The Temple Dancer (3 page)

"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 could 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.