by John Speed
Maya looks shocked. “I have no sword, mother,” she answers.
“Don’t be obtuse, daughter, of course you do. Haven’t you known all along that this moment would come?”
“But, mother, it’s …”
“It’s been waiting for him, child. Go and get it.”
Maya goes to her bedmat and brings her long bag. She opens it, and takes from it a shallow box of cheap wood nearly as long as the bag itself, tied with a wide ribbon of faded silk. She places it in front of Gungama, bowing her head to the floor. “I am your slave entirely, mother.”
“Sit up, child. You are very formal today. Show him what you’ve got in there.” Her eyes crinkle at Shivaji. “Now, I don’t pretend to know about such matters. So you just tell me exactly what you think, darling.”
Maya pulls on the faded bow until the knot gives way. She sets the ribbon aside as though it were very precious, and then tugs on the box’s lid. It resists as though it has been shut a long time. Maya lifts from it a long shape, wrapped in silk as though wearing a fine robe. “I’ve had this all my life,” she explains. “I think it was my father’s. I like to think that it was.”
Shivaji takes it and pushes aside the wrapper to reveal a rapier blade that glistens in the lamplight: not a whole sword, but the blade of a sword. Instead of a hilt there’s only a raw-looking tang, scratched and ugly compared to the limpid beauty of the blade.
“This is a farang blade,” he says, moving it easily, catching the light on its gleaming edge. “It’s exquisite. Your father’s, you say?”
“Child, have you not told him your tale?” Gungama asks.
“It is of no consequence, Mother,” Maya answers.
“This is a fine blade,” Shivaji says. He tests its lightness, its balance; runs his finger along its edges, flexes the point. Whorls and swirls of gray shine in the bright steel. “Can this really be steel?” he asks. “It’s so flexible. There’s no sign of rust.”
“So, it’s good?” Gungama asks.
“Very good,” Shivaji replies.
“And, child, don’t you think it should be his?”
Maya lowers her head to Shivaji. “Please take it, sir. You saved my life. Take this sword as a token of my gratitude.”
“And …,” Gungama says.
Maya looks up, surprised. She looks into her guru’s eyes, and lowers her head, suddenly embarassed. “And of … my affection,” she whispers.
Gungama’s gaze lingers on Maya and she smiles, as if remembering or imagining. Then she turns back to Shivaji. “So it can be repaired, dear? Good as new?”
“Yes, Mother,” Shivaji says. “All that’s missing is the hilts.”
Gungama claps her hands as though this is delightful news. “So what will you do with your new sword?” She pauses, but Shivaji doesn’t answer. “That blade is a token, darling. A sign. Now you must act.”
“But what am I to do, Mother?” Shivaji asks.
“Stop pretending you’re so thick-headed. Can’t you see that you are missing something obvious?”
“What? What am I missing?” But Gungama only looks at him as though he is teasing her. An expression of pity crosses her face. “You have forgotten why you are here, darling,” she says at last. She nods to Maya. From her bag Maya slips out a smaller one and lifts it for Shivaji to see: a net of gems; two or three dozen gold-set stones—diamonds the size of chickpeas, a hundred pearls of equal size—woven into a glittering mesh by threads of gold. She slips it over his hands, the stones glittering.
When he takes it, his hands dip involuntarily—it is that much heavier than he expects. “What is it?” he says at last. Whenever he moves his hands the gems glitter unexpectedly, catching the golden light.
“It is a wedding headdress. My mother had it.”
Shivaji lifts an eyebrow. “It’s exquisite.” He holds the headdress out, and she takes it with care.
For a moment their fingers touch.
Maya lifts a final treasure. It is a small golden coin. Or rather half a coin, for it has been sawn roughly down the center with a jagged, uneven cut. Its markings are in some strange language.
“What is this?” he asks. But Maya looks away and will not answer.
Gungama laughs. “You have more questions, darling?” Gungama waves her hand toward the sword in Shivaji’s lap, then over the headdress and coin. “You must wake up, darling boy. The world puts the answers at your feet.”
Shivaji suddenly reaches for his forehead; the thumbnail mark between his eyebrows has begun to throb. “What have you done to me?” he demands.
“It’s always so hard to wake up, darling.” She looks into his eyes levelly. “Tell me, what story do you read here? Sharp sword, jeweled headdress, broken coin. What do these signs tell you?”
Shivaji rubs his forehead. “I don’t understand.”
“That’s because you’re a hard case, darling.”
Shivaji rises, holding on to the wall to steady himself. Perspiration beads up on his forehead. Maya gets up to help him, but he brushes her away. “Take some air,” Gungama says. She stands with the careful effort of an old woman, yet she seems at this point steadier and stronger than Shivaji. The old woman motions toward the sword. “Bring it just like that,” she says to Maya as she pushes Shivaji to the door.
Bring it? Where? wonders Maya. But she wraps the sword in its silk cloth, and follows.
The temple is crowded. Drones and flutes mix with the splash of finger cymbals and tambourines, with the deep thump of tablas and clay drums. The stone walls ring with song. No one pays attention to Shivaji, though he lurches through the crowd like a drunkard, supported by Gungama and Maya.
In the temple chamber, Shivaji seems to rouse himself. Before them is the ancient murti of the goddess Bhavani: as Bala had said, little more than a rock with eyes.
This rock, this idol, is a self-incarnating murti, an image formed by the goddess herself, found by a lucky farmer in his field in the old times and worshipped for generations since.
The rock, naturally dark green, has been carefully stained to show more clearly the image of the goddess that inhabits it. Brilliant eyes of white shell have been placed on the goddess’s face, on which dark black pupils have been painted. The stone goddess has been dressed in heavy silks, garlanded with golden necklaces, and crowned with gems. Above her spreads a silver umbrella held aloft by sculpted peacocks.
Gungama lets go of Shivaji’s hand, pushing him forward. “Give it to him, hurry,” she whispers. Maya places the cloth-wrapped sword in Shivaji’s hands. Though he grips it tight, his gaze is fixed on the bright eyes of the goddess. He lurches to the very foot of the rock idol and falls heavily to his knees. The chanting seems, impossibly, to grow louder; the temple walls echo like thunder.
Shivaji shuffles forward on his knees, the sword outstretched. Finally he tumbles forward at the base of the idol, letting the sword fall at the goddess’s feet.
“Now. Now!” says Gungama, tugging at Maya’s arm. “Dance!”
When he opens his eyes, Shivaji sees not the black basalt stones of the temple, but bright light, glinting golden on the green face of the goddess.
How did the temple come to be so full of light, he wonders? The murti has changed: it has begun to breathe. The rock grows soft, and from it emerges the goddess, no longer rough and obscure, but smooth, distinct, throbbing with life. The goddess is glorious: her flesh is green and dark, and her eyes are brilliant white, but the heart of them is black as the night sky. Her eyes are full of stars.
Next to the goddess swirls a whirlwind: a million strings of light; each string a different brilliant color, each vibrating at a different pitch, making music unlike any he has heard before, the sound of light.
The whirling spirals of light move toward him as a storm and soon engulf him. He swirls inside the maelstrom until he himself dissolves.
He flows like water over the face of the goddess. Galaxies swirl in her dark eyes. She opens her green lips and swallows him
whole. He is everywhere and also beyond everywhere. Now he soars through her, inside her. He sees that her mouth contains the whole earth. The rolling plain is but the surface of her tongue; the mountains are her teeth.
The next thing Shivaji sees is a tiger chewing on a corpse.
The tiger lifts its head. Flesh trails from its black lips; blood reddens its long yellow teeth. Shivaji sees that the tiger’s eyes are filmed; that its teeth are worn away; that its fur is graying and moth-eaten.
The tiger is dying, but it is not yet dead. No, it is alive and looking straight at him. Those horrid teeth loom toward him. Swelling to enormous size, towering over him, the tiger opens its jaws to swallow him.
Shivaji runs. He sees hills, and runs to them for shelter. But they are not hills, but heaps of rotting, burning corpses: of children, of horses and elephants, of women and men.
The dying tiger too prowls there. Sour smoke swirls around his heaving sides. He may be dying, but his claws are sharp as razors. The tiger kills each thing it touches, eats each thing it kills.
Then beneath his paws, from beneath the smoking corpses, the earth begins to twitch. The soil churns; it becomes a sea of rats. The rats skitter up to the beast’s huge legs. The tiger slaps out, claws flashing, but they are too fast, too many, skittering away only to circle back again.
A rat nips at the tiger’s tail and runs. A drop of blood flows from its bite along the yellow fur. Another rat runs up to snap at the tiger’s tender belly. Then by twos and threes, the rats dash forth and back, nipping, biting, gnawing. The tiger gets to its feet, enraged, anxious now to stop these nasty, painful bites. It roars, it stamps, it bats the ground. But still they come: biting, biting, biting. Blood pours in rivulets from the tiger’s paws. The smell of blood maddens the roiling sea of rats.
A fat black rat gnaws through the tiger’s belly, and dives inside his gut with a dozen of its brothers.
The tiger roars and crashes to the ground, but it does no good. As the tiger screams, the blood-soaked head of the fat black rat emerges from his chest. And now a hundred hungry rats are leaping on the tiger, a hundred tiny gnawing mouths are feasting on its dying flesh. Soon the tiger’s roars are merely groans.
The tiger dies a wretched living death, his hide a living blanket made of gnawing rats. And then the fat black rat, the one who first dove into the tiger’s belly, runs up and sits upon his haunches at Shivaji’s feet.
In the eyes and nose and bloodstained mouth of that fat rat, Shivaji seems to find a face he knows. He leans his head closer, closer, eye to tiny eye. It seems to him that the rat has many arms, and many human hands.
The rat bows its head and touches Shivaji’s feet.
“Why do you bow to me?” Shivaji asks.
“I bow to the king of rats, lord,” it replies.
While Shivaji lies unmoving at the murti’s feet, Maya dances. When she sits down exhausted, even when the kirtan stops, Shivaji does not move. Gungama sends for the shastri; he feels Shivaji’s pulse but cannot wake him. At last they carry him from the temple to the shastri’s home, as motionless as when he first collapsed before the murti of the goddess.
For three days and nights Maya stays by Shivaji’s bedside. It is her guru’s wish, and so she stays. Amba, the shastri’s wife, brings food: samosas, dahi, bhel. Sometimes Maya takes water, but the food remains untouched.
The shastri doesn’t know what’s wrong with him. The doctor shakes his head. Only Gungama smiles when she comes to see Shivaji. “Good, good, good,” she repeats each time; just that and nothing else.
Sometimes Jyoti comes, and only then will Maya allow herself to take a little nap, resting her head against Jyoti’s shoulder.
On the third evening, Amba calls Maya into the main room of their tiny house. There, seated on the floor around a butter lamp are the shastri and Gungama.
The brahmin is much older than his wife, the stubble of his shaved head glinting silver in the flickering lamplight. After a few pleasantries, Gungama takes Maya’s hand firmly with her tiny, wrinkled fingers. “Daughter,” she says in her hoarse croak, “tonight I leave you. I’ve spoken to the shastri. You’ll be in charge of the dancing school now. You are the new guru. I know you will not disappoint me.”
“No!” Maya says despite herself. “It’s wrong, ma, it’s wrong!” She sobs. “I know so little!”
“What you don’t yet know about temple dance, you shall discover on your own. I will help you. I will pray for you. But I must leave you now.”
“But I’m not ready,” Maya protests. “And Shivaji …”
“Why should you worry? Whether he lives or dies, is it not God’s will?”
Maya blanches. “Is he going to die?”
Gungama looks at her with loving eyes and shakes her head. “No, daughter, he will not die. Tonight he’ll wake up. Or perhaps tomorrow. He’ll be fine. Fine … but different.”
“Different how?” Maya asks
“In ways I cannot see,” Gungama replies. “I brought him here to wake him up, daughter. That was all my job, and now it’s done. I do not know the consequence.” Gungama stands with an effort, using Maya’s hand for support. Then she lays her old hands on the young woman’s forehead. “Take my blessing.”
The shastri namskars as Gungama shuffles past him to the door. Amba hands the old woman a package of food, and helps her into a wax cloth cloak.
“No!” Maya shouts. “I may never see you again, mother.”
Now Gungama laughs. “Child, don’t be foolish. You’ve danced so many stories—the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, the tales of Janaki and Shakuntla. In all those stories, doesn’t the guru wander into the forest? And always, daughter, doesn’t the guru return?
“Even so, child, the Author of my story won’t let me leave so easily, I fear. Much as I would like to climb the ladder into heaven, the Author, I expect, has other ideas. And you have much to do before this story is complete.” Now Gungama stands on tiptoe and places her arms around Maya’s neck, kissing her once on each cheek. “Take care of my girls. Take care of those sweet lambs. Remember me.” Maya nods. The shastri opens the wooden door, and Gungama steps into the pouring rain.
She goes back to Shivaji’s bedside, her heart charged with doubt and wonder. Because of Gungama’s assurance, she expects Shivaji to wake. Instead he lies there, as quiet as ever.
Amba looks in to see if there is any change, but of course there is none. She shakes her head and says goodnight. Soon Maya hears them climbing into bed; soon she hears them snore. And still she sits near Shivaji’s sleeping form, waiting against hope. Sometimes she brushes back his long, dark hair. And still he does not stir.
And sitting there, in the dark that is broken only by the guttering butter lamp in the room next door, sitting by his bed in the never-ending rain that seems to grow ever louder, her sleep-starved mind begins to twist with unnamed fears. She starts to feel her skin crawl, as though some evil rakshasa had slipped into the room. Knowing she is foolish, against her will, her face turns toward the window.
There standing in a cloak is Hanuman.
No. Lakshman. Watching.
She shivers. Never has he done anything but look at her, but, still, those burning eyes! And she is helpless. She turns to Shivaji. “Wake up,” she whispers.
But Shivaji does not move. At last, she falls with her face upon his chest, and weeps until she has no more tears to cry. With her cheek pressed against his damp shirt, she rests there, until lulled at last by the slow and steady beating of his heart she falls asleep.
Maya wakes to see blue sky through the window. The rain has ceased to beat upon the rush roof. She realizes that Shivaji’s bed is empty.
Shivaji sits across the room, leaning his back against the wall.
“You looked so beautiful, I couldn’t bear to wake you.”
“Are you all right?”
“I was hungry,” he says. He lifts the tray shastri’s wife had brought her; all that’s left are crumbs. “How long was I asleep?
”
“Three days. Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Were you here the whole time, Maya?”
It pleases her to hear him say her name. The sound of his voice saying it seems to pour across the ragged surface of her heart like warm oil. “Oh, yes,” she answers. For a long time, they look at one another.
It must be early morning, Maya thinks, staring into his dark eyes. She can hear the snoring of the shastri and his wife; they will not wake for hours. She could latch the door and no one would come in.
Still their eyes linger. Want what I want, she thinks. But he turns away. “I had a funny dream, you know,” he tells her, as if trying to sound casual.
The moment, she can feel, is gone. If he loved her, he would have acted. I am a fool. “Tell me about your funny dream.”
“I dreamed I was the king of all the rats.”
“Then it was a good dream,” she says, pleased for him. “It means that you will overcome all obstacles to reach your goal. Ganesha himself has given you this vision. Only Ganesha crowns the king of rats. Ganesha loves rats, for they ignore obstacles.” She seems almost to plead with him. “Nothing can stop you! Ganesha’s blessings rest upon you! Take what you want!” She can’t stop looking at him.
Then she sees the mark that rests on his forehead, on the place that Gungama drew blood. On his forehead there she sees a purplish “V,” like the tilik of a priest. The sight disturbs her. She reaches out her hand, tracing the “V” upon his brow with her finger. Her face grows taut. The mark seems to rest below the surface of his skin. Its color shifts from dark purple to a reddish brown, like a thing alive.
She pulls back her hand and then she laughs, but her laugh is cold. She has seen the veil pulled back at last. She laughs again, a sad, mirthless laugh, and turns away. Her mind is racing, filled with memories of Gungama and the words she spoke. “Look what she has done to you! And me! Yesterday I was a slave. Today I’m the guru. She has pulled me from one prison and cast me in another. She always finds the way to demolish me.”
