by John Burgess
Afterward, my girl lay curled on her side. He stood over her and whispered: ‘Sweet Bopa, almost…almost the same.’ Then he left.
A priest she’d never seen came with a new garment and a silver implement, with which he recovered a spot of royal seed that had spilled. He kept his eyes away from her at all times, but spoke to her, instructing her to remain lying down and to try to retain whatever seed she could. She stayed on the mat, eyes closed, hoping for some sign from him that she had pleased the King but none was offered. After a while, the priest told her to stand up. He splashed her with lustral water, looking to one side or the other of her as he did, and then told her to dress and return to the pavilion.
There the other concubines were lined up to greet her and this revived her spirits. They led her to the bathing jars and took turns pouring water over her while she stood hands together. Then they returned to the pavilion, where a table was piled with flowers and cut fruit. One by one, the concubines approached with private gifts meant to commemorate the initiation – small things of no great cost, because most of the concubines had no money. One gave a scented garland, another a shell necklace from the market, another an amulet. But no one touched the food on the table or asked what happened. They were awaiting the arrival of Rom.
When more time passed and she did not appear, they grew braver and began to nibble at the food. One of the girls
volunteered that the soldiers must still be keeping Rom away.
‘Soldiers?’ Bopa was confused.
‘You didn’t know? Some soldiers from the palace came,’ the girl said, following with a bite into the milky flesh of a rambutan. ‘It was an hour or two before you arrived for your preparations. Their commander asked to see Elder Sister. She kept him waiting, and then let him in. At first we couldn’t hear what was going but then she began showing her temper. She was shouting at him that she was the King’s favourite, that her son was too, that the officer would regret carrying out an assignment like this. And the commander shouted back that he would not, that this was an order direct from the King, that he was told to take her out by force if he had to. She quieted down after that and left with her two maids.’
This was added to so many things that day that Bopa couldn’t make sense of. Later she lay down to sleep, and when she awoke, she had a headache and called for some powder. When she was feeling better, she sat up, to wait for Rom’s return. But again she did not come. Rather, her father did.
He entered the pavilion, and he astonished her by going to his knees and putting head down and hands together.
‘Bopa, sole daughter,’ he said, in a very formal tone, ‘you bring the most profound merit and honour to the family. I have come to tell you that your father and mother recognize your accomplishment and service, that what you are doing here will be recalled for generations. I will do all I can to support you in your life.’
Then he motioned to a servant who knelt to the side, and the man put forward a box. Bopa smiled and forgot the pain in her head. The pride of a few hours earlier came back. I do believe that this was the first gesture of respect she could recall her father ever paying her. And she liked presents more than anything. Inside, wrapped in double folds of white cotton, was a silver box. On its top was an inscription, in Sanskrit. She couldn’t read it, but her father right away did, aloud. ‘On the occasion of the ascension of Shining Gem Bopa, daughter of Nol the Parasol Master and the Lady Sray, to the position of conjugal partner of His Majesty King Suryavarman, whose arrows darken the sky.’
I believe now that this state had been my husband’s intention for Bopa from the beginning. I had been too busy with other things to take notice.
Later that evening, the Brahmin Subhadra appeared. He led Bopa out of the pavilion, she wondering why she was not first bathed and perfumed. But he took her not to the King’s chamber, rather to a far corner of the palace compound, where there stood a newly built house, with a tall wooden fence enclosing it and a small garden. A soldier stood guard at the door. Bopa passed inside with the priest and found another surprise – the maid Yan.
Bopa was incredulous. ‘May I know, please, sir, what is this place?
The priest replied, ‘Mistress Bopa, you are so highly valued by His Majesty that he has deemed that you deserve better than to live with the other concubines. You will live here, alone.’
‘But, there will be nothing for me to do!’
‘It is by His Majesty’s order.’
‘Well, please, I’ll go to the pavilion during the day.’
‘I’m afraid you will not do that, Mistress. You are to stay here in this place until His Majesty calls for you. I will come every day to take part in your spiritual instruction. I must tell you that the soldier at the door knows the orders and will enforce them if necessary.’
He left. Bopa collapsed in tears. Yan knelt by her, whispering comforting words. She brought drinking water and got her mistress to sip some of it and to allow a linen cover to be pulled over her. Then Yan sat down and hummed a country lullaby until her mistress was asleep.
The King called her that night and again the night after that.
44: The distance from earth to Heaven
There were equally big changes in my son’s life at about this time. I have sometimes wondered why Heaven chose to send me away before it went about re-ordering my children’s affairs. Perhaps it felt I would interfere – any mother claims such rights when her children are involved. But for close to a year, all through the visit to China, I was in ignorance, believing that my son and daughter were in the same situations as when I had left them. Each day I prayed for them, picturing them in the only way I knew. And it was all illusion.
When I departed for China, my boy was high ranking in the design pavilion, son-in-law of the Architect, chief assistant, sharer of confidences, father of one baby son. But all of this did not make him immune to undermining by jealous assistants. The man Pin in particular.
Let me give you an appreciation of his character. One morning – it must have been shortly after our ship went free from the Cham port – Pin reported at the daily meeting about two minor princes who’d come in from a near province to see how the bamboo they’d sent was being used. He’d taken them to see it and they’d been quite disappointed, he could tell, though they lacked the nerve to say anything. Their bamboo had gone not into scaffolding for the central sanctuary, abode of the gods, sacred peak of Mount Meru on this earth – that work wouldn’t begin for years – but instead had become part of a shantytown for women who called themselves entertainers. Split lengthwise, the bamboo now formed the platforms on which these unfortunates lay with labourer men who came calling at night with a few pebbles of silver.
‘Unholy women they are,’ said Pin. ‘But without them a holy place could never be built!’ Such a cruel thing to laugh about, but Pin had no difficulty.
Now the Architect asked him: ‘And what about that shipment of timber, the one from the south? Is it on schedule? We’re going to need it for framing at the two libraries.’
‘Sir, we expect it in four days’ time.’
‘Good. Can you give Sovan a list of exactly what’s coming?’
‘Of course.’ He turned to Sovan. ‘I’ll see you get it this afternoon.’
Pin was no longer openly hostile. Any undermining had to be conducted out of sight.
The Architect raised a hand. ‘All right, all of you, get on with your work, please, and I’ll see you back here tomorrow. But you, Sovan, stay back a moment, will you?’
When the pavilion was clear, he said, in a conspiratorial tone that he now often adopted with my son: ‘I’ve finished something, something important.’ He went to a case that lay on a low table and removed a palm leaf. ‘The new elevation,’ he said.
‘Really? May I look?’
‘Of course.’
Sovan spread the leaf flat on a table. He grasped the changes right away. The pyramid now had six levels, not five. The centre tower at the top was dominant, the two
to either side were like younger smaller brothers to it. Guardian images on the steps leading up were of a larger scale. And at the base was something new, two small towers, one on each side at the start of the main steps.
‘Remarkable, sir.’ My poor boy! He was praying that he sounded sincere.
‘It feels good to be done with this – like giving birth. The same pain, if not the blood.’
Sovan said: ‘The proportions are correct, pleasing. This line here, and this one here – they form axes that cross in the right place, sir, up here.’ He indicated a spot in the air. He was finding it difficult to keep up this kind of talk.
‘I’ve worked on it every night for the past four months,’ the Architect said. ‘Out in my pavilion on the pond. When no one’s around. Now, the foundations we’ve already built – if we extend them out at this point here, can we make them long enough to accommodate the extra cubits in the base level?’
‘I think we can, sir. The excavation team has dug the foundation trench but hasn’t started laying rice husks yet. That’s meant to start next week. We can have them make the trench longer, then apply the husks. If you can draw up an order, I’ll deliver it to the foreman there. But tell me, sir – the stress at the base. Won’t it be much greater than with the old design? How will we compensate for that?’
‘We’ll have four extra levels of sandstone on the inside, replacing laterite. I’ve done the numbers and four will be more than adequate, and accommodate any other changes later that increase the weight. Now, do you think there’s enough stone left in the north quarry, or will we need to open a new one? But...but don’t answer that. I can see we’re both playing a game here.’
Sovan could not disagree, so he said nothing.
‘You know,’ the Architect said, turning away from the palm leaf, ‘when I first showed you the original plan those years ago, you behaved just like you are now. ‘Brilliant, sir.’ ‘Inspired by Heaven, sir.’ You didn’t say what you truly felt.’
‘Sir, at that time I told you...’
The Architect cut him off. ‘You know, I call you boy, but I don’t really think of you that way. Partly it makes me feel younger and I need that now that my hair is white. But you’re not a boy. You’re how old? In your thirty-second year, I think?’
Sovan nodded.
‘Thirty-second. You’ve had quite a bit of experience now. You’ve done very well, of course. You learn faster than any assistant I’ve ever had, faster than I ever did. That sketch you did for the facade of the west gate – it’s better than anything my old brain could produce. Now I’ve been working on this new master plan for months and each evening when I sit down with it, I think, this is the evening when the builder god Visvakarman will reach down and touch me. He will impart true inspiration. My wrinkled hands will finally know what to draw. But that inspiration never comes. I’ve become more and more convinced that I haven’t got the design right. And now, seeing you confirm those suspicions, I suddenly wonder why it’s got to be me. It’s true that I’m the one the King expects to do it, the one the priests blessed and sprinkled with the holy water they put so much faith in. But I have to ask, why would Heaven bother sending inspiration to me, with my imagination hamstrung by fifty years of doing things the old way? If the grand idea were somehow implanted in me, I don’t know that I’d recognize it. But then I think, there’s someone right here, who even as an untrained boy, a boy holding a parasol to keep the sun off my head, had a vision of what this place should be. You’ve never talked much about it, and I’ve never asked. But each time you look at these plans, I can sense that you see the shortcomings.
‘I believe, boy, that Heaven has placed in you the true design for this place we’re tasked to build. I can sense there’s something remarkable in you, something waiting to break out.’
Sovan’s only reply was to hang his head.
‘If you can’t speak, perhaps you should go back and be a parasol bearer.’
Sovan blinked, startled.
‘Got your attention, did I? Now, I’m serious. I want you to sit down and make some sketches. Keep it secret, of course. But you mustn’t limit yourself to trying to improve on what we’ve already got. You must behave as if you’re starting from scratch and put down your full vision. I want to see it, not just hear you describe it.’
‘Sir, it’s not my place to...’
The Architect sighed. ‘Do it, boy.’
Four days later, the Architect died.
Sovan heard over midday rice at his usual place, a rice stall outside the west gate. A slave came running, out of breath, and called him urgently to the design pavilion. The others had already assembled there. A Brahmin physician was present too. He suggested that they all kneel. He mouthed a prayer, then announced that their master had been walking toward his house with a servant when suddenly he fell down, clutching his chest in great pain. The servant rolled him onto his back to make him more comfortable, but was otherwise helpless. The physician arrived quickly, but by then the master was still. His heart had stopped, his breathing as well.
Sovan went outside. He wept, for the first time since he had been expelled from his house. Then he found the chief foreman and ordered that all work at the site be suspended, that slaves and craftsmen alike go to their own shrines, burn incense and pray for the soul of the master, that it would wander for only a brief time and then would find its way to a new, higher incarnation (though Sovan could not think what that might be). Then he walked toward his own house. Only then did he realize he had no formal authority for what he’d just done. He had done it anyway.
Two days later, the Architect’s body was placed atop a mammoth pyre built just inside the future gate of the temple. His Majesty officiated and put flame to the aromatic wood that soon was popping and crackling, liberating the master’s soul. Sovan and Suriya looked on as chief mourners. When seven days of mortuary ritual had passed, Sovan got up early and returned to the building site, uncertain of what to do for the first time since the death. No word had come from the palace.
At midday, he was arrested! There was no warning. Six soldiers simply showed up as he ate in that same rice stall where he had received news of the death. They bound his hands and marched him to the palace. There his face was pushed to the mat before the King.
A voice barked: ‘We demand that you confess! You have tried to ruin the design of your monarch’s mountain-temple.’
It was not the King’s voice, but that of a man to the right. A magistrate.
Sovan managed to speak. ‘I’ve done nothing like that, sir. I’ve only worked with my late master, the chief Architect, to build the finest temple in the world.’
‘That’s a lie! You were overheard talking with him at the design pavilion about changes.’
‘I’ve never...’
‘Speak the truth! Your monarch is listening!’
‘I know only that my master was proposing some refinements.’
‘You blame it on him?’
‘I place no blame, sir. I have no right to do that. He was the greatest builder ever to serve the Empire. I can only tell you what happened.’
‘Look here.’
Sovan raised his head a tiny bit. The man thrust in his face the new elevation the Architect had drawn.
‘Is this not the so-called refined design?’
‘It is, sir.’ It was only now that Sovan saw that Pin was in the room, standing to the side. His face showed a wicked kind of glee.
‘And do you approve of this new design?’
Sovan hesitated.
‘Do you approve of it? Yes or no.’
‘I do not, sir.’
‘Yet did you not express admiration for it at that time? Did you not say it was remarkable and had perfect proportions?’
‘I did say those things, sir.’
‘You were lying to your master?’
‘I was.’
‘Your master, who took you on as apprentice, who trained you, whose rice you ate year after year, who broug
ht you into his household as a son, husband to his daughter? You were telling lies to him?’ He turned to the King. ‘Majesty, we have heard enough. He acknowledges he knew of the new plan, that he praised it. And we know that he did not report it.’
Then Sovan heard the King’s voice. ‘You – the prisoner. How can you explain this? You say your master was the greatest builder the Empire ever had, but you also say you did not really admire his plan.’
Sovan hesitated.
‘Answer!’
‘Majesty, it is, it is...because when I was a boy, I believe I saw the finished temple, just for a moment, in a vision. And it was very much different from what we have been building and what my master the Architect drew in the new plan.’
There was silence. Then the King spoke up, wearily. ‘This family. How many of you have visions of the temple? So what did you see? Tell me!’
Now Sovan talked without reservation. ‘I saw a great mountain, with five towers, Majesty. But it did not rise steeply and sharply, with rigid angles, fighting with the ground beneath it. It rose as real mountains do, gently when seen from a distance. Each of its peaks curved like a lotus blossom. Majesty, the current design and the Architect’s changes are in line with all the knowledge we have about what form a temple should take, that is to say, it is a variation on the other temples in the Capital here. The plan is better than the others, yes, but it is...it is nonetheless only a better way of doing what I humbly submit is the wrong thing.’