Tales of a Female Nomad (21 page)

One day when we are talking about marriage in Bali, Tu Aji tells me that Balinese men often have women other than their wives. (Although Tu Aji has two wives and his brother has five, it is no longer legal for a man to marry more than one woman, unless the first wife gives permission, or if she cannot have children. The courts decide.)

I ask Tu Aji if the wives know about the other women.

“The wives know and don’t know,” he says. “They see but they don’t see.” He holds his hand, the fingers wide open, in front of his eyes.

One of the reasons Balinese wives choose not to see is that there is little they can do about it. Women are second-class citizens. They do not inherit; instead, when a woman marries, she must move from her father’s home to the home of her husband’s family, where she is totally dependent on them. There is a tearful ceremony at which the bride, flanked by her parents, says good-bye to her ancestors, to whom she has always prayed. From that point on, she will pray and give offerings to her husband’s ancestors, and serve her mother-in-law as well.

The place of women is obvious at celebrations, on the street, in the homes. On ceremonial occasions, they sit lower (pavilions have different heights) and are served their meals after the men. And I have also heard stories about wife beatings. Yet, divorce in Bali is only about 2 percent, probably because if the woman leaves the marriage, the children are legally the property of the husband’s family.

It is difficult for me to accept this inequality, but I do not permit myself to dwell on it. I too must learn how to see and not see. As a guest in this culture, my role is to observe, not to judge.

One day, when our conversation centers on women, Tu Aji tells me that, like all women in Bali, Tu Biang has a much closer relationship with the gods and the ancestors than he does. She communicates with them daily.

Every morning Tu Biang pours coffee, sweetened with sugar, into twenty-five tiny orange cups that are arranged on a tray. Then she puts the coffee and sticks of incense into the altars, most of which are in the family temple. (Every home in Bali has a family temple with altars to the gods and the ancestors.) The smell of the incense alerts the spirits that coffee has been served. Being spirits, they only take the essence of the coffee, and later of the rice, which explains why there is still coffee in the cups and rice in the containers at the end of the day.

In addition to their special relationship with the ancestors, women also have close connections to what is going on in this world. Each morning before eight, vendors arrive in the
puri
with their wares on their heads and the village secrets on their tongues. Women selling vegetables, fruit, and squirming eels snatched from the rice paddies also carry with them the news and gossip of the night before. Who climbed through whose bedroom window, who was beaten by her husband, who was drunk, and who got into a fight.

Often, later in the day, the women sit together making offerings, sharing their secrets, and passing on the gossip. In spite of their second-class citizenship, women get strength and sisterhood from the bonding that takes place daily as they sit together weaving palm leaves and assembling offerings.

One morning, after I have been in the
puri
for nearly two months, Jero Made is making the eggplant dish we often have as part of dinner. I tell her I want to learn how to cook it. She has already added chopped garlic, onion, and chili pepper to hot coconut oil. “You cook this until it releases a good smell,” she tells me. “Then you add a little shrimp paste mixed with water and wait again until it releases another good smell.”

Noting my reaction to the unpleasant smell of the shrimp paste, she adds with a smile, “According to a Balinese nose.”

As she moves things around in the wok, she says, “You will probably sneeze from this aroma.”

Then she adds the eggplant and salt.

Like all Balinese food, the eggplant is cut into small pieces and eaten over rice with the fingers or with a spoon in the right hand and a fork in the left. In a Balinese home, the eater never needs a knife.

I take a little taste. It’s great. Jero Made watches my face, hears my sigh, and smiles with pride. As I am tasting, a servant from the king’s compound arrives with a message for me. The wives would very much like to have English lessons, and they would be happy to come here.

We begin lessons that night. The king’s five wives arrive at five o’clock, and they are joined by Tu Aji’s two wives. Just before they get here, Dayu Biang puts eight jasmine blossoms in the middle of the big dining table, “for a sweet lesson.”

The wives are very different from one another. Wife Number Two and Wife Number Five are big women. Wife Number One is lean. Wife Number Four wears glasses. Wife Number Three, delicate and tiny, is the only one who has studied English before.

I pass out a sheet on which I have printed a short conversation, and I read it. Then we read together. Then I read it again and call upon them to repeat the words.

They are lovely students, some much quicker than others. My biggest problem is calling on them to answer a question. All seven wives are called Tu Biang, a princess who has children. It is not polite for me to call them anything else. I ask if I can call them Wife Number One, Wife Number Two, etc., but they definitely don’t want that. I suspect they like the idea that they can avoid being called upon by lowering their eyes. Pointing is impolite.

After the first week, they acknowledge my frustration and give me their individual names: Tu Biang Sandat, Tu Biang Adi, etc. Our lessons continue. I feel like Anna in Siam.

After I have been in the
puri
for several months, Tu Biang and Tu Aji arrive at my patio one morning in formal dress.

“If you will excuse us,” says Tu Aji, “we would like to talk to you about something.”

Tu Biang, whose trademark is laughter, is not even smiling. This is serious.

“Please,” I say, lowering my head and putting my hands together.

“Rita, you have been here for more than three months,” says Tu Aji. “Every day we talk and share our lives. You have brought your joy into our
puri,
and you have helped us in many ways. We are here to tell you that you have become family. We can no longer take money from you.”

I cannot stop the tears or the swelling of pride I feel inside. I have come to Bali to seek spirituality and to learn about the Balinese world; but most important, wherever I am, I want to feel a part of the culture, to be accepted on the inside.

Now as a family member, I want even more to know about the
puri
family. Tu Aji frequently talks about his father, who, when he became blind several years before he died, was writing a family history. He continued to dictate the history to Tu Aji until it was completed. One day I ask Tu Aji if he plans to write the family history of his generation. He apologizes, to me and to his father. He has not written anything. We both know that if Tu Aji does not write it, no one will. The written story of the dynasty will end, which would be sad, because Tu Aji is a wonderful storyteller.

During our frequent conversations, Tu Aji tells me stories that make me feel as though I am living in a fairy tale.

He tells me how he happened to marry Tu Biang. His father, the king, and her father were brothers, the only male siblings of their generation. The family wealth was split, half and half, between the two brothers.

Tu Aji’s father had three sons. His brother had only one child, Tu Biang. Since wealth is passed on to sons, not to daughters, Tu Biang could not inherit her father’s half of the
puri.
Like all women, she had to “marry out” and live with her husband’s family.

But the Balinese are very practical. And when a royal family is in such a situation, the woman (a teenage Tu Biang, in this case) officially becomes a man and takes on the duties and responsibilities of a man. She inherits and chooses a “wife,” who moves into her
puri.
She also assumes economic responsibility for the family and the education of the children. There was a tricky clause that was thrown into the deal: she had to marry one of her three first cousins.

The teenage Tu Biang chose Tu Aji, who already had a wife and child, which of course angered Tu Aji’s younger brother, the king. He wanted her and her half of the wealth.

Together Tu Aji’s first family moved into Tu Biang’s part of the
puri.
The two wives never got along. Today they barely talk, though they live within fifty yards of each other.

Many years after they were married, Tu Biang was swindled out of all her money. She went crazy. For several years the beautiful princess from the
puri
ran insanely on the streets at night trying to win her money back by gambling.

Tu Aji could not help. As a “wife,” he had no money. But the king did, and he promised to assist . . . if Tu Biang would sleep with him.

Tu Biang and her mother, Tu Nini, chose instead to beg for rice from house to house, rather than give her cousin, the king, what he wanted. (Eventually, foreign guests in the
puri
helped her get back her life, some money, and her dignity.)

Tu Aji tells me that because of Tu Biang’s “fall,” one of his sons had a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized. (He’s fine now.)

Tu Aji also tells me an intriguing story about the king’s Wife Number Two. She went into a trance one day and received orders from the king’s dead father that the mother, who was still living, should adopt her, thus placing Wife Number Two into the highest caste.

Tu Aji told his brother that it would be a crazy thing to do; there was no precedent. Surely it was a scheme of Wife Number Two and not a message from their father.

The king, in that great royal tradition of punishing the messenger, cut off all relations with Tu Aji and his family for several years, sending out orders to all the extended 157 families in Kerambitan that they were to have nothing to do with Tu Aji, his wives, or his sons.

Against Tu Aji’s advice, Wife Number Two was adopted by the king’s mother, who began coughing during the ceremony, spit blood soon after, and died the next week. (The adoption didn’t work either. Bad things started to happen to the family, and a few years later it was undone.)

I am swept into Tu Aji’s stories like a child in a fairy tale. It is an enchanted world, and sinister. When Tu Aji talks about the special powers that his brother, the king, possesses, there is something ominous in the air. I have to keep reminding myself that these tales are not fiction or folklore. They are true stories about Tu Aji’s family, about people I know. People I talk to every day.

The tales are so addictive that I cannot wait to get up every morning. Something extraordinary is always lurking just minutes away in Tu Aji’s stories. Finally, I cannot stand it any more.

“Tu Aji,” I say. “Your stories are wonderful and I agree with your father: they should be recorded. Would you like to write a book with me? It will be a lot of work, many months, maybe years. Would you like to try?”

“I have been thinking about the same thing,” he says. “I would like that very much.”

And we plunge in with a fury. Every day we meet for hours. Now I am taking notes and asking questions, filling in gaps, and expanding on details. There are days when Tu Aji says, “I am tired today.” And we do not work. Often on those days he asks me questions, as interested in my stories as I am in his. I love it when his enthusiasm bursts into my dramatic pauses with “And then? And then?”

But mostly Tu Aji talks. I never get tired of listening. I cannot get enough.

Then one day I realize that there has never been anything like the book we are constructing . . . a true story of life in a real kingdom that reads like a fairy tale. I am suddenly frightened.

“Tu Aji, I do not want you to work today. I would like you to think about something instead. I have just realized that our book has the potential of becoming a bestseller. That means it will be read all over the world . . . and it will certainly find its way back to Bali. The story of your family will be read by millions of people. They will read about your children, your brother, your wives. The good, the bad, and the embarrassing will be there in print for everyone to know. Please think carefully about the consequences. If you decide that you do not want to do it, I will understand.”

The next morning Tu Aji joins me on my patio. “I have made a decision,” he says. “I am not worried about the stories we tell about my sons. They have all passed through their difficulties. Besides, I am their father and I can tell their stories. My wives’ stories too, I can tell. Those stories are my stories as well. But I have decided that the stories about my brother cannot be told while we are both alive. The book cannot be published until one of us is dead.”

“No problem,” I say, hoping that his brother will be the first to go. “We can do all the work; we can even look for a publisher. We will just stipulate that the publication will have to wait until you or your brother dies.”

“Good, then,” he says. “Let’s continue.”

Four days later I walk out of my room at six in the morning. Tu Aji is sitting on my patio.