The Dancer and the Raja

by Javier Moro

  Alone in the semidarkness of his office, the maharaja ponders his decision. He is aware that his vanity could cause the death of the woman who is still his wife. But doesn’t she deserve it? he tells himself, in an outburst of rage. With her death the scandal would die. Would that not be the best solution? … As they mark the hours, the cuckoo clock seems to give off the sounds of death. The anger that clouds his judgment gradually gives way to doubt—Haven’t I punished her enough? he asks himself—then to memories, to the remains of the love they have shared for so many years, and to the teachings full of humanity of the great masters of Sikhism. And then Jagatjit Singh thinks again.

  “Have her taken to Lahore immediately!” he orders. “In the Rolls, so she gets there quicker!”

  Anita arrives at the hospital more dead than alive, and she remains under the constant vigilance of the doctors who gradually manage to give her back her strength. After a few days, when she is better, she is sent back to Villa Buona Vista, still under the supervision of Miss Pereira.

  But the injury that seems to have no cure is a moral one.

  “Put the blinds down,” she tells Dalima. “I can’t stand there being so much light.”

  “But they’re down already … We won’t be able to see a thing.”

  “Please put them right down.”

  Gradually Anita slides toward depression. First she feels an aversion to the light, then to noise. Any sound seems like an unbearable aggression. Sadness wakes her up, but she does not get out of bed, and when she does, she does not even get dressed. She does not recognize herself when she looks at herself in the mirror. Deep rings round her eyes accentuate her greenish pallor even more. She is as thin as a rake because she hardly eats a thing. The maharaja does not visit her, and of Kamal she only knows from Dalima that he is about to be married. He’s given in, Anita thinks with no ill will or resentment. That is what life is like in India. Kamal has made his choice—between her and his clan, he has taken the second option. She cannot reproach him for it: she would probably have done the same in his situation. Between madness and common sense, Kamal has chosen common sense. And she thought he would come to take her away just like Captain Waryam Singh …! I believed my own fairy tale, she tells herself. How naive I am!

  All she has left is the love of Dalima. Over the years, the things they have been through together have created a very solid bond of affection between the two of them. Besides, Dalima is all she has left of Kamal’s love, and her mere presence reminds her of moments of joy and delight that are dead and gone forever. At these times of weakness, Anita is moved by her maid’s faithfulness. Her noble heart seems to understand everything and forgive everything. From the depths of her repentance she is grateful to her for having remained faithfully at her side as she witnessed her shame and for having repressed the repugnance she must have felt. Once again, the respectful, calm ministrations of Dalima are her salvation.

  Weeks and then months go by, but Anita is still not over it. Her purple lips, her skin as transparent as porcelain, allowing her blue veins to be seen, and the circles she has round her eyes, which darken her gaze and contrast with the whiteness of her skin, are signs of an ill that Miss Pereira is incapable of curing. So she asks for the opinion of other doctors. The diagnosis they come up with talks of a kind of anemia: “Complications in pregnancy with weakness in the blood,” they say. As treatment, they suggest the patient should get away from the heat of Kapurthala and seek the vivifying air of the mountains, as well as taking a diet rich in dal,26 meat, and dairy products.

  But Anita has neither the spirit nor the strength necessary to organize a trip to the hills. Where can she go, to Mussoorie, so full of memories and where she will probably find her husband’s other wives? To Simla, to a friend’s house, to whom she will have to give some kind of explanation? The mere idea of moving becomes as hard for her as crossing the Himalayas. She prefers the darkness of her room and the silence of the villa.

  But it is not she who decides her fate. The doctors visited her at the maharaja’s orders and it is he who takes the steps he considers most opportune. He decides to wait for the annual visit to Kapurthala of his son, Ajit, to organize Anita’s convalescence.

  “Hari Singh, the maharaja of Kashmir, has placed a palace in Srinagar, on the shores of the lake, at your mother’s disposal,” he tells Ajit. “I want you to deal with getting her set up there as comfortably as possible.”

  Nothing seems to unite the maharajas as much as the humiliation of being the victims of a scandal. Hari Singh, whose reputation suffered a severe blow with the case of his English mistress, does all he can to help his friend. Jagatjit Singh has not been able to keep the scandal quiet, and it has become very public, much to his regret. Even in France an article has been published with the headline: “An Indo-Spanish Phaedra,” alluding to the famous Greek tragedy in which the king’s wife falls in love with one of his sons. But it has not affected him as much as he feared. It would have been worse to lose Anita forever, because he would never have forgiven himself. In any event his conscience is clear.

  When she sees Ajit come into her room, Anita begins to revive. As she says, at seventeen, Ajit is a “good-looking boy,” attentive and helpful. The boy asks no questions; he loves his mother too much to judge her or criticize her. When she begins to speak in an attempt to explain what has happened, he puts a finger over her lips. He does not want to hear anything, he does not want to know any more than he already knows, he does not want to see his mother humiliated even further. What has happened is none of his business, and now the only thing that matters is to help her organize the difficult move. “You’re my best medicine,” Anita tells him.

  Anita spends three months at the palace in Kashmir, in the company of Dalima and some twenty servants. The purity of the air, the beauty of the lake, the abundance of flowers, the snow-capped mountains, and above all the fact that she is far away from Kapurthala bring her slowly back to life.

  “The first time you came to visit us, on your honeymoon,” Hari Singh reminds her on one of his visits, “you told me Kashmir is so beautiful that it seems impossible ‘for anyone to feel unhappy here.’”

  “Did I say that?”

  “Yes, you did. It amused me and stuck in my mind. That’s why I have invited you now, as soon as Jagatjit told me you were ill and needed the mountain air.”

  “Now I remember,” Anita says. “You told me I could consider this palace as my home. I never thought you were saying it seriously.”

  The man who has the power to destroy her, who could send her back to the poverty in which she lived when he met her, the prince with the power of life and death over his subjects, the deceived husband who could feed an insatiable desire for revenge, is, however, a generous man who treats her without resentment or ill will. When he is sure that his Spanish wife has regained her health, he calls her to Kapurthala to sign the separation agreement. It is the last time Anita sets foot in L’Élysée and she does it with her heart in her mouth. Every corner, every piece of furniture, and every room contains a memory, as if they were jewelry boxes full of the trinkets of her life. As she crosses the porch, she seems to be hearing the cries of little Ajit running around in the garden. On the landing of the stairs she remembers the days of celebrations and glory, like Ratanjit’s wedding, or the visits of governors that she organized meticulously with such devotion. And the smell, the fragrance of lilies and violets that comes in through the garden windows, mixed with that of the fine woods of the parquet and the incense sticks that the government workers light in the basement, smells that hold more than anything else all the sensations and memories of her life in India.

  In his office on the first floor, the maharaja, her ex-husband, is waiting for her. There is none of the tension of their last meeting, in the hallway, when the wounds were wide open.

  “Ajit has kept me informed regarding your convalescence and I am glad to see you are w
ell again.”

  “Thank you, Your Highness.”

  There is a long silence, which Anita interrupts by clearing her throat. The maharaja goes on, “I have been very worried about your health. I wouldn’t have wanted to go so far, but I had no choice.”

  “I understand, Your Highness. I am also sorry about what has happened and again I ask for your forgiveness …”

  “I have prepared this …” the maharaja tells her, showing her an envelope with the stamp of the Royal House of Kapurthala.

  Anita is startled. She knows that in those papers lies her future.

  “I prefer to read it aloud, in the presence of witnesses.”

  The maharaja has Captain Inder Singh and Jarmani Dass, two of his most trusted men, brought in; both of them politely ask Anita how she is before sitting down to listen. The text of the separation is a declaration three pages in length, written in French. In it the maharaja commits himself to paying his wife a large pension of one thousand five hundred pounds a year “for her well-being and the maintenance of her family in regard to food, accommodation, clothing, expenses, and journeys,” as long as she does not remarry. He authorizes her to use the titles of princess and maharani of Kapurthala, “in spite of receiving them in a morganatic marriage and them not belonging to her in her own right or being hereditary.” The sixth clause is especially revealing of the maharaja’s magnanimous character: “All over the world, British embassies and consulates shall take great care to ensure that Ana Delgado Briones lacks for nothing. After her death, which we hope will come late and be easy, the same will be true for her only son, Ajit Singh of Kapurthala, the male heir fifth in line to succeed to the throne.”

  Now she can go away reassured. But before she undertakes the journey back, the maharaja invites her to a welcome lunch in honor of the new English civil engineer and his wife. In the palace dining room, Anita cannot help glancing at the mahogany table, where on occasions more than seventy guests have sat down for dinner. It is perfectly set out: the plates of Limoges china, the glasses of Bohemian crystal, the silver cutlery with the letter K engraved on the handles, the linen serviettes, the cutlery trays, the flowers …, there is not a detail missing. She feels a touch of pride because all this perfect order is due to her. That will be her legacy.

  The guests begin to arrive and they stand chatting excitedly, as they wait for the maharaja. Apart from the new engineer, the doctor in charge of the hospital is also present, accompanied by his wife, as well as minister Jarmani Dass and Captain Inder Singh. After a few minutes, the maharaja makes his appearance, more elegant than ever, with his serene gait and his attractive mixture of cordiality and distance. But he does not come alone, he is accompanied by a sculptural beauty, his new mistress, a Frenchwoman called Arlette Serry, who greets the guests with a languid gesture. First the maharaja sits down and then the others. Arlette is on his right, in the place Anita has always occupied, and the engineer’s wife is on his left. Anita is left the last place. A final humiliation for Anita, who at this stage is only dreaming of her freedom.

  Eighteen years and five months after her arrival in India, Anita embarks in Bombay on her way back to Europe. She is thirty-six. In her luggage she has her jewels, her papers, some furniture, and her clothes, but she prefers to carry in her handbag the object that is worth the most to her. It is a photo of Kamal, with his signature, a photo that will always be with her.

  The prospect of meeting her son in London and of seeing her family in Spain again fills her with happiness, but when she has to face up to the fact that she is leaving India forever, she feels overcome by a curious feeling, a mixture of grief and fear: from now on she will have to do without the lifestyle to which she had become so accustomed. On the dock where the SS Cumbria is preparing to set sail, she has to say good-bye to Dalima, who has insisted on being with her until the moment of final separation.

  “This is for you, Dalima my love,” Anita tells her, giving her a thick paper envelope. “It’s your salary for the last months and a bonus. It’s not much compared to what you deserve. Not much at all.”

  Dalima does not want to take the envelope, but Anita insists and finally puts it in the bodice of her sari. Dumb with emotion, Dalima remains as though paralyzed while Anita hugs her tightly in her arms.

  “Good-bye, Dalima. If you need anything, you can get in touch with me through the palace. They have my address and can write a letter for you. I would like very much to have news of you …”

  Dalima stays still, as though dead but alive, in the midst of all the frantic activity on the docks. The cawing of the crows mixes with the cries of the stevedores and porters as Anita goes across the gangway. Before she goes into the depths of the ship, she turns to wave to Dalima for the last time. What she sees remains engraved on her memory forever. Her faithful maid takes the envelope she has just given her out of her bodice, opens it, and throws the notes into the sea, bursting into tears. Then, so people will not see her crying, she covers her face with her sari.

  26 Lentils, which are the staple diet of Indians.

  EPILOGUE

  “Who Will Dry Our Tears?”

  Until the day she died, Anita Delgado kept the photo of Kamal on her bedside table, with his smooth features, his turban done up with a plume of feathers, and his jacket with medals from Kapurthala. It was the first and last picture she saw when she woke up and went to bed every day for the rest of her life. In spite of the fact that he was married in 1926, after Anita left India, Kamal continued to visit her secretly, taking advantage of his trips to Europe. They saw each other in Biarritz, in Deauville, in London, and in Paris. They were fleeting visits, like the tears of St. Lawrence, the remains of the fire of passion that had consumed them. Gradually those visits became less and less frequent, until Kamal stopped seeing her, because he fell in love with a French cinema actress who was only twenty. But in Anita’s memory, Kamal was always the only love of her life.

  Thanks to the generous pension the maharaja gave her, Anita did not have any problems in getting used to her newfound freedom, dividing her time between Paris, Madrid, and Málaga. Her strong personality, combined with her extraordinary, exotic past, made her one of what today would be called the jet set. The aura of the romance she had had with her husband’s son added mystery and morbid curiosity to the character, but she did not talk about Kamal. It was a secret she shared with very few, and she wished to keep it jealously in her heart until the end, pretending it had never happened. But her close friends were not deceived because the photo on her bedside table gave her away. Having become a constant figure in the society columns of the 1920s, she lived to the rhythm of the annual migration of luxury birds: summer holidays on the Côte d’Azur, winter holidays in Switzerland, days in Deauville … She mixed with bankers and those with great fortunes, but she always preferred the company of writers, painters, artists, and singers, like her great friend Josephine Baker. Anita liked Bohemian life. The aristocrats belittled her—not only the English ones, but the Spanish ones too—because they always considered her to be a social climber in a world that did not belong to her.

  Faithful to her Spanish and Andalusian roots, she never missed the San Isidro bullfights or the Seville Fair and on occasions even went on the Rocio pilgrimage, which she greatly enjoyed because she reencountered the most profound parts of her background. Horses, religious devotion, music, and dancing … what more could she ask for?

  When she finally settled in Spain, she began to frequent the world of bullfighting and, according to the rumors—never confirmed by her—she even fell in love with Juan Belmonte, the great bullfighter from Seville, the myth of the Spain of the time. But she did not give much publicity to her love life, in case the maharaja reduced or canceled her pension.

  Once adapted to her new way of life, Anita realized that she was not going to be able to forget India. The usual conversations at social gatherings in Europe, which were more gossip ses
sions, seemed insipid to her compared to the tales of tiger hunts or the stories of horse rides through the mountains in Kashmir that enlivened evenings in India. On the cold, foggy days that were so frequent in Paris or London, Anita remembered the crisp, bright air of winter in the Punjab; the pale green of the rice fields; her garden where the roses, lilies, and bougainvilleas grew in profusion and where the fragrance of violets perfumed the air. She remembered her rides in the country, “cow-dust time,” when the smoke rose from the little ovens in the villages, the great dusty plains, the cries of the birds and animals, the tinkling of the bells on the oxcarts, the sound of the rain hammering on the roof at monsoon time, and above all she remembered Dalima, the gracefulness of the Indian women, the beggars and holy men, the luxury and the great spectacles seen from the back of an elephant. Gradually she forgot the unpleasant side of India: the miserable way of life of the poor, the cruelty of the caste system, and the terrible poverty. She slowly forgot about the nights of anguish sitting by Ajit when he had a temperature, the loneliness of palace life, the tremendous heat, the fear of snake bites or of being poisoned, the fear of falling sick, the fear of India itself.

  Her nostalgia was such that many years later, now an elderly lady, her two maids served dinner at her house in Madrid dressed in the same clothes as the servants in Kapurthala, and she obliged them to wear white gloves, even if it was the middle of summer. She appeared on the dot, but in a dressing gown and with rollers in her hair. She dined alone, engrossed in her memories of a fabulous life that would be no more.

  Anita wanted to go back to India on several occasions, but she never got a visa from the British authorities. She never knew, either, that the maharaja was behind that persistent refusal. “His Highness is particularly anxious that Prem Kaur should not return to India because he says it causes upsets in his domestic circle, so we have requested the Foreign Office not to extend facilities for the Spanish lady to travel,” goes a letter signed by a certain M. Baxter, head of the Political Office of the India Office in 1937.