by John Masters
She cheered up and let the sari fall, so that the soft air could play on her face. No one but her lover could see now. She had done most noble work for the god her husband, in Ponpalamai. The Brahmins would be pleased with her, and her god would shine the light of his eyes upon her when she went to wash his feet on her return to Manairuppu. This was one of the times when the body and the mysteries inside, which only the Brahmins were wise enough to understand, came together, and then you felt that your own god loved you, and the great God, which they called Being, held you in his care, and every part of creation danced most gently in its allotted place, including a scarred temple prostitute.
Was it, after all, a noble thing to be a devadassi? It was he, her English lover here, who had put that doubt into her mind--not quite for the first time, but with a new strength, so that she found herself questioning what she had always found perfectly clear, and wondering where she had before only marvelled. She wished he would not speak like that. She loved him--but there, he believed that men and women could show love only by lying together, which was a silly idea. She had tried every way to tell him she loved him as she loved no earthly man, no living thing--well, her god lived, of course, but not in the same way--and her lover did not understand. The language of flowers, and of the fingers, and of the food she placed before him, and the words she chose when calling him in the evening---he did not understand. She might as well have been speaking to a--to a Vishnu-bhakta! She spat vigorously.
He was so stupid, and so clever; so wise, and so foolish. As Shiva was her witness, if he cared only for lying with her, if that was love, why was he in such a fret? She had gone to him whenever he wanted her, and would continue to do so.
There must be some other reason, which he kept hidden from her, for all his talk of marriage. He knew that was impossible. Yet he kept talking about it so. What could it be?
But a child, now! That too he had spoken of. Her belly quickened, and she held tight to the reins and dropped her eyelids so that he could not see her eyes. The Brahmins saw to it that none of them had any children. One of the girls, a long time ago, ran away because she wanted to keep hers that she was going to have. Treachery, faithlessness, blasphemy--adultery, really; it was a terrible thing to have done. Yet that girl had her baby now, and no one knew where she had gone or what had become of her. Parvati bit her lip. She must not think of it. This was another of the ideas that his talk kept in her mind, where it had no business to be. She was not as other women. They would be widows. They would crouch, shrivelled and unwanted, by dead fires, while she basked for ever in the love of her husband. He would love her then, toothless and scarred and old, as fiercely as he loved her now.
But was Jason innocent or wise? That was the question. What should she say to him, how much leave him to guess? He was going to be a great man, and then he’d marry. But it was unbelievable that he wasn’t married already, at his age. He never told her the truth, even about things where he must know that she must know he was lying. She looked at him admiringly and said, ‘My lord, I love you.’
The embassy was over, and he had won. The four kings would be allied. His own king had given him an estate of a hundred acres along the river. Jason paced nervously up and down the room, towards the big wall mirror and then away from it. But--Why was he nervous? Why didn’t he want to see Don Manoel, whom he was expecting at this very moment?
He didn’t know what people were thinking any more. At least he wasn’t sure. He strode towards the mirror, frowning at himself. That was a rich man in the mirror. But he didn’t like his face. It reminded him of a pouting Stevens girl in Pennel, who was always wanting something she couldn’t have, and her face showed it. She didn’t want things like Coromandel, or the wings of a plover, or love beyond the act of love, but things like a new pair of shoes or some other girl’s kerchief.
He said, ‘Any sign of the Don yet?’
Sugriva, leaning over the balustrade to look down into the street, said, ‘No, lord.’
Jason resumed his pacing. The Portuguese had no sense of time. Why was the Don coming, anyway? Twice Jason had refused urgent invitations to visit the mansion. Wasn’t that a plain enough hint that he did not want to discuss any private agreement, nor yet the negotiations between the four kings--which were secret--and still less the idea of marriage to Mistress Catherine?
Still, Don Manoel was coming, because he’d swallowed his pride and begged to be allowed to visit Jason in the palace apartment. And Jason had reluctantly agreed. And now the Don was late.
What had he been thinking about? Ah, yes, that face of his in the mirror. What was the matter? Dreams had been good in their time, but what he had now was real. He could hardly count the jewels the three kings had given him on his embassy. His finger had healed. He was fat and well. He had become a partner of Vishnuprodhan the merchant, and all he had to do was say an occasional word to the king or the chamberlain, and then Vishnuprodhan gave him big bags of money. It must be a very good business.
Every soul in Manairuppu knew him as a rich and powerful man and knew that it was he who had given Parvati her golden bangles and golden anklets. Then why did this unease sit like a rat on his shoulders?
‘The Don is in the courtyard,’ Sugriva said. ‘There is a woman with him.’
‘What? Let me see.’ Jason ran and leaned over. He looked down on the top of the Don’s wide feathered hat and some of the white ruff just showing under one side of it. Beside the Don he saw a small dark head covered by a square of blue cloth.
‘He has brought his daughter with him,’ Jason muttered. ‘Why should he do that?’
Parvati said, ‘I shall watch from behind the curtain. I want to see the girl more closely. From a little distance I have seen her in the city, and I thought she was beautiful. She is nearly blind, too?’
‘Beautiful?’ Jason said. He laughed. ‘You’re not a man, or you wouldn’t say that.’
Parvati said, ‘Is beauty only on the skin, like the bloom on a peach? Or only in the shape, like the curve of a mango?’ She moved slightly, turning the scabs on her cheek towards him.
He said, ‘Oh, my dearest--‘ But she walked through the curtain into the inner room.
Sugriva announced Don Manoel and Senhorita Catherine d’Alvarez. The Don waddled in, looking short-sightedly from side to side until he saw Jason in the cool gloom. His left hand rested heavily on the hilt of his sword, and with his right he led his daughter slowly across the floor.
Jason bowed and said curtly, ‘What do you want to speak to me about?’
Don Manoel said, ‘Are we alone, milord?’
Jason said, ‘I have told you that I am not a lord. ‘
The Don said with sudden bitterness, ‘I am allowed to pretend to myself that you are a nobleman, I presume? I would like to be assured that no one can overhear us.’
‘Sugriva is outside, and he does not understand English,’ Jason said.
‘And behind the curtain?’ the Don said. He gestured with his hand at the inner curtain, but behind the spectacles the sad brown eyes turned meaningly to meet Jason’s. That phrase ‘behind the curtain’ meant ‘in the women’s quarters.’ The Don’s expression, in words and eyes, therefore asked: Do you have a woman through there?
Jason said, ‘Behind the curtain is my affair.’ He felt a flush of embarrassment rising to colour his neck and face. But of course he was being silly. The girl Catherine could not see any expression on his face--she was too blind. She was looking at him--through him, almost--with her intent, un-shy look.
Jason said, ‘Please come quickly to the point of your visit, Sir Don. My affairs keep me busy.’
‘I know, I know,’ the Don said, and his little beard wagged in an old man’s sneer. ‘You are rich and famous and have much on your mind. Well, if you insist on having your black mistress listen to my daughter’s shame, I can’t prevent you. I have come to make you a formal offer of marriage on her behalf--fifty thousand pieces of eight.’
He flung his hat
on the floor and glared at Jason. Stuttering now under the stress of his emotion, he said, ‘Any other f-father would p-put his daughter away rather than s-sink to this. But she’s helpless! L-look at her. She made me do it.’
Jason stood speechless, while realization of the strength of the old man’s love for his daughter crept like a painful light into his mind. And then another, brighter, still more hurtful light came--the girl loved him. No, that was impossible. That word again! But it was impossible. They had met only twice. It could not be love. She had a crazy passion for him, as girls sometimes did. She wanted to be looked after, and thought he could be bribed to do it.
Don Manoel snarled, ‘Answer me, boy! Fifty thousand pieces of eight--yes or no? A grandee’s daughter, and no questions about your birth or faith. Why do you look at her like that? She’s not mad. She has only decided that she must marry you or live miserable the rest of her life. Also, that you must marry her, or you will live miserable the rest of your life! That’s not madness, is it? You think it is? So do I. Yes or no?’
Jason said, ‘I cannot marry Mistress Catherine. I am going to marry Parvati as soon as--soon.’
The Portuguese girl sighed, a long, half-smiling sigh. She said, ‘I knew it. Oh, Jason, you are of one perfect piece all through.’
Jason said, ‘I beg--What?’
She was dotty. She had a pointed nose, and the big eyes were like velvet pieces cut out of her face. Her skin was luminous, as though there were a fine layer of olive oil somewhere deep under the surface. She was thin-shouldered and small-boned, and today dressed all in black and pale blue.
The Don sighed too when Jason spoke of Parvati, but his was a sigh of unhappy triumph.
He said, ‘You heard what Milord Jason said, Catherine? I told you he was in love with a devadassi, didn’t I? And he has been honest enough to say so. He is a good young man--but now you see you must give up this folly.’
Catherine said, ‘I always believed it, Father. But you would not believe that he meant to marry her. It makes a great difference, because’--suddenly she dropped into Tamil--’because she knows it is impossible that he should marry her, even if he does not know.’
Jason started and glanced at the curtain. Parvati would certainly be listening behind there. So when he spoke again he too used Tamil. He said, ‘Parvati has told me it will be difficult. But with the king’s help we shall be married. Mistress Catherine does not know me, so she cannot know that she will be happy with me, or I with her.’
The girl sighed again, and with the same contentment. Her eyes crinkled pleasantly, and she said, ‘How long did it take you to decide to follow your map?’
He muttered, ‘No time, but--‘
She said, ‘You are my map.’
He said doggedly, ‘But the map is not important to me anymore. I had forgotten all about it until you spoke. And--I don’t love you. I love Parvati.’
She said, ‘Parvati can come to you whenever you wish, for as long as you wish. It will not be for long.’
Jason stared at the girl with his mouth dropping, dumbfounded at the arrogant self-confidence of her words. Don Manoel raised his fists and cried, ‘No! You are without shame, Catherine! What have I done to deserve this?’
The sweat began to trickle down Jason’s back under his brocaded coat. He said, ‘I am sorry. It is impossible.’
‘There!’ the Don said. ‘Thank God!’ He wrung Jason’s hand. ‘I do not know whether you are an earl or a farmer, milord-- but you are a kind man. Go out on the verandah, Catherine. I want to talk alone with Milord Jason.’
Catherine walked slowly towards the light. The inner curtains rustled as she passed them. Jason cried, ‘No, Sir Don! I don’t want to talk with you. Please go at once.’
The Don said, ‘It is important, milord. I must make clear to you the dangers that threaten all of us--I repeat, all of us. I do not think you realize . . .’
Jason saw that Catherine was standing by the curtain. It opened a crack, and Catherine raised a big eyeglass on a holder to her eye. Catherine and Parvati were looking at each other through the gap in the curtain. Don Manoel’s voice hurried on--in persistent anxious pleading, but Jason heard only the rustle of feminine whispers from the curtain.
He shouted, ‘Please go away, both of you!’
The Don said stiffly, ‘Very well, milord. Do not blame me for the tragedies that may fall on all of us alike, if what I suspect is true.’ Then his anger broke down under his anxiety, and he said, ‘Please let me talk to you. I must, I must. You can’t know--‘
Jason seized him by the shoulders and pushed him towards the outer curtain, shouting, ‘I don’t want to hear. Go away, damn you!’
He ran back for the girl, but when he reached her she put out her hand, laid it in his, and followed him quietly to the curtain, and so out into the passage.
For the space of a breath he was alone. Then Sugriva hurried in from the passage and Parvati from the inner room. Sugriva said, ‘Lord, there is a fellow waiting in the forecourt to see you. It is the same black man who was here before.’
Parvati said, ‘That girl is the one you must marry, Jason. She is your half that is lost, that you are always looking for in the mirror, that you used to look for in your map. What she suggests is good and possible. Nothing else is.’
Jason cried, ‘God’s blood, you are mad! Women are mad. To think that I put yucca in my shirt for you!’
He ran out along the passage, down the steps, turned left into the stables. ‘A horse, quick--any horse!’ he bawled.
‘Yes, Lord Jason! Coming this minute!’
The stable boys ran about like ants while he stood raging with jealousy and disquiet in the heavy light. Simon was waiting for him in the forecourt, but he could not bear to see Simon now. Simon would have some moaning complaint about food and pearls and damned starving babies. Why didn’t they go to a merchant like Vishnuprodhan? If they had any sense, any willpower, they wouldn’t be in trouble.
He swung into the saddle and raced through back streets towards the sea. The people scattered like rabbits in his path, saying to one another, ‘That is the foreigner, Lord Jason--a mighty man, a great man.’
As soon as he reached the sandy beach Jason slowed to a canter. The clouds were dark purple today, the sun hidden far above them, and the sea at his left hand a waste of violet dotted with white. The waves rode in like squadrons of cavalry, and the spray blew in torn sheets across the salt-white sand. The piles of driftwood that were really boats lay in clusters above the high-tide mark, but even in this weather some of the fishermen were preparing for sea.
Jason reined in and watched as two men came down, tied their boat together, and hauled it to the edge of the surf. He called out, ‘Surely you aren’t going fishing in this?’
They glanced up, cried, ‘We’re hungry,’ and launched the craft into the broken water. They paddled out towards the curved violet vaults of the waves. The strength of the sea caught them, the bow pointed to the sky, then leaned over backwards, and the boat capsized, hurling them into the foam. They scrambled aboard and tried again. Three times they tried; each time the sea dashed them back. The fourth time the wave was smaller, and the bow of their craft hung for a second like a finger, trembling, pointing in entreaty at the dark clouds, then dropped down, and they were over. Then the waves hid the boat, so that the men seemed to be sitting in the water, and soon he could no longer see them.
He turned his horse’s head south, momentarily feeling small and ashamed. But there was nothing he could do for these pearlers and fishermen--yet. Let them wait a little, until after the Dussehra, and then they’d know the value of having Jason Savage for their friend.
But in truth, whatever advantage he wrought for them would soon go for nothing. They were shiftless people and drank too much and took no thought for the future. They must have had good years in the past. What had they done with the money they’d got then? He knew the answer. They’d spent it in feasting and marrying off their children and
getting into debt on account of their silly superstitions.
Marry Catherine d’Alvarez, who thought she would soon drive Parvati from his thoughts! He shook his head angrily. He thought he disliked Mistress Catherine very much now. He had been a fool to feel sorry for her. Perhaps it was foolish to feel sorry for anyone.
He trotted on along the shore, watching the straight miles of sea and the ranks of white foam. When would it begin to rain again? Or were the rains over at last? This might be the last storm cloud before the calm, sunny days which they told him would come at Dussehra.
‘Lord! Lord Jason!’
He looked round. Simon was running at the horse’s quarter. His deep chest heaved, and his breath came in gasps. The sand was heavy here, and wet with spray. Jason saw Simon’s footprints trailing back beside the horse’s hoofmarks towards the distant tower of Manairuppu temple.
God’s blood, Simon had an insolence to follow him out here when he wanted to be alone! He snapped, ‘Simon, why have you followed me?’
Simon joined his hands in supplication and said, ‘Lord, I am sorry. They told me in the city that you had gone, and the one behind your curtain sent down a message that you did not want to see anyone, but--‘
Jason said, ‘I’ve told you that I can’t help you until I am in a stronger position myself. I’m doing the best I can.’
‘Yes, yes, lord,’ Simon said. ‘We know that. We only pray that you will soon have success. One of our old men is eating earth.’
Jason felt very tired. He had seen earth-eaters in Tiruvadi and asked Parvati why they did it. She told him, ‘Because they are hungry.’ They knew that they would die from it, but they did it. And after a time no one could help them. No one could do anything but watch them die. He had seen a man die from eating earth. He had seen no greater agony of death.
