The Moghul Part 65

She had possessed the room almost as a spirit of pure dance, chaste, powerful, disciplined, and there was nothing of the overt suggestiveness of the nautch dancers of the Shahbandar's courtyard. She wore a low-cut, tight vest of brocade over a long-sleeved silk shirt, and of her body only her hands, feet, and face were visible. It was these, Hawksworth realized, not her body, that were the elements of Kathak dance.

"Now she'll begin the second section of the dance. It's the introduction and corresponds to the opening of a raga. It sets the atmosphere and makes you long for more. I know of no _feringhi _who has ever seen Kathak, but perhaps you can understand. Do you feel it?"

Hawksworth sipped his wine slowly and tried to clear his head. In truth he felt very little, save the intensity that seemed to be held in check.

"It appears to be rather subtle. Very little seems to be happening."

Hawksworth drank again and found himself longing for a lively hornpipe.

"A great deal will happen, Amba.s.sador, and very soon. In India you must learn patience."

Almost at that moment the drummers erupted with a dense rhythmic cycle and the _sarangi _took up a single repet.i.tive phrase. Sangeeta looked directly at Hawksworth and called out a complex series of rhythmic syllables, in a melodic if slightly strident voice, all the while duplicating the exact pattern of sounds by slapping the henna-reddened soles of her feet against the carpet. Then she glided across the carpet in a series of syncopated foot movements, saluting each of the guests in turn and calling out strings of syllables, after which she would dance a sequence that replicated the rhythm exactly, her feet a precise percussion instrument.

"The syllables she recites are called _bols_, Amba.s.sador, which are the names of the many different strokes on the tabla drums. Drummers sometimes call out a sequence before they play it. She does the same, except she uses her feet almost as a drummer uses his hands."

As Hawksworth watched, Sangeeta called strings of syllables that were increasingly longer and more complex. He could not understand the _bols_, or perceive the rhythms as she danced them, but the drunken men around him were smiling and swinging their heads from side to side in what he took to be appreciative approval. Suddenly Arangbar shouted something to her and pointed toward the first drummer. The drummer beamed, nodded, and as Sangeeta watched, called out a dense series of _bols_. Then she proceeded to dance the sequence with her feet. The room exploded with cries of appreciation when she finished the sequence, and Hawksworth a.s.sumed she had managed to capture the instructions the musician had called. Then Arangbar pointed to the other drummer and he also called out a string of _bols_, which again Sangeeta repeated. Finally the singer called a rhythm sequence, the most complex yet, and both dancer and drummer repeated them precisely together.

As the tempo became wilder, Sangeeta began a series of lightning spins, still pounding the carpet with her reddened soles, and in time she seemed to transform into a whirling top, her pigtail loose now and singing through the air like a deadly whip. She had become a blur, and for a brief moment she appeared to have two heads. Hawksworth watched in wonder and sipped from his wine cup.

"Now she'll begin the last part, Amba.s.sador, the most demanding of all."

The rhythm became almost a frenzy now. Then as suddenly as they had begun the whirls ended. Sangeeta struck a statuesque pose, arms extended in rigid curves, and began a display of intensely rhythmic footwork. Her body seemed frozen in s.p.a.ce as nothing moved save her feet. The bells on her ankles became a continuous chime, increasing in tempo with the drum and the _sarangi _until the rhythmic phrase itself was nothing more than a dense blur of notes, Suddenly the drummer and instrumentalist fell silent, conceding the room to Sangeeta's whirring bells. She seemed, at the last, to be treading on pure air, her feet almost invisible. When the intensity of her rhythm became almost unbearable, the drummers and _sarangi _player reentered, urging the excitement to a crescendo. A final phrase was introduced, repeated with greater intensity, and then a third and final time, ending with a powerful crash on the large drum that seemed to explode the tension in the room. Several of the musicians cried out involuntarily, almost o.r.g.a.s.mically, in exultation. In the spellbound silence that followed, the n.o.bles around Hawksworth burst into cheers.

Sangeeta seemed near collapse as she bowed to Arangbar. The Moghul smiled broadly, withdrew a velvet purse of coins from his cloak, and threw it at her feet. Moments later several others in the room followed suit. With a second bow she scooped the purses from the carpet and vanished through the curtains. The cheers followed her long after she was gone.

"What do you think, Amba.s.sador? You know half the men here would give a thousand gold _mohurs _to have her tonight." Nadir Sharif beamed mischievously. "The other half two thousand."

"Come forward." Arangbar motioned to the singer sitting on the carpet.

He was, Hawksworth now realized, an aging, portly man with short white hair and a painful limp. As he approached Arangbar's dais, he began removing the tiny cymbals attached to the fingers of one hand that he had used to keep time for the dancer.

"He's her guru, her teacher." Nadir Sharif pointed to the man as he bowed obsequiously before the Moghul. "If His Majesty decides to select Sangeeta to dance at the wedding, his fortune will be made. Frankly I thought she was good, though there is still a trifle too much flair in her style, too many tricks. But then she's young, and perhaps it's too soon to expect genuine maturity. Still, I noticed His Majesty was taken with her. She could well find herself in the _zenana_ soon."

Arangbar flipped another purse of coins to the man, and then spoke to him curtly in Persian.

"His Majesty has expressed his admiration, and says he may call him again after he has seen the other dancers." Nadir Sharif winked.

"Choosing the dancers is a weighty responsibility. Naturally His Majesty will want to carefully review all the women."

The lamps brightened again and servants bustled about the carpet filling gla.s.ses and exchanging the burned-out tobacco chillum, clay bowls at the top of each hookah. When they had finished, Arangbar took another gla.s.s of wine and signaled for the lamps to be lowered once more. A new group of musicians began filing into the room, carrying instruments Hawksworth had never before seen. First came the drummer, who carried not the two short tabla drums but rather a single long instrument, designed to be played at both ends simultaneously. A singer entered next, already wearing small gold cymbals on each hand. Finally a third man entered, carrying nothing but a piece of inch-thick bamboo, less than two feet in length and perforated with a line of holes.

Arangbar looked quizzically at Nadir Sharif.

As though reading the question, the prime minister rose and spoke in Turki. "This one's name is Kamala, Your Majesty. She is originally from the south, but now she is famous among the Hindus in Agra. Although I have never seen her dance, I a.s.sumed Your Majesty would want to humor the Hindus by auditioning her."

"We are a sovereign of all our subjects. I have never seen this Hindu dance. Nor these instruments of the south. What are they called?"

"The drum is called a mirdanga, Majesty. They use it in the south with a type of sitar they call the veena. The other instrument is a bamboo flute."

Arangbar shifted impatiently. "Tell them this should be brief."

Nadir Sharif spoke quickly to the musicians in a language few in the room seemed to understand. They nodded and immediately the flautist began a haunting lyric line that bathed the room in a soft, echoing melody. Hawksworth was startled that so simple an instrument could produce such rich, warm tones.

The curtains parted and a tall, elaborately jeweled woman swept across the carpet. She took command of the s.p.a.ce around her, possessed it, almost as though it were part of her being. Her long silk _sari _had been gathered about each leg so that it seemed like trousers, and her every step was announced by dense bracelets of bells at her ankles.

Most striking, however, was her carriage. Hawksworth had never before seen such dignity of motion.

As he stared at her, he realized she was wearing an immense, diamond- encrusted nose ring and long pendant earrings, also of diamonds. Not even the Moghul wore stones to equal hers. Her face was heavily painted, but still he suspected she might no longer be in the first bloom of youth. Her self-a.s.surance was too secure. She knew exactly who she was.

She turned her back to Arangbar as she reverently gave an invocation, both hands together and raised above her head, to some absent G.o.d. The only sound was the slow, measured cadence of the drum. Suddenly it seemed as though her body had captured some perfect moment of balance, a feeling of timelessness within time.

Hawksworth glanced toward Arangbar, whose irritation was obvious.

How can she be so imprudent as to ignore him? Aren't Hindus afraid of him? What was her name? Kamala?

His eyes shot back to the woman.

Kamala.

Can she be the woman Kali spoke of that last night in Surat? The Lotus Woman? Nadir Sharif said she was famous.

"Just who are you?" Arangbar's voice cut through the carpeted room, toward the woman's back. He was speaking Turki, and he was outraged.

Kamala whirled on him. "One who dances for Shiva, in his

aspect as Nataraj, the G.o.d of the dance. For him and for him alone."

"What do you call this dance for your infidel G.o.d?"

"Bharata Natyam. The dance of the temple. The sacred tradition as old as India itself. The G.o.d Shiva set the world in motion by the rhythms of his dance. My dance is a prayer to Shiva." Kamala's eyes snapped with hatred. "I dance for no one else."

"You were summoned here to dance for me." Arangbar pulled himself drunkenly erect. Around the room the n.o.bles began to shift uneasily, their bleary eyes filling with alarm.

"Then I will not dance. You have the world in your hands. But you cannot possess the dance of Shiva. Our dance is prescribed in the Natya Shastra of the ancient sage Bharata. Over a thousand years ago he declared that dance is not merely for pleasure; dance is the blending of all art, religion, philosophy. It gives mankind wisdom, discipline, endurance. Through dance we are allowed to know the totality of all that is. My dance is not for your sport."

Arangbar's anger increased, but now it was leavened with puzzlement.

"If you will not dance your Shiva dance, then dance Kathak."

"The dance Muslims call Kathak is the perversion of yet another of our sacred traditions. Perhaps there are some Hindu dancers who will, for Muslim gold, debase the ancient Kathak dance of India, will make it a display of empty technique for the amus.e.m.e.nt of India's oppressors.

Muslims and"--she turned and glared at Hawksworth--"now _feringhi_. But I will not do it. The Kathak you want to see is no longer true Kathak. It has been made empty, without meaning. I will never debase our true Kathak dance for you, as others have done, any more than I will dedicate a performance of Bharata Natyam to a mortal man."

The guards near the entrance of the _Diwan-i-Khas _had all tensed, their hands dropping uneasily to their swords.

"I have heard enough. A man who dared speak to me as you have would be sent to the elephants. You, I think, deserve more. Since you speak to your G.o.d through dance, you do not need a tongue."

Arangbar turned to summon the waiting guards when, at the rear of the _Diwan-i-Khas_, the figure of the Chief Painter emerged, his a.s.sistants trailing behind. They carried a long, thin board.

Nadir Sharif spotted them and immediately leaped to his feet, almost as though he had been expecting their entrance.

"Your Majesty." He quickly moved between Arangbar and Kamala, who stood motionless. "The paintings have arrived. I'm ready for my horse. Let the English amba.s.sador see them now."