The Grammarian

by Annapurna Potluri

  “As I will demonstrate later, Telugu has a rich case system. This type of system will be familiar to students who have studied languages like German, but Telugu expands this system and you will find it quite intricate.

  “It may not be of utmost importance to the average student to learn to read Telugu. Nevertheless, I will briefly expound on the written language later—”

  “ANJALI!”

  Anjali started, spilling coffee onto the floor, Alexandre stood up, the maids dropped plates of food. They all looked over to see Shiva standing in front of the garden. Despite her legs, Anjali leapt to her feet and, grabbing her cane, hobbled over to her father.

  “Daddy, what is it?”

  “Come here.” The coldness in his voice made her shiver.

  Alexandre jumped and ran to her as Shiva’s palm landed hard on the girl’s cheek.

  “Shiva!” Alexandre shouted, forgetting himself, “What is this?!”

  “You stay out! This is a family matter, and you are a foreigner. You have caused enough trouble for my family! My God! Even the bloody fish vendors are talking about me!”

  “Adivi please, what is happening?”

  Anjali cowered, her face in her hands, weeping.

  Shiva glowered at Lautens. “Taking her out of this house with you, like she were a common whore, which,” Shiva breathed shakily, “evidently she is!”

  “Adivi, please,” Alexandre felt the blood drain from his face, “please, let me explain . . . it was nothing.” Alexandre and Shiva turned to see Lalita and Kanakadurga approaching, Anjali running into her grandmother’s open arms, the old woman’s eyes horrified and confused. Tired relatives, hearing the commotion, began to wander into the garden.

  “Shiva, what is this? What is happening?” Lalita looked at her husband and daughter and the pale European in her home, each of their contorted faces like Greek masks of tragedy; Mohini followed her mother, her eyes wide, startled by the commotion.

  “This whore,” Shiva pointed at his eldest daughter, “decided to disgrace our family by going out to with this foreigner yesterday, bathing in the ocean practically nude!”

  Alexandre pressed his hands together, pleading, “Adivi, Lalita, please, listen, it was nothing . . . she merely accompanied me yesterday morning as I ran errands.”

  “LIAR!” Shiva boomed. “Do you know, Dr. Lautens, how I found out this morning? I heard the servants gossiping. My servants. Gossiping. About me. Made to look a fool in my own home. Only Subba Rao had the decency to tell me outright.” Shiva caught his breath, “Dr. Lautens, I am afraid I must ask you to go. You are no longer welcome in my home. I cannot believe you had the nerve to disgrace me in this way! And in front of our whole family! You have until the morning to gather your belongings and leave. If I find you cavorting again with anyone in my family, making an ass of me the way you did yesterday,” he hissed, “I shall report you to the police for your . . . indecencies with my daughter.”

  “Indecencies! Adivi, have you gone mad? I took the girl to the beach yesterday morning. That is all! We went into the water, fully clothed! I beg you to calm down and collect your senses.” The female guests in their nightgowns all looked at the goings-on with expressions of open-mouthed horror, clutching crying babies.

  Seeing her husband shaking with rage, Lalita stepped between the two men, pressing her hands on her husband’s chest, restraining him only with the help of one of his cousins. “Shiva, please,” she whispered. Over her shoulder she looked at Alexandre, “Dr. Lautens, I am sorry, but it is best if you leave. I will have Prithu help you pack your belongings.”

  Dumbfounded, Alexandre turned to Kanakadurga, who was bent over her sobbing granddaughter. Kanakadurga, sensing his eyes on her, looked up, her eyes watery and brown, her leathery hands holding Anjali tight.

  Alexandre looked at her and lightly touched his right palm over his heart. He looked into the old woman’s eyes and said in a voice that was barely audible, “Kanakadurga Amma Garu, I am sorry.”

  HE WALKED TO his room, astounded, the soft taps of his footsteps echoing in the lonely silence. And then he heard a small voice—something that slipped through the air like a whip of wind, so lightly sounded he wasn’t sure he’d heard it until he turned reflexively and saw the last syllable still on her lips, her eyes wet and darker than ever before. “Alexandre . . . ” Anjali said. He turned and looked at her, her deformed body folded into a corner of the hallway, and she seemed frozen like a statue, her arms raised in a poetic gesture, as if she might catch his name back in her long, graceful fingers. The word lifted off her mouth and sailed toward him. “Had she said that?” he wondered. Had she dared say his Christian name? Alexandre felt the blood rush to his face. He almost shouted in fury but turned away instead and marched to his room.

  “Alexandre! Alexandre!” They always said it, all of them. The time Claudine had taken out his bicycle without his permission and fallen, and Alexandre, then still smooth faced, carried Claudine through the neighborhood streets like a little bride, his dented bicycle lying in the street near the wall into which she’d driven. The neck of his shirt was open and his book bag flapped against his leg. He cleaned the cuts on his sister’s face. “Alexandre!” from his mother, whose need for sympathy could never ever be satiated. “Alexandre” from Madeline, whether in irritation or lust, always that calling; he wished to banish those syllables so they would none of them know by which name to call him.

  Did Anjali call out to him in desire? Was it that helpless cry like Catherine? A childlike sob for help or a sisterly plea? He could no longer tell. All those voices converged like a rope around his neck and Alexandre, closing the door on his room, as he had never done before, pulled angrily at his hair like a widow in mourning.

  10

  PRITHU WAS CURLED like a small animal on the floor near the room that Alexandre had come to feel was his own. The boy jumped up and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

  Alexandre felt weary and without any fight left in his spirit. “It is alright Prithu, you can rest.” Alexandre frowned as the boy, clearly drowsy, remained standing. His eyes were red, but his back upright, like a toy soldier.

  Though he was trembling inside, Alexandre steadied his hands and found the corporal strength to arrange his things. Alexandre first took his notes down from a shelf, collecting them in his leather case. He’d kept extensive lists. All the etymological bases, the verbal systems, and the mythology, too, that Kanakadurga had told him; it hadn’t been immediately relevant to his work but it fascinated him. He found it funny that so many of his favorite memories from the Adivi home had been the times he’d spent a languorous afternoon with an old woman.

  Prithu, not accustomed to handling Western clothes, clumsily tried to help Alexandre fold his suits into his suitcase. Alexandre touched the boy’s head lightly. “Good boy,” he said, softly, pressing the crease of a pair of trousers under his chin as he folded them against his chest.

  Alexandre assembled his books and looked through his notebooks for Anthony Davidson’s calling card.

  HOURS LATER, HIS belongings nearly all packed away, there was soft knocking on the door, and Alexandre opened it slowly, unsure of what or whom to expect. Kanakadurga stood in the doorway, in her hands two stainless steel tiffin boxes. “You can’t leave without some food, Alexandre,” her voice was hushed.

  She walked into his room and put the tiffin boxes on his desk. “I had them loaded with snacks and sweets. These will keep well so you can pack these now. In the morning, Mary will bring you some curries and rice.” She spoke in Telugu to Prithu, her voice soft but stern; the boy left the room. Kanakadurga walked past the bed and the wooden armoire in the room and opened the doors to the balcony. Alexandre was surprised to see the sun setting, realizing how much time he must have been alone in his room, preparing to leave. Kanakadurga took his arm, and walked him out onto the balcony.

  The old woman pointed. “Dr. Lautens,” she said, eyeing the sky and the great birds circling overhead
, “do you have the ossifrage in France?” She pointed at the purple-plumed vultures. “The bone-breaker. It captures the little turtles off the ground and lifts them up into the sky—higher than they have ever been before, and the turtles gaze at the large world that they have never known the majesty and vastness of. There it is—the whole world: the turtle sees the land and the blue ocean, the forests, the towns—then the ossifrage finds a bed of rocks upon which to drop the turtle, to break his bones and eat his meat.

  “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.”

  ANTHONY DAVIDSON 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.”

  ALEXANDRE 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.