The Dancer and the Raja (23 page)

Anita and the raja spend some unforgettable days in Calcutta: morning rides in the carriage through the immense Maidan Park, in the shade of the banyans, magnolias, and palm trees; lunches with important business magnates, like Mr. Mullick, whose palace in the city center delights the raja because it is real museum of European art; evenings of classical theater at the Old Empire Theatre; opera recitals at the mansion of Mrs. Bristow, a grand English lady who manages to get the best divas and tenors of Europe to come and sing in her home; in the afternoons tasting ice cream at Firpo's Restaurant, “better than in Italy” as their publicity goes; dinners at the Tollygunge Club followed by dances to the music of great orchestras … Life in Calcutta is as close as it can be to life in London without being in England. The ladies are dressed in the latest fashions, using superb brocades and materials from Benares and Madras, and spend most of their time having Indian tailors copy the latest designs from Paris and London. After spending hours “ransacking” the big stores, like the Army and Navy Store, Hall and Andersons, and Newman's, which sell everything that is produced in Europe and America, Anita ends up in the afternoons at the French hairdresser's run by Messrs Malvaist and Siret, who stand in ecstasy at the shining hair of
notre rani espagnole
. The illustrious pair from Kapurthala can hardly keep up with all the dinners, concerts, and receptions to which they are invited. As it is a big city, in Calcutta it seems as though there are fewer restrictions than in the rest of India. One day, while at the races—and to the great satisfaction of Anita and the raja—the governor of Bengal, Lord Carmichael, introduces Anita to his wife and, in passing, invites her to dine at Government House, the seat of government. It is the first time they attend an official reception together. Only in a city as cosmopolitan as Calcutta can characters like this lord be found: modest, with smooth manners, always trying to please, an art lover, a beekeeper in his spare time, and the author of a paper on centipedes.
He is not like other Englishmen,
thinks Anita. Calcutta is decidedly the paradise of freedom.
¹⁶

But some news arrives to break the joyful frenzy of those days of shopping, preparations, and parties. Young Gita, the bride, has not embarked on the ship that is to bring her to India.

“Will we have to cancel the wedding?” asks Anita in horror.

“No. Let me find out what's happened.”

¹⁵
A smooth, velvety carpet, made in the town of Aubusson.

¹⁶
Years later, the raja would find out that Lord Carmichael received a “severe official reprimand” for having disregarded the restrictions imposed on Anita.

30

Six thousand kilometers from Calcutta, Princess Gita is lovesick. Torn between her feelings and her sense of duty, she is facing the hardest choice of her life. When she found out that the Catholic family of her suitor, Officer Guy de Pracomtal, is upset at the idea their son may marry a Hindu, Gita wanted to break it off.

“You forget the differences there are between us,” she told Guy.

“There are no differences between two people who love each other,” he answered.

“In your family they are staunch Catholics, and I'm a Hindu. One thing is for them to accept me socially, and quite another for them to allow their son to marry me. I have to go back to India to do my duty there.”

“I cannot let you go. It's asking too much of me.”

Gita wants to extinguish the fire of passion that is consuming her from within and not letting her get on with her life. She wants to recover her spiritual peace and be herself again. But she cannot.
How can I leave him when I love him so much?
she asks herself again and again.
How can I live in a place where I will be more or less watched, physically and emotionally?

“Come on, let's go to the registry office and get married. Once it's done, they'll have to accept it: my family and yours.”

In the days following that conversation, Gita would be tortured by doubt. On impulse she has decided to gain time by not boarding the ship when she was supposed to and staying a few weeks longer in France, perhaps to end up staying there for the rest of her life. But the conflict has made her ill. She has not been able to sleep or eat, and every time the doorbell rings she jumps.

From Calcutta, the raja succeeded in getting in touch with Mlle Meillon, the lady companion he has assigned to his daughter-in-law. This lady, in spite of being aware of the truth, tells him nothing for fear of a scandal, and especially because she fears she may be held responsible for the situation. After all, Gita is only sixteen. Mlle Meillon only tells him the girl's nerves are “delicate,” that she is going through a time of great anxiety because of her exams and that she was not able to board the ship because she was ill. But she assures him that she will arrive in time for the wedding because she will personally put her on the next ship heading for Bombay.

“Just to protect you,” Mlle Meillon tells Gita, “I have risked my job and the respect of the prince, but I'm not prepared to carry on with this lie for much longer.”

Gita confesses she is incapable of making a decision. “I burst into tears,” she would say later, “and poured my heart out. All the emotion I had managed to keep in for so many months came pouring out.”

“There's no future for love stories like yours,” Mlle Meillon finally told her honestly but drily. “Leave him and forget him once and for all. You cannot be happy if you cause unhappiness all around you.”

What her lady companion tells her has a lot of truth in it, thinks Gita. The following day, ready to follow her advice, she tries to break it off with Guy, “but we were too much in love to be strong, and I couldn't do it. That night, in my pain, I did something I'd never done before. I prayed, but not to the gods of Hinduism, but to the Virgin of the Christians. I had to make a decision right away; that is, either to board the next ship to Bombay or to run away and marry Guy in secret. “

In the end, with all the heartache she felt, but allowing herself to be guided by the wise counsel of Mlle Meillon, Gita embarks in Marseilles. She does so with a French friend of the raja's, Mme de Paladine, and her two daughters, who had been invited to the wedding. Two of the raja's sons, Baljit and Premjit, are also on board.

Mlle Meillon accompanies Gita to her berth, perhaps to ensure that she does not change her mind at the last moment.

“A Rajput woman never breaks her promises,” Gita tells her scornfully as she says good-bye. “I am returning to my country to marry a man I don't even know. A few years ago that seemed normal enough to me, but now it's like an aberration.”

“It's better like this. If you'd married Guy, you'd be a woman with no country, no race, no culture, and all your family would be ashamed of you.”

“Yes, you're right,” she replies sadly. “But I can't stop loving him.”

It seems odd to her to go back to India. In Bombay she feels like a foreigner. The noises and smells are so different from in France … Her fellow Indians now seem as if they come from another planet. The train journey to Kapurthala seems never-ending because she does not really want to get there ever. The train no longer stops in Jalandhar as it did before. The raja has financed the building of a narrow-gauge line to Kapurthala City itself, in order to be able to get as close as possible to the new palace in his carriage. At the station, a cohort of servants in livery and drivers take Mme Paladine and her daughters to a mansion already prepared for the guests; the raja's sons go to the new palace, and Gita is led to a closed carriage with curtains over the windows, which will take her to the women's palace. For the first time in many years she is back in purdah.

The initial concern for the bride's health is taken over by irritation and subsequent relief when she finally appears, as skinny as a rake, her face drawn, her skin grayish, and her eyes red from so much crying. As an excuse for the delay, she says she has been ill because of the pressure of her final exams, and when she says it, she is not being entirely untruthful. They were the worst exams of her life. The problem is that perhaps she will never know whether she passed or not. “Who cares about an exam when you're going to marry the heir to the throne!” says Ratanjit's mother. Gita would say, “I needed someone to give me a few kind words, to tell me everything would be all right and that, as I was doing my duty, the despair and worry would go away. But there was no one to say that to me.”

Anita is away when Gita arrives. She has ended up so exhausted with the preparations that she has decided to go to Mussoorie, to Château Kapurthala, to spend a week resting and enjoying the cool of the mountains. She has also fled from the stifling atmosphere in Kapurthala, where everyone's nerves are on edge because of the delay in the bride's arrival. When she gets back, the round, white marquees with tops in the shape of Oriental domes are standing in the immense palace park, like a city made of cloth. Anita takes charge of the finishing touches, as the guests start to arrive from all over the world. Nine princes have announced their arrival, among whom the maharaja of Kashmir stands out. He is the prince who welcomed them in Srinagar during their honeymoon. The Aga Khan is the highest-ranking Moslem guest. The rest send their eldest sons to represent them. In the
zenana
, the women keep Gita busy day and night, in an intense process of “re-Indianization.” Gita later said, “I had to learn my own language again and remember the old customs that the years spent abroad had erased from my mind. I was so busy that I managed to stay in a state in which I felt neither happy nor unhappy.”

In India, apart from the guests, a celebration of such importance attracts a crowd of hangers-on. Beggars, holy men, healers with infallible prescriptions for fertility, and sellers of miracles pour into Kapurthala by train, on foot, or in carts pulled by oxen. Tradition demands that they are equally as important as the princes who have been invited and they are to be cordially welcomed. The raja, generous and magnanimous, has ordered his cooks to give out food as required, the same food as the palace workers eat. Beyond the white tents, all those roofless people camp out under the stars to enjoy festivities that, as they mark the celebration of the wedding of a Crown Prince, also mark the unchanging order of things.

Fireworks such as have never been seen before in the Punjab signal the start of the Great Durbar, an enormous public audience in which the raja welcomes the guests, announced by footmen and trumpet calls. The courtiers and top civil servants of the state present their gifts and good wishes in the entrance porch of the palace. Among the guests from Europe is Prince Anthony of Orleans, as well as Prince Amadeo of Broglie. The raja has wanted Anita to be present all the time at his side. Anita acts as the lady of the house with all the honors, and the governor of the Punjab, the highest British authority attending the wedding accompanied by his wife, has no option but to greet her. This is the raja's little revenge for all the English restrictions. In spite of being secluded in their palace, his other wives hear about everything; as is logical, Anita's star role fills them with grief. Gita lives with them, making great efforts to reconcile herself to her new life, although she feels like rebelling when she hears the echoes of the party through the walls.

The dinner for eight hundred guests is served in the park and, after the desserts, the palace cannon fire thirteen salvoes of honor. Then the orchestra, consisting of fifty musicians, begins to play. The raja goes over to the other side of the top table, where the wife of the British governor is sitting next to the maharaja of Kashmir, takes her by the hand, and leads her to the center of the park rotunda, which has been turned into a dance floor. To the sound of a Strauss waltz, the raja and the wife of the representative of the Raj open the ball. Then the other guests and the raja's sons follow them onto the dance floor, illuminated by the flames of torches held by proud Sikh guards, the moonlight, and the glow of starlight.

Suddenly some music sounds and Anita sits up. She heard it for the first time on her last trip to Europe, and it gives her gooseflesh. It has something about it that stirs her, captivates her, and touches the deepest part of her being. It is a rhythm that South America launched into the world in 1910 and it stirs the passions: the tango.

“Will you dance with me?”

Anita jumps when she hears a warm voice that, in an aristocratic English accent, is asking her to dance. She raises her head to look at the man speaking to her. He is a tall, young Indian, wearing a salmon-pink turban on his head, pinned with an emerald from which an elegant plume of feathers rises. His smile reveals a line of perfect white teeth. His eyes, fixed on Anita's face, are waiting for her reaction. It is a gaze that is so intense that she avoids it and looks down at the floor.

“I don't know how to dance the tango.”

“Nor do I, but we could learn together.”

She suddenly finds herself in his arms, following his steps on the dance floor.

“But you're doing it perfectly!”

“I learned in London,” he answers. “I've heard a lot about you.”

“Have you?”

“I'm Kamaljit, the son of Rani Kanari. They call me Kamal.”

Now she knows. Those shining teeth, the oval-shaped face, the direct gaze, the haughty gait … All those features that she could not place belong to the raja.

“The one I still hadn't met! You've come at last!”

Kamal is not much like his brothers. With Anita he acts as if he had known her all his life, with no prejudices, no taboos, and with a naturalness that surprises her because she is not used to it. She is delighted with the discovery of this affable, affectionate, and amusing stepson. At last a light at the end of the tunnel in the raja's family! With his silk
kurta
and his triple necklace of pearls, his beard well trimmed, his almond-shaped, honey-colored eyes, and his princely manners, Kamal looks as though he has been taken out of one of the pictures of the ancestors that adorn the walls in Château Kapurthala in Mussoorie.

“My mother sends you her best wishes.”

“I suppose I'll see her tomorrow, at the Indian party.”

“She told me to tell you her heart is with you and that she is sorry she cannot have more contact with you. She knows you are not to blame for anything, and she wants you to know that.”

Poor Rani Kanari, so good, and yet so helpless! Perhaps because she is from a less pure Rajput line than the others, or perhaps because her addiction to drink has made the others lose respect for her, the fact is that her opinion carries less and less weight. It is a pity. Instead of consoling her, her words of solidarity transmitted by means of her son worry Anita because they remind her that she is an outsider. A condition that the raja himself is unable to resolve, because it does not depend on him but on the imperturbable laws of tradition.

On the day of the Indian celebration, more than two thousand guests arrive; Anita cannot see Rani Kanari because the Indian women celebrate among themselves, observing the rules of
purdah
, at one end of L'Élysée. But she does see them on the day of the wedding because it is traditional for the women to go to the palace to prepare the groom for the ceremony. Hundreds of them occupy the main courtyard where only the presence of two men is authorized: the groom and the priest. The Crown Prince is wearing a simple
dhoti
, a piece of cloth wrapped round the waist, going between the legs and fixed at the hips. After the fire ceremony, in which the boy walks round a fire while the priest recites his prayers, the ritual begins during which the women prepare the future husband. The mother, Harbans Kaur, accompanied by two aunts, rubs his body with soaps and perfumed water, covering him with foam. It is a spectacle that the Indian women enjoy a lot, perhaps because it is the only time in their lives when their word is law. When Ratanjit begs for mercy and asks them to stop rubbing him, they burst into laughter. Once they have left him as squeaky clean as a baby, he goes back into the palace to get dressed, and the women remain together while they wait for the bride.

Gita arrives on the back of an elephant, in a closed
howdah
so that no one may see her, faithful to the rules of
purdah
. Her retinue advances slowly amid cries, chanting, and the murmuring of thousands of people. In the entrance porch of L'Élysée, when the elephant kneels and Gita opens the silk curtains, the dazzling sunlight is so blinding that she has to close her eyes for a few seconds. When she opens them, she recognizes her father accompanied by the priest, dressed in spotless white; both of them help her down. It took two years to make her muslin dress embroidered with red silk and threads of pure gold. On her head there is a floating veil also made of silk, and round her neck she is wearing a necklace of two intertwined strings of cream-colored pearls, part of the state treasure of Kapurthala.