The moon was high, bathing the sleeping veranda in a wash of
glistening silver, and the air was deliciously moist, heavy with
perfume from the garden below. From somewhere among the distant
rooftops came the thread of a man's voice, intoning a high-pitched
melody, trilling out wordless syllables like some intense poetry of
sound.
Hawksworth leaned back against one of the carved juniper-wood posts
supporting the canopy above his sleeping couch and explored Kali's body
with his gaze, as a mariner might search a map for unknown islands and
inlets. She lounged opposite him, resting against an oblong velvet
bolster, examining him with half-shut eyes while she drew contentedly
on a hookah fired with black tobacco and a concentrated _bhang _the
Arabs called _hashish_.
Her hair hung loose, in gleaming black strands reaching almost to her
waist, and her head was circled by a thin tiara of gold and pearls,
supporting the large green emerald that always hung suspended in the
center of her forehead--even when she made love. The gold she wore--long
bracelets at her wrists and upper arms, swinging earrings, even tiny
bells at her ankles--seemed to excite her in a way Hawksworth could
never understand. Her eyes and eyebrows were kohl-darkened and her lips
carefully painted a deep red, matching the color of her fingernails and
toenails. And as always she had dyed her palms and the soles of her
feet red with henna. Four different strands of pearls hung in perfect
array beneath her transparent blouse, glistening white against her
delicate, amber-tinted skin. He noticed, too, that her nipples had been
rouged, and told himself this was the only thing about her that
recalled the women in London.
"Tonight your thoughts were far away, my love. Do you weary of me so
soon?" She laid aside the _rome-chauri_, the rubber ring impregnated
with powdered hair that she often asked him to wear for her, then took
a vial of rose attar from beside the couch and dabbed herself absently
along the arms. "Tell me the truth. Are you now beginning to recoil
from women, like so many bragging and posturing men I've known, and to
long for a boy who fears to seek his own pleasure? Or a subservient
_feringhi _woman whose parts are dry from lack of desire?"
Hawksworth studied her for a moment without replying. In truth he did
not know what to say. Your nightly visits to this couch have been the
most astonishing experience of my life. To imagine I once thought being
with the same woman night after night would eventually grow monotonous.
But you always come here as someone different, always with something
new. You play on my senses like an instrument--with touch, with scent,
with tongue. Until they seem to merge with my mind. Or is it the
reverse? But you're right when you say the mind must surrender itself
first. When that's done, when the mind is given up to the body, then
you somehow forget your own self and think only of the other. And
eventually there grows a union of pleasure, a bond that's intense,
overwhelming.
But tonight he could not repress his vagrant mind. His feeling of
failure churned too deep. It had stolen his spirit.
Day after tomorrow the _Discovery_ weighs anchor, he told himself, with
half the cargo we'd planned and twice the men she needs, while the
_Resolve_ slowly breaks apart on a sandbar. I've failed the Company . .
. and myself. And there's nothing that can be done. Kali, dear Kali.
The woman I really want to be with tonight is Shirin. Why can't I drive
her from my mind? Half the time when you're in my arms, I pretend
you're her. Do you sense that too?
"I'm sorry. I'm not myself tonight." You're right as always,
he marveled, the mind and the body are one. As he paused, the singer's
voice cut the stillness between them. "How did you know?"
"It's my duty as your courtesan to feel your moods. And to try
to lift the weight of the world from your heart."
"You do it very well. It's just that sometimes there's too much
to lift." He studied her, wondering what she was really thinking, then
leaned back and looked at the stars. "Tell me, what do you do when the
world weighs on you!"
"That's never your worry, my love. I'm here to think of you,
not you of me."
"Tell me anyway. Say it's a _feringhi's_ curiosity."
"What do I do?" She smiled wistfully and drew again on the
hookah, sending a tiny gurgle into the quiet. "I escape with _bhang_.
And I remember when I was in Agra, in the _zenana_."
She lay aside the mouthpiece of the hookah and began to roll
betel leaves for them both, carefully measuring in a portion of nutmeg,
her favorite aphrodisiac.
"Tell me how you came to be here, away from Agra."
"Is it really me you wish to hear about?" She looked at him
squarely, her voice quiet. "Or is it Shirin?"
"You," Hawksworth lied, and absently stroked the edge of her
foot, where the henna line began. Then he looked into her dark eyes and
he knew she knew.
"Will we make love again if I tell you?"
"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?"