The Dancer and the Raja

by Javier Moro

  The prince’s infatuation has been such a surprise that in Kamra Palace they wonder if Anita is not something of a witch, and if the raja has not been the victim of some spell or curse on one of his trips across the “black pool,” as the ocean is known in Indian mythology. Only that could explain the change in his conduct and his distancing himself from them. But if that is true … who can say that it may not occur to him to name the Spanish woman’s son as his heir? And although the women know this is an absurd possibility that the English would never permit, fear is a bad adviser and undermines the peaceful stability of the zenana.

  Anita perceives some of all this when the seers of the kingdom come to visit her. From their observations of the stars, they conclude that the child will have a long life, great personal attractiveness, and “everything will go well for him if he does not stray away from the orbit of his mother’s star.” But there are other soothsayers too who subject her to long sessions singing interminable mantras, opening and closing books, throwing dice on a mat, or reciting prayers for hours. It is too much for Anita, who is still not over her exhaustion. When one of them invites her to drink a brew that will supposedly keep evil spirits away, Anita flatly refuses. “I was afraid. So many strange prophecies made me suspect that there was a plot against my child with the aim of denying him his hereditary rights, because I am a foreigner,” she wrote in her diary. From phrases overheard in conversations at dinners and garden parties, Anita had come to know a little of the story of Florrie Bryan. But the resistance she had noticed in Mme Dijon when she asked her for more details about the unfortunate destiny of the English princess was what most warned her. Although Florrie Bryan had died more than ten years previously, her story floated like a worrying shadow over the life of the Spanish princess of Kapurthala.

  The English are not content either with the birth of Anita’s child, because it goes against everything they defend and believe in. For the first time the raja has not received congratulations from the viceroy or, of course, from the emperor. Only a note has arrived from the governor of the Punjab, congratulating him, very briefly, for “such a happy event.” And the fact is that the English have not yet accepted the wedding. “Mademoiselle Anita Delgado, from a respectable but humble family,” an official report began in 1909, “is repulsed, as a European, by the Indian way of living in the zenana, which has meant that the Rajah is turning over the matter of the position of this young lady in society.” The word mademoiselle reveals that the English have not recognized her as a wife. In other words, for the British, Anita is not a princess and neither is she considered officially as one of the raja’s wives. That is why she was not received by the resident in Kashmir. If her mother knew about this …! What a fiasco! The Spanish girl lives in a kind of legal limbo, in no-man’s-land. She does not suspect that she has been the subject of countless discussions regarding her official status in the offices of the top civil servants of colonial power, as well as in the viceroy’s office. The raja has not told her about the subtle signs of contempt that he has perceived among those civil servants, just as impertinent as what has come from his own family. He does not want to reveal what is cooking in the sewers of power because he fears that the stink might spoil his idyll. He hates them interfering so much in his private life and he hates the fact that a few civil servants, ignorant of the age-old customs of India, have the ability to affect his life. How far now are the days of Ranjit Singh, lion of the Punjab, maharaja of the Sikhs, free and strong, who did not have to bend the knee to anyone because he held absolute power! Now the presence of the British is felt everywhere, even in places where they do not belong. It is a constant presence, like a leaden sky over one’s head, whose clouds are getting lower and lower.

  The raja finds himself forced to take advantage of the first opportunity to deal with the subject with the authorities in Delhi, and this is something that concerns him deeply because it is as though he were begging for something that, according to him, is his by right. “The new viceroy and the governor general of the Punjab have shown sympathy for His Highness’s cause and have told him that the fact that they are the direct representatives of His Majesty the King of England prevents them from showing any sign of official or unofficial recognition of his Spanish wife. The provincial chiefs and other British civil servants are not obliged to follow these restrictions.” At least he has managed to get them not to call her “mademoiselle.” Now she is his “Spanish wife.” He hopes secretly that when they get to know Anita and can value her gracefulness and sense of humor, things may change. Perhaps the English might end up finding her as beautiful, seductive, and different from the rest of people as he does; the raja cannot understand why they are not captivated by her Spanish dancing girl’s manners, and neither can he understand why their hearts are not moved by the fluttering of her hands or the crystal tones of her laughter, as happened with the other princes during their honeymoon in Kashmir. Since then they have not stopped receiving invitations from all over the subcontinent. No one wants to miss the raja of Kapurthala’s “Spanish wife.”

  The suffering she went through in labor and the subsequent recovery, even slower than is normal because of the overwhelming, pitiless heat, together with the feeling of responsibility at having her child in her arms, make Anita feel more sensitive. She feels that her life is as fragile as a house of cards and, when she guesses at the dislike of the women of the zenana, she feels afraid for her little boy. That is why she insists to her husband that the child should be baptized as soon as possible. Not by the Catholic rite, because that is now unthinkable, but by the Sikh rite. She knows that if she brings him into this religion as soon as possible, she will also bring him into the raja’s world. She is intelligent enough to guess that religion is the best protection for her son and may even be a guarantee of a future.

  So, forty days after the birth, an impressive retinue made up of a caravan of elephants and four Rolls-Royces leaves Kapurthala to undertake a journey of sixty kilometers to Amritsar, the holy city of the Sikhs and second-largest city in the Punjab after Lahore. The elephants can barely pass through the narrow streets that surround the Golden Temple. Anita, dressed in a sari of bright colors and with her head covered, is astonished at the spectacle of that monument, which blazes in the rays of the sun and whose image is reflected in the waters of the sacred pool.

  Built in the middle of the shining waters of an ample ritual pool, crossed by a bridge, the Golden Temple is a white marble building full of brass, silver, and gold decorations. The dome, entirely covered with gold leaf, houses the holy book of Sikhs, the Granth Sahib. The book is kept wrapped in silk and covered with fresh flowers, and every day its pages are aired using a fan made of a yak’s tail. Only a broom made of peacock feathers is noble enough to remove the dust from such a venerated object.

  The faithful circle the pool, always clockwise; they walk barefoot over the shining marble, and their heads are covered by colored turbans. They have long beards and exuberant mustaches. Sometimes they are accompanied by their wives and children, who have their hair tied up in buns. Some of them bathe in the pool, greeting the divinity by putting their hands together pointing up to heaven. Others finger the beads of their perfumed wood rosaries while they walk round it. The atmosphere of peace and the imperturbable calm of the place are impressive. The cleanliness too. “You could eat a fried egg off the ground here,” says Anita.

  In this holy place class does not seem to exist, or castes, or differences between men; it is as though the founder of Sikhism were still alive. He was a Hindu named Nanak, who surprised his family at the age of twelve by refusing to have the traditional red thread of the Brahmins put on him. “Isn’t it one’s actions and merits that distinguish one from others?” he asked them. Convinced that wearing the thread created false distinctions between men, he refused to wear it. His rebellion against the religion of his parents made him reconcile the beliefs of Hinduism with its thousand gods and the monotheism of Islam int
o a new religion, cleared of many of the contradictions and nonsense of the other two. “There are no Hindus, there are no Moslems; there is only one God, the Supreme Truth,” Nanak finally proclaimed, a worthy heir to the mystics who have always been an inherent part of the kaleidoscope of India. Curiously, thousands of kilometers from his birthplace in the Punjab, some contemporaries of his were also pushing forward a similar period of religious renaissance in Europe. Like Luther and Calvin, Nanak condemned idolatry and instead of dogma and doctrine, he defended the basic belief in Truth. “Religion does not rest on empty words,” said Nanak. “A religious person is someone who considers all men as his equals.” His preachings found wider and wider acceptance in a country that suffered the abuse of the caste system, and he gradually surrounded himself with shishyas, a Sanskrit word that means “disciple” and from which the word Sikh is derived. And so Nanak became its first guru, another Sanskrit word that means “master.” He and his successors fought against excessive ritualism, inequality and discrimination, and ill-treatment of women. Persecuted by the Moghuls, who were believers in Islam, the gurus were able to take the source of their vitality from the Moghuls’ tyranny. The ninth and last successor of Guru Nanak changed their religion into a militant faith, a fighting brotherhood of warriors to whom he gave the name Khalsa, “the Pure.” As a sign of distinction, and to reward their dedication, all Sikhs were granted the surname Singh, which means “Lion,” a worthy homage to a people who have had to fight heroically for their identity and beliefs over the centuries.

  If the first time Anita saw the Sikh priests—those “bearded men that looked like Methusalah,” as her maid Lola called them—she felt a mixture of fear and intimidation, now it is the opposite: they inspire kindness and trust. With them she feels protected. She has the impression that while those men, who look like wise men out of the Bible, are nearby, nothing can happen to her or her baby. In the Golden Temple, the holy refuge of the Sikhs, the priests give the baby the name of Ajit and then the surname Singh, which he will share with six million other believers. The very simple ceremony consists of making those present drink water and sugar from a metal cup, mixed with a double-edged saber. This mixture of sweetness and steel is called amrit, “the nectar of life,” and a drop of it is poured onto the baby’s lips. Meanwhile, a priest intones the baptism verses, “You are a child of Nanak, a child of the Creator, the chosen one … You will love all men with no distinction of caste or belief. You will not worship stone or tomb or idol. In times of danger or difficulty, always remember the holy name of the gurus. Do not pray to any particular one; pray for the whole of the Khalsa.”

  From now on Anita assumes responsibility for her son keeping the five basic precepts of his religion. So that she does not forget, the raja writes them down for her, in French, in a blue, lined notebook that bears the coat of arms of Kapurthala.

  23

  They decide to spend the whole first year in India at Villa Buona Vista. They do not even go to Mussoorie, the surest way of escaping the heat, for fear that the journey might affect the health of the baby or of Anita. Or perhaps there is another reason that the raja does not dare confess: Château Kapurthala in Mussoorie has been invaded by his Indian family. Seeing the situation as it is, he has preferred to stay on the burning plains of the Punjab. Now Anita understands why the English soldiers are punished with fourteen days in jail when they are caught without their famous topi, which covers their head and neck. Because the heat at the end of May and beginning of June is lethal. Every time she goes out of the house, at midday, the sun is so strong that she feels it like a blow. The temperature reaches forty-two degrees Celsius [107°F] at eleven o’clock in the morning. It is nothing like the heat in Málaga in August. The days are hellish, and in the afternoons the air is so dense that you could cut it with a knife. Let’s hope the rains come on time! The fields are yellow, the ground cracked, and the animals exhausted. A dozen servants are told to water the paths, pull the punkhas, and dampen the blinds and mats. But Anita is exhausted and cannot seem to get over it. Right from the start she has insisted on breastfeeding the baby, and the nights spent without sleep—she feeds him every three hours and, besides, the howling of the jackals that cry like desperate children does not let her sleep—eventually weaken her even more. Lola helps her as best she can, but the heat affects her too. She finds it hard to wake up in the middle of the night to bring the baby to his mother, which forces Anita to get up. Anita is so badly affected by the heat and effort that she falls ill, with a fever that reaches thirty-nine [102°F].

  “Mastitis,” says Dr. Warburton, who has come urgently at dawn.

  “And what is that?” Anita asks.

  “A breast infection. You must stop feeding the baby immediately, because you have an abscess too. And you must follow the treatment I’m going to give you.”

  For Anita the diagnosis is like a blow from destiny. She falls into a deep fit of sobbing that no one can calm. The doctor’s consolation does no good, as he assures her that hers is a very common ailment and is easy to cure and they will get a good wet nurse. Mme Dijon’s explanations do no good either, setting herself as an example in an attempt to bring back the princess’s love of life. Anita feels frustrated to the depths of her being. Marked as a mother unable to feed her own child. She is scared and worried by all she knows about illnesses that can take their toll on little Ajit, especially in the hot season. She spends a whole day in floods of tears, full of despair, while around her they move fast to find a wet nurse. In India, this is a choice of great importance because there is the belief that, through the milk, the wet nurse transmits some of her moral and spiritual qualities to the child. Therefore it is fundamental to find a woman who is honest, of good character and irreproachable reputation. There have been cases of wet nurses who give opium to the baby to make it stay asleep, or others who, as they are poor, gradually stop feeding the newborn baby in order to continue feeding their own child.

  Paradoxically it is Ajit’s crying that gives Anita back her strength. Cries that go straight to her soul as a mother and reignite her feeling of maternal responsibility. “Could he be afraid of being abandoned?” she wonders innocently. She realizes that she cannot permit herself to cry over the twists and turns of fate when the life of her son is at stake. That, together with the fact that she feels a little better after the medicines from Dr. Warburton, forces her to get over it, to stifle her sorrows and fears and face up to the task of being a mother at the age of eighteen in a country as remote, as ancient, and as complex as India.

  Not until she is introduced to Dalima—a young Hindu woman with dark skin and big, dark eyes, as fragile and sweet as a gazelle, and the mother of a baby girl, who has been chosen from thirty aspirants to the role of wet nurse—does Anita shake off her sadness, or emerge from the abyss of despair. Dalima exudes calm, composure, and common sense. She is always smiling, and when she does she displays a line of very white teeth, and although she is from a very poor family, she has the manners of a princess. Her hair is jet black and shiny from using rapeseed oil, and she wears it held back in a ponytail. A red dot on her forehead—the tilak—invokes the “third eye,” which serves to see beyond appearances. Dalima speaks a few words of English and, unlike Lola, knows how to be there without being too intrusive. And above all, she knows how to take care of a baby. From the way she takes him in her arms, from her tender looks and the way she whispers in his ear, Anita immediately realizes that here she has the person she most needs at this time. Dalima is a blessing, another gift from her protectress, the Virgin of La Victoria, who has just solved a problem for her that had kept her in a state of anguish. She immediately thinks of thanking her, and when she remembers the promise she made when she was in labor, she asks Mme Dijon to help her.

  “I want to send a letter to Paris, to Chez Paquin,” she tells the Frenchwoman. “I want to order something very special.”

  “A new evening gown?”

  “
No, it isn’t for me.”

  “Can I ask who it is for?” Mme Dijon asks, with wide eyes, as though she thinks she may be the lucky recipient.

  “I want them to make me a shawl embroidered with gold and precious stones for the Virgin of La Victoria, the patroness of my city. I’ve been told that Paquin make the ceremonial capes for the Shah of Persia.”

  Mme Dijon stares at her. She cannot believe what she is hearing. Anita, as though excusing herself for having made a blunder, continues, “You know, Spanish things … and even that isn’t much for my Virgin. I’d have her dressed in diamonds!”

  Dalima rapidly becomes her favorite company, her shadow. All the qualities that the Spanish girl thought she saw in her are gradually confirmed. Of the vast retinue of ayas and servants, Dalima is the only one who deserves her full confidence. Much more even than Lola, whose has been pushed into second place. The girl from Málaga, who is jealous of the new favorite, eats all the time to compensate for the boredom caused by her lack of activity. Because she is a foreigner, she enjoys a high rank in the servant hierarchy, and they treat her with deference, as though she were another memsahib. She takes advantage of the situation and spends all day ordering food. She is so fat that when she goes upstairs, her panting sounds like that of the raja’s dog.