The Jewel Trader Of Pegu (10 page)

Later in the day, the foreign traders were compelled to go with thousands of Peguans to a large enclosed field in the royal city to see the royal elephants battle a wild tiger. It was a dispiriting event that brought me only sad reservation about where man stands in the ladder of being, or what these believers in Buddha call the planes of existence. The elephants, though not white, were quite regal—large brown creatures with huge, gleaming tusks pointed in gold. But there was no fairness to this fight, no doubt as to its outcome. It was all mummery. The tiger was tethered to a stake in the middle of the field. Four elephants gored and stomped the poor creature until he lay bloodied in the dust. Royal retainers cut him free and dragged his body across the ground in front of the benches where Win and I and much of the crowd sat. The tiger had no claws—they had been pulled out—and his mouth had been sewn shut. What chance did that poor beast have? What acclaim could the king garner with such a barbaric display? Where was the compassion, the reverence for life that Win speaks so much about?

I think even Win must have been embarrassed by the sheer un-fairness of the battle. He must know in the royal script the tiger cannot win, that the forces of royal order will always triumph over rebellion and disorder. But in so hobbling his enemy, the king makes a sham of the contest and diminishes himself.

Wishing perhaps to wash the bad taste of the afternoon from our mouths, Win invited me and several local traders and brokers to his house for something cool to drink and eat. I went in hopes it would be humble offerings of sugarcane juice, whose sweetness I enjoy, and a luscious fruit called mangosteen that looks like a small wooden ball but under its tough exterior nestle plump white cres-cents of sweet flesh, the size of almonds, that taste almost like pure sugar. I dreaded anything more substantial, for these people eat whatever they can catch. Vermin and creatures that creep upon the earth—they eat everything but the croak and the hiss. I have seen cages of lizards, frogs, and snakes in the market and even heaping mounds of rats and baskets black with bats. Whatever the creature, all the Peguans need are hot coals, some chilies and banana leaves to wrap it in, and their mouths are open and waiting.

We drank coconut juice and palm wine sweetened with honey and dipped our fingers into a heaping plate of a special delicacy they call pickled tea—a pile of tea paste surrounded by piles of fried beans and peanuts, fried garlic, roasted sesame seeds, and chopped green chilies. Usually it is served with dried shrimp, but I had told Win once that my faith forbids my eating such animals, and out of kindness he put them on a separate plate for the others to eat. The mix of the leaves’ sweetness and bitterness—a bit like dipping
maror
into
charoses
at Passover—with the crunch of seeds and nuts is very much to my liking, and I could survive a desert exodus with such food. As my fingers swung back and forth between plate and mouth, one of the slave children brought out a wooden plate steaming with what at first looked like our gnocchi flecked with slices of red chilies. I hesitated, and well I did, because as the plate passed from one guest’s hands to another’s, Win said they were the worms that spin silk. I need no mitzvah to keep me from eating worms, whatever beauty might come from their bowels. After the plate was cleaned and fingers licked, Win went out behind the house to his garden and returned with a large spiky fruit cradled in his arms. The eyes of the other guests sparkled, and some rubbed their stomachs in joking anticipation. Everyone here, including not a few Europeans, is addicted to this fruit they call a durian. Inside its spiky exterior hides—but is not hidden enough—a creamy flesh that smells to those who love it like garlic custard. Joseph, I tell you it is an aroma most foul, like undergarments forgotten in some chest, which have rotted and fermented and then been mixed with decaying old slip-pers and garlic bulbs black with age. You can smell a man who has eaten this fruit ten paces off, and approaching verandah stairs you know without sight when the family has just split open this stinkpot of a fruit. Win had tried before to force me to swallow a spoon-ful of this fetid flesh, and of course this night I became the butt of everyone’s good-natured joking.

—
How can you claim to be a man of sound mind and good breeding
if you turn your nose up at this delicacy?

—
How could the country of your birth be any better than a jungle of
ignorant beasts if it produces men of such low taste?

—
This is the food of monkeys,
I shot back.

—
Yes,
one of the fellows said,
even they have the good sense to eat
this jewel of the jungle.

I felt like that poor tiger, outnumbered and overwhelmed. What a curious world. I judge one people my inferiors for burning designs on their skins and blackening their teeth, and they see me refuse what they covet and, despite their good-natured jibes and laughter, think me a queer fellow, lower than the monkeys that scrounge the refuse heaps at their temple grounds.

Another bride will come to the house in three days’ time. She will be the fourth. I keep count so that I do not take my obligations lightly. I consider each one, like a fine stone, unique and worthy of special attention. As I have with the others, I will try to do well what is asked of me, like any task in life on which others depend. I see you smirk and hear your voice: “Please, Abraham, you are not being asked to comb her hair or pull a sliver from her finger.” I do not need you here to accuse me of sophistry. I am my own accuser.

My stomach may not twist and roil and my body rebel as it once did, but my soul remains troubled. I fear now my anticipation: the desire I feel for the body of this unknown woman. It is not done for pleasure, but how can I say there is no pleasure? I am not Adam. To touch a woman’s fingers is not the same as the touch of her breast or the softness of her thighs. I have not been schooled in the language of the bed as you have, though I know enough that brief and rapid coupling brings neither man nor woman pleasure. If it is not a pleasure for me, how can it be a pleasure for her? It may be only one night; but for that one night, she is my bride. I must embrace her with the desire of a groom on his wedding night. I know that we can clothe base desires in fine words and can convince ourselves that we are honorable men. I try—only when asked—like Solomon to be a good gardener who unlocks with care the garden for another to enjoy.

Win says this bride came from upriver to marry a man whom she has never met. The men are few in the villages up-country—they are fleeing to monasteries, into the forest, and to neighboring kingdoms to avoid the king’s harsh demand for soldiers and laborers. At least the bride will be safe here.

Please believe I have not lost my way.

Abraham

What have I done to deserve this misfortune?

Tell me, Lord of the Great Mountain, when did I insult you, when did I neglect you? Haven’t I always treated you, our household spirit, with respect? I wrapped your coconut in yellow strips of cloth. I made sure to hang another one in the corner when the stem fell off—you always had cool juice to soothe the pain from the flames that burned your human body long ago. I never forgot to give you bananas, sticky rice, and pickled tea leaves. So why have you cursed me with such misery?

Yes, my father grew sullen and bitter after Mother died, but he always paid proper respect to the spirit of our ancestors. He never spoke in anger against him. We made offerings to our family spirit at the marriage, even though my father didn’t come to Pegu. Why then this harm?

When I set out for Pegu, I bowed my head, pressed my hands together against my forehead, and lay pickled tea, cooked rice, plan-tains, and palm sugar on the shrine at the village gate. I told the village spirit I meant no disrespect in leaving. I told him I would return with husband and children to add to those who honor him.

Before entering the path through the forest, I and my two traveling companions from the village made offerings to the spirits that reside there. We laid out betel leaves and rice and asked for protection from the tigers and wild boars roaming unseen in the thick trees. I kept silent as we passed through the spirit’s domain.

The cart jangled my insides, and when I could no longer stand it, I made sure to relieve myself in the tall grass far from any tree. The driver kept his tongue and didn’t curse, even when the ox decided to rest despite the sting of his whip. Why then this harm?

Other children laughed and hissed names at the witch who lived at the edge of the village when she passed by, but I never did.

I wasn’t any better than them, just more scared. Her gray eyes frightened me. The stories the aunties told of her turning into a bat or a snake that slithered across her victim’s mat in the darkness kept me far from her shadow. She had no reason to cause me this harm.

What sin did I commit in a past life to be so punished?

I waited in this city without complaint for four half-moons until the stars said it was an auspicious time to wed. Yesterday Chien and I pressed our palms together. Yesterday Chien and I fed each other rice from the same bowl. Today I am a widow alone in a stranger’s house. Today I am homeless in the world.

9 February 1599

Dear Joseph,

My household has grown since last I wrote. A young girl named Mya sleeps under the eaves in the back of the house. It is a sad tale.

She was the bride who came from upriver to marry the son of a local merchant. She is not much different from the others whom I have served. Perhaps a bit shorter and darker skinned than the women of Pegu, and more reserved, though it is hard to tell. These women and I share little more than touch, and who would not be shy in this circumstance? She barely said a word and was already lying in bed when I came into the room. Her body waited, her hands lay quiet by her sides, and she did not call out in pain or pleasure. Yet something happened that night that was different—perhaps I should be ashamed to reveal it: she was the first bride I entered more than once. I awoke in the night, and she was lying on her side staring at me—maybe her eyes had willed me awake. She touched two fingers to her lips, and then pressed them gently to mine. Such a simple gesture. No bride had ever done that before. I think I saw her smile in the dim light. She reached out and pulled me onto her, though I must admit, I did not resist. She said not one word during or after; and when I was spent, I fell asleep in her arms. She had already gotten up when the dawn light woke me. I heard water splashing and Khaing talking.

At the ritual hour, Mya waited, dressed and perfumed, on the verandah. No one came. After half an hour, I sent Khaing out to keep her company until her husband arrived. Midmorning and still no one had come. She sat in a corner of the verandah cradling the bloodstained bridal sheet in her arms, fingering her prayer beads, murmuring her prayers softly.

I sent Khaing to find Win. It wasn’t until noon that he returned with the sad news that her husband of one day had died the night before. Cousins and friends forced him to drink cup after cup of palm wine. They tied the cup to the wine gourd, and he couldn’t drink slowly or escape their taunting challenges. Sickly drunk, he choked on his own vomit. His parents are grief stricken—he was their only surviving son—and they don’t want to have anything to do with the bride who brought ill luck upon their family. Win says he will try to talk to them when they are calmer; but they are under no duty to take her in, and he doesn’t think they will. The bride’s father, her mother long dead, had not come downriver for the ceremony and likely won’t want his daughter back, as she is now a widow in his eyes, the responsibility of her husband’s family. Like me, fate has orphaned her.

Mya looked shocked and lost, like a child pulled from a burning building. It grieved me to see her struggle with her feelings—her face crumpling, her powdered cheeks “watered by tears of pain.” She trembled but did not cry or keen, all the while holding the stained sheet tight to her chest. It wrenched my heart to imagine her heart moaning like a panpipe. Where could she go so far from home? Win could not take her into his house, already full with family and servants. Alone in the city, she will have to indenture herself to a government official to survive, and who can say how long it would take for her to buy back her freedom. How could I enslave her?

Uncle took me in. I could do no less for this young girl who had slept in my bed and sat weeping under my roof. Win will talk again to the groom’s family, and in the meantime she can help Khaing, whose arms and legs are weaker than her good heart. I am sure Uncle, more easily than I, can find a Talmudic tale to guide me. For the moment, I look to Dante.

Angels of that base sort

Who, neither rebellious to God nor faithful to Him,
Chose neither side, but kept themselves apart.

I am no angel of any sort, but I could not stand apart.

Your cousin,

Abraham

I had little time to know him. Chien seemed a good man. I’m afraid his memory will soon fade away, like morning mist on the paddy fields. He is gone less than two days, and I can barely remember the way he walked, the creatures and signs tattooed on his legs, or the sound of his voice. In the many weeks here, waiting for the auspicious day and hour to wed, we were rarely alone. In front of his father he was quiet—as a son should be. I am his widow, but I was never his bride. I never touched his cheek. Never felt his heart beating next to mine.

Maybe my father was tired of feeding me, tired of being reminded of the wife he had lost. He said I would be safer here behind city walls. He won’t want me back. My husband’s family won’t give me what they promised—I can’t blame them. They think I am a witch, a bearer of death, a crow casting dark shadows over every path. What man will have me now? If Uncle Win hadn’t convinced the master of this house, I would be sleeping on the hard ground under a cart in the market. Last night I slept in my master’s bed, tonight I sleep in the corner on a mat next to Auntie Khaing. Last night he took my maidenhood. Tonight I take rice from his pot and am grateful for his generosity.