was dusk, and I was sitting on the veranda talking with Sarda when I heard the sound of steps on the gravel. I looked out, to see three figures approaching single file through the trees. The leader walked in a curious way. He seemed to drift in, for although he advanced in a straight line his body slanted sideways to the right, while his head tilted slightly to the left. He gave the impression of being on the point of going off in any direction.
But there was authority, I could see, in the way he came up the two steps of the veranda and sat down on the floor a little distance from my chair. His two young followers sat respectfully on the lower step.
Sarda introduced him.
This is Nyoman Kalér, head of the banjar and teacher of the légong dancers.
He wore a tight white coat, cut in the old colonial style, with brass buttons that ran up to the neck; a worn sarong and a tightly knotted headcloth completed his attire. He bowed politely before speaking.
Tuan has just arrived? They say tuan is from America.
He spoke in a gentle, friendly voice. He was a slight man, perhaps thirty, with intelligent eyes and a smiling, well-shaped mouth that was both sensual and vaguely sarcastic. There was also something a little pedantic about him, something birdlike in the way he inclined his head first one way then another as he talked.
The boys sat very still and silent, their hands folded in their laps. The older one had the features of Nyoman Kalér, but in his face there was only serenity. A small white flower bud hung down the centre of his forehead, its stem fastened in a hair.
Tuan has come to paint pictures perhaps?
My visitor came directly to the point.
I explained that I was a musician, that I composed music, and had come here simply to listen to Balinese music. I told him I expected to remain several months. I said I was happy to know he was a musician like myself, and I hoped he would come often to the house.
Yes, he replied, willingly! And if he could be of service I had only to ask.
After a short time he politely asked permission to depart. All three bowed, rose and walked out into the dark.
He is a clever man, remarked Sarda after they had left. He knows a lot besides music and dancing.
Gusti’s comment was less enthusiastic.
They say he can become a léyak.
What do you mean?
He hesitated, lowered his voice.
He knows how to turn himself into a monkey or a ball of fire.
The boy with the flower, who was he?
His nephew, Madé Tantra.
Two days later Nyoman Kalér made a second appearance. He came alone, in the middle of the morning, and the time passed in the most agreeable of conversations. As we sat there, smoking and drinking coffee, I began to question him about music in the village.
It turned out that in our banjar there were three separate gamelans, and he was the head of all three. One belonged to the légong club. There was also the gandrung club.
What is gandrung? I asked.
The dance is something like légong, but the dancer is a boy in girl’s clothes. He dances in the streets for a few pennies, going from door to door. There is another gandrung in the next banjar, but ours is better. When he dances there are always many who step out to dance with him. They can hardly wait their turn. . . .
There was a look of satisfaction in Nyoman’s face. He took a heart-shaped betel leaf from a little pouch, folded it and put it in his mouth.
The third gamelan was seldom seen. It was kept locked in the Temple of the Sea and taken out only on feast-days, to play the stately ceremonial music without which no celebration would be complete.
And the gamelan that practises each night in the clubhouse by the market? I asked.
His voice was suddenly thin as he answered, It is the music club of the banjar to the south; and though he smiled there was a curious withdrawal in his eyes. He sat for a while, preoccupied and no longer communicative, and soon he rose and took a ceremonious departure.
Sarda explained. Hot rivalry burned between Nyoman’s légong gamelan and the club of the other banjar. Members did not speak. Moreover, in the past month the other club had been called twice to Den Pasar to appear at the hotel. Nyoman’s club had gone there only once. . . .
Late that afternoon I heard the animated sound of gongs, cymbals and drums passing along the road, and as I looked through the trees I could see the rival club, wearing their brightest clothes, marching in procession towards Den Pasar.
They are going to meet the bus from West Bali, said Sarda. Gusti Bagus, who is head of their banjar, emerges to-day from jail, and they are going to greet him.
He had sold some ricefields, it seemed, that belonged to his brother. He had been away six months.
Nyoman Kalér had been a dancer as a boy. He was brought up at the old court of the Prince of Blahbatu. His father was one of the parakans, feudal retainers, of the Prince, and had been, among other things, a member of the palace gamelan. Nyoman Kalér (lithe and attractive, as a child, I imagined) had been trained as a court dancer.
What kind of dance? I asked him one time.
Nandir; it is no longer danced. It was the same as légong. Boys took the part of girls then more often than to-day.
Why did you stop?
I grew up and my suppleness was lost.
He had turned to music. He could, of course, have become an actor as he grew older, for in the ancient theatre of the court, so formal and highly stylized, it was very hard to say where dancing ended and acting began. But he had no voice, he said. He was, moreover, too slightly built for the heroic baris or warrior’s dance; or the equally heroic toping, the honoured mask-plays that had to do with the ancient kings of Bali. With the death of the old Anak Agung the court had fallen into a decline. Nyoman had left, to come to Kedaton, where his family owned ricefields. When the légong club was formed he had trained both dancers and musicians. The little dancers had been a great success; soon he was in demand in other villages, and to-day he was well-established. He belonged to the peasant class, and the other men in his household worked the ricefields. I thought, however, he had chosen well, for I could not possibly imagine him behind a plough, or bending over to set out, one by one, the young rice plants in the flooded fields.
In these early conversations with Nyoman I caught glimpses of ancient and brilliant courts, of palaces forever ringing with music and crowded with actors and dancers. For at one time the princes of Bali had been great patrons of the arts. Many of them had come from Java to escape the wave of Islamic culture that had begun to spread through the land. With their wives and concubines, their soldiers, craftsmen, actors and musicians, they continued in Bali to live in a splendour half barbarous, half provincial, patterned on the great and luxurious courts of the Javanese rajahs.
But now a glittering court life was almost a thing of the past. Government pawnshops overflowed with treasures from the palace. Gongs and jewelled krises, golden rings and headdresses filled shelves and
