Tiger Hills (31 page)

Devi began to cultivate pumpkins, bitter greens, and tomato plants in the small patch of soil behind the house. Most of the crop was needed for the household, but what was left she began to sell at the weekly shanty to bring in some cash. Unfortunately, she made the mistake of going to the shanty herself; when the Coorgs realized just who the seller was, they demurred.

Don't want, don't want from her, they muttered, recalling the debacle at the Kambeymada ancestor propitiations. Besides, just look at her, the women carped to their husbands, has she no shame, standing here among all these men?

Eventually she was forced to sell her produce to a middleman for a pittance.

Devi turned next to the lace making that the nuns at the mission school had taught her as a girl. It was painstaking work, involving complicated patterns that were threaded using multiple layers of cloth. When the design was complete, the pattern and the cloth were pulled slowly away, leaving behind a gossamer length of lace. Devi's knots were never quite as delicate nor as neat as those of the nuns, but nonetheless she managed to sell quite a few of her pieces at Hans's trading shop. Now and again, there were custom orders from the wives of the white-folk planters, for luncheon sets, tea cozies, and dressing table doilies edged with lace. This venture, too, the Coorgs found fault with. For a woman to go alone to the trading shop! Devi was too weary to pay heed.

Finally, the monsoon ended. The drip-drip-drip of water from the leaves slowed, and the sun emerged, wetly blinking. There was a hesitant birdcall, followed by another and yet another, until soon the rain-softened air was filled with melody. Wrens, bulbuls, cuckoos, finches, and warblers skipped through the trees and skimmed the lantana hedges, their throats swelled in song. Cats reappeared magically upon stoops and ledges, purring in the sunshine. Even the houses seemed to stand straighter, throwing off their hunched dampness, their tiled roofs glowing a warm red as the water stains evaporated from their walls.

The paddy grew tall but thin. The early onslaught of the monsoons had ensured that the yield would be sparse that year; the granaries would hardly be half filled. This, too, the family blamed on Devi. The oracle had
warned
them, had he not?

The clot in Devanna's brain gradually began to recede, and the deadened nerve cells began to regenerate. He started to regain sensation,
a buzzing pins-and-needles movement in the tips of his fingers and the pads of his toes. The paddy grew taller still, gradually ripening into gold under the winter sun, and Coorg readied herself for Puthari, the harvest festival, once more. The sizzle of roasting meat filled the courtyard of the Kambeymada home. The three sows that had been fattened these past months had been killed with a neat shot to the head, their meat steeped in garlic, cumin, and thick, black garcinia vinegar and set to roast over a wood fire. The vast granary at the back of the house was filled with chatter as Poleya women powdered sack upon sack of raw rice. Fine, white rice dust hung thick in the air, making the women cough and delighting the children as it settled indiscriminately on skin, clothing, and hair.

Donkey children, don't bother the servants, there is much they need to do, the harassed daughters-in-law of the house chided, as they rushed back and forth, some carting endless platters of rice powder from the granary to the kitchen, others employed in kneading the powder into dough with cardamom and jaggery syrup. The kitchen verandah was already lined with row upon row of banana leaves laden with balls of this dough, ready for the brass steamers being hauled from the attic. Elsewhere in the house, fresh coats of lime wash were being applied to the outer walls, lamp-shades washed and the tiger skin taken down from the wall to be aired and for alum to be rubbed on its gigantic underside.

Nonetheless, despite the hubbub of activity, something was lacking. There was a pall hanging over them all; it had been hard to shake the memory of the oracle's portent and Devanna's attempted suicide.

A grand gesture, Kambeymada Nayak decided; he needed a sweeping statement that would wipe the glumness from the faces of his family and reassure them all of the might of the Kambeymadas. But what? Gold bangles for each of the women? No, too trite. A holiday, perhaps, to Mysore? Too dangerous. Hadn't the papers all this past month been filled with news of the plague that had swept the Madras Presidency? Fifteen thousand corpses, the papers had said. Mysore had been spared the brunt of the epidemic,
but nonetheless, being of a fastidious and cautious bent of mind, the Nayak thought it would hardly be wise to risk exposing his family. Besides, the Nayak proudly maintained that he had never set foot outside Coorg in all his life; he was not about to start in his dotage and ruin what had been a perfect record.

He was still pondering the best course of action when he paid a visit to the Commissioner's office in Mercara. Two peons were engaged in placing, in precisely the center of a wall and under the tense directions of the aide de camp, a magnificent photograph of Queen Victoria. The Nayak was stroking his mustache and admiring the ample bosom of the matriarch, when,
Ah!,
it dawned on him. He had the perfect idea—he would summon the finest European photographer from Mysore to capture for eternity the entire family on film.

Machu was in the fields when one of the Kambeymada men came looking for him. Despite the herons that still brought a dull ache to his heart, it was only there, under the unfettered skies, that he was able to find any peace. Kambeymada Nayak wanted Machu to go to Mysore, the man told him, to escort a photographer back to the village.

“All?” Machu asked, as the man continued. “Does he want all of the family present?”

“Yes, everyone is to attend. Well, not
everyone,
I suppose. That boy Devanna is still not fully recovered. And surely that Devi girl will not be so brazen as to attend without her husband, not after all she has wrought.” Machu nodded, absentmindedly dehusking an ear of paddy between his fingers.

Devi sent a prompt note back with Tukra. Her husband would be unable to attend, but she and her son thanked the Nayak for the honor. They would be present without fail.

Devi dressed with care for the occasion, making Tukra drag the trunk of good saris out from beneath the bed. She rifled through the layers of silk that had lain so long unworn, the neem leaves that Tayi had scattered through the trunk to ward off silverfish
dried and crumbling beneath her fingers. She finally settled on a deep pink sari, its gold border wider than the span of her hands. She tied a veil of pale pink silk over her head, its embroidered edges tucked behind her ears and flowing down her back. Two necklaces around her neck—the black-beaded kartamani and the gold-nubbed jomalé. The ruby-dotted jodi-kadaga double bracelet on her right wrist, six gold bangles upon the other. A pair of ruby jhumkis dangling from her ears. A perfect round of vermilion high on her forehead, lamp soot mixed with almond oil accentuating her eyes. And finally, on her bosom, a tiger claw brooch.

He had given it to her in their laburnum hideaway, a peace offering after one of their fights. Her face had been radiant as she looked up at him. “Is this from your tiger?”

He had laughed. “Yes, from my tiger. For my tigress.”

Devi ran her fingers over its smoothness now, tentatively probing the sanded-down tip. She bit her lip. Would he even notice?

He gave no indication that he had, his studied indifference proclaiming to her his awareness of her presence. They circled each other throughout lunch, each maintaining a formal distance from the other, carefully avoiding the other's gaze. The Kambeymadas were unfailingly gracious, extending to her the polite hospitality one accorded a favored guest and making her cheeks grow hot with anger. Here, she must have another helping of ghee rice, and oh no, no, not
that
bony piece of chicken, here, she ought to try this piece from its breast instead. The women refused to allow Devi to lift a finger. “No,” they said firmly, when she insisted on helping, “you have the child to manage.” Devi seethed as she counted at least six women effortlessly balancing their own tots on their hips as they went to and from the kitchen.

You are not one of us,
it implied, this formality.
You are not welcome in this family.
She held her head high and rocked Nanju upon her lap.

At the coconut shooting contest later that afternoon, with great ceremony, the Nayak called upon Machu to fire the first shot. He shook his head.

“What's the matter with you, Machaiah?” the Nayak asked sharply, finally losing his patience. “It isn't a request, it's an order.”

“Leave it be. Not this time.”

“Ayy, it is only a coconut, Machu, not a
pisachi,
” one of his cousins called. The onlookers laughed, and Machu stiffened. The Nayak thrust the gun at him. “Here. Don't be foolish.”

Machu stood unmoving, his hands by his side. Her eyes were upon him, he could feel them in his back.
The tiger killer.
Yet malleable as clay he had been, insubstantial as the summer clouds. “No,” he repeated quietly.

“Has your head gone soft?” the Nayak burst out angrily. “I hear that even at the hunts you refuse to shoot, that you deliberately remove yourself to the outskirts of the hunter circles and insist on manning positions given to none but the rawest of hunters. You are the tiger killer! Do you not care that they say that you have lost your nerve? Or can you no longer hear the contempt in their voices?”

“Let people say what they will,” Machu said steadily. “Opinions are like buttock holes—every fool has one.”

“By Iguthappa Swami! Here.” Turning on his heel with an oath, the Nayak shoved the gun into someone else's hands. “Here. Show me that the Kambeymadas have not all lost their manhood.”

The crowd tittered again, and Devi turned despairingly away from where she had been watching at the fringes. It was stupid of her to have come. She walked out of the side gate, past the banana and orange groves and the thicket of areca palms, Nanju heavy in her arms. Everything had changed.
One must fight for happiness.
What was left to fight for? Her feet moved of their own volition, past the stream. It was over. Over. With a start, Devi realized she was standing in front of the laburnum arbor. The trees were bare now, long shorn of bloom. A purple honeysucker bird hovered nonetheless, wings beating madly as it searched among the boughs.

Phantom flowers.

Nanju stirred restlessly in her arms and she pointed at the bird. “Look,” she told him, “look … ” The trees were bare now. But still
carrying within their sap, or so it seemed to her, an imprint of the lovers that had once lain below. The breeze rustling through the grass, whispering their names.
Ma-chu.
Taking Nanju's hand in hers, Devi crawled through the narrow opening of the arbor.

“Ma? Amma?” Nanju asked uncertainly. His face was hot and sweaty, the trace of a brocade rose upon his cheek from where he had pressed it against her blouse. Devi pushed the hair back from his forehead, blowing gently into his face.

She didn't start at all when Machu pushed aside the branches fringing the opening.

“They are looking for you.”

The breeze picked up, whistling through the arbor. He looked older; she saw a smattering of gray at his temples that had not been there before.

“Did you not hear me? Everyone has been looking for you. The photographer is waiting.”

“Why did you shave it off ?”

His hand went instinctively to his jaw and then he impatiently dropped it. “The photographer—”

“Tell them I am not coming.”

Machu made a sharp, irritated sound. “Don't be foolish. You accepted the invitation, did you not, even when you knew you would not be welcome? Well, then, follow through with your actions. Come and get your photograph taken with the rest of the family.”

She said nothing.
Ma-chu.

“Have you gone deaf ?”

Still she stared at him.

“Fine. Have it your way, I'm leaving.”

“They blame me, don't they? For what happened?” Her eyes filled with tears and she looked at the ground.

“By Ayappa Swami, please … Devi.
Listen
to me. They are about to take the photograph. Think how poorly it will reflect on you if you are not there.”

“Oh?” She brushed the tears angrily away with the back of her hand. “And did you think how poorly it would reflect on you before shaving off your galla meesé?”

The same stiffening of his shoulders. “That is not your concern.”

“No, you are right. It's not my concern, you are not my concern, you've made that amply clear, Machaiah. Yet it pains me when I see the man you have become.”

He said nothing, his hand again rising unconsciously toward his jaw.

“Not even a coconut, Machu?” she taunted. “The tiger killer, afraid of bringing down a simple coconut? How could you let these people poke fun at you?”

“It doesn't matter. People will talk, no matter what.”

“And since when have
you
stopped caring what people said? Come now, Machu, why don't you speak the truth?”

She stepped closer to him, holding Nanju so tight that he squirmed in her arms. “The truth is that you are hiding from yourself. Where is the tiger killer I once knew, what have you done with him?”

“Hiding … Please.” His voice was icy. “Don't be foolish.” He turned to leave.

“Foolish? I can see it in your eyes, Machu. You're living half a life, have shrunk to just the shadow of the man I knew.”

“Enough!” His lips parted in an ugly grimace, the dimple cutting mirthlessly into his cheek. “Do not presume to know me. You. Do. Not.”

“Really?” Her voice had risen, but she did not care who might chance upon them. “So tell me then, Machaiah, since I don't know you at all, since all is well with you, since our story is over, since you will not deign even to look at me when I
know
that every pore of your body is aware I am near, since all of this is true and more, then why is it
that you still remain unwed?
”