The Jewel Trader of Pegu Read online

  Your cousin,

  Abraham

  Before Abraham touches me, he speaks to his god. After I have taken him inside me and he lies quietly by my side, he speaks to his god again. I told him in simple words, so he would understand, not to be afraid. He doesn’t need to pray for his god’s protection. I would never hurt him. I would never rob him of his power. No, he said, he was thanking his god for sending me to him. His god seems hungry for thanks, but I didn’t say that to Abraham.

  It is I who am blessed. Blessed doubly—that he has taken me into his home and into his heart. Not like the other foreigners, whom Khaing and the women in the market speak about. They give shelter and pay well enough, but they are rough men who barter their beds and never speak their woman’s name. They never thank their gods for the gifts they are receiving.

  Abraham’s heart’s blood must be as beautiful as rubies. The more his heart opens, the more he speaks. At night I lie in his arms, and words overflow his heart and into his mouth. He tells me of his long journey across bottomless seas and wide rivers, over burning, barren land. All those nights among strangers—I can’t imagine such loneliness. He tells me stories about the strange city he comes from. A city that floats on water—maybe I don’t understand his words, or maybe he wants to make me laugh with fantastic tales.

  Could it be that he was sent here for me? Or I for him? Perhaps it was poor Chien, who died on our wedding day, whose karma was bad—not mine—whose previous lives had been full of evil acts. Khaing says he must have been a drunk, a miser who never shared his drink with anyone. No river flows straight—maybe this bend in my life was intended to bring me to the safe harbor of Abraham’s love. I’m not wise or pious enough to know what lives I led in the past. All I know is that I must build merit now by caring for this man, far from his home, who cares for me.

  When Father sent me off, he said for me to be a devout wife and lead a good life, and I might be reborn among the gods. At least, he said, say your prayers, do no harm, and maybe I would be reborn a man. I’m afraid that won’t happen. I will be reborn a woman. I am trying to follow the Buddha, but I can’t follow him past the threshold of Abraham’s room. My passion for Abraham burns. When he touches me, I don’t want to be anyone other than who I am. I can’t deny the body he caresses. I can’t deny the desire I feel for him.

  Auntie Khaing has been good to me, but sometimes, like today, she makes me wonder if she isn’t jealous and is trying to plant seeds of doubt in my mind. She spoiled the morning with her talk that I will be a rich woman when he leaves. She says all the foreigners give their wives money, fine cloth, and jewels when they return to their homes. I will be a rich prize fought over by men who wish to live well in the shade. What good will it be to have fine things if Abraham is gone? I don’t want to be widowed twice over. I can’t imagine the touch of another man. I believe it is my fate to be his wife. Forever. Khaing is an old woman—she no longer remembers how it feels to be held by a man, touched by him.

  My man is different. I see it in his dark eyes, I hear it in his voice, even if sometimes I don’t understand the words. I feel it in his embrace. I feel it in the tears that moisten his cheeks when his face is pressed against my breast.

  Why would he teach me his language just to say good-bye?

  10 May 1599

  Dear Joseph,

  Win now professes for me newfound sympathy. Not because I have traveled far from home and kin, or because my faith has led me far from the path of enlightenment. No, he feels sorry for me because I have no foreskin.

  These Peguans think nothing of bathing twice a day, sometimes three, and simply for the pleasure of cooling themselves in the thick heat. After returning damp and dusty from the market, I have grown accustomed, regardless of the time of day, to the cool comfort of water running down my head and back. This is not something I recommend for the damp Venetian air, unless you want to rest in the Lido before your time. Win had several times invited me to bathe in a stream, not far outside the Prome Gate, where the water cascades over a ledge of rocks into a shaded pool. I always found an excuse. Though far from the Church’s reach, the shadow of fear lingers that I will be imprisoned for bathing with a Gentile, even if he is an infidel. No Gentile had ever seen me in my nakedness, and I couldn’t imagine feeling as comfortable in this intimacy as Win and other Peguans do. But yesterday he wouldn’t listen to my excuses when we passed the gate at the height of the midday sun. It was there, though I tried to slide unnoticed into the cool water, that my nakedness plucked the sympathetic strings of Win’s heart.

  When he shook his head, I said nothing, afraid I didn’t measure up to what a man should be. Seeing that I wasn’t going to inquire into the meaning of his obvious look of regret and exaggerated head wagging, he couldn’t contain his curiosity and concern and asked where the rest of my member was. When I told him that God, blessed be He, commanded our people to have it cut off when an infant, he couldn’t disguise the sadness in his eyes. I quickly tried to calm what I thought was the cause of his sorrow: the child is only eight days old, I told him, and is too young to remember any pain.

  —It is not the child, Abraham, I am sorry for. It is you. It is Mya. The pleasure you are denied giving, and the pleasure she can’t receive.

  Joseph, I have written to you of many strange things that if I had not seen them myself or couldn’t vouch for their source, you would think me a madman. What I tell you now challenges the boundaries of belief. Though I write with a steady hand, you may still think that I have lost my senses; or, despite all I have said, these Peguans are some strange breed set beneath the human race. I grimace as I write these words: Peguans put metal balls beneath their foreskins to please their women. Some small as a pea, some large as little hen eggs. Men of wealth have penis balls finely made of silver or brass that ring like bells. Those of little means have ones of lead, copper, or tin that barely make a sound. Win says that the king and the princes have ones of gold, so skillfully wrought they ring with treble, contralto, and tenor tones.

  —What kind of god would deny women the pleasure of such sweet harmony?

  Win asked with only the slightest of smiles. What kind of god would let his people disappear from the earth? So long ago, no one can remember her name, a queen commanded the men of the kingdom to wear penis balls to save them from their addiction to self-abuse and sodomy and to please the women of Pegu.

  We sat on rocks in the shallow pool behind a curtain of cascading water. I nodded my head, afraid if I showed too much interest, Win would stand up to demonstrate the dulcet tones he so praised. He must have sensed my unease. He waved his hand in the air.—I once had two silver balls, one for each of my sons who lived, but I have taken them out. I am too old to endure those youthful pleasures.

  As we walked back, I strained to hear the faint tinkle of metal whenever we passed a group of young men, but the noise of the street was too loud. For a moment I thought I heard the delicate sound of these private bells, but it was only a wind chime hanging from a tree in front of a pagoda. When we turned toward Win’s house, he pointed out the nearby home of a wealthy lac merchant, who lived there with his last, lovely daughter. A week or so ago, returning late one night, Win spied a young fellow beneath the palm tree that stood by the corner window. The young girl’s shadow moved across the bamboo wall. The fellow was pretending to relieve himself, shaking vigorously the member that should be concealed, sending a melodious signal to his lover.

  —Her shadow stayed fixed to the wall, so I imagine she wasn’t displeased by his musical ability. He, I am sure, hoped she would invite him inside to perform. Win put his hand over his mouth, chuckling, amused by his own joke.

  How much of this am I to believe? Win says he will show me the women who have no calling other than selling these balls and are skilled in placing them. Shame prohibits me from pursuing the subject further, even with Mya. Oh yes, Win told me the king sometimes will remove one of his silver penis balls that are gilded with gold and give it to a
nobleman who has served him well, and for whom it is considered a gift of great honor. I pray that I am never so honored.

  Your cousin,

  Abraham

  Uncle Win scowls. He is angry with me.

  “A body is just a body,” he says. “A heap of bone and blood, skin and bile. I thought you different from your kind,” he said. Why am I so lustful? he wants to know. “You are like a roaring fire that consumes everything. I know you are a woman, but didn’t you learn anything from the monks? The Buddha, in a past life, born a woman, gave up her breasts to feed a starving woman on the verge of devouring her child. All I am asking you to do is give up his body for one night. The Buddha’s breasts were restored. In the morning, Abraham will be restored to you. If you are so worried about his vital powers and the pleasure he gives you, feed him milk and eggs after each time.”

  I went into the garden. I didn’t want Win to see my tears. Abraham is my husband. His body is more than the guts and blood spilled on the ground of the butcher’s stall. He is dear as life itself to me. How can Uncle Win ask me to lie outside his room again, while another woman, more beautiful than I, sleeps in his arms?

  Abraham told Win that I was his last bride. It is Abraham’s choice, not mine to make. When I said that to Win, he pursed his lips and shook his head. “He is a good man, but he doesn’t know the way of the Buddha. He doesn’t understand the customs here,” Win said.

  “You confuse me. First, you hold him tight, like a miser hoards his gold, like a man who never has listened to the Dharma,” Win said. “Then you say he is free to choose, and you have no control over him. How can you walk down two paths at the same time? Even a child just learning to speak knows that giving is the first of the virtues. Abraham gains great merit each time he serves a bride. Why do you stand in his way? Think of the merit you gain if you give the man you love to another.”

  I love this man. I want him to be reborn among the gods. But he is my husband. I have lost one. I don’t want to lose another.

  7 June 1599

  Dear Joseph,

  I climb one mountain to find another looming above me. An insistent family pleaded with Win to arrange my services in a week’s time. I refused. He had turned away other brides, leaving them to the traders eager to take their maidenhood. From the day Win saw our mats lying side by side, he knew, without any declaration from me, the depth of my feelings. Though no monk had blessed our union, he saw in the simple acts of our lives together that I had taken Mya into my heart.

  I won’t go through the formal marriage rite like other merchants, to clothe their “temporary marriages” in sham respectability. These traders pledge faithfulness while they are in Pegu and payment when they leave: these are the arrangements between an adulterer and his courtesan. What binds Mya and me is not an arrangement. I lie in Mya’s arms with a pure heart. I hide from neither man nor God and need no ritual to sanctify our love. My heart is pledged forever.

  Win started to talk of “merit,” and though he speaks from his heart, I said I didn’t want to hear any more of it. If the business suffers from my refusal, it will suffer. We have made profit enough. Win asks too high a price for whatever other stones we might gain.

  How could I push Mya from my bed for even one night? How could I give my heart to her and my body to another?

  Today is the eighth day after the full moon, one of Mya’s Sabbath days. The house was quiet. I missed her laughter, the smell of her perfume hovering in the air as she passes. She leaves her hair unscented and goes about solemn as a monk on these days, not laughing or joking with Khaing or me. She puts away in a small wooden box by the bed her bangles and fasts from midday to the next morning. When I come to bed after writing to you, she will be sleeping on the floor, out of my reach.

  Devout as any Israelite, Mya began and ended this day, like every day, offering prayers in front of a small shrine at the back of the house. She keeps a thin vase with fresh flowers next to a small wooden image of the Buddha on a simple shelf above her head. She lights candles and offers him fruit and sometimes even cooks a chicken over the fire for him. He never gets fat. I shouldn’t make light of her faith, though what good a piece of wood can do for her I’m not sure. Who am I to deny her a faith that has molded her into the being she has become, the being who has brought me love and summoned it, long buried, from within myself? I could no more leave my faith than I could strip the skin from my body and still live, and I can’t imagine that she could live without her idols and her faith. If the Rambam could take Averroes, Avicenna, and al-Farabi for his brothers, I can find a small space in the corner of my heart for the Buddha.

  There are no Grand Inquisitors stalking the shadows in her faith. When I walk down the streets here, I don’t have to make way for anyone. These followers of the Buddha may believe in more hells than Dante could imagine; but when I asked Win if I would burn in one of them for not believing what he believed, he was no Jesuit in his answer.

  —Oh no, Abraham, you do not call my truth untrue. It is just not your truth. If you believe your truth—if you live your truth—you will not burn. He smiled.—But sad for me, because I won’t have you to talk with amidst the smoke and wailing.

  Win and Mya know I will be reborn, whether I believe in their faith or not. My merit is always on their mind: they are bankers of my soul, looking after my account, trying to make sure I amass sufficient funds for a more fortunate next life.

  Prayers are now offered in pagoda and synagogue for my well-being. Perhaps the dangers I face are greater than I imagine, or I am more fortunate than I once thought.

  Your cousin,

  Abraham

  Win must think because I am a village girl that I am slow-witted as a water buffalo. I have planted more seedlings than there are stars in the sky—I know the seed he is trying to plant. He told me again the tale of the Buddha born a woman who gave her breasts to feed a starving mother. It is a beautiful story that brings me close to tears, so I didn’t tell him to stop. I am not bored to hear again how her breasts were restored, how because of her selfless gift she became a man.

  Each day Win tells me another tale of generosity and sacrifice. He told me of an ancient king who gave his life twice over. He sacrificed himself to be reborn a rare fish with magic powers and then had himself cut up and fed to his people to cure them of their sickness. Another king of great generosity gave away his wealth without pause and even gave his head to an evil man, simply because he was asked. Win greets me every morning with a tale of these and other kings and princes who gave up wealth, family, and the most precious gift—the gift of body.

  This morning before he could even speak, I asked him, “Uncle, what gift of body do you offer me today?” He giggled like a child. “Oh, Mya,” he said, “forgive me, I am clumsy as a baby elephant. You know I wish you well. But we should not cling to things that are not ours: things that will be gone when their time is up.”

  I’m not sure the reason for his concern, and I spoke more boldly than I am used to. “Why are you so insistent? For your gain or Abraham’s merit? Or your merit for bringing this all about?”

  “I have enough money,” he said. “I do it for the merit of us all. For the service he performs, for your generosity…and for whatever benefit may accrue to me. And, my young Mya, remember that a wounded tiger is more dangerous than a contented one. The king is an intemperate man, and his ways are unpredictable. We don’t want him to devour Abraham out of spite.”

  He asked me to think again of what I would lose by giving up Abraham’s body for a night. He asked me to think what the man I love would gain.

  11 June 1599

  Dear Joseph,

  Today I shamed myself with anger I didn’t know I possessed. Today, I was honored by a love I couldn’t imagine.

  Mya went early this morning to her favorite temple and spent the day praying and fasting. She said she wanted to hear more clearly the Buddha’s voice. I walked her to the temple, and she was quieter than usual. We passed Europea
ns who, despite their time here, still held perfumed cloths to their noses as they made their way past rotting clumps of refuse and stagnant pools of rainwater. Would they, I wonder, do the same walking through the stench of Venetian alleys, stray cats nosing about piles of rotting fish bones and decaying vegetables? With Mya at my side, I smell only the fragrance of flowers, burning incense, and sandalwood wafting from pagoda and kitchen shrines.

  I watched her enter the temple where hundreds of gilded idols, stacked from floor to ceiling, stretch along the front wall. The mitzvah tells me these are pagan abominations, but I must confess repetition strangely soothes me, like waves lapping against the side of an anchored ship. I looked at that golden wall shining in the morning light and thought not of the Buddha but of the Holy One, blessed be He, creator of all beauty, who opens our eyes to all that is beautiful in the world.

  I came back from the godown early, and Mya still hadn’t returned. When she did come back, near dusk, Win was with her, which surprised me, since his servant had sent word that he was not feeling well. The evening birds chorused in the soft light of dusk, and Mya prepared tea from the hard stalks of lemongrass. The tea is clear as rainwater but strong enough to wash the day’s tastes from your tongue. I think she wanted to clear my senses, so nothing would distract me from her simple words.

  After Mya sought special guidance, she had gone to Win’s. She needed him to help her with the words. He wrote down what she wanted to say.—I want you to hear my heart clearly. He speaks your language better than I, and with ours I run, while you can only walk.