“He’s carrying the Majapahit seal.”
“He’s reading from a lontar scroll.”
“What’s he saying, Ki Sardu?” someone asked, directing the question at a man who was wearing the white headdress of a priest.
The priest stroked his wispy beard, his brow creased in concentration. The messenger was using the polite Jawa language. All Majapahit officials were expected to know the polite language but few villagers understood beyond the standard phrases recited at ceremonies.
“He has a message from a prince,” the priest said solemnly. Kancil rolled her eyes. She could have told them that. “The Prince of Mataram,” the priest continued, “… the new Prince of Mataram – Bhre Mataram – is coming to claim his title!”
The crowd gasped in unison.
“Where is Mataram?” a boy asked his father.
“Tsk! This is Mataram,” the father replied, waving his arm around to take in the village, the rice fields and the mountain beyond.
“Is it my brother who he is speaking to?” Mother said quietly to the grey-haired woman.
The woman turned around sharply and her mouth dropped open. “Is it really you, Su?” she gasped.
“Yes, Ibu Tari,” said Mother. “It’s me.”
The older woman reached out to touch Mother’s arm, as if to convince herself she was real. “Oh, my dear, we thought you had perished.”
Mother bowed her head, “I’m sorry, Ibu, I didn’t mean to– I was separated from my family when Mbah Merapi unleashed his fury. And then … and then I wanted to get as far away as possible. In Lawucilik, we heard no news and I feared what I might find if I came back.”
“You were in Lawucilik?” Ibu Tari’s eyes were wide. “Well,” she said after a pause, “you must be blessed to survive disaster twice.”
Kancil sensed Mother’s discomfort. Lying to people she knew was different to making up stories for strangers on the journey from Sunda.
“This is my daughter,” Mother said to change the subject. Kancil kept her head bowed as she had been taught. She could feel Ibu Tari looking at her and for a moment she was tempted to raise her eyes and speak just to see what the reaction would be. She felt her mother’s grip tightening on her hand. “My daughter doesn’t speak,” said Mother.
There was an awkward silence. “Your husband?” Ibu Tari asked softly.
“Lost when the earth swallowed Lawucilik,” Mother replied. “Together with my son.”
“Oh,” said the older woman. Kancil could tell from Ibu Tari’s voice that she no longer thought they were blessed.
The crowd had grown, with at least one hundred people jostling for a view of the pendopo. As those behind pushed forwards, Kancil struggled to stay upright. For a moment a gap in the crowd opened. She dropped Mother’s hand and began to squeeze through to the front to see what was going on. The gap closed and Kancil only succeeded in wedging herself into a dark forest of arms and legs with somebody’s elbow poking into her neck. The suffocating smell of hard-working bodies engulfed her.
Unable to turn around, she backed out of the crowd. Someone stepped on the edge of her kain, pulling it loose. She crouched awkwardly and tried to rewrap it, but the crowd surged towards the pendopo and she was caught off balance. Suddenly, she found herself sprawled on the ground, clutching at her unravelling kain.
A huge pair of hands plucked her from the dirt. “Is this your daughter, Su?” she heard a booming voice above her say. “Or is it a chicken having a dirt bath?” The voice belonged to a hairy giant. He was the closest thing to an ogre that Kancil had ever seen, and she had to press her lips shut to suppress a scream.
Laughter bubbled through the crowd and a boy poked Kancil in the chest. “Chicken,” he screeched, flapping his arms like a demented bird and hopping from one foot to the other. Kancil wanted to shove him into the dirt, but one hand was holding her kain together and the other was gripping the giant’s leg for balance. All she could do was glare at the boy. As their eyes met, he hesitated, a strange look on his face – it wasn’t the usual curious stare she got when people noticed her eyes for the first time, it was something more like recognition. Kancil held her breath, waiting for him to say something about her eyes but he barely missed a beat before crowing, “Oooh, scary chicken.”
“Shut up, boy,” a woman said, swatting him over the head.
Mother’s hands were at Kancil’s waist, expertly rearranging her kain. “Be careful!” she whispered. “Please! Stay close, and don’t draw attention to yourself!”
Kancil’s cheeks burned with embarrassment and fury and she swallowed hard to stop from bursting into tears. Do I have to cry silently too? she wondered.
Suddenly, the giant scooped her up onto his shoulder. Kancil yelped with surprise. “Hey–!” She managed to swallow her words before she said “put me down”. Even so, everybody was staring at her. Kancil knew she was small for her age, but did the giant really think she was young enough to be bounced around like this?
“I thought you said she doesn’t speak,” said the giant.
Kancil looked down at her mother, who was looking back at her in horror. “She … she doesn’t,” Mother replied after a moment. “Not words, just … sounds.”
“Oh,” said the giant, nodding. “That’s too bad. For a moment I thought I had cured her.” The people nearby seemed to have forgotten about the pendopo now that they had a new spectacle to entertain them.
“What’s wrong with her eyes?” a child asked.
“Shhh!” an adult voice replied. “She’s been cursed.”
Kancil was taken aback. She could understand the muteness being explained as a curse, but her eyes were another matter. They were her father’s eyes; they were no curse!
The crowd was losing interest now. Only the boy who had teased her was still looking at her, a thoughtful expression on his face. Kancil made a point of ignoring him, raising her chin and looking down over the crowd into the pendopo. Being treated like a child wasn’t so bad if it meant she got the best view.
The messenger, wearing the sarung and headdress of a Majapahit official, was standing on the first step of the pendopo. He was reading a message that had been carved into strips of lontar leaf. Each strip was sewn to the next with fine palm thread so that when folded, the leaves formed a neat stack. The messenger gradually unfolded leaf after leaf as his voice droned on. Polite Jawa language was a lot like polite Sunda language, Kancil decided. It took ten times longer to say anything than if you were speaking the everyday language. The priest had stopped translating. Perhaps the language became too difficult for him or perhaps he had grown bored with it. Nobody in the crowd seemed to be paying much attention. They were chattering about what the arrival of a prince would mean for the village.
“It’s just what we need to bring some order to the place,” said one.
“Absolutely,” agreed another, “it’s only a matter of time before those forest bandits run out of travellers to rob and turn their attention to us.”
“Did he say what happened to the old Bhre?” someone asked. “Don’t you think it was a bit strange that he stopped visiting all those years ago and never sent word?”
“The messenger said he died,” the priest weighed in. “He was quite old the last time he was here, if you remember. And they’ve had other things to contend with in the capital – those Sunda pirates have been causing trouble again.”
There was a general muttering about evil Sunda in the crowd. Kancil shrank back against the giant’s shoulder.
“He never used to stay long, did he, the old Bhre?” It was the giant who spoke this time. “Just long enough to make sure he was getting his fair share of the harvest and to eat us out of livestock. Then he’d be off.” His comment drew a ripple of laughter and Kancil had to hold on tight as the giant jiggled with mirth.
“Ssshh!” scolded the priest. “Don’t be coarse. The messenger will think we’re peasants.”
“Oh, we wouldn’t want him to think that, would we?
” the giant chuckled.
The chatter continued and the messenger droned on so Kancil turned her attention instead to the man seated in the centre of the pendopo. He too was wearing the garb of a Majapahit official, although Kancil could see that his sarung was a little moth-eaten. Nevertheless, he sat proudly on his ornately carved stool, his fists resting on his knees, shoulders back and chin jutting forwards. So that’s Big Uncle, she thought. He looked very important.
Finally, the messenger stopped talking and folded the lontar scroll. There was an expectant hush. Big Uncle cleared his throat and began to speak. Kancil could tell he wasn’t comfortable speaking the polite Jawa language; he shifted in his seat and cleared his throat every few words. From her position on the north side of the pendopo she could see one side of the messenger’s face. She thought his lip curled into a sneering smile but she couldn’t be sure.
“What did Bapak Thani say?” someone called out.
“Oh, er, he just invited the messenger in to refresh himself for the journey back to the capital,” the priest replied.
Kancil watched as the messenger followed Big Uncle through the pendopo and down into the fenced courtyard in front of the house. A women and a girl who had been kneeling behind Big Uncle’s seat stood up and followed them. They were both well dressed and their necks and wrists were laden with jewellery. The woman looked to be a little older than Mother but the girl was young, perhaps a year or two older than Kancil.
“Did you see your aunt and your cousin?” asked Mother when the giant deposited Kancil back on the ground. Kancil nodded and looked at her feet – her dirty, travel-worn, mud-caked feet. From the brief glimpse of her relatives, she could tell it would take more than silence to hide the fact that she didn’t belong here. Kancil had expected to feel superior to her mother’s family, living as they did in such a remote place. Yet her aunt and her cousin were both so elegant. Their skin was the colour of ripe sawo fruit; the colour of ladies who sat in pavilions all day and had servants to attend to life’s mundane tasks, not the colour of travellers who had walked for months under a scorching dry-season sun.
Kancil closed her eyes and willed herself back to Sunda, playing in the shallows at sundown and climbing coconut trees with Agus when Mother wasn’t around to remind her to be a lady. When she opened her eyes all she saw was a glowering mountain and towering trees. She was trapped.
The crowd had dispersed now that the spectacle was over and night was drawing in, but the giant and the grey-haired lady were still there. “You know you can stay with us,” said the giant. “We’ll find room.”
“Thank you, Bapak Pohon,” said Mother, bowing respectfully. “You are very kind, but we should stay with our family.”
Ibu Tari, the grey-haired lady, nodded in agreement. “It is the proper thing to do,” she said.
4
BIG UNCLE’S HOUSE
“Follow my lead,” Mother said to Kancil when Bapak Pohon and Ibu Tari had left. She smoothed her kain and walked up the steps to the pendopo with her head held high. She untied her basket and took Kancil’s from her back. Then she removed the parcels of jamu and palm sugar and laid them on the floor in front of the solid timber bench where Big Uncle had sat.
“Greetings, my brother,” she called in a clear voice as she kneeled facing the closed gate and bowed her head.
Kancil kneeled beside her. With her head tucked in and her nose touching her knees she couldn’t see a thing. She could hear snatches of voices coming from beyond the fence but the pendopo was silent.
Mother cleared her throat. “Greetings, my brother,” she called again, more loudly this time. The sounds from inside stopped. Someone barked a command. Kancil heard footsteps accompanied by the tap of a walking cane and the rattle of the gate being unlatched.
She twisted her neck so she could see while keeping her forehead pressed to the ground. In the gloomy evening light all she could make out was a stooped woman standing in the shadows behind the gate.
“What?” snapped the woman.
“I am Sumirah, younger sister of Bapak Thani. My home is destroyed and all I have in the world is my mute daughter. I throw myself on the mercy of my good brother.”
“Wait here,” the woman said. The gate swung shut behind her and Kancil listened to her retreating footsteps, then to the silence that stretched on and on.
By the time the gate creaked open again it was almost dark and Kancil’s legs had gone to sleep. She heard heavy footsteps then a grunt as someone sat down on the bench.
“What do you want?” Kancil recognised the voice as Big Uncle’s, although he was speaking the ordinary Jawa language now.
“We throw ourselves on your mercy, Brother,” said Mother. Her voice was muffled as she kept her head low to the floor.
“Speak up, I can’t hear you,” Big Uncle grumbled.
Mother raised her head slightly and took a deep breath. When she spoke, she spoke evenly. It reminded Kancil of times when her own brother, Agus, had teased her or got her into trouble, and she had been forced to show respect to him because he was older, even though all she wanted to do was punch him.
“My husband and son are dead, swallowed by the earth in Lawucilik. I have come home with my daughter to beg you for shelter. We will work hard. You will not regret being compassionate.” She smothered a cough.
“Hmpf,” Big Uncle snorted. “Where were you when your mother was dying?”
“Forgive me, Brother.”
“And your father.”
“Forgive me, Brother.”
“All very well for you to run off to who knows where when things got tough. Some of us had to stay behind and rebuild this place after that scoundrel … well, some of us were loyal.”
“Forgive me, Brother. I did not mean to abandon my family. I became lost in the confusion when we all ran from Mbah Merapi’s anger. I could not find my way to the usual refuge. I know it has been many years but I am here now and wish to repay my debt to my family. My daughter will be no trouble; she will work hard. We will both work hard.”
“Who was her father?”
Kancil felt a foot prod her outstretched hands and she flinched.
“He–” Mother’s voice broke, “he was a farmer in Lawucilik. He was a good man.”
“Is she simple?”
“Pardon?”
“Is she simple? I was told she is dumb. Is she half-witted?”
Why hadn’t Mother accepted the giant’s offer to stay with him? Kancil wondered.
“She hasn’t spoken since the earth took her father and brother but she is not simple.” Kancil was relieved to hear the indignation in her mother’s voice. “She can cook and clean and she learns fast. I can teach her to weave. We can be of service to Big Sister, lighten her load in preparation for the prince’s arrival.”
“Wait here,” sighed Big Uncle as he heaved himself from the bench, picked up the gifts and stomped out of the pendopo.
Kancil rolled over onto her hip. Pins and needles shot through her legs. She winced but stopped herself from crying out. Mother was curled in a ball, her face pressed into her knees as she coughed uncontrollably. Kancil reached out to touch her shoulder and eventually the coughing subsided.
“It’s just the damp air,” Mother whispered. “I’ll be fine.”
Just as Kancil was beginning to think they would be spending the night in the pendopo, a young servant appeared. “This way,” she said, holding the gate open with one hand. In her other hand she held a candlenut lamp, but as soon as they entered the courtyard she turned around to light her own path. Kancil and Mother stumbled behind her down a dark passageway leading between the main house and a row of small shacks.
The servant stopped at the last shack. It had a thatched roof held up by four thick bamboo poles. Palm mats hanging from the roof formed makeshift walls on three sides. A bamboo platform, barely big enough for Kancil and Mother to lie on side by side, was lashed to two of the poles and held up above the packed earth floor by rough-sawn
logs. “You sleep here,” said the servant. She turned back towards the house, leaving them in the dark.
Kancil flopped down on the sleeping platform. The whole structure shook, disturbing the chickens that were roosting in the next shack. The chickens’ squawking and flapping set off the pigs in a sty nearby. Kancil groaned.
“It could be worse,” Mother murmured.
Kancil raised herself onto her elbows and peered at her mother in the faint moonlight. “How?” she mouthed.
“Well …” said Mother, “we could be sleeping in the pigsty.”
It felt like only moments later that Mother was gently shaking Kancil awake. A rooster was crowing and the early morning air was fresh and clean. Kancil rubbed her eyes and sat up.
“Stay here, I’ll be back soon,” Mother said.
Kancil peeked through the gaps between the palm mat walls and the bamboo corner posts. To the east was the shack where the chickens roosted and beyond that the passageway she had walked down the night before. A grove of mango and papaya trees flanked the north and west sides of the sleeping shack. Through the trees she could make out the shape of the pigsty and the fence that formed the rear boundary of the property.
The south side of her new home faced into the yard, where chickens pecked at the ground and squabbled under a shady tamarind tree. Mother walked around the tamarind tree and into a hut at the back of the main house. Kancil guessed it must be the kitchen.
Suddenly, the chickens started squawking and flapping in alarm and moments later a gate in the back fence swung open. The servant who had shown them to their shack the previous night entered the yard with a load of firewood tied to her back. Kancil guessed she was only about four years older than herself, though her scowling expression made her look much older. The girl passed Kancil, close enough to call out a polite greeting, but she looked straight at her without even a nod. Kancil stared at her retreating back, not quite believing the look of disdain she had seen on the girl’s face. She was a servant and she dared treat Kancil like that when her uncle was the head of the household? The reality of her situation was beginning to dawn on Kancil – she might be a relation but she was a poor relation: poor, fatherless and mute.
Tiger Stone Page 3
