The Sea Is Ours

by Jaymee Goh

  As a child I learned from my two sisters to spin lies and act perfectly when mother pinched my lip or father roared at us to ensure our obedience. What were children for, after all, but to gift them with work and riches in return for the life he’d created within us?

  We were good daughters to the outside world, happily laboring away, smiling, saying the right words with soft, high voices. Yet our bida and manda still raged at us. What terrible misdeeds had we committed, in this life or ones past, to merit this treatment? We turned to the wisdom of our elders, begging for succor and the knowledge of how to make our parents happy. From the kindly luangpor to our oldest cousin, their responses were one and the same: “You must love and respect your bida and manda.”

  Our father ignored us, keeping his vicious behavior for private moments behind closed doors. Our mother fed and clothed us, but no matter how much we worked on the farm or completed our home duties, she hissed that we were deceitful and ugly and would be reborn as maggots.

  We quietly understood the truth of our parents’ household, a truth that has never passed our lips for fear that the weight of such a sin would plunge us straight down into hell. This was our secret: that the order of the world had gone awry within those walls. Neither of my parents truly knew how to conduct themselves with true righteousness, which is the duty of our elders so that we may follow in their example.

  But there was wise Aunt Lerm, my father’s older sister, and her gentle husband, Kamon. She had watched over us closely since the birth of Khajee. The couple had no children, and so asked us to stay for a day, a week, months, until we had become a part of her family.

  “I appreciate the laughter of children and their helping hands within my household,” was all she said to her younger brother when he complained she was keeping his children away, and to the village headman when he intervened. Lerm was a formidable, intelligent woman, her authority governed by a deep sense of reason. The headman backed away from the set of her jaw and the matter was settled.

  Lerm patiently taught us good manners and a handful of numbers and letters. We knew the obligation to our elders, but our Aunt spoke also of commoners to nobles, nobles to kings, small rulers to great ones. This was how the world turned; I was burdened with the knowledge that life had an order of things. And yet a soft dark place inside me, which remained no matter how much I prayed and made offerings and had quiet reflections, told me that order did not necessarily mean fairness.

  Still, under Lerm’s kindness and reason we grew into ourselves: Khajee loved to tend the garden, Muk made the finest meals, and I wove. We all loved to sing.

  When the villagers gathered after a day’s work to enjoy each other’s company and a boy called out his first line of song, I was the quickest to respond in greeting. My lungs and mouth together made a charming instrument. Khajee and Muk would speak with longing and irritation about the other gender, and I would mimic their words. We performed the roles of Woman or Man, Girl or Boy, so to sing with daring wit didn’t mean that I, Amphon, truly wished that the boy Klahan would ask for my hand or any such thing, no matter how fine his tattoos were. I was simply interested to hear whether he would sing back intelligently or else lose to my skill.

  This was my secret: I knew from late girlhood that my interest did not lie with men. Each night I would play at wooing a different boy while feeling absolutely nothing. I enjoyed their shame when they could not answer my song.

  When Khajee asked me to accompany her on a trip to the city on a clear morning in the third month, I gladly agreed. She wished to seek trade and perhaps suitors, and I wanted to see the land beyond the village, perhaps glimpse the curious remains of the copper and bamboo water buffalo they had built in Khorat. Uncle Kamon, returning from a trading trip, said the spirit workers had quarrelled with the engineers over the lack of payment for their work; the latter had only managed to build four useless legs before fleeing in abject terror, which failed to impress my uncle. A water buffalo of bright metal and useful magic would be invaluable come rice-growing season, if one could afford it and it was warded against the damp.

  “Have a good day,” said Auntie Lerm as she pressed her nose to our cheeks. Muk gave us satchels of food and told us to come home safely.

  By the evening, I was with thousands of others on the northbound road to Wiang Chan flanked by Lao soldiers. I did not know where Khajee was. My mouth burned with anger.

  ~*~

  Kaew brought the coconut shell dipper to her face again and again, sighing and wincing. She was thankful for the water; plentiful rain that year meant round-shouldered terracotta jars brimmed in each household across Nong Ngu Saeng Athit. There was also a new water tank nearby, one of several in the region gifted by His Majesty in Krungthep, recognising Ya Mo’s deeds decades later.

  She was curious about it. If such great water tanks and machine beasts were being built, why couldn’t they invent a tool that made chilli paste without this level of pain and suffering?

  “You can never wash chilli out of your eye fast enough, can you?” came a voice at Kaew”s shoulder.

  “Oh, Lek! How are you today?” said Kaew, turning to greet her best friend, pulse fluttering, suddenly self-conscious of her red eye and sodden head.

  “I’m well, thank you,” said Lek, “look much maenglak we’ve got. They’re growing wonderfully! Your Aunties will be so pleased.” She held up a phakhaoma bundle stuffed with fuzzy green leaves and tiny white blossoms. “But I think they’re less fragrant exactly because of all the rain. Herbs are more potent when they’re starved of water. What do you think?”

  Lek crushed a leaf between her forefinger and thumb, offering them to Kaew. Kaew breathed in the citrus-bright scent of maenglak and noted the lovely taper to Lek’s fingers.

  “Well,” said Kaew, “they’re beautiful.”

  Lek raised her eyebrow. “They… smell beautiful?”

  “I mean… that is to say, it smells as usual to me, but I’d rather weak herbs than all the trouble that drought brings to the land.” Had she been too obvious? Had she been too abrupt? Lek’s sprightly manner and broad shoulders jolted Kaew’s heart so, sending jumbled phrases out of her mouth.

  Lek frowned, then brightened. “Oh, I see. Well, the rains have been so good these past months. I hope the new water tank’s caught it all…”

  Kaew took a deep breath and said, “Would you like to go and see it? They say it’s vast, like an old monument.”

  ~*~

  If I married, I feared taking leave of my aunt’s home for unfamiliar rooms where I’d be judged by a sharp-eyed grandmother. Aunt Lerm’s house, with its sweet-scented wood and tall stilt legs, was safety and comfort to me. I’d simply assumed that my home would be as permanent as the mountains.

  Standing amongst the Khorat townspeople, we were told Krungthep was under threat of attack from the white-skinned island-dwelling Angrit, and that King Anouwong of Lao had arrived in Khorat to take the city into his care. He’d generously offered us, the people of Khorat, a haven in Wiang Chan across the river, but only when he’d ensured each citizen had been divested of any weaponry, confiscating even humble kitchen cleavers.

  He sent us on our way, escorted by soldiers who kept our knives and axes safely in their care. Guns and cannons and carts laden with gunpowder trundled along with us.

  Well, I could not be comforted. It was then I realized what I desired most of all was the freedom to take myself where I wanted, and my shame about the first and my denial of the latter made me so furious I was beyond tears.

  “Who are you, child?” an older woman asked me. Her cheekbones were higher even than mine, the jaw severe. I heard people calling her Lady Mo; I knew this name, the wife of the Khorat governor. She was treated with respect even from the Lao commanders. Curious, then, that someone as humble as myself should fall into step beside someone such as her; surely she would sit proudly in one of the carts.

  I noticed the tall handmaidens flanking us, pha sbai fluttering over broad shoulders
, finely wrought metal bands encircling solid yet sinuous arms. From the look in their eyes I knew I had to answer quickly and speak well. What did Lady Mo want with me? My chest was tight, my throat dry.

  “My name is Amphon, my lady,” was all I managed to say.

  “And who are you?” she pressed. “All around you there are Lao and Jeen, Tai and Khmen. Much of them are glad to be on their way to Wiang Chan, preferring the rule of King Anouwong to His Majesty in Krungthep. The ones who weep bitterly are Tai. You do not weep; you look angry, and the music of your speech is unique. So, child, who are you?”

  “I am Khorat.”

  Lady Mo laughed softly. I heard she too was Khorat-born, living in the region’s capital across from the great temple. “Little Amphon, what do you like to do?”

  “Weave. I weave, and I sing.”

  This seemed to interest her. “And where would you like to go, my child?”

  “Home,” I said, “I have no quarrel with my neighbor, but I want to weave my cloth and sing my songs on my side of the Mekong river, and not be herded like cattle to where my new master pleases.”

  She laughed again; there was a coldness to her voice which made my stomach writhe like an eel pond. I couldn’t tell what it was about my answer that pleased her. Something at her waist caught my eye. Like mine, her chongkraben was fastened with a segmented silver belt, but hers was a row of beetles each the size of a coin, their shells embossed in complex patterns, each of their bodies linked together with a fine chain. I’d never seen this level of craft before.

  As Lady Mo and her attendants moved away, I could have sworn that one of the insects fluttered its wings. The light could play such tricks with your eyes, I thought.

  We marched under the glare of the sun. There were families who anticipated their new beginnings in Wiang Chan, others still who had made their first home there and were gladly returning. Auntie Lerm once told me how the civilian Lao men were branded and forced to labor in Siam, so far from their homes for many months of the year. My heart should have gone out to them for their plight was greater than any I’d ever know, yet I desired only to find my own kin and my own home. I couldn’t bring myself to hate the Lao, nor could I turn their want into mine. Desperation grew inside me, knocking against the walls of my chest, my eyes darted and fingers itched.

  I knew what my single self wanted: I’d return to my village somehow, to sit before my loom and feed the chickens, and I’d leave only when I wished. There was fire in me as I had never known it, my heart dark like burning coal. If the Angrit attacked Krungthep before continuing north east, so be it. I wanted to die in my home.

  Twice I untied my chongkraben and squatted by the side of the path to piss as modestly as I could, holding the fabric up as a screen and peering over the edge to watch those who passed. Each time, a soldier always ensured I fell back in line. I’d already glimpsed what I wanted.

  Lady Mo easily moved through the crowd with her attendants and a girl a little older than me. I’d heard through Muk that the lady had adopted a child called Boonluea, nursing her back to health after the baby’s parents had been struck by illness. The girl seemed only to speak to her mother and her attendants with any measure of affection, haughtily ignoring all the townsfolk around her while behaving with careful politeness towards the Lao soldiers. The commanders treated Lady Mo like a fussing aunt, humoring her, granting her requests for axes to chop firewood or repair carts. How could they miss her calculating looks, the conversations with her husband and the nodding of his men?

  When we approached the border jungle of Thung Samrit, Lady Mo appealed to the Lao men.

  “Do you see, sir, how your people new and old have slow and aching legs from their journey? Even the strongest soldiers grow weary, longing for a good meal cooked by wives and daughters,” she said. “Resting here for the night would help us reach Wiang Chan in the highest of spirits, ready to celebrate and be welcomed by our new capital.”

  “I understand your concerns, good lady,” replied one of the Lao commanders, gracious and sincere. He turned away and talked to his men before announcing that we were to stop and make camp. The soldiers left their carts of gunpowder and cannons amongst the trees like a gathering of strange beasts, each man relieved that they no longer had to haul these things over the increasingly difficult terrain. The wheels sunk in the soft, sandy ground up to the spokes.

  As we laid out rattan mats in the clearing, I exchanged pleasantries with some Khorat girls. They were not from my village but I recognized them by the weave of their chongkraben and the rhythm of their sentences. Before long, Lady Mo appeared, ushering us to another part of the camp where the rest of the women were preparing a meal. After granting us permission to use knives and handing over a limited number of blades, the Lao soldiers left us; as with any men, they didn’t bother listening to so-called women’s prattle as we did our women’s work. We could speak freely.

  “Little Amphon, what do you know of kings?” Lady Mo said, as we chopped vegetables and stoked fires. The other girls and women attended to their own share of work, but I knew they were listening closely.

  Auntie Muk had told me how the Lao king, like our governor, sent tribute to His Majesty in Krungthep, men and money.

  “There are great and small kings as there are great and small gods, and all rule over us,” I said.

  She nodded. “And which king would you serve, the greater or the smaller?”

  The question startled me. “These are decisions I do not make, my lady.”

  “What if,” she said, “you could go home if you made the right choice? What do you think will happen to your homes now that Khorat is in the hands of a new ruler? Not even the smallest village escapes conquest. There’s always one more babe to snatch.” She turned to face the women around us, arms spread wide. “King Anouwong will have us taken to Wiang Chan, and I have no wish to go on a journey I didn’t ask for. Why should I leave the house I was born in and forsake the trees of my garden? Why should we be herded like cattle to where our new masters please? Women of Khorat, join hands and return to our city!”

  She told us of her plan. What choice did we have?

  Our men arrived in our makeshift kitchen hefting a wild pig over their shoulders. While we drained its blood and butchered its still-warm flesh, Lady Mo spoke to her husband, one hand on her belt, the other making precise cutting motions in the air.

  “I can tell you that the farang will not attack Siam. King Anouwong’s intelligence was mistaken, rooted in his assumption that Krungthep’s treaty with the white-skinned Angrit makes Siam weak. I hear, too, that our neighboring towns have been taken by the Lao; King Anouwong’s claiming of our people and their capitals gives strength to his nation for now, but there are thousands of Siamese troops approaching the north east as we speak,” she said. What kind of woman knew such things, and spoke of them with such certainty to influence men?

  “We will go ahead as planned,” her husband replied. “Prepare the dinner and bring out the rice wine.”

  Boonluea sat with the two handmaidens under cloth tied over bamboo. Lady Mo fiddled with her belt, removing one of the fine metal beetles.

  “You’re a farmer’s girl from a small village, but I can see you are not uneducated. Someone must have taught you well.” Lady Mo’s contempt stung, but I was curious.

  She held the beetle flat on her palm, showing me its parts. It was half-machine, half-creature, with a basic intelligence that knew ally from enemy. Its belly contained tiny chains and gears which controlled the whirring of legs, wings and biting mouthparts. There were two compartments in its body, one for medicine and the other for messages. These malaeng-yon, insect automata, were astonishing to me; I wondered how she could have a belt full of these contraptions when a team of engineers and spirit works had not even managed to build a single water buffalo.

  All my life I had paid my respects to the many spirits of the land, propitiation granting us rains and full harvests, had witnessed the witch doctors
dancing in ritual to call back protective spirits to encourage health in my ailing neighbors, but I’d never seen how one could ask machines to understand us.

  “Those fool engineers and spirit workers know nothing about the proper songs,” Lady Mo said when I told her about the abandoned water buffalo. She whispered fast in my ear. “Child, this is my secret work, my woman’s work. My malaeng-yon roam the country and hum their secrets to me. Oh, men can speak of women’s gossip, but what is gossip but knowledge, and what is knowledge but power? Any wretch can hammer parts together, but great engineers and artisans are few and good spirit workers fewer. All metal holds memories of earth which was once its mother and cradle. You have only to sing to it, make it remember, satisfy it with your knowledge of the world, teach it to understand the scuttling creatures of the earth and the delight of a smoothly turning engine. Approaching it as master or supplicant will do us little favor: we must, instead, partner with spirits.”

  She leaned close to me, her face a yaksha, terrifying in its glare. “You must never tell anyone of this, or I will ensure your line is cursed for generations untold. Only I will decide when others know of this.”

  I understood, then, why the fool engineers had fled, and there was no telling what kind of power Lady Mo truly had. But I had no time to tremble. Truth be told, my desire for knowledge and to see my home once again went deeper and harder than fear.

  Boonluea taught me how to administer colorless medicine in the malaeng-yon and wind the creature with a tiny key concealed at the bottom end of the beetle.

  “This medicine hastens drunkenness and causes a heaviness of the limbs,” said Boonluea as we filled and wound the malaeng-yon. “It’s a family recipe.”

  I stared at her, wondering what kind of family would need such a thing.

  “Perhaps I may teach you someday, clever farm girl. I know medicine well. Machines, too. Subjects close to my heart.” She laughed, amused by herself.