Tiger Hills (41 page)

Ah, but it did not matter. None of this did.

He was going home.

The pop of gunfire, the whistle of bullets above him. Or was that the breeze, rustling through the rushes? The air was still, so clean it hurt his chest to breathe. The paddy, just turning green, the jeweled flash of a kingfisher among the crab pools. And look there, just beyond the crest of that hill, a flock of herons, graceful as the wind. Machu watched them soar, his heart taking flight along with them, cresting into the sky.

It feels like a pair of wings,
she had said to him.
Loving you, it is like being given the gift of flight. To have all of the sky at my disposal, to soar where I will.

A numbness was slowly descending on him. He gripped his bayonet closer, fighting the darkness, forcing his eyes to stay open. Pennants of golden silk danced before him, rustling in the air. The snorting of horses, the thunder of their hooves. Cold, arrogant steel slicing through his flesh. The fiery orange of the tiger as it turned roaring to face him, the tint of the early morning sky that was even now staining the mountaintops. She was calling out to him, her laughter tinkling in the breeze. He shook his head, smiling, and reached for her, but it was like reaching for quicksilver.
Wait, I am coming home.

He tried to say her name then, as liquid flooded his chest. He struggled, coughing, but when he finally did say it,
De-vi,
it was but a sigh, slipping unheard into the stones. He struggled again, feebly trying to draw air into his lungs. The reinforcements were upon them, Machu realized, the Afghans in full flight beyond the defile. “Over here!” someone shouted. “Lieutenant Balmer is here. He's alive!”

Machu grinned, the dimple flashing briefly, and a fierce elation flooded his chest. “I am headed … ” He coughed again, a great gush of blood spilling from his mouth. “I … am … ”

And then the tiger killer was still, his eyes open, staring unblinking into the rising sun. His grip slackened and the bayonet slipped at last from his hand, raising a brief puff of dust as it fell.

Hundreds of miles away, a woman, heartbreakingly lovely, woke with a start, her heart contracting with dread. The fields erupted in an explosion of white as a flock of herons suddenly took wing. Water rolled off their wings, their beaks, and their claws in minute droplets, catching the first rays of the sun as they hurtled toward the earth. And it was as if the birds were weeping, crying a shower of diamonds over the still-sleeping town below.

“I am yours forever.”

Chapter 27

D
evi stood in the vegetable patch, trying to make sense of the tomatoes. They had seemingly grown overnight, the plants very nearly the height of the wooden stakes to which they had been bound.

“I had Tukra treat them with lime,” Devanna said softly, pointing toward the stakes. He waited, and when there was no response forthcoming, “See? Here, and here, so that the termites wouldn't get at them.”

She looked about her in a daze, his words barely registering. How had they grown so quickly? Why, she clearly remembered planting them not one week ago. Barely the length of her palm, they had been.

“Devi, come, we should head inside. It looks like rain.”

She said nothing.

Such ripe, juicy fruit. She reached a hand toward an especially voluptuous specimen, testing the springiness of its flesh.

“The tomatoes … ,” Devi said vaguely, still not looking at him.

“Do you want some with your lunch? Tukra—pick some.”

She shook her head, suddenly irritated. Really, he could be so obtuse sometimes. “The
tomatoes.
Can't you see how they have grown? I planted them just a couple of days ago and already … ” The tomatoes swayed fatly on their stalks.

“You planted these three months ago,” Devanna said gently. “Don't you remember?”

“Three months?” She whipped around.
“Three months?”

“It is almost October, Devi. Look at the sky.”

It was a soft, rain-washed blue. The color of a mynah's egg, Machu used to call it, the sky after the rains.

“October?” Confusion washed over her, and she took a faltering step backward.

Tukra jumped forward, ready to assist, but stopped as Devanna shook his head. “Yes. Soon it will be time for the Kaveri festival,” Devanna said, his eyes fixed on her face. He limped cautiously toward her. “It's been three months.”

Devi shook her head disbelievingly. “No.” It could not have been ninety days already. She knew they were watching her; she could sense the wariness in their gaze. “Go away,” she wanted to shout, “go
away,
” but she said nothing, staring at the shiny redness cupped in her hand. She squeezed the tomato, and it gave slightly under the pressure.

“Devi … ”

Her hand closed tightly over the fruit and it burst, squirting through her fingers. Devi backed away from the plant, staring in horror at her red-stained palm. Three months, it could not have been three months since … since … She turned at last to Devanna, her face crumpling.

“It's okay, Devi, it's okay.” He was by her side, wiping her fingers clean. Just like when they were children. He was saying something, and she tried to reply but her throat was choked with grief, and she folded against him, sobbing.

“It's okay,” he said against her hair, holding her tight. “Come, you need to rest. Nanju will be home from school soon. You don't want him to see you like this.”

When Devi finally awoke, it was in that in-between hour between night and morning, when the forest was silent and the animals returned to their lairs, when ghosts sighed wistfully into sleeping ears and the breeze lay coiled and waiting in the hearts of the trees. Her head was clear at last of sound, the ringing in
her ears silenced. He was gone. She tested this truth, tracing the cold steel of the words. He was gone and there was only one thing to do. Devi lay unmoving in her bed, lying perfectly still as she waited for the dawn.

Devanna tried to dissuade her. “Devi, what on earth will you tell his widow?”

“That she has no money and I do. That I can give her son a far better life than she ever will. Tukra,” she shouted. “Are the horses harnessed yet or must I walk all the way to the Kambeymada village?”

“The boy is her only child,” Devanna tried again.

“All the more reason that she look after his interests.”

“Devi—”

“Enough.” Devi turned on him, her eyes glittering, whether with nervousness, excitement, or a slight madness, Devanna knew not which. “This is not your concern.”

She refused to let him accompany her, sitting ramrod-straight in the carriage all the way to the village, her hands folded in her lap. Once again Devi had lost weight, her figure now almost girlish, the collarbones prominent under her blouse. Where grief might have tarred another, it had only enhanced the translucence of her skin, rendering her face almost ethereal. Only the eyes, dark as coal, betrayed the fragility that lay beneath.

With Machu's passing, it was as if a fulcrum had gone missing from the world. A reaction so physical that barely would she place her feet upon the ground than it would buckle. The memory of his eyes, golden, so filled with pain.
I would have stood by you.
The dark walls of a well spinning about her, a subterranean vortex of loss bottomless in its tow. Until the previous night, when suddenly, there had been stillness.

Appu.

Devi realized then what she had to do, felt the rightness of it in the
stillness
of her bones. Machu was gone. But
Appu.
The child was always meant to be hers; he should have been
their
son. She was only bringing him home.

The house was shockingly small. Devi looked at the dust smudging the table, and the widow reached self-consciously to wipe it away. The woman flushed then, color tinging her cheekbones at being caught in this small act of pride. “So why are you here?” she asked, her voice tight.

The child wandered in just then, dragging a wooden horse. Devi's heart constricted.
So
much like Machu. He spotted Devi and stopped, sucking noisily on his thumb. The widow gathered him into her lap and gently removed the offending appendage from his mouth. When he promptly tried to put it back in, Devi leaned forward in an attempt to distract him. “Kambeymada Appu, is that not your name?”

He looked curiously at her. “Who are you?” he demanded.

“I am… ” She paused, at a loss.

“My father died.”

Devi swallowed. “I know, kunyi.”

“I have to take care of the house now. He told me to, when he left for the mountains.”

“Yes.” She smiled shakily. “See, here. Would you like a sweet?” She pointed to the box she had brought with her.

“Sweets! What kind?” He reached eagerly for the box, but the widow pulled his arm away.

“No.” She set him down on the floor. “No, Appu, go and play outside for a while, there's a good child.”

A disappointed Appu looked for a second as if he might argue but then he stoutly nodded. Devi bit her lip, unable to take her eyes off him as he left the room, his little horse clattering behind him on its string.

“Appu looks
so
much like … he looks just like his … ,” she began huskily.

“He used to say your name,” said the widow, cutting her short.

Devi went very still. “What?”

“Machu. He used to say your name.” The eyes she raised were lifeless. “In the nights, in his sleep. Once, even while we … He used to call your name.”

Devi looked at her, stricken, and the woman laughed humorlessly. “Of course, he never guessed that I knew. Men!

“So,” the widow continued. “Why are you really here, so many months after my husband has passed away?”

Devi drew a breath, trying to collect herself. She forced herself to look the widow in the eye. “You're right,” she said, “I didn't come here just to offer my condolences. Appu. Why don't you enroll him in the mission school? It's the best in Coorg; my own son goes there.” Despite her attempts to appear composed, the words were spilling out nervously, her hands jerking, punctuating the air. “I will, of course, pay all of his tuition. I know the school is too far to travel to from here, but he can stay with me.”

“You want Appu to … ” The widow threw back her head and laughed, a sound like chalk being dragged across a slate. “So it wasn't enough that you sank your claws into my husband, now you want our son, too?”

“Machu was an honorable man! While he was married to you—”

“While he was married to me, thanks to whatever black magic you spun, he never stopped dreaming of you.” The widow rose abruptly. “I have work to do. You must leave.”

“Wait!” Devi searched frantically for the right words. “Think of the child. Even on the army pension … ” She gestured toward the dusty table. “I can offer him a much better life than you can.”

The widow tilted her head and there was something in the gesture that reminded Devi of a cat.

“Is that so? Well, the school has a hostel, doesn't it?” she asked. “Why don't you just pay for my son's room and board as well, and I can then enroll him there?”

“No! He needs a home. With me, he will … ”

The veins stood out on the widow's forehead, accentuating the gauntness of her face. “
This
is his home.
I
am his mother.”

Devi began to panic, at being caught out so effortlessly. She began talking even faster than before. “He and my other son, they will grow up as brothers. And you could visit whenever you wished.”

“Of course. He gets a brother, your husband can fill in for his father, and he gets not one, but
two
mothers. Two mothers fighting over him, making him choose between them. Me, his birth mother, the one he will always remember as having given him up, and you, the saintly surrogate. No. Never.”

“Please,” Devi said desperately. “This is for Appu's own good, you cannot give him the life I can. Machu would have wanted this for his son.”