The king felt anxious. “He doesn’t like any of them,” he whispered to Canki.
The high Brahmin was unruffled. He knew that discrimination can hold out against desire only so long. “Patience, sire. He’s a young man. When peaches are ripe, no one leaves the market without buying one.” But nothing about Siddhartha’s manner looked promising by the time he had reached the last girl. She looked up at him but didn’t remove her veil.
From behind the girl, her father nudged her with a fierce whisper. “Go ahead. Get up and look at him!” She took a moment before rising. Now Siddhartha remembered who she was. The one girl who had made him curious.
“I cannot tell if you are beautiful,” he said. “What’s your name?”
“Yashodhara.”
“May I see you?”
She kept her veil on. “Is my appearance the only thing that would make me worthy? If so, don’t look at me. My face might conceal a false heart.”
Siddhartha smiled. “A good answer. Then tell me: Why do you wish to marry me?”
“I’m not sure yet. I don’t know you, and you haven’t made any pretty speeches, the way you did to the others.”
Siddhartha was intrigued by these words, but he also had to see her. He lifted Yashodhara’s veil. She wasn’t beautiful in the way the first girls had been, modeled from the pages of the love manuals. But instantly he knew how he felt.
“You’re wonderful, because you were made to be loved.”
Up to this moment she had had the advantage, but now Yashodhara blushed. “That was a pretty speech, but too short for me to make up my mind. My father will be so disappointed if I come away empty-handed. Can I have a necklace?”
She held out her hand and Siddhartha frowned. “Was that a good enough reason for you to come here?”
She replied, “Sire, I live in the deep woods, four long days’ journey from here. My father is very anxious that I marry you. But a gold necklace can feed a hundred of my starving people, those I left behind.”
“Girl!” her father rebuked.
Siddhartha held up his hand. “It’s all right.” He bowed to Yashodhara. “With your first words I found that you are honest, and now I find that you are also kind. What more can I wish for?” He took her hand and led her to kneel before the king as the hall rang with cheers. There was no need for a long betrothal. Just as Siddhartha said, Yashodhara was a woman who existed to be loved, and their union was as real as Suddhodana’s with Maya. Yet it was known to both of them, if to no one else in the world, that Yashodhara had wept inconsolably on their honeymoon night.
Siddhartha turned red. “If I was clumsy or did something wrong-”
She put a finger to his lips. “No, don’t.”
“Then why are you so unhappy? An hour ago you seemed to be in love.”
“An hour ago I didn’t realize that you are going to leave me one day.”
He smothered her with kisses to reassure her and chided her gently about being a superstitious girl like the maids who ran to the temple for a good luck charm if they spilled the milk. Yashodhara’s words were never repeated between them. Ten years wasn’t enough to erase the memory, however, and when it came to pass that her husband did decide to leave her, Yashodhara was crushed by seeing her premonition come true.
All these memories danced before Gautama’s mind along with the image of his wife. The recollection of her sorrow was the only thing that enabled him to defeat his arousal. Gautama’s back slumped, and he wondered for the first time since finding his master if abandoning his family wasn’t an unforgivable sin.
Suddenly Gautama felt a stinging pain on one cheek. He opened his eyes to see his master standing over him, hand raised. Sharply the hand came down and slapped the other cheek.
“Why did you do that, sir? What did I do to offend you?”
The old hermit shrugged. “Nothing. You smelled like a man who sleeps with women. I knocked the stink off.”
This incident stuck in Gautama’s mind for two reasons-because it permanently banished any images of Yashodhara from his mind, and because it was the most words in a row that the hermit had spoken. But his master wasn’t setting a precedent for garrulousness. Weeks passed, the monsoons came, and he said not another word. This became a time of great peace for Gautama. One day he went for firewood but couldn’t find any that wasn’t soaked from the rains. He recalled a cavern formed by fallen boulders where perhaps some dry logs might have lodged.
Walking through the woods, he felt the rain coming down, but the monsoons were warm and he was toughened by months of exposure. His body didn’t shiver or his mind complain. Yet as he kept walking, Gautama noticed that he started feeling chilled, and a hundred yards farther on he was shaking badly. By the time he reached the cavern of boulders, he felt quite uncomfortable and his mind was attacking him mercilessly. Go home. This crazy master is going to turn you into his slave or a crazy recluse like himself. Run! It was as if he’d been taken back to his first day on the road.
He found an armful of dry kindling, and when the rain abated he headed back to camp. Now the process reversed itself. The closer he got to the small clearing, the better he felt. His mind calmed down, and the shivering in his limbs subsided. As he set foot in camp and saw his master again, perfect peace descended like a curtain over his whole being. Gautama stared at the old hermit in wonder.
“Mara.”
Gautama was startled. “What?”
“Mara is interested in you.” Gautama opened his mouth, but the hermit shook his head abruptly. “You know it’s true. You knew it before you came here.”
Gautama trembled, sensing that a gulf was opening up between himself and his master. He was surprised at how afraid this made him feel. “I haven’t thought of Mara in years,” he protested.
“And so you kept him away. For a time.”
The hermit breathed a deep sigh, as if he had to remind his body how to return to the physical world before he could say another word. A few agonizing moments passed. Siddhartha felt his heart sink. If he can smell that I have a wife, what must a demon smell like? he thought.
The hermit said, “Mara will keep away from me. He has no interest in feeding when the bowl is empty. You are different.”
“What interest could he have in me?” asked Gautama.
“You don’t know?” The old hermit saw the look of bafflement in his disciple’s eyes. “There’s something he can’t let you find out. You must go beyond anything I can teach. That’s the only way to rid yourself of the demon,” his master said.
Gautama felt panicky. He bowed to the ground and seized the hermit’s gnarled feet. “At least tell me what I’m looking for.”
When he got no reply, Gautama glanced up to see that the old hermit had closed his eyes again and was far away. The disciple could barely sleep that night. When he woke up before dawn he saw no dark outline against the night sky. His master had left. Grief overwhelmed Gautama, and yet deep down he wasn’t completely shocked-his master could only do the right thing. That was their bond, and he would never betray it. At that moment leaving had been the right thing.
Gautama could have hung around camp for a few hours or perhaps a day to see if his abandonment was only temporary. But the storm in his heart and the return of despairing thoughts told him something definitive. His master had withdrawn his protection; therefore, their relationship had come to an end. Carefully the young monk tidied up the camp. He swept the ground and put a fresh gourd of water beside the place under the lean-to where the hermit sat. Then he bowed to the grass mat that had been his master’s only throne and departed.
As it turned out, one shred of their relationship was left. As he trudged back to the main road several miles away, Gautama fell to musing. He saw the hermit’s face and its look of pity. He heard his own desperate plea, “At least tell me what I’m looking for.” The hermit turned implacable; he closed his eyes and refused to speak. Only this time the answer came silently in Gautama’s mind.