The Moghul, page 59
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
_From the _Tuzuk-i-Arangbari, the court chronicles of His ImperialMajesty_:
"On the day of Mubarak-shamba, the twenty-eighth of the month of Dai,there came first reports of the pestilence in the city of Agra. On thisday over five hundred people were stricken.
The first signs are headache and fever and much bleeding at the nose.After this the _dana _of the plague, buboes, form under the armpits, orin the groin, or below the throat. The infected ones turn in color fromyellow inclining to black. They vomit and endure much high fever andpain. And then they die.
If one in a household contracts the pestilence and dies, others in thesame house inevitably follow after, traveling the same road ofannihilation. Those in whom the buboes appeared, if they call anotherperson for water to drink or wash, will also infect the latter with thesirayat, the infection. It has come to pass that, through excessiveapprehension, none will minister unto those infected.
It has become known from men of great age and from old histories thatthis disease has never before shown itself in this land of Hindustan.Many physicians and learned men have been questioned as to its cause.Some say it has come because there has been drought for two years insuccession; others say it is owing to the corruption of the air. Someattribute it to other causes.
The infection is now spreading to all towns and villages in the regionof Agra save one, the noble city of the Great Akman, Fatehpur.
Wisdom is of Allah, and all men must submit.
Written this last day of the Muharram in the Hijri year after theProphet of 1028 A.H., by Mu'tamad Khan, Second Wazir to His ImperialMajesty, Arangbar."
_
Brian Hawksworth walked slowly up worn stone steps leading from theriverside funeral ghats. The pathway was narrow, crowded, and linedwith carved statues of Hindu gods: a roly-poly god with human form andthe head of an elephant, a god with a lion's body and a grotesquelygrinning human face, an austere deity with a pointed head and a tridentin his hand. All were ancient, weathered, ill-kept. Tame monkeys,small, brown, malicious, chased among them screeching.
The smoke from the _ghats _behind him still seared in his lungs. Onlywhen he reached the top of the steps could he force himself to lookback. Scavenger birds wheeled in the sky above and small barks withsingle oarsmen plied the muddy face of the Jamuna. Along the banks weretoiling washermen, Untouchables, who wore nothing save a brownloincloth and a kerchief over their heads. They stood in a long row,knee-deep at the water's edge, mechanically slapping folded lengths ofcloth against stacks of flat stones. They seemed unconcerned by thenearness of the funeral ghats, stone platforms at the river's edge thatwere built out above the steps leading down into the water. As hesilently surveyed the crowd around him, from somewhere on the streetabove a voice chanted a funeral litany: Ram Nam Sach Hai, the Name ofRam Is Truth Itself.
It had taken four days for Kamala to die. The morning after she haddanced, she had begun to show unmistakable symptoms of the plague. Shehad called for Brahmin priests and, seating herself on a wooden plankin their presence, had removed her _todus_, the ear pendants that werethe mark of her _devadasi _caste, and placed them together with twelvegold coins on the plank before her. It was her deconsecration. Thenwith a look of infinite peace, she had announced she was ready to die.
Next she informed the priests that since she had no sons in Agra, nofamily at all, she wanted Brian Hawksworth to officiate at her funeral.He had not understood what she wanted until the servants whispered itto him. The Brahmins had been scandalized and at first had refused toagree, insisting he had no caste and consequently was a despicableUntouchable. Finally, after more payments, they had reluctantlyconsented. Then she had turned to him and explained what she had done.
When he tried to argue, she had appealed to him in the name of Shiva.
"I only ask you do this one last thing for me," she had said, going onto insist his responsibilities would not be difficult. "There are Hinduservants in the palace. Though they are low caste, they know enoughTurki to guide you."
After the Brahmins had departed, she called the servants and, asHawksworth watched, ordered them to remove all her jewels from therosewood box where she kept them. Then she asked him to accompany themas they took the jewels through the Hindu section of Agra, to a templeof the goddess Mari, who presides over epidemics. They were to donateall her jewels to the goddess. Smiling at Hawksworth's astonishment,she had explained that Hindus believe a person's reincarnation isdirectly influenced by the amount of alms given in his or her previouslife. This last act of charity might even bring her back as a Brahmin.
Two days later she lapsed into a delirium of fever. As death drew near,the Hindu servants again summoned the priests to visit the palace. Theplague was spreading now, and with it fear, and at first none had beenwilling to comply. Only after it was agreed that they would be paidthree times the usual price for the ceremonies did the Brahmins come.They had laid Kamala's body on a bed of _kusa _grass in the open air,sprinkled her head with water brought from the sacred Ganges River, andsmeared her brow with Ganges clay. She had seemed only vaguelyconscious of what they were doing.
When at last she died, her body was immediately washed, perfumed, andbedecked with flowers. Then she was wrapped in linen, lifted onto abamboo bier, and carried toward the river ghats by the Hindu servants,winding through the streets with her body held above their heads,intoning a funeral dirge. Hawksworth had led the procession, carrying afirepot with sacred fire provided by Nadir Sharifs Hindu servants.
The riverside was already crowded with mourners, for there had beenmany deaths, and the air was acrid from the smoke of cremation pyres.On the steps above the ghats was a row of thatch umbrellas, and sittingon a reed mat beneath each was a Brahmin priest. All were shirtless,potbellied, and wore three stripes of white clay down their forehead inhonor of Vishnu's trident. The servants approached one of the priestsand began to bargain with him. After a time the man rose and signifiedagreement. The servants whispered to Hawksworth that he was there toprovide funeral rites for hire, adding with some satisfaction thatBrahmins who served at the ghats were despised as mercenaries by therest of their caste.
After the bargain had been struck, the priest retired beneath hisumbrella to watch while they purchased logs from vendors and beganconstruction of a pyre. When finished, it was small, no more than threefeet high, and irregular; but no one seemed to care. Satisfied, theyproceeded to douse it with oil.
Then the Brahmin priest was summoned from his umbrella and he rose andcame down the steps, bowing to a stone Shiva lingam as he passed. Afterhe had performed a short ceremony, chanting from the Vedas, the windingsheet was cut away and Kamala's body was lifted atop the stack of wood.
A mortal sadness had swept through Hawksworth as he stood holding thetorch, listening to the Brahmin chant and studying the flow of theriver. He thought again of Kamala, of the times he had secretly admiredher erotic bearing, the times she had sat patiently explaining how bestto draw the long sensuous notes from his new sitar, the times he hadheld her in his arms. And he thought again of their last evening, whenshe had danced with the power of a god.
When at last he moved toward the bier, the servants had touched his armand pointed him toward her feet, explaining that only if the deceasedwere a man could the pyre be lighted at the head.
The oil-soaked logs had kindled quickly, sending out the sweet smoke of_neem_. Soon the pyre was nothing but yellow tongues of fire, and for amoment he thought he glimpsed her once more, in among the flames,dancing as the goddess Parvati, the beloved consort of Shiva.
When he turned to walk away, the servants had caught his sleeve andindicated he must remain. As her "son" it was his duty to ensure thatthe heat burst her skull, releasing her soul. Otherwise he would haveto do it himself.
He waited, the smoke drifting over him, astonished that a religioncapable of the beauty of her dance could treat death with suchbarbarity. At last, to his infinite relief, the servants indicated theycould leave. They gathered up the pot of sacred fire and took his armto lead him away. It was then he had pulled away, wanting to be alonewith her one last time. Finally, no longer able to check his tears, hehad turned and started blindly up the steps, alone.
Now he stared numbly back, as though awakened from a nightmare. Almostwithout thinking, he searched the pocket of his jerkin until hisfingers closed around a flask of brandy. He drew deeply on it twicebefore turning to make his way on through the streets of Agra.
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