Tikkipala (20 page)

Unfortunately the thag brothers never found a car to match that of the stranded family and in the end the family were given a lift in a passing lorry, and the thag brothers missed a chance of yet another profitable venture.

‘It is repaired now, Madam.' Khan told Devi hopefully when he got back to the palace. ‘And you have a lot of rocks. We can return to Bidwar now.'

‘I am not quite ready,' said Devi.

‘When will we be getting back then, Madam?' asked Khan.

A week later he was still asking. ‘I am stung all over with the mosquitoes and my body is aching from lying on this broken bed.'

‘Oh, poor Khan,' cried Devi, her whole attention on a shiny splinter of purple. ‘Perhaps they will call this one after me. What do you think? I can't find any reference to it in the manual.'

Khan sighed, knew that she had hardly heard his complaints and did not intend to do anything about them.

‘I was thinking, Khan,' she said, ‘that I might stay longer. Can you drive to the village and bring up some people to help get this place in order, do you think?'

‘How much longer, Madam?' asked Khan, without moving, his heart beginning to beat twice and fast as it had before.

‘I don't know. I might even settle down and live here.'

‘I am newly married, Madam. I have left my new wife in your father's place. I need to go back to her.'

‘Why not bring her here,' suggested Devi happily. ‘Ring my father when you go to the village. Tell him to arrange for your wife to come by train and you can meet her at the station.'

‘I will not be happy living here, Madam,' said Khan. ‘And my young wife will not like it at all, for she is of a nervous disposition.' But Devi had not heard. She had just discovered a bright orange and perfectly round geode. ‘Look, just look at this,' she breathed, her face shining as though she was gazing into the face of her own beloved infant.

‘I might have got my wife with infant if it was not for this crazy Devi Madam,' thought Khan bitterly as he set about getting the car ready for the journey back to the village. ‘And instead of this I must return to a place occupied by bandits and request them politely to become carpenters and gardeners.'

A week later the palace became thronged with people from the village.

Their hopes had risen greatly when they had been so successful with the episode of Khan's car, though they had never found another to match the one that had provided the part. But after that, for a while, it seemed as though Kali had bestowed on them just one quick smile, then turned away again.

When the driver came from the palace to say that the Raja's daughter was calling the thags to come and do work for her, for which she would pay them sums of money, the thags felt doubtful but also happy. After the little prince Anwar disappeared, the thags had all been treated with an equal suspicion. Men, women and children and even quite old people had been taken by the police and beaten. But after getting Devi's message the thags felt they had been forgiven, after all these years, for the loss of Anwar though they continued to say to each other, ‘Cooking, cleaning, painting and nailing is not our dharma.' But then they reflected, ‘We and our children must eat, and surely Kali will forgive us. For when you think of it, it was her responsibility to provide us with victims for our banditry and since she has not done so we must take matter to ourselves.' They needed the money. They could not go on as they were. In the end they came flocking up the mountain side, bullock carts piled with whole families, three and even four people sometimes astride a single knock-kneed donkey, people without transport struggling upwards under a burden of children, whole families spilling out of a flimsy cart pulled by an even flimsier pony . There were even men hauling up handcarts on which sat their minor children and aged parents and the
single village taxi was piled and packed so tight with people it was a wonder the ancient engine could haul the vehicle up or the people inside raise their ribs to breathe. You would think that disaster had struck the village and that these people were all refugees, not respectable thags, being turned into cleaners and crafts-people out of need.

‘You see just by looking at them that they are all bandits, even down to the smallest child,' complained Khan as he watched the shouting laughing crowds pour into the palace. And when the work began he complained, ‘These fellows have no training of any kind in the repair and cleansing of palaces.'

For days after he was forced to rush round, shouting instructions to the joyful bandits, as they inexpertly tried to plaster ceilings, fill in window panes, replace stone work. A team of women was employed to repair the stove and start cooking. Children were handed little brooms and ordered to sweep the passages and walkways. Gardeners hacked at the undergrowth and ineptly dug flower beds, the fountains were straightened, plumbers came and got water running into them. They scoured the furniture that was carved from teak, sal and rosewood from the lower jungle and was solid and heavy as iron. Under the hands of the thags, the layers of ancient grime gradually were removed and the wood oiled and polished. They scoured the marble floors then unravelled the vines from the pillars on the porch and scrubbed them down as well. Gradually walls were mended, windows patched, pillars straightened.

Khan continued to be dissatisfied. ‘These plasters they have been putting up are so soft they will be falling down in the first rains and the woodwork they have done is entirely crooked.'

‘Come on Khan,' Devi urged. ‘You must agree that you are more comfortable since they put mosquito mesh round the verandas and repaired your bed. You don't wake complaining of the stiffness anymore.'

‘I will agree they have made some improvements,' Khan admitted grudgingly. ‘But they have very bad attitudes. These fellows do not take housework seriously.'

The thags laughed, joked, threw whitewash at each other and handfuls of mud as though they were at a party, while on the lawns, in the hallways, in the ballrooms, and on each veranda, groups of shabby male and female thags and their half-clothed, snot-nosed children squatted eating, drinking and playing cards. The thags spat, hoiked, openly urinated and told stories which, Khan primly felt sure, were filthy ones judging by the roar of laughter which followed them. The palace began to take on the air of an enormous mela.

And when Devi passed, instead of looking shamed and guilty, the badly behaved thags familes giggled, bobbed and reached wet garlands of marigold and tinsel over her head.

Down in the village a few reluctant men and women had remained to tend the cows and fields. The sweet wallah had stayed behind, as had the man who ran the tea stall. Thus, each day a buffalo load of samosa, barfi, dahi, fresh milk and vegetables would arrive. As though encouraged by hope, the little village cows seemed to start yielding more and the cabbages and cauliflowers seemed to have become bigger. Honey gatherers struggled up the thirty foot high trees of the lower jungle and were hardly stung at all as they brought down combs from the fierce wild bees for the people of the hill palace. By the time the cooks had the stove working, a couple of hunters came with a mid-sized sambhar and that evening the whole palace of people ate a meal of meat curry and rice, sitting on the floor of the great drawing room and eating with
their fingers from a single giant stone bowl which had been temporarily taken from the centre of the fountain, the first hot meal that had been served in the palace since Anwar went missing.

Mr Dar, owner of Sita Timbers, called a board meeting.

‘There is an area of jungle, here…in Parwal district.' He stabbed his finger on the map. ‘I want some surveyors sent to explore the prospects.'

There came a little flutter of agitation among the ten men round the table. Everyone in the company was afraid of Mr Dar. You could get the sack for merely hesitating to carry out one of his orders. To make objections to one of his instructions spelled disaster.

But all the same someone had to speak. ‘Sir, this is protected jungle. No timber cutting permitted.'

‘As one of the richest men in the district, I think I will have no problem in getting round that objection,' said Mr Dar, smiling without humour.

One of the most daring said carefully, ‘Sir, other companies have tried to reach this place and have died.'

‘Which companies? What killed them?' Mr Dar demanded.

‘This is also a very expensive place to bring timber from,' another said. ‘Even if it could be managed there are other jungles with the same wood, but much less problem.'

‘I asked you a question,' repeated Mr Dar as though he had not heard the last comment.

‘It is just that we do not think it possible, sir. Surveyors have already been there and say that there is no way up because of the way the rock face bulges.'

‘Send the fellows in a helicopter then,' snapped Mr Dar.

‘You cannot land. A company tried to do so some years ago and there was no place.' the man's voice trailed away, chilled by the ferocity in Mr Dar's features.

‘And also those who have managed to see from above say that the wood there is of low quality and that there are very few trees of value.'

‘I do not care about that,' said Mr Dar. ‘When I have got the permit, I want the jungle felled.'

The surveyors who had gone over the high jungle in a helicopter returned to tell Mr Dar that most of the high jungle consisted of deodohar and that though there was also teak, sal, rosewood and even a little precious sandalwood, they did not think that there were enough to merit the great expense of sending people up, even if it could be managed.

‘I insist it shall be done,' said Mr Dar. ‘Start with a winch.'

The people of the tribe began to hear the clanking sounds of Coarseones' metal, and looking over they saw that far below, in the lower jungle, there were some Coarseones constructing a metal filament. The people of the tribe laughed at first, because they had seen such things tried before. But after a few days they saw that the Coarseones were managing, by use of a ladder, to push their filament steadily upwards.

Even then the elders told the people, ‘The Coarseones have tried a thousand times to get here, they have always failed, and this time they will fail too, for even if this filament reaches our high jungle, it is too thin and weak for more than two or three Coarseones.'

Devi saw the chained hoist going up and told herself, they will never do it. There is no way. But as the days passed and she saw the glint of metal rising ever higher she began to feel alarmed and went to see the Collector in the village.

‘Oh, you have no need to feel anxious Madam,' the man assured her. ‘This is only some government officers going up there to take measurements and do calculations. These are protected forests and the officers are ensuring jungle safety.'

The men working on the winch returned quite soon to say that there was no way of getting the cables over the rocky bulge.

‘In that case employ some professional mountaineers,' snapped Mr Dar.

The mountaineers, using ropes and pitons, took three weeks, pulling the chain of the hoist after them, to reach the top. As they tumbled and staggered onto solid ground they let out a cheer and felt as triumphant as if they had just reached the summit of Mount Everest. Several times they had thought they were dead. But as they were congratulating themselves on their fabulous feat of arriving at a part of the earth never stepped on before by mankind, an animal came blundering at them, letting out the most horrifying growls. Luckily they had been provided with pistols, for it was feared that dangerous creatures thrived up here, in this place that had been isolated from mankind almost since the world began. The creature which attacked them was as large as a cow's calf and it was only on the third shot that it faltered. They shot once again and, with a roar the animal tumbled backwards and went falling down the precipice up which they had just come.

The two men shuddered and wiped their faces. They had not imagined anything so fearless and ferocious attacking them so quickly.

Devi was prizing a piece of green malachite out of the ground when she heard shots from above. Minutes later something fell with a thump beside her. A great dark wounded animal lay at her feet. For a moment she felt sure it must be dead, but then it stirred and let out a groan. She looked up and saw, miles up, two tiny figures of lumber men. Even though they were so far away she felt sure that one of them held a gun.

‘You bastards,' she yelled. ‘You stinking murders.' All her fears, she saw were being confirmed. The moment they got up there, they had begun killing the wild animals. She was too far away for the mountaineers to hear what she was saying, but from the way she leapt and shook her fists, she hoped they would guess. Then she turned back to examine the injured animal. She could not guess what species it was. It was something she had never seen before and she could hardly tell if it was canine or bovine.

Leaving the creature where it was, she ran down to the palace and called to a couple of the men to come and help her. At first when they saw the animal they shrank back. ‘This is a most dangerous thing and will certainly kill us all when it is healed. Far better, Madam, to leave it to die here.'

Devi was firm. ‘You will bring it back and if it recovers we will return it to the jungle.'

They made a stretcher for the animal out of a piece of sacking held between two bamboos and then, in spite of Devi's objections, tied its mouth tight with a piece of string and bound its legs as well. ‘Otherwise we will not bring it, Memsahib.'

Reluctantly they carried it back to the palace, with Devi marching behind to make sure they did not dump it. Even she had to admit it was a hideous creature. Slobber dripped from its loose jowl, its legs were bandy, its tail crooked, its cloven hooves splayed.