The Journeyer

“They are married to Your Highness before their first menstruum?”

“Why, not just my wives, Marco-wallah. Every girl in India. The parents of any daughter are anxious to get her married off before she is a woman, and before any mishap to her virginity, which would make her unmarriageable. For another reason, every time a daughter has her flow, her parents are guilty of the hideous crime of letting die an embryo that might prolong the family line. It is well said: If a girl is unwed by the age of twelve, her ancestors in the other world are mournfully drinking the blood she sheds every month.”

“Well said, yes.”

“However, to return to the subject of my own wives. They enjoy all the traditional wifely rights, but those do not include any queenly rights, as in less civilized and more debile monarchies. The women take no part in my court or my rule. It is well said: What man would heed the crowing of a hen? This one here, for instance, this is my premier wife and my titular Maharani, but she never presumes to sit on a throne.”

I bowed politely to the woman and said, “Your Highness.” She only gave me the same look of dull detestation she had given her Raja husband. Still trying to be polite, I indicated the dark-brown swarm about her, and added, “Your Highness has some handsome princes and princesses.”

She still said nothing, but the little Raja growled, “They are not princes and princesses. Do not give the woman ideas.”

I said, in some wonderment, “The royal line is not of patrilineal primogeniture?”

“My dear Marco-wallah! How do I know if any of these brats are mine?”

“Well, er … really … ,” I mumbled, embarrassed to have broached the subject right in front of the woman and her brood.

“Do not cringe, Marco-wallah. The Maharani knows I am not insulting her specifically. I do not know if any of my wives’ offspring are of my begetting. I cannot know that. You cannot know that, if you ever marry and have children. That is a fact of life.”

He waved around at the various other wives whose rooms we were strolling through, and repeated:

“That is a fact of life. No man can ever know, for certain, that he is the father of his wife’s child. Not even of a seemingly loving and faithful wife. Not even a wife so ugly a paraiyar would shun her. Not even a wife so crippled she cannot possibly stray. A woman can always find a way and a lover and a dark place.”

“But surely, Your Highness—the young little girls you wed before they could possibly be fecundated—”

“Who knows, even then? I cannot always be on the spot the instant they first flow. It is well said: If a woman sees even her father or brother or son in secret, her yoni grows moist.”

“But you must bequeath your throne to somebody, Your Highness. To whom, then, if not your presumed son or daughter?”

“To the firstborn son of my sister, as all Rajas do. Every royal line in India descends sororially. You see, my sister is indisputably of my own blood. Even if our royal mother was promiscuously unfaithful to our royal father, and no matter if my sister and I were sired by different lovers, we did drop from the same womb.”

“I understand. And then, no matter who sires her firstborn …”

“Well, of course, I hope it was I. I took my eldest sister for one of my early wives—fifth or sixth, I forget—and she has borne I think seven children, presumably mine. But the oldest boy, even if not my son, is still my nephew, and the royal bloodline remains intact and inviolate, and he will be the next Raja here.”

We emerged from the zenana quite near to the part of the palace where the kitchen was, and we could still hear from in there moans and whimpers and sounds of thrashing about. The little Raja asked me if I could amuse myself for a while, since he had to attend to some royal duties.

“Go back to the zenana, if you like,” he suggested. “Although I am careful to marry none but wives of my own white race, they keep producing children of disappointingly dark skin. A sprinkling of your seed, Marco-wallah, might lighten the strain.”

Not to be discourteous, I murmured something about having taken a vow of continence, and said I would find something else to occupy me. I watched the little Raja strut away, and I quite pitied the man. He was a sovereign of sorts, holding the power of life and death over his people, and he was the tiny cock of a whole hen yard—and he was infinitely poorer and weaker and less contented than I, a mere journeyer with only one woman to love and cherish and keep for the rest of my life; but that one was Hui-sheng.

That reminded me: I could now dispense with my temporary co-journeyer. I went in search of Tofaa, who had been stertorously snoring when I left our chambers that morning. I found her on a palace terrace, gloomily watching the gloomy Krishna celebration still going on in the square below.

She immediately and accusingly said, “I smell the pachouli on you, Marco-wallah! You have been lying with perfumed women. Alas, and after such an admirably sinless long time of behaving gentlemanly with me.”

I ignored that, and said, “I came to tell you, Tofaa, that you may resign your menial position of interpreter, whenever you wish, and—”

“I knew it! I was too demure and ladylike. Now you have been beguiled by some shameless and forward palace wench. Ah, you men.”

I ignored that, too. “And, as I promised, I will arrange for your safe journey back to your homeland.”

“You are eager to be rid of me. My genteel chastity is a reproach to your goatishness.”

“I was thinking of you, ungrateful woman. I have nothing to do now but wait here until the proper Buddha’s tooth is found and delivered. In the meantime, if I need anything translated, both the Raja and the Musicmaster are fluent in Farsi.”

She sniffled noisily, and wiped her nose on her bare arm. “I am in no hurry to go back to Bangala, Marco- wallah. I would be only a widow there, too. In the meantime, the Raja and the Master Khusru have occupations of their own. They will not take time to lead you about and show you the splendid sights of Kumbakonam, as I can do. I have already inquired and sought them out, just for your benefit.”

So I did not compel her to leave. Instead, on that day and during the days thereafter, I let her take me about and show me the splendid sights of the city.

“Yonder, Marco-wallah, you see the holy man Kyavana. He is the holiest inhabitant of Kumbakonam. It was many years ago that he determined to stand still, like a tree stump, to the greater glory of Brahma, and he is doing it yet. That is he.”

“I see three aged women, Tofaa, but no man. Where is he?”

“There.”

“There? That is only an enormous white-ant hill, with a dog wetting on it.”

“No, that is the holy man Kyavana. So still did he stand that the white ants used him as framework for their clay hill. It gets bigger every year. But that is he.”

“Well … if he is in there, he is dead, surely?”

“Who knows? What does it matter? He stood just as immobile when he was alive. A most holy man. Pilgrims come from everywhere to admire him, and parents show their sons that example of high piety.”

“This man did nothing but stand still. So very still that no one could tell if he was alive—or if now he may be dead. And that is called holy? That is an example to be admired? Emulated?”

“Do lower your voice, Marco-wallah, or Kyavana may manifest his great holy power at you, as he did at the three girls.”

“What three girls? What did he do?”

“You see that shrine a little way beyond the anthill?”

“I see a mud shack, with those three old hags slumped in the doorway, scratching themselves.”

“That is the shrine. Those are the girls. One is sixteen years old, the others seventeen, and—”

“Tofaa, the sun is very hot here. Perhaps we should go back to the palace so you can lie down.”

“I am showing you the sights, Marco-wallah. When those girls were about eleven and twelve years old, they were as irreverent as you. They decided, for a frolic, to come here and open their garments and reveal their pubescent charms to the holy man Kyavana, and tempt at least one part of him out of immobility. You see what happened. They were instantly struck old and wrinkled and white-haired and haggard, as you see them now. The city built the shrine for them to live out their few remaining years in. The miracle has become famous all over India.”

I laughed. “Is there any proof of this absurd story?”