The Dancer and the Raja (16 page)

She is very careful about what she eats, especially at that time of year. She tries to avoid meat since she saw the swarms of flies in the Moslem butcher's shops in the center of the city. Before eating fruit, she washes it in bowls of water to which she adds a few drops of potassium permanganate. Mme Dijon has warned her to always do it herself, because the cook could forget and on the matter of hygiene one cannot trust the servants. It is a lesson that Anita was forced to learn a few days after arriving. She taught one of the cooks to make “Indian
gazpacho
” a local variation of the Andalusian chilled soup, made with soya oil and with a pinch of curry added to it so the raja would like it. One morning, as she went into the kitchen, she saw one of the fifteen kitchen assistants straining the
gazpacho
through a sock.

“What on earth are you doing?” she asked him in horror. “That's one of His Highness's socks!”

“Don't be angry, ma'am, I took one that wasn't clean,” answered the assistant without batting an eyelid.

Being pregnant means that everyone gives you lots of advice, and sometimes it is difficult to follow it all. The midwife has told her to avoid hot, spicy dishes because they might harm the baby. Dr. Warburton has told her not to ride, dance, or play tennis or badminton. He has read her a paragraph from
Medical Treatment of Children in India
, a kind of Bible for the English, which advises “keeping spirits calm and remaining of even humour, staying happy and well-disposed” while awaiting the arrival of the baby. But the doctor has avoided reading her another chapter in the book that gives a terrifying list of all the common ailments that children can suffer in India: abscesses, stings of wasps and scorpions, bites from wild dogs and snakes, cholera, colic, indigestion, and sunstroke. Not to mention malaria, typhoid fevers, and smallpox. To avoid all these misfortunes, the Sikhs hold a monthly ritual in celebration of the unborn child, in which a group of priests gather round Anita to pray.

On April 25 in the evening, she begins to feel the first strong contractions. There is feverish activity in the Villa Buona Vista. Servants, nurses, midwives, and healers go up and downstairs with a mixture of excitement and concern at the
memsahib
's groans. The midwife's intervention only manages to turn those groans into screams that cut through the air, laden with heat. Anita screams like a Moslem woman weeping for her dead. The baby is coming backward, and the midwife cannot turn him round, not even with the help of the nurses. At night Dr. Warburton arrives with another two doctors. Anita is still in pain and is bathed in sweat and tears, shaken by seismic shivers that seem to tear her insides. Her complexion has acquired a greenish-gray tone; she is exhausted and unable to speak a word. “The doctors came to fear for the lives of both mother and child,” Anita would say in her diary. “I did not cease praying to the Virgin of La Victoria, begging her to free me from a bad end.” She feels as though she had to pay for all the happiness life has given her, as though she had to expiate the sin of her extraordinary destiny.

Dr. Warburton and his assistants carry out skillful manipulations in order to try to change the baby's position. It is not the first time they have faced a difficult birth, but this one is being especially complicated. The heat is unforgiving. “Seeing that things were becoming more difficult by the minute, I commended myself to the Virgin and promised her a ceremonial mantle if she granted me the grace to save my life and that of the child that was coming.” In the end Dr. Warburton manages to pull the baby out, covered in grease and blood and with the umbilical cord wound round his neck. “After several terrible hours that I do not want to remember, and half dead and in agony, I heard the baby crying and the
ayas
and servants running around announcing the good news.”

The raja, who had never so directly experienced one of his wives giving birth, also began to fear for Anita's life. But his blind trust in the English doctors helped him to bear the anguish of waiting. Now he is so happy at the result that he gives the order to fire the city cannon in a thirteen-gun salute of honor, announcing in this way a holiday in Kapurthala. He orders his ministers to prepare the giving out of free food at the gates of Gurdwara, the main mosque and the temple of Lakshmi, in order to share that great day with the poor. Servants on the backs of elephants give out sweets and cakes to the children of the city. Finally, faithful to the tradition, he orders the gates of the prison to be opened, giving the few occupants back their freedom.

⁹
The word punkha, which first designated the men who pulled the rope, has changed to also refer to the electric appliance, the ventilator.

¹⁰
The resident was the highest representative of the British Crown.

22

In the wonderful Kamra Palace, the raja's old palace, where his other wives live, behind the carved wooden doors and lattice windows, the news is not received with the same joy. Her Highness Harbans Kaur is very worried. The line of succession is not in question, because her son Ratanjit is the legitimate heir to the throne of Kapurthala; furthermore, if he did not become heir from
force majeure
, there are three others, including the son of Rani Kanari, which would guarantee a line of pure Indian blood. It is not that a wife feels necessarily humiliated or rejected when her husband takes another wife. In itself, the fact of marrying another woman does not cause antagonism, hostility, or jealousy among the other wives. But in this case, as Anita is a foreigner and in addition she has refused to form part of the
zenana
, there is much mistrust, to such an extent that Harbans Kaur has refused to recognize the Spanish girl as a legitimate wife.

The idea that the raja has fallen in love to the point that he leaves the palace and goes off to live with the “foreigner” in Villa Buona Vista is seen as an insult. It is not what is expected of him. It is true that Jagatjit visits them regularly and is concerned for their well-being, as reported by the doctors and
ayas
that go from one palace to the other. They lack for nothing, but that is not the question. He has spent months without spending a single night with his wives, or even with his favorite concubines. Months without sharing an evening with them and without spending time with his numerous family. The harem is languishing. Their lord, the soul that gives them life, is under the influence of a foreign woman who has stolen his heart, taken away his willpower, and has not even deigned to visit them once. This last is what hurts them more than anything else, because, according to tradition, the oldest women in the
zenana
take care of the new ones in order to make their lives more comfortable. All for the sake of better relations, since in the big houses there is no friction or jealousy, despite Her First Highness always enjoying a higher level of authority. With her refusal to form part of the harem, Anita has closed the door to a friendship with the raja's other women, who feel belittled by a girl who cannot even boast of being highborn. They think that the fact she has shown not the slightest interest in them is proof that she also has no interest in the raja. Because they are his life and his real family, and Anita is only an outsider.

The prince's infatuation has been such a surprise that in Kamra Palace they wonder if Anita is not something of a witch, and if the raja has not been the victim of some spell or curse on one of his trips across the “black pool,” as the ocean is known in Indian mythology. Only that could explain the change in his conduct and his distancing himself from them. But if that is true … who can say that it may not occur to him to name the Spanish woman's son as his heir? And although the women know this is an absurd possibility that the English would never permit, fear is a bad adviser and undermines the peaceful stability of the
zenana
.

Anita perceives some of all this when the seers of the kingdom come to visit her. From their observations of the stars, they conclude that the child will have a long life, great personal attractiveness, and “everything will go well for him if he does not stray away from the orbit of his mother's star.” But there are other soothsayers too who subject her to long sessions singing interminable mantras, opening and closing books, throwing dice on a mat, or reciting prayers for hours. It is too much for Anita, who is still not over her exhaustion. When one of them invites her to drink a brew that will supposedly keep evil spirits away, Anita flatly refuses. “I was afraid. So many strange prophecies made me suspect that there was a plot against my child with the aim of denying him his hereditary rights, because I am a foreigner,” she wrote in her diary. From phrases overheard in conversations at dinners and garden parties, Anita had come to know a little of the story of Florrie Bryan. But the resistance she had noticed in Mme Dijon when she asked her for more details about the unfortunate destiny of the English princess was what most warned her. Although Florrie Bryan had died more than ten years previously, her story floated like a worrying shadow over the life of the Spanish princess of Kapurthala.

The English are not content either with the birth of Anita's child, because it goes against everything they defend and believe in. For the first time the raja has not received congratulations from the viceroy or, of course, from the emperor. Only a note has arrived from the governor of the Punjab, congratulating him, very briefly, for “such a happy event.” And the fact is that the English have not yet accepted the wedding. “Mademoiselle Anita Delgado, from a respectable but humble family,” an official report began in 1909, “is repulsed, as a European, by the Indian way of living in the zenana, which has meant that the Rajah is turning over the matter of the position of this young lady in society.” The word
mademoiselle
reveals that the English have not recognized her as a wife. In other words, for the British, Anita is not a princess and neither is she considered officially as one of the raja's wives. That is why she was not received by the resident in Kashmir. If her mother knew about this …! What a fiasco! The Spanish girl lives in a kind of legal limbo, in no-man's-land. She does not suspect that she has been the subject of countless discussions regarding her official status in the offices of the top civil servants of colonial power, as well as in the viceroy's office. The raja has not told her about the subtle signs of contempt that he has perceived among those civil servants, just as impertinent as what has come from his own family. He does not want to reveal what is cooking in the sewers of power because he fears that the stink might spoil his idyll. He hates them interfering so much in his private life and he hates the fact that a few civil servants, ignorant of the age-old customs of India, have the ability to affect his life. How far now are the days of Ranjit Singh, lion of the Punjab, maharaja of the Sikhs, free and strong, who did not have to bend the knee to anyone because he held absolute power! Now the presence of the British is felt everywhere, even in places where they do not belong. It is a constant presence, like a leaden sky over one's head, whose clouds are getting lower and lower.

The raja finds himself forced to take advantage of the first opportunity to deal with the subject with the authorities in Delhi, and this is something that concerns him deeply because it is as though he were begging for something that, according to him, is his by right. “The new viceroy and the governor general of the Punjab have shown sympathy for His Highness's cause and have told him that the fact that they are the direct representatives of His Majesty the King of England prevents them from showing any sign of official or unofficial recognition of his Spanish wife. The provincial chiefs and other British civil servants are not obliged to follow these restrictions.” At least he has managed to get them not to call her “mademoiselle.” Now she is his “Spanish wife.” He hopes secretly that when they get to know Anita and can value her gracefulness and sense of humor, things may change. Perhaps the English might end up finding her as beautiful, seductive, and different from the rest of people as he does; the raja cannot understand why they are not captivated by her Spanish dancing girl's manners, and neither can he understand why their hearts are not moved by the fluttering of her hands or the crystal tones of her laughter, as happened with the other princes during their honeymoon in Kashmir. Since then they have not stopped receiving invitations from all over the subcontinent. No one wants to miss the raja of Kapurthala's “Spanish wife.”

The suffering she went through in labor and the subsequent recovery, even slower than is normal because of the overwhelming, pitiless heat, together with the feeling of responsibility at having her child in her arms, make Anita feel more sensitive. She feels that her life is as fragile as a house of cards and, when she guesses at the dislike of the women of the
zenana
, she feels afraid for her little boy. That is why she insists to her husband that the child should be baptized as soon as possible. Not by the Catholic rite, because that is now unthinkable, but by the Sikh rite. She knows that if she brings him into this religion as soon as possible, she will also bring him into the raja's world. She is intelligent enough to guess that religion is the best protection for her son and may even be a guarantee of a future.

So, forty days after the birth, an impressive retinue made up of a caravan of elephants and four Rolls-Royces leaves Kapurthala to undertake a journey of sixty kilometers to Amritsar, the holy city of the Sikhs and second-largest city in the Punjab after Lahore. The elephants can barely pass through the narrow streets that surround the Golden Temple. Anita, dressed in a sari of bright colors and with her head covered, is astonished at the spectacle of that monument, which blazes in the rays of the sun and whose image is reflected in the waters of the sacred pool.

Built in the middle of the shining waters of an ample ritual pool, crossed by a bridge, the Golden Temple is a white marble building full of brass, silver, and gold decorations. The dome, entirely covered with gold leaf, houses the holy book of Sikhs, the
Granth Sahib
. The book is kept wrapped in silk and covered with fresh flowers, and every day its pages are aired using a fan made of a yak's tail. Only a broom made of peacock feathers is noble enough to remove the dust from such a venerated object.

The faithful circle the pool, always clockwise; they walk barefoot over the shining marble, and their heads are covered by colored turbans. They have long beards and exuberant mustaches. Sometimes they are accompanied by their wives and children, who have their hair tied up in buns. Some of them bathe in the pool, greeting the divinity by putting their hands together pointing up to heaven. Others finger the beads of their perfumed wood rosaries while they walk round it. The atmosphere of peace and the imperturbable calm of the place are impressive. The cleanliness too. “You could eat a fried egg off the ground here,” says Anita.

In this holy place class does not seem to exist, or castes, or differences between men; it is as though the founder of Sikhism were still alive. He was a Hindu named Nanak, who surprised his family at the age of twelve by refusing to have the traditional red thread of the Brahmins put on him. “Isn't it one's actions and merits that distinguish one from others?” he asked them. Convinced that wearing the thread created false distinctions between men, he refused to wear it. His rebellion against the religion of his parents made him reconcile the beliefs of Hinduism with its thousand gods and the monotheism of Islam into a new religion, cleared of many of the contradictions and nonsense of the other two. “There are no Hindus, there are no Moslems; there is only one God, the Supreme Truth,” Nanak finally proclaimed, a worthy heir to the mystics who have always been an inherent part of the kaleidoscope of India. Curiously, thousands of kilometers from his birthplace in the Punjab, some contemporaries of his were also pushing forward a similar period of religious renaissance in Europe. Like Luther and Calvin, Nanak condemned idolatry and instead of dogma and doctrine, he defended the basic belief in Truth. “Religion does not rest on empty words,” said Nanak. “A religious person is someone who considers all men as his equals.” His preachings found wider and wider acceptance in a country that suffered the abuse of the caste system, and he gradually surrounded himself with
shishyas
, a Sanskrit word that means “disciple” and from which the word
Sikh
is derived. And so Nanak became its first guru, another Sanskrit word that means “master.” He and his successors fought against excessive ritualism, inequality and discrimination, and ill-treatment of women. Persecuted by the Moghuls, who were believers in Islam, the gurus were able to take the source of their vitality from the Moghuls' tyranny. The ninth and last successor of Guru Nanak changed their religion into a militant faith, a fighting brotherhood of warriors to whom he gave the name Khalsa, “the Pure.” As a sign of distinction, and to reward their dedication, all Sikhs were granted the surname Singh, which means “Lion,” a worthy homage to a people who have had to fight heroically for their identity and beliefs over the centuries.

If the first time Anita saw the Sikh priests—those “bearded men that looked like Methusalah,” as her maid Lola called them—she felt a mixture of fear and intimidation, now it is the opposite: they inspire kindness and trust. With them she feels protected. She has the impression that while those men, who look like wise men out of the Bible, are nearby, nothing can happen to her or her baby. In the Golden Temple, the holy refuge of the Sikhs, the priests give the baby the name of Ajit and then the surname Singh, which he will share with six million other believers. The very simple ceremony consists of making those present drink water and sugar from a metal cup, mixed with a double-edged saber. This mixture of sweetness and steel is called
amrit
, “the nectar of life,” and a drop of it is poured onto the baby's lips. Meanwhile, a priest intones the baptism verses, “You are a child of Nanak, a child of the Creator, the chosen one … You will love all men with no distinction of caste or belief. You will not worship stone or tomb or idol. In times of danger or difficulty, always remember the holy name of the gurus. Do not pray to any particular one; pray for the whole of the Khalsa.”

From now on Anita assumes responsibility for her son keeping the five basic precepts of his religion. So that she does not forget, the raja writes them down for her, in French, in a blue, lined notebook that bears the coat of arms of Kapurthala.