The Temple Dancer (48 page)

They clambered up the stairs at the other end of the storehouse, and
emerged in a kind of park-a wide lawn shaded by the great branches of
old trees. To the east, the sky was darkening, to the west, erupting with
color from the sunset. Shaheen led them toward a whitewashed wall, and
through an iron gate. "Here are the graves of many of the family. Most
everyone is buried here, near the home and vines they cared for."

It made Maya think of Lady Chitra's garden-so many trees, so many
flowers clustered around the stark white marble graves. Many graves were
marked, as Muslim graves often were, with simple triangular prisms of
stone, about the size of a person. Some stones had a soft, uneven look from
years of weather. Some were draped with cloth, and one or two were sprinkled with fresh flower petals.

A kind of house had been built at one end of the compound. Painted
panels on its walls showed pitchers, and cups, and leaves, and twisting vines.
Shaheen was saying who was buried there, but Lucinda's attention was
drawn instead to a small domed building at the other end of the compound.
Without a word, she found herself walking toward it.

It was like a smaller version of the saint's dargah in Belgaum. Uncertain
about the etiquette of the place, she did not pass the threshold, but peered
into the shadowed interior. A wild notion popped into her mind that
Pathan would be there, kneeling as he'd knelt at the dargah. But it was
empty, though the grave cloth was heaped with fresh flowers, and the oil
lamp's wick was newly trimmed.

"Come away!" Lucinda turned to see Shaheen behind her, frowning.
"That is a saint's tomb, and women may not enter." Lucinda lowered her
head, and followed Shaheen down the tile pathway, when she stopped and
caught her breath.

She'd seen a figure kneeling, huddled by a grave, and supposed it must
be a gardener. But when the man leaned back, she saw, of course, Pathan
himself. He appeared not to notice her, nor anyone: his eyes were closed
tight, and his folded hands pressed hard against his face. Shaheen raised a
finger to her lips, and drew Lucinda from the place. She caught up with
Maya, and then, still silent, led the two outside the gate.

As she hurried them back to the house, Shaheen whispered, "It is his
wife's grave. He's never gotten over it, I think. She died giving birth. It
would have a been son, if he'd been born alive. She was too young ... so pretty, so willing, but too young. My Munna made them place the baby in
her arms and bury them together. His heart is very tender. He doesn't like
for anyone to see him mourn, or even to know that he has visited her
grave."

The women returned to find that the lamps in their room had been lit.
They watched the last flames of sunset paint the twilight sky. Soon the
flickering flames through the pierced metal shades were their only light.

Supper appeared. After they had eaten, Shaheen knocked, and asked
if they had everything they needed. While the women expressed their gratitude Shaheen again turned prune-faced, and moved purposefully around
the room, shuttering windows and straightening cushions. Maya, realizing
from Shaheen's meaningful glances that she wished to be alone with
Lucinda, told the others that she needed some fresh air.

When they were alone, Shaheen sat across from Lucinda, so close their
knees nearly touched. "You leave tomorrow at the break of dawn, so I have
no time to waste on pleasantries. I must know: What have you done to my
boy? Why did you spurn his love?"

Lucinda felt as if Shaheen had stabbed her. "Who are you to ask this?
Why do you accuse me so?"

"Do you know how hard it is for him to love? His is a great heart, and
so it takes a great flame to heat it, and it then takes a long time to melt. Yet
you have melted his heart. I know this. I don't know why he loves you. No
matter. It is his great heart that matters to me. He is all the family I have
left." Shaheen lifted her face to Lucinda, and its earnestness was unnerving.
"He loves you. Do you love him?"

Shaheen's pronounced the question with such gravity that Lucinda
could not answer. As she stared back mute, Shaheen's harsh face softened.
"Oh, you are but a girl," she sighed. "You don't even know your power
over him. He is in turmoil over you."

"How was Ito know this?"

"Is such ignorance common to farangs? I ask you quite sincerely. Do
you really not know?"

"How should I know it? He has not spoken to me all day ... not even
looked at me all day!"

Shaheen reached out and placed her hand on Lucinda's. "Even a farang
should know. You should know it by the way he has not spoken to you ...
the way he has not looked at you."

"Did he speak to you about me?" Shaheen nodded, and was about to
answer when Lucinda lifted her hand. "Don't tell me what he said. I could
not bear it."

"They were most pleasant words ..."

"Then even less could I bear to hear. Did he not tell you? I am pledged
to another. I am on my way to meet my husband."

Shaheen sat straight and stared at Lucinda as if seeing her for the first
time. Then she lifted her hands to her head, and began to rise. "I was wrong
to come. I did not know."

Lucinda felt tears spill down her cheeks. "He is my uncle and an old
man. That is my portion in this life."

Shaheen shook her head. "I will go now."

She had reached the door when Lucinda called after her. "Every day I
will think of him."

She never found out if Shaheen had heard.

"What did she want?" Maya asked when she returned.

"She'd never seen a corset," Lucinda lied. She had curled up on the low
rope bed and drawn the blanket over her. Maya frowned at the answer-she
thought about it for a while but then let it go. "What difference does it
make?" Lucinda added later, as if she'd never stopped thinking about answering. "We'll be gone tomorrow, so what difference does it make?"

"I don't think we're going, sister. Not tomorrow. A storm's brewing
out there."

The shutters rattled all night. Wind keened through the cracks around
the doors and windows, and for several hours, the rain beat drumlike on the
roof. Then thunder: sometimes like a rumbling snore; sometimes like the
crack of great bones snapping.

"I thought the monsoon was over," Lucinda said.

"I've heard of late storms in the mountains."

"Just when you think it's over, it starts up again," Lucinda said into the
noisy darkness.

"What's wrong with that?" Maya laughed. But Lucinda did not answer.

Maya was right; the storm rained so fiercely the next morning that they
could not travel. Shaheen brought shawls of Kashmir wool, soft and warm.
Her eyes never met Lucinda's. This is how she apologizes, Lucinda
thought, coming round in silence, standing close but never looking at me.
Shaheen's behavior explained much about Pathan's.

After breakfast she and Maya walked along the verandah. The wind
blew fresh and wet and cold, and after a long night's fitful sleep, Lucinda
felt refreshed. Rain danced across puddles that had formed at the veran-
dah's edge, and sometimes Lucinda and Maya had to jump over one to keep
their feet dry.

As they turned a corner, Lucinda saw Pathan. He stood with his back
to them, looking over the verandah at the mist swirling through the valley.
Lucinda hoisted up her heavy rag-hooped skirts and ran away. Near her
door she passed Geraldo and with neither look nor word pushed past him,
closed the door and threw her back against it.

She had barely caught her breath when she heard the gentle knocking.
She could not stop herself from hoping, and so was disappointed when she
opened the door and found Geraldo, with his ironic smile and neat mustache.

Reluctantly she let him in. "You must learn to trust me, Lucy." She sat
on the foot of her low bed, watching as he walked idly around the room.
"Who else is so honest with you as I? You know all about me now-I have
revealed all."

He turned and faced her, and she saw the same attractive friendly face
she had first seen in Goa a few weeks before. And it was true: he had never
hidden his intentions, nasty as they were. She wondered what he was up to
now.

"I know you have feelings for the burak. Do you want me to help?"

"Why would you help me?"

"We are cousins, are we not? And among these strangers, the only farangs. Surely that places a burden on us to help each other." He looked
aside, and said as if casually, "Besides, some day you may be in a position
to do me a good turn."

Lucinda's eyes closed slowly as she realized how much she had changedno longer Aldo's baby cousin nearly grown up, now Lucinda had become
another angle he must play; another source of wealth and power where he
could beg favors.

So this is how it is, she thought. I will make the best of it.

"Yes, cousin. You might do me a good turn. Give Pathan a message for
me." She then spoke Hindi. "Tell him that my feelings are the same as his.
Tell him I regret that he ever thought differently."

Geraldo's eyebrows went up, and he gave Lucinda an approving look.
"You have grown up, cousin." He bowed with a flourish and rose with his
infuriating smile.

Lucinda glared at him. "Do not betray me, Aldo. Do this honestly or
don't do it at all."

Geraldo tried to appear hurt. "Would you doubt me? Don't you know
that in the future we shall be quite close? This confidence will bring us even
closer. Besides, if I cared to bring your man a false message, I need not have
even spoken to you."

"Tell him exactly what I told you."

In Hindi, Geraldo repeated, "That your feelings are the same as his?
That you regret that he ever thought differently?" Then in Portuguese, he
said. "Really, cousin, I'm offended that you mistrust me. I'll deliver your
message just as you say. I shall do so right now."

"Then I shall be forever in your debt."

"That you shall, dear Lucy. I shall enjoy collecting what you owe."
When he reached the door he smiled again, his even white teeth sparkling
in his dark face. "With any luck, you'll enjoy it, too."

Geraldo easily found Pathan, for he had not moved since Lucinda saw him.
Geraldo found a wall to lean against and began to chat with him. He
focused all his charm on the burak, and even Pathan crumbled beneath it.

They spoke of everything: starting with the weather, they soon turned
to trade, and politics; and to the personalities of people that they knew and
did not know. Pathan paid special attention to Geraldo's description of Victorio. "An old man of nasty disposition-that's how I remember him, sir,
though it was years ago."

The rain continued to fall, though the sun had risen enough to turn the
clouds above them a painful glaring gray. And as Geraldo hoped, it was
Pathan who first brought up Lucinda's name, and only after a few uncertain, diffident remarks did Geraldo begin to speak of her earnest.

"But you had feelings for her, sir," Geraldo said as if genuinely concerned, "Maybe you still do?"