The Jewel Trader Of Pegu (15 page)

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 respectabil-ity. 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 Europeans 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.

She told me she knew for certain the right thing for me to do.

—
Now that I am sure, you can act with a pure heart.

—
She wants you to sleep again with the brides.
Mya sat silently, while Win spoke Italian slowly, reading from a piece of paper he held in his hand. —
Who better than you? She knows you will say that she has known no others, but that doesn’t matter. It is what you do.
Mya looked straight into my eyes, as if she were drawing a line under the words he spoke.

It doesn’t matter if others could do it better. She isn’t talking of pleasure,
though you have pleased her even more since that first night.

I waved my hand for him to stop. How could she speak to him and he to me of things so intimate? —
Whose words are these?

—Mine,
Mya said. I rose quickly and walked toward the front door and out onto the verandah. —
There is more.
I didn’t turn around. I had raised my voice and must have turned red like the Europeans I had pledged myself I wouldn’t become. I had spoken harshly to a woman I loved like I had never spoken to Ruth, whom I only honored but never loved. Joseph, what a strange game our passions play, that we snap and bite at those who mean the most to us.

Win followed me out onto the verandah. —
Ab… ra… ham,
let us walk for a bit.
Win guided me down the road, afraid that Mya would hear my angry words.

—
Abraham, I did try to convince her. But there was no threat on
my part. It was her choice, her choice alone. Abraham, I am an average worldling, but she is a pious follower of the Buddha—she is a good worldling. Don’t be angry with her.

My words came quickly, words that I had never spoken, even to myself. —
It’s not her. It’s me. I’m afraid. Sometimes I have thought only of my own pleasure. I’m afraid I will lust after another woman. What if in a
moment of desire, I think of my own pleasure and forget the reason for lying
with these women? What if I forget Mya in the moment of my pleasure?

—
You are not the Buddha. You are a man. These brides are supplicants in need of gifts. Even with your imperfections, you are a better gift
giver than most. If you find their bodies pleasurable, think of the impure and the unpleasant—the rotting flesh of corpses strewn outside the city walls, the mud-covered swine your god tells you not to consume.

—
How could I do that and still treat them with the gentleness and
reverence their bodies deserve? If I did that, I become nothing more than
my soulless member. That is an even worse thought than being consumed
by lust. If it is just a body, there is no gift. If it is just a body, then I am
an adulterer and these innocent brides are unwitting whores.

—
Then think of Mya and the merit she is gaining.

—That seems more lustful—to lie in another’s arms and think of the
woman you love.

—
Ab… ra… ham, you think too much. My head is spinning. It’s just one night. It’s just one body. Don’t worry; you aren’t a man overwhelmed by desires of the flesh. You will not be reborn a woman.

That was far from my worry. The truth I now couldn’t deny was that Mya had made me a man and, I was afraid, too much of one.

Win saw that my anger had dampened, and he turned and headed back to my house. Mya had not moved. Her eyes were red. My heart ached at the pain I had caused her. I told her I was wrong to raise my voice, to have lost my temper.

—
I will speak with my own voice,
she said.
If you don’t understand, Win can help you in the language of your people.
My soul con-trite, I shook my head and said nothing.
—When I came to this
house, I knew I had no name. I was just another bride who would leave
in the morning. I entered this house because I had to, not to find love.

I expected the pain—women in the village had warned me. But they didn’t tell me the wind would stop blowing through the palms when you
touched me, and the animals of the night would turn silent. You could
have been rough with me, as I know other men are; you could have
entered me quickly and been done, your task complete. But when you
touched me, I felt I was your first woman. I felt I was the only woman
in the world. That night, and every night you hold me in your arms, is
like our last night on earth together.
She looked down at the floor for a moment, made shy by the words she had spoken or was about to speak. —
I knew that you had done an act of great merit, but Mara,
who tried to seduce the Buddha, blinded me—I wanted to possess you
for myself. Monks seek enlightenment alone in the forest, chanting the
Buddha’s name until they run out of breath. I have learned wisdom
in your arms. Love is a great teacher. I came here a girl sleepwalking.

Now I am awake. I am a poor woman—I can give you nothing but
the chance to gain merit. What you did for me you should do for others.

I can give them one night—what is one night to the countless nights of affection that lie before us? Please let me do this for you.

I sat speechless in the embrace of her words. I was moved by what she said and even more by the words not spoken. Joseph, she did not say, “Do this for me.” She did not beg on her behalf in some simper-ing womanly way as I have heard our women do for some trifle. It was as if the silver hand that hangs from my neck had fallen into the fire, and she had thrust her hand into the flames to save it without thought or hesitation. Stifling my tears, I forgot Win was sitting there and touched her cheek, not having the words to repay hers.

I don’t believe I will be reborn—my soul passes only once through this world of flesh and matter—but Mya believes it and will do all in her power to make my next life a better one. Do I repay her selflessness with my refusal? If I don’t refuse but make a bride a whore in my bed, can there be merit for anyone in that? I haven’t shared my fears with Mya—she will think less of me. It would pain me to see my tarnished self in her eyes. If I cross the line between love and lust, in that moment of desire I become the adulterer she believes I could never be. I told her that I will pray to the Holy One, blessed be He, for guidance. Whatever decision I make, no one but she will share my heart.