Princess of Dhagabad, The (4 page)

A new wave of vinegar smell hits the princess
as she carefully lifts the lid and picks out a hard, slightly moist
ball. She rubs the olive on her tongue, feeling the strong taste of
vinegar, sugar, and cinnamon fill her mouth.
Sankajat
represents to her a whole world of sensations that she craves. She
puts the olive in her cheek, carefully biting through its crispy
flesh down to the stone to release more juice, sucking it slowly to
make it last as long as possible. She watches Alamid, usually
slower and more methodical in her choice, pull out of another
barrel a brownish ball of a dried spicy apricot and put it into her
mouth.

“There you go!” Naina smiles, patting both
girls on their heads. “Now run along before your nannies come here
looking for you!”

“Thank you, Naina,” the princess says,
forcing the words through the sweet-and-sour juice that fills her
mouth. Normally they would have stayed to talk to their
cook-friend, but today the kitchen is too busy, so they think they
better leave.

Each absorbed in savoring their treats, the
two girls slowly wander back to the central chamber.

“We should probably go back now,” the
princess said. “It is getting late.”

“Come,” Alamid insists. “Let’s go just a
little bit farther! Let’s see the big ceremonial hall!”

Torn between her sense of duty and insatiable
curiosity, the princess follows her friend farther down the
passage. In front of the ceremonial hall they run straight into
armed guards, standing motionlessly on both sides of the big
doors.

“Guards?” Alamid exclaims in surprise.
“Why?”

“I don’t know,” the princess mutters,
fearfully eyeing the big, motionless men. She has never seen the
guards so close-up before, and the sight of them disturbs her. The
one on the left, a muscular giant with long hair and a golden ring
in his left ear, gives her a slight wink, and she hastily steps
back, blushing.

“They are from the sultan’s personal guard,”
Alamid observes. “Maybe his majesty is inside? Do you think they
will be here all night?”

“I don’t know,” the princess whispers again,
throwing another cautious glance at the long-haired guard. His
handsome square-jawed face is now motionless; his eyes look
straight forward, as appropriate for a guard on duty.

“Princess! Here you are!”

She turns quickly to see Nanny Zulfia,
rushing out of the side passage with a reproachful look on her
face.

“Nanny! I—”

“Where have you been? Went to see Naina
again? I have been looking all over for you! It’s your bedtime!”
Words pour out of Zulfia like grains of rice out of a broken sack.
She hastily leads the girls back into the passage; and the princess
sees her full, rosy cheeks flush as she throws a glance at the
long-haired guard.

“Why are there guards, nanny?” she asks.

“They are getting ready for tomorrow,” Zulfia
explains.

“But why?”

“You know. The ceremony?” Zulfia looks
away.

Realization slowly dawns upon the
princess.

“You mean, because…,” she
half-whispers.

“Yes, princess,” Zulfia says firmly. “No one
knows what’s going to happen. And it is only right that his majesty
takes some precautions.”

You are a spirit; you are all-powerful and
nothing can possibly have any command over you. Why then does this
merciless sun haunt you with its deadly beams? Why do the blowing
sands pierce you with their endless grains? Why do these unbearable
walls press upon you, making it impossible for you to break into
the outside world but not preventing the outside world from
torturing your all-powerful, helpless, eternal mind? And you,
pressed in this tight space, again vainly call upon the highest
powers that you could never comprehend in all your wisdom. And,
being all-powerful and wise, you know that you have been imprisoned
here because such is the order of things; you know that your
prayers will not be heard, and that even the happiest savior called
death cannot reach you here in this desert, beyond the world that
you studied and understood all your life until you finally learned
everything there was to know about it. And all that is left to you
is your eternal mind; and all you can do is lose this mind, give it
up, and then, maybe then… No, you will not be free from your
imprisonment, but you could return to that world as a slave and
resume your existence in the place you know so well, where the
fiery sun and the piercing sands cannot penetrate the bronze walls
and where the suffering of the body and the suffering of the mind
are kept apart.

“Bring me the bottle, nanny. I want to wish
it good night.”

“But princess,” Airagad says helplessly.

“Go ahead, bring it,” the oldest nanny,
Zeinab, grumbles. Zeinab used to look after the newborn sultan, the
princess’s father, and everyone in the palace respects her. “You
know our girl. She will never settle down until she touches her
bottle.”

The princess watches Airagad exit toward a
small storage room at the side of her chamber. Her heart quivers
with anticipation.

“Tell me about my grandmother, Nanny Zeinab,”
she asks.

Zeinab settles into an armchair near the
princess’s bed, crossing her wrinkled arms on her chest. Her white
hair makes her brown skin look dark, like the bark of an ancient
oak.

“Your grandmother, princess, was very old and
very wise. She studied magic, and everyone in the palace feared
her. But in her heart she was kind, and she cared a great deal for
the well-being of her subjects.”

“How did she get the bottle, nanny?”

“I don’t know, princess. It was before I came
to the palace.”

“Didn’t you ever see what was inside?”

“The old sultaness never opened the bottle in
my presence. And, to my knowledge, in no one else’s presence,
either.”

“Are you telling about her grandmother
again?” Airagad asks, entering the room.

“The usual bedtime stories,” Zeinab explains
with good humor.

The princess holds her breath, looking at the
bottle in Airagad’s hands. The old bronze softly glistens with
age-darkened patterns in the light of the night lamps. Walking
slowly and carefully, Airagad sets the bottle on a little table
near the head of the bed.

The princess lightly touches the rough
surface of the wax sealing the cork. The wax bears the imprint of
the royal seal of Dhagabad—a coiled snake and an olive branch,
except in the pattern pressed into the wax both the snake and the
branch are depicted as a number of thin wavy lines.

“Before she died, your grandmother ordered
the servants to bring her the bottle and some wax,” Zeinab says.
“She sealed the cork herself and pressed her royal signet ring to
it. All the court was gathered beside her. Your mother and father
were standing closest of all, right in front of her. And you were
there, too, princess, although you were only a year old and Nanny
Zulfia was holding you in her arms. Your grandmother turned to the
whole court and said, ‘I wish to leave this bottle to my
granddaughter, the princess of Dhagabad. Let the princess open it
on the day she turns twelve. And let no one touch the cork until
that very day.’ Your grandmother moved her hand over the cork, and
it seemed to all of us that we heard a soft and sad sigh. But no
one dared to say anything. It was so quiet in the room, princess,
that even a mouse’s footsteps would have been heard.”

“How many times have you told this story to
the princess, Zeinab?” Airagad asks with the impatience of
youth.

“I don’t remember.” Zeinab slowly shakes her
head. “Children like to listen to the same stories again and
again.”

Enchanted, the princess runs her hand down
the cold, smooth bronze, feeling with her fingers every turn of the
unusual carving. She is terribly curious to know what’s inside. All
through her conscious life this bottle has been the most mysterious
and the most desired object in the entire palace, but she has never
thought of disobeying her grandmother. If the old sultaness wished
for her to open the bottle on the day she turns twelve, let it be
so. Especially because that day is so close! Finally this
unbearable expectation will come to an end! The princess’s heart
beats faster, scaring away sleepiness.

“Tell me how my grandmother talked to the
bottle, Nanny Zeinab.”

“I only saw it once, princess,” Zeinab says
obediently. “Your father was being naughty, and when he was like
that no one except your grandmother could bring him to order.
Because of that, I had to go to her at an unusual hour. I knocked,
but no one answered. Then I decided to look inside…”

“And what did you see?” the princess asks, so
absorbed in the nanny’s story she forgets she has already heard it
at least a hundred times.

Zeinab holds a dramatic pause. “The bottle
was standing on the table in the middle of the room. It was open,
and the cork was lying beside it, but I couldn’t see anything
except the dark opening of the bottle neck. I heard the sultaness
mutter something, but either I couldn’t make out the words, or the
words themselves were impossible to understand, as if spoken in
another language. She spoke for a long time, not noticing my
presence. Then she fell silent and bent her head to the side, as if
waiting for an answer. And at that moment I heard a whisper coming
from the bottle, or so it seemed to me at the time.”

“A whisper?” The princess’s eyes are shining;
she is hanging on every word.

“The bottle was answering her.” Nanny Zeinab
seems to be absorbed in the story herself. “And I still couldn’t
make out the words. I wanted to come closer, and in my excitement I
bumped into the sofa and dropped a pillow, a single pillow…” The
nanny stops, seemingly overwhelmed by her own story.

“What happened next?”

“Your grandmother jumped up, as if stung. Her
expression was so horrible I couldn’t even move. She beckoned me
with her finger, but my knees trembled so much I couldn’t obey. And
then she asked me what I was doing in her quarters. I said that her
son, the sultan, was being naughty again, and that we couldn’t put
him to bed. I was expecting all kinds of terrible punishments to
fall on me right there and then. But your grandmother just promised
she would be along soon, and sent me away. And never again did she
mention that episode.”

The princess looks at the bottle again. How
unbearable is the wait! How much she wants to learn immediately
what’s hidden inside!

“You had your story, princess. Now, off to
sleep!” Airagad says mercilessly.

“Alamid told me she goes to bed a whole hour
later than me!” The princess, like a drowning man, is grasping at
straws. But it is useless to argue with Nanny Airagad.

“Alamid is almost a whole year older than you
are, princess. And she has her own parents. If her father, the
master of ceremonies, had ordered her nanny to put her to bed an
hour earlier, that’s the way it would have been. You are not a boy,
despite what his majesty the sultan may think.”

“She’s too young to understand,” Zeinab
grumbles, tucking the princess in. “What do fathers know about
children?”

“Can the bottle stay with me tonight?” the
princess asks.

“Be patient, princess, just a little while
longer. After your birthday you will be in complete command of your
bottle.”