The Moghul Part 39

"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 cuc.u.mbers . . ." 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 fifteen 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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s were lovely." She paused and looked at him hopefully, brus.h.i.+ng 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 s.h.i.+rin, 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 s.h.i.+rin. 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 pa.s.s 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 t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es 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 s.h.i.+ver seemed to pa.s.s 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."