The Midnight Rose (13 page)

I searched the heavens and spoke to my father.

“I’m here, Father, I’m here,” I told him with glee.

It goes without saying that a gathering of the grandest in the land in such close proximity will bring out a certain spirit of competition. Each maharaja aspired for his camp to be the most sumptuously furnished, or to have a larger retinue or a greater number of elephants than his neighbors. The parties and dinners each prince hosted strove to be more exquisite than the last. The rubies, diamonds, emeralds and pearls that adorned the bodies of the great princes and their wives could surely have bought the rest of the world, I thought as I scurried to help Jameera dress for the first banquet her mother and father would hold in our camp. Everyone was in a state of high excitement.

“Eighteen princes and their maharanis are attending tonight!” Jameera commented as she endeavored to force a gold bracelet over her plump knuckles and onto her wrist. “Maaji told me that the father of the prince I am betrothed to will be present. You must help me look my best.”

“Of course,” I agreed.

Finally, the Maharaja’s four wives and their senior ladies left to sit behind a purdah screen and observe their husbands and their male guests at the great reception before the banquet. The rest of us breathed a sigh of relief that everyone had departed in good spirits and we made ready for the imminent arrival in our zenana quarters of the women and children who would dine with us, separate from the men.

Later that evening, the reception area of our tented quarters was swarming with female guests and their offspring. I watched in wonder as wives of the guest maharajas were greeted by our own maharanis. To an eleven-year-old child, these women were the stuff of fairy tales; oiled, scented and delicately tattooed with henna, adorned with pearls the size of bird’s eggs around their neck, glittering headpieces encrusted with rubies and emeralds, and priceless diamond nose clips. Their children were just as magnificently attired—boys and girls as young as three wearing solid gold, bejeweled anklets and necklaces of intricate design and impeccable craftsmanship.

I remember these sights impressed me but unsettled me too. I was
struck by how all this wealth could be in one room, taken for granted by the wearer, when I had seen so much poverty and starvation in our country.

Yet I could not help but be awed by the spectacle.

It was to be at this gathering that my birth astrologer’s prediction would come true. Perhaps one never sees an auspicious, pivotal moment when it occurs in one’s life. It happened, as these things usually do, without fanfare.

I was sitting quietly in a corner of the zenana reception area watching the splendor taking place all around me. By that time, I was bored and hot, so I stood up and walked surreptitiously toward an opening in the tent for some air. I drew back the flap and peered out, feeling a soft breeze brush my face. I remember gazing up to the heavens at the infinite stars, when I heard a voice beside me.

“Are you bored?”

I turned around to see a young girl standing beside me. I knew from the strings of pearls wrapped in layers around her neck, the tiny glittering headpiece adorning her thick, wavy hair, that this was a child of wealth and influence.

“No, of course not,” I said hurriedly.

“Yes you are! I can see it, because I am too.”

I shyly forced my gaze to meet her eyes. We stared at each other for a few seconds, as if we were processing each other’s inner blueprint.

“Shall we go outside and explore?” she asked me.

“We can’t!” I said in horror.

“Why not? There are so many women in here, no one will notice we have even gone.” Her beautiful liquid-brown eyes, the irises flecked with amber, challenged me.

I took a deep breath, knowing the trouble that I would get into if someone discovered I was missing. Against my better judgment, I nodded in assent.

“We must keep in the dark, or we will surely be spotted,” she whispered. “Come on.”

And then she took my hand.

I still remember the way her long, slim fingers reached out for mine. I looked into her eyes and saw the glint of mischief that sparkled there. My fingers closed around hers and our palms joined.

Outside, my new friend pointed across the camp. “See? That’s where all the maharajas are having dinner.”

The surrounds of the central durbar tent were lit with a thousand candles in glass holders, illuminating the dark shapes of the trees and plants in the immaculately tended gardens.

I found myself being pulled toward it, the soft grass tickling the soles of my bare feet. She seemed to know exactly where to go, and soon enough we’d arrived at the enormous tent. She darted along one side of it, back into the shadows where no one could see us. Then she knelt down on the ground and prized the heavy canvas upward. She leaned forward and put her eye to the tiny gap.

“Please, be careful, someone might see,” I entreated her.

“No one is going to be looking at the ground,” giggled the girl as she pushed the canvas higher. “Come, I will show you my father. I think he’s the most handsome of all the maharajas.”

The girl made way for me to kneel down in the same spot and I took the thick canvas in my fingers and looked through the peephole.

Inside, I could see a lot of big, bejeweled male feet and nothing else. But I didn’t want to disappoint my new friend.

“Yes!” I said. “It is indeed a beautiful spectacle.”

“If you look just to the left, you’ll see my father.”

“Yes, yes,” I said, eyeing the row of ankles, “I can see him.”

“I think he is better looking than your father!” Her eyes twinkled at me.

I realized then that this girl thought I too was a princess, and that the Maharaja of Jaipur was my father. Sadly, I shook my head.

“My father is dead, he is not here.”

A warm brown hand was again placed on mine. “I am sorry.”

“Thank you.”

“What is your name?” she asked me.

“My name is Anahita, but everyone calls me Anni.”

“And mine is Indira, but my family calls me Indy.” She smiled. At that point, Indira lay down full-length on her stomach and propped up her head with her hands. “Who are you, then?” she asked. Her glittering eyes, like an inquisitive tigress’s, surveyed me carefully. “You’re far prettier than the other Jaipur princesses.”

“Oh no, I’m not one of the princesses,” I said, correcting her. “My mother is a second cousin to the Maharani. My father died two years ago, so we live at the Moon Palace in the zenana.”

“Sadly for me”—she raised her eyebrows—“I
am
a princess. The youngest daughter of the Maharaja of Cooch Behar.”

“Don’t you like being a princess?” I queried.

“Not really, no.” Suddenly Indira rolled gracefully onto her back, put her hands under her head and gazed up at the stars. “I’d prefer to be a tiger tamer in a circus, I think.”

I giggled.

“Don’t laugh,” she cautioned me, “I’m serious. Ma says that I’m a very bad princess. I’m always getting dirty and finding myself in trouble. She’s thinking of packing me off to an English boarding school to teach me some manners. I said that if she did, I’d run away.”

“Why? I’d love to see England. I’ve never traveled anywhere,” I said wistfully.

“Lucky you. We’re always on the move. Ma is very sociable, you see, and she drags us all with her for the seasons here and in Europe. I wish I could stay at home in our lovely palace all the time and look after our animals. If I can’t become a tiger tamer, then I’d like to become a mahout and live with an elephant instead. Anyway, you’d hate England. It’s gray, cold and foggy and everyone in our family always ends up with terrible colds, especially Pa.” Indira sighed. “I worry about his health, really I do. Do you speak English?” she asked me.

I began to realize her brain continually flitted like a butterfly from one subject to the next. “Yes, I do.”

Indira immediately sat up on her knees and held out her hand to me. “How do you do?” she said, in a perfect parody of a clipped English accent. “I’m awfully pleased to meet you.”

I reached out my hand to her and our palms joined again. “The pleasure is all mine,” I replied as we looked into each other’s eyes, still shaking hands. Then we both lay down on the grass, convulsed in giggles. When we had both calmed ourselves, I realized that we should get back to the zenana before someone missed us. I stood up.

“Where are you going?” she asked me.

“Back to our tent. We’ll both be in trouble if they discover we’ve escaped.”

“Oh,” replied Indira airily, “I’m used to being in trouble. In fact, I think they expect it from me.”

I wanted to say that, since I was not a princess, but in fact earned my board and lodging being a companion to one, I was not likely to be forgiven as easily.

“Just five more minutes?” she begged. “It’s so hot and boring in the tent. So,” she continued, “who are you to be married to?”

“It’s not been arranged yet,” I answered stoically.

“Lucky you again. I met my future husband only a few days ago here and he’s old and ugly.”

“Will you marry him? Even if he is old and ugly?”

“Never! I want to find a handsome prince who will love me
and
will let me keep tigers,” she said with a grin.

“I too, want to find my prince,” I agreed softly.

So there we were, two little girls staring up at the stars, dreaming of our handsome princes. Some people say they wish they could see into their future. But thinking back to that moment of pure childish innocence, as Indira and I lay on the grass with our entire lives before us, I am glad we could not.

F
or the following three weeks, as the festivities at Coronation Park continued, leading up to the grand presentation of all the princes to King George, Indira and I became inseparable. How she managed to escape as often as she did, I’m not sure, but she would arrive at our prearranged meeting place on time and we would go off to explore. The camp became our playground, a garden of delights for two inquisitive little girls. Stalls sold a multitude of delicious-smelling foods such as panipuris and samosas stuffed with spicy vegetables and deep-fried to a golden brown. There were trinket shops containing all manner of clay and wooden figurines. Indira, who always seemed to have plenty of rupees, bought me a clay tiger I had particularly admired and gave it to me. “When we are not together,” she said, “then you will just look into this tiger’s eyes and know I am thinking of you.”

Luckily enough, Princess Jameera was often otherwise engaged, usually on formal visits to the camps of the various maharajas with her parents, and my presence was not required in such cases. I asked Indira why she rarely seemed to be needed by her family at these functions.

“Oh,” she explained airily, “that is because I am the youngest child. No one is interested in me.”

I knew this wasn’t quite true, and there were some occasions when Indira was unable to meet me and complained afterward about having had to sit around for hours in hot tents while her parents socialized. But, for the most part, we managed to see each other every day.

One morning, when our time together was drawing to a close and I was dreading returning to the restrictive environment of the Moon Palace in Jaipur, she arrived with her eyes alight.

“Come on,” she said, starting to pull me along, expertly weaving her way through the tents.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“You’ll see,” she replied mysteriously.

A few minutes later, we arrived at what I knew was the Maharaja of Cooch Behar’s camp, as Indira had pointed it out to me before.

“First and most importantly,” Indira said, “I’m taking you to meet my favorite elephant. She’s only a baby, born two years ago. She shouldn’t be here at all, as she’s not yet trained to walk in the procession, but I insisted she come anyway. She would have pined away without me and her mother.”

As we entered the
pilkhana
, my nostrils stung from the noxious smell of dung. There must be at least forty elephants in the hall, I thought as Indira led me along the stalls saying good morning to them all by name as she passed. We headed directly toward the end of the stalls and in the very last one was the baby elephant. As we approached, the young animal heard our footsteps and trumpeted at Indira in recognition.

“How are you, my pretty Preema?” Indira said as she nuzzled her face against the elephant. “I was there when you were born, wasn’t I, my darling?” The elephant wound her trunk around my friend’s waist. Indira turned to me as she picked two bunches of bananas off a heap.

“Ditti, your mahout, let me name you, didn’t he?” she said as she fed the baby elephant. “I decided to call her Preema, which, of course, in Latin is spelled
P-R-I-M-A
, meaning ‘first.’ Because she was the first elephant I’d ever seen being born.” Indira’s eyes sparkled at me. “Now I just call her ‘Pretty,’ because she is, don’t you think?”

I stared into the soft, trusting eyes of the elephant and felt a ridiculous pang of jealousy at how much Indira loved her.

“Yes, she’s very beautiful.”

A tiny, nut-brown Indian man appeared out of nowhere.

“Ditti, is my Pretty behaving herself?”

“Yes, Your Royal Highness, although I know she will be happy to return home.”

“As will we all,” agreed Indira.

The elderly mahout bowed his head in respect as we left the stall. I realized it was the first time I’d ever seen my friend treated like the princess she really was. A sudden wave of despair passed over me as I followed Indira out of the
pilkhana
. The girl I had laughed and played and talked with as though she was my sister belonged to a different world, somewhere far away across India. And soon she would be taken from me and returned to it.

The feeling of tears beginning to well made me blink as fast as I could to stop them. Indira had become the center of my world, but I realized I was merely on the periphery of hers. At best, I had amused
her for a few weeks. But, like the butterfly she was, she would surely fly away and find new amusement elsewhere.