“The raja? But I already live at his house!” The girl startled me with a mirthless laugh. “Of course, I don’t count as the raja’s daughter, because a daughter can only be born of a man and a woman. Devadasis aren’t women; we are offerings made to the patron goddess, entitled to be consumed by the maker of the offering once we have been touched by the goddess. I am not even an illicit child, merely a blessing received by my mother in the performance of her role, more property added to the coffers of the raja who owned her. I am cleverer, more beautiful, more talented than the princess whose wedding you graced with your performance, but she is the princess, and I am property. I am less than even the common free woman in the street.”
I’ll be honest—I had never heard anything like that. Not that I ever understood the elaborate social intricacies of the upper classes, but I always knew that I did not trust them, and her story just seemed to confirm my mistrust. If what this girl was saying was true, I could not possibly tell her to go back to the raja’s palace. But it was also impossible to imagine her at the circus—with her delicate step, her sheltered view of life, those smooth white hands that had probably never done a day’s work.
I told her so.
“The circus is no life for a lady like you. You have only seen us in performance. You cannot begin to imagine the sweat, heat, dust, filth, and flies on the road; sleeping huddled in tents; washing with animals in public ponds; the tasteless slop that we eat; the insecurity and physical labor that make up most of our days. I doubt you have the grit to survive it.”
“If that is so,” said the girl, “I will part ways with your circus once you deliver me to the nearest city. I have heard that our traditional dance is being made secular in the cities, that there are dancers who are well respected in the community without belonging to any king or any temple. They give performances for the public, teach classes, save their own money, and can also marry and have children if they wish. If I make it to the city, I will find ways to survive. All I need is safe passage out of here.”
Something about this girl had touched my heart the very first time I saw her at the head of the holy procession. I didn’t wish to call it infatuation, but Shehzad had noticed it too—it was what made him testy enough to retreat into his lamp. True, if she hadn’t come to me, I would never have sought her out, but I would also have gone on believing that she lived a life just as ethereal as her face, devoted to worship and virtue that more common people like myself could not afford.
“Don’t think I don’t intend to compensate you for your assistance,” the girl said, giving me a smile of such well-honed coyness that it made my heart do an inadvertent leap. “I had no money to bring, but once you take me to the city, I promise to make you memories that you will cherish for the rest of your life.”
“There’s no need for any of that,” I said, recoiling at the insinuation. I looked up at the sky—there were still a couple of hours before we were scheduled to leave. By the time the rest of the palace started waking up from the previous night’s revelries, the Majestic Oriental Circus would be well on its way.
“Go to one of the girls’ tents and get some sleep,” I told our new stowaway. “We have a long day’s journey ahead.”
• • • •
The sky was clear, a deep rouge spreading over the eastern horizon when the Majestic Oriental Circus began its preparations to leave the Thripuram raja’s palace. Half-asleep, disheveled performers emerged from their tents, which were then unmounted and loaded onto trucks. The birds and animals clamored to be fed before they were secured. At my instruction, the young devadasi had changed into clothes from the other girls of the troupe and blended in with them, just in case anyone from the palace was keeping watch as we filed out. I went to have a word with Johuree.
“The Majestic Oriental Circus has always been a refuge to outcasts and runaways,” he began, and I nodded. “But this woman is beholden to powers beyond ourselves.”
The diamond in Johuree’s false left eye pierced me with a red glint from the rising sun. “By giving her shelter, you have taken on charges that are yours alone.”
“If any trouble comes of this girl, I promise to step up to it,” I told my trusted employer and friend. “She will be fed and clothed out of my salary. I will protect and instruct her, and make sure she finds lodgings in the city when we get there. The circus will not have to bear any responsibility for my decision.”
Shehzad was not pleased when he emerged.
“I have never seen a bigger fool than you,” he grumbled, skulking around the gathered props and trunks that were the farthest from the newest member of our troupe. “A pretty girl comes simpering with a sob story, and suddenly Trapeze Master Binu is the gallant savior we all lacked. Why do you think she did not go to any other guest at the wedding? Why not appeal to Johuree directly, if she wanted to join the circus? She came to you because she had noticed you stare at her earlier like a mesmerized child. She knew you wouldn’t be able to say no.”
“I suppose you’re right,” I said, trying to rest a hand on his arm, trying to pull him into a reluctant embrace. There was no use trying to disguise my thoughts from Shehzad. “But that does not prove that she’s wrong in trying to escape, or that the people who would decline to help her are correct. I am doing the right thing here, Shehzad, even if it’s not the most practical thing to do.”
“I have served warrior after warrior, as far back as I can remember,” he said. “A few of them were unkind masters, but others were loving and respectful, though they still owned me. There are worse lives than that of a glorified slave.”
“But now you are free. Wouldn’t you say you prefer the change of circumstances?”
“No one is ever free, least of all a jinni. Only the nature of the master changes,” Shehzad replied curtly before turning to walk away. “If I am free now, it’s because my master wishes me so. My next master may be worse, as may that girl’s or any other’s.”
I stared at his receding back, the taut, defiant muscles that I longed to knead with my palms, to remind him that I had never been his master. But that would have to wait for another time, far away from this palace with its loathsome practices.
• • • •
The skies began to grow ominously dark as soon as our trucks rolled out of the palace gates. Clouds rumbled. Tree branches cracked overhead. Waves of dust rose on the distant horizon. Within the town of Thripuram, as we passed, the few early risers hurried to return inside; doors and windows were noisily shut. It was a storm as unseasonal as any in this part of the land.
The trucks were the closest we had to homes, in fair or rough weather, so we trudged on until we were on the dirt roads that led out of the town, and could simply go no farther. Unrestrained by any more houses, the winds came pounding at our canvas walls like solid boulders. The trucks swayed like they were wooden toys for children, not hundreds of tons of machine on wheels. Inside, our animals screamed and rattled against their cages. Dust clouds covered the sky, obscuring the sun. Our drivers could no longer see the road. Dust, razor-sharp and unforgiving, filled the eyes and nostrils of anyone who tried to look outside.
Usually, a heavy rain comes lashing quick on the trail of a dust storm, calming the winds and weighing down the dust into mud, but it had been an hour since this dust had risen, and there was still not a drop of moisture.
As I sat in the first of our trucks, a massive trumpeting from the truck behind us told me that the elephants had broken free, and another tearing, heart-wrenching wail followed as one of them was blown away by the winds. In all my thirty years of life, I have never heard anything like it.
The third truck, carrying the clowns, fire-eaters, and my own trapeze team, soon turned to its side with a sickening lurch. From my own truck I could hear none of their voices, although in my guts I could feel them crying, praying to their respective gods, groaning as they scrambled in blindness, bones trampled and crunched. The girl whom we had rescued from the palace was among them too.
Perhaps Shehzad was right—if we all died in this freak apocalypse this morning, I would have proved to be a worse master than the raja, not only to her but to everyone else in my care.
I am a man who has left his own forest deities far behind in his past, so there was no greater power to whom I could kneel. In any case, if all these other pious people’s prayers were going unheard, how might I—faithless of heart—sway any god to my favor?
A heavy figure swayed its way through the truck and dropped heavily, purposefully next to me. It was Johuree.
“Trapeze Master Binu, you promised to bear responsibility,” he whispered into my ear. Each of his words fell like the gong of a temple bell, cutting through the mayhem outside my brain.
“What—this dust storm?!” I was stunned by his suggestion. “You think I have something to do with this?”
“I did warn you that the girl you rescued was beholden to powers beyond ourselves.”
“I thought—I thought you meant the Thripuram raja and his administration!”
Johuree said nothing, just stared at me with his cold eyes, both living and stone. Nothing was enough.
“I don’t know how to… I don’t know who—”
The crashes and screams returned, closing in on my senses like water over the head of a drowning man. So I rose to my feet, staggering from wall to wall as the floor of the truck churned beneath me and dropped myself into the dust-filled darkness.
• • • •
There was nothing, absolutely nothing to see. My eyes, ears, and mouth were assaulted by dust as soon as I hit the ground. Dust scraped against my bare legs beneath my dhoti like a thousand razor blades. In less than a second, every inch of my skin felt like it was being flayed. I could feel the blood trickle down my arms, legs, chest; I could feel my face growing muddy with blood.
Coughing, choking, spitting, I called out into the nothingness, “Here I am: Trapeze Master Binu. I think it is me you want.” I spat out more dust. “Spare the rest of the circus. They took no part in my decision to rescue the girl.”
I waited, struggling to breathe. Feeling foolish.
Then a voice came, responding to my cry. I do not know why I remember it as a female voice, because it did not even sound human. It came from the wind, molding and resonating as a blend of dust and words.
“I am the kuldevi of the kingdom of Thripuram,” she said. “Stupid human, filthy, untouchable low-caste whom no god will deign to claim for his own, did you think you could run away with my property and pay nothing for your crime?”
Her insults did not perturb me—I have heard them and worse from people, and expected no better from their gods—but the words still made my blood boil.
“No man or woman is anyone’s property!” I spluttered through the dust that clogged my mouth. “Not the Thripuram raja’s, not even yours. I don’t care if you are human or goddess. You are not my goddess, as you well know.”
The thick, blowing dust rippled with laughter. I could feel it dance on my skin as the grains freshly scoured the bleeding surface.
“A free man, are you?” More words formed. “A man who acknowledges no master, and surely no charge? Then when the men, women, and animals of this party of fools die, as they will within the next hour, their deaths will not be on your conscience.”
I wanted to scream back that their deaths should be on the conscience of this vengeful goddess, but I did not even know if the gods possessed consciences; besides… just the thought of their deaths deflated the righteous rage in my heart. My strange but upright boss who had employed me when no one else would, my colleagues and friends who received me as one of their own, the young boys and girls whom I hand-picked and trained for my trapeze team—none of whom I had consulted before I brought down this mayhem upon them. I was a free man till my last breath, but none of them should have to bear the consequences of my freedom.
“Take my life. Let them go,” I pleaded.
Another gust of laugher, another whiplash of dust across my body.
“And why would I be sated with one mortal life when I came here prepared to take fifty, including the life of that traitorous whore who dares to defy being beholden to me?”
I did not know what else would sate her. I am a poor man with hardly any treasures. I had kept aside a few rupees from my salary for the past two years, hoping to return to my mother and buy a house when I finally had enough. I could not imagine my modest savings would buy the lives of the Majestic Oriental Circus from the kuldevi of Thripuram.
The goddess seemed to read my thoughts.
“It is heartening to see you realize the utter triviality of your existence, Trapeze Master Binu,” she spoke. “Your puny mortal life and its possessions are every bit as worthless to me as you think. But there is one thing you own, much more valuable than your life, for which I will let your entire circus go, even that filthy whore and yourself.”
I waited, dry tongue scraping the dust that now formed a crust on the roof of my mouth, wondering what she meant.
“Give me the jinni.”
The bottom of my stomach dropped.
“The jinni is not mine to give,” I murmured.
“It is the only possession of yours that interests me,” said the kuldevi. “Jinn are rare in this part of the world. I have never seen one before, yet I aughterfelt its presence and desired it as soon as it crossed into my dominion. But I cannot take it by force, for the laws that bind the jinni to its human master are forged in a distant land over an oath to a different god, far beyond my powers to bend. Give me the jinni of your own free will, and you and all your company will live.”
I shut my eyes, which were suddenly muddy and stinging with the tears that had rushed into them. My heartbeat was slow, irregular. If it were only about me, I would have gladly died at this moment in this dust storm conjured by a wrathful goddess whom I did not worship. And then there was an arm around my waist, holding me upright again, there was a hand wiping dust, blood, and tears from my eyes. It was Shehzad Marid—ever loving, ever loyal, always on my side in my hour of need.
“I know you did not call for me,” he whispered in my ear, “but a jinni can summon himself into action when his master is in grievous danger. Your body and mind can take no more of this, Binu—mortals are not made for extended interaction with the divine. Let me go with the goddess, but before that, let me take you back to the truck to be among your people. It will not faze me; I have known worse. Give me your command, and I will obey.”
I clasped his hand in mine through the dust and the blood, trying to absorb the warmth of his fingers like a man clutching at straws as he drowns.
“I… am… not… your… master.”
“We will continue that debate another day,” he laughed, but the laughter fell more like a wounded howl on my ear. “I am sure your path will bring you to Thripuram again. I hope I have a kind master by then, one who will not object to me sitting and chatting awhile with an old friend.”
And suddenly, I had an idea.
“Kuldevi of Thripuram,” I called out again, summoning the strength that was dripping away from me. “I know you cannot possess Shehzad yourself, so you must give his ownership to one of your human worshippers. If that man turns rogue, or if he dies before passing on the ownership to another worshipper, Shehzad will forever be lost to you. He may turn vengeful, and you have never seen the vengeance of a jinni whose master is dead—there is no precedent in your land for anything like it. Your land will be laid barren; you will be left without worshippers.”
I pulled myself up with Shehzad’s arms. “Instead, let me come with him. Both of us will serve you for exactly the length of half of my remaining life. He is loyal to me; and you have seen inside my heart—I am a man of my word. When that period is over, we will leave, and no harm will come to you or your worshippers.”
More silence, more storm, and then words again. “Half of your remaining life is hardly seven years,” sneered the goddess.
That was less than I
would have hoped for, but I had no tears to spare. An early death was better than spending long years of my youth in the captivity of the kuldevi of Thripuram, better than dying this minute, never holding Shehzad in my gaze again. My life was a blink in the eternity that Shehzad would have to spend with other masters—what could change between us in a few years, more or less?
“But you speak the truth,” said the goddess. “This jinni of yours will not come with me willingly, or reveal to me any of its secrets. None of my priests is acquainted with its true nature—they know nothing but children’s stories and misleading spectacles like the one you put up with your circus. Despicable as you may find me, foolish, arrogant man, I do bear responsibility for the well-being of my worshippers. I resent your paltry offer of seven years, but I will accept it. Come to my temple in Thripuram before sunset and devote yourselves by ritual.”
“Binu, why—?” Shehzad started to protest, but I squeezed his hand and said, “Shh,” as the winds began to dissolve around us.
There was no further interruption from the goddess. In the emerging sunshine we stood holding each other, surrounded by the debris of the beloved circus that had been our family and life.
• • • •
The first person I went looking for was the rescued young devadasi. She was injured, terrified, but—like the other members of the circus—had heard nothing of our encounter with the kuldevi of Thripuram. I let it stay that way. No one else had to bear the burden of my choices, or my guilt.
In our last hours, Shehzad was kinder to the girl, mending a fractured wrist with underhanded magic, giving her advice on how to survive in the city all by herself. I saw them smiling together, head to head, and I could feel the sun’s rays warming my battered bones. “Savithri is quite an extraordinary woman, really,” Shehzad came back to inform me, “brave, level-headed, no airs about herself. I can see why you were taken by her. I have no doubt she will do very well in the city, maybe even become famous.”
The Long List Anthology Volume 6 Page 24
