Tiger Hills (65 page)

One then another of the planters began to sell their properties and prepare to leave Coorg. The slow trickle of departures notwithstanding, the Club was collectively shocked when Gordon Braithwaite announced one evening that he and his family were moving back to England.

“This is what it comes down to in the end,” he said sadly to his wife, fingering the piles of burlap on the verandah. “Our lives, all these years spent here, packed off in a few crates back to England.”

He looked out at his manicured lawns, his eyes clouded with melancholy. “Coorg … My grandfather came here first … 1843. Absolutely certain he was, apparently, from the very first time he laid eyes on these hills, that this was going to be home.” Braithwaite absentmindedly repeated the story for the thousandth time; his wife pursed her lips, but seeing the expression in his eyes she decided to let it go. “He was buried here,” he continued slowly, “as were both my parents, God rest their souls. That hedge of hibiscus, my dear mother planted it herself. Coffee King, they used to call me, the Coffee King of Coorg!”

He sighed, gazing at the greenhouse and its birdcages. “Remind the gardener,” he said heavily to his wife, “to let the birds go free.”

Timmy suggested that he and Appu affiliate themselves with the national political party operating out of Bangalore. “It will cost us a goodly sum, old chap, but it makes sense—strength in numbers and all that.” Devi, despite her misgivings, came up with the money.

When, despite several messages, he had not heard from him,
Appu drove to Timmy Bopanna's home to talk about their next step; they should leave for Bangalore soon, shouldn't they, to talk to the party about their vision for Coorg?

“Not now, Dags. Patience, old chap, the situation isn't quite right, we need more time before we press our cause—”

Appu finally erupted. “Not now? Then when, Timmy? Bloody nonsense. I'm fed up with these delays. We leave for Bangalore tomorrow. And if you're not coming, then I'll go without you.”

Timmy looked down at his hands. “I hoped it wouldn't come to this,” he said, playing with his watch. “Dags, there's something you ought to know.”

“Can you believe the man? Can you believe the temerity of the man?” When Appu later told Devi what had happened, he was so livid with rage, the veins stood out in the side of his neck.

“Appu, calm down. Politics is a dirty game, didn't I always tell you that?”

“Behind my back! All these years of campaigning together, ‘Chief Minister, Dags, you could be Chief Minister one day,' he used to say to me, and here he's sewn up the seat and the campaign behind my back.”

“Kunyi—”

“I'm going to Bangalore.” Appu came to an abrupt decision. “Tomorrow, first thing in the morning.”

“Bangalore? Whatever for?”

“The party officials. I need to meet them. Maybe I can still change their minds.”

“Go with him,” Devanna urged Devi that evening, when she brought him his dinner. He lay back against his pillow and tiredly shut his eyes. “He has worked himself into such a temper, it's better he doesn't go alone.”

They left for Bangalore the next morning, and Appu drove straight to the home of the leader of the party. “No entry without appointment, saar,” the guards said.

Appu threatened and shouted, but it was only when Devi intervened
that they relented. “He is my son,” she said to them, “my good child. He means no harm; all he wants is to meet with your master. I will wait at the gates with you until he returns. Now which child will knowingly put his mother in harm's way? And for your trouble, here”—she took out a roll of rupees from her purse—“ten rupees for each of you.”

She waited in the car for what seemed an indeterminable time. Bangalore was sweltering, the sun beating down on the black car, turning it into an oven. She mopped at the sweat running down her forehead, staring anxiously at the gates. As soon as he came out, she knew. She opened the car door and stepped outside. “Kunyi, it doesn't matter.”

Appu shook his head, so defeated he couldn't even look at her. “He would not listen, Avvaiah. The deal is done, he tells me. Timmy—”

“It doesn't matter,” Devi tried to say again, but the heat, the lack of water, had turned her tongue fuzzy. The sky was pale blue, cloudless. The sun, so brilliant in her eyes …

“Watch out,” she heard Appu say sharply as her knees buckled beneath her. Devi fainted.

When she came to, she found herself lying in the crisp white bed of a clinic, its sheets cool against her skin. “Where … ?” She tried to sit up and felt a throbbing pain in her knee.

“Easy now.” The voice was gentle. “That was quite a fall you took. I am Dr. Ramaswamy. Your son brought you in. Nothing to worry about—a spot of low blood pressure, that is all.”

He waved a hand in the air, brushing aside her thanks. “Now tell me, madam, and I apologize for my forwardness, but I could not help noticing on the form … ” He tapped a finger to the file in his hand. “Is yours not a Coorg name?”

“Yes,” Devi said simply, “I'm from Coorg.” She tried to flex her knee.

“Easy now. Gently, gently … I knew someone from Coorg also,” he continued. “A classmate of mine, Devanna. Many moons ago, while I was still at medical college.”

Devi looked at him sharply. “Where? Here, in Bangalore?”

“Yes.” He shook his head. “Committed suicide, I heard, poor chap. Took a gun to himself. Though really, who could blame him after all he had been through?”

Devi was just about to correct him, telling him it had been an
accident,
and that Devanna had survived, when the latter half of his sentence caught her attention.

“What do you mean?” she asked, puzzled. “What had he been through?”

Dr. Ramaswamy took off his glasses and blew on the lenses. He pursed his lips, the action making his buck teeth even more prominent. “Ragging. In those days, it could get quite rough. There was one senior who had it in for this poor chap. Day in, day out—it was utterly relentless. Beatings, thrashings, possibly worse … ” He sighed. “There are times when I wonder if we should not have done more, brought it to the attention of the authorities, perhaps. Nice sort of chap he was, too, Devanna, and really quite exceptionally gifted. Madly in love with some girl back home; he used to talk about her sometimes. I remember he brought a pet squirrel to the hostel. It was against the rules, but it was a gift from her, you see. A Malabar squirrel.” He squinted as he tried to remember. “Nancy, I believe we had named her. Such a charming pet, and Devanna, he absolutely doted on the little thing. All of us did, actually, but Devanna most of all.”

The baby squirrel. Devi had forgotten about the pet she had given Devanna. He had never mentioned Nancy again, and she had never thought to ask; too much had happened, too many lives twisted out of shape.

The doctor was continuing. “Thomas—the senior—he butchered the squirrel. While it was still
alive.
Poor Devanna, he went up against Thomas, but he was no match for him. A gold medalist in boxing in the army … none of us was a match for Martin Thomas.” He was staring into the distance, lost in the past. “Devanna left college that same day. He was in no shape to travel—he had a very nasty concussion and was terribly distraught. We tried to stop him, but he kept mumbling something about this girl. Said he had to find her … ”

Devi was very still. “And what happened to him?”

Dr. Ramaswamy shook his head. “A suicide, we heard.”

“Not Devanna. Him. The Thomas fellow, what happened to him?”

He grimaced. “Nothing, really. It was never reported, the fight with Devanna. Keeping the squirrel in the hostel was against the rules, and telling the authorities would have got everyone into trouble. Besides, technically, it was Devanna who started that last fight with Thomas—he was the one who threw the first blow. Thomas graduated, joined the army. Got into a few more scrapes after that. One, I heard, was particularly horrendous.” He looked apologetically at Devi. “Sodomy, it was rumored.”

“Sodo—?” Devi began and then, understanding the meaning of his words, she flushed. “Oh.”

“Yes. He was headed for a court martial, I am certain of it, but then the war happened. Nineteen sixteen … any and all medics were welcome in those days, I suppose. Thomas did quite well in the war, apparently, managed to receive a commendation of some sort.”

He glanced at Devi, who was sitting ramrod-straight, completely absorbed in his tale. “He is retired now, right here in Bangalore. Quite the drinker, too, I hear. Never did settle down, raise a family, that sort of thing. Tried coming to the college reunions once or twice, but he was ostracized so completely by our class and the other students who had known him that he stopped.”

He grimaced again, exposing those unfortunate teeth. “Even now, all I associate with those years is Martin Thomas and the hell, the absolute living hell, he put us through. And Devanna, he fared much worse than any of us. Those later rumors of Thomas's penchant for sodomy. I have often wondered … ” He shook his head.

“Why?” Devi asked, her voice bitter. “Why Devanna?”

Ramaswamy sighed, absently rubbing the end of his stethoscope against his sleeve. “Who can say, madam? Sometimes, it would seem, we are simply cast in the path of misfortune.”

Night had fallen by the time they got back to Tiger Hills. Devi alighted gingerly from the car, her knee still sore from the fall.
“I'm fine,” she said wanly to an anxious Appu. She reached up and patted his cheek. “Go on, Baby must be waiting.”

She stood looking up at the façade of the house, lights glimmering here and there from its silent interiors. “Hot water, akka?” Tukra shuffled onto the portico. “Shall I run your bath?”

Devi nodded. “And lay out dinner. Devanna anna,” she asked haltingly, “how is he?”

“Not well. He is in his room. He has not eaten as yet, said he would wait for you.”

She stopped by the old photograph in the foyer, touching her fingers to it.
Loving you is like having wings.
Slowly she walked on. The door to Nanju's room, the old nursery, stood ajar; she paused in the hallway and looked inside. There they used to sleep, her boys, brothers both. Nanju–Appu, her pride, her heart, her sun—and moon. The stars began to wink in the inkiness outside, the scudding clouds now shadowing, now revealing the tiger that proudly strode across the wall. In the half light, his eyes seemed to bore into her.
For you, I would have given up my God.
Tawny eyes, so fierce, forever beloved. Golden, dancing eyes, such tenderness in their gaze.

At last she turned away and continued upstairs, past the silent library, toward Devanna's room. She hesitated an instant and then knocked on his door. “I'm back.”

He looked somberly up from his book. “Appu?”

“No.” She walked over to the bed. “No, of
course
it did not work.”

She placed a hand on his forehead, and he started with surprise at the unaccustomed touch. “You still have a fever.”

“It's nothing.”

She sat on the edge of bed, looking at him. So much to talk about. So much of the past, their past, left unacknowledged. So many questions unasked. “I met … ,” Devi began, a catch in her throat. “The doctor … ,” she started again, then stopped. A wave of tiredness swept over her. Devi lay down on the bed and rested her head on Devanna's chest.

She could hear the beat of his heart, quickened now by surprise. He hesitated and then, moving slowly, very slowly, as if not to
scare his wife away, he set his book down on the table and put his arm about her.

Inseparable they had been, as children. Close as two seeds in a cardamom pod, that was what people said about them. He was the one she unfailingly depended upon, to remove the thorns from her soles, to set the world right again.

He is in love with you,
Machu had said to her, and she had thrown her head back and laughed out loud.

She had known, though, hadn't she? She
must
have.

Devi lay there, feeling the comforting rise and fall of his chest beneath her cheek, his arm tight about her, holding her close.

Tayi's voice in her ears:
Forgive him, kunyi. He has suffered, too.

She was tired, so very tired. Shackled to loss and to grief for so many years. A stone about her neck, growing heavier with the years, with nowhere to set it down.

So many years gone, so much time lost in regret.
Do not be so brittle,
Tayi had said to her,
that you shatter at the first lightning. Do not be the tree that can bear no fruit.

Hurt accumulates. Unless consciously cast aside, it accumulates, building on itself. Hardening, thickening, gouging our hearts apart. We try at first to pick at the scabs, to render ourselves as untainted and innocent as we once were. Over time, though, it becomes too difficult. This forced unbandaging, this revisiting of painful memory. Easier to lock it away, unseen, unspoken. To haul it about like an invisible stone about our necks. We leave our wounds alone. Layer by layer our scars thicken, until one day we awaken and find ourselves irrevocably hardened. Rooted in a keloidal past while the world has passed on by.

Be the jungle orchid that perfumes the wind.

To let go of hurt, to cast bitterness aside. This is the only way forward. To cast aside the pain and allow hope a chance once more. We drift through time, sometimes in shadow, sometimes blistering under the sun, laying ourselves open to the skies. Until, inevitably, we begin to heal, the lips of our wounds coming slowly together. We fill with light, with grace, capable once more of opening our hearts, of letting someone in.

The breeze catching our wings once more.

“It was for you.” Devanna's voice was barely audible. “When I awoke, still alive, and found the bullet had missed … that at this, too, I had failed, I was so ashamed. Had I been able, I would have lifted a gun to myself once more. It was only later that I grasped how slim the odds had been of my survival. Nanju, I had thought, then, that he was the reason. That I had been left alive for the sake of our son. I was wrong.” He swallowed. “When Machu died, that was when I understood. To look after you. That was why I was spared, to look after you.”