The Dancer and the Raja

by Javier Moro

  “Do you see what they call me … ‘particular lady’?”

  Anita laughs and then goes on reading: “‘so that she may be received by all civil servants on all occasions as desired.’ I don’t believe it! What’s got into their heads?”

  “Go on reading,” the maharaja tells her.

  “‘Except for the Viceroy and Governors and Deputy Governors.’”

  “It’s not such a surprise then!” says Anita, visibly disappointed. “They recognize me, but only a little bit, just in case it’s catching …”

  “It’s a step forward.”

  “A few years ago I would have been jumping for joy. Now, to tell you the truth, it doesn’t matter so much to me. When is the viceroy coming?”

  “On the fourteenth.”

  “Don’t worry, mon chéri. I’ll make sure everything is ready.”

  “Those who know you honor not only the efficient, progressive ruler in Your Highness, but also the good sportsman, the educated man, the generous host and heartfelt friend.” With those words the viceroy ends his speech after the gala dinner in the palace in Kapurthala, a dinner for which Anita has taken care of the tiniest details, but which she does not attend. Her husband has asked her not to, as a special favor, in order not to cloud the perfect relations that now exist between him and the English. Besides, the viceroy has come alone, without his wife, probably not to cause protocol problems. Twelve years after her marriage, Anita dines alone, in her room, as though she were a stranger in her own home.

  Shortly afterward, the visit of Clémenceau compensates a little for the disappointment caused by the reception for the viceroy. “We had the enormous pleasure of welcoming this extraordinary man and his wife to our palace and enjoying some delightful weeks in their company hunting wild animals and birds,” writes Anita in her diary. At the welcoming banquet, the French hero is full of praise for Kapurthala, “the cradle of civilization in the East, as Athens was in the West.” The dignitaries and the maharaja himself are swollen with pride.

  Visits, important people, social life … Little by little Anita feels less and less interest in a world that she understands will now never belong to her. She still does her duty as a faithful European wife who organizes everything, still accompanying her husband on his travels, but the delight and the magic have gone. Her heart is no longer in it. Relations with the maharaja are still cordial, but less and less intimate. For some time now they have stopped being inspired by the Kamasutra for their nights of lovemaking. For some time now there have been no nights of lovemaking. Anita suspects that he is seeing other women or ex-concubines, and she … She dreams of being as free as a bird, and she spends whole evenings looking out of the Moghul-style windows, those that face north, toward the foothills of the snow-covered Himalayas. She has no option other than to get on with her loneliness, because she can talk to no one of her true inner feelings—of her forbidden love. She thinks her faithful servant knows something, but she is not worried because Dalima is discretion and loyalty incarnate. And then there is Ajit. She has decided she will not go away from Kapurthala before her son is eighteen, of age, in case the other wives hatch a plot to disinherit him, or even worse, to get rid of him. Intrigue and diabolical machinations have always been the order of the day in the courts of India. Anita trusts no one and does not want to let down her guard. She realizes that as her relationship with the maharaja runs out of steam, Harbans Kaur is gaining ground, little by little. This, together with the more and more frequent fights among the sons, makes the atmosphere in the palace suffocating. The arguments between Ratanjit and Kamal are so violent that they often come to blows, and Japanese vases, Swiss clocks, and the occasional Louis XVI chair go flying through the air, arousing the anger of the maharaja, who does not know what to do to keep the peace in the family. His sons, especially these two, are different in every way. Or rather, they are as different as their mothers are.

  The result is that several times Kamal expresses a desire to go away. Then Anita goes pale, her eyes cloud over, and she finds it hard to speak. She would also like to disappear, but with him.

  42

  The early 1920s are for Anita the most intense years of her life, although not the happiest, if by happiness a lasting state of pleasure and peacefulness is to be understood. On the contrary, they are years when passion continues to consume her, and with it the cohort of feelings that accompany it, such as fear, shame, insecurity, and even despair. But she also knows fleeting moments of supreme happiness that in some way compensate for everything else. In spite of the fact that she cannot see a way out of the labyrinth she has gotten herself into, neither does she feel able to control the tide of her emotions. She knows she is swimming in dangerous waters, but she does not come to the shore to stop her journey. Perhaps she cannot; or maybe she does not want to.

  She is afraid of giving herself away because every time she passes Kamal or when she meets him in the dining room for lunch, she feels disturbed, she thinks she goes red, her words falter, and a slight trembling takes over her hands.

  “Are you all right?” the maharaja asks her one day.

  “I’m a little tired, that’s all … I was coming down to tell you that I won’t be having lunch with you today.”

  She prefers to hide in her room rather than think they might be reading the feelings that bloom on her face. Every word, every casual glance, and even the most banal of her gestures seem sown with traps ready to uncover her secret. She has just found out that the maharaja is organizing Kamal’s wedding to the daughter of a Sikh prince. A disaster. Kamal is vehemently opposed to it and says he will get married in European style, to a girl of his choice, or, if not, that he prefers to remain single. Anita fears that the young man may end up losing the trial of strength with his father and that would mean his moving away forever.

  Upstairs, in her room, in front of her altar full of gods, Anita attempts to calm down and recover the sanity she had before. How is it possible that she should depend so much on a man who does not even know what she feels for him? She realizes that her whole life revolves around Kamal. Anita calculates her movements methodically, her comings and goings, and all her moves, to coincide with his, even if it is just for a minute, the time to say hello in a corridor, or to attend some guests at teatime, or simply to see him go past. What meaning is there in living like that, thinking about him as she could never have imagined she could think about someone? She cannot find a breathing space because when she is with the maharaja, she recognizes Kamal in her husband’s gestures. They have the same build, the same way of speaking, and the same dark eyes in which Anita can see her own perdition. Sometimes she dreams of running away, but she is not mistress of her own will.

  Then she ends up rebelling against herself, wanting to declare war on that intruder she has no right to idolize, to get him out of her head and cure the secret wound in her heart. She realizes she is lovesick and does not know how to soothe the pain that is cutting her up inside. She rails against him, and she rails at herself, but she exhausts herself in vain. When Kamal is present, she flees; and when he is not present, she cannot get his face out of her head. She daydreams that she says “I love you,” but she hates herself for it. It is an unhealthy love, one that can only bring misfortune. What dishonor for her husband, and even worse for her son! At the worst moments of despair she even thinks about suicide as the only way of freeing herself from the tyranny of her feelings. Is the misfortune of living no more really so great? she asks herself when she is alone. For unhappy people like me death holds no terror. Then she reproaches herself for having fallen into the temptation of thinking in that way. What a terrible legacy I’d leave for Ajit! For his whole life he’d carry the weight of his mother’s sin. Nothing degrades a man so much as feeling deeply ashamed at the conduct of his parents.

  The terrible thing is that she says it all to herself. Not being able to share the weight of her conscience with anyone becom
es so unbearable that it overcomes her. She is like a dam that is full to overflowing and about to burst. My God! I don’t know where I’m heading, or who I am anymore!

  And yet, in spite of herself, a glimmer of hope finally slips into her heart when she remembers how Kamal looked her directly in the eye, how he helped her off her horse, how he brushed her neck with his hand as he gave her a shawl, the warm way he wished her good night … Then she gains strength again, she forgets the turmoil in her mind, and she lets herself be carried along by her daydream, as though she had wings to escape from an impossible situation.

  The opportunity to break the ice with Kamal presents itself during a family trip to Europe, for no other reason than to get away from the monsoon heat. The maharaja has bought a mansion, which he has called Pavillon de Kapurthala, at number 11, Route du Champ d’Entrainement, near the Bois de Boulogne, one of the most select districts in the French capital, and he invites his family to stay there for the first time. Ratanjit remains in India, as regent and highest authority in affairs of state. In this way he is beginning to prepare to succeed his father when the time comes. Gita, his wife, is pregnant for the third time. After two daughters, everyone is hoping that now she will have the long-awaited boy who will ensure the continuation of the dynasty in Kapurthala.

  During the crossing by ship there are moments of intimacy between Kamal and Anita, which cement their friendship. She gets to tell him her problems regarding her relationship with the maharaja: her feeling of being neglected, the loneliness, the boredom, the despair at feeling less loved, less desired … Kamal consoles her and gives her advice. During the long evenings on deck they feel a vague sense of melancholy, a need to tell each other things that are difficult to say. They experience the same emotion as children when they talk in whispers of forbidden things. The attraction of sin between a young man and a young woman, even if only by word, leads them to matters that are a little risqué. Lying on the sun beds, they really enjoy the moment, like school friends who remember their first escapades. Anita tells him about her school in Málaga, about Anselmo Nieto, her first and only suitor, about how the maharaja fell in love with her, about that first night of love after the dinner at Maxim’s … Kamal tells her about the concubines that came to the palace to initiate him in the art of sex, about his later lack of interest in Indian women, and he confesses that he had a love affair with an Englishwoman while he was studying in London.

  “I really only like European women,” he tells her.

  “Like father, like son,” she replies, laughing.

  Their confidences and their conversations as good friends delight Kamal, who watches her even more closely, as though he could guess at the truth behind Anita’s feelings that show in her face. She lets herself be looked at with a smile, not moving her head, with her eyes faraway and her voice subdued.

  And in Paris, on the first occasion they find themselves alone, the inevitable happens. Just like every night, the maharaja has gone out to dinner, this time at the home of his friend, the princess of Chimay. Anita did not want to accompany him, saying she had a bad migraine. She needs to be alone, because she feels a little dazed with so much social life. Kamal has spent two days away from Paris, invited to a hunt in Fontainebleau.

  It is nighttime, the servants have retired, only the passing of the occasional carriage can be heard, the howling of a dog in the distance and the sound of the wind in the foliage of the trees in the park. Lying on the sofa, covered with a blanket, Anita is almost hypnotized by the fire in the fireplace. It is cold, in spite of it being June, as though autumn had suddenly slipped in at the beginning of summer. The flickers of the fire light up the enormous sitting room that she herself has decorated with great care. She is delighted as she contemplates her handiwork: the gold-leaf medallions shine on the walls like shields, as do the rosettes on the ceiling surrounded by garlands that are also gilded; the purple flowers on the Aubusson carpet that covers the parquet give the whole a touch of comfort and voluptuousness. The chest of drawers covered in red Damask silk that matches the curtains, the enormous clock on the wall, the Chinese vases placed on pedestals, the feet of the two tables decorated with mosaics from Florence, and even the flower boxes placed on the windowsills evoke the opulence and taste of the period. From the ceiling hang three crystal lamps that shed blue and pink reflections from the fire in the fireplace to the four corners of the room. Anita is half asleep before that spectacle of luxury and magic, which is all her own work.

  Suddenly she hears a noise; at first she thinks it is her husband coming back, although she is surprised as it is so early. Then, when she hears some footsteps, she is afraid and sits up; her hair is in a mess and her eyes betray her fear. The silhouette of Kamal stands out against the darkness of the room, lit by the reflection of the flames and the whitish light of the moon coming in through the windows.

  “I decided to come back a day early … what dreadful weather!”

  “I was falling asleep.”

  “Sorry if I scared you.”

  There are no more words. When Anita goes past Kamal to go to the stairs and up to her room, he gently and firmly takes her by the hand. She pulls lightly in an attempt to get free. They both look at each other as if they did not know each other; on their faces a forced, rather shamefaced smile appears. Then Kamal grabs her round the waist and holds her. Anita makes as if to resist, but suddenly stops moving and lets herself go.

  “Let me go …” she says in a whisper.

  It is the only sound that comes out of her lips. In the great silence of the mansion, she can feel the floor shaking as an omnibus pulled by horses goes by down Foch Avenue, as her mouth meets Kamal’s in the first real kiss full of love in her life.

  When they part, they remain silent for a few moments, in a feeling of mutual uneasiness, as though trying to measure the enormity of the madness they have just entered.

  “What we are doing is monstrous …” says Anita in a barely audible, serious voice; her face looks as if it has aged.

  “Sooner or later it had to happen,” Kamal replies.

  Then he too has lived through his own tortured love story, Anita discovers. He too has had to struggle against that fatal attraction, only to let himself be carried along again, always a little further, until the final betrayal. He too must have found himself in the middle of a volcano that finally swallowed him up! The love they feel is like a poison that has slowly spread. From that night, Anita knows there is no turning back, and that destiny, which is pursuing her with determination, will continue to push her along a path from which she will never again be able to get away. Has she not sought this? Did she not want this? Has she not desired this more than anything else in the world? Now the step is taken and it is irreversible. Love triumphs at the expense of human weakness. Anita feels that it is only a matter of time until everything blows up like a gigantic firework. Or like a bomb.

  43

  In India, Kamal continues to live in the palace at Kapurthala just to be closer to Anita. Otherwise he would get far away, very far away. He keeps up his confrontation with his father and refuses to marry, something which is considered as an unacceptable affront from a son in an Indian family. “You cannot educate us in England as Westerners and then subject us to the archaic customs of our race,” Kamal shouts at him in one of their arguments. For the maharaja, the force of tradition carries more weight than the reasoning of a Westerner. Perhaps it is because of his age, but the fact is that Jagatjit Singh is falling back more and more on his culture. He never misses the daily reading of the Granth Sahib together with his officers and ministers, and he has declared publicly that he is sorry he shaved off his beard a few years ago. Or perhaps it is because of the uncertain future that the growing activity of Gandhi and the Congress Party seem to forecast. Gandhi does not tire of denouncing the poverty of the people and has launched a slogan that could well mark the end of an epoch: “Noncooperation.” His calls to
boycott everything British—schools, courts, honors—find a wider and wider response among the population. The danger is that he is calling for an end to the order imposed by the British, including the maharajas. But neither the rise of the nationalists nor marrying Kamal form part of Jagatjit’s more immediate concerns. He knows that time ends up by eroding the most rebellious of spirits and that his son will finally do the right thing. What worries him most is that the Kapurthala dynasty is still without an heir. In India, women do not inherit thrones, except in the Moslem sultanate of Bhopal. The maharaja fervently hopes that this time Gita will give him a grandson, but again a girl is born, the third. The new gynecologist from Goa, Miss Pereira, comes to tell him, with tears in her eyes. What should be a happy event becomes a nightmare. When the midwife gives her the new baby, even Gita screams, “Get her away from me!” Then she spends the whole day crying. For her the drama is even greater because Miss Pereira has told her that the aftereffects of the difficult birth will prevent her from having any more children. Ratanjit, always melancholic, sinks even deeper into depression. When the maharaja finds out the state astrologer has pocketed the amounts he has given him for prayers asking for a male heir, he orders him to be imprisoned without trial and for a minimum of three years.

  “Gita,” the maharaja says to her one day after having called her to his office with her husband, “no doubt you realize how disappointed my son and I are at your inability to provide us with an heir.”