Tiger Hills (13 page)

“Oh, don't worry about me,” Devi had retorted, equally sweetly. “
I
am not going to agree to the first man who asks for my
hand.” The tiniest of pauses. “I don't need to. For me, there will always be more.”

She expected too much, her friends told her. What was she holding out for? Devi would spread her hands and laugh, “I will know when I see him,” hugging the memory she held of Machu close to her heart. What could she say to them, anyway? That in her heart she was already bound to someone, had been from the first sight of him? That she was waiting for the tiger killer? How could she even begin to explain to Tayi, to her friends, what this felt like, this certainty that stemmed from the very core of her, the knowledge that she was born to be Machaiah's alone?

So many years ago it had been, the tiger wedding. She could no longer remember his face clearly. All that remained were impressions. The rich, river-stone timbre of his voice, the height of him, his eyes crinkled in laughter.
So
many years. And yet, the conviction of her feelings had remained, steady as a rock.

It would happen, Devi knew, as surely as she knew that the next breath would come. Machu would happen.

He was still not married. All these years, and the tiger killer had remained a bachelor. It secretly gladdened her heart when she heard of the proposals he had spurned. She paid no heed to the rumor that he had undertaken a vow of celibacy, that he simply did not wish to be wed. How could someone so beautiful remain a monk? It was not possible. He was simply waiting for her, she knew. Surely he must have heard of her, the most beautiful girl in the Pallada village? Soon, very soon, he would come, drawn by curiosity. He would spot her and in an instant he would know. “Wait, weren't you at the tiger wedding?” he would ask. “But how you have grown … ”

Oh, it was useless. Devi scraped the broom over the henhouse floor with unwarranted violence, sending the birds skittering in alarm. Him and his accursed hunting! If he continued to traipse about the jungles, like some, some …
junglee
… and never attend any of the weddings and funerals and naming ceremonies and whatnots and wherenots, then how would they ever meet? “And this Devanna,” she thought angrily to herself, shifting the focus of
her ire. “He has done nothing to help.” At first she had pestered him with questions about his older kinsman. “Tell me about your cousin Machu,” she had said to him with her most winning smile after the tiger wedding. What did Devanna know about him? When was Devanna going back to visit? Would Machu come here to the Pallada village?

Flattered by this sudden interest in his family, Devanna had readily shared with her all he knew. At Devi's instigation, when the servant had come from the Kambeymada home with the monthly stipend from Devanna's father, he had even sent back a lavishly composed letter for Machu, extolling the virtues of the Pallada village and inviting him to visit.

Both children had waited eagerly for a reply. When month after month there was nothing, and it became painfully obvious that there would be no response, they had consoled themselves with the thought that maybe Machu was simply too busy to reply. He was probably out there, deep in the jungle, hunting down yet more tigers; maybe if they listened hard enough, they might even hear the death cry of the unfortunate tiger echoing through the hills.

Refusing to give up, Devi had tried another tack. “Why don't you go back to your father's home?” she had suggested one day in the middle of a cowrie game. Devanna's hand had stopped in mid-swing and he looked at her, surprised.

“What do you mean? Do you want me to leave the village?”

“Oh no, no, silly fellow,” she had laughed, “why would I want you to leave? What I meant was, it would do you good to visit your father for a while. Maybe you could go back and get to know all your cousins, and then maybe I could come visit … ”

Devanna had mutinously stuck out his lip and shaken his head, and Devi had lost her patience. “Oh, it's useless,” she had burst out, throwing subtlety to the wind. “Why ever did Gauru akka and you have to leave the Kambeymada house? You could have been there right now and … and … ”

She had known even then that she had gone too far. Devanna had swung to his feet, his face shuttered. “If my mother had still
been there, Devi, then you and I might never have been friends.” Setting the cowries down upon the grass, he had walked away.

“Devanna. Devanna! I didn't mean it. Devanna! Don't be silly now, come back, let's at least finish the game … ”

She had called after him a long while before he had finally turned around. Devi shook her head as she remembered. The things she said to Devanna. And yet he returned, time and again, to be by her side. She shifted the broody hens, feeling their eggs for cracks. How was he doing? she wondered with a rush of fondness, counting the eggs in each of the straw-lined nests. It had been months since she had seen him. Maybe she would ask Tayi if they could send Tukra to the mission tomorrow with some of the lime pickle. Devanna had always loved pickle with his rice—just like a Brahmin, Chengappa used to joke. Cheering up, she gathered the eggs in the folds of her sari and made her way back to the house.

The next afternoon, Tukra returned with some news from the mission. Yes, Devanna anna was looking well. Yes, Tukra had handed over the pickle and had told him that Devi akka had made it herself. No, there was no letter for her, but Devanna anna had sent her a message. He would not be coming to the village for the October holidays, because he was going to the Kaveri festival this year. His grandfather, Kambeymada Nayak, had decided to donate a copper door to the temple. All of the Kambeymada men were required to accompany the patriarch to Bhagamandala.

“All?” Devi asked Tukra, her eyes enormous. “Are you sure he said
all
the Kambeymada men?” Her heart leaped. Dear, dear Devanna. She ran inside to the kitchen. The cow had recently calved, and Tayi was steaming the rich first-milk into creamy, jaggery-laced ginn. Slipping behind her, Devi laced her arms about her grandmother's waist and rested her chin on her shoulder. “Tayi, do you really want me to go to the festival?”

Tayi snorted and kept ladling.

“Tell me, Tayi, because if it is important to you, then I will go.”

Tayi set down the ladle and twisted around to look at her granddaughter. “Do you mean it, kunyi?” she asked hopefully. “You will go?”

Devi gazed guilelessly at her grandmother. “Yes, Tayi … if this is what you want, then this is what I must do.”

Tayi's eyes welled with tears and she dabbed at them with the edge of her sari. “My darling kunyi. Such a sweet-natured child, is it your fault if only braying asses have come asking for your hand? My flower bud, must you say yes to the first proposal that comes your way? Let it be so, kunyi, let it be so, you go to Tala Kaveri. I know Iguthappa Swami will send someone worthy of you. Here, look after the ginn, let me find your father and tell him.”

Calling out to Thimmaya, Tayi set forth from the kitchen. Devi bit her lip and looked guiltily at her grandmother's back. No matter, she consoled herself, Tayi's prayers would soon be answered. For there was someone waiting for her at the Kaveri festival. Someone whose path would finally cross hers, someone entirely innocent of the upheaval that was soon to befall him.

Chapter 9

D
evi peered out into the moonless night. The Bhagamandala mountain lay directly ahead, a bulge of deepest black stamped indelibly upon the dark. They had traveled for the past two days, Thimmaya and she, proffering gifts of smoked boar and pickled wild mushrooms in exchange for the hospitality of relatives whose homes lay along the way. Finally, they had arrived at the foothills of the Bhagamandala mountain. She drew the window of her room shut and, willing the slow sludge of minutes to pass, tried yet again to get some sleep.
Tomorrow.
She turned restlessly on her side. After all these years, he was
here,
the tiger killer, somewhere upon this very road. If she pressed her ear hard to the ground, she imagined, she might even hear his heartbeat rising above the thud and carry of the day as it gave up its ghosts, feel his breath intermingled with the scuffle and scurry of the night.

She fell at last into a dazed, disturbed sleep; only minutes later, it seemed, Thimmaya was gently shaking her awake. It was early when they left, still well before sunrise, but despite the little sleep she had had, Devi had never been wider awake. She shifted fretfully in the bullock cart, tracing the crazed patterns that the lantern threw in their wake as it bobbed and swayed from the yoke. She pressed her hands to her cheeks.
A few hours more.
Glancing at Thimmaya, asleep despite the rocking of the cart, she leaned
forward to where Tukra sat as he drove the oxen with encouraging “Hara, har-ra” sounds.

“Ayy, Tukra,” she whispered, “cannot you make these feeble bulls of yours go any faster? I swear even Tayi could outrun them.”

“What, Devi akka,” Tukra chortled. “Always making fun of me. They are making very good time and you know it.”

Devi leaned back against the wall of the cart and sighed.

Eventually they stopped in a large meadow at the base of the mountain, adjacent to the temple grounds. It was already quite full of oxen carts, a coruscation of lanterns winking across its expanse. Thimmaya clambered down from the cart, extending a hand to Devi. “Come, kunyi,” he urged. “The river.”

He wouldn't be here, Devi knew. Machu and the rest of the Kambeymada family would have arrived a lot earlier at the temple for the installation of the doors. Even so, she looked anxiously about her, patting her hair into place as she tried to make out the passersby in the gloom.

Thimmaya left Devi by the riverbank with the other women devotees and went further upstream to where the men were wading in by the light of their lanterns, lined up on the bank. “Kaveri amma,” Devi whispered. She gathered her hair into a loose knot and, hitching her sari above her knees, stepped into water still dyed black by the night. She gasped at its iciness. Mountain water.
Sacred
water, she corrected herself, the confluence of the river Kaveri with her two less venerated siblings, the bubbly, effervescent Kannika and the reticent Sujothi, who preferred to flow shyly underground. It was mandatory for every pilgrim to take a dip and salute the three sisters before proceeding any farther up the mountain.

She waded cautiously in, hands extended in front of her as she felt with her toes for the firmest footholds. Mist hung over the river in great rolling banks, swaying gently from side to side as it was buffeted by the morning breeze. She waded in farther, her breath still harsh and shallow from the cold. The mist draped itself over her, brushing wet, welcoming fingers over her cheeks and arms as it enveloped her in its gauzy cocoon. A slow calm began
to unfurl within Devi, spreading gently through her benumbed limbs. She turned dreamily to look at the bank, but it was gone, along with the other bathers, hidden by the swirling mist. She was alone in a silent, magical world. Treading water between the past and what lay ahead, balanced delicately on the cusp of all that had ever been, everything that was yet to come. She extended an arm and watched, entranced, as it disappeared into the gray.

Somewhere in the distance, a rooster crowed.

On cue, the darkness began to unravel. The night peeled slowly away as the sky flushed scarlet and shapes began to detach themselves from the mist. Tree trunks, a sprawling bush of wild roses, a rock in the center of the stream like the misshapen hump of a crone. Devi took a deep breath and then, holding her nose, sank underwater. One. The sun began to push redly across the horizon. She emerged for another breath, opening her eyes briefly, and went underwater again. Two. The mist began to thin, the sky now pulsating with color. Devi came up for air once more and went under for a final time. Three. She emerged from the water and paused, enthralled. The river was luminescent, its waters rippling, reflecting the molten roil of the skies overhead, until she was bathing in fiery, liquid ore. The mist too alchemized, varnished by this new sun, sparkling, shimmering, all around her. Devi stood still, dazed by the beauty. Details began to reveal themselves from the glow: branches, leaves, a scarlet rose slowly unfurling, and look, there upon the humpbacked rock, a pair of herons. They gazed directly at her, the tracing of light over their breasts and wings like the finest gold filigree. And then before she could so much as blink, they lifted into the air and were gone, slicing through the glow.

The moment passed as quickly as it had begun. The light faded as the sun receded into a dull glimmer far behind the clouds. The mist rolled back in, leaden and gray.

She splashed hurriedly to the bank, goose bumps pimpling her skin.
Today.
Her hands shook as she wound the sari about her, the pleats slipping from her fingers. “Stop it,” she chastised herself. “Is this how you want to meet him, like a graceless monkey?” Snapping off a couple of roses, she worked them into her
plait. She looked at her reflection in the enameled hand mirror Thimmaya had brought her from the cattle fair in Mysore. Dark, kohl-rimmed eyes glittered back at her.