“Oh, don’t be silly!” It came out sharper than she had intended, but really, sometimes Nanju could say the most foolish things. “Old men indeed.”
He stood there, biting his lip and fiddling dismally with the pile of double beans that Tukra’s wife was shucking. Devi sighed. “You can be such a child.” Unlocking the doors to the pantry, she took out two laddoos and set them before him. “Here,” she said, “eat.” He shook his head and she could see he was close to tears.
“Nanju,” she began, trying to keep the exasperation from her voice, when Devanna limped into the kitchen.
“What’s this? Why the long face?”
Nanju told him about the trees. “Ah, the felling.” Shifting his walking stick, Devanna bent forward awkwardly to ruffle Nanju’s hair. “Your mother is right, you know, we need to fell them. I’ll tell you what, though, let’s make a birdhouse, Appu, you, and me. We’ll use wood from each and every tree that has been cut down today, a memorial of sorts to remember them by. What do you think?”
Nanju looked at his father. “A birdhouse? How?”
“Ah, let us see now, we need to plan. I have just the book to help us …” Still talking, Devanna led Nanju from the kitchen. Devi stared at the laddoos lying untouched on the granite counter, reminded suddenly of an afternoon long ago. It had been a jackal, hadn’t it, that had got into the chicken coop? Those poor chicks, how she had wept for them. And the funeral that Devanna had organized later that afternoon. The sparkling crab stream, a coffin, fashioned from leaves and lined with silk cotton.
Suddenly upset and not knowing why, she picked up the laddoos and flung them into the rubbish.
Devanna sent both boys through the estate to find the oldest tree that had been felled, the one with the most number of rings on its stump. “By its side,” he told them, “that’s where we will build.” The birdhouse had taken nearly seven weeks to fashion, a large, ornate structure fitted with multiple birdbaths and feeding stations. Devanna had Nanju and Appu fill the basins with water, corn, and seed, and he placed a small nugget of copper in each of the baths to stave off algae. After only a few hesitant runs past and through the birdhouse, the visitors had come. Onyx-tailed drongos and white-rumped mannikins, purple-winged coucals, red-whiskered bulbuls, and olive-backed woodpeckers, thronging the basins and filling the area with song.
That was where Nanju would be for sure, thought Appu now, as he made his way into the estate. “Nanju!”
“Shh.” Nanju turned toward him, half-frowning, half-smiling, a finger on his lips. “Stop crashing about like an elephant, you’ll scare away the birds.”
“Didn’t you hear Avvaiah calling for you? Here’s your milk.” Appu flung himself on the grass beside his brother.
Nanju noted the depleted contents of the glass and gave Appu an affectionate cuff that knocked the latter’s cap off his head. “What?” Appu exclaimed, reaching for the cap as it rolled in the grass. “I didn’t take any!” He dusted it off and perched it jauntily on his head once more. “Well, maybe just a little,” he confessed, grinning.
Nanju shook his head with amusement. He took a sip, then wiped his lips with the back of his hand and handed the glass to Appu. “Here.”
Both brothers leaned companionably against the jackfruit stump, soaking in the sunshine and passing the milk between them as birds cooed and called overhead and splashed in the baths, sending droplets of water shooting into the air.
It had been almost four years since they had moved permanently to Nari Malai, soon after Machu’s widow had left Appu with Devi. Everyone marveled at the change the child had wrought in her, his arrival snapping her out of the stupor of the previous months. Fired with a renewed sense of purpose, she had had the Mercara house repainted and ordered a new set of furniture from Mysore. Nonetheless, something had been lacking. And then she had had an epiphany—why, it was the house itself! Devi had disliked the house from the moment they had moved there, but somehow, in all these years, she had never entertained the thought of leaving. At first there had been little money to afford a more suitable home. And later, when there was more than enough, she still had not moved. Partly, it was apathy, stemming from the sheer familiarity of the house, grown in these intervening years around them like a cocoon. And partly, it was a deliberate embracing of her distaste for the house, her contempt for its dim, cramped rooms. She had clutched this to herself, thornlike, the daily discomforts a perverse marking of all that had passed, everything that was never to be.
Appu was the charm that broke the spell. Devi had looked at the house with renewed disgust as she held him in her arms. Dark as an abattoir, it was, she thought uncharitably, thanks to that butcher landlord of theirs, the smell of fish and chicken fat seeming to permeate its very bones. Why, she wondered astonished, had she not thought of moving before?
“Nari Malai,” she had announced brightly to the family. “We will all move to the estate. Did you know your father was a tiger killer, kunyi?” she asked, turning to Appu. “Killed a tiger practically barehanded, he did.”
“Devi … what about Nanju’s schooling?”
She hadn’t looked at Devanna as she replied. “It’s all arranged. I have ordered a new automobile from Mysore. We can hire a driver who can take him into Mercara each morning.”
Nari Malai! The boys had been tremendously excited at the notion of living on the estate, but nonetheless, when it was actually time for them to leave Mercara, Nanju was suddenly sad. It was Devanna who had found him, lying curled on the floor under the bed. He had thrown back the covers and laughed. “Now, who do we have here? Come out, you little fugitive, come on, before your Avvaiah finds you.” He had drawn Nanju toward him. “I know how you feel,” he told him gently. “After all, this is the only home you’ve known. But we’re going to a new home now, there’s the estate for you and Appu to romp about in—”
“Are you happy to go, Appaiah?” Nanju had asked.
“Your mother is happy,” Devanna had replied simply, “and that is all that counts.”
And indeed, after a very long while, Devi was happy. This was happiness, not merely the absence of unhappiness or the shuttering of grief, like an iron cover dragged across the yawning mouth of a well. This was HAPPINESS; unexpected, unwarranted, a counter, partial but a counter all the same, to everything that had happened before. Joy unfurled within her until she would stop abruptly, mid-laugh, terrified it would all be snatched away from her again.
In the early days, she would hurry to the boys’ bedroom, heart pounding. There she would stand, by the side of their bed, frightened out of her wits, filled with the mad certainty that just like that, Appu would stop breathing, like that, in a snap of the fingers, he would be taken from her. “I know it, I know it … ” and then Appu would turn in his sleep, smiling at some dream. Slowly her panic would subside. His chest would rise and fall, rise and fall, her eyes lulled by the hypnotic rhythm of it; Devi was filled with a love so fierce that the breath caught in her throat.
She had managed very nearly to forget that Appu was born of another woman; it was only sometimes, when he turned his head suddenly or looked up at her in that way he had, that she was reminded of his mother. However, even that sharp burst of angst was quelled when Appu began to call her, none other than her, Avvaiah.
Once, soon after he had arrived, she had been returning from the estate when Nanju had run out to welcome her. “Avvaiah is here, Avvaiah is here.” Caught up in the general excitement, and mimicking Nanju, Appu had shouted along with him. “Avvaiah is here!”
Nanju had suddenly, uncharacteristically, turned on Appu. “She is not your Avvaiah,” he’d cried. “Don’t call her that.”
Devi didn’t admonish Nanju, had only laughed as she scooped Appu into her arms. She kissed his cheek. “This silly Nanju. Not your mother, he says. Of course I am your mother. And you, my sun and moon, are my precious, darling child.”
The move to Nari Malai was for Devi the final piece of the puzzle. It was Machu’s
land. It was as it should be that his son grew up there. It was important that Appu learn every fold and turn of the property. That the trees recognize his footfall, that the breeze that blew through the coffee bushes should know the contours of his hands, the timbre of his voice.
The family had settled so fully into the estate, it was hard to imagine that they had ever lived elsewhere. Devi had the bungalow repaired and a new roof put in. The old wasp-ridden rubbish pit had been filled in, and she had had an outhouse built in its place, fitted with blue-rimmed chamber pots. She commissioned an artist from Mysore and had him paint a huge mural of a tiger in the nursery; it watched fiercely over her boys as they slept.
Nanju and Appu had taken to country living like two fish released from a pond into a flood. Off they’d run into the estate as soon as it was light, scampering through the coffee until the plantation pulsed with their laughter. Devi would listen from the verandah and smile. Sometimes when she looked at the sky, she imagined she saw the faint outlines of a warrior, his rifle resting in one hand, his odikathi raised high in the other. “Your son is home, Machu,” she’d whisper then. “Our son … he is where he belongs.”
She talked often of Machu to Appu. “He died fighting,” she would say, as they walked through the verdant acreage, her boys and she. Nanju and he grew very quiet as she talked of the battle that had been waged in the mountains far away. “A death most honorable, the death of a warrior. Your father … he died a hero, kunyi.” Little Appu would walk very straight as he listened, his shoulders unconsciously drawn back, his fists taut at his sides. She would take his hand then, gently prying the fingers loose as she gestured about them. “He is one of them now, the veera that protect this land.”
When Appu turned six, Devi had arranged for him to be admitted into the mission school as well. “Talk with the Reverend,” she had said to Devanna. “I don’t know why you have not stayed in touch with him. Contacts matter.”
Devanna had remained silent but at her urging, he finally sat down to write to the Reverend. It was a difficult letter. Draft after discarded draft later, he had opted for a formal tone, one that merely pointed out the unfortunate circumstances under which Appu had fallen into their care. He talked of the heroism of the boy’s father, even offered to get a reference from the regiment if it would help. His nib hovered for a while over the letter as he signed off. In the end he chose:
Thanking you sincerely.
Your former student,
Kambeymada Devanna
Devanna stared at it and then, tearing it in half, he threw the letter into the wastepaper basket. When Devi asked that evening if it had been posted, Devanna hesitated an instant and then gestured noncommittally with his hand.
When weeks passed with no response to the never-posted letter, Devi tried a different tack. She dressed Appu in his best clothes, the brand-new shorts and shirt she had bought from the English clothing store in Mercara. She smoothed his hair down with coconut oil and water as Devanna coached him how to greet the Reverend in English. Devanna was reticent about accompanying them, but Devi was having none of it.
“You have to come,” she insisted. “You were close to the Reverend. You must speak with him on Appu’s behalf.”
The former novices, now nuns, flocked around Devanna like plump, graying pigeons in their habits. Devi watched, a strange softness in her eyes as the nuns cooed over him. “I am well, I am well,” he assured them, smiling, the gauntness in his features suddenly dissipated. “Look,” he said, removing his hand from the cane, “I can stand unaided, even walk a few steps.”
Where have you been, child? they wanted to know. You have completely forgotten us. So close you live, and not once have you come to visit us in all these years. Did you not want to see the Reverend? Old he has become now, he needs young people around him.
“I heard he had a stroke …,” Devanna said hesitantly, and one of the nuns shook her head.
“Two. Two strokes, one after the other. He survived both with the Good Lord’s grace, but what a scare he gave us each time.” She sighed. “Hardly ventures out now, stays in his office working. But what am I chattering on for? He will be so thrilled to see you.”
She hurried down the chessboard-tiled corridor, calling out to Devi as she left. “Devi, your son Nanju, he is a sweet boy. Reminds us so much of his father, he does.” The softness died abruptly from Devi’s eyes. She smiled briefly and looked out the windows at the nodding gerberas.
The nun returned, fussing with her habit. “Child,” she said, embarrassed, “the Reverend, he … he is busy right now. Can you … do you think you can leave him a letter?”
“He has already sent one,” Devi interrupted, “and we are still waiting for a reply. Oh, this is ridiculous.” Without waiting for a response, she swept down the corridor.
“Devi! Child! You cannot just go in.” Squawking in alarm, the nuns fluttered around Devi, trying to dissuade her, but she was already knocking on the door to the Reverend’s office.
He turned in surprise from the bookshelf.
“Who—?”
“Devi. You don’t remember me, perhaps, but surely you remember my husband? Kambeymada Devanna. Dev, you used to call him.”
The Reverend looked past her at the nuns. “It’s all right,” he said to them. “Shut the door behind you, please?”
“He wrote you a letter. Why did you not reply?”
Gundert frowned, puzzled, but before he could comment, Devi rattled on. “He is waiting outside. Why did you not come out to see him?”
Gundert looked down at the book he held in his hand. Sunlight poured into the study through the starched curtains, their crocheted edges casting serrated circle and heart patterns on the walls and the floor. The light bounced off the Reverend’s bowed head, a patchwork of pink scalp visible through the thinning silver hair. “I am busy.”
“Too busy to say hello? He used to look up to you so. I should know, all he would talk about was you. All he thought about was what you taught him. Trees and flowers and poetry, that’s all the man still thinks about, to this day. And you will not even come out and see him?”
Gundert was grasping the book so tight, there were faint indentations in its leather-bound cover from his fingers.
“I see how it is,” Devi said, when he did not reply. “So be it, let’s get down to brass tacks then. You’re building a new wing to the school, are you not? I hear you’re seeking donations to fund the construction. How much do you need?”
Gundert looked up at her. His voice, when he spoke, was flat. “One thousand.”
“Done.” Devi turned to go. “I will have my bank arrange the funds. In return, there is a boy who must be admitted.” She dropped an elaborate curtsy. “Good day, Reverend.”
Devi swept out of the school, but Devanna halted by the gates, shading his eyes against the sun to scan the windows that lined the Reverend’s office. He stood there, his heart pumping painfully as he searched, but of the Reverend there was no sign. He turned away, the pinched expression settling back into his features, failing to notice the slight shifting of the curtains in Gundert’s office. The sort of movement an old man might cause as he stood there, heavy-hearted, then stumbling hastily back from the windows lest he be spotted.
In the coach on the way home, Devanna asked after the Reverend. Was he looking well?
Devi shook her head. “Frail, he looked. Shrunken. Eyes all watery. I can’t believe how scared I used to be of him.”
“Did he … I mean, did he … ”
Devi hesitated only briefly. “He asked about you,” she said then, briskly. “Wanted to know how you were, how you were doing. He would have come out himself, but he had people there in his office.”
Devanna had nodded, knowing she was lying, but was strangely comforted all the same.
Chapter 29
The years that followed passed gently over them all, cloaked in the easy language of youth and two thriving sons. While neither boy came close to duplicating Devanna�
��s academic prowess, Appu at least showed an early and outstanding athletic ability, becoming the youngest student in the history of the mission school to try out successfully for the junior cricket team. When a craze for hockey swept through Coorg, ten-year-old Appu was at once enchanted; the following year, he was effortlessly selected for the junior outdoor XIs. The team forged its way through the district tournament, generating so much local excitement that on the day of the finals, there was not even standing room to be found around the field. All of Coorg, it seemed, had turned out to watch the game and judge for themselves the prodigious talent of the Kambeymada lad they had heard so much about. Appu did not disappoint, scoring two crucial goals.
Devi could barely contain her pride as he went up to collect his Player of the Tournament trophy. “Look at him, just look at him!” she whispered jubilantly to Tayi, and the old lady smiled.
“What a game!” someone said, stopping to congratulate Devanna. “The boy is a natural, you must be proud of him.”
“I am, very,” Devanna replied, beaming.
“Lucky child,” the man continued, glancing enviously at Devanna’s brogues. “If it weren’t for you, where would he have been today? No parents, no land, no prospects … it was a fortunate day for him when you took him in.”
“Nanju and Appu, they are equally my sons,” Devanna said, embarrassed. “We as parents are the fortunate ones.”
“Well, he is very lucky to be your ward. Such largesse—”
“Appu is no ward—he is my son,” Devi interrupted coldly. “His father was a tiger killer. A war hero. That game Appu just played? As you say, he is a natural. It’s in his blood. No amount of largesse can substitute for that.”
“Why do you say such hurtful things?” Tayi admonished her later.
Devi frowned. She was still upset by the man’s comments. All these years, and yet people refused to accept that Appu was hers. The day had been a muggy one, the threat of a storm brewing in the oppressive air; the headache that Devi had been ignoring all morning had painfully flared up. “What did I go and say now?”
Tiger Hills Page 31
