Bride of the Buddha Page 5

  Not that I could raise such an issue. To avoid seeming rude and also to keep my promise to my mother, I occupied myself with my eldest sister Chandra’s year-old baby—a son, which my parents hoped indicated the ability of our disproportionately female family to produce male heirs. I held him while Chandra flashed her eyes and bangles, eager to be noticed in the ways she had before vanishing into the role of married woman.

  Looking back at myself then, so critical of others’ pride and arrogance—I certainly managed to overlook my own! Still, my snooty attitude helped me achieve my goal of avoiding attention. Although I wasn’t overtly sullen—Ama would have chastised me for that—I wasn’t the kind of girl Siddhartha would recommend to his male friends and cousins. I said nothing, showed no enthusiasm, and always kept my head turned away. As for the young men I met at pre-wedding parties and dances—including the pompous Devadatta—I became adept at scaring them off with conversational gambits such as, “What do you think comprises the universe? Does all emerge from fire, or is it water? Do the gods perish or not? Or are they some conjurer’s trick?” Of course I did this out of Ama’s earshot.

  The young men would suddenly remember they had elderly aunts to attend to and hurry off.

  The wedding was scheduled for one and a half months after the monsoon, and I congratulated myself that I had kept my promise to Ama while avoiding attracting any suitors, although of course at any time some family could swoop down and mark me as suitable for their son. Still, it hadn’t happened, and I allowed myself to hope that once Kisa was married, I could again bring up the topic of my going forth.

  But as my mother would have said, the gods had their own plans.

  The monsoon had ended, but on the night that everything changed, the moonless sky offered no more light than during the storms. I was dead asleep on my cot in the room I shared with my sister when something woke me into a greater darkness. Had Kisa moaned? I thought, she must be having a nightmare about being married—no wonder! Then she moaned again, this time followed by a strangled shriek.

  “Kisa?” I whispered. “Are you all right?”

  She didn’t reply.

  In absolute darkness she crashed to the floor, gulping in air with broken yelps, her skull and heels pounding the planks. “Kisa!” I shouted, grappling toward her heaving shape and clutching the knobs of her shoulders as I kicked open the bedroom door to let in torchlight from the outer courtyard. All at once she vomited loudly, the throat-clawing smell filling the room along with my corresponding nausea and fear. “Ama, help!” I screamed. “Something’s terribly wrong with Kisa!”

  Then came the lamps and clamor: Ama, servants, someone shouting an order to send a runner for the doctor, women screaming, my sister’s yelping and moaning, more shouts, and a storm of thudding footsteps down hallways. In the light, her skin was ocher as if her blood had turned to yellow dye, her eyes orange crescents cast back into her head. She was so close to being a Thing, moved not by her own will but by some alien force. Amid the pandemonium of priests, doctors, relatives, and panicked servants, I struggled to keep the blackness behind my eyes from taking over as I applied damp cloths to her brow and gave her over to the doctor. Kisa’s paroxysms were ebbing to a far more awful stillness. I held my mother in my arms, and she neither sobbed nor screamed but rocked back and forth silently. It was another instance in which time seemed jumbled. Dawn arrived as a shock. My sister Kisa was dead.

  Apparently, a poisonous mushroom had been overlooked in the harvest of ordinary brown mushrooms. The two varieties were almost indistinguishable, although the lethal one was rare in this part of the land. We had all eaten the mushroom dish, but only Kisa had consumed the poison one.

  The procession to the charnel ground was far larger than Deepa’s. It overspilled the road with hundreds of white-clad mourners, the crowd swelled by Suddhodana and most of his household, with the exception of Siddhartha. Suddhodana had forbidden his son to come, saying that his status, now of former fiancé, was unclear. (Here was another reason for me to dislike Siddhartha: I was sure that the real reason for his absence was that he couldn’t be bothered with such unpleasantness.) Anyway, but for its increased size, the procession was almost identical to the last one: led by the same elderly priest, accompanied by gongs, chants, cuckoo cries and monkey shrieks, clouds of choking incense, and the heavy tramp of grief. I followed not far behind the bier. Although I didn’t feel Kisa’s death as profoundly as I had that of Deepa, who’d shared my childhood, I mourned my spirited elder sister, her cleverness and passion, and I suffered the same sense of irretrievable loss as at my little sister’s funeral. Even the weather was similar, the day sunny and innocent as we made our slow despairing way between the green, monsoon-fed fields toward the territory of death.

  Only my parents had changed.

  My father, who had headed Deepa’s procession in a manner properly grave and stiff, now trailed near the end of Kisa’s, leaving Jagdish to handle Suddhodana up front. Father straggled along with my surviving sisters and their families, displaying little of his usual upright dignity, clutching alternately at his elbows and cheeks and swinging his head around like an abused donkey looking for someone to rescue him. He’d paid far more of his own fortune for this aborted wedding than he could ever expect to recover. No doubt that was part of his distress.

  My mother, on the other hand, had turned herself into stone, at the molten center of which was a rage with the power to demolish all in its path. She wore her same white mourning sari, but had yanked her hair back into an angry bunch, as though she were forbidding every part of herself to choose grief over fury. She marched behind my sister’s bier, not once looking at the priest. Since Kisa died, she had refused to go anywhere near our house altar, and the night before the funeral procession someone had toppled the deva statues in our banana grove. I strongly suspected it was Ama.

  As the march continued, I drifted through the crowd, back and forth between my parents, fearing something bad was about to happen. More than halfway to our destination, my father noticed Cook and her family behind him, a dozen children and adults all wearing white and weeping copiously. “How dare you walk here!” he shouted. “I should have all of you driven into the jungle!” He had already dismissed the mushroom gatherers, even those who were relatives. “I should have you put to death!”

  “I checked those mushrooms three times!” Cook stood tall, her belly quivering above its white wrap. “I sampled them at all stages of the dish.”

  My mother appeared, her face unmoving, her eyes shooting flame. “Husband, you will not speak to our cook in such a way. She’s innocent of all charges. I checked those mushrooms as well. The fault belongs to our wretched gods, who hurl us to our doom as a matter of sport.”

  My father stared at her. “Woman, it is you who are speaking out of turn. You should be on your knees praying for forgiveness for such blasphemy.”

  Shockingly, my mother turned her head and spat at my father’s feet. “I’ve prayed enough to compensate for a thousand blasphemies. I’ve followed every one of the devas’ pointless rules, blistered my fingers making offerings, and served them up perfectly good dishes we could have used for our own table or at least given to the poor. And look what they dished out to us in return! It was they who hid the poison mushroom among the others—or else temporarily blinded us all, including the mushroom gatherers, to its presence. I curse all devas! I only want that they join me in the hell they’ve created.”

  My father, I guessed, was stunned into silence, fearing his wife’s impending madness. I didn’t blame him. I was desperate to help Ama, but there was little I could do in this crowd. I headed toward her, thinking at least to put my arm around her—or to try.

  Iron fingers bit into my arm, whirling me around. I knew even before I saw his clenched face that it was Jagdish yanking me aside, his grip making my arm tingle with pain as the crowd passed by. My anger was mixed with concern. Why h
ad he abandoned his duty as head of the procession?

  Still holding on to me, he nodded at the mourners. “Let them pass.” He waited until the last of them were out of earshot. “You know how much Father has invested in this wedding. He will never have this opportunity again to ensure that we have control over our own estate for the next generation. At best, our family will become vassals to our uncle.”

  He drilled his eyes into me. “Only you can save us.”

  Could this be? Had my brother finally accepted my holy path? “I give you my most sacred promise that I will not rest until I learn how all our souls can be saved from the darkness of ignorance.”

  “What?! Stupid girl! This has nothing to do with your absurd fantasy of becoming a beggar. I’m talking about the family fortune.”

  I swallowed my hurt. “Then what—”

  “Suddhodana and his son have noticed your resemblance to Kisa. True, you’re taller and thinner, but at times I’ve seen Siddhartha gazing at you.”

  I yanked my arm from his grip, hardly able to believe what he was implying. “Are you saying I take Kisa’s place? That I marry that pampered peacock who couldn’t even take a day off from his fan dancers and trained elephants to grieve our beloved sister? I intend never to marry, but if I did, I’d choose a pack of rabid dogs over him.”

  Jagdish played calm. “Don’t be selfish, Yasi. Think of Ama. She may not survive this loss. She hasn’t had anything to eat or drink since it happened.”

  This sobered me, but not enough to accede to Jagdish’s outrageous demand. “You talk about replacing Kisa the way we might buy a goat to fill out the herd. The prospect of such a thing would make Ama worse.”

  The tendons twitched in my brother’s jaw, but he kept his voice steady. “You’re letting your own concerns cloud your vision.”

  “What about your concerns? It seems the person with the most to lose is you—your opportunity to become Suddhodana’s second son.”

  Jagdish brought his fist to his forehead. “I can’t deny I’ll lose a lot.”

  It was then I remembered the argument he’d had with Kisa, and a forbidden thought exploded inside me. Jagdish also had the most to gain. He’d lost a hated sister who mocked him and thwarted his ambitions, and now he saw a way to avert the disgrace of his other sister going forth as a wanderer. “Brother,” I asked, “what do you think caused Kisa’s death?”

  The outrage in his eyes and hung-open jaw almost completely allayed my suspicions. “I have no idea. Perhaps the gods saw fit to take her. Perhaps they were offended by your plans—which defied them.”

  “You wanted her dead.”

  Tears sprang into my brother’s eyes. “How can you say that? It’s my duty to protect my sisters! Are you accusing me? What would that do to our parents? To Ama?”

  “I haven’t accused you of anything.” I felt the breath sucked out of me. What had I been thinking? Even if there were any remote chance my accusation was true, I had no way of proving it. Voicing my suspicions would only shatter our family.

  My brother’s tears glossed his cheeks. If he was lying, I feared he was lying to himself as well. “Please, Yasi,” he said. “I beg you. For Ama’s sake. Offer to take Kisa’s place. Only you can lift our mother out of hell.”

  What if my mother went mad or died of grief? I could never go forth into the holy life knowing I failed to prevent her death when I had the chance. I, who had contributed to her madness by my part in the death of her youngest child.

  “I’ll go to Ama with the suggestion. If, and only if, the prospect of my marriage to Siddhartha will truly move her, bring her back to life, will I go through with it.”

  “You need to approach her very soon, before Suddhodana starts looking for other candidates.”

  “Jagdish! This is our sister’s funeral, not a matchmakers’ conference! I refuse to talk about this anymore today.”

  Far in front of us, the crowd had stopped at the entry to the charnel ground. From here I could see the shapes of the gobbling vultures in the bright sun, even as a flock of parrots flew overhead, green as springtime. Jagdish took my arm. “I know what this is costing you,” he said, “even though I never approved of your plan. But you’ll benefit far more by your noble sacrifice.”

  It would be many years before I revisited my suspicions about poisoning.

  That night, I brought a lamp and a gourd of water to the little weaving room where Ama had retired after the funeral. She lay, a dirty white mound curled on the floor in the room’s far corner. The wooden storm windows and filigree blinds were bolted shut, and the room smelled of stale sweat and dark, female despair. I leaned over her. “Ama, you must drink something,” I said.

  Her voice was muffled. “A dead woman doesn’t have to drink anything. Go away, child. Your mother has already left this world.”

  I was surprised by the intensity of my hurt. “So, then, you’re going to desert your family because you’re piqued at the gods.”

  She turned, crouching as if to slap away my gourd and lamp and drive me out the door. “You’re fortunate to be blind to the devas. Better never to have seen them than to hate them as I do.”

  Her appearance shocked me. Her hair, a black mire, would take weeks to untangle, but the dull red tracks down her cheeks—she must have clawed them—and the voided-out expression in her eyes made me fear my Ama’s spirit had fled her body, even while she lived. Jagdish was right. To abandon her now would be to condemn her to countless lifetimes of darkness, gods or no gods. “Don’t hate the devas, Ama. It will only hurt you.” My words sounded as feeble as dead petals fluttering to the floor.

  She looked away. “Just go,” she said.

  I don’t know where my next words came from. Perhaps from the gods themselves, perhaps from my own unacknowledged soul, not that of a seeker but a schemer. “Ama, our gods were jealous. They knew you would leave them for the more powerful ones worshiped by Suddhodana. By killing Kisa, they thought they could stop you.”

  “They’ve succeeded.”

  “Don’t let them. If you want to punish them, make them bow to Suddhodana’s gods. Find a new priest. Don’t send yourself to hell!”

  “It’s too late. Suddhodana is no longer interested in our family.”

  I felt suspended in some strange floating numbness. “I could replace Kisa.”

  Ama said nothing.

  “Please,” I said. “You yourself acknowledged how much I resemble my sister. It would benefit all parts of the family, including Suddhodana, to have this wedding.”

  My mother gasped, suddenly remembering the real reason for her rage. “Our beautiful Kisa!” She broke down sobbing, and I could only watch as grief finally overtook anger. Finally, she turned toward me, supporting herself with her arms, her ruined hair hanging down on either side of her shoulders. “She’s lost forever.”

  I swallowed. “I can live her life. I can honor her beauty. My actions and my children will be dedicated to her. She will live through me.”

  Ama sat up, leaning against the plank wall, breathing hard as if she’d summoned her spirit either to return to her body or to offer these final words before leaving it forever. “You plan to go forth. I don’t want you to ruin your life, child. One life is enough.”

  “I no longer believe that going forth is my karma,” I said, torn apart by my own grief, not for my sister but for my lost future. Yet I was moved to know that Ama still cared about my plans. “We could arrange a meeting with my uncle and cousin for as soon as the mourning period ends.”

  Ama patted at her hair, calmer now. “You did little to endear yourself to them, I fear.”

  “I can change that. Let me try.”

  Ama gazed at my face, lit by the little oil lamp; I could feel its heat. “I would be happy not to let your beauty go to waste,” she said.

  I opened the windows, and the night flooded in, a cool
breeze and the yowls of a catfight below. “All I want to do is make you happy.”

  For I was certain that happiness was no longer a possibility for me.

  A month later I stood with my parents in our main receiving room, with its patterned bolsters and cushions leaning against the teakwood walls, greeting Suddhodana. The weather had cooled; we all wore paridanhas with shawls, no longer white. My garment was midnight blue, worn with a gold cloth belt and earrings and bangles to match, an outfit intended to convey seriousness without being too somber. I now had to convince everyone that I looked forward to an event that filled me with dread: marriage to my coddled, worldly cousin Siddhartha, who had yet to arrive.

  “You may sit,” Suddhodana said, as if the three of us were servants or children, and we seated ourselves on the floor, not knowing why my prospective father-in-law wanted to meet with us alone. He glanced approvingly at the platform altar, now dedicated to Durga, the Vedic goddess. There was no statue, only a simple conch shell and a half-bloomed red lotus. Ama wasn’t ready to overdo her new devotions. That seemed to be fine with Suddhodana, whose relationship to the gods apparently was a matter of keeping them at bay and paying them off when necessary.

  Seating himself on our fattest pillow, he turned his attention to me. Compatible with the severity of his granite gray mustache, his long jaw was lean and his brown eyes watchful, those of an older brother needing to make sure none of his younger siblings were plotting against him. Next to him, my own father looked like a good imitation of a Sakyan leader, but an imitation, with a jaw consciously thrust forward to compensate for its narrowness.