by John Burgess
Bopa and I left the house early on that day and walked toward the North Gate. But there were such crowds that we could not get anywhere near it. So we claimed for ourselves a tiny patch of trampled grass well back from the street and began a wait.
We waited, we waited, people crowding us all sides. We grew thirsty. Voices would shout that he was coming, he was just minutes away, but then – nothing. Finally, at almost midday, the prince passed through the gate atop his elephant. Rather, I should say that four parasols passed through the gate, floating over the crowd – Bopa and I could see nothing more than that. But what a tumult! People jostled wildly, kicking up dust. They cheered themselves hoarse, they held small children overhead.
Surely Nol and Sovan were somewhere near us, walking alongside His Highness’s elephant. But hope that we would spot them faded. The procession moved slowly along the avenue that led to the royal palace, stopping again and again when people broke though the lines of soldiers who were supposed to be keeping order. I held Bopa back, fearful for her safety. When the crowds cleared, she and I went home by a back way, resigned to waiting until our two men presented themselves.
Nol was in fact at the elephant’s side, and later he recounted the rest of the day. With enormous pride, of course. It was almost as big a triumph for him as for the prince. You see, at his headquarters in the Upper Empire, the prince had turned furious on first hearing of the palace’s conditions. No victory parade! But Nol calmed him, counselling that it was the people who would decide whether there was such a parade. And everyone could see now how they had decided.
It took more than two hours for the prince and his elephant to reach the stone bridge that marked the start of the royal sector. There, on the long terrace at the palace’s front wall, the King stood waiting in the heat, fifteen parasols overhead, the flame of royal authority flickering in a cauldron at his side. Fifty priests and twenty concubines attended, as did close to one hundred bodyguards. As the sound of the prince’s gong began to carry in, their attention drifted away from the monarch and toward the visitor.
Indra’s elephant reached the terrace, and there it knelt. The prince sprang down, all eyes on him, and walked to the base of steps that led up to the royal presence. Between a pair of stone guardian lions, he performed a full crouch of submission.
This was Nol’s first look at the King. He later told me that what he saw was a stooped man with pale withered legs, who seemed just to want to last out the ceremony. I winced at such talk, but he went on, hardly noticing: His Majesty wore a tall gold headdress and armlets that enclosed sagging flesh; at his waist was the golden sword of authority, but all these things seemed too heavy for him to bear. To Nol, it was if the people around the King, pressing as close as protocol allowed, were all that kept him on his feet. In my husband’s view, even the royal flame burned feebly.
Indra climbed the steps toward the aged monarch, who tensed discernibly at his approach. His bodyguards did too, tightening fingers around sharpened weapons. But there was no need. Well back from the King, the prince knelt again and touched his forehead three times to a mat that had been blessed by priests and laid on the terrace stones.
The prince got to his feet, one of his retainers following, carrying on a red silk pillow something that resembled a large dried fruit.
‘Blessed Sovereign,’ announced the prince, ‘I present to you the head of the commander of the Siamese army.’
Clutching stringy black hair, the prince raised the prize in the air. It is no surprise that the King frowned and took a half step back. But from around him came a collective gasp, and not a few people forgot themselves and moved forward the better to see. Beaming, the prince kept this cruel trophy high, turning it left, then right.
‘There are many thousands more like this,’ he declared, addressing not the King but the people around him. ‘Most of them we left for the birds and animals. But I bring this one to the Capital to show that never again will the Siamese threaten our borders, never again will we live in fear of the heretics.’
There was a pause while this was absorbed. Then a priest shuffled to the King’s side and whispered to him. The King summoned energy to speak.
‘Indra, thunder-armed warrior,’ he said, his voice barely carrying. ‘Sword of Heaven and Empire, protector who sweeps far districts of enemies and expands the Empire’s frontiers.’ He paused and looked back to the priest, who nodded to him to continue. ‘We welcome you, Indra, as a future grandson. We welcome you as the future husband of the Princess Benjana, first daughter of the Crown Prince.’
This caused an enormous collective gasp. People said later it could only have been a last-minute decision by the Brahmins. Having seen the intense public outpouring for the prince, they had decided that a promotion alone would not be sufficient.
Everyone, my husband included, was looking to Prince Indra. He was taking stock. Then the prince recovered and fell to another full crouch. His face remained hidden for what seemed a very long time, then he sat up and put his right hand to his heart. ‘Your Majesty honours me in ways that I do not deserve,’ he declared.
The King looked to his advisers, inquiring if anything more was needed of him. One of them motioned that he was done. Then, on cue, a royal retainer stepped forward and presented Indra with a single flower, a blue-purple orchid laid on a pillow.
‘A gift,’ announced the man, ‘grown by the royal hand in the palace garden, a symbol of royal love for the subject Prince Indra, soon to be Prince Indra of the Second Rank, Prince Indra beloved radiant son-in-law.’
Now twelve priests stepped forward with bowls of holy water. As the prince knelt motionless, they circled him, splashing water on his head and shoulders and chanting.
Even before that was done, the King began to leave, and Nol took note that his walk was weak – it was a shuffle. The concubines were going too, following their lord through the stone gate into the palace compound. Many found ways to stop and look back toward the prince.
Indra was escorted off to review a regiment of the King’s guard. Nol was led to a parade ground nearby, where a collection of pavilions, decorated with flowers and silk hangings, had been erected to house the visitor’s entourage. One was marked with the parasol master’s name, and inside, Sovan was waiting. Bowls of water and rice snacks had been laid out for them. Father and son ate together. Nol was actually trembling – can you imagine how exuberant he was? He was now serving a man who might become King.
Presently he rose, because he had heard from a distance some kind of commotion in a rank of soldiers. A lone woman’s voice carried through. Nol went nearer, feeling he might be needed. But things were under control. The concubine Rom had arrived with a maid, demanding to be taken to her pavilion, and a captain of the prince’s guard had explained that there was no such pavilion. He had a list of the prince’s official entourage and her name was not on it. She argued some more, then turned spitefully and left.
The following day, the prince went by palanquin through thronged streets to a temple on the south side of the city for purification rites. He was shown through the gates and in the torch-lit chamber inside the great tower was wet down with water made pure by contact with the linga of the Lord Shiva. He passed the night there, meditating, or so it was said. The next morning, priests chanted a long holy programm that elevated him to the Second Rank. When he emerged from the temple gate, the crowd erupted in cheers all over again. The prince sprang onto his elephant, in a way that people said suggested he had the power to fly. There began yet another raucous procession. Soldiers of the King’s guard, smiling proudly, marched in the lead, and no one made any attempt to keep the crowds back. On street after street, food stalls emptied, masons abandoned tools and novice priests put aside texts, all to go for a look. Venders of coconut milk and cut fruit did a record trade. I would guess that thieves had a record yield in that crowd – that was how distracted people were.
Bopa and I had grown tired of waiting, so we went out of the house again to
look. Late in the afternoon, as the procession moved up and down avenues in the vicinity of the central market, I stood before it with four vendor women who had left their wares untended. Bopa ran off somewhere – she had more energy than I to press her way through crowds. The women and I were going to hold firm where we stood in hopes the procession would come to us instead. My eyes were scanning the throngs for husband and son. I prayed for a glimpse of them. And, I will not deny it. I hoped that I might also get a closer glimpse of this prince we served.
Marching soldiers came into sight far down the south avenue, then elephant with prince atop it, shaded by the four parasols.
‘A man crafted by Heaven!’ declared one of the market women, though we could hardly see him.
As he drew closer, I looked. A red parasol was obscuring the prince’s face. Muscled chest and arms were what I saw, adorned by gold jewellery and two white sashes that crossed at the breastbone. How can I explain the shameful thing that my mind now did? Like it had that very first time I saw him, in that first morning in the palace compound, it compared this torso to that of the man with whom I had passed countless nights, to whom I was committed by vows and by common decency to love and stand by loyally.
But then the parasol moved so that the prince’s face came into view, and what I saw made my knees give way. I dropped in shock to the ground behind the market women, thankful I was hidden by their sampots. My movement was so abrupt that one of the women forgot the prince and leaned down to me, concerned I had become ill. I waved off the attention, hid my face in my hands and mouthed a prayer. I held like that, crouching, panicked, until the prince’s elephant passed. Then I got to my feet and I ran.
The face of the prince was the face I’d seen when I first arrived at the gate of Sugar Palm House twelve years earlier, the face of the boy Lon, who, perched on the shoulders of his father the estate lord, reached out and pinched my cheek. Prince Indra was that boy, grown up, still thinking that the world was his to take.
21: Anxious reunion
Could there be a secret that a wife would more want to share with her husband?
I lay awake that night, thinking, thinking. How could I have missed this connection? There had been hints. I remembered now that the cart driver Sao had told me that first day, during the trip from the orphanage, that there was a question of rights to an estate up north, that the master’s family had been awarded it but another had refused to give it up. Why, that estate was Chaiyapoom! The little boy had grown up and taken what was to have been his elder brother’s realm. Then there was the prince’s father, whose benevolence was so often remarked upon, and the rich man who had endowed the orphanage and welcomed me so kindly at the estate. One and the same! Oh, how like a criminal’s mind did mine work that night. I began to think how fortunate I was that I had not been found out already, but how that might change. What would happen if the father came to the Capital to visit his son the prince, and happened upon me in the compound? I am not one who could improvise in such a situation. I would panic, and end up bound and bloodied in a prison cage.
So how, how I wanted to pour all of this out to Nol. He would know what to do, he would comfort and protect me. Yet the knowledge would poison his new life. It would go from ideal to charade. Every moment he would be thinking he was serving a man whose brother we had killed. Every interaction with the prince would be corrupted, every word he uttered might be a slip-up that would give away the secret.
Nol had sacrificed so much for me in the former days. Now it was for me to be strong and repay the favour. Lying there inside my mosquito net, perspiring, I resolved that this would be my secret alone.
Did I sleep at all that night? I’m not sure. I only know that I was on my feet with the first hint of light on the eastern horizon. At a basin, I splashed my face. I knew that I must put on a convincing act for my husband when he finally appeared at the house. All these months, I had been hoping he would come. Now I only wished he would stay away.
And only two hours after dawn on that very day, the maid came to say that the master was approaching.
I gathered my thoughts as best I could, then went to the door to greet him. I wore a simple sampot, an ivory clasp holding back my hair – right now it seemed appropriate that I did not wear jewellery, things that would imply purity of soul.
Nol was about ten paces from the base of the steps. He had stopped and now he was gazing upon me. That old devotion showed through on that face! May Heaven forgive me, I always wished I could love him even half as much as he loved me. It is vain, but I had always sensed an imbalance. I always knew that my presence, the presence of this simple woman born in a village could disarm him, disarm this man who could stand up to a prince.
‘We have returned,’ he said proudly. ‘Your husband and your son.’ Sovan was standing behind him. Taller even again.
‘You have, husband,’ I replied, palms together, for I could think of nothing else to say. ‘Heaven has seen to it.’
Sovan stepped toward me. How I wished he were again that boy who would race into my arms. But I accepted. We exchanged greetings.
‘We’re so happy you had time to come,’ I said, looking to Nol, my fingers wiping back a tear. ‘There has been so much excitement on the streets. Bopa and I knew you would be busy.’
‘Yes, very busy,’ Nol replied. We had found a subject. ‘We’re with the prince almost every hour we’re awake.’
‘I went out to the street for the elevation parade, but I couldn’t see you. Well, come inside and have some refreshment.’ I noticed now that some servants had come with him too. I turned to them. ‘Sit down in the shade, if you like. We’ll get something for you too.’
I climbed the steps to the house, Nol and Sovan following, and called out the news of the arrival. Bopa appeared from a side room, flushed. Nol was caught short – his daughter had become a young woman, and a very fashionable one. Her hair was up in the style of the palace, bound with a filigreed bronze clasp. She wore a crisp silk sampot embroidered with silver thread at the lower edge and flaring panels at either side. She smiled broadly to her father, unafraid, and knelt. The palms of the hands she put together in greeting were red with powder.
At the household shrine, I lit incense. ‘Come on, then. Everyone. We will give thanks for the safe return.’ We said prayers.
The maid entered and from a tray laid out four silver cups of water before us. Nol silently inspected the cups – they were part of a set he had sent from the provinces. I was glad the maid had chosen them. Now his eyes were wandering, performing a silent inventory. The house was built of teak. The floors were freshly polished, carved Heavenly figures peered out from beams overhead. The windows were hung with red sashes, the mats were new and of a particularly thick weave and there was a collection of varnished fittings – a chest, a low table for eating and the shrine, whose mother-of-pearl inlays registered with Nol’s eye.
Presently he turned back to us. ‘So Bopa is a woman now.’
‘Very much so, as you can see,’ I said. ‘And young men are starting to show up at the door making excuses to talk to her.’
Bopa beamed. I continued: ‘I’m glad she’ll have her brother around. She might need some protection.’
‘Why would I need protection, mother? If that’s danger, then I like it! Anyway, what kind of protection is this brother of mine going to give? Look, he’s gone more than two years, travelling in the party of Prince Indra, and still he’s so quiet, he hardly says a thing! The boys wouldn’t be afraid of him.’ She looked his way, challenging him to respond.
‘Sister, when I’m around you, there’s the talk of two from just one. So why should I say anything?’
Bopa laughed, and I did too, just a bit.
The maid returned with cut mango. The girl took a piece, then stood up quickly. ‘Come on, then, brother – I’ll show you the new things we have. And after that the market.’
Nol watched them leave, then asked: ‘So there really are young men coming around
to see Bopa? What kind of men?’
‘Young ones, not much older than she is, really. I was joking about needing protection. They are nice boys, sons of retainers, like us, for the most part. But also the son of a blacksmith, from our old neighbourhood. He knew her there. A nice boy. He talked his way through the gate and presented himself one morning with a gift of five rambutans. But don’t worry. She hasn’t settled on anyone, really.’
‘Good. Please keep them away.’
‘Well, husband – having respectable young men pay court is no bad thing. It keeps her occupied and away from the temptations here.’
‘Perhaps you worry too much?’ He gave me a gentle pat to the hand. ‘Just like you always did.’ He wiped his mouth. ‘But here now – I’ve brought you a gift.’
From a bag, he brought out a silver neckpiece.
‘My goodness!’ I took it in hand carefully, afraid to touch something so costly and delicate.
‘Please,’ he said. ‘Try it on.’
I hesitated, then fastened it around my neck. I rose, pleased, and went to a table where a polished-metal mirror lay. This piece was in fact a beautiful thing, and for the first time I began to feel calm. I looked at myself silently. Nol followed and knelt behind me, drawing close. He peered over my shoulder at my reflected face.
‘It’s beautiful, husband,’ I said. ‘Too beautiful for a woman like me, really.’
‘Nothing is too beautiful for you, my dear wife. If anything, you are too beautiful for it. When it’s around your neck, no one will notice it. The artisan who made it would be disappointed.’
