by John Burgess
I continued to visit the village and make minor gifts – water bowls for the shrine, herbs and powders for the clinic, a new rice-storage facility, and fifty weight of silver to endow a hermitage headed by a priest who was cousin to the headman. I suppose I saw my gifts as a silent rebuke to my husband. See how these people are not greedy, they want only enough of life’s bounty to be comfortable, grow their rice and raise their children.
One day, returning from a provincial trip, I arrived at the village under the escort of the sergeant and his squad of soldiers.
The official reason for my presence was a ceremony to mark the first year of the hermitage. Yet as the rites were conducted, I could sense that everyone was waiting for something that would come afterward. And sure enough, when the priests were done, the headman told me there was something he’d like to show me. And so I went with him, leaving behind my maid and soldiers. We walked along a paddy dike to a copse at the far side of the fields, me still having no idea what this was about. From behind us, villagers watched, and I could feel that they wanted to follow but dared not.
Beyond the copse, we crossed a stream on a bamboo footbridge that seemed newly built. There began a trail, edged with white stones, that wound its way up a thickly forested hillside. This brief climb brought us to a sunlit clearing on a slope and a small wooden house. It looked toward distant trees that seemed a gentle blue.
‘Goodness,’ I said. ‘What a pretty place.’
‘It is for you, Lady Sray.’
‘What can you mean?’
‘It is for you to use whenever you wish. Our gift to you, as Heaven would have it, for your so many gifts to us.’
The headman’s tone was a shade diffident. I could guess why. He was worrying that he had miscalculated, that a woman of my standing, whatever she might say, could never sleep in a place like this, without servants, without the soft mats and mosquito nets of the city.
I turned to look at the house again. I had so much already. How could I accept this?
‘You are so kind, headman, but really…’ When I saw the disappointment on his face, I softened a bit. ‘But…but may I go look?’
‘Of course.’
First I stood a moment at the pond, gazing at the mother duck and her brood. Then I climbed the steps. Inside was a loom. How charming, I thought.
And then…and then, a mother duck emerged from some foliage with four ducklings hurrying behind her. Straight down to the water this happy party went and presently they were all bobbing up and down.
I broke down in sobs right there. The headman must have heard, I was so loud.
When I stepped back to the door, he was all confidence. ‘You’ll find the sunrise is quite striking from here, Lady Sray. It reflects off the water in the paddies. It’s as if the gods have decided to put all the reds and yellows of creation in one place, right out there, and let us watch and marvel how there can be so many.’
What a beautiful thing to say. I felt that a kind spirit had put the words right in his mouth, as a signal that I should say yes.
‘Would you allow me to stay here tonight?’ I asked. ‘Just for one night?’
I spent that night at the house, and the next one, and then I sent a messenger back to the city with word that I would be away for a while longer, but that no one should worry.
Those next days I have never forgotten. At dawn I sat on the steps and watched the sunrise, which was just as the headman had described. Later I sent the ducks out to forage. I gave each one a name. I worked the loom, I prepared simple rice and fish for myself on the brazier, using supplies that were left at the edge of the clearing, overnight so as not to disturb me.
Of course, I was not really alone. I became aware that there was a jungle path that made a wide circle around the hill and ended at a leafy spot down below that was meant to be a hidden look-out. There from time to time I spied village men and women, looking up in my direction, and sometimes Sergeant Sen, no doubt concerned I was on my own up here, though I had come under no threat in many years.
How many days passed before the message came, the one that set my life in a new direction? I cannot remember. Such was my bliss in life on the hill.
40: Channary’s dolour
All human events, good and bad, are connected in some way and influence each other, don’t you believe? The change that was to come for me was set in motion in part by an admirable, benevolent quality: the love of orchids that resided in the heart of His Majesty the former King. In the final years of his reign, he spent much of his time at an orchid farm on a small lake just north of Angkor. After his death and the rise of our new King, this place fell into disuse, until one day the concubine Rom decided to go have a look. She promptly claimed it. It was not the flowers that she found attractive – her first act of proprietorship, in fact, was to order the beds and trellises dug up and a new cooking hut built in their place. Rather, what she liked was the large teak house, with its mats and carvings and veranda that gave onto the lake. By the water’s edge was a dock with two small sampans for lazy paddling across the still surface and through the reeds and lilies that lined the far shore. So, when her monthly flow began, and there was no chance of receiving a call to the King’s chamber, Rom often decamped to the lake. Sometimes she took along a group of concubines. Who went and who was left behind was one of the measures by which the girls judged their standing with the woman they all addressed as Elder Sister.
One evening, at the time I was staying in the hilltop hut, Rom named six to go with her on a trip the following day. One of them was Channary, a quiet beauty from a village near the city. She had come to the concubine pavilion six months earlier, nominated by her district’s headman, and had caught the King’s eye from the start – her trips to his sleeping chamber now numbered fifty-eight, according to the pavilion’s log. But the girl, to everyone’s surprise, showed no pride in this distinction. An air of dolour hung over her at all times. Often she laid down to sleep in the evenings before the others did, and rose while they still slumbered. They would awake to see her sitting outside by the lotus pond, alone with her thoughts, or kneeling at the shrine whispering devotions that went on longer than other girls’. Anyone who tried to draw her out came away with very little, only the feeling that Heaven had taken her from home but chosen to deny her a vocation for the new life.
No one but Rom had ever been called so frequently to the royal chamber, and so for weeks the junior concubines had been watching to see whether the Elder Sister would respond with spite. Yet she showed no discernible ill will. On the contrary, warmth and generosity were on display. She called Channary to sit with her in the afternoons. She fed her from her own basket of cut fruit, she invited her to play with the boy Darit. And now there was this suggestion that she come to the lake house.
Rom rarely invited outsiders, but for this trip she sent a messenger to the parasol compound. Who was she inviting but Bopa! My girl accepted, though she hadn’t been to the pavilion in months. You see again what a poor judge of character I was – I had believed that it was safe for me to go on a trip, that her pavilion days were behind her. Love and instruction from the texts, I was sure, had destroyed any interest in going there. In my daughter’s defence, I’m sure the invitation was hard to resist. For so long she’d been sitting at home tended only by the maid Yan. Poor Bopa had few friends of her own.
So as soon as Rom’s messenger left, Bopa told Yan to prepare her jade pendants and armlets for the trip. Yan didn’t like the idea, but – again, what can a maid really do? She made up her mind to speak to me immediately when I returned.
The next morning, two covered oxcarts waited in front of the concubine pavilion. By the first one stood Rom and Channary and two bodyguards, by the second were the other concubines chosen for the trip.
‘Hello, Bopa!’ called Rom. ‘Come ride with us.’
I doubt that Bopa noticed, but Yan, at her side as always, sensed unfriendly eyes among the girls in the second cart – probably the girl wh
o had once painted ash on my daughter’s face was among them. Cart assignments on these journeys were another form of the Elder Sister’s slights and favours.
Rom chattered as the vehicles crossed the city, Yan walking alongside with the other servants, bodyguards going ahead to part the crowds. Beyond the north gate, the drivers turned onto a curving road that passed through paddy land and villages. Rom kept up her talk, telling Channary how much she would like the lake, how new drapes had been put up in the villa only the previous week.
But it seemed that once they left the city, the young concubine was paying less and less attention to the conversation. ‘My goodness, Channary,’ Rom was heard to say. ‘I feel we’ve lost you! You keep gaping at things we’re passing. What’s so interesting out there?’
And a bit later: ‘Come on! You’ve seen something special, haven’t you? Share it with us.’
Finally Channary answered. This village, the one the cart was passing through, was her home village.
‘Really?’ said Rom, and now her voice had quite a lot of concern in it. ‘I wouldn’t have brought you if I’d known! Come on now – turn your face away. We can’t have anyone seeing you. People from the old place always make a fuss over a concubine and if some man takes an interest in you, even if it’s just a look, there’s always the chance that word will get back to the palace and there will be terrible trouble.’
But the young concubine protested, showing life for the first time on the trip. ‘Please – I want to see. Just the little shrine that’s coming up on this side of the road. That would be enough. It’s been so long....’
‘Impossible,’ declared Rom. She took the girl by the shoulders and eased her to the mat. ‘Now lie down and pretend you’re sleeping. No one will know it’s you.’
The girl did not resist. She lay on her side. Bopa saw the glint of a tear on her cheek.
The cart was passing the village’s market now. One of the bodyguards fell back and knelt down at a fruit vendor’s mat. Yan watched the guard – her attention was drawn because she thought it strange that a stout fighting man would break ranks in this way. Soon he stood up, fruit in a banana leaf bag. His eyes went left and right, left and right and then he saw what he was looking for, a young man selling amulets. The soldier approached this man and delivered some kind of message. Whatever it was, it seemed to shock the young man.
At the lake, the party was welcomed with water and sweets by servant girls who’d been sent out from the palace in advance. Rom announced that she would lie down for a while in the resthouse, but that the others should go have fun on their own. Most everyone made for the dock. Without Rom on the scene, some unseemly competition broke out for spaces on the boats. Bopa did not get one, which was no surprise. In a situation like that, she always relied on someone speaking up for her. She turned away and went off to look around, on her own. It was better to stay away from the house, lest Elder Sister be woken. So she poked around a small annex pavilion that stood across a wide yard from the resthouse. She looked into the cooking hut, then walked along a gravelled path that followed the shoreline, feeling boredom setting in already. Ahead she saw Channary, seated alone by the water’s edge. Even from this distance, it was clear that the girl remained in low spirits; Bopa thought it better to turn around.
That evening, the girls gathered in the house’s main room. From the cooking hut came the scents and sounds of food being put to flame in iron vessels. Food and honey wine were put out and everyone partook. When they were done, Rom suggested some song singing. Girls let out delighted squeals and moved close together, snuggling like a litter of puppies. Rom gestured to one: you go first. Flattered, the girl began a ballad about the gone-away sweetheart of a buffalo tender.
Channary sat alone and seemed hardly to hear. When her turn came, she did her best with a song that was meant to be happy, about the joys of harvest-time flirtation. But her voice cracked half way through, and in the end the song sounded only mournful. When she finished, silence set in, and everyone thought the contest was over, but Elder Sister insisted that it was beautiful and that Channary should give the group another song. And then another. Finally, after that third one, Channary asked. Please, Elder Sister, please, would it be all right if I go lie down alone in the annex across the yard? I’m so tired. Rom said of course, that would be fine, and told a maid to set up a mosquito net.
Bopa fell into a doze a few minutes later – she had swallowed more than a cup or two of the honey wine. Yan was there to cover her up with a cloth. Bopa awoke some time afterwards to find that the party was over, that all but one of the lamps were out and the concubines were settled in all around her in the room, on their mats for the night. Rom was still up, however, sitting by a window.
Later, Bopa was awoken by a scuffle somewhere outside. There followed male shouts, then a piercing scream.
‘What is it?’
Yan, who was lying nearby, already knew. ‘Elder Sister heard a thief outside and told the bodyguards to go see.’ Rom had followed them, it seemed.
First one girl, then all of them, found courage to go to the door to look. Whatever it was, it was happening in some woods beyond the annex. Then, one by one, though no one had given them permission, they spilled out the door and hurried across the yard and through some bushes and trees, where they saw a torch burning. Rom’s two guards came into view. They were standing over a form on the ground. Rom was beside them, holding the torch.
When she saw the concubines approaching, she raised her hands. ‘Go back, girls, let’s all go back! This is no sight for your eyes to see.’ Bopa strained to see anyway, and made out a young man’s body on the ground, motionless, bleeding from wounds around the middle.
Rom renewed her demand, and the girls began picking their way back through the darkness. At the annex, they came upon Channary sitting in the doorway, trembling. Several girls moved to comfort her, but Rom called them off. ‘Go back to the resthouse. I’ll stay and look after her.’
Of course no one could sleep after that and they passed the hours until dawn trading stories of who had seen and heard what. One girl voiced a thought: do you think it’s possible the thief came in here first? Everyone scurried to check their things. But nothing was missing.
When morning rice was served, Rom returned to the house. Their sister Channary was unhurt, she said. She was resting and the guards would stay with her for now. Rom announced too that officials were coming out from the palace to investigate. Several of the girls traded significant glances over that. Bopa was puzzled – a thief was just a thief.
In early afternoon, they were surprised to see the Brahmin Subhadra approaching outside, accompanied by two scribes and a group of soldiers. He went straight to the annex, posting his soldiers outside it. After a while, the girls were certain they could hear their sister Channary weeping. Maids put out more food, but no one touched it. After more than an hour, the Brahmin and Rom came back to the resthouse. Rom announced that he would question each girl, separately. Bopa was frightened to hear she would be first.
The priest took her down by the dock, away from the house, and there they sat on a mat someone had laid on the grass.
‘You will recount to me everything you know. You will speak with the understanding that Heaven is listening and that everything, everything you say will be the truth.’ I can only imagine the terror my daughter felt on being addressed in that way.
How, he asked, did she, who is not a concubine, come to be here? Who rode in which cart? Were there any stops? Sometimes he cut her off even before she finished answering.
‘Now, Rom has told us that Channary asked many times to come to the resthouse here. Is this true?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Bopa, though she could not recall such a request. But if the Elder Sister had said so…
‘And that Channary was quite interested when the cart passed through that village on the road, that she kept looking out, as if she were trying to catch sight of someone.’
‘Yes,’ said B
opa. She felt on more solid ground now, because she had a clear memory of that.
‘And at this point Channary admitted that this was her home village and Rom then insisted that she lie down, out of sight.’
‘Yes.’
‘And she told her there that she must have no contact with people from her old village, especially any young men.’
‘Yes. She said all of those thing.’
The Brahmin seemed unhappy with these answers, but he went on. How long did the party last? How much wine was consumed?
‘Now,’ said the Brahmin, ‘did Channary herself suggest that she sleep in the annex, or was it someone else’s idea?’
‘It was her own suggestion, sir.’
‘Don’t lie! Don’t repeat what someone else has told you to say!’ Bopa was stunned. She began to cry, but this got no sympathy.
‘Now listen to me carefully. Rom has told us that she was awoken by a sound outside, near the annex. She called to the guards to go check. They say that when they came near the annex, they could see through a window that your sister Channary was inside her sleeping net with a man, in an embrace of love. The man saw the guards and leapt out of the net, ran from the annex down the path that leads into the woods. The guards caught up to him and brought him to the ground. He pulled out a knife and tried to slash them. They were forced to kill him. Now, is this what happened?’
‘If the Elder Sister says...’
‘I am not asking that. I’m asking what you saw, with your own eyes.’
‘I couldn’t see anything. I was inside sleeping.’
Now the Brahmin shared with her something very interesting. It had been determined, he said, that the young man was from Channary’s home village. Did she know that before being called as a concubine, Channary had been engaged to a young man? It was this young man.