Confidence is the precursor to victory so Madeline puffed up her chest and marched, chin high despite her tremulous heart. Abdul had rowed her ashore and pointed her in the direction of Magh Bazaar. Her palms were clammy, nipples erect, goosebumps revolted on her arms.
The Ruby Monkeys were to meet her at the bazaar. Mumin had set up the meeting. She wondered what sort of men the Ruby Monkeys were. Would the same rules of negotiation apply? Could all men regardless of their habitas be purchased at a certain price? What currency did the Maghs value? Not human skulls, she hoped.
The crowd at the bazaar was dispersing, the evening’s melancholy set in. Magh merchants packed their wares: silver scaled fish, chicken, ducks, leafy greens, turmeric and pineapples. Astonishingly, they were all women and all topless. They wore woven skirts around their waists and hundreds of strings of beads on their necks. The older ladies huddled around bamboo bongs smoking, their crafts packed into sacks next to them. Madeline watched discreetly, too polite to get a good look.
The Maghs were short and slightly built, averaging less than five feet in height. They seemed pleasant enough, not wild or savage. She tried to imagine Magh Bazaar twenty years earlier when it was a slave market. Nothing of that remained. But Madeline knew all too well that history repeated itself and wondered what that meant for Bengal. Would they be selling humans once again, three centuries later? She shuddered. Soon this ordeal would be over and she would have a place in society safe in France.
‘Mademoiselle Du Champs?’ said a voice.
It must be him, she thought, right where Mumin had said he would be. The Ruby Monkey approached her, eyes darting like stalked prey. Madeline disliked him immediately. He was a stocky man but his movements were contained like a seasoned thief who could come and go without displacing a feather. The thorny problem with thieves of this calibre was that they were as likely to steal from their friends as their enemies.
She tightened her grip on her purse and followed the Ruby Monkey away from the market into the hilly woodland. The night was a symphony of crickets, owls, bullfrogs and tropical monsters creeping around her. She had travelled from France to Bengal with seafaring thugs, timid she was not! But in the throbbing bamboo grove of wild and eerie sounds, she found she regretted her rash idea. She wondered where the Ruby Monkey was taking her. At least he had a lantern.
‘Did you come alone?’ he asked, as they walked down the hillock.
Madeline nodded.
‘Stay close to me,’ he said. ‘Or be eaten.’
‘Tigers?’ she asked, anxious. He was shorter than she. Would he be able to protect her?
He showed her a bamboo lute. He put it to his mouth and blew out a pea-sized dart that flew with tremendous force into a tree.
Madeline was doubtful that this bamboo shooter would stop a tiger. It would barely disturb a cat.
‘The dart has been dipped in the saliva of a poisonous frog,’ he explained. ‘It will freeze the tiger’s muscles and kill it in less than one minute.’
Poisonous frog saliva? Madeline was intrigued. She would ask for the details later. They walked through a patch of reedy ferns to a row of huts balanced twenty feet above the ground on bamboo stilts. He stopped at the last hut and pointed to the cane ladder.
Madeline’s feminine instinct told her not to climb into a secluded hut alone with an unknown man who was armed.
‘We build our homes high,’ he explained, sensing her hesitation. ‘It keeps us safe.’
‘From tigers?’ she asked, afraid of man-eaters.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Tigers can climb.’
Every inch of her body tightened with fear.
‘The height protects us from wolves.’
Aaahooooooo! As if on cue, a haunting howl cut through the night, followed by a choir of canine replies. Madeline crossed herself, whispered a prayer to Saint Anne and hurried up the ladder.
Inside, the hut was spacious, roomier than it appeared from the outside. A single room lit with candles. The floor was of woven cane. Silk cushions were laid out and scattered with flowers. Clay diyas with floating hyacinths fragranced the air.
‘Chief will be here shortly,’ he announced, dropping his shifty sideways glancing habit. ‘I am Diren.’
Madeline forced a polite smile. Soon the ordeal would be over and she would return to Minaloushe and warm baguettes. She could almost hear him purring by her ear, she could almost smell the butter, when THUD, Diren fell to the ground, bowing in respect.
A woman entered: petite, bald, wrinkled and topless. She looked perhaps three hundred years old. She walked to the cushions and sat with her toes pulled up over her thighs, a lotus upon a throne of flowers. Her neck was covered in necklaces. She wore a wreath of yellow leaves. In one hand she held a bell. In her other hand, a small club with spherical heads. Her scent was citronous.
‘I present to you our high Priestess, Chief of the Ruby Monkeys,’ said Diren.
Madeline’s eyes were startled saucers. In Paris and Versailles, they boasted of progress, prided themselves on intellect and liberality, yet they had not celebrated a woman leader. Here, in the backwoods of Bengal, an impish old lady was revered as chief. Stupification transformed into veneration. Madeline bowed as she had seen Diren do.
The Priestess Chief laughed. Her ample bosoms jiggled, sagging down to her belly. She uttered a few sentences. Madeline could not understand a word but she knew what was asked because of her tone and inflections.
‘Greetings,’ said Madeline. ‘I am Madeline Du Champs.’
The Priestess Chief drew Madeline into an embrace, repeating her name gleefully, mispronouncing it as ‘Madli’ and then sang it in a catchy tune ending with a snap of her fingers. Her cheer was contagious. It was as though they were old friends and this was a wonderful reunion. Madeline felt at ease.
‘I am grateful to have been granted your audience. I know you are much sought after,’ Madeline said formally.
The Priestess grinned. Diren placed a three-foot bong before her and lit it. It was almost as tall as she. She took a few deep breaths and with each exhale, progressively released the tension in her shoulders and around her eyes. When she was satisfied, she grinned at Madeline, a wide, toothless grin. Her skin glowed like a plum.
‘Is it a gem you seek?’ asked Diren.
‘No,’ said Madeline. ‘I seek knowledge about the way to the diamond mines.’
Diren translated Madeline’s request to the Priestess Chief who continued grinning. She said many things to Diren and gesticulated wildly.
‘The Diamond Way is achieved through meditation,’ Diren translated at last.
Madeline frowned. ‘Meditation? But I don’t know how to meditate.’
Diren looked shocked. He turned to the Priestess and translated. She then looked shocked too. Again she launched into a series of animated words.
Diren turned to her and smiled. ‘Priestess says the way to the diamond is through the experience of ultimate truth. First you must empty your mind of the five poisons.’
‘Poisons?’ said Madeline alarmed. ‘What poisons?’
‘Desire, hatred, delusion, greed, envy.’
‘Good heavens, and how shall I do that?’
‘With a vajra!’ said Diren.
‘What is a vajra?’ she asked.
‘A diamond.’
‘Which diamond?’
Diren tried to translate her question to the Priestess. The petite woman giggled and gesticulated as she tried to convey a message.
Diren turned to Madeline, exasperated. ‘The vajra is the only diamond of any real spiritual value. It may be used to slice through the Illusion and arrive upon Bliss.’
‘But where do I find such a diamond?’ said Madeline. ‘Is there a map?’
‘The map is coded but our Priestess Chief is a Boddhisatva. She can show you the way to Enlightenment.’
This time Madeline laughed. ‘No, no, you misunderstood me. I am not looking for Enlightenment, only the diamond mines. Diamonds, you know, like gems, but harder.’
This time Diren’s face lit up. ‘Gems? All you want are gems? Ha, ha, ha. No problem. Do you like rubies? We have a ruby the size of a sparrow’s egg.’
‘No!’ said Madeline.
‘Alright, no rubies. Topaz?’
‘I don’t want gems. I simply want to make a map.’ She felt like crying.
‘Map?’ asked Diren puzzled. ‘You travelled to Bengal from France to make a map?’
Madeline nodded. ‘And for freedom.’
The Priestess whispered a few solemn lines and Diren translated, ‘If it is liberation you seek, the only map you need is in your heart. Release the paradigms that imprison your spirit to find your true nature.’
This conversation was not going where Madeline expected but it struck a chord. In Bengal, without the prison of identity, routines, obligations, or a past, she felt liberated. She felt free to be herself.
‘Priestess says you are beautiful so emeralds will suit you,’ said Diren. ‘You like emeralds?’
‘No, merci,’ said Madeline. His words wooed a blush to her pallid cheek. ‘Please ask her, would she happen to know the whereabouts of the unchartered territories of Kollur?’
‘Kollur?’ said the Priestess.
Madeline nodded.
The Priestess took in a drag from the bong and shut her eyes, rocking back and forth in a trance. When she opened her eyes, she motioned Madeline to come closer.
The Priestess ran her wizened fingers through Madeline’s hair. Her stroke was calming. Madeline noticed her mottled scalp, beneath her diaphanous silver hair. She smelt of wet leaves and departed lovers and ancient truths and fresh coriander. She emenated grace, elegance and untold strength.
The Priestess passed Madeline the bong and insisted that she take a puff.
‘No, no!’ Madeline said.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Diren. ‘It’s herbal.’
Unable to talk her way out of the situation, Madeline arranged her lips around the rim of the bong. She took a tentative puff and erupted in coughs.
The old woman giggled, toying with her hair.
Madeline experienced a tingling sensation and then an inexplicable tenderness for the Priestess Chief and for the natural beauty around her and for life in all its glory. Everything seemed to be infused with love. She felt outrageously mirthful.
‘Chief says she does not know the location of the Kollur mine,’ said Diren.
From one extreme, Madeline swung to the other. The Ruby Monkeys were not going to help her ... After all she had been through, nothing could be more wretched. Her father would never be released. She would never find a husband of value. Before her stretched the dismal inevitability of poverty and loneliness.
‘But,’ Diren added, ‘She knows someone who does. If she tells you of him, what can you offer in return?’
Finally Madeline was getting somewhere. ‘Just name your price,’ she said, revealing too early her eagerness.
‘Chief wants your hair.’ Diren brandished a shiny blade.
Madeline shrank. Had Diren mistranslated? Had she misunderstood? Did they want her HEAD? ‘My hair?’ she asked, pulling a frizzy coil out to its tip.
‘Yes,’ said Diren. ‘I will cut it, if you permit?’
Madeline mulled over the suggestion. She had never considered her chestnut tresses valuable. Hidden under fashionable wigs, her hair was a bother: hot in the summer, itchy in the winter. Only in the anonymity of Bengal had she discarded the norms of her society and travelled without a manteau.
She saw herself for a moment through the eyes of the Priestess, a sea-born Venus. Hair was only a material halo, superficial and inanimate. The Priestess, without hair, clothes, jewels or youth, was true loveliness. Madeline nodded, ready to discard her distorted ideals of beauty.
The Priestess clapped her hands in delight. With a wide-toothed comb, she ceremoniously combed Madeline’s hair down and pleated it with a strand of jasmines. She tied both ends and held it out for Diren to cut.
As the blade snipped through the braid, shortened strands of Madeline’s hair bounced below her chin. She swished her bob side to side and took in a deep breath of freedom. She was more than flesh or bones or hair. She was more than her past or her present. But what was she? Who was she? Had she travelled across the world to lose herself or find herself?
The Priestess rubbed the braid against her cheek, cooing softly as though it were a sparrow perhaps or a kitten in her hand.
‘Priestess says one man can help you. His name is Tavaji,’ said Diren.
‘Where can I find him?’ asked Madeline.
‘He lives in the hut under the pomegranate tree at the edge of the bazaar,’ said Diren. ‘Beware. What you desire and what you need are not always the same.’
Madeline thanked them for their help and made her way back to the beach to find Abdul and the rowboat. It was too dark to search out Tavaji’s hut. She would return in the morning.