Tiger Hills

by Sarita Mandanna

  The English had their velvet-curtained club; the Coorgs frequented the palm-frond-thatched shack that lay at the entrance to Mercara. The old woman owner ran it with a canny hand. She knew to keep a continuous supply of potent, home-brewed arrack coming to her customers, while at the same time keeping their stomachs filled with generous helpings of dosas, masala chops, and chicken-liver fry to take the edge off the liquor. Machu took another swallow of the arrack, feeling it burn along his veins. Coming to the arrack shack was the one bright spot in this otherwise misbegotten day.

  After weeks of coming home empty-handed, he had downed a brace of rabbits and a young deer that morning. He had skinned the game, and his wife had hung the meat over the hearth to cure in the smoke of the kitchen fire. Machu had brought the skins immediately into Mercara to sell. It had not gone well. “Ten rupees,” the buyer had said, an air of finality about him, and no matter what Machu said, he would not budge.

  Ten measly rupees—what would that buy them? Game had been scarce all this season. These days, without land to call his own or a job with the government, it was hard for a man to care for his family. Ten rupees. Cursing under his breath, Machu lifted the pot of arrack to his mouth again.

  “Machu! Ayy, Machu!” He turned toward the acquaintance approaching him. “What’s this? Not four in the afternoon and you’ve already begun?” The man slapped him on the shoulder, laughing. “No matter, whether in your joy, or in your sorrow, whichever the case might be, I’ll keep you company.”

  “Yes. Win or lose, we shall booze,” Machu said wryly, and the man guffawed.

  He shook his head when Machu told him about the sale. “Too difficult, everything is too difficult these days. How is a body to manage? Paddy prices are next to nothing and coffee yields are still low. By the way,” he griped, “heard about that woman Devi?”

  Machu grimaced. He had. Many times.

  But not to be deterred, the man launched into yet another account of how Devi had managed to get unheard-of prices at Mincing Lane. Not today, Machu thought to himself. Not with the disappointment over the skins compounding the financial worry that seemed to hang constantly over his head. Today, the very mention of her name cut deeply.

  He had married well, Machu knew. His wife was virtuous and dutiful, her devotion to him written all over her pretty face. What more could a man possibly want? And yet, it was someone else who haunted him, dancing tantalizingly through his dreams. “What is it?” his wife would whisper as he jerked awake, night after night. “Do you want some water?” Machu would say nothing as he lay there, staring blindly into the night, and then he would reach for her, pulling her toward him. He would take her, with a force born of desperation, a passion that rendered him spent.

  And yet it lingered, the pungent after-odor of loss.

  He tilted the pot of arrack to his mouth, drained it, and threw it to the floor. “Enough,” he said to his companion, cutting him short as went on and on about coffee prices. “If I hear another word about coffee, or the Nari Malai estate, it will be one word too many. So I don’t have any land. You think I regret it? Not for an instant.”

  “I never—” protested his companion, but Machu wasn’t listening.

  He rose, steady on his feet despite the arrack sloshing about his insides. “You think I cannot provide for my family? Watch this. Ayy.” Summoning the server, Machu dipped his hand into his pocket and drew out the ten coins from that morning. Picking off one, two, three, four, five coins, he dropped them with a flourish into the palm of the stunned boy who promptly prostrated himself at the feet of his benefactor.

  “Get up, get up,” Machu said irritably, and then struck by a sudden notion, he raised his head proudly and began to chant.

  Be blessed and listen O friend, listen to this singer’s song

  In the depths of these jungles, in this wild heartland

  A tiger roamed fiercely hungry all day, all night long.

  He chanted the tiger song, his eyes fierce, as if recalling something irrevocably lost. The timbre of his voice lent a wild, untrammeled beauty to the words, rendering the occupants of the shack into silence. And then, struck by the absurdity of it all, Machu started to laugh. He stopped just long enough to nod good-bye to his companion. “Watch, just you watch,” he called, making his way down the steps of the shack.

  About a month before, Machu had been approached by one of the men for whom he hunted. They were looking for good men to join the army, the Englishman had told him, why didn’t Machu consider it? At the time, Machu had brushed the offer aside. Leave Coorg? Never.

  But now, it seemed to make sense. Squaring his shoulders and lifting his head to the sky, Machu made his way to the local garrison.

  Even when the effects of the arrack wore off, Machu knew he had made the right decision by enlisting. It had been the sensible thing to do. “New beginnings,” Machu said to himself, as he fastened the regulation breeches. “New beginnings.”

  Nonetheless, it was difficult to leave, especially to bid his son farewell. Appu looked up at him, his brown toddler eyes questioning. “When will you come back?”

  “Soon, monae, I promise.” He hugged his son to his chest. “Take care of your mother,” Machu told him. “You will look after her while I am gone, yes?”

  Appu nodded solemnly. “When you return, I want toys. Lots of toys.”

  Machu grinned, the dimple flashing in his cheek. He scooped Appu into his arms, swinging around and around with him until the child squealed with laughter.

  He looked fondly down at his wife, stroking her hair as she clung to his chest and wept. “Come now. What is this foolishness? I will come back soon, will I not? Now tell me—the sari that I shall bring you, what color would you like?”

  That afternoon, Machu was very quiet as he and the other new recruits filed past the Coorg border toward Mysore. He took a deep breath, saturating his lungs with the jungle smells of mulch and game he had loved all his life. The sky was overcast with clouds, his ancestors crowding and tripping over themselves to bid him farewell. A flock of herons took silent wing, launching themselves into the air from some secret, paddy-covered fell. Machu watched, a catch in his throat, as the birds swept low and languid over the column.

  He was leaving it all behind, everything he held dear.

  It was time, however. Time for all of them to move forward.

  Machu was assigned to the 20th Lancers in Madras. Not two weeks later, he found himself standing stiffly to attention, staring straight ahead at the wall in front of him. It had been painstakingly whitewashed, all the better to show off the medals that were hung on it. Squares, stars, circles, ovals, and rectangles, all mounted proudly upon velvet and displayed in glass cases. The heat of the plains pressed in from the open windows, wrapping itself around him. The tamarind trees outside were perfectly still, mynahs wilting from its branches. There in the distance, the bass note of the sea as it boomed against the shore. Sweat beaded Machu’s spine under his khaki shirt, coursing maddeningly down his back.

  “So,” Major Climo said to him, “you are a renowned hunter, I hear. Killed a tiger using only a sword?”

  Machu’s Hindustani was still rusty. “Yes,” he flatly replied.

  “That will be ‘Yes, sir’ to you, soldier.”

  “Yes … sir.”

  “We are lucky to have you it seems.” The Major took off his glasses and, blowing once on each lens, began to polish them. “And you are privileged to be part of the Twentieth Lancers. We are a proud division, Sepoy Machaiah. One of the finest.” He gestured at the wall behind him. “Sudan. South Africa. Cambodia. These medals you see? There are more. Our officers and men have earned a Victoria Cross, two OBEs, and five MentionsIn-Despatch. Wherever we have traveled, we have held our heads high and struck terror into the hearts of our foes. Sabse achha. The finest, soldier, we strive to be the finest.

  “And how do you think we have achieved this exemplary record? Discipline. Through all the tasks that might not be to our liking.
Why, you see this very wall, how white it is, despite the sea air? It is whitewashed every Saturday. Each and every Saturday, without fail. Discipline, soldier.”

  Machu’s eyes flickered briefly over the brilliant whiteness of the wall, but his face remained impassive. Major Climo was continuing. “It is part of your duties as a soldier with the Twentieth to care for the officer you are assigned to. You are to draw the water for his bath, turn down his bedclothes at night, lay out his kit in the morning, and see to it that his shoes and belt are polished to a shine. And what’s more, you will take pride in it, soldier.”

  A muscle twitched in Machu’s jaw. This was not why he had joined the army. A soldier was meant to fight, to wage war, to live and to die with his head held high. Where was the soldierliness, the honor, in scraping the boots of another? No, he had refused that morning, I am no servant, and Major Climo had summoned him to his office.

  The Major put his glasses back on and looked at Machu. “So. Which will it be, then? Do I have you thrown in the stockade for insubordination, or are you going to see reason? Come now, soldier. You are more of a man than this pettiness would indicate.”

  Machu said nothing.

  “So. We have decided, then.” The Major became brisk. “I have assigned you to Lieutenant Balmer. You should be proud to be his batman.”

  Machu snapped his heels to attention, startling the mynahs on the tamarind tree into a brief, breathless flurry of motion. Saluting the officer, he marched from the tent.

  Climo’s words impressed themselves on him, but it was not easy. Discipline, he told himself, discipline, but sometimes when he lay awake in his barracks, humiliation arose in him like dank, rotting scum afloat upon a forest sinkhole. His fists would curl in disgust. How far he had fallen. The tiger killer, reduced to doing the work of a menial.

  Then Machu would remind himself of the reason he was there. He would think of his wife, the stiff shoulders of his son as they had waved him good-bye.

  At least Lieutenant Balmer was a good lad. He treated Machu with a curious mixture of deference and authority, acknowledging the stiff-backed pride of the older man while conducting himself with a dignity that impressed Machu in spite of himself. He had once asked Balmer how old he was, and had shaken his head in amazement. Only twenty-two? Ayappa Swami!

  Balmer had smiled. “Why? I am hardly younger than most of the officers here.”

  Machu shook his head. “You must be very good indeed, to be leading so many men at such a raw age.”

  That night, Machu lay awake mulling over the lieutenant. It all came down to education, he decided. Look at Devanna, he had almost become a doctor. A doctor. Machu still remembered in what high esteem he had been held by the family. He grimaced in the darkness. Why, even Devi had chosen … Devi.

  A memory floated unbidden into Machu’s mind. They were lying on the floor of the arbor, her eyes limpid and smiling from their lovemaking. A sudden breeze rustled through the laburnum trees, shaking free vast handfuls of petals that spiraled down toward them. Devi sat up, running her arms in wonder through the swirling yellow. The petals fell thickly upon her hair, layering her upturned forehead and outstretched arms, sliding thickly over her bare breasts, till she seemed to Machu like a wood sprite, something other-worldly, carved from the trees themselves. She had turned to him and said something in English. “What?” Machu asked, startled, and she laughed merrily.

  “Poetry,” she said. “In Inglis. A hostoff goldun daffadils. It is very well known, you should recite it to the white folk you hunt for.”

  He had been ashamed of his ignorance, and had masked it with a scoff. “As if you know Inglis. You babble something or other and expect me to believe … ”

  But she was in too good a mood to be baited. Lifting handfuls of petals from the grass and from her lap she had flung them at him, laughing all the while.

  With an effort, Machu brought his thoughts back to the present. Discipline, he told himself, discipline. He lay still, steadying his breathing. Ayappa Swami, when would this end? He passed a hand over his chest. Over two years since he had seen her, and yet…

  He forced his mind back to his conversation with Balmer and thought of his pay accruing rupee by rupee. If there is one thing I will accomplish in this life, Machu promised himself, it will be to make sure that Appu is well educated. One day, one day, maybe Appu will be an officer himself.

  Slowly, crafting grand plans for his son, for the children to follow, Machu fell asleep. His dreams that night were filled with drifts of laburnum petals, floating softly down.

  Chapter 24

  A breeze gusted through the trees that bordered the bricked-over drying yard, shaking the laburnum petals free from their branches. They floated over the workers weighing the coffee beans, drifting bright yellow into the gunny sacks. Devi held out a palm to the falling petals as she supervised the weighing. Struck by a sudden notion, she examined the skin on her hands. How she had tanned! She had begun to spend even more time on the estate, the sun basting her once-porcelain skin to a light olive tint. Tayi, Appaiah, Chengappa anna—they all said she was working far in excess of what was required, but they did not understand. She needed to be here in the estate, come rain, thunder, or shine. Otherwise, these good-for-nothing workers would take the first chance they got to loll about beneath the trees, smoking their beedis.

  She looked with satisfaction at the rows of bags, filled to bursting with coffee. Iguthappa Swami had favored them once again that year. She would ask the owner of the clothing store in Mercara to send a selection of his wares to the house, she mused. Devanna and Nanju needed new shirts and trousers. She would buy shirts for her father and brother, too, and a couple of saris for Tayi. She mustn’t forget Tukra and his wife; they had been indispensable this past year. A shirt for Tukra, she thought, and a sari for his wife.

  “Ayy,” she shouted at one of the coffee pickers, “tie the sack properly, or the beans will spill. Must I do everything myself ?” Shaking her head, Devi went over to him to show him how it should be done.

  Some months later, after the crop was sold, she heard of two more estates on the market. “I am thinking of buying them,” she told Devanna, more a statement than a question. “It’s a stretch, but I think it is doable.” Devanna nodded. When they went to get the papers registered, Devanna had the estates listed in Devi’s name. She gave no indication she had noticed, but she clutched the papers tightly in her hands all the way home.

  With these new purchases and the improvement in Devi’s circumstances, there came a remarkable turnaround in her standing in the community. Invitations to weddings, and naming and housewarming ceremonies, virtually nonexistent for the past few years, now poured in. Devi refused almost all of them. She had not even been to the Kambeymada village, not since the Nayak’s funeral. When Puthari came around that December, she quietly told Devanna that he ought to go. “You are well enough now,” she pointed out. “Tukra can help you. Take Nanju with you and go.” There was nothing there for her anymore.

  She could no longer clearly see Machu’s face; it floated in and out of her memory like shadows cast by an afternoon sun. Sometimes, when the yearning became acute, she would ask offhandedly after the Kambeymadas. Was all well with them? she would ask, with so many acres of coffee to manage, she had no time to go anywhere these days. Sometimes among the many bushels of useless chatter, there would be a nugget about Machu.

  She heard that he had joined the army. That he had been stationed in the garrison at Mercara for a few weeks and then transferred outside Coorg. Madras, some said; Mysore, said others. Devi hoarded each new piece of information, examining it carefully from all angles as she bent over her coffee bushes. She tried to imagine him in hot, flat Madras. How you must miss these hills, she thought. The sea that lapped at Madras’s shores would be poor consolation, Devi knew.

  She saw him that summer, in Mercara. It was the child she spotted first, standing alone in the shade of the ammunitions store. Just one glance and she knew
immediately. For a moment she could barely breathe. Those same golden-brown eyes, the identical dimple. Machu in miniature. She sank upon her haunches in front of the boy, uncaring of her sari trailing in the dust. “What is your name, monae?”

  He looked curiously at her, none of the flinching shyness her own child would have shown. “Appu.”

  She nodded achingly, fighting the urge to tousle his hair. “So tell me, Kambeymada Appu, who are you here with?”

  “Appaiah.”

  Devi swallowed. “Your father? Is that so, kunyi? Where, inside the shop?” Machu must be here on his furlough. “Is … is he here long?”

  “Yes. No … don’t know … ” Appu replied, losing interest. A thought struck him. “Do you have toys?” he asked.

  Devi smiled tremulously, reaching into her blouse. Pulling out a roll of rupees, she pressed a ten-rupee note into his hand. “I don’t. But here, this is for you. Tell your father to buy you lots of toys, you hear?”

  She rose hurriedly to her feet so the child wouldn’t notice the wetness in her eyes, then crossed the street. She stood in a storefront, apparently entranced by a window display of bonnets. Would he see her? Would he cross the street to speak with her? Her hair, she must … She anxiously patted her curls back into their plait, watching in the glass as Machu came out, pocketing a carton of buckshot. He looked puzzled at the money in the boy’s fist, and then looked around him, searching for the mysterious benefactor. Devi bolted inside the store, heart pounding.

  “Yes?” the proprietor asked, looking perplexed at her sari-clad figure. “May I interest you in some bonnets, madam?”

  “No … no, I am just … ” Her eyes glued to the window, Devi watched as Machu strode down the street and disappeared from sight.

  Chapter 25

  1908