The Palace of Illusions Read online

  I hoped she was right. If that part didn't come true, then perhaps the others wouldn't either.

  Dhai Ma heaved a sigh. “He probably made up the bit about Kallu dying, too! I'll probably be the one to perish first, the way that man tortures me day and night. What a waste of time this was! Oh, my aching back! Wait till we get back to the palace. I'll give that maid a box on her ear that she won't forget for the rest of her life.”

  Each night I thought of my name. Already I'd insisted that everyone address me by it. Princess Panchaali. A name strong like the land, a name that knew how to endure. It was what I'd been waiting for. No matter what else came to pass, I would always thank the sage for giving it to me. I thought also of the palace the spirits had promised me. Most magical, they'd called it. I wondered how I would ever gain such a palace.

  I didn't want to contemplate the other prophecies—they were too disheartening—but they knocked against my heart. I understood, suddenly, the unspoken questions the spirits had answered: Who would I marry? Would I ever be mistress of my own home? Would I find love? Were these the kinds of desires hidden in my heart? How puerile they were, things my maids might have wanted! Was I then no better than the women who surrounded me, wrapped in the cocoons of their unimaginative lives, not even knowing enough to want to escape? It was a mortifying thought.

  Other nights I considered the mystery of the book the sage showed me, the story of my life. How could such a book be written before I'd lived the incidents it described? Did this mean that I had no control over what was to happen?

  Surely it wasn't so. Otherwise, why did he take the trouble to warn me?

  I didn't speak to the sage again for many years, though I heard of him from time to time. I learned his name: Vyasa the Compendious, because of the many hefty books he'd written. Vyasa the seer, born on a dark island of a union between an ascetic and a fisher princess. On my wedding day, I would see him in the marriage hall, seated on my father's right, his placement revealing an importance I hadn't guessed at. He'd gaze at me, blinking mildly, as though he'd never seen me before. When I'd make my first great mistake, his expression would remain unchanged, so that I wouldn't realize the enormity of what I'd done until it was too late.

  Later, among my wedding gifts, I'd find a wooden box. When I'd open it, a familiar smell, wild and bitter, would rise from the powder inside. I'd use it in Khandav, and later in the Kamyak forest. Thrown on fire, it warded away insects, just as he'd promised, and nightmares as well. On those nights, my rough bark-bed seemed softer. But no matter how much I called for them—for by now I had other, wiser questions—the spirits did not return to me again.

  6

  The palace was in turmoil because Sikhandi had returned.

  My maids gathered in corners and corridors, whispering fervently, but they scattered like sparrows when I approached them. Dhri was shut up in council with our father, so I had no way of asking him. And Dhai Ma, when she finally appeared, wringing her hands, was so distraught that I could hardly get any sense out of her.

  “But who is Sikhandi? And why is everyone so afraid of her?”

  “She is—was—oh, I don't know how to say it!—your royal father's eldest daughter, then she did something terrible and King Drupad sent her away. Now she's returned. They say for the last twelve years she's been in a forest somewhere, performing the strictest austerities—eating only leaves of the holy bel tree, standing neck-deep in freezing water all winter, that kind of thing—so that now she's been turned into a great and dangerous warrior.”

  I was intrigued by this sister whose existence had been hidden so successfully. (What else, I would wonder later, had they been keeping from me?) I'd never met a woman who was a dangerous warrior. “I'd like to see her,” I said.

  “Well, I guess that's a good thing,” Dhai Ma muttered, “because Sikhandi wants to see you, too. This afternoon, in fact. Only—she isn't really a woman anymore.”

  “Do you mean she no longer behaves like one?” I asked. Dhai Ma had a lengthy compendium of rules as to how women should behave. For years she'd tried to din them into my head. Already I felt sympathy for the unknown Sikhandi.

  But Dhai Ma sped off, with more hand-wringing, to ensure that the noon meal befitted the dignity of a great and dangerous warrior. She paused only to inform me that Dhri, who usually ate with me, would not be here because Sikhandi had expressed a desire to speak with me alone.

  I waited with some excitement to view my sudden-found sister. I wondered what she looked like. Was her body hard and muscular, her arms scarred from weapons? Or was it her heart that had changed so that it no longer shook at the thought of killing? How had she survived in the forest—for she must have been just a girl when she left? What terrible crime could she have committed for our father to banish her at that tender age? And why did she want to speak with me, alone? Perhaps finally I'd have in her what I'd so longed for: a friend with whom to whisper and laugh about silly things, to exchange ornaments and confidences, to tell my secrets— even that of the spirits' prophecy, which I held inside me like a dark, jagged rock.

  Sikhandi walked with a panther grace, light and assured on the balls of his feet. Yes, his. What I'd interpreted as Dhai Ma's expression of disapproval was the literal truth: Sikhandi, who was born a woman, was now a man! Clearly, he wished there to be no misunderstanding about this: he was clothed only in a white cotton dhoti, his wiry upper body bare, his nipples flat and burnished as copper coins. He carried a bow, which he leaned against the wall before approaching me. His cheekbones were like knives. His almond-shaped eyes gave him a foreignness that was not unattractive. Around his neck hung a garland of white lotuses.

  Silently he put out his hands to touch my cheeks. I hesitated— he was a stranger, after all—but then I allowed it. His fingers were slim, like a woman's, and callused from stringing a bow. A shiver went through me as they grazed my face. I noticed that we were the same height, and somehow this consoled me for the loss of the sister he was supposed to be.

  He smiled past the shadows in his almond eyes. He stood on tiptoe to kiss my forehead. “Little sister,” he said. “I thank you from the depth of my soul for what you'll do for me.”

  Sikhandi stayed with me for a day and a night, and in that time he told me his story.

  He said: Have you heard the fable of the donkey that wrapped himself in a lion's hide so the other animals would fear him? Or of the wolf that hid under sheepskin so he could mingle undetected with his prey? I feel like both sometimes. A fake—or a hidden menace.

  No, I didn't pray to the gods to be changed. I'd lost faith in them a lifetime ago. This time I invoked a yaksha. He appeared in the sky with his burning demon sword. When he heard what I wanted, he laughed and plunged it into me. The pain was unbearable. I fainted. When I awoke, I was a man. And yet not completely so, for though my form was changed, inside me I remembered how women thought and what they longed for.

  I had to be a man, because only a man can do what I must accomplish—kill the greatest warrior of our time.

  Yes, someone greater even than Drona.

  His name is Bheeshma the terrible. He is guardian of Hastinapur and granduncle to that prince, Arjun, who defeated our father, and Drona's friend. Tangled indeed is the web of this world!

  This garland? You've noticed it doesn't fade? I've worn it for twelve years now. I was six when I found it hanging on the palace gate and placed it around my neck. Our father cried, What have you done, you foolish, unlucky girl! But I hadn't taken it in childish fancy, as he supposed, and nothing he did would make me put it back. Finally he banished me so that the ill luck rising from my action wouldn't haunt his house.

  Oh, he and I are father and child indeed! We both live for vengeance.

  When I wore the garland, my previous life, which I had remembered only in glimpses, fell upon me like a flood.

  First I remembered my death upon a pyre: flesh melting, eyelids burnt away, the skull bursting. And through it all: my impatience to be go
ne. Because without death there is no rebirth, and without rebirth I could not kill Bheeshma.

  The god Shiva himself had promised me that in my next life I would kill him whom no man had defeated before.

  My name? In that body I was Amba, the princess of Kasi, the rejected one.

  Very well, the story from the beginning, then. We three sisters, princesses of Kasi, were to marry. My father arranged a swayamvar, inviting all the kings of the land, so that we could choose our husbands. I already knew the man I wanted: King Salva, who had wooed me for a year.

  The garland for Salva was in my hands when Bheeshma descended on us like a plague. He forced the three of us onto his chariot and took us, terrified, to Hastinapur, to marry us to his younger brother.

  When I'd recovered wits and breath, I told him, I love Salva. I can't marry your brother.

  The brother said, A woman who has embraced another in her heart is not chaste. I do not wish to marry her.

  Bheeshma said, Very well, I will send you back to Salva.

  But when I went to him, Salva said, Bheeshma has taken you by the hand. You've been contaminated by his touch. You belong to him now.

  I said, If someone grasps my hand against my will, how does that make me his? I said, I'm the one who decides to whom I belong.

  In the sandalwood days of love I'd thought that if I could not have Salva, I would die. Now I discovered that a woman's life is tougher than a banyan root, which exists without soil or water. For Salva forced me to return to Bheeshma, and still I lived.

  I told Bheeshma, My happiness has crumbled into dust because of you. Marry me so that at least my honor can be saved.

  Bheeshma said, Forgive me. In youth I promised my father I would never marry. I cannot go back on my word.

  I said, What is a dead vow, compared to a living woman's ruin?

  He didn't answer. When I looked on his serene face, hatred filled me with its black haze, more hatred than I'd ever thought I could feel.

  Abandoned and shamed, I went from court to court, seeking a champion who would battle Bheeshma, but all were afraid of him. I went to the Himalayas in my despair and performed austerities so that the gods would help me. Years passed; my youth fell away. The gods were reluctant to interfere because Bheeshma was the son of Ganga, goddess of the sacred river. Finally, the child-god Kartikeya took pity and appeared before me with this garland. He said, If you can find someone to wear it, he will defeat Bheeshma.

  My hopes rekindled, I went back to the kings with the everlasting garland. But the cowards! In spite of a god's assurance, they were still afraid. Even King Drupad, known in that time as a champion of the weak, dared not accept it. In disgust I flung it on his palace gate and went to my death.

  The humor of the gods is cruel; or perhaps they see more than we do. I was reborn as Drupad's daughter. The moment I set eyes on the garland-that-never-fades, my past returned to me, and with it my rage. I took the garland for myself, determined to do on my own what no man dared do for me.

  Remember that, little sister: wait for a man to avenge your honor, and you'll wait forever.

  Later I asked Krishna, “What Sikhandi said about his past life, was it really true?”

  Krishna shrugged. “He believes it to be so. Isn't that what truth is? The force of a person's believing seeps into those around him— into the very earth and air and water—until there's nothing else.”

  Oh, it was hard to get a direct answer from Krishna!

  “Could he really have been Amba in a previous incarnation?” I persisted. “Or did he—through some strange empathy—feel her sorrow so deeply that he resolved to avenge her?”

  “ We all have past lives,” Krishna said, though that wasn't what I'd asked. “Highly evolved beings remember them, while lesser souls forget.”

  “No doubt you remember yours.”

  “I do! Once I was a fish. I saved mankind from the great flood. Once I was a boar. I lifted Earth out of the primordial waters with my tusks. Once, as a giant tortoise—”

  “Wait!” I interrupted. “Those are the incarnations of Vishnu! I read about them in the Puranas.”

  He lifted his shoulders and spread his hands. “There's no fooling you, Krishnaa! In you, I've met my match!”

  I eyed him with suspicion. I never could tell when he was joking.

  Then he said, “I remember your last life, too.”

  I tried to feign indifference, but I couldn't keep it up. “Tell me!” I cried.

  “You were just as impatient then. In meditation, you invoked Shiva. He came and stood in front of you, silent and blue as moonlight. You asked for a wish to be granted. He smiled. You asked for it again—and again. Five times you made your wish before he had the chance to say yes. Therefore, in this life, you will have what you wanted five times over.”

  Five. The word beat upon my heart, and the warnings of the sage, which I'd managed to push to the back of my mind over the last months, stung me again like poisonweed.

  “What was my wish?” I asked, my throat dry.

  “Haven't you had enough of prophecies yet!” Krishna said. His eyes, bright with amusement, were like black bees.

  King Drupad had invited Sikhandi to stay with him, but Sikhandi politely excused himself. (Drupad tried, unsuccessfully, to disguise his relief at this.) However, when Sikhandi said that he would like to stay with my brother and me instead, I sensed our father's uneasiness. Perhaps he was worried that Sikhandi would be a corrupting influence! But I was delighted. Something about Sikhandi drew me to him. Was it his easy acceptance of me? His own unusual life? He bore his destiny so casually, it made me worry less about Dhri's and mine. He made me realize the existence of possibilities I hadn't dreamed of.

  We whiled away his short visit in eating and storytelling and playing at dice (for Dhri had taught me this most unladylike pastime). We laughed a great deal, often at the littlest things. I composed poems and riddles to entertain my brothers and watched as they practiced with swords.

  Dhri bested Sikhandi easily, then asked with concern, “How are you going to defeat Bheeshma?”

  “I don't have to defeat him,” Sikhandi said. “I just have to kill him.”

  Reluctant to let him leave my life, I tried to tempt Sikhandi to remain longer. Was it because one day (if the prophecy about my husbands was true) I, too, would cross the bounds of what was allowed to women? I promised to write a poem in his praise, to let him win at dice, to have Dhai Ma cook his favorite fish curry. Dhri offered to teach him the newest wrestling holds.

  Sikhandi shook his head, his eyes regretful. “Thank you for making me so welcome,” he said. “All my life, people have been glad to see me leave.”

  Dhri gave him his favorite horse and the best spear in the armory. I gave him sweet laddus to eat on the way, and a yak-hair shawl against the approaching winter. In its folds I had secreted gold coins. I imagined his face when he'd discover them on a cold and hungry day in an unfriendly town.

  But he would take nothing.

  “To start my penance,” he explained, “I must travel light, living off only what the land yields.”

  “Penance!” I cried. “For what? It's others who should be doing penance for all the ways in which they've let you down.”

  “To kill the greatest warrior of one's time is a terrible deed,” he said, “no matter what the cause. It weakens the foundations of society. It's worse when it's done through trickery—and that's what I'll have to resort to, because certainly I don't have the skill to achieve it otherwise. I'm atoning for it in advance, as it's very likely that I, too, will die in the process.”

  Under the shadow of the palace gates, Dhri said, “Brother, you've been both woman and man. You must know secrets that others don't. Share some of your wisdom with us.”

  Sikhandi's lips twisted in a bitter smile. “Yes, I've learned a few things along the way, though now that I'm neither man nor woman they can't do me any good. But here's one that may be of use to you: the power of a man is like a bu
ll's charge, while the power of a woman moves aslant, like a serpent seeking its prey. Know the particular properties of your power. Unless you use it correctly, it won't get you what you want.”

  His words perplexed me. Wasn't power singular and simple? In the world that I knew, men just happened to have more of it. (I hoped to change this.) I would have to ponder Sikhandi's words.

  But I had something else to ask before he left. I grasped his hands one last time, feeling those calluses. I'd tried to soften them with a paste, but he'd stopped me. “What's the use?” he'd said. “I'll just have to grow myself some more.”

  “When we first met,” I asked, “why did you thank me?”

  “I thanked you because you'll help me fulfill my destiny.”

  “How?”

  “You'll bring about the Great War where I'll meet Bheeshma and kill him.” His face darkened. “But I should have begged your pardon instead for all the humiliation you'll suffer before the war, and all the sorrow afterward. And much of this you'll endure, sister, because your destiny is linked with mine.”

  7

  I sat stubbornly under a jamun tree in my garden, trying to concentrate on a volume of nyaya shastra. It was a large and laborious book that set out the laws of the land, which my brother was currently studying. (Soon after Sikhandi's visit, Father had terminated my lessons with his tutor, declaring that I needed to focus on more feminine interests.) Around me summer unfurled its drowsy petals in a conspiracy to distract me. Insects sang. Luscious purple jamuns dropped lazily onto thick grass. The paired cry of bright birds pulled at my chest, releasing a strange restlessness. (Was this a feminine interest?) My companions, daughters of courtiers, clustered themselves under canopies hoisted to protect our complexions. (They'd been inflicted on me after Sikhandi's visit by my father. He hoped they would be a good influence, but they merely annoyed me.) They murmured gossip, chewed betel leaf to redden their lips, exchanged recipes for love potions, pouted, giggled without reason, and emitted suitably feminine shrieks if a bee orbited too close. From time to time they sent me beseeching glances. If only I'd decide to go back inside the palace! This pitiless sun—even with a canopy, it was so bad for the skin! They'd have to spend hours soaked in yogurt and turmeric paste to counter its ravages!