Tiger Hills (23 page)

“Flora Sylvatica, Flora Indica… ”

Devanna wove forward, then stopped abruptly, his blood turned to ice. There, down below, near the fields. Was that a woman?
The ghost
… He stood frozen, his breath escaping in little puffs into the leaden air. The buzzing in his ears grew louder as the figure slipped from sight.

And then he started. “Devi,” he said thickly. “Devi,” he called, louder this time. “Devi!”

She had always liked mornings such as these, even as a child. Devanna would still be half asleep, extracting every extra minute of warmth from the blankets, when she would run into his room and fling open the windows. “Oh, stop your grumbling,” she would say. “Here, breathe this in. The fragrance, Devanna, the perfume of rain. There is
nothing
like it.”

“Devi,” he called again, the mist muffling his voice as he stumbled after her.

She had gone surprisingly far, almost to the paddy tanks, by the time he caught up with her. “Devi!” he called, and this time she heard.

“Who … ?” She turned, startled, the shawl slipping from her shoulders. “Devanna?
Devanna?
Whatever are you doing here at this hour?”

It rose within him like a tumult then, the memory of the previous afternoon. Nancy … Martin, standing over him and laughing,
laughing…

“Devanna?” she said incredulously again, and then shaking her head, she began to smile. “Silly fellow, I cannot believe my eyes. What are you doing here? Is the semester over already?”

“Devi, I … ” He began to tremble. He shut his eyes to calm himself, then opened them once more.

“What is it? Your head, is that … ?” She stepped closer, worried, and blanched as she smelled the gin on his breath. “You've been drinking?”

Where to begin? What could he even begin to say to her, were there even words to describe … Wrapping his arms about himself, Devanna moaned softly and began to rock back and forth on his heels.
“Spicilegium Neilgherrense. Icones Plantarum.”
This time, he would not simply stand by. This time …

“Mm … marry me.”

“What? What? Come now, Devanna, what is all this—who has put you up to this joke?”

“Joke? This is no … ” He ground his teeth together to stop the shivering. “Marry me,” he said again.

The smile vanished from her face. “Stop this nonsense. I am going back to the house. Are you coming?”

She turned to go, but he caught hold of her wrist.

“Let go of my hand.”

He let go at once, starting at the sharpness of her tone. This was not going at all the way he had imagined it. This sawing in his head, as if it were being cleaved in two. He shook his head slowly, to clear it. Martin, laughing down at him.

He reached clumsily for her hand again.

“LET. GO. Whatever is the matter with you?”

“What is the matter with me?” He stared, tormented, at her. “Nothing, except that I am completely, irrevocably, in love with you.”

Devi went very still. “Stop it,” she said, then, tremulously, “just … stop this.”

Jungle bees swarming over his scalp, buzzing in his ears. Sliced open like a laboratory specimen, her tiny heart, still beating,
OesophagusKidneyHeart.

“You are mine, Devi. Mine, do you hear? Only mine.” Unexpectedly, he giggled. “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways,” he recited, his eyes aglitter, and then, bending his head, he awkwardly kissed her.

She struggled to free herself from his grasp, but he held her so tightly that his fingers raised angry red welts along her arm. She began to shout, her free hand flailing at him, the sounds in his head so loud that he could not make out her words. The shawl fell
from her shoulders, he grabbed reflexively for it, connected with a breast instead. She gasped in shock.

It sent a thrill through his body, that sound, as if a fire had suddenly been lit in his blood. He began to kiss her in earnest, her face, her throat, her shoulders, pulling her closer. “You are mine.” She fought him, hard, biting and scratching and kicking, but in his muddled state, it only served to inflame him.

He couldn't think anymore. Nothing mattered except this, being with her, the fire raging inside him, this insistent pressure in his groin. His breath was coming very fast; he was almost panting despite the chill. Her nails raked his cheek, and he pushed her backward onto the grass, falling on top of her as he fumbled urgently with his clothes. She cried out, bit his shoulder; he grimaced and held her even more tightly.

Bend over, chokra,
Martin had said to him that afternoon last year, stroking the ulna bone.
You leave me no choice.

“You leave me no choice, Devi, you leave me no—”

He had dropped his trousers and slowly bent over. Martin had waited, deliberately prolonging the tension as Devanna's knees began to tremble and his hair flopped forward onto his forehead. And then, in one quick, savage movement, Martin had jammed the bone in hard, high into his anus. A pain so intense that Devanna had screamed out loud.
To teach you respect,
Martin had gasped from behind him, the sweat pouring into his eyes as he had pushed and thrust, harder and harder, his pelvis moving unconsciously, keeping rhythm as he tore into the chokra.

Bitterness, blossoming beneath his skin. Petal by petal, unfurling, spreading, black as tar.

Devanna pushed his hand up her thigh, fumbling, searching. Beneath him, Devi froze, her pupils dilated in shock.

This was to teach her respect; it was for her own good. Thunder boomed and a few drops of rain began to fall, splattering fatly into the earth. A fragrance, such a fragrance all around, “the
scent
of rain, there is
nothing
like it.” He shuddered. Shifted over her, thrust, missed. Thrust again. Soft skin tearing under unyielding pressure, offering up warm passage, silk cotton soft. Devanna shut
his eyes and moaned. He began to thrust, faster and faster. This was who he was made for, this was the one he had waited for.

Close as two spores on a fern they had been, ever since he could remember.

Rain pattered down upon Devanna. He grunted softly and rolled onto his back. His head felt cleaved in two, the gin crooning love songs in his ears.

I love thee. To the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach.

He opened his eyes, squinting against the rain. What … where … The previous night came back to him in flashes. The bus ride to Mercara. Gin, the sear of it down his throat. Devi …

Devanna convulsed. He tried to get up, shaking so hard that he kept slipping forward onto his hands and knees. She had begged, he remembered, fought, pleaded, and then she had grown very still. He began to retch, throwing up into the grass until there was nothing left to bring up. He had … what had he …
Devi
. Chengappa anna would kill him, he would take his gun and blow out his brains. Tayi, Pallada Nayak …
What had he done?

He staggered upright. The rain grew heavier, plastering his hair to his skull. The house loomed far above, silent. He took an unsteady step toward it. Devi. He must … The front door was opening, someone was coming out.
They would kill him.
Devanna ran. He crashed through the fields in a wild panic, weeping hysterically as he fled toward the mission.

Gundert took one horrified look at him and dragged him into his study. “Sit,” he ordered, his heart pounding. “Here, water.
Drink
this. Steady yourself, son. What happened? Why are you not at college? Dev, look at me.
LOOK
at me. What happened? Who did this to you?”

Devanna shook his head, struggling to get the words out. “For … forgive me, Reverend. Forgive me father, for I have sinned,” he sobbed.

A cold fear began to unfurl inside Gundert. “What happened?” he asked tersely again. He grabbed Devanna's shoulders. “Calm down, Dev. What happened? Tell me.”

Devanna clutched his head in his hands and began to rock wildly back and forth. “She … I … Devi … last night … She is
mine,
Reverend, I only took what is mine.”

Gundert froze. His hands slid from Devanna's shoulders. Devanna slumped from the chair onto the floor and clasped Gundert's legs. “Help me, Reverend, you said you would. Please, Reverend, do something. Devi … Reverend, do something.”

My Dev.

Gundert kicked out hard, with all the strength in his spare, sinewy legs. He caught Devanna a glancing blow just beneath his chin, and he went skidding across the waxed floors. “Pagan,” Gundert hissed, his face white and twisted. “Filthy, common native. Olaf … you are nothing,
nothing
like him. I thought, I hoped … How could you betray me?

“Get out,” he said, and his voice shook. “Get out and never let me see your foul, whoring self again.”

Devanna rose trembling to his feet. He limped to the chapel, and knelt by the altar. “Our Father who art in heaven,” he wept, “hallowed be thy name.”

Chapter 16

1899

T
he wedding was a rushed affair, nothing like the elaborate send-off Thimmaya had always imagined for his daughter. Five days earlier, when he sent Chengappa in search of Devanna, Thimmaya had cautioned his hotheaded son to be circumspect. “The family's reputation is at stake,” he said, “or what is left of it.”

Devanna had approached Chengappa like a goat might a butcher. “Anna,” he began, but a stone-faced Chengappa cut him off.

“Not a word,” he said. “Do not open your mouth, do not so much as look in my direction, or by Iguthappa Swami I shall cleave you to the ground.”

Pallada Nayak had shown no such restraint, launching himself upon Devanna with a bellow of fury and laying into him with his walking stick. Gauru's mother and the other women of the household came running out in alarm, shouting at the servants to hurry to the fields, to race, quickly—“Why are you standing there like donkeys, GO”—and summon their husbands before the Nayak tore Devanna apart. “What happened? In God's name, what has the boy done?” they cried in fright, trying to pull the Nayak away from Devanna.

“What has he done?” roared the Nayak. “What has he left undone, that's what you should be asking me. A taint! A taint on
this house, that's what he is. No thought for her, that innocent child, he … ” The Nayak stopped short then, at the mute appeal in Thimmaya's face. He flung his stick down in disgust and sank trembling against the ledge of the verandah. His hand shook as he mopped at his forehead. “He … the boy has refused to go back to Bangalore,” the Nayak improvised. He looked at the ashen Devanna and a fresh spasm of disgust crossed his face. “Yes. He will never go back to finish his studies.”

It was testimony to the Nayak's standing in the village, perhaps, that nobody thought to question the hurried wedding or the bloodied scratches along the bridegroom's cheeks. We knew it, said the gossips. Inseparable, that's what those two have always been, close as the holes in a coconut shell from the time they were little. A canny one, that Devi, kept turning down everyone, and now look at her, married into such a wealthy family, to a
doctor,
no less.

When they heard that Devanna had dropped out of medical college, they were only momentarily stumped. It was all Devi's doing, they said. It was she who had asked Devanna not to return to Bangalore, and so smitten was he that he had readily acquiesced. Slender as a moonbeam she might be, but even she knew that she was no match for the painted, leg-baring molls of the cities. Smart girl, to know how to keep her husband tied firmly to the pleats of her sari.

Devi sat motionless amid the hubbub of the wedding, an exquisite alabaster doll draped in the brocade sari that Tayi had worn as a bride. It was good luck to wear the bridal sari of one who had enjoyed a long married life. Bloodred talisman, this, the promise of wedded bliss in its weft, its drape butter soft from the years.

Women were bustling all about her, and she faithfully followed their instructions. “Sit,” they said, and she perched on the three-legged bridal stool. “Bend,” they said, when her veil of silk tissue snagged on the crescents ornamenting her plait, and she bowed her head so that they might untangle its ends. Not a word did she speak all through the ceremonies, going through the motions as if in a dream. They scattered handfuls of raw rice on her head and
forced black glass bangles on her wrists, and if they noticed the deep ridges her nails had scored across her palms, they put it down to the nerves of a bride.

How she had screamed that night, stop,
stop,
fought him, cajoled, begged. She had scratched at his face with her nails, tried to pry his hands off her body, calling frantically to the sleeping house, to someone, anyone, please, Iguthappa Swami,
please,
her cries drowned out by the brewing storm.

He had finally fallen into a stupor, lying slack across her, and she had broken free. The water in the bathhouse had been freezing, but it hadn't mattered. Her stomach hurt, the very pit of it, plagued by a deep cramping as she picked up the pumice stone and began to scrub. She had scrubbed every inch of her body, thoroughly, dazed, her skin turning a raw pink, sloughing the memory of him from her pores.