Tiger Hills (37 page)

“Poetry,” she said. “In Inglis. A hostoff goldun daffadils. It is very well known, you should recite it to the white folk you hunt for.”

He had been ashamed of his ignorance, and had masked it with a scoff. “As if you know Inglis. You babble something or other and expect me to believe … ”

But she was in too good a mood to be baited. Lifting handfuls of petals from the grass and from her lap she had flung them at him, laughing all the while.

With an effort, Machu brought his thoughts back to the present. Discipline, he told himself, discipline. He lay still, steadying his breathing. Ayappa Swami, when would this end? He passed a hand over his chest. Over two years since he had seen her, and yet…

He forced his mind back to his conversation with Balmer and thought of his pay accruing rupee by rupee.
If there is one thing I will accomplish in this life,
Machu promised himself,
it will be to make sure that Appu is well educated. One day, one day, maybe Appu will be an officer himself.

Slowly, crafting grand plans for his son, for the children to follow, Machu fell asleep. His dreams that night were filled with drifts of laburnum petals, floating softly down.

Chapter 24

A
breeze gusted through the trees that bordered the bricked-over drying yard, shaking the laburnum petals free from their branches. They floated over the workers weighing the coffee beans, drifting bright yellow into the gunny sacks. Devi held out a palm to the falling petals as she supervised the weighing. Struck by a sudden notion, she examined the skin on her hands. How she had tanned! She had begun to spend even more time on the estate, the sun basting her once-porcelain skin to a light olive tint. Tayi, Appaiah, Chengappa anna—they all said she was working far in excess of what was required, but they did not understand. She needed to be here in the estate, come rain, thunder, or shine. Otherwise, these good-for-nothing workers would take the first chance they got to loll about beneath the trees, smoking their beedis.

She looked with satisfaction at the rows of bags, filled to bursting with coffee. Iguthappa Swami had favored them once again that year. She would ask the owner of the clothing store in Mercara to send a selection of his wares to the house, she mused. Devanna and Nanju needed new shirts and trousers. She would buy shirts for her father and brother, too, and a couple of saris for Tayi. She mustn't forget Tukra and his wife; they had been indispensable this past year. A shirt for Tukra, she thought, and a sari for his wife.

“Ayy,” she shouted at one of the coffee pickers, “tie the sack properly, or the beans will spill. Must I do everything myself ?” Shaking her head, Devi went over to him to show him how it should be done.

Some months later, after the crop was sold, she heard of two more estates on the market. “I am thinking of buying them,” she told Devanna, more a statement than a question. “It's a stretch, but I think it is doable.” Devanna nodded. When they went to get the papers registered, Devanna had the estates listed in Devi's name. She gave no indication she had noticed, but she clutched the papers tightly in her hands all the way home.

With these new purchases and the improvement in Devi's circumstances, there came a remarkable turnaround in her standing in the community. Invitations to weddings, and naming and housewarming ceremonies, virtually nonexistent for the past few years, now poured in. Devi refused almost all of them. She had not even been to the Kambeymada village, not since the Nayak's funeral. When Puthari came around that December, she quietly told Devanna that he ought to go. “You are well enough now,” she pointed out. “Tukra can help you. Take Nanju with you and go.” There was nothing there for her anymore.

She could no longer clearly see Machu's face; it floated in and out of her memory like shadows cast by an afternoon sun. Sometimes, when the yearning became acute, she would ask offhandedly after the Kambeymadas. Was all well with them? she would ask, with
so
many acres of coffee to manage, she had no time to go anywhere these days. Sometimes among the many bushels of useless chatter, there would be a nugget about Machu.

She heard that he had joined the army. That he had been stationed in the garrison at Mercara for a few weeks and then transferred outside Coorg. Madras, some said; Mysore, said others. Devi hoarded each new piece of information, examining it carefully from all angles as she bent over her coffee bushes. She tried to imagine him in hot, flat Madras.
How you must miss these hills,
she thought. The sea that lapped at Madras's shores would be poor consolation, Devi knew.

She saw him that summer, in Mercara. It was the child she spotted first, standing alone in the shade of the ammunitions store. Just one glance and she knew immediately. For a moment she could barely breathe. Those same golden-brown eyes, the identical dimple. Machu in miniature. She sank upon her haunches in front of the boy, uncaring of her sari trailing in the dust. “What is your name, monae?”

He looked curiously at her, none of the flinching shyness her own child would have shown. “Appu.”

She nodded achingly, fighting the urge to tousle his hair. “So tell me, Kambeymada Appu, who are you here with?”

“Appaiah.”

Devi swallowed. “Your father? Is that so, kunyi? Where, inside the shop?” Machu must be here on his furlough. “Is … is he here long?”

“Yes. No … don't know … ” Appu replied, losing interest. A thought struck him. “Do you have toys?” he asked.

Devi smiled tremulously, reaching into her blouse. Pulling out a roll of rupees, she pressed a ten-rupee note into his hand. “I don't. But here, this is for you. Tell your father to buy you lots of toys, you hear?”

She rose hurriedly to her feet so the child wouldn't notice the wetness in her eyes, then crossed the street. She stood in a storefront, apparently entranced by a window display of bonnets. Would he see her? Would he cross the street to speak with her? Her hair, she must … She anxiously patted her curls back into their plait, watching in the glass as Machu came out, pocketing a carton of buckshot. He looked puzzled at the money in the boy's fist, and then looked around him, searching for the mysterious benefactor. Devi bolted inside the store, heart pounding.

“Yes?” the proprietor asked, looking perplexed at her sari-clad figure. “May I interest you in some bonnets, madam?”

“No … no, I am just … ” Her eyes glued to the window, Devi watched as Machu strode down the street and disappeared from sight.

Chapter 25

1908

S
ix months later, the 20th Lancers received urgent posting orders, effective immediately. After a period of relative quiet, insurgent activity had begun to rise once more along the high reaches of the North-West Frontier. Seemingly isolated incidents, sparking here and there along the border, but the British government had been burned once before, by the frontier wars of 1896.

At the time, a fiery cleric had begun to make his presence felt in the region. The Mad Mullah, as the cleric was dubbed by the European press, made rousing, incendiary speeches in the bazaars against the British Empire. “Yours is the bloodline of kings and mighty warriors,” he reminded them. He recalled an ancient empire, one mightier than the present, one that had ruled half the earth, spawning kings from Baghdad to Delhi. He reminded them of the days when Islam hearkened free and proud to the call of the Prophet. The Afghans had gathered around the Mad Mullah, his words mining a deep vein of memory. Hearts ablaze, they prayed to Allah to send the white infidels across the sights of the rough Martini Henry rifles they carried, so they might fire a shot in retaliation for the many humiliations that had been heaped upon Islam. The Empire was caught napping. By the time the wheels of government began to move quickly enough to send adequate
reinforcements, nearly thirty officers and two hundred and fifty native troops had been sacrificed.

The government had since adopted a wary stance toward the North-West Frontier. It was determined to stamp out the slightest hint of unrest, lest a collective fuse should ignite once more among the Afghans, flaring through the region to explode in the face of the Empire. Telegraphs crackled their way to every corner of the administration, bearing news of the current unease and corralling troops, such as could be spared, to reinforce the border.

The 20th Lancers was among the regiments summoned; the regiment at once began the long journey north, riding the railways to Rawalpindi and from there to the cantonment at Nowshera, finally marching by road all the way to the camp at Chikdara.

Mountain air. That was the first thing that struck Machu after soggy, stifling Madras and the incessant clamor of the sea. The air was crisp and cold, like the air that sometimes graced the Bhagamandala peak after the rains. He drew a sharp breath as he looked about him. These mountains, though … he had not seen anything like them. The fabled Hindu Kush, the throne of the ancient Kushan empire. Ring upon ring of them, dusty brown and faded green, forbiddingly high and bounded in the distance by glittering, ice-capped peaks. Even his beloved Sahaydri ranges were reduced to the size of anthills in comparison.

The Lancers marched through a valley bordered by jagged, splinter-tipped mountains, the skyline broken by sharp-edged spurs and deep, brooding crevasses. The rain had gouged deep grooves into the mountainside, exposing veins of black lava like tearstains. All around the soldiers a primordial stillness, pierced now and again by the keening of eagles high above their heads.

The army base at Chikdara was especially tranquil, and despite the cautionary call to arms, the atmosphere in the North-West remained peaceful over the next few months. The men, Machu included, settled into a monotonous routine of guard duty and field exercise. Reconnaissances were conducted faithfully every evening
and status reports filed, followed by sundowners at the officers' mess, with mince cutlets from local mutton and slabs of chocolate sent by family back in England.

Officers applied for permission to allow their wives to visit, and permission was granted. The Colonel's wife, with typical efficiency, lost no time in organizing a bazaar every Saturday in the campgrounds, where the locals could show off their wares. Polo matches were conducted under kingfisher skies, and Sunday picnics held in the shade of the chinars. “
So
pretty really, these trees. Eastern cousins, don't you think, of the plane trees one finds along the esplanades of London and Paris?”

Even the Afghans seemed to relax and become more accustomed to the presence of the regiment. The men were especially friendly to the native soldiers, calling to them with a ready smile and wave whenever they happened by. Most could speak rudimentary Hindustani; it had been an association of many innings, after all, between the two countries.

Machu was roaming the bazaar one evening, the real, sprawling thing in the tribal settlement that lay beyond the army camp, not the sterile stalls erected in the camp each week. Here, chickens scrabbled in wooden crates and goats stared saucer-eyed as prospective buyers tugged on their horns and pinched the fat of their necks. It was an unusually warm day, the heat coaxing an earthy noisomeness from the animal sheds. The livestock reminded him with a sudden pang of Coorg. He had bought a few chickens before he left; hopefully they had grown into good egg layers by now. Perhaps he would buy a cow this time when he was home.

He walked on, past the tea vendor, to a seller of wooden toys. He picked up a horse, turning it this way and that in his hands. Would Appu like it? he wondered.

The shopkeeper watched from the interior as he fanned himself. “Inside,” he called. “Too much hot there, come inside.”

Machu hesitated, trying to adjust his eyes to the darkness inside. It was hard to tell who else was back there.

“Too hot,” the shopkeeper repeated.

The weight of his revolver felt reassuringly solid against his hip. Ducking under the canopy, Machu entered the shop, the wooden horse still in his hands.