The six men trotted off down a corridor, bellowing the command, still in concert, and even trotting in step together. I discreetly gestured a suggestion to Tofaa, and she comprehended, and timidly asked the little Raja, “Your Highness, might we wash off some of our travel dust before we are honored by joining you at table?”
“Oh, yes. By all means. Forgive me, lovely lady, but your charms would distract any man from noticing any trivialities. Ah, Marco-wallah, again your good taste is evident. It is also evident that you have admired our country and our people, seeing that you have taken a lady wife from among them.” I gasped. He added, archly, “But did you have to take the most beauteous, and thereby so sorely deprive us poor natives?” I tried to make an instant correction of that horrific misapprehension, but he went to where the steward was still lying on his face, and kicked the man and snarled, “Misbegotten wretch! Never to be twice-born! Why did you not lead these eminent guests immediately to a state apartment and see them cared for? Do so! Prepare for them the bridal suite! Assign them servants! Then see to the banquet and the entertainers!”
When I saw that the bridal suite had two separate beds, I decided it would not be necessary to demand other quarters. And when a number of stout dark women dragged in a tub and filled it, I found it not inconvenient for me and Tofaa to have the same bathing chamber. I took the masculine prerogative of bathing first, then stayed to oversee Tofaa’s ablutions and direct the women servants—causing some incredulity among them at my insistent thoroughness—so that, for once, Tofaa got well washed. When we put on the best clothes we carried and went downstairs to the dining hall, even her bare feet were clean.
And I made certain, before indulging in any small table talk, to inform the little Raja and all others present, “The Lady Tofaa Devata is not my wife, Your Highness.” That sounded brusquely uncomplimentary of the lady, so, to maintain his estimation of her importance, I added, “She is one of the noble widows of the late King of Ava.”
“Widow, eh?” grunted the little Raja, as if instantly losing all interest in her.
I continued, “The Lady Gift of the Gods most graciously consented to accompany me on my journey through your fair land, and to interpret for me the wit and wisdom of the many fine people we have met along the way.”
He grunted again, “Companion, eh? Well, to each his custom. A sensible and tasteful Hindu, going on a journey, takes not a female Hindu, but a Hindu boy, for his temper is not so like a kaja snake’s, and his hole not so like a cow’s.”
To change the subject, I turned to the fourth at our table, a man of my own age, bearded like me, and seeming more tan than black of complexion behind the beard. “You would be the inventive musician, I believe, Master …”
“Musicmaster Amir Khusru,” said the little Raja proprietorially. “Master of melodies, and also dances, and also poetry, being an accomplished composer of the licentious ghazal poems. A credit to my court.”
“
His Highness’s court is blessed,
” crooned the shouters and congratulators, standing against the wall, “
and blessed most by the presence of His Highness
”—during which the Musicmaster only smiled self-deprecatingly.
“I never before saw a musical instrument with strings made of metal,” I said, and Tofaa—now subdued to meekness—translated as I went on, “Indeed, I had never before thought of Hindus as inventors of anything so good and useful.”
“You Westerners,” the little Raja said peevishly, “are always looking to do good. We Hindus seek to be good. An infinitely superior attitude to life.”
“Nevertheless,” I said, “that new Hindu sitar is a doing of good. I congratulate Your Highness and your Master Khusru.”
“Except that I am not a Hindu,” the Musicmaster said in Farsi, with some amusement. “I am of Persian birth. The name I gave the sitar is from the Farsi, as you may have perceived. Si-tar: three-stringed. One string of steel wire and two of brass.”
The little Raja looked still more peeved at my having learned that the sitar was no Hindu achievement. I wished to put him in a good mood again, but I was beginning to wonder if there was any subject that could be discussed without its blatantly or subtly denigrating the Hindus. In mild desperation, I turned to praising the food we had been served. It was some kind of venison, drowned as usual in the kàri sauce, but this kàri was at least colored a sightly yellow-gold and a little enhanced in its flavor, though only with turmeric, which is an inferior substitute for zafràn.
“Meat of the four-horned deer, this is,” said the little Raja, when I complimented it. “A delicacy we reserve for only the most favored guests.”
“I am honored,” I said. “But I thought your Hindu religion forbade the hunting of wild game. Doubtless I was misinformed.”
“No, no, you were rightly informed,” said the little Raja. “But our religion also bids us be clever.” He gave a broad wink. “So I ordered all the people of Kumbakonam to take holy water from the temples and go into the forests and sprinkle that holy water about, loudly declaring that all the forest animals were henceforth sacrifices to the gods. That makes our hunting of them quite permissible, you see—each killing being a tacit offering—and of course our hunters always give a haunch or something to the temple sadhus, so they will not inconveniently decide that we are misinterpreting any sacred text.”
I sighed. It really was impossible to light on an innocuous subject. If it did not explicitly or implicitly denigrate the Hindus, it made them impugn themselves. But I tried again:
“Do Your Highness’s hunters hunt on horseback? I ask because I wonder if some horses might have been lost from your royal stables. The Lady Tofaa and I encountered quite a herd running loose on the other side of the river.”
“Ah, you met my aswamheda!” he cried, sounding now most jovial again. “The aswamheda is another cleverness of mine. A rival Raja, you see, holds that province beyond the Kolerun River. So every year, I have my drovers deliberately whip a horse herd over to there. If that Raja resents the trespass and keeps possession of the horses, then I have excuse for declaring war on him and invading and seizing his lands. However, if he rounds them up and returns them to me—which he has done every year so far—then it betokens his submission to me, and all the world knows I am his superior.”
If this little Raja was the superior, I decided, as the meal concluded, then I was glad not to have encountered the other. Because this one marked the close of the banquet by leaning to one side, raising one little buttock and gustily, audibly, odoriferously passing wind.
“His Highness farts!”
bellowed the shouters and congratulators, making me flinch even more than I had already done.
“The food was good, and the meal acceptable, and His Highness’s digestion is still superb, and his bowels an example to us all!”
I really had not much hope that this posturing monkey could be of any help in my current quest. However, as we sat on at the table, drinking tepid cha from elaborately jeweled but slightly misshapen cups, I recounted to the little Raja and the Master Khusru the events that had brought me hither, and the object of my pursuit, concluding, “I understand, Your Highness, that a pearl-fisher subject of yours was the man who acquired the Buddha’s tooth, hoping that it would confer good fortune on his pearl fishing.”
The little Raja, as I might have expected, responded by taking my story as a reflection on himself, on Hinduism and on Hindus in general.
“I am distressed,” he muttered. “You imply, Marco-wallah, that some one of my subjects imputed supernatural power to that fragment of an alien god. Yes, I am distressed that you could believe that any Hindu has so little faith in his own stalwart religion, the religion of his fathers, the religion of his benevolent Raja.”
I said placatively, “Doubtless the new possessor of the tooth has by now realized his error, and found the thing not at all magical, and repented his acquisition of it. He, being a good Hindu, would probably throw it in the sea, except that it cost him some time and perhaps some uncertainty in the winning of it. So, for a suitable exchange, he would probably be glad to give it up.”
“Give it up he most certainly will!” snapped the little Raja. “I shall make proclamation that he come forward and surrender it—and surrender himself to the karavat!”
I did not know what a karavat was, but evidently Master Khusru did, for he remarked mildly, “That, Your Highness, is not likely to make anyone come hastening forward with the object.”
“Please, Your Highness,” I said. “Do not make demand or threat, but publish only a persuasive request and my offer of reward.”
The little Raja grumbled for a while, but then said, “I am known as a Raja who always keeps his word. If I offer a reward, it will be paid.” He eyed me sidewise. “You will pay it?”
“Assuredly, Your Highness, and most liberally.”
“Very well. And then I will keep
my
word, which I have already spoken. The karavat.” I did not know whether I should remonstrate on behalf of some unsuspecting pearl fisherman. But anyway, before I could, the little Raja summoned his steward and spoke rapidly to him. The man scuttled from the hall, and the Raja turned again to me. “The proclamation will immediately be cried throughout my realm: bring the heathen tooth and receive a munificent reward. It will bring the desired result, I promise you that, for all my people are honest and responsible and devout Hindus. But it may take a while, because the pearl fishers are constantly sailing back and forth between their coastal villages and the reptile beds.”
“I understand, Your Highness.”
“You will be my guest—your female, too—until the relic is retrieved.”
“With gratitude, Your Highness.”
“Then let us now cast off all dull business and sober care,” he said, dusting his little hands to demonstrate, “and let mirth and joy reign in here as it does in the square outside. Shouters, bring on the entertainers!”
This was the first entertainment: an aged and very dirty, brown-black man, so ragged of dhoti that he was quite indecent, shuffled woefully into the room and fell prostrate before the little Raja. Master Khusru helpfully murmured to me:
“What we call in Persia a darwish, a holy mendicant, here called a naga. He will perform to earn his supper crust and a few coppers.”
The old beggar went to a cleared space in the room and gave a hoarse call, and an equally ragged and filthy young boy came in bearing a roll of what seemed to be cloth and rope. When the two of them unrolled the bundle, it proved to be one of the swing-style palang beds, its two ropes terminating in little brass cups. The boy lay down in the palang on the floor. The ancient naga knelt and slipped the two brass cups onto his eyeballs, and pulled down his wrinkled black eyelids over them. Very slowly, he stood erect, lifting the boy in the palang off the floor—not using his hands or teeth or anything but his eyeballs—then swinging the boy from side to side until the little Raja felt moved to applaud. Khusru and Tofaa and I politely did, too, and we men threw the old beggar some coppers.
Next came into the dining hall a portly, squat, dark-brown nach girl, who danced for us, about as listlessly as the woman I had seen dancing at the Krishna festa. Her only accompanying music was the jingling of a column of gold bracelets which she wore from wrist to shoulder of just one arm, and she wore nothing else at all. I was not much enthralled—it might have been Tofaa stamping her familiar soiled feet and undulating her familiar bushy kaksha—but the little Raja giggled and snorted and slavered throughout, and applauded wildly as the woman withdrew.
Then the tattered and filthy old mendicant returned. Rubbing his eyes, which had got bulged and reddened by his performance with the palang, he made a brief speech to the little Raja, who turned and told me:
“The naga says he is a Yogi, Marco-Wallah. The followers of the Yoga sect are accomplished in many strange and secret arts. You will see. If you truly harbor any belief, as I suspect you do, that we Hindus are backward or lacking in aptitude, then you are about to be convinced otherwise, for you will now witness a wonder that
only
a Hindu could show you.” He called to the waiting beggar, “Which Yoga miracle will you show us, Oh Yogi? Will you be buried for a month underground and come up still alive? Will you make a rope stand erect and climb it and disappear into the heavens? Will you carve your boy assistant into pieces and then restore him whole? Will you at least levitate for us, Oh holy Yogi?”
The decrepit old man began to speak in a creaking small voice, but sounding earnest, as if making a momentous announcement, and doing much gesticulation. The little Raja and the Musicmaster leaned forward to listen intently, so now it was Tofaa who explained to me what was going on. She seemed pleased to do so, saying eagerly:
“It will be a wonder which you may wish to observe closely, Marco-wallah. The Yogi says he has discovered a revolutionary new way to do surata with a woman. Instead of his linga gushing out its juice at the climactic moment, as a man’s customarily does,
his
gives a great inhaling suck
inward.
Thereby he ingests the life-force of the woman without expending any of his own. He says his discovery not only provides a fantastic new sensation, its continual practice could accrue to a man so much life-force that he might live forever. Would not you like to learn that ability, Marco-wallah?”