by John Masters
Then it was part of that same building where he had met the princess. He could not see the great tower, but that was not surprising in this enclosed little courtyard. He said, ‘I am hungry and thirsty. Can’t I eat before I see the king?’
The man in the pink coat said, ‘It is arranged. You will have a night’s rest, too. Your audience is not until tomorrow. Please follow me.’
He led into the building through an open stone archway. Almost at once the passage opened into another courtyard, still smaller than the first. Here the usual white bulls rested in the hot shade, and a group of naked-chested soldiers squatted at cards in a corner, their spears standing in a row behind them, and there were three women whispering beside a pillar. At his guide’s heels Jason crossed the open space, entered a door on the far side, and climbed two narrow flights of steps.
The man in the pink coat stopped beside a thick yellow curtain blocking a doorway on the left. He said, ‘This is the apartment where the king houses his most honoured guests.’ He swept back the curtain and called, ‘Sugriva!’
A small dark man hurried out of an inner room and stood, smiling uncertainly, in front of them. He brought a savoury smell of cooking with him, and Jason’s mouth began to water. The guide said, ‘This man is your cook, and he has other servants to command. Sugriva, this is your master. Obey him.’
Sugriva bent and touched the inside of Jason’s calf with his hand. The man in the pink coat moved about the two rooms, pointing out to Jason the richness of the hangings, the thick--ness of the cushions, the cool northern exposure, the fine view from the pillared verandah. Finally he turned and said, ‘And to show you the depth of the king’s interest in your embassy, I must tell you that your companion tonight will be the most accomplished devadassi in the kingdom.’ He raised his hands two or three times quickly towards his face and slipped out of the room.
Jason stood stock-still, trying to work out the full meaning of what he had heard. These people spoke so quickly. But surely he’d heard the words for ‘embassy’--which he knew because that was how Drayton had translated his purpose here--and ‘companion’ and ‘tonight’ and ‘Devadassi.’ Were they sending him on an embassy tonight to the princess? That didn’t make sense. Did they think he was an ambassador? That was possible, considering the extraordinary way they were treating him. But if so, whose ambassador was he supposed to be? And who was to be his companion, and what were they going to do together?
He might ask Sugriva. But what would a servant know? Besides he was hungry. He’d eat first. He called, ‘Sugriva, I’m hungry.’
The servant’s voice answered from the verandah, where smoke rose from a clay fireplace built on the open stones. ‘Food is ready, lord.’
When he had eaten he lay down on the mat on the floor and went to sleep.
He awoke to see Sugriva scattering rose petals about the room. All the verandah lay in blue shade, and someone had been sprinkling water on the stones, both inside and outside, to lay the dust and lessen the heat. He felt fresh and jumpy and as strong as a lion, and wished he knew what was going to happen next. But it was exciting, better than dancing, better than pearling. He said, ‘Sugriva, why are you scattering rose petals on the floor?’
Sugriva said shyly, ‘She is a very beautiful woman, lord. You are in great honour.’
Jason sat up. He said, ‘Who is? What do you mean?’
Sugriva said, ‘It will be Parvati, lord. There is only one best.’
Jason stood up. Parvati was a woman’s name. He said, ‘A woman called Parvati is coming here? What for?’
‘For your pleasure, lord. But the king is paying her. I must go to market--with your lordship’s permission.’ He went out.
The curtain swung to behind him, swaying for a moment like a woman’s skirt, until it hung still. Jason began to pace up and down the floor.
A whore, the king was sending him! She would be subtle and fierce, dark, debased, acrobatically lustful. He’d have something to tell Grant after this. But he was never going to see Grant again.
He’d better have nothing to do with her. She’d give him the Italian sickness, which so many people in London had. When she arrived he would thank her and send her away.
God’s blood, he hadn’t lain with a woman for six months now, and seeing so many naked breasts had made him wish he had a pair himself.
What would the princess think if she knew he had lain with a strumpet here in her own capital city?
But how could she ever know if he didn’t talk about it? The girl might talk. Damnation take the king and the man in the pink coat!
He hurried out on to the verandah, peered down into the street, listened to the sounds of the people, glanced at the sun. She might come at any moment. A smoky haze hung along the western horizon, and he could see no hills, only the silver curves of the river among fields and trees.
She would wriggle in, already half undressed, with jewels on her bosom and a ruby in her navel. She would wait for him to give some sign of passion. No, she would sway into him, reeking of woman’s scent, and fasten hot lips on him. He practised receiving such an assault. Oh, blood and death, it was going to be impossible to resist her if she came at him like that. She was faceless, beautiful, lascivious, diabolically skilled. She was hotter than the whispered yarns in the forecastle at night, when the sailors talked of bouts in Hispaniola and Barbary and among the blonde Swedes. He could feel her liquid lips, her clinging arms.
How could he ever think himself worthy of the princess if he could not control himself before a whore? He had broken the ties of home and family, he had turned aside from comfort and luxury, now he must conquer lust. There was no Coromandel for a stay-at-home, no princess for a lecher.
His eyes fell on the row of large pots on the verandah. Growing in the pots was a fat-leafed, spiky plant with big creamy flowers. He whipped out his knife, cut off several of the leaves, and stuffed them inside his shirt and down the back of his breeches. Aaah! They hurt, and he had to move carefully now and could not sit down. If the girl tried to embrace him he would scream with the pain. He put his finger in the water jug and found it cold. He lifted the jug and emptied the water over his head. Good, good! Now he was shivering, standing, drenched, in a puddle of water on the clean floor.
He imagined a lusty brown woman coming wheedling at him out of her clothes. Good, good! The prickles hurt so much he could think of nothing but how to stand still. And his teeth were chattering.
Behind him the curtain moved with a stiff whisper. He said ‘Sugriva?’ and turned expectantly. The Princess Devadassi stood just inside the curtain, calm, unsmiling, lovelier than an April cloud on the edge of the Plain. Jason fell on his knees and whispered, ‘Oh, Princess, thank God you’ve come, thank God!’
She joined her palms before her face in the universal gesture of greeting, and said, ‘I am your servant.’ Her flute hung from a silver cord about her waist.
Jason took her hand and kissed it, and this time she did not jerk it away as she had the first time, in the temple. She said, ‘The chamberlain told me you understood Tamil now. Is it true?’ She spoke very slowly and distinctly.
‘Yes, Princess. I have been living with the pearlers down the coast.’
‘Ah, that is where you have been. Why are you all wet?’
‘I--ah--I felt hot,’ Jason said.
She said, ‘You should change your clothes.’
He said, ‘I don’t have any others.’
She laughed and said, ‘No. Then lie back here. You’ll dry out soon. This is the time for music, and then your servant shall bring us wine and food. What shall I play for you?’ Dazed by her smile, Jason sat down limply on the cushions. He jumped up with a yell. She said, ‘What is the matter, lord?’
Jason said, ‘I will leave you for a short time now.’
She was standing close to him, peering at his chest. She said, ‘There are yucca needles sticking through your shirt. Are you some kind of yogi? Do you like to have them there?’
She said, ‘You have some in those things too.’ She pointed at his breeches. Jason nodded unhappily. She said, ‘Take everything off, and I will get the prickles out.’
Jason said, ‘No! I can do it myself. It’s quite easy.’ He backed off towards the inner room, holding his arms out at full length.
She walked after him with a puzzled smile. ‘How can you get them out yourself? I sat on a prickly flower once, and another girl had to get them all out of me. Let me see.’
God’s blood! These places had no doors, and the more he kept pushing his hands at her, palms out, the closer she came.
Cursing monotonously, and crimson to the ears, he hauled off his clothes. She was a princess! This was a different continent, that was all. Things you thought mad weren’t necessarily so. Custom of the country. Beautiful princess--strange custom. Suppose the strumpet arrived in the middle of this?
She walked round him, pulling the little needles out of his belly and buttocks. Then she pulled them from the shirt and breeches. Then she said, ‘There! I don’t think there are any more.’
Jason hauled up his breeches as fast as he could, fastened them, with his back turned to her, and put on his shirt. He thought of what had just happened to him and smiled. The smile widened, his belly contracted, and he began to laugh. He tried to stop it--surely he should not laugh in the face of the princess he loved, who had only been trying to help him after the custom of her country?--but he couldn’t help himself. He would never be able to tell anyone, so he had to do all the laughing for them, the people he couldn’t tell, as well as for himself. He laughed so hard that it hurt, while the princess squatted on the floor beside the piled cushions, the flute in her hand, and looked at him curiously.
At last she said, ‘What is the matter? Why do you laugh?’
He sat down carefully; but she had done her work well, and he could sit in comfort. He said, ‘It was funny. I’m sorry.’ It was difficult to tell her he had been laughing at himself, not at her.
She shrugged and said, ‘Shall I play?’ She blew a little trill. ‘Or shall I sing? Or shall I read to you?’
‘Can you read?’ Jason said, his interest quickening.
She said, pouting, ‘Of course I can. Oh, I suppose you would not know. We are the only women allowed to learn to read, and there are forty of us, and I am the best.’
‘Only the king’s daughters allowed to read? Forty?’ Jason gasped.
She said, ‘I don’t know what you mean, king’s daughters. We are devadassis, wives of Shiva, and I, Parvati, I am the best--at music, with men, at dancing, at everything. That is why the king sent me to you. But I am glad, too. I liked you from the time I first saw you. We don’t like everyone we have to lie with, you know.’
Jason said, ‘What is a devadassi? What do you do? You are married?’ His mouth felt dry, and his eyes were beginning to tingle. It felt very like the beginning of the laughter just now, but he did not think there was going to be laughter this time.
She ticked off on her fingers. ‘We dance before the god in the shrine, morning and evening. We sing in the temple. We take men for what they will pay, and give half to the priests for the god. We walk with the king and other important people when they are calling on each other. We are wives of the god. Our god is Shiva.’
‘H-how did you become a--devadassi?’ Jason faltered. ‘D-did you want to?’
‘Oh, no. Our parents give us to the god when we are babies. I have never seen my mother or father. At the proper age the god marries us. We will never become widows!’ She tossed her head proudly.
The light dimmed in Jason’s eyes, and the sounds of people talking in the street below hushed to a murmur. He leaned towards her, his hands out, not knowing what he was going to do. He had humiliated himself for her, both now and in his dreams. She was a whore! It was like Emily in London, only an irretrievable step farther. He had fallen in love with this girl before he knew what she was.
She said with a touch of irritation, ‘You’re just like the other men, after all. You don’t want to hear me read.’ She crouched on the cushions, and suddenly her arms wound out and coiled about his neck, and her skirt slipped loose, and her eyes glowed large an inch from his.
Jason sprang up and away from her in a single jump to the middle of the floor. He gasped. ‘Don’t touch me!’
She lay back on one elbow and said, ‘I won’t, unless you want me to. The chamberlain has told me who you are and why the king wants to see you. I think I know who robbed you that time I found you outside the temple.’
Jason walked away from her, out on to the verandah. He thought of his knife. But what had she done? She had never tried to deceive him. He had deceived himself. What a fool! He must learn to be careful, suspicious, cautious. All this pain came from his own dreams. He’d better not dream any more.
But it was a fact, and no dream, that he loved her. Her manner was nothing like that of the women of her trade in London. This was Coromandel. He had behaved meanly to Emily, who would have come searching for Coromandel with him if he hadn’t kept reminding himself that she was a strumpet.
He turned and went close to Parvati and looked at her velvet brown skin to see if there was some sign written there that he might read. She looked sad and beautiful in the calm dusk against the dulled garishness of the curtains. How could he change so violently towards her unless he was a mean-minded scoundrel? She hadn’t changed. She had to do this to earn her food. Handed over by her own mother as a baby--treated like a stick or a stone, to be picked up, used, and forgotten! God’s blood, that was a temple where he had met her, a place of worship--full of vile stone carvings!
Perhaps she’d been waiting all these years for a man to come who would love her for herself. He could be the man. Perhaps she had hoped from the first that he meant to save her. And now he had spoiled it. Her faith and hope were being broken. He saw it in her dark and doubting eyes.
He loved her. He boiled with anger against the men who used her, and against her because she had to allow it. It was no shame to love. But every time he saw her he would see also the ten or twenty or sixty men who had struggled with her in that slimy pit of a temple since he saw her last.
He groaned in physical pain and put out his hands to her, asking her to help him. She took them gently, and he knelt down beside her. He said, ‘Parvati, I don’t mind that you are a--devadassi. I love you. I’ll marry you and take you away from it all.’ There, he had done it and said the words. A flood of relief surged through him, and joy that he had conquered himself. He stroked her hair.
She rested close in his arms. She said, ‘You don’t want to lie with me now?’
He said, ‘No! I’ll marry you tomorrow, Parvati. But I know you haven’t been able to help yourself. I love you, and I--will--marry--you.’
She sat back, a little way from him, and said, ‘You do love me, don’t you?’ She spoke wonderingly and touched his cheek with her glittering black fingernails. ‘You make me feel sad. Why? But of course you can’t marry me. That is impossible. But you are very handsome and nice, aren’t you? Do you understand? You are very nice.’
It was cool and damp in the earliest morning when Jason awoke and remembered that soon the chamberlain would come for him. In the long night he had forgotten that he was a prisoner here, just as he had forgotten Parvati’s trade. Now Sugriva’s low voice called him, and a little trilling bird sat on the yuccas in the verandah, and the new-washed light flowed like honey over the stone floor. Painfully recollection came back. He was Jason Savage, ex-sailor, prisoner, ambassador--a strange mixture, and hard to understand. The girl beside him was Parvati, temple dancer, strumpet, princess. That was harder still. But if he thought of her as a princess still, she would be one for him, wouldn’t she?
She was asleep still, or perhaps pretending to be. He frowned down at her. If it had not sounded blasphemous, and if it had no
t hurt him to say it, he would have said that she liked being a devadassi. Certainly she accepted it, but there was something deeper than acceptance too. Lying with her had been like some mad kind of churchgoing. He no longer felt it strange that the temple should be her place of prostitution. More than once she had reminded him, in her small ritual acts and preparations, of the Club getting ready for the Oak and Horn. Parson always complained that that was part of a bad old religion.
She awoke slowly as he began to get into his clothes. She glanced at the light and said, ‘Hurry!’ He did not feel like hurrying. Yesterday he had been worrying about the king and the chamberlain and the pearlers. Now he yawned and smiled.
Impossible, she had said, that they should marry. He set his jaw. Impossible was a favourite word here in Coromandel: impossible for the king to pay a better price for the pearls; impossible for Simon to change his trade, even though he was starving. But a man could get anything if he tried hard enough. Nothing was impossible--except, of course, for there to be women with six arms or men with elephant faces.
‘Are you ready?’ the chamberlain called from the passage. ‘Parvati, is he preparing himself?’
‘Yes, lord,’ she murmured. ‘You must not be late, lord. This may be very important to you.’
‘There, I’m ready,’ he said. ‘When shall I see you again?’
She said, ‘When the king--or you--sends for me. But don’t come into the temple looking for me, lord. You were very near the shrine that first day, where outcastes are not allowed.’
‘We’re going to get married,’ he said forcefully. ‘You will see. You want to marry me? I must know if you want to.’
She said, ‘It is impossible.’
He seized her shoulders, pressed them back on the cushions, and kissed her hard. He muttered, ‘I love you,’ and slipped out through the curtain. The chamberlain ushered him quickly away along the passage.
Jason forced his mind away from her. He was going to see the king. The king would be sitting on a throne, with a crown on his head. There would be courtiers, rich hangings, and an impressive silence. Drayton had put himself at a disadvantage with Don d’Alvarez because he was worried about his noisy spurs. Now the chamberlain was trying to hurry him, Jason--so he would not be hurried.
