He liked the opening paragraph, but he would need to work on the rest of it. He longed to get back to his book. But even when everything was normal he found the act of writing so taxing that he had often been tempted to give up; the only thing that had kept him going was the thought that if he ever finished the book and had it published, it might be of some use in countering the evil men who tried to set man against man in the name of religion. Lord, please let me finish the book, he prayed, shutting his eyes briefly. Then a thought struck him so forcefully that he forgot all about his writing. I have appealed to the good sense and sanity of virtually everyone in Chevathar, Father Ashworth thought, but not the women. Perhaps they could divert the tragedy.
That evening he paid a visit to the Big House and was very pleased to find Charity alone on the stoop. He accepted her offer of coffee, and then without wasting much time on preliminaries, asked for her support. ‘I can’t help, padre,’ she said simply. He was about to try to persuade her when she spoke again: ‘When Valli was attacked, I was terrified. Not so much for myself but for my daughter Rachel. It could so easily have been her . . .’ She broke off the narrative as the coffee arrived. When the servant had finished serving them, she said, ‘On the day it happened I went to Valli’s home to see whether there was anything I could do to help. That’s when the full horror of it hit me. There was nothing I could do. And none of the women there expected me to be of any use. They knew how powerless I was, even though I was the thalaivar’s wife. For the first time I truly understood how defenceless we are. Not a day passes when I don’t wake up frightened, but I’m powerless to do anything. We can pray, of course, that our men will protect us. My husband is a good man. He’ll do his best. And if he’s defeated, all I can pray for is that my daughters and I will be given enough time to prepare ourselves.’
For a moment Father Ashworth was incapable of speech, then he said, ‘You mustn’t speak like that, daughter. Our Lord Jesus Christ will keep you out of harm’s way.’
‘We pray that he will, but nevertheless we must be prepared.’
‘Isn’t there some way you can encourage your husband to resolve the issue peacefully with Muthu Vedhar?’
‘I cannot influence his decision, padre.’
There was little more to be said. They chatted for a while, then he finished his coffee and prepared to leave. As he got up, Charity said, ‘We are being tested, aren’t we?’
He nodded, and she remarked, ‘I hope we aren’t found wanting.’
He walked home in the perfection of the evening. Dusk had sheared the tops off the trees, but the ground beneath them was still lit by the sun and it looked as though the great banyans were rooted in pale gold dust. Such beauty invests this place, he thought, such beauty, such despair!
25
The hardy acacia is native to Sindh but over the years it has spread to the rest of the subcontinent. In the north it’s called kikar, in the west, east and centre it’s known as babul. To the Tamils it’s karuveli. But no matter what name it goes under, it is one of the most common trees in India, its dull green mop often spotted in terrain which supports no other foliage. In Chevathar, the acacia forest spread for a couple of furlongs along the wasteland beyond the Murugan temple. The trees grew so closely together that they formed an impenetrable canopy, keeping the ground cool on the hottest days. The forest had other benefits. Little grew in its shade, so the field of vision of the women who frequented it was unrestricted. Its greatest advantage, however, was the sharp white thorns that lay thickly on the ground, making it difficult for anyone to sneak up quickly or unobserved.
For these reasons, the most inaccessible part of the acacia forest was the natural choice of the women of Chevathar when it came to choosing a spot to relieve themselves. Safe from predatory men and prying eyes, in the early hours of the morning and in the late evening, the women, each armed with a little chembu, would gather to defecate. They would sit in small groups chatting about their children and husbands. Now and again a choice bit of gossip would galvanize the place with excitement, and within minutes every woman present would know about the married Marudar woman who had been caught with her Paraiyan lover or the venereal disease the deputy tahsildar’s brother had contracted from a prostitute in Ranivoor.
Ever since the troubles had begun, however, the acacia forest had been filled with tension. The women huddled together among their own kin, barely speaking to one another as they considered what lay ahead. After defecating, they would go down to the river for a bath. Then they would make their way home.
At a fork in the road, equidistant between the Murugan temple and the river, Father Ashworth waited for the women on the morning after his conversation with Charity. He had not yet given up hope of persuading them to help.
He heard someone approaching him from behind. It was Saraswati Vedhar, walking home alone after her morning pooja. This was a stroke of luck. If he could convince her, the rest would fall in line. She looked irritated when he stopped her but let him finish before she said there was nothing she could do. She moved slowly away, deep in thought. Every woman he spoke to, whether Andavar, Vedhar or Marudar, said the same. Some of them even asked him to do everything he could to stop the impending conflict, but gave him to understand that they could or would do nothing to help him.
The next day, Father Ashworth woke up feeling defeated. He had fought long and hard, with every ounce of conviction and strength he possessed, but even as he’d struggled, he had understood that what was about to happen was as inevitable as the dawn outside his window. Was that what this country had taught him? That no matter how much you tried to change it, man was a creature of his destiny? He thought of Arjuna’s mighty effort to halt his onward rush to war; he thought of the great ascetic, Ravana, who, unable to control actions that were crafted to fulfil the destiny of another, met his doom at the hand of the chosen one, Sri Rama; and he thought of the Lord’s disciples, especially Peter, who watched the Son of Man go to His death. Filled with a deep despondency, he asked himself: Who am I, a miserable instrument of the Lord, to reverse the course set by divine will?
As the days passed, he was visited by dreams that grew steadily more frightening. Two days before Solomon’s ultimatum was due to expire, the priest woke from a restless sleep, gripped as always now by despair. He washed and listlessly walked across to the church. He tried to occupy himself with the morning’s tasks but soon gave up, consumed by the despair that had been his constant companion these past days. Does no one feel my desperation, O Lord, he thought as he looked at the physical evidence of his life’s work before him: the scattered leaves of his manuscript, the St Paul’s register of births, deaths and baptisms, an open hymnal.
All this for nothing! All these years of work, all these years spent among people he loved beyond life itself. All about to be destroyed. He turned his eyes to the purple-hued Jesus nailed to the wall, and prayed as he had done so often, ‘Enter me, O Lord Most High, and show me in Your wisdom what I must do to stop this madness.’ And, as always, the rosewood figure remained mute and beautiful and wooden on the rough stuccoed wall of the church.
26
In a house on the outskirts of Meenakshikoil, Muthu Vedhar sat in a room packed with men recruited by the chief of a nearby Marudar village. Seventy-nine had already arrived from the towns and villages surrounding Chevathar, and more were expected. They camped in and around town and made a nuisance of themselves in the tea shops with money their chief had given them. Their free-spending ways ensured they were tolerated; besides, the townspeople were afraid of the Marudars who were known to react violently at the slightest provocation.
Muthu was impressed by what he saw. They were dirty, malnourished and dressed in tattered lungis, banians and turbans but they were just what he needed: fighters hungry for loot. The Marudars didn’t fight for principle. All that fuelled them was greed. It was a good thing they were on his side, not Solomon’s. He expected to have at least a hundred of his own kinsmen join him over t
he next days, and two hundred, perhaps two hundred and fifty men for the confrontation. Solomon was going to get the whipping of his life. ‘We are the best fighters around, and we will strike terror into the heart of our enemies,’ he said to enthusiastic applause. ‘I promise you enough loot and plunder to keep every man and his family prosperous for three generations.’ Another cheer. ‘All that stands between you and these riches is a pitiful force of old men and children. You must promise to be merciless, that’s the only way you can assure yourself of a fortune.’ The applause was somewhat muted this time as an altercation had broken out at the back of the crowd. They have been drinking, Muthu thought.
‘No arrack, no toddy,’ he said urgently to the Marudar leader. The man’s face fell and Muthu grew furious. ‘You lunatic, can’t you see that if your men continue to be as undisciplined as this, they will either be arrested or beaten up? They will be useless to me.’
‘I will discipline them but don’t you ever call me a lunatic,’ the man said testily.
27
Solomon’s first blow drove the man to the ground. It wasn’t so much a punch as a push, but Muniyandi had perfected the art of milking opportunities. He was a drunk with no family, his wife and children long gone. On his way to the beach, Solomon had found him sleeping off a night of heroic imbibing, and had prodded him awake with his foot. The old man had tottered up, muttering imprecations. Irritated, Solomon had cuffed him and the tamasha began. Muniyandi fell and blood dripped from his nostrils, spotting the ground. The first time this had happened, Solomon had been alarmed but now he knew that this was a trick. It merely ignited his wrath. Suddenly very angry, he raised his foot and kicked the old man as he lay on the ground. Muniyandi screamed with pain and Solomon stopped, shocked. He believed in controlling servants, slackers and wastrels and was quick to raise his hand to those who crossed him. But he didn’t kick people. It didn’t seem right. The impending battle was getting to him; he would need to exercise more control. He stooped, lifted the weeping old man to his feet and gruffly muttered, ‘Come and see me later in the day. I owe you some money.’ There was no payment owed, of course, but it was the best he could do.
He walked away rapidly in the direction of the beach, disturbed and anxious. On the lip of a dune he stopped and his face settled. The sight that greeted him would have gladdened any eye. Framed against the sunlit plane of the sea, around forty men had paired off and were practising with the whippy five-foot bamboo staff that was a deadly weapon in the hands of a skilled stick-fighter. Stick-dancing, silambu-attam they called it in Tamil, and that’s what it was, a fluid, flowing dance that could kill a man so beautifully it was an art. The fighters had been practising for two days now under the watchful eye of Joshua. Most of the younger men had required no training for this was something they played at every day. But it was astonishing how quickly the older men had shed their rustiness. Solomon watched the whirling staffs, now milling hectically like windmills, now thrusting forward, now settling gently like dragonfly wings. He felt the anger drawing out of him. And then abruptly the tension returned. Near the back of the group, a young man was fighting clumsily. Just then, he dropped his staff and wearily bent to pick it up. Even at this distance, it was clear who it was: his older son Daniel. Solomon trotted down the dune towards the fighters. Joshua spotted him and waved, Solomon returned the greeting with a grim nod, then skirted the main group and headed straight for his son. His opponent was toying with him, it was obvious, and Solomon’s anger flared up. He ordered them to stop fighting and plucked the staff from the hand of the tenant farmer who was sparring with Daniel. ‘Now, I’ll show you how to fight,’ he snapped at his son.
He led him to a spot some distance away from the others. Joshua came up to them.
‘Anna, what are you doing?’ he asked.
‘Teaching my son to fight.’
‘That’s my job, isn’t it?’
‘If I’d taught him better in the first place, he wouldn’t disgrace me as he is doing now.’
‘Anna,’ Joshua said, a note of warning in his voice.
‘Joshua, you have your work to do, I have mine. Now leave me.’
Solomon’s firm tone left Joshua with no option but to go. What a pity that there’s no rule book to help fathers and sons establish successful relationships, he thought, as he moved away.
‘I don’t want to fight, appa,’ Daniel said quietly.
‘What do you mean, you don’t want to fight? No son of mine will disgrace me by saying such a thing.’
He raised his arm as if to strike Daniel but noticing Joshua, who was watching them from a short distance away, he stopped. Deliberately, he drew up his lungi, tucked it firmly so it didn’t flap and assumed the classic stick-fighter’s stance. As he glared at the youth standing before him, his eyes reflected his disappointment: those thin wrists, that narrow hairless chest, the stooped bearing, the large expressive eyes that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a woman. Was this really his son?
Without a word, he aimed a blow at Daniel. It wasn’t a hard blow, nor was it delivered with especial guile, but Daniel made no move to parry it or to duck. Solomon’s staff thudded into his chest, and he staggered back several paces. Then he began to cry. ‘Appa, I don’t want to fight. Why can’t you just stop this foolishness?’
‘Don’t you ever talk to your father like that,’ Solomon roared, and raised the staff again. ‘You will fight or my name isn’t Solomon Dorai!’
Daniel was trying hard to get his tears under control when Solomon abruptly changed tack. ‘Go home and wait for me there. And wipe away those tears. Now.’
Daniel walked off slowly, dragging his stick. Solomon followed him with his eyes until he reached the top of the dune and was lost to view among the giant sea agaves, then turned back to watch the fighters. His eyes sought out his younger son, and came alive with pride as Aaron executed a particularly difficult manoeuvre, leaping up in the air while his opponent’s staff passed harmlessly below, then whipping around and, still airborne, attacking from a different angle. He watched for a while longer then began walking home.
Joshua walked a short distance with him. ‘Don’t be so hard on Daniel. He’s different, but he has qualities of his own. Don’t confuse him with Aaron, that’s the worst thing you can do to both of them.’ Solomon didn’t respond. Joshua shrugged and went back to his men, and Solomon headed towards the house. The iron rage he felt towards Daniel had abated only a little and he could still feel the taste of it in his mouth.
He found Daniel with Charity. ‘Do you know what your son has done?’
When she didn’t reply, he shouted, ‘You should be ashamed that you ever gave birth to him. He will bring disgrace to the Dorais.’
Charity said quietly, ‘Daniel is a good boy.’
‘What did you say?’ Solomon asked furiously.
‘I said he is a good boy,’ she said, a little louder.
‘He is not a boy. He is a grown man and I’m sorry he has turned out this way.’ Solomon saw with disgust that Daniel was weeping again. Charity put a protective arm around him and this further stoked Solomon’s anger.
‘You should have been born a girl, Daniel. Very well, if that’s the way it is, that’s the way it shall be. Tonight, I want all the women and children of this household to be packed and ready to leave. Charity, you will go to your father’s house and Daniel will be the friend and protector of the women.’ He added sarcastically, ‘To be on the safe side, I will have half a dozen men ride with you.’
‘Appa, please don’t send me away,’ Daniel said tearfully. ‘I will do my best.’
Solomon was brutal in his reply: ‘Your best is of no use to me. And to think when you were born I was so proud of you, my first-born son who would carry this family into the next century. Do you know what the astrologer said to me when he came to see you? He said you would be the mightiest in our line. Your mother was right to disapprove of astrologers, for you are living proof of how stupid their prophecies are.
’ He strode out.
Charity tried in vain to console Daniel. After a short while he left his mother and walked out of the house. As he left, he saw Aaron in the doorway, and realized that his younger brother had heard everything. They had never been close. Still, Aaron had paid him the minimum of courtesy that tradition demanded. Today, for the first time, Daniel saw contempt in his eyes.
That evening Solomon reviewed his fighting men. He had received word that they could expect about a dozen more fighters from the neighbouring villages and he had also been promised some shotguns and muskets.
He wondered if he had left it too late to send the women and children of his own family to safety. In the last weeks the road north had been filled with fleeing families, many turned back by Muthu’s sentries. But there was nothing Solomon could do but trust to luck and the fighting abilities of the men who would escort his family up to Ranivoor. There were no tearful farewells. Solomon had not got over the way his eldest son had let him down. He stayed away as the closed bullock carts left that night.
Despite Muthu’s best efforts, the Marudars were an undisciplined lot and the toddy flowed freely. The lookouts he had posted at the bridge and on the road leading out of Meenakshikoil were drunk and the Dorais’ armed escort easily overpowered them. As the file of bullock carts clattered onward, they overtook other carts as well as women and children on foot, pushing handmade vehicles or carrying large palmwork panniers on their shoulders or on their heads in which their worldly goods were stored. Nobody who could help it wanted to face the hostilities.
The House of Blue Mangoes Page 13
