The Jewel Trader Of Pegu (14 page)

—You are right to make fun of me, Abraham, maybe all I can hope for is a better life next time—more silk than cotton, more jeweled bangles for
my wife and daughter.

—Win, it is late and I am growing tired thinking of the many rebirths
that await me. I am content to sleep in the dust until my resurrection.

Win frowned, the muscles of his face grew limp, and in that moment he seemed an old man. —
Ab… ra… ham, how sad to sleep
in the dust. That is not a life fit for an ant or a worm.

—
Maybe God has other plans for me. There are some among my brethren who believe that souls with unfinished business are reborn.

—Ab… ra… ham, we all have unfinished business.

I said no more. The night was late, and I was afraid my words had added to the sadness that had clouded his face these past few days and had banished his laughter. His second son, a sweet boy of barely sixteen and the son closest to his heart, has fled up-country to be a monk at a distant pagoda to escape the king’s tightening grasp. He isn’t alone. The Mon bear the king and his people little love, and many—it is rumored tens of thousands—flee into the jungle, to the safety of distant provinces and even farther, to Laos, Siam, and Arakan to escape the growing specter of death. Some men have bowed their heads to debt slavery and have sold themselves to princes or other men of standing who will protect them from royal taxes and the onerous obligations of service. This is too low a path for an official like Win to tread, too much a blow to his pride to consider.

The king is like a fool atop a diseased tree, sawing off the limb on which he sits. His foreign follies have brought him no slaves, so he hasn’t enough soldiers to man his army and fight his battles, not enough men to cut and keep his roads. The paddy fields lie untended at growing season: there aren’t enough hands to care for the seedlings. Men found wandering the roads are taken directly to military camps or returned to their villages under threat of death to perform the labor their villages owe, or they are sent to toil in lands laid waste by war. The king’s men have taken to tattooing a man’s name, rank, and village on his right hand so he cannot lie about where he is from and what obligations he owes. We Israelites can take off our hat or unpin the star from our coat and disappear in another city, if our appearance does not betray us, but these poor Peguans have no escape.

Antonio tells me that in Cosmin, where I landed, the governor, fed up with the king’s demand for labor, rebelled. The king shows no mercy to those who are disloyal, as I with my own eyes witnessed at Authyia Gate, and Cosmin is now a port of no return. Its streets echo with the screeching of crows and the flapping wings of vultures fighting over the rotting flesh of the dead. Those not killed by the king’s troops have fled to Arakan. Even Win, proud pos-sessor of his royal spittoon, no longer raises his voice against those who think the king is out to exterminate the Mon for fear of their disloyalty. The empire is shrinking with rebellion, like a puddle in the sun. If the king doesn’t come to some accommodation soon with his enemies in Toungoo and Arakan, the empire will be a head without a body, a city with howling wolves outside its gates and walking skeletons within.

Maybe it is the late hour that makes the future look so dark, or maybe it is because now I have more to lose. As I write I see Mya sleeping on the mat. Her hair is unpinned and covers her shoulders like a glistening black cape. Her breathing is like a soft whistle calling me to her side. There is a question I should have asked Win when he told his tale of the wayward youths chasing after a woman.

What if you weren’t looking for a woman but found her, and in finding her found yourself ?

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 dis-pleased 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.