Katya & The Prince of Siam

Such attentions left us with a generous measure of hours to savour, slowly allowing impressions to register, unblurred by distracting haste. Delicious meals were served in the pale green dining room hung with canary yellow curtains, by two young men in gold buttoned white tunics.

 

 

Chakrabongse House seen from the river

 

The food was quite exceptional: light, spicy and delicate, each dish arranged in a subtle blend of colour and taste, tempting on the hottest day as were the fruit and ices, all with the unmistakable tang of freshness, prepared with care and artistry. Well could I understand and echo Katya’s exclamation: ‘I like Thai food best in the world!’

Outside my bedroom was a wide tiled veranda, where] could see the sun arise and glitter on Wat Arun – Temple of the Dawn – and where I breakfasted on delicate green tea, toast, jam and sliced fresh mango and other exotic fruit. I was always brought a Bangkok newspaper in English, one of which amusingly described a ‘hack journalist’ as a ‘Nag journalist’!

Our days were marked with small ceremonies: the moment we returned from an outing, we were brought glasses of iced fresh lime and immaculate pads of white towelling, ice cold and scented with eau-de-cologne to refresh our faces and hands after our inconsiderable exertions. And every night before retiring, Lisba lit candles in the tiny spirit house, like a pretty dolls house on a stand, to ward away evil that might molest us under cover of the dark.

No anniversary passes unnoticed or unhallowed by traditional rites and I well remember rising at five on the morning of Lisba’s fifty-fourth birthday, the streets still cool and suffused with mist, the blaring traffic almost absent, when we stood in the doorway with offerings for the priests on this occasion. On a little table were curries and rice in separate containers, tied with ribbon and adorned with purple orchids, joss sticks and homely objects such as cleaning materials in western packaging. As the saffron-robed monks glided silently through the streets, I saw that other householders with an event to commemorate also awaited them with their gifts. Our offerings were accepted without thanks for ‘ours was the privilege of giving’.

In a further birthday ceremony, monks had been invited to Chakrabongse House and entering the drawing room, sat cross-legged on a long bench, each holding a royal fan as Queen Rambai was present. In front of them was a narrow table with, at one end of it, a shrine bedecked with flowers and lighted candles, which held relics of Chakrabongse, Katya and Chula from which a long white cord was unwound and passed through the hands of each monk. When they began chanting it was strangely hypnotic, with a curious contrapuntal echoing sound, as though proceeding from regions far removed from earthly desires and aspirations.

After the chanting, Lisba presented each monk with robes and they were then served a splendid luncheon. Then, when each had received a tray of useful household objects, they all arose and their habitual detachment undisturbed, in silent dignity they departed.

Later that day, Lisba was brought a bowl containing 54 live fish to release into the river and 54 caged birds who, when she opened the door, soared swiftly back to freedom in the sunny sky.

Afternoon tea in the garden was delightful – like a doll’s tea party: cups and plates so frail and small, cakes so tiny, some wrapped in palm leaves, their delicate flavours intriguingly unidentifiable to a western palate. One day I paused before joining Lisba at the table, for crouching at her feet was a penitent gardener, who was being admonished for larking about the shrubbery and flinging empty bottles (disgracefully intoxicated by their contents) at another gardener. As she spoke to him in Thai, she explained this afterwards, adding that on promise of future good behaviour he had been forgiven with a caution.

 

 

Eileen and Lisba in Thailand

 

I had tea alone one day as Lisba had been invited to have it with Queen Sirikit, the reigning monarch’s beautiful wife. But I was joined by Bisdar, who had thought to console my solitude with a dish of fried octopus and chilli sauce which he had prepared for me himself. Although a trifle exotic for consumption in midafternoon, it was quite delicious. Nevertheless, he stayed to chat awhile and, though I had met and liked him in England, here in his native land, liking had deepened to affection for, though he and Pungpit supervised the complicated running of Chakrabongse House for Lisba and looked after it in her absence in England, it was his unaffected infectious delight in life’s pleasures – great or small – that made him so endearing.