The Temple Dancer (7 page)

"I am the man. I am the Muslim. Yet here I must be learning from a
Christian, and a woman. And so I am ashamed."

"Well," said Lucinda. "That's very nice, I suppose."

For the first time that she could remember, Pathan smiled. It was not a
smile like a Portuguese. There was something more difficult about it, as
though pleasure were earned, not free, but more relaxed, as though once
earned that pleasure could be savored. "You are most tolerant, and most
wise, madam. It is my privilege to be your escort."

By now she'd reached the top of the ladder. The mahout rose from his
seat on the great beast's head, and stood with his bare feet on the elephant's
ears. He thrust aside the howdah curtains with his pointed brass ankus;
with his other hand took her firmly by the arm. Few men ever touched her
so: his grip felt strong and dry.

"Please enter, madam," Pathan called from below.

For suddenly Lucinda was frozen, staring into the howdah. They can't
be serious, she thought. I can't be expected to ride here. Not here. Not with
them.

There on the cushions and throws, behind the silk curtains that billowed in the ocean breeze, sat the eunuch, smiling and bowing. And next to
him, half-naked, it seemed to Lucinda, sat the cargo.

A bayadere, she thought. A nautch girl. A common whore.

From below Captain Pathan gazed at her with something close to reverence.

Well, I wanted an adventure, she thought.

With the mahout and the eunuch's help, she clambered in.

"This is the nice farang woman I spoke of," the eunuch said to the bayadere,
his high voice bubbling. "Come in, come in, come in," he told Lucinda.
"Isn't this nice? Our own little house." Then with his pudgy hands he took
Lucinda's, offering more enthusiasm than support, and fussed with the curtains as she crawled to take a seat on the howdah floor. "And she speaks
Hindi," the eunuch added, as if he'd never stopped speaking to the
bayadere.

He beamed at Lucinda. In the muted sunlight that filtered through the
howdah's silk curtains, Lucinda saw that the eunuch had an odd face, as
though the face of a slender boy had been swathed in rolls of custardy fat. She could make out the pointed, dimpled chin that seemed to swim amidst
an ocean of jowl.

"There should be a nicer way to get up here, don't you think? Undignified to make one scramble so." He leaned over and poked his head outside
the curtain, giving Lucinda a view of his billowing form, like a fat little
boy's, blown up like a balloon. "Move the ladder, Captain; move it now;
we're all aboard." His large bottom wiggled as he called.

Lucinda saw the bayadere make the subtlest nod to indicate the eunuch's outlandish form, as though they as women could share a joke.

"Now maybe we can go," the eunuch said as he sat down again, his
jowls flushed pink. "Waiting around all day. Do we have nothing better to
do with our time?"

"It's all one," the bayadere said softly. Her face seemed utterly serene.
Lucinda noted that she was younger than she first thought-about Lucinda's age, in fact. On her lap she held what seemed to be a bundle of palm
leaves.

"Now: introductions first, I think," said the eunuch. "This is my new
mistress, the famous devadasi . . ." but the bayadere cut him off with a
barely perceptible lifting of a finger.

"You must call me by my new name, my nautch name, or how shall I
get used to it?"

"No, mistress . . . ," the eunuch protested, but again she silenced him,
this time by closing her eyes.

"I am Maya, a nautch girl, that is all."

"But mistress, she should know. You were ..

"I was many things. But now. . ." she lowered her eyes with a sigh "I
am Maya the nautch girl." She greeted Lucinda by lifting her folded
hands. Lucinda was about to say something when from outside the howdah's curtains, the unseen mahout called out, and the elephant lurched
forward. Lucinda spilled backward, into the profusion of cushions scattered everywhere.

"We're off," the eunuch exulted.

Lucinda had just managed to right herself when the eunuch extended
his pudgy hand to help her. He seemed offended that she did not take it,
even though now she had no need.

Maya lowered her eyes and whispered to herself. Laughing at me, Lucinda thought, but then she changed her mind. No, she's praying, saying a mantra for the journey, Lucinda decided. When she looked back the eunuch was staring at her with eager, merry eyes.

"My name is Slipper," he told her earnestly.

"Maybe you should tell her your real name," Maya said.

"Oh, what difference does that make now? In a few days we'll be home
and no one cares what I used to be called." He blinked at Lucinda and
turned away, whispering to Maya. "Anyway, that was supposed to be our
secret."

"Ahcha," Maya answered, wobbling her head. "Forgive me. I won't
mention it again."

The elephant trumpeted. Lucinda had forgotten how the great beasts swayed
when they walked-the howdah lurched like a boat on a windblown sea. "It
takes some getting used to," Slipper said, as if reading her thoughts. "But it's
so much nicer up here than in one of those dusty old bullock carts. We have
cushions," he added, waving his hand toward them as if Lucinda had not already tumbled among them, "And nice shade. And food." He uncovered a
basket of custard apples, grapes, and sweet limes with a pleased flourish.
"And of course, company, which is the best comfort of all."

"Yes," said Lucinda pleasantly, and again she caught the glance of
Maya's amused eyes. "Can we open the curtains? I'd like to see."

"Well, yes," Slipper said, but it seemed clear the suggestion disappointed
him. He reached along the roof of the howdah, lowering gauze screens for
privacy before opening the side curtains. "I won't do the front," he said.
"Who wants to see the mahout's old back anyway?"

Lucinda thought about insisting, but held her tongue. There was much
to see.

Outside, the caravan was turning a corner, leaving behind the palmlined shore and the whitewashed houses of the farangs, heading for the
eastern gate of the Goa walls.

The elephant was in the middle of the procession. Ahead of them, led
by Pathan, rode four Muslim guards. Some bullock carts followed the howdah, then Da Gama and Geraldo riding side by side.

Somehow, Lucinda had imagined that the procession would be grander. But it was exciting even so, to ride on the back of a great elephant in a rich
howdah, led by horsemen carrying long, bright spears.

Behind them, the tower of Santa Catarina faded into the sea mist.
Ahead Lucinda saw the shambling huts of the Hindis that ringed the Portuguese cantonment. The road narrowed here, for the ramshackle buildings, many of them cobbled together from materials salvaged or stolen
from the farangs, connected in a haphazard sprawl that paid little heed to
traffic. The guards shouted for pedestrians to make way, and raised their
spears toward any that hesitated. Amidst the shouts and taunts somehow
the caravan muddled through.

"Let's see," Slipper said. "What shall we talk about?"

Lucinda paid him no attention, for slowly they approached the eastern
gate. The howdah was nearly as high as the thick stone walls, where boredlooking soldados patrolled with flintlocks.

Since she'd been brought to Goa, barely older than an infant, she had
not left the boundaries of the city. All her life she'd heard stories of outside,
and from those tales had constructed an imaginary world, full of brave
princes, and bandit kings, and glittering palaces; all the foolishness that
might fill a young girl's fancy. After her parents' deaths, Tio Carlos had
made her his ward and then installed her as the lady of his house, and she
had forced herself to realize that those thoughts had been only the fancies
of a girl. Even so, her heart pounded as she approached the gate, for beyond
them lay a world of which she'd only dreamed.

The gatekeepers rang the big bronze bell and swung wide the elephant
gate. Before passing through, the mahout made the beast slow almost to a
stop; he then stood up on the elephant's head and measured the archway
until he was sure the howdah would squeak through.

"Such a big elephant," said Slipper, looking at Lucinda with a sort of
reverence. "You must be very important."

"I assure you I'm not," Lucinda answered.

Once through the gate, they moved slowly through a sort of tunnel.
From platforms on the walls of the gateway, soldados leered, for from their
high perches they could see the women clearly. Cannon barrels aimed
straight at them.

"They use this turning place to prevent the ramming of the inner gate.
It's such a nuisance. All this trouble, yet how often are they attacked?" Slipper sighed, as though he'd seen it all before. Lucinda tried to appear as
though she too knew all about this.

The elephant moved slowly, reluctant despite the mahout's murmured
words and the prodding of his ankus, for the beast had to negotiate a tricky
bend around a narrow corner. And even when this was managed, they faced
one last gate.

The soldados swung the heavy doors wide. Lucinda held her breath as
the elephant lumbered through, but of course there was no magic world beyond the last gate, only a wide sward of yellowing grass where the trees had
all been cleared for defense. A few hundred yards later, the road disappeared into the shadows of a forest, a tangled jungle of teak and mango and
jackfruit and palms. Above their tall branches, she could see blue shadows
of the distant hills.

"Ugh, what's that smell!" exclaimed Slipper. He crawled to the other
side and leaned out to look.

Maya glanced outside, then returned her gaze to the bundle of palm
leaves in her lap. "A nobody village," she said. It was the first time she'd
looked up since they started moving.

Lucinda looked. She thought at first it was a field of grassy moundsthen she realized that she was looking at low huts roofed with mudgrass.
The rotten smell was carrion: hides drying, bones boiling, the smell of old
death.

"You call them nobodies?" asked Slipper, sounding irritated.

"It is their lot in this life to be unclean. No one may touch them. To
touch a nobody is to be polluted."

"Why? What's so wrong with them?" the eunuch insisted.

"It is their karma to clean latrines and tan hides, to do all those things
that must not be done and yet still must be done," Maya answered. Lucinda
felt that she was humoring her like a child.

"They deserve better than to be stuck out here," Slipper scowled.

"Who would want this smell in the city? Besides, they have their own
foods and their own wells, and they come and go as they please to do their
work."

Slipper frowned at the mud-hut village. "They're so filthy. Almost like
they're made from dirt." When he saw a pig drinking from a puddle where
two babies played, he turned away, and his eyes glistened.

"What's wrong, Slipper?" Lucinda asked. "Surely this is the way of the
things, even in Bijapur."

The eunuch looked back, serious for a change. "It's not the same. You'll
see when you get there. I've seen Hindis run to get a bath if a nobody's
shadow even touches them. In Islam, all living things have souls. We are
made pure by the fire of the Lord's compassion."

He stared back at the village and spoke almost to himself. "I'm lucky I'm
not a Hindi. This is where I'd be sent, don't you see? The Hindi law says that
eunuchs must live among the nobodies. But even the nobodies won't have us.
The eunuchs must live outside the nobody village. They must wear women's
clothing, they must be called `she.' They must have no wells, but drink water
from the gutters. Children throw rocks at them. If I were Hindi, this would
be my village. These pitiful filthy souls? They would be my neighbors. It is
they who would despise me. Don't you understand?"

He looked at Lucinda with searching eyes, and she turned with a sort
of horror to gaze once more upon the nobody village. But by this time they
were nearly past the place, the people, and the huts now nearly indistinguishable from the brown earth. And a breeze, sweet with forest dampness,
blew the stench away.