The Palace of Illusions

by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

  “I don't need to learn that!” I protested. “My husband won't take another wife—I'll make him promise that before I marry him!”

  “Your arrogance, girl,” she said, “is only exceeded by your optimism. Kings always take other wives. And men always break the promises they make before marriage. Besides, if you're married off like Panchaal's other princesses, you won't even get a chance to talk to your husband before he beds you.”

  I drew in a sharp breath to contradict her. She gave me a challenging grin. She relished our arguments, most of which she won. But this time I didn't launch into my usual tirade. Was it a memory of Krishna, the cool silence with which he countered disagreement, that stopped me? I saw something I hadn't realized before: words wasted energy. I would use my strength instead to nurture my belief that my life would unfurl uniquely.

  “Perhaps you're right,” I said sweetly. “Only time will tell.”

  She scowled. It wasn't what she was expecting. But then a different kind of grin appeared on her face. “Why, princess,” she said, “I do believe you're growing up.”

  The day Dhai Ma told me I was ready to visit my father's wives to test my social skills, I was surprised by the excitement that surged through me. I hadn't realized how much I craved companionship. I'd long been curious about the queens—especially Sulochana— who flitted elegant and bejeweled along the periphery of my life. In the past I'd resented them for ignoring me, but I was willing to let go of that. Perhaps, now that I was grown, we could be friends.

  Surprisingly, although the queens knew I was coming, I had to wait a long time in the visitor's hall before they appeared. When they did arrive, they spoke to me stiffly, in brief inanities, and wouldn't meet my eyes. I drew on all my speaking skills, but the conversations I began soon disintegrated into silence. Even Sulochana, whose blithe grace I had so admired during the festival of Shiva, seemed a different person. She responded to my greetings in monosyllables and kept her two daughters close to her. But one of them, a charming girl of about five years with curly hair and her mother's shining complexion, squirmed away from Sulochana and ran to me. Her eye must have been caught by the jeweled peacock pendant I wore—I'd dressed with care for the visit—for she put out a finger to touch it. I lifted her onto my lap and unclasped the chain so she could play with the pendant. But Sulochana snatched her away and slapped her so hard that red finger marks marred the child's fair cheek. She burst into bewildered tears, not knowing why she was punished. I stared at the queen in shock, my own face tingling with shame as though I were the one who'd been slapped. Soon afterward, Sulochana retired to her chambers with excuses of ill health that were clearly false.

  When we reached my rooms, I couldn't hold back my tears. “What did I do wrong?” I asked Dhai Ma as I wept against her ample bosom.

  “You did fine. Ignorant cows! They're just scared of you.”

  “Of me?” I asked, startled. I hadn't thought of myself as particularly fearsome. “Why?”

  She pressed her lips together, angrier than I'd ever seen her. But she couldn't—or wouldn't—give me an answer.

  I began to notice things, though. My maidservants—even those who had been with me for years—kept their distance until summoned. If I asked them anything of a personal nature—how their families were, for instance, or when they were getting married— they grew tongue-tied and escaped from my presence as soon as they could. The best merchants in the city, who routinely visited the apartments of the queens, would send their wares to me through Dhai Ma. Even my father was uneasy when he visited me and rarely looked directly into my eyes. I began to wonder whether Dhri's tutor's nervousness at my interruptions had a less flattering cause than my beauty. And whether my lack of friends and visitors was due not to my father's strictness but to people's wariness of someone who wasn't born like a normal girl and who, if the prophecy was correct, wouldn't live a normal woman's life.

  Did they fear contagion?

  Already the world I knew was splitting in two. The larger part, by far, consisted of people like Sulochana who couldn't see beyond their little lives of mundane joys and sorrows. They suspected anything that fell outside the boundaries of custom. They could, perhaps, accept men like Dhri who were divinely born, to fulfill a destiny shaped by the gods. But women? Especially women who might bring change, the way a storm brings the destruction of lightning? All my life, they would shun me. But the next time, I promised myself as I wiped my angry tears, I would be prepared.

  The other group consisted of those rare persons who were themselves harbingers of change and death. Or those who could laugh at such things. They wouldn't fear me, though I suspected they might well hate me, if the need arose. So far, I knew only three such people: Dhri and Krishna—and Dhai Ma, transformed by her affection for me. But surely there were others. As I chafed in my father's palace, I longed to find them, for only they could provide the companionship I ached for. I wondered how long I would have to wait before destiny brought them into my life, and I hoped that when it did so, one of them would become my husband.

  5

  Early in my life, I learned to eavesdrop. I was driven to this ignoble practice because people seldom told me anything worth knowing. My attendants were trained to speak in elaborate flatteries. My father's wives avoided me. King Drupad only met with me in settings designed to discourage uncomfortable questions. Dhri never lied, but he often kept things from me, believing it his brotherly duty to shield me from unpleasant facts. Though Dhai Ma had no such qualms, she had the unfortunate habit of mixing up what actually happened with things that, in her opinion, should have occurred. Krishna was the only one who told me the truth. But he wasn't with me often enough.

  So I took to eavesdropping and found it a most useful practice. It worked best when I appeared engrossed in some mindless activity, such as embroidery, or pretended to sleep. I was amazed at all the things I learned in this manner.

  It was how I discovered the sage.

  The sairindhri was braiding my hair in the five-rivers design when I heard one of the maids say, in a squeaky, excited whisper, “And he promised I'll be married on full moon day in the month of Sravan—”

  “So?” Dhai Ma responded scathingly from the next room, where she was setting out my clothes. “Fortune-tellers are always predicting weddings. They know that's what foolish girls want to hear most. That's how they get fatter fees.”

  “No, no, respected aunt, this sadhu didn't take any money. Also, he didn't just make vague promises. He said I'd marry a man who tends the king's animals. And as you know, Nandaram, who works in the stables, has been courting me! Didn't I show you the silver armband he gave me last month?”

  “It's a long leap from an armband to the wedding fire, girl! Come Sravan, we'll see how accurate your holy man was. Now set out that blue silk sari carefully! And watch how you handle the princess's breast cloth. You're crushing it!”

  “But he told me about my past, too,” the maid insisted. “Accidents and illnesses I had when I was a girl. The year my mother died and what her last words were. He even knew about the time Nanda and I—” here her voice dipped shyly, leaving me to guess at details.

  “You don't say!” Dhai Ma sounded intrigued. “Maybe I'll go see him. Ask him if that good-for-nothing Kallu will ever change his ways, and if not, what I must do to be rid of him. What did you say the Babaji's name was?”

  “I didn't ask. Truth to tell, he scared me, with a beard that covered his whole face and glittery red eyes. He looked like he could put a curse on you if you made him angry.”

  “Princess,” my sairindhri said, bowing. “Your hair is done. Does it please you?”

  I picked up the heavy silver-backed mirror while she held another one behind my head. The five-stranded braid hung glossily down my back, sparkling with gold pins. I could smell the fragrance of the amaranths woven into it. It was beautiful, but it only made me dissatisfied. What use was all this dressing-up when there was no one to admire me? I felt as though I were drow
ning in a backwater pond while everything important in the world was happening elsewhere.

  What if the prophecy at my birth was wrong? Or: what if prophecies only became true if you did something about them?

  I decided that I'd accompany Dhai Ma to the holy man.

  “Absolutely not!” Dhai Ma exclaimed. “Your royal father will have my head—or at the very least my job—if I take you outside the palace. Do you want your poor old nurse to starve by the roadside in her old age?”

  “You won't starve,” I said. “Kallu will take care of you!”

  “Who? That no-good drunkard? That—”

  “Besides,” I interjected deftly, “my father doesn't have to know. I'll dress up as a servant maid. We can just walk to—”

  “You! Walk on the common road where every man can look into your face! Don't you know that the women of the Panchaal royal family are supposed to remain hidden even from the gaze of the sun?”

  “You can get me a veil. It'll protect me from men and sunshine, both at once.”

  “Never!”

  I was reduced to pleading. “Please, Dhai Ma! It's my one chance to know what my future holds.”

  “I can tell you what your future holds. Severe punishment from your royal father, and a new Dhai Ma, since this one's life will be prematurely terminated.”

  But because I was the closest thing she had to a daughter, or because she sensed the desperation beneath my cajolery, or maybe because she, too, was curious, she finally relented.

  Swathed in one of Dhai Ma's veils and a skirt several sizes too large, I knelt in front of the sage, touching my head awkwardly to the ground. My entire body ached. To get to the banyan grove where the sage was residing, we'd had to ride in a palanquin through the city, then cross a lake on a leaking ferry boat, then sit for hours on a rickety bullock cart. It taught me a new respect for the hardiness of commoners.

  I was startled by a rumble like a thundercloud. The sage was laughing. He didn't look too frightening. In his lined, cracked face, his eyes shone mischievously.

  “Not bad, for a princess!”

  “How did you know?” I said in chagrin.

  “I'd have to be blind not to see through such a terrible disguise. At least the old woman could have given you some clothes that fit! But enough of that. Eager to learn your future, are you? Did you ever think how monotonous your life would be if you could see all that was coming to you? Believe me, I know! However, I'll oblige you both—in some part. You first, old woman.”

  He informed a delighted Dhai Ma that Kallu would perish soon in a drunken brawl, that she'd accompany me to my new palace after marriage, and that she'd bring up my five children. “You'll die old and rich and cantankerous as ever—and happy, because you'll be gone before the worst happens.”

  “Sadhu-baba,” Dhai Ma asked in concern, “what do you mean by the worst?”

  “No more!” he snapped, his eyes turning tawny, making her cower. “Princess, if you want your questions answered, you must step inside the circle.”

  I hadn't noticed the thin circle etched into the ground around him. Dhai Ma grabbed at my skirt, whispering about witchcraft, but I didn't hesitate. Inside the circle, the earth felt hot against my blistered soles.

  “Brave, eh?” he said. “That's good—you'll need it.” He threw a handful of powder onto a small fire. A thick smoke rose until I couldn't see anything outside the circle.

  “What's that?” I gasped.

  “Curious, too!” His voice was approving. “I made it myself, from resin and neem leaves and a few other select ingredients. It keeps the mosquitoes away.”

  In the smoke, shapes—humanlike, yet not human—rose and fell as though caught in a wind current.

  “What are those?” To my embarrassment, my voice trembled.

  “Ah, that's the other thing the mixture does—call up the spirits. You may ask them your questions.”

  Far within the banyan grove, I heard a jackal howl. Coldness passed over my skin like ghost breath. For the last few days, I'd been longing for this moment. Why, then, did a strange reluctance silence me now? It came to me that I didn't trust the sage enough to reveal to him my secret desires.

  Later I would wonder, was it because of this lack of faith that the spirits answered me so obliquely, in riddles that were more hindrance than help?

  “Scared, princess?” the sage taunted. “Maybe you'd better step out and return to your safe palace—”

  “No!” I cried. “Ask your spirits if I will get what I desire.”

  A smile—feral or condescending?—glinted through the sage's beard. “And do you even know what that is, child?”

  Stung, I retorted, “I'm no child, and I do know what I want! I want to leave a mark on history, as was promised to me at my birth.”

  “Very commendable! But there are other things—perhaps unknown to you—that you crave more. No matter. The spirits will see into your heart and answer accordingly.”

  He clapped his hands and the spirits swirled faster. Yellow whispers came to me through the smoke.

  You will marry the five greatest heroes of your time. You will be queen of queens, envied even by goddesses. You will be a servant maid. You will be mistress of the most magical of palaces and then lose it.

  You will be remembered for causing the greatest war of your time.

  You will bring about the deaths of evil kings—and your children's, and your brother's. A million women will become widows because of you. Yes, indeed, you will leave a mark on history.

  You will be loved, though you will not always recognize who loves you. Despite your five husbands, you will die alone, abandoned at the end—and yet not so.

  After the voices fell silent, I sat stunned. Much of what they said—the part about five husbands, for instance—confused me. The rest filled me with despair.

  “Oh, don't look so dejected,” the sage said. “How many women can claim to be envied by goddesses? Or become queen of queens?”

  “I don't want them if it means the other parts will be true as well. What good is it to own the most wonderful palace in the world if I'll have to lose it? And all those deaths! I refuse to be the cause for them, especially Dhri's.”

  “ You don't have a choice, my dear.”

  “I'll enter a hermitage! I'll never marry—“

  His crooked teeth flashed. “Destiny is strong and swift. You can't trick it so easily. Even if you hadn't come seeking it today, in time it would have found you. But in your case, your own nature is going to speed its process.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your pride. Your temper. Your vengefulness.”

  I glared at him. “I'm not like that!”

  “Even the wisest don't know what's hidden in the depths of their being. But here's something to console you: Long after you're gone, men will remember you as the most amazing queen this land has seen. Women will chant your name to bring them blessing and luck.”

  “Much good that'll do me when I'm dying alone, tortured by guilt!” I said bitterly. “Men might value fame above all things. But I'd rather be happy.”

  “You'll have happiness, too. Didn't you hear the spirits say you'll be loved? Besides, I have a feeling you'll grow to feel differently about fame!”

  His jocularity angered me, but I controlled myself because I needed his help. “I've heard that great seers have the power to change the future they foretell. Please—can't you shape mine so that I don't harm those dearest to me?”

  He shook his head. “Only a fool meddles in the Great Design. Besides, your destiny is born of lifetimes of karma, too powerful for me to change. But I'll give you some advice. Three dangerous moments will come to you. The first will be just before your wedding: at that time, hold back your question. The second will be when your husbands are at the height of their power: at that time, hold back your laughter. The third will be when you're shamed as you'd never imagined possible: at that time, hold back your curse. Maybe it will mitigate the catastrophes to co
me.”

  He poured water on the fire, extinguishing it with a hiss, a signal for me to leave. But then, glancing at my unhappy face, he said, “You've borne the harshness of the prophecies well, so I'll give you a parting gift—a name. From now on you'll be known as Panchaali, spirit of this land, though in your wanderings you'll leave it far behind.” He turned to a thick book made of palm leaves and opened it.

  “What are you writing?” I couldn't help but ask.

  He ran a hand through his thick mane, exasperated. “The story of your life, if only you'd stop interrupting it. And of your five husbands. And of the great and terrible war of Kurukshetra that will end the Third Age of Man. Already you've kept me from it for too long. Go now!”

  “Done so quickly?” Dhai Ma asked. “He didn't have much to tell you, did he?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why, you barely stepped in, then stepped out. I'm glad, though.” She dropped her voice as she pulled me toward the waiting cart. “These sages with their sorcery—you never know what they might do to a young virgin.”

  Inside the sage's circle, had time taken on a different gait? I climbed onto the cart, too preoccupied to feel its jolts. I peered through the shadows of the banyan one last time. The gloomy light played tricks on me: it seemed that there were two figures sitting inside the circle. One of them was the sage. The other—why, he appeared to have an elephant's head! The cart lurched away before I could point him out to my nurse.

  “What did he say?” Dhai Ma was all curiosity. “Nothing bad, I hope. You look so solemn. I knew this heat would be too much for you! Remind me to get you some green-coconut water when we go through the bazaar.”

  I pondered what to tell her. “He prophesied that I'd have five husbands,” I said finally.

  “Five husbands!” She slapped her forehead in disgust. “Now I know he's a fake! Why, in all my years I've never heard of a woman with more than one husband! You know what our shastras call women who've been with more than one man, don't you? Though no one seems to have a problem when men sleep with a different wife each day of the week! Can you see your royal father, proper as he is, ever allowing something scandalous like that?”