The Grammarian (22 page)

“It is ironic, isn’t it? The turtles only see the world they are part of right before dying,” she said.

The birds shrieked. Their cries were terrible, like the horrified sobs of the dying, echoing off rocks and rooftops. Alexandre looked hard at the sky, watching them circle.

“No, I’ve never seen them before,” he said sadly. He turned to her, “Kanakadurga Amma Garu, I want to thank you for your frien—”

She put up her hand, stopping him. “Dr. Lautens, let us not cheapen our friendship by speaking of it,” she looked him in the eye, “you must go now.”

A
NTHONY
D
AVIDSON WAS
a jolly man; he welcomed Alexandre with open arms. As a member of the Royal Botanical Survey, his home was filled with hundreds of plants. Alexandre was left at the front of his house by Adivi’s driver, Rajiv. Rajiv snorted as he jerked the carriage to a stop in front of Davidson’s comfortable but modest home and left Alexandre to unload his own trunks. “Bastard,” Alexandre muttered under his breath.

After all the formality of the Adivi household, Alexandre found himself happy in the relative bohemia of Davidson’s home. Anthony catalogued plants and was attempting to hybridize native vegetable and fruit breeds to make them heartier, resistant to pests and fungus. The home was full of lush, verdant flowers, fruits and herbs. Vines grew on the walls of Anthony’s study. Some, Anthony was hoping to be able to cultivate in England soon. Alexandre was deeply grateful for his hospitality. He arrived at Anthony’s home tired and unsure how or even if he would be received, and Anthony proved to be a sympathetic audience. Anthony had a wife back in Manchester, to whom he would send money and drawings of roses, and an Indian mistress named Madhuri who did the cooking and brought Alexandre and Anthony Scotch in the evening.

“Beautiful girl, isn’t she?” Anthony watched her leave the room, his eyes lingering.

“Yes, very.” “Girl,” Alexandre thought. Anthony looked to be about fifty, and Madhuri looked half his age. But then Alexandre caught himself. He scolded himself. Who was he to judge? If the last week had proved nothing, he did not understand this place. And Anthony and Madhuri looked happy together. He thought of Madeline and the various women he had courted before her and wondered if ever he had looked as happy as Anthony did now.

Alexandre told Anthony after arriving at the Englishman’s home how Adivi had thrown him out, how he had slapped his own daughter. “All of this because of a swimming lesson!”

Anthony blew smoke rings and smiled, listening. He grinned deeply, “My dear Doctor. India is a wonderful place. It is fascinating. Mother India,” he said, almost purring, taking a long drag from his cigarette. “Cobras! Tigers! Monkeys! Peacocks! My God, what a place. Every bloody village has its own language, its own gods, its own cuisine. Alexandre, buy diamonds and silk here for your wife! Study the languages and while you are at it, the religion and the culture and yes,” he let his hand fall back, pointing at a rose in a vase on the table, “the plants. Travel the whole subcontinent, go see the Taj Mahal and play blackjack in the clubs in Calcutta . . . ” Madhuri came in to pour the men more Scotch, and Anthony grabbed her hand and kissed it impetuously and she giggled. “Take a mistress. Yes, definitely do that. Eat the food, especially the mangos—you’ll miss those—believe me. But for God’s sake, man. Do not get involved with the Indians like that. I’ve been here for many years, Alexandre. Thank God you were only caught swimming!” He chuckled, “Otherwise her father and uncles would have likely scalped you!

“Believe me, that kind of intermingling never ends well. We British have been here for what? One hundred and fifty years? And we still cannot make heads or tails of these people. Cut your losses, Doctor. Trust me, it is for the best.”

Alexandre colored, knitting his eyebrows.

Seeing Alexandre’s troubled expression, Anthony lurched forward in his chair and slapped his knee. “Alex! Come outside with me. I’d like to show you something.”

The men walked out into the garden. The front was mostly taken over by vegetable plants, and the stems hung low with ripe tomatoes, cucumbers, aubergine, okra and green beans. Some of the vegetables Alexandre didn’t recognize. The back of the garden was full of rose plants and heavy with the scent of so many blossoms.

“Come, come . . . ” Anthony gestured, bending low near a rosebush. Its flowers were white at their hearts, but the petals’ tips were tinged with pink, as if they had been dusted with women’s rouge. “You see these roses, Doctor? Come here, smell these.”

Alexandre stooped and inhaled the blushing blossom; the scent was at once green and animalic, like a fresh floral musk caught in spring rain. “It is beautiful, Anthony . . . very nice . . . ”

“Yes, thank you. I cultivated this rose a few years ago. I call her Madhuri. She is a blend of two varieties, a white tea rose called Glory and a red Old World variety named First Love. The problem is that if one overly cross-pollinates, and hybridizes the two too much, we lose the scent. But, if I dare say so myself, the first generation of Madhuri is simply brilliant.” Anthony plucked one of the roses and stood and placed it in Alexandre’s breast pocket. “I’m not one for subtlety Alex. You get my meaning, I’m sure. You must remember this, Alexandre.
Enjoy yourself in India—find yourself a pretty nut-colored girl to keep you company while you are here and get fat on lamb curry and
palakova
. Just don’t get too involved.”

A
LEXANDRE ASKED THE
rickshaw driver to park on the main road: “
Ikkade undo
.” You must wait here. He walked into the small alley, past the peasants cooking over fires, their tiny hovels, searching the buildings for a sign of the Saraswati Grandhalayam. Some dusky, barefoot children ran alongside him, begging for coins, but he was rid of them after only a few yards; he’d learned how disengage with beggars, how to look straight ahead as if he couldn’t hear them.

Alexandre had seen a tiny advertisement for it on the last page of a local Telugu newspaper: “Rare books. Ask for Mr. R. Pantulu. Open between hrs. 1400 and 1800, Mondays and Thursdays.”

There was no sign, only a small painting of Saraswati on the door, a placid, full-lipped, plump-faced goddess holding a veena, flanked by a regal peacock. Alexandre knocked on the mint green door and waited. A few minutes passed until finally a white-bearded old man in a dhoti unlocked the door, peering outside. Alexandre could see only his long beard and one watery hazel eye, a cynical bushy, grey eyebrow lifted.

“You sell books, Sir?”

The bearded man frowned and made a gesture Alexandre had come to understand as “I don’t know” or “I don’t understand” among Indians—his fingers were extended in the shape of a flower, and he shook his hand near his ear, frowning.

Alexandre fished the newspaper advertisement from his pocket and unfolded it, offering it to the bearded man, and this time asking in Telugu, “
Meeru pusthakamalu amatharu?
”

The man looked at the advertisement and then again at Alexandre, eyeing him warily for a minute before opening the door.

Alexandre stepped in before the man stopped him and pointed at Alexandre’s feet. “
Daya chesi cheppulu gummam mundu vadhalandi
.” Kindly remove your shoes before entering.

Alexandre backed out of the store, removed his shoes and left them outside, thinking he would never get used to walking into an establishment barefoot. He pushed open the green door and walked into a small musty room stacked from floor to ceiling with hundreds of dusty books. There were red cushions on the floor on top of an old, Oriental carpet. The bearded man pointed at Alexandre. “English,” he said matter-of-factly.

“No, I’m not English. I’m French,” Alexandre said, his voice more belligerent than he had intended.

“Ahh, French. Victor Hugo!”

Alexandre smiled, his shoulders relaxed. “Yes. Like Victor Hugo.”

“You want French books?” The bearded man began to pull books from the stacks. “I have Hugo. I have Voltaire,” he smiled, his teeth shiny and yellow, as if stained by
paan
.

“No, no. I’m looking for a book called
Radhika Santwanam
.”

The bearded man smiled, “You are not English?”

“No.”

“You know that book has been banned. All the copies have been seized by Chief Cunningham and burned. I’m sure you know that.”

“I do.” Alexandre smiled.

“So what do you expect me to do?”

“My friend, Kanakadurga Garu, told me that you could help me.”

The bearded man smiled and turned, shouting in the direction of some curtains that separated the bookstore from what Alexandre
imagined was the old man’s house. “
Chandini! Coffee cheyyi!
” He motioned Alexandre to sit down on one of the plush cushions, and he too sat.

Alexandre lowered himself uneasily to the floor and sat cross-legged and smiled at the man, and they sat staring at each other, Alexandre feeling awkward, the bearded man in quiet placid contentment. “Frenchman,” he said, nodding. “France!” He lifted his hand in a grand gesture, as if reciting poetry, “
Liberté! Egalité! Fraternité!
” He laughed from his belly, his eyes jolly.

A small girl with a thick, oiled braid walked in carrying a tray with two cups of coffee. Her skirts didn’t quite reach her ankles and she had pink ribbons in her hair. She kneeled next to Alexandre and offered the tray to him. Alexandre lifted one of the tiny, chipped porcelain cups, and the bearded man took the other. She left the small tray near them.

“I am Ramakrishna Pantulu,” he said in slow, carefully articulated Telugu, clapping his right hand over his heart. He savored the hot coffee, resting the small cup on his belly between sips.

“My name is Alexandre Lautens. I’m a linguist from France. I am a guest of the Adivis. I am a professor at the Sorbonne. I am here to study Telugu.”

“Ah!
Sumdara telumgil paatisaitu!
” he said, again gesturing like a poet.

It sounded somewhat like Telugu but wasn’t. “Sundaram . . . ?”

“
Sumdara telumgil paatisaitu;
they are the words of a Tamil poet. He says: Let us sing in sweet Telugu.”

Alexandre smiled, finishing his coffee with a satisfied exhalation.

Pantulu motioned for Alexandre to put the cup down on the tray. He cleared his throat and stood. Alexandre too started to stand, only for Pantulu to shake his palm, saying, “
Coorcho Babu
.” Sit down.

Pantulu looked at the endless stacks of books and then gathered into his arms a stack of some twenty books and cleared away several more stacks, displacing some hundred books before removing from a dark corner a small, silk-covered book. He handed the book to Alexandre and sat down, his back straight and his arm extended before his chest as if in oratory: “Her braided hair was black and long like Rahu, the sky snake / Come to devour the full moon of her face that outshone it.”

Alexandre smiled. He ran his fingertip over the binding. “Thank you so much. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.”

Pantulu smiled and nodded.

“How much?” Alexandre asked, reaching for his wallet.

“My dear Frenchman, how can you pay for a book that doesn’t exist?”

A
LEXANDRE FOUND HIS
cigarettes on a bedside table and sat down on the bed. The room in Davidson’s house that he was given was smaller than his in the Adivi home, but comfortable. Pulling his legs up, he sat at the head of the bed and leaned back against the pale yellow stucco wall, his feet flat on the sheets, one wrist on his knee, taking a deep pull from his cigarette. His body felt restless; he watched the Indian night through the bedroom window and listened to the crickets.

Once, a few years earlier, he had seen a Sorbonne colleague, Marc Beauvais, at the Café Deux Magots outside the university’s campus. Marc, an economist, was middle aged and had never married. Marc
was in a corner, a pink-cheeked student with him. Alexandre watched as Marc laughed and put his hand on the boy’s leg. He leaned in and pressed such a full kiss upon the boy’s cheek that although the gesture was seemingly innocent, to Alexandre it dripped with something sinister. Seeing Alexandre, Marc abruptly stood up and cleared his throat. He threw bills down on the table, saying good-bye to the student and to Alexandre, who nodded in acknowledgement through a haze of cigarette smoke and diners and service staff. He watched Marc put his overcoat on, pulling up his collar, his fingers nervously fiddling with his buttons as he walked out, his eyes as anxious as a thief’s. Alexandre looked back at the dark-haired boy, alone at the table. His lips were red like cherries and they were pursed as he counted the money left by the professor, placing some back down on the table and pocketing the rest. Alexandre got the attention of the waitress. She was flushed from running from table to table; the girl was plain and plump, and he could make out the shape of her body through her blouse and skirt. There was something unfinished about her, like a flower that hadn’t fully bloomed yet: her hair was done neatly but she had no makeup on. She smiled at him generously, the way plain girls do. He smiled back at her, in the restrained way handsome men do, like a favor or a gift.

That evening when he returned home, he found Madeline at the stove cooking. He approached her from behind and clutched a handful of her hair. He thought of the waitress’s hips and bent and bit Madeline’s neck, inhaling the scent of her perfume. She pulled away abruptly, startled. He’d scared her. Alexandre, seeing her frightened face, frowned and walked away. He prized his wife’s beauty, but sometimes it stifled his desire. He liked sometimes the profanity of an ugly girl. He envied Marc his secrets. This surprised him. He had always
been aware of the utter fragility of the middle-class happiness he had built with Madeline; he was ashamed of bringing home the vulgarities of his public life in the café. Madeline wasn’t like him; she was a girl from the country. She hadn’t been raised in city life. Alexandre had always felt a protective impulse to keep in their home the tone of a simple, rural home life. Had it not been for him, she’d have gone back to the countryside after a few years of working in the city. She’d left the countryside for him, and he felt the need to preserve a bit of that in the home.