Kitchen Boy looked at her with respect. “Nothing passes you by, does it?” he said.
“Tell me the truth,” she said, trying to glare at him the way Father used to glare at her. She had never been able to lie in the face of that glare.
“It’s true, I do joke about my tiger spirit,” said Kitchen Boy, “but that’s different. The thing is–” then he stopped. Kancil looked up to see him studying her and chewing his lip, deep in thought. She cocked her head and waited; something told her that Father’s glare had worked.
“The thing is, I don’t really understand it myself. If you want to know the truth, it scares me. I make a joke of it to make myself less scared.
“I did see a tiger once in the forest, when I was collecting honey. It was the first time they sent me out on my own. I was climbing a tree and the branch gave way. I fell and I must have hit my head because the next thing I remember is waking up on the forest floor with a tiger standing over me. All I could see were her huge golden eyes, and I could feel her paw on my chest, holding me down. I thought I was done for but she just sniffed at my tiger scar then sat back and watched me.”
“What did you do?” Kancil breathed.
“I lay still for a while, hoping she’d get bored and go away. That’s when I noticed the bowing gecko on a rock next to me.”
Kancil looked at him sharply; was he teasing her?
“I know it sounds weird but if you ever see it, you’ll know exactly what I mean. Anyway, that was the first time I saw a gecko do that and somehow it scared me more than the tiger did. I stood up, and I ran and ran.”
He hit his head, Kancil reminded herself. He could have imagined the whole thing. Somehow, this didn’t seem like the time to suggest that. It might break the spell that was revealing a side to Kitchen Boy she hadn’t seen before.
“Did you ever see the tiger again?” she asked.
“Maybe,” he said slowly. “It was different though. You remember I said I spoke to a bandit once in the forest?”
Kancil nodded.
“Well, I don’t really know what happened. He brought out a knife and then … and then there was a noise, something between the sound of thunder and the sound of a tree splitting and the most terrible scream I’ve ever heard. The next thing I knew I was at this exact spot. I must have run all the way. I couldn’t remember any of it. All I remember is the sound and seeing those huge golden eyes right in front of my face.”
Kitchen Boy shuddered at the memory then he grinned at Kancil. “So the moral of this story is ‘don’t mess with Tiger Boy’,” he said. The old joking tone had returned to his voice. It didn’t irritate Kancil now that she understood why he was doing it.
“That wasn’t the first time we met, by the way,” he added.
Kancil looked at him, perplexed.
“That day when Ida tried to burn the kitchen down and I said my tiger spirit would protect us, you said it was the day we met. We met the day before, when the prince’s messenger came.”
Why was he bringing that up? wondered Kancil, her cheeks burning at the memory of flailing around in the dirt, trying to hold her kain together. Then she remembered the look on his face that day when their eyes first met – the look of recognition.
“Your eyes,” he said. “They’re not the same as my tiger’s eyes but there’s something the same about them. It scared me for a moment, I thought maybe … well, I don’t know what I thought. Then I realised you were just an ordinary girl.”
Kancil thought of the story her father told about her shipwrecked grandfather’s arrival in Sunda. He had won acceptance by coaxing a rogue tiger away from the village into the forest. “They thought he was charmed,” Father had said. “He told me there was no magic in it, he just knew how to talk to tigers.”
She was about to recount the tale to Kitchen Boy but she stopped herself. Grandfather’s story belonged to her and Father. It wasn’t for sharing. Instead, she said, “If I were a tiger spirit, you would be the first to get clawed.”
“I know. Lucky, eh?” Kitchen Boy laughed. “Come on, it looks like they’re having a party down there at the pondok. If we hurry, we might get there before they leave. There could be food on offer.”
Kancil followed his gaze. Her stomach felt suddenly empty, but it had nothing to do with the prospect of a free snack. It was more like a feeling of dread; that crowd was far too close to her necklace’s hiding place for comfort.
As they approached the pondok, the feeling intensified. Kancil could see a point where the mud wall of the terraced field above the pondok had given way in the rain. Amid the carpet of tender green rice shoots, a muddy line of destruction led straight down to the little shack. Kancil knew what had happened; a river of mud had gushed through the field and under the pondok, flushing out whatever lay in the dirt underneath.
The crowd was on the far side of the building. A man with a stick was reaching down to lift something out of the mud. He turned, holding the stick away from his body and the crowd jumped back as though there was a snake coiled around it.
The stick-bearer led a procession back into the village and Kancil and Kitchen Boy joined the tail end. Kitchen Boy was excited, craning his neck, trying to see what the stick-bearer was carrying. Kancil knew exactly what it was. All she could think about was how to stop Mother from finding out that the necklace had been uncovered.
Once through the village gate, the crowd headed straight for Big Uncle’s pendopo. Someone climbed up to strike the kentongan to call the village elders and within minutes the men who spent the evenings lounging in the pendopo were gathered together and the crowd had increased fourfold.
A bowl of water was fetched and the muddy necklace dropped into it. Bapak Iya, the village elder who always agreed with Big Uncle, prodded the necklace to loosen the mud from the shells. The corners of his mouth were turned down in distaste, as though he were poking at a very smelly dead animal.
Why can’t they just throw it away and get on with their lives? Kancil wondered. I know nothing much happens in this place, but this is ridiculous!
Bapak Iya lifted the necklace up and there was a hush as everybody gazed at the string of tiny cowry shells now glistening in the sunlight.
“Are they …?” Bapak Iya asked, his voice trailing off as he turned to Big Uncle.
Big Uncle was nodding, a grim look on his face. “Seashells,” he said.
Kancil could see Bibi and Ida standing near the courtyard gate. Ida was relaying messages to the pavilion where Big Aunt and Citra sat. Kancil couldn’t see Mother but that gave her little comfort; perhaps she was so ill that she couldn’t leave her bed. Kancil had to find her to make sure she was all right.
The crowd was so thick that Kancil was forced to squeeze through to reach the courtyard gate. “It must be a curse,” she heard Bapak Iya say, “a curse from the sea to stop our mountain lands from prospering under the protection of the prince.” His voice rose an octave. “A bandit curse!”
Kancil stumbled into the open at the very moment Bapak Iya squeaked out this last statement, his finger pointing at the offending item that hung from the muddy stick. He looked such a fool, his eyes fixed in terror on the pretty shells that Father had strung together that last evening on the beach.
How Father would laugh if he could see this, Kancil thought.
As she turned to slip through the courtyard gate, she caught sight of Kitchen Boy standing at the edge of the crowd. He was looking over her shoulder. Kancil turned to see what he was looking at. Bibi was standing at the gate, a look of triumph in her eyes. Kancil remembered how upset Mother had been in the pondok when she saw the necklace. She understood why now.
“Her!” Bibi shrieked, a glob of spittle flying from her mouth. She raised her walking cane and poked Kancil in the chest. “It’s her, I knew it! She’s bandit spawn, you can see it in her thieving eyes. We should never have let her and her good-for-nothing mother into the village!”
Kancil understood why Bibi had it in for her and
Mother now that she had heard Small Aunt’s story. However, understanding didn’t lessen the pain in her chest as Bibi poked at her again and again, pushing her backwards until she was wedged between the cane and the edge of the pendopo.
The crowd fell silent. Kancil could hear someone moving towards her across the pendopo floor. She held her breath and braced herself, expecting to be grabbed around the neck and dragged into the pendopo for questioning. Instead, Big Uncle’s hand reached over her head and took hold of Bibi’s cane. With a quick jab he set Bibi off balance. She staggered backwards and the cane clattered to the ground.
“My niece,” Big Uncle’s voice boomed from the pendopo, “is not bandit spawn and you, old woman, will remember your place in my household!”
Bibi’s face turned a colour that Kancil had never seen on a face before. It was a shade of purple much better suited to a ripe mangosteen than to anything that breathed. With that thought, Kancil remembered to breathe again. With her breath, her senses returned and she ran through the gate. Behind her, she could hear Big Uncle proclaiming to the crowd: “This worthless charm shall be ground to dust and strewn in the river to be carried far away from here. Whoever planted this curse has failed, and that is all there is to be said on the matter. Now bring me a grinding stone!”
It’s for the best, Kancil told herself as she ran down the narrow passageway to the rickety shack. It didn’t help. Her last connection to her father was being destroyed.
12
A VISION
“They found the necklace, didn’t they?” Mother asked. She seemed to have shrunk since this morning and her face was deathly pale.
Kancil pursed her lips and gave Mother a warning look. She didn’t think Bibi was anywhere nearby but she wasn’t going to take any chances. If Bibi hated her before, she must hate her tenfold now. She would be looking for any opportunity to prove that she was right about Kancil being a bandit’s child.
Kancil untied the basket from her back and emptied its contents onto the sleeping platform. Parcels wrapped in banana leaves scattered across the mat. She didn’t know which one was the jamu for Mother.
Where is Kitchen Boy? she wondered. It was typical of him to be somewhere else when she needed him.
At that very moment she saw him striding down the passageway with Bibi and Ida following in his wake.
“Why is the jamu scattered all over this dirty floor?” Bibi demanded as she approached, her cane thumping on the ground. “You’ve stolen some, haven’t you, you thieving bint?”
Kancil drew her legs under her, folded her hands in her lap and bowed her head – she had learned this was the best position to defend herself against Bibi’s cane.
“Now, now, Bibi, don’t excite yourself,” said Kitchen Boy. “I told her to get the jamu out in the fresh air as soon as we got here.”
He reached out for one of the packages. “So,” he cleared his throat as though preparing to give a long speech. Then he gave Bibi a detailed explanation of how to prepare each jamu for Citra. He added several embellishments to the instructions Small Aunt had given him to make the process seem more complicated.
Kancil willed him to hear Mother’s shallow breathing – why was he wasting time teasing Bibi? He looked up at Bibi in the middle of a particularly complicated instruction. “Perhaps it would be better if I prepared the jamu for you? I really don’t mind,” he said sweetly.
“Why would you offer? What’s in it for you?” Bibi asked, eyeing him suspiciously.
“Well …” he said, “I can tell you’re going to ask me to repeat each instruction at least ten times so I think it might be easier if I prepare the jamu myself. I can do it right here so I’m out of your way and the girl can help me. She might as well make herself useful.”
“There’s sickness here,” said Bibi, curling her lip at Mother. “This is no place to prepare jamu for a princess!”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” said Kitchen Boy with a grin. Then he shook his head. “We couldn’t possibly prepare this jamu in the kitchen, it’s far too potent to be mixed in that confined space. No, here will do nicely. Ida, would you get the medicine grinding stone and a brazier for me? I’ll need fresh water too, and gourds.” He turned his back on Bibi, who walked away meekly, leaving Kancil to wonder how Kitchen Boy managed to exert such power over them all.
Once Bibi and Ida were out of the way, Kitchen Boy didn’t waste any time. He instructed Kancil to grind the dry ingredients for Mother’s tonic while he extracted the juices from the wet ingredients. Mother tried to raise herself to help, but he shooed her back to bed and unrolled a small dark stick of something gummy from the waist of his sarung. “Your sister sends her greetings and says you should do everything I tell you. The first thing you have to do is chew on this.” He thrust the gum stick into her hand.
Mother gave Kancil a questioning look and Kancil nodded encouragingly.
“It’s safe to talk,” said Kitchen Boy. “They’ve gone out the front.”
Mother turned to Kancil. “He knows?” she groaned.
Kitchen Boy looked from Kancil to Mother. Then he shrugged and returned to straining the juice into the water that was bubbling over the brazier. “Never mind. It’s only me who knows, the rest of them are far too stupid. What’s the story with those shells, by the way?”
Kancil shook her head firmly. Mother lay back down, exhausted. “No fun at all, you two,” said Kitchen Boy.
When Mother’s jamu tonic was prepared and cooling, Kancil moved on to mixing Citra’s beauty preparations, most of which she could do without direction from Kitchen Boy – Small Aunt’s instructions had been quite straightforward. Meanwhile, Kitchen Boy was huddled intently over a bundle of dried herbs and strips of curling tree bark. He carefully divided these ingredients into five small piles that he lined up on separate banana leaves beside the brazier. He poked at the coals to reduce the heat without killing the fire.
“It’s time,” he said to Kancil, motioning towards the tonic they had prepared for Mother. “She should drink half now and half in the morning. I’ll go down the passageway to keep watch – if anyone sees her drinking this, they’ll think she’s stealing Citra’s jamu. If you hear this sound,” he made a noise through his teeth that sounded almost like the rustle of bamboo in a breeze, “put it away and get back to grinding Citra’s jamu.”
Kancil helped Mother to sit up properly. Her ears were tuned to the slightest sound and she almost spilled the jamu, she was so jumpy. Mother took such tiny sips that Kancil wondered if she might still be drinking the first half when morning came. Then she heard the rustle of bamboo. She surprised herself at how calmly she helped Mother lie back and returned to her proper post, even though her heart was racing. As it was, Kitchen Boy had given her plenty of warning and she was energetically grinding Citra’s jamu ingredients when the chickens next door started clucking.
Ida stomped past on her way to the kitchen for the men’s drinks. “Where’s the boy?” she called out as she passed. Kancil shrugged, wondering how he had managed to hide himself so well that Ida hadn’t met him in the passageway.
Returning to her grinding stone, Kancil tried to steer her thoughts to a safe topic but they kept leaping back to what Mother had said last night about her having a home here when she was gone. Even if Small Aunt’s jamu saved her from this illness, Kancil had to accept that one day she would be alone unless her brother, Agus, miraculously reappeared.
That would depend on him still being alive, free and knowing where to find her. No, that was a few too many miracles. She had found out who the scoundrel was and his connection to the temple treasures. Her father’s spirit had led her to that discovery, she was sure of that now. Yet she couldn’t fathom how that knowledge would help to find her brother and when she tried to summon Father’s voice to guide her, she heard only the grinding sound of her shell necklace being crushed.
Big Uncle had shown today that he would protect her – or was he protecting his family’s reputation? Despi
te Mother’s assurances, Kancil didn’t believe she could trust him. In any case, he was older than Mother, and Kancil had no illusions that either Big Aunt or Citra would feel obliged to treat her like a proper member of the family if Big Uncle wasn’t there to speak on her behalf. That was the problem, she told herself. So long as she had to rely on others to speak for her, she was stuck.
Kitchen Boy had proven to be a surprise ally and Small Aunt, for all her sharp words, seemed to be warming to her, but in her heart Kancil knew that she had to get her voice back. The only way she could see herself doing that was by leaving the village. But where could she go and how could she get there?
Suddenly, Kitchen Boy was beside her, peering over her shoulder at the grinding stone. “You’re working too fast,” he said. “If you finish the grinding, Bibi will decide you’ve finished everything and send Ida to collect the brazier. We need the brazier for your Mother’s jamu.”
Kancil nodded and slowed her pace to a gentle rocking motion. She didn’t mind being told she was working too hard.
Kitchen Boy placed the first bundle of jamu ingredients over the coals. “Ibu Sumirah,” he said, turning to Mother, “do you think you could lie down over here where I can direct the smoke? You should try to sleep and let the jamu do its work.”
“I think I’ve forgotten how to sleep,” said Mother.
Kancil had an idea. “Tell us a story,” she whispered to Kitchen Boy.
“What?” he asked.
“Tell us a story,” she repeated. “It might help Mother to sleep and it will stop me thinking.”
“Thinking what?”
“Just thinking. Stop asking questions and tell us a story.”
Kitchen Boy frowned. Kancil gave him an exasperated look. This was not the moment for the born storyteller to be lost for words.
“All right,” said Kitchen Boy, finally. “Let me get this going first.” He was gently fanning the coals with a square of woven palm leaf to encourage the jamu to smoke. Once a thin ribbon of smoke started to rise from the carefully arranged pile, he turned his wrist so that the fan directed the smoke over Mother’s nose. Kancil had never seen jamu used in this way. Small Aunt, she decided, was no ordinary jamu maker.
Tiger Stone Page 8
