Love and Death in Bali. Vicki Baum
the wall of his house and it was said in the village that they were worth more ringits than could be counted a thousand times over on the fingers of one hand. Plates like these were let into the base of two shrines of gods in the Temple of the Sacred Wood. And the lord of Badung had had the back wall of the large balé, where he received important guests, adorned with them. Pak had heard of them first from Meru, and then he had himself gone with many other men from Taman Sari to Badung to marvel with open mouth and round eyes at this priceless treasure. But plates like these three had never been seen by anyone in Bali.
“Have you any more?” he asked incredulously as he looked into the box.
“No,” Bengek answered, and shut down the lid. But with that one fleeting glimpse Pak had seen the gleam of silver, as though of fishes’ scales or of many ringits. Bengek lifted the case on to his head and turned to go. “The plates,” Pak called out. The fisherman did not look round or pause.
“The plates are for you because you are such a good watchman. And the fish I caught are for me,” he said, and his hoarse whisper mingled with the sound of his bare feet on the sand.
Pak stayed crouching over the plates. My soul is wandering in a dream and sees things that are not real, he thought. Then—how long after he did not know—the kulkul beat the first hour of day. Daylight had come without his knowing. He cautiously put his hand out to the plates. He was wide awake and they were real. The birds sang and soon the road would be full of the people of Sanur. Pak snatched up his treasure in a panic and hid it within his dew-soaked kain and then took the nearest path that led to the rice-fields. It skirted the village and not a soul was to be seen. It seemed to him that a whole year had passed since he left his sawah the day before. He did not know yet what Bengek’s present portended. Squatting down at the edge of his sawah he took the plates carefully from his kain and breathed on them and polished them. The rising sun was reflected in them and the roses looked like real flowers. Only the raja possessed anything like it. His chest throbbed and thudded like a gong, as he turned the plates about in his hands. There were some marks on the back which he examined closely, straining his eyes and wrinkling his forehead. They had no resemblance to the letters in the lontar books he had learned to read. Probably they were characters of great magic power. Otherwise how could such delicate and fragile ware have come whole and unbroken to Bengek’s net, when a great ship like the Chinaman’s burst asunder and broke up? He did not know whether the powers of good or of evil dwelt in the plates. Pak considered this and looked about him. His eye fell on a mound in the corner of his sawah on which some offerings lay, dried by the sun. He had heaped up the mound the day he let the water into his field, bringing shovelfuls of earth from three points of the compass in turn to form an altar for his offerings and prayers.
This spot was under the protection of the Goddess. The earth of his field, blest by her, was of sufficient power to break any spell that might, for all he knew, be inherent in Bengek’s gift. Taking his knife from its sheath he began digging out the earth at the foot of the mound. It was soft and muddy and easy to dig out. When the hole was large enough he bedded the plates into it and closed the earth round them and smoothed it down.
“O Goddess,” he said, “I offer you these precious plates. Make them pure of evil influences and bless my field so that its soil shall be fertile and the ears full and heavy.”
The tjrorot sounded its hollow wooden note in the distance. Pak set off home to fetch his plough. He had left home a poor man yesterday. It was as a rich man he returned. Richer than Wajan, Sarna’s father. His secret lay big and warm in his heart, like a steadily glowing fire.
The Puri
A FLOCK of white pigeons rose from the ground and circled high above the puri of the lord of Badung. The silver bells on their feet gave out a whirring tinkle of metallic sound, like the voice of a white cloud at noon. The gray pigeons in their red cages cooed as they tripped to and fro. A large kasuar, which had been searching the grass for food, extended its long neck, thrusting it this way and that as though it had too tight a collar. Muna, the slave-girl, laughed and let her hands fall for a moment. Bernis, the most beautiful of the lord’s wives, bent back her head and looked up into the sky. She shook out her hair. “Well?” she asked, without taking her absorbed and dreaming eyes from the flock of pigeons up in the sky. Muna began zealously combing her mistress’s long hair again. She drew it back strand by strand; it was sleek and fragrant and shone with coconut oil.
“Then she was clever enough to arrange matters so that she was bound to encounter him,” Muna went on quickly. “She put herself right in his path as he went to his cocks. He did not so much as glance at her. She said: ‘Greetings, my lord and master,’ turning her eyes away. ‘Greeting, Tumun,’ he said, and walked on. She ran after him and pulled at his sarong. ‘My lord and master has had no sirih from me for a long time,’ she said. My mistress ought to have seen how the lord behaved then! He paid no attention at all—he looked straight through her, like this”—Muna copied the lord’s contemptuous look and squinted with the effort—“he paid no more attention to her than if she had been a dead dung-beetle in his path. He simply went on and left her standing there—the vain, silly creature. All the women laughed her to scorn.”
“What a shameless woman,” Bernis said, “to make herself cheap. You can tell that she is a beggar’s daughter.”
Muna had ended her task. “I have heard,” she said, “that she was a whore at Kesiman and had to go about with her breasts covered until the Anak Agung Bima brought her into his palace.” She drew a palm-leaf basket towards her, in which were white cambodia flowers, tinged with pink. Taking here and there a single hair she wound it about a petal to hold it fast. It looked as though the flowers were scattered carelessly over her black hair. “My mistress is the most beautiful of all. She will bear a strong and fine son and the lord will raise her up to be the first of his wives,” she chanted.
“Hold your tongue and don’t talk nonsense,” Bernis broke in. Muna went dumb with fright and cowered down with the instinctive movement of one who was used to being beaten.
“Go,” said Bernis. “Leave me alone, I cannot endure your chatter.” Muna took the comb and basket and vanished down the steps. Bernis laid her head in her hands, for she wished to give rein to her sadness. She had been wedded to the young lord Alit for twelve months and still she had not had a child. In her last month, too, her hopes had been dashed and it was long since her lord had visited her. It was a strange thing that all his twenty-two wives were childless. And yet the courtyards and all the other dwellings of the puri swarmed with children; all the court officials, the servants, the slaves and all the numerous retinue of the palace—they all had children. Only the dwellings of the lord’s wives were silent; only in them there was no sound of small feet. Bernis caressed her own skin to sooth its longings. She held her breasts in her hands to still the ache of an unfamiliar pain. Then she let her hands fall and restlessly pulled her sarong tighter. “Muna,” she called out. Apparently Muna had been watching her from a distance, for the next moment she was once more on the steps of the portico. “What is my mistress’s wish?” she asked with a virtuous expression. Bernis drew the girl towards her and put her arm round her. “You are growing up,” she said cajolingly. “It will soon be time to look out for a husband for you. Have you been looking about yourself yet?” Muna giggled and looked coy. “Is it the gardener, Rodia? Or the keeper of the white cocks? Yes, it is he, I know. He has a moustache and looks like a noble. He blows out his nostrils like a horse whenever he catches sight of you.” Muna hid her face in her mistress’s lap and murmured shyly into this secret recess. “Who is it?” Bernis asked, lifting up the girl’s head with her hands on her hair.
“Meru, the sculptor,” Muna whispered with lowered eyes. Bernis reflected on this. “Your taste is not bad,” she said slowly. “He has no eyes for me—he has too many girls,” Muna whispered. She had the face of a little monkey and the prettiest and nimblest of hands.
“You are too young. Wait a year,” Bernis said chillingly. There was silence for a time. Muna took Bernis’s hand and played with it.