The Twentieth Wife

by Indu Sundaresan

  “Where is she?” he whispered now, glancing up with a growing worry. He said to one of the two men, “Whistle that song again.”

  The man shook his head, didn’t seem inclined to speak at first, and then he said, in a hoarse voice, “Too dangerous, your Majesty.”

  Just then, Shah Shuja saw his wife dangle a leg over the parapet. She hung over the edge on her stomach for a sickening moment, and Shuja urged her in a whisper, “Grab on to the rope, Wafa.”

  She reached for the rope and let her weight down. It took her a long time to descend, almost five minutes; at times she hung in the moonlight, at times her body banged into the wall, but slowly she came down to the end of the rope and swung there in a circle. “What do I do now?” she asked, terrified.

  “Let go,” Shuja said firmly. Ibrahim and he linked their arms under Wafa, and when Shuja waved to the two men to help them, one shook his head. Wafa Begam undid her tight grasp around the rope and fell into the net formed by her husband and Ibrahim. She was shaking, teary-eyed, and trembling. But she still smiled. Her thin chiffon veil was pulled tight around her face and tied at her nape, enclosing her head in a pale blue.

  “Do you have it?” Shuja said in her ear, holding his wife tight by his side.

  She nodded.

  And then, one of the men said in a deep, cultured voice, “Perhaps then you will allow me to take it from you, your Majesty, and give it to my Maharajah.”

  • • •

  As dawn cleaved a line of lilac on the horizon, slitting open another day, a row of slaves toted loads of firewood upon their backs toward the Shalimar Gardens. The slaves were bent under the weight of the sticks, which were swaddled in cloth, strung with ropes around the tops of their heads like headbands.

  They flung each stack near the door at the southeastern corner of the middle terrace, by the side of a huge brick stove. The firewood was shoved into the stove’s black and yawning mouth, burning balls of newspapers were thrown in, each setting fire to one part until the whole roared to life.

  Water from the Hasli Canal, which fed the fountains and pools in the gardens, was diverted in a little stream to the top of the stove and into a permanently built brick-dome-covered stone cauldron. Pipes ran from this dome into the Shalimar, releasing clouds of steam into a series of closed pavilions on the southeastern corner of the middle terrace. This was the bathhouse, the hammam that Emperor Shah Jahan had built for the pleasure of both the ladies of his harem and himself. The only entrance into the hammam was from inside the gardens, in a series of three pointed archways that were tucked into the corner.

  Shah Shuja lay on the wet floor near the pool in the center of the hammam, stripped down to a small pair of shorts and nothing else. His face rested against the stone, his left arm hung into the pale and green waters of the pool. Wafa Begam sat astride his back, clad in very little herself, merely a small cloth covering her breasts and another piece of cloth fashioned into underwear.

  She dug the heels of her palms into Shuja’s back and ran them over the length of it, from his waist to his hairline. She made fists and pummeled the spent muscles. She kneaded his arms, pulled the strain out of every finger, bent to kiss his sweaty cheek, the hair on his beard scratching her face.

  Smudged light streamed around them in sharp bars from each of the skylights above. One lit the center of the pool, and the water glowed like a gathering of emeralds. Others cast their radiance around, lighting up the steam as it swirled through, taking on ghostly shapes at one moment, dispersing into flatness the next.

  Shuja and Wafa lay in the path of one such shaft of light, which glanced off her slender shoulders, dabbed at Shuja’s hair, turning it into glittering ebony, painted its way over his outflung arm, and dripped into the pool.

  He made a movement, and Wafa rose on her knees and allowed him to flip onto his back before settling down over him again. They gazed at each other for a long while, not speaking, not knowing, perhaps, what to say. They had tried to escape in the middle of the previous night, had been captured and brought back into the Shalimar soon after—merely a few hours had passed before they ordered the hammam fires lit.

  “What now?” Shuja said, cupping his palm over his wife’s cheek.

  She leaned into his hand, her eyebrows meeting in distress. “Now,” she said slowly and clearly, “we wait and see what the Maharajah will do.”

  Shuja felt an ache blossom inside his chest, and he rubbed at it unconsciously. Seeing that, Wafa caressed him, taking his hand away, replacing it with her own. He kissed her hand, felt the warm skin on his lips, felt a well of tears rise behind his eyes. Even Wafa had lost hope.

  In these past five years, whether in the dungeons under the Hari Parbat Fort in Kashmir, or here in the golden cage of the Shalimar, it had always been Shuja who had been doubtful, or pessimistic. Wafa, with her laughter, her joy, her belief that everything would go her way or no way at all, had a spark of hope lighting her from within. Oh, she had cried before, in distress, or frustration, or hatred, but she had never swerved from their purpose—Shuja would be freed and one day he would return to Afghanistan to be king.

  Shah Shuja swiped at the tears that ran in thin lines around the edges of his face and hoped that his wife wouldn’t notice them. “Sweat in my eyes,” he said hoarsely.

  She nodded, wrapped her arms around his, brought his palm back to her face again, and buried her nose in it.

  What had happened last night had devastated them. Only because it was so unexpected, something they were so little prepared for. The shock was not of the unanticipated but of the fact that they ought to have known better.

  At first, when the voice had come out of the darkness, Shuja had propelled Wafa behind him, his eyes roving around, wondering where it had come from and who had spoken.

  And then, one of the peasants hired by Elphinstone to help them escape had stepped forward and, with great deliberateness, stripped the turban cloth from the lower half of his face. In the distorted play of light—the silver from the moonlight, the dimness of the walls, the dull white glow of the turbans—for just a moment, Shuja had strained to see the man’s face and, for another moment, hadn’t recognized him.

  He had whipped around to Ibrahim, who said quietly, “It’s the old gardener, your Majesty. We’ve been hoodwinked.”

  Shuja had felt a strain around his chest then. All of this had been a trick? Nothing but a ruse to bring them out of the Shalimar Gardens with the Kohinoor? And, who was this man who had played at being a gardener in their midst?

  He’d raised his chin with a pointed, silent question.

  The man had bowed. “I am Fakir Azizuddin.”

  Ah, Shuja had thought, the Maharajah’s foreign minister—this was no ordinary minion but one of his most powerful courtiers. At his side, he’d felt Wafa shaking and he’d put an arm around her, turned his back upon Azizuddin so that he could hug his wife. When he lifted her face to his, he had realized that she was laughing, not crying.

  “What?” he had whispered.

  “Let me handle this,” she’d said. “I’ll talk to the fakir.”

  He had turned to face Fakir Azizuddin.

  “Your Majesty,” the other man had said, “we could make this very easy, dignified for all of us, if you will only permit yourselves to be searched. After that, you are free to return to the Shalimar Gardens. With the Kohinoor in his possession, the Maharajah will be delighted to outline some very lavish terms for you; he has already spoken to me of an annuity, and a substantial lump sum.”

  “What about me, Fakir Azizuddin?” Wafa Begam had said in a strong voice, stepping out from behind her husband. The light was faint, Wafa’s veil was swathed around her head; all Azizuddin could see was a shape, nose, the bones above the eyes, the jut of cheekbones—and he’d seen much more before of Shuja’s favorite wife in his guise as a gardener—yet etiquette demanded, so he’d bent his gaze to the ground.

  “You too, your Majesty.” His voice had been deferential, but trail
ed into something very like indecision.

  Wafa Begam had pounced on that uncertainty and cut Maharajah Ranjit Singh’s famous and powerful foreign minister into tiny pieces and strewed his carcass around. “You don’t have a woman on staff, do you? I refuse to be searched by a man—you wouldn’t dare do this to me.” She had straightened her back, become queenly, regal, her pale hands fluttering in the semidarkness. “In fact, I refuse to submit to a search by any woman.” Easy to say because there wasn’t any woman around, unless Azizuddin counted the chai lady, even now packing up her belongings and getting ready to close for the night, since her tea had been spilled by the guard.

  With that, Wafa Begam had strolled past all of them—a line opened in the middle of the group of silent soldiers guarding the southern gateway into the upper terrace—and went back inside the Shalimar Gardens.

  Shah Shuja had begun to laugh, mirth shaking his frame. He still hadn’t said a word to Azizuddin, and Ibrahim hadn’t spoken either.

  The minister had bowed to the erstwhile ruler of Afghanistan, and gestured toward the entrance to the gardens. He didn’t want to search them at all, because he was sure that Wafa Begam had the Kohinoor.

  While the night had eaten up the rest of the hours, there were two groups of people awake, one on either side of the Shalimar’s walls. Inside, Shuja and Wafa knew that this small victory meant nothing, that this was the beginning of the end for them.

  And outside, Fakir Azizuddin pondered and paced. He had come back to the Shalimar with another set of guards, only to find the escape was already in progress. For a brief few seconds, a cold hand had wrapped around his heart. Mentioning Elphinstone to the Maharajah had been almost an afterthought; he hadn’t thought it important then. Even an hour ago, preparing the guard, during the trip through the scrub, a journey he had already made twice today, Aziz had doubted the wisdom of haste. But when Ranjit Singh gave an order, it was obeyed. As simple as that. And then, to see the two men in Elphinstone’s employ whistling a snatch of a violin concerto, the blows on their heads, bundling them out of the way before Ibrahim Khan came snaking down the rope . . . waiting for Wafa Begam to also descend . . . Azizuddin had thought himself brilliant in allowing it to happen so that he could corner them and snatch the Kohinoor and end all these years of futile waiting.

  But then Wafa had walked away with the diamond, and Azizuddin knew that it was she who was brilliant. He was just a fool who had thought only to the edge of the pit, not beyond it, and so had fallen in.

  The wily Wafa would have hidden the Kohinoor again by now. They had searched the gardens many times in the past few years, and it had never been discovered. He knew how much his king wanted the diamond. And Azizuddin wanted to be the man who brought it to him. He had thought for a while longer, and then walked around the perimeter of the Shalimar Gardens, looking up at the walls as the light rose, giving a new set of orders to the guards.

  • • •

  “I’m hungry,” Wafa Begam said. All of their worries seemed to have leached away with the steam; the tiredness had left their bodies, and they both lay back on the edge of the pool, their feet in the water, looking up at the skylights.

  Shuja ordered the steam to be stopped, and the hiss died down into a quiet nothingness. The light from the sun seemed to burn away the mist and created dark shadows in the shade, a golden transparency where it touched.

  Perhaps things were not so bad after all, Shuja thought, his fingers entwined with his wife’s. He had one more thing left to give Ranjit Singh if he became too demanding. He didn’t know anymore if Elphinstone was truly in Lahore, if his offer to help was genuine, if the night’s adventures had been an elaborate ruse.

  “Let’s go have breakfast,” he said, rising from the floor and helping Wafa up.

  They went out into the middle terrace, paused for a moment at the pool. The fountains were silent now, and water lay without a ripple, placid, the tinted stones underneath the surface throwing rainbows of glittering color upon the face of the water.

  When they ascended to the upper terrace, all was quiet. No smoke from the kitchen fires, no aroma of cooked chicken and lamb, no fragrance of freshly baked naans. Every morning, through the south entrance of the upper terrace, Maharajah Ranjit Singh sent in a mass of supplies—clucking hens driven in a cluster, fresh vegetables, spices in covered jars, butter and ghee in urns. But today, the gates had been firmly shut. The Maharajah of the Punjab intended to starve them until Shah Shuja gave him the Kohinoor diamond.

  • • •

  For the next two days, Shuja, Ibrahim, and Wafa ate the ripening guavas in the trees, and then the unripe ones, their stomachs protesting. When the guavas were gone, they washed the green mangoes, cut them into slices, sprinkled on salt and chilli powder, ate them until their tongues became sour.

  Desperate, Shuja sent the Maharajah his last jewel, a stone as big as his fist, hued in pale yellow, and said that it was the Kohinoor. A long eight hours passed on that third day as they waited. Ranjit Singh had never seen the Kohinoor; he did not know what it looked like, or how big it actually was, or anything about it at all.

  A letter came from the king to Shah Shuja in which he thanked him for the pukraj, the wonderful topaz, he had sent him, but it wasn’t the Kohinoor, was it?

  On the fourth day, a slew of gardeners came into the Shalimar and cut down every tree. They drained the pools, shut off the water source from the Hasli Canal, and the stones in the central pool of the middle terrace lay twinkling reproachfully at them in the harsh sun.

  A few hours later, Wafa Begam picked her way over the stones in the pool, went to the fountain spout that was the third one from the northwest corner, toward the wrestling platform, bent down, and picked up the armlet hidden there.

  She was weak, rabidly hungry, shaking from a want of water and food. Shuja took the armlet himself to Fakir Azizuddin, who waited at the northernmost end of the middle terrace, his face turned away from Wafa Begam. Shuja’s steps were halting, dragged on the ground.

  Azizuddin examined the armlet and the enormous stone in the center, which caught fire in the light from the sun and shed its lovely glow over his dark face.

  “Thank you, your Majesty,” he said.

  Within the hour, servants had brought in covered dishes wrapped in red satin cloth and laid them out on a carpet in the Aiwan pavilion. Shuja, Wafa, and Ibrahim ate everything in sight, drank cups of wine, and fell onto the carpets sated and full.

  The next day, they found all the entrances to the Shalimar thrown wide open, no guards around, the heated air from the plains rolling in. Freedom, Shah Shuja thought, as he watched the Englishman, Mountstuart Elphinstone, ride his horse into the lower terrace and bow his head. More horses were brought in; they jumped into the saddles and rode away south toward the Sutlej River. When they had crossed the river and entered the lands of British India, they were guided to a splendid haveli in Ludhiana.

  If you enjoyed this preview, check out the rest of Indu Sundaresan's new novel Mountain of Light.

  Click here to order your copy today!

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Mountain of Light by Indu Sundaresan

  ABOUT THIS GUIDE

  The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for discussion for Indu Sundaresan’s The Twentieth Wife. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.

  Many fine books from Washington Square Press feature Readers Club Guides. For a complete listing, or to read the guides online, visit www.BookClubReader.com.

  A CONVERSATION WITH INDU SUNDARESAN

  1. How did you discover the story of Mehrunnisa?

  Mehrunnisa, better known as Empress Nur Jahan, is quite a well-recognized figure in Indian history, though the references to her when I was in school were brief and uninteresting, merely along the lines of “she was the wife of Emperor Jahangir.” She is mostly celebrated in ballad, poetry, and Bollywood mov
ies, for the romantic aspect of her life, with little mention of her enormous power and wealth.

  I chanced upon Mehrunnisa’s story again one winter evening in Delaware, where I was working toward a graduate degree in Economics and Operations Research. My family was in India; I was homesick for them, so I rode the bus to the university library and typed out the word “India” under the subject keyword. I came home with a huge armload full of books on history, travel—anything that would satisfy my craving for home—and among these was one on Mughal harems and Mehrunnisa.

  I was fascinated by her extraordinary life, the ships she owned, the influence she had over Jahangir and consequently the empire, the amount she interfered in court and zenana politics. And she did all of this four hundred years ago, living in a time when women were not meant to be seen, because of the veil, and very little heard.

  So after I decided to become a novelist, and after I had written two other “practice run” novels, this was the story I wanted to tell.

  2. How did you go about researching and re-creating seventeenth-century India?

  Despite having been an indifferent student of history, I was already familiar, through travel, visits to museums, and stories from my childhood, with the architecture and clothing of Mughal India. So when I was ready to research The Twentieth Wife, I was looking most for details on everyday life and the politics at court.

  These I found in memoirs and travelers’ tales in the two local library systems in the Seattle area, both of which are rich with English translations of original Persian, Portuguese, and Dutch manuscripts. I read for many months, took copious notes, and immersed myself in the style and language of the period.

  When I was ready to write, it was winter again, cold, dark, and raining outside, so I used physical tools to set the mood. I lit incense sticks, cranked up the thermostat in the house to a sweltering 85 degrees, drank cups of chai spiced with ginger. More important, I switched off all electronic toys that beeped or rang or chirped—anything that would pull me out of seventeenth-century India.