Whenever I write, my words take me to wherever my heart desires to be then. As my thoughts flow onto a white sheet of paper, old memories of a younger me creep into my mind; that child that didn’t know much about anything really. I try to shake off that little girl off from the back of my head, and very nearly manage to disembody her presence…but she didn’t dare leave before reminding me of all my gifts; the gift of life being right up there. I remembered all those moments when words came through for me when I needed to offload; when I desperately longed for the truest friend. Words have been there in the past when I chose to believe in something, if only for those minutes of scribbling down a poem quickly. I remembered all those nights I stayed up with a small circle of light of a burning candle. Words held me and I held on too. They loved me during days I had no clue as to what was happening around me. They never allowed by any means, for my image to fade away like smoke. They carried all my intricacies and delicacies with them; to handle me with care like a new book off the shelf. They became a home I went to after a long night. They’re always there…so many of them; existing and ready to be used in any given case. I’ve put it off for so long- my thank you letter to the words that helped bring me up, nurse my wounds and enhance my outward beauty by putting a smile on my face. It may look silly to a stranger passing by, but it means more to me since it stems from the heart. Well, I guess it should, could only mean much to me being the author and all. But I’ve come to realize that there are many others who share the same sentiments and warm opinions regarding words. I write this for them as well. Where would we be, what would we do without words.
‘I have seen on my long journey people who behave in ways fit for the asylum. I have seen people who bow down to cows and paint their houses with cow dung, and beggars, thought holy as saints, walking naked in the market, their fingernails long as knife blades, their uncut beards and hair covering their private parts. Until you sail beyond the Mediterranean, you have not seen the fullness of humanity’.
‘Cousin, I can imagine you talking back to my letter, pestering me to move quickly over markets and city streets and speak of things of greater import. I am afraid the women of this city will disappoint your fantasies. I thought the wives and concubines of the Peguan sailors, whose presence on ship I found unseemly and indecent, were singularly ugly and maybe not a fair example of their kind. I was wrong: the women here, despite whatever natural beauty some may possess, are worse in appearance than the cheap women who bare their breasts near the Church of San Samuele or the oddest painted courtesan you might find in the forbidden places you sometimes frequent. I am afraid white teeth remind these people of dogs, and the pointed canines we are born with are filed smooth to separate their kind from the wild animals of the jungle. Their foreheads are painted with yellow powder to protect them from the sun. It certainly has no allure for any but a heathen. What you may have heard is true: these women walk about naked from the waist up. But I am afraid reality comes a far second to the imagination’.
Extracts from The Jewel Trader of Pegu, a novel by Jeffrey Hantover
