by John Speed
She knows about desire: not the desire of Jyoti’s stories, a gentle longing of heart for heart. Maya knows the essence of desire; knows it well: the fierce ragged beast that explodes through the quiet skin, yearning to possess, to hold, to own—the brutal hunger of the hands to grasp, of the tongue to lick, of the empty aching yoni to be filled.
Soon they reach a shallow ford where the Poona road crosses the river. Maya’s eyes dart along the heavy woods across the river. Jyoti is reciting the story of a queen exiled to the forest. Is that her fate as well? Oh gods, she thinks, How will it be, how will it be? Maybe I should run.
At least the forests had been cool. The trees growing in tangled profusion had muted their steps, their words. The gentle rocking of the oxcart had lulled the women to nap. But now there is no shade. The sun glares down, its light assaulting them. Their faces shine with sweat. The road weaves up and down over increasingly steep hills.
“Tell me where we are, uncle,” Maya calls to Tanaji.
“Close. Once we reach the top of this hill, we might even be able to see Poona.”
“Whose lands are these, uncle?”
“No one’s, now. Maybe his. Maybe he owns them, if anybody does,” he says, nodding to Shivaji, who has now fallen far behind them.
“Him, uncle … Shivaji?”
“Shahji, his father, conquered this territory. But he gave everything over to Bijapur when he made peace. Anyway, the Bijapuris wanted Shahji’s forts, but they didn’t give a shit about these old hills.” Tanaji hums to himself as if remembering. “This is where I brought Shivaji and my boys when he was on the run from the sultan. There’s lots of caves around here.”
“He gave them to Bijapur? To the sultana?” Maya asks.
“No, to her husband, the sultan who died. This was years ago, when Shivaji was a child. Hell, Shivaji probably killed him, spitting in his eye the way he did.” Tanaji laughs and answers Maya’s next question before she asks it. “No, he didn’t really spit. He just refused to bow to the sultan—then he turned his back on him when he left the darbar. Ten years old, and turning his back! Of course that put his father Shahji into a very unpleasant position. So he tried to make Shivaji apologize to the sultan.”
“And did he?” Maya asks, glancing behind her, where Shivaji walks through the dancing shadows of the trees.
“Him? Apologize? Of course not. He stole his father’s horse, instead. That’s right: He stole Shahji’s horse and rode it into the marketplace, and for good measure knocked down the butchers’ stands. Meat, you understand. Couldn’t bear the sight. He was so full of his mother’s notions then, you know—Hindus must not bow down to Muslims; Hindus don’t eat meat, like that. He was just a kid. But what a mess.” Tanaji glances back at Shivaji, and Maya realizes that he is looking not at a man, but at that boy. “So it fell to me to get him out of sight while Shahji and Dadaji tried to square it with the sultan. In the meantime, there was a price on Shahu’s head. So this is where we hid,” Tanaji waves his arms to the horizon, “here in these old hills.”
At the crest, the road twists to the right, and suddenly the land drops off below them into a wide plain that stretches west as far as they can see. “It looks smooth, doesn’t it, like a big table,” Tanaji says.
“Like a dancing platform, uncle,” Maya replies, enjoying the vista.
“The Deccan plateau,” Tanaji explains. “Over there is Poona, where we’re going. And where you’re going—to Shahu’s palace. The Rang Mahal—the Painted Palace.”
Jyoti’s eyes grow wide to hear this. “A palace?”
“It’s just a house,” Shivaji says, suddenly drawing near them. “You’ll see it soon enough. I’m sure Maya has seen better.”
Tanaji nods to some distant mountains to the south. “We’re in Shivaji’s fief now. From here to … well, can you see the forts high on those hills over there? And there,” he adds pointing north. “From here, to there, to there—all this land is his.”
“This land is ours,” Shivaji says quietly, correcting him.
“But I thought Bijapur owns …” Maya’s voice trails off before she finishes the question.
Shivaji looks away. Tanaji answers for him, “Shahji made a deal with Bijapur, but they haven’t held up their end. So by rights …” Tanaji shrugs. “It’s complicated.”
Again Maya sees in Shivaji’s eyes the same fierce fire, but now burning even hotter, as though with his fief stretched out before him he is nearing the heart of his desire.
“It’s not complicated.” Shivaji turns to Tanaji, teeth clenched. “Bijapur has taken everything.”
“But, Shahu, we …” Then Tanaji stops, and hangs his head. An uncomfortable quiet falls as they stare at the bright lands that lie around them. Shivaji moves to the head of the procession, and Tanaji takes his cue and steps to the rear, and no one speaks a word.
The sun bakes the road. Shivaji, his shirt stained with sweat, reaches for the water jug, pouring a long draft into his mouth from above, and then splashing some over his face.
“Me, too,” Jyoti says, flirting. Shivaji lifts the jug over her head. She drinks and then moves suddenly so the water pours onto her breasts, soaking them.
Cow, thinks Maya. Is that what I shall have to do now? she wonders.
They start down the road again, but now Shivaji and Tanaji walk close together, far ahead, talking softly. Maya can’t hear what they’re saying.
“I wonder what they’re up to …,” she says to herself.
“Men are a mystery, mistress,” Jyoti says. And Maya notes that Jyoti is watching Shivaji as she says this. “He’s married,” she says, as if Jyoti doesn’t know this.
“But he’s a man, isn’t he?” She leans toward Maya.
“They say that he is very adept. They say that he is the master of a hundred different kinds of congress, and that he has seduced the wives of two hundred Muslim merchants.”
“Muslims?” Maya says aloud. “Surely not.”
“They say that. The women have not complained, they say, though their husbands beat them after. Many merchants want him dead.” She gives a mischevious look. “A wanted man. Wanted by the husbands, wanted by the wives. They say he paid for our temple with their love gifts. So do you think it matters that he’s married?”
“I forbid you to flirt with him, Jyoti,” Maya whispers. “It’s not right.”
Jyoti shrugs, and Maya bristles. It’s clear that Jyoti thinks she’s trying to keep Shivaji to herself. That isn’t true, Maya tells herself. But some part of her knows that Jyoti is right.
Despite herself, Maya finds her eyes again drifting toward Shivaji. Even when he is walking slowly so Tanaji and the bullock can keep up, an intense energy seems to pour from him, as though he might suddenly gallop off.
He’s a panther, Maya thinks: dark, graceful, full of coiled power. A panther in a cage. And if the cage should open …
“Dangerous,” Jyoti whispers. She gazes at Shivaji, neither cautiously or circumspectly. It’s embarrassing. Oh, gods, thinks Maya, am I as obvious as her?
The road snakes toward Poona. Now they see more signs of life: children driving water buffalo, cooking fires, mud farmers’ huts. The land is broken into neat squares, marked with stone fences.
Tanaji hasn’t forgotten the riders from Kirkhi—but despite this he feels easy. Khirki’s looking for two bandits fleeing on horseback, not for a couple of sweaty farmers with women in an oxcart.
“They’re hard to see with this haze, but there are caves in most of those hills,” he says to the women. “That’s why bandits love this area.”
“Did you see bandits when you were hiding here, uncle?” Maya asks.
“We were bandits.” His voice trails off. Suddenly, he seems old.
“And what will we do in Poona, uncle?” Jyoti asks.
“You two will stay at the palace, I suppose. There’s room. Sai Bai will insist, I expect.”
“What’s she like, uncle?”
Tanaji takes a moment,
considering his words. “She grew up well. Shahji arranged the marriage before he went to Bijapur. It took some doing after Shivaji’s insults, but Dadaji and Shahji worked out the deal. That’s how we stopped living in caves. A couple of years after we got there, Shivaji got married. Shahji never showed up. But Sai Bai was so pretty. Prettiest little girl I think I’ve ever seen. Every time I see her I still see that bright-eyed little girl. She makes me laugh, Sai Bai. She’s a sweetheart.”
Jyoti continues on: “And do they have children, uncle?”
“There’s a boy, about eight or nine. Nine, I think. Sambhuji.” He looks around cautiously. “And Shahu’s mother. Jijabai.”
“Is she a sweetheart too, uncle?”
“Nice enough, I suppose.” He licks his lips. “Like any mother, I suppose.” Now he rubs his nose. “She’s fine. She’s a good woman. Look, you’ll meet her soon enough. You can draw your own conclusions.”
CHAPTER 9
Standing at the Rang Mahal’s great doors, Jijabai sees her son approach, dressed as a farmer. A farmer! She can see that even from here. What is one more disappointment for Jijabai? It is her karma to be humiliated, time and again.
But she does not surrender. She defies her fate.
To punish her for some ancient sin, the gods had given her Shahji for a husband. But she did not decline. So they gave her Shivaji for a son. Still she would not crumble. They exiled her to this backwater, to Poona, and set the halfwit Dadaji for her protector. Even then, she would not bow.
They would not break her, no, not without a fight. She was a queen, and the daughter of a queen. She would not yield.
So now the gods had taken merely to insulting her.
As she gazes at her pathetic son, she feels the thorn again thrust deep into her heart. That she should live to see this day: to see her son, her son who should be king, wearing the filthy lungi of a farmer.
But she does not bend, nor weep nor wail. No, she stands tall: noble but wronged, watching her useless son approach. By the gods, she watches him! no matter how her heart should break.
And that fat fool beside him, Tanaji. This must have been his idea: Oh Shahu, let’s dress up like bumpkins! What fun! The fool! Without Tanaji’s interference, my son might have seized his destiny.
But are the gods content with these heartaches merely? No, they mock her once more: Jijabai sees the women in the bullock cart. She recognizes what they are at once, and despite herself, she catches her breath. She grasps the doorjamb so she will not faint. Oh you gods, she wails silently. Do what you will, you shall not triumph!
But her heart feels the piercing of another thorn, this one sharper and longer. Now he brings home his whores! Isn’t his useless wife trouble enough? Must I now suffer nautch girls in my house?
I am doomed forever to play out this pitiful life. How will Shahu ever be a king? He might as well leave that lungi on, and take a mattock, and go into the fields and dig. I might as well go with him.
But Jijabai buries her anguish where no one can see, for she is a queen despite the gods, and queens have above all their dignity.
She sees her little grandson, as always playing in the dirt. Now all her hopes rest in that dirty, round-faced boy. Now the grandson is her only hope. She will raise Sambhuji to be a king despite his father. “Sam,” she calls. “Fetch your good-for-nothing mother. Tell her that her husband has come. As if she cares. Hurry.”
“Yes, grandmother,” says the boy. He at least has learned to obey without question. He scurries off. “Mama, mama, daddy’s home!”
His nose needs blowing, scowls Jijabai.
Shivaji greets Jijabai. How small she is. She is getting old, he realizes, but her face is still vibrant: tiny eyes see everything, high cheekbones worthy of a queen, and a mouth that never smiles. She still wears her marriage necklace, though she hasn’t seen Shahji for over fifteen years.
“I greet you, mother,” Shivaji says, kneeling to place his forehead to her feet. This is proper respect, and it somewhat placates her. But it makes her feel her age. He used to be so small! But as she looks down at the man kneeling before her, she thinks: even so, he’s so beautiful. She is, after all, his mother.
She sniffs. “Where did you find those rags? Have you no dignity? Is this how I raised you! If you care nothing for your own reputation, think what you do to me, your own mother!”
“I beg your forgiveness, mother, though I am unworthy.” By now he is adept at such apologies.
“And what, pray tell,” Jijabai asks, raising her chin ever so slightly to indicate Maya and Jyoti, “is that?”
“A guest, mother, and her servant.”
“Is that what they’re called these days? Very pretty.”
“Maya, please come here,” Shivaji calls. Exchanging timid glances, the women come slowly, eyes lowered, sari ends pulled up to hide their hair.
At that moment, however, Sambhuji comes bursting around his grandmother’s skirts. “Daddy,” he shouts, leaping to throw his chubby arms around his father’s neck. Through the doorway, Shivaji sees his wife, Sai Bai. Her green sari that blends with the shadows. She has tossed its end across her head like a veil, and keeps her face turned down. There is stillness in her movements, like the slow ripples on a deep tank of water.
She starts to kneel at Shivaji’s feet, but he pulls her up. “Please let me greet you, lord,” she says.
“The sight of you is greeting enough, Sai Bai.”
“You flatter me, husband.” There he stands, dressed in rags, wearing that look of despair he gets whenever his mother disapproves, which is always. Her dark eyes sweep the scene. Whores. No wonder Jijabai scowls. It is never easy to be his wife.
But she recovers. “We must see to your guests,” she says.
“This is Maya,” Shivaji says, “and her servant Jyoti.” The women raise their folded hands in greeting. “Maya is a devadasi.”
Jijabai closes her eyes and sighs. “A nautch girl.”
Maya says nothing, but lifts her head and stares into Jijabai’s gray eyes until Jijabai flinches and steps back. But Sai Bai moves between Jijabai and her son, and raises her delicate hands to her forehead. “Our house is blessed by your presence.”
“Sai Bai,” hisses Jijabai, “don’t you know what she is?”
“Yes, mother,” she replies. “She is my husband’s guest, and now mine.” She lifts her head. In a heartbeat Sai Bai sees in Maya’s eyes a story unfold, a story vast and tragic, hearts shattered and tears shed.
Then, in Maya’s eyes, she sees her death.
She straightens, becoming for a moment as stiff and formal as Jijabai. “I am Sai Bai, wife of Shivaji, most noble of men. We must be sisters.”
“Let it be as you say,” Maya replies, and adds, tentatively, “Sister.”
“Disgusting,” says Jijabai.
Tanaji lives in a wooden house on the north side of the palace compound. It’s empty: Nirmala is probably in the marketplace, shopping and gossiping as usual, the twins are gone hunting, and the servants, of course, are nowhere to be seen. So he yawns and throws himself on the bedmat, and in a moment is snoring loudly.
He wakes to find Nirmala sitting by him. Her round face, as always, seems to be both laughing and scolding. She has gotten thicker as the years pass, and a little less nimble, but to Tanaji she still looks like the bride he married as a boy. He still enjoys a tumble with her now as much as when they were youngsters, his voice cracking and his lingam a sprout that seemed never to get soft. Many things have changed, but she will always be the little girl he married.
“Well, it’s a mess over there,” she says as soon as his eyes open. “What possessed him to bring a nautch girl here is beyond me. And that sweet wife of his, ready to do anything he wants, anything. And him always leaving her alone for days, and having congress with anything that wears a skirt, and Muslim women, too. She deserves better.” She smiles at Tanaji. “But then, everyone can’t have the best husband in the world.”
“No,” Tan
aji agrees. “You are very fortunate.”
They talk about a hundred things; about nothing; a husband and wife who know each other well.
Nirmala sighs and shakes her head. “Jijabai won’t talk to her.” It takes Tanaji a moment to realize that she has turned her thoughts once more to the big house. “She sent them to the servants’ quarters, but Sai Bai wouldn’t hear of it. She almost raised her voice to Jijabai, she was that upset. Sai Bai gave up her own room for them.”
“What did Shahu say?”
“He’s gone to talk with Dadaji. Trust a man to avoid a conflict.”
“He’ll settle things when he gets back.”
“I think not. I think we know who rules that house.”
Shivaji watches Dadaji add up another line of figures.
A white-bearded man with a long sad face, Dadaji sits cross-legged on a low wooden platform, near a short-legged writing table. Everywhere papers surround him, in baskets, in boxes—he even holds papers between his long, wrinkled toes. The room is small—not really big enough for two grown men, Shivaji thinks. Yet when Shivaji appeared at the door, Dadaji had shooed away four or five assistants—his secretary, his accountant, and some others. Shivaji can’t imagine how they found room.
Dadaji takes a paper from between his toes, shakes his head, and with a scratching flourish of his feather pen, scribbles a total. Even the slightest interruption makes him lose his concentration, forcing him to start from the beginning. “You see how it is, Shahu.” Dadaji holds out the paper with his bare right arm. “We’re practically out of money. What will happen when this little bit is gone?”
Now why Dadaji’s arm is bare is this: Years ago he had planted an orchard of mango trees in the eastern part of the compound, and forbade anyone to touch the fruit, or lose his arm. One hot day he was strolling through the orchard, and without thinking, he plucked a ripe mango. When he realized what he had done, he cried out for his servant to bring a sword.