The Jewel Trader of Pegu Page 8
—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, plantains, 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 re
bellious 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.
Before I came to Pegu, I had seen only one stranger. A warrior, he came with the king’s men to the village the year my ears were pierced. He was tall as a ghost, and I had never seen a human so hairy—hair exploded from his head and face. I could barely see his mouth, hidden in his thick beard. He and the soldiers stopped for water and some food. If they had spent the night, I’m sure I wouldn’t have closed my eyes for a moment, afraid he would devour me like a hungry ghost. Now I am a woman, and these strangers are more odd than frightening. They waddle down the street. They drip with sweat, their hair damp and matted like soaked dogs in an afternoon shower. They show their jagged dog teeth and turn red as raw meat when they are angry. Sometimes I want to laugh. I am sad for them—they seem so far from the Buddha.
The master of this house is a quiet man. He has pale skin, and his belly and legs are not beautiful with tattoos, as all men’s should be. But he took on the danger of my blood. What he did, he did for me and not himself.
I know some brides cry out at the pain of the first time. I didn’t, though it did hurt. I thought of the Buddha’s face. I tried to be as calm. I knew this man didn’t want to hurt me. I believe he knew the pain I felt—as if my spirit were his—and he touched my cheek to comfort me, to quiet my anxious heart. What words can I have for something that I never felt before? After he had given me the gift of his body, I lay next to him and floated away, feeling like green rice swaying in the wind. I wanted that feeling again. I wanted him inside me again. Was that wrong? Was I snared by Mara, the Evil One’s sweet song of desire? Was that the moment my husband died?
When I wake in the morning, who can I talk to? Aunt Khaing is an old woman. What will I do in the city? There are no weeds to pull, no rice to harvest.
Surrounded by this strange darkness, my heart is hollow as a bell. I know the bitter truth—this is the last man who will know my body.
I go for refuge to the Buddha.
I go for refuge to the Dharma.
I go for refuge to the Sangha.
I go for refuge to the Buddha.
I go for refuge to the Dharma.
I go for refuge to the Sangha.
I go for refuge to the Buddha.
I go for refuge…
8 March 1599
Dear Joseph,
Two days ago Win heard, through his many ears in the trade, that soldiers sent north had cleared the road of bandits, and a new group of stones had arrived. We were at the trading house the hour its doors opened. There were riches among these rough stones, and we pounced upon the best. A skilled cutter will harvest great value from the stones we secured this morning. Among the sapphires we bought is one as orange and pink as the sun swallowed by the ocean at sunset and two black as crow’s wings. Even an unschooled eye could see in the pinkish red spinels a necklace calling out for the white skin of a duchess. But it was the rubies that set our hearts pounding. They all shine, as if born of lightning. The queen among them has the pigeon-blood red color royalty so prizes. When I held the stone to the light, it glowed like a burning coal. I felt I was holding the beating heart of an angel in my hand.
This is a ruby fit for the legendary helmet of Sultan Suleiman. When I was little and could not go to sleep, Uncle would sit on the edge of the bed and tell me the story of the sultan’s gold helmet studded with hundreds of diamonds, pearls, emeralds, rubies, and one enormous turquoise. His eyes sparkled as bright as its stones, and his voice grew hushed with reverence as he told me about the dozen Rialto workshops that fashioned a helmet to rival the grandeur of Alexander. I would fall asleep with its feathered plume fluttering before my drowsy eyes. Now a real stone to rival my dreams is ours.
Today I finally exchanged more than a nod with the Portuguese soldier who I think is a hidden Israelite. His name is Antonio de Briho; he is from Pôrto, but he has been away so long he says his home is wherever he is paid for his services. I guess he is in his midthirties—his hard life has left its marks on his scarred and creased face. If the scars on his forehead and neck could speak of their origins, I am sure they would make me tremble. I am glad I have not seen the horrors his dark eyes have surely witnessed. He is a short, squat, thick-necked man, solid as a tree trunk. His speech is blunt but not as rough as his appearance. I find his directness a refreshing change from the quiet, circuitous talk of the Peguans, who wander off the path or muddy the waters with politeness. He has been here more than a year training the king’s artillerymen in the use of arquebuses, culverins, and the newest weapons, but he has little good to say about the troops. There is no glory here for him, just silver coins for his pocket. He rattled off, like a gazetteer, the mercenaries fighting with and against Pegu—Greeks, Turks, Armenians, Tatars, Moghuls, Rajputs, Persians, Javanese, Siamese, Gizares from the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates, Tanocos of Arabia Felix, Andamans, Celebes, and all manner of men tattooed and pierced.
—These are men without king or law, he said. They fear neither God nor death, not like these infidels who fight like angels. They would rather scare the enemy with the deafening sound of their infernal horns and drums and the fusillades of arquebuses shot in the air than press the battle after the first have fallen. These are not men who, landing on a distant shore, would set fire to their ships to show themselves ready to fight to the death. They’re after prisoners, not land. More of these poor louts die marching in chains through the jungle than in battle.
With a faint smile, he told me—You and I are brothers. I barter musket balls for silver, and you, silver for precious stones. That smile convinced me he is one of us and knows that I know, but I will let him be the first to speak of his faith, if he still has one.
Don’t misunderstand me when I write that some days I forget that I am a Jew. I recite the Shema morning and night, bless my food, say grace after every meal, and celebrate the holy days, as best I can determine when they fall. But when I leave the four walls of the house, the tefillin put gently away in my camphor chest, there is no one to remind me that I am a Jew. No community of brethren with their expectations. No prohibitions in Gentiles’ eyes when I walk past a stall brimming with fruit. A Jesuit from Portugal has arrived, but I have seen him only at a distance, so there has been no occasion for him to spurn me.
Then there are some days when, bidden by no one’s claims or curses, I feel myself more a Jew than ever I did in Venice, surrounded by brethren in the Campiello della Scuola or praying in the dark warmth of the synagogue. I sit in the solitude of my own house and bless some strange fruit or dish Khaing has prepared and that no other Israelite anywhere on earth is eating at that moment or has ever eaten, and I feel that I am not alone. I embrace
my evening prayers with my heart, not merely my mouth. Though the words of the mitzvoth make me a sinner, when I lay in the arms of an infidel bride and brush her perfumed hair from her face and touch her check to calm her trembling heart, I feel the Holy One, blessed be He, is guiding my hands and blessing me—and her—with His grace.
Some evenings deep into the night, Win and I, like students at the yeshiva, talk of life and things more sacred than stones. Wine loosens Win’s tongue, and melancholy mine. In the early evening as I walk the city streets, I hear the sounds of gongs, bells, and chimes: groups of men are practicing for a feast or a wedding or a naming celebration. The music floats from hidden courtyards, as if the stars themselves were the source of these strangely bewitching melodies. What first sounded to my ears like the clinks and clanks of falling pots is now music from the beginning of time that sweeps me away from myself. There is sadness in the melodies that summon forth images of you and Uncle and those whom I miss most. The music’s melancholy airs dampen my usual impatience at speaking about things unseen, things that cannot be touched and measured and put in the ledger.
Win enjoys our sedentary search and doesn’t seem to care if we never reach a destination or even a clearing in the jungle on our nocturnal meandering through the tangled thicket of his beliefs. Sometimes I think he takes greater pleasure in seeing me wander off the path, entangled among the twisted vines, guiding stars blocked from view, than in drawing me to his side.
Win reads my face well. I hide my confusion and doubt poorly when he talks of his religion without a god, his prayers that aren’t prayers, his dark view of life as suffering. Strange that this comes from your long-faced cousin, this child of the plague, whom you always said was born to wear black. Of course, not yet having reached my first birthday, I do not remember when the plague took both my parents, but some of my earliest memories are of funeral bells pealing, a constant din of death that drove me to tears. Uncle says that streets were littered with corpses and the walls of the ghetto echoed with more wailing than my own. I was born of suffering, and when Ruth and the little one of blessed memory were taken from me, I wondered why God chose me to bear such trials. What had I done to deserve this pain and loss?