The Other Language(59)
“Where do you live?” he asked her.
“In the countryside outside Bhubaneswar. I have a school there where I teach and live with my students. Dance is all we do. We wake up at dawn and dance all day. It’s what I’ve done every day of my life for the last twenty years.”
He showed surprise. Twenty years of monastic life? That seemed like a waste to him, for a woman this beautiful.
“You are not married?”
She gave a little laugh and turned her face away from him, as though the question had embarrassed her.
“No, how could I? I’ve been married to my guru and my students are now married to me. Ours is a never-ending chain, we have no time to devote to anything else. This has always been the way knowledge and artistic expression has been taught by our gurus for centuries.”
“It sounds extremely demanding.”
“It has been my choice. Of course it is hard. But we are rewarded when we dance.”
She relaxed her face into a softer expression and smiled, as if letting him in on a secret.
“There is nothing like it.”
“I am sure. It must be”—he searched for an appropriate word and then said—“pure ecstasy?”
Her face remained neutral, almost grave. “Not exactly. It’s more like a feeling of oneness.”
Oneness. What a beautiful thing to feel, he thought.
There was a moment of suspension, as if she were going to add something, but then she looked away.
“I am afraid I have to leave you now,” she said. “Tomorrow we have a long rehearsal and I must go and get my sleep.”
He had had way too much to drink, that was clear the minute he opened his eyes the next day. However, despite the hangover, he stirred in his bed, pleasantly excited. No trace of his daily dose of mortality awareness to greet him today. He got up, full of resolve and expectation.
His wife lay in bed, still asleep, which was unusual, but he took the opportunity to take a quick shower and sneak out of the room before she got up. He was hoping to run into Ushma Das at breakfast and be alone with her again, so they could continue the conversation they’d had the previous night. Actually, he realized, it was more than just hope—he was dying to see her again. She was nowhere to be found, but the faint sounds of a tabla and a bansuri flute wafted through the Fort’s numerous courtyards and reached him as he walked into the terrace garden.
He sat at the empty breakfast table. He saw the prince cross-legged on a chair at the end of the terrace, facing the pale sun rising above the Narmada. He was taking his usual morning shave in front of an old-fashioned portable mirror. They said hello to each other but didn’t engage in a conversation. Men, he thought, had far less need to affect unnecessary familiarity between themselves than women did.
He was restless, so he had only a cup of coffee and didn’t bother to eat his fruit salad, but got up and began to walk around the labyrinthine courtyards of the Fort, following the sound of the music till he could make out Ushma’s voice; it sounded as if she was giving sharp instructions to someone. He stumbled into a small open space he hadn’t seen before, with a shiny red cement floor and wooden pillars. The musicians sat on a long pillow and three young girls, in the same shorter sari and pants he’d seen Usha wearing the day before, moved around the space with their hands entwined over their heads, their torsos tilted in a diagonal line. Usha was sitting next to the drummer, clapping her hands to the rhythm while giving the dancers the tempo in quick staccato spurts.
“Taka-taka-taka-tee-takatee-takatee-taa-taaa!”
He slid quietly inside the space and sat in a corner, attempting a semilotus position, though his knees hurt.
“Takateeta deena, takateeta deena, takateeta deen!”
He beckoned her, tilting his head in what he thought would be an appropriate gesture.
“Stooop!”
The music ceased, the dancers’ poses came undone.
She rose quickly and came over to him.
How lovely she looked! A strand of fresh jasmine was tied to her braid, and she was wearing a green kurta and purple pants with a scarf around her tiny waist. Her cheeks were flushed, she exuded heat from the exertion and a subtle scent of musk.
“I’m sorry but you cannot watch the rehearsal.”
He rose unsteadily and dusted his trousers. How foolish of him.
“I am so sorry … I had no idea. I am really sorry.”
Then he saw that she was smiling.
“I don’t want you to see any of this before tonight,” she said quietly. “I want you to see it the way it is meant to be seen. With proper lighting and costumes.”
There was a glow in her eyes, and an excitement. For a split second he saw she could even perhaps be insecure.
“Of course, of course. You are absolutely right.”
“I want it to be a surprise for you,” she added.
“Absolutely. Well, goodbye then. I’ll see you tonight,” he said quietly.
She nodded with her enigmatic smile. He moved away and turned to look at her one last time. She was standing by the pillar, watching him go, a foot curled on its toes crossing over the other ankle, in a pose similar to one of those miniatures he’d seen somewhere, in one of the museums—or was it on a bas-relief?—he couldn’t remember which.
He spent the day aimlessly, waiting for the evening to come, elated and restless. Elated because of what Ushma Das had unexpectedly stirred in him. True, his body had responded to attractive women before; he’d had his random secret affairs, his brief sexual encounters, like all men his age who’d been in a marriage for more than ten years. It didn’t make a difference, that’s what all of them said the rare times the subject of extramarital affairs surfaced. They all agreed on one point: what really mattered was conjugal solidarity. That’s what they’d invested in and were counting on. By rating their solid marriage as priority number one, they’d automatically given themselves permission to f*ck around without thinking much of it. But this was a different sort of thing, it wasn’t even carnal, or just carnal. This had a tinge of emotion, an undercurrent of real feeling. He didn’t see Ushma Das just as an attractive woman, no, she was more like a goddess who had stepped down from those temple sculptures he had snubbed, which he now so regretted. She was quintessential, archetypal, inspiring. Yes, this was exactly what his life had been lacking for too long: inspiration, and, why not, an unexpected bout of romanticism. On the other hand, he felt a rising anxiety at the thought of what was going to happen that evening. He wasn’t sure that Ushma Das was even aware he had a wife. He had almost forgotten it, too.