The Palace of Illusions

by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

  “Even a pawn has a choice,” my brother said. “The day Sikhandi left for the forest, I longed to go with him. To leave the palace behind without a backward glance. To live out my life in peace under the trees. To escape the bloody fate toward which I've been pushed every moment since I was born. I could have done it. Sikhandi would have hidden me so skillfully that the entire Panchaal army wouldn't have found me. But I chose not to.”

  “Why?” My throat was dry. How wrong I'd been all this time, thinking I knew my stoic, resigned brother.

  “Two reasons held me back,” Dhri said. “One was you.”

  “I would have gladly come with you,” I protested hotly. “If you'd only asked—”

  “The other,” he interrupted, his harsh voice scraping against my ears, “was myself.”

  Through the long night, out of love for Dhri, I tried harder than ever before to bar Karna from my mind. But can a sieve block the wind? Fragments of stories floated in my head, women who had saved their husbands by countering their ill luck with their virtue. Perhaps I could do the same for Karna? In the midst of that hope a regret leaped up like a leopard. Why hadn't Dhri sidestepped his fate when he had the chance! I imagined him carefree under a canopy of gigantic mahogany trees, his brow erased of the creases that marred his handsomeness. But the next moment I was proud of his resolution—the way I had been of Karna for facing the angry brahmin. I knew I should not compare them, that my loyalty should be aimed only toward my brother. Yet as I swayed between sleep and waking, the two men began to melt together in my mind. How similar their nature and their destinies were, pressing them both toward tragedy, forcing them into acts of dangerous nobility. No matter how skilled they were at battle, ultimately it would not help them because they were forever defeated by their conscience. What cruel god fashioned the net of their minds this way, so they could never escape it?

  And what traps had he set up for me?

  12

  Coiled on the silver tray like a white snake, the wedding garland was as thick as my forearm. I regarded it warily as though it might, at any moment, decide to strike.

  “What's wrong now?” Dhai Ma said. “Why is your face like a blackened pot?”

  “It's too heavy,” I said. I imagined placing it around a neck. I could clearly see the corded, straining muscles, though the rest of the face was frustratingly blank.

  “Ridiculous!” Dhai Ma said. “If he's a true hero, he'll be able to bear its weight.

  “And yours, too,” she added with a wink.

  Attendants buzzed around me. A little more lotus pollen to burnish the bride's cheeks; the end of the wedding sari, white and gold, arranged cleverly to accentuate the swell of her breast while creating a virginal effect. An old woman rubbed paste of sandalwood on my navel with a sly smile. Bangles, waistband, anklets, a jeweled nose ring so massive it had to be held up by a chain attached to my hairdo.

  “I feel like I'm in battle armor,” I told Dhai Ma.

  “You are,” she said. “Enough dillydallying, now! Your royal brother's about to wear out the corridor with his pacing.”

  Dhri was waiting outside my rooms to walk me to the wedding hall, where the kings had already gathered. He looked severe in his ceremonial silks. I noticed the scabbard on his hip, carved with flying beasts.

  “Why the sword?” I asked.

  Dhai Ma said, “What a question! Don't you know it's the brother's sacred duty to protect his sister's virtue? He'll have his hands full today, with all those dirty old men drooling over you.”

  “Your vulgarity never ceases to amaze me,” Dhri told her. She laughed and gave him a cuff on the ears, then hurried off to bully her way into the best seat in the royal attendants' area.

  But I knew the real reason for the sword. He expected trouble.

  I heard it under the bluster and music, the announcement of the newly arrived: neighs, trumpetings, the clink of weaponry.

  Dhri said, “The kings have brought their warriors. They're lined up outside. But don't worry. The entire Panchaal army, too, is armed and ready.”

  “Thank you for letting me know,” I said. “Now I feel completely calm.”

  “Did anyone ever inform you,” he said, “that sarcasm is unbecoming in brides?”

  When I stepped into the wedding hall, there was complete, immediate silence. As though I were a sword that had severed, simultaneously, each vocal cord. Behind my veil I smiled grimly. Savor this moment of power, I told myself. It may be your only one.

  First Dhri showed me the kings who had come only to watch, the ones I didn't have to fear.

  “Look, Krishna.”

  There he was, my friend, my exasperation, conversing with his brother as though he were at a country fair. The jaunty peacock feather on his crown dipped as he raised his hand in a gesture that could be a benediction or a careless hello.

  Across the hall, spectators were grouped according to caste. The vaishya sector was marked by a blue banner painted with a merchant ship. The sudra banner depicted farmers harvesting wheat. The brahmins had the best seats, up front, with fat, tassled bolsters to lean on. Their banner, a priest making a fire offering, was made of white silk.

  Now Dhri pointed out the important suitors. I tried to match them to their portraits, but they seemed older, heavier, their features flattened by age and perhaps anxiety. To lose in front of this great assembly—even though all but one of them must—would be such a public dishonor. Its sourness would flood the mouth for years. By my brother's rust-edged tone, I knew the ones who were most dangerous—not because they might win, but because of what they might do when they lost.

  “Arjun?” I finally asked.

  “Not here.”

  I marveled at how he'd learned to make his voice expressionless. He went on to name other names. When he stopped, I asked, “Is that all?”

  He understood the question beneath the question. His eyes showed his displeasure. “Karna has come.”

  Dhri didn't point him out, but I found him. Next to Duryodhan, half hidden behind a marble pillar. My heart beat so hard, I was sure Dhri would hear. I longed to look into Karna's face, to see if those eyes were indeed as sad as the artist had portrayed, but even I knew how improper that would be. I focused instead on his hands, the wrists disdainfully bare of ornaments, the powerful, battered knuckles. If my brother had known how badly I wanted to touch them, he would have been furious. Duryodhan made a comment—probably about me—and his companions slapped their knees and guffawed. Karna alone (I noted with gratitude) sat still as a flame. Only the slightest thinning of his lips indicated his disapproval, but it was enough to silence Duryodhan.

  Dhri was calling me to the dais, his voice so sharp that my attendants stared in surprise. I went, but all the way loyalty and desire dueled inside me. If Arjun wasn't here, what right did Krishna and Dhri have to insist that I not choose Karna?

  A trumpet sounded. The contest had begun.

  Later, long after a forest was razed and a palace filled with wonders built in its place, after the game of dice, after treachery and loss, banishment and return, after the war with its blinding mountains of bones, bards would immortalize the swayamvar where, some claim, it all began. This is what they would sing:

  In that hall perfumed with hopes and decorated with anxieties, where pride played the wedding flute and anger the drum, the greatest kings of Bharat were unable to lift the Kindhara bow from the ground. Of the handful that could aim and shoot, none was successful in piercing the fish eye. Jarasandha missed it by the width of his little finger, Salya by the width of a bean seed, and Sisupal by the width of a sesame seed. When Duryodhan shot his arrow, a cheer rose from the audience, but the steward examined the target and proclaimed that the Kaurava prince had missed it by the width of a mustard seed.

  Now only Karna was left. Like a lion he rose to his feet. Light glinted on his armor as on a golden mane. He turned eastward to pray to the sun. He turned northward to bow to his teacher, for such was his greatness that he b
ore him no grudge in spite of his curse. He joined his palms in respect as he approached the mighty Kindhara, and when he lifted it—as easily as though it were a child's bamboo bow—all the assembly murmured in amazement. When he pulled on the bowstring to test its resilience, a deep and musical vibration spread through the hall, as if the bow was singing. Even Draupadi held her breath, entranced. But then, as if in reply, came a sound like thunder. The earth herself began to tremble, and one could hear, in the distance, the cries of jackals and vultures. The brahmins shook their heads at these omens and whispered into each other's ears, What calamity will befall us should this man win the contest? Krishna himself sat up in his seat, and the great Vyasa who, it is said, had foreseen the entire history of the land in meditation, watched Karna with alertness, for he recognized this moment as one where the course of history hangs balanced between good and ill.

  But Dhristadyumna, who stood at the side of Draupadi, took a step forward and said, Renowned though you are for your skill, Karna, my sister cannot have as her suitor a man of a low caste. Therefore I humbly request you to return to your seat.

  Karna's eyes flashed like ice in sunlight, but he had learned much since the tournament at Hastinapur. His voice was calm as he replied, It is true that I was brought up by Adhiratha, but I am a kshatriya. My guru, Parasuram, saw this with his inner eye, and cursed me for it. That curse gives me the right to stand here today among these warrior kings. I will take part in this contest. Who dares to stop me?

  In response, Dhristadyumna drew his sword, though his face was pale as a winter evening and his hand shook, for he knew he was no match for Karna. But the honor of his house was at stake, and he could do nothing else.

  Then, out of the silence that shrouded the marriage hall, a voice rose, sweet as a koel's song, unbending as flint. Before you attempt to win my hand, king of Anga, it said, tell me your father's name. For surely a wife-to-be, who must sever herself from her family and attach herself to her husband's line, has the right to know this.

  It was Draupadi, and as she spoke, she stepped between her brother and Karna, and let fall her veil. Her face was as striking as the full moon after a cloudy month of nights. But her gaze was that of a swordsman who sees a chink in his opponent's armor and does not hesitate to plunge his blade there. And every man in the assembly, even as he desired her, thanked his fate that it was not he who stood before her.

  In the face of that question, Karna was silenced. Defeated, head bowed in shame, he left the marriage hall. But he never forgot the humiliation of that moment in full sight of all the kings of Bharat. And when the time came for him to repay the haughty princess of Panchaal, he did so a hundredfold.

  I don't blame the bards for what they sing. In a way, things occurred just as they describe it. But in another way, they were completely different.

  When Karna issued his challenge and my brother stepped forward with his hand on his sword, a haze of panic blurred my vision. Something terrible was close to happening. There was no one, other than I, who might be able to stop it. But what should I do? I looked at Krishna, hoping for direction. It seemed to me that he pointed with his chin, but what was he urging? Behind him Vyasa frowned. He had warned me of this moment, though my wheeling mind couldn't recall his words. Hadn't he said I'd be the cause of my brother's death? I gritted my teeth and took a deep breath. I would not give in to fate so easily.

  Dhri unsheathed his sword and braced his shoulders. Karna leveled his arrow—the one he'd chosen to pierce the target—at my brother's chest. His eyes were beautiful and sad and unfaltering, the eyes of a man who always hits what he aims at.

  My mind went blank except for one memory: the moment I'd stepped from the fire unwanted and Dhri had gripped my hand, claiming me. He had been the first one to love me. Everything paled before that fact: the newborn tremor in my heart when I looked at Karna, the numbness that I knew would replace it when he turned from me in anger.

  Later, some would commend me for being brave enough to put the upstart son of a chariot driver in his place. Others would declare me arrogant. Caste-obsessed. They'd say I deserved every punishment I received. Still others would admire me for being true to dharma, whatever that means. But I did it only because I couldn't bear to see my brother die.

  Can our actions change our destiny? Or are they like sand piled against the breakage in a dam, merely delaying the inevitable? I saved Dhri, yes, so that he could go on to perform heroic and terrible deeds. But death is not so easily cheated. When it came for him again, its shape was so much worse that I wished I'd let it snatch him away at the swayamvar, where at least he would have perished with honor.

  This much I'm certain of: Something did change in the moment when I asked Karna the question that I knew would hurt him the most, the only question that would make him lay down his bow. When I'd stepped forward and looked into his face, there had been a light in it—call it admiration, or desire, or the wistful beginnings of love. If I'd been wiser, I might have been able to call forth that love and, in that way, deflected the danger of the moment—a moment that would turn out to be far more important than I imagined. But I was young and afraid, and my ill-chosen words (words I would regret all my life) quenched that light forever.

  13

  My feet were bleeding. I'd never walked barefoot on common streets, over thorns and stones. I stared at the man striding ahead, the cheap white shawl that covered his wiry back, and wondered if he was who I suspected. An hour ago I'd put a wedding garland around his neck. The punishing sun beat upon my head, dizzying me. We hadn't spoken since we left the palace. My throat was parched. I'd eaten nothing all day, as was customary for brides, and afterward he'd refused to stay (churlishly, I thought) for the wedding feast.

  “I must return to my family,” he'd said. “They'll be worrying.” In reply to my father's questions, he stated that he was not at liberty to speak of them, or give us his name.

  My father controlled his temper with effort. “Let us bring your family here,” he said. “They can live in whichever of my palaces you wish them to have. Half the kingdom, after all, is yours, according to the marriage contract.”

  The man said he had no need of palaces. He asked that I shed my finery, inappropriate for a poor brahmin's wife. The maids brought me a cotton sari. I handed my gold ornaments to Dhai Ma, who was crying. I kept only the necklace of shells which he'd placed around my throat.

  “At least let us give you a chariot,” my brother cried in consternation. “Panchaali isn't used to—”

  “She must learn it now,” he replied.

  Each footstep on the cracked, burning path was agony. I was too proud to ask him to slow down, even when I stumbled and fell. Gravel tore at my knees through the thin cotton of my sari. There were cuts on my palms. I bit at my lips to keep in tears of pain, of anger at my husband's indifference. An insidious voice inside me said, Karna would never have let you suffer like this. But that was no longer correct. If he saw me now, he would have laughed with bitter satisfaction.

  I rose and gritted my teeth. I placed one foot after the other. I can survive this, I said to myself, the way Dhri might have. But it hurt too much. I couldn't keep it up. Besides, it was foolish, what I was trying to do. I was a woman. I had to use my power differently.

  I found a banyan by the side of the road and sat down in its shade. I stretched out my throbbing feet. Perhaps it was a good thing that I was so exhausted. My tiredness was a screen that shielded me from my fear, from caring about what my husband (how strange that term) would think. I took a deep breath and crossed my arms. I watched his receding back and waited to find out how soon he'd notice I wasn't following him—and what he'd do then.

  This is how I came to be in such a predicament: Karna had left. The hall was abuzz with the dissatisfaction of unsuccessful kings. Duryodhan shouted that the test was unfair. Impossible. And besides, he wasn't going to put up with this insult to his friend. “Let's leave in protest,” he cried to the other kings. But someone else
—I think it was Sisupal, his face suffused with outrage, yelled, “Why should we leave so easily, without giving Drupad something to remember us by?” Dhri's back grew stiff. I saw him signal the commander of the Panchaal army.

  Then the brahmin said, “May I try?”

  My head was still awhirl with what I'd done to Karna. There was a pain in my chest, as though someone had taken my heart in his hands and was wringing it. I noticed, without much interest, that the man's long hair was gathered in a traditional topknot. White homespun covered his slender shoulders. He seemed young. His smile revealed strong, straight teeth—a rarity among the poor. The kings laughed mockingly, but the brahmins cheered.

  “A brahmin is higher-born than any prince,” one of them declared. “He has the right.”

  Someone else shouted, “And don't underestimate the power of prayer! It might well prevail where muscles failed!” Glares were exchanged between the brahmins and kshatriyas in an age-old power struggle.

  A relieved Dhri motioned the young man forward.

  The brahmin chanted something—a prayer, perhaps, though his tone was not one of supplication. In a motion so rapid that his arm was a streak of light, he lifted the bow. Shot. Before I could take in a breath, the shield cracked in two and fell with a clang, and the fish, still revolving slowly, hung askew from the ceiling, its brass eye pierced by the brahmin's arrow.

  The commoners erupted in cheers, though the kings were ominously quiet. Dhri grasped the man's hands; my father descended from his throne; the priests hurried to the dais; my attendants rushed forward, strewing flowers and gabbling wedding songs. Someone thrust the garland into my hands. The brahmin was very tall. He had to bend down so I could raise the garland over his head. Who was he? Krishna might have known, but in the press of people, I couldn't find him. How could a brahmin be so skilled with the bow? I tried to check if he had any battle scars, but the shawl covered his shoulders. Dhai Ma had stories where gods came to earth, disguised, to marry virtuous princesses, but I doubted that I was sufficiently virtuous for that. I tried to look into his face, but it was deliberately angled away. One of the kings blew his battle conch. It was echoed by others. Hurry, Panchaali, Dhri whispered. Why wouldn't the man meet my eyes? I stood on tiptoe and numbly dropped the garland around his neck. Was this even a proper wedding, conducted with such unseemly haste? He slipped a chain made of cowrie shells, such as poor village women wear, over my head. Against my skin, the shells were like cold, minute fists. And so I was married.