He steepled his fingers and looked at Devanna, his kindly eyes clouded with concern. Was there something else he should be aware of, something to do with Martin Thomas and his friends perhaps?
“No,” Devanna said, “nobody is to blame.
“Please, Father,” he added, “say nothing of this to the Reverend, he will only worry. I … I’ve been clumsy of late, that’s all.”
Devanna also remained silent on his ordeal in his long letters home. What could he say, after all, how could he even begin to describe the things that were being done to him? It was only ragging, and he had to take it like a man. He wrote pages and pages to Gundert, describing his classes in meticulous detail. When could the Reverend visit? He penned long, meandering letters to Devi, telling her about Bangalore and the fortnightly outings they were taken on.
Two weeks earlier it had been the theater. “How you would have laughed to see the man who played the role of the heroine,” he wrote. “He had an especially large Adam’s apple and every time he sang falsetto, it seemed to grow even larger.” This week, they had gone to the Botanical Gardens. “The gardens belonged to Tipu Sultan, yes, that same Tipu of Mysore who so infamously tried to slash his way through Coorg. How he managed to produce something so beautiful … You should see the gardens, Devi. They are managed by experts brought in especially from Kew Gardens no less. The new herbarium is the spitting image, they say, of the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park.” He described the masters and the dour librarian, and the decorous English breakfasts of soft-boiled eggs, toast, and (watery) tea.
“Will you write to me?” he asked wistfully. “Once in a while, just a few lines?”
The first years counted fervently down to the Freshers Ball as Martin grew increasingly obsessed with Devanna. He had become, for Martin, the itch that had to be scratched, sometimes three or four times a day.
Martin had fumbled with an answer in class that morning. “Chokra. Get over here.”
His cow of a mother had sent him another of her letters, asking why he didn’t write more often, had he forgotten all she had sacrificed, her marriage, her looks, everything, just so he could be where he was today? Guilt creeping over his skin like an army of black ants, where, WHERE was that chokra fucking fresher?
“Fucking maggot bugger,” he would mutter later, massaging his tender knuckles.
It gave him a fierce, spine-tingling thrill, the hatred stamped in Devanna’s eyes, the impotent anger. Still, it wasn’t enough. He wanted the chokra to … to … fall at his feet, perhaps, to plead to be left alone, please Martin, I beg you, please.
He halted Devanna in the corridor one morning. Devanna’s heart sank. “Good morning, Martin.” Martin said nothing, just cracked his knuckles and stared broodingly at him.
“Martin,” Devanna tried again, trying to keep his voice even. “I need to get to class, may I … ” He gestured past Martin at the first years hurrying along, eyes fixed firmly to the ground. “I need to get to class,” he repeated. Martin said nothing. “Excuse me,” Devanna said and, not sure what else to do, started to walk away.
Martin shot out his arm, blocking his way. “Such little respect,” he murmured. “I was talking to you and you just walk away. And here I am, a senior.”
He turned. “No classes for you today, chokra. I will see you in my room. Now.”
Devanna stood in the middle of the room as Martin’s chums lounged curiously against the walls.
Martin walked slowly up and down, not even looking at Devanna. “So little respect,” he said quietly, picking up the ulna bone that lay on his study table. The second years were in the midst of anatomy lessons and there was a plethora of bones to be found in each of their rooms. Martin caressed the bone, running his fingers over its calcified surface, from proximal to distal end, gently probing the extremities and then slowly back again. The hairs rose on Devanna’s neck.
Martin shook his head, and then suddenly becoming brisk, he turned. “You leave me no choice. Drop your pants, chokra. Drop your pants and bend over.”
Devanna sat huddled on the library floor in the musty anthropology nook. This part of the library was always quiet and deserted. Besides, the rest of the first years were still in class. He sat on the cold floor, hugging his knees to his chest, trying not to shake. “Nothing happened,” he said to himself, over and over. “NOTHING happened.”
Flora Sylvatica. Flora Indica.
The bile rose in his throat and he swallowed hard. “Stop it. STOP IT.” Cold, he was so cold … He began to rock back and forth, his arms wrapped tightly about himself, and the back of his head connected with the library wall. The dull pain of impact, the solidity of the bricks behind him was strangely comforting. He mechanically hit his head against the wall once more, then again. Thud. Thud.
He shut his eyes, willing himself away from the nightmare of the past hours, far from here. The paddy flats of the Nachimanda village. Coorg-Devanna.
Thud.
Thud.
Pain blossomed forth from the center of his forehead, like an orange-petaled flower. Coorg-Devanna, back at the mission. The Pallada village. Look, the grass. Springing beneath his toes. The smell of her hair, a fresh, hibiscus smell.
Devi.
Close they had been, ever since he could remember, like two eggs in a nest.
Chapter 13
Devi laboriously read every one of Devanna’s letters, word by word, translating them for Pallada Nayak, Tayi, and Thimmaya. She saved them all, storing them in the felt-lined box where Muthavva’s jewels were kept.
She read them aloud to Machu, too, when he came secretly to visit, unable to withstand the separation, drawn against every ounce of his will to her side. They met that first time in the hollows by the paddy fields. It was late in the afternoon and the fields were deserted. He stood before her, a hunted, angry look upon his face. Devi reached up, standing on tiptoes to lay a palm against his cheek. He looked away, refusing to meet her eyes. “I had to come,” he said stiffly. “I could not stay away.”
“If you hadn’t, I might have gone mad,” she replied softly.
He said nothing, then glanced ruefully at her. “Huntress.”
They began to meet, as often as they could, most often in the fields that abutted the Nachimanda property, and once, in the late evening, in the lane that led to the house. Devi quoted bits and pieces of Devanna’s letters to him. “So intelligent he is. Always was, from the time we were children. All the teachers used to fawn over him, and rightly so—look at him, he is going to become a doctor. Did you know they work with actual dead bodies? He says so, right here. And did you know … ” Machu would nod, eyes closed, and then he would pull her onto his chest.
“How much do you love me?” she asked him once, impetuously. They were lying side by side in the fields, the paddy waving bright green all around them. Buffaloes wallowed in the stream, and now and again there was a gentle splash as a fish jumped, breached the waters, then fell back in. Butterflies, tiny, pastel winged, flitted here and there, and herons skimmed the afternoon currents.
“Who says I do?”
“Oh, come now. Say it. Tell me how much you love me.”
He shook his head in amusement.
“Tell me, tell me, tell me.”
“Why don’t you tell me instead? How much do you love me, huntress?”
She was silent so long that he opened his eyes to look at her. She had sat up and was staring at the sky, her eyes dreamy. “Loving you is like having wings. Like a massive pair of white wings have been attached to my back, so that my feet no longer touch the ground.” She turned to him, her face aglow. “You?”
He shut his eyes again. “You’re going to get an answer out of me, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” she said simply.
He shook his head and sighed. “Like running.”
“Running?”
“Yes. Through a forest.”
She waited, and when there was nothing more forthcoming, she began to bristle. “Like runni
ng? You love me the way you like a sport? Like running?”
He raised a quizzical eyebrow. “Devi … ”
She was storming to her feet. “Running?”
He reached over and caught her in his arms. “Ayy, tigress,” he said gently. “Yes, like running. Like running through a forest, faster than anyone else can, than anyone ever has. When I run so fast that the trees begin to blur together, when I can almost see the shapes of the veera in their shadows. When my feet move so fast that time, distance, everything else falls away, when all that is left is the magic of the moment, that one moment when I’m carried by the wind.” He looked steadily at her. “This is like that. Time, distance, it all seems to fade, all that matters is this one moment, this time spent with you.”
Chapter 14
In Bangalore, the first term drew to a close and it was at last time for the Freshers Ball. Father Dunleavy kicked off the festivities with his address. “No more,” he warned from the podium. “Ragging season is done, boys.” He looked pointedly at a bland-faced Martin. “I expect all of you to treat each other cordially, as professionals and as gentlemen.”
Later, he summoned Martin into his office. “I have my eye on you, Thomas,” he told him. Any more untoward incidents and proof or not, Martin would have him to answer to. If Devanna in particular were to walk into one more door, he would have no choice but to suspend Martin. Martin had blustered angrily at the unfairness of it all, but had been unable to meet the Father’s eyes.
“Tattletale!” he later raged at Devanna, spittle flecking the latter’s face. “Bloody snitch, I’ll get you for this.” Not daring to lay another hand on Devanna, Martin let it be known through the hostel that from now on, nobody was to acknowledge Devanna’s presence, let alone speak to him. If he saw anyone so much as glance at Devanna, there would be hell to pay.
So thankful was Devanna to be done at last with ragging, or so he believed, that at first he didn’t even realize that he was still being singled out. The Freshers Ball was over, was it not? Ragging season was finally over. He had taken it like a man, paid his dues. He reveled in the stillness about him, at being able to walk the corridors without having to peer anxiously over his shoulders. At being able to have a full night’s sleep without dreading what new torture the day ahead held twisted in its palm.
He turned away from the ordeal of the previous months, willing himself to compact the awful memories, the flailing rage, the bitter hatred he felt for Martin into a hard, dark pellet buried deep inside.
It was finally over.
Slowly though, he began to notice it, the hush that descended as he entered a room. The hubbub would begin self-consciously again, but as soon as Devanna attempted to join a group it melted away. When he sat at a table in the mess, it emptied; when he tried to speak with someone, it was as if his words had fallen on deaf ears. Finally he turned to one of the Indians in his batch, a slight, hardworking student with a prominent overbite. The boy attempted to brush past Devanna, ignoring his questions, but the naked bewilderment in the latter’s expression stopped him. He told him then, hugging his books to his chest as he glanced nervously around him, about Martin’s decree.
Devanna stood shocked as he watched the boy scuttle away, the hatred that he had tried to bury fermenting into a slow, dull fury. What had he ever done to Martin? He would go and demand that he treat Devanna fairly, he would beat Martin’s head in with the heaviest rock he could find, he would—
No. This was beneath him. He took a deep, slow breath, willing himself to calm down. Mission-Devanna knew what he had to do. Let his actions speak for him. He would do nothing, say nothing in retaliation, except for making sure that he was the finest student this college had ever seen.
Yes. He would earn, he would command, the respect of the college.
Devanna pushed himself as hard as he could, but he grossly miscalculated the results. For the more attention the professors lavished on him, the more annoyed his classmates became. The sympathy they had harbored toward him in the previous term was rapidly eroded by the sight of Devanna’s hand in class, perennially in the air. They started to jostle past him in the corridors and openly gibed at him in the dorms. Teacher’s pet, they called him, insufferable brownnoser. Once there was a dead frog in his bed; another time someone poured sulphuric acid over his book of practicals. And still nobody would speak to him.
Confused, Devanna soldiered on, too proud to do any differently, carrying all the while an acid taste in his mouth. He sailed through the final exams and then, finally, it was the last day of the school year.
Devanna set out immediately for Coorg, thinner and taller than when he had left, a scar over his ribs and a permanent discoloration on his lower back from an especially vicious thrashing. Gundert rushed beaming from his study, where he had been standing by the window for the past half hour, ostensibly going through his correspondence but truly waiting for the first glimpse of Devanna at the gates. The novices gathered around Devanna, making much of him, marveling at how tall he had become, but Gundert had immediately noticed the gauntness of his face. There was a tautness about the child, like a spring coiled too tight.
“Everything is in order, Dev, yes?” he probed later, when they were alone in his study. He had placed a special order at the trading shop for the fruitcake that he knew Devanna enjoyed, but the boy had barely touched it.
“I wish I could have come to visit you,” he added. “Believe me, I very much wanted to, but it has been impossible to get away.”
Devanna nodded.
“Dev … ” Gundert tried again. “Is all well? Is there anything you wish to share with me, my child?”
For a split second, it was on the tip of Devanna’s tongue. The brutality of the past year, the wash of black rage he felt whenever he thought of Martin. Why me? he wanted to ask. What have I ever done to that lout? The words locked in his throat, and he looked down at the floor instead. An ant had happened upon the crumbs from the cake and was unsteadily carting its booty across the floor. A slight shift of his foot was all it would take to mash it into oblivion. He glanced briefly at Gundert. “I am well, Reverend,” he said flatly, and returned to his contemplation of the ant’s progress.
“You know you can come to me with anything, child.” Gundert paused, troubled by the brittleness in Devanna’s voice and searching for the right words. “I have known you since you were in half pants and about this high.” He smiled and held his hand a couple of feet from the floor, but Devanna did not notice. He nudged at the ant with his shoe, watching as the creature wobbled and then, righting itself, began to scurry across the floor. Gundert slowly let his hand drop. “Dev … ,” he said yet again, “if there is anything I can do, my son, any way that I might be of help, remember all you have to do is ask.” Devanna was silent, then he looked up at the Reverend and nodded. The ant hurried away, disappearing safely into a crack in the floorboards.
“Come,” said Gundert, trying to ignore his sense of disquiet, “a little poetry, that is what this evening has been lacking.” Selecting a volume from the bookshelf, he began to read aloud.
On a poet’s lips I slept
Dreaming like a love-adept
In the sound his breathing kept…
At first Devanna merely listened, the familiar cadence of the Reverend’s voice soothing him, sanding down the jagged, exposed snarl of his thoughts. Gradually, his own lips began rustily to move, keeping time with the beloved words:
He will watch from dawn to gloom,
The lake-reflected sun illume
The yellow bees in the ivy-bloom.
He slept through that night, for the first time in a long while, lulled into an exhausted, dreamless sleep.
Still, it was only the next day, when he finally saw Devi and heard her wild whoop of joy, that the shadows webbing his eyes began at last to lift. The sweep of the fields. Tayi’s smoke-filled kitchen. The tiny mole by the side of Devi’s mouth, a canopy of forest trees against a cerulean sky. These things seeped i
nto his consciousness like rain into parched earth, bringing to life the words that had lain dormant within him all this past year. Devanna began to speak again. He talked almost without taking a breath, the sentences pouring from him in an unending, sometimes disjointed stream, as if they might bury the unhappiness of the past year in their stead.
At first Devi was all ears, alternating between amusement and fascination as he described endless, imaginary vignettes of college life. “So many friends I have there,” he boasted, “and I told you, didn’t I, how I topped the last exams? You should see the way they all clamor after me. ‘Dev, come to dinner with us.’ ‘Dev, interested in a spot of tennis, join us at the Cubbon?’”
Devi laughed fondly.
Egged on by her interest, he began to spin ever larger yarns, the sophistry of Bangalore growing by leaps and bounds in his accounts. “Really, Devi,” he said to her time and again, “if only you could see the city.”
“Hmmm,” she said at last, “I am sure it is very fancy there in the city, but surely our Mercara is not so bad?”
He stared incredulously at her. “Mercara? My dear girl, you know nothing. Once you have seen Bangalore—why, Mercara is nothing more than a sleepy, provincial little town!”
Devi jumped to her feet, stung by his pomposity. “Maybe I like sleepy little towns,” she retorted, “because I’ve no desire to see your precious Bangalore.”
He called, stricken, after her. “No, Devi, wait, that is not what I meant.” A lump rose in his throat as he scrambled behind her. “You don’t know how much I wanted to … how I waited to … Devi, wait … ”
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