CHAPTER TWELVE
The moon was high, bathing the sleeping veranda in a wash of glistening silver, and the air was deliciously moist, heavy with perfume from the garden below. From somewhere among the distant rooftops came the thread of a man's voice, intoning a high-pitched melody, trilling out wordless syllables like some intense poetry of sound.
Hawksworth leaned back against one of the carved juniper-wood posts supporting the canopy above his sleeping couch and explored Kali's body with his gaze, as a mariner might search a map for unknown islands and inlets. She lounged opposite him, resting against an oblong velvet bolster, examining him with half-shut eyes while she drew contentedly on a hookah fired with black tobacco and a concentrated bhang the Arabs called hashish.
Her hair hung loose, in gleaming black strands reaching almost to her waist, and her head was circled by a thin tiara of gold and pearls, supporting the large green emerald that always hung suspended in the center of her forehead—even when she made love. The gold she wore—long bracelets at her wrists and upper arms, swinging earrings, even tiny bells at her ankles—seemed to excite her in a way Hawksworth could never understand. Her eyes and eyebrows were kohl-darkened and her lips carefully painted a deep red, matching the color of her fingernails and toenails. And as always she had dyed her palms and the soles of her feet red with henna. Four different strands of pearls hung in perfect array beneath her transparent blouse, glistening white against her delicate, amber-tinted skin. He noticed, too, that her nipples had been rouged, and told himself this was the only thing about her that recalled the women in London.
"Tonight your thoughts were far away, my love. Do you weary of me so soon?" She laid aside the rome-chauri, the rubber ring impregnated with powdered hair that she often asked him to wear for her, then took a vial of rose attar from beside the couch and dabbed herself absently along the arms. "Tell me the truth. Are you now beginning to recoil from women, like so many bragging and posturing men I've known, and to long for a boy who fears to seek his own pleasure? Or a subservient feringhi woman whose parts are dry from lack of desire?"
Hawksworth studied her for a moment without replying. In truth he did not know what to say. Your nightly visits to this couch have been the most astonishing experience of my life. To imagine I once thought being with the same woman night after night would eventually grow monotonous. But you always come here as someone different, always with something new. You play on my senses like an instrument—with touch, with scent, with tongue. Until they seem to merge with my mind. Or is it the reverse? But you're right when you say the mind must surrender itself first. When that's done, when the mind is given up to the body, then you somehow forget your own self and think only of the other. And eventually there grows a union of pleasure, a bond that's intense, overwhelming.
But tonight he could not repress his vagrant mind. His feeling of failure churned too deep. It had stolen his spirit.
Day after tomorrow the Discovery weighs anchor, he told himself, with half the cargo we'd planned and twice the men she needs, while the Resolve slowly breaks apart on a sandbar. I've failed the Company . . . and myself. And there's nothing that can be done. Kali, dear Kali. The woman I really want to be with tonight is Shirin. Why can't I drive her from my mind? Half the time when you're in my arms, I pretend you're her. Do you sense that too?
"I'm sorry. I'm not myself tonight." You're right as always, he marveled, the mind and the body are one. As he paused, the singer's voice cut the stillness between them. "How did you know?"
"It's my duty as your courtesan to feel your moods. And to try to lift the weight of the world from your heart."
"You do it very well. It's just that sometimes there's too much to lift." He studied her, wondering what she was really thinking, then leaned back and looked at the stars. "Tell me, what do you do when the world weighs on you!"
"That's never your worry, my love. I'm here to think of you, not you of me."
"Tell me anyway. Say it's a feringhi’s curiosity."
"What do I do?" She smiled wistfully and drew again on the hookah, sending a tiny gurgle into the quiet. "I escape with bhang. And I remember when I was in Agra, in the zenana."
She lay aside the mouthpiece of the hookah and began to roll betel leaves for them both, carefully measuring in a portion of nutmeg, her favorite aphrodisiac.
"Tell me how you came to be here, away from Agra."
"Is it really me you wish to hear about?" She looked at him squarely, her voice quiet. "Or is it Shirin?"
"You," Hawksworth lied, and absently stroked the edge of her foot, where the henna line began. Then he looked into her dark eyes and he knew she knew.
"Will we make love again if I tell you?"
"Possibly."
"I know how to make you keep your promise." She took his toe in her mouth and brushed it playfully with her tongue before biting it, ever so lightly. "So I will tell you anything you want to know."
He scarcely knew where to start. "What was it about the harem, the zenana, that you liked so much?"
She sighed. "We had everything there. Wine and sweet bhang. And we bribed the eunuchs to bring us opium and nutmeg and tobacco. We could wear tight trousers, which none of the women here in Surat dare for fear the mullahs will condemn them." As she spoke, her eyes grew distant. "We wore jewels the way women in Surat wear scarves. And silks from China the way they wear their dreary cotton here. There was always music, dance, pigeon-flying. And we had all the perfumes—musk, scented oil, attar of rose—we could want. The Moghul had melons brought by runner from Kabul, pomegranates and pears from Samarkand, apples from Kashmir, pineapples from Goa." She remembered herself and reached to place a rolled betel leaf in his mouth. "About the only thing we weren't supposed to have was cucumbers . . ." She giggled and took a betel leaf for herself. "I think His Majesty was afraid he might suffer in comparison. But we bribed the eunuchs and got them anyway. And we also pleasured each other."
Hawksworth studied her, not quite sure whether to believe it all. "I've heard the harems of the Turks in the Levant are said to be like some sort of prison. Was it like that?"
"Not at all." She smiled easily. A bit too easily, he thought. "We used to take trips to the countryside, or even go with His Majesty when he went to Kashmir in the hot summer. In a way we were freer than the poor third wife of some stingy merchant."
"But weren't you always under guard?"
"Of course. You know the word 'harem' is actually Arabic for 'forbidden sanctuary.' Here we call it by the Persian name zenana, but it's still the same. It's really a city of women. All cities must have guards. But we each received a salary and were like government officials, with our own servants. We each had our own apartment, immense and decorated with paintings and bubbling fountains at the door. Except there were no doors, since we were always supposed to be open to receive His Majesty."
"Wasn't there anything about it you didn't like?" He examined her skeptically. "It seems to me I could list a few drawbacks."
"A few things. I didn't like the intrigues. All the women scheming how to lure His Majesty to their apartment, and giving him aphrodisiacs to try to prolong his time there. The beautiful ones were constantly afraid of being poisoned, or spied on by the older women and the female slaves. And some of the women were always trying to bribe eunuchs to bring in young men disguised as serving-women." She took the stem of a flower and began to weave it between his toes. "But there are always intrigues anywhere. It's the price we pay for life."
"You've never told me how you came to be in the zenana in the first place. Were you bought, the way women are in the Levant?"
Kali burst into laughter. "Feringhis can be such simpletons sometimes. What wonderful legends must be told in this place called Europe." Then she sobered. "I was there because my mother was very clever. The zenana is powerful, and she did everything she could to get me there. She knew if His Majesty liked me, there could be a good post for my father. She planned it for years. And when I finally reached fiftee
n she took me to the annual mina bazaar that Arangbar always holds on the Persian New Year, just like his father Akman did."
"What's that?"
"It's a mock 'bazaar' held on the grounds of the palace, and only women can go. Anyone who wants to be seen by His Majesty sets up a stall, made of silk and gauze, and pretends to sell handiwork, things like lace and perfume. But no woman can get in who isn't beautiful."
"Was that where the Moghul first saw you?"
"Of course. Arangbar came to visit all the stalls, riding around on a litter that some Tartar women from the zenana carried, surrounded by his eunuchs. He would pretend to bargain for the handiwork, calling the women pretty thieves, but he was really inspecting them, and the daughters they'd brought. I was there with my mother, and I wore a thin silk blouse because my breasts were lovely." She paused and looked at him hopefully, brushing a red-tipped finger across one nipple. "Don't you think they still are? A little?"
"Everything about you is beautiful." It was all too true. As he looked at her, he told himself he much preferred her now to how she must have looked at fifteen.
"Well, I suppose Arangbar must have thought so too, because the next day he sent a broker to pay my mother to let me come to the zenana."
Hawksworth paused, then forced nonchalance into his voice. "Did Shirin, or her mother, do the same?"
"Of course not." Kali seemed appalled at the absurdity of the idea. "She's Persian. Her father was already some kind of official. He was far too dignified to allow his women to go to the mina bazaar. The Moghul must have seen her somewhere else. But if he wanted her, her father could not refuse."
"What eventually happened to you . . . and to her?"
"She became his favorite." Kali took out her betel leaf and tossed it aside. "That's always very dangerous. She was in great trouble after the queen came to Agra."
"I've heard something about that." He found himself wanting to hear a lot more about it, but he held back. "And what happened to you after you entered the zenana?"
"His Majesty only came to me once, as was his duty." She laughed but there was no mirth in her voice. "Remember I was only fifteen then. I knew nothing about lovemaking, though I tried very hard to please him. But by that time he was already entranced with Shirin. He began to call for her almost every afternoon."
"So what did you do after that?"
"I began to make love to the other women there. I suppose it sounds strange to you, but I found I actually enjoyed other women's bodies very much."
"Weren't you ever lonely?"
"A little. But I'm lonely here sometimes too." She paused and looked away. "A courtesan is always lonely. No man will ever truly love her. He'll listen to her sing to him and joke with him, but his heart will never be hers, regardless of all the sweet promises he'll think to make her."
Hawksworth watched her quickly mask the sadness in her eyes as she reached for the hookah. At that moment he wanted more than anything in the world to tell her it wasn't always true, but he knew she would hate the lie. Instead he took out his own betel leaf and cleared his throat awkwardly.
"You've never told me how you came to be called Kali. Mukarrab Khan said that's not your real name."
She looked at him and her eyes became ice. "He's a truly vicious man. What did he say?"
"That you would tell me." He paused, bewildered. "Don't you want to?"
She wiped her eyes with a quick motion. "Why not? You may as well know. Before someone else tells you. But please try to understand I was very lonely. You can't know how lonely it becomes in the zenana. How you long for a man to touch you, just once. You can't imagine. After a while you become . . . sort of mad. It becomes your obsession. Can you understand? Even a little?"
"I've seen men at sea for months at a time. I could tell you a few stories about that that might shock you."
She laughed. "Nothing, absolutely nothing, shocks me any more. But now I'll shock you. There was this beautiful eunuch who guarded the zenana at night. He was Abyssinian, very tall and striking, and he was named Abnus because he was the color of ebony. He was truly exquisite."
"A eunuch?" Hawksworth stared at her, disbelieving. "I always thought . . ."
She stopped him. "I probably know what you always thought. But eunuchs are not all the same. The Bengali eunuchs like Mukarrab Khan has were sold by their parents when they were very young, and they've had everything cut away with a razor. Muslim merchants buy boys in Bengal and take them to Egypt, where Coptic monks specialize in the operation. That's the type called sandali. They even have to pass water through a straw. But the operation is so dangerous few of the boys live, so they're very expensive. Abnus had been sent to His Majesty as a gift from some Arab merchant, who was so stingy he simply crushed the testicles of one of his grown slaves instead of buying a Bengali boy. No one realized Abnus could still do almost everything any man can do. It was our secret."
"So you made love to a eunuch?" Hawksworth found himself incredulous.
Kali smiled and nodded. "Then one day our Kashmiri ward servant entered my apartment unannounced. She had suspected us. I didn't know until that moment she was a spy for the palace." She stopped and a small shiver seemed to pass through her. "We were both condemned to death. I didn't care. I didn't want to live anyway. He was killed the next day, left on a pike to die in the sun."
Kali paused and her lips quivered slightly. Then she continued. "I was buried up to the neck in the courtyard. To watch him die. Then, in late afternoon some Imperial guards came and uncovered me. And they took me back into the palace. I was delirious. They took me into this room, and there she was."
"Who?"
"Queen Janahara. She offered me a chance to live. I didn't know what I was doing, where I was, anything. Before I thought I'd already agreed." At last a tear came. "And I've never told anyone. I'm so ashamed." She wiped her eyes and stiffened. "But I've never done what I told her I would do. Not once."
"What was that?"
Kali looked at him and laughed. "To come here with Mukarrab Khan. And spy on Shirin. So now and then I just send some silly nonsense to Her Majesty. I know what Shirin is doing . . . and I admire her for it."
Hawksworth tried to keep his voice even. "What exactly is it she's doing?"
Kali stopped abruptly and stared at him. "That's the one thing I can't tell you. But I will tell you that I'm now also supposed to be spying on you too, for Khan Sahib." She laughed again. "But you never say anything for me to report."
Hawksworth found himself stunned. Before he could speak, she continued.
"But you asked about my name. It's probably the real reason I despise Janahara so much. Before, I was named Mira. My father was Hakim Ali, and he came to India from Arabia back when Akman was Moghul. But the queen said I could never use those names again. She said that because I'd caused Abnus' death, she was renaming me Kali, the name the Hindus have for their bloodthirsty goddess of death and destruction. She said it would remind me always of what I'd done. I hate the name."
"Then I'll call you Mira."
She took his hand and brushed it against her cheek. "It doesn't matter now. Besides, I'll probably never see you again after tonight. Tomorrow you'll be getting ready to leave for Agra. Khan Sahib told me I'm not to come to you any more after this. I think he's very upset about something that happened with your ships."
"I'm very upset about it too." Hawksworth studied her. "What exactly did he say?"
"No, I've told you enough already. Too much." She pinched his toe. "Now. You will keep your promise, my love. And then after tonight you can forget me."
Hawksworth was watching her, entranced. "I'll never forget you."
She tried to smile. "Oh yes you will. I know men better than that. But I'll always remember you. When a man and a woman share their bodies with each other, a bond is made between them. It's never entirely forgotten, at least by me. So tonight, our last night, I want you to let me give you something of mine to keep."
She reached under
the couch and withdrew a box, teakwood and trimmed in gold. She placed it on the velvet tapestry between them.
"I've never shown this to a feringhi before, but I want you to have it. To make you remember me, at least for a while."
"I've never had a present from an Indian woman before." Hawksworth carefully opened the box's gold latch. Inside was a book, bound in leather and gilded, with exquisite calligraphy on its cover.
"It's called the Ananga-Ranga, the Pleasures of Women. It was written over a hundred years ago by a Brahmin poet who called himself Kalyana Mai. He wrote it in Sanskrit for his patron, the Viceroy of Gujarat, the same province where you are now."
"But why are you giving it to me?" Hawksworth looked into her eyes. "I'll remember you without a book. I promise."
"And I'll remember you. You've given me much pleasure. But there are those in India who believe the union of man and woman should be more than pleasure. The Hindus believe this union is an expression of all the sacred forces of life. You know I'm not a Hindu. I'm a Muslim courtesan. So for me lovemaking is only to give you pleasure. But I want you to know there's still more, beyond what we've had together, beyond my skills and knowledge. According to the Hindu teachings, the union of male and female is a way to reach the divine nature. That's why I want you to have this book. It describes the many different orders of women, and tells how to share pleasure with each. It tells of many things beyond what I know."
She took the leatherbound copy of the Ananga-Ranga and opened it to the first page. The calligraphy was bold and sensuous.
"In this book Kalyana Mai explains that there are four orders of women. The three highest orders he calls the Lotus Woman, the Art Woman, and the Conch Woman. The rest he dismisses as Elephant Women."
Hawksworth took the book and examined its pages for a time. There were many paintings, small colored miniatures of couples pleasuring one another in postures that seemed astounding. Finally he mounted his courage.
"Which 'order' of woman are you?"
"I think I must be the third order, the Conch Woman. The book says that the Conch Woman delights in clothes, flowers, red ornaments. That she is given to fits of amorous passion, which make her head and mind confused, and at the moment of exquisite pleasure, she thrusts her nails into the man's flesh. Have you ever noticed me do that?"
Hawksworth felt the scratches along his chest and smiled. Only in India, he thought, could you make love so many ways, all kneeling before a woman rather than lying with her. So she scratches you on the chest.
"So far it sounds a bit like you."
"And it says the Conch Woman's love cleft, what the Hindus call her yoni, is always moist with kama salila, the woman's love seed. And its taste is salt. Does that also remind you of me?"
Hawksworth was startled with wry delight when he realized he actually knew the answer. Something he'd never had the slightest desire to know about a woman in England.
In England. Where baths were limited to the face, neck, hands, and feet—and those only once every few weeks. Where women wore unwashed petticoats and stays until they literally fell off. Where a member of the peerage was recently quoted as complaining "the nobler parts are never in this island washed by the women; they are left to be lathered by the men."
But Kali was scrubbed and perfumed each day like a flower. And she had taught him the pleasure in the taste of all her body.
"I guess that makes you a Conch Woman. But what are the others supposed to be like?"
"Let me tell you what it says." She reached and took back the book. "The next one, the Art Woman, has a voice like a peacock, and she delights in singing and poetry. Her carnal desire may be less strong than the Conch Woman, at least until she's properly aroused, but then her kama salila is hot, with a perfume like honey. And it's abundant, producing a sound with the act of union. She is sensuous, but for her lovemaking is always a kind of art."
"Who would be an Art Woman?"
She looked at him and smiled wryly. "I think Shirin, the one who fascinates you so much, may well be an Art Woman. But I don't know her body well."
But I will, Hawksworth told himself.I’ll know all of her. Somehow. I swear it.
"And what about the Lotus Woman?"
"According to Kalyana Mai she's actually the highest order of woman. She's a spiritual being, who loves to converse with teachers and Hindu priests. She's always very beautiful, never dark, and her breasts are full and high. Her yoni is like an opening lotus bud and her kama salila is perfumed like a lily newly burst."
"And who would be a Lotus Woman?"
"The only one I've ever known for sure is in Agra now. She's a classical dancer, a Hindu temple dancer. Her name is Kamala."
"I saw a few dancers recently. At the Shahbandar's estate house. In my feringhi opinion they weren't of a very high order."
"Those were nautch girls, common whores. They degrade and debase the classical dance of India for the purpose of enticing customers. Kamala is nothing like them. She's a great artist. For her the dance, and lovemaking, are a kind of worship of the Hindu gods. I don't entirely understand it, but I could sense her power the one time I saw her dance. When I saw her I began to believe what people say, that she embodies the female principle, the divine female principle that defines India for the Hindu people. Believe me when I tell you she's very different from anyone here in Surat. She knows things that no one else knows. People say they're explained in a very old book she has."
"How can there possibly be any more to know?" Hawksworth thought of the hundreds of pleasure tricks Kali had taught him, delights unknown in Europe. "What's left to put in this other book?"
"Her book is one I've never actually seen. I've only heard about it. It's a sacred text of the Hindus', an ancient sutra, in which the union of man and woman are shown to be a way of finding your own divine natures, the God within you both. I'm told it's called the Kama Sutra, the Scripture of Love and Pleasure."
Hawksworth found himself beginning to be overwhelmed. "Maybe we'd better start with this book. What exactly does it say?"
"The Ananga-Ranga explains that each order of woman must be aroused, must be awakened to her pleasure, in a different way. At different times of day, with different caresses, different kinds of kisses and scratches and bites, different words, different embraces during union. It says if you learn to know women well, you will understand how to give and receive the greatest enjoyment with each."
"Is it really so complicated?"
"Now you're starting to sound like some Muslim men I know, who lock their women away and make love to boys, claiming women are insatiable. With desires ten times stronger than those of a man. But they're actually afraid of a woman, so they believe she's to be enjoyed quickly and as little as possible. They care nothing for her own pleasure. But a woman must be aroused to enjoy union to its fullest. That's why this book is so important. I happen to think you are one who cares about a woman's pleasure."
Hawksworth stroked her smooth leg mischievously, then took the book and gently laid it aside. "Tell me what it says about a Conch Woman. What have I been doing that's right and wrong?"
"The book says that the Conch Woman prefers union with a man in the third pahar of the night."
"When is that?"
"Time is counted in India by pahar. The day and the night are each divided into four pahars. The first pahar of the night would be between six and nine in the evening by feringhi time. The third pahar would be your hours between midnight and three in the morning. Is that not the very time I come to your couch?"
"That's convenient."
"It also says that on certain days of the moon, which it tells, the Conch Woman particularly enjoys having her body pressed with the nails of the man. Some days roughly, some days gently. And on certain days the embrace must be forceful, on certain days gentle. There are many special ways to touch and embrace a Conch Woman, and they are explained here. Also there are certain ways of kissing her, of biting her, of scratching her. For example, y
ou may kiss her upper lip, or her lower lip, or you may kiss her with your tongue only."
"And how am I supposed to be able to kiss you with my tongue only?" Hawksworth cast a skeptical glance at the book.
"It's very easy." She smiled at him slyly. "Perhaps it's easier if I show you."
She took his lower lip gently with the tips of her fingers, passed her tongue over it slowly and languorously, and then suddenly nipped it playfully. He started in surprise.
"There. You see there are many ways to please a woman, to kiss her, to bite her, to scratch her. When you have become a true lover of women, my strong feringhi, you will know them all."
Hawksworth shifted uncomfortably. "What next?"
"The book also tells of the bodies of women. Foolish men often do not know these things, my love, but I think you are beginning to learn. It tells that in the upper cleft of the yoni there's a small organ it likens to a plantain-shoot sprouting from the ground. This is the seat of pleasure in a woman, and when it is excited, her kama salila flows in profusion."
"And then?"
"When the woman is ready, you may both enjoy the act of union to its fullest. And there are many, many ways this may be done. The book tells of thirty-two. It is the great wisdom of Kalyana Mai that a woman must have variety in her love couch. If she does not find this with one man, she will seek others. It is the same with men, I think."
Hawksworth nodded noncommittally, not wishing to appear overly enthusiastic.
"Finally, he tells the importance of a woman reaching her moment of enjoyment. If she does not, she will be unsatisfied and may seek pleasure elsewhere. In India, a woman is taught to signify this moment by the sitkrita, the drawing in of breath between the closed teeth. There are many different ways a woman may do this, but you will know, my love."
"Enough of the book." He took it and replaced it in the box. "Somehow I think I've already had a lot of its lessons."
"That was merely my duty to you. To be a new woman for you each night. And I think you've learned well." She took the box and settled it beside the couch. Then she laughed lightly. "But you still have a few things to learn. Tonight, for our last time together, I will show you the most erotic embrace I know." She examined him with her half-closed eyes, and drew one last burst of smoke from the hookah. Then she carefully positioned the large velvet bolster in the center of the couch. "Are you capable of it?"
"Try me."
"Very well. But I must be deeply aroused to enjoy this fully. Come and let me show you all the places you must bite."