The Temple Dancer

by John Speed

  "The others?" Pathan's voice was tight.

  "They did not live, Captain. Did you know them well?"

  "Only the mahout, and his elephant. He used to give me rides when I was a boy. The horsemen were Wali Khan's men; I had not known them long."

  "Shahji ordered that they all be buried, not burned. He thought they were Muslims."

  "He was right to do this."

  "He knows his stuff. Reminds me of Uncle Da Gama in some ways. Old soldiers, I guess." Again a drink of wine. "But you wanted to know about this palace. It is a summer home of Shahji, Belgaum palace. That blind woman lives here permanently. Chitra, her name is. She knew Shahji from someplace; I think maybe she's his sister. Nobody really runs the place, I suppose, it's just her and a few servants, and that little girl, Lakshmi."

  "That little girl by the swing?"

  Geraldo nodded. "She's Chitra's favorite; she runs around everywhere, whispering to Chitra about everything she sees. They're a pair and no mistake."

  For a while, the two men talked about the attack on the pass. Geraldo, having missed the action, wanted to know every detail, but Pathan held back, not wanting to reveal what might embarrass Lucinda. Even so, Geraldo pieced the scene together, and looked at Pathan with admiration and gratitude. "I see now why Uncle Da Gama admires you. My family owes you a great debt."

  Pathan tried to change the subject. "Look at you, sir. Dressed like a Hindi!"

  Geraldo laughed. "Yes and Lucy too, as you saw. When the packhorses ran away, our trunks were broken and their contents spilled all over the ravine. All Lucy's things, my things. Slipper's too, but I care not a fig. These I . ama robes are Shahji's-quite fine, I think! And Lucy is wearing saris now-but you saw that. You could barely keep your eyes off her." Geraldo drank, amused by Pathan's embarrassment.

  "The difference is quite striking, sir. And the nautch girl?"

  Geraldo chuckled. "She's a wonder. She was the only one who kept her head. You saw her travelling bag? She never let it go. The only one of us whose luggage was not lost."

  "Ahcha," Pathan said. "So that's what Slipper looked for, I suppose. Did he not find what he expected?"

  Geraldo's eyes were lazy now with wine, and he leaned close to Pathan and whispered. "Maybe Maya had given it away." He lifted his hand in a parody of a teacher. "She gave something to Uncle Da Gama before he left with Shahji."

  "Did you ask about it?"

  "Of course I did. I saw her give it to him, didn't I? So of course I asked."

  "And ..."

  "And she wouldn't say. Not right away. But we've had ... time together. Private time." Geraldo lifted an eyebrow, hoping that Pathan would understand his unspoken boast. "Just some cheap jewelry worn by dancing girls. Her guru gave it to her; some such thing. She wanted Da Gama to keep it safe." Geraldo shook his head. The wine was strong. "That Slipper. To go on and on so, and then all it was some cheap trinket. There's a lesson in there, Captain."

  "As you say, sir. But I see you are weary. Let me not keep you any longer." He and Geraldo exchanged a half-dozen pleasantries, and at last Pathan stepped out into the colonnade and beneath the star-strewn sky.

  The night air tingled in his nostrils, fresh and moist with lake fog. From the garden he heard the peacocks trumpeting hopefully to the hens. As he walked to his room, he saw a shadow move in the darkness.

  It pleased him that his senses were still sharp despite his injury. It was a woman in a sari and a long shawl, slender and graceful, slipping through Geraldo's door.

  Of course he thought of Maya. But then he remembered-Lucinda now wore saris, too. Which one was it? he wondered as he closed his door behind him. Maybe it was someone else, a servant girl perhaps. But his thoughts were troubled as he fell asleep.

  Pathan was proud of his sharp eyes, and yet he had not noticed in the shadows near his own door another woman, slender and graceful in a sari and a shawl, hugging herself against the coolness of the evening air.

  In Goa one hot summer afternoon, Lucinda had watched a fighting kite fly off across the ocean.

  Kite fighting was popular among the poorer children. Kites were small and cheap. You twisted the string with rubber glue and bits of glass, Lucinda had been told. Then you looped your kite around your opponent's string and then began to saw. The loser's kite then fell to earth.

  The kite that crossed the ocean had been parrot green, the Goan sky a hazy turquoise. Lucinda had noticed the contest when she rose from her siesta. The cheering of street children drew her attention. She came to the window just in time to see a red kite cut the green kite's string.

  But the green kite did not fall.

  Without a string, the kite had a will of its own. For more than an hour it swooped and whorled, sometimes so close to her window that Lucinda almost caught it.

  Below her window, a small crowd formed-a common occurrence in Goa. Men started betting on when the kite would fall. But whenever the kite stalled and began a plummet to the street, an updraft would catch it. Dancing away from the jumping, snatching children, soaring again into the brilliant, hazy sky.

  Finally as the sun set, a westerly breeze blew the kite across the seaweed waves of the ocean, never to touch earth again.

  Here in Belgaum Lucinda felt like that kite, untethered, buffeted by every breeze.

  At home flowers had long stems and servants placed them in vases. Here loose rose petals were strewn over the cushions of her bed. Who brought them before she woke each day she never found out nor who swept up the petals each night before she slept. She braided tuberoses in her long dark hair.

  Her feet grew sensitive. Her toes could wiggle in her curl-toed slippers; she felt the roughness of the tiles through the thin flat soles. She took off her shoes to enter a room, and her bare feet pressed against the cool, smooth stone floors, the scratchy warmth of the carpets. Her bare thighs rubbed each other as she walked.

  Here in Belgaum she sat cross-legged on the floor and ate with her fingertips, resting a banana leaf and not a plate upon her knees. It had taken her no time to discover that she liked the taste of rice. For dessert, instead of cake, she followed Maya's example, mixing a little rice and dahi with her hand, and slurping the cool, soured milk from her fingers.

  Goa, she realized, was a noisy place; but the lake palace of Belgaum was quieter than a Goan park before sunrise. Perhaps the lake damped the sounds. Only the singing of birds and the caws of crows disturbed the quiet, and the raucous peacocks strutting for the hens. Rarely did Lucinda hear a servant, and more rarely even see one. At first the silence made her uneasy, and she found it difficult to sleep, but once asleep often it was nearly noon before she woke.

  Somehow, moments after her eyes opened, her own servant would appear, Lakshmi's auntie, a fat old aya called Ambika. Lucinda assumed that Lakshmi was spying on her, but she never found out where.

  Ambika had only three teeth left, but she loved to show them. Once she'd spoken her name, Lucinda had never heard Ambika's voice again. Using her eyes, her eyebrows, a tilt of her head, Ambika expressed every thought. For the first two days, every time she saw her, Lucinda peppered Ambika with questions, chattering away despite the woman's silence. Ambika's fat cheeks glowed with amusement, but she never answered.

  Finally Lucinda grew used to her silence, and began not only to accept it, but to treasure it. She too grew quiet. For the first time she heard the music of her heart.

  The day after Pathan returned, after Ambika had helped her dress and then vanished without a word, Lucinda wandered through the empty palace. She strolled the garden; she sat on the cold stone rail of the pavilion and watched the bustle of the town on the other shore. Maya wasn't in her room. Aldo's room was empty; Lady Chitra and Lakshmi were nowhere to be found.

  At last she passed Pathan's room. Through his door, she saw the captain leaning comfortably against the columns of his balcony. He wore no turban; his black hair hung in a long queue, tied now with a piece of string.

  Pathan bowed when he saw her,
but his face was frozen. His eyes were cold again, as distant and haughty as the first time Lucinda had seen him. Had that only been a few days ago?

  "You're feeling better, Captain," Lucinda said.

  "Madam, please let us go elsewhere. It is not right for you, to be alone here." Swirling a shawl around his shoulders, he strode past her. "Let us go to the pavilion," he said with scarcely a glance, and without waiting for a reply walked off.

  He's just as bad as ever, Lucinda thought as she followed a few steps behind. At the pavilion he sat on the stone railing and motioned for her to sit on the cushions at his feet. Only then did his face soften, and even then, only a little.

  "Maya has gone to some temple with the blind mistress, madam," he explained. "Senhor Geraldo has crossed the bridge to town. He hopes to find some sport."

  "Gambling." Lucinda shook her head. "Why didn't he tell me he was going?"

  "You slept, madam. He asked me to give you word." He paused. "Farang women do not gamble?"

  "Some do."

  A faint light came to Pathan's eyes. "But not you, madam?" He looked out over the hazy valley. "I have not expressed my gratitude for your help." Lucinda felt her face grow hot. "The hakim told me he'd given me up for dead. You and the nautch girl worked some magic to keep me alive."

  "It was Maya, only Maya," she answered. "I just kept her company."

  "Your company was a treasure, madam." His voice was almost sad. "At the road, when I was struck, I felt the soul leave my body." Pathan then told her how he rose to a great height above his body, toward a far-off light that drew him.

  Lucinda was silent for a long time. "Maybe that was God, Captain."

  "Maybe. I don't think so. Maybe that is your idea of God, madam, but it is not mine."

  So it started, innocently enough, a conversation that lasted all the afternoon, as bit by bit Pathan unfolded for her the mysteries of his faith.

  Sometimes what he said seemed so obvious, Lucinda almost giggled; or so implausible, she nearly choked. Occasionally she argued with some point, which seemed to surprise him. But then he would answer with a precision and subtlety of thought that quite astonished her.

  Twice as they talked the muezzin called from the distant minaret, and Pathan kneeled in prayer, bowing to the west. He explained the significance of Mecca, and the Qaaba, the black stone that Allah had sent from the sky as a sign to Abram.

  "Not Abraham from the Bible?" Lucinda asked, incredulous.

  "That same man, madam. The grandfather of Issa, who you call Jesus, the scion of the Jews." As he said this, she saw him smile for the first time that day, that smile so open, so rare. She felt herself uncovered by it. Without wanting to, she turned away, trembling. "You arc cold, madam," he said, placing his shawl around her shoulders. The smell of him lingered on it like spice.

  Later Geraldo joined them on the pavilion. There overlooking the shimmering lake the three of them ate supper. Geraldo barely spoke to her, but she felt his stare like a dark heat. He told her goodbye so strangely that Pathan looked up at him, his brow furrowed.

  After Geraldo left, Pathan waited several minutes before speaking. "Is there some trouble between you and your cousin, madam? Can I offer any help?"

  She studied his face before she answered. Maybe he couldn't help the look of disdain that seemed his constant expression. "Are you married, Captain?" She was surprised by her question; she had simply blurted it out. She nearly apologized but then realized that he wished to answer.

  "Married? Yes, but when I was but a child. She had been my playmate. A few months after we were married, she died."

  "I'm sorry, Captain." He shrugged in reply, his eyes looking into the darkness. "You loved her."

  "I was learning to love. We were children, but even the heart of a child is full of mysteries. But you know how love is, madam. Are you not to be married?"

  "Only pledged for marriage," Lucinda explained. "And I have never seen him, Captain. He is in Portugal." She looked at the town lights twinkling in the distance. "He's an old man."

  "It has been arranged? I thought farangs believed in love marriage."

  "In my case a fortune is involved."

  "Ahcha," Pathan sighed. Fluttering moths danced around the flickering butter lamps. His dark eyes reflected the flames.

  "Do you ever hope to find someone else, Captain? Someone new? Someone who loves you and you love back?"

  Pathan's eyes shifted to the courtyard where Geraldo had walked off, then bored into hers. Lucinda raised her face defiantly, as if answering an unspoken question. He looked suddenly uncomfortable and rose, saying as he bowed, "I will pray for your happiness, madam," and then wished her good night.

  She could not sleep that night. With Pathan's shawl wrapped around her, she crossed the moon-silvered courtyard. At the stairs that led to the pavilion she hid in the shadows. Pathan was there; he sat on the stone rail, gazing across the lake. For a long time, she watched him, then she returned to her room and stared at the ceiling until dawn.

  The next day she found him once more alone at the pavilion. Today his turban was wound tight, and he wore crisp white robes. His eyes lit up when he saw her. He deflected most of her questions, but asked her many, particularly focusing on her faith. He was fascinated by her descriptions of the mass, though Lucinda, as she answered him, winced at her own ignorance. From time to time he compared some element she'd mentioned to the teachings of Islam. His observations were often so subtle that Lucinda would frown as she tried to follow them. When Pathan saw this, he would change the subject for a while, which annoyed her.

  After his noon prayer, he looked as though he'd finally made up his mind about something. "Shall we take a walk?" he asked.

  They stepped outside the palace gates and walked the narrow causeway. She recalled again that untethered kite. In Goa, she had rarely left her house, and then only to visit a nearby friend or go to mass, and even then always in a covered palanquin or a carriage. To walk on this strange roadit seemed terrifying, tantalizing, and forbidden. Lucinda stopped at the end of the causeway; there in the sour-smelling mud of the lakeshore she saw a hundred lotus blossoms lifting from the black water, their petals brilliant purple edged in white. Pathan stood beside her, so close she could feel his breath on her bare neck.

  The town of Belgaum was a beehive. People everywhere, in streets and shops and standing in doorways, alleys, and windows. Her ears, grown used to silence, rang with the shouts of shopkeepers and the laughter of children. Instead of flowers and incense the air was heavy with spices and sewage, animals alive and slaughtered, sweat and dust and rotting vegetables. Once an old gray cow came up behind her and nudged her with his nose. Most stared as they passed. If Pathan had not been beside her, she might have panicked. He did not alter his stately, graceful stride; he answered their stares with a haughty nod. He did not notice her hesitant steps. She worried that her sari would come undone.

  He seemed certain of his way, but Lucinda quickly became lost. Once Pathan stopped and pointed to the palace behind them, hoping to orient her. "Just don't leave me, Captain," she whispered. "I'd never find my way." As they turned again to go, she saw another of his smiles, and his hand brushed against her elbow.

  Lucinda could not fathom the twisting complexity of the town, so unlike the thoroughfares of Portuguese Goa. Here in Belgaum, houses and shops sprouted like weeds to form a labyrinth of narrow alleys.

  At one intersection, they stopped for a moment to watch a noisy procession of men standing in a double line, passing a shrouded body from shoulder to shoulder. The body seemed to float above their unmoving heads as they handed it forward from man to rnan. A crowd of women followed, wailing.

  As the corpse left their hands, the men at the line's end would peel off and rush to the front, like an elaborate dance. The shroud was parrot green, and billowed in the breeze.

  Pathan bowed his head and Lucinda watched in morbid fascination, not moving even when he said her name. "That might have been me, Captain,"
she said.

  "Or me," he replied. "Our lives are loaned us for a moment only. No one knows when the angel may knock upon our door demanding payment."

  At last they came to a walled courtyard, standing in the midst of what Lucinda guessed was a Muslim graveyard. Pathan nodded toward her head, and after some uncertainty, Lucinda pulled the end of her sari over her hair, which seemed to satisfy him.

  A few steps into the courtyard, Pathan removed his shoes. Lucinda placed her slippers next to his. He motioned for her to wait while he washed. "All mosques have tanks, as men must be clean before they pray," he explained as he splashed his hands, feet, and face. He gave no sign whether Lucinda should follow his example. He's not very helpful, she thought.

  Still dripping, Pathan led her to a small building with a whitewashed dome at the far end of the complex. "We have come to the dargah of Yusuf Chisti, a great saint," he whispered. A couple of old men rose as they approached. To these Pathan gave long bows. Lucinda had never seen him so humble. The old men glanced at her and gave Pathan amused looks. "These are the great-grandnephews of the saint," he explained softly. "Their family tends his tomb." Lucinda lifted her hands to her forehead.

  She stood with Pathan at the door of the dargah and slowly her eyes adjusted to the darkness inside. Pathan nodded toward two flat tombs beneath the dome, each covered by heavy dark-green velvet strewn with flowers. "The large one is Yusuf. The small one is his son, who died young." His face was more solemn than she had ever seen. "Will you wait for me here?"