“My work,” he wrote to the authorities, with painful, arthritic fingers, “is here.”
Devanna was limping toward the house one sunny, golden evening, carting a bag of eggshells that he had been crushing into the rose beds when he stopped, shading his eyes as he looked toward the drive. An Austin stood parked there, the black gloss of its chassis evident despite the dust. He sighed. Yet another guest come to remark on the garden. He made his reluctant way to the verandah, where Devi’s expression told him at once that the guests were discussing something entirely different.
“Mr. Devanna.” It was Gordon Braithwaite, a beefy stranger by his side. “May I introduce you to Colonel Bidders?”
Devanna shook the gentleman’s hand, murmuring a welcome and easing himself awkwardly into a cane chair.
“Surely you’ve heard,” Braithwaite was saying, “of Bidders Academy?” Indeed Devanna had. It was a school for boys, very prestigious, located in the low hills of Ootacamund, about a hundred and fifty miles south of Coorg. He nodded and looked curiously at the Colonel.
Bidders, it turned out, was on a quest. The school had been in operation for some time now, with the last five graduating classes having done rather well for themselves at Trinity and Balliol. However, he said, taking a large swallow of freshly squeezed orange juice, he wanted more Indians to enroll.
“Captain Balmer,” he said. “I don’t know if you’re familiar with the name?” Devanna shook his head, bemused. “Retired now. Early retirement from the army after the Frontier affair of 1908. Saw action at Mohmand with the Lancers. Quite a battle from all accounts. He was promoted immediately after, but war injuries prevented him from serving much longer. He’s back in England now. Decent chap, met him in London earlier this year.” He had another go at the juice.
“Told him about my upcoming trip to Coorg, which is when he talked to me about his orderly. Also from Coorg … ” The Colonel fished about in his pocket for a square of paper. “Ah. Sepoy Machaiah.
“Balmer is convinced that the only reason he is alive is because of the Sepoy’s actions. Says he tried to get the man a citation of bravery after the battle. Unfortunately too few survivors, no eyewitnesses except for Balmer’s account, and he had been grievously wounded himself, hard even for him to know what was true and what he’d imagined … Still, when I told him about my plans to visit Coorg—superb hunting in these parts,” the Colonel added, beaming, “took down two bison last week—Balmer talked to me about the Sepoy’s son. I hear you have taken the orphan under your wing. What do you think about enrolling the boy in my academy?”
Devanna glanced, troubled, at Devi. She was sitting ramrod-straight in her chair, her hands twisting the ends of her sari.
“No need to decide now, of course,” Bidders added, fanning himself with his sola topee, “but do give it some thought. Our academy can offer the boy so much more than a local school can, no offense to the mission.”
“Well.” Braithwaite slapped his hands on his thighs. “A pleasure as always, Mrs. Devanna,” he said, beaming. He turned to Devanna. “May I trouble you for a quick look at your phlox before I take my leave? The wife has heard so much about it, it would behoove me well to give her an account.”
“Yes, yes, of course.” Devanna stood up, fumbling with his walking stick.
Devanna showed them around the garden. After seeing them off with cuttings of phlox and orchids, he waited, a hand raised in farewell, as the Austin turned out of the gates. Devi was sitting on the verandah where they had left her, staring unhappily into space.
“Devi,” he said, “he doesn’t have to go.”
“You heard what he said,” she responded heavily. “It’s one of the finest schools available.”
“The hostel …,” he began, as Martin Thomas’s face loomed suddenly from the past. He swatted at a bee that had drunkenly followed him in from the phlox. “The hostel,” he repeated, trying to keep his voice even. “The ragging can get … it can be hard.”
She gave a small noncommittal shrug, her eyes clouded. “You know he can take care of himself.”
“No. You don’t know, you have no idea how bad it can get. He doesn’t need to go.” His voice was sharp now. “The mission school is fine. At least we have him here with us.”
She turned to look at him then, still abstracted.
“The ragging,” Devanna said again. “If they give him a rough time there … ”
“Everyone likes Appu,” she said wearily, standing up to leave.
She announced the decision at the dining table a week later.
“The Bidders Academy? Really?”
“Yes.” She tried to smile, placing another otti on Appu’s already full plate. “You will join them next term.”
“The Bidders Academy? Avvaiah, they have sports coaches for hockey and tennis, and they have a swimming pool.”
“Yes, yes … Nanju.” She looked wanly at him, as he listened to the exchange. “I know you have just one year left to complete at the mission school, but since your brother is going to Bidders … if you want to go as well … ”
“Yes, oh yes, Nanju,” Appu interjected, “you have to come too.”
Nanju shook his head in alarm. “No,” he spluttered. “I’m not leaving Nari Malai!”
A deep pall of gloom settled over Devi at the thought of Appu leaving. She lay in her bed that night, unable to sleep long after the lamps had been extinguished. Even the house, with little creaks and groans, like an old man settling down to rest, fell at last into slumber while Devi remained awake.
Throwing off the blankets, she went to the window. The moon was so bright that even the colors of the flowers were visible, the night tinted an otherworldly blue. Her thoughts drifted to the dead soldiers once more. Devanna read aloud from the newspapers each morning, visibly distressed as he recounted the number of casualties. India had contributed in large numbers to the war; over forty thousand Indian soldiers were dead. Turkey, Kut, Africa, France …
It had affected Devi deeply, the thought of those lost men. Who will cremate them? she would wonder to herself. Their mothers, their wives, how they must grieve …
Her eyes wandered over the hedge, abloom with masses of fragrant Night Queen, past the arbor of bougainvillea and the small grove of sampigé trees. So many lost, she thought again. What would become of their ghosts, the veera trapped in foreign lands not of their choosing? At least, she reminded herself heavily, they had sent Machu’s remains home.
She gazed disconsolately at the lotus pond and the silver-lipped lotuses trailing its length. From the upstairs windows, the pond was no longer an abstract, its design clearly apparent. Devanna had shaped it in the image of a woman’s head. The back of it, with a long, winding plait cascading down. Devi unconsciously touched a hand to her hair. Would the school wardens feed Appu enough eggs in the morning? He liked his eggs scrambled, with ginger and tomatoes. Seven ottis the boy could put away at one sitting, with three, sometimes four pats of fresh butter …
An owl swooped past the window. Devi froze. It was said that if the cry of an owl sounded like tikki-per, tikki-perrr, it was a good omen. Kuttichood, kuttichood, on the other hand … pierce and burn, it meant, pierceandburn. She watched, her heart racing as the bird flew silently over the lawn and disappeared. Wandering to the dressing table, she fiddled with the jar of cream that sat gleaming in the moonlight.
For many years after Machu died, Devi had lost all interest in her appearance. Her monthly blood had stopped immediately after he had passed. It had seemed only fitting; a private marking of grief, an internal tombstone for the past. It had not even occurred to her to seek medical counsel.
Slowly however, traces of the old vanity had resurfaced. Tukra’s wife massaged warm coconut oil into her hands and feet every day before her bath. There was a small earthenware bowl at the edge of the washbasin, filled with gram flour for washing her face; when the workers hauled in honeycombs from the massive beehives that hung from the shade trees in the estate,
Devi always reserved some of the honey to dab onto her skin.
It had been Devanna who had ordered that first jar of face cream for her, years ago, from the Selfridges catalogue. He had said nothing about it, merely bidding Tukra to leave it, shellac pink and perfumed with roses, by her bed. Devi, too, never acknowledged the gift, but months later, she made a point of remarking at the breakfast table that she was nearing the bottom of the jar.
She had not objected when Devanna ordered a replacement, nor when he had begun to do so faithfully, one every six months. Devi carefully washed out the empty jars. A couple she kept on her dressing table to hold safety pins and hair clips; she had pressed three more into use in the prayer room, to store vibhuti, camphor, and sandalwood powder. The remainder she saved, every last one of them, in the trunk that lay beneath her bed, telling herself that the only reason she did so was that their crystalline exteriors were far too pretty to discard.
She tossed the jar now, from hand to hand, pressing her fingers into the starbursts etched into its sides as she continued to fret over Appu. Would the school know how to tend to the nosebleeds he suffered from during the monsoon, to have him lie down with a cold spoon against his back? What about the fresh buffalo milk the child so liked to drink? On and on she worried as the grandfather clock downstairs called out the hours, until, laying the jar down at last with a sigh, Devi curled up in her bed and tried to get some sleep.
When it was finally time for Appu to leave, Devi insisted that she escort him to the school, brushing off Devanna’s suggestion that it might be more appropriate for him to accompany the child instead.
“Devi, if you must go, I will accompany you. It is not proper for you to travel all that distance without a chaperone.”
“Don’t be foolish. If you come too, then who is to look after Nanju?”
When it came time to leave, for an instant it looked as if both boys might tear up as they bid each other farewell. And then, boxing Nanju on the arm, Appu dimpled. “You are going to regret this, you know. When I come back and tell you all that I have been up to in Ooty …”
Nanju in turn cuffed him on the head. “Huh. I am looking forward to some peace and quiet without you crashing about here at Nari Malai.”
“Tell me at once, remember,” Devanna said to Appu, his face drawn. “If anybody there gets tough with you, don’t retaliate. Just let me know and we will handle it, you hear?”
“Cheh,” Devi spluttered, “what rubbish are you teaching him? You listen to me, Appu,” she said fiercely. “If anyone gets tough with you, you get even tougher with them!”
So militant did Devi look that Nanju and Appu glanced at one another, then burst out laughing.
They drove down to Ooty, Devi and Appu, in the new Austin. Devi talked brightly all the while, falling finally silent as the car turned a corner and the redbrick buildings and sprawling lawns of the school came into view.
“Bidders!” Appu whooped, thrusting his head from the window of the car, the wind ruffling his hair.
The chauffeur carried his trunks up to the dorm as Devi and he walked the grounds, inspecting the pool, the tennis courts, and the sports fields. Appu ran his hand lovingly over his new hockey stick, barely listening as Devi told him yet again to eatwell-brushregularly-studyhard-sayhisprayerseverynight-and-writehomeoften.
“Yes, Avvaiah,” he agreed. He was itching to try out the stick. He swung it gently back and forth, testing the heft of the wood against his palm.
A bell rang somewhere in the recesses of the hostel. The teachers began to make polite noises, and parents, taking the hint, reluctantly began to leave. Devi smoothed Appu’s hair back from his forehead. “Be good now, you hear, kunyi? And write often. I’ll be waiting for your letters.”
“Yes, Avvaiah,” he said, scuffing the dust with the stick.
“My darling child. My sun and moon, my sun and moon,” she said, turning away so he wouldn’t see her tears.
Chapter 31
Barely had the car pulled out of the drive than Appu took off at a loping run toward the grounds. “Oy,” one of the boys called after him, “didn’t you hear the warden? Attendance in fifteen minutes, he said.” Appu grinned, not bothering with a response as he disappeared round the side of the hostel toward the sports field.
“Stop,” he ordered the sweeper, who was leisurely clearing the field of leaves. “Move, I want to play.”
The sweeper looked doubtful for an instant, and then, setting aside his broom, he ambled to the edge.
Appu set down the ball and glanced briefly about him as he straightened up, taking the measure of the field. He swung the stick experimentally from side to side, absorbed in the weight of it in his hands. Fixing his gaze firmly on the ball, Appu began to dribble. Slowly at first, as he got acquainted with the new stick. Gradually he picked up speed, dribbling faster and faster, breaking into a wide, unconscious grin as the stick responded to his touch. Up and down the length of the field Appu ran, weaving this way and that, effortlessly driving the ball before him.
When the warden spotted him from the hostel windows and bellowed out, “Come in at once, youngster,” Appu did not even look up, focused solely on his game. The irate warden came rushing down the stairs and out to the field.
Half the new class hung out of the hostel windows to watch. “Crazy bugger!” they commiserated, watching the warden descend upon Appu. “He’s in for it now!”
Appu barely turned a hair, however, as he turned to smile pleasantly at the warden. “No, sir, I did not hear the bell,” he said, quite reasonably.
“No, sir, I did not know the field is closed at six p.m.”
“Yes, sir, of course, at once.” Scooping up the ball with a flick of his stick, he put it in his pocket and loped back to the hostel, whistling.
The warden stared irritably at his retreating figure, aware that the wind had been neatly taken out of his sails, but uncertain quite how that had happened. “You,” he shouted, turning his annoyance toward the sweeper. “Oaf. What were you doing encouraging the boy? Don’t you know sports are not allowed this late?”
“Saar, yes saar,” the sweeper mumbled, picking up his broom and whisking it smartly, double-quick across the field.
Captain Balmer posted Appu a fat package of Cadbury’s chocolate, and with the parcel a letter, congratulating him on his admission to Bidders. “Your father was a fine man,” he wrote. “Should you grow up to fill only half his shoes, I would still know you to be head and shoulders above most men. I shall be following your progress at Bidders with interest; should there be anything you require, do not hesitate to ask.”
The year passed in the most amiable fashion. It was a casual, natural leadership Appu exuded, and there was no sport, it seemed, that he did not excel in. He became the center forward of the junior hockey league. He was a star cross-country runner and a critical part of the swim and tennis teams. All of which served, in a sports-mad school such as Bidders, to propel him to the forefront of popularity.
It did not hurt, either, that he had access to eye-poppingly large sums of pocket money. All he had to do was telegraph Avvaiah—for tennis lessons, he explained at first, or a school trip, but soon, even those explanations stopped. They were not needed—twenty rupees, his telegraphs would say, or fifteen, or thirty, and within the week, the money appeared magically in his account. It never occurred to Devi to ask for an explanation. What could the child spend the money on, after all? A few more cakes at the tuckshop, perhaps, but where was the harm in that?
And indeed, Appu was generous, treating anyone who asked to chocolates and milk sweets, but he soon discovered the far more exciting privileges that money could buy. The school had in its employment a roster of youngsters from the local villages to tend to the school grounds, to clean the masters’ quarters and man the gates. It was an open secret in the hostel that for the right price, any of these enterprising fellows, the watchmen especially, could be persuaded to smuggle in ciggies, comics, and even booze. Appu promptly pre
ssed them into service. It was an unthinking authority that he imposed on them, the same that Devi might employ with her own workers, a superiority so rooted in obvious privilege that the watchmen automatically obeyed.
Many of the coffee pickers at Nari Malai came from regions outside Coorg, and along with the Kanarese that he spoke fluently, Appu had also absorbed a smattering of Malayalam and Tamil. The watchmen were thrilled that the young sir could converse with them in their own tongue. Come to our hut, anna, they said, and Appu visited often after school hours, squatting on his haunches and smoking their beedis.
After each term ended, Appu headed immediately back to Nari Malai, his trunks loaded with sports trophies that Devi polished to a shine with tamarind paste and placed in a custom-built rosewood cabinet in the foyer. She fretted incessantly over him. “How thin you have become, legs like a chicken’s! Such fat fees I pay and still they can’t feed you properly?”
“I’ve grown taller, Avvaiah, that’s all,” Appu would point out, amused, but this Devi would ignore as she hurried to the kitchen. Nanju would glance at Appu then, half jealous of all the fuss. It was hard for him to remain irritated, though, not with Appu winking comically at him behind their mother’s back—“Like a chicken? Not even a rooster, but a chicken? More like it is Avvaiah who is the funny old hen, huh, Nanju? Pwuuck, pwuuuck, pwuuck …”—and generally doing such a perfect imitation of Devi’s lamentations that Nanju would burst out laughing.
The idyll of holidays ended, Appu would return to Bidders, pockets heavy with cash and his trunks loaded with food. Devanna wrote to him regularly, and every once in a while there was a laboriously written affair from Nanju. He wrote about the college he would be attending next summer. The forms had been filled in; it was a fine institution, people said, one of the few in the country to have been chartered by the state.
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