The Palace of Illusions (55 page)

“Mother,” Yudhisthir cried, “why do you want to leave us now, when we've finally gained back our father's kingdom? Isn't this what you wanted all your life? Don't you want to see your great-grandson sit on this throne one day?”

Sahadev, her favorite, threw himself at her feet. “Are you angry with us?”

She smiled and shook her head and gave us all her blessings. She allowed my husbands to escort her to the hermitage so that they wouldn't worry overmuch. But she didn't explain her decision, choosing instead to remain an enigma that would haunt her sons. Is it ungracious of me to think that she knew, by doing so, that she would remain in their minds long after she was dead?

For months my husbands grieved over Kunti's departure, discussing it over and over in a vain attempt to comprehend it. They asked me what might have caused it, but for once I didn't know. In recent years, I'd deferred increasingly to her. (Kurukshetra had cured me of the longing to control things. Perhaps it had cured her, too, for she no longer tried to impose her will on me.) And though she—like us all—sorrowed for the dead, I thought she had come to terms with loss. After all, she was luckier than most: five of her six sons had lived.

It was only years later, when my husbands and I set out on our own final journey, that I understood her motivation.

41

Panting, the messenger fell at the foot of the throne. His clothes—once white to symbolize mourning—were dirt-stained and torn. His disheveled hair and bulging eyes gave him the look of a madman. His chest heaved as he tried to speak, but no words emerged from his mouth, only guttural cries that we couldn't understand. We knew him, however, by the emblem he carried: he was a royal messenger from Dwarka, Krishna's city.

A concerned Yudhisthir called for water and potions to calm his terror. He spoke in broken stutters, the news leaving his mouth halting and lame like a beggar who knows he will be unwelcome. The Yadu clan was annihilated. Balaram was dead. No one knew where Krishna was, but it was unlikely that he was alive. Overnight, Dwarka had turned into a city of mourning, peopled—like Hastinapur after the war—with children and widows. But this was more shocking, for we were in a time of peace, our complacent minds unprepared for such a tragedy.

A part of me refused to believe this devastating news, but another part, dark and pessimistic, knew it was true. Hadn't I, deep inside, been waiting for just such a calamity ever since Gandhari's terrible curse at the death fields of Kurukshetra? At first every time I'd looked at Gandhari, I'd remembered it and shuddered, hating
her. Each day, I'd offered flowers and water and prayed for Krishna's safety. But the years passed—ten, twenty, twenty-five—without incident. Gandhari grew bent and mild-mannered and spent her time increasingly at her devotions. Slowly, the curse slipped further and further back into my mind, coming to rest among other might-have-beens. As Gandhari and I became friends, I hoped for her sake that she, too, had forgotten about it. It's embarrassing to be the author of a curse that promised annihilation only to fizzle out like a damp firecracker!

But once again death had leaped upon a loved one just when I believed him to be safe. How ironic that Gandhari's curse should come into effect when she had outgrown her anger and was finally at peace.

My mind couldn't encompass the fact that Krishna was no more, that he wouldn't suddenly show up, as was his habit, with his teasing grin, to take care of whatever was troubling me. A huge emptiness yawned beneath my feet, ready to swallow me. I remembered the sorrow I'd felt at the yagna when I'd thought Sisupal had killed him, but this numbness was worse. There was, however, no time to indulge in grief. No time even to hold ceremonies for the dead. Rumor was that brigands were gathering around Dwarka already. If they struck, who would hold them back? Yudhisthir dispatched Arjun to the city that Krishna had built with such care at the ocean's edge. He was to find out who had caused the massacre and punish them appropriately. Then he was to bring back the women and children to Hastinapur. We can't assuage their sorrow, Yudhisthir said, but at least we can provide them with a refuge.

As we waited, rumors flitted around our ears like dusky moths. (Later we would realize there were bits of insidious truth in each of them.) The Yadu warriors had died because of an ascetic's curse. A
great serpent had come out of the sea and swallowed them when they went to visit the pleasure gardens of Prabhas. The rushes on the seashore had turned by demon magic to arrows. These flew at them, striking them dead at the slightest touch. The Yadus had drunk a drugged wine that caused them to go mad and turn on their own. A traveling minstrel sung about how Krishna was killed in a copse by a hunter who had mistaken him for a deer, but this was so blatantly impossible that we chastised him and sent him away with the paltriest of remunerations.

Each day we sent our attendants to the palace rooftop to watch for Arjun, but each day they returned shaking their heads. Why should it take him, the greatest living warrior in Bharat, so long to accomplish a task that, though sad, was simple enough? Around us there were disturbing omens that the world order was falling apart. Owls shrieked at random through the day, and the skies were filled with smoke though there was no fire. Arriving at the altar to adorn the deities, the palace priest found the tracks of dried tears on their stone cheeks. At sunrise, instead of the crowing of roosters, we heard the cries of night creatures: coyotes and she-jackals. On the day when, from the women's terrace, I saw crows attacking an eagle, pecking at him until he fled, I knew that Krishna was truly gone.

When he returned, for a moment no one recognized Arjun. His hair had turned white. His face was haggard, and his ribs formed tense ridges under his skin. His eyes darted from side to side, reminding us of the messenger from Dwarka. He swayed on his feet and spoke in a cracked voice, calling on death to take him. Before Yudhisthir could catch him, he crumpled in a faint. Only then did we realize that he hadn't brought anyone back with him.

When he regained consciousness, Arjun said: “They killed each other, the fools! I don't know what insanity came upon them. They'd gone to spend a pleasure day at Prabhas, all the men of the Yadu clan. Perhaps they drank too much. Perhaps the sun was too hot. They began to insult each other about the part each had played in the war, though Krishna had made them promise never to bring it up. Soon, everyone started taking sides. A fight began—it didn't end until every one of them was dead! Everyone except Krishna's charioteer. He's the one who told me all this. He told me this, too: the Yadus weren't carrying weapons—they were there on holiday, after all. They plucked the rushes that grew on the seashore and threw them at each other, but the rushes turned to javelins—can you fathom this?—and pierced their hearts.

“No, Balaram didn't die there, nor Krishna. They didn't join the fight, though they didn't try to stop it either. I don't understand why. They could have done it easily. Everyone respected them.

“I don't know. Perhaps they were disgusted by the folly of men who'd once been such great warriors. Perhaps they knew it was time for things to end. Balaram walked to a deserted beach where he went into a trance. Daruk saw the life-breath leave his mouth in the shape of a white serpent and enter the sea. Krishna saw it, too. He didn't weep, though he had loved Balaram most dearly, in spite of their disagreements. He said to Daruk, Go back to the city. Send word to the Pandavas. Tell them to save the women, if they can. There was a grove of trees nearby. He lay down, half hidden by the tall grass. That was where the hunter's arrow found him. Yes, he was killed by a mere hunter, our Krishna who had once dazzled me with his immense cosmic form! I wouldn't have believed it either if I hadn't seen his body with my own eyes.

“Can you imagine the grief in Dwarka? Krishna's wives threw
themselves at my feet, crying, Bring him back, we can't live without him. We wrapped him in yellow silk, his favorite color. He was still smiling—you remember that smile? I had to place his body on the pyre. How my hand shook as I struck the flint. When the flames rose, many of his wives threw themselves into the fire. No, I didn't stop them. If I weren't honor-bound to bring you this news, I would have done the same. All my life, he'd been next to me, guiding me, putting up with my ignorance. How can I tell you how it feels to remain in the world when he's no longer here?

“I gathered the others and started for Hastinapur. Barely had we stepped out of the city gates when we heard a great roar behind us. Turning, we saw a tidal wave rushing toward the city. It crushed the beautiful golden domes of Dwarka. There's nothing left there now but swirling foam and seaweed.

“The worst was still to come. As we were traveling through the forest, bandits fell upon us. I reached for my Gandiva, but I couldn't string it. I tried to invoke an astra. Not even the simplest of summoning chants would come to my mind. I remembered my brother Karna, the way I'd killed him, and wondered if this was retribution. But it was more. With the death of Krishna, my spirit—or whatever you'd call that which had made me great—had withered away. The bandits took the women and their gold—I couldn't stop them. I who in my day have made an entire phalanx of warriors flee from a single arrow! The women cried, Save us, save us! I could do nothing. Truly, it's time for me to die.”

Afterward, Arjun wept. The tears pooled in the sunken pits under his eyes. His chin, stubbled with white, quivered. I couldn't bear to look. I had never seen him weep like this. Yudhisthir, too, was weeping. So were the others. Watching them, my heart was torn apart by loss, by the realization that, like Krishna, my husbands' life
purpose was over. Having purged the earth of evil, having changed the course of history, having raised a child to be a true king, they had rendered themselves unnecessary.

Now Yudhisthir held Arjun's shaking shoulders, the bones that stood out under the loose skin. He said, “Brother, you're right. It's time for you—for all of us—to die.”

42

I stood under the archway of the main gates, its old, old stones, and gazed back at Hastinapur one last time in farewell. Its tree-lined avenues shimmered in heat haze like a scene out of a dream. Twice before I'd left this city. How different it had been each time.