Beneath a Marble Sky (46 page)

“The night he died, he made me promise him something.” Isa kissed my neck and I continued, “He asked me to live as a child might. Do you think… ” I paused, wondering if eyes that had seen so much could ever appreciate simple sights again. “Do you think I can grant his wish?”

“I don’t know,” he said, tightening his grip upon me. “But hold those reins, Jahanara. Spur him forward and let’s discover if a child still dwells in you.”

I nodded, and kicked the stallion hard in his belly. He neighed loudly, put his head down, and began to thunder down the path.

“Harder, Jahanara! Harder!” Isa yelled.

I slapped our mount’s shoulder with my free hand and shouted for more speed. The magnificent steed responded, earth churning from his hooves, bushes blurring around us.

“Harder!”

I tasted freedom then. I was laughing and shouting, and my worries weren’t asleep but simply gone!

“Faster!”

Isa’s bellows mingled with the hammering of hooves. I screamed with him, for suddenly I didn’t wield the reins to this horse, but those to my life.

Finally I was free.

Chapter 25

The Clarity of  Twilight

T
he years that followed were the finest of my life.

We settled in a village just south of Calcutta. Isa had always been careful with rupees and had more than enough money to buy seaside cottages for Nizam and Ladli, as well as Arjumand and ourselves. Our homes were within eyesight of each other and we spent our days together as friends. We told our neighbors nothing of our past and they asked nothing of it.

Isa and Nizam tried their hand at fishing, but upon discovering that they were skilled with stone, villagers suggested they leave the sea to exploit their true talents. While Ladli and I mended nets with the other women, Isa, Nizam and Arjumand repaired tired homes until they defied the elements once again. My loved ones never worked for coin, but every night we were brought fresh fish, vegetables, fruit and bread.

Our daughter soon fell in love. Though he was only a fisherman, I made no effort to steer her toward a man of higher rank. Ibrahim was a good-natured youth and adored Arjumand. They were wed near the ruins of an old mosque. Little did he know that he was marrying the granddaughter of the former emperor. Later she would tell him the truth, but on that glorious day it seemed wonderfully irrelevant. As the years passed, Arjumand and Ibrahim had two daughters. A son died before he reached his first year of life, yet the daughters grew strong. A second son was born much later, and quickly became the object of his sisters’ endless attention.

Watching Arjumand become a mother was a source of boundless joy. I had abandoned her once, and I’d have never forgiven myself if she had turned into an unhappy person. I loved her so very much, perhaps because she was able to forgive me. When I saw her with Gulbadan and Rurayya, laughing and running across the sand, I thanked Allah.

Ladli and Nizam needed no children. Theirs wasn’t a love of poets, but rather of friends. Ladli ruled their home, forever ordering Nizam about. Every instance his tongue moved, hers waggled ten times in response. It often seemed to me that she talked to herself as I watched them. He nodded or laughed occasionally, while she continued to rant. Old age loosened what few inhibitions she possessed. She cared even less for convention than I did, and her language, always so coarse, deteriorated into downright vulgarity. Nizam, who had spent much of his life in the gentle confines of the harem, sporadically chided her. But, as Father might say, how could an eagle ask a magpie to stop its chatterings?

Isa and I, finally able to live and act as lovers, found to our surprise and delight that our adoration for each other became more profound with age. His irrepressible happiness was a catharsis to my painful past. Naturally, unwelcome memories surfaced, but in his company I was strong enough to accept such recollections as a part of me. Though they still ached, I understood that they shouldn’t be denied, but simply accepted. Yes, Khondamir and Aurangzeb had wounded me. But how could such wounds, regardless of their depth, compare with the rapture I felt as I played with my grandson, or walked along the beach with Isa? My loved ones were my triumphs, and my triumphs far outshone my tragedies.

Gulbadan was ten when we resolved to build our village a mosque and a temple. Our friends were Muslims and Hindus, but neither group had a true place of worship in which to usher their prayers upward. And they needed prayer, for the sea was an unforgiving realm and we often lost men to storms.

We decided that the mosque and temple should share the same courtyard. Both would be small structures, cut of sandstone and lacking decoration. Those who didn’t fish helped us lay the foundations and raise the walls.

Temples and mosques are magical things. When you build them, there is a sense of peace that seeps from the rocks. All creation, in my opinion, is thus. I felt the same peace when Arjumand slipped from my womb. I swam in such peace at the Taj Mahal. And even our little shrines at the sea caused more than one tear to dampen my face.

Perhaps this peace stems from the knowledge that you’re leaving something upon this Earth. For though I know that Paradise will shepherd me, it’s comforting to recognize that as a woman born in Agra, I’ll leave some sign of my passage. My blood will journey forward in Arjumand and her children. And the rock I caressed shall stand proud in the sun and be touched by people who will inhabit a far different world. Did I earn all the gifts that Allah bestowed upon me? Perhaps yes, perhaps no. But in leaving signs of my struggle, I feel that I’ve tried.

The temple and mosque were completed in my fifty-fifth year. Our village celebrated the achievement with an afternoon of prayer. Of course, Muslims didn’t pray in the temple, nor did Hindus enter the mosque, but we were respectful of each other’s worlds, and we met in the common courtyard and watered flowers together. As I tidied stones beneath rosebushes, I thought of Dara, and hoped that he could see us. No one would have loved this moment more than he.

That night Hindus and Muslims celebrated as one. We sat in our boats and watched as men lit Chinese rockets that surged into the sky. The rockets exploded, casting their magic light on the domed roofs of our making. Nizam, Ladli, Isa and I rejoiced in one boat. We sipped wine and clapped at the bursts of fire. As I watched the rockets detonate, I recalled that eve, endless seasons ago, when we celebrated the Taj Mahal’s creation. What a sight that had been!

How many moments, I wondered, existed in any life when everything came together in such perfection? Perhaps no more than a handful? For me, there were but three. The night on the Ganges when Isa and I first made love. The celebration of the Taj Mahal. And this very moment of being with my friends and loved ones, my life utterly complete.

“A good night,” I whispered, dipping my hand in the sea.

“Aren’t they all?” Isa asked.

I nodded. “But not like this.”

A wave slapped our bow and spray dampened us. Nizam, who gripped the oars and hence steered the craft, propelled our boat into deeper water. “You’ve gone blind in your old age,” Ladli muttered, chastising him for the wave. When Nizam only chuckled in reply, Ladli turned to me. “He’s a good man, my cunning little friend. He lets me do the talking and obeys me like a pet.”

“He’ll surprise you someday,” I said, knowing that she loved him immensely, “for I’ve seen him in action.”

“And what do you call action? He moves slower than a mule, though a mule’s much quicker with its mind.”

“Ignore her tongue, my lady,” Nizam said.

My old companion called me so because it vexed Ladli. “She has a name, you beef-eating Muslim!” Ladli retorted. “Is it too long a name for that melon you call a mind to remember?”

A wave struck the boat’s stern, where Ladli sat. We all knew Nizam had twisted the craft just so she’d be soaked. And soaked she was. As she berated him, I leaned closer to Isa. His face was etched in a smile as he laughed at their antics.

“A coupling made in Paradise,” he said gaily.

A trio of rockets exploded and I grinned. “Are we so crafted?”

Instead of answering he kissed me, and in that kiss I found his answer.

Not even the widest of banyan trees can grow forever. It has to die so that a sapling may rise from its flesh.

And so it was with Ladli. She went for a swim one day, and when the sea returned her she had traveled from this world to the next. We followed the Hindu tradition and burned her body, casting her ashes into the water. We were all aged by then, and her death didn’t surprise us. Still, we missed her terribly and our world emptied somewhat with her passing. Nizam was even quieter in her absence, though enough of her stayed in him that he remained a content man.

I often thought that I should have died before Ladli. She sacrificed so much for me, gave up such a large piece of her life to protect me. She should have outlived me, should have kept Nizam chuckling until they were too old to stand. In many ways, Ladli was more of a sibling to me than my brothers and sisters had ever been. After she died I awoke each day, as I had after Mother and Father departed, expecting to hear her voice. But I heard it only in my dreams, in my memories.

Arjumand and her family left several months later. They moved near Agra to a fishing village on the Yamuna. My daughter hadn’t wanted to move but had almost seen her husband stolen by the sea. Most of the older women in our village were widows, and Arjumand couldn’t imagine losing Ibrahim. And as much as I hated to see her leave, I encouraged her to do so, for her happiness was what I wanted most.

After her departure I felt, as any mother might, that time was moving swifter. Still, I had Isa. And our love didn’t dwindle with age. It flourished, even if growing old together wasn’t always easy. A time came when Isa couldn’t lift the heavy stones that he built with. He often hurt himself, and I spent long nights tending to his crushed fingers and toes. He also began to forget things. I slept more, walked less and rarely went swimming. But despite our aches and pains, we were happy. We had each other, and almost every day that blessing was more than good enough.

Our happiness lasted until one bright afternoon. We were standing on the shoreline when a horrifying pain burst into Isa’s head. He cried out, falling to the sand. In the dawn that followed, his body, even his miraculous hands, went limp. He lingered for three days and I never left his side. On our last eve together, I slipped into bed with him and held him tightly. He couldn’t return my embrace, but his eyes spoke of his love and our tears were many.

How do you say good-bye to someone you love so? Is there a word, a look, or a touch that can quell the pain in your hearts? I have known so many things in this life, but I’d read no books that taught me of such separation. I wanted to be strong, for the sniffling of a woman wasn’t what he should hear as he began his journey. Yet my emotions were impossible to still.

“Stay,” I muttered, “please stay.”

“You’ll find me,” he whispered. “You’ve always…found me.”

I felt the life slipping from him and I hugged him tightly, as if my hands might stop him from leaving. “Will you take me with you?” I asked, kissing his tears, tasting him. “Please, please take me with you.”

“You are…with me. You always have been.”

His voice was weakening and I leaned closer. “Are you cold, my love? Hot? What can I do for you?”

“Kiss me.”

I did as he asked, wishing we could leap three decades back in time, wishing we were once again young. I stroked his hair, which was now white. “Thank you, my love, for making me feel so whole.”

“You made yourself.”

“Perhaps. But without you there is only me, and with you there is us,” I whispered, my tears falling on his chin. His eyes fluttered and he mumbled something. “I shall find you,” I said. “I’ll find you covered in stone chippings and help you build in Paradise.”

“Promise?”

“I do. And we’ll live together again as one.”

He fixed his gaze upon me. “I love you, Swallow.”

And then he left me.

I
t is dark by the time I finish my story. My granddaughters cry and pose many questions. They ask of Shivaji, who perished in a landslide but two months after freeing my loved ones. I suspect that our secret died with him, though I once heard a rumor of assassins in the Red Fort. My granddaughters also wonder if I am fearful of Aurangzeb discovering me.

“Two days is enough here,” I reply. “Tomorrow I’ll return to the sea.”

“So soon?” Rurayya asks, rubbing her tear-stained cheeks. When I nod, she adds, “Can we come? Father misses it. And Mother misses you terribly.”

“Then you should join me.”

Gulbadan stares at the Red Fort. “But why, Jaha, why not confront your brother?”

“Because revenge is hollow,” I say. “I won and he lost. His empire crumbles, his people despise him and thoughts of assassins steal his sleep. He’s grown weak in his hate and I’ve grown strong in my love.”

They offer more questions.

But my mind is elsewhere.

Perhaps the Hindus are partly right, for I do think we lead many lives. Yet these lives aren’t separate, as they believe, but one. My lives were simple. I learned as a child. I explored as a girl. And I bled and loved as a woman.

Now that I am old, I see many lives in my life. They’re as different as stones, and yet they’re connected. When I look back on them I wonder sometimes if they were but dreams.

I kiss my granddaughters good night as Nizam rows us to shore, where their father awaits. I then bid my friend farewell, though he follows me as I shuffle toward the Taj Mahal. It is as I remember. I see Mother’s grace in its arches and Isa’s brilliance everywhere.

As a child I was taught that Muslims don’t believe that the soul remains upon the land, but that after death we’re carried to Paradise—where we walk among friends and feast upon our favorite foods, and where our happiness blooms eternally. But now, as I sit with my hands against the marble that Isa once held, I’m struck profoundly by the sense that a part of him lingers here. It’s almost as if I can feel him.