“There is no room for laggards among our squadrons,” he said. “We fly together, sometimes wingtip to wingtip. We fear nothing except falling out of the sky, and we trust each other so greatly that we can fly blind, one cheel’s wings brushing another’s as we twist and turn, our eyes fixed on prey, not on each other’s movements. There is no space for the weak-winged in the squadron. Hatch must leave the nest before the monsoons, a few moons from now. When the first rains fall on his wings, he will no longer be a fledgling, and if he cannot fly then, the squadrons will put him down as prey.”
Katar’s whiskers trembled in sympathy.
“That is never easy,” he said. “Hulo and I have culled kittens, in seasons when the litters have been too many, or when kittens who do not carry the clan scent have strayed into Nizamuddin territory, and though it must be done, it leaves a dark stain on us. It is not like killing prey, though the only way to do it is to pretend that it is.”
Tooth flapped his wings and called out, a keek-keek of despair that echoed over the canal, startling some of the cheels and making them swerve questioningly.
“Ah, Katar!” he cried. “I have promised Claw that I will do this when the time comes, because we both know that if he cannot fly, we cannot feed him forever. She said only, “Keep your beak sharp, and do not flinch when you drive your talons home, or else I will take your place,” and cleaned her feathers. But her flights have been longer and longer this last moon, as though the only place she finds comfort is in the silence of the highest part of the skies, where even the winds and the clouds are beneath your talons.”
The tom’s ears were flicking in sympathy. “Hatch is your first-hatched, is he not? You and Claw haven’t had chicks before him and Mach?”
“Our first babies,” said Tooth hoarsely. “We had a cluster of eggs once before, but I had chosen the nest badly, and the rats carried them off. This time, we chose better. Our nest was high up on an abandoned telephone pole, on the banks of the canal.”
The memories brought the fierce glow back to his eyes.
“You’ve seen how fast Claw can fly, haven’t you?” he said to Katar and Beraal.
“Indeed,” said Katar, his tail waving at the tip as he remembered one of Claw’s more daring flights. He and Beraal had been on their way to the fakir’s shrine, where Nizamuddin’s clan had been fed by the gentle keeper for years until the Bigfeet had made him leave. A sharp sound had made them look up as they picked their way carefully through a narrow alley. Claw had flashed through, turning so that she went sideways, one wing to the earth, one wing to the sky; she went so fast, Katar remembered, that she had disappeared in the time it had taken him to shift from one cobblestone to another, his paw still raised, his fur standing on end.
“I heard her call from the other side of the clouds,” Tooth said, “and I knew it was our time. I called back, urgently, wanting the squadrons, the crows, every other bird up there to clear the way. Then she called out to let me know she would not wait. And the squadrons scattered at her command, Slash and the rest retreating to the roofs of the dargah respectfully.”
He brooded, stretching his great wings out.
“There is no season for mating except the winter, you cannot swoop and dive the same way in the heat. Our skies are so crisp, so cold, and that contrast—the light touch from the tips of her wing feathers, the softness of the feathers that lie clustered so thickly on her neck, the warmth that leaped from her to me—snared me. And tormented me, because Claw did not allow herself to be touched until she had extended her talons in invitation. First, we chased each other along the edge of the clouds, we tore through the air, hitching rides on one thermal after another, slaloming dangerously over the tops of the flame trees and rising again until we thought we would reach the sun. She called, and I answered; she called, and she flashed once around me, letting her wingtips graze the edge of my back, my neck, my throat, my quivering wings, and then she met my gaze, folded her wings and dropped. I knew what she expected; I did not plummet with her, instead, I aimed beneath her, like an arrow, ignoring the electric wires, ignoring the gliders who came up from the airfield below.
“Before I could claim more than one cry of victory, she was off again, spinning upwards—upwards, mind, Katar!—in a triple reverse. What could I do but follow, and then I swung around the flame trees at the edge of Safdarjung’s Tomb, went low just to teach her a lesson, just to show her that she wasn’t the only aerobatics expert, I looped the loop around the electric wires and shaved the roofs of a few Bigfeet cars. Claw only called again, a mocking question—is that the best you can do?—and matched me, two loops to one of mine, and there we went again, spinning upwards, making for the open expanse of Safdarjung airfield, challenging the gliders to a duel, and this time she let me fly almost beak-to-beak with one of the Bigfeet’s craft. It was only when I went straight for the cockpit, raising my wings high to show her I would not back off, that she cried out in alarm, until she realized I had always intended to shoot upwards at the last moment, clearing the glider and its backwash effortlessly. It was so cold—freezing—my tail feathers would have stiffened if we hadn’t been flying that hard, that fast, and Claw had her revenge, chasing the glider, dancing the fandango with its wretched tail until I was the one pleading with her to stop.”
Despite the warmth of the summer day, Katar felt a sympathetic chill in his fur; Tooth made that winter day come alive, and the cheel shivered slightly, spreading his tail feathers out as he recalled their dangerous dance across the skies.
“Then she taunted me, chasing me up and down the thermals, rising higher and higher every time I thought I had her by the wings. Claw made the muscles under my wings work harder than they had in any of the squadron’s sorties, diving, forcing me to follow her on the treacherous switchbacks of the winds, twirling and teasing, feinting and fencing until my wings and the winds had fused together; one could have been the other, I could not tell them apart. This time, I turned away, making for the edge of the horizon, trying to reach out and touch the sun with my wings, forcing her to chase me. I went vertical, high up into that part of the sky we love so much, where the air feels thin and rare. You leave the heaviness of the ground behind, because here there is only the sky and then, if we could keep flying long enough, the stars.”
Beraal stretched, Tooth’s talk reminding her of the nights she had spent challenging her mates, the joy of the combat that came before the lovemaking, the way in which she would whirl at the last moment, watching the hope and watchfulness in the tom’s eyes. They could never tell what would come their way, the low resounding purr of invitation, or a slash from her paw that would leave them with a memory scar for life.
“I thought I had lost her,” Tooth continued. “She folded her wings and dropped, her body heavy as though she had given up—sometimes the earth reaches up, sullenly, pulling us back to the ground because it is jealous of how we live in light and air—and how I wanted to follow her, but I could not. If Claw was to be my mate, if she and I were to be as well-matched in the nest as we were in the squadron, I could not drop down myself; she would have seen that as an insult, and her beak would have ripped through my wings in chastisement. I pushed my wings, forcing them to carry me higher and higher, calling to her imperiously, demanding that she match me, not asking or pleading for her company any more, but my talons told another story…They reached out silently to her, spread as though I would yank her up to me with my claws, if only I could.
“She had dropped so far that through the layers of blue, I could no longer see my Claw, and it seemed to me that I would spend this winter, too, without a mate, for if I could not have Claw, I did not want any of the others. I called as I sped through the air, reckless in my desire and my sorrow, and from behind the clouds, bursting out and upwards at a speed that almost froze my beak, my mate answered! ‘Yes!’ she cried, ‘yes, I will, yes.’ And then she looped once downwards again, swung out and around the top of a transmission tower until her feathers crackled
at their tips, and there she was. My Claw, rising to meet me as I sounded my barbaric keek across the roofs of the world, my talons spread out to catch her, her muscled brown wings ready for me, and then she flipped upside down in surrender, flying with her head towards the ground, her talons fastened to the very stars themselves.”
The summer had slipped away from Tooth; he had even forgotten Hatch, who was resting unhappily on the concrete rim of the canal’s parapet.
“The shock when our talons met sent ripples through the air. We hit a bad thermal then, and had to ride the bucking ocean of air; I did not dare lose my grip on Claw’s talons, and then as the pleasure rode upwards into my feathers and skin, I did not want to ever lose her. I understood what the lightning must feel like, as it shoots through the skies; we held and released each other, Claw dipped and swerved and zoomed, turned upside down and then spun me around as we made love to the four winds, to the clouds, to the very air itself. We were lightning and thunder, we were hail and storm, but even though the rest of our mating sent pleasure shuddering through my wings, I never forgot the moment when our talons touched for the very first time, as we tumbled through the skies that day, and then that night, and the next day.”
Beraal’s kittens stirred, Tumble mewing in her sleep. The sound, tiny as it was, made Tooth turn and blink. The faraway look in his eyes stilled, as he returned from the skies to the earth, and looked once again in the direction of the canal, where the squadrons wheeled and skimmed and swooped, while his son clung with his talons to the concrete.
“Hatch and Mach were born of that mating,” he said to Katar and Beraal, anguish roughening his hoarse call. “When Hatch broke through the shell, he came out with his beak opening and closing in astonishment at the world, and the first thing he did was to try to raise the tiny bits of fluff that would grow into his wings. Mach came before him, but I had thought Hatch would be the first to fly, he was so curious about everything. Except the air. It scares him, he fears falling out of the skies. There is nothing wrong with his wings; it is his fear that keeps him tethered to the ground.”
Beraal paused; she had been combing her own paws.
“He fears falling out of the skies,” she said, her purr meditative. “Where have I heard something like that before?”
Tooth hunched his wings together. “Who knows,” he said. “The only creatures silly enough to fear the skies are the pigeons, and they are no more than winged rats, we do not count them among the birds at all.”
“Not the pigeons,” Beraal said. Her green eyes had sharpened, her tail flicked away a few of the flies that were a hazard of the summer. “It is strange, is it not, Tooth? Your son fears falling out of the skies; and until her adventure, the Sender feared coming outside. Not now, she would say to me, her mew frightened, her whiskers defensive, her paws unwilling to consider moving out of the shelter of her Bigfeet’s home, not now. And yet, when she found herself outside, even though her long whiskers were of no help against the dogs and the creatures of the dark, she did well enough.”
Katar sensed the small return of hope that made Tooth’s wingtips spike up slightly. The sun was high overhead, and the cats would soon need to find shelter from its rays, to rest far away from the heat so that they could use the night to find food and water.
Hatch had woken from his nap. He waddled along the concrete rim, looking ridiculous. Two cheels, visiting from the neighbouring squadrons of Defence Colony, very smart in their military correctness, not a feather out of place, flew lower, their beaks agape at the sight. Tooth, Katar and Beraal heard their mocking keeks, like derisive laughter, as they skimmed the canal twice to get a better look at the waddling cheel.
Tooth stretched on his talons, preparing for flight. The happiness had seeped from his feathers, and he held his wings taut.
“If my son hasn’t found a way to conquer his fear by the monsoons, if his wings cannot lift him above this sullen clay,” said the cheel softly, “I will keep my promise to Claw and kill him myself.” He took off, and soon he had flown so high that Katar could no longer pick Tooth out from the rest of the cheels who circled overhead.
—
“SPLISH-SPLOSH, SPLISH-SPLOSH!” SANG CHANCHA, squawking in pleasure as the parrot sprayed water over her feathers and over every other creature who happened to be near the ornamental birdbath. “Wash well, wash well,” scolded Meechi, who used the residual spray from Chancha’s ablutions to scrub out her own feathers thoroughly. “So much dust on your feathers, I thought you were moulting, it was quite revolting.” Chancha splashed water vengefully over Meechi. “You’re growing old, you’re such a scold,” she said. “Screechy Meechi, preachy Meechi.” Enraged, Meechi flew at Chancha and soon the two parrots were chasing each other around the domes of the old mansion.
The cats clustered around the statue of a man on a horse, scattering themselves on the plinth around the hooves, ignored the parrots and the twittering peacocks who were mincing along on the other side of the park.
“The Sender of Nizamuddin?” called the calico cat who sat with her tail primly curled around her paws. “And if you don’t mind, Mara, could you come down to the plinth? It’s very disconcerting listening to you while you’re hovering over the horse’s tail, and if any Bigfeet happen to come this way, they mustn’t find you like this.”
The orange cat had been shimmering in and out of view, experimenting with popping up behind the statue of the Bigfoot who sat on the horse and hovering over the horse’s head before settling on the spot above its stiffly sculpted stone tail. She came down hurriedly, and settled herself between Jalebi and Umrrow Jaan, meekly extending her whiskers in apology.
Begum washed a patch of fur on her flank, taking her time over it, her back turned until Mara had settled down. She gave Mara a curt twitch of her whiskers, finally, indicating that she could start. “This won’t take long,” Umrrow said to Jalebi, not bothering to keep her whiskers down to hide what she was saying. “Can’t expect much from a Sender who stays home and lets her whiskers do the travelling all the time.”
Begum’s tail swung from side to side, and Umrrow subsided into silence. “Let’s hear from the Sender of Nizamuddin,” she said. “In silence, if you please. There’s enough screeching from the parrots without us adding to it.”
Mara stretched out along the plinth, her tail and fur unruffled. “The clan of Nizamuddin faces a hard summer,” she said. “The winter has whittled them down till they slip around the lanes like shadows of their former selves, and the clan has thinned out. At the dargah, Qawwali and Dastan reported that most of the winter’s litters didn’t survive; the few kittens that did make it through are runts, tinier than they should be, and some have begun sickening in the heat. Beraal and her kittens are scraping by—she hunts sometimes at night when Hulo or Katar come in to catch a few hours of rest and check on Ruff and Tumble—but Tumble is frighteningly small. Abol and Tabol have widened their territory, hunting on the banks of the Jangpura canal, but this might not last if the Jangpura clan needs those hunting grounds at the height of summer. The Nizamuddin clan faces three urgent threats: they have lost many of their old water sources, my friend Doginder says the numbers of stray dogs are on the rise, and the Bigfeet are building in the lanes near the dargah, also in the marketplace. The clan’s safety is increasingly under threat. The summer will stretch the clan to breaking point, so say Tooth and the cheels. Kirri—she’s a mongoose—says that there is little prey in Nizamuddin, and she has shifted to Humayun’s Tomb for the summer, along with many of the other predators.”
She combed her whiskers, her green eyes filling with sadness at what she was about to say.
“My friend Southpaw has not been found yet, though I spend every evening, and every hour away from the Bigfeet, combing through the lanes of Delhi, sending and searching through my whiskers for him. If he could send back to me, I would find him; but his whiskers are short, he is not a Sender. Katar and Hulo are beginning to lose hope—Hulo has stopped saying Southpaw’
s name, and will find excuses to hunt or to wander away if Beraal shares her memories of him. I…we hope we will find him, some day. Soon. We will find him soon.”
The Sender stopped, and her whiskers drooped for a second; then she pulled herself together, washing her flanks and her paws briskly.
“Anything else you’d like to know, Begum?”
“That seems very thorough,” said Begum. The calico’s mew was a little dazed, and for once she seemed discomposed. She stretched out a paw, stuck it behind her shoulder and began to wash it, to hide her surprise.
Umrrow was less circumspect. The half-Siamese purred so loudly at Mara that she sounded exactly like the ancient lawnmower one of the Bigfeet was pushing across the grass.
“You’re going out like a proper Sender!” she said, kneading her paws in a pleased way. “How absolutely wonderful, and I’m so sorry I spat at you last time…well, I only hissed and spat after I’d left, and it wasn’t really at you, it was at a dunderhead of a Bigfoot who almost stepped on my tail, imagine, just after I’d washed it really, really well, and it takes ages to dry, and it almost went into a puddle, too—oh, all right, Begum, no need to raise your whiskers at me like that, I can take a hint.” But she continued purring so loudly, her crossed eyes beaming fondly, that Mara felt her own tail rise slightly in response.
“Is it still difficult, going outside?” Jalebi asked. The plump tabby had listened to Mara’s report with as much surprise as Begum, both of them remembering how afraid the Nizamuddin Sender had been of the world outside her Bigfeet’s house. “When I was your age, Mara, I had to get used to being a Sender twice over—first I had to get the hang of sending, wrestling with my disobedient whiskers wanting to walk towards my left paw when I wanted them to take me right!—and then it felt strange, stepping outside and knowing that the length of my whiskers were of no use in the Bigfeet’s streets and markets.”
Though it was just a sending, not an actual meeting, Mara felt her fur warm at Jalebi’s kindness.
The Hundred Names of Darkness Page 19
