Love and Death in Bali by Vicki Baum

Author:Vicki Baum [Baum, Vicki]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
Published: 2011-06-04T04:00:00+00:00

Raka

BEYOND the western courtyards, where most of the slaves lived and kept their poultry and pigs, rose a wall, and beyond this wall the stir and noise of the puri suddenly ceased.

It bounded a ruinous part of it where no one lived and no one ever went. Creepers and shrubs had overgrown the tumble-down buildings and dragged them to the ground in their embrace. The chief building of this forgotten courtyard was surrounded by a ditch, but the bridge had given way and sunk into the water. The demons who guarded the entrance were nothing now but moss-covered blocks of stone. Wild bees made their homes in the trees and huge butterflies hovered undisturbed above the flowers. Mosquitoes hung in dense clouds over the stagnant water and the smell of decay mingled with the penetrating scent of salicanta flowers.

It was here that Lambon had her secret encounters with Raka. The lovers met there almost daily, for their passion consumed them with such a devouring flame that desire began to torture them again even though they had parted only an hour before. Raka made his way there by a forgotten and crumbling gateway on the west side of the palace wall and Lambon had discovered a path that led by a round-about way from the temple to the spot where Raka awaited her. They had to jump across the wide ditch, and then they were safe in the ruined house on the forgotten island, where perhaps in other days the favorite wife of one of the lords had been housed. The steps had given way and the couches too, but there was a door they could shut behind them and Lambon with Muna’s help had brought mats there to rest on. Even before the night on which she and Raka saw each other again Lambon had made this place her refuge. She had sat there hour after hour with parted lips, tranced as the water-lilies were in the standing water. Sometimes she cried; sometimes she fell asleep until Muna came to fetch her. Thus she was led to believe that Muna thought nothing of her spending every hour there that her lord did not require of her. But the eyes of the slave-girl, in which there was just the trace of a squint, saw more than Lambon thought. Her little brain was sharp and well versed in the intrigues of the raja’s wives and nothing that concerned the secret crimes of love escaped her. But Muna’s liking for her new mistress equalled her hatred of Bernis, and so she loyally and silently protected her from the inquisitive eyes and ears of the puri.

Few words were wasted when Raka and Lambon met. Their love was too great and their longing too strong. They rushed together like two animals, and had no more power to separate than a pair of dragonflies that eddied linked together over the sawahs. It was only when fatigue came to loosen their embrace that the tide of tenderness reached their hands.

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