The Jewel Trader Of Pegu (16 page)

Why is the path to righteousness unmarked? Why do the law and one’s heart not always point in the same direction? No brides wait outside my door. I am safe, but only until Win comes again. Easy to be a moral man sitting safely within the four walls of your room, but when you go through the door into the world, you must choose. No path, I am learning, may lead you through the forest unscathed.

Maybe Win is right. Maybe it is better to wander solitary as a rhinoceros.

Your cousin,

Abraham

13 June 1599

Dear Joseph,

Stones come into the city in a trickle compared with the stream when I arrived, but though few, I was able to secure six quality rubies today. With some more stones of this quality, when the winds shift, I will be ready to return with all my treasure. Win doesn’t believe me when I say I will take Mya with me. No European has ever left with his wife—it is forbidden. Only my action will convince him, so I simply tell him to wait.

Antonio has revealed himself to be of our blood, as I had thought, though he has turned his back on our faith and all faiths. The cross around his neck means nothing to him—it is only an amulet to keep the Gentiles at bay. I have never met a man who claims to be so far from God, yet seems in his words and actions a good man. Strange to say that of a man who makes his living teaching men to kill other men.

For all his bluntness and rough appearance, he treats all with personal kindness, no matter brown, yellow, or white. That Jesuit with the soul of a serpent reaches down from his high perch to save the infidels floundering in the muck his mind fashions, while Antonio, who believes in nothing, acts as brother to all. He heard me speak of Mya as my wife and knew that I meant it as a man should and not like other traders who rent them like whores. He, and only he, brought Mya a gift to mark my words. He came calling last night with a small silver bowl wrapped in a piece of red silk and finely etched all over with lotus flowers. He speaks the language well. He told her it was a wedding gift, though he joked he hadn’t been invited to the ceremony; the bowl’s beauty and his words moved her. She bowed her head and said he would always be welcome in her home. I added “our home.” He stayed, we talked, and he revealed himself.

When others fled to escape the flames, his father’s father stayed in Porto and played well the New Christian. —
Survival, Abraham,
is the song to sing
. His father kept the Sabbath light inside a pitcher of olive oil in the cellar. The flame flickered in his father’s heart and went out in his own. —
I am,
he laughed,
vinegar to my father’s wine—the wicked son of a righteous man.

—
When I was a boy, I saw acts that the devil has not dreamed of.

I saw Israelites hanged by their feet from the gallows, babies tossed from
balconies onto a sea of bayonets, old men trussed like pigs and their beards
shaved with torches before being thrown into the flames. These infidels have
nothing on my countrymen
—a word hissed more than spoken—
you
needn’t sail halfway round the world to visit the land of the barbarians.

Antonio remembers only a few words of Hebrew. He had a quick temper, and his father thought it best he not learn the language, for fear in a moment of anger he would blurt out words that would send all the family to the stake. Hushed prayers and secret rites were games he grew to mock. One of his uncles feigned a weak stomach and ate unleavened bread all year round to make sure he ate it on Passover. When Yom Kippur approached, he sent out his servants on frivolous errands and greased the plates to pretend he had eaten while they were out. Antonio had no time for such playacting. No hidden flames burned for him, not even in the cellar.

—
Survival,
he said again, and then paused.
But there is something
more: doing something well. I’m a good soldier. I’ve walked across battlefields puddled with blood, where the fiery air was so heavy with cannon-balls they smashed into each other and burst in midair. I’ve seen good men
jump down wells out of fear, dive into rivers red with blood and thick with
corpses. I never let my fellows down and have the scars to prove it. I am
a good man with guns and can make a decent shot a better one. Israelite,
Christian, infidel—we’re all here to do something well,
he said._ That, my_
friend, is the meaning of life.

—
Did not the Holy One, blessed be He, guide your actions?
I asked.

—
I’m not a tinker, I’m a soldier. I have seen enough to know God has
left the battlefield. I only pray to a cobbler to make sure my boots take me
to the next paymaster. I have faith only in what I can hold in my hands and aim at another man’s heart.

He is a brother who has lost his way, and I feel free to press him about his faith more than I do with Win, who was born surrounded by idols and false beliefs. —
If you have no God, what is to stop you
from being a thief, a lecher, or a sinner without bounds?

—
The brotherhood of pain. If I stick my hand in the fire, I pull it back
because of the pain—a pain we all feel. There may be no God, but there is pain. War is necessary. Pain off the battlefield isn’t.
He paused. His face had the expression of a man who was rummaging through a chest for a long-buried keepsake.
Hillel—I have not spoken that name
since my father whispered it softly for fear passersby on the street could hear
through stone walls. A heathen challenged Hillel that he would convert,
if Hillel could teach him all the Torah while the heathen stood on one leg.

Hillel said to him, “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is all the Torah. The rest is commentary.” I remember little of the Torah anymore; but I know the world, and these words are enough guide for me.

Too bad all those who pound their chests in praise of their gods don’t have
this compass tied to their waist.

Who am I, poor student that I was, reprobate in the eyes of my brethren for the life I now lead, to stand in judgment of this man? I came on this journey to do our business and return. I thought the journey might sharpen my eye to separate the dull stone from the intense and find the inclusions beneath a stone’s surface sparkle.

I was too comfortable in my certitudes to think the world could teach me anything else. I write you now a man humbled and slow to pass judgment on those whose legs are tattooed with birds and beasts and whose cheeks are scarred with war. Joseph, here is a man who our Assembly would surely excommunicate for his words and deeds, but he opens his heart to me and the woman I love, who others walk by without a cordial tip of their hats. Antonio is more a brother than my old self would have claimed.

—
Abraham, don’t be too disappointed in me. My time on the battlefield
is coming to a close.
He turned solemn, his gravelly voice even rougher, deeper. —
I am the angel of progress, the destroyer of war. This is the end
of war and the beginning of slaughter. No more elephants, no more jeweled
swords parried with skill, no more pikes and short swords. No more courage,
just men standing too far away to see the faces of their enemy. Some of my
men grind rubies to powder and mix it with palm wine and think this potion
will protect them from harm. Bullets have no eyes: they can’t see what courses through a man’s blood—they only aim to spill it.

He sat in the light of the flickering oil lamp, the shadows slashing across his lined face. —
I leave the slaughter to others. This is my last
post. I came here with only cloak and sword. I will settle in Goa, and one
trip to Lisbon and back with a ship full of goods and I will be rich enough
to live like a grandee for life.
He raised his cup of palm wine.

—
In my palace, there will always be a room for you and Mya, facing
the ocean and the orange sunset sky.

As he made ready to leave, I offered him my future home, with a view that would be more dark walls than blue skies, though I promised a comfortable bed for two. —
A narrow bed will do
, he said.

Some nights I need a woman in my bed, but there is no room in my heart
for her to stay. What starts out as a convenience ends in attachment and tears—these believers in Buddha are no fools
. He looked at Mya as she padded in to take away our cups and plates, and said in words she could understand—
But you two will sing us a new song.

We lay in each other’s arms that night, our bodies one prayer that his words would be so.

Your cousin,

Abraham

I took out the gold pins from her hair and laid them on a piece of folded cotton. I ran my hands through her perfumed hair to smooth away the curls and knots. I brushed the oiled and scented hair with long, steady strokes of a sandalwood comb my aunt gave me before I left home. The fragrance of sandalwood and jasmine and the scent of perfumed oils filled the room. I think the brush-ing calmed her. I took deep breaths and exhaled loudly enough to get her attention; she quieted herself with her own deep, steady breathing. We breathed as one; and when I felt her body relax, I took her to the bridal bed. She was a gentle, quiet girl, fit it seemed more for the nun’s way than the life of a merchant’s wife. Her beauty graced this house, and I felt good that Abraham would perform his service for such an angel.

When silence filled the house, I retreated into the back to sleep.

I rose before dawn and waited for her to awake and seek me out. I had prepared warm water to pour over her and soft cloths dipped in fragrant oils to wash away the dried blood and Abraham’s fluid.

I wrapped her in clean cotton and rubbed her back and shoulders dry. I shared with her my oils, perfumes, and powder and combed her hair once again. I was her mirror to make sure her chignon was tight and no stray hairs dangled to mar the beauty of her face.

While she sipped coconut water and Khaing humored her with idle talk, I went into the bedroom to fetch the bridal sheet. I folded it neatly so the red stains showed. Abraham had gone onto the verandah, and I inhaled the smell of his sex that hovered in the room.

I tried to comfort her anxious heart, to give her the gentle embrace of a sister. I am part of the gift she received. I readied her for my husband, so he would receive her without fear or shame as a full bride in his bed. My husband touched her, entered her, and loved her with his body, but only for one night and only with his body. What pain she may have suffered was erased by his touch that told her she is a woman worthy of love. I saw it in her face.

Forgive me for the pride I felt when she presented the bridal sheet to her husband.

If there are more, I will treat them with respect and kindness. I don’t want to dishonor my husband. Last night I lay down without jealousy or worry and fell asleep enfolding him into the depths of my heart. Like lovers in the highest of heavens, being together in the same place is enough.

2 July 1599

Dear Joseph,

There is only one bride in this house. There will be no others. If Mya asks, Win will tell her that there are no brides in need of my services. The truth is too confusing: I am not sure why myself, but I know in my heart I can give my body only to one. It was for Mya that I agreed to deflower another bride, and it is for her that I have stopped. I will have to find other opportunities to gain merit for her and myself; but in these darkening times, this shouldn’t be difficult.

The bride left this morning. When Mya came into the bedroom, knelt, and touched her forehead to the floor to thank me for the act of merit she believed I had performed, I knew that was the last bride.

She is the woman I love. I cannot hold another in my arms and not think of her. Her asking only deepened my love; and though out of love I tried, my love makes my obedience to her wishes impossible. I drank from one cup with my mind on another, and that is a sin.

I had prayed that the first bride would have crooked teeth, dragon’s breath, and the clumping gait of an awkward child. I prayed for a test that I could pass. God sent me instead a bride more beautiful than any I have deflowered. Peguans pray to saints that have the gentle, quiet countenance of a woman, and the face of this bride shone with the same calm innocence. She had a beauty that makes even the roughest of men bow their heads in shame at the lives they have lived. Mya had combed her hair until it hung glistening like black silk at her shoulders and had rubbed fragrant oils about her neck and breasts. Mya summoned me to the room where the bride lay haloed in candlelight.

Never have I seen a woman so untouched by the wear of the world—her skin was as smooth and unblemished as the finest Chinese silk. Forgive me, even a tzaddik would have been aroused by her soft flesh. I lay at the edge of the mat, teetering on the precipice of desire. Mara, the god of desire, whispered in my ear and I listened.

I ran my hand over the small of her back, the smooth curve of her buttocks, for the pure pleasure of the feel of her skin. I took her virginity for the sensual pleasure her body offered. The woman I loved slept under the same roof, and I betrayed her. I lay inside this bride and thought of Mya in hopes of pulling back from the depths of desire onto the level ground of duty, and that was a second betrayal.

Before Mya, I held each bride in my arms as if she were a wife I had chosen for myself. I imagined the final conflagration, flames roaring like an ocean gale, the tops of the palms exploding in fire, and I held them tight to shield them from the flames. Before Mya, there was no shame in what I did. Do you remember when Rabbi Jacob Cohen died? His books and the Torah scroll were placed atop his coffin, to honor the scholarly and wise man he had been. Before Mya, what I did for the brides, I did well, and Antonio is right—