Devi turned away from him, her heart pounding.
“Come away with me,” Machu said to her once.
“Where?”
“Away. Anywhere.”
“And live in sin? You know you would not be happy with that.” She bit her lip as soon as she uttered the words. She knew how deeply it shamed him, the fact that he had not completed his vow. There had been less than a year before the stipulated twelve years were up, and yet he had chosen to be with her, choosing her over his God.
“Besides,” she added quickly, tilting her head from where it lay on his chest to squint at the sun glinting through the leaves. “This is your land.”
He was silent a long while. “Many years ago,” he said, “when I was a lad, there was a meeting of the council of the elders. A man from the adjoining village was on trial. Thievery. His crime was appropriating nine acres of land that had been entrusted to his brother. Kambeymada Nayak presided over the trial. It was the evening hour, I remember. From all directions, from all the villages under the Nayak’s command, people were coming down the hills toward the village green. The cattle were being herded back to their sheds for the night, and you could see their heads bobbing over the hills, hear the faint sound of their bells. That was the only sound, for each of us was silent, completely silent, overwhelmed by the gravity of the situation and waiting for the sentence that we knew must befall the accused.
“The man stood before the elders, his back straight. Stripped of his peechekathi and odikathi; they lay to a side, in the dust. The Nayak rose to his feet and recited the man’s crime. Did he agree to the charges? ‘Yes,’ the man said simply, scorning to lie, his shame written plainly upon his face. ‘We have reached a decision,’ the Nayak continued gravely. ‘For his crime, the accused must be punished. From the onset of the next dawn, none may offer the accused either wood or water, throughout the length and breadth of our land.’”
Machu paused, his eyes distant. “The man stood for an instant. And then he crumpled, Devi, he simply crumpled to the ground, like a bison whose knees had been hacked off. All his composure gone, he curled up and cried like a child.”
Neither wood nor water. Devi rubbed the gooseflesh prickling her arm. Neither wood nor water. She knew what that meant. Able to claim neither food nor shelter anywhere in Coorg, the accused had been banished, excommunicated forever.
“This is your land,” she repeated unhappily. “Your heart is here, you would wither away anywhere else.”
“With you. My heart is with you.” They turned toward each other again.
They grew more reckless, staying longer and longer in the arbor, holding onto one another, each acutely aware of the minutes ticking by but unwilling to be the first to break the spell. Invariably, it would be Machu. “We should go,” he would say resignedly. “They will start to wonder where you are.” They stole deep kisses in the attic and sometimes in the early morning, in the inner courtyard, right under the noses of the sleeping family. They became careless. Once one of the children awoke crying, and swore he had seen a ghost flit through the house; another time Machu left a mark on her neck that was too high for her blouse to hide. She had pulled her plait forward over her shoulder, but it had slipped aside as she was serving the rice. One of the women had noticed and nudged her mischievously. “Been keeping you awake, has he?” she asked, winking toward Devanna. Devi looked at Devanna with a beating heart, but luckily the Nayak had drawn him into a discussion about the accounts and he didn’t hear.
Inevitably, a cold, hard discontent began to set in.
“Does he touch you here?” Machu whispered, as he traced a path down her neck. “Or here? Or here? Can he make you feel this way?”
“Stop it,” Devi said. “I’ve told you, don’t bring Devanna into this.”
“Oh?” Machu raised a cynical eyebrow. “So now we are not even allowed to talk about your husband?
“I am your plaything, aren’t I, Devi?” he asked into the silence a while later. “A lover to be dallied with, alongside your precious husband.”
Devi left the arbor in tears.
“Why didn’t you wait for me?” he asked despairingly another time. Devi looked down at her hands in silence. She had promised Tayi. Besides, it was too late now. She knew how he would react if she told him, the blind, unthinking rage he would unleash upon Devanna. The scandal that would soon spread through the length and breadth of Coorg. The taint upon Nanjappa. Whose son was he? they would ask snidely, as they looked askance at the child. And at her.
A rotten tooth, picked over by many toothpicks.
“Devi—” Machu began again. She reached up, silencing his lips with her own.
The days began to get cooler. Their fights grew more frequent, the endless, exhausting subterfuge eating away at them. Baby Nanju learned to walk; quick as a sardine, the women said he was, toddling off to goodness-knows-where in the blink of an eye. The ball-flower bushes turned golden with bloom, and winter yams grew spongy and fat. Soon, it was time once more in the Kambeymada home for the annual ancestor propitiations.
The mystic invited especially for the occasion all the way from Kerala ponderously donned his gear on the verandah, a gaggle of openmouthed children following his every move. He painted his face into an exaggerated mask of black, white, red, and green, accentuating his eyes with a thick outline of black that stretched all the way to his temples. His headdress was at least a foot high, made of gauzy indigo netting that glinted in the dusk. He wore a long-sleeved tunic of white, and over this he fastened a voluminous skirt of hay that reached to his ankles. Finally he tied a girdle of sticks around his waist, overlaying the hay skirt, pushing out and away from his body. A little brass cup was tied to the end of each stick into which Devi and other women of the house placed cotton wicks and spoonfuls of oil.
The sun disappeared in a boil of red, and the evening crickets began contemplatively to click their wings. The children were bathed and fed. The prayer room and the ancestor corner had been decorated with flowers. The scent of jasmine wafted through the room. Faintly queasy, Devi went outside to the verandah for a breath of fresh air. The courtyard was filling up already with people from the Kambeymada village and those surrounding it who had come to receive blessings from the oracle. She looked about her surreptitiously, but of Machu there was no sign. They had had another row the previous afternoon. She hadn’t been able to get away from the kitchen soon enough, and when she finally did he was in a black mood. She had reached toward him with placatory kisses, but he had been bitter. “The kitchen, or was it your husband who delayed you?”
They had fought then, and it had been particularly bad. Tears pricked behind Devi’s eyes even now as she remembered.
“Why?” he had asked her yet again. “Why, when you swore to stand by me, why could you suddenly wait no longer?” Once again, she had nothing to say.
“Let’s end it,” he had said, a deep weariness in his voice. “Let’s end this, Devi, there is no future to it.”
She bit her lip and anxiously scanned the courtyard again. He had gone missing the previous evening, had been gone all day. Surely he would not miss the propitiations tonight?
Night rolled in to the hills, and torches flared alive from the pillars along the verandah. Bats flitted overhead as the slow, rolling beat of drums began to reverberate through the dark. The mystic stepped weightily into the courtyard to the collective intake of breath by the crowd. He stood there quivering, as the women lit the wicks in his girdle, his mighty frame vibrating in time to the drums. And then, as the beats got faster, he began to spin, slowly at first and then faster and faster, a vast, moving circle of lamps about his middle, the headdress glimmering in the firelight, his eyes flashing in his painted face.
Round the courtyard he went in his ring of fire, once, another time, and yet another. He entered the house, spinning from room to room, bowing his head before the ancestor corner and then whirling back into the courtyard. Again and again he spun, people jostling with one
another to pour their offerings of oil into his girdle of lamps as the relentless beat of the drums continued. The stones of the courtyard grew slippery from the spilled oil. Sleepy children were lifted into arms or put to bed inside the house, and still the mystic spun, inviting the head ancestor of the Kambeymadas to speak from his body.
Finally, many hours later, it was done. The oracle’s eyes rolled backward in his skull as the spirit of the ancestor descended into his body and began to speak. The guests were invited to ask their questions first, and it was while the oracle was answering them that Devi saw Machu. He had materialized silently sometime during the proceedings. From where or when she had no idea, but there he was on the verandah not five feet from where she stood, staring steadily at her.
Devi smiled apprehensively at him—Please let us leave yesterday behind us—the late hour and the strain of an entire day of worrying, of wondering jealously where he was, making her less circumspect than she might otherwise have been. The full force of her feelings displayed beseechingly, eloquently, in her eyes for all who cared to see. They stood there, the both of them, in plain view of the entire family, drinking one another in. And then Machu looked away, deliberately flicking his gaze away from hers. Devi flinched as if he had reached across and struck her. She swallowed and looked out into the night, blaming her smarting eyes upon the smoke.
Across the verandah, Devanna stood immobile in the shadows.
When it was time for the Kambeymadas to seek the oracle’s blessings, the Nayak went first. He thanked the ancestor for descending from the heavens to grace them with his presence. He thanked him for the bountiful harvest, for the birth of another grandson, for the continued prosperity of the family. Bless us all, he asked, bless us with your provenance. They went forward then, the rest of the Kambeymadas, couple after couple seeking the ancestor’s blessings, asking him their questions. Would their child pass the coming examinations? Would a job application in Mercara be accepted? Would there be a proposal for a daughter?
When finally it was Devi and Devanna’s turn, she did not notice how stiffly he walked at her side. She bowed before the oracle, her heart leaden. “What is this?” the oracle suddenly roared, shocking the crowd into silence. “Husband and wife, I said. Husband and wife. Where is your man?” he demanded, training bloodshot eyes on Devi.
“I … here, he is right here.”
“No. No!” cried the oracle impatiently. “Where is your man? You—” He swung abruptly toward the rest of the family, who stared nonplussed at him. “A tragedy,” he roared, his entire frame quivering. “I warn you, a tragedy!”
They stared at him aghast, the courtyard completely still. The Nayak was the first to recover, pulling Devi and Devanna away from the oracle as he urged the next couple forward. The drumbeats started up again. Devi was shaking. “Don’t worry, kunyi,” the Nayak comforted her, although his own voice was troubled. “It happens sometimes; the oracle says things that we cannot understand.” Devanna was very quiet.
Devi fled inside the house to calm herself. Pressing clammy hands to her cheeks, she stood trembling by the crib and her sleeping son. “Where is your man?” he had asked. How had he known? The scent of jasmine was clogging her nostrils.
Devanna came up behind her and shut the door. Devi whirled around. “It’s Machu, isn’t it?”
Devi looked down at Nanju. Stay silent, her brain warned.
“It’s Machaiah. How could I have not seen it before? Have you, have you both been … ” Devanna stopped, unable even to voice the words, but he knew the answer already, knew the secret behind his wife’s happiness of the past months.
“Do you love him?”
Stay silent. Devi slowly looked up at Devanna, her eyes swimming with tears. “I always have. From the time I first saw him. You remember, the tiger wedding … it has always been him.”
Devanna’s lips twisted into a smile. “And I have always loved you. Ever since I can remember.”
He stood there, looking at her, an immense sadness in his eyes. “How did it come to this? This hatred … I cannot bear it, Devi.”
Devi shook her head and swallowed, trying to compose herself. “Devanna, please. I … it’s been a very long day. Can we talk about it tomorrow?”
He started to say something, stopped. That strained smile again, and then Devanna nodded. “If that is what you want.”
Devi wiped her eyes. “We should go out. People will wonder … as it is, the oracle said those things—”
“Yes. People will talk.”
He moved away from the door and opened the latch. “Go on,” he told her, “I will just be a minute.”
Devanna looked at his son for a long time. He bent and gently kissed the downy head. The scent of jasmine was in the air. He steadily climbed the stairs to the attic and took a gun from the gun rack. The light from the courtyard was reflected in strange, fire-red shapes upon the attic windows. He could hear the muffled beat of the drums. It has always been him.
“You are free, Devi,” he said clearly, and then, resting the gun on the floor and aiming its barrel at his chest, Devanna pulled the trigger.
MACHU
Chapter 19
1901
Machu scraped the edge of the blade a final time against the stone. He held it up to the light, and the sun pounced on the newly sharpened edge, bursting from the finely honed surface. He held it there for a second, noting the sparks shooting along its length.
It was time.
Moving with great deliberation, he bent toward the Kaveri, cupped some water in his hands, and splashed it over his face. He shut his eyes for a moment. His mind was purposefully blank, a black void behind his eyes, an erasure of all that was past. Swamiye Ayappa, I give back to you what you bestowed. And then, raising the blade, trusting his reflection in the rippling water to guide his hand, Machu began steadily to shave off his galla meesé, the badge of honor bestowed on but a chosen few, the sideburns he had sported for the past decade that marked him as a conqueror of tigers.
The fields were bare, shorn bald of their crop, the dark underbelly of soil naked and exposed to the winter sun. The land held the quiet of the afternoon in its palm, not a stray bark nor even a distant clunk of a cowbell to be heard. There was not a person in sight, none to glance wonderingly toward him or attempt to stay his hand.
Take it back, take it all back, I am not worthy.
A kingfisher dived toward the river, a brilliant blur of blue slicing into the water to emerge triumphant a moment later, a tiny koilé fish slithering desperately in its beak. The hunter and the hunted. This was the natural order of things, was it not?
And he had hunted a tiger, the greatest hunter of them all. Yet with what ease he himself had been taken.
It had been the nape of her neck. The first, fatal hook. The smooth-skinned grace of it, all but obscured by the braid that swung to her hips. She had thrust past him at the Kaveri tank, the very picture of determination, and his spurt of irritation was swiftly replaced by amusement. And then, as she had wedged herself before him, he had found himself unable to tear his eyes away. Following every dip of light and shadow, the interplay of muscle beneath the translucent skin as she craned her neck this way and that. He had shut his eyes for only a brief moment in prayer; when they opened, she was tilting slowly toward the water. The compactness of her waist, fitting neatly into the span of his hands.
And the shock, the bone-jarring jolt he had felt when finally he had looked into the perfection of her face.
She had startled him with her forthrightness. By your side, she had said, up on the mountain peak, silhouetted against the clouds. Here is where I belong. Those eyes, staring at him, with not a trace of guile or embarrassment.
He had tried to convince himself of the foolishness of his obsession. Tried to persuade himself after the festival that he had exaggerated the memory of her; that nobody could possibly be as bewitching. She was spoiled, he reminded himself, even as his feet made their way to her father’s house
. A willful child-woman. And then she had walked out onto the verandah, a flash of red tucked into her plait, and all he could think about was pulling out that flower, petal by petal, letting loose that silken weight of hair till it tumbled freely down her back.
He had left her home abruptly, for the first time in his life afraid. Of what he might do or say if he was around her too long, shaken by this tongue-melting heat, this untenable tenderness she managed to evoke in him by just one long-lashed glance.
At least his face had betrayed nothing, he was sure of that.
And then Machu had started to laugh, doubled over on the trail at the bitter absurdity of it all. What a fool he was, behaving like a lovelorn yokel. There were three years for the vow to be over. How could he ask her to wait for so long? It was just an absurd obsession; it would pass.
He had stayed stubbornly away through the slow sludge of the next months, blocking her from memory. And then a heron would take sudden wing, its neck held elegantly against the clouds, bringing to mind an unbidden, heart-stopping flash of her. Ah, it was foolish, he would insist to himself, turning away. This. Made. No. Sense. Then, the sight of her at the feast, even lovelier than he had remembered.
The sharp flush of pleasure as he had felt her eyes following him, the thrill as he had realized that she, too, had been unable to forget. He had been amused at first at her blatant efforts to make him jealous. Deliberately turning his back on her, enjoying their little game. Then despite himself, he had grown angry.
Why did she insist on taking matters so far, making eyes at every poor fool who crossed her path? Fickle-hearted tramp, he had cursed silently to himself. She knew full well the effect she had on those hapless idiots. And on him. Or did she even care? He had looked worriedly toward her then, but she was busy twirling her plait at some slack-jawed oaf. Machu’s fingers had tightened around his drink.
She had looked at him that night in the lane that led to her home, with the same guilelessness he had tried so hard to forget. I will wait for you, she had said. I am yours, forever.
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