Tiger Hills (27 page)

“You need more than turmeric.” Devi was surprised at how calm she sounded. “I agree, from what I can tell there is no need to call … ” She hesitated, the pause of a mere split second, but he noticed it at once, her reluctance to name Devanna.

“No need for a doctor,” she continued smoothly, “but I know the medicines that must be applied; they are stored in my room.”

“Do not trouble yourself,” Machu said curtly, when she reappeared with iodine and a roll of cotton. “Give me the bottle and I will apply the medicine myself.”

“Cheh!” one of his aunts admonished. “Stop being so mulish. She is your sister-in-law, not some blushing, unmarried maiden. Here, hand me your kupya and stay still while she cleans you up.”

Machu knew when he was defeated. His face set, he slowly began to untie his kupya, wincing as he pulled the fabric away from the skin on his back. Devi stared decorously away as he undressed, ostensibly fiddling with the bottle, heart thudding as he stripped to his waist.

“Sit,” she said simply, and again she marveled at how composed she sounded. Her heart was beating so fast she almost felt light-headed. He seated himself on a stool, his back to her, tension visible in each roped muscle. The women gathered around.

“As I thought, the wounds are not deep,” Devi murmured, relieved.

Machu's lips tightened. “That's what I said in the first place.”

She said nothing in reply, drawing some water from the pot bubbling on the stove instead. She dipped a cloth into it, then wrung it out. Machu was silent, holding himself very straight, his hands balled upon his knees. His senses heightened to fever pitch, painfully aware of the minutest things. The drops of water as they fell, twisting, catching the light from the fireplace; steam rising gently from the cloth as she dipped it in the water again; the tinkle of glass as her bangles moved back and forth along her wrists.

She began to swab his back, felt before she heard the short, swift intakes of breath as gently she grazed the tips of her fingers along his skin. His fists opened, balled, opened again. Slowly she cleaned the gravel and mud from his lacerations, the women around them exclaiming now and again, pointing to a bit of debris she might have missed—“There, no,
there,
ah, now you have it.” Devi heard them as if from a great distance, like voices floating disembodied through a pool. It was as if her vision had suddenly contracted, perception and consciousness limited to a few narrow feet of space, so that all she was aware of was the man sitting in front of her. The heat of his body as she stood behind him, barely a finger's span away. Each tiny strand of hair along the nape of his neck. She swirled the cloth over Machu's skin, over the back of his neck, across his shoulders and the small of his back, delicately marking his spine with her nails.

“Oh, just see, the sweat is pouring from you,” someone said. Machu grimaced, rubbing his arm absently across his forehead.

Devi poured iodine onto a swathe of cotton. “This will sting,” she murmured, daubing it on his wounds. The sun shot a shaft of light through the double-paned skylight; dust motes leaped shivering into the air. She bent her head close, so close that her plait swung against his arm, so near that she could see the minute pores in his skin. The hairs rose along Machu's arm; a muscle jumped in his jaw. Devi touched his shoulder lightly, as if to steady herself. She leaned closer and, pursing her lips, blew gently on his skin.

“Enough.” Machu shot from the stool. “That,” he said rawly, “will do.” His lips pressed together in a thin, taut line, he snatched the ruined kupya from the floor and strode outside.

Behind him the women collapsed into laughter. “Men!” they exclaimed fondly, mistaking the source of his discomfort. “What funny creatures they are. Will think nothing of facing down the wildest of beasts, and then will rush away from the tiniest sting!”

Devi said nothing. Her breath was coming fast as she tightened the cap on the bottle.

Machu stayed so determinedly out of her way after that that she barely saw him over the next month. And then, just as she was beginning to despair, he volunteered to pick the gun flowers. The festival of arms was upon them, and the bright orange flowers were needed to adorn each and every gun, sword, and knife in the household.

He would leave early the next morning, Machu said to Kambeymada Nayak at dinner. The flowers had bloomed in the jungles earlier that week, and he knew just where the most profuse blossoms were. No, it wasn't necessary for anyone to accompany him—how hard was it, after all, to pick a few flowers?

It was very early when he left, a chill mist enveloping the courtyard. The watery moon that had risen the previous night floated in and out of the clouds, stars flickering moodily through the mist. Machu moved briskly, down the stone steps carved to one side of the courtyard, then along the path that led first toward the fields and then into the jungle. He was well on his way when abruptly he halted midstride.

“Devi?” he said, shocked.
“Devi?”

She stood half-hidden in the mist, having slipped from the house before him. A hard rage built inside him. He moved even faster, was at her side in seconds. Even in the fitful light, there was no mistaking the anger in his face. “Have you gone mad?”

From somewhere among the paddy pools, a bird, then another, took flight at his voice, their wings brushing palely through the dark.

“Why are you here, at this hour?”

She tossed her head nervously. “You look better in the moon-light.”
It was the same thing he had said to her all that time ago, when he had asked her to meet him in the lane outside the Nachimanda house.

“Go back,” he said harshly. “At once. The wives of this family,
sister-in-law,
do not stand in wait for unmarried men.”

Devi flinched and, taking a deep breath, stepped toward him.

“Don't,” he warned. She stepped forward again and he shot out his hand, the harness of his rifle jerked off his shoulder by the sudden movement. “DO NOT. I do not know what game it is you are playing but if you think I will be your pawn, you are sorely mistaken.”

“Machu,” she said shakily. “What happened … All I know is, without you … ” She spread her hands helplessly in front of her. “Nothing makes sense, Machu. Without you, there is nothing.”

Her eyes fixed upon him, she very deliberately stepped forward again. A pulse began to beat in his neck.

“What do you want?” There was a wildness in his tone, almost desperation. “Ayappa Swami, what is it that you
want
from me??”

Her eyes were huge, the pupils dilated. “You,” she whispered.

He grew very still. Around them, the skies were lightening. Just a hint of dawn, the slightest shift, as layer by diaphanous layer the night started to come undone. She stepped even closer, so close he could feel her breath. She reached up, then slowly, deliberately, she pressed her lips to his neck. The scent of her, a clean fragrance, not too sweet, like freshly cut grass. An involuntary tremble as she ran her hands over his chest. She began to kiss his neck. His eyes, clouding over, closing of their own accord; her lips soft, feather soft, Ayappa Swami, why did she have such sway over him …

“No.” He pushed her roughly from him, and she swayed drunkenly for a moment, certain she would fall. He shouldered his gun, looking at her with such hatred that Devi quailed. “Leave, just leave before I …
Leave!
”

Tears welled in her eyes, her previous bravado gone. “Machu, please—”

“Go!” Without another glance at her, his face implacable, Machu strode toward the forest.

He was so angry, he could barely think. He knew that she was still standing there, staring strickenly after him. He would wring her neck if she so much as— She began to cry. He faltered for a moment, strode stubbornly on.

Devi stumbled toward the house, tears spilling down her face. What a fool she was, what an utter fool. The despair of the past year and a half came crashing down on her and she began to weep bitterly, so hard she could barely see. He
hated
her. He would never forgive her for all that had happened.

And then Machu stopped. His face hard, hating the hold she had on him, hating himself even more. He turned back along the path, moving catlike, coming up behind her in just a few strides. He reached for her arm and swung her roughly around.

“I can't,” she wept, “I can't … no more … ”

His hands dug into her shoulders as he began to shake her, so hard that her hair came undone from its loosely tied bun. His hands tangled tightly in its spill, the silken length of it, and still he shook her, anger, bitterness, raw, festering hurt stamped equally in his eyes. He shook her like a rag doll, back and forth, back and forth, and then twisting her face violently upward, he crushed his mouth against hers.

They met in a hollow by the stream, inside a secret thicket of laburnum that Machu directed her to. She pushed the overlapping branches aside and crouched through the narrow opening. Inside was a natural arbor, high enough for a man to stand comfortably, bounded by athi trees to its back and a canopy of flowering branches to its front and sides. Petals lay in drifts of brilliant yellow upon the mossy floor; high above, the sun flashed through the tight weave of leaves. They stood facing each other, strangely shy. He had found this place as a boy as he was chasing a hare, he told her. He didn't think anyone else knew it existed.

She laughed, a bright, artificial laugh. “You mean nobody but your previous conquests.”

He shook his head and, without another word, took her into his arms.

It was liquid, it was fire, the hollow at the base of his spine, the animal sound he made as she nipped at his ear. It had always been chaste between them previously, Machu's sense of honor preventing him from doing much more than press his lips achingly against hers before he would pull back again. Now, it was different; this prolonged separation despite living under the same roof, the heartache of watching her disappear into another's room night after night, his overpowering need of her, a kinsman's wife, sweeping over him in a tidal wave of guilt and desire until he was no longer sure if it was her skin that he felt or his own. Her gasping, unbridled response setting him aflame, goading him on, taking them both higher, unbearably higher, the grief lodged in each of their hearts imploding in an indelible act of possession.

Mine. Forever.

They met there as often as they could, in the afternoon quiet. The shine returned to Devi's eyes, there was a spring to her step, rosiness in her cheeks. Machu, on the other hand, swung between a wild, fierce elation and burning shame.
What am I
doing
?
he would think, as he lay awake at night, staring at the ceiling. He would think of her, the tilt of her head as she looked at him, the velvet softness of her skin.
This is right,
he would say to himself then,
it has to be; it cannot be wrong when it feels so right.

Devanna mistook the song on Devi's lips as a sign that she might finally be thawing. He left a bunch of sampigé for her one day on the chest of drawers in their room, wrapped in leaves and string, where he knew she would find it. Devi stared at the flowers, her face inscrutable. The baby, spotting his mother, gurgled happily from his crib. She turned and looked at him, and he waggled his chubby hands in joy. She smiled tremulously at her son, her heart unaccountably heavy. She picked him up, feeling his warm baby weight settling trustingly into her arms, and tears sprang into her eyes.

That evening at dinner, when Devanna saw her wearing his flowers in her plait, his heart leaped. He approached her that night
as she lay in bed, reaching out timidly to stroke her hair. Devi, however, blanched.

“Don't you dare,” she said to him, trembling. “Don't you
ever
lay a finger on me.”

“How much, Devi?” he asked, the hurt unmistakable in his voice. “How much longer will you make me pay?”

“Lower your voice. Please don't make a spectacle of me among your family.”

“Don't make a spectacle of you? I know, Devi, what I have put you through. I live with it every day. I know I will have to pay for it when my day of reckoning comes. But it's been over a year.
Fourteen
months. We are married, we have a son. How much longer will you punish me?

“Tell me, Devi,” he said in anguish. “Just tell me, what is it that I need to do for you to forgive me?”

Devi turned away from him, her heart pounding.

“Come away with me,” Machu said to her once.

“Where?”

“Away. Anywhere.”

“And live in sin? You know you would not be happy with that.” She bit her lip as soon as she uttered the words. She knew how deeply it shamed him, the fact that he had not completed his vow. There had been less than a year before the stipulated twelve years were up, and yet he had chosen to be with her, choosing her over his God.

“Besides,” she added quickly, tilting her head from where it lay on his chest to squint at the sun glinting through the leaves. “This is your land.”

He was silent a long while. “Many years ago,” he said, “when I was a lad, there was a meeting of the council of the elders. A man from the adjoining village was on trial. Thievery. His crime was appropriating nine acres of land that had been entrusted to his brother. Kambeymada Nayak presided over the trial. It was the evening hour, I remember. From all directions, from all the villages
under the Nayak's command, people were coming down the hills toward the village green. The cattle were being herded back to their sheds for the night, and you could see their heads bobbing over the hills, hear the faint sound of their bells. That was the only sound, for each of us was silent, completely silent, overwhelmed by the gravity of the situation and waiting for the sentence that we knew must befall the accused.

“The man stood before the elders, his back straight. Stripped of his peechekathi and odikathi; they lay to a side, in the dust. The Nayak rose to his feet and recited the man's crime. Did he agree to the charges? ‘Yes,' the man said simply, scorning to lie, his shame written plainly upon his face. ‘We have reached a decision,' the Nayak continued gravely. ‘For his crime, the accused must be punished. From the onset of the next dawn, none may offer the accused either wood or water, throughout the length and breadth of our land.'”