One day when Anna was alone in the schoolroom, Tuptim asked her to write the name “Khun Phra Palat” in English. Anna wrote it without even wondering whose name it was. Tuptim immediately began to trace the letters for herself. Anna saw tenderness in her large dreamy eyes as she copied and recopied the name, and thought briefly without curiosity that the owner of the name must mean a great deal to the girl.
Perhaps it was because Tuptim rarely came alone, perhaps because she seemed guileless and younger even than her years, that Anna never tried to learn anything about her background, or what she was thinking and feeling. Lady Thiang said nothing more, and Anna took it for granted that Tuptim was reconciling herself to the new life that had been thrust upon her. There was only once that Anna almost attempted to gain Tuptim’s confidence. In later years she wished a thousand times that she had. Tuptim had come running to her one day after school. She had taken a scrap of paper from her vest and held it up silently before Anna’s eyes. On it was written the name “Khun Phra Palat” in an excellent round hand. Anna praised the improvement in her calligraphy and then asked her for the first time, “But whose name is it, Tuptim?”
The girl cast down her eyes and hesitated, then raised them. “It’s the name of the favorite disciple of the abbot, Chao Khun Sa,” she answered. “He lives at the temple of Rachapradit, and sometimes he comes and preaches to us in the Palace.”
There was deep reverence on her face such as Anna had seen on the faces of many of the women at any mention of the great priest. Anna looked at her sharply but saw nothing else. A dozen half-formed questions rose in her mind, but she did not ask them. She had not known before that Tuptim had an interest in religious things. Or was Tuptim finding some release from the stifling pressure of life in a new devotion to religion? This was not uncommon in the harem, although Anna would not have expected it of Tuptim, who had seemed rebellious and freedom-loving in her attitude. It was then that she vaguely resolved to try to talk to Tuptim and help her if possible. There was some indefinable need about her, some nameless hunger that made her seem restless and unsatisfied. But that was the last time Tuptim came to the school, and Anna, busy with other things, let her impulse drop to the bottom of her mind and lie there forgotten.
The remark of the little prince about hunting for Tuptim troubled Anna, sensitive as she now was to the moods of the Palace. She thought about the young concubine off and on during the next day, which was Sunday. Would she have continued to come to school if she had been encouraged? Had she needed help or guidance? Would she have accepted advice from an Englishwoman when she had flouted Lady Thiang’s? Where was she? Was she still playing her dangerous game of hide-and-seek with the King?
As if in answer to Anna’s troubled self-questioning her little Siamese maid told her that evening that a slave from the Palace wished to speak to her in private. There was something familiar about the slave but Anna could not remember where she had seen her. The woman had a broad plain face and a low forehead. She crawled close to Anna’s chair and whispered, “I am Phim. My mistress, Khun Chao Tuptim, has sent me to you.” She looked around apprehensively. “You know that my mistress has been found?”
“Found?” Anna exclaimed. She was alarmed by the slave’s furtive manner. Tuptim had been found many times before in some corner of the Inside without any particular harm coming from it. “Explain what you mean! Where was she found? How long has she been lost this time?”
The slave repeated the question in evident astonishment. “Why, Mem kha,” she asked, “didn’t you know that my mistress had disappeared from the Palace, and that His Majesty had offered a reward of twenty catties to anyone who brought information about her? And that no one could discover any trace of her at all, even though everyone has been searching?”
“No,” Anna said, “I hadn’t heard a word of it.” She was deeply perturbed. “How long has she been missing?”
“A long time,” the slave girl replied vaguely. “Many, many months until everyone thought that she had drowned herself.”
“But how could she possibly get out of the Palace through three rows of gates, guarded and bolted, too? The Amazons would have seen her. And I don’t believe she could have bribed them to do anything so dangerous to themselves.”
“I know, Mem kha, what you say is true. It is impossible to get out. But she did get out, anyway.” The girl’s brow under the low-growing brush of hair was wrinkled as if in pain, and her cheeks were wet with tears. She had evidently been weeping for a long time and was close to hysteria. Anna was convinced that however Tuptim had managed her escape Phim had been involved.
She had been right, then, in her intuition. She realized now that her subconscious mind had known that the girl was unwilling or unable to bend herself to harem discipline. Tuptim had revolted openly when the strain became more than she could bear. Anna was not really surprised even at the form of that revolt. It was what, if she had thought about it carefully, might have been expected. Tuptim had run away from the environment she hated, with the heedless disregard of consequences that was part of her immaturity. Phim, her parents if they had sheltered her, Tuptim herself, everyone in any way involved was going to suffer severely—perhaps horribly! Anna shut her eyes against the picture of the King’s rage at being so scorned by one upon whom he had lavished his favor. Poor Lady Thiang! Her worst fears had come to pass.
“Where was she found?” Anna asked sorrowfully.
Phim’s whisper was barely audible. “Two priests discovered her this morning in the monastery at Wat Rachapradit. They brought the information to the King, and he ordered her arrested and imprisoned in one of the Palace dungeons.” The slave placed her palms together and raising them high over her head prostrated herself before Anna in the most abject supplication. “So I’ve come to you for help, Mem chao kha.”
Anna was appalled. This was infinitely worse than anything she could have imagined. No woman was allowed to defile a monastery by her presence. “It means death,” she thought hopelessly.
“But what could I or anyone else possibly do?” she asked aloud.
“Oh, gracious lady, if you won’t help her she’s lost!” the slave cried, forgetting to whisper, and burst into tears. “She’ll be executed!” Phim clasped her hands around Anna’s feet and laid her face upon them in frantic humility. “Mem chao kha, I implore you to go to the King and ask her life! He’ll forgive her for your sake. Everyone knows that he will grant even life to you. I’m sure he will, I know he will! Everyone says that he will do anything you ask. Only ask him, then, Mem chao kha, or he will order my little mistress killed!” She writhed in an agony of fear, babbling almost incoherently. “What shall I do? Where can I go? I’ve no place to go but to the Mem. If she won’t help then nobody will. No one can help her but you, gracious lady. You must go to her! You must beg the King for her life!”
Her terror made its impression on Anna’s quick sympathies, even though she was convinced that this time there was nothing she could do. She leaned down and tried to soothe the slave. “Tell me, Phim,” she urged, “why did your mistress leave the Palace, and who helped her get away? I know that she couldn’t have done it alone.”
But the girl would not answer her. “Please, come and see her for yourself,” she kept repeating. “Come and talk with her. You can go to the Palace now that it’s dark, and the gate-keepers will let you in. No one will guess that you’re going to see my mistress. You must come! Nobody else can help her! Please, gracious lady, say that you will come!”
The more Anna said that it was impossible, that there was nothing she could do, the more hysterical the girl became. At last, to quiet her, Anna promised she would go to the Palace and talk to Tuptim. She was convinced that Phim had helped Tuptim in her escape, and that the slave was as much afraid of the disclosure it was in the power of her mistress to make as she was of the punishment that awaited Tuptim.
After the slave had left, Anna sat at her window and watched the stars come out. They shone with unu
sual splendor in the cloudless sky. As a little girl she had always thought that Sunday was different from other days—that the sun shone more brightly and that the rain fell less often, that there was a special hush in the air. Now, far from her native Wales, she felt the peace of Sunday creep into her heart. In spite of her promise to Phim she felt a deep reluctance to go into the Palace. She longed to keep on sitting in her chair in the dark, watching the far and quiet stars, and dreaming a little of Avis at school. Surely tomorrow would do as well. But the thought of Tuptim alone in one of the slimy underground dungeons kept obtruding. The Palace! She looked across at its white walls gleaming in the starlight and hated it and its endless woes. Couldn’t they leave her alone even on Sunday, her one free day? She shuddered at the thought of entering the grisly prison world after nightfall, and put the thought away from her. At least until morning. What could she accomplish by going? So she sat in torpid uncertainty until a warm hand was laid on hers. She turned her gaze from the sky and saw at her feet Phim’s distressed face.
“Mem kha, the gates have been opened for the Kralahome,” she said in a low pleading voice. “You could get in now without difficulty.” Then she melted into the night.
Anna sighed. It seemed impossible to convince the simple people who brought their problems to her as to a deity that she had no superhuman power. Most of them were sincerely convinced that she was not only a member of the dread San Luang, but so close to the King that he would grant her any petition. This was ironic in view of the antagonism that so often existed between them. Yet when she had failed in some mission of mercy, she had seen more than once in the sad eyes of the disappointed petitioner a numbed acceptance of finality and the conviction that had she wanted to succeed she could have done so. The legend of her omnipotence had grown to be a weary weight.
With another sigh for the cool quiet evening she got up resolutely from her chair by the window. She told Boy where she was going, put twenty ticals in her purse, wrapped a black cloak about her and slipped out of the house. The distance to the Palace was only a few hundred feet. She hurried across the commons eager to get her errand over. The guards knew her and admitted her without question. She dropped two ticals into the hands of the Amazon at the gate of the Inside saying that she had come on business, and begging her to keep the gate open for an hour or two.
“You must be back before it strikes eleven,” the Amazon warned her good-naturedly, and asked nothing more.
As soon as Anna entered the main street within the walls, Phim joined her, crouching and running along the deep shadows of the houses, until they reached the doors of the prison. Then she disappeared into the darkness.
Anna knocked and was admitted to the central hall. It was an immense room with innumerable pillars, and a floor in which were set the many trapdoors to the dungeons, double-barred and locked. The few lanterns that lighted it were hung so high that they looked like stars and gave the dimmest of light. There were about a dozen Amazons in the guard, some already stretched in sleep on their mats and leather pillows, with their weapons lying nearby. The eyes of those who were still awake turned toward Anna. They knew her well, and her visits of mercy.
They made a courteous return to her salutation. Mae Ying Thahan, chief of the guard, inquired pleasantly why she had come so late at night.
“I have just learned that one of my former pupils, Lady Tuptim, is in some sort of trouble—I don’t know exactly what—and I have hurried over to see if I can be of any help to her.”
“The child is in trouble indeed,” answered Mae Ying Thahan gravely. “She’s not only got herself into prison, but her two friends, Maprang and Simla.”
“Can I help them?”
“No, Mem,” said the Amazon, and the gentleness of her voice modified the flatness of her refusal. “You can’t help her, either. No one can. This time her guilt is too great.”
“Can you tell me exactly what she has done?”
But to this Anna could get no answer. She tried vainly to persuade Mae Ying Thahan, and grew more alarmed at the immediate seriousness of the situation as the Amazon steadfastly refused to tell her. Admitting failure, Anna tried to induce her to admit her to Tuptim.
“Mai dai!” (It is impossible!) was the persistent reply. “We can’t let you see her without an order from the King. If you bring us one, we’ll be glad to let you in, but without it we can’t.” “Mai dai!” was the only answer Anna could get to her urgent entreaties. It was useless, as she had feared. She sat hopelessly looking at the Amazons, who seemed in the dim light of the lanterns to have been transformed from the good-hearted women Anna knew them to be into fierce, vindictive executioners. She looked at the trapdoors at her feet. Beneath one of them the three “children”—the Amazons were right to call them that—were imprisoned. No sound, no cry, no indication of life escaped from any of them. Tired and despondent, Anna rose and left the prison without another word.
As she went back toward the gate she saw Phim crouching in the shadows on the opposite side of the narrow street, and keeping pace with her. When Anna turned into the next street Phim joined her. The slave had hidden under the portico of the prison, and had heard all Anna’s conversation with the Amazons. There was no need to tell her anything. Anna would have hurried on, but Phim threw herself in front of her on the ground and implored her not to forsake Tuptim.
“But Phim, there’s nothing I can do!”
The slave would not give up. “She will be brought to trial before the court in the outside hall of justice tomorrow morning very early,” she said. “Please, Mem kha, come! Come very early! Perhaps you can persuade Khun Thao Ap to be merciful to her.”
With a sickening sense of her powerlessness, Anna promised to be at the trial.
31
THE KING’S VENGEANCE
At seven o’clock on the following morning Anna was in the San Shuang, the court in the second enclosure of the Palace. The building was of one story only, and totally unlike the rambling combination court and prison in which Anna had tried to see Tuptim the night before. The main entrance was through a long corridor, on both sides of which were apartments so dilapidated as to be scarcely usable. They looked out over the barracks, the magazine, and the fantastic grounds of the Palace gardens.
The floor of the main hall was nothing but worm-eaten boards roughly nailed together. The windows were lofty like those of the royal residences, but the doors were narrow and mean. And everywhere there were big black spiders, which seemed to have been in undisturbed possession of the walls and ceilings for a century.
Several of the judges, both men and women, were already present, exchanging greetings and the contents of their betel-boxes. Phya Phrom Borirak, half-brother of Lady Talap and chief of the men judges, sat apart, as did also Khun Thao Ap, chief of the women judges. The latter had her head bowed in an attitude of reflection and sadness. Before them were low tables on which lay rolls of the law, Siamese paper for recording testimony, pen and ink. By custom there was no prosecuting attorney, no lawyer for the defense, no jury. All the functions were performed by the judges themselves. Some lesser judges and clerks crouched nearby. The whole group examined Anna with curiosity as she took a seat near the end of the hall, but no one made any objection to her staying. Two priests, evidently the men who had found Tuptim in the temple, sat a little distance from Anna.
She had not been there long when a file of Amazons appeared bringing Tuptim and her intimate friends, Maprang and Simla, whom Anna had often seen with her when she came to the schoolroom. Anna was stupefied by the transformation in the pretty girl. Her hair was cut close to her head, and her eyebrows had been shaved off. Her cheeks were hollow and sunken, her eyes cast down. Her hands were manacled, and her little bare feet could hardly drag the heavy chains fastened to her ankles. Her scarf was tied tightly over her bosom, and under it her close-fitting vest was buttoned to the throat. Her whole form was as childlike as before, but she held herself erect and her manner was self-possessed.
The Amazons laid before the judges some priests’ garments and a small amulet on a yellow cord. These had been taken from Tuptim when she was found. Anna understood at once the device that Tuptim had used to escape unnoticed from the Palace—the reason for the shaved head and eyebrows. “Oh, Tuptim, Tuptim!” she thought in horror. The vestments were the sort used by nens, or novices, and the amulet was such as was worn by all Siamese of the time.
The trial began. When the yellow silk that formed the envelope of the amulet had been opened, a piece of paper was found stitched inside with English letters written on it. It was passed to Khun Thao Ap, who was sufficiently versed in English to read aloud the name “Khun Phra Palat.” Anna’s heart thundered in her breast as she began to discern the pattern of the young concubine’s act. She herself had taught the girl to write those words! If she had only inquired then, talked to the girl, won her confidence …
Tuptim was ordered to come forward. She dragged herself along as well as she could, and took her place in the center of the hall. She made no obeisance, no humble prostrations, but neither was there any discourtesy in her manner. Anna caught her eye and smiled encouragingly. The girl’s eyes were dark and sad. An almost imperceptible smile flitted across her face in return to the greeting. Her expression was aloof, controlled. But it was more. She had left her childishness behind. As she sat there before her judges she was a woman, and there was about her something strong, something heroic. Whatever she had done, right or wrong, had brought her to a new level of herself, far above anything she had formerly been. The calmness and purity of her face might have been chiseled by a sculptor carving his ideal of womanhood.
Simla and Maprang were examined first, and without any apparent compunction or reserve told the court all that Tuptim had ever confided in them, and a great many irrelevant matters as well—her unwillingness to come to the Palace in the first place; her dissatisfaction with the life; her interest in the young priest at Wat Rachapradit named Phra Palat; her shirking of attendance on the King. But when Simla spoke of Tuptim’s escape from the Palace as being connected with Phra Palat’s coming in for alms on a particular morning, Tuptim interrupted her and motioned her to stop. “That isn’t true at all!” she exclaimed. “You’re wrong about that, Simla. You’re only guessing and you know it. It wasn’t that time and he had nothing to do with it!” Then, as if recollecting where she was, she added proudly, “But after all, it doesn’t matter. Go on and say whatever you like.”
Anna and the King of Siam Page 35
