The Shadow Puppet Master's Daughter

The sun sank behind the mountain ridges and the warm evening light fell slanting through the window of Sari's home. The sky had turned to deep shades of orange and pink, and the last birds drifted silently past toward their nests in the crowns of the tall bamboo forests. Inside the room, an old oil lamp spread a red-golden glow along the walls, and the air smelled of food and of the dry grass in the roof beams. This was the time of day Sari loved best of all, the evening, when the work was done and the house folded around the family like an embrace.

Bapak Adi, Sari's father, carried in a roll of white cotton cloth and two strong bamboo rods. He moved carefully, as he always did when it was time for wayang. Sari crouched in a corner and followed his every movement with her eyes. He stretched the cloth tightly between the rods until it glowed like a small window into the night, filled with the lamp's light. In front of the cloth he set down a wooden chest with an old brass lock. That was the chest Sari was never allowed to open on her own, the one with the figures inside.

Bapak Adi opened the chest and drew out a figure wrapped in a piece of soft batik cloth. He unfolded the cloth carefully, almost as if opening a letter. Sari crept a little closer. The figure was cut from buffalo leather, a thick, hard material that was nevertheless pierced by countless tiny holes in fine patterns: flowers, circles, leaf tendrils, and fish. In the lamplight the holes glowed like stars, and the shadow the figure cast was not just dark but full of light and form. 'This is Hanuman,' said Bapak Adi, holding the figure up to the lamp.

Hanuman's eyes were inlaid with small pieces of yellow horn and his tail curled up behind his back like a question mark. In his fist he held a small staff, and his legs were mid-stride as though he were just on his way somewhere important. 'Hanuman is the monkey god,' Bapak Adi told her. 'He is strong and fast and loyal to Prince Rama. But the finest thing about Hanuman is not his strength, it is his heart. He can fly over seas and climb over mountains, but what he chooses to carry is most often a flower.' Sari looked at the figure for a long time and wondered if it was true that a hero could be gentle.