The Temple Dancer

by John Speed

  "Now?" Usually one danced in the temple only in the morning to wake the Goddess, or at night right before she went to sleep.

  "We must return to the palace before sundown. It is the rule. But the Goddess will not mind the time."

  Whose rule, Maya wondered as they mounted the stone steps of the temple. At the doorway to the griha, the brahmins shuffled to one side, giving Maya room.

  The little girl stared as Maya stretched in the corner. "Would you like to be a devadasi?" Maya asked. Lakshmi nodded with eyes wide. "It is a difficult life," Maya smiled. "You're named for her, you know," she added as she tightened the skirt of her sari, nodding to the murti. "Lakshmi. The goddess of wealth."

  But Lakshmi, her eyes now nearly popping, dashed off to whisper into Chitra's ear.

  There was no music, but using one of her gold bangles, Chitra tapped the tal on the flagstone floor. Teen tal, twelve beats, the most challenging of dances. As Maya's bare feet slapped the tiles, she began to forget. The bandits disappeared, Slipper disappeared, then Lucinda and Pathan, even Chitra and Lakshmi. It took time, but as she leaped and whirled with her eyes locked on those of the Goddess, even Geraldo's face began to fade, and at last she forgot even the touch of his hands upon her thighs. The stones beneath her feet became as soft as clouds, the flickering lamps of the temple grew bright. The mudras of her face and hands, each one carefully practiced and executed, required no more thought: they flowed from her like water now, the absolute expression of Maya's heart.

  When she finished, she held the last pose for a long time, seeing only the Goddess's serene gaze. Slowly Maya became aware of her surroundings; her breath echoing from the dark walls, her sweat falling on the cold floor. Little Lakshmi stared in awe at Maya. The brahmins bowed to her as they returned to tend the Goddess.

  "You are a great devadasi," Chitra said, as they walked back to the palace arm in arm.

  "How can you know, sister?"

  Chitra stopped and placed her hand on Maya's cheek. "I know." But her face was full of sadness. As they came to the palace gate, Chitra pressed Maya's arm. "Will you go to him again tonight?'

  "What do you know of it?" Maya asked when she had caught her breath.

  "Only that you are a woman, and that you are young," Chitra answered. "What will you do, sister?"

  But Maya could not say, or would not.

  Geraldo once again had astonished her. That night Maya practiced with him the arts of pressing, and marking, and scratching with the nails, and biting. She could feel along the inside of her thigh the imprint of Geraldo's teeth, the Line of Jewels.

  She had laid awake all night, but not from the tingling of his bite, nor from the memory of her body's fire. She was thinking of Chitra's simple question, and her thoughts roiled. "What will you do, sister?"

  In the morning she found Geraldo gone, so she must have slept. Her side where he had laid against her now felt hollow, as if a part of her was gone.

  As she dressed, as sometimes happened, a memory erupted in Maya's thoughts with such completeness that it was almost like a vision. She saw with exquisite clarity the face of her mother dying in the forest.

  It was as though the room had disappeared, and all that she could see was that pale face, the lips turning gray-blue in the dawn. Maya had been about three years old, yet the memory was fresh and painful as a burn.

  She'd felt her mother's body growing cold though she covered it with leaves, watched her beautiful face grow slack though she kissed the cheeks. At last a fat man had come through the woods, a big fat man with a bear. He led her to the temple where she would end up living out her childhood.

  No one there believed her story. They thought she'd run away and that someone would come for her. When no one came, the shastri put her to work in the kitchen. One day by fate, she'd met her guru, Gungama, who'd taken one look at her and set her dancing.

  Even Maya had come to think she'd made the story up, of her dying mother, of the stranger and his bear. Even so, whenever she got the chance, she'd wander through the forest near the temple, hoping.

  Years passed. She grew up slim and graceful, became a dancer, became beautiful. The shastri taught her tantra and promised that one day she would be the vessel for sadhus seeking the divine.

  On her last day as a virgin, Maya had stepped still dripping from her river bath to find the saint named Twelve Coats waiting for her, seated on the bank beside his brown bear. The bear looked up and yawned at her, and she saw that it was old, its teeth yellow and its snout gray. The saint held a leash of knotted rags around the old bear's neck. He was thin, she saw now, but he wore a dozen coats, one pulled over the last, so he looked fatter than the bear.

  The old man nodded to her silently and motioned to her with his twiglike fingers. He then gave the leash a tug and vanished with the bear into the leafy shadows of the woods.

  Without a word, she followed.

  It was nearly dark when the bear sat down near a mound of rocks and leaves. The saint gestured toward the mound and nodded. Maya's fingers as they touched the rocks were tender as a child's kiss. Then she touched a bone, dry and hard, and she stopped, and patted back the leaves and wept.

  She looked up to find Twelve Coats rummaging at the end of a hollow log, from which he took something: dirty, cobweb-covered; Maya could not tell what. He placed whatever it was on the ground, and with his hand brushed off the cobwebs. It was a parcel wrapped in an old ragged coat, and inside the parcel were two plain wooden boxes, one long and thin, one small and square.

  Twelve Coats pointed to the mound, and then to the boxes, and then to her. He gave the boxes to her, and then pressed his bony hand against her head. When he let go, she sat dumbfounded. This made him smile, and for a while he stared as an uncle stares at a charming niece. The bear scratched behind his ear like a dog. At last, with a tug at the bear's leash, he and the animal set off, leaving her to find her own way home.

  The night watchman at the temple gate had stared at her as if she were a ghost. "We thought you'd died," he said, looking disappointed. "There's been a bear around."

  By the dim light of a butter lamp, she opened the boxes in her room. The long one held a bright, broken sword, the small one a wedding headdress, a net of glass beads, some clear, some white. She hid both boxes, but had at last a clue then who she was, or at least who she once had been.

  Over the years Maya had managed to pack that memory away, burying it in some dark place, just as she had hidden her treasures from the shastri's sight. Sometimes, though, like today, her mother's cold, pale face emerged unbidden. She remembered, and as she remembered, wept.

  Even while she twisted her hair into a soft braid, she wept. Her tears spotted her dusty sandals as she walked. She found a quiet place in the garden, amidst the dew-wet rose leaves, pushed the end of her sari into her mouth, and cried until her throat ached. Even muffled, the sound of her sobs scared the crows that rested in the mango tree. They burst from their branches, finally fluttering down to prowl around her, their caws so loud they hid the sound of her weeping.

  She never heard Lady Chitra's footsteps, or those of Lakshmi leading the blind woman through the garden. Chitra turned toward Maya for a moment as though her blind eyes actually saw, and then she shooed Lakshmi away. Hesitantly, feeling her way, she came to where Maya sat, scattering the crows as she walked.

  She sat beside Maya for a long time before she spoke. "Those shastris are bastards, sister," she said at last. "A girl should grow into a woman, but they turn her into a plaything. They toyed with you as they toyed with me. They told us that we served the Goddess, but we served them only."

  Maya sniffed, but could not answer. Chitra's eyes drifted as though watching the movements of something far away. "Did the shastris ever tell us of desire? Did they tell us of the ache of yearning? Did they tell us of the feel of a man, or the smell, or of his weight on our breasts as he thrusts? No ... They gave us sadhus, dried twigs of wood, not men. A man is a bonfire, a feast of agony and pleasur
e. It's such a nuisance."

  Chitra stroked Maya's hair. "When you dance, sister, you feel in your heart the blessing of the Goddess, her peace, her kindness. But when you are with him, then the power of the Goddess is in your heart, crashing through you. The Goddess is no thing of stone. The Goddess is breath, desire, despair. She is the green of the bursting leaf, the baby's cry, the lover's bite, the fragrance of the rose. You feel the Goddess moving through you."

  "It is horrible," Maya said, her voice choked.

  "Yes," Chitra said.

  "I enjoy it."

  "Yes. Yes." Chitra dropped her hand into her lap. "Now what will you do?"

  "I don't know." She tried to say more, but sobbing once more overwhelmed her. Pressing her hands to her face, Maya ran off.

  By now, Lucinda could wind her sari by herself. She placed kohl in her eyes, and touched vermilion to her forehead. When she stepped into the morning sunlight of the corridor, she saw Chitra's young guide, Lakshmi. "Are you looking for Maya?" Lucinda asked kindly. Lakshmi shook her head. "For who, then?" The girl's eyes grew wide, and she lifted her hand and placed it in Lucinda's.

  Lakshmi led her down a corridor, and then a hall, and then across another courtyard. "Where are you taking me?" Lucinda asked, and though the girl looked at her with fear, she did not answer.

  They had come to some part of the palace that Lucinda had not yet seen. The girl led her to a pair of ornamented doors that creaked when she pushed them open, and led Lucinda inside.

  The room was completely dark except for the faint light that came in through the still-open door. The air was awash in fragrance, with the tang of Persian roses and jasmine, and a thick smoke of incense burning.

  "Who is that?" said a soft voice, but Lucinda could not tell where. The girl dropped her hand, leaving Lucinda standing in shadows, too uncertain to move.

  Slowly Lucinda's eyes adjusted. The room was as large as her uncle's hall in Goa, the beamed ceilings high. Where the light struck, Lucinda could see bundles of flowers heaped everywhere, like the stalls of the flowerwallahs in the market. Though full of perfume, the air felt still and stale.

  In the shadows, Lucinda could just make out Lakshmi, now whispering in the ear of Lady Chitra, reclining on some cushions on a low dais in the center of the room. From the ceiling hung a white parrot in a cage, which cocked its head and whistled.

  "Come here, Lucinda." Her voice came from the shadows. "Is it thought polite among farangs to stand at such a distance?" Lakshmi jumped from her seat and brought Lucinda forward. For the first time, she did not look terrified.

  Lucinda had formed the impression that Chitra was ancient. Here, alone with her, with time to reflect, Lucinda saw that in truth Chitra was younger than she thought. Her face, though soft, was not that wrinkled, and her hands when she gestured appeared vibrant and young. Maybe her blindness had made her steps appear infirm. And although Chitra liked to assume the haughty authority of a matriarch, Lucinda now saw that she was just another woman, no longer young maybe, but not yet very old.

  She held some tidbit to the birdcage, and the parrot snapped at it. "You are wearing a fine sari of heavy silk, light taupe in color, embroidered with gold and silver thread. Stolen from me."

  Lucinda was silent for a long time. "I assumed you lent it to me." She said at last.

  "Apparently I've made you uncomfortable." Lady Chitra sounded very bored. "Keep it. I like you. Besides, what good is it to me? My life has ended. Why does a corpse need another sari?" Lucinda waited uncomfortably. "I would know more about the farang. He troubles me."

  "You mean Geraldo? How, lady?"

  "It was he who expelled the hijra from my palace. I despise the hijra, so I thought he had done me a good turn. You know that a hijra stole my baby?"

  "You have often said so, lady."

  Chitra sighed, and for a moment Lucinda thought that she might cry. "I have found out that the hijra he expelled was the demon Slipper himself, that very hijra who took my baby from me nine years ago. I should have killed him! I might have torn out his eyes. Had I known, I would have strangled him with these hands!" Lucinda watched Chitra squeeze her hands, and then drop them to her lap. "Does he mean to marry you?"

  "Who, lady?"

  "Who? That farang, Geraldo, of course. Whoever did you think I meant?"

  Lucinda gulped. "The man is my cousin."

  "Then why does he look at you so?" Chitra demanded, holding another tidbit for her bird.

  "How?" Lucinda asked.

  But the woman's thoughts seemed elsewhere. "The lengthening shadows, the brown leaves on the rosebushes, the air so cold at morning that one needs a blanket," she said, her eyes drifting again. "Soon the summer ends. Do farangs marry their cousins?"

  What business is that of yours, Lucinda thought. "I'm betrothed to another."

  "And where is he?" asked the woman.

  "Far away."

  "Ahcha. " The woman raised her sightless eyes to Lucinda. She lifted another tidbit and for a moment, Lucinda thought that the woman meant to feed her with it. "Listen to me first, then leave me as one leaves a corpse. Is that too much to ask?" The woman held the tidbit just outside the parrot's reach, and was quiet for a long time.

  At last she said, "A young woman far from home, a young woman alone among strangers, a young woman in a different world. A young woman who has looked at death and knows now how fleeting life may be. A young woman, beautiful, curious, and trusting."

  Lucinda's face grew hotter. "You think I am a fool?"

  "You see my parrot? Suppose I left the cage door open and the bird flew off. Which of us would be the greater fool? How long would he last outside his cage? He would fly into the open sky and fall to earth, blinded by the sun."

  Lucinda drew herself up stiffly, feeling as stern as when she'd argue with Helene. "If you think to tell me how I should..."

  "Oh," the woman sighed. "Forgive me. I did not speak of you."

  "You don't pretend that you were speaking of your parrot?"

  "No," the Chitra said, lowering her head. "I spoke of my sister, Maya."

  "Of course anyone could tell," Pathan told Lucinda later. "She is mad for him. You alone did not notice because you are too pure, dear Lucy."

  Lucinda had just told him about her conversation with Lady Chitra. His long fingers twirled a raisin, which he examined so minutely that Lucinda knew he wished to avoid her gaze.

  "I'm not so pure," she answered.

  Pathan lifted his dark eyes to hers and she felt the power of his searching look, as though he squeezed her heart with those elegant fingers. "Do you think this time will last forever?" The look between them deepened. "For Maya, I mean?"

  But they both knew. "Maybe it will last," she answered.

  "You know it cannot. Here in this old palace, untouched by the winds of change, here maybe some magic happens, for a little while. But the day must come when she will walk the road across that lake, and on that day, in the sad, heartless world on the other shore, you know it cannot last. She is a slave." Pathan looked away sadly. "Maybe she has forgotten."

  "Maybe she makes it her purpose to forget."

  Pathan was silent for a while, examining the raisin as one might examine a pearl. "Maybe you should remind her, Lucy." He popped the raisin in his mouth, and gave her an offhand smile. But Pathan's eyes were troubled when Lucy looked at him; he was trying to display that foolish courage men hope to show when their hearts are breaking, Lucinda saw, but like all men, he only ended up looking callous.

  She could not bear to see him so, and turned her face away. "My heart is not yet so dry as yours, Munna. I think that she should be happy while she can. Even if it is only for a moment."

  "Lucy, I would make her happy forever if it was in my power. But so much stands in the way."

  "What?" Lucy looked at him with that defiant, open vulnerability that Pathan had seen on no other woman's face. For all her apparent softness, Lucy was as keen as a knife's edge. "What stands in the way of he
r happiness?"

  "A fortress, Lucy, dear." He had been using that softer name for days, and it seemed to him it suited her ... just as Lucy had begun to call him Munna, baby brother, the name his family had called him years ago. "A fortress built to stand against an unsuitable love."

  "And whenever is love unsuitable?"

  The sun reflected off the lake like a shower of diamonds. They stood at the far end of the balcony, two shadows framed against the endless sky, standing apart from everyone except each other, with only the sounds of the peacocks in the distance, and the soft clang of a far-off cowbell, and the lonesome barking of an unseen dog. Their heads leaned so close that Pathan could feel Lucy's breath against his ear. His hand stole to her arm; he found her hand; his dark fingers pressed hers, so small and golden.

  "All I meant to say, dear Lucy, is that her heart's wish is unattainable."

  "What about Aldo? Do his wishes mean nothing?"

  Pathan answered with a sigh. "Maybe he loves her. Maybe he wishes to have her forever, maybe he wishes that she could be his bride. Even then he might lose much to be with her-his properties, his position. But next to his love for her, what meaning do they have? He would be a fool to treasure dead gold more than a live heart."

  Lucy looked hard at Pathan, at the face of the man she now called Munna. Aldo had no property, no position, no treasure-they both knew this well. If Lucy had had any doubts, she now knew certainly that Pathan was not speaking of Maya and Geraldo.

  "But what can that poor man do, Lucy? She belongs to another, not to him. He may only borrow his time with her, or steal it. She can never be his truly."