Tiger Claws (22 page)
Authors: John Speed
Tanaji hasn’t forgotten the riders from Kirkhi—but despite this he feels easy. Khirki’s looking for two bandits fleeing on horseback, not for a couple of sweaty farmers with women in an oxcart.
“They’re hard to see with this haze, but there are caves in most of those hills,” he says to the women. “That’s why bandits love this area.”
“Did you see bandits when you were hiding here, uncle?” Maya asks.
“We were bandits.” His voice trails off. Suddenly, he seems old.
“And what will we do in Poona, uncle?” Jyoti asks.
“You two will stay at the palace, I suppose. There’s room. Sai Bai will insist, I expect.”
“What’s she like, uncle?”
Tanaji takes a moment, considering his words. “She grew up well. Shahji arranged the marriage before he went to Bijapur. It took some doing after Shivaji’s insults, but Dadaji and Shahji worked out the deal. That’s how we stopped living in caves. A couple of years after we got there, Shivaji got married. Shahji never showed up. But Sai Bai was so pretty. Prettiest little girl I think I’ve ever seen. Every time I see her I still see that bright-eyed little girl. She makes me laugh, Sai Bai. She’s a sweetheart.”
Jyoti continues on: “And do they have children, uncle?”
“There’s a boy, about eight or nine. Nine, I think. Sambhuji.” He looks around cautiously. “And Shahu’s mother. Jijabai.”
“Is she a sweetheart too, uncle?”
“Nice enough, I suppose.” He licks his lips. “Like any mother, I suppose.” Now he rubs his nose. “She’s fine. She’s a good woman. Look, you’ll meet her soon enough. You can draw your own conclusions.”
Standing at the Rang Mahal’s great doors, Jijabai sees her son approach, dressed as a farmer. A farmer! She can see that even from here. What is one more disappointment for Jijabai? It is her karma to be humiliated, time and again.
But she does not surrender. She defies her fate.
To punish her for some ancient sin, the gods had given her Shahji for a husband. But she did not decline. So they gave her Shivaji for a son. Still she would not crumble. They exiled her to this backwater, to Poona, and set the halfwit Dadaji for her protector. Even then, she would not bow.
They would not break her, no, not without a fight. She was a queen, and the daughter of a queen. She would not yield.
So now the gods had taken merely to insulting her.
As she gazes at her pathetic son, she feels the thorn again thrust deep into her heart. That she should live to see this day: to see her son, her son who should be king, wearing the filthy lungi of a farmer.
But she does not bend, nor weep nor wail. No, she stands tall: noble but wronged, watching her useless son approach. By the gods, she watches him! no matter how her heart should break.
And that fat fool beside him, Tanaji. This must have been his idea: Oh Shahu, let’s dress up like bumpkins! What fun! The fool! Without Tanaji’s interference, my son might have seized his destiny.
But are the gods content with these heartaches merely? No, they mock her once more: Jijabai sees the women in the bullock cart. She recognizes
what they are at once, and despite herself, she catches her breath. She grasps the doorjamb so she will not faint. Oh you gods, she wails silently. Do what you will, you shall not triumph!
what they are at once, and despite herself, she catches her breath. She grasps the doorjamb so she will not faint. Oh you gods, she wails silently. Do what you will, you shall not triumph!
But her heart feels the piercing of another thorn, this one sharper and longer. Now he brings home his whores! Isn’t his useless wife trouble enough? Must I now suffer nautch girls in my house?
I am doomed forever to play out this pitiful life. How will Shahu ever be a king? He might as well leave that lungi on, and take a mattock, and go into the fields and dig. I might as well go with him.
But Jijabai buries her anguish where no one can see, for she is a queen despite the gods, and queens have above all their dignity.
She sees her little grandson, as always playing in the dirt. Now all her hopes rest in that dirty, round-faced boy. Now the grandson is her only hope. She will raise Sambhuji to be a king despite his father. “Sam,” she calls. “Fetch your good-for-nothing mother. Tell her that her husband has come. As if she cares. Hurry.”
“Yes, grandmother,” says the boy. He at least has learned to obey without question. He scurries off. “Mama, mama, daddy’s home!”
His nose needs blowing, scowls Jijabai.
Shivaji greets Jijabai. How small she is. She is getting old, he realizes, but her face is still vibrant: tiny eyes see everything, high cheekbones worthy of a queen, and a mouth that never smiles. She still wears her marriage necklace, though she hasn’t seen Shahji for over fifteen years.
“I greet you, mother,” Shivaji says, kneeling to place his forehead to her feet. This is proper respect, and it somewhat placates her. But it makes her feel her age. He used to be so small! But as she looks down at the man kneeling before her, she thinks: even so, he’s so beautiful. She is, after all, his mother.
She sniffs. “Where did you find those rags? Have you no dignity? Is this how I raised you! If you care nothing for your own reputation, think what you do to me, your own mother!”
“I beg your forgiveness, mother, though I am unworthy.” By now he is adept at such apologies.
“And what, pray tell,” Jijabai asks, raising her chin ever so slightly to indicate Maya and Jyoti, “is that?”
“A guest, mother, and her servant.”
“Is that what they’re called these days? Very pretty.”
“Maya, please come here,” Shivaji calls. Exchanging timid glances, the women come slowly, eyes lowered, sari ends pulled up to hide their hair.
At that moment, however, Sambhuji comes bursting around his grandmother’s skirts. “Daddy,” he shouts, leaping to throw his chubby arms around his father’s neck. Through the doorway, Shivaji sees his wife, Sai Bai. Her green sari that blends with the shadows. She has tossed its end across her head like a veil, and keeps her face turned down. There is stillness in her movements, like the slow ripples on a deep tank of water.
She starts to kneel at Shivaji’s feet, but he pulls her up. “Please let me greet you, lord,” she says.
“The sight of you is greeting enough, Sai Bai.”
“You flatter me, husband.” There he stands, dressed in rags, wearing that look of despair he gets whenever his mother disapproves, which is always. Her dark eyes sweep the scene. Whores. No wonder Jijabai scowls. It is never easy to be his wife.
But she recovers. “We must see to your guests,” she says.
“This is Maya,” Shivaji says, “and her servant Jyoti.” The women raise their folded hands in greeting. “Maya is a devadasi.”
Jijabai closes her eyes and sighs. “A nautch girl.”
Maya says nothing, but lifts her head and stares into Jijabai’s gray eyes until Jijabai flinches and steps back. But Sai Bai moves between Jijabai and her son, and raises her delicate hands to her forehead. “Our house is blessed by your presence.”
“Sai Bai,” hisses Jijabai, “don’t you know what she is?”
“Yes, mother,” she replies. “She is my husband’s guest, and now mine.” She lifts her head. In a heartbeat Sai Bai sees in Maya’s eyes a story unfold, a story vast and tragic, hearts shattered and tears shed.
Then, in Maya’s eyes, she sees her death.
She straightens, becoming for a moment as stiff and formal as Jijabai. “I am Sai Bai, wife of Shivaji, most noble of men. We must be sisters.”
“Let it be as you say,” Maya replies, and adds, tentatively, “Sister.”
“Disgusting,” says Jijabai.
Tanaji lives in a wooden house on the north side of the palace compound. It’s empty: Nirmala is probably in the marketplace, shopping and gossiping as usual, the twins are gone hunting, and the servants, of course, are nowhere to be seen. So he yawns and throws himself on the bedmat, and in a moment is snoring loudly.
He wakes to find Nirmala sitting by him. Her round face, as always, seems to be both laughing and scolding. She has gotten thicker as the years pass, and a little less nimble, but to Tanaji she still looks like the bride he married as a boy. He still enjoys a tumble with her now as much as when they were youngsters, his voice cracking and his lingam a sprout that seemed never to get soft. Many things have changed, but she will always be the little girl he married.
“Well, it’s a mess over there,” she says as soon as his eyes open. “What possessed him to bring a nautch girl here is beyond me. And that sweet wife of his, ready to do anything he wants, anything. And him always leaving her alone for days, and having congress with anything that wears a skirt, and Muslim women, too. She deserves better.” She smiles at Tanaji. “But then, everyone can’t have the best husband in the world.”
“No,” Tanaji agrees. “You are very fortunate.”
They talk about a hundred things; about nothing; a husband and wife who know each other well.
Nirmala sighs and shakes her head. “Jijabai won’t talk to her.” It takes Tanaji a moment to realize that she has turned her thoughts once more to the big house. “She sent them to the servants’ quarters, but Sai Bai wouldn’t hear of it. She almost raised her voice to Jijabai, she was that upset. Sai Bai gave up her own room for them.”
“What did Shahu say?”
“He’s gone to talk with Dadaji. Trust a man to avoid a conflict.”
“He’ll settle things when he gets back.”
“I think not. I think we know who rules that house.”
Shivaji watches Dadaji add up another line of figures.
A white-bearded man with a long sad face, Dadaji sits cross-legged on a low wooden platform, near a short-legged writing table. Everywhere papers surround him, in baskets, in boxes—he even holds papers between his long, wrinkled toes. The room is small—not really big enough for two grown men, Shivaji thinks. Yet when Shivaji appeared at the door, Dadaji had shooed away four or five assistants—his secretary, his accountant, and some others. Shivaji can’t imagine how they found room.
Dadaji takes a paper from between his toes, shakes his head, and with a scratching flourish of his feather pen, scribbles a total. Even the slightest interruption makes him lose his concentration, forcing him to start from the beginning. “You see how it is, Shahu.” Dadaji holds out the paper with
his bare right arm. “We’re practically out of money. What will happen when this little bit is gone?”
his bare right arm. “We’re practically out of money. What will happen when this little bit is gone?”
Now why Dadaji’s arm is bare is this: Years ago he had planted an orchard of mango trees in the eastern part of the compound, and forbade anyone to touch the fruit, or lose his arm. One hot day he was strolling through the orchard, and without thinking, he plucked a ripe mango. When he realized what he had done, he cried out for his servant to bring a sword.
The servant fetched Shivaji instead of the sword. At last the boy convinced his uncle not to do the horrible deed. Dadaji agreed, but as penance ripped the sleeve from his shirt, and never covered that arm again.
Shivaji glances at the number. “This is not so bad, uncle,” he replies. “We can do well for six months easily with this much in our treasury—even more if we are frugal.”
Dadaji snorts. “When did you learn to be frugal? I’m telling you our situation is desperate. That wall costs a lot of money. Do you intend to leave it incomplete? I am telling you, we must raise taxes.”
“No.” The finality of Shivaji’s word allows no argument.
“Always no. So what is your plan then, Shahu? How will you maintain this city? Our taxes are a quarter of what the Bijapuris took. We could double them and still be heroes. Maybe you think bankruptcy is better?”
“I have a plan.” Quickly, Shivaji tells Dadaji about Maya, about her value as a slave and the ransom she can bring.
“There are far too many ifs in your plan to satisfy me,” Dadaji replies, but already he is counting the ransom and calculating its effect. “How long will this take, do you think?”
“Four or five weeks, no more,” Shivaji responds. “Send for Balaji to write up a ransom demand.”
“It must be worded carefully,” Dadaji responds, “or you will invite reprisals. You might be thought a thief yourself,” he adds. “And to whom shall the letter be addressed?” Dadaji asks. “Viceroy Murad? The king of Bijapur? The Portuguese?”
“Why not write three letters?” Shivaji asks. “We’ll sell her to the highest bidder.”
It pleases Dadaji that his little Shahu has become such a man. He tests and probes Shivaji’s plan many ways, and finds it well constructed, if risky. He’s like his father, thinks Dadaji—he thrives on tossing the dice. Poona is a city founded on risk; Shivaji is its ideal leader, Dadaji thinks.
“Shahu,” he says, “that fool from Singhaghad fort came here again. What’s his name … Ali Danyal. He now wants only one lakh hun.”
“Only one lakh? Only a hundred thousand hun—and for that he will betray Bijapur? That’s a bargain,” Shivaji says, looking very amused.
“In six months his price has come down from two lakh hun,” Dadaji chuckles. “At this rate he’ll be paying us to take the fort off his hands in two months.” They both laugh.
“Still, uncle, one lakh hun … if we had Singhaghad …”
“It might as well be one crore hun, Shahu—where would we get that kind of money? What good is one fort, and that bribed away from the Bijapuris? It would poke a finger in the sultana’s eye. I only mentioned it because the fool is so insistent.” Dadaji frowns. “Shahu, promise me that you won’t take this seriously.”
After Shivaji leaves, Dadaji continues to work. At lunchtime his servant tells him about Sai Bai and Maya and Shivaji. Dadaji shakes his head. What kind of man must Shivaji be? What kind of man brings a nautch girl as a guest into his home? Yet who sells off a guest to the highest bidder?
He longs for the old days, for General Shahji who did things right. I’m sorry, commander, he tells Shahji mentally, I’ve done a piss-poor job of raising your son. Selling a guest to the highest bidder! Sighing, Dadaji turns back to his work.
“Now Shahu!”
“Soon, mother.”
“It has been nearly a month!”
“Maybe it has only been two weeks, mother.”
“She has to go!”
“She will go.”
“Now!” Jijabai looks as though she has bit into a chili.
“Very soon, mother. I promise.”
Jijaibai reaches for the door of Shivaji’s bedroom. “She destroys my peace! Everyday comes some new insult, some new crisis!” She whirls around. “Who will rid me of that rakshashi!”
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