A Woman of Angkor

by John Burgess

  ‘Majesty, my future second husband happened to pass by. There was a fight. A prince, trained in war and wielding a knife, went against a small man with a shovel. Heaven chose that the small man should win.’

  The King stood abruptly up and turned his back. Silence followed. He began to pace, then stopped again, agitated, staring out the window by which I sat. My eyes closed as I mouthed a prayer. Then came a loud metallic clang that caused them to fly open. The King had thrown his dagger hard against a wall and was pressing his hands to his eyes.

  ‘Majesty, for almost forty years, for reasons I cannot explain, Heaven has chosen to test character by instilling a desire that is wrong. First in your brother, then in you. And I acknowledge it, in me as well.

  ‘Your brother chose not to resist. But you and I were different, Majesty. We held faithfully to Heaven’s conjugal teachings. You allowed me to continue as wife to my husband and mother to my children. I did my best never to cross your path. Majesty, I can only say that this desire can only still be against Heaven’s will. I belong only with my husband. So, let that spirit of resistance take hold again. Let us part. Let me go to my husband. He is a decent man, and he needs me. He is badly hurt, if he is not already dead.’

  I waited. Then he bent toward me and whispered. ‘Go, then, Lady Sray. I must not harm you, I must not touch you. We will remain apart, I promise. But go quickly, please.’

  Those were the last words our King ever spoke. Just then I heard scurrying feet. Nol came sprinting wildly down the corridor, clutching a melon-sized stone fragment. I think I managed to shout ‘don’t,’ but I can’t be sure. The King made to stand up straight and face him and Heaven chose that instant of incomplete balance for a collision of two unequal bodies. Nol collapsed to the floor, dropping the stone; the King was propelled backward, stumbling. The sill of the window met his calves. He began to fall, backward again, hands grasping at thin air. He made no sound at all. His head and torso passed through the window, then his legs, and with that our King was gone altogether. After the briefest of intervals came the sound of a horrible impact below.

  I crawled to Nol and held him.

  After a bit, we dared peer down from the window. The King’s body lay still in the second-level courtyard below. Guards and courtiers were rushing toward it.

  I went for a cloth and water and cleaned my husband’s wound. He fainted against me. I whispered a prayer and kept the cloth pressed to him, determined to stop the bleeding.

  64: A pop barely discernible

  Two days later, Subhadra drafted a rescript announcing to the Khmer people that His Majesty Suryavarman had been called to the lofty realm of Vishnu. The passage to the next life was quick and painless, coming in a fall from a scaffold during an inspection of the unfinished monument. From what more holy place could His Majesty have departed! Sixty days of mourning began. A grand funeral was staged. It was overseen by the new King, a white-haired cousin whom the Brahmins selected in the belief they would control him in the same way they had the orchid-loving man of an earlier reign.

  And what of our family? The priests spent a long time mulling over that. To this day I give thanks that from these tragic circumstances we all emerged with lives intact and futures before us.

  My son was the first to go free. He was of course the only person who could complete the great monument. But he was told that the rate of building would slow, the flow of workmen and stone from the Empire’s estates would decline. The priests presented these facts to him in terms that seemed meant to fend off protest, but in fact the change was to his liking. I have told you how he worried over the project’s strain on the lives of the Empire’s ordinary folk. Sovan is still at work at the monument today. His vision of Heaven on earth is almost complete. It is called Angkor Wat and it is the largest place of worship in the world. I am convinced it always will be.

  Bopa was released shortly after her brother, though of course she no longer had a place as a concubine. The new King would select his own. My girl became a pensioner, living in a small house beyond the royal quarter, free to come and go, having no duties. The faithful maid Yan remained in her service and I am sure has kept my daughter on the right path in life. No man will dare come near Bopa for now, but perhaps when a few more years have passed, Heaven will find a way for her to marry a good man and have children. Whatever happens, I am happy to say that she finally recognized the true character of the Elder Sister. She never saw her again, but no one else did either – the Elder Sister disappeared as completely as if she had never walked this earth.

  My husband and I were of course the thorniest problem for the priests. We were held in custody in the palace compound for many weeks, in fact in the same room where I had been initially confined. Soldiers were at the door again, and it was all very frightening, but with Nol there with me, I did feel protected. We were questioned over and over as to what precisely had happened at the King’s birth estate thirty years earlier, and on the temple’s third level on the day of the King’s death. We made no effort at subterfuge. Time and again, we gave our accounts, never wavering. In each of these sessions, I expressed sorrow for the death of the monarch. It was a genuine emotion, though I don’t think that the priests recognized what kind of sorrow it was or how deep it went. This I had to keep from my husband as well. Somehow I did, and as time progressed the weight of grieving began to lift.

  Nol and I were gradually given rights to leave the chamber and move around the compound. We began to think we might eventually go free altogether. Subhadra was our ally in this extended interim. In the end we were saved by an official determination from the Council of Brahmins: Heaven had deemed it time for a change of reign; Nol and I were mere tools in this turning of the cosmic wheel. The priests found support for this ruling in the texts, but also in the good things that were already happening in the new reign. As I have said, the construction levies on the estates were reduced. Soon after, the rebellion collapsed of its own weight. In some far-away market town, Darit was put in a cage by former collaborators and turned over to authorities. The holy elephant Kumari was returned to proper hands, with full respect being displayed to her. Many people believe that she was still the vessel of the soul of the orchid-loving King, but I am convinced that regardless of what Darit had claimed at the martial games, the King’s spirit had long since departed her to continue its journey toward rebirth, wanting no part in the fomenting of violence.

  Peace returned to our border regions as well. The Chams and Siamese called off their attacks, seeing there was no longer disarray and weakness inside the Empire. Countless young men who had been taken into armies put aside spears and war garb to return to their home villages. They planted rice and saw to repairs that had gone unattended for too long due to the pressures of building the great temple. Families again lived together. In short, Heaven and earth came back into balance.

  I have also been told that the Brahmins had taken notice of the vigil for my freedom at the temple’s west gate, and of smaller gatherings in villages in many parts of the Empire. How grateful I am that so many people stood up for me, though I was never worthy of such support.

  So one day, we were told we were freed, but on condition that we immediately leave the Capital. An ox cart and driver awaited us outside the palace gates, with a second cart loaded with clothing and other possessions packed up from our house. We were not allowed even to stop there, however. It is no longer yours, we were told. Your property, your holdings have all reverted to the crown. I suppose the Brahmins told themselves that in this they were only honouring the late King’s order. Certainly I felt no objection – Nol and I were well rid of this burden.

  The priests did, however, grant permission for me to pray one more time before Bronze Uncle. I placed a lotus blossom in his lap. He smiled down upon it as I gave thanks for his years of help to my family – I am sure he was with us atop the mountain-temple that day. In a way, this final visit was like the very first one. Nol stood behind me, watching, protecting
against whatever danger might still face me.

  And so it was that we left Angkor. One week later we arrived here in Chaiyapoom.

  I remember that day well. I was first to get down from the cart. A small crowd of the estate’s people had gathered. No doubt they wanted to welcome us, but no doubt some of them, children in particular, wanted to learn, what is it to look on a man who has no ears? I helped my husband down from the vehicle. Together, we made our way toward the river bank, slowly, because his limbs were all the more stiff and uncooperative from the long ride. But it was he who was directing the way – I had never been here. When he pointed out the house, I closed my eyes and voiced silent thanks. Small, peaceful, at water’s edge. And with ducks quacking beneath it!

  More men than were needed helped carry our baskets to the house. Too many women entered the house to help unpack those baskets. There were so many ducks below that I asked my new neighbours, might you be willing to take in a few? And so much charcoal that I declared that anyone who ran short should come and help themselves.

  Later that day came something for which I was entirely unprepared. Kumari arrived at the estate, led by the aged Sadong. She is yours now, Lady Sray, he said. I am now only Sray, I responded. We released the elephant to live in the forest; the estate’s farmers would place feed in a clearing for her.

  My husband and I settled into a routine. Before dawn, I cooked rice to be given in offering to the priests who tended the stone temple by the little waterfall, and for our own needs. Later I fed scraps to the ducks and led them off to paddy land where they foraged. If the females among them were productive, I made gifts of eggs to neighbours. At midday, I went for prayers at the temple. Afternoons we passed at the house. Sometimes Nol would sit at the doorway, engaging passing people in conversation. If there was disappointment for me in this new life of ours, it was that he was not always content in it. Any neighbour who happened to have returned from the Capital recently, or even just some market town a short distance away, was questioned by Nol very closely about what had been seen and heard there, so closely that I could sense the neighbour making a mental note to pay better attention next time.

  When day turned to dusk, we walked together on a trail that followed the river downstream, Nol using a walking stick, me supporting him by the arm. We rarely made it further than the waterfall. Farmers returning from the fields through the failing light would come across us there, sitting on one of the boulders at river’s edge. I brought sugar cane; sometimes the holy elephant approached and ate from my hand.

  It was as quiet and peaceful an existence as I could have hoped for, and it was only rarely that I thought of the two other men whom Heaven had placed in my life path.

  When I opened a jewellery box and touched a pair of old golden bangles, I saw a King standing by a temple’s window, freeing me to go, disarmed by virtue that was shown to have resided within him. In my mind’s eye I studied him, for just a few instants before I made myself stop. And yet I never felt that he could see me. I believe that his spirit was staying somewhere far removed, keeping to the promise. I believe also that it prevailed on the brother ghost to finally leave me be, for I never again felt that presence.

  When I poured tea from my Chinese set, I recalled an old soldier climbing nimbly down steep temple steps, having risked everything to come to me. His spirit I did sometimes now sense alongside me, but only at those times when Nol was elsewhere and therefore unavailable to protect me.

  Years passed, and then this real man of my life was taken from me. One morning I awoke to find him lying still and spiritless on the mat beside me. I wept as I wrapped him in a white shroud. A pyre was built and lit. I wept again. His ashes were collected and placed in a small brick shrine built for the purpose. It bore no inscription, yet everyone knew who was the man whose ashes lay inside, born of this estate, yet achiever of astonishing things in the Empire at large.

  Soon the elephant died too, in a forest clearing where she had lain down.

  Twice a year now, my children and grandchildren come to visit me, and for a week the house is merry, but then they say their farewells, climb aboard their carts and begin the long journey back to the Capital. The neighbour women come to help me with daily tasks, washing my garments, sometimes cooking my rice. We banter about this or that. Ducks quack beneath the house; I hear the song of paddle on water as boats pass along the river. I close my eyes and wonder, why did not Heaven allow me to live my whole life in a place like this? I have no right to pose such a question, of course. But I will say that at night it is only when I imagine the life not lived that I feel contented and fall asleep.

  I will follow Nol before long. My body will be wrapped in the same kind of white shroud that his was. I have asked that a clay lamp be placed by my head to burn its way through a supply of oil in the same way that a person uses up the years of a life. Let anyone who will come pour holy water on my right hand, which will be left uncovered to receive final blessings. But let there be no further mourning. I will have exhausted my allotted portion of life, according to Heaven’s plan.

  I have a vision of what will follow. When the lamp has burned itself out, when the sun has sunk to near the horizon, my remains will be brought to a pyre built of fallen teak gathered in the forest. A priest will kneel and with tongs will set a hot coal in kindling straw, then bring his lips near and gently blow. With a pop barely discernible, a tiny flame will be born, and in that flame will my soul be found. The wind will take over, creating a roaring fire through which my soul will rise, unbothered by the heat, and be delivered to the darkening sky. It – I – will gaze down for a moment and see that what was flesh on the pyre has become ashes, the final remnant of the vessel that for an ample span of years contained my essence.

  And may it be true that my spirit will not roam for long, but will quickly enter a new body, as easily, as inevitably, as a woman trades one garment for another.

  Afterword

  Angkor is a very real place, located just outside the town of Siem Reap in northwestern Cambodia. For more than six centuries, it was capital of the Khmer Empire, one of the world’s great lost civilisations. Visit today and you’ll see the old glory at every turn. Angkor Wat is the best known and largest of the temples (in fact, it’s the largest religious structure anywhere in the world) but it’s just the start. A short walk away you’ll find a city gate topped by the serenely smiling faces of stone deities. Pass through and you’ll come to a palace compound with bathing pools, shrines and a grand reviewing terrace. Elsewhere there are moats, canals, bridges and paved avenues. Two sacred reservoirs measuring close to eight kilometres east to west have island temples at their precise centre points.

  If Angkor disappoints, it’s in how little of its human history it reveals. It was once a city of perhaps a million people, but today even its most important personalities are phantoms known only in the barest outline. The names and personal stories of countless men and women lower down in society have been lost entirely. Sometimes when I find myself in a solitary spot in Angkor, I take a moment and try to picture a few of the vanished. They can seem so close – they climbed this same temple stairway, walked this same stone parapet. What would it be to spend an hour with just one of them? I’ll never know, so I settled for spending quite a few hours with a computer and keyboard to conjure up Sray and her life that might have been.

  The empire in which she was born was founded around 800 A.D. by a conqueror prince who unified a string of Hindu mini-states that had emerged in Southeast Asia early in the Common Era’s first millennium. The art of building in stone and brick was already well advanced in this part of the world; the new political order and the proud ethnic identity that gelled within its borders took this form of expression to heights rarely seen in human existence. The labours continued unbroken generation after generation. Religious faith seems to have been the engine; most everything you can see at Angkor today is in some way a representation of the Hindu pantheon and cosmos.

  The Tw
elfth Century was the civilisation’s golden age. One of its pivotal figures was King Suryavarman, who ruled from roughly 1113 to 1150 AD. He appears to have been born in an outlying province, the grandnephew of a monarch whose reign had brought a weakening of central controls. Suryavarman believed he had royal rights and likely took power by force. Over the course of his reign, he revitalized the empire. He built Angkor Wat and other large temples. Trade flourished; he sent envoys to China. He fought multiple wars on multiple fronts.

  Late in the century, the Khmers repelled a foreign invasion and then embarked on yet another epic round of building in stone. The glory seemed set to endure forever. Yet then came decline. In the Thirteenth Century, construction largely stopped. Rancour erupted between adherents of Hinduism and the rising religion Buddhism. The empire shrank in the face of attacks from neighbouring states. Sometime in the Fifteenth Century, the Khmers largely abandoned Angkor. The court moved eastward to the region of Cambodia’s current capital, Phnom Penh. The reasons are still debated. Perhaps it was a strategic withdrawal to a more defensible site. Perhaps priests had determined that the city had lost heaven’s favour. Or perhaps the society had exhausted itself and the region’s environment (there is evidence of long-term drought). Whatever the reason, tropical trees and grasses moved in aggressively. Stones came tumbling down.

  Angkor lay hidden from the outside world until 1863, when the diary of the French naturalist Henri Mouhot was posthumously published in Europe. He had spent three weeks among the ruins and dared write that Angkor Wat was grander than anything left behind by ancient Greece or Rome. The French took colonial control of Cambodia and a century of restoration work began. But the war that reached Cambodia in 1970 put a stop to it. For the next quarter century, Angkor shared in the suffering of the country’s people at large. Bullets scarred its stones, roots split them, bats roosted unmolested. Most damaging of all were looters who took advantage of lawlessness to carry off thousands of pieces of sculpture.