The Palace of Illusions (23 page)

Nothing could have been more different from my imaginings than the quarters allotted to Yudhisthir and me in Hastinapur. A block of rooms situated squarely in the center of the palace (to keep us safe, Kunti claimed), they looked out onto a courtyard filled with statues of dancing women frozen in torturous poses. The rooms themselves, though large, made me feel cramped. They were crowded with gaudy draperies, oversized bolsters, too-soft carpets that sucked at my ankles, and far more furniture than we had any need for. Intricate artifacts occupied every available surface. A flock of maids were always bustling around, dusting them and gawking at me. It almost made me nostalgic for the stern gloom of my father's court. Once I suggested that the décor might be simplified. But Kunti (whose rooms these must have been when she had arrived at this palace as a young bride) frostily informed me that every item here was sacred, having belonged at one time to King Pandu.

Though I felt stifled by my apartments, I was strangely reluctant to leave them. The palace itself was a curiosity, with its bulging gold domes and curlicued moldings, its doors embossed with beaten metal, its furniture massive enough to accommodate a race of giants. But beneath the gay pomp crouched something ominous and slavering that wished my husbands ill. Now it had turned its attention on me to ascertain if I was the weakest link in the Pandava chain. I felt it approaching, though I could not guess from which direction. It made me long to tunnel underground and hide—I, who'd chafed so impatiently to leave the safety of my father's house and plunge into history!

But as the newest royal daughter-in-law, I wasn't allowed to
hide myself. On state occasions, I had to ride alongside Yudhisthir in his chariot. (At these I discovered, to my surprise, that I was popular. Something about my wedding had caught the public fancy. My appearances were greeted with much cheering, a fact that caused Kunti to teeter between pride and annoyance.) There were endless banquets among the extended family (the Kauravas loved to carouse) that I was expected to attend (appropriately veiled and chaperoned), though I had to leave these gatherings, along with the other wives, before the drinking and gaming started and matters grew interesting. Afternoons, Kunti would drag me with her to visit the other women in the palace. At these gatherings, the women spent much time in casual display of jewelry and clothing, or in making discreet references to their husbands' feats. When I didn't participate, they whispered maliciously about certain people who thought they were better than others because they were married to more than one man. It would have been amusing if I hadn't felt so lonely.

I hungered for someone with whom I could have an intelligent and frank conversation. Dhri had accompanied our party to Hastinapur, but as soon as he had met Drona and persuaded him to be his teacher, my father recalled him to Kampilya. It was our first separation, and I missed him dreadfully—his patience, his ability to understand me without words, his unwavering support of me even when he disapproved of my actions. I even missed his exasperation. I missed Krishna, too—the way in which his laughter helped lessen the gravity of my problems. I wished he would visit us. Though from Kunti's comments I gathered that here in Hastinapur a wife was not allowed to meet with men except in the company of her husband, I knew I'd find a way to see him in private. Talking to Dhai Ma would have helped me unburden myself, but Kunti made sure she was kept busy with errands. I couldn't gainsay her without engaging in a fight, and I wasn't ready for that yet. I was desperate
enough to have welcomed even Yudhisthir, who had many interesting if unrealistic ideas about the world, but he was occupied by his own duties, and I saw him only in the bedchamber.

Of the people I'd met since moving here, most blurred into anonymity, but a few stood out. The blind king made a great show, whenever we met, of embracing my husbands and calling loudly on the gods to shower them with good fortune. He blessed me also with such platitudes as May-you-be-the-mother-of-a-hundred-sons, or May-your-wedding-sindur-forever-shine-on-your-forehead. (We knew, of course, that he'd like nothing better than to have the entire Pandava lineage perish.) My other husbands were barely able to tolerate his hypocrisy (Arjun would mutter under his breath, while Bheem's face turned an alarming shade of purple), but Yudhisthir would touch the old man's feet and inquire after his health with genuine affection. Was he a saint, or merely lacking in common sense? In either case, it was most annoying.

Then there was the blindfolded Gandhari, about whose wifely virtue so many songs had been composed. At first I dismissed her as docile and overly traditional. At the women's gatherings she expressed no opinions; at the family banquets, she focused her entire attention on her blind husband's needs. But after a few weeks of watching and asking around, Dhai Ma said, “Don't be fooled by her quietness! She's dangerous, with more power than most people realize, and one of these days she just might decide to use it.” She went on to tell me how some god, pleased by Gandhari's devotion to her husband, had granted her a boon. If she ever took off her blindfold and lookedat someone, she could heal him—or burn him to cinders.

I was impressed. I wouldn't have minded a boon like that. It was more useful than the ones I'd been given, and a lot less awkward.

“Watch out for her brother, too,” Dhai Ma warned.

“Who? That Sakuni?” I'd seen him in court, sitting among Duryodhan's cronies, a thin, stooped older man with heavily lidded eyes. He'd given me a leering grin. I'd gathered from servant gossip that he had a penchant for dice and dancing girls. “You worry too much,” I said to Dhai Ma.

“Someone has to,” she said with asperity. “And it certainly isn't your royal oldest husband, who labors under the delusion that all the world loves him.”

The one man I hadn't seen since I came to Hastinapur was Karna. I knew that at the request of Duryodhan, who considered him his closest friend, Karna spent much of the year in Hastinapur, leaving Anga in the care of his ministers. I knew also that soon after my swayamvar, Duryodhan had taken a wife and had urged Karna to do the same. But in this one matter he did not oblige his friend. When I heard my husbands wondering why, I had to exert all my self-control to keep my face calm, my breath even and uncaring.

I confess: in spite of the vows I made each day to forget Karna, to be a better wife to the Pandavas, I longed to see him again. Each time I entered a room, I glanced up under my veil—I couldn't stop myself—hoping he was there. (It was foolish. If he'd been present, surely he'd have turned away, my insult still a fresh gash in his mind.) I eavesdropped shamelessly on the maids, trying to discover his whereabouts. On the verge of asking Dhai Ma to find out where he'd disappeared to (for she had her ways of unearthing secrets), I bit back my tongue a hundred times. If she'd heard me pronounce his name, she would have known how I felt. And even to her who loved me as she loved no one else, I didn't dare reveal this dark flower that refused to be uprooted from my heart.

18

The grandfather invited me to join him for a walk along the banks of the Ganga. “It's very pretty there,” he said, smiling that deceptive, charming smile. “And it'll give us a chance to get to know each other better, away from the distractions of the court.” I assented, but with reluctance. The first few weeks after my arrival at Hastinapur, as loneliness tightened itself like a band of iron around my chest, I'd waited for him to contact me (for surely he knew that the rules forbade me from approaching him). He hadn't. Even when we met at banquets, he'd paid me scant attention beyond a greeting, affable though it was. I was surprised and hurt. I'd believed in the warmth of his welcome at our first meeting; I'd believed I'd found an ally in a house of strangers. But he had only been speaking the language of courtesy. Feeling like a fool, I decided I wouldn't trust him again. So by the time this invitation arrived, I no longer wanted him to know me better. And as for him, I was certain that he was far too wily to reveal himself to me.

Even apart from my personal disappointment at him, the grandfather made me uneasy. I wished there was someone to whom I could confide this, but my husbands adored him. Even Kunti's impassive
face took on a beatific glaze when she spoke of the many ways in which he'd helped her.

“He's the father we never had,” Yudhisthir told me once in a rare burst of emotion. “He kept us safe through the years of our childhood. We were an embarrassment to the blind king, a thorn in his foot, a reminder that he was only a regent. He would have loved to hide us away in some provincial town, to bring us up like the sons of shopkeepers. By herself our mother couldn't have stopped him. But Bheeshma fought for us.”

“If it weren't for him, Duryodhan would have had us murdered in our beds a long time ago,” Bheem added.

I had so many questions. Was he really the son of a river goddess, as I'd heard, and did she really drown each of his seven older brothers at birth? The story said that she'd been about to drown him, too, when his father the king had stopped her. She'd left them then, her husband and her newborn, and disappeared into the water. Growing up, how did the boy think of his mother—with loneliness and longing, or with baffled resentment? Hating her, did he hate every woman? Was all his love transferred to his father, his king and savior?