Voices behind her began to call. “Mem, Mem, Mem.” The King was beckoning and shouting. The tears were close to the surface now and she was shaking with nervousness. She bowed profoundly and hurried on through the oval door, head held high.
The Kralahome’s sister came bouncing after her in a distraction of rage, tugging at her cloak, shaking her finger in Anna’s face and crying, “Mai di, mai di.” Anna knew enough Siamese now to understand that simple phrase—“Bad, bad!”
But she walked on, outwardly serene, toward the farther gate which led to the river, ignoring the excited woman beside her. Her father and her husband had been soldiers of the Queen. She could not be bullied and coerced.
All the way up the river in the boat there were more “Mai di’s” and none of the “Good morning’s” of the earlier trip. Even up to the very door of her apartment Anna was followed by the outraged noblewoman who continued to pelt her with a hail of words she could not understand, interspersed with “Mai di, mai di, mai di.” But Anna’s mind was made up. She shut and locked her door firmly. Anger had burned out fear. Let them do what they would! She could resign her new position if she must! She would not live in the Palace.
12
THE NEW HOME
Anna sent Louis off for his evening bath with Beebe, and sat down heavily to think. But the more she thought the more apparent it became to her that the unfortunate interview with the King could not have been avoided. He was quixotic and unpredictable, and those about him expected to adapt themselves to his whims. This she could not and would not do. She felt a pang of regret for the comparatively happy home she had left to come to Siam. But she put regret out of her mind and concentrated on the problem at hand.
Against her will she found herself in conflict with the King, and at the very outset. She had been warned by the Mattoons, but she did not see how she could have done other than she had. Still she could hardly expect to get the better of the King on the issue of her home as matters stood—unless.… Yes, of course, that was it! She must enlist the help of the Kralahome.
It would be a good idea to see him soon, as soon after his sister as possible. The more she knew of him the more enigmatic he appeared, but already she felt his power in the kingdom. It was plain that those who came in contact with him both feared and loved him. The reason for the fear she had felt instinctively at the first meeting on shipboard—a kind of suppressed and ominous force. The reason for the respect and love he inspired she could not fathom, unless it came from his reputation for justice. He was known for a rigid sense of right, which was never swayed by passion as was the King’s.
He had at all times a kind of passive amiability, of which he seemed fully conscious and which was his forte. Anna could not discern by what means he exacted the prompt obedience that met his low-spoken commands, nor how he controlled the country with reins apparently held loosely, even carelessly. There was a curious aura of greatness about him. She had seen even in her first month in Siam that his influence and prestige penetrated to every nook of the vast and undeveloped kingdom. There was never a week, hardly a day, that provincial officials from remote corners of the country did not wait upon him. As each week passed she had been impressed more and more by the homage the Siamese rendered him, and by the casual remarks of the Europeans she met. Mr. Thomas George Knox, the interpreter of the British Consulate, who knew Siam intimately from long residence, told her that the Kralahome alone had kept the King on the throne in the face of a strong conspiracy to supplant him with his much more urbane and popular brother, the Second King.
These reflections settled the matter. She would appeal to the Kralahome again, relying on his rectitude to bring about the fulfillment of the King’s contract with her. As if in answer to her thought Mr. Hunter knocked on her door and asked whether there was anything that he could do for her.
“Oh, yes, Mr. Hunter, there is! If the Kralahome is disengaged, I should like very much to speak with him about what happened at the Palace this afternoon.”
In a few minutes Mr. Hunter was back to say that the Kralahome would receive her in his private sitting room. He was smoking a pipe when Mr. Hunter ushered her in—sitting in front of a litter of papers in the Siamese language.
“Yes?” he said, looking up and taking the pipe out of his mouth.
“Your Excellency has heard of the interview this afternoon?”
A faint smile relieved the impassivity of his face. He nodded.
“Nothing was farther from my thoughts than such an unpleasant conversation with His Majesty. But it is impossible for me and my child to lodge within the Grand Palace. As you know there was some correspondence about this before I was engaged.” She drew out the two letters she had carried to the Palace with her and laid them before him. “I have accepted the King’s terms and expect to fulfill my part of the bargain, but I feel strongly that His Majesty is bound in honor to make good the conditions by which I was induced to close my school in Singapore and come here.”
The Kralahome picked up the letters and read them carefully. When he put them down and looked at her again she saw that she had succeeded in arousing his interest.
“What for you object to live in Palace?”
She hesitated. How could she make him understand her need for privacy? It was something the Siamese did not seem to want or even like. “Your Excellency,” she began slowly, “I shall need a quiet home where I shall be free from intrusion when my day’s work is over. My work will be difficult. It will take many hours and when it is finished I shall be very tired indeed.” She paused, hunting for the best way to explain what she feared was inexplicable to the man before her. “There is no privacy in the Palace. That is why I want a home outside where I can retire for the evening, and where I can be assured of peace and seclusion. And then, too, the Palace gates are shut early. As you know, Europeans do much of their visiting over the tea and the dinner table. I want to be free to go and come, and I want a place to entertain my European friends. I couldn’t do this in the Palace. I shall be very happy to work there, and even to assume the secretarial duties that the King has decided to add to my school work, but I feel that I’m entitled to a place to live where I shall be free to follow the customs of my own people without offense to anyone.”
The Kralahome listened attentively, then asked several questions of Mr. Hunter in Siamese.
“Very well, sir,” he said. “I shall try to arrange.”
A few more days passed draggingly. Anna taught Boy, studied Siamese, visited Khun Ying Phan—anything to relieve the monotony of waiting. The girls of the harem continued to descend on her like locusts, but she suffered their depredations with the thought that now since the Kralahome was on her side it would not be for long.
Finally one morning almost a week later Mr. Hunter came to her to say that the King had consented. A house had been selected for her at the King’s express command and a messenger was that moment waiting at the door to conduct her to it. Her boxes and trunks would be sent after her later in the day, if she cared to go on ahead. The house, he added, was furnished.
Anna was overjoyed. She put on her walking clothes and rushed out with Louis, leaving Beebe and Moonshee to start the packing. An elderly man in a panung and a dingy red coat with yellow satin facings, such as a grenadier might have worn, was waiting for her. His faintly sinister look dampened the first ardor of her enthusiasm, but he started off briskly without a word, and she and Louis fell in behind. On their way out of the palace they met the Kralahome coming in through the gate. He studied them with a quizzical smile as he said, “Good morning, sir.” Was he amused at the look of relief in Anna’s face? Or was it merely his customary air of omniscience?
Anna shook off her misgivings and stowed herself and Louis under the high uneven pavilion of wood in the center of the boat that had brought the messenger. Anna’s appearance seemed to afford infinite amusement to the ten rowers as they plied their oars. Her guide stood in the entrance to the boat’s shelter chewing betel
and spitting methodically into the river. He looked even more ill-omened in the full light of the sun, a shrunken, dirty old man with a leering expression.
They crossed the river to the King’s pavilion and climbed out. The guide set off quickly along a circuitous and unpleasantly dirty road. They picked their way after him. In half an hour they came to two tall gates and passed into an even narrower and dirtier street. From the offensive odor that immediately overwhelmed them they knew that they were in the fish market. On the counters of the open stalls that lined the street were sun-dried fish of many sorts—fresh fish, prawns and crabs, and purple balls of rotten prawn called kapi.
The stench gagged them. The sun burned and the air stifled. Dust choked them. The ground blistered their feet. They were half-suffocated and very bewildered when their guide stopped abruptly at what seemed to be the end of this execrable lane. Their way was barred by a wall in which was a single door. The guide made a sign to them to follow him up the three broken steps of brick that led to it. Then from a pouch in his dingy coat he produced an enormous key. He applied it to the door, where it grated in the rusty lock. Surely this was not their destination? The end of a fish market! Anna hoped wildly that the door gave access to a courtyard and pretty garden—what matter if a little overgrown and neglected?—with a quiet house in the midst of the garden at the river’s edge, as far as possible from the smells and noise of the market.
But when the door opened creakingly they found themselves looking into a small room. Anna stepped across the threshold and all her hopes collapsed. The room was very dark for there was no window. As her eyes adjusted themselves she began to pick out details. The half-light from the door revealed a remnant of filthy matting in the middle of the floor. On it stood a table, minus one leg, and propped up by two chairs. The arms of the chairs were broken.
With a shudder she passed on into the second room. It, too, was windowless, and even darker than the first. In it was only a cheap excess of Chinese bedstead filling all available space. And on the bed a mattress. Anna recoiled in disgust. A mutilated epitome of some Lazarine hospital! It brought into her mind a picture of twisted and emaciated bodies rotten with sores, and she could scarcely breathe. The walls were leprous with mold. There was a smell of disease and decay. There was no kitchen, no bath-closet. Anna retched involuntarily. And this was the residence sumptuously appointed that the King had assigned to the English governess of the royal family of Siam!
Her nausea was succeeded by such blistering anger as she had never known. She understood now the Kralahome’s strange smile. But even in her rage her mind worked clearly enough to realize that this outrage was not his doing. No, this was the King’s own idea. She had thwarted him, and he had countered. Very well!
Her stock of Siamese words was still small, but she gratefully recalled the emphatic monosyllables of the premier’s sister. She turned with blazing eyes on the King’s messenger, who was standing behind her, grinning and holding out the key.
“Mai di! Mai di! Mai di!” she said and with an imperious movement dashed the key from his hand. Then she turned and caught Louis in her arms and bounded out of the house, clearing the three steps in a leap.
Without a backward glance she fled—anywhere, anywhere! She was stopped by a crowd of men, women, and children. They gathered around her wondering, mouths half open. They were barefoot, half-naked, fetid, animal. She paused then, remembering all too clearly her experience with the chain-gang. With a quick revulsion of feeling she turned to retrace her steps. Her insulted escort came panting up and she motioned him haughtily to lead them back to the boat. This he began to do. The people pressed close as they started to move. Some of them timidly stretched out their hands to touch Anna’s skin. When this happened she actually found herself grateful for the protection the presence of the King’s messenger gave her.
“Hurry, hurry!” she said to him and he quickened his pace. Ten minutes later they repassed the gates and left the suburb of disgust behind.
All the way back to the Kralahome’s palace in the boat her guide stood at the entrance of the wood pavilion staring at her. There seemed to be no human intelligence or feeling in the mask that time had made of his face. It was carved in a senseless and fiendish grin like a gargoyle’s. Anna could not tell whether it expressed apology or ridicule, or whether it had petrified in a shape that meant nothing. But to her immense relief the guide did not get out of the boat at the Kralahome’s landing. The rowers pushed off and Anna and Louis saw his grin disappearing in the distance.
Without a pause Anna went straight to the Kralahome. His sly amused smile provoked her anger again. In a few sharp words she told him what she thought of the lodging provided for her by the King’s munificence, and announced firmly that nothing would induce her to live in such a slum.
He looked at her coolly from his seat on the floor, and without taking his pipe from his mouth told her that there was nothing to prevent her from staying where she was. She started from her low seat with an exclamation. His insolence and complete indifference to her wishes stung her to fury, nor did she have the control after the emotional strain of the morning to prevent his seeing the fact. With some difficulty she found her voice and told him that neither his palace nor the den in the fish market would suit her, that she insisted on her contract, and that she demanded suitable and independent accommodations in a respectable neighborhood.
With a leisurely movement he stood up, smiling a little. She saw that her rage had succeeded only in amusing him. Who was she after all but an Englishwoman of no particular importance in a country of which he was the unacknowledged ruler? Her knees shook with sudden weakness and depression. In a tone that he might use to a petulant child the Kralahome said, “Never mind, sir! Never mind! By and by it will be all right.” And with that he retired to an inner chamber.
Her head was throbbing with pain and she could not keep back the tears. Defeated and half-sick, she dragged herself to her rooms and told Beebe and Moonshee to abandon their packing. Her pulse bounded and her throat burned. Fever! She threw herself across the bed exhausted by emotion and gathering illness.
The next week was a nightmare. She lay prostrated with fever and tortured day and night with hideous fancies. Sometimes she dreamed that she saw the Kralahome standing beside her bed and looking at her as he had the first time they met on shipboard. There was the same sardonic look on his face, as if he personified all the forces arrayed against her. She would scream and reach out her hands to push him away, only to encounter space. Sometimes the stone images of the mythological creatures in the courtyard seemed to gather around her bed where they stood shaking their gray and hoary heads, mocking her for coming to a country where she would never be anything but an alien. She would cry out in her troubled sleep and Beebe would come running with water. Several times she woke to find Khun Ying Phan bending over her, anxiously bathing her face with water in which jessamine had been steeped.
Gradually the fever began to leave her and with it the dreams. She slept for long hours and ate a little. Finally one day she awoke with her head perfectly clear to find the Khun Ying sitting beside her. Anna reached out weakly and took the soft brown hand in her own, caressing it gratefully. “Khun Ying,” she implored, “help me!” And partly in Siamese and partly in English she begged Lady Phan to intercede on her behalf.
The Khun Ying smoothed her hair and patted her cheek, as though Anna were a little girl, and agreed to do her best. But she urged Anna to be patient. This was impossible. Persistence was both a virtue and a fault with Anna. She could not see the Kralahome even in passing without pressing her case, telling him that the life she was leading was insupportable, although she was grateful for the many offices of affection and kindness she had received during her illness from the women of the harem.
She saw that she was accomplishing something—not what she wanted but something. She had made an impression on him, even though she could not be sure just how. In a country where the idea of noblesse o
blige was unknown and where the great demanded the exact amount of homage that was their due, her insistence upon what she believed to be her rights was probably having its effect. The Kralahome continued courteous but imperturbable. He promised little, yet she had the distinct feeling that he was working in her behalf.
Nevertheless nothing happened. When Anna grew warm on the irrepressible topic the Kralahome would smile slyly and tap the ashes from his pipe saying, “Yes, sir! Never mind, sir! You not like, you can live in fish market, sir!” And she would chafe at his sang-froid, and even hunt for little ways of enraging him without compromising her own dignity. But he endured them all with a nonchalance that irritated her the more because it was not assumed.
Two months passed in this fruitless struggle. Desperately she settled down to her studies, content at last to snub the Kralahome with his own indifference. But this made no more impression on his granite surface than her importunings. Rather, he seemed to ignore her existence blandly.
Then suddenly one afternoon he paid her a visit, something he had not done before. He complimented her on her progress in the language and on her chai yai, her “magnanimity.” He told her that the King had been highly incensed by her conduct in the affair of the fish market, and that it was not possible to make any progress until His Majesty got over his pique. Then he said that he had found something for her to do. He had decided to start a school in his own palace, which she could teach until she was summoned by the King.
“Thank you. Thank you very much!” she said with such enthusiasm that he looked surprised.
Anna and the King of Siam Page 11
