Tikkipala (44 page)

‘Who would have thought that those two men would be so good with children,' Devi laughed.

Baby took his first steps with Maw holding his hands while Nirmal waited grumpily for his turn. Baby ate his first solid food from the spoon Nirmal held out to him.

‘When are you going to take him to the hill palace?' Maw asked Devi.

‘He's too young,' Devi laughed. ‘It would be wasted on him.'

‘I would like my people to see him,' Maw said.

‘Why?'

Maw smiled. ‘He is so beautiful and I am proud of him.'

‘How sweet,' Devi said but was touched by a tiny chill of fear without knowing why.

But when the hot weather came, and Baby became covered with heat rash, the Raja said, ‘Maw is right. The palace is now comfortable because of the improvements we made for your wedding and it will be good for my grandson to go up into the cool of the mountains.'

The small fear would not leave Devi. ‘Don't you think we should wait till later in the year when he's a bit older? It's still quite primitive there. He might catch something. It's terribly far from the nearest doctor.' She could not stop her mind going back to Anwar.

The Raja looked surprised. ‘I've never heard you fussing like this before. This is the best time of the year to go to the hills. All the flowers will be out, the whole place will be filled with perfume and butterflies. It will be fun for my grandson and I've got some free time too.' He added as an after thought, ‘We might even get Baby a little pony.'

No,' said Devi fiercely, remembering her father's brother. ‘He mustn't have a pony.'

‘You could have his naming ceremony done by my people,' Maw said, making it sound like a joke. ‘Because he can't go through his life only called ‘Baby.'

‘Is that what happens in your tribe, Maw? A naming ceremony?'

‘Not all the children have it,' he said. ‘Only children who are considered great and pure enough.'

‘I don't think Baby can have one then,' laughed Devi. ‘He's too naughty and grubby. But tell me about the ceremony.'

‘It is very beautiful and much use is made of mineral stones. In the old days my people came to namings wearing all the most wonderful of their jewels and feasted and danced all night but since then there has been nothing for us to celebrate.'

‘Why was it so important for them?' asked Devi.

‘Because at the naming you are dedicated to the Tikki and become…' He paused while Devi waited.

After a while she asked, ‘Become what, Maw?'

‘Magic,' he said simply.

Devi waited, interested. She had never heard him talk of this before. ‘Could you explain more?' she asked. ‘What is Tikki?'

‘It is energy,' explained Maw.

‘Like a robot?' Devi suggested.

‘Like a robot that is so totally powerful that it can tap into that which underlies, creates and maintains everything. Like what you Hindus call Shakti.'

‘A pity such a thing does not exist,' said Devi. ‘For if it did, there would be no more problems for the world.'

‘It exists and is the cause of problems as well as of solutions,' said Maw.

Although Devi looked forward to the prospect of showing off her new son to the thags and imagined how enthusiastic the thag women would be about him, she continued to feel anxious. ‘The water might not be pure. How will we get milk for him?'

‘I've never known you to be so cautious,' laughed the Raja. ‘He has already been to all kinds of wild places with you. Wasn't he OK when you took him to hunt for minerals in Rajistan? I bet the water at the hill palace is cleaner than there.'

It was spring when they reached the hill palace. The whole countryside rang with the sound of birds and the ground was flush and sweet with crops and grass. Nirmal had come too, hoping to find more stones.

The thags were waiting in rows in the porch and over the lawn. Everyone had come to see the baby. ‘It was a quick baby,' they had agreed, ‘But these Sahibs are always quick at everything. Look at the way they dash around in motor cars, while we have to make do with bullock carts.'

By next morning Nirmal was in a state of excitement. He had pulled a great pink crystal out of the front of the garden and had found an outer building with a roof even higher than the one in the Bidwar Palace. ‘The light is also better here,' he told his father-in-law with enthusiasm.

The Raja, visualising returning to Bidwar with only his daughter and the fascinating grandson, reacted with enthusiasm to the idea of leaving Nirmal behind in Parwal.
‘My dear boy, anything you need will be provided if you wish to stay here and pursue your art.'

Just as the Raja had expected, Baby was enjoying the hill palace and the air was making his cheeks go pink. They bought him a little push cart which he shoved up and down the drive, making car noises. The thag women adored him, carrying him so much that Devi feared he might lose the use of his legs, pressing kisses onto his cheeks and popping milk sweets or squeezing sugar cane juice into his mouth at frequent intervals. ‘They are spoiling him utterly,' Devi would laugh to Nirmal. ‘His face is permanently sticky.' The thags felt personally responsible for Baby, because, as they reminded each other often and joyfully, if it had not been for them, this baby would not exist. For, on the day of the wedding, they had almost killed the bridegroom and without the bridegroom, no baby.

They had felt very disappointed at the time, when the seventh car turned out to be the last one and they had not managed to plunder anything from the wedding guests. But when the baby was brought to stay, they understood at once that he must be special to Kali and that is why she had preserved him at such a heavy price.

So, after some discussion, they came to Devi and told her, ‘Your baby must be called, Kali.'

‘I'll think about it,' laughed Devi.

They pressed around her. ‘Please do not laugh for we take this seriously because this child is special to the goddess.'

Devi felt a little offended and later told her father, ‘How could they compare my chubby son to a fierce goddess who wears a necklace of skulls and whose tongue hangs out?'

‘It is because you haven't yet got a name for him' said the Raja. What about calling him ‘Anwar' after my lost brother.'

Devi told Nirmal, ‘Everyone can think of names for Baby, except me. What do you think?'

‘We could invent something absolutely new, like the Europeans do,' he suggested, and already she could see his mind whirling away into an ocean of unsuitable creativity. If she was not careful Baby would end up being called ‘Durga's eyeballs' or ‘Kneecaps of the goddess.'

Nirmal was now spending much of his time making toys for Baby, until so many abstract rocking horses, topsy turvy dolls houses, terrifying puppets and collapsing wooden trikes thronged the nursery that Devi had to put a stop to it. ‘There is not room for the ayah to get into the room and also toys you make are often dangerous.'

Because his creativity had to come out somewhere, Nirmal took up cooking, astonishing and aggravating the kitchen thags and annoying his father-in-law. He began to produce gaudy dishes of guava jelly with prawns, bright green sweets made with spinach, meat dishes with such small bones that those who ate feared rats might be the main ingredient.

‘This is even worse than the toys,' moaned the Raja.

Maw said, ‘I want to take Baby to the high jungle for his naming ceremony.'

‘Certainly not,' laughed Devi. ‘He's much too young for that sort of thing.'

‘You could come too,' Maw said. ‘Wouldn't you like to see it? We use mineral stones in a perfectly new way.'

She had often longed to see these ceremonies that Maw had sometimes described to her. ‘I will come myself, but I am certainly not bringing my son,' she said.

‘He has to be there,' Maw said.

‘Any way there is no point in it because we still haven't thought of a name for him,' Devi said.

‘I will find a name for him,' said Maw.

Devi laughed, said, ‘Who are you to give my child a name?' and remembered a moment later.

Maw said, ‘Next week is the night of no moon and that is when my people perform the naming.'

‘I told you he's not going,' said Devi forcefully.

‘It would not take long.' Maw's tone was pleading. ‘I will take him up there myself.'

‘No, Maw, absolutely not,' said Devi crossly. And then because he looked crestfallen, said more gently, ‘Maw, dear, the idea is sweet, but I really don't think subjecting Baby to your tribe's ceremony, no matter how colourful or charming, is a good idea at all.'

‘Why not?' he argued.

‘No.'

‘I beg you.'

‘There is no question,' said Devi firmly. There was something about Maw's insistence that was alarming her. He had never begged her like this in all the time she'd known him. He had never seemed desperate. But now she thought she saw desperation in his eyes. ‘No, Maw, no, no, no.'

Yet still he would not leave it. ‘I will give you something in exchange.'

‘There is nothing I want,' said Devi. ‘All the things I love are already mine, my child and my…' She flushed a little and did not finish the sentence. Because of what had happened between her and Maw, she did not want to talk to him of Nirmal.

‘Something you really want.' Maw astonished her by catching her by the hand. Except for that one night when they had made a child, he had always shrunk from any physical contact. He now gripped both her wrists and forcing her to look at him said in a tone of intense urging, ‘The thing you want even more that you want a child or a husband.'

‘How can you say such a thing!' shouted Devi, trying to shake off his grip. ‘How could there be anything I want more?'

‘The Ama stone,' whispered Maw.

Devi stopped short. Maw let go of her wrists. ‘If I give it to you will you bring the child up to the high jungle?'

Devi felt her chest go tight as though she was short of breath. She said, trying to keep her voice scornful, ‘No one even knows if it exists, let alone where it is.'

‘I know,' said Maw.

‘Where?'

‘Here.' Maw touched his waist.

‘Show me then,' cried Devi. Her heart rate was speeding up.

Maw pulled out the bark package from inside his belt of beads.

Devi stared. Of course he was tricking her, but she was unable to stop the sudden surge of hope and excitement. ‘Put your hand on top,' he said, holding it out.

Cautiously Devi did as he said and through the bark could feel a throbbing, as though there was something alive inside.

‘Shall I open it,' whispered Maw.

Devi nodded. Her mouth had gone dry. She could not speak.

Maw unfolded the bark and out rolled a blue stone with a winking scarlet heart. Devi heard the smallest buzzing sound coming from it. She stared. The hot heart seemed alive. The blue looked as cold as the peak of a Himalayan peak.

‘Don't touch it with your hand or it will burn you,' he said.

‘Is this really it?' whispered Devi.

Maw nodded. ‘It is called ‘Ama' which means ‘Mother' It belonged to my people. It is the creator of all life.'

Devi felt dizzy. The room seemed to start spinning. She could only focus on the small winking stone that lay on Maw's palm, in its bed of silver bark. Her heart started to hammer so loudly and so fast that she felt sure that Maw must hear it. This, she knew, was a totally new mineral. No geologist had seen it or knew anything about it. This was the thing she had been searching for, for the whole of her life. This was the stone that would be called ‘Devibidwartis' and which would make her famous. She could not take her eyes off it. Its light shone rosily on her face.

‘You can have it, if you let him come,' Maw said. Where else could the Ama be kept? At least she would guard it.

Devi felt flustered. The moment was so sudden and so desired that she could not react. Her heart kept on crashing against her chest. The Ama smouldered against the
whiteness of the bark. It would be burning a hole, thought Devi, if it was not for its ice cold shell.

‘Will you promise he will be safe?' she said.

‘Why should he not be?' said Maw. ‘You have been up there yourself.'

‘Yes, but, you know. Anwar…'

‘Your uncle was lost. You do not know that it was anything to do with the high jungle.'

‘No,' said Devi. ‘But where else could he have gone? What else could have happened to him?'

‘If you don't want it, then I'll put it away,' said Maw and began to roll up the Ama stone again. He knew he had won.

‘No, I do, I do,' cried Devi, holding out her hand.

‘You will let him come then?' asked Maw.

She tried to keep her thoughts clear but the proximity of the wonderful stone was making it hard to her to concentrate. The only thing in her mind was that she, Devi, was about to possess a totally new mineral. She wanted to get her hands round it. To clasp it tightly. To seize it and rush away with it.

‘How did you get it?' she asked at last. It was something she would need to know, when she made her discovery public.

‘It belonged to my people,' said Maw. ‘I told you.'

‘Doesn't it now?' Devi became filled with a sudden worry that they might come and snatch it away from her. Even accuse her of stealing their property.

Maw could see many problems ahead but knew that, whatever happened, she would not ever part with it. That the Ama would be safe if he gave it to her.

She asked, ‘If your people want it back, what will happen then?' She wanted to grab the Ama from his hand, rush away with it, hide it somewhere where Maw's people could not find it.

Maw put the package in her hand. Devi closed her fingers round it. It felt alive. She could feel it throbbing against her palm through the rough bark