The Further Side of Silence/Tûkang Bûrok's Story
TÛKANG BÛROK'S STORY
OLD Tûkang Bûrok, the fashioner of wooden dagger hilts and sheaths, sat cross-legged on the narrow veranda of his hut, which, perched upon the high bank, overlooked the Pârit River. I squatted, smoking, at his side, watching him at his work, and luring him on to talk of the days of long ago.
Forty feet below us the red, peat-stained waters of the Pârit, banked back by the tide now flowing up the Pahang River from the sea, crawled lazily toward their source. The thatched roofs of more than a score of rafts lay under our feel, so that anything falling off the Tukang's veranda would drop plump upon the nearest of them. Nuzzling one another, and rubbing sides with a constant creaking, twice as many large native boats were moored. Each of them was furnished with a substantial deck-house, high enough to accommodate a seated man, walled with wood and protected by a strong roof of kâjang,[1] which rose in a graceful curve toward the stern and supported the mâgun, or steersman's perch, which was similarly roofed. The punting platforms, which occupied rather more than a third of the available deck space, were also covered in with temporary kajang roofs, and from boats and rafts alike a thin smoke was slowly rising, for numbers of Malays of both sexes and all ages were living more or less per- manently aboard them. The red waters of the Pârit possessed some property inimical to the borers which destroyed the bottoms of craft left to ride at anchor in the lower reaches of the Pahang; wherefore this narrow stream formied the most popular mooring- place in the vicinity of the capital.
A narrow fairway opened between the boats and rafts, and up and down this there passed two broken threads of traffic, composed of tiny dug-outs, shoot- ing swiftly in and out amid the numerous obstruc- tions.
The bright colours of the Malay's garments made little splashes of red or green or yellow against the tawny waters of the river, and the dusty mat roof- ings of rafts and boats. The flickering fronds of the cocoanut, sugar, betel, and sago palms, and the spreading boughs of fruit trees of many varieties- dividing among them almost every conceivable shade of green stretched forth from either bank friendly hands that nearly met above the ruddy waters of the stream, upon which they cast a sun- flecked, shifting shadow, infinitely refreshing to the eye. Above, seen through the mass of fronds and boughs and foliage, the cloudless Malayan sky arched over us; and below us the browns and yellows of the palm-leaf roofings of boats and rafts relieved the even redness of the river.
A gentle breeze, which had sped upstream from the sea, playing catch as catch can with the flowing tide, sighed dreamily in our cars, and the heavy silence was broken only by the monotonous thud of a paddle handle against a boat's wooden side, the faint bleat of a goat, the whisper of an occasional stronger gust among the palm fronds, and the purring sound of old Tukang Burok's polishing tools.
"Than, the girl was very fair, and the madness came upon me, and I loved her."
He held a beautiful piece of the buttress root of the kumining tree between the toes of his left foot and sat working at its surface with a mass of rough empelas leaves held in both hands. Even in its raw state the wonderful, bold markings of the wood, the great curves and patches of black against their yellow background, were plainly to be discerned, an earnest of the magnificence that would be revealed when finally worked up and varnished, and the old Tukang handled it lovingly.
"Your servant was a youth in those so long ago days, and when it comes to the young, the madness. is very hot and burning so that the eyes will not sleep and the belly hath no desire for rice, and the liver is like a live ember in the breast. And, in Iruth, old age changes a man but little. Behold the lusts of him are as greal as of yore, only his bones are stiff and his limbs have turned traitor, and rage assails his liver as he watches the maidens playing the game of eye play with the children who deem them- selves men, shooting their love-darts before his very face, without modesty or shanie, and never so much as casting a glance his way, unless they would seek his help to aid them in their intrigues and their stolen meetings. Ya Allah! It is very evil, Tan, to grow old, and age cometh apace. One day a man is young; on the morrow-or so it seems-youth has fled; a little more and the eyes wax dim, the ears are heavy of hearing, and only the liver within him is unchanged in the fury of unsatisfied desire. To cach one of us age is a surprise-so quickly have the years slipped by, so short the time that has sped, so gradual the decay of the body, yet so much swifter is it than the change wrought in the soul. Some there be who turn their thoughts to money when the maidens will have nought of them; but what music is there in the clink-u-chunk of silver pieces compared with the love words whispered in the darkness by the lips of a girl, and what beauty abides in the moon face of a coin by the side of the pale face and laughing eyes of a maiden ripe for love? Ambui! It is very hard to grow old. I, your servant, sit here all the day long, fashioning kris hilts and dagger sheaths for the youths, that they may make a brave show in the eyes of their lights o' love, and the young folk pass hither aud thither in my sight, and I mark the glint in their eyes as they look the one upon the other, till tears of envy well up in these old eyes of mine, for well I know that never again will a girl have unbought love to offer me.
"Therefore, Tuan, I sit here musing over the days of long ago, and at times lears gather in my eyes, so that I can barely see the wood to fashion it. In my time, after the way of men, I have loved and been loved by many women; but now that I am old, ever my thoughts and my longings play around the girl whom I held dearer and more desirable than any, she who in an evil hour was lost to me ere yet I had known her for my wife. In truth, Tuan, my lot hath been chěláka, accursed of Fate.
"Be pleased to listen to my story, Tuan, for it is very strange. Moreover, though my affliction was great, men made a mock of me and of my grief, and derided me by reason of the nature of my calamity.
"It was very long ago, when the old Bendahâra reigned in Palang, and he who to-day is Sultan was a fugitive from his wrath; and these things happened far away in the ala-the upper reaches of the river- in those distant places where, the streams being slender, men regard a gallon of water as a deep pool, as the saying goes. I was wandering through the country, trading, for I had incurred guilt owing to a trouble that arose concerning certain love passages between myself and a maiden of the Bendahara's household. For a while, therefore, my father deemed it prudent that I should quit the capital, where the king was very wroth, and hide for a space among the villages on the banks of the shallow, bustling streams, where the folk are peaceful and foolish, and ready to do aught that they are bidden by a man belonging to the Bendahara's court, siner they hold such people in awe. It was here that I beheld the maiden, and forthwith the madness came upon me and I loved her.
"I was astonished that such beauty should be found in so remote and so barbarous a place; for this girl was a daughter of the village folk, and their women are commonly coarse and big and ill- favoured, with their hands roughened by hard labour, and their faces tanned black as the bottom of a cooking-pot by exposure to the sun, since they do much work in the rice-fields. But this girl, Túan, was slender and delicate, and her face was light in colour, and had the effulgence of the moon when it is at the full in truth I cannot tell to you the wonder of her beauty. Even now, when I am old, as I then was young, my liver waxes hot at the thought of her loveliness. For every man in the world there is al- ways one woman. Allah knoweth that our loves are many so many that no man may retain in his mind the memory of all of them; but the others are as shadows while one is the reality. So it hath been with me. I was a son of the king's city, born to mate with one bred gently in the precincts of the court; yet at the sight of this village nuaiden, my liver was crumbled to atoms, and I knew that life held nought of worth to me until I could have her for my own. Therefore. I sent the marriage portion lo her parents, who were much elated that my father's son should desire to wed their daughter.
"A day was set apart for the feast of the Becom- ing One; and while I awaited its coming. I was devoured by impatience and by desire, so that the days were like a heavy burden strapped upon my back; but when evening fell, I used to creep softly under her parents' house, and peep at the maiden through the interstices of the floor or of the walls of wattled bamboo, feasting upon her loveliness, until the lights were extinguished, and I went away through the darkness sadly to my sleeping-mat. I was filled with a madness of desire, but also I was happy, since I knew that in a little space the girl would be mine.
"Now it was upon a day, about a Friday-span from that which had been fixed for the Becoming One, that calamity came upon me, utterly destroy- ing me, as the blight withers the ripening crop, making the ears empty things and vain. It was in this wise. Listen, Tuan, and then say was ever trouble like unto mine, shame comparable to the disgrace that was put upon me, or sorrow akin to that whereby I was afflicted.
"Hodoh was her name. Yes, as you say, she was ill-named, for in truth she was beautiful, not ugly, as the word implies but it was thus that her folk had called her when she was little, and in my ears it hath lost its meaning and is ever the dearest of all names.
"It chanced that Hodoh was alone in the house, all her people having gone forth to work in the crops. leaving her because the hour of her wedding was so near at hand. Thus no one was near when a Sâkai inan, one Pa Ah-Gap, the Rhinoceros, came to the house out of the jungle, praying for rice and for tobacco.
"Now these Sakai, as you know, Tuan, are sorry animals, and our people do not suffer them to enter our houses, for they are of an evil odour, indescrib- ably dirty, and are, moreover, afflicted with skin discases, so that from afar off they appear to be as white as a fair woman. The villagers of the interior bear little love to the Sakai, though they do much trade with them; and the womenfolk hold them in special loathing and contempt, and cannot by any means abide their proximity. When, therefore, Hodoh beheld the face of Pa'Ah-Gap, scarred with blue tattoo-marks, with hair in locks like the top of the ragged sago-palm yonder, and his body, naked save for a loin-cloul, gray with the warm wood ashes in which he had slept, and with skin flaky with lupus, she was at once angered and afraid. Ac- cordingly, seizing a párang, she threatened him with it and cried aloud bidding him be gone, cursing him for a filthy, misbegotten, nile-eaten Sakai. Also she shouted "Hinchit! Ilinchit!" after the man- ner of men who drive away a dog.
"Pa' Ah-Gap stood gazing at her in silence, rub- bing his left calf slowly against his right shin bone, and scratching his scalp with one clawlike hand hidden in his mop of hair: and he gazed insolently at Hodoh. who abated not her railing and heaped shame upon him with many injurious words. Then, when she paused breathless, he lifted up his voice and spoke
"Daughter of the Gobs,' he said. 'Why do you thus miscall your lover? Behold, in a little while, you shall seek me in the forests, imploring me to have mercy upon you, and to take you for my own, and in that day, if I have a mind to pleasure you, you shall be to ime my light of love."
"At this, Hôdoh, overcome with rage and shame, fled into the house, shutting the door and- barring it, shrieking abuse and threats at Pa'Ah-Gap, who stood without, laughing harshly, as the frogs croak when the monsoon is upon us.
"Then, when Hôdoli had retreated into the house, Pa' Ah-Gap began to patter a charm in the Sâkai tongue, for these folk are greatly skilled in magic, the gods of the ancient days, whom we liave aban- doned for Allah and his Prophet, abiding with them, as of old they abode with us, and these gods are the children of Iblis. Also, very slowly, he picked his hark loin-clout into little flecks and shreds with his fingers, standing mother-naked in the open space before the house; for these people are shameless, like animals. Then he cast seven pieces toward the north and toward the south, and toward the place where the sun cometh to life, and toward the place where daily the sum dieth. Next he shouted three times in a very bestial fashion, so that the people in the rice-fields heard him and fell a wondering what creature it was that was crying from the jungle. Lastly he danced silently and alone, making a com- plete circuit of the house. All these doings Hôdoh observed, as she peeped at him through the chinks of the bamboo walls; and when all had been ac- complished, Pa' Ah-Gap slipped into the forest, niak- ing no sound in his going, as is the manner of the jungle people. But, as he went, at each step he let fall little pieces of his unravelled loin-clout, leaving behind him a trail such as a man makes who chews sugarcane as he walks.
"At the hour when the kine go down to water, the parents and brethren of Hôdolt returned from the rice-field, and she made complaint to them concern- ing the evil behaviour of Pa' Ah-Gap, the Sâkai; and her father was very angry, swearing that he would punish the animal, and that with no sparing hand, for thus molesting his women kind. There was much talk in the house that night, and I, hiding beneath the flooring, heard all that passed; and I, too, vowed that I would belabour that Sakai for daring thus to insult the woman who was to be mine.
"Now it chanced that, shortly after sleep had come to all within the house, save only to Hôdoh, who lay wide-eyed upon her mat, that a mighty burning came upon her, consuming her body as it were with fire, assailing her from her head even to her feet, and making of her heart and her liver and her spleen and her hugs so many red-hot embers, scorching their way through her flesh; and at the same time, speech was wholly reft from her, so that she could by no means cry out or summon any one to her aid. Forthwith, moreover, a sudden knowl- edge came to her that the cool, dark jungles could alone abate the agony she was enduring; wherefore, she arose softly, and making no sound, stole out of the house.
"The moon was at the full, very bright and vivid, so that the girl found it an easy matter to pick her way out of the village and into the forest; and though our people, men and women alike, love not to journey into the forest alone, even during the daytime, Hô- doh was this night wholly devoid of fear. Also she was impelled by something within her to gather up the shreds of Pa' Ah-Gap's loin-clout, pressirg them to her lips and nose, for the contact with the rough bark cloth seemed to cool a little the burning pain within her. Thus she followed in the path which Pa' Ah-Gap, the Sâkai, had trodden, travelling on and on alone till the inoonlight was wrestling with the yellow of the dawn. The shreds of loin- clout grew fewer and fewer, each piece at a greater distance than the last; but only by their aid was sho able to assuage the pain consuming her, and so they led her on and on.
"The sun had come to life when at length sha came out of the jungle on to a big clearing, in which the Sâkai had planted a catch-crop, and in the centre of it were the rude huts in which the forest dwellers herd. At the foot of the low ladder lead- ing to the first of these, and facing the track by which she had come, sat Pa' Ah-Gap, waiting for her.
"He sat quite still, looking at her with eyes that mocked; and of a sudden she knew that only the embrace of this man would extinguish the magic fires that were eating out her life. Also, shame, which is as an eternal fetter clamped about the ankles of women, fell from her, and she was aware of a mighty passion for this aged and depraved crea- ture springing up hot and masterful in her breast. Therefore, she ran to him, casting herself at his feet and across his knees, entreating him, with cries and pleadings, to have his will of her. Thus was ac- complished all that he had foretold.
"What say you, Túan? Was not the magic of this accursed Sakai very powerful and marvellous? Even among our own folk, Muhammadan with Muhammadan, no maiden willingly throws herself into the arms of her lover, love she never so dearly; for Allah, in his wisdom, have so fashioned women that they feel shame pressing upon them like an over- whelming burden, which so crushes them and the desire within them that they may not move hand or foot. This hath been prudently ordered, for were there no modesty among women, great trouble would ensue, secing that their passions are greater than the passions of men; and even now, though shame still lingers in the land, there is trouble and to spare of women's making. But, behold, it now befell that Iodoh, a Muhammadan and a virgin, my betrothed, my love, the core of my heart's core, one who was rendered by her beauty the most desirable among women, yielded herself with entreaties to this infidel, this wild man of the woods a Sakai, filthy and diseased praying for his love, and caressing his soot-begrimed hide. Was ever madness or magic like unto this? Ya Allah! Ya Tuhan-ku! I can- not bear to think of that which befell."
Old Tukang Búrok paused in his narrative, and spat disgustedly and with emphasis into the stream below. His lined and wrinkled face was working queerly. IIe had let his tools fall from his grasp, and his hands were trembling. Even after the lapse of many years, the memory of his balked desire, and the thought of his love surrendering herself to a despised jungle man, aroused in him fierce passions of rage and jealousy.
For a minute or two he was silent; then selecting a chisel with care, he set to work to bevel the kamún- ing wood with great delicacy and finish. Presently, after again expectorating emphatically, he resumed his story.
"She dwelt three full days and nights with this accursed Sâkai-may Allah blight him utterly!- ere ever we learned from some of his own folk that she was among the jungle people. Then Che' Mat, her father, and her brethren and her relatives- men knowing the use of weapons-went, and I with them. making great speed, to the Sakai camp. But, alas, Pa' Ah-Gap had fled, and Hodoh had gone with lium. Soute men, however, remained in the camp, and these, by means of the tuas,* we persuaded to
- The tias is a very simple and effective torture in considerable favour amon
Malays when more elaborate appliances are not available. The victim is placed upon the ground in a sitting position, with his legs extended before him. A slout piece of wood is then placed across his thighs, and a second piece is then passed over the first, and inserted under his buttocks. Next, using the second piece of wood as a lever, at the first piece as the fulcrum, great pressure is exerted, in such a manner that the thighs of the victim are crushed down toward the ground, while the buttocks are puste violently upward, causing acute pain. show us the path which the fugutives had taken. Thereafter, during many weary days, we followed on his trail at times close on his heels, at others losing all trace of liim; but though Iôdoh went with him willingly, she had no woodcraft and could not con- ceal her tracks, and also she went slowly, and so aided our pursuit. On that so terrible journey I ate no rice, though I drank deeply at the springs, for my throat was parched; and at night sleep did not visit me, till I was like one demented. Moreover, the madness of love was upon me, and my rage was like a red-hot goad urging me onward.
"For how many days and nights we journeyed thus I cannot tell, but Che' Mat and all his people were wearying of the quest, which I would not suffer them to abandon, when in the fullness of the appointed hour we found Pa' Ah-Gap asleep, with Hôdoli, clad only in a loin-elout, by his side in the warm ashes of their camp fire. The Sâkai dog had tattooed lier face, as is the wont of these so animal-like people, and she was moreover very thin and worn, and much aged by her sojourn in the forest, and she was be- grimed with the dirt and the wood ashes of the Sâkad lairs. We caught him alive, for he slept heavily, being wearied by his long marches: and I and one other, Hodoh's brother crept very cautionsly upon him. Also, I think, Allah whom he had offended, for he was an infidel, while the woman was of the Faith, gave him that day into our hands, for mostly the jungle-folk sleep with one ear cocked and one eye agape.
"We bound him hand and foot with cords of ral- tan, which ate into his flesh as this chisel cats into the kamuning wood, and we used such force that he screamed aloud with pain. She who had been Hodoh fought and bit at us, like a wildcat newly caught in the woods, so we were obliged to bind her also, but gently, with the cloth of our sarongs, doing her no hurt. Thus we bore them back to the village whence Hodoh had fled upon that fatal night; and thereafter we put Pa' Ah-Gap to the torture of the bamboo."
"What is that?" I asked.
Tukang Búrok smiled grimly, his old eyes lighting up with a thrill of pleasurable recollection.
"It is not filling, Tuan, that I should describe it with particularity," he said. "There be certain methods, none the less, whereby the quick-growing shoot of the small bamboo can be taught to grow into the vitals of a man, causing him such slow agony as even the Shetans in Jehannam have scarce dreamed of.
"When first we bound him to the seat whereon he was to die, he glared upon us with the eyes of a wild beast, giving vent to no sound; and I was grieved that he did not pray for mercy, that I, with mockery. might refuse it to him. But later, when the bam- boo began to grow, he prayed to be spared till I. who sat beside him, keeping a ceaseless vigil and gloating over his pain, even I was nearly satisfied. His agony was very lingering and keen, and soon he entreated us to kill him, suing for death, as a lover importunes his mistress. Often, irked by his clam- our, I sinote him on the lips-those lips which had done her dishonour. Then for a space he became mad, flinging his body this way and that, and raving night and day; and this made me sad, for while the insanity was upon him he could no longer feel, as I had a mind that this man should feel even to the brink of the hour in which death snatched him from us. And at last, when he was dead, my rage was still unsated, and I besought Allah, the Merciful and Compassionate, that his agony might endure for- ever.
"In the hour when he died, Hôdoh came back to us out of the enchantment which had held her cap- tive, for the spell laid upon her was broken. But her memory held the recollection of all that had befallen her, so that she was well-nigh distraught with shame. Also her body was weakened by her life in the jungle, and she was racked by fever and many aches and pains. Morcover, the burning of her skin, she said. was that which Pa' Ah-Gap had inflicted upon her by his magic on the evening of the day when she miscalled him.
"She had no desire to live, and very soon she returned to the mercy of Allah, and I was left alive. to mourn during all my days for the fairest maiden ever born of woman, who had lighted in my breast fires of desire than the years have never quenched. And how bitter is the thought that such a thing of beauty was wasted upon a dog of a Sakai-the vilest of our kind. It is that memory which is my per- petual pain; wherefore, Tuan, when as occasion re- quires, you pray unto your Christian God, bid Him join with Allah in the utter blighting and destruc- tion of the soul of Pa' Ah-Gap, the Sâkai."
- ↑ Kâjang—The name given to mats made from the dried and prepared fronds of the mêngkuang palm, sown together with rattan. They are yellow in colour, and have a glazed surface which renders them water-proof. They are used for roofing boats and temporary shelters, and serve in the Peninsula many of the purposes to which in Europe tarpaulin is put.