Tiger Hills (63 page)

The Coorg women—they were the worst of the lot. She had migrated toward them, confident of the common ground they shared, but when she spoke with them in native tongue, they always replied in convent-accented English—a subtle rejection that made her flush.

“Do we have to go?” she had pouted one day at Appu. “Why don't we stay home, instead? Let me cook, I will make you mutton stew with pearl onions, and hot ottis, soft as butter.”

Appu shook his head and laughed. “No ottis tonight, my darling. Crumb chops and caramel custard, or so the Club secretary has informed me.” He smacked her cheerfully on her bottom. “Come on now, hurry up, or we shall be late.”

She had made a genuine effort that evening, trotting out the sentences she had been practicing in secret. “How are you feeling, Ethel? Why, you are looking very pretty today, Daisy.”

Daisy Bopanna laughed. “Nothing like a bit of nooky to bring color to one's cheeks. Timmy was quite in the mood this afternoon. What is it with these Coorg men—all a woman needs do is touch their elbow or nudge a toenail, even, and bang! Off they are to the races!”

Baby had gone bright red. “Come now, darling!” Daisy exclaimed. “Don't look so shocked, you make me feel
wicked!
”

Appu had sauntered toward them, snifter in hand. “Wicked? Baby, whatever have you been saying to my sweet Daisy to make her feel so?”

“Appu … that … she … ”

Daisy had cut in with an amused wave of her cigarette. “We were just comparing notes on our Coorg stallions, that's all.” She placed a hand on Appu's chest, lightly stroking the lapel of his jacket. “And judging from the roses in her cheeks, I would wager your bride has a real stud to contend with.”

Appu grinned and, taking Daisy's hand in his, had kissed the tips of her fingers. While Baby had watched impotently, painfully aware of just how removed she was from this circle with its throwaway banter and sexual repartee.

“Appu!” Devi cried now, making Baby jump. “Appu!!”

“All right, all right, all right. Avvaiah, you are worse than that blasted rooster outside. I am going to wring its neck one of these days, I swear. Barely did I fall asleep when … ” Appu gingerly made his way down the stairs.

“When are you going to be done with all this merrymaking?” Devi asked, frustrated. “It would be nice to have you home with us for dinner now and again.”

“Merrymaking with a cause, Avvaiah. The elections—”

“Why do you not take Baby with you?” Devi forced a reasonableness into her voice. “Come, Appu, you have a wife now. Look at her. The poor thing has hardly eaten a morsel, all she's done is wait for you.”

Appu said nothing. He reached for the coffeepot but Baby was quicker, refilling his cup in a single fluid movement.

“Baby … ” Mildly irritated, but unsure why, Appu decided to let it go.

It felt like being swaddled in cloth. Like the time when as a child, he had tottered into one of Avvaiah's bloody trunks filled with all those saris she never wore. Layer after layer of fabric, and as he had struggled to get out of the trunk, they had seemed to shift, to wrap themselves around his arms and legs, pulling him into their folds, until he had yelled out in panic. He had been very young, of course. Appu frowned as he remembered.

Sometimes, this felt like that. When Baby pleaded with him not to visit their friends, to stay home, “just us, just the two of us.”

Their marriage had for a while quelled the restlessness within him. The first few months, he had still suffered from the nightmares that had begun after … after that bastard Stassler … Appu would jerk awake, drenched in his own sweat, too drained to address the questions in Baby's eyes. She would take him in her arms then, crooning songs in his ears as if he were a child. Slowly, the awful images would subside, the room righting itself once more.

And when he woke the next morning, Appu would lie still and marvel at her, his lovely rose of a wife. Her lips slightly parted, the lashes lying long and thick against a porcelain-skinned cheek. He would lie there, as the damned rooster crowed loud enough to wake the dead, reveling in the stillness in his heart.

It doesn't last, you know,
his cronies at the Club had said to him.
They change after marriage. Everything changes. The sex is the first to go. There's nothing new about it after a while, just go at it and get on with it, and oh, be quick darling, because we have guests for supper. And after the sex dulls, the nagging starts. Must you comb your hair quite so flat? Must you laugh so loud? Must you do this, go do that instead.

Appu had laughed disbelievingly. He knew they were jealous, the lot of them; he'd seen their faces whenever they looked at Baby.

Still, their words had picked away at him that evening like ants might a downed partridge. Would they really tire of each other as his friends had predicted? Surely not? He had practically torn the blouse from her shoulders that night, trailing bruises with his mouth as he nipped and sucked in a frenzy at that creamy skin. She had responded in kind, clawing at his back, biting his ear, pulling at his lower lip until they had finally cried out in unison, collapsing together in a shuddering, sweat-soaked jumble. And Appu's heart had gladdened.

It used to be a treat, to have parties at home in the formal dining room and watch her from the corner of his eye, turned out in one of the dresses he had ordered for her, the green and gold beetle-wing earrings from Berlin swinging from her ears.

Of all the jewelry he had given her, it was these earrings that she seemed to love the most. She had stared at them in wonder when he first presented them to her. “From
wings?
Really?” She traced their edges with a finger. “So fragile … ” She had raised them to the light, watching as they were shot through with green and gold sparks. “Fairy wings, for a fairy princess.”

“What's that?” Appu had asked, startled, certain that he must have misheard. Hadn't the proprietress of the shop said exactly that when he'd bought them? “What did you say?”

“Fairy … ” She raised puzzled eyes to his. “I don't know—the words just popped into my head. They are
so
beautiful, Appu. From actual wings, imagine!”

She wore them every chance she got, despite the far more expensive pieces he bought her. The earrings sparkled against her hair as she moved among the guests, catching the firelight as she spoke, as if keeping time with Baby's halting, lilting English that he found so irresistible.

Where had those days disappeared? Now she refused to come with him to the Club. “I don't understand what they say, the other women. All these dirty jokes they keep cracking, all this man-woman talk. It isn't decent. And that Daisy … ”

At first, he had been amused, thinking she was in one of her moods, it was that time of the month perhaps. “Come, what did
Daisy say now? The trick is not to take her too seriously. And she is really quite fond of you. Did she not send over that basket from Hans's shop when you were ill?”

Baby said nothing. The basket had been filled to the brim with canned sardines. Just the other day in the Club, the women had been discussing the prices at Hans's—ridiculous how even a tiny can of sardines cost a full rupee. “I go to the fish market every Sunday,” Baby had interjected helpfully. “Fresh fish—mathi, katla, all kinds. You should talk with my fish-seller, he always gives me a good price.”

The women had stared incredulously at her and then burst out laughing. “The fish market? The
fish market!
” Daisy had spluttered, wiping the tears from her eyes. “Oh, Baby, precious rosebud, whatever will you say next? Do you really expect us to go there? Invite your fish-seller home for tea afterward perhaps?”

The next week, Baby had feigned a fever and not gone to the Club; Daisy had sent the get-well basket, filled with can upon can of tinned sardines.

She had not even attempted to explain the insult implicit in the gesture to Appu; it would have been hopelessly lost on him.

“Monae,” Devi tried again, placatingly. “What are all these late nights? When are you going to learn about the estate, there is so much to be done—”

“Later. Please, Avvaiah, we can discuss all of this and more, but when my head stops ringing.”

“If it were
Nanju—
” Devi began, and then, thinking the better of it, stopped midsentence.

“Yes?” Appu asked, his voice cold. “Do continue, Avvaiah, what were you saying?”

“That's enough, Appu,” Devanna said quietly.

Appu shrugged and began to butter his toast. Still, Devi refused to give up, fiddling with the tablecloth as she waited for Appu to finish his eggs. “The weekly wages. Sit with me this morning, we'll do the disbursals together.”

“
God,
Avvaiah. Are you deliberately trying to worsen this headache? Later. Maybe.”

Devi's face fell. “Nanju was always so good about—”

“Yes, yes, we know,” Appu said sardonically. “Nanju this, Nanju that, perfect Nanju, prince of a son. If he were still here, he would not dream of staying out so late. If he were here, he would have taken over the running of the estate long ago. He isn't here, though, is he?”

“I said that's
enough,
Appu,” Devanna snapped, and so uncharacteristic was the anger in his voice that they all froze.

Appu looked shamefaced for an instant. He opened his mouth as if to apologize, and then his expression hardened. Throwing his napkin bitterly onto the table, he got up and left.

Devi bit her lip, precariously close to tears. She shouldn't have praised Nanju so, she knew, but it was as if she couldn't help herself. With each passing year, she seemed to talk more and more about him; he had become larger in memory than he had ever been in life. More loving, more conscientious, crafted by sorrow into an impossibly flawless child. Appu was hurt when Devi talked of Nanju in this way, mistaking her eulogies for an unspoken disappointment in him.

He was unable to see behind the words, did not recognize the guilt coating her tongue. The guilt of a mother who has outlived her child, the soul-crushing weight of it strapped to her back. And even worse than the guilt, an awful truth. A truth so appalling that Devi would not admit it even to herself—the knowledge that no matter what, she loved the remaining son more than the one who was gone.

Loss seemed to till her memory, uncovering incidents from years ago. “Perfect prince of a son … ” Wasn't that what Appu had just said? The fancy dress competition organized by the mission school. They had still been in Mercara; it had been before Appu, before Tiger Hills even. She had been bent over a piece of lace, racing against the clock to get it done by the next morning. Nanju had kept asking her about the competition, “But, Avvaiah, what will I wear? It's a fancy-dress competition; I need a costume.”

“How about going as a prince?” she had said distractedly.

“What do they wear? And when will it be ready?”

“Later,” she had promised him. “Avvaiah is busy, she will make your costume later.” He had come to her time and time again that evening. Her back hurt, her eyes stung, and still the lace was far from finished.

“Later.”

“I said, not now.”

Until he had burst into tears, startling her into pricking the needle yet again into her thumb. She had risen from the stool then, in a fury, snatching up a pair of scissors.

“You want a costume?” She had taken the scissors to her bridal sari, ripping through the red silk, tearing out its gold spangles. “Here!”

“Devi!” Tayi had said, shocked. “Your
wedding
sari!”

The child, of course, had entirely missed the significance of what she had done. He stood there, so
little,
gazing in wonder at the ruined sari. “My prince costume.”

“Nanju won second prize, you know,” Devi said now to Baby. “At the fancy-dress competition in his school. Such a prince he looked … ” Her words trailed into silence.

The 1936 Olympics came and went. “What about organizing a trip to Berlin, Dags?” the chaps at the Club had suggested. “Let's go cheer Dhyan and his boys, show a bit of support?”

They missed the brief flicker of panic that the mention of the city brought to Appu's face, even after all these years. “I don't think Dhyan Chand needs our cheering for him to work his magic,” Appu said, then changed the subject.

Once again the Indian team, captained now by Chand, had coasted to an 8–1 victory in the finals against the Germans.

Appu's marriage continued to derail, a gradual misalignment that he neither understood nor knew how to correct. With each passing month and each failed attempt to become pregnant, Baby seemed to cling more desperately to him. “Stay, Appu.” The more she did, the further he pulled away, repulsed by her need of him and secretly despairing of the sorrow he saw every month on
her face, the questions it cast upon his own potency. Restlessness stirred within him once more, a sharp-clawed mistress who would not be denied. “Don't go,” Baby would plead as he dressed for the Club. “Please, stay with me.”

“Come with me,” he said helplessly to her. “It's a dinner to welcome the new head of the mission—you should come.”

“I can't. It's beyond me.”

She was still crying when, exasperated, he left the room and bounded lightly down the stairs.

“Why the long face, handsome?” Daisy asked that evening.

“Nothing … it's nothing.”

She studied him for a moment, then leaned closer. The new Reverend was speaking, thanking the Club members for the generosity of their welcome and extolling the virtues of Christianity. “So … ,” she said softly, “do you know why Jesus could never have been born in Coorg?”

He shook his head.

“Well, wherever are you going to find three wise men and a virgin here?”

He started to laugh and she leaned in further, whispering in his ear. A brief pause, a guilty glance in Timmy's direction and then, Appu, eyes dancing, whispered back.