75

Begin at the last hour of the night in Vṛndāvana, when the dark has begun to thin but the sun has not yet dared to step inside the grove. A soft breeze comes up from the south, off the Malaya hills, and carries on it the whole sweetness of the kuñja: jasmine opening on the vines, the warm honey-breath of the flowering trees, the hush of leaves. Bees that drank too deeply in the night still cling to the honey-filled blossoms, drunk and slow, and Vṛndāvana's birds begin their first low notes, soft and ever-so-sweet, careful, as though they too know that Someone is sleeping. Inside a bower-house of woven creepers, on a bed of fresh petals, Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa lie fast asleep, spent and entangled from a whole night of love.

Just outside the leaf-wall the maidservants wake. They gather the things for their service, and when they catch sight, through the little gaps in the foliage, of the matchless beauty of the Divine Couple at rest, the hairs on their bodies lift in waves of joy. They do not rush in. Vṛndā-devī first sets her parrot-couples to the gentle work of waking, and the bird-pairs recite their soft sweet verses until the Two begin to stir. Slowly Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa open eyes still heavy with sleep, Their hair wild, Their garments in disarray, and here is the thing the whole morning turns upon: in the dark and the abandon of the night Their clothes have crossed over. Kṛṣṇa's yellow paṭa lies upon Rādhā's body, and Rādhā's blue cloth lies upon His, and neither of Them has noticed. Even this is a tenderness, that love has so dissolved the line between Them that the very colors of Their dress have changed places.

Now the maidservants enter the kuñja and begin the blessed first services: water offered, betel-leaves given, the Couple's hair and clothes set right. And the practitioner herself, Śrīpāda in her kiṅkarī-form, is granted a share of this work, and the whole of her heart's longing pours out in one question: when, when will I be the one to do these things? She begins to dream the service aloud. First the yellow cloth. O Prāṇeśvarī, before any other eye falls on You, let me draw Kṛṣṇa's yellow silk from Your shoulders, the silk You took for Your own by mistake, and wrap You again in Your own blue, so that nothing betrays where You have been. Then the bodice. You forgot Your kañcukī in the bower in the rush of the night's end. Let me run, let me fly back through the grove and find it and bring it secretly to You, so You need not even ask, so that not a soul knows it was ever left behind.

Then Her hair. O Rādhe, Your braid has come undone and Your dark curls are spread loose like the open fan of a peacock's tail, cloud-blue and tangled from love. Let me be the one to take them up. With my own nails I will patiently work the tangles free, comb them smooth with a jewelled comb, and bind them again into a braid wound through with a garland of fresh-blooming jasmine. Let me gather, one by one, the pearls that scattered when Your necklace broke against His chest in the night, and thread them anew, and hang them back upon Your throat where they belong. Let me wet the kajal and draw it again, dark and clean, around Your sleep-soft eyes, so that the morning finds You as You should be found.

And then, most tenderly of all, the marks. O Svāminī, Kṛṣṇa in His love has left His signs upon Your limbs, the nail-lines and the bruises of the night, and these no stranger's eye must ever read. Let me hide them. With haldi and musk and kuṅkuma, with the colored fragrant pastes a sakhī keeps for just this purpose, let me cover them so gently that You barely feel my fingers, so that when You walk among Your elders not one mark will speak.

For the maidservant knows what waits at the edge of this sweetness, and so even as she dreams of dressing Her she keeps Śrīmatī's attention with a low warning: O Nāgarī, You who are so expert in all the play of love, do not drift now in the afterglow, do not lose Your attention in this deep absorption. Your girlfriends may arrive at any moment and tease You to see You dressed and ornamented all at once; and above all, be careful that Your parents and Your husband's people do not see upon You the writing of Kṛṣṇa's love. This is no small thing she is doing. She is the guardian of the secret, the keeper of the threshold between the hidden grove and the watching village. How fortunate are these maidservants; the aspirant should learn this very expertise of service from them, and become as fortunate as they.

And the tradition will not let us forget how the watching village presses in. The sakhīs come at last into the kuñja, veils to their lips, giggling, sending up wave after wave of laughter and teasing, and their sweetness is so dear that Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa forget to go home at all. It takes Vṛndā's silent signal, and the old she-monkey Kakkhatī dropping pointed hints about Jaṭilā, the stern mother-in-law, before the Two will so much as think of parting. And what a parting it is. They gaze and gaze at each other's faces until an ocean of love rises in Their hearts and the tears fall thick from Their eyes. We have been left by You, the heart cries; Mādhava, on the strength of our love we will meet again, but now I cannot see You. Rāi faints, and Mādhava faints, and Lalitā cries out Sumukhi, Sumukhi and takes Rāi upon her lap, and the sakhīs cry Kānu, Kānu with tears streaming down, and only so are the Two carried apart, He to His way and She toward the village of Yāvat.

And the small services do not end with the grove. On the road home Śrīmatī suddenly remembers the bodice left behind, and is too shy to ask her friends to fetch it, so She gives only a glance, the faintest hint of the eyes, to the maidservant in her kiṅkarī-form, and that glance is enough. The servant slips back to the kuñja, finds it, brings it secretly into Her hand, and Rādhā is glad as a child for so small a thing returned. Then home to Yāvat with Her friends, and back to bed. And in the morning old Mukharā comes calling, O Rādhe, O granddaughter, where are You, and the sakhīs help to wake Her, and Mukharā's sharp eye falls on the yellow cloth still upon Śrīmatī's body, the very cloth she had seen on Kṛṣṇa only yesterday. She flares: Viśākhe, what is this? I saw this splendid yellow cloth on Kṛṣṇa yesterday and now I see it on Rādhā's limbs; alas, what kind of conduct is this for a housewife of spotless name? Viśākhā startles, looks, sees the danger, then gathers herself and laughs the old woman off: O bewildered blind one, only look, it is the sunrise pouring in through the window that paints our sakhī's blue cloth yellow. And while Mukharā turns to peer at the window, the maidservant in her kiṅkarī-form exchanges the yellow for blue so swiftly that no one sees, and when the old woman turns back she finds her mistake and goes off ashamed. Then, seeing Śrīmatī's limbs marked all over by the night's love, the servant hurries once more to hide them under haldi and musk and kuṅkuma, so that no family eye will ever read them.

This is the whole of what the longing wants: not the night itself, not Kṛṣṇa's place, but to stand at the morning edge of the bower with paste and comb and a re-threaded string of pearls, and to be the one who guards the secret and makes Her ready, again and again, forever. How fortunate are these maidservants. To be allowed even the comb, even the kajal, even the small fetched bodice, is the whole heaven the singing heart asks for.