SCENE II

Later in the morning. Lights turned up to show Bendahara and Chorus still on stage without the crowd. Guard enters from the left dragging Anike with him.

BENDAHARA

Why have you dragged this woman here? Have you taken leave

of your senses? Do you know who she is?

She is betrothed to Nadim, heir to the throne.

You may well have dragged in your future queen

You will answer with your life for manhandling her like this.

GUARD

Guard still holds on to Anike who stops stuggling. She slouches and hangs her head looking at the ground.

I caught her. I caught her scrabbling the ground for mud

to cover the rotting corpse. Where is Tuanku?

I have brought him the ‘man’ he wanted me so much to find.

Maniaka enters by the central door.

CHORUS (A hanger-on)

Tuanku is here now.

MANIAKA (Surprised, shouts)

What is happening here? (To Guard) You! Unhand her.

Why is she in such a wretched condition like this?

You will answer for this outrage. But first, where is the man

I told you to bring me?

GUARD

He holds on to Anike.

She is the ‘man’ you wanted, Tuanku.

I caught her. It was I who caught her burying the body.

That is why I brought her here. She acted alone.

This shows that none of us on the watch has taken bribes.

MANIAKA (To Anike)

Is it true what the man says? You buried the body?

ANIKE

Yes, it is true.

MANIAKA

Oh! I cannot believe it.

Turning to Guard.

Tell me from beginning to the end,

exactly what happened, and let me judge

GUARD

Guard lets go of Anike, and walks a few paces away from her and addresses Manianka.

I stumbled my way back, confused and frightened.

(Ingratiatingly) You know how we all hold you in awe, Tuanku.

Anyway, I went back to tell the others of Tuanku’s demand

that we find the man who cut Sirat down and buried him.

Otherwise, we would be the ones to be blamed for the crime.

By then the others had already recovered the body

from its shallow trench. So I had us all together heave it up

against the tree and tie it again to a low bare branch.

The sun then was white hot in the sky. In the growing heat,

the dead man’s already softened flesh gave off light fumes.

They curled up into our nostrils with such a sting, we gagged

and vomited all we had eaten in the morning – tosai and all.

But we still had our arms about him and set our shoulders

to raise his torso up. We did this so we could tie him

and let him dangle from the tree again. We pressed our cheeks

into the stinking mess. Why? Because we also were tied to him

by duty and our fear. We dared not even move too far away

to begin again our watch and arranged to go by turns

to a stream nearby to wash. Before the first man

to the stream was done, the day darkened. Banks of black cloud

broke into rain and poured down on us in great torrents.

It was as if a flood-gate had opened up in the sky.

Out in the open in sparse belukar, lightning blinded us.

The added terror of the thunder in its after-flash

drove us running to the city gate for shelter.

No one would be out and about in such hellish weather,

we thought. When the rain abated, we went back to that tree

and as we approached it, we saw through the ground mists

from the rain that clearly it was the tree that was naked.

The body was no longer hanging there.

Someone had stripped it of its ripening fruit.

He turns and points at Anike.

Then I saw her, kneeling by a mound of mud.

She had with her a small knife and a kerchief-ful of flowers.

With cupped hands, she was scooping more mud

off the ground to add to the mound, and all the while

she was sobbing. The sound she made was not quite human.

It was soft and low, yet it struck me more deeply

than any sound an animal would make. We ran towards her,

shouting as we ran, but like a giant bird in brood

she did not scare. She stayed crouched, silent now, by the mound.

She was not afraid of us at all. I was the first to grab her.

She fought us, kicking and scratching. She fought us

not because she wanted to run away. She was angry

that we dared lay hands on her. We had to hold her, Tuanku,

that I might bring her here and let her tell you

she buried Sirat by herself, that my companions of the watch

and I have no part in it and are wholly blameless of the crime.

MANIAKA (To Anike)

Is all this true?

ANIKE (Not looking at him)

Yes.

MANIAKA

You deny nothing then? That you are alone in this?

ANIKE

I deny nothing. I buried my brother, Sirat.

MANIAKA (To Guard)

You may go

Guard leaves by way of the left side of the stage.

Did you not hear of my edict prohibiting anyone

on pain of death from tampering with the body?

ANIKE

How could I not hear of your edict? You made

a public proclamation of it and told all who were there

to hear you to spread the word to everyone else in the city.

MANIAKA

Did you expect me to make an exception in your case,

counting on your ties with my son and eventually to me?

ANIKE

No, I did not. And I do not now.

MANIAKA

Then why did you commit this crime, defying me,

undermining by it my authority and the power

of the state? Have you no fear of dying?

ANIKE

She straightens up and turns to face Maniaka, her fear muted
by anger.

You have used the power and authority of the throne

not as a bulwark by which you defend,

as a king should, your people against invading forces

of disorder, lawlessness, and ruin You used it as a prop

and scaffold to raise and hold you standing high

in false kingly majesty to awe your people

into fearful mute obedience. Justice was on your side

when you ordered Sirat killed. But when you have Wira

string him up to dangle from a tree to rot, dripping with fluids,

to offend the eyes and noses of all your people,

you have traduced justice and turned it into

a petty vengeful malevolence.

Approaches Maniaka and raises her voices, but does not shout.

Your edict is a sham.

It does not serve nor secure the peace and order

of our great city but only to salve your anger at Sirat.

He dared show the people, to your utter shame,

they have a weak, untrustworthy and capricious king.

Pauses. Her tone is now calm.

I observe a higher law, that which is founded on

a sister’s love and a duty for the safekeeping

of the honour of our house. Most of all, it is founded

on a subject’s right to ignore unjust, self-serving laws

of king and government. By your gross desecration

of my kin, you have taught me what dying means.

So where is the fear of dying when I have died to life.

I do not live so long as Sirat’s spirit is not appeased

and the honour of our forefathers not restored.

Do I confuse life with death and death with life

and so seem foolish to you? It is you who are foolish,

a king too foolish to know the meaning of his acts.

BENDAHARA

This is a woman from a willful and rebellious stock.

Her brother Sirat was full of himself for his prowess

in killing proven in his many fights for Tuanku

where he left the field squishy with the bleeding dead.

We knew the father too. He once slapped me in a rage,

and when he did not get his way with the old Tuanku,

he dared to turn his back and walk away in anger.

MANIAKA

This is a woman who yet has much to learn.

Yes, she is hard, she shows me a will like iron,

but the keris made from the stiffest iron is the keris

that most easily breaks. She has committed a double crime,

first to defy me, then to fling it in my face by boasting.

For what she has done, she cannot go unpunished,

else I am not king. A daughter by marriage,

even a daughter closer still by blood cannot be allowed

to undermine the law and so set anarchy loose

upon our city. Yet it is because of ties of blood

she has done what she has done. She has said as much.

Pauses as a new thought comes into his mind.

Ah… The same blood that flows in her veins flows

in Yasmine’s too. Yasmine must also be in on this.

Go, some of you, arrest Yasmine, bring her to me.

You should find her cowering in her house.

What a nest of vipers have I stumbled on.

And to think that I almost let them graft themselves

onto my house and let their blood mingle with mine

to bring forth generations of venomous creatures

down the line. Now is the time to clean them out,

else what rebellions, what upheavals to our people

they will plot if left in the darkness of their hole.

ANIKE

What I have done I have done only by myself.

Yasmine has no part in it. When you have me killed,

you have your so-called justice. In doing more

you will repeat with me the malevolence you showed

in shaming Sirat and will further expose yourself

as the frightened, suspicious little man you really are.

You only look fearsome in a mirage of yourself as king.

Look at all these people here. They would praise me

for upholding the dignity and honour of the dead,

for ripping off sham justice which you use to cover

your petty vindictiveness. But fear has frozen them

into a living death, benumbed of all feelings of shame,

of expression in their eyes, of bodily gestures,

of speech to say it is right to resist an unjust king.

MANIAKA

Anike, you are totally alone in your delusion.

ANIKE

No. If fear has not frozen up their tongues

and constricted their throats in its cold grip,

they will surely speak up for me , even sing my praises.

MANIAKA

They do not speak as they have no need to defend themselves.

Guilt makes you wag your tongue to make some noise

to distract yourself from having to face up to your guilt.

ANIKE

To honour the dead is not guilt. Ask them.

Ah, but I forget… These eunuchs cannot speak.

MANIAKA

What honour your dear brother ever had, he lost it

when he betrayed my trust in him as my fighting man.

Instead, he cast me out of my own palace, turned it

into a baboon’s domain, with him as the only male,

killing all others who would not be scared away

and humping any female willing and on heat

ANIKE

Sirat was my brother. As a sister who loved him

I honour him. I honour him for his courage,

for daring to haul you bodily down the perch

you call a throne when he saw not a king on it.

He saw an insecure little man, fearful of being dislodged,

fearful of his baubles and his women being taken

by another perhaps more fit to be king.

Sirat was a man. Heaven alone may judge him

for his excesses – certainly not you, not Wira,

blinded by stupidity, not seeing you through that veneer

of your play-acting kingship for what you are.

I tire of all this talk. If you are going to have me killed,

have your henchman do it quickly. That is all.

MANIAKA

Honour your brother then, not here, but in hell.

CHORUS (A hanger-on)

See, here comes Yasmine.

Yasmine enters under guard from the leftt.

Her tears are a sister’s tears,

tears for a brother dead, for a sister she cannot save,

and for herself, drawn with her sister into the abyss.

MANIAKA

You too, Yasmine. Were you not with her, ignored my edict?

YASMINE (Unexpectedly)

Yes.

MANIAKA (Triumphant)

Now I have discovered a whole nest of vipers,

smoked them out from the cracks and burrows under my house

that they be scotched in the light…

ANIKE

No, Yasmine! No!

You have no part in this. Say you have no part in this.

YASMINE

Yes, I have. I knew what you were about to do.

I did nothing to stop you and I said nothing.

ANIKE

You did nothing to help me. You cannot help me now.

YASMINE

I understand now the meaning of your intent

when we spoke together. I have to join you now,

accept punishment for my share of the burden of guilt.

ANIKE

Only Sirat and the gods who rule over the dead

know it was I who gave him the honour of a burial.

You were not with me. You cannot claim a share in the act.

If you die for it now, you die a wholly useless death.

YASMINE

I need to be with you as my duty to Sirat demands.

Do you refuse me, Anike?

ANIKE

You will not diminish my death.

YASMINE

What shall I do when you too are gone?

ANIKE

Turn to Maniaka. Take back all your claims to so-called guilt.

Perhaps out of kindness, perhaps out of caprice

he will offer to take you in.

YASMINE

You are mocking me now.

ANIKE

If I laugh at you, it is mirthless laughter

YASMINE

Is there nothing I can do then?

ANIKE

Save yourself.

There will be those who will praise you, though you choose to live.

YASMINE

But we are both equally guilty.

ANIKE

Say no more, Yasmine.

I am no longer of this world. I belong with the dead.

MANIAKA (To Chorus)

Look at these two girls. One has lost her mind.

As to the other, I do not know that she has one.

YASMINE (Turning to Maniaka)

I was in a fog for the confusion you caused me

with the shame and fear for the unspeakable horror

you would wreak upon my sister. I still cannot see

the way ahead, how I should go on living without her.

MANIAKA

She is already dead. Perhaps you will live.

I see that you claim to be guilty when you are not,

notwithstanding your silence.

YASMINE

She is your son’s bride.

MANIAKA

I thank the gods that her blood will not be mixed

into my line to give me a bastard brood of serpents.

I shall ensure that my son will take care not to sully

the bloodline of our royal house. Your city shall have kings

like me in long succession to maintain its glory.

YASMINE

Poor Nadim, how your father wrongs you.

MANIAKA

Enough,

There will no more pointless talk about my son

and marriage.

BENDAHARA

You will deprive him of this girl?

MANIAKA

Death will take this creature and render him blessed release

from her poisoned graft.

CHORUS (An elder)

Then she will die?

MANIAKA (Ironically)

How brilliant! Enough of this fools’ talk.

(To Guards) Take them away and see that you guard them well.

They are but women. Even a strong man will fight to tear

at his restraints when death’s cold breath blows down his neck

Anike and Yasmine leave under guard by way of the left side
of the stage.