TWELVE
Ambika waited for the stranger to come to her apartment. Evening arrived; the world outside her window grew dark. Her maids came in and lit the lamps. Ambika grew increasingly dismayed at what she had to do. She crossed to the long mirror on the wall and examined herself in it: an old habit, would the strange man be pleased with her? Her fair body was boyish, with its small high breasts and lean satin flanks. She was not yet seventeen.
Came night and the soft dreaded knock at her door. Her hands clammy, Ambika went to answer it. Despite her wildest apprehensions, she was unprepared for the appearance of the man who stood in the passage. His coppery beard obscured most of his long face. He was jet black, his eyes were deep and so intense and his manner altogether untamed. A whimper escaped her when she saw him standing there, tall and grim, from a savage world out there, full of dark jungles, wolves that bayed a shining moon, tigers that were evil spirits and hermits who flew ominously through the air. From the first moment she saw Vyasa, poor Ambika was lost.
She was so terrified she could barely wash his feet in the silver trough to welcome him, as she must. Her hands shook and she could not look up at his face. Yet when she thought about that night later, when she was alone, she remembered Vyasa had been patient with her. He was a far cry from the iras cible rishi who took umbrage at the slightest fault and cursed one to be born as an insect or a snake in one's next life. Indeed, when she looked back calmly, she felt he had been full of a deep good humor.
But that night itself was a calamity and it was only because of him that they managed to get through what they had come together for.
She remembered later that he did not speak much; but when he did, his voice was soft and kind. Somehow, she did wash his fine feet, almost dropping the water for the wretched shaking of her hands. With a wry smile, a flash of white against his night-black skin, he took the silver pitcher from her and set it on a table. He took one of her small hands in his knotty one, callused by his life in the wilderness, so full of grace.
Vyasa's was a reverberant presence, after the only other man she had known, the elegant Vichitraveerya. She found his stranger's touch overwhelming and the blood rose dizzily to her head. She longed to put out the lamps that burned in the room and were reflected in his deep eyes. But she lacked the courage. With not a word exchanged between them, he led her to the bed, gently but with an eerie detachment. How different, how unthreatening, love had been with Vichitraveerya. Through her tumult, she had sense of a part of Vyasa watching himself in this obviously unaccustomed role and smiling inwardly.
But he was adroit when he peeled her clothes away from her slender body. With a quick sigh to see her naked, he lifted her easily on to the bed. He stroked her pale breasts. Ambika shut her eyes tightly from fear and from something else as well: an excitement so yawning she would not admit to herself what it was.
She teetered between a dream and the reality of him, darkly potent above her, inside her. She felt his rough beard against her cheek, as he nuzzled her in deep tenderness. She clawed his back each time the swell crested in her head in a white flash. But though he loved her all night, with his rishi's great control and virility, not once did she open her eyes to look into his face.
Only when dawn flushed on the world, Vyasa spent himself into Ambika's body in a warm cloud streaked with lightning: the golden seeds of life. She lay in a swoon. He rose from her bed and, dressing himself, went out from her apartment.
Satyavati could not contain her excitement when Vyasa arrived in her chambers. She clutched his hand and cried with a fisher-woman's curiosity, "How was the night? Did you succeed?"
He said quietly, "Ambika will have a powerful son. The night was perfect, except for one thing."
She was anxious, "What was that?"
He grunted, "She was frightened and never opened her eyes to look at me."
"And?"
"Your grandson will be born blind."
She felt faint; she cursed the stupid girl. Sighing at her fate, Satyavati said, "Be comfortable here. I will take you to Ambalika tonight. She is a bolder child than Ambika; you will have no trouble with her."
Vyasa settled himself on the floor of the opulent room. He shut his eyes and began to meditate. Satyavati went to prepare Ambalika to receive Vyasa. She said to her younger daughter-in-law, "Your sister had her eyes shut all night like the spoilt princess she is and her son will be born blind. Don't you do anything so foolish."
Then she went off to give Ambika a piece of her mind. What did she think: that being with a rishi was like sleeping with a boy like Vichitraveerya? After all, Satyavati did know a thing or two about rishis and their love. She had not shut her eyes out on the island with Parashara. But she had been raised on the banks of a river, a child of nature; not a pampered princess in a palace.
Late that evening, there was a knock at Vichitraveerya's younger widow's door. Braver than her sister and rather excited at the prospect of spending the night with another man, she opened it. Unlike Ambika, Ambalika had very little imagination; she had not worked herself up at all. But when that queen, who was barely sixteen, saw Vyasa in the passage she turned pale. She had never seen anyone as fearful as the black stranger who stood at her door.
Her excitement vanished; her gumption was gone. For fear of having a blind child, she managed to keep her eyes screwed open. Why, she managed to look at the rishi's face and to keep her voice steady, as she asked him in. But with each moment she spent with him, poor Ambalika grew paler and paler.
The way Vyasa made love to Ambalika was as direct as it had been with Ambika. He wasted little time and fewer words, before he drew the brave princess to him and plucked away her clothes. He picked her up and laid her on the bed. Though she was younger than her sister, her body was more rounded and womanly. She kept her eyes open; she even managed a smile.
But when he came to her, in a feverish mixture of fright and lust Ambalika turned white as a sheet. And so she remained all through the night. Because he had spent some of his passion on her sister, Vyasa was gentler with Ambalika. His lovemaking was slow and languorous. But while her body responded helplessly, some part of her mind could never reconcile itself to him. She remained blanched all night; though she never shut her eyes, not even in pleasure.
In the morning, Vyasa returned to his mother, waiting eagerly to hear his news. He said, "A handsome and bold boy will be born to your younger daughter-in-law. But he too shall have a defect."
"Why?" she cried.
"Ambalika didn't shut her eyes, though she wanted to. But she was so afraid she turned the color of moonlight. Your grandson will be born as pale as his mother was when I was with her."
Satyavati groaned. Ah, these foolish girls, had they been taught nothing about life? She clasped her son's hand and implored him, "You mustn't be angry with them, they are just children. I have another favor to ask you. After these two princes are born, you must come back again. You must go to Ambika once more. She will be a mother by then and mature. You must give me your word."
Laughing, he gave it and went back into the wild world from where he had come.
In course of time and a day apart, sons were born to the widowed queens of Hastinapura. Just as Vyasa had predicted, Ambika's son was a large and powerful infant; but he was born sightless. At his father's instance, the blind prince was called Dhritarashtra. The day after Dhritarashtra, an elegant, quiet son was born to Ambalika. There was no rich pigment in his skin: he was an albino. He was also given a name his father had chosen. He was called Pandu.
Using the mantra he had given her, Satyavati called Vyasa again and he appeared before her. She showed him his sons and how they were exactly as he had said, one blind and the other white. The rishi blessed the two children. But he showed no attachment for them: they might have been anyone's sons. He said, "Tell me why you called me, mother."
"I want you to spend another night with Ambika. I want a grandchild who is whole in all his parts. I had two sons and both died. If there had been a third one to rule Hastinapura, I wouldn't have to trouble you like this."
Vyasa said. "Prepare your daughter-in-law to receive me."
Satyavati went off to do just that.