Tikkipala (42 page)

There was great excitement among the waiting thags as the first car appeared through the hills. They were seated on the roadside, a cloth spread before them as though entertained with a picnic and they sighed with longing at the sight of the jewels glittering on the silken clothed men and women inside. But they had been told to only stop the seventh car and they obeyed. It was such obedience that enabled them to escape detection for so long.

As the Raja's sisters-in-law went trundling by, Srila said, ‘Oh, look, Mala. There sit a group of villagers taking an outdoor picnic under the shade of a peepul tree. How very charming.'

And Mala agreed, ‘Most picturesque.'

It was half an hour before the second car appeared. It bore Nirmal's parents and the thags sighed regretfully again.

For the next hour, at stretched out intervals, four more cars appeared. ‘Six,' whispered the thags to each other, and waited in eagerness for the seventh.

As the journey from Bidwar to Parwal progress, Queenie became increasingly stern and depressed. ‘It is not my fault,' said Nirmal, as he got out with his screwdriver for the eleventh time.

‘If it goes on like this, you will miss your own wedding,' said Queenie bitterly.

Around Devi the people of the palace dashed and fussed. The women of the household, Nirmal's mother and her two aunts, had dressed Devi in her wedding sari, taking ages over getting the pleats just right. Aunt Srila had gone on hands and knees and crawled on the floor, making sure that the hem was perfectly accurate all the way round. Mala had put on the ancestral earrings, so heavy that they had to be supported by chains slung from clips in Devi's hair. ‘You've put on a bit of weight, dear,' said Aunt Srila as she pulled the hooks and eyes to Devi's choli and could hardly make them meet.

Nirmal's mother had provided Devi with a little pair of golden slippers and a golden bag to match. Devi sat back in the chair, feeling helpless and childlike as these women dressed her as though she was a doll.

Even Sangita relented a little and sent her servant to offer Devi a necklace of purple diamonds. ‘They emerged out of a crystal broth ten years ago and I have been wondering what to do with them every since,' she wrote on the note that accompanied the jewel. ‘But in spite of this, do not imagine that I condone your action.'

The thags waved Nirmal's car down, shouting, ‘Sir, dear sir, we are seeing flames shooting from your exhaustion.'

‘Don't stop. They might be bandits,' said Queenie.

‘But suppose my precious car is really on fire.' Nirmal came to a shuddering halt.

The thags gathered round and, four on either side, began to beat at the car with bamboo sticks, handfuls of grass and pieces of sacking.

‘Stop, stop,' cried Nirmal. ‘You are damaging my art work.'

‘Surely the things they are doing will make the matter worse,' said Queenie. ‘And anyway, I don't see any fire.'

‘It took me an hour to paint that,' cried Nirmal, as flakes of painted horns and the eyeballs of a goddess came flying off.

But the thags went on with their whacking for a quite a while. At last they stopped saying, ‘There sir. We have successfully put out the flames, but we suggest that you wait till the vehicle has cooled down before continuing on your journey or otherwise your radiating will boil. So in the meantime please come and take a sweet glass of lassi with us before you continue on your way.' Saliva kept running from the sides of their mouths at the sight of Queenie, dense with gold and diamonds.

‘No, thank you,' said Nirmal. ‘It is most kind of you but I have never liked lassi.'

‘I have a little good brandy out there also,' another thagee said, winking.

‘Don't you dare,' cried Queenie.

Nirmal perked up. Queenie had been dreadful to him ever since they left Bidwar. Even when they spent a night at the Shiraz Hotel, she had cancelled his order of gin tonic with his dinner. ‘No, Nirmal. At least on this one occasion, refrain from alcohol and let us get to this wedding in one piece.'

‘I will just take one glass, then I must be going on,' said Nirmal opening the car door. Queenie tried catching at the tail of his shirt, as he climbed out.

‘And please, dear Madam, come and enjoy our village fare also,' the remaining thags urged, grinning with hospitality.

‘Certainly not,' said Queenie grimly, ‘And send my grandson back this moment.'

One of the thags poured Nirmal a tumbler full of brandy and watched hopefully while the rest kept trying to lure Queenie from her car. They wished their elders were here to advise them, instead of working up in the palace, for they were uncertain how to proceed. There was obviously no point in killing the man as long as the woman still sat in the car, because she would see. It was an important part of their sacrifice that the victims never knew what was happening to them. Would it be possible to lure the man out of sight so that the old woman would eventually come to look for him? But Nirmal was now sitting cross legged and comfortable, swigging brandy. ‘Should we pull her out?' They whispered to each other. But in their tradition their victims died without a struggle. Also the man would see the woman being dragged. That would not work. Whatever they did would have to be more cunning.

It was when Nirmal was on his fourth brandy, Queenie still sitting furious and impotent in the car, that the thags became fearful that at any moment more wedding cars would arrive and they would miss their chance. In fact they could not understand why more had not already come. Then one of them had the idea. It was Nirmal himself who had supplied them with it. ‘I had better not drink any more or I won't be able to drive.'

‘Then surely your lady grandmother will take over the wheel,' the thags said.

‘She can't drive, so I had better go.' He tried to rise and fell drunkenly backwards. Two thags raced back to the car and told Queenie, ‘Madam, Madam, Sahib has taken
so much brandy that how are you being able to continue with your journey for he is unable to drive anymore?'

‘I knew this would happen and it is all your fault,' roared Queenie. ‘Now what shall we do. We are already late for the wedding.'

‘I am a very good driver,' said one of the thags. ‘I will be happy to transport you to the palace of the wedding.'

‘That is the least you can do,' said Queenie huffily. ‘Since it is you that made my grandson drunk.'

‘But please come only and sit with us while I finish eating my meal, for this is the first food I have taken today and if I drive with my stomach empty I may become dizzy and have a crash.'

Grudgingly Queenie got out and followed him.

The wedding fire was lit, six of the seven wedding cars had arrived, Devi was dressed in her scarlet sari and draped with heavy jewels of gold. But the seventh car bearing the bridegroom did not arrive. The guests, seated in a row, gazed with increasing impatience at the empty seat that awaited Nirmal. His parents started saying defensively to the Raja, ‘What can you expect when you hold this wedding in such an out of the way place? If our son could have got married in Delhi, or somewhere respectable, he would have arrived by now.'

The Raja responded furiously, saying, ‘Your son is late for everything, and he is probably still in Bidwar working on his filthy statue and has forgotten that he is meant to be marrying my daughter today.'

Mala and Srila pointed out that Queenie was with him. ‘She would never let him forget. We are sure she will get him here.' But an hour later even they were growing despondent.

Nirmal's parents went from irritation to worry. ‘If only we had not been in Bombay. We should have brought our son here ourselves and not left him in the care of his grandmother in Bidwar.'

The thags sighed with relief when at last they managed to get Queenie seated at their picnic.

‘Of course I can't sing,' she replied in answer to their question. ‘Do I look like that sort of woman?' She bent over to look Nirmal in the face and then said accusingly to the thags, ‘My grandson is hardly drunk at all. I can't imagine what the fuss is about.'

The thags were already fingering the silken rumals that had been placed for blessing at the shrine of the goddess that morning.

Queenie said, ‘I understood you to say you were going to eat your food then drive us to the palace. Well, please get on with it, because my grandson is getting married today and we are very late already.'

‘But surely this fellow is not the bridegroom,' gasped the thags. No bridegroom could look so untidy and impoverished.

‘Of course he is,' snapped Queenie. ‘So hurry up and let us be on our way. It is most unethical of you to give him all this brandy when he is just about to be married.'

The thags gave each other hasty looks. But they knew already that the game was over. For if the bridegroom did not turn up for the wedding, his absence was sure to be noticed. They did not need the advice of their elders to tell them that. They slid their rumals back into their pockets.

‘Let us go, Memsahib,' said the thagee driver morosely and led the way to the car, Queenie following grandly and Nirmal a little staggeringly.

The others waited there for hours, but no more cars came.

Mala, Srila and Queenie were shocked and disappointed when, after only two days, the wedding ceremonies came to an end.

‘My wedding went on for a week,' said Srila.

‘Mine for a month,' said Queenie triumphantly.

‘This is all that is required,' said Devi. ‘You can all go on celebrating for as long as you like but Nirmal and I are going away on our honeymoon.'

‘Oh, are we?' said Nirmal. ‘I was hoping to get back to Bidwar and continue work on my statue.'

‘You are such a glutton for work, my poor boy,' sighed Queenie. ‘But on this occasion you must take a little relaxation.'

‘Yes, yes,' said the aunts. ‘And we have been told you lucky young people are going to Paris.'

‘Paris?' Nirmal and Devi spoke at once.

‘That is what your father told us,' the aunts said.

‘Definitely we are going on a honeymoon,' Devi told them swiftly. ‘But we decided after all, for patriotic reasons, to take it in India.'

‘How charming,' smiled the aunts. ‘So where have you decided, Goa perhaps? Or we have heard that Dehra Doon is both cool and beautiful.'

Later Nirmal whispered to Devi, ‘Do we have to have this honeymoon?'

‘Of course we do,' said Devi firmly. ‘Everyone expects it.' For weeks she had been imagining the moment when, in some place where Nirmal had no statue to think about, they found themselves alone together. She worked out a little scenario, where they closed the door of their hotel bedroom and then he gently put his arms round her. She never managed to go beyond this. She could not imagine what would happen next but always at that point had to stop herself from wondering if the fact that she had Maw's baby inside her womb make a difference.

‘It will be a good holiday,' she said firmly. And added, ‘My father is paying.'

‘I don't feel like a holiday,' Nirmal argued. ‘I'm not at all tired and I want to get on with my statue.'

‘We could go where ever you like,' she said temptingly. ‘We could go to a place of statues. Wouldn't you like that? What about Ellora?'

His face lit up. ‘That hotel in Dattapukur. We could go there. I would like to see the god-maker again.'

Devi glared. ‘Nirmal, that is not at all what is meant by a honeymoon.'

He became sad and pleading. ‘But Devi, you said I could go where I liked. You said we could go to a place of statues.'

Devi said glumly, ‘OK.'

The Raja was dismayed. ‘But darling, you can go anywhere you want in the world. I would not think of letting you spend your honeymoon in that dreadful little place.'

‘All the same, Papa, that is where we are going,' said Devi.

When the manager of Dattapukur's only hotel got the message that the daughter of the Raja of Bidwar was coming to spend her honeymoon here, after he had recovered from his surprise, became overwhelmed with joy. And then went into a flurry of preparation, the most important of which was the bringing of the four poster double bed from his own home. This piece of ancient furniture, richly carved and swagged with many ties and tassels, was carried carefully through the town by twelve strong men and all the way the manager kept thanking Durga that he had such a thing in his possession, and anticipated the delight of the honeymoon couple when they saw it.

‘Careful, careful,' he kept constantly calling as the great bed was lugged from one side of Dattapukur to the other, nudging through jams of traffic and squads of sleeping cows and fascinated crowds. ‘Do not let the cloth of this bed touch the dust,' he shouted as the bed was carried through bazaars and hauled over drains, ‘For tonight aristocracy will consummate their marriage in it.'

He and his wife were going to sleep on the floor for the week but even she had not complained because the cause was so great.

Devi and Nirmal arrived at Dattapukur late in the evening. The hotel was even worse than Devi remembered. The carpets were more threadbare. A strong smell of drains pervaded every room. There was a new hole in the roof. The ends of the dining room curtains had been nibbled by rats.

The manager, his wife and three daughters ushered Devi and Nirmal to their room with smiles and gasps of awe. Even when they reached the room, the family followed
them, wanting to see the reaction to the bed, determined not to miss a single moment of the most exciting thing that had ever happened in their hotel.

The room was stifling. Vases of jasmine, tuberose, roses and lilies stood on every surface, smelling so strongly that it felt as though there was not enough air left for people to breathe. There was so much cheap and battered furniture that it left scarcely enough floor room for Nirmal, Devi and the hotel family. In the middle of the room, like a mighty king towering over peasants, soared the four poster bed. From its roof swung jasmine garlands and more were wound around the pillars, while the petals of red and pink roses had been thickly scattered all over the worn out razai.