Wayang golek puppets

On the way to Skælskør the other summer, something wonderful happened. We were driving through a road with fields to one side and houses on the other, and one of them — a farmhouse, actually — had put out a couple of tables covered in knickknacks, with a sign that said “Loppemarked” (flea market in Danish). At first glance it seemed to be the usual unwanted stuff that people set out in the summer — mismatched china, little figurines, smallish African masks. But lashed to the branches of the tree above the table, some things that were colorful and shaped like dolls. I cried to Vagn, “Stop!” and he pulled over. I scrambled out excitedly. A truck thundered past and the car rocked. I dashed across the road and ran my fingers distractedly over the figurines. I was searching for dachshunds; there were none. Stop collecting kitsch, I told myself.

Then the owner came over and Vagn stuck his head out of the car window and called, “Ask him how much the puppet costs”. And I looked up and saw what hadn’t registered at first because sometimes my brain stalls when I’m staring at amazing things right in the face. There were four wayang golek puppets lashed with wire to the tree branches, and they all had price tags unglamorously stuck to their beautiful heads. Each cost 25 Danish crowns. I wondered how many zeros were missing. But the man assured me that that was what he was selling them for. I looked in my wallet and it contained exactly 100 Danish crowns. I asked the man for help to loosen the wires and take them down. He said “This is the best one,” pointing to the large white-faced puppet with the wings.

But I wanted all four. I handed him the bill and he piled the puppets in my arms. I was smiling like a child. They had come, he said, from a woman friend “who had travelled a lot long ago” and brought them back to this farmhouse in the middle of Sjælland, and that these were the actual figures that were used in wayang performances and not some cheap knockoffs for the tourists. But I already knew that. The batik fabric of their costumes was faded in places, as though they had been standing by a window for decades. I thanked him and returned to the car. I couldn’t stop grinning. I was still talking about them when we drove into Skælskør.

This winter, I bought some modelling clay, the kind that is sold in 2-kilo cylinders and that only emerges in shops at the end of the year, when people start to make their own Christmas table decorations. I used some thick serger thread to cut the clay into four thick disks, then eased the sharp end of the bamboo stakes that run through the puppets’ bodies as far into the soft clay as they would go. Each stake end was shaped differently. When the clay dried after a couple of days, each puppet had its own stand, and I didn’t have to set them in glass bottles to display them.

Who could they be? Which characters? The pink-faced one is a demon – but who? Who is the large male with wings and a bird on his head? Maybe someone can tell me.