Tiger Hills

by Sarita Mandanna

Six 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.

  There were more toys inside, and pretty blouses like the ones the local women wore. “You take one, heh?” the shopkeeper said, nudging a pile toward him. “Good for your woman.”

  A delicious aroma wafted from the curtained-off back of the shop, and to his embarrassment Machu’s stomach rumbled out loud. The shopkeeper laughed, his eyes almost disappearing into heavily wrinkled cheeks. Turning his head, he called out to whoever was there. A few moments later, a delicate hand appeared through the curtains, bearing a steaming plate. Machu gazed longingly at the naans and lamb kebabs, then shook his head. It would not be right.

  The shopkeeper sighed. “From where do you come? Which part of Hindustan?”

  “The south. In the mountains.”

  “Very far from your home, I see. Well, sit. Talk with us awhile, heh, even if you will not eat with us.”

  Machu hesitated, but the shopkeeper was already clearing the bales of goods, dragging a small stool in their place.

  “I have been to Hindustan. Many times. Not recently, these legs have grown tired, but I have been. Great cities you have in your country, heh? Dilli. What a jewel. And Bombay. What a dariya the city has. I used to sit for hours on the rocks, watching the water. This home of yours, is it near Bombay?”

  Machu shook his head. “No. Much farther south. Although I remember seeing your countrymen in my land as a boy. They used to come to sell us horses.”

  “Ah, our horses. El Kheir, they are called, in the Koran.” The shopkeeper drew on his hookah. “El Kheir, the supreme blessing. It is said that before Allah created man from the dust, first he made the horse from the wind.” He waved his hand expansively in the air. “‘Condense,’ Allah ordered the south wind. ‘I wish to make a creature from your essence.’ The wind condensed, and such a creature Allah made from it! ‘I shall make you supreme among animals,’ Allah said to his creation. ‘You alone shall fly without wings. The blessings of all the world shall reside between your eyes and victory be eternally bound to your forelock.’”

  The old man smiled. “There are beautiful horses in my village.”

  “Where is it, your village? What is your tribe?” Machu asked.

  “A small one, some miles from here.” He waved his hand. “That way, through the mountains.”

  Machu knew that the Pashtuns were made up of many tribes. “It’ll come to nothing,” Lieutenant Balmer maintained. “There are so many tribes, it won’t take much for the allegiances to break.”

  “So what do you think, Sepoy?” Balmer had asked Machu, as the latter drew his bath. “Am I not right? There is much infighting within the tribes; it will take only the slightest pressure from our forces to scatter them apart.”

  Machu
had hesitated, choosing his words carefully. “Where I come from,” he said finally, “there was much fighting, too, in the old days, between the clans. Still, when the Mohammedan armies came from Mysore, we always stood side by side. War, forced circumcisions, abductions, mass executions … the rulers of Mysore stopped at nothing as they tried to break our spirit and tear us apart. It only served to bring us together. We fought off their armies, year after year, through generations of war.”

  Balmer had yawned sleepily. “They will not band together,” he repeated. “Mark my words.”

  Machu had said nothing more.

  The old man was continuing. “They say so many things, the leaders. ‘Fight, we must fight,’ they say. In the old days, when the blood still ran hot in this body, I would have been there myself, sword drawn. But now … when a man has seen enough mornings, fighting loses its luster. Honor, paradise … these things are for the young. Old age has simpler demands. A few more mornings I would like to see, bas. Once, just once more, maybe see the dariya in Bombay. And after that, I want to make my way home. To see all my family, my village again. To return where I belong.”

  Machu looked down at the toy in his hands, running a thumb over its rich red coat. “The horse,” he said quietly at last, holding it in front of him, “how much for this?”

  The old man smiled. “Nothing. You are my guest. Give it to your child with my blessings.”

  “I’ll make a bargain with you,” Machu countered. “How about I take this, that blouse—that one there, in red and blue—for my wife, and that jacket for my little boy. These, I must pay for. However”—he pulled the plate of food that still lay untouched before him—“I would be honored to share your meal.” Wrapping the kebabs in the warm naans, Machu began to eat.

  The days grew steadily hotter, and spring melted into the rolling boil of summer. The flowers were burned from their stalks, and the landscape acquired a bleached, desolate appearance, broken only by gossamer-winged butterflies whose colors shone in the sun like filaments of pellucid metal. And still the frontier remained peaceful.

  Machu was granted permission to avail himself of his annual furlough. He headed back to Coorg with the gifts he had bought at the bazaar and two slabs of melted but precious Cadbury’s chocolate that Lieutenant Balmer had sent for Appu.

  He paused for a moment at the entrance to Coorg, stripping off his shirt and rolling out a kupya from his pack, trading pleasantries with the men at the outpost as they gathered about him in welcome. The men caught him up with the news of the past year—the paddy had grown well, and coffee prices were also up. A calf with six legs had been born in Makkandur village and two men had been gored by wild boar on a hunt. “Watch out for elephants,” they cautioned. “There is a herd this side of the forest. Not two days ago, we saw one going that way. A huge boulder, we thought it was, and then we saw it was an elephant, sitting on its haunches and sliding downhill.”

  He listened happily, his heart gladdened by the leafy river scent rising from the soil of his land. Here too summer had arrived, the ferocity of the heat, however, tempered by the forest cover that dappled its glare. He looked up at the sky; it was clear as lake water, smudged at its edge by faint rills of white. His ancestors, come to welcome him. Something shifted inside him, a piece falling into place once more as, adjusting the pack about his shoulders, he quickened his pace toward home.

  The next weeks passed in a pleasant blur. Machu could hardly stop marveling at how much his son had grown in the past year. “He looks just like me,” he whispered to his wife, as they stood watching Appu sleep. She laughed softly.

  “Down to his dimple. He is very good at sports, wins all the races in the village, even against much bigger boys.”

  She watched as Machu opened the high neck of Appu’s jacket a little wider so he might breathe more freely. The child insisted on wearing his father’s gift all the time. His mother had scolded him at first; couldn’t he see it was getting dirty? Machu had intervened. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I will bring another one the next time.”

  “He misses you a great deal,” she said now. A shadow passed over Machu’s face as he smoothed the hair back from Appu’s forehead.

  “It isn’t easy to be away. But what must be done must be done.”

  “Yes … Did you hear, by the way, about that woman?”

  Machu’s eyes flickered toward her, but his voice was even. “Which woman?”

  “Who else? Devi. People say her crop is extremely good this year as well. All kinds of things I have heard about her. That she called tantric magicians from Kerala and they have buried secret talismans in the soil. That she has had to pay for it with no more children, just the one boy.”

  Machu chuckled. “Come now. People talk, that is all.”

  “Some say that she has lain with white folk, and that is why they give her handsome prices.”

  “Don’t talk nonsense,” Machu said shortly. “She has worked hard and it has paid off.”

  His wife’s lips trembled. “Yes, take her side, why don’t you? I am just telling you what people say. Don’t other people work hard? Why is it that their crops have not been as good? Still, what am I to you, only your wife… ”

  Machu hooked a placatory arm about his wife’s waist, drawing her to him. “Enough, woman. Why waste time talking when there are other things we could be doing?” He grinned. “The other children you keep talking of—how about we go make some now?”

  That night, he lay in bed, staring out at the stars, his wife’s body heavy against his chest. “So she has done well?”

  “Who?”

  “Devi … she has done well? What do people say?”

  His wife stirred and looked at him. “Three estates she owns now. Three!” She paused, trying to read his face in the dim light. “And,” she added, “it all began with those first hundred acres.”

  Machu said nothing more, but three days later, after he’d been to Mercara to buy a peechekathi as a gift for Lieutenant Balmer, he impulsively goaded his horse west. The gulmohar trees were in bloom, exploding along the dusty road in brilliant bursts of red and yellow. Machu barely noticed as he galloped along. It has nothing to do with her, my visiting the estate, he assured himself. He would pass by, just glance at the property. Surely he was entitled to this much curiosity?

  In all likelihood, she will not even be there, he thought, even as he spurred his mount faster down the road.

  He drew in at the entrance, patting the horse’s neck as he peered at the estate. A new gate had been installed, replacing the rough bamboo slats he remembered from years ago. Tall it was, the gate, handsomely carved and obviously expensive. He reached a hand toward its bars, and it gave under his touch, swinging slightly open. His horse tossed its mane, impatient to be off again, and he stroked its flank. “Ayy, El Kheir,” he murmured drily, “you may have foresight in your forehead, and victory in your mane, but a little patience in your hooves would have been fortuitous as well.”

  He rubbed its forehead, calming the animal, suddenly unsettled himself.

  The estate lay quiet and seemingly empty but for the low whirr of dragonflies. Rows of neatly pruned coffee bushes gleamed a deep, glossy green in the shade, disappearing into the distance. Dismounting, Machu tied the reins of the horse to the gates and walked in. The overhead canopy was a lot thicker than in other estates, Machu noted, and yet this appeared deliberate, not a case of neglect. The path was meticulously trimmed, the earth beneath the coffee bushes denuded of weeds. She had done well. He walked on, heading deeper into the cool, silent plantation.

  He spotted Tukra an instant before the Poleya saw him. “Who is it?” Tukra called sharply. Recognizing Machu, he lowered the bamboo pole he was brandishing. “Mistake happened, anna,” he said, relieved. “I could not see you clearly.”

  “It is no matter,” Machu said genially. “My wife tells me that I have become brown as tree bark and quite unrecognizable. I was passing by, and thought I would … ” He cleared his
throat. “Is anybody else here?” he asked nonchalantly.

  Tukra shook his head and sullenly looked at the ground.

  “Oh,” Machu said, unaccountably disappointed. “Well, no matter. I will have a look around and leave.”

  “You should not be here,” Tukra blurted. “He … Devanna anna … it is not right.”

  Machu turned around, his eyes cold. “What did you say?”

  Tukra took an involuntary step back. “Nothing, nothing … anna, you should not be here!” The words came tumbling out, bumping against each other in his anxiety. “This is Devanna anna’s property. Devi akka and you … I know that the two of you … ”

  Machu stepped very close to Tukra, his features set. Sticking the barrel of his gun under the latter’s chin, he forced his face upward. “Do you know what I can do to you, Poleya? I could shoot you right here for your impudence, and all of Coorg would applaud me. If you ever, ever, make the mistake of using your mistress’s name improperly again, I will. Do you understand?”

  Tukra crumpled in panic. “Mistake happened, anna, big mistake from Tukra’s doings. I fall at your feet … it is just that Devi akka … she hardly even talks with Devanna anna … I too have a wife, of course she talks too much, a fisherwoman she used to be, and now she keeps talking, talking, talking, but shouldn’t Devi akka at least talk sometimes to Devanna anna? Devi akka … I used to dance in the grass for her as a boy, no place for that here in Mercara, but I am precious to her, I know. Why it was me she wanted to send after you, nobody else but me to go find you before their wedding? Of course you can walk through the estate, mistake happened.”

  “What? What? Stop!” Machu shouted at Tukra. He lowered his gun. “Look. I am not going to harm you.”

  Tukra collapsed in a sniveling heap.

  “She sent you after me? When?”

  “She wanted to. That morning. The day before the wedding. Tukra overheard them, Tayi and Devi akka. Tayi was crying, and Thimmaya anna, how he shouted. He never shouts, not like his son, always shouting, Tukra do this, do that … ”