Coromandel! (26 page)

The captain glared from Parvati to Jason. Jason’s eyes started out, and he shouted, ‘Let her go! How can I tell you anything when I have nothing to tell?’

The captain snarled, ‘Liar! Tell the truth!’ He brought the red-hot iron closer to Parvati’s cheek. Parvati looked steadily at Jason and said, ‘My lord has told you all the truth.’

The captain jabbed the brand against her cheek. Her skin sizzled, and a puff of blue-grey smoke rose to the roof.

Jason fought madly against the men and the chains holding him, mouthing threats and the name of God. Her cheek was a tangle of ugly welts and torn skin. Still she looked at him, still her eyes were on his as her knees sagged. Suddenly her head dropped and she hung limp against her chains.

Heavy drops of sweat stood out all over the captain’s forehead and upper lip. Jason bit his tongue until he had control over himself. Then he said, ‘I shall remember you.’

The captain said, ‘The dead remember nothing. Tell me the truth. Are you a magician, come to put an evil spell on his majesty? What trickery is afoot in Manairuppu?’

Jason said, ‘I have told the truth.’

The captain glanced at the wall above Jason’s head. Jason remembered seeing a small grating up there as he came in, but now, when he tried to turn, a soldier hit him on the jaw, and the captain said, ‘His hand--here!’

They seized his left hand and strapped it to the table. The captain took a pair of rusty pincers and with them caught hold of the fingernail of the little finger on Jason’s right hand. He said, ‘One at a time, until you tell the truth,’ and the sweat dripped off him in a dirty stream on to the table, and his face was grey.

Jason looked at the pincers. That was a terrible thing to do, even to think about, to pull a man’s nail out with that. ‘Aaah!’ He tried to pull his hand back, but it was over, and the first nail was gone. The agony wrenched his jaw and shoulder and wrist, down to that little finger and the blood pouring from it. Parvati had come to her senses and was smiling at him lopsidedly. Yes, smiling she was, though her right cheek could not move. He gaped at her in the awe of his love and admiration.

The captain dashed his hand across his forehead, wiped his palms on his coat, and took hold of the nail of Jason’s other little finger.

The king of Ponpalamai entered with his chamberlain and two officers. To the captain he cried, ‘What are you doing? Are you mad? Chamberlain, release the lord ambassador and the Lady Parvati at once.’

The officers unchained them, and Jason sprang forward and put his arm round Parvati’s shoulder. The king said to the captain, ‘Word has just reached me of this thing that you were doing. I can still hardly believe it, though I have seen it with my own eyes. Speak, before you lose your head.’

The captain said, as though repeating a lesson, ‘This morning we found the man, with sword drawn, outside your apartment. I thought what I should do. I decided that he might be an impostor, conspiring with the woman to take your life. I have been finding out.’

‘You had no authority to do such a thing,’ the king snarled. ‘For this you shall die--tomorrow at noon.’ He turned his back. The chamberlain and the soldiers seized the captain and began to chain him.

Jason said, ‘Let’s go back and get some salve for these wounds. Oh, my dear, it must hurt!’

‘Not yet,’ Parvati said. She turned to the king, bent her head, and joined her palms. She said, ‘Do you see my cheek, Majesty"?’

The king muttered, ‘Yes. Oh, it is terrible, terrible! He shall suffer for it tomorrow, with pincers in his entrails before he dies.’

Parvati said, ‘Your Majesty, we will be gone by then. But it is our right to see his punishment, is it not?’

The king hemmed and cleared his throat, and a new burst of sweat raised pimples on the captain’s forehead. The king said, ‘There are certain formalities and prayers which must be done before an execution, certain--‘

‘It is our right,’ Parvati said.

‘Parvati,’ Jason muttered, ‘can’t we leave it? I don’t want to see him executed--though he has deserved it.’

‘No,’ she said, ‘we cannot leave it. The king of Ponpalamai must realize that when he gambles against the king of Manairuppu he gambles for life, not for a few cowrie shells--or even for a woman’s cheek and a man’s fingernail.’

The king said, ‘But I knew nothing of this, I promise you.’ Parvati said, ‘In Manairuppu it is the custom to speak the truth, Your Majesty, as my Lord Jason has been speaking truth, and only truth, to you. We are waiting.’

The king looked unhappily at her, then suddenly gave a signal. The captain screamed, ‘You promised!’ But the big soldier behind him leaned forward and garroted him. The king turned away. Parvati watched until the captain died, and Jason, awed and afraid, watched Parvati.

It was Parvati who led him back to their rooms in the upper part of the palace, her left hand in his right.

When they were there--’We have won,’ she whispered exultantly.

Jason muttered, ‘Yes, but did we have to kill the captain? I see now that he was only doing what the king ordered him to. The king is the man who ought to suffer for what he has done to us.’

Parvati said, ‘My lord, of course we had to insist that the captain die, or the king would have known that we were not really angry. Then he would know that we were pleased at having come through the test successfully. Besides, the captain had to try to beat us, which means that he had to lose--so he had to die. It is just.’

Slowly Jason forgot the captain’s strangling face. He looked at his little finger and at Parvati’s cheek. He had won, but every such victory left him a little more unsure of himself. Only Parvati knew, only Parvati mattered.

‘It is just,’ Parvati repeated to herself for the twentieth time. She edged the mare to the side of the road, where there was less mud, and hitched up her sari so that it left only her eyes and forehead showing. A young village girl was waiting beside the path there, and she did not want anyone, least of all such a young and pretty girl, to see the ruin of her cheek. Besides, the heavy green ointment smeared over it made it look almost worse than it was, if that were possible.

And her poor lover, with his aching hand! He had been brave once it was done, but he had looked very frightened for a moment just before, when he realized they were really going to do it. Was it possible that he had not known all along what was going to happen? Well, he said he had not guessed. He loved her, so perhaps he was speaking the truth. On the other hand, perhaps he was not. Why should he? She was a woman and not supposed to understand too much of men’s affairs. And yet--and yet--sometimes it was impossible to believe that he was anything but what he seemed to be--an innocent, red-faced child. Those were the times when she felt that she had to warn him against dangers and perils and treachery--as if he didn’t know, really! He must have laughed at her in secret often enough. But he loved her.

She cheered up and let the sari fall, so that the soft air could play on her face. No one but her lover could see now. She had done most noble work for the god her husband, in Ponpalamai. The Brahmins would be pleased with her, and her god would shine the light of his eyes upon her when she went to wash his feet on her return to Manairuppu. This was one of the times when the body and the mysteries inside, which only the Brahmins were wise enough to understand, came together, and then you felt that your own god loved you, and the great God, which they called Being, held you in his care, and every part of creation danced most gently in its allotted place, including a scarred temple prostitute.

Was it, after all, a noble thing to be a devadassi? It was he, her English lover here, who had put that doubt into her mind--not quite for the first time, but with a new strength, so that she found herself questioning what she had always found perfectly clear, and wondering where she had before only marvelled. She wished he would not speak like that. She loved him--but there, he believed that men and women could show love only by lying together, which was a silly idea. She had tried every way to tell him she loved him as she loved no earthly man, no living thing--well, her god lived, of course, but not in the same way--and her lover did not understand. The language of flowers, and of the fingers, and of the food she placed before him, and the words she chose when calling him in the evening---he did not understand. She might as well have been speaking to a--to a Vishnu-bhakta! She spat vigorously.

He was so stupid, and so clever; so wise, and so foolish. As Shiva was her witness, if he cared only for lying with her, if that was love, why was he in such a fret? She had gone to him whenever he wanted her, and would continue to do so.

There must be some other reason, which he kept hidden from her, for all his talk of marriage. He knew that was impossible. Yet he kept talking about it so. What could it be?

But a child, now! That too he had spoken of. Her belly quickened, and she held tight to the reins and dropped her eyelids so that he could not see her eyes. The Brahmins saw to it that none of them had any children. One of the girls, a long time ago, ran away because she wanted to keep hers that she was going to have. Treachery, faithlessness, blasphemy--adultery, really; it was a terrible thing to have done. Yet that girl had her baby now, and no one knew where she had gone or what had become of her. Parvati bit her lip. She must not think of it. This was another of the ideas that his talk kept in her mind, where it had no business to be. She was not as other women. They would be widows. They would crouch, shrivelled and unwanted, by dead fires, while she basked for ever in the love of her husband. He would love her then, toothless and scarred and old, as fiercely as he loved her now.

But was Jason innocent or wise? That was the question. What should she say to him, how much leave him to guess? He was going to be a great man, and then he’d marry. But it was unbelievable that he wasn’t married already, at his age. He never told her the truth, even about things where he must know that she must know he was lying. She looked at him admiringly and said, ‘My lord, I love you.’

The embassy was over, and he had won. The four kings would be allied. His own king had given him an estate of a hundred acres along the river. Jason paced nervously up and down the room, towards the big wall mirror and then away from it. But--Why was he nervous? Why didn’t he want to see Don Manoel, whom he was expecting at this very moment?

He didn’t know what people were thinking any more. At least he wasn’t sure. He strode towards the mirror, frowning at himself. That was a rich man in the mirror. But he didn’t like his face. It reminded him of a pouting Stevens girl in Pennel, who was always wanting something she couldn’t have, and her face showed it. She didn’t want things like Coromandel, or the wings of a plover, or love beyond the act of love, but things like a new pair of shoes or some other girl’s kerchief.

He said, ‘Any sign of the Don yet?’

Sugriva, leaning over the balustrade to look down into the street, said, ‘No, lord.’

Jason resumed his pacing. The Portuguese had no sense of time. Why was the Don coming, anyway? Twice Jason had refused urgent invitations to visit the mansion. Wasn’t that a plain enough hint that he did not want to discuss any private agreement, nor yet the negotiations between the four kings--which were secret--and still less the idea of marriage to Mistress Catherine?

Still, Don Manoel was coming, because he’d swallowed his pride and begged to be allowed to visit Jason in the palace apartment. And Jason had reluctantly agreed. And now the Don was late.

What had he been thinking about? Ah, yes, that face of his in the mirror. What was the matter? Dreams had been good in their time, but what he had now was real. He could hardly count the jewels the three kings had given him on his embassy. His finger had healed. He was fat and well. He had become a partner of Vishnuprodhan the merchant, and all he had to do was say an occasional word to the king or the chamberlain, and then Vishnuprodhan gave him big bags of money. It must be a very good business.

Every soul in Manairuppu knew him as a rich and powerful man and knew that it was he who had given Parvati her golden bangles and golden anklets. Then why did this unease sit like a rat on his shoulders?

‘The Don is in the courtyard,’ Sugriva said. ‘There is a woman with him.’

‘What? Let me see.’ Jason ran and leaned over. He looked down on the top of the Don’s wide feathered hat and some of the white ruff just showing under one side of it. Beside the Don he saw a small dark head covered by a square of blue cloth.

‘He has brought his daughter with him,’ Jason muttered. ‘Why should he do that?’

Parvati said, ‘I shall watch from behind the curtain. I want to see the girl more closely. From a little distance I have seen her in the city, and I thought she was beautiful. She is nearly blind, too?’

‘Beautiful?’ Jason said. He laughed. ‘You’re not a man, or you wouldn’t say that.’

Parvati said, ‘Is beauty only on the skin, like the bloom on a peach? Or only in the shape, like the curve of a mango?’ She moved slightly, turning the scabs on her cheek towards him.

He said, ‘Oh, my dearest--‘ But she walked through the curtain into the inner room.

Sugriva announced Don Manoel and Senhorita Catherine d’Alvarez. The Don waddled in, looking short-sightedly from side to side until he saw Jason in the cool gloom. His left hand rested heavily on the hilt of his sword, and with his right he led his daughter slowly across the floor.

Jason bowed and said curtly, ‘What do you want to speak to me about?’

Don Manoel said, ‘Are we alone, milord?’

Jason said, ‘I have told you that I am not a lord. ‘

The Don said with sudden bitterness, ‘I am allowed to pretend to myself that you are a nobleman, I presume? I would like to be assured that no one can overhear us.’

‘Sugriva is outside, and he does not understand English,’ Jason said.

‘And behind the curtain?’ the Don said. He gestured with his hand at the inner curtain, but behind the spectacles the sad brown eyes turned meaningly to meet Jason’s. That phrase ‘behind the curtain’ meant ‘in the women’s quarters.’ The Don’s expression, in words and eyes, therefore asked: Do you have a woman through there?