I’m sure his opinion is correct. With the King’s permission, I will leave now.’

  Outside the palace, Nol’s legs almost gave way at the thought of what he’d done.

  But an hour later he was back at his parasol hall, looking up at the workmen on the roof, and he felt glad for that monsoon downpour and the damage it had caused. His mind had conjured up a theory that he was only functioning as a tool of Heaven, that for reasons he could not fathom the orientation of the temple had to be changed.

  Ten days later, one of Nol’s informants came to him with news he had expected: the blind shaman has been called from his distant retreat. In a closed oxcart, he arrived at the palace with the boy who led him by the hand. He spent two hours in private consultation with the King, then departed in the same clandestine way.

  Before long, Nol was summoned to the palace. He arrived thinking he’d be shown to the King’s private chambers for some more questioning. Instead he was directed straight to the throne room. There the King sat in full regal glory atop wooden dais whose legs were the curved bodies of Naga serpents. Fans and fly whisks stirred the air overhead – theirs was the only motion in the room. The Architect knelt to the side, along with various palace functionaries. Everyone was silent, waiting. It hit Nol all at once that this was a formal court session, that he and his dream would be its focus, and that the King’s thinking had progressed very far very fast.

  ‘Go ahead, parasol master. Recount what you saw.’

  The Architect listened, and as the story progressed, scepticism grew ever plainer on his face. When Nol finished, he shrugged. ‘Majesty, my skills are in building, not in interpreting dreams. But even so, this dream seems unworthy of serious consideration.’

  ‘Why is that?’ The King’s eyebrows rose an intimidating way. ‘It is my belief, and this belief has been confirmed by people skilled in interpretation, that this dream means that the current orientation of the temple is wrong. That it should face the west – toward the realm of Vishnu.’

  ‘But Majesty, how can that be? All mountain-temples face east. We have been working for three years with that orientation.’

  ‘All temples but mine. Heaven desires the reverse orientation for mine. The correct orientation.’

  ‘Majesty, I don’t think...’ This man was among the few who dared stand his ground in a disagreement with the King.

  ‘You should show a more positive outlook, Architect. Now, what would be the loss of time and the extra cost to proceed with a western orientation?’

  ‘Majesty, I would have to do quite a few calculations. But the waste and delay would be enormous. We would have to remove the eastern bridge. We would have to shift walls, dig new trenches. We have begun work on a pair of libraries; they would have to be taken down. And all of this assumes that the soil at the western entrance is up to the job.’

  ‘But construction of the main temple has not yet begun, just walls and moat and ancillary buildings. That is correct, is it not?’

  ‘Yes, Majesty, that is correct.’

  ‘That’s the major part of the job. I will ask again. What would be the delay?’

  ‘Three years, perhaps, Majesty. Three years.’

  ‘And what if we increased the levy on the estates, to make them send more volunteers, more material? Could we then close the gap and finish in the same amount of time?’

  ‘Yes, Majesty. But the estates are already heavily burdened by the existing levies. It would be difficult to raise them further.’

  ‘You are suggesting that some of the princes would resist? Tell me, who are they?’

  The Architect took a moment. He now realized what he was facing. ‘No one would resist, Majesty. All live to serve you and will welcome whatever chance you give them to show, even more, their loyalty and devotion. That is true of the rural princes and of every one of the people on their estates.’

  ‘Good. Architect, you will begin drafting plans for the change. You will tell no one for the moment. You will return a week from now with detailed estimates of the time and the cost and when the new levies should begin. The temple will be the greatest in the world, and it will show from its orientation that it occupies a different realm than all the others.’

  ‘Yes, Majesty.’

  ‘And you will be remembered as the man who built this great thing.’

  One month later, at a time selected by the palace astrologers, the King went to the construction site, and Subhadra led a ceremony that announced that a wonderful thing had been discovered, that the King’s Heavenly counterpart was in fact Vishnu, that the new temple should be aligned as the starting point in the King’s journey toward the next life, that when his soul left his body, it would pass down the causeway and out the main gate into the sunset realm of the dead. The rite lasted all day, and, by torchlight, into the night, lengthened by pleas to Shiva to recognize and welcome this shift, which, the chanting priests averred, would in no way detract from the devotion felt for that deity by King, priests and subjects at large.

  The following night, a man arrived at the parasol compound. Nol received the man, then signed leafs that turned over ownership of four hundred weight of silver that was on deposit with merchants in the main market. The servants dared not ask who he was, but the night watchman had one clue, a few overheard words in the accent of Chaiyapoom.

  Even before labour teams began dismantling the temple’s unfinished eastern gate, the hostels, shops, houses and stables that had stood nearby were removed. People knew that now the place to be was on the temple’s western side. Salvaged materials were taken by cart to that area, where trees and undergrowth had already been cleared for a settlement. Nol’s steward sat in a small pavilion, newly erected for the purpose, and in it he received new tenants one by one to discuss the terms under which they would build, reside and engage in business.

  Nol had one more triumph. He sent his steward to see Kiri and offered him and his family rights to provide food for guests of one of the newly constructed pilgrim hostels. A trembling Kiri replied that the offer was declined. Nol made the steward repeat the story over and over, and each time he laughed.

  But what wickedness this was, inventing a dream, invoking the names of our lords in Heaven, to bring about such a selfish goal. The only comfort I could find was the thought that perhaps Nol was unknowingly functioning in some way as temporal agent for the divine vision that our son had had, that the orientation of the temple was in fact wrong and should be corrected. But Nol knew nothing of that vision! He never spoke with his former son and in theory neither did I, so I had never conveyed it. No, Nol’s motivation was entirely his own aggrandizement. And his act meant that he and I now had not one but two secrets that could bring our arrest. I wondered, when would come the day in which we could live our lives in the open, with full honesty and no deception?

  Of course I remained silent about what Nol had done. I reported nothing. He was my husband. But my anger glowed like coals in a fire. It gave rise to more than one quarrel between us. My frustrations were all the deeper because I could almost never say out loud what I felt. I had always to speak in circumlocution, in metaphor, because in palace life there were always servants near.

  Mostly I protested silently. I began staying away from our sleeping chamber again. Sometimes I spent the night in lamp-lit vigil at the shrine of Bronze Uncle. The god must have felt disappointment in me, wondering why I came so rarely when my life was in order and so often when I had specific needs.

  Nol passed the nights alone t
oo. But perhaps he consoled himself by picturing in his mind the account records that showed his fortune growing by the day.

  Part Three

  Temptation

  In the following years, the reversal of the mountain-temple’s orientation made us wealthier than anyone outside the immediate royal family. Close to thirty thousand people came to be living on our land at the western approach. Each paid rent to our stewards, and with that money Nol acquired other land in the Capital and as far away as the Saltwater Sea to the south.

  By his order, our house near the palace compound was torn down. A new one, of twice the size and ornamentation, was built in its place, with ponds and gardens of its own. Forty priests came to chant blessings on its day of completion. Nol also expanded his collection of money-generating properties. Among them were stables for horses and elephants, a copper mine, rice lands and a set of villas in the capital at which visiting gentry put up at enormous rents.

  And he got his new palanquin. It was larger and more elaborately decorated than the one that Kiri the cattle keeper had owned (but no longer did – the collapse of his businesses forced him to get rid of it). Nol’s was inlaid with jewels, its carrying shafts were tipped with bronze Naga serpents and hefted by not twelve but sixteen slaves. When he rode around the city in it, people pressed their faces to the dust.

  How he loved that palanquin. How I detested it. There were times I longed to set it on fire as it lay in its storage shed behind our house. But of course I did not.

  Male and female are opposites, and thus Heaven places them together. But in addition to this duality of flesh, I was coming to feel that Nol and I were opposites in most every question of judgment and values.

  39: All the reds and yellows

  However questionable the benefits of the temple’s reorientation for our family, there was no doubt that it brought much good to the village we owned, Veya, a half hour’s walk down the track from the future western gate. Perhaps that was why Heaven allowed my husband’s ruse to stand. The village’s people now sold rice and vegetables to shopkeepers in the burgeoning settlement being built on our land. They rented out carts and oxen. Daughters served food in restaurants, sons became messengers and labourers and night guards.