The Overnight Palace

by Janet Sola

  He hands me the other handkerchief. But I’m looking at the one I’m already holding. The paint flecks. The turpentine. It comes to me all at once. Of course. He was painting. He was in his village. A rush of heat spreads across my face. I’m ashamed that I was such an easy victim for that Shadow man with his menacing messages. I’m sorry I had so little faith in him. “Yes, I would love to see your paintings, Sahil.” I tell him.

  “Later you see,” he says, as if nothing ever happened. “Now I finish my story. This is a long ago story but a true one. As I say, the king and queen are very rich and happy all the time and the professional criers cry all time. But one day, something bad comes.” He lifts his index finger to the sky, then swoops it down. “Their favorite child falls from a high window and dies. Now they want to cry, but they cannot, because they forget how to cry. So forever instead of tears they have a rock in their heart that cannot melt.”

  “They cannot grieve,” I say.

  “Yes, they cannot.”

  We are both silent for a time. “I saw Amar. It is so sad he has lost Neela.”

  “Yes. Maybe he has a grief that never ends, no matter how much he cries.”

  “What will he do now? Will he leave his first wife?”

  “He cannot look in her eyes now. But he has children. How can he go?” He presses his lips together and frowns, an expression that I know is to mask the pain he feels for his friend.

  “Tell me, is there an investigation? Don’t the police at least ask questions?”

  “Police come. They ask questions, but there are no answers for these questions. No one sees. No one can prove. So they say accident. Or suicide. Official verdict.”

  Everything in me wants some justice for this horrible crime, and because perhaps there is none on this earth, I think there must be in another realm. “I’m beginning to believe that we do somehow have past lives and future lives. The Hindu belief. I have to believe that . . . that Neela and Amar will have another chance, in some other life.”

  “I am not Hindu. I am not Moslem. I do not believe in any religion. It makes people crazy. It makes them believe they are right when they are wrong. But yes, for Amar and Neela, I believe this. I believe she waits for him. Maybe as wind, or tree.”

  I think about this. How unbearable it must be for Amar, not only to lose his love but to know that her death was because of their love. “I think Amar can feel her when he feels the wind. Maybe not now, it is too soon. But some time.”

  “You know Elena, I cry too. Amar is my friend. Neela is my friend. I love her.” He pauses. “I love you too.”

  He has never said that before. I want to say the same thing back to him, and yet the words won’t come. Instead, I squeeze his hand.

  “Come,” Sahil says, smiling again, “we go to the festival to see the women who wear their husbands on their heads.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The Festival

  Night has fallen and the streets are running with glittering streams of bright beings. The mens’ huge turbans show off their sun-beaten, high-cheekboned faces. Young girls weave through the crowd holding each others’ hennaed hands. Even the cows are part of the celebration. They wear the colored strings and flowers that hang from their horns with an appropriate air of indifference. Yet the women are the most spectacular. All around us their tall figures sway, a bobbing sea of shining faces and jewel-colored saris wearing three-foot high dolls fastened on their heads.

  “Now you see,” Sahil says, “the wives make big hats in the shape of Shiva. For all the women to honor their husbands.” He tells me that newly married women fast for many days before this festival, like Parvati. The doll headdresses wear voluminous scarlet and magenta skirts and have brightly painted faces. Some look like the dashing god Shiva, and some have big, curling moustaches, looming grins with blacked out teeth, gigantic nostrils. A few have pot bellies. I wonder if they are honoring their husbands or mocking them. I wonder if they are blessed by them or oppressed.

  We make our way through the crowd for a better view. Out on the water, now glimmering with reflected lights, a flotilla of barges floats slowly toward shore. Each has its own bangled and bejeweled elephant and accompanying spangled princes and princesses and musicians. It is a fantasy of old India, the maharajah’s India. Children watching near us can hardly contain their excitement. They jump up and down, waving their sparklers as if this were the happiest moment of their young lives.

  Then the fireworks begin. The sky lights up with gold and silver and phosphorous blue. The dark womb of the city’s sky is giving violent birth to her own star children with their dazzling but brief lives. A song starts somewhere in the crowd. Sahil tells me they are saying “‘our city, our city, our beautiful city, when we are gone we come back as stars in the sky, to shine over our husbands and children. Do not forget your mothers, your daughters, your wives.’”

  The crippled child who walks on his hands stops and gazes up at us. In seconds, he starts laughing at something Sahil says to him. They joke back and forth as he circles nimbly around us. An incandescent smile appears on the boy’s face. It’s as if he had known only tenderness his entire life. Maybe each of us are allowed a certain amount of happiness, no more and no less, no matter what our station in life.

  “Do you like our festival?” Sahil asks me.

  “Yes, very much. I’m happy you’re with me.” All the anger and confusion of the past few days seems remote now, forgiven and forgotten.

  “Look.” Sahil gestures with his chin to a crowd on an embankment nearby.

  I turn my head and pick out Amar’s handsome face. He used to look sad to me. Now he looks frozen. A pouchy-cheeked woman in a hot pink sari stands next to him. I’m close enough that I can see the bindi mark between her narrowly set eyes, her yellow teeth as she parts her lips. She looks both smug and defiant.

  “Wife number one?” I ask. Sahil nods. I stare at her with something like wonder. What is she thinking? I am glad I murdered my opponent. Or I am the wife and she was a slut and she got what she deserves. Or I am celebrating my husband today now that he is all mine. Is that what is going through her mind? I have this terrible urge to push my way through the crowd and confront her. To shout at her.

  “Kali,” Sahil reminds me.

  “Yes, I know.” Kali, the dark goddess who destroys her enemies and rejoices in it. Who drinks their blood and sucks the brains out of their skulls. If we all have the capacity for joy, do we all have the capacity for evil? Not darkness, because darkness and evil are not the same things to my mind, not at all. Just evil, the will to hurt another human being or creature we think is opposing us. I look up at Kali’s manifestation again. She smiles at Amar. It seems like a false smile, but hopeful, a smile that contains equal amounts of malice and need.

  Maybe she felt trapped. Her man took up with another woman, and she couldn’t leave. I remember the anger I had felt toward Peter. I remember thinking, when he told me so blatantly of this new woman in his life, I am hurt, I will get even with him, even though exactly how I would accomplish that was vague. But I could leave. I did leave. What if I had no choice but to put up with it? Would that drive me to murder?

  I remember a friend telling me, when her husband began drinking and they had fight after fight, that she would like to get a divorce but she was afraid of being alone. Did she have a choice? Not in her mind. Her choice was not to go out there on her own and discover herself, with all its unpredictable and scary challenges, but to nag and berate and even beat her husband, which prompted him to drink more and more until their lives became a circular kind of hell. Horrible to say, but in her frustration, she became a minor form of Kali.

  When I think about it, we take it for granted, but in reality it’s relatively recently that an ordinary woman, even an ordinary Western woman like me, can actually live this way—travel alone, have a lover for joy or pleasure instead of for necessity, pursue a creative or spiritual quest. And that’s what I’m doing right now. Just that thought
makes me feel as if the fireworks are landing on my skin. I am part of something new, something wonderful in society, the single independent woman. The single, independent mobile woman. Yes, it has its price in loneliness and longing, and sometimes, as in Neela’s case, the price is much higher, but it’s also breathtaking in its possibilities.

  And then I have another thought, goddesses are the embodiment of the imagining of that free woman, and so many cultures have goddesses that create and cavort at will. The classic cultures had Athena and Diana and Venus, all embodiments of love and freedom and power. And yet Greek women were not allowed to participate in those fabulous forums with Socrates and Plato. They were barely allowed out of their own houses. And here Saraswati, Durga, Parvati, a thousand manifestations of female power in all its forms, are celebrated. They are worshipped. But the roles for ordinary women are very constrained. Maybe I would have become Kali too in other circumstances. I don’t want to look at wife number one anymore. How lucky I am not to have to be her.

  I look around for Sahil. As usual, he’s chatting away, this time with an old man in the crowd. The sky and lake are merging into one thrilling burst of light. “Let's go to closer to the lake to look at the floats,” I say.

  “We go, chalo,” he agrees.

  As we drift through the crowd, I'm mesmerized by the faces I see. Each is so unique, so extraordinary. I look into eyes, dozens, hundreds of pairs of eyes, and they seem to look back at me, tracking me as I move, like those moving eyes in portraits in museums. There are kohl-rimmed eyes, melting liquid eyes, glazed vacant eyes, narrowed eyes that seem to flash anger, eyes that pity, envy, flirt, a world of eyes.

  And then, suddenly, I notice the half-closed hazel eyes, slowly sliding from side to side, that belong to a fleshy handsome face. Wally’s face. An involuntary shiver goes through me. He is just coming out of a side street, pushing his gleaming motorcycle through the crowd, forcing people to step out of the way for him. I had forgotten about him, forgotten that I half-agreed to meet him. Actually, I had not agreed, but he had insisted. I pull my scarf over my mouth and nose and turn away, hoping he hasn’t seen me.

  “Why do you cover your face?” Sahil asks. “Tonight is the night everyone should see your smile.”

  “I’m feeling shy. Because of my nose.”

  He shakes his head in that universal “who understands women” gesture.

  Wally is moving in our direction although his scanning eyes show that he hasn’t spotted me yet. “Sahil, is there someplace we could go to get out of the crowd? I'm not feeling well.”

  “My studio is close to here. We go there. I show you my painting from the village.”

  “Yes, I’d like that.”

  We leave the main road. From there, it’s a short walk up the steep cobbled street that leads to Sahil’s studio. One second I’m breathing in the drifting smoke from the fireworks, and then, as I step through the open door, the tar-laced smoke from the cigarettes of Sahil’s friends. They look like semi-mobile pieces of furniture. I’m annoyed they’re here. I’d hoped to be alone with Sahil. Nevertheless, I murmur a greeting, and in turn they offer hand-rolled bidis.

  We sit down on low stools, and listen to the intoxicating violins of an Indian pop-song that’s coming from the boom-box. People pass in front of the open door and nod and sometimes wave. Sahil chats in Hindi with his friends. I take a bidi cigarette, just to fit in, but after the first puff I start to cough and put it out.

  “Sahil, what about the paintings you were going to show me?” I finally ask.

  “Now is not a good time. Better when we are alone.”

  “Can’t you ask your friends to leave?”

  “No, they are my friends.”

  I sigh. “But they are always here.”

  He pauses and shrugs. “OK, if you want I show you now.” Cigarette dangling from his lips, he disappears into the back room behind a curtain. I try to avoid the gaze of his friends as I wait, focusing my attention on the festival-goers traipsing by in their flamboyant costumes. But Sahil is taking longer than I expect. “Elena,” he calls from the other room, “I make one how do you say it . . . touchup . . . before I show you.” There’s that playful lilt in his voice that he has when he’s about to surprise me.

  As I’m waiting for Sahil to reappear, a motorcycle pulls up in in front of the open door. There’s the growl of a motor, a pop pop pop as it’s cut. As if I am dreaming it, Wally walks in, his leather jacket unzipped, the top three buttons of his shirt unbuttoned, a gold chain around his neck gleaming. I experience two things in quick succession: an involuntary rush of blood to my face, followed by a paralysis, as if I had been stung by a hunter’s tranquilizer dart. What is he doing here?

  He’s wearing such a perfect smile when he looks at me. No teeth showing, the corners of his mouth turned up and the edges of his eyes creased, a kindly, patient smile. I wonder if it’s one he has practiced in the mirror. I meet his gaze with what I hope is calm.

  “I came to your hotel to take you to the festival. The women there told me you had absconded.” Each word falls like a drumbeat, as if he were speaking a foreign language he is trying to make me understand.

  “Absconded?” Then I say nothing more. If I don’t speak or move perhaps he will go away. But he doesn’t go away. In fact, he seems to be getting bigger. He has a way of filling up a room with his bigness and his bluster and his expensive smelling cologne that’s reeking into the air.

  “You actually promised to go with me.” Even though I know he’s talking to me, his eyes glide around the room, assessing the situation, checking out Sahil’s friends who are staring back at him open-mouthed.

  “How did you know the way here? How did you know I was here?”

  He smirks and shrugs. “Your friend by the lake.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He wiggles his index finger up and down by his throat. The Shadow’s Adam’s apple. Of course. I had not seen him, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t see me.

  “What is happening?” Sahil calls as he emerges from behind the curtain. Wally gives him a brief dismissive glance. “Do you know this man?” Sahil asks. His voice is nonchalant, as if Wally is perhaps a long lost relative.

  For a second, I think about pretending I don’t know him. “Barely,” I manage to mumble. “I took some Hindi lessons from his mother.”

  Wally is strutting like a peacock now, back and forth across the length of the small room. Then he stops and turns to me again. “Why did you tell me you were not going to the festival?”

  I gather my courage up and try to speak with authority. “I am sorry, I changed my mind. My friend came back.”

  “Yes,” says Sahil, moving to my side. “I am her friend. So you should go.”

  “I will not go,” Wally says. His polite smile is now interrupted by intermittent flashes of very white teeth. He zips his jacket up, then unzips it. I am so incredulous at the way this guy I barely know is behaving that I stay frozen. “You made a date with me. Come with me on my motorcycle now.” He moves toward me and reaches out for my arm. Before he can touch me, Sahil moves between us and pushes Wally’s chest, not hard, but enough to stop him. He appears almost fragile next to the much bigger Wally, and he really is no match for him. But I’m pleased he’s standing up for me.

  “She does not want to go with you. You must go.”

  Sahil’s friends are all watching this raptly, their eyes getting bigger, the draws on their bidis more intense. For a moment, I think they will all rise and pummel Wally. But they don’t move other than leaning forward in their seats.

  “I will not go,” Wally repeats and pushes Sahil back. For a second, Sahil loses his balance, but then recovers and shakes his head. Their faces are inches from each other. I can feel the energy of their anger. Part of me floats out and looks down on this scene. Two men fighting over me, two young attractive men. It’s ridiculous, and yet if I’m truthful there’s a certain kind of thrill in it, a certain frisson, like cha
mpagne instead of blood is running through my veins. If only my friends, who kept telling me I was Peter’s doormat could see me now. For so long, I withered under his critical eye. Now I have emerged on the other side of the world, and on some weird level, I’m feeling the power of the goddess. There it is. I’m a forty year old woman with a red swollen nose feeling the power of the goddess.

  They begin arguing in Hindi, Wally’s more urgent drumbeat of a voice a counterpoint to Sahil’s strained but modulated tone. Percussion and cello, I think from my goddess’s perspective. What a concert. Through the open door I see a throng of costumed people go by, unaware of the little drama being played out here, totally ignorant of the fact they are looking at a femme fatale.

  “All right, I go,” Wally says suddenly to my amazement.

  “This is good you go. But do not be angry. I do not believe in this fighting,” Sahil says.

  Wally gives his jacket a final zip up to his neck, even though the night is warm. Then he turns and leaves without so much as a glance at me. All at once I realize it’s not about me after all. It’s about something much more primal. I remember, oddly, a friend who had two cats telling me how exhausted and neurotic one of her cats was because he felt he had to dominate, even though the other cat gave him no resistance. Something like a bubble of amusement, of irony, is rising up in me and I want to laugh. Instead, I just look at Sahil and shrug my shoulders. Wally is gone.

  But only for a moment. He appears in the doorway again. “You are right. Fighting is not good. Tonight is the festival,” he says. “We should all be friends.” Now he’s smiling his closed lip smile again, as if he is forgiving us.

  “Yes, it is bad to fight,” Sahil agrees. “We are all brothers and sisters.”

  “I propose we all go on my motorcycle to the restaurant by the lake,” Wally says. “It’s very close to here. We will have a lassi and watch the parade and celebrate the festival.”

  I look at Sahil and shake my head, almost imperceptibly, but he does not seem to see it. In fact, he does not even hesitate. “I like this idea. The night is beautiful. We are all friends.”