The Ivory Swing by Janette Turner Hospital

countered others; she was the daughter of a wealthy rug merchant of Srinagar. He wished for an educated daughter who had seen the world but who had been kept pure, aloof from temptation.
    There was a persistent suggestion that she was, without doubt, the delectable concubine of a Himalayan chieftain, a former petty prince whose fabulous lands and palaces stretched up into the snowy spaces above the Gulmarg and overlooked the pleasure gardens of Shalimar.
    And how was it that such a prince with his pomp and retinue was visiting Trivandrum undetected, save for this one clue of his swathed and mummified mistress? Doubtless, opined certain pundits, he was being courted in secret by the Russians in the House of Soviet Culture behind Tampanoor Junction, being tempted, in that building of austere grayness, with limousines and fantastic weaponry in return for a certain ease of passage down from Tashkent into Kashmir.
    Such was the sophisticated discussion Juliet overheard between a young pharmacist and a young doctor who stood in their white shirts and white dhotis at the entrance of their booths. In the bazaar the medical professions took their commercial chances along with the flower sellers and grain merchants and peddlers of dried cow-dung cakes, vying for attention and customers. The young doctor was doing well: he was handsome, the plaque on his booth fisted many obscure and scholarly letters after his name; large capitals indicated HOMEOPATHIC MEDICINE (based, that is to say, on ancient and trustworthy ayurvedic principles rather than on alien western science); and a final trump line proclaimed him an EXPERT SEXOLOGIST, promising, through the ingestion of herbal potions, pleasurable cures for all erotic difficulties and disturbances (for men only, of course, though this was not stated, it being universally known that the sexuality of woman is inexhaustible and rapacious).
    The prince’s concubine floated on, in her fluid tented way, past the gentlemen of medical profession and political opinion towards where Juliet, with her children and Prabhakaran, was buying brinjal and kumpalanna. The children stared in silent awe, as apprehensive as the peons who shuffled aside from her coming. There was something eerily inhuman, demonic almost, about that faceless column of fabric.
    The figure came alongside Juliet where she stood beneath the flare of coconut-oil torches at the vegetable stall. A hand the colour of café-an-lait emerged from the black folds and began feeling and prodding the purple brinjal just as Juliet was doing. Two women engaged in an ancient domestic skill, assessing the ripeness of eggplants. The fragrant smoke of the vendor’s sandalwood sticks curled around them.
    Juliet watched the hand moving close to hers, exploring the swelling hillocks and dimpled amethyst valleys of brinjal, following, it almost seemed, her own hand like a shadow.
    A sudden flaring tongue of torchlight lit up a ringed finger with quick gemfire. Juliet stared at the ring, a crusted circle of emeralds and diamonds, in confusion. Surely she had seen it before?
    At the same time the ringed hand closed over hers in a compelling and pleading grip. From the recesses of black cloth a muffled voice whispered urgently: “Juliet! Please do not show surprise. Please continue in your buying, only listen to me! Help me, please 1 ”
    Juliet stared at the brinjal.
    Yashoda’s voice had been smoky with anxiety her hand trembled. The seller of vegetables was watching the two hands clasped over his produce.
    â€œ Shari, ” Juliet said, extricating the eggplant and her hand, offering the purple fruit. “This is good brinjal. You may have it. I will find another.”
    Yashoda bowed towards her and whispered quickly: “Please hide me! If I am discovered there will be much trouble for me.”
    Juliet murmured back: “We have a taxi waiting. If you could pretend to faint, I will get you out of here.”
    With a soft