The Maharani's Painter – Part 2: The Unfinished Canvas

The portrait grew slowly over the summer. Each morning Ravi painted in the courtyard, and each morning Devika arrived, barefoot and quiet, and sat with the sun on her face while they talked.

She told him about the letters she wrote in secret, to a sister in Calcutta who had married a doctor and was learning English. She told him about the court's rules: how she must lower her eyes when the ministers spoke, how she must never laugh loudly, how she had been married at sixteen to a prince who died before she learned his name.

He told her about his mother, a village weaver who painted the walls of her house with lime and red earth, and taught him that a line could hold a whole life if you were patient.

"Your mother sounds free," said Devika one morning.

"She was poor," said Ravi. "But she laughed at everything. I think that's the same thing, sometimes."

"Is it?"

"I think freedom is the moment you stop asking permission to laugh," he said, and she smiled, slowly.

By August, the portrait was nearly finished. It showed a woman seated on a stone bench, one hand resting on an open letter, her face turned slightly away from the viewer, as if listening to something far beyond the walls. There was ink on her fingers in the painting. There was a crack in the stone beneath her feet.

Devika stood in front of it for a long time when the last brushstroke dried.

"It's me," she said softly.

"It's you as you are," said Ravi.

"It's dangerous," she said. "If the court sees it, they will know I've been writing letters, and they will know I've been looking at the walls."

"Then we'll hide it," said Ravi. "Or we'll leave the country."

She turned, startled. "You would leave with me?"

"I'd paint you on the road," said Ravi, grinning. "We'd sell the paintings in every town between here and Calcutta. You could sign them with your own name."

Devika laughed, a real laugh, loud and surprised, the kind that she had not let herself make in this palace in all the years since her marriage. It echoed around the courtyard and the birds went quiet.

"That," she said, wiping her eyes, "is the most dangerous thing anyone has ever said to me."

"Can I ask you something?" said Ravi, setting down his brush.

"Yes."

"Would you like to leave with me? Not because I'm a way out. Because you want to see what else is there."

She looked at him for a long time, the afternoon light falling across her face.

"Yes," said Devika. "But I want you to ask me something else first."

"What?"

"Whether I'd like to be kissed by a painter who is not afraid to tell me the truth."

Ravi's breath caught. "Would you like to be kissed, Devika?"

"Yes," she said. "And if I say stop, you stop, and we'll finish the portrait tomorrow."

He stepped closer, and she did not move away. His hand rose slowly to her cheek, and she leaned into it, her eyes closing. The kiss was slow and careful, tasting of the sweet tea she had been drinking all morning, and it was not hurried at all. It was a conversation, the way he had promised: each of them asking, each of them answering.

When they parted, her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes were shining.

"Green?" he asked softly.

"Green," said Devika. "Entirely green. Now finish the painting, painter. And then let's find out what the road looks like."

Above the courtyard, the palace bells began to ring for evening prayers, and neither of them went to answer them.