Tiger Hills (24 page)

Tayi had known immediately, as soon as she laid eyes on her. She had come knocking on the door of the bathhouse. Had common sense deserted her, Tayi clucked, that she was bathing in cold water? Did she want to fall ill? Wait a while, Tayi called, she would heat water in the fireplace and bring it to her. Devi opened the door, and a shocked Tayi fell silent, taking in the sari lying in a stained heap on the floor and the bits of twigs and grass and other debris of the previous night that lay scattered about her grandchild.

Devi had started to weep then, a thin, high-pitched keening like a bird trapped in a bramble thicket. “Tayi,” she sobbed, “Tayi,” her cries piercing her grandmother's heart. “De … Devanna … ”

Tayi wrapped her shawl around Devi with hands that shook. “Shhh, kunyi, hush, child. My darling child, my sun and moon, please be quiet before the servants hear. All will be well, Tayi will make it so. Come, kunyi … ” She hurried Devi back to the house as rapidly as her arthritic legs would allow. She bundled Devi into bed, tucking the blankets high about her, and then woke Thimmaya.

“Devi … ,” she said to her son. “Our Devi, my flower bud … ” Tayi began to cry.

He had stared uncomprehendingly at her, hearing the words but unwilling to take them in, no, it could not be, not his angel daughter. And then Thimmaya cried out, a sound so anguished, so filled with fury, so at odds with his ordinary gentleness that it seemed nearly inhuman. He stormed from his room, Tayi hobbling after him in a panic.

“Monae, wait, where are you going? Thimmaya, listen to me, wait a moment, what are you doing?”

Chengappa came rushing into the hall, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “Who … what … Appaiah? What is it, Appaiah, what's happened?” he said, alarmed. Thimmaya was loading his matchlock, wild with rage.

“I will blow his brains out. Is this how he repays our hospitality after all these years? Did it mean nothing to him, that we considered him a son? He … my own daughter.
My own blood.
” Thimmaya was shaking so much the wick kept slipping from his hand. Tayi gently took the gun from him and placed it behind her, out of his or Chengappa's reach.

Thimmaya sat down abruptly, as if his legs would no longer bear his weight. “How, Avvaiah?” he asked, and Tayi's heart ached at the bewilderment in his eyes. “Why? What will Muthavva say to me when I see her, how am I to face her?”

“What's done is done, we have to look now to the future. Find that boy,” she counseled her son, “find Devanna. I don't know how … what he did … I do not understand it. But this much I do know. I know he loves Devi deeply. Go to Pallada Nayak. He will do the right thing by us. We must … we have to get them married.”

Chengappa was dispatched to find Devanna while Tayi returned to Devi's side, a tumbler of hot milk in her hand. “Shh, kunyi,” she said, “hush. Tayi will make it all right. Quiet now.” She stroked Devi's hair, crooning lullabies and whispering reassurances until at last Devi fell into a deep, exhausted sleep.

It was well into the afternoon when at last she awoke. She lay unmoving on her bed.

“Devi? Are you up? Will you eat something?”

It came back again, in a flood. His hands upon her, under her, inside. Devi began to retch.

She slept again, and did not awaken until the stars were out.

“Devi? Kunyi, you must eat.”

She lay as if in a stupor, staring blankly at the wall. Tears sprang anew into Tayi's eyes. She leaned forward, surreptitiously wiping them away as she fussed with the wick of the oil lamp. The flame flared high with a hiss, casting shadows upon the lime-washed walls.

“Kunyi,” Tayi said, injecting a false briskness in her voice. “What happened, happened. There is much to be done now. In two days … ” Tayi faltered, in spite of herself.

“Two days from now … in two days … in just a few days, my precious flower bud is going to be married.”

Devi turned to look uncomprehendingly at her grandmother.

“Married? Who to?”

“Devanna.”

Devi recoiled. “After what happened? I will not. Never, not if—”

“Hush, Devi. This is the only way. If word gets out … your reputation … no man will ever consider you after this. What is done is done. Devanna has always loved you, he … ” Tayi choked up again. “It is for the best,” she said after a moment. “It is the only way.”

“Machu.

“Machu,”
Devi said again, her voice hoarse. Trembling, barely even audible at times, she broke the promise she had made to Machu and told Tayi about him, about the two of them. His vow, the necessity for secrecy. He was leaving for Kerala soon, he had told her the last time they met, with a caravan of rice from the Kambeymada fields to barter. He would be gone for nearly a
month. “Send word to him. Tayi, you have to. Send Tukra. Machu will come, I know he will.”

“Enough!” Tayi rose to her feet. “Not another word. Not to me, not to anybody and never,
ever,
to your father.
What
have you been up to beneath our noses?”

“Tayi, no, you don't understand.”

“ENOUGH, Devi. Stop.
Send for Machu?
Send for him, and what will you tell him then? That you have been violated by another? Even if his intentions toward you have been honorable, do you think he would follow through after what has happened?
He is a Coorg.
Did you forget that? He would never accept you, even if he wanted to. His pride would
never
allow it.”

She was married. She repeated the words silently to herself, but they were empty, devoid of meaning. Devi looked down at her hennaed palms, noting the silver glinting upon the arches of her feet, the gold chains threaded over her fingers and the backs of her hands. The wedding party had traveled through the night to the Kambeymada village. They took her to the well, where she broke a coconut and drew the first ritualistic water.

What had Tayi said to her? “He will want you as he might a rotten tooth, picked over by many toothpicks.”

She was seized by an absurd urge to laugh. She had often told him not to pick at his teeth, it would make them fall one day from his gums. He had smacked his lips at her. “So will you still love me then? When I am an old, toothless Thatha, will you still make eyes at me?”

Devi extended her right foot first, over the threshold of the Kambeymada house. She placed the pot of water on the hearth and then was led to the southwest corner of the house to light the ceremonial lamp. She dotted her forehead with sacred ash and bent to touch the feet of the elders of the household.

The women took her to the flower-bedecked nuptial room, apologizing for the slipshod decorations; everything had been organized in
such
a hurry. They seated her upon the enormous rosewood
bed, giggling as they offered bawdy advice to the new bride, and then, after adjusting the veil about her face, they left Devi to await her groom. The bedroom doors were shut, and for the first time since the previous morning, there was silence.

She looked blankly about her, at the breadth of the room, at the massive teakwood rafters. Her eyes traveled over the intricately carved wall pegs, the painted porcelain lamps casting light into all but the most distant corners, the jug of milk, and the areca nuts placed upon a silver platter for the newlyweds to share. Jasmine was strung along the bedposts, hung along every wall and strewn across the bedsheets, so much of it that the sweetness of its perfume was almost overpowering. She dug her nails into her hands, fighting the urge to gag. There was an oval mirror by the side of the bed. She stared at her reflection, the pallor of her skin, the dilated pupils. Overcome with weariness, Devi shut her eyes.

There was a hesitant knock on the door, jolting her out of her stupor. She began to tremble, suddenly terrified, huddling against the headboard as there was another shaky knock. Slowly the doorknob turned. Devanna walked in, cowering. He shut the door and leaned against it as if his legs would not hold him. “Devi,” he said, and the breath caught in her chest. “Devi, I … ,” and Devanna began to weep.

He loved her, he sobbed, how he loved her. “What I did, if I could take it back … I was not myself, Devi. Nancy … they … so
helpless,
Devi. For what I did to you, I know I will pay, I will pay a million-fold.” The words tumbled out, making little sense except to repeat how sorry he was. He knew he was not worthy, he said, his voice raw with self loathing, but
please,
Devi, he begged her forgiveness, he was at her mercy forever.

Her eyes were huge, fixed upon him. Flashes of that fateful morning, red-hot and searing, setting off a tremor in her hands. Fingers furling, unfurling, picking at the gold threads in the sari, clutching and releasing the silk. She stared at Devanna, unable to look away. His face, contorted with grief, so utterly wretched. “I
am sorry, Devi,
so sorry
… ” Slowly, the terror within her began to subside, leaving in its wake a dark, stygian-cold, blasting hope, shearing every dream at the root.

“Say something,” he pleaded. He took a step forward, hands outstretched, stopping as she shrank away. “Say
something.
” Again he tried desperately to explain all that had happened at the hostel. “I was not myself that day. Martin—”

“Nothing excuses what you did,” she said, cutting him short. She shivered. “
Nothing.
I will never forgive you. Not as long as I live, not for all the lives I will ever live.”

Devanna's mouth opened and shut as he struggled with the words, and then he nodded hopelessly. He pulled a sheet off the bridal bed, jasmines drifting down as he curled up on the floor.

When Machu returned from Kerala with oxen laden with the coconut oil, dried fish, and salt that he had bartered in exchange for the paddy, he heard about Devanna's sudden wedding and his disappointing decision to leave his studies midway. “What have we here?” Machaiah hollered jovially, as he entered the house. “A new bride, and why hasn't she brought me anything to drink?”

Devi emerged mutely from the kitchen. She bent to touch Machu's feet and his face turned white.

“Swami kapad,” he said automatically. “May you live long, my dear.”

Chapter 17

D
evi was catatonic with grief, a biting lament with neither expression nor relief. Machu stayed away from her, taking great pains to ensure their paths hardly crossed. He found every pretext to be gone from the Kambeymada house, often for weeks at a time. When it was time again for the family to send someone to man the post at the entrance to the forest, Machu offered to go. When Kambeymada Nayak wanted to gift the new Commissioner of Mysore a handsome peechekathi dagger in silver, Machu immediately volunteered his services; when the servants brought news of a bison sighting, no matter how improbable the source or distant the location, Machu at once shouldered his gun.

Devanna's father was belatedly attempting to connect with his son by trying to interest him in agriculture. Every morning he insisted Devanna accompany him to the paddy fields and the acres given over to coffee, and in the afternoons the Nayak assigned Devanna the duty of looking over the accounts. There was also the constant trickle of villagers, come to Devanna to seek treatment for their fevers and sores.

When at first an alarmed Devanna had tried to explain to them that he was not a doctor, he had studied medicine for only a couple of years, they had pleaded with the Nayak to convince his grandson to treat them. Kambeymada Nayak had yet to overcome the
crushing disappointment he had felt when he learned from Pallada Nayak that Devanna did not intend to return to medical college. He had tried his utmost to cajole and even threaten the boy, tugging agitatedly on his whiskers all the while, but Devanna had stood silently before him.

The Nayak had found, in the villagers' touching belief in his grandson's capabilities, some partial consolation; it was for his sake that Devanna finally capitulated. He saw his patients every evening, in the shade of the enormous butter fruit tree in the courtyard, performing commonsense diagnostics, while the Nayak kept track of the proceedings from the verandah, his mustache puffed with pride.