Tiger Hills (58 page)

The expression on her face, shock, distaste, and something else, something unbearable … the
pity
as she glanced briefly at him and
then looked away at Appu. Nanju's mouth opened, he tried to say something to his mother
—WHY do you do this to me, over and over?
—but the words were locked in his throat.

“Have you gone deaf ? The
bier.
Appu and you together—”

Looking neither to his left nor his right, Nanju stepped away from the bier.

The two boys left immediately after the funeral, tension lying thick and unfamiliar between them all the way back home. “I need a drink,” Appu said tersely to Tukra as soon as they reached Tiger Hills. “Tell them I've gone to the Club.”

Devi and Devanna stayed a few hours longer with the family before returning. He looked worriedly at her as she sat silently to one side of the Austin. The windows of the car were rolled down. Usually she hated even a breath of air to pass through the glass; it blew her hair in a dozen different directions, she complained. Today, though, when the driver leaned to roll up the windows, she had lifted her hand. “No,” she had said quietly. A brisk breeze swept through the car, carrying with it the promise of an early winter and whipping Devi's hair about her face.

“Avvaiah.”

Nanju was waiting for them in the portico.

“Nanju—” Devanna began anxiously.

“Avvaiah,” Nanju said again, cutting off Devanna as the driver leaped to open the car doors.

“Avvaiah,” he said a third time, and at last Devi heard him. “You insulted me. In front of everyone, talked to me as if I were a servant.”

Devi looked at him wearily and then, shaking her head, walked inside the house.

“Don't you walk away.” The words were like bullets, ricocheting off the hallway and stopping Devi in her tracks. “I am your son, Avvaiah, your son. Your blood. Is that not important to you?”

“Not now, Nanju,” she said tiredly.

His voice cracked. “I know you've always loved Appu more, even when we were children. I used to lie awake in bed, did you know that? Pretend to be asleep and watch as you came into our
room and stood by our cot. Always on the side where Appu slept, standing over him and watching him sleep. What about me, Avvaiah? What about me?”

“Nanju, please. All this drama—”

“This drama? Every single time, you think first of Appu.
I
am your son. Me.”

“You are both my sons, equally,” Devi said tersely. “Appu is your brother, or have you forgotten?”

“Nanju, monae, what is all this, what's got into you?” Devanna pleaded. “Calm down. We've barely bid Tayi farewell. This is hardly the time.”

Nanju turned toward his father, the words bursting from him. “This isn't the time, it never
is
the time.
Quiet, Nanju, hush, Avvaiah has a headache. Hush, Nanju, Avvaiah is busy.
And you, Appaiah, what about you? She has no time for you, either. She has never cared for either of us, don't you see? Not you and never me, no matter how hard we try. Why do you just sit there and do nothing?”

Something snapped within Devi. “Yes, Devanna, why don't you answer our son?” she spat. “Tell him why you take it, tell him why you do nothing, tell him just how and why we were married, why don't you?” She whirled toward Nanju. “You want to know what you are to me, Nanjappa? You are a
curse.
So that every day when I look at you I am reminded of all that is lost.” The words flew like poison from Devi's mouth, festering with grief. “Every time I look at you, I am reminded of what could have been. A curse, a punishment, that is what you are to me.”

They stood shocked in the aftermath of her outburst, all three of them still for an instant, and then she reached for him, realizing just what she had said. “Nanju,” she whispered.

He was staring at her, ashen. The shadowed meaning of his mother's words shifting, twisting over his skin.
Tell him,
she had said,
just why we were married.
He turned toward Devanna, as if for support, looking to this father, so cherished, so beloved, surely so beyond reproach, and saw the anguish, the
guilt
in his eyes.

“Kunyi,” Devi pleaded. “I did not mean—”

Nanju's face crumpled. He thrust out a hand, as if to hold her at bay, and rushed up the stairs.

Devi retreated to her room. The things she said, the
things
she had said. She sat on the edge of her bed and reached shakily for the jar of cream. She twisted it in her fingers, but the light was dull and the starbursts in the glass seemed blunted and opaque. It slipped from her grasp, rolling onto the floor.

Devi began to weep then at last. For all that had happened, all that was lost, for Tayi,
Tayi, don't leave me, not you as well, DON'T GO.
She drew her legs beneath her, curling small and bereft upon the woolen blankets. Clouds moved across the sky, thick and amorphous, and a soft rain began to fall.

A visibly unstrung Devanna tried to reason with Nanju. “Monae, please, everyone is very upset right now. We've just lost Tayi; your mother is hardly in her right mind.”

Nanju couldn't bear to even look at his father. “She never wanted me.”

“She loves you. She always has. You are her son.”

Nanju shook his head, trying valiantly to hold back his tears. “I have to leave. I have to.”

“Where? Monae, please—”

“I don't know. I don't care. I cannot be here any longer.”

He left that very afternoon, his face white and drawn as he bent to touch his father's feet. Devanna pressed something into his palm. “If you will not change your mind,” he said miserably, “then at least keep this.”

It was an old silver amulet. “It was your mother's. She wore it as a child. She gave it to me many years ago.” The amulet lay gently glowing, light and shadow pooling in the faded prayer that scrolled across its face. “There hasn't been a day since that I have not kept it near me. Take it,” Devanna said shakily, “as a token of both our blessings.”

Nanju looked as if he might refuse but then mutely placed the amulet in his pocket. He left then, walking out into the fitful rain. The trees sighing as he went down the drive, as if bidding
farewell to this beloved son, this quieter brother who had always loved them the most.

A songbird began to trill somewhere in the estate, fluting into the falling rain.

When Appu returned from the Club, his lips tightened when he heard what had happened. Without a word, he turned the car about and raced after Nanju, tracking him down in Mysore.

“I am done with Tiger Hills,” Nanju said quietly. “You should leave.”

“Done with Tiger Hills? Don't be a fathead. You know that you of all people will
never
be done with the place. And where are you going to go anyway?”

“Bangalore. Bombay. The university there … it doesn't matter.”

“You're upset. We all are.” Appu stopped, trying to find the right words, still hurt by Nanju's actions at the funeral. “Just come home.”

Nanju said nothing, a lump in his throat as he looked away.

Appu shook his head. “Have it your own way, then. I know you'll return soon enough.” He forced a grin. “As you embark on this momentous journey to unknown shores, I shall impart sage advice.” Wagging a solemn finger at Nanju, he began to recite:

Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch.

Nanju tried to smile. “Yes. The Bandersnatch. I hear Bombay is full of them.”

They stood looking at one another. Appu punched him lightly on the shoulder. “Come on, man. This is all—”

Nanju turned away. “You should leave.”

Appu was getting into the car when Nanju called out behind him, “You take care of her, you hear? Baby. You take care of her.”

Appu's eyes narrowed. He started the engine without a word and turned back for Tiger Hills.

It was almost a month later before they received any news of Nanju. He wrote to Devanna, a short, formal letter. He had applied for a teaching position at the agricultural college in Bombay; it would be some weeks before he heard, but he was hopeful. It was obvious to all of them that Nanju had no immediate plans to return.

Devi did the only thing she knew how to—she lifted her head high, put one foot in front of the other, and marched on. She went ahead with the preparations for Appu and Baby's nuptials; although it was tradition to wait a year after a death in the family before hosting a celebration of any kind, Tayi had made them all promise that they would not postpone the wedding.

Devi brought home the jewelry from the safe deposit box in Mercara. She laid the velvet boxes on the bedspread, their bijou contents winking in the sun. Two of each gemmed bauble, one for Baby, and one for Nanju's future bride. She unhappily stroked a gold sovereign. Was this any way to behave with one's mother? What did the boy expect, an apology? So she had said some things in the heat of the moment, had she not tried to tell him that she had not meant those things? A lump rose in her throat as she shut away the gold.

The day of the wedding dawned crystal clear, the arrangements so opulent that they set an altogether new standard against which weddings in Coorg would be judged for at least the next decade. There was talk about Nanju's absence, of course there was, but for once, the rumor mill ran in Devi's favor. Poor woman. Look what he had done, that older boy of hers, just upped and ran away to the city. The quiet ones were always the ones who got up to mischief. He was in Bombay, so they had heard. The boy had got some teaching job, or was he studying? They weren't sure …

Devi remained stoic through all the commiserations. Masking the unhappiness in her eyes, she deflected the questions with talk
of the weather and the quality of the coffee crop expected that year. Nobody noticed how tightly she held herself, or the way her gaze flickered time and again to the driveway, as if trying hopelessly to conjure up her missing son.

The gossips at last shifted their attention to the wedding at hand. The bride was ethereal, they exclaimed. She had the look of her aunt, those same cheekbones, the same delicate skin that looked as if it might bruise at the slightest touch. And what a welcome she had from the groom's family! There were two sets each of every gemstone imaginable—diamonds, sapphires, rubies, and emeralds—ropes of pearls, chokers, and chandelier earrings, silks, linens, and gold sovereigns aplenty for all the days of her life.

Baby demurely kept her eyes downcast as women lifted her veil to ooh and aah at her beauty. She was so completely, sublimely happy, she could have sworn her feet were floating a few inches off the ground. You have a long night ahead of you, her friends whispered mischievously, as they seated her in the car that would take the newlyweds to Tiger Hills, adding, The bridegroom looks as strong as a bull—he will not allow you much sleep tonight.

“Good-bye then,” Appu called from the window, and the car began to pull away from the courtyard. A pang shot through Baby and she turned her head, squinting through the windows as her family grew small and doll-like then finally faded into the distance. Her eyes moist, she searched delicately for the handkerchief that her mother had folded into her blouse.

“Are you all right?”

Glancing shyly at the uncle seated in the front seat of the car who was designated as chaperone to the newlyweds, she nodded.

“That's my girl,” Appu said, and leaned back against the seat.

Baby cast about desperately for something to say, but the words felt sticky, all jumbled together. Filled with a sudden impulse, she shifted her veil. Just a discreet fluttering of spangled silk, but when the fabric settled it rested lightly over his fingers. Her hand moved unseen beneath the silk, and, shocked at her own daring, Baby reached out and placed her fingers on her husband's.

She knew, even without looking at him, that Appu was smiling. They rode that way for the remainder of the journey, saying no more to one another but with their hands tightly entwined beneath the folds of her veil.

Devanna had taken charge of the decorations at Tiger Hills in anticipation of his new daughter-in-law, gilding its walls with dozens of oil lamps. Hurricane lanterns swayed from the boughs of the banyan tree, and the flames of a thousand candles danced along the walkways of the garden and from the walls until the house and its grounds were molten with light.

Baby watched spellbound from the window of the Austin as they drove through the grounds. The estate workers had gathered for a glimpse of the bride, and she smiled beneath her veil when they erupted in a loud cheer as the car swept past them up the drive. The portico and verandah were swarming with guests. The driver drew to a halt and Appu stepped from the car, extending a gallant hand to his bride. Baby stepped out shyly and touched a beaming Devi's feet.

“Swami kapad, kunyi.” She kissed Baby's forehead. “May you live long, may you die a married woman.”

The bride was taken to the well to draw the first pail of water and then, right foot extended once, twice, a third time over the threshold, Baby entered her new home. Devi smiled. “There will be time enough tomorrow to show you through the house, but for now, come, the prayer room first, and then let us take you to your room.”

They seated Baby on a vast four-poster bed draped in silk and brocade. More innuendoes and giggling, and then the women left her alone to await her groom. Baby sat patiently on the bed for what seemed like hours, while the merriment below showed no signs of abating. Now and again, someone checked in on her. Patience, patience, they told her, grinning, your groom is busy hosting his guests, you may as well get some rest while you can.

Devanna stopped by to see her, then, shortly after he had left, Devi knocked and entered. “Kunyi?” She smiled as she rearranged the veil about Baby's face. “You looked so beautiful today. I cannot
count the number of people who congratulated me on my exquisite daughter-in-law.”