Temple Dancer A Novel of India

Chapter One Portuguese Cantonment Goa, India 1657 Satisfied that her face looked perfect, Lucinda Teresa Emilia Dasana dipped a pheasant's tail feather into a crystal vial and touched a milky drop of belladonna to the corner of each eye. "Aya," she said, dabbing at a tear before it stained her powdered cheek, "I can't find my arsenico." Across the room, her maid folded Lucinda's dressing gown. "It's all gone, my bebe. I meant to tell you." Lucinda, blinking as the belladonna blurred her eyes, bit her bottom lip in frustration. Then she smiled patiently at her maid, not knowing that one of her front teeth was speckled with vermilion. "Aya, the box was right here. Where have you hidden it?" The maid, Helene, as if unaware that Lucinda could not see, shook her head and kept on folding. "You should not be using that terrible paste, little one. It is very bad for you. Better that it's gone." "I'm not your little one anymore. I'm a woman. A lady. And you are my maid now, no longer my nurse. So bring me my arsenico," Lucinda said. Helene, whose name before she became a Christian had been Ambalika, muttered something in Hindi. "I am not a bitch in heat," Lucinda whispered angrily. "And I have said, we will speak only Portuguese. Now bring it." Helene looked suddenly very old. Lucinda, her eyes blurred by belladonna, did not see this change, but she heard Helene's weary sigh. Lucinda's heart ached, but she remembered herself, and her new station in the world, and said nothing. Helene, meanwhile, reached beneath the feather mattress and brought out a tiny silver box. "Don't use too much, please," Helene said in Portuguese. "I'll use what I want," Lucinda answered, and took such a large pinch of the red paste that Helene gasped. Having gotten the effect she wanted, however, Lucinda only touched a little to her tongue. "There." "You shouldn't take this poison. If your mother were here! That red stuff only will make you sick and you are so beautiful without it." "You only say that because you love me. I need it---I must not be seen with dark skin." "What's wrong with dark skin?" Lucinda lowered her eyes, regretting her words, for of course Helene was dark as shadow. "I'm sorry, dear one," Lucinda said in Hindi, and though she could not see it, Helene smiled. "You know my cousin has just come from Macao. I haven't seen him in years," she went on in Portuguese. "I must look my best. It's fashionable to be pale. All the Lisbon ladies use arsenico these days." Helene snorted. "So they are pale, yes. But they are not pretty, not like my bebe. Why all this fuss over a cousin? What would your mother say, our lady rest her soul? You are pledged! If your father were alive . . ." But Lucinda had stopped paying attention. Through the window that looked to the sea, a salt breeze carried the sounds of Goa: the cries of street merchants in Hindi and Portuguese, the blare of gongs and drums from a nearby Shiva temple, and on top of all, the golden cathedral bell of Santa Catarina, tolling the hour. The breeze whispered through Lucinda's upswept hair. She swirled a stiff silk shawl over her shoulders. "How do I look?" Too young, thought Helene. Too young to wear a corset laced so tight, or a bodice cut so low. OhSpeed, John is the author of 'Temple Dancer A Novel of India' with ISBN 9780312325480 and ISBN 0312325487.