Grazing The Long Acre Page 5

  “You’re right of course,” said Derveet. “But who told you that?”

  Even if her outrageous invention were true, it made no difference. If the Rulers really were secretly culling our deformed, then all the more need to reach them, to make ourselves count. Timur must have the Siamangs. We must be the first state to have true government of cooperation, whether people liked the sound of the word or not. It was bound to lead to great improvements. I told myself that I admired Derveet’s stance, but she was hopelessly out of date. I was angry with myself for arguing with her. I went out and bathed. My Koperasi of the dark before dawn came in to the lavatories to take a piss, dressed now in that heavy slab of uniform. He eyed me, thoughtfully, across the stained tiles of the bathroom. They know, they always know…I smiled.

  He did what he did with me, and we left separately; it was safer that way.

  I thought I had been perfectly discreet, but perhaps not. At night in the commonroom Buffalo came and sat next to me, put his arm around my shoulders and hugged me, with a comically sad and gentle face, like someone comforting a hurt child.

  The ninth month passed, the tenth began, and the debate continued. Monsoon downpours invaded the regular cloud rain, and nothing was ever quite dry indoors or out. The box-like sedan chairs were for ladies, and only the Koperasi had HC transport. My shoes were ruined. The wash boy at the inn claimed he “couldn’t understand” trousers, and returned my clothes crumpled and mysteriously sticky. I refused to be forced into native dress. Each day I made my round of the delegations, the states of Timur and the regions of Jagddana (I did not approach Gamartha). Naturally only a conservative element had come to Canditinggi. Even my own part of federated Timur was represented by families I had scarcely heard of: secluded, reactionary inlanders. I spoke to countless wizened boys in picturesque livery, never the same boy twice at any reception desk. I got nothing from them but that infuriating smile of tradition—for all your education, truth evades you….

  Buffalo boy remained my bodyguard, there was nothing I could do about that. Childlike, he had become involved in my quest and didn’t seem to notice a certain conflict of interest. He pointed out that we were missing an opportunity. For if we went to Gamartha, and said that Jagdana did not want a Timurese observer, surely that would be more effective. I said we would not try that. It would be useless. Gamartha people were too old-fashioned.

  Buffalo boy lowered his eyes. He said mildly, “You are not Timurese, originally?”

  “No. I am adopted.”

  I don’t think he understood the term, but he understood. He never pressed me again about the delegations I chose to avoid. I had meant to move out of the inn, but there was nowhere to go. So I went on watching Derveet patiently chipping away at the bandits. It was embarrassing to think how I had sympathised with the Aneh in this little quarrel. If Derveet could break the hold of the KKK, and therefore of the Siamangs, over the brigands, the Dapur would know it instantly in this fevered town. It might disturb the whole balance of the debate. Gusti Ketut’s election rested on the fact that the women knew whom they were supposed to choose, like it or not. But a whole princedom full of politically dissatisfied criminals might seem even worse than Koperasi displeasure.

  However, I soon realised there was no danger. Man-like, the bandits enjoyed the attention they were getting, but it was clear they would stick with the KKK. They were just playing, toying with the idea of making a noble stand. As this became more and more obvious I began to get annoyed with Derveet, illogically. If she really believed that the choice between Siamang and Sadia was a choice between death and life, couldn’t she be more forceful? If she really believed we were facing genocide, surely it was not a case for gentle persuasion. I began to have a dream about Derveet watching a tree growing, while in the darkness around her the world was falling apart. I had given up remembering dreams and all the interpretation business, quite deliberately and successfully, when I left my first home. But I couldn’t get this one out of my head. Derveet’s patience was agonising, for the most detached observer.

  She was as friendly as ever; in fact, we talked a good deal. It was puzzling and depressing to find someone who, like me, had no reason to respect tradition, supporting it so obstinately. She would like to see a world without boys, she said. She would like to see women and men living freely together as equals: sometime. But her faith in the Dapur was unshakeable.

  Silent, secret, slow: the Debate went on. I walked about the streets looking at closed gateways, and wondered if it was true that only eyes were moving in there, never mouths. Derveet had made me uneasy. I wondered if even the progressive Timur delegates could be trusted to represent Timur’s real wishes, in this insidious Dapur atmosphere. Derveet told me that I only seemed to be shut out. In some mystical way my opinion was being counted. The debate’s only purpose was to reflect accurately the decision of the people, which would somehow be carried in the air, like the fall of the rain, or the turn of a leaf. If that was true, then Gusti Ketut was safe. But I felt oppressed. The air of this town didn’t suit me; it was making me ill.

  The long wait was hard for Derveet and Annet as well. Their relationshlp was showing signs of strain. Annet did not come often to the inn, and when she did it was only to jeer at Derveet’s efforts with her bandits. When conversation failed she sat staring at her friend with angry eyes. An election like this is always “unanimous.” Whatever kind of pressure the Dapur used to achieve this, it was telling on the Aneh delegate now. We were on opposite sides, but I sympathised. If only it could be over.

  A bandit called me a Koperasi-whore and Tjakil, my former admirer, knifed him. The question was only whose whore ought I to be. Why should I be expected to care which bully was my master? On the same day, I was alone in a waiting room with a chair-boy, a Jagdanan about fifteen years old. He lifted his sarong to show me he had been excised: given a false womanhood. Boys do this to each other at puberty-age; they are proud of it. His eyes looked nowhere—expecting nothing, desiring nothing but further violation. I went back and shut myself in my windowless shack. I tried to picture the shining Domes, the pure life of our Rulers, but nothing would come. I kept thinking, unwillingly, of the dying Aneh instead.

  This was the first quarter of the tenth month. The Koperasi patrols were uneasy too. They stood in knots on street corners, handling their weapons. We took care, if we had to pass them, not to brush against their space. Back at the inn Snake had fallen ill. He lay on the verandah, wrapped in shawls, shivering and weak.

  “Why are you so sad?” whispered Derveet, holding his hand.

  He reached up and touched her cheeks, making lines for tears. “Yes, it’s true we are all sad. Poor Snake, I wish I could keep it from you. It’s too much for you.”

  In the streets people were saying that the debate was nearly over, and it was ending badly. I tried to pretend I didn’t know what they meant, but it was hard to resist the feeling that something was coming out of those closed courtyards: invisible, intangible, giving the town bad dreams. Who is to be the one then?, I wondered. But I knew.

  On the tenth of the month I got up and everything was quiet. The kitchen house was shut. No sign of the family, no sign of any guests. A town with empty streets is an ominous sight, but there were a few people about—besides the Koperasi—so I dared to go into the centre. I went into a little garden, a place where I often used to sit after trailing around the waiting rooms: a refuge. There was a round tank carved with monsters of some kind. I sat on the rim, under a frangipani tree, its white and gold tinged petals at my feet. I looked into the pool, but the water seemed to be black. It was not reflecting anything. I wrapped my arms round myself and sobbed.

  Why was I crying? I didn’t know. The grief flowed through me like a current, but it seemed to be coming from somewhere deep inside. Gradually I realised someone was actually asking me the question. There was a woman, sitting on the stone bench by the pool. She was dressed in blue, deep, dark blue; every line of her long binding sash, e
very floating fold of her robes was composed and perfect. In one bare hand she held the silver links of the rahula, the ankle chain. “Why are you crying child?” she asked again.

  “There is so much injustice in the world…”

  The spasm passed. Slowly, the tree and the sky returned to the water. I lifted my head. “Have you been here all along?” I asked hoarsely. It seemed entirely possible, at that moment, that she had been invisible when I walked in.

  “No. I saw you from my window, so I came down.” She smiled, the wrinkles of her aged face rippling smoothly. ” I am from Jagdana, where we value beauty.”

  They had defeated me. I could not resist any longer. I knew what had happened, this morning in Canditinggi. The balance had fallen and there was a new prince for Timur. It had been a hard debate: the tension of the delegates’ minds, locked together, had reached us all, affecting each according to capacity. Now they had decided, in grief, and that grief had swept through our hearts. It was ours. This was the power of the Dapur. This was the different road. I thought of my adopted family. Had they intended me to have this experience? Perhaps they didn’t even know what would happen to anyone near a great Debate. We had given up a great deal, in coastal Timur, for the sake of staying alive.

  “You have chosen.”

  “Reluctantly, yes,” said the lady. “It was delicate. A choice of harms: a little could have changed it. But I believe, as you perhaps do not, that the people’s minds are with me when I debate, just as our troubled minds have been with Canditinggi these past days. So be it, then. It is generally better not to fight against fate.”

  Silk whispered as she rose, and with a slight bow she left me. She was gone before I realised I ought to thank her. In one small space of time I had been given everything I asked from Canditinggi. Recognition from a Dapur lady, inside knowledge of the debate –and the prince I had wanted for Timur. But it was too late now.

  Derveet invited me to walk with her up to Candi Daulat. It was a rare afternoon without rain. We climbed through the glistening trees and vines, on the remains of the old road: steep, engineered curves from another time. The sky above the hilltop was soft and water vapour rose from the ground in thin white veils. We sat on slabs of fallen sculpture by the squat black shrine and looked down on Canditinggi.

  “It’s strange,” I said, “but I have never wanted to be a woman.”

  “Why should you?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?”

  “Women are not better than men. Only different.”

  I answered that platitude as it deserved—not at all, and she grinned lazily.

  “You can’t deny it was Woman to whom God turned for help, at the renewal of the world.” I leaned back and craned upwards to where this transaction was represented in stone: the Mother of Life dancing on the newborn mountaintops, receiving Divinity. There is no man in that picture,” I pointed out.

  “But it is man then who comes to God face to face, a difficult thing for any woman to do. Dealing with the Divine as a business partner tends to get in the way.”

  “Of what?”

  “Of being human. Of humility.”

  Days had passed, and we had all begun to recover from that strange, frightening wave of depression. No one spoke of it. No announcement had been made: the Dapur does everything slowly. But Derveet and I knew it was all over. Silently, our abstract conversation acknowledged her defeat.

  Candi Daulat means Temple of the Sovereigns; these fallen stones were carved all over with the eagle insingia of the vanished Garudas. It was not strictly safe to be here; we might be spotted coming or going. The shrine had few visitors, even up in the defiant mountains.

  “Shall we go back?”

  Derveet stood. She touched carved stone ruefully, and touched her brow, half-ashamed of the sentimental gesture. I saw suddenly how young she was, only a little older than myself. And how very much alone. She caught my glance. I quickly looked away.

  Someone was coming up the road. It was Annet, the Aneh woman, in her black dusty robes. No greeting.

  “They told me I’d find you here,” she said, ignoring me. “Well, I’ve voted, finally. It will be announced tomorrow. Jagdana discovered Ida Sadia has piles. Gamartha counted up, and decided the Bangau have only have sixty-three generations, not a hundred and twenty after all. Timur reluctantly yielded to social pressure, so we are now unanimous. You’d better give me some more of that foul paper money. I have to pay up at the hotel, and I’ve nothing left.”

  They went. I stayed. So Gusti Ketut Siamang was now prince of Timur. How surprised Annet would have been, if she had looked back, to see the Timurese, the collaborator, on his knees and crying for the poor Peninsula.

  I was also crying for myself. Canditinggi and Derveet had taken from me my dream of the shining Rulers, and I would never get it back. I would have to see the work-camps now, the “state plantations,” the deprivation, and all the casual, daily brutality. I had to see the contempt of that “education” which simply snipped out the words I must not know—- parasites, aliens. And there was no dream to replace the lost dream: only the Peninsula, with all its ugly faults. The Debate had proved to me that the “different road” was real, but what was the use of it? What was the use of mind speaking to mind if the only message was defeat, defeat, defeat…? I swallowed tears, and sat up suddenly. I thought: he is not elected yet.

  Not until the announcement.

  I don’t know when I had guessed Derveet’s secret. Presumably after she had changed my mind, because it would hardly have mattered to me before. There was something uncanny about that dark outcast lady. Her authority over the bandits, and her astounding arrogance on the matter of this election. Once, Durjana, in a heated moment, had jumped up and shouted at her, “Only your name!”—and sat down instantly, blushing like a rose. The name that kept the knives sheathed could not be “Aneh.” She might have been born a Jagdanan noble, or even a minor royal. But Timurese, criminal or not, do not curtsey to Jagdana. Only one family ever united the Peninsula. Only one name makes us all bow.

  I had heard the story that somewhere in the wilds a Garuda survived: a crippled Garuda, cast out in the darkness. I had imagined, like the rest of my world, that this was a sort of allegory of dissent. I stayed on the hilltop for some time, thinking. It seemed to me absolutely clear that I must be the one to tell the secret. The Aneh knew Derveet’s family name, and so did the bandits. Probably some part of the Jagdana delegation knew her, too. But the Aneh were powerless, the bandits corrupt, and Jagdana notoriously too “re-strained” to take direct action over anything. I could give Derveet another vote—powerful and not at all restrained. The people who gave me birth had an old, old quarrel with Garuda of the South. Obviously they had not been trusted. I could see why not, between Koperasi spies and our own, home-grown traditions of treachery. But I must take the risk. It was considerable (this was what kept me on the hilltop), but for me, I believed, not for Derveet. In Gamartha, feudal obligations stand above love or hate. In Gamartha, a needless male is an animal to be slaughtered.

  I went down into town, under cover of a new rainstorm and the growing darkness. I went to the street I had never dared to visit. I was sure they wouldn’t do anything to me in Canditinggi. I had still been frightened, and wished I was staying in a brighter, more populous area. Various guards challenged me; I identified myself, and they allowed me to pass. Names are magic, you see. Eventually I spoke to an assistant of one of the delegates, a lady who had once been a distant cousin of mine. I told her what I knew or surmised, and suggested Gamartha ought to respect the preference of the sovereign family. There was a pause.

  In silence, a hand I did not see pushed from under the lady’s curtains a knife in a case decorated with the device of my family; defaced, because we are all dead. I left it there. No one touched me.

  I went back to the inn and slept like a baby.

  The next morning it transpired that there would be a delay: a final consultation. I sat in a coffee shop, s
haken and yet quite calm, while around me boys and men whispered nervously. My Koperasi saw me through the door and came in. He pretended to check the required notices above my head and quietly told me to get out of my inn, as there was a police action coming off. Hunting big game. Get out of town, now. Don’t look back.

  I went into the street, walking like a puppet. Everything seemed deathly still, even the sun in the sky. It occurred to me that Durjana the bandit was worth more trust than I. I went to Annet—not knowing what else to do, to the medium class hotel the Jagdanans had put her in, in their street. The courtyard gates were open. Derveet was there. Annet was leaving. There was a chair on the ground, the chair-boys were taking out some meagre bundles; Snake and Buffalo were as busily stowing the bundles back in.

  “Extra pay for bags. Extra pay!”

  “Lady walk. You carry luggage.”

  “Lady no walk. Lady can’t walk. Extra pay!”

  As I arrived, Annet was saying in her loud, harsh voice, “It’s a farce. I won’t stay another hour”. Derveet put out her hand and spoke, quietly. Annet turned, with a sour, exasperated, loving face, and they embraced. I saw that I’d been right in my surmise that the two were lovers; and I envied them, although their love was crippled, outside the Dapur—because I shall never love another man. I have poisoned that spring.

  I realised I had never seen Derveet in town before.

  ” Madam…”

  “Endang. Why…What’s the matter?”

  “The Koperasi know.”

  “Know? Know what?”

  “I am from the North, originally.”

  She nodded, with a puzzled smile, she had known my secret. It wasn’t important.