A Woman of Angkor

by John Burgess

  With the Cham vessels in escort, our ships turned west toward shore. After a few hours a port became visible ahead. We reached it at mid-afternoon, with coolies securing the vessels with thick ropes. Mr Chen had spoken very confidently, but I could not put aside my concerns. I watched from a hidden place on deck. The coolies wore dirty loincloths. Soldiers in strange caps paced up and down the wharf. Beyond the waterfront warehouses rose a spire of a style I had never seen.

  Mr Chen went ashore. An hour later, he returned to say we would stay the night, but that no one would leave the ship. Tomorrow morning we would put back to sea.

  I came up on deck the day next day to confirm to myself that preparations for departure were underway. But I saw none. Instead, I saw the King’s minister leave his ship and walk to a small building near the dock. He was escorted by Cham soldiers.

  Concerned, I found Mr Chen. He was dismissive of the whole affair. ‘They say there’s a problem with our passage document, that’s all. They say it was signed by a Cham maritime official who’s been transferred and so it isn’t valid any more. This kind of objection is always being raised to open a path to a payment. We’ll get it cleared up soon.’

  I went below to Sergeant Sen. ‘Come look, please,’ I said. ‘I’m a bit worried. They’ve taken the minister into a building on the shore.’

  ‘I would like to, Lady. But Mr Chen says it’s better if I and my men stay down here, out of sight.’

  That did nothing to calm me. Later, with some prodding, Mr Chen explained that the Cham authorities had raised another question, the presence of soldiers on our ship. There was nothing in the passage document allowing that. But I shouldn’t worry – the minister was going to point out that these men were not fighting men, merely members of a ceremonial entourage. Mr Chen hesitated, then told me that the Chams were also being told something else to prove that this was not a military mission: that travelling on this ship was a renowned holy woman, a Lady of great devotion and benevolence and spiritual powers, who was going to China to teach people about the faith that Khmers and Chams shared.

  I wished he had not told me. There flashed through my mind an image of a jungle clearing, where a young prince lay bleeding. My tongue touched the gap in my teeth. I wondered now if the ghost was able to cross the sea to follow me.

  Three days passed. The King’s minister shuttled back and forth from his ship to the building, surrounded by a clutch of Cham soldiers who on each successive day seemed to treat him more like a prisoner. Sailors began to whisper among themselves, and the maid Da became timid again, rarely leaving our cabin. On deck, the two horned animals shifted restlessly in their cages, as if sensing danger.

  On the morning of the fourth day, I awoke to sounds of commotion. From deck I was shocked to see perhaps one hundred armed Cham soldiers lined up on the shore. On the other side of the ship, floating a short distance off, were sampans filled with more.

  An order was shouted, a signal drum beaten, and an officer wearing a helmet with a feather plume led soldiers from the wharf onto the ship. Mr Chen ran up to the officer – and was rudely shoved aside. The man drew his dagger and moved toward the steps that led below deck.

  I knew in a flash what I had to do. I placed myself in the man’s path.

  He frowned and barked an order in his language that clearly meant to get out of the way, but I did not. Instead, I began speaking.

  ‘You must not pass through here, sir. This is a holy place and it cannot be defiled by the presence of men of arms with violence on their minds.’

  The officer turned to Mr Chen and shouted something more. Mr Chen replied, in a meek voice, and the officer shouted once again, but then they both stopped. I had begun to chant and rock back and forth and roll my eyes in a way I’d seen a spindly limbed ascetic do at a temple festival.

  ‘Lady Sray!’ cried Mr Chen, fearful, and at the same time puzzled. ‘This man says that if you don’t get out of the way, you will get, you will get the point of a dagger!’

  I paused in my chant, but not in the motion of my body. ‘Please tell him, Mr Chen, that there is no reason for him to go below, that the men are no threat, that they are simple men who honour the deities and want no trouble with anyone.’

  He translated, and the officer listened at first, then made again to move.

  ‘Tell him also that I have here’ – I lifted a text – ‘the words of the most powerful, the most unbearable curse that the gods have ever allowed to be used on earth, that it brings boils on the face and on the private parts, bleeding from the ears, and foul breath that no one can bear, and that the next time that he has relations with a woman, provided he can find one who is willing, there will be a sharp-toothed demon inside her private parts, waiting... And then, after his death, will come torture and torment as a spirit, before rebirth as a lizard.’

  Where did I get such words? To this day I have no idea.

  Mr Chen seemed terrified to translate this, but he began to, and as he did I continued to chant.

  ‘And tell him that I saw him on the dock, and I knew what he was about to do, and that I have already placed this curse on him, and on his sons, and that if I die, there will be no one to remove it and the boils will begin to break out immediately and that will be just the start.’

  Mr Chen bravely translated. The officer blanched. His eyes went not to me but to the text in my hand, and I knew I had reached him.

  At the door leading up from below, I saw Sergeant Sen climbing up, knife in hand.

  ‘Sergeant!’ He stopped. ‘You must stay out of sight. I will handle this.’

  ‘I cannot allow you to.’

  ‘Sergeant,’ I said, as calmly as I could, ‘if you do, I will die and you will die. There are many, many more Chams here than you could ever overpower. It will be all right. Now go! Get back out of sight!’

  Thank Heaven, he did. Then Mr Chen spoke up. ‘Perhaps, Mrs Sray, if we gave the Cham gentlemen a bit of honour with which to withdraw? The men below might turn over their weapons. They can easily be replaced later on the voyage.’

  That made sense to me, and so Mr Chen proposed it to the officer. Heated discussion between the Chams followed. The officer gestured at the text, and Mr Chen responded. Then the officer went to the edge of the ship and called in very assertive tones to soldiers on the dock. After more consultations there, an answer was called back, and Mr Chen looked suddenly relieved.

  ‘Lady Sray,’ he whispered from his spot next to me. ‘A decision has been made that the men can remain on the ship, if they give over their weapons. And if, of course, the curse is removed.’

  A spear and a knife were passed up through the door. Then Mr Chen suggested to the officer that before any more came up, some of the Cham soldiers should return to the dock. They did. Then came more weapons, and the rest of the soldiers left, all but the officer.

  He spoke with Mr Chen. ‘He says, Lady Sray, that now you must remove the curse. But I would suggest that we only do that when we are underway.’

  Mr Chen told the man that, and got a furious snarl in response. His hand went to his knife.

  But then I thought to say: ‘Why not tell him that he is welcome to come along with us for a bit to confirm that I remove the curse. That the word of the holy woman is that he will not be harmed and that our men will remain below until he has left the vessel. He may have one of his own men follow in a sampan to take him back.’

  For the next half hour there was a lot of scurrying and shouting in Khmer and Chinese and Cham. Then the ropes at the dock were untied. It was a miracle – the two ships were edging toward open water.

  I had the officer kneel before me and remove his helmet. With his face fully visible, he seemed like a decent enough man, and I felt remorse for frightening him this way. I raised my right hand and chanted a prayer calling for health and prosperity and a wife with a womb that would bear many children.

  I called for some water, prayed to make it holy, then splashed some on the man. ‘Tell him it is d
one, Mr Chen. His life will go on as before.’

  The man rose, and put hands together in thanks. Then he climbed down the side to a Cham sampan.

  Our ship picked up speed. No Cham vessels followed us; we were free. Presently Sergeant Sen came on deck, and his men too, all laughing in relief, but then they went respectfully silent while I said a prayer of thanks. A gong sounded from the ship ahead and standing on its stern was the minister. He looked to me, and like the Cham officer had done, he put hands together, conveying across the water a thank you of his own.

  Later, the sergeant approached.

  ‘You appear flushed, Lady Sray. Let me get you some water.’

  I didn’t need any, but I waited while he went below for a cup and brought it back, filled.

  ‘Thank you, Sergeant Sen,’ I said. ‘Any problem that I have, this water will cure. I am fine. The gods protected us.’

  ‘They did and so did you.’ He was quiet a while, then said: ‘All these years, Lady, I’ve been with you with the job of assuring your safety. Yet I missed the man with the knife in the temple atop the hill, and now I have missed again with the Chams – in fact it was you saved me. It’s not what was intended when I was assigned to you.’

  ‘It is as Heaven deemed,’ I said. ‘But you know, having you close has always made me feel safe. So I think you have done your job.’

  ‘Thank you, and thank you for your courage, and, I suppose, for my life. You are right – we could never have stood up to so many of them. If you say that I make you feel safe, I will accept that and find honour in it and hope that I will continue to have that effect. But let us pray, Lady Sray, that there are no more situations where protection is needed.’

  We looked to the shore again, and after a while, I said, ‘You know, Sergeant, I misused the text back there. There was no curse, no magic, and yet I terrified that officer into thinking that what I held contained instructions for casting spells. Do you think I sinned against the texts?’

  My husband would have laughed at this question, but the sergeant took a moment considering it, and then said: ‘I think that Heaven would smile on what you did. May I suggest too that Heaven may have placed certain words in your mouth – I know that they are not there naturally.’

  I blushed.

  ‘And the text, Lady – you were using it for a holy cause, the saving of lives and the prevention of violence. And if it was an unusual way that you used them, well, the result was the same as if you had recited prayers at an altar.’ He laughed. ‘In fact, what you did was probably much more effective in achieving the holy goals, Lady Sray!’

  ‘Thank you, sergeant,’ I replied, smiling too. ‘To hear you say it reassures me. You seem to have a mind for sorting out questions of this kind. May I ask, were you ever in the holy orders?’ I felt it was all right to ask. It was just a superior showing a benevolent interest in one of her people.

  ‘No, Lady. Nothing like that. I grew up like most of the boys in my village, praying at the wooden shrine beneath the village’s largest tree. Sometimes we went to festivals at the temple of the lords of our estate, but I certainly never went into holy orders, though I recall one of the priests there suggesting that I come for instruction before my wedding ceremony. But I didn’t go. I felt that the gods of that temple were for our lords, and the spirits of the forest and fields were for us the villagers. So, I had no instruction. But as for the rights and wrongs of things, like what you did at the port – well, often they seem more like just a matter of common sense. Consulting texts can merely put things into confusion.’

  He had never given me any hint of having a wife. I felt now the most intense curiosity. ‘Sergeant, I didn’t know that you are married. I feel regret for taking you away from your family for so long.’

  ‘It’s all right, Lady Sray. My wife in fact is no longer among us. Her soul was carried off by an epidemic in our village a long time ago.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, sergeant.’ Now that I knew, I felt intrusive for asking.

  ‘Please don’t be, but let me tell you it all. It was the same for our three children, Lady. I was away at the time. My estate’s lord had sent me as a soldier and I was serving at a garrison on the Cham border. It was quite peaceful there, though everyone had warned me it would be a very dangerous place. It turned out that the real place of danger was my village. Altogether, thirty-eight people died.’

  I could think of nothing to say.

  ‘I can see that this troubles you deeply, Lady. But please…It was the wish of Heaven, and we have no right to question. My wife and children had good years on this earth. Our village was in a district just below the mountains that mark the start of the Upper Empire. We had fertile fields, with water for two crops a year. Every house had chickens and ducks and most had a pig and buffalo. Every month there was a different festival. War and rebellion never came close. After the epidemic, well, the bodies were properly seen too. I have prayed for their souls many times, and the priests assure me that they have gone on to good new lives. You know, even without being told that, I knew it was true.’

  ‘I’m sure it is, sergeant.’

  ‘And I’ve been provided for, so how can I complain? My home is now my barracks and my men are my family, Lady Sray. I eat well and though I’m a soldier, war doesn’t come close any more.’

  ‘I will pray for your lost family, sergeant.’

  He left me then, and I looked to him as he walked away, and wondered more about that wife and those children. Did he dream about them, did he wish he’d been carried away as well? What had been their formal names, their names of affection? Had that village truly been so idyllic, or was he trying to spare my feelings? And I wondered if there would ever come a time when he did not call me by my title.

  43: Induction

  Normally many weeks, even months, pass before a new concubine is called for her initiation with the King. First a scribe comes and asks detailed questions concerning prior experience, so that a certificate can be drawn up showing that there is none. Then a Brahmin physician conducts an exam. After that, the newcomer receives instruction in etiquette of the court, and in techniques of carnal union as practised by Kings. There follows a series of prayers and baths. Then she is sent to the pavilion to join the other women, who give a lot of practical advice that may conflict with what the priests have said. Then the wait begins.

  I know these things, I know them now, because in the case of my daughter, many of them were ignored, or compressed into just a few hours.

  Do you understand? This is what the Brahmin had meant when he assured me that Bopa would be well seen to in my absence – she was to be the King’s consolation. He would lose the mother but gain the daughter. The priest kept this from me that night, sending me off to China in ignorance, though I can now see his logic in doing that. This was the King’s condition, I was later told. But I have always wondered if it was in fact something that the Brahmins proposed in hopes of dulling the King’s frustration. Whoever’s idea it was, Bopa’s transition to the concubine state was rapid and smooth. She was of course not married, so no social stricture would be broken. And though the Brahmins had declared that I was Heavenly sister to the King, they ruled that Bopa by some quirk of cosmic alignment was not his Heavenly niece.

  On my girl’s first day in the palace she was first shuttled from place to place, now a small shrine for prayers, now a pavilion where she was prepped and purified. One after the other, priests, maids, perfumers, jewellers and seamstresses fussed over her. Everyone seemed in a rush to finish up. They managed that just as the sun was disappearing over the tile rooftops. A priest splashed on some final holy water, maids applied powder and perfume, and she was declared ready.

  But nothing happened right away. Bopa was left to sit, as instructed, wearing a green silk sampot with flaring sash. Perfume’s scent wafted up from her palms and breasts, silver jewellery lay heavy on her neck and arms. She smiled to herself, but after a while stole a look toward the door. Poor girl – she was wo
ndering when Rom was going to arrive and join in the fuss over her. But Rom did not appear. Rather, after some time, the priest with the final holy water did. He led Bopa toward the King’s quarters and the other girls lined up on either side of the gravel walkway, hands together, and she felt all but overcome with pride, even without the Elder Sister witnessing this moment.

  I have told you that I swore to stay away from the King. Yet I never mastered the art of staying away from thoughts of the King. Gurus teach the skill in certain of the Empire’s temples and several times during my past life I accepted instruction from them. But it was to no avail. So, I will ask you, what kind of mother is jealous of her own daughter’s assignations? Jealous is what I was – there is no other word for it. When Bopa shared the details with me many months later, I swallowed hard and tried to give no sign and avoid imagining what it would have been to be in my daughter’s place. I am quite sure the girl never suspected.

  So it is difficult for me to recount what followed that first day as a carnal partner. But I will present it to you in as objective a form as I can.

  In the royal sleeping chamber, the King was waiting, his back turned. Bopa had thought she’d have time to prepare herself, but before she knew it, the drapes had closed. The King turned to face her. She was meant to put head to the floor at this point, but this slipped her mind, and the King did not correct her. Rather, he asked her in a voice that surprised her with its gentleness if she might move to the middle of the chamber and stand there. Then he circled her, eyes taking in every detail, as if he was looking for something hidden, taking so long that she began to feel uneasy, especially when he was behind her.

  ‘The garment, please – can it be removed?’

  Bopa trembled at those words, but before she knew it, two maids had stepped in from behind and done the job. Bopa stood naked, save for her jewellery. She felt briefly ashamed, but she tried not to show it, keeping her eyes to the floor, while the King continued his walk around her, seeking out some quality that she felt suddenly sure she did not have. He came close and let his finger travel down the side of her neck, then across her shoulder and down her arm. There came from him a sigh, and then he eased her toward the mat with more of that unexpected gentleness. She tried to recall the proper position for the initial encounter, but her memory failed. In any case, His Majesty seemed not to care. His hands moved to other parts of her body and the business of carnal union began.