The Overnight Palace

by Janet Sola

  “Very sad.” As we walk, every so often he stoops over and picks up what look like pebbles. He opens his palm and shows them to me. I see they are not stones at all, but large round seeds. “Look,” he says. He turns one over. It’s black on one side, white on the other. “Very good karma, for me and for you. Here, take one.”

  I open my hand. He turns to face me, so the sun is behind him, turning his hair into a dark halo. He gently presses a seed into my palm. His fingertips linger on my skin for just a few seconds, but in those seconds the seed sprouts filaments of electricity that shoot up through my arm. I stare at my hand as if it has a life of its own. I know I should close it and pull away. But I don’t. Instead, I watch his burnished brown hand on my paler one, as if my hand belonged to someone else.

  “Magic seed,” he says.

  I raise my eyes to his. He’s gazing at me as if I were some kind of amazing creature. And I’m gazing back. This is ridiculous and inappropriate, I tell myself. I barely know him. He’s my guide or something, not my date. Not to mention he’s way too young. “You keep it,” I say, and hand it back to him. The whole exchange has lasted only seconds. His eyes have already moved away from mine to something behind me in the distance.

  He calls out “hello, my friend.” From nowhere, a bicycle appears, swerving down the narrow path through the fields. The rider nods at Sahil and weaves past us. Sahil shouts something, and the bicycle wobbles to a stop. “Come on,” he says, and runs ahead as I follow. The cyclist, a rather rotund middle-aged man with a carefully wound turban perched on his head, appears to be amused. Sahil hops on the back and motions for me to sit behind him, on a tiny section of the back fender.

  “I don’t think so.” I haven’t been on a bicycle since I was twelve.

  “You are in a hurry to catch your train tonight. We go to the temple fast.”

  “No, you go. I’ll walk.”

  “Don’t be afraid. My friend here goes very slow.”

  The temples do look a long way to walk in the heat. Reluctantly, I squeeze on the back, side-saddle, holding my feet primly off the ground, with one hand on Sahil’s shoulder, balancing as best I can. We careen unsteadily down the road. From my perch it feels as if we’ll all go over at any second. Yet in almost no time at all, we reach the temples and hop off. Nothing to it. The cyclist smiles and nods at Sahil as if to thank him for hitching a ride on his bicycle. “You have so many friends,” I say to him.

  “Yes, he is my new friend. Before now I don’t know him.” I see again that this dark-eyed young man who seemed so serious when I first encountered him has a kind of charm which he can work on everybody—women and men, young and old. I resolve again he won’t work it on me.

  “Come, I show the temples to you. Very beautiful.” He takes long leaps up the stone stairs to the first temple. He holds out his hand to me, but I shake my head and climb the stairs on my own. From the raised platform I can see the expanse of lush fields. In their midst is a tiny lotus-choked pond. Except for the women and children cutting grass in the fields, we are alone. The bustling world of the city and the busy universe of time, even Indian time, seems far away.

  The temples are lovely—pale, intricate, ancient ruins. The soft stone walls are covered with exquisite images of long-thighed, full-breasted goddesses and narrow-waisted, broad-shouldered gods, all slowly eroding in the afternoon sun. Sahil takes me on a tour, pointing out the various deities that have been given eternal lives in the stone carvings. “What is your idea?” he asks.

  “My idea?”

  “Of our temples. Very old, maybe one thousand years old. Do you like them?”

  “Yes. I like. They’re wonderful. Also interesting. In the West, young women often don’t wear very many clothes at all, but we cover up our goddesses—the saints, the Virgin Mary. Here in India it’s the opposite. The goddesses are nearly naked, but the women are covered up.”

  He frowns as if he’s thinking this over. “Yes. You are correct. Indian women. They are beautiful, but they are always covered up . . . and afraid.”

  “What do you mean, afraid?”

  “Of parents. Of what people are thinking.”

  “It sounds like it could be a description of many American women too,” I say.

  “You, are you afraid?”

  “No, of course not,” I say, although it feels like a lie. “What I meant is that people in general try to be conventional . . . do what others expect of them.”

  “Yes, everywhere this is true.” He turns and walks away from me, beckoning me to follow him. “I show you very special statues.” On the back side of the temple, in a shadowy area hidden among the other carvings, are several erotic images of men and women who are standing on their heads and in other impossible tantric positions and will be doing so into eternity. He looks at me again with that disarmingly direct gaze. Suddenly I feel very embarrassed and uncomfortable. Suddenly I just want to be alone.

  “Excuse me, Sahil. I think I’ll explore by myself for a while,” I say. I try to put just the right tone of archness in my voice, something that conveys dismissal, but graciously.

  He reacts with an innocent smile, a very warm, sincere smile. “I am sorry if I offend you, Miss Elena. Many people come here and do not see this. Very important historical statues. Please enjoy yourself in the temples. I wait here and talk to the people in the fields.”

  One by one, I go through the temples, weaving my way in and out of the sunlight of the outer walls and the shadows of the inner rooms, amazed at the imagination of the sculptors as much as the intricacy of their craft. At the last temple, the largest, I find myself in an outer chamber carved with a congregation of gods, Vishnu maybe, and dancing Shiva.

  There, just out of my reach, is a carved relief that may be Saraswati, two of her four arms embracing a lute. She’s lush and lovely. Maybe the sculptors of these carvings gave life to Saraswati here first so she could bless their creative journey. I see another opening, leading to an inner chamber. I hesitate for just a moment, then I step into the darkness. It’s so still, no sound, no light, a faint musty smell of ancient rock. Whatever deities are here have been hiding in the dark for at least a thousand years.

  I reach out and touch the surface. It feels rough, almost alive. I try to envision what my hands are telling me. The ripples of stone are long hair. The round swell is a breast, another swell, another breast. My fingers slip to the side in search of another figure, and there is a long thigh, a waist with a garment around it, the expanse of what must be a god’s chest, and above that, the precise waves and indentations that say lips, nose and eyes. And so many arms. Why so many arms? Sensuality frozen in stone. The safe kind. The truth is, I feel more comfortable with these stone images than with a real person, especially a person who makes me uncomfortable. What was that feeling I had when he pressed the seed into my hand? Not one I expected. Certainly not one I wanted. That is not my idea of exploring the culture. Then it occurs to me, a little passing thought, that the reason I’m alone now is not because of Peter’s faults or those of any other man, but because I prefer the idea of life, I prefer art, to life itself.

  Long ago artists must have spent years here, carving their deities into the stone walls, sleeping in the fields at night. They were part of a communal experience that went on for a lifetime, creating something beautiful that would live forever. I remember hearing about caves where monks spent their entire lives carving the life of the Buddha out of living rock. It took hundreds of years, from one generation to the next. I would like to be part of an experience like that. Maybe that is a better choice than being involved in the chaos and unpredictability of life, the big wave that catches you up and gives you experiences and longings and desires, most of which you can never understand or fulfill, and then casts you down and says, ha, you figure it out. No, I want to experience India from the calm chambers of the temple of my heart.

  “Hello, Miss Elena.” A faraway voice. Sahil’s voice. For a moment I’m torn—should I stay or go—as
if I have a choice. After all this is today, a real day, and for one thing I have a train to catch. I touch the stone with my fingertips one last time, turn around and walk out into the waiting sunlight. When I do, I see Sahil chatting with the women and children in the field. He waves me over when he sees me. He looks so happy, so eager to make others happy. Again, I’ve overanalyzed everything in my typical way. He really is just a sweet, exuberant young man who, after all, has taken me to this amazing place. I don’t have to project scenarios of romance that have more to do with my imagination than reality. I am leaving tonight, but today, well, today I can enjoy, without judging him—or myself for that matter.

  “Meet my friends,” he says to me, and he tells me the name of each of the women. They beam smiles at me. Sahil offers to take our photo. I give him my camera and we line up in a row. A woman next to me wrapped in vivid green holds a basket on her head with one hand. Another tiny woman, a grandmother Sahil tells me, grins and then lifts the edge of a yellow and orange sari scarf over her face. A little girl, her dark hair braided in looped pig tails, can barely get her arms around the bundle of an infant in her arms. The camera clicks. In moments, they float off into the fields again, laughing and chatting.

  Sahil nearly sprints over to the platform of the nearest temple, springs up and sits down, dangling his jean-clad legs over the edge. “Do you like to play a game?” he asks. Without waiting for an answer, he takes a pebble from his pocket and scrapes it against the stone floor of the temple platform. A grid of lines appears. He hands me the pebble and pulls out another, along with the seeds he collected on our way.

  He holds up one. “This is the magic seed you give back to me. Six seeds all together. Black. White. Yin, yang,” he says. He demonstrates by turning them over. He gives me three and throws his three in the air. One seed falls with its black side showing, the other two with white sides showing. “Black means one point, white two. I move five.” He takes the pebble and moves it forward along the grid. “Now you.”

  I sit down, cross-legged, my legs tucked under my long skirt, and play this game, picking up the seeds and throwing them again and again, moving my pebble along the grid. My mood has changed. Sahil feels like a friend now—charming, funny, unthreatening. Perhaps the visit to the dark temple chamber grounded me, helped me to relax into the unfolding of the afternoon. Again I have this feeling that this day is extraordinary to me because it is someone else’s ordinary day, and I am stepping into it as if by magic.

  “Elena-ji,” he says. “That means Miss Elena, in Hindi. May I ask you a question? Are you married? Have you been in love?”

  Just a short while ago, I would have been annoyed at this question, but now it seems a perfectly natural subject. I think about how to answer. “Married, no. Maybe in love. But a long time ago. Maybe another lifetime.” The last thing I want to think about or talk about is Peter. He already belongs to a past life.

  “I do not believe in this other lifetime. My father is Moslem. But I am not. I am myself. My friend Vijay’s father is Hindu. But he just Vijay. My friends do not care about these things. We are here. We must enjoy the life now.”

  “Yes, I understand what you mean.” I do understand and am beginning to feel it. This day, this now, is the forever.

  “And what about you?” I ask. “Have you ever been in love?”

  A shadow comes over his face. “One time I was in love.” He keeps throwing his seeds, moving his stone, but his voice is quieter. “I like this girl very much, and every day when I pass by her house, she comes out to get water. She smiles very nice and I talk to her. Then one day, I do not see her any more. I see her brother. I ask him what happened. She is gone, he tells me. She is now promise to someone else. You cannot see her. You cannot. If you try to see her, I kill you.”

  “Kill you?”

  “Yes. Because she is Hindu. As I tell you, I am not any religion. I am myself only. But my father is Moslem.”

  “That’s sad. But you’ll find someone else.”

  “I do not know. For many years I have been alone.”

  “But you are very young.”

  “No, not young. Twenty-seven. Every day is longer for me than most people. So really I am older.”

  “Maybe you are young on the outside but old on the inside.”

  “I think this is true.”

  “Do you like this place?” he asks me as I’m throwing my seeds. Without waiting for me to answer, he turns away from me and stares across the fields. “Many times I come here with my friends. I stay all day. They say, come Sahil, it is time to go back. But I stay and sleep here.” He turns toward me.

  “Mera sundara bharata,” he says. “My beautiful India. I teach you to say this if you like.”

  “That would be difficult for me.”

  “No. Not difficult. Watch me. He draws out each syllable as if he were singing a childhood song. I try, and he laughs at my efforts. But he shows me again and again until I finally pronounce it right.

  “Yes,” he says. “Very good. This is your India. Your beautiful India.”

  “Do you think anyone from outside can ever understand it—India, I mean?”

  “To understand is not important. To enjoy is important.” He pauses, then tilts his head and looks at me as if seeing me for the first time. “You have very nice eyes. Green eyes.”

  Now I know he’s flirting with me. I’m flattered in a way. But it doesn’t mean I have to respond. I remember my promise to myself in the temple. I want to experience India from the calm chambers of the temple of my heart. I turn away and lift my face to the sky. I’m suddenly aware of time, as if it were a dimension of the universe that has been hiding and is now making a sneaky reappearance. I don’t know if I’ve been here minutes or hours, but the sun is lower in the sky, the hills in the distance a deeper violet. The women in the fields are calling to their children as if it’s time to go home. “We should go,” I say. “We’ve got to get back. And what about the master painter? Maybe he’s returned by now.”

  “Yes. We must. You must go on the train with your friend. But if you stay here one more day to see a film with me, you like this film very much. I see it three times already.”

  In some ways he seems like a child. I shake my head. “This was a very beautiful day. I won’t forget it. But I can’t stay. I have so many places in India I want to see. And I already have a ticket. You helped me get it, remember? My friend is waiting.”

  “All right. You decide. Chalo. We go to bus, we take fast way through field. How do you call it?”

  “Shortcut.”

  “OK. Shortcut.” We gather up the seeds and we start back through the fields. Soon we’re up to our knees in grass, breathing in the heady aroma. In the distance, I can see shorn fields, the fruits of the women’s work of the day, the grass stacked here and there in hourglass-shaped bundles. Sahil points out the birds again, so many different kinds of birds, and mimics the sounds they make, “cheeerup, cheerup, eeek, eeek, eeek.”

  “Ah, you have great talent, Sahil,” I say. I shake my head, but I can’t help but laugh. Gradually I become aware of a different sound, a mixture of squealing and bleating. As if from nowhere, the children from the fields appear, calling out in twittering voices as they brandish twigs to push along a small flock of mildly protesting black-faced sheep. Before I know it, I’m surrounded by woolly animals and half a dozen ragged, happy children. The children look up at me with their big dark eyes, laugh at me as if I’m a very comical person and tug at my skirt. A little boy presses a bunch of wild flowers into my hand. A child, a curly headed little girl, wants me to pet her lamb. When I do, she picks it up and hands it to me. I hold it awkwardly, its legs dangling. The lamb bleats and licks my hand. This moment is so perfect, it seems as if nothing bad could ever happen in this gentle world. I want it to last forever, but I know it can’t. At least I must have a photo to remember it.

  I look around for Sahil. He’s nowhere to be seen. He’s not ahead of me or behind me. I call out to
him, with no answer. I ask the children, as best I can, if they know where he is, saying “friend” over and over again. I wish I knew the Hindi word for friend. They look at me with startled eyes and laugh again. I begin to feel nervous. I try to push my way through the sheep. Instead, we—the children, the flock and me—are moving like a cloud, ever so slowly through the field.

  We reach a path and follow it as it wraps around a small hill and then splits, one fork leading to the woods, the other merging in the distance with the main road. And there I can see a late-model van, black and shiny, stopped in the road, with someone standing near it. The children jump up and down and point to it. Maybe Sahil has found us a ride. With a sigh, I put the lamb back in the little girl’s arms, wave goodbye, disentangle myself from the throng and move toward the road.

  As soon as I reach the van, I know that something has happened. Something that is not good. Everything is in chaos. Sahil is sprawled on the ground, holding his right foot and yelping in pain. His polished black shoe, which had looked so out of place with his jeans, is a few feet away, completely demolished. A fat, well-dressed man has one hand on his vehicle’s roof, stroking it. With the other hand he is pointing at Sahil, and yelling.

  Sahil is yelling back. He doesn’t seem to be able to get up. “What happened?” I ask, as I help him stand.

  “This man breaks my foot. I walk down the road, and he runs over me with his big car and breaks my foot and my new shoe.” His face is winced in pain.

  The fat man is yelling in Hindi, gesturing wildly as he pries open the doors to the back of the van. Six women are there—big, glowering, matronly women—lined up on facing benches, all dressed in great swaths of dark fabrics. They are all muttering.

  “We go to the hospital. You ride here with the women. I go in front,” he says as he hops and limps toward the van. The fat man gestures at me to get in. The women are all scowling at me, their heads wrapped tightly in black scarves that make their faces stand out like dimpled moons.