The Palace of Illusions

by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

  “The sage will still know nothing of this. But his son, returning to the ashram in the evening, will be enraged at this insult to his father. Being hot-tempered himself, he'll take holy water in his hand and use up the power of a lifetime of penance to pronounce a curse. May the man who did this to my father die in seven days of a snakebite. Waking from his trance, Samik will be filled with consternation. But the curse will be too strong to recall. He'll do the only thing possible: send a warning to the king of his impending doom.”

  “You can't stop now!” I cried when my heart had slowed enough for me to speak. “What happens next?”

  Vyasa shrugged. “Here the path forks, as it often does with destinies. Pariksit could be overcome by vengeance. He could destroy the sage's hermitage and all in it, and then drown himself in revelry until he died. Or he could realize the wrongness of his conduct, ask forgiveness, set his affairs in order, and spend his last days in holy company. It'll depend on how you bring him up! In any case, you'd better arrange an early marriage for him if you want the Pandava lineage to continue.”

  I could tell, by his tone, that though he wasn't unsympathetic, he didn't consider the matter particularly calamitous. To him it was like watching a game to see what the outcome might be. Perhaps that's how it feels when you've predicted the deaths of millions. His indifference made me livid.

  Vyasa deftly rescued his arm from my slackened grip. “Ah yes, one more thing: keep this knowledge to yourself.”

  “Why?” I cried. “And why didn't you tell my husbands? They, too, need to know of this terrible doom that is lying in wait for our family so they can take precautions.”

  “I only tell people what they can stand. Knowing Pariksit's fate now, just when he's recovering from his long dejection, would break Yudhisthir. And his brothers wouldn't be able to bear that. But you—I've always known you to be stronger than your husbands.”

  Before I could recover from my surprise at that statement, he was gone.

  I wanted to ask Krishna's advice, but he seldom visited us nowadays. Perhaps he needed to take care of his long-neglected kingdom. Perhaps he wanted us not to depend on him overmuch. Perhaps he felt he'd completed what he needed to do for us. So I followed my own uneven counsel, watching Pariksit carefully, disciplining him whenever he showed signs of anger. In this I was alone. Kunti and Gandhari doted on him, and even Subhadra, who had been much stricter with her own son, could not refuse him anything. How could I blame them? There would be no other child in the palace in their lifetime. And as for Uttara, he was the only reason she'd held on to life when Abhimanyu died.

  I urged my husbands, at least, to be firm with Pariksit, but they only accused me of excessive harshness—unbecoming, they said, in a grandmother. They showered Pariksit with every luxury they could imagine. Scores of attendants hovered around him. He was always in a royal lap. I doubted that he even knew the meaning of the word hunger—or thirst.

  When I pointed out that a more disciplined upbringing—like their own—would prepare Pariksit better for kinghood, they smiled indulgently. Yudhisthir said, “Let him enjoy his childhood, Panchaali. I don't remember a single day when my mother didn't remind us that we had to make our dead father proud.”

  The others nodded.

  Sahadev said, “Every moment of our life, we knew our goal.”

  Nakul said, “Everything we learned, every conversation we had—it was for that purpose alone: to help Yudhisthir reclaim our father's kingdom.”

  Bheem added, “I could never eat a meal without thinking, This food must make me strong enough to wrest the kingdom away from Duryodhan when the time comes.”

  Arjun said, “I never had a night of unbroken sleep. I'd get up in the dark while everyone else was resting to practice archery— because otherwise we might not win.”

  “Do you want Pariksit to grow up like that?” Yudhisthir asked.

  Gagged by Vyasa's injunction, what could I say?

  So much indulgence would have ruined another child. But Pariksit was an introspective boy, soft-spoken, with dreamy eyes. Though his uncles crowded his life with lavish entertainments, he preferred simplicity and quiet. To my surprise, in spite of my strictness he was fond of me and often sought me out. But perhaps it is vanity on my part to think so! He had the gift—like his granduncle Krishna—of giving his undivided and courteous attention to whomever he was with, making them feel he loved them especially. In any case, I enjoyed his conversations, which were filled with wisdom beyond his years. A chord of subtle sympathy resonated between us. Except for Dhri during my childhood, I had never found anyone who so instinctively understood how I felt—and accepted it. Sometimes a powerful urge would rise in me to confide in this boy things I'd never been able to tell anyone—yes, even my feelings for Karna. But always I bit my tongue to stop myself. I had no right to burden a child with my murky confessions. His future would be hard enough!

  Pariksit had one intriguing habit: if he came across someone new, he would approach him and gaze intently in his eyes. Once I asked him why.

  “I'm trying to find someone,” he said shyly. “I don't know who he is. He was the most beautiful person I've ever seen—except he wasn't really a person. He was tiny, about as big as your thumb. His skin was a beautiful, shiny blue. He stood between me and a huge burst of fire and smiled—and the fire faded. Maybe it was just a dream.”

  I stared at him in wonder, this child who'd been brushed by the elusive Mystery I'd been trying to grasp all my life. The tiny being he described was very like the Cosmic One mentioned in the scriptures. Could it be Krishna that he'd seen in this guise, the infinitesimal counterpart of the vision that had overwhelmed Arjun at Kurukshetra?

  Subhadra had told us, over and over, that Krishna had saved Pariksit's life when Aswatthama's astra came to destroy him. She was convinced it was because he was divine. I believed the first part, but the skeptic in me was unable to accept the second. Having special powers didn't necessarily make one into a god. And yet a part of me longed to believe, for the sake of the serenity it might bring my storm-swept heart.

  I waited impatiently to see what Pariksit would do when Krishna came to visit us next. I trusted his intelligence, his child's clarity of vision. If he recognized Krishna as his savior, my doubts would be put to rest. But when Pariksit saw Krishna, he treated him just like his other granduncles, except he was more reserved with him because he hadn't seen him in so long. He bowed and recited a formal welcome, but soon he got over his bashfulness and sat close, examining with delight the many intricate gifts Krishna had brought him from Dwarka and describing in detail the antics of his pet monkey.

  Did I say Pariksit delighted all our hearts? Not so.

  As time passed, the blind king grew more reclusive. He seldom left his chambers, where he paced restlessly, counting his prayer beads, though they did not seem to do him any good. On other days he sat in front of the windows that looked out toward Kurukshetra, remaining there long after the sun set and the maids brought in the lamps that he could not see. Each time we visited him, he appeared to have shrunk further. He sighed often, drawn-out wisps of recrimination. Though he was polite to my husbands, he couldn't forgive them for being alive when his sons were crumbled ash. I felt his resentment for them emanating, a black oily smoke, from each pore of his body. He must have resented Pariksit as well, for through him Pandu's lineage would continue to flower while his had withered already. Pandu, whom he'd always envied for getting what should rightfully have been his: the kingdom, the prettier wives, popularity and acclaim. Even his death had been exciting, meteoric, not the aching blankness that drew a little closer to Dhritarashtra each day. Pariksit must have sensed this, for though he was fond enough of Gandhari, he refused to accompany us to Dhritarashtra's rooms. When forced, he stood behind us, stubbornly mute, and escaped as soon as he was able.

  Only Yudhisthir, that perpetual innocent, was surprised and dismayed when Dhritarashtra announced he'd had enough of palace living. It was too painful. The
re were too many memories. (Did he send one of his accusing sighs toward my husbands as he spoke?) Death was almost upon him, and he wished to prepare for it by moving to a forest hermitage. Yudhisthir begged him to reconsider; he remained righteously adamant. But perhaps I'm biased. Perhaps he'd truly set his heart on the next world.

  Certainly it was so with Gandhari. When she announced that she would accompany him, under her blindfold, her thin, ascetic's face blazed with conviction. I was sorry to be losing her. She had traveled past grief to wisdom. Observing her gave me the hope that one day I, too, might complete that journey. When I was stricken by the memory of my dear dead ones, I would go to her rooms and sit by her. She would place her hand on me, and somehow I would be calmed.

  But what shocked us most on the day of departure was to find Kunti standing beside Gandhari, holding her by the arm so she could guide her. She bade us goodbye, and no amount of pleading could change her mind.

  “Mother,” Yudhisthir cried, “why do you want to leave us now, when we've finally gained back our father's kingdom? Isn't this what you wanted all your life? Don't you want to see your great-grandson sit on this throne one day?”

  Sahadev, her favorite, threw himself at her feet. “Are you angry with us?”

  She smiled and shook her head and gave us all her blessings. She allowed my husbands to escort her to the hermitage so that they wouldn't worry overmuch. But she didn't explain her decision, choosing instead to remain an enigma that would haunt her sons. Is it ungracious of me to think that she knew, by doing so, that she would remain in their minds long after she was dead?

  For months my husbands grieved over Kunti's departure, discussing it over and over in a vain attempt to comprehend it. They asked me what might have caused it, but for once I didn't know. In recent years, I'd deferred increasingly to her. (Kurukshetra had cured me of the longing to control things. Perhaps it had cured her, too, for she no longer tried to impose her will on me.) And though she—like us all—sorrowed for the dead, I thought she had come to terms with loss. After all, she was luckier than most: five of her six sons had lived.

  It was only years later, when my husbands and I set out on our own final journey, that I understood her motivation.

  41

  Panting, the messenger fell at the foot of the throne. His clothes—once white to symbolize mourning—were dirt-stained and torn. His disheveled hair and bulging eyes gave him the look of a madman. His chest heaved as he tried to speak, but no words emerged from his mouth, only guttural cries that we couldn't understand. We knew him, however, by the emblem he carried: he was a royal messenger from Dwarka, Krishna's city.

  A concerned Yudhisthir called for water and potions to calm his terror. He spoke in broken stutters, the news leaving his mouth halting and lame like a beggar who knows he will be unwelcome. The Yadu clan was annihilated. Balaram was dead. No one knew where Krishna was, but it was unlikely that he was alive. Overnight, Dwarka had turned into a city of mourning, peopled—like Hastinapur after the war—with children and widows. But this was more shocking, for we were in a time of peace, our complacent minds unprepared for such a tragedy.

  A part of me refused to believe this devastating news, but another part, dark and pessimistic, knew it was true. Hadn't I, deep inside, been waiting for just such a calamity ever since Gandhari's terrible curse at the death fields of Kurukshetra? At first every time I'd looked at Gandhari, I'd remembered it and shuddered, hating her. Each day, I'd offered flowers and water and prayed for Krishna's safety. But the years passed—ten, twenty, twenty-five—without incident. Gandhari grew bent and mild-mannered and spent her time increasingly at her devotions. Slowly, the curse slipped further and further back into my mind, coming to rest among other might-have-beens. As Gandhari and I became friends, I hoped for her sake that she, too, had forgotten about it. It's embarrassing to be the author of a curse that promised annihilation only to fizzle out like a damp firecracker!

  But once again death had leaped upon a loved one just when I believed him to be safe. How ironic that Gandhari's curse should come into effect when she had outgrown her anger and was finally at peace.

  My mind couldn't encompass the fact that Krishna was no more, that he wouldn't suddenly show up, as was his habit, with his teasing grin, to take care of whatever was troubling me. A huge emptiness yawned beneath my feet, ready to swallow me. I remembered the sorrow I'd felt at the yagna when I'd thought Sisupal had killed him, but this numbness was worse. There was, however, no time to indulge in grief. No time even to hold ceremonies for the dead. Rumor was that brigands were gathering around Dwarka already. If they struck, who would hold them back? Yudhisthir dispatched Arjun to the city that Krishna had built with such care at the ocean's edge. He was to find out who had caused the massacre and punish them appropriately. Then he was to bring back the women and children to Hastinapur. We can't assuage their sorrow, Yudhisthir said, but at least we can provide them with a refuge.

  As we waited, rumors flitted around our ears like dusky moths. (Later we would realize there were bits of insidious truth in each of them.) The Yadu warriors had died because of an ascetic's curse. A great serpent had come out of the sea and swallowed them when they went to visit the pleasure gardens of Prabhas. The rushes on the seashore had turned by demon magic to arrows. These flew at them, striking them dead at the slightest touch. The Yadus had drunk a drugged wine that caused them to go mad and turn on their own. A traveling minstrel sung about how Krishna was killed in a copse by a hunter who had mistaken him for a deer, but this was so blatantly impossible that we chastised him and sent him away with the paltriest of remunerations.

  Each day we sent our attendants to the palace rooftop to watch for Arjun, but each day they returned shaking their heads. Why should it take him, the greatest living warrior in Bharat, so long to accomplish a task that, though sad, was simple enough? Around us there were disturbing omens that the world order was falling apart. Owls shrieked at random through the day, and the skies were filled with smoke though there was no fire. Arriving at the altar to adorn the deities, the palace priest found the tracks of dried tears on their stone cheeks. At sunrise, instead of the crowing of roosters, we heard the cries of night creatures: coyotes and she-jackals. On the day when, from the women's terrace, I saw crows attacking an eagle, pecking at him until he fled, I knew that Krishna was truly gone.

  When he returned, for a moment no one recognized Arjun. His hair had turned white. His face was haggard, and his ribs formed tense ridges under his skin. His eyes darted from side to side, reminding us of the messenger from Dwarka. He swayed on his feet and spoke in a cracked voice, calling on death to take him. Before Yudhisthir could catch him, he crumpled in a faint. Only then did we realize that he hadn't brought anyone back with him.

  When he regained consciousness, Arjun said: “They killed each other, the fools! I don't know what insanity came upon them. They'd gone to spend a pleasure day at Prabhas, all the men of the Yadu clan. Perhaps they drank too much. Perhaps the sun was too hot. They began to insult each other about the part each had played in the war, though Krishna had made them promise never to bring it up. Soon, everyone started taking sides. A fight began—it didn't end until every one of them was dead! Everyone except Krishna's charioteer. He's the one who told me all this. He told me this, too: the Yadus weren't carrying weapons—they were there on holiday, after all. They plucked the rushes that grew on the seashore and threw them at each other, but the rushes turned to javelins—can you fathom this?—and pierced their hearts.

  “No, Balaram didn't die there, nor Krishna. They didn't join the fight, though they didn't try to stop it either. I don't understand why. They could have done it easily. Everyone respected them.

  “I don't know. Perhaps they were disgusted by the folly of men who'd once been such great warriors. Perhaps they knew it was time for things to end. Balaram walked to a deserted beach where he went into a trance. Daruk saw the life-breath leave his mouth in the shape of a white serpent and
enter the sea. Krishna saw it, too. He didn't weep, though he had loved Balaram most dearly, in spite of their disagreements. He said to Daruk, Go back to the city. Send word to the Pandavas. Tell them to save the women, if they can. There was a grove of trees nearby. He lay down, half hidden by the tall grass. That was where the hunter's arrow found him. Yes, he was killed by a mere hunter, our Krishna who had once dazzled me with his immense cosmic form! I wouldn't have believed it either if I hadn't seen his body with my own eyes.

  “Can you imagine the grief in Dwarka? Krishna's wives threw themselves at my feet, crying, Bring him back, we can't live without him. We wrapped him in yellow silk, his favorite color. He was still smiling—you remember that smile? I had to place his body on the pyre. How my hand shook as I struck the flint. When the flames rose, many of his wives threw themselves into the fire. No, I didn't stop them. If I weren't honor-bound to bring you this news, I would have done the same. All my life, he'd been next to me, guiding me, putting up with my ignorance. How can I tell you how it feels to remain in the world when he's no longer here?

  “I gathered the others and started for Hastinapur. Barely had we stepped out of the city gates when we heard a great roar behind us. Turning, we saw a tidal wave rushing toward the city. It crushed the beautiful golden domes of Dwarka. There's nothing left there now but swirling foam and seaweed.

  “The worst was still to come. As we were traveling through the forest, bandits fell upon us. I reached for my Gandiva, but I couldn't string it. I tried to invoke an astra. Not even the simplest of summoning chants would come to my mind. I remembered my brother Karna, the way I'd killed him, and wondered if this was retribution. But it was more. With the death of Krishna, my spirit—or whatever you'd call that which had made me great—had withered away. The bandits took the women and their gold—I couldn't stop them. I who in my day have made an entire phalanx of warriors flee from a single arrow! The women cried, Save us, save us! I could do nothing. Truly, it's time for me to die.”