The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Page A

had wooed me for a year.
    The garland for Salva was in my hands when Bheeshma descended on us like a plague. He forced the three of us onto his chariot and took us, terrified, to Hastinapur, to marry us to his younger brother.
    When I'd recovered wits and breath, I told him, I love Salva. I can't marry your brother.
    The brother said, A woman who has embraced another in her heart is not chaste. I do not wish to marry her.
    Bheeshma said, Very well, I will send you back to Salva.
    But when I went to him, Salva said, Bheeshma has taken you by the hand. You've been contaminated by his touch. You belong to him now.
    I said, If someone grasps my hand against my will, how does that make me his? I said, I'm the one who decides to whom I belong.
    In the sandalwood days of love I'd thought that if I could not have Salva, I would die. Now I discovered that a woman's life is tougher than a banyan root, which exists without soil or water. For Salva forced me to return to Bheeshma, and still I lived.
    I told Bheeshma, My happiness has crumbled into dust because of you. Marry me so that at least my honor can be saved.
    Bheeshma said, Forgive me. In youth I promised my father I would never marry. I cannot go back on my word.
    I said, What is a dead vow, compared to a living woman's ruin?
    He didn't answer. When I looked on his serene face, hatred filled me with its black haze, more hatred than I'd ever thought I could feel.
    Abandoned and shamed, I went from court to court, seeking a champion who would battle Bheeshma, but all were afraid of him. I went to the Himalayas in my despair and performed austerities so that the gods would help me. Years passed; my youth fell away. The gods were reluctant to interfere because Bheeshma was the son ofGanga, goddess of the sacred river. Finally, the child-god Kartikeya took pity and appeared before me with this garland. He said, If you can find someone to wear it, he will defeat Bheeshma.
    My hopes rekindled, I went back to the kings with the everlasting garland. But the cowards! In spite of a god's assurance, they were still afraid. Even King Drupad, known in that time as a champion of the weak, dared not accept it. In disgust I flung it on his palace gate and went to my death.
    The humor of the gods is cruel; or perhaps they see more than we do. I was reborn as Drupad's daughter. The moment I set eyes on the garland-that-never-fades, my past returned to me, and with it my rage. I took the garland for myself, determined to do on my own what no man dared do for me.
    Remember that, little sister: wait for a man to avenge your honor, and you'll wait forever.

    Later I asked Krishna, “What Sikhandi said about his past life, was it really true?”
    Krishna shrugged. “He believes it to be so. Isn't that what truth is? The force of a person's believing seeps into those around him— into the very earth and air and water—until there's nothing else.”
    Oh, it was hard to get a direct answer from Krishna!
    “Could he really have been Amba in a previous incarnation?” I persisted. “Or did he—through some strange empathy—feel her sorrow so deeply that he resolved to avenge her?”
    “ We all have past lives,” Krishna said, though that wasn't what I'd asked. “Highly evolved beings remember them, while lesser souls forget.”
    “No doubt you remember yours.”
    “I do! Once I was a fish. I saved mankind from the great flood.Once I was a boar. I lifted Earth out of the primordial waters with my tusks. Once, as a giant tortoise—”
    “Wait!” I interrupted. “Those are the incarnations of Vishnu! I read about them in the Puranas.”
    He lifted his shoulders and spread his hands. “There's no fooling you, Krishnaa! In you, I've met my match!”
    I eyed him with suspicion. I never could tell when he was joking.
    Then he said, “I remember your last life, too.”
    I tried to feign indifference, but I couldn't keep it up. “Tell me!” I cried.
    “You were just as impatient then. In