The Temple Dancer Read online

  "Our bribe comes all the way from Orissa, Aldo-that's the length we've gone to get it-and arrives by dhow today if the wind is right. Then off to Bijapur within the week. I want you to go with the caravan. We've hired the best settlement man in Hindustan-a fellow named Da Gama. You may have met him, he's a distant relation." Geraldo shook his head. "Well, Da Gama's the best: he's honest, he's dull, he has no imagination or ambition, but he's deadly and ready for violence."

  "He sounds a perfect fit, Tio."

  "Dammit, Aldo-I'm relying on you! I need you to keep your eyes open.

  Geraldo lowered his head so Carlos could not see his smile. "I shall study him, Tio."

  Carlos gave him a withering look, as if doubting that Geraldo had ever studied in his life. He sighed. "I'm going to have to shut down this house. For a while, at least. We'll lose face, of course, but it can't be helped."

  "You're returning to Lisbon?"

  "Not to Lisbon. To Bijapur. Like it or not, the fates of the Dasanas are intertwined with our old enemies." Carlos looked into his nephew's eyes with unexpected frankness. "I don't know how I'm going to tell Lucinda. She's lost her mother, her father-now to lose her home ..."

  "But isn't Lucinda pledged to be married?"

  "That's off!" Carlos barked. "The bastard heard about our business problems and . . ." Carlos's voice broke off suddenly. Geraldo thought he was choking. "I love that sweet girl," Carlos mumbled. He tugged a dark kerchief from his sleeve, wiped his eyes, and gave his nose a shaking blow. "You must not say anything to her, Aldo. Not a word about the bastard dropping the engagement. I'll tell her when the time is right. And nothing about moving to Bijapur, either! She'd rather die than leave Goa." Carlos examined the kerchief and then wiped his eyes. "Keep your mouth shut around her, do you hear? She's fragile. She's become as a daughter to me."

  Again Carlos blew his nose, but this time, to Geraldo's relief, he stuffed his kerchief away without a glance. "Well, it's business. It can't be helped. In the meantime, you'll accompany the bribe to Wall Khan. You and the settlement man. That's why I brought you here. Don't fail me. Earn my trust. Succeed and you'll have my gratitude. Fail, and I'll send you to Lisbon and the gallows. Do we understand each other?"

  Geraldo nodded.

  "Very well. I'll say no more. You're my cousin's only son. Who else can I trust? We need that monopoly ... and the bribe is the key! Our only hope is getting her to Wall Khan. She's worth a fortune, so keep your eyes open! Tell Wali Khan that if he becomes regent, then she's all his."

  Geraldo's brow furrowed. "She? Do you mean a ship, Uncle?"

  "Not a ship-what gave you that idea? I mean the bribe! She's a bayadere, boy ... a nautch girl, the finest whore that's ever been!"

  The door opened, and as a wave crashes on the shore, Lucinda burst in, her white dress an explosion of brightness in Tio Carlos's dark office. A fragrance of jasmine and roses surrounded her as she floated across the carpet on silk-slippered feet. At the door, a sheepish-looking secretary lifted his hands hopelessly and Carlos shook his head and waved the man away. They had as much hope of stopping a cyclone.

  "Uncle, dearest!" Lucinda sang, swirling toward the table. The old man rose and placed a respectable kiss on his niece's proffered cheek. "And this must be Geraldo!"

  "Yes, I've just come from Macao," said Geraldo, standing.

  "This is your cousin, Lucinda Dasana," Carlos said formally. His brow furrowed at seeing them together.

  Geraldo swept into a bow. Lucinda returned a long curtsy, but though she lowered her head, her eyes stayed fixed on her cousin's face. Her vision was still blurred by the belladonna, but in the dark room she noted that he was tall, that his shoulders were wide and his hips narrow, that his face was tanned but his eyes sparkled, that his teeth when he smiled were brilliant white.

  "I should never have known you," Geraldo said, his gaze roaming over her. "You were six when last we met. I put a toad down your dress, if I remember right." His eyes gleamed when he said this and she blushed.

  "I'm sure you never did, or I'd remember and hate you. Anyway I'm grown now." Lucinda laughed, turning so the pale light of the office's single window caught her face.

  "Remember, she's pledged," Carlos said pointedly, "so don't get any ideas."

  "Uncle!" cried Lucinda. "We're cousins."

  Geraldo seemed to have thought about the question. "Technically, she's right-we are cousins, but many, many times removed. We might even marry if we wished." His dark eyes peered deep into Lucinda's.

  "I said she's pledged," Carlos said firmly. "Remember what I told you!"

  "Who is the lucky man?" Geraldo asked. His eyes danced so when he asked that his question seemed impertinent. Lucinda turned away again, her face burning.

  "Marques Oliveira, a former minister to his majesty," Carlos answered for her, a hint of warning in his voice. "A great man."

  "I hope he is handsome," Geraldo said. "A woman like you deserves a handsome husband."

  "His portrait is handsome," Lucinda stammered. "We haven't actually met."

  Carlos didn't like the turn of this talk. "Of course he's handsome! He's rich, isn't he?"

  "My very best wishes," Geraldo said. But this time when he bowed he fastened his eyes on her, and this time, through her misty eyes, she looked back. As he swept upward Aldo grasped her hand like a tiny bird in his long fingers and gently brushed it with his lips. "Let us be good friends, cousin, now that we have found each other once again." She felt his mustache tickling her knuckles. "I'm about to go to Bijapur. Would you like to come along?"

  Carlos sputtered as he leaned over his desk. "What are you saying, Aldo? I never. . ."

  But Lucinda had already heard, and when she turned to Tio Carlos, her face pale with arsenico and her eyes limpid with belladonna, beseeching him, it was more than any uncle could resist, even an uncle as strongwilled as Carlos Dasana. "Please, Uncle, please. You promised I could visit Tio Victorio!"

  It was a good idea, Carlos had to admit: sending her to Bijapur now would make it simpler to close down the house. But he disliked any idea he had not thought up himself. So of course Carlos said no at once. Then no again, and then once more, no.

  The trip would not be easy, Carlos warned. And Bijapur was not like Goa. Victorio, her uncle who managed the Dasanas' Bijapur factor, was old now and often ill. These objections merely fired Lucinda's resolve. One by one Geraldo countered them, and each time Lucinda would beg again, each time more plaintively than before.

  "Very well, little one. You may go. But you'll do what you're told, yes? And follow orders for a change?"

  "Oh yes, Tio Carlos," Lucinda answered, tiptoeing to kiss his rough brown cheek.

  Then the arsenico, or her corset, or the excitement seemed to overwhelm her, and her pale face grew even paler, and her eyes fluttered, and she fainted into her uncle's arms.

  My God, thought Carlos as he caught her, she looks pale as death. By the Blessed Virgin, he thought as her breasts heaved and her dark curls spilled across his arms, she's a grown woman. You truly are a Dasana, my dear niece, he thought; and the Dasana women are as beautiful and dangerous as gold.

  He glanced at Aldo, and then back at Lucinda who even now was stirring in his arms. What have I agreed to? Carlos thought.

  May the Blessed Virgin save us from our relatives.

  The shallow-keeled dhow scudded over the gray seas, clinging to the rockedged shore. The captain's eyes were everywhere: to the dark and threatening sky and the twisting monsoon winds, then on the steersman beside him, pressed hard against the shuddering rudder, to the triangle sail that furled and luffed as his sailors heaved the boom, and again and yet again upon the thirty-gun privateer at the harbor mouth, its tricolor flag bright against the black clouds.

  Would she follow? Would she fire? As the dhow swung into the harbor and the waves of the Arabian Sea tried to hammer it against the moss-furred rocks of Arguin, the captain peered at the warship. If she was turning to fire, there was little he coul
d do. The Goans wouldn't help him-they had no ships to fight her.

  "She's turning away, Captain!" the steersman cried at last.

  The captain watched a long time before he accepted the steersman's conclusion. "Yes, Allah be praised! Bring us to Goa quick as you can and get us away from these damned rocks." The captain couldn't hide his relief. He moved to the forward hatch and shouted down. "Senhor Da Gama! We've made it! We're through! You can come up, now. All of you can come up!"

  A pair of shrewd brown eyes appeared in the shadows below, and a burly Portuguese soldado clambered up to the deck. The captain placed a hand beneath his arm, but Da Gama shook it off. He carried a wide-brimmed hat. "Where are they?" he asked. The captain pointed to where the privateer had turned south at full sail.

  "She's heading for Malabar, I bet," the captain said. "They can't see us from here. In any case, we'll be in range of Goa's guns before they can reach us. We're safe as we'll ever be."

  Da Gama's leathered face followed the Dutch privateer with a cautious, irritated look. When he at last felt sure of the captain's reasoning, he jammed the hat on his dark, graying hair. "You were right, Captain," Da Gama said with a bow. "I should never have doubted you."

  The captain acknowledged the farang with a nod and a shrug. "The Dutch don't care about an old dhow, so long as they don't see any Portuguese on deck. I tell you, the Pepper Wars are over, senhor."

  "Maybe," Da Gama answered as respectfully as he could. But I'd like to see a treaty first, he thought. His heavy boots clattered on the teak deck as he stomped to the stern. With a nod toward the steersman, he looked hack across the gray-green Sea of Arabia, where waves crashed against the jagged rocks of the harbor mouth.

  Bright green against the dark sky, coconut palms swayed in the monsoon winds that swirled beneath threatening clouds. Any minute another deluge might start. Da Gama took off his hat and leaned into the breeze. But when the steersman lifted his chin toward a cluster of gulls soaring just overhead, Da Gama jammed his hat back on. The last thing he needed now was gull shit in his hair.

  At last, as if he'd come to some decision, he turned his back to the wind, and faced his destination: the bright walls of Goa.

  For the first time in his life the sight of Goa left him cold. How many years had he been in Hindustan now-twenty-five? Twenty-seven? And never a trip back to Lisbon ... no, he'd never looked back. But Hindustan grew tiresome, more trouble-filled each day.

  Da Gama knew that this moment would be the last time he'd be able to relax for a long while-once the dhow landed, he'd be in a constant flurry of tedious, irritating activity. Such was the life of a settlement man. He worried that he was getting too old for so much trouble, and worried also that he was too poor to stop.

  He turned to face the prow, and his hand flew to his pistola. Where he had expected to see the gates of Goa he found instead a one-eyed gull floating inches from his nose. The old steersman cackled. "Go ahead and shoot him, senhor! Maybe it will scare his friends away. I'm sick of their mess! It's easier to clean their blood than to clean their shit!"

  Da Gama cursed, pushed the gun back in his belt, and batted a fist at the gull's yellow bill. The old bird gave a nonchalant flap and rose sarcastically just out of reach, to join a dozen other gulls that hovered overhead. With beaks open to the sea wind exposing blood-red tongues, the gulls hung motionless above him as dangerous as knives, a few yards from Da Gama's unprotected face.

  He hated the gulls of Goa: their piercing eyes, their bellies black with salt mud, their cawing as harsh as an open wound. They reminded him of the palsied beggars who stalked the urine-soaked streets of Lisbon. As a boy he'd been their perfect target. He ran, he hid, but even so, the boy Da Gama often found himself surrounded by shattered, angry faces, his trembling hand shaking cruzados into their snatching fingers.

  But he was far away from Lisbon now, and dangerous now himself. He carried six double-barreled pistolas on his wide belt and was so fast with them and accurate that he could have killed a dozen gulls before the first dead wings flopped to the deck.

  Still he hated the gulls of Goa. They were but the first of Goa's troubles. Goa was ringed with troubles, like the circles of hell.

  The dhow approached the docks. As the steersman tacked against the wind to slow it, it began to shriek like an old lady in ecstasy. The ship was, after all, only teak timbers lashed together with ropes of hemp.

  Da Gama leaned against the railing, watching the captain bark out orders. From time to time he snapped a leather thong for emphasis. Sailors scurried in practiced chaos. Soon the ship groaned against the worn pilings of the pier. Da Gama turned and waved at a cluster of ragged boys waiting expectantly at the dock. The birds flapped off, disappointed.

  "Baksheesh! Baksheesh!" the boys cried, extending their hands. "Christian!" they cried, when they saw he was a farang, pointing to wooden crosses they'd strung around their necks. They'd seen plenty of farangs before.

  "Fetch me three palkis!" Da Gama shouted. "Good ones!" He tossed a tanga toward the boys, as a man might skip a stone. They all ran off at once, snatching at the boy who'd caught the coin. Da Gama knew they'd soon be back; dozens of palanquins would be waiting for him on the dock, with boys and bearers with hands out for baksheesh; just as he knew without looking how the steersman now eyed him, hoping for baksheesh as well.

  Baksheesh be damned, Da Gama thought. In Hindustan, everyone stuck out his hand. At first it had been only Hindis, but now even farangs had caught the disease. And there was never an end, never! Give the watchman a tanga for opening a door, and he'd stick out his hand again for closing it behind you.

  Nowhere was the practice more obnoxious than Goa.

  In Goa, baksheesh was no longer a request; it was a demand, even a threat. One had to think ahead: Am I likely to see you again? the diner must consider as he looks at the waiter. Do I really want to find a glob of your phlegm clinging to my tankard next time I drink here?

  Already the cargo hatch was open. Thin, bare-chested Hindis humped great sacks of Cochin peppercorns from below, while the captain watched and swore. With each thump as they landed on the deck, the sacks exhaled a spicy, tang-filled cloud. A young sailor began to sneeze, and the old hands laughed.

  Da Gama moved to the rear hatch and called, "Senhor Slipper, come up! We've docked!" The only answer was a miserable, high-pitched moan. Da Gama chuckled. "You'll feel better once you're on land, senhor!"

  Da Gama glanced along the docks. Two elephants walked in lazy unison through the city gate, their mahouts ignoring the curses of the oxcart drivers stuck behind them unable to pass.

  Without waiting for the gangplank, Da Gama leaped to the pier. Nearby a sailor eyed him icily-the gangplankwallah, no doubt, now realizing that Da Gama's jump had just cheated him of his baksheesh. He didn't think I'd make it, Da Gama thought, pleased with himself.

  On the dock a gaggle of boys mobbed Da Gama. They pointed to the crosses hanging from strings on their necks. "Hello, brother! Hello, Christian!" they shouted in Portuguese. They pointed to the palanquins, whose bearers waited eagerly beside them. "Palki to city only three rials! Christian!"

  "Two rupees only!" Da Gama roared in Hindi. Some of the boys cowered in surprise; others more insistent pressed closer, holding up their crucifixes. Da Gama scowled, pushing through them. He strode down the pier, past mounds of shiny green-skinned coconuts stacked like polished cannonballs, past gulls arguing with skinny cows over some scrap of garbage. Thin, dark-faced men with fierce, determined eyes staggered past, backs bent beneath huge gunnysacks holding twice their weight of cinnamon.

  Da Gama frowned. The port was busy, to be sure, but not as busy as it ought to be. If he needed further proof that the Dutch were strangling the Portuguese trade, here it was: the dismal movement on the dock, far slower than it should have been, particularly at this time of year, right after the monsoons. The pier should be sagging with goods. But no.

  Suddenly Da Gama found himself surrounded by the dock boys,
who swept him as in a wave toward the palanquins. As the palkiwallahs called and gestured, Da Gama noticed a tall, turbaned Muslim watching the scene with dry amusement from a few yards off. "Pathan!" Da Gama shouted, spreading his arms with delight.

  With the palkiwallahs and boys following, Da Gama strode over and gave Pathan a bear hug. The Muslim was tall, and Da Gama's widebrimmed hat pushed into his face, which helped him disguise his pleasure. "A salaam aleichem, " Pathan whispered.

  "And what am I to say now? Aleichem salaam?" Da Gama laughed. Of course he knew the answer.

  The clamor of the boys and palki bearers around them grew unbearable. Pathan glared at the crowd. With just his look the turmoil stopped, and one by one the boys and men stepped back.

  "How do you do that? I can never make them go away!" Da Gama said.

  "They think you are not dangerous, sir," Pathan replied. "If they knew you as I do, you would have no difficulty."

  Da Gama shrugged. "That explains it. When I was your age I was dangerous, maybe. Now I'm just an old man. They see right through me ... while you are still blinded by excessive respect." Pathan bowed his head politely. "I see you are too courteous even to laugh at my jokes. Now tell me, friend, what brings you to this godless city?"

  Pathan's face revealed little. "That which brings you, sir, brings me as well," he answered.

  Da Gama frowned. "I'm only here to do a settlement for the Dasanas."

  "I am here for that same settlement," Pathan said quietly. He stared blankly into Da Gama's frown.

  "The settlement in Bijapur? You're the burak?"

  "Yes. For the grand vizier, yes," Pathan answered. Da Gama nodded. "Both you and I, sir, chosen for this same settlement." The Muslim watched Da Gama for his reaction.

  "The thought worries me."

  "It worries me as well, sir. Though I lack your experience, I too have a reputation, undeserved as it may be. And I did not expect to find you here." He lowered his turbaned head. "But the journey may prove diverting. Perhaps I shall find some way to repay my debt to you."