The Palace of Illusions (43 page)

Only Krishna, entering the tent last of all, shot me a quizzical glance. At the end of the evening, when he said goodbye, he whispered another of his cryptic statements into my ear, something about this body being like cast-off clothes, about there being no reason to grieve.

At some point that night, I found myself outside the tent, gazing at an enormous, coppery moon that hung low in the sky. I didn't know enough sky lore to tell if this was a good omen or bad. In the empty terrain where once the river Saraswati had flowed, I caught a sudden movement. At first I thought it a wild animal, but it was a woman, gathering the wild cactus that commoners sometimes eat when food is scarce. She ceased moving and stood still, watching me with wariness. Backlighted by the moon, she was scrawny-boned, her sari patched and knotted. A camp follower, I guessed, maybe the wife of one of our foot soldiers. I beckoned to her, thinking I would give her a coin.

The woman advanced a few feet, scrunching up her eyes to see more clearly. Then, all of a sudden, she turned and fled, flinging up her hands in a gesture I recognized with a shock. It was a sign against the evil eye!

I stood frozen. I knew she'd recognized me—no one could mistake my uncombed, striated hair. Was this, then, how the people viewed me? All this time I'd seen myself as the wronged one. I'd believed that the people of the country—especially the women— sympathized with me because of the insults I'd suffered at the hands of Duryodhan. That they admired me for the hardships I'd chosen to share with my husbands in exile. When I'd looked down on the huge Pandava host on the battlefield, I'd surmised that those soldiers had chosen to join my husbands because they supported our cause. Now I realized that for many of them, it was merely a job, an alternative to poverty and starvation. Or maybe they'd been forcibly conscripted by their overlords. No wonder that for their wives, I was a harbinger of ill luck, the woman who had torn their husbands from
the safety of their homes, the witch who might, with a wave of her hand, transform them into widows.

How little we know our own reputations, I thought with a bitter smile.

That night my sleep was a disturbed one, but in between waking and dozing I dreamed the last dream I would have until the war ended. In it, Krishna was talking to me. When he opened his mouth to speak, I could see the entire earth inside it, and the heavens with their spinning planets and fiery meteors. He said, once again, what he'd told me in the evening—only this time I understood.
Just as we cast off worn clothes and wear new ones, when the time arrives, the soul casts off the body and finds a new one to work out its karma. Therefore the wise grieve neither for the living nor the dead.

I searched deep inside and found that he was right. Truly, whether we won or lost, lived or died, there was no cause for grief. The core of my Self was burnished like a new sword. Sorrow could not touch it any more than rust could inhabit pure steel. Buoyancy filled me, a sense that the great drama of life was unfolding exactly as it was meant to. And wasn't I fortunate to be a participant in it?

But in the morning when I woke, my heart was despondent once again. I repeated Krishna's words to myself, but they sat on my tongue inert as stones. I could not understand why they'd made me so happy. In a few minutes, they began to break up, like a cloud picture in a windy sky, and I could not even recall them. I recalled perfectly, however, the look on the woman's face from last night. What is it in us that carves negative impressions so deeply into our brains? A terrible doubt came upon me as I saw her once again holding up her hands against me: had I pushed my husbands—and perhaps an entire kingdom—into calamity for my own petty satisfactions?

33

The morning of the war found me tired and aching; my head felt as though it were stuffed with prickly jute fibers. All night, in between fragments of dreams, faces coalesced out of the darkness of my tent: my husbands, my sons, Dhri, and last of all, a man with ancient, unsettling eyes. When he appeared, I could not bear to lie in bed any longer. Although the sun was barely up and the war had not yet begun, I decided to climb the hill. Last night, I had informed no one of my conversation with Vyasa or the gift he'd given me. (To tell the truth, I didn't fully believe in it myself.) Now I merely instructed my maid to tell Subhadra where I was going so she would not worry. I added that no one should disturb me because I would be at prayer. It wasn't quite a lie. As I observed the war, I would ask the gods to protect the people I cared for. Would it be treachery if one of them was fighting on the other side?

As I climbed, I heard the trumpets calling warriors to readiness. The horses neighed in excitement. They knew something momentous was about to begin. I confess: my heart, too, speeded up in anticipation. If Vyasa had spoken the truth, I was to be a witness—the only witness on our side, the only woman ever—to the grand spectacle that was about to play itself out. No matter how the war ended, my role in it was something to be proud of.

But as I reached the summit, against my will my footsteps slowed. My legs would not hold me up. A great weight pulled at my eyelids. I sat down—I didn't know whether on a rock or the bare ground. I saw and heard nothing. I did not feel the sun beating down on me. As I was pulled from the state I'd always thought of as consciousness, I realized that the role I would play now had nothing to do with Panchaali's pride. The force that was entering me—I felt its pounding roughness in every cell of my body—would use me for its purpose. Too late, I was afraid.

For the rest of the war, I climbed the hill each morning and passed into this state—for want of a better word, I call it a trance. All day, I experienced neither hunger nor thirst, though by evening I was exhausted and could barely make my way down. It was during this time that my hair turned white and flesh melted away from my body. When Subhadra realized what was happening (though she didn't understand it) she sent a maidservant with me, to give me water—for that was all I could take—and bring me down safely each evening. The girl told me later that I often wept or laughed, scaring her. Sometimes I chanted in an unknown language. I have no recollection of this. But for the rest of my life, I wouldn't forget the images that came to me—those that I would try to find words for later, and those that were so terrible that I left them locked inside me.

I had expected the sight to be something like looking through a telescope, but I was mistaken. True, I saw distant scenes as clearly as though they were happening a few arm's lengths away from me—but that was the least of it. For instance: I saw silver-haired Bheeshma in the forefront of the Kaurava army, seated in his silver chariot. A golden palm tree waved on his banner. He was exhorting his troops, telling them that the gates of heaven had opened wide today to let in all that would die on the battlefield. His face was filled with vigor and a strange gaiety, and his words rang with such conviction
that I believed him. But as I watched his face, it shifted and wavered, like an image drawn on water. I felt his tiredness in my own body. His heart was so heavy, I wondered that he had the strength to even draw breath. I realized then that the sight allowed me to penetrate the masks of men and look into their core, and I was at once elated and terrified. I looked up at the sky, hoping for a sign that what Bheeshma said was true, but it shone above me a blank and comfortless blue.

If war forced even a great soul such as Bheeshma to dissemble, what hope was there for the rest of us?

I saw Duryodhan pacing under his banner, a serpent in a field of gold. “Kill Sikhandi first,” he instructed his generals. “No one else can destroy Bheeshma. And as long as Bheeshma leads us, we're invincible!” Under his gold crown, his face was thinner, his eyes like lighted coals as he stared at the Pandava host. But the harsh line of his lips softened as he turned toward the warriors who had positioned themselves around him. “I will not forget your loyalty,” he said to them, touching one and then the other on the shoulder. They smiled back at him. I was shocked to feel love rising from them, shimmering like heat from a summer pavement, their willingness to die at his command. He beckoned a messenger close, detached a jewel from his headdress. “Give this to Bhanumati. Tell her I'll come to her as soon as I can.” Then his eyes darkened, searching the field. “Where is Karna?” he asked. “One of you, go, tell him Duryodhan calls. Today more than ever I need my friend beside me.”

Even in the trance, my breath grew uneven, my hands trembled with anticipation. But before I could see Karna, the vision pulled me toward the Pandava army. How puny it seemed in comparison! Yudhisthir stood at its center, under the white umbrella that signified kingship. His face was pale and drawn; in his heart he still didn't want this war. Nor did he want so many thousands to die for his sake. Next
to him, guarded by our staunchest soldiers, stood Sikhandi. Bheem led one flank, Nakul and Sahadev the other. I looked for Dhri. There he was, at the rear of the formation, his bronze and silver chariot rolling through the ranks as he gave commands to various officials. My sons rode behind him on chargers.

With a start I realized that every single person I cared for in the world was gathered on this field. How many of them would walk off it when the war ended in eighteen days?

Now my eyes were caught by a strange movement at the edge of the field. Arjun's golden chariot sped past the boundary of our army into the no-man's-land. Why would he go there now, while the war hung imminent above our heads? Was he not supposed to be at the head of the army to lead the attack? I could see Krishna guiding his six white horses. How skillfully he controlled them, with the smallest flick of his wrist. With his whip, he pointed out the scions of the Kaurava army, men my husband knew as well as he knew himself. And then Arjun dropped his beloved Gandiva, hid his face in his hands, and wept.