A Far Horizon (11 page)

As Emily’s sight was further restored, she noticed the cave was bare of everything but a black-skinned idol standing in solitary command of the chamber. Her appearance was ferocious, her tongue protruding between sharp fangs. Her bare breasts and swollen genitals drew Emily’s eyes immediately. The Goddess was adorned with a garland of skulls and stood upon a naked man whose phallus sprang up, avid as a new plant, beneath her. Her four arms held terrifying symbols of destruction, a severed head and a powerful sword, but also a bowl for alms and a lotus flower. In the dim green light her skin glowed pewter. The Goddess appeared to be cherished, for garlands of flowers adorned her and offerings of fruit were laid at her feet. Fresh incense perfumed the musty chamber. Once again rustlings stirred in the creepers; something moved through the twisted vines. But Emily Drake did not look up; the crude force of the idol imprisoned her, holding her fast. She was without fear or strangeness; she knew only a sense of return.

This Goddess had filled her childhood, unbeknown to her mother or Jane, hovering always at the edge of Emily’s world. The servant’s children had taught her to find the Goddess not only in temples but also in wayside statues or crudely daubed stones. She was found in
hills rounded as a woman’s breast spouting natural springs. She was there in the blood of a sacrificed goat or in the womb-like grottoes that pilgrims entered to be reborn. She was in sacred ponds and water containers, painted mantras and religious altars. She was in every dream of longing, the flight of birds, the notes of song and the dark at the bottom of a well. The Goddess was everywhere. In servants’ huts Emily had helped to wash and feed Her and adorn Her in fresh clothes. She had held the small brass image in her hands and wondered at its power.
Shakti.
Emily remembered the potent word that encompassed the creative force of the world. She had bent in obeisance before her, aping the servant’s children. The Goddess went by many names, each like the facets of a diamond, revealing her conflicting sides. Here as Kali the Goddess manifested a darker part of herself.

A piecemeal knowledge half heard long ago, seen only from the corner of an eye, returned to Emily now. Without this Goddess nothing moved in the world. Even Siva, over whom the Goddess stood, was but a corpse without her. At the touch of her foot, life filled him also. The Goddess was there at creation and at dissolution, in the birthing room and at the cremation ground. She was light and dark, the waxing and the waning moon and the bridge between that sustained.

In the dark grotto Emily stood transfixed before the small dark idol. She saw now that in her hands the Goddess held the implements not only of destruction but also of spiritual
renunciation
; she balanced life with death. The integrity of what she had heard so long ago was suddenly whole within Emily, like a seed that gestated in dark soil to sprout when least expected.

It was she who had whispered in Emily’s ear,
Do
this,
do
that
‚
go
here,
go
there.
In those cloudless days long ago, when the sun burned her skin as she had climbed for mangoes high in a tree, the Goddess had left her footprint upon her. Emily remembered the hut of the old shaman and knew the vibration that had passed through her then was no more than the touch of the Goddess. She only entered a soul
at its wildest times. Now, again, in this strange grotto, something leapt in Emily, like the turning of an unborn child. For a long while she stood in the silent chamber, unwilling to leave. At last she forced herself to face the crack of brilliant light that would draw her once more into mundane life. The sun blazed in her face.

The smoke of the pyres rising up from below no longer bothered her now. After her meeting with the black goddess, the balance of things appeared changed. Above her vultures wheeled, waiting to snatch a half-burned morsel from a cooling pyre. A great squawking arose from the preponderance of crows. Beneath the sun the river swelled, awaiting its turn to devour the fiery remains. Three naked mendicants with long matted hair and bodies smeared with ash sat cross-legged near the water’s edge. One held a withered arm in the air. His fist had been clenched for so many years that his nails now emerged from his knuckles. She watched as an old man, carried upon a stringbed, was manoeuvred down the steps of the burning ghats by a group of male relatives. The old man was not yet dead but had been brought to the temple to die. To hasten the moment, mud was pushed into his mouth and nostrils even as he struggled. Whatever her horror at this practice, Emily felt her smallness before the age-old patterns. The distant chant of prayer, accompanied by the sound of a bell, seemed somehow to complete a cycle beneath the indifferent sky. The place was busy not only with life but also with the business of death in an entirely emotionless way. The black goddess in the chamber on the hill stood at the door of life to facilitate in either direction the journey from one realm to the next. She was the Goddess of Perilous Passage. It was not for Emily to interfere. She watched the old man draw a last choking breath and then settle down to die.

Emily looked about her in confusion. From her window in Fort William she had seen the leap of flame at the Chandpal Ghat, seen the many domes of the Goddess’s temple, but was unsure what had impelled her here. From the hill she looked back to White Town, to the window where she sat each day, viewing life vicariously. From
where she now stood it seemed no more than a slit in a wall, as narrow as her life. The smoke of flesh and sandalwood rose about her; a crow alighted on a bush and cawed. There was a distant crack of thunder, although no clouds slid across the sky. At last Emily turned towards the path that would lead down to her palanquin.

As she stepped forward she was suddenly aware of a white shape against the trees. It appeared to move towards her in a cocoon of light. Emily turned in terror, preparing once more to fend off her sister’s hungry ghost, but faced only a muslin
dhoti
,
drying on a branch. Heart pounding, she stared at the flimsy cloth and sat down to regain herself.

It had been, she remembered, the beginning of the monsoon. Rain spat viciously into the veranda; a wind whistled through the house, beating angrily against the shutters. It had been old Parvati who had pulled her dementedly to where Jane waited. The wind had howled, whipping Emily’s skirts and hair, blowing her towards her sister. A final blast had pushed her through a door into a curtain of muslin. The stuff had blown over her face; on her lips she had tasted starch and the grain of the cloth impregnated with lavender. As she tore the veil away, Jane’s feet in white silk slippers had suddenly come before her, dangling unsupported in mid-air. She had looked up then and seen that Jane hung from a rafter before the door, dead. The wind rose again, lifting the muslin of Jane’s dress, revolving her gently, first this way then that, like a mobile that had once, long ago, turned above Emily’s bed. Nobody knew how long she had swung there, her face a dull blue, her tongue swollen. At once Emily’s hand went to her belly as if to protect her unborn child. Already, for those whose eyes were sharp enough, the fruit of her wildness was visible. Parvati stood ashen-faced, her eyes fixed not on Jane but on Emily.

For months Jane must have known this moment was approaching, and prepared for it in her mind. The knowledge of the child Emily now carried, growing unstoppably within her, was there, unspoken, between the sisters. The balance of things was changed. To the outside world they appeared as before. Balls were attended, suitors
appeared for Emily and were encouraged by Jane. Roger was attentive to his wife. But that unspoken knowledge loomed before them all, like the waiting edge of a cliff. Even as they stepped towards it there was no way to go back.

Roger had cut Jane down. She had been nailed quickly into a coffin, hastily prepared. No one knew what had occurred but the servants, and their whispers counted for nothing. Immediately, then, Roger had managed to get a posting in Surat, and quietly, within weeks, Emily had followed him with Parvati. They were married there by a clergyman who knew nothing of their history. Her body swelled freely then, and the life within it kicked and turned. Eventually the child was born, but died within a week. She had accepted that small death, glad almost to do penance. Within a few months they left Surat for Calcutta and the naked details of their history closed behind them forever. Emily pushed away the memories now and rose to make her way down the hill. As she reached the bottom, the beggars began to advance once more. She climbed quickly into her palanquin.

As the litter was jerked up upon the men’s shoulders, Emily glimpsed two figures climbing the path up the hill to the grotto. A large woman was walking with difficulty, her weight spilling in rolls about her. A young girl pulled the older woman by the hand, easing her way to the top. There was something familiar about them. With a shock Emily recognised Sati. The pair reached the grotto and disappeared inside. Within the palanquin Emily hesitated, then ordered the runners to continue.

At last she returned to Fort William and old Parvati hurried to greet her. She waited for Emily as a mother would wait for her child.

‘Where did you go to all by yourself? Running here and there like a wild thing,’ Parvati scolded.

‘I went to see the Goddess,’ Emily replied.

‘She can be seen everywhere,’ the old woman mumbled as she helped Emily out of her dusty dress and brought a sponge and water.
‘No need to go searching the world for her when all the time she is under your nose.’

‘I had almost forgotten,’ Emily replied. Soon she was changed and settled upon a chair. Parvati took a brush and began to pull it through Emily’s hair.

‘The
Devi
is not someone to forget. You discard her at your peril. Remember her and she will feed your soul.’ Parvati handled the brush with practised strokes and began a tale about the Goddess. Emily leaned back in her chair. Parvati’s voice wove about her as it had done long before. It was as if once more she was back upon the indigo farm. In the next room, as Parvati had put her to bed, she had heard the sound of her mother coughing or Jane’s voice reading to her from a book. There had been the faint striking of a clock, or the notes of the piano as Jane played to their mother.

‘In the beginning there were only male gods, and many terrible battles they were having with the demon
asuras
who were trying to conquer the world. Those male gods could not defeat the
asuras,
however hard they tried. They were feeling much shame as gods to be so humiliated. At last they decided they must find a new way to save themselves from the demons. They united all their energies in a great stream of fire. So great was this fire that it lit up the whole universe. And from that energy the Great Goddess Durga was born. The male gods were forced to create a goddess to save them from the evil forces. All their great powers were useless without her energy to ignite them. It is she who creates the world.’ Parvati was pleased to think the power of a woman had been needed to save the world, despite the presence of so many strong men.

‘Durga had more
shakti
than any male god. She was more powerful than any warrior. She stood before those gods in her armour, brighter than a thousand suns. Now, when they saw Durga those male gods were very pleased. Eighteen arms she had, with so many weapons and useful things, not only swords and shields and bows and arrows, but also beads for prayer, a lotus flower, a book of magic wisdom and a bowl for alms. Everything she needed she was
carrying with her. And riding also upon a fierce tiger. No warrior was a more wondrous sight. And immediately the gods sent her off to battle the
asuras.
They knew already only she could stop the war between knowledge and ignorance.

‘The world shook and the seas trembled as the Goddess fought the armies of demons. Each time the Goddess sighed, she created a battalion of female warriors. Very hard they all fought, and finally the Goddess defeated the Great Demon.’ Parvati put down her brush and tied back Emily’s hair. The evening was already upon them; the room was almost in darkness. Soon a lamp was lit and the moths clustered thickly about. Emily opened her eyes at the sudden fading of Parvati’s voice.

‘And then what happened?’ she demanded, swinging her feet up on to a couch. Parvati pulled the loose hair out of the brush and wound it into a neat ball, dropping it into a waste-paper bucket. Then she squatted down on the floor beside Emily and continued with her story.

‘Although this battle was finished, still other demons waited. The gods begged Durga to continue to fight. Now, the Goddess was seated upon her tiger on the high golden peak of a mountain, and it was there that the next army of demons found her. They drew their swords and bent their bows and rushed to capture her. Seeing this, Durga’s anger became very great. She was tired of fighting and tired of seeing the evil faces of demons. She wanted an end to them all. In her anger she turned black as ink. All her rage was collected in her brow. So great was her fury that she frowned blacker and blacker until from her forehead the goddess Kali was born, black as Durga’s frown. She is the manifestation of the Great Goddess Durga’s purest anger. Garlanded all over with skulls, Kali was terrible to behold. But as well as the power of death, all knowledge and wisdom was also in her. That is why her
shakti
is so great. From her mouth her tongue lolled out and her eyes were red and sunken. She was a fearsome sight. Her voice was a deep roar, filling the skies. She stood before the army of devils and laughed. And while she was laughing, she was
all the time eating up the demon army, flinging their elephants into her mouth, crunching up their horses and chariots, striking everywhere with her sword. Soon the army was defeated.’ Parvati was growing tired; she gave a yawn.

‘Tell me more,’ Emily insisted. In just this way as a child she had spent so many absorbing hours.

‘In the end the demons were defeated. Only that is important. Kali is always defeating all demons. Her
shakti
is very great. Durga gave birth to many other manifestations of herself, but no one is as strong as Kali. Durga’s name is meaning “Beyond Reach”. Such warrior women can belong to no man. She belongs only to herself.’ However many times Parvati told the old tales, she still spoke with the same wonderment in her voice.