Flowers in the Blood (53 page)

“Now, Madam Salem, may I escort you into the Hall of Pleasure?” Amar offered his arm. I could not refuse. He led the way through an arch inlaid with ivory and sandalwood. “Here is our little Shish Mahal, a copy of the Mirror Palace in the Agra fort. My illustrious ancestors opened it for only one night each year, for diwali, the festival of lights. I am told my uncle gave private parties here, but he never invited me. As soon as I knew I would be the next maharajah, I vowed to use it as often as possible.”

Two fifteen-foot doors opened at our approach. Coming from the torchlit darkness of the marble hall, we were assaulted by a thousand circles of light. Dizzy, I leaned against Amar. He paused and slipped his arm about my waist. I might have thought the gesture was meant only to steady me, but then his hand brushed down and over my buttocks.

“Have you ever seen anything so gorgeous?” Jemima's high-pitched admiration gave me the chance to take a step away from the maharajah.

The Hall of Pleasure was designed to refract and reflect light a thousand times over. Candles and torches were set in niches lined with convex mirrors and then banded with faceted colored stones. Every imaginable surface, including the panels on the curvilinear ceiling, was inlaid with silver. The room was alive with twinkling and blinking and glittering. If anyone moved, a flash occurred somewhere in the room, followed by an odd undulation that made one feel as though the structure had swayed. When Amar led me to a seat, I had to feel it below me before I dared sit. I kept my eyes fixed on my lap until I felt my balance was restored. When I looked up, the maharajah was taking his place beside his mother at the front of the room. Shifting around, I could see the guests were arranged in a semicircle. No special situation had been given to me. Again, I must have misconstrued everything. The reason the maharajah himself had seen me in was that I was the sole female visitor without an escort. As the music began, my concern at his fleeting intimacy faded.

The native instruments of Travancore were an unfamiliar assembly of strings, pipes, drums, and small basin-shaped cymbals that produced a tinkling tone. As lyrical
ragas
echoed in the shining room, I wished Edwin were beside me. After an hour the musicians seemed to be gathering strength, while I had to concentrate to keep my eyes open to the dazzling spectacle. Another hour must have passed before the maharajah stood. Even though the
vina
player continued with an elaborate solo that had begun slowly but escalated into a poignant plea, the audience followed the maharajah's lead. Servants wearing both red and white turbans carried silver goblets and platters of refreshments around the room.

I took a glass of pungent fruit punch. I felt a burning sensation as the last taste lingered in my throat, and accepted a second glass to quench my continuing thirst.

“That can be quite intoxicating,” Professor Dent warned.

“I did not realize . . .” I said as I tried to swallow past the pain.

I handed the empty glass to a passing servant. The professor waved to someone else carrying a pitcher. “Try some coconut water to dilute it,” he suggested kindly. At the maharajah's approach, he stepped aside.

“I hope you have enjoyed the evening thus far,” he said with an exaggerated politeness.

Perspiration covered my brow. My mouth filled with thick saliva. I managed to nod my head, but words would not form.

“Do you require anything?” Amar asked with more concern in his tone.

“I suggested coconut water,” the professor replied, and placed a glass in my hand.

Something wavered in front of my eyes. I was becoming transfixed on the ruby streak of light that played across the maharajah's white robes and illuminated his diamond buttons with a rosy hue.

“Yes, very refreshing,” Amar said. He gestured for me to drink. Mechanically I took one sip. Amar's face was pink, his dark eyes like melting chocolate, his mouth moist and fleshy. “What do you think, Madam Salem? What do you think of my pleasure dome?” Not concentrating on his speech, he had slurred “Shalem” and “pleshure.”

My swirling mind recalled Silas and “the stately pleasure dome of Xanadu.” I stared into my chalky glass of coconut water and thought of “the milk of Paradise.”

The maharajah's head tilted. “Well . . .”

“I wish Edwin could see this room.”

“Oh, Winner has been here with me. He's the one who first suggested I open it more often. When we were young the two of us used to—” He halted as the maharani approached. “Ah, here is my mother. Mrs. Salem was telling me that her husband would have enjoyed our little gathering.”

“He shall return soon,” the maharani said firmly. “Until then I would like you to visit me from time to time.”

“I would be honored.”

“You will come for tea tomorrow.” It was a statement, not a question. With the barest flicker of her feline eyes, she concluded our encounter and drifted off, much as a swan turns and skims across a lake.

“My mother likes you,” Amar replied.

I could think of no response as he edged closer.

“She always liked Winner too. For centuries our family has felt an affinity for the Jews of the region.” Amar was standing with less than an inch of space between his crossed arms and my breasts. He spoke in his softest, mushiest voice. “There has always been a sympathetic bond with your people, which transcends the boundaries of our caste system and our fear of foreigners.”

Again no retort could find its way through my muffled mind.

“I have never seen you so silent, Sassy,” he said into my ear. “Are you unwell?”

My knees shook. “It's late . . .” I blinked to stop the lights from threatening to immolate me. There was a commotion, an echoing sound, and the high ping of metal strings vibrating against hollow wood. I crumpled into a heap at the maharajah's feet.

I heard the maharani speaking softly from a long way off. “Do you think she might be . . . ?”

Jemima gently sat me up. “No, I am fairly positive she is not.”

“She had a large glass of the punch.” Professor Dent’s voice echoed hauntingly.

I opened my eyes, ready to close them to the glitter if necessary, but found I was in a darkened room lying on something cool and slippery. “Where am I?” I asked as I searched for Jemima in the gloom.

“In the place where my wife and her friends were listening to the music,” the maharajah explained.

“Jemima?”

“I am here, don't worry,” came her reply from a shadowy corner.

“I have ordered a palanquin to take you back to the Orchid House. Mrs. Clifford, would you be so kind as to direct it here?”

I heard a shuffling and reopened my eyes. In the spilled river of light from the doorway I could see that for the moment Amar and I were alone. I was too apprehensive to think to ask why his wife had not been invited into the public room or wonder where she had gone.

“Almost everyone enjoys a taste of my toddy, which is fermented from our palms, but obviously you are unaccustomed to spirits.”

I managed to sit up and slide away from him, but his hands had reached behind me as if to give support, then lingered on my back and kneaded my shoulders.

“I didn't know what was in it . . . I had two.”

“Two?” he roared. “No wonder.” I heard a sucking, then a gurgling sound. “I prefer a pipe myself.”

For a moment I did not follow his meaning. “If I can sleep, I shall be—”

His hands pressed against my forehead. “You are cold. You may be ill. I shall send my physicians and—”

“No, please.” In trying to stand, I was relieved to find my balance restored. Turning around, I realized he was taking puffs from his hookah. His eyes squinted at me in the darkness. My stomach churned. Now I knew whom Amar reminded me of: Nissim Sadka.

Amar lurched toward me. “I feel sick,” I said, holding him off. The doorway framed a familiar silhouette. “Jemima!” I called.

As she came forward, I waited for the maharajah to back away. Instead he moved closer, his hands supporting my sides so it seemed he was holding me upright. Only he and I knew the edges of my breasts were being squeezed.

“She requires assistance.” Once we were out in the lighted hall, his hands guided the small of my back. “She should lie down.” Amar allowed Jemima to guide me into the gilded palanquin, and then he spoke close to the lattice slats. “Good evening, Mrs. Salem, I hope you will recover quickly.” His hot breath felt like a fog on my face, and his smell—a combination of the sulfur of a burnt match and something cloyingly familiar—lingered even as I was carried out from the sparkling world of mirrors and under the welcome canopy of the misty, moonless night.

 

Other than my mortification at having become inebriated and having given the maharajah the opportunity to touch me, I suffered no ill effects from the evening. Perhaps he had been trying to assist me and in my confused state I had imagined the intimacies. As a precaution, I vowed to avoid any opportunity to be alone with him again. At first I thought to excuse myself from tea with the maharani—after the previous night, it would have been a simple matter to send regrets because of illness—but then I decided my best protection might lie with her.

Soldiers wearing scarlet tunics guarded the entrance to the maharani's quarters in the central section of the palace. I passed through a hibiscus garden into a reception room where the maharajah's mother waited in front of a carved ivory panel. Her black hair, shot through with silver streaks, was entwined so intricately I wondered how long it took to arrange it. She wore a white silk robe draped under her breasts, with the thinnest gold cape covering the upper part of her torso, out of deference to my sensibilities. Even so, I could discern her large brown nipples. Since breasts were never concealed here, I wondered if Amar had thought touching mine was as natural as shaking my hand. Or did the fact that mine were hidden pose an irresistible temptation for a man accustomed to seeing women's chests bared?

The maharani's musical voice brought me back from my musings. “Thank you for coming to see me, Mrs. Salem. I trust you are. feeling better.”

“Only my pride stings today.”

“I was told you had too much of the toddy.”

“I had two glasses before anyone warned me. I hardly ever drink spirits.”

“No one has criticized you. We were concerned.”

“Thank you.”

The maharani took a seat on a padded stool and waved for me to do the same. In the sunlit room, her arms gleamed with bands of diamonds and rubies. “There is a time in a woman's life when she is apt to be more sensitive,” she noted, giving me an appraising stare.

I felt I should reply, although I resented being forced into an intimate confession. “I am not that fortunate yet.”

“One of these days you will be,” she replied with the smoothness of warmed honey. “I myself am one of the most fortunate women. I have given birth not only to boys who were next in line for the musnud but also to girls who will rule after me. I have survived to see my son become the maharajah. And I have lived to see my daughters give birth to boys. This ensures that one of my grandsons will also become maharajah, although it would be no blessing for me to live for that day.”

Sipping my tea, I was perplexed by this remark until I realized she was saying that she would have to see Amar dead before his nephew could reign. That would mean she would have buried all three of her sons. “What happens if no sister or aunt of the maharajah had given birth to sons? Would the maharajah's own son then inherit the throne?”

“No, the musnud can pass only through a woman. Your question is most interesting, however, since this situation happened in recent times. The sister of one maharajah died in childbirth, which also took the life of her only daughter. There were no other women heirs. Application was made to the British government for permission to adopt a princess from a branch of the family in which maharajahs usually find their spouses. Her caste was impeccable and the community accepted the adoption. I am descended from that line.”

I put down my cup. “Do you think the women of Travancore fare better than women elsewhere in India?”

“Yes, we can pick our husbands and we can rid ourselves of them, yet that rarely happens. Don't you find it interesting that with the woman in control, there is apt to be less friction in a marriage? And if there is, well, we have a way for the man and woman to separate so each may find a more suitable companion without anyone feeling wronged or having to do an unkindness to the other.”

“What if only one wishes to leave?” I asked, hoping the question was not impertinent.

The maharani did not seem offended. “It is my experience that if one is unhappy, he or she has a way of making the other person miserable. But again, the woman has the last say. If she leaves, the children go with her so they are not uprooted. Here, where women are taught and teach, they are more responsible for the welfare of the people than the men.”

Surely life was not as idealistic as her pretty portrait, but I was in no position to challenge her. I thought of a way to turn the conversation. Looking around the room, which was mostly filled with Indian pieces inlaid with ivory and silver, I asked if the professor was to purchase anything for her.