when he was dead, she almost missed him, and it was only when she reminded herself of other things about him—his old-man smell, and his dried legs, when she had massaged them, with the useless rag of manhood flopping against the thigh—that she realized it was better he was gone. She was, after all, still young and healthy and hearty, and now with the money and property he had left her, she could lead the life she was entitled to. She kept two servants, got up when she wanted, and went to sleep when she wanted; she ate everything she liked and as much as she liked; when she felt like going out, she hired a tonga—and not just any tonga, but always a spruce one with shining red-leather seats and a well-groomed horse wearing jingling bells, so that people looked around at her as she was driven smartly through the streets.
It was a good life, and she grew plump and smooth with it. Nor did she lack for company: her own family and her husband’s were always hovering around her and, now that she had them in the proper frame of mind, she quite enjoyed entertaining them. It had taken her some time to get them into that proper frame of mind. For in the beginning, when her husband had just died, they had taken it for granted that she was to be treated as the widow—that is, the cursed one who had committed the sin of outliving her husband and was consequently to be numbered among the outcasts. They had wanted—yes, indeed they had—to strip her of her silken colored clothes and of her golden ornaments. The more orthodox among them had even wanted to shave her head, to reduce her diet to stale bread and lentils, and deprive her from ever again tasting the sweet things of life: to condemn her, in fact, to that perpetual mourning, perpetual expiation, that was the proper lot of widows. That was how they saw it and how their forefathers had always seen it; but not how she saw it at all.
There had been a struggle, of course, but not one of which the outcome was long in doubt. And now it was accepted that she should be mistress of what was hers and rule her household and wear her fine clothes and eat her fine foods; and out of her abundance she would toss crumbs to them, let them sit in her house and talk with them when she felt like talking, listen to their importunities for money and sometimes even perhaps—not out of pity or affection, but just as the whim took her—do them little favors and be praised and thanked for it. She was queen, and they knew it.
But even a queen’s life does not bring perfect satisfaction always, and there were days and even weeks at a time when she felt she had not been dealt with as she had a right to expect. She could never say exactly what had been left out, but only that something had been left out and that somehow, somewhere, she had been shortchanged. And when this realization came over her, then she fell into a black mood and ate and slept more than ever—not for pleasure, but compulsively, sunk in sloth and greed because soft beds and foods were all that life had given to her. At such times she turned her relatives away from her house, and those who nevertheless wheedled their way in had to sit respectfully silent around her bed while she heaved and groaned like a sick woman.
There was one old aunt, known by everyone as Bhuaji, who always managed to wheedle her way in, whatever Durga’s mood. She was a tough, shrewd old woman, small and frail in appearance and with a cast in one eye that made it seem as if she was constantly peeping around the next corner to see what advantage lay there. When Durga’s black mood was on her, it was Bhuaji who presided at the bedside, saw to it that the others kept suitably mournful faces and, at every groan of Durga’s, fell into loud exclamations of pity at her sufferings. When Durga finally got tired of all these faces gathered around her and, turning her back on them, told them to go away and never come back to be a torture and a burden on her, then it was again Bhuaji who saw to it that they left in haste and good order and suitably on compassionate tiptoe; and after locking the door behind them all, she would come back to sit with Durga and encourage her not only to groan but to weep as well and begin to unburden herself.
Only what was there of which she could unburden herself, much as, under Bhuaji’s sympathetic encouragement, she longed to do so? She brought out broken sentences, broken complaints and accusations, but there was nothing she could quite lay her finger on. Bhuaji, always eager and ready to comfort with the right words, tried to lay it on for her, pointing out how cruelly fate had dealt with her in depriving her of what was every woman’s right—namely, a husband and children. But no, no, Durga would cry, that was not it, that was not what she wanted: and she looked scornful, thinking of those women who did have husbands and children, her sisters and her cousins, thin, shabby, overworked, and overburdened, was there anything to envy in their lot? On the contrary, it was they who should and did envy Durga—she could read it in their eyes when they looked at her, who was so smooth and well-fed and had everything that they could never even dream for.
Then, gradually, Bhuaji began to talk to her of God. Durga knew about God, of course. One had to worship Him in the temple and also perform certain rites such as bathing in the river when there was an eclipse and give food to the holy men and observe fast-days. One did all these things so that no harm would befall, and everybody did them and had always done them: that was God. But Bhuaji talked differently. She talked about Him as if He were a person whom one could get to know, like someone who would come and visit in the house and sit and talk and drink tea. She spoke of Him mostly as Krishna, sometimes as the baby Krishna and sometimes as the lover Krishna. She had many stories to tell about Krishna, all the old stories that Durga knew well, for she had heard them since she was a child; but Bhuaji told them as if they were new and had happened only yesterday and in the neighborhood. And Durga sat up on her bed and laughed: “No, really, he did that?” “Yes yes, really—he stole the butter and licked it with his fingers and he teased the young girls and pulled their hair and kissed them—oh, he was such a naughty boy!” And Durga rocked herself to and fro with her hands clasped before her face, laughing in delight—“How naughty!” she cried. “What a bad bad boy, bless his heart!”
But when they came to the lover Krishna, then she sat quite still and looked very attentive, with her mouth a little open and her eyes fixed on Bhuaji’s face. She didn’t say much, just listened; only sometimes she would ask in a low voice, “He was very handsome?” “Oh very,” said Bhuaji, and she described him all over again—lotus eyes and brows like strung bows and a throat like a conch. Durga couldn’t form much of a picture from that, but never mind, she made her own, formed it secretly in her mind as she sat there listening to Bhuaji, and grew more and more thoughtful, more and more silent.
Bhuaji went on to tell her about Krishna’s devotees and the rich rewards granted to those whose hearts were open to receive him. As Durga avidly listened, she narrated the life of Maya Devi, who had retired from the world and built herself a little hut on the banks of the Ganges: there to pass her days with the baby Krishna, whom she had made her child and to whom she talked all day as to a real child, and played with him and cooked for him, bathed his image and dressed it and put it to sleep at night and woke it up with a kiss in the morning. And then there was Pushpa Devi, for whom so many advantageous offers had come but who rejected them all because she said she was wedded already, to Krishna, and he alone was her lord and her lover; she lived with him in spirit, and sometimes in the nights her family would hear her screams of joy as she lay with him in their marital rite and gave him her soul.
Durga bought two little brass images of Krishna—one of him playing the flute, the other as a baby crawling on all fours. She gave them special prominence on her little prayer table and paid her devotions to him many times a day, always waiting for him to come alive for her and be all that Bhuaji promised he would be. Sometimes—when she was alone at night or lay on her bed in the hot, silent afternoons, her thoughts dwelling on Krishna—she felt strange new stirrings within her that were almost like illness, with a tugging in the bowels and a melting in the thighs. And she trembled and wondered whether this was Krishna descending on her, as Bhuaji promised he would, showing her his passion, creeping into her—ah! great God that he was—like a child or a lover, into her womb and into her breasts.
She became dreamy and withdrawn, so that her relatives, quick to note this change, felt freer to come and go as they pleased and sit around in her house and drink tea with a lot of milk and sugar in it. Bhuaji, indeed, was there almost all the time.
