The Palace of Illusions (33 page)

Seeing this, Duryodhan laughed, sure of his victory. He motioned crudely at me to come and sit in his lap. And so finally, I turned my gaze on Karna. He was my last hope, the only one who had the ability to stop Duryodhan. He looked back at me, his eyes steady. There was a waiting look on his face. I knew what he wanted: for me to fall on my knees and beg him for mercy. He would have protected me then. He had the reputation of helping the destitute. But I wouldn't lower myself to that, not if I died.

He was our enemy. I had recently rebuffed his attempt at cordiality. Why then did I feel betrayed because he hadn't come to my rescue of his own accord?

I called on pride to freeze my tears to stone. I mustered all the hatred I could find within me and focused it on Karna.

When he saw the contempt in my eyes, Karna's face grew white and still, as though made of ivory. Duryodhan was laughing in triumph. He shouted to Dussasan, “Remove the Pandavas' fancy clothes and jewelry. All of that belongs to us now!” My husbands threw off their upper garments, their gold chains and armbands, before Dussasan could touch them. Karna watched the glittering mass on the floor intently, as though it could tell him a secret; his mouth stretched in a mirthless smile. “Why should Draupadi be treated any differently? Take her clothes, too.”

The bards sing of what occurred when Dussasan took hold of my sari to pull it away, exposing my nakedness to all eyes. How
more and still more fabric appeared until he was exhausted with tugging. Was it a miracle? I don't know. I had shut my eyes. My body would not stop trembling though I willed it to. I clutched my sari in my fists—as though I could save myself with that futile gesture! The worst shame a woman could imagine was about to befall me—I who had thought myself above all harm, the proud and cherished wife of the greatest kings of our time! Now they sat frozen as I struggled with Dussasan. The sorceress had said, When in great trouble, rest your mind on someone who loves you. I tried to call up Dhri's face. But all I could imagine was how enraged and helpless he'd feel when he heard of what had been done to me.

Then—maybe because there was no one else who could help— I thought of Krishna. He owed me nothing; we were not related. Perhaps that was why I could fix my mind on him without being swept away by the anger that arises from expectation. I thought of his smile, the way it would appear on his face for no reason. The sounds of the courtroom faded—Dussasan's grunts, the whispers of the watchers. Suddenly I was in a garden. There were swans in a lake, a tree that arched above, dropping blue flowers, the sound of water falling as though the world had no end. The wind smelled of sandalwood. Krishna sat beside me on a cool stone bench. His glance was bright and tender.
No one can shame you
, he said,
if you don't allow it.

It came to me, in a wash of amazement, that he was right.

Let them stare at my nakedness, I thought. Why should I care? They and not I should be ashamed for shattering the bounds of decency.

Was that not miracle enough?

Krishna nodded. He took my hands. At his touch, I felt my muscles relax, my fists open. He smiled, and I prepared to smile back.

But just then another face pushed its way into my mind. I saw a different pair of eyes, hot with hate. I heard again the words with
which he sealed my doom. They resonated through me like the twang of a bow that has just released a poison arrow. The punishment he'd heaped on me was so much greater than my crime.

Karna
, I said to myself.
You've taught me a lesson, and you've taught it well.

Is the desire for vengeance stronger than the longing to be loved? What evil magic does it possess to draw the human heart so powerfully to it? As I spoke, my hands slipped from Krishna's. His face wavered, dimming.

I opened my eyes. I was still clothed, and Dussasan was on the floor in a swoon. I stepped over him and spoke to the assembly in a voice like cracking ice. “All of you will die in the battle that will be spawned from this day's work. Your mothers and wives will weep far more piteously than I've wept. This entire kingdom will become a charnel house. Not one Kaurava heir will be left to offer prayers for the dead. All that will remain is the shameful memory of today, what you tried to do to a defenseless woman.” I spoke to all, but it was Karna I looked at, his gaze I held. Of one thing I was glad. What happened today had stripped away all ambiguities from my heart. Never again would I long for his attention. Behind me I heard Bheem and Arjun pronouncing oaths of revenge, and the blind king's anxious entreaties as he called my name, begging me to retract my curse. Inside me Krishna's face dissolved in a red haze, but I could not—would not—stop my words.

I lifted up my long hair for all to see. My voice was calm now because I knew that everything I said would come to pass. “I will not comb it,” I said, “until the day I bathe it in Kaurava blood.”

What did I learn that day in the sabha?

All this time I'd believed in my power over my husbands. I'd
believed that because they loved me they would do anything for me. But now I saw that though they did love me—as much perhaps as any man can love—there were other things they loved more. Their notions of honor, of loyalty toward each other, of reputation were more important to them than my suffering. They would avenge me later, yes, but only when they felt the circumstances would bring them heroic fame. A woman doesn't think that way. I would have thrown myself forward to save them if it had been in my power that day. I wouldn't have cared what anyone thought. The choice they made in the moment of my need changed something in our relationship. I no longer depended on them so completely in the future. And when I took care to guard myself from hurt, it was as much from them as from our enemies.

For men, the softer emotions are always intertwined with power and pride. That was why Karna waited for me to plead with him though he could have stopped my suffering with a single word. That was why he turned on me when I refused to ask for his pity. That was why he incited Dussasan to an action that was against the code of honor by which he lived his life. He knew he would regret it—in his fierce smile there had already been a glint of pain.

But was a woman's heart any purer, in the end?

That was the final truth I learned. All this time I'd thought myself better than my father, better than all those men who inflicted harm on a thousand innocents in order to punish the one man who had wronged them. I'd thought myself above the cravings that drove him. But I, too, was tainted with them, vengeance encoded into my blood. When the moment came I couldn't resist it, no more than a dog can resist chewing a bone that, splintering, makes his mouth bleed.

Already I was storing these lessons inside me. I would use them
over the long years of exile to gain what I wanted, no matter what its price.

But Krishna, the slippery one, the one who had offered me a different solace, Krishna with his disappointed eyes—what was the lesson he'd tried to teach?

26

After the blind king took fright at my curse and gave my husbands their freedom and their kingdom, after Duryodhan taunted Yudhisthir for being saved by his wife and challenged him to play one last game where the loser would be banished to the forest for twelve years. After I begged Yudhisthir to ignore the challenge, after he refused me for honor's sake, after he lost as I knew he would, after we discarded our finery for clothing such as servants wear. After we said goodbye to Kunti, who stared white-faced and tearless, after I handed my crying, clutching children to Dhai Ma, who would take them to be brought up in Subhadra's house. After her accusing eyes (for she knew I could have stayed with them, I didn't have to go with my husbands to the forest, my boys needed me more). After we walked barefoot from the city all the way to the wilderness.

After all this had happened, Duryodhan and his men rode in triumph to the Palace of Illusions to take possession of it.

When they came within sight of the palace, Duryodhan released his pent-up breath.
Mine, finally!
His retainers realized then that all he'd done to the Pandavas had been for this—to own the palace he had failed to replicate, the site of his past humiliation, his present triumph. To rewrite his history. But even as he spoke a wind
rose up, and as it swirled whitely around the palace, its domes and turrets began to dissolve. Duryodhan whipped his horse furiously forward until blood foamed from its mouth. Even so, by the time he arrived where the main gateway had stood, only a few small piles remained on the ground: bones, hair, sand, and salt.

How do I know? I dreamed it.

My husbands surmised that faithful servants, hearing of our misfortune, had set the buildings on fire, but I knew with bitter satisfaction that my dream was true. My palace refused to be occupied by anyone other than its rightful owners. It did what it had to do in order to remain true to us.

As we moved through the forest, I carried a pouch of salt in honor of my lost palace. At night I let the grains run through my fingers, over skin scraped raw by rocks and branches, and welcomed the sting. It would help me not to forget. In my dreams, the palace came back, at once grander and more exquisite than in life. I knew I would never find another home where I belonged in the same way.

I had another reason now for my hatred.