The Palace of Illusions

by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

  For my part, I dreamed of beasts. Riderless horses screamed their terror through my nights, the whites of their eyes gleaming in firelight. Elephants fell to their knees, trumpeting bloodily. Jackals slunk through smoke, torn human limbs gripped in their teeth. And always, a great gray owl flew through the heavy air, its wings obliterating the sky, terrifying me for no reason that I could name.

  I should have tried to understand what the dreams foretold. I should have discussed them with my husbands and cautioned them accordingly. I should have urged them to step carefully on this road that would soon be strewn with death. But I didn't want to heed anything that might keep me from the revenge I'd waited for so long. When my husbands hesitantly mentioned their nightmares, I laughed.

  “I didn't expect such superstition from the foremost heroes of Bharat!” I taunted them. “Of course there will be blood. Of course there will be death. As kshatriyas, isn't that what you've trained for all your lives? And are you afraid now?”

  What could they do in response except commit themselves more deeply to the preparations of war?

  Not to be outdone by humans, the gods were busy with their own preparations. Perhaps they were impressed by Karna's vows. Perhaps his determination worried them. In any case, they chose him for their machinations. The result became the stuff of song long before the armies assembled in Kurukshetra. Sitting in Sudeshna's balcony, winding my matted hair around my fingers, I heard it with a conflicted heart.

  This is how the song went: The sun god, Karna's chosen deity, appeared in Karna's dream. “Tomorrow,” Surya warned, “the king of the gods will come to you at noon, disguised as a brahmin, to beg for your gold armor and earrings. But you must not relinquish them. They alone protect you from the twin curses that follow you like beasts tracking their prey. Without them you cannot hope to defeat Arjun, or to survive the war. That is why Indra wants them.”

  If Karna was disturbed by this news, he did not show it. “O great one,” he said, “tell me first, how did I get these amulets?”

  Did the god hesitate? He said, “Your father gave them to you.”

  “Tell me then,” Karna asked, “who is my father?” In a subdued voice, he added, “And my mother.”

  “Forgive me,” the sun god said. “I am not allowed to speak their names. You will know them soon enough, though the knowledge may not bring you joy.” At the look on Karna's face, he added, “Do not fear. You are nobly born. Your mother is a queen and your father a god. But listen carefully: tomorrow, before Indra speaks, forestall him by saying that you will give him anything but your armor. In this way, you will not break your promise.”

  Karna stood silent, weighing vengeance against his good name. Finally he said, “I'm triply blessed that you, Lord of my heart, have chosen to warn me. But by following your advice, I'd still break the spirit of my vow. People would say that when Karna was threatened with loss of life, he couldn't keep his word. And this I can't tolerate.”

  When Surya realized that Karna would not change his mind, he spoke with regret and admiration. “Do this at least: tell Indra that you know his plan. In chagrin, he will offer you a boon. Ask for his Shakti, the weapon that even his son Arjun cannot withstand. Then you might still have a chance of achieving your heart's desire.”

  Karna said nothing. Perhaps he wondered if Surya truly knew what his heart's desire was. So many yearnings clashed against each other inside him, he himself was no longer sure.

  The next day, all went as Surya had prophesied except this: when Karna had cut the amulets from his body, Indra said, “Karna! Even I could not have done what you did. I give you my Shakti— and one other boon. As long as the land of Bharat floats on the ocean, you will be known as the greatest of givers. In this your fame will surpass Arjun's.”

  The song ended there. But I imagined more: as Karna walked to the palace, blood dripped from his self-inflicted wounds. But on his face there was a victorious smile, for the god had given him a boon to negate the curse the Pandava queen had laid on him a long time ago, declaring that posterity would remember only his shameful deeds.

  I should have been angered at being foiled. Why then did I, too, find myself smiling?

  Warriors gathered around us with their armies: Satyaki and Dhristaketu, Jayatsena, the Kekaya brothers, the kings of Pandya and Mahishmati, my father, accompanied by Sikhandi and my sons. The air smelled of molten metal, for every smithy in the land was busy forging armor. Our forces totaled seven akshauhini, and the dust from their marching obscured the sun. But our numbers were nowhere close to Duryodhan's.

  At this time I had another dream.

  A woman wrapped in a shawl stood beside a river, her back to me. Dawn mist rose from the river's calm skin. She started as though she'd heard something.

  I realized that in my dream there were no sounds: the river ran silently, and the birds were mute.

  Now I could see a man. Even before I saw his face, I knew him to be Karna. How did I know? He had none of the scars I'd expected from the cutting away of his armor. Was it the way he held himself, the way he walked? Or did some strange bond connect us even in this dream world?

  The woman moved toward him, her face still hidden. I could tell that she wasn't young. She raised her hand in a regal gesture. Could it be Gandhari? But what would she want to say to her son's best friend that couldn't be spoken in the palace? Perhaps she wanted Karna to persuade her son to peace. If so, she was wasting her time!

  Then I saw Karna recoil. Amazement and suspicion chased each other across his face before courtesy won and he bowed. And even before she threw back her shawl I knew it was Kunti that had come to meet so secretly with the man who boasted he was the nemesis of the Pandavas.

  Kunti was weeping. All these years I'd never seen her weep. When she'd heard of my humiliation at the hands of Duryodhan, she'd pressed her lips together until they were bloodless. When we left for our twelve years of exile, her eyes had been bright with unshed tears. But always she'd been in control, the same alabaster queen who had towered over me at our first meeting in the slums of Kampilya. Today, however, tears streamed down her cheeks, and there was a look on her face of such careless abandon that I was startled. She held out her arms toward Karna as one would to an intimate, and then, as he backed away, she knelt in a gesture of supplication.

  Vainly I strained to read her lips. Was she begging him not to fight against her sons? Was this what worry and age had reduced her to? Would she stoop so low, humiliating us all with her weakness? But what I saw next astonished me further. I'd expected Karna to end their meeting with a curt refusal, but he was speaking passionately, with angry gestures. What could he have to say to her? Now he was brushing tears from his own eyes. Karna! Even in the dream I felt my amazement at this. Now he was lifting her tenderly, touching her feet while she smoothed his hair. Why did he bend over her hands, kissing them?

  With every fiber of my being, I longed to hear their words as they continued talking. He held up his right hand to show her five fingers. Was he referring to my five husbands? He held up the index finger of his left hand so that she was looking at six fingers. Then he fisted his left hand and dropped it as if it were a stone. Kunti burst into fresh weeping. She clutched his arm so that he couldn't release himself without hurting her. I saw her lips pronounce a word I recognized—for one's own name is a word nobody can mistake, heard or unheard. Draupadi, she'd always called me, though she knew I preferred to be addressed otherwise.

  All my old suspicions of her flared up. What was she saying about me to the man who had once wanted to be my husband?

  Karna grew very still. For the first time, indecision flickered over his face. After a while he sighed, as though awakening from a dream. He shook her hands off, bowed coldly, and left without a word. As I awoke the thought came to me that he hadn't trusted himself to speak.

  And this, too, came to me: when I saw him in the dream, I was no longer angry with Karna. When had my feelings changed? I still wanted the war; I still longe
d for vengeance against Duryodhan and Dussasan. But when I thought of Karna, I only remembered the moment at my swayamvar when I'd spoken the words that turned a bright-faced youth into a bitter man.

  Truly the heart is incomprehensible.

  I agonized over whether to tell my husbands the dream. I sensed that what I'd seen had occurred in reality, though the reason for it was no clearer to my waking brain. Finally I decided to say nothing. I didn't want them to torture themselves by wondering why their mother had met with their fiercest opponent. They needed to concentrate on other matters now. They needed to harden their hearts against kinsmen they'd loved all their lives. They needed to pluck guilt from their souls. If they were to gain the revenge they'd promised me, they needed to proceed without being racked by the doubt that had awakened in my heart as I watched Kunti's inexplicable tears, the voice that whispered, Could it be?

  32

  By the time I arrived at Kurukshetra, the armies were already in position, for the war was to start tomorrow. My bones ached from having been jostled in a carriage all the way from the kingdom of Matsya, and for the first time I felt the full weight of my years. But no amount of pain could douse my excitement. The blood pounded in my veins. The day I had burned for, lying sleepless on my thorny bed in the forest or pounding sandalwood into powder in Queen Sudeshna's chamber—that day of vindication had finally arrived.

  Subhadra and Uttara, who had come from farther-away Dwarka, were worse off than I. Uttara was in the third month of a difficult pregnancy. Though we'd all entreated her to remain at home, she had refused. She'd vomited several times in the carriage, and Sub-hadra had her hands full taking care of her. Subhadra had secretly confided to me that she was worried about the unborn child's safety. But looking at Uttara's face, wilted as a plucked lotus, no one had the heart to chide her. She'd had such a short time with Abhimanyu and was so much in love with him. Greeting me, she kept her eyes carefully lowered. When she raised them inadvertently, startling at a sudden sound, I saw that they were swollen from long, secret weeping. She knew she should not cry; it was harmful for her baby. But what else could she do with the fear that grew and grew inside her until her chest felt it might explode? The fear she couldn't articulate because it might bring bad luck: What if her husband didn't survive the war?

  Kunti arrived last of all. She had come from Hastinapur and had the shortest distance to travel. But she was so exhausted that when she descended from the carriage, she could barely stand. I was shocked to see how much she'd aged. Her hair had turned completely white, her face sagged, and she walked with a dispirited stoop, leaning on a cane. In the dream-vision I'd had just a few weeks back, she'd looked much more robust. Something had transpired during her meeting with Karna that had done this to her. Once again I longed to know what it was, and if it had affected Karna similarly.

  Tired though we all were, when the Pandavas asked if we'd like to view the battlefield, we agreed at once. Even Kunti pulled herself together and stated that seeing the actual arena would help us direct our prayers for their safety to it more effectively. I wasn't convinced of that, but I was curious to view the site of the great adventure that was about to begin. And I wanted to spend as much time with my husbands as possible before the war claimed their full attention.

  Slowly we climbed the small hillock. Yudhisthir took my arm, leaving Arjun free to take Subhadra's, sending (yes, still) a small ripple of jealousy through me. Abhimanyu tenderly helped Uttara make her way over the stony path. I watched as Ghatotkacha, Bheem's son by his first wife Hidimba, picked Kunti up and carried her. Though raised in a forest among his mother's people, the wild rakshasas, he had a sweet and pleasing personality. From the way he looked at Bheem, his eyes shining, I could tell he idolized him. A good-luck mark glistened redly on his forehead. His mother must have painted it on before he left.

  Watching him made me remember Hidimba. Even after I'd grown to tolerate my husbands' other wives, I never quite liked her. She was a tough woman who knew her own mind and followed it, uncaring of what people might think. Perhaps I was envious of that. She'd met Bheem in the forest when the destitute Pandavas were fleeing from the house of lac and married him against the wishes of her tribe. Soon after, when the Pandavas left for Kampilya, where Arjun wanted to compete in my swayamvar, she chose to remain with her people. The unexpected news that Bheem, too, had married me must have shaken her, but she took it in her stride. If she felt betrayed, no one knew of it. She devoted her life to taking care of her people, ruling them with a strict but fair hand, and bringing up her son. After we gained our own kingdom and built our palace, Bheem invited her to join us in Indra Prastha—but she turned him down politely. The one time I'd met her, at the Rajasuya celebration, she'd been courteous but cool. I'd been annoyed by the fact that, though she was from a poor forest tribe and virtually husbandless, she'd seemed so complete, so unimpressed by all I had.

  Before the war, when Bheem asked Hidimba for aid, I thought she would make excuses or send a few paltry troops. She had every right. Bheem hadn't made much of an effort to stay in touch, not like Arjun, who visited his other wives regularly. (Bheem, on the other hand, had only seen Ghatotkacha once in all these years.) Furthermore, rakshasas tended to stay out of the quarrels of citified weaklings, as they called us. But Hidimba surprised us all by sending us her only son, her dearest companion, to fight alongside his father. She wasn't the kind who would have given in to tears when Gha-totkacha left. I imagined, though, that later she would weep bitterly. Did she, in the depth of her mother's heart, regret her generosity? For the first time, I admired her and felt humbled by her sacrifice.

  Our lives had entered a different time. We women—no less than the men—were going to be faced by challenges we'd never imagined. The petty resentments I'd felt for Subhadra and Hidimba and the animosity I'd harbored toward Kunti were no longer appropriate. Who we were as individuals was receding to the background. What mattered more was that our dear ones were going into danger to fight beside each other. From now on, we would be united in our anxiety, in being torn between pride and concern, in our prayers for the safety of them all.

  My first view of Kurukshetra was hazy and uncertain, for the sun was setting even as we reached the hilltop. In fact, what I first mistook for the battlefield was actually Lake Samantapanchaka, beside which the women's tents were pitched. In the evening light, the water looked like blood. I told myself that it meant nothing. Any lake might seem this way at sunset. But the feeling of disquiet wouldn't leave me.

  Long before I saw the army, my ears were assaulted by the cacophony of animal calls. The neighing of horses and the trumpeting of elephants created a din even now, while the animals were at rest. How deafening would the noise be tomorrow in the heat of battle, when their cries would be augmented by battle yells, the blowing of war conches, and the launching of astras!

  The Pandava battalions occupied the western part of the field. They would face east—a good omen, Yudhisthir said. (But would it be harder for the soldiers to begin the battle with the sun in their eyes?) When I looked down on the gathering, I was taken aback by its hugeness. I'd known the numbers, but seeing made them real in a very different way. The tents extended as far as my eyes could reach, and the tiny figures that scurried around them, busy with last-minute preparations, were too many to even attempt to count. I couldn't believe that so many men had come together to help us!

  Still, I couldn't afford to feel elated. I knew that beyond our tents, past the mists that shrouded the no-man's-land, the Kaurava army lay in wait. It was far larger—eleven akshauhini to our seven— and led by Bheeshma, the most experienced warrior of our times, with Drona as his second in command. What made them dangerous was not so much their prowess in battle but the love my husbands bore them. That love would deflect the astras of the Pandavas, would make their hands shake as they aimed blows at the grandfather who had shielded their childhood, the teacher without whom they wouldn't have learned how to wield these weapons.

&
nbsp; I narrowed my eyes and stared at the veils of vapor, trying to visualize Bheeshma and Drona, wondering whether they waited for morning with sorrow or a resigned sense of duty. But while I thought, the insidious currents of my mind changed their direction. I found myself imagining another face, the one I considered most dangerous. In my mind he stood apart from the rest of his company, gazing toward the Pandava camp, where he knew I would be. But I could not decide on the expression his face would hold.

  Small fires dotted the army encampment, which looked deceptively peaceful. The cooks were preparing dinner. My brother, who had been chosen as commander of our army, was down there somewhere, walking among the men, speaking words of encouragement. My sons walked with him. I ached to see them, to hold them if they'd let me, to find out more about the young men they'd become—what interested them, what they did in their leisure time, whether they were contemplating marriage. In the last twelve years, we'd spoken to each other only a few times, and never at length. I wished they'd decided to spend this last evening with me, then pushed the thought away. Through the years of our exile, Dhri was the one who had been there for them, comforting them when they were lonely or unhappy and applauding their triumphs. He was more a parent to them than my husbands or I. It was fitting that they should keep him company at this difficult time. And difficult it certainly was; he'd confessed to me that the responsibility for so many lives lay heavy upon him. Additionally, though he hadn't said it, surely he worried about how he would fulfill the destiny he was born for, because his studies under Drona had made it clear that he would never equal Drona as a warrior.