Beneath a Marble Sky

by John Shors

  I was carried for some distance. At one point we must have come upon the Red Fort’s sentries, for my bearers abruptly halted as voices rang out.

  “What’s your load?” a guard demanded.

  No response was given, and my pulse quickened. Someone coughed. I tensed at this outburst, my body twitching. Certain that someone must have seen me move, I felt a wave of fear wash over me. I wanted to tumble from my litter, and somehow to outrun my pursuers. Resisting the powerful urge, I remained still. Aurangzeb would kill me for trying to escape, for he would understand that I wasn’t broken but, in fact, had tricked him once again.

  “Your load, boy? Have dirt in your ears? I asked—”

  “A leper, sir. Dead…dead and full of boils and ready to burn.”

  The guard grunted and I heard him step forward. Light invaded my cocoon as the carpet above my feet was lifted. I shut my eyes, unable to look upon the man who would send me to death.

  I’m sorry, Arjumand, I thought desperately, as a mailed arm brushed against my leg. Please forgive—

  “The stench!” the guard roared. “You ought to burn yourselves with him! You’re paid to keep the fort free of such filth!”

  “We only found him today, sir.”

  “Ten days too late by the smell of it! Now leave before you infect us all!”

  The litter bounced beneath me and we were under way again. The eunuchs didn’t speak as they walked. My heart slowed only when the sounds of the guards behind us faded completely away. When all was quiet, I cried, wracked by relief and sorrow. I whispered to my bearers, explaining where they could find a large cache of Father’s gold. I told them to share it with the concubines, to spend it on whomever needed bribing. So much gold would make it harder for my brother to discover what happened.

  Soon I heard sandals against wood, then felt myself being settled on the ground. A series of splashes came next, followed by a sense of wind. “Safe to rise,” a hoarse voice finally advised. I struggled upright, pushing aside the carpet and blanket, my lungs drawing in sweet, unspoiled air. The broad deck of a trading boat sprawled beneath me. “Nothing to fear here,” said a man beset with wrinkles.

  I blinked at the sunlight. “Where are we headed?”

  “South.”

  “To Calcutta?”

  “If you like.”

  I glanced at the distant Taj Mahal, which faded slowly as the current gathered us up. Already groups of nobles assembled atop the mausoleum’s gleaming platform. Soon the ceremony would begin. “Farewell, Father,” I said gently.

  I waited to hear his voice. But nothing came.

  It was a long, albeit uneventful journey. The boat’s captain seemed a decent man and tried his best to ensure that I recovered my strength. He brought me a dozen varieties of fish soup, and while he claimed that each was different, they all tasted as one to me. After not eating properly for almost a year, my appetite was as fickle as the wind.

  Over the next ten days we drifted southeast. The land along the Yamuna was mostly devoid of man’s presence. One morning I saw a tiger amid a bamboo grove, stalking something I failed to detect. We also came upon a massive banyan tree—a relic of a forgotten age. Its branches, falling straight to the shore, were thicker than its original trunk. Hundreds, if not thousands, of bats slept in these branches. The bats screeched eerily, and their droppings coated the ground white. Indeed, much life thrived on that river. Life seeking to kill, such as the alligator we spied one afternoon. And life seeking to blossom, such as the fields of lotus flowers gracing the water.

  I watched all Allah’s creatures, including the few people inhabiting the muddy banks, with fleeting interest. Certainly, I was thankful for these sights. Yet how could I truly appreciate the cunning of the alligator, as impressive as it might be, when the fate of my family was uncertain?

  I passed much of the time praying. My mind was otherwise occupied by my parents, Aurangzeb and visions of my family’s reunion. It seemed so long since I’d embraced Isa and Arjumand. My questions regarding them were infinite. Had our daughter fallen in love? Was Isa still a joyous man? Had Ladli found them and relayed my message?

  When at last the river bore us to Calcutta, I was strong enough to stand and walk unaided. I could again taste the sea as I shuffled through the city, which was much more compact than Agra. Its buildings, so chaotically ordered, seemed stacked against each other. I saw fewer palaces and gardens than in the north, and those I did stumble past looked neglected. Brown lichen covered most structures, as did hordes of monkeys.

  A bazaar occupied the street I followed. After asking directions to Calcutta’s greatest mosque, I hurried ahead, hardly noticing the piles of fish, fruit and meat dressing the endless tables. Merchants shoved wares before me, but I paid these men no heed. I forced myself to continue on, even as my legs trembled with fatigue.

  When I found the mosque—a narrow building supported by four identical arches—dusk was still distant. Seating myself under a cypress tree, I watched Muslims come and go from the holy place. Though I stayed outside the site, I did pray, begging for the safe return of my family. I prayed and beseeched all afternoon. Moments before the sun set, my prayers were answered.

  Isa appeared in front of me, his face aflame and his body clad in white. Despite conventions against such interaction, I couldn’t resist leaping up to hug him. Nor did he seek to curb my excitement. Instead, he held me tightly, and I felt the hard muscles of his arms contract about my shoulders. My joy eclipsed all conscious thought. I was uncertain what to say to him. Only a poet might aptly describe the feelings shuddering within me. Enough people were about that I refrained from kissing him, though I did press my lips against the back of his hand. “Take me from here,” I said, wanting to be alone with him.

  He grinned, and I followed him through the cluttered streets of Calcutta. We came to a stable and found his horse. He helped me onto the saddle before gathering the reins and leading his mount toward the setting sun. I asked of Arjumand, and he replied that she, as well as Nizam and Ladli, were living by the sea, less than a quarter day’s ride from here.

  “Are they lovers?” I asked eagerly.

  “As if they’d been forever.”

  I clapped, immensely pleased that I had finally done my friends some good. “And what of Arjumand? Is she still well?”

  “She’s fine, Jahanara. Put your worries to rest.”

  “Can worries rest?” I asked happily. “I hope mine learn how.”

  It took scant time to reach the outskirts of the city. Once free of its confines, and far from the stares of its inhabitants, Isa leapt on his horse, moving forward until his chest pressed against my back. I turned around to kiss him, passionately enough that I tasted salt on his lips. Our stallion trotted slowly, and I held his reins with a firm hand, so that he wouldn’t quicken his pace.

  I told Isa things then, whispered to him of my love and my longing. He echoed my words and I thanked Allah again for delivering him to me. As Isa spoke, his hands sought to renew their friendship with my flesh. He caressed my face, then wrapped his arms about my stomach.

  “You’re thinner, my Swallow,” he said quietly.

  I nodded, staring at the sea, which stretched eastward like a mirror image of the sky. “Father died,” I whispered, thinking that there were many things Isa would never discover. What good would it serve to tell him of Khondamir? Or of how Aurangzeb had nearly killed me?

  “I’m sorry, my love,” he said forlornly. “He was the rarest of men.”

  “The night he died, he made me promise him something.” Isa kissed my neck and I continued, “He asked me to live as a child might. Do you think… ” I paused, wondering if eyes that had seen so much could ever appreciate simple sights again. “Do you think I can grant his wish?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, tightening his grip u
pon me. “But hold those reins, Jahanara. Spur him forward and let’s discover if a child still dwells in you.”

  I nodded, and kicked the stallion hard in his belly. He neighed loudly, put his head down, and began to thunder down the path.

  “Harder, Jahanara! Harder!” Isa yelled.

  I slapped our mount’s shoulder with my free hand and shouted for more speed. The magnificent steed responded, earth churning from his hooves, bushes blurring around us.

  “Harder!”

  I tasted freedom then. I was laughing and shouting, and my worries weren’t asleep but simply gone!

  “Faster!”

  Isa’s bellows mingled with the hammering of hooves. I screamed with him, for suddenly I didn’t wield the reins to this horse, but those to my life.

  Finally I was free.

  Chapter 25

  The Clarity of Twilight

  The years that followed were the finest of my life.

  We settled in a village just south of Calcutta. Isa had always been careful with rupees and had more than enough money to buy seaside cottages for Nizam and Ladli, as well as Arjumand and ourselves. Our homes were within eyesight of each other and we spent our days together as friends. We told our neighbors nothing of our past and they asked nothing of it.

  Isa and Nizam tried their hand at fishing, but upon discovering that they were skilled with stone, villagers suggested they leave the sea to exploit their true talents. While Ladli and I mended nets with the other women, Isa, Nizam and Arjumand repaired tired homes until they defied the elements once again. My loved ones never worked for coin, but every night we were brought fresh fish, vegetables, fruit and bread.

  Our daughter soon fell in love. Though he was only a fisherman, I made no effort to steer her toward a man of higher rank. Ibrahim was a good-natured youth and adored Arjumand. They were wed near the ruins of an old mosque. Little did he know that he was marrying the granddaughter of the former emperor. Later she would tell him the truth, but on that glorious day it seemed wonderfully irrelevant. As the years passed, Arjumand and Ibrahim had two daughters. A son died before he reached his first year of life, yet the daughters grew strong. A second son was born much later, and quickly became the object of his sisters’ endless attention.

  Watching Arjumand become a mother was a source of boundless joy. I had abandoned her once, and I’d have never forgiven myself if she had turned into an unhappy person. I loved her so very much, perhaps because she was able to forgive me. When I saw her with Gulbadan and Rurayya, laughing and running across the sand, I thanked Allah.

  Ladli and Nizam needed no children. Theirs wasn’t a love of poets, but rather of friends. Ladli ruled their home, forever ordering Nizam about. Every instance his tongue moved, hers waggled ten times in response. It often seemed to me that she talked to herself as I watched them. He nodded or laughed occasionally, while she continued to rant. Old age loosened what few inhibitions she possessed. She cared even less for convention than I did, and her language, always so coarse, deteriorated into downright vulgarity. Nizam, who had spent much of his life in the gentle confines of the harem, sporadically chided her. But, as Father might say, how could an eagle ask a magpie to stop its chatterings?

  Isa and I, finally able to live and act as lovers, found to our surprise and delight that our adoration for each other became more profound with age. His irrepressible happiness was a catharsis to my painful past. Naturally, unwelcome memories surfaced, but in his company I was strong enough to accept such recollections as a part of me. Though they still ached, I understood that they shouldn’t be denied, but simply accepted. Yes, Khondamir and Aurangzeb had wounded me. But how could such wounds, regardless of their depth, compare with the rapture I felt as I played with my grandson, or walked along the beach with Isa? My loved ones were my triumphs, and my triumphs far outshone my tragedies.

  Gulbadan was ten when we resolved to build our village a mosque and a temple. Our friends were Muslims and Hindus, but neither group had a true place of worship in which to usher their prayers upward. And they needed prayer, for the sea was an unforgiving realm and we often lost men to storms.

  We decided that the mosque and temple should share the same courtyard. Both would be small structures, cut of sandstone and lacking decoration. Those who didn’t fish helped us lay the foundations and raise the walls.

  Temples and mosques are magical things. When you build them, there is a sense of peace that seeps from the rocks. All creation, in my opinion, is thus. I felt the same peace when Arjumand slipped from my womb. I swam in such peace at the Taj Mahal. And even our little shrines at the sea caused more than one tear to dampen my face.

  Perhaps this peace stems from the knowledge that you’re leaving something upon this Earth. For though I know that Paradise will shepherd me, it’s comforting to recognize that as a woman born in Agra, I’ll leave some sign of my passage. My blood will journey forward in Arjumand and her children. And the rock I caressed shall stand proud in the sun and be touched by people who will inhabit a far different world. Did I earn all the gifts that Allah bestowed upon me? Perhaps yes, perhaps no. But in leaving signs of my struggle, I feel that I’ve tried.

  The temple and mosque were completed in my fifty-fifth year. Our village celebrated the achievement with an afternoon of prayer. Of course, Muslims didn’t pray in the temple, nor did Hindus enter the mosque, but we were respectful of each other’s worlds, and we met in the common courtyard and watered flowers together. As I tidied stones beneath rosebushes, I thought of Dara, and hoped that he could see us. No one would have loved this moment more than he.

  That night Hindus and Muslims celebrated as one. We sat in our boats and watched as men lit Chinese rockets that surged into the sky. The rockets exploded, casting their magic light on the domed roofs of our making. Nizam, Ladli, Isa and I rejoiced in one boat. We sipped wine and clapped at the bursts of fire. As I watched the rockets detonate, I recalled that eve, endless seasons ago, when we celebrated the Taj Mahal’s creation. What a sight that had been!

  How many moments, I wondered, existed in any life when everything came together in such perfection? Perhaps no more than a handful? For me, there were but three. The night on the Ganges when Isa and I first made love. The celebration of the Taj Mahal. And this very moment of being with my friends and loved ones, my life utterly complete.

  “A good night,” I whispered, dipping my hand in the sea.

  “Aren’t they all?” Isa asked.

  I nodded. “But not like this.”

  A wave slapped our bow and spray dampened us. Nizam, who gripped the oars and hence steered the craft, propelled our boat into deeper water. “You’ve gone blind in your old age,” Ladli muttered, chastising him for the wave. When Nizam only chuckled in reply, Ladli turned to me. “He’s a good man, my cunning little friend. He lets me do the talking and obeys me like a pet.”

  “He’ll surprise you someday,” I said, knowing that she loved him immensely, “for I’ve seen him in action.”

  “And what do you call action? He moves slower than a mule, though a mule’s much quicker with its mind.”

  “Ignore her tongue, my lady,” Nizam said.

  My old companion called me so because it vexed Ladli. “She has a name, you beef-eating Muslim!” Ladli retorted. “Is it too long a name for that melon you call a mind to remember?”

  A wave struck the boat’s stern, where Ladli sat. We all knew Nizam had twisted the craft just so she’d be soaked. And soaked she was. As she berated him, I leaned closer to Isa. His face was etched in a smile as he laughed at their antics.

  “A coupling made in Paradise,” he said gaily.

  A trio of rockets exploded and I grinned. “Are we so crafted?”

  Instead of answering he kissed me, and in that kiss I found his answer.

  Not even the widest of banyan trees can gr
ow forever. It has to die so that a sapling may rise from its flesh.

  And so it was with Ladli. She went for a swim one day, and when the sea returned her she had traveled from this world to the next. We followed the Hindu tradition and burned her body, casting her ashes into the water. We were all aged by then, and her death didn’t surprise us. Still, we missed her terribly and our world emptied somewhat with her passing. Nizam was even quieter in her absence, though enough of her stayed in him that he remained a content man.

  I often thought that I should have died before Ladli. She sacrificed so much for me, gave up such a large piece of her life to protect me. She should have outlived me, should have kept Nizam chuckling until they were too old to stand. In many ways, Ladli was more of a sibling to me than my brothers and sisters had ever been. After she died I awoke each day, as I had after Mother and Father departed, expecting to hear her voice. But I heard it only in my dreams, in my memories.

  Arjumand and her family left several months later. They moved near Agra to a fishing village on the Yamuna. My daughter hadn’t wanted to move but had almost seen her husband stolen by the sea. Most of the older women in our village were widows, and Arjumand couldn’t imagine losing Ibrahim. And as much as I hated to see her leave, I encouraged her to do so, for her happiness was what I wanted most.

  After her departure I felt, as any mother might, that time was moving swifter. Still, I had Isa. And our love didn’t dwindle with age. It flourished, even if growing old together wasn’t always easy. A time came when Isa couldn’t lift the heavy stones that he built with. He often hurt himself, and I spent long nights tending to his crushed fingers and toes. He also began to forget things. I slept more, walked less and rarely went swimming. But despite our aches and pains, we were happy. We had each other, and almost every day that blessing was more than good enough.